Behind the counter, the bartender was leaning against his boxes, smiling. He had a gold tooth.
The two men looked at Pete with wide eyes-they obviously recognized him, and just as obviously hadn’t realized he was in the place-and simultaneously pointed each to the other.
He swung the.357 sideways into the gut of the man at his right and with his left connected with the chin of the other. Both men were soon on the dirty wooden floor, one rubbing his chin, the other doubled over.
“No fighting,” Pete told them, and put his gun away and came back to us and said he had to be going.
What a coincidence.
So did we.
By the following Saturday a lot had happened and nothing had happened.
I did some time at Meyer House on Ragen’s door each day, but mostly turned it over to O’Toole and Pelitier, with Sapperstein doing a turn or two, as well. It was a round-the-clock vigil, so some of my boys put in long hours. The police kept three men on at all times, one outside patrolling Lake Park Avenue, another by the fire escape window, and one more sharing the corridor outside Ragen’s room with an A-1 man.
We got along with the cops just fine-we were all ex-Chicago P.D. ourselves-but of course didn’t trust them far as we could throw ’em. Like I said, we were all ex-Chicago P.D. ourselves.
The fire escape had a landing at each Meyer House floor, trimmed in flowers and plants, making for a regular balcony; Tuesday morning, I’d noticed men in pale green blousy shirts and pants, like pajamas, standing on every level.
“What the hell’s that about?” I asked the cop on guard there. “Can’t you keep that fire escape clear?”
“Aw, I kinda feel sorry for the poor bastards,” the cop said.
They were psyche ward patients, it turned out. The first floor of Michael Reese, where the lobby once was as lavish as that of the finest hotel, had been converted to a psychiatric unit in ’39. Some patients were allowed out in the enclosed yard of Meyer House, where they sat in chairs and/or wandered about the small area facing Lake Park Avenue. Hollow-eyed zombies, most of them.
I knew all about it. I’d done some time in a psyche hospital myself, during the war.
“Yeah, you’re right-let ’em enjoy themselves,” I said. “But if you see anybody on those landings who isn’t a psyche patient, clear ’em the hell off immediately. And nobody on this landing at all, or I’ll hand your ass to Drury. I don’t care if it’s Freud and his favorite patient.”
“Okay, Mr. Heller.”
I talked to Drury every day, to see how the investigation was going. The green truck, it turned out, had been stolen last March; the FBI had lent its fingerprint experts to help dust the vehicle, but nothing came of it. Nor did anything come of the gray sedan with Indiana plates, the license number of which no witness seemed to have gotten. Two-Gun Pete did manage to “round up” his fourth witness, a newsboy (possibly the one I bought those papers from, to soak up Ragen’s blood); and Drury had gone down to Bronzeville and questioned him, and was satisfied another good witness had been found. Early next week the four would be gathered at the Central Police Station to start going through pictures.
Drury had been less than successful with his frontal attack on the Outfit: Guzik, Serritella and the rest were all kicked loose after questioning. Serritella had been badly embarrassed, however, as Drury-around midnight, Monday night, fresh from his St. Hubert’s bust of Guzik-had taken several squads of coppers to surround the home of the First Ward Republican Committeeman (and former State Senator). It got a lot of play in the papers, making Serritella look like the front man for gangsters that he was. Unlike Guzik, though, Serritella submitted to a lie detector test, and passed with flying colors, where complicity in the Ragen shooting was concerned.
At the same time, Mayor Kelly ordered a crackdown on local gambling, handbooks especially; Police Commissioner Prendergast called it “the greatest gambling cleanup” in the city’s history. I figured it’d last maybe a week. Possibly even two.
Ragen’s family made appearances throughout the week, with all the children, including the three married daughters, putting in regular visits, though Mrs. Ragen herself wasn’t seen much from Wednesday on, stopping by during regular visiting hours for an hour or so; she’d collapsed at home on Tuesday after an anonymous phone call came in, a gruff male voice saying, “Tell your old man to get out of the racing business or get fitted for a coffin.” Ellen Ragen was (as her husband put it) “a hypertension blood-pressure individual” and her doctor wanted her to stay in bed, and not answer the phone.
Peggy had stopped going into the office and was keeping her aunt company, playing nurse, although a private nurse was on hand as well; consequently I’d only talked to Peggy a few times since Monday night, mostly over the phone, though tonight, Saturday, we had a date. In the meantime, I had put an op on the Ragen’s Seeley Avenue home, too.
Jim, Jr., had taken over the business reins in his father’s absence, but to his credit he’d managed to come around every day during visiting hours. He seemed shaken and was not really holding up all that well, but hid it from his pop pretty much-of course, his pop wouldn’t have wanted to recognize that, anyway.
I had the enormous pleasure, on Wednesday, of giving the bum’s rush to Wilbert F. Crowley, assistant to State’s Attorney Tuohy. Confiding in the State’s Attorney’s Office was like putting up a billboard in Cicero. The staff at Michael Reese, as well as the two Ragen family physicians attending Jim, were going along with me on keeping the cops and such away from him. We’d put word in to the local FBI office that they would be hearing from us-but kept it strictly “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
It wasn’t merely a blind, either. Jim was heavily sedated and in an oxygen tent and mostly just slept, from Tuesday through Friday, at which time, after postponements from day to day waiting for him to get strong enough, the operation on his arm was finally performed in a grueling three-hour session, surgeons probing for pellet after pellet in his shattered arm and shoulder.
On Friday, Mickey McBride showed up. Arthur “Mickey” McBride, that is, the onetime partner of Jim Ragen, in Continental, and who was still in charge of the Cleveland end of the operation.
I’d never met him before, but he’d heard all about me from Jim, he said.
“Jim thinks the world of you,” he said, pumping my hand. He was a small man, bigger than Mickey Rooney but just; his face was round, his light brown graying hair thinning some, his face pouchy, his glasses dark-tinted. Physically, he was an Irish, somewhat better preserved version of Guzik. A fairly natty dresser, he wore a gold and brown herringbone suit with a red bow tie and a monogrammed pocket handkerchief.
“He’s mentioned you from time to time, too,” I said, giving him a polite smile. Jim liked Mickey McBride, but I instinctively didn’t. He was too fucking friendly for a stranger. Particularly for a stranger who’d made millions in the rackets.
“You’re a pal of Ness’, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“He made some waves in Cleveland, I’ll give ’im credit for that. Don’t think he liked me much.” He smiled widely, puffing his cheeks; he looked like an aging leprechaun. “Hated it that I was making legal money off gambling.”
“Eliot’s idea of a night on the town involves using an ax to go in a front door.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” McBride said, grinning. “Well, he’s a nice enough guy. Harmless, now. Private business, these days.”
“I don’t think you’ve heard the last of him.”
“Maybe not.” He made a tch-tch sound. “Terrible about Jim. Terrible. Am I gonna get to talk to him today?”
“I don’t know. He’s being operated on, now.”
“He’s got balls, the man does. Going up against Guzik and company.”
“What’s your position on this?”
“Whether he should sell out or not? I don’t tell Jim his business. I sold out my interests years ago.”
“Doesn’t your son still own a piece of Continental?”
“Yes he does.”
“But he’s not very active in the business.”
“He’s a college student, Mr. Heller. Pre-law, down at the University of Miami. But he’ll need a place to work someday.”
“You really want to get your son involved in the race wire business? After what happened to Jim?”
“Mr. Heller, the race wire business has been around for almost sixty years. In all that time, Jim’s the first guy to take a hit, and it looks like he’s gonna pull through. Now, I know a hundred lawyers that got killed in the past forty years…hell, my boy might get hit by a brick from this building and bumped off. Life is a game of chance, my friend.”
“Well, you don’t seem to be getting in the game, at this point, Mr. McBride.”
“Call me Mickey. It’s Jim’s show, Mr. Heller. I’ll back him up, a hundred percent. But I’m not the boss. I’m not even an owner. If Jim wants to go up against Jake Guzik, well he’s a better man than I.”
“Then why don’t you advise him to sell out?”
“I thought you knew Jim, Mr. Heller,” McBride said, his smile finally turning nasty like I knew it could. “You think that stubborn mick would listen to me? Just because I taught him everything he knows about this business? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find someplace where I can smoke a cigar. Hate the smell of hospitals, don’t you?”