The streetcar bulled through the Fullerton intersection. On the right a couple of blocks farther south was the warehouse where Bugs Moran’s crew got machine-gunned at point-blank range on Valentine’s Day 1929, and it had to have been Capone’s men — dressed as cops, by God. Only in Chicago. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the papers called it, and why not? It was a massacre, all right. I already was working for the Tribune then, but I was stuck inside on rewrite. When word came in to the local room about the shootings that Thursday morning, I tried to persuade Bob Lee, the city editor at the time, to send me up there to lend a hand with the coverage. But his snappy reply was that the p.m. papers were going to beat us on the story for their home-delivered editions anyway, and that I should stay put and take phone dictation from the battery of reporters he’d dispatched to the warehouse. I did what I could to liven up their flat copy, and I made it a lot peppier at that.
Pardon the horn-tooting, but by then I was the best the Trib had at writing news features — human interest stuff, but with solid reporting behind it — and if I’d been up there at the site, I would have turned out a better piece than the whole damned bunch combined. They were reporters, but so was I, and I was something none of them was — a writer.
The red streetcar had crossed North Avenue, passing the two big German gathering places called the Red Star Inn and the Germania Club, which faced each other like blocky sentinels proclaiming Teutonic glory. But another few blocks farther south, in the shadow of the downtown skyline, the street changed its character again, for the worse. Stooped men in rags, many bare-headed and seemingly oblivious to the cold, sat on the sidewalks with their backs against the walls of flophouses and saloons or stood in alleys, silhouetted in the Styxian glow of fires in salamanders, those 40-gallon drums whose blazes were likely fueled by newspapers or oily rags. Some nipped from pint bottles wrapped in paper sacks, which they passed to eager neighbors. This was skid row. Not the Skid Row, which was a mile or so away on West Madison, but real enough in its degradation. The editorial writers were always wringing their hands in print about these stretches of misery and what should be done about them, but nobody had yet come up with a good answer. Maybe there wasn’t one, at least not as long as this Depression had its fangs dug into us. According to the Tribune, FDR definitely wasn’t the solution, but then I never thought the paper had given the guy a fair shake, although you wouldn’t hear me saying it within a cannon shot of Tribune Tower.
We clattered across the river on the Clark Street drawbridge, which put us in the Loop. I got off and walked the two blocks east to the Chicago Theatre at State and Lake — the biggest movie house in the world, somebody called it, probably the Balaban & Katz chain, which ran the place. Whether or not it was the biggest, it was grand with its mirrors and gold railings and wide, sweeping staircases and thick carpeting and chandeliers. I’d been going there for movies and stage shows almost since the day it opened, which was the year after I graduated from high school in 1920. And that’s where Norma and I had our first “downtown” date in 1923 — to see Richard Barthelmess and Dorothy Gish in “Bright Shawl,” followed by a vaudeville show that bored both of us.
On this New Year’s night, not even a quarter of the seats were taken. I had liked Joel McCrea in other movies, but you can have “Wells Fargo.” It was too long, with too many slow spots. He was better in “Barbary Coast.” After the movie, the screen went up, the curtains parted, and Ted Weems and his orchestra started playing on the stage, so I got out fast. Several years before, Norma and I had danced to Weems at a downtown hotel, I forget which one, and I didn’t need that kind of memory.
At twenty past eleven, I stood under the marquee of the theater and paused to absorb the warmth of its hundreds of small light bulbs. I hadn’t eaten since early afternoon and decided to treat myself to a late supper at Henrici’s. I went the half block south and turned west onto Randolph, where the Rialto’s movie palaces trumpeted in three-foot-high letters their starring performers: Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray, John Barrymore, Mae West and Nelson Eddy, and a young comedian named Red Skelton, who was live on stage.
The Randolph Street sidewalks that twenty-four hours earlier had overflowed with revelers now were almost deserted. Henrici’s wasn’t crowded, either. I gave my coat and hat to the checkroom girl and turned to the tuxedoed maitre d’, whose supercilious grin had been frozen onto a long, sallow face. He sniffed twice and led me across the black-and-white checkerboard tiles and past a half acre of starched linen on empty tables to a spot near the back of the paneled, high-ceilinged dining room. Dropping a menu on my plate as though it, and I, were tainted, he executed a snappy about-face and returned to the comfort of his rostrum.
After ordering a Schlitz on draught from a marginally friendly waiter, I saw her, alone at a table under a landscape painting, reading and sipping coffee. Her short brown hair framed that delicate, famous face, which I had in right profile, and she wore a pale blue, two-piece outfit that probably cost more than I made in a month.
I ordered the roast beef plate and sipped beer from a pilsner glass as I watched her. I had known she was in town, of course, what with all the publicity and the reviews. But I never expected to see somebody like that alone without an entourage or bodyguard or escort as a buffer against the masses.
I can’t say what made me decide to go over to her — maybe it’s what Norma had often called my “essential brashness.” I walked the 20 feet and stood beside her table, waiting to be noticed. She looked up, her intense blue eyes questioning but not hostile.
“Pardon me,” I said, making an awkward attempt at a bow. “I don’t mean to disturb you, but I just had to tell you how much I liked you in Victoria Regina — I saw it two weeks ago, right after it opened. It’s the only play I’ve seen in at least a year. And I’m awfully glad you brought it here at last.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Helen Hayes said as if she meant it. She smiled primly. “And please don’t apologize. You are most definitely not disturbing me, Mr. ...”
“Malek. Steve Malek.” I spelled it.
“Which would make you a Czech, isn’t that so?”
“Sure is. Both of my parents were born in Bohemia.”
“Were you, as well?”
“Afraid not. I’m 99 and 44 one-hundredths percent Chicago.”
“And you should be proud of it. This is a great city,” she said with conviction, dabbing her lips with her napkin. “Tell me, Mr. Malek, would I be too bold if I asked your line of work?”
“Not as bold as I am for intruding. I’m a reporter, a police reporter. With the Tribune.”
Her smile grew to a laugh, but I could tell it wasn’t at my expense. “I should have guessed!” she trilled with unsuppressed pleasure, clapping once. “I’ve known a lot of newspapermen, including my own husband, and all of you have something in common. It’s a certain...”
“How about ‘essential brashness’?”
“Well... I might not have termed it that way exactly, but I suppose it comes pretty close to describing...”
“Is everything all right, Miss Hayes?” The maitre d’ was breathless from sprinting across the room.
“Oh yes, Emil, of course it is, although you’re sweet to look after me, as you always do.” She touched his arm in affirmation. “I’ve just been getting reacquainted with an old friend. Have you met Mr. Malek, from the Tribune?”