“No-she refuses that. She wants to be able to go to Dad’s side, if he takes a turn for the worse.”
“I think he’s taken that turn.”
“I know. He’s going to die, isn’t he?”
“I think so. He’s tough, but…”
“He’s been poisoned. The doctors admit they ‘suspect a metallic poison has been introduced.’ They think if they make it sound formal, it makes them sound like they’re on top of things. That’s a laugh.”
“I’m sorry, Jim. The sons of bitches got to your father, and I wasn’t even here to try to stop them.”
“Heller, you’ve done everything anybody could. You put your life on the line more than once. And as for not being here-my father wanted you to go after Peggy. He’s nuts about that kid. And I don’t blame him, really. She’s been aces, all the way-like another sister to us.”
“I’m nuts about her myself. But this is going to be hard on her. Like it’s going to be on all of you.”
He shook his head. “Even Danny-I didn’t think he cared that much-he sat here this afternoon just telling Dad how much he loved him. Crying like a baby. Dad just patted him on the head, saying, ‘There, there, my lad,’ comforting him. Can you imagine?”
“Yeah. I can. You’re going to be under a lot of pressure to sell out, you know.”
He bristled. “Do you think I’d do that? Do you think after all my father’s been through, I’d…” He buried his face in his hands, bent over. He wasn’t crying. He was past that. “I’m so frightened, Mr Heller…I’m so very frightened…”
I patted his back. I couldn’t think of anything to say. There, there, my lad was taken.
“We’re going to lose him, aren’t we? And I’m going to be left to try to stand up to those people.”
I put my hand on his shoulder again. “When your father is dead, and the responsibility falls to you, and your brothers, then you’re going to have to make your mind what the right thing is to do.”
He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes. “You’re not…telling me to sell, are you?”
“I’m telling you when your father’s gone, the responsibility is yours, and so is the decision. Nobody could tell Jim Ragen how to live his life. I don’t think it’s fair for him, even in death, to tell somebody else how to live theirs.”
The flesh around his eyes tensed, momentarily, and I could see his father in his face, so clearly. Then he reached into a pocket and handed me a card. “What do you make of this, Mr. Heller?”
It was white, about the size of an index card but without lines. On it was a crude but unmistakable image: a yellow canary. The card was unsigned.
“Where did you get this? When?”
“In the mail today. What does it mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“I…I think it’s the underworld’s way of saying my dad shouldn’t have ‘sung.’”
“That’s right. It’s a warning. For nobody else to get vocal. But it’s more than that.”
“More?”
“It means the Outfit is admitting, in its oblique way, that it’s killed your father. He isn’t even dead yet, and they’re telling you they’ve accomplished his killing.”
I handed the card back to him. He looked as if he were about to crush it in his hand, and I stopped him.
“You might want to show that to Lt. Drury,” I said.
He swallowed. “All right.”
“I don’t suppose it came with a return address?”
Young Ragen managed a little laugh. “No, not hardly.”
“Damn,” I said, with mock disappointment. “Detective work is never easy.”
He smiled at that, momentarily, and I patted his shoulder and rose and said, “Let’s go back to your father’s room.”
We did. I took over for Sapperstein, tired as I was, buoyed by coffee, and Peg stayed in there at her uncle’s side all night. Dr. Graaf went in a couple of times and so did several other doctors and nurses; I checked everybody against my clipboard, like a good operative. The barn door was open, the horse was gone, but I was keeping a watch on the stall anyway.
Very early the next morning, shortly after five, Jim, Jr., came out and said, “Dad’s awake. He’s asking for you.”
I went in. Peggy was standing, holding his hand, looking down at him with what I’m sure she thought was a supportive, encouraging smile. If anybody ever gave me a smile like that, I’d call the morgue myself and save somebody else the trouble.
I went around on the other side of the bed.
“Peggy says you found some things out,” Jim said; his voice was weak, but it still had some steel in it. Or maybe that was just the mercury.
“We did,” I said. “I met Siegel. I’m convinced he didn’t do any of this to you.”
“Guzik, then.”
“Guzik.”
“And I’m expected to do business with that devil.”
“If you do, insist on a hell of a deal.”
I filled him in, some. He listened alertly, as if oblivious to his pain; but he was feeling some, otherwise he would have interrupted more often.
“You know it does make sense, lad,” he said. “When the Outfit put Trans-American together, they had to turn to the eastern boys for help. Guzik could handle Chicago and Milwaukee and so on-but he needed Lansky’s help out east, and Siegel out west. “That’s why they want my set-up-it’s national. We’re everywhere.”
“We can talk about this later, Jim.”
“No we can’t. I’m dying. Nobody will tell me, but I can feel it. They poisoned me, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” I said.
“How much longer do I have?”
“Do I look like a doctor, you crazy Irish bastard?”
“Don’t give me that. How much longer, Nate?”
“They didn’t tell me. I tell you what-why don’t you just take your own sweet time about it.”
“I wish I had some time, lad.” He turned to his niece. “Peggy my girl-peg o’ my heart. Give your uncle a kiss.”
She kissed his cheek.
She stayed near him and he said, “I know I’m dying-there’s an angel at my side.”
“Uncle Jim, please don’t say that…”
“Peg, you’re a good girl. I told Jim, Jr., before-you’re always to have a place in the family business. A piece of it is yours, my dear.”
“Please, Uncle Jim. I don’t care about that…”
“I think you do. You’re not just like a daughter to me, lass. You’re like a son. You could run that business of mine, if ye were.”
“You can run it yourself, Uncle Jim…”
“I need…need two things from you, lass.”
“Anything-”
“I want you to marry this poor excuse for a detective, here. He’s going to need your help. Besides-he’s a good man, even if he is only half a mick.”
“I do love him, Uncle Jim.”
“Good. That makes me glad to hear.”
It made me feel pretty good, too.
“The other thing is something you have to do right now. You can’t wait.”
“Yes?”
“Find me a priest, lass.”
He died at 6.55 a.m. His son had time to call Ellen Ragen to her husband’s side. Also at his side were his other two sons, and one of the three married daughters.
The coroner’s initial report barely mentioned the mercury poisoning, attributing Ragen’s death to “hypotensive heart disease and nephritis complicated by gunshot wounds.” There were “traces of mercury found in a qualitative analysis.” And that was that.
But it wasn’t. Lt. Drury made the point to Coroner Brodie that an important legal question needed to be definitively answered: namely, whether Ragen died due to the gunshot wounds, making for a murder case against the gunmen in the green truck; or heart disease, making it death by natural causes, reducing the charge against the gunmen to attempted murder; or nephritis brought on by mercury poisoning, making for a different murder case, against person or persons yet unknown.
About this time, Coroner Brodie received several threatening phone calls that he and his family were in danger unless he “minded his own fucking business” where the Ragen matter was concerned. Brodie moved to a secret office and ordered police guards put on his home, and on the vault at Mt. Olivet, too, where Jim Ragen had been recently interred, the cops protecting the vault till Brodie could receive the permission of the court and Mrs. Ragen to perform a second autopsy.