“But he did it anyway.”
Giancana leaned back, raised another eyebrow. “Charley claims not — swears up and down, stack of Bibles, mother’s grave. This was a meeting at the highest level, understand — Ricca, Accardo, Guzik...”
“Do they believe him?”
“Fuck no. But Charley hasn’t been challenged over this. He’s still a powerful guy, Heller — Al’s cousin, remember. And a smart guy — knows the business side. Understands the politics. Which is why you’d think he’d know better...”
“So the boys are letting this slide?”
He shook his head, folded his arms. “Don’t think there isn’t a lot of displeasure. Don’t think guys like Ricca and Big Tuna like having to pack their bags in the middle of the night and beat ass out of town, like common punk crooks.”
The back of my neck was starting to tingle. “You’re not saying... You’re not giving me permission to...”
Tiny shrug. “I’m not saying anything. I might be implying that if you wanted to do something, personal, about Charley Fischetti... there would be no repercussions from certain circles. You know, when you might expect there to be.”
“...And just how would I find Charley Fischetti?”
“At a hotel in Mexico.”
I blinked. “What hotel in Mexico?”
Giancana reached inside his coat, almost as if he were going for a gun; but I wasn’t nervous, anymore. He just handed me a small piece of paper with quite a bit of writing on it.
“That hotel in Mexico,” he said.
I slipped the piece of paper in my pocket without looking at it. “I saw Bas go down.”
Giancana’s eyes flared; this really was news to him. “No kidding?”
“No kidding... Obviously, not in time to stop it. I got a shot off at the torpedoes — cracked their windshield. Got a good look at the bastards.”
“Anyone you know?”
“No.” I described the mustached pair. “Anybody you know?”
His expression gave away nothing. “Maybe... Maybe.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Sam?”
With his folded arms, and his tiny smile, Giancana seemed guarded, to say the least. “Heller, like you, I have to be discreet. I’m limited in what I can say. But I will say this — those two gunmen are almost certainly from out of town... just not very far out of town.”
“Jesus, Sam — what does that mean?”
Another tiny shrug. “That’s all I can say. That slip of paper I give you?”
“Yeah?”
“The number at the bottom — that’s a local number. You have any problems — need any... assistance... you call that number. If I don’t answer, somebody will, who can get me in a hurry.”
“You’re not going to Florida?”
“Not right away.”
“You, uh — mentioned Kefauver going after the wives of Outfit guys. Where did you hear that, Sam?”
“I just heard it, is all.”
“You have somebody on Kefauver’s staff, don’t you?”
“Now you’re asking too many questions, Heller.”
“Just tell me — is it Halley?”
“Fuck no! That vicious, slandering son of a bitch. If he was ours, would he make so many lives miserable?”
I kept pressing, though my tone seemed casual. “You know Rocco married that girl — from the Chez, Jackie Payne? Married her the other day so she couldn’t testify against him.”
Giancana smirked. “Yeah — little Miss Chicago. But word now is, Rocky was wrong... that canary can be made to sing, or sent to the slam for contempt. And you know what’s gonna happen then, don’t you?”
“What, Sam?”
“She’ll talk. She’ll sing her lungs out. I mean, shit, she’s a junkie... The feds will own the keys to her.” He shook his head. “Fucking Rocco — he’s a chowderhead, anyway, a real shit-for-brains. And he put her on the junk!”
“Maybe you wouldn’t mind if something bad happened to him,” I said.
His face was blandly expressionless again. “I’d get over it.”
Feeling like I was trying to put the pin back in a grenade, I ventured, “Sam — the girl. Miss Chicago?”
“Yeah?”
“She’s a friend of mine. I don’t want to see her hurt.”
He frowned — almost scowled. “Listen up, damn it: my friends and I are not trying to attract attention, right now. Drury and Bas getting splattered is the worst fucking thing that could have happened — bumping off a beauty queen, recently married to a Fischetti, is just as bad. Gimme a little credit, Heller, for Christsake!”
“Sorry, Sam.”
Smiling, he sat forward and patted my arm. “Hey — you and me, we have no problems. You need somebody like me, in my circles, to be your guardian angel. Like Nitti used to be. We aren’t in the same exact racket, but we can be helpful to each other. Do each other favors.”
Like have me bump off your fellow gangsters, when they’ve rubbed you the wrong way? is what I thought... but sure as hell didn’t say it.
“For example, a favor you could do me, Heller...”
“Yeah?”
“Introduce me to your pal Sinatra, sometime.” Giancana stood. “Listen... it’s going to start getting busy in here, Friday night, I need to be scarce.”
“Yeah — sure.”
“But you can stay, Heller — run a tab on the house. Some decent girls are comin’ out. You see anything you like, just tell Fred... the bartender.”
“Well, thanks, Sam...”
“But they’re not hookers, understand. Lay a double saw-buck on ’em in the morning, as a kind of gift, and you’ll have a friend for life.”
Giancana walked toward the exit, and his bodyguard — Sally — scampered after him, like a two-hundred-fifty-pound puppy. It was still daylight out there, and a slice of it knifed into the smoky joint, as the gangster and his thug slipped out.
I finished my drink, but I didn’t stick around, and I sure as hell didn’t take him up on his offer of my pick of the girls. It wasn’t that I was above that sort of thing; but I wasn’t sure I wanted a friend for life.
Particularly one named Sam Giancana.
13
My neighbor the Federal Building (which was also the United States Courthouse) was a cross-shaped eight-story structure perched on Dearborn, between Adams and Jackson, extending to Clark, with an octagonal domed central tower adding another seven imposing stories. The grim splendor of the building’s ornate Roman Corinthian design seemed an apropos setting for dramatic trials of national note, like the $29 million judgment against Standard Oil and the Al Capone tax case... both matters of big business, after all.
In addition to the impressive courtrooms — with their William B. Van Ingren murals depicting the development of law over the ages — the Federal Building was also a rabbit’s warren of hearing rooms, offices, and conference chambers, as well as cubbyholes where distinguished lawyers and jurists could cut their sleazy deals.
Kefauver had been given one of the cubbyholes: a modest, windowless room to set up his temporary office, with space for a desk, a few hard chairs, and a bookend-style pair of file cabinets, with cardboard boxes of file folders stacked precariously along the plaster walls. It was as if the senator had been assigned a storage room that happened to include a desk.
I was sitting across from the Democratic congressman from Tennessee, who — when I’d stuck my head in the open door of his cubicle — had stood behind the file-cluttered desk, rising to an impressive six foot three or maybe four, extending me not only his hand but a wide, ingratiating grin.
In his rolled-up shirt sleeves and suspenders, his blue-and-red patterned tie loose under a prominent adam’s apple, Kefauver gave an immediate impression of unpretentiousness, a tall, angular, lanky individual with searching eyes behind round-framed tortoise-shell glasses and a beaky nose that swooped to a peak; facially, he struck me as a cross between Abe Lincoln and Pa Kettle.