“Christ!” I said, and dug under my arm for the nine millimeter.
The driver was leaning out the window of the coupe, but whether man or woman I couldn’t tell-the headlights of the car, still a good thirty feet away, were blinding.
The night exploded and so did our windshield.
Glass rained on me, as I hit the floor; I could hear the roar of the Plymouth’s engine, and came back up, gun in hand, saw the maroon coupe bearing down on us, saw a silver swan on the radiator cap, and cream colored wheels, but people in the car going by were a blur, and as I tried to get a better look, orange fire burst from a gun and I ducked down, hitting the glass-littered floor, and another four shots riddled the car and the night, the side windows cracking, and behind us the plate glass of display windows was fragmenting, falling to the pavement like sheets of ice.
Then the Plymouth was gone.
So was Stanley.
The first bullet must have got him. He must have sat up to get a look at the oncoming car and took the slug head on; it threw him back, and now he still seemed to be lounging there, against the now-spiderwebbed window, precious “rod” tucked under his arm; his brown eyes were open, his mouth too, and his expression was almost-not quite-surprised.
I don’t think he had time to be truly surprised, before he died.
There’d been only time enough for him to take the bullet in the head, the dime-size entry wound parting the comma of brown hair, streaking the birthday boy’s boyish face with blood. Within an hour I was being questioned by Sgt. Charles Pribyl, who was attached to the State’s Attorney’s office.l was a decent enough guy, even if he did work under Captain Daniel “Tubbo” Gilbert, who was probably the crookedest cop in town. Which in this town was saying something.
Pribyl had a good reputation, however; and I’d encountered him, from time to time, back when I was working the pickpocket detail. He had soft, gentle features and dark alert eyes. Normally, he was an almost dapper dresser, but his tie seemed hastily knotted, his suit and hat looked as if he’d thrown them on-which he probably had; he was responding to a call at four in the morning, after all.
He was looking in at Stanley, who hadn’t been moved; we were waiting for a coroner’s physician to show. Several other plainclothes officers and half a dozen uniformed cops were milling around, footsteps crunching on the glass-strewn sidewalk.
“Just a kid,” Pribyl said, stepping away from the Ford. “Just a damn kid.” He shook his head. He nodded to me and I followed him over by a shattered display window.
He cocked his head. “How’d you happen to have such a young operative working with you?”
I explained about the car being Stanley’s.
He had an expression you only see on cops: sad and yet detached. His eyes tightened.
“How-and why-did stink bombs and window smashing escalate into bloody murder?”
“You expect me to answer that, Sergeant?”
“No. I expect you to tell me what happened. And, Heller-I don’t go into this with any preconceived notions about you. Some people on the force-even some good ones, like John Stege-hold it against you, the Lang and Miller business.”
They were two crooked cops I’d recently testified against.
“Not me,” he said firmly. “Apples don’t come rottener than those two bastards. I just want you to know what kind of footing we’re on.”
“I appreciate that.”
I filled him in, including a description of the murder vehicle, but couldn’t describe the people within at all. I wasn’t even sure how many of them there were.
“You get the license number?”
“No, damnit.”
“Why not? You saw the car well enough.”
“Them shooting at me interfered.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Shit. Too bad you didn’t get a look at ’em.”
“Too bad. But you know who to go calling on.”
“How’s that?”
I thrust a finger toward the car. “That’s Boss Rooney’s work-maybe not personally, but he had it done. You know about the Circular Union and the hassles they been giving Goldblatt’s, right?”
Pribyl nodded, somewhat reluctantly; he liked me well enough, but I was a private detective. He didn’t like having me in the middle of police business.
“Heller, we’ve been keeping the union headquarters under surveillance for six weeks now. I saw Rooney there today, myself, from the apartment across the way we rented.”
“So did anyone leave the union hall tonight? Before the shooting, say around three?”
He shook his head glumly. “We’ve only been maintaining our watch during department-store business hours. The problem of night attacks is where hired hands like you come in.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “I won’t blame you if you don’t blame me.”
“Deal.”
“So what’s next?”
“You can go on home.” He glanced toward the Ford. “We’ll take care of this.”
“You want me to tell the family?”
“Were you close to them?”
“Not really. They’re from my old neighborhood, is all.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” He patted my shoulder. “Go home.”
I started to go, then turned back. “When are you going to pick up Rooney?”
“I’ll have to talk to the State’s Attorney, first. But my guess? Tomorrow. We’ll raid the union hall tomorrow.”
“Mind if I come along?”
“Wouldn’t be appropriate, Heller.”
“The kid worked for me. He got killed working for me.”
“No. We’ll handle it. Go home! Get some sleep.”
“I’ll go home,” I said.
A chill breeze was whispering.
“But the sleep part,” I said, “that I can’t promise you.”
The next afternoon I was having a beer in a booth in the bar next to the deli below my office. Formerly a blind pig-a speakeasy that looked shuttered from the street (even now, you entered through the deli)-it was a business investment of fighter Barney Ross, as was reflected by the framed boxing photos decorating the dark, smoky little joint.
I grew up with Barney on the West Side. Since my family hadn’t practiced Judaism in several generations, I was shabbes goy for Barney’s very Orthodox folks, a kid doing chores and errands for them from Friday sundown through Saturday.
But we didn’t become really good friends, Barney and me, till we worked Maxwell Street as pullers-teenage street barkers who literally pulled customers into stores for bargains they had no interest in.
Barney, a roughneck made good, was a real Chicago success story. He owned this entire building, and my office-which, with its Murphy bed, was also my residence-was space he traded me for keeping an eye on the place.come alongas his nightwatchman, unless a paying job like Goldblatt’s came along to take precedence. The lightweight champion of the world was having a beer, too, in that back booth; he wore a cheerful blue and white sportshirt and a dour expression.
“I’m sorry about your young pal,” Barney said.
“He wasn’t a ‘pal,’ really. Just an acquaintance.”
“I don’t know that Douglas Park crowd myself. But to think of a kid, on his twenty-first birthday…” His mildly battered bulldog countenance looked woeful. “He have a girl?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Poor little bastard. When’s the funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re going, aren’t you?”
“No. I don’t really know the family that well. I’m sending flowers.”
He looked at me with as long a face as a round-faced guy could muster. “You oughta go. He was working for you when he got it.”
“I’d be intruding. I’d be out of place.”
“You should do kaddish for the kid, Nate.”
A mourner’s prayer.
“Jesus Christ, Barney, I’m no Jew. I haven’t been in a synagogue more than half a dozen times in my life, and then it was social occasions.”
“Maybe you don’t consider yourself a Jew, with that Irish mug of yours your ma bequeathed you…but you’re gonna have a rude awakening one of these days, boyo.”