“Using a jimmy or a passkey he’s finagled,” Dick said, going along.
“If somebody does answer, the ‘bellboy’ says he’s delivering a complimentary bottle of champagne from the management, and is of course allowed in to set the bucket down.”
“What if there’s more than one person in the room?”
“Well, he probably fades. But if it’s a room with just one person in it, a guy like Tom Ellison, say … maybe our bogus bellboy sticks up the guest.”
His expression had turned half appalled, half amused. “With an ice pick?”
I raised my hands chest-high, like a robbery victim. “Maybe our bellboy has a gun. But for some reason, this particular mark-Tom Ellison-puts up a fight, and rather than fire off a noisy gun, the bellboy grabs that ice pick and … hammers Tom in the chest with it.”
Dick’s expression had settled back down; he was playing along again. “A man ice-pick stabbing somebody in the chest, deep enough to kill, does seem more likely than some little prostitute doing it.”
“Yes it does.”
“We’re ruling out an underhand stab?”
“For a sternum blow? The assailant would have to be seven feet tall. No, this is strictly a Psycho stab, and a man.”
Dick tilted his head. “Some of these broads are good size, Nate. And a lot of ’em work with guys who rob a would-be john after the doll makes entry, but before the john does, if you get my drift. And anyway, how do you explain the lipstick?”
“Well, maybe our thief in the bellboy outfit has thought ahead to the possibility of something going wrong. And he’s brought along some lipstick and a Trojan wrapper, just in case. To lead the cops astray.”
He was smirking again. “Oh, Christ, Heller, you’re watching way too much television. Ever since you got that color TV. Listen to yourself.”
“Yeah, I know,” I admitted. “It’s thin.”
But it wasn’t so thin, if you considered that Tom’s slaying might have been a hit, not a robbery.
My far-fetched scenario got goddamn probable, if all some killer had to do-in or out of a bellboy uniform-was gain access to that hotel room, kill Tom, and stage it to look like a hooker robbery gone wrong.
Had somebody tied off Tom Ellison as a loose end? Because of that money drop he’d made? And if so, what the hell did that make me, but another loose end?
Plus, there was always the possibility that somebody had seen Tom with that envelope of cash, not knowing he’d passed it to Jack Ruby at the 606, and my bellboy theory-right down to preparing for the hooker ploy-seemed suddenly less preposterous.
I did not, however, share any of that with Dick Cain. He was a friend, as far as it went, but there was no way I would ever let him know about the job I’d done for Tom, not unless he confronted me with an eyewitness. His presence today could have less to do with him covering for me, out of friendship, and more to do with somebody-Hoffa? Giancana? — checking up on me, to see if I’d spill what I knew about Tom and Ruby to a copper.
From the Outfit’s point of view, my pal Dick would be the perfect cop to send my way.…
Still, Dick’s dealings with the Outfit always seemed to be at arm’s length-he was doing business with them because he had to, to make it in Chicago. Which was an attitude I well understood, because it was my own. You have to swim in the waters you find yourself in.
And the sheriff’s top investigator had expressed his disgust with the Outfit to me many times-though everybody seemed to think of Dick as Irish, his father had been Italian … and had been murdered by the Black Hand.
“Do you want me to keep an eye on this thing?” Dick asked. Considering that he only had one good eye, that was damn near a joke. He was lighting up another Dunhill.
“Let’s see what the coroner comes up with,” I said casually. “The trajectory of the pick will help pin down whether it’s a man or a woman who swung it.”
He shook his head, sighing smoke. “Not sure I see that.”
“Well, it’s obvious Tom was standing up when he was killed.”
“Is it?”
“The angle of his body on the bed. His feet hanging over. He started out standing near the bed, got stabbed, fell backward … and that’s why there’s so little blood.”
“There’s never a lot of blood with an ice pick.”
“But more blood than that! After he fell backward, gravity took care of the rest-making for damn little bleeding. Anyway, the angle of the ice-pick wound will give us the height of the killer.”
“All right. I’ll buy that.”
“And that bed, Dick-didn’t you notice? It was tidy, except for Tom’s body, on top of the spread. Didn’t look to me like anybody’d been riding bareback on it lately. He was in his T-shirt, boxers, and socks-a guy relaxing in his hotel room, not a guy who just got laid. If somebody came to the door, Tom probably pulled his trousers on and answered, and let his murderer in. Post-kill, the guy yanked Tom’s trousers off and dumped them on the floor.”
Now Dick was nodding, clearly with me. “Okay, Nate. Maybe you got something. We’ll see what latent prints comes up with.”
“Good. That’s all I ask.”
“Is it?” The milky eye made his gaze unsettling. “You’ve been known to even scores, Nate. Business, schmizness-this was a friend of yours. Are you really content to let law enforcement handle it?”
“I’m old and respectable now, Dick. I don’t play Wild West anymore. That’s for you young go-getters.”
He’d shot a few bad guys in his time-sometimes coming under criticism for the same. Probably had led to his resignation from the PD.
But my remark only made him smile.
“You know, Nate, I think I’m gonna choose to believe you,” he said. “Here comes that waitress again. Maybe we better order lunch before she puts coffee down us with a funnel. You’ll be getting the check, by the way.”
CHAPTER 7
After lunch, I decided to leave the Jag in the Pick-Congress parking ramp and shrugged on my Cortefiel raincoat, snugged on the Dobbs narrow-brim hat, and took a brisk, overcast walk over to the Monadnock Building.
Once upon a time it had been the largest office building in the world; today the Monadnock was a sixteen-story curiosity among its taller, often less-distinguished offspring. Even now the soot-gray brick structure with its flaring base and dramatic bay windows struck a moody yet modern pose that made it a good fit for a detective agency.
I went in the main entrance on West Jackson, walked down a corridor consisting of the ass-end display windows of stores facing Dearborn and Federal, ignored the distinctive open winding stairwells, and took the elevator to seven.
Though we’d taken over much of the office space on this floor, our main area remained the corner suite where the frosted glass-and-wood exterior had stayed the same for decades. The door had been revised slightly:
A-1 Detective Agency
Criminal and Civil Investigations
Nathan S. Heller
President
with in smaller lettering,
Louis K. Sapperstein
Vice President
Like Fred Rubinski out in Hollywood, Lou was a full partner now. Just not full enough to have his name in letters the size of mine.
There were no customers in the reception area, which made me sorry we’d expanded it. The walls bore the framed vintage Century of Progress posters that had been part of the agency since 1934, the furnishings blond Heywood-Wakefield numbers. The reading matter on the end tables included the usual suspects-Time, Newsweek, Redbook, Sports Illustrated-with a few battered ringers mixed in. Like a certain Life issue and a few decade-old true detective-type mags, covering cases of mine. I still got written up in such periodicals, but the covers had grown so sleazy of late, they no longer sent the right waiting-room message.