His forehead clenched, his eyes moving back and forth, as if trying to escape his head. “I loved Bill Drury. We were like brothers.”
“Ever hear of Cain and Abel, shitheel?”
He backed away in the chair. “I think maybe you oughta get the hell outa here, Heller.”
“No. Finish your beer. Let’s talk.”
He sneered at me—kind of a pathetic sneer, though—and picked up the .38 and pointed it at me. “Is this loaded?”
“Yeah. Just one bullet, though. Mine has a full clip.”
Not quite smiling, O’Conner looked at me carefully. “You want me to believe you’re pointing a gun at me right now, I suppose.”
“That’s right…. Of course, I could be bluffing.”
He said nothing. Then he put the .38 down in front of him, again, and swigged his beer. “What do you want from me?”
“A few answers. A few holes I haven’t been able to fill. This starts with Bill assuming you were a straight-arrow copper, like he was—that when you got tossed off Town Hall Station together, for covering up gambling, the both of you were being railroaded. What occurred to me was, you could be the reason Bill didn’t know about the gambling in the district—you’d been there longer, you could’ve been, well, assigned to him, to steer him away from those joints.”
He gestured with the hand that had the Pabst in it, and a little spilled. “Does this look like the home of a bent cop, enjoying the fruits of graft?”
“Actually, it does. This was a family home, right? Your parents lived here before you? You grew up in this house, only child, if I recall.”
The bloodshot blue eyes were fixed unblinkingly on me. “So what?”
“Speaking of sentimental attachment…don’t shit a shitter, Tim. I’m a divorce dick—the husband doesn’t end up with the house…not unless the wife ended up with more than just the kids and the furniture. Like, for instance, a hefty bank account. You must’ve made a hell of a settlement with Janet…all ’cause you couldn’t keep your prick in your pants. What happened to that little dame you were dating?”
His mouth twitched; he swigged the beer. He belched and it echoed. “She dumped me. For a guy who had real dough. He owns supermarkets or something.”
“Pity. And for this you got excommunicated? Couldn’t you sweettalk Janet back? She was a hell of a fine girl.”
“She was a bitch. You don’t know anything about my life.”
I shrugged; the nine millimeter felt remarkably light in my hand. “I know you’ve been in bed with Northside Outfit guys for a long, long time, Tim…which would include the late, very unlamented Charley Fischetti. I think you were…like I said, assigned to Bill Drury, to keep an eye on him. My guess is it’s you who fucked around with the witnesses to the Ragen shooting, and muddied those waters, and got Drury suspended.”
“I was suspended, too.”
“Hey, that goes with the territory. It’s sort of like…undercover work, but from the other end of the telescope…or gun barrel.” I grinned at him. “You misdirected me, Tim—a very simple piece of misdirection, but a good one—by indicating your lawyer pal, Kurnitz, was working for the Kefauver Committee. Of course, he wasn’t working for ’em, but with them…as he admitted to me, himself, the other day.”
“So what?”
“So Kurnitz was Bill Drury’s lawyer. I guess I figured Bas was Bill’s lawyer, but they were just working on a matter of mutual interest—the downfall of Tubbo Gilbert. Of course, Tubbo was an old pal of yours—he instigated the Ragen cover-up, in which you assisted.”
He grunted a nonlaugh. “You don’t have anything solid. Nothing but air.”
“Maybe so, but it’s foul-smelling air—like the worst gas Tubbo Gilbert ever passed…and that would have to be rank shit, wouldn’t it? Kurnitz offered himself to the committee, as a conduit of friendly witnesses, when his real employer was the Outfit…or perhaps just Charley Fischetti. I’m a little unsure on that point—care to clear that up?”
“Fuck you.”
“Well, I’m gonna say Kurnitz was leaking to the Outfit, in general, ’cause Giancana had access to the info. Halley wasn’t the leak, nobody really on Kefauver’s staff was the leak—it was Kurnitz, and his investigator…you…who were keeping the Outfit updated as to the committee’s plans, evidence, and witnesses.”
“It’s just a theory. Nothing but a theory.”
“Here’s something that’s not a theory: you and Kurnitz— Bill’s trusted partner, and his trusted attorney—set up the meeting in Little Hell with the nonexistent ‘new’ witness in the Ragen case. Drury and Bas, the afternoon of the night they died, told me the witness was somebody Kurnitz lined up for them, an inmate at Joliet he represented.”
He was shaking his head. “That’s Kurnitz. Not me. I just worked for him, some. You want to sit and threaten somebody with a gun, go look him up.”
“I’m not going to have to. You see, earlier today I had a meeting with Sam Giancana. In a sleazy joint called the Silver Palm. Ever been there? Anyway, I gave him the lowdown.”
His eyes flared. “What?”
“I told Sam the whole sorry story. You see, by helping Fischetti and Gilbert hit Drury and Bas, you and Kurnitz betrayed the Outfit. Was it you, or Tubbo, who brought in those bent cops from Calumet City? Oh well, what does it matter? You see, the top Outfit boys, all but Charley, decided killing Drury in particular would bring unwanted heat down on them…which it did. So I figure Kurnitz will show up in the trunk of a car, some evening—and he won’t be trying to sneak into a drive-in movie.”
Shaking his head, his eyes huge, one hand a fist, the other clutching the Pabst bottle as if it were his lifeline, he all but yelled, “You fucking asshole…you crazy fucking bastard…. They’ll come after me!”
“No. Not right away. I asked Mooney to give you a little time.”
“Time?”
“Tomorrow…that’s the earliest.”
“What are you saying?”
“That the earliest Giancana would send somebody around, to deal with you, would be tomorrow morning. Of course, they may wait a while. Maybe it’ll be a Christmas present.”
He was breathing hard. “You’re crazy. You’re a fucking lunatic.”
“That’s a medical fact—it’s on my service record. Some day it may come in handy, for an insanity plea.”
He seemed on the verge of tears. “How could you go to Giancana with such tissue-thin evidence? This is a bunch of circumstantial bullshit! You suspect these things, Nate, but, Christ, you don’t know them.”
“I know them.”
He slammed a fist on the table and the .38 jumped. “How? How can you be so goddamn sure?”
“It goes back to when you tied up that loose end at Riverview.”
“Huh?”
“You know—when you plugged that moon-faced mother-fucker in the back and in the head, getting even for Bill Drury. When you went all crazy with revenge. ‘This is for Bill!’”
“I…I loved Bill Drury. He was—”
“Like a brother, yeah. But how did you know that guy from Calumet City was one of Bill’s killers? I was the only one who saw them that night in Little Hell—and I didn’t tell you.”
His face went blank.
He swallowed. “You…you figured it, then? At that moment?”
I sighed. “No—too much was going on. I was busy grieving for a poor girl with bad taste in men. You arranged that abduction, didn’t you?…Had those clowns grab Jackie and lure me to Aladdin’s Castle. How you must have laughed when I called you to be my backup!”
He leaned forward, the pockmarked face long with attempted earnestness. “I didn’t laugh, Nate. And…I could have shot you, that night. You know that’s true.”
“No, I don’t think so—you weren’t sure I hadn’t told Lou or somebody else about meeting you, there. Better odds to let me live, and keep me thinking you were on my side, Bill’s vengeance-happy partner cutting down the scum who killed him. Scum you hired, right?”