I said I would as I rose to leave. And I suppose I hoped it wasn’t only her father who would enjoy having me at the table.
Chapter 11
As the Lake Street El rattled and swayed eastward from Oak Park through the spring darkness toward the twinkling lights of the Loop skyscrapers, I took stock of the Martindale situation.
Scenario Number One (the Police and Newspaper Theory): The crime syndicate had Lloyd Martindale killed to eliminate him from the mayoral picture, fearing that if elected, he would mount a drive to shut down every form of vice racier than church bingo. The major flaw in this theory was that even in the unlikely event that Martindale had got himself elected, he would never have been able to slice through enough layers of institutionalized corruption — including police, aldermen, ward heelers, and Satan knows who else — to accomplish much, if anything. To me a second although less-compelling flaw was Al Capone’s insistence, relayed to me from Alcatraz none too gently by his presumed loyalists, that the mob was clean on the Martindale hit. When I had seen him in Atlanta, Capone had told me the same thing about the Lingle killing, and I didn’t buy that for an instant; but in this situation, Capone seemed to have little to gain by lying. And as far as I could tell, the syndicate also had little to gain from Martindale’s death. In fact, if anything, increased attention and public outcry were being aimed at them because of the murder. And the last thing the businesslike Frank Nitti wanted for the organization he now ruled was the klieg light of notoriety.
Scenario Number Two (the erstwhile Malek Theory): The Democratic Party was behind the murder. Other than Kilkenny’s praise for him and my own instincts, I didn’t know enough about Dick Daley to trust him completely, but Steel Trap Bascomb already had begun to confirm Daley’s information regarding Martindale and his apparent sexual penchant for children.
Okay, I was never really strong on my theory, anyway. Like the syndicate, the Democrats didn’t have a lot to gain by knocking Martindale off. They figured to win City Hall again in ’39, and by killing the reformer they would run the risk of turning him into a martyr, not to mention possibly stampeding an outraged electorate toward the eventual Republican candidate.
Scenario Number Three (the New Malek Theory, with an assist by Dick Daley): Martindale’s past sins had come home to roost, with fatal results. The more I thought about this one, the more it made sense, although... where to begin? Daley had told me that no arrest records existed on Martindale, and therefore no victims’ names, no dates, no places. I was ready to take that on faith, given that the Democrats’ investigator in all likelihood had researched it thoroughly. And what little I’d seen of State Representative Daley was enough to persuade me that I’d never get him to reveal the investigator’s identity.
I briefly toyed with going to Fergus Fahey to see what he could — or would — dredge up from contacts within the department, but I nixed the idea as fast as I’d gotten it. For one thing, some twenty-five years ago the elder Martindale apparently bought off some number of police, among others. And Fahey, although essentially honest, was above all loyal to the force and would never feed me anything that would reflect badly on it. Also, this was shaping up as my story and nobody else’s, and I didn’t want to risk letting other reporters get their long noses under the tent, which might well happen if word got around to the current crop of reporters that Martindale had a sordid past.
As my train clattered above the Loop streets and I rose to exit and change for a northbound car on Clark Street, I was forced to conclude that at least now I would have to bide my time and hope that, with prodding from his daughter, Steel Trap Bascomb’s memory would revive. That happened sooner than I expected.
Three days after my visit to Oak Park, I was in the Headquarters pressroom firing up a Lucky just after lunch when I got a call from Catherine Reed.
“Steve?” She pronounced the name as though still unsure that she should be so familiar.
“Hello, Catherine,” I replied, placing the conversation solidly on a first-name basis. “How’s your father?”
“Well... that’s why I’m phoning. The last couple of days, I’ve been asking him things about... what we discussed the other night. And he’s remembered some more, quite a bit more, in fact.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I answered, keeping my voice low and cupping the mouthpiece.
“Yes. I thought you would be. I also thought you might like to come to dinner. You can either talk to Daddy about it when you come or... if he’s having one of his bad times, I’ve, well, I’ve been taking some notes.”
“That’s a very nice offer. When did you have in mind?”
She paused, and I could hear her inhale. “Well, I know that you’re probably very busy, but I was thinking that maybe tonight... that is, if...”
“Catherine, it just so happens that tonight would suit me fine, if you don’t mind eating until after 6:30, which as you know is the earliest I could probably get there, although I’ll shoot for 6:15.”
The three of us sat at the thick-legged mahogany dining room table tying into Catherine’s Yankee pot roast. Steel Trap’s mind might have slipped, but it was nice to see that his appetite hadn’t, and there was nothing wrong with his table manners either. At Catherine’s whispered suggestion when I arrived, I held off asking the old reporter any questions until after we’d finished dinner.
“He doesn’t like to talk while he’s eating nowadays,” she said as she hung my raincoat in the hall closet, “and yet in the old days, he’d chatter about work all the way through dinner, practically nonstop. Now it’s as if there isn’t room in his mind to do both at once.”
I handed her the small bouquet of carnations that I had picked up at a florist in the Loop and told her I liked her dress, a pink number that looked to be the same style as the blue one she had worn on my earlier visit. She lowered her eyes, thanking me softly for both the flowers and the compliment as I pondered whether she was coquettish or just shy. I settled on the latter, maybe because that’s the way I wanted it to be.
Steel Trap had acknowledged me with a muttered “Howyadoin?” and a vague wave as we began eating. Catherine was right about her father’s table conversation — it was nonexistent. She held up her end though, asking me about current news stories in Chicago, including the kidnapping of a car full of socialites in front of the Drake Towers, where they were robbed of money and jewelry and released unharmed, and of the fistfight between two drunken police sergeants in a North Side precinct house that spilled out into the street and drew a crowd of cheering neighbors (formal investigation pending).
I put color and detail into my commentary about these and a couple of other newsy, crime-related events, and although Steel Trap made no comments, he nodded several times as he ate and seemed to follow the conversation with interest.
I got gladder by the minute that Catherine had been taking notes on her father’s recollections the last few days, as I now despaired of getting anything substantial from the man face-to-face. But he fooled me.
After dinner, we retired to the sitting room, with Steel Trap dropping into the stuffed chair he had occupied when I saw him three days ago. Also as before, I drew up the chair opposite as Catherine came in with coffee for each of us. She then nodded in my direction, which I took to be a cue to start in on him.
“Well, Steel Trap,” I said after taking a sip, “have you been thinking about Lloyd Martindale?”
He made a sort of snorting noise and threw up his arms, almost knocking his coffee cup off the end table. “Goddamn pervert!”