“Just a source,” I replied nonchalantly. “Anyway, I’d like a few minutes of your time when you get off work. It won’t take long at all; I’m just looking for some reminiscences.”
“I didn’t say I knew him,” she fired back in a hoarse whisper, her eyes darting around the dining room either in search of rescue or hoping that we were unobserved and unheard. “Here’s your change — thank you!” She said it more loudly than necessary, turning quickly away from me and busying herself by thumbing through a stack of dinner checks. I stood watching her for what seemed like a minute but may have been less than half that time. When it was clear that she wasn’t about to look up and acknowledge me further, I gave her a crisp, polite “thank you” and spun out through the revolving door.
I didn’t spin far, though — just to the opposite side of Wabash Avenue. I took up a position leaning against an Elevated pillar, where I had an unobstructed view of Nicolette through the restaurant window. Dusk yielded to darkness as the trains pounded overhead every few minutes, shaking my pillar as well as the street itself. I lit up a Lucky, then another, and another, until I lost count of the butts on the sidewalk at my feet. Auto and pedestrian traffic gradually dropped off, and diners filed out of Harding’s in ones and twos, with almost no one replacing them.
At a couple of minutes past 8:00 by my watch — which meant I had been supporting that pillar for better than an hour — a short, pot-bellied man in a coat and tie, presumably the manager, joined Nicolette at the counter. They talked briefly, and then she slipped on a raincoat and emerged onto the sidewalk, walking north. I crossed Wabash behind her and closed the gap until we were side-by-side at Madison, waiting for the light to change.
“Hi, remember me? Can we talk now?” I said, giving her my most sincere smile.
Nicolette pivoted toward me, the fright back in her eyes. “No! Leave me alone!”
“Hey, I just want to ask you a few questions,” I told her as she started across Madison on the green.
“Get away! Get away from me!” she keened, speeding her gait. I started to pick up my own pace when I was spun around by a beefy hand on my shoulder. “You heard what the lady said — leave her alone, chum,” growled a flat-nosed, whiskey-reeking mountain wearing a checked sports coat two sizes to small for him.
“Mind your own damn business, chum,” I growled back, pushing his hand away and starting after Nicolette, now almost a half block away on Wabash’s nearly deserted sidewalk.
I didn’t see the punch, which caught me on the left cheek and knocked me to my knees. “I told you to leave the lady alone,” the big galoot mouthed, looming over me with his fists clenched at his sides as an El train thundered above us.
“All right, all right, no need for you to go and get hostile, Buddy,” I said, rising slowly, brushing off my pants and holding up a palm in mock surrender.
He unclenched his big fists, and as he did, I used all the force I had and drove a right to his stomach, which as I suspected — and hoped — was as soft and unresistant as a goosedown pillow. With a sound like a balloon deflating, he doubled over, holding his oversized gut with both paws.
The next noise I heard was his retching, but I didn’t hang around to watch. I sprinted after Nicolette Stover, who by now had crossed Washington Boulevard. She looked over her shoulder at me and started running herself. I was halted at the Washington corner by a red light and a squadron of taxis, and by the time I made it to the other side of the street, she was a full block ahead of me, climbing into a northbound Checker Cab at Randolph.
I briefly considered flagging a hack of my own and giving chase, but my cheek was starting to throb where I had taken the punch, both of my knees felt like they had been massaged with steel wool, and I had to work to get my breath back. I turned around and looked in the direction of my erstwhile sparring partner, saw that he was on his feet and walking unsteadily in the opposite direction, and decided that I had had enough excitement for one evening.
Unfortunately, others felt differently.
Chapter 15
During the slow ride north on the Clark Street car, I held a handkerchief against my slightly bloodied and now swollen cheek, cursing Nicolette Stover and muttering that we would meet again. When I got back to my apartment, I would look her up in the telephone directory, and — assuming she was listed — pay her a visit at home, and soon. If she was not in the book, my plan was to wait for her outside Harding’s again and tail her home.
My knees barking their complaint, I eased off the red car at the usual stop and gingerly edged across Clark, giving a careening Yellow Cab plenty of leeway. As I neared the door of my building, an all-too-familiar form materialized from the darkness.
“Getting home from work kind of late now, aren’t you, Mr. Malek?” It was Monk, the long-faced rib-jabber from several weeks back who had pushed me into a car — probably the same car that he now was herding me toward.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m really not up to a ride tonight,” I said over my shoulder, getting — what else? — a jab in the side.
Monk shoved me into the back seat, were I once again found myself beside the “Mr. Left” from our earlier meeting. “All right, Mel, move it,” he pronounced to the driver in that high-pitched voice of his. The car drew away from the curb with Monk settled in on my right, also as before.
“So, we meet again,” Mr. Left said. “What can you tell us?”
“About what?” I deadpanned.
“Come, come, don’t play games like that, Mr. Malek. They only waste everyone’s time. What have you learned about Lloyd Martindale?”
“Not a lot,” I told him honestly. “I have been talking to a number of people who knew him over the years, but so far... nothing.”
He made a grunting sound. “A good friend of ours, and a particular favorite of Mr. Capone’s and of Mr. Nitti’s, is being held. By the police.” He clearly expected a response.
I put on my interested and concerned face. “Yeah? On a murder charge?”
His scratchy laugh contained no mirth whatever. “You should know they don’t bother with charges, Mr. Malek. But they’re trying to... persuade him to confess. And they know how to persuade.”
“Does he have a lawyer?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Mr. Left said, the hawk-like features beneath his gray fedora accentuated in silhouette by the passing streetlights.
I chuckled nervously, feeling the perspiration build under my arms. “An occupational trait.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. The man we are talking about has not been allowed to see an attorney — far from it. He’s strong, but also isolated and at least for now beyond our help. And there are many ways to break a man.”
Sure, and you’ve used every one of them at one time or another, I thought before speaking. “Like I said, I’ve made almost no progress. And as you know, I do happen to have a job that takes a substantial portion of my time. Do you have any ideas or suggestions?”
“Mr. Malek, we should ask you that. Your job doesn’t seem to have prevented you from riding a number of trains recently.”
“Maybe so.”
“Not maybe.” His voice had an ominous edge. “And tonight, your face is bruised.”
“I mixed it up with a guy in a bar earlier — I think you could term it a minor disagreement over a woman. He looks a lot worse than I do. And that’s why I was a little late getting home,” I improvised.
“Be careful where you buy your drinks,” he cautioned. “What did you find out in your train rides from the LaSalle and Randolph Street Stations?”
“Almost nothing, dammit,” I said with feeling, trying to hide the surprise that I had been tailed at least as far as the downtown stations. “I was working on a couple of long shots, and they didn’t pan out for me.”