I studied him. “You were fishing yesterday at the hearing — with Barney.”
The grin was boyish, too — much toothier than Hoffa’s. “I was. And Baker would be a hell of a big fish to haul to shore. He’s working with the Teamsters in St. Louis now, and he’s been personally close to Hoffa for years. Has been his bodyguard at times. Good ol’ Barney has Chicago ties as well, which you probably know better than I. He’s the perfect conduit for that money to go into Teamster pension fund coffers.”
“Christ. That would sink Hoffa.”
This shrug was more elaborate. “Of course, it could have gone right to Chicago.”
I nodded. “And it may never have left St. Louis. It’s possible our little-lamented kidnapper Carl Hall buried it before he met his maker, as Barney Baker would say. And you’ve got taxi czar Joe Costello and crooked-cop-of-the-year Lou Shoulders in the middle of things. The proprietor of that No-tell Motel, the Coral Court, may have got his hands on the missing half of the ransom and used his own resources to launder it. But if that tainted blood money Baker talked about yesterday could be tied in any way to Hoffa...”
The grin flashed again; so many teeth. Like a cute shark. “Here’s an idea, Nate.”
“What?”
“Go to St. Louis and find out.”
Chapter Eleven
Robert F. Kennedy and James R. Hoffa agreed on one thing: they both wanted Nathan Heller to go to St. Louis.
But before I could undertake a mission for two clients whose best interests were clearly contradictory, I first needed to confer with a client whose claim on me preceded theirs.
So, after two days in Chicago catching up at the office, I took a late Wednesday morning flight to Kansas City. I’d arranged to see Robert Greenlease mid-afternoon at his place of business, where the day before I’d reached him by phone.
“Don’t come to the house,” he’d said, almost whispering. “Make it before five, here at the dealership.”
That was where the cab was taking me, to the four-story reddish-brick wedge-shaped building on the triangular corner of 30th and Gillham and McGee Trafficway, just south of downtown. The terra-cotta-trimmed edifice, unlike its Used Car lot cousin across the way, was damn near as grand as the Missions Hills mansion. You could almost see Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady driving by drooling, money-green with envy as they took in the facade’s lettering:
above the familiar coat-of-arms crest, which loomed over
atop a showroom window displaying a current Coupe De Ville.
The cab dropped me by a garage entry where, on the side of the brick exterior wall, a less grand sign read:
I entered a high-ceilinged showroom whose tile flooring was marble as was the wainscoting. All around me were tail-fin rides as if Martians had landed — rich ones. The subtle rocket-styling that had crept in a year or two ago had taken off now, the colors getting out of hand — not just red but pink, not just blue but turquoise, and all the taillights were big bright red bullets.
To a guy with a ’59 Jag Roadster at home, I didn’t know whether to feel superior or jealous. I settled for superior.
I didn’t recognize Will Letterman at first, but he knew me at once. He intercepted me before a salesman in a suit as well-tailored as mine could get to me. Letterman was in a Brooks Brothers or better himself, yet he still had a Sunday school teacher look with his wire-frame glasses and white Friar Tuck hair.
We shook hands and exchanged the kind of smiles that go with encountering a familiar friendly face tied to bad memories.
I said, “I thought you ran the Tulsa branch.”
He had already slipped his hand on my shoulder and was walking me past all the Buck Rogers rides toward the offices at the rear. “The old man is only working half days,” he said. “He brought me in. It’s an honor. This is the flagship store.”
Hearing him call Bob Greenlease “the old man” — Letterman being no spring chicken himself — was a reminder that the father of Bobby Greenlease was now in his late seventies.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
“He does well when he’s here,” Letterman said. “I think that’s why he hasn’t retired. And both he and Virginia get a lot of satisfaction from their charity work. With her church, you know.”
“I didn’t. But that’s good.”
We were outside a glassed-in office whose drapes were drawn.
His bland face took on a desperate look, his voice a ragged whisper. “Nate... it still keeps me up at night.”
“What does?”
“Not every night, but... at least once a month, I find myself waiting for the damn sunrise.” He gripped my arm. “You were right, back then. I should have let you stay behind at that bridge. And let you grab that son of a bitch. And...”
Kill him.
“Second guessing at this point,” I said, “doesn’t do us a damn bit of good. And the boy was already in the ground. And that son of bitch has been dead almost as long.” I patted the hand on my arm, and it released. “Take a slug of something, next time, and you’ll sleep just fine. You were a great friend to Bob. You and your buddy O’Neill, who, hell, I never even met. I’m surprised you two aren’t still waiting in that goddamn hotel in Bum Fuck, Missouri.”
That made him laugh. I laughed a little, too.
His smile was wrinkled with age and regret, but at least it was a smile. “Good to see you, Nate.”
He knocked.
“Is that Nate Heller?” came a voice from within, loud but creaky, like wind coming through a broken shutter.
Greenlease answered the door, thanked his friend Letterman, who nodded and smiled at me and disappeared into the showroom with its wonderful display of space-age ridiculousness.
When he’d closed the door behind us in this rather small office, Greenlease did something that surprised me. It surprises me even telling it: he hugged me. Patted my back. He was a rock-ribbed self-made man, a good God-fearing man and I could see on a wall of photos (Kansas City celebrities, I assumed, which is of course an oxymoron) he was shaking the hand of a beaming President Eisenhower. I suddenly recalled that Ike’s brother had assembled the ransom money at Bob Greenlease’s behest.
When the embrace ended, he seemed perhaps a little embarrassed, then patted my shoulder and guided me not to a visitor’s chair opposite a big mahogany desk notable for its lack of clutter or really any work at all, but to a leather-upholstered sofa under a wall of framed color prints of current model Cadillacs. We sat there, turned slightly toward each other, old friends catching up.
Like his sales force, Greenlease wore a well-tailored suit, gray, and his tie was a silk shantung, striped red, black and gray. His glasses were black hornrims, heavy, masculine. He was working hard at projecting strength and competence. But he seemed so much older five years later — the oblong face longer, nose sharper, chin sharper, sudden harsh angles in a kind face. Age splotches, deep lines, liver spots, provided unwanted decoration.
Behind the big empty desk, a shelved wall of sales awards and local honors seemed there to taunt him with their ultimate meaninglessness. Only one shelf counted — the middle one, where family photos were lined up around a central smiling Bobby Greenlease and his papa.
We began with small talk. He wanted to know about my son and I told him, without belaboring it. Mentioned Disneyland but didn’t go into it. He was one big wound and I didn’t need to go flinging salt.