“I never slapped a woman in my life. I got great respect for women. I have slapped some whores in my time. Of various sex. Like the man said, most businessmen are nothing but two-bit whores with a clean shirt and a shine.” The moon face beamed. “Only now I know more subtle ways of slapping them around than just plain slapping.”
“I guess greedy people just rub you the wrong way.”
“Be sarcastic if you want, but I’m a union man. I look out for the little guy!” Unconsciously or not, he was pointing a thumb at his own barrel chest as he said that.
“Why am I here, Willie?”
“To maybe do a job for me.”
“Aren’t there any detectives in California?”
“Sure. But not the Chicago variety. When Georgie called me from the Troc last night, I thought, this is perfect. Just the ticket.”
“What is?”
“You being here. You know what irony is?”
“We’ve met.”
“Well, then you can appreciate this. You know who Westbrook Pegler is?”
My mouth went dry.
“Irony’s sister?” I said.
“You know who he is. He’s in Chicago right now. He’s looking for dirt on me. To spread in his column.”
“I know,” I admitted.
It was the only way to play it.
The hard dark pig eyes behind the rimless glass squinted. “You know?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. He stopped by my office the other day. He wanted to know if I was the arresting officer on your pandering charge, years ago.”
He went a little pale, sat up. “What did you say to him?”
I shrugged again. “I said yes.”
“Shit. Did you give him any details?”
“No. It was a long time ago, Willie. He just asked if the rumor that I arrested you for pimping, once, was true, and I said it was. He asked if you were convicted, and I said you were.”
He didn’t like that. He stood, paced; wandered over to a writing desk decorated with framed pictures of his brood of lads and lit up a cigarette and began smoking nervously. But soon he said: “I can’t expect you to have said otherwise. Thanks for telling me straight out.”
“No thanks needed.”
He sat next to me again, cigarette in hand, his expression painfully earnest. “You got to understand, Heller-the feds have been breathing down my neck for months. I had to step down as the IA’s representative, not long ago, ’cause of this federal heat. Oh, I’m still running things. But from the sidelines; I can’t even go in my own goddamn office, can you picture it?”
So that was why he bitterly bit off Browne’s head for not being at the office: he was jealous he couldn’t be there himself.
“Now, this Pegler shit. Comes at a bad time. I know who put him up to it, too.”
“Who?”
“That bastard Montgomery. The smart-ass actor.”
This irony guy got around.
“Robert Montgomery, you mean?”
“Yeah, him. That smart-ass, no-good, double-crossing bastard…after all I did for him.”
Here was a new wrinkle.
“Why?” I asked. “What did you do for Montgomery?”
He scowled, not looking at me, but at an image of Montgomery fixed in his mind, I’d guess. He said, “Couple years ago SAG-Screen Actors Guild-serves notice on the studios that they now consider themselves a legitimate labor union, and want to be so recognized. You know-they wanted to enter into collective bargaining, like the big kids. So we, the IATSE, me, went to bat for ’em.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, I told that prick L. B. Mayer if he didn’t recognize SAG, he’d have an IA strike to play with. My movie projectionists can shut this industry down overnight, you know.”
“So I hear.”
The round face was reddening. “Thanks to me, Mayer recognized their lousy little Guild, and Montgomery thanked us publicly, but now, fuck him! We’re not good enough for him and the fags and dykes and Reds in his club.”
So much for Karl Marx; Willie seemed more interested in the brothers Marx, or anyway their union dues.
“I’ll tell you whose fault it really is. Frank. Frank’s getting too greedy.”
He meant Nitti. It was Bioff’s first admission that he was working for the Outfit. He let it escape casually and I didn’t react to it as any big deal. All I said was: “How so, Willie?”
“He wants to expand, and it just ain’t the right time. There’s this rival group, a CIO bunch called the United Studio Technicians, and they’re spreading dissent among the IA rank and file. We got them to deal with, we got plenty to do, rather than try and kidnap a union that don’t want anything to do with us, anyway.”
“Why such a fuss, over show business? Aren’t there bigger fish to fry, better unions to go after?”
As if speaking to a slow child, he said, “Heller, no matter what anybody tells you, people do not have to eat. Like the man said, there’s only two things they really got to do-get laid, and see a show, when they can dig up the scratch.”
The philosophy of a pimp turned Hollywood power broker.
“Listen,” he said. “You’ve got a reputation of being a straight shooter. Frank speaks highly of you.”
Nitti again.
“That’s nice to hear,” I said.