Chicago Confidential

3

Grinning, Joey Fischetti — having just exited the elevator — trotted across the narrow, modern lobby of Barry Apartments, with its ferns, mirrors, and luxurious furnishings; his footsteps echoed like gunshots off the marble black-and-white tile floor, the first few making me flinch. About five-eight, slender, darkly tanned and immaculately groomed, Joey wore the kind of “casual” outfit it took half an hour to select from a well-stocked closet: a brown-with-white patterned sports jacket, a blue-on-white tattersall vest, gray slacks, a red-and-blue patterned tie, and a sporty charcoal hat with a fuzzy red feather that looked like a fisherman’s fly.

At forty, Joey was the baby of the Fischetti triumvirate, the only one not actively involved in criminal capitalism, with a blank arrest record to prove it; he was generally considered the best-looking of the brothers (though Charley might have taken issue), and the dumbest (no likely challengers on that point).

The latter quality was what I was counting on.

“Nate Heller!” he said, joining the doorman and myself in the crisp fall afternoon air. He was an animated guy drenched with show biz sincerity. His voice had a husky, high-pitched enthusiasm, and his eyes were as bright as he wasn’t. “Goddamn. Do you believe it? What a coincidence!”

“Isn’t it, though? Good to see you, Joey. Frank sends his best.”

Sinatra and Joey Fischetti were bosom buddies.

He grinned — big glistening white teeth that were either caps or choppers — and shook his head. “You believe that? That’s the second coincidence!”

I still didn’t know what the first coincidence was.

Now his eyes narrowed, in an approximation of thought. “What are you doin’ around these shabby digs, Nate?”

The Barry Apartments were anything but shabby: this was as fashionable as Chicago neighborhoods got, and the Fischetti clan’s luxurious triplex penthouse had once been occupied by Mayor Thompson and Mayor Cermak... one at a time, of course.

I gave him half a smile and said, “I was just bribing your doorman to see if I could come up and see you, without an appointment.”

The doorman’s eyes widened with alarm.

But Joey waved off my remark. “Ah, you don’t need to waste your money on that! Don’t take his money, George.”

George swallowed and said, “No, sir,” and handed the twenty back.

As I was returning the bill to my pocket, Joey slipped his arm around my shoulder and walked me a few steps down the sidewalk, for a little privacy; the baby Fischetti smelled like a Vitalis and Old Spice cocktail. “My brother’s been wanting to talk to you.”

“Rocky or Charley?”

“Charley. Rock’ll probably be in on it, though. See, I was supposed to call you, but I got busy making arrangements for Frank. That’s where I was headed, right now — paving the way for the Voice with Dave Halper, at the Chez Paree.”

Dave Halper was one of the new owners of the club, which Mike Fritzel and Joe Jacobsen — the longtime hosts of a venue that had provided first breaks to the likes of Danny Kaye, Betty Hutton, and Danny Thomas — had sold to him last year. The Fischettis had an interest in this, the city’s biggest, biggest-time nitery: they owned the Gold Key Club, the Chez Paree’s backroom casino.

“See, I kind of had to talk Dave into booking Frank,” Joey said.

“Yeah, the kid’s career’s in a tailspin.”

“Naw, Nate, it’s just a bump in the road.”

I wasn’t going to argue the point. “Well, don’t let me keep you, Joey. I’ll be on my way, and you call my office, and we’ll—”

But, oh fuck, now he was walking me back toward the apartment house. “Don’t be silly,” he was saying, squeezing my shoulder. “Seeing Halper can wait. Frank don’t open till Friday. Let’s go up and see Charley.”

George got the door for us — I didn’t tip him — and Joey and I clip-clopped across the lavish lobby.

“Would you do me a favor, Nate?”

“Name it, Joey.”

We stepped into the elevator, which was attended by a blue-uniformed guy with blue five o’clock shadow, a nose with minimal cartilage, cauliflower ears, and a bulge under his arm that wasn’t a tumor.

Joey said to him, “I’m making a stop at Rocky’s floor.”

“Yes, Mr. Fischetti,” the elevator man marble-mouthed.

To me Joey whispered, “Don’t mention to Charley I just run into you by accident. I wanna tell him I called your office and you come around on purpose.”

“Fine by me, Joey.”

“Sometimes Charley thinks I’m a fuck-up, and it’s nice to show him I got organizational abilities. I’m doing more and more in the entertainment field, you know.”

“Are you managing Frank?”

He grinned, shrugged. “Not exclusive. Several people I know got a piece of Frank.”

This did not surprise me. Since the decline of his career, Sinatra had been working mostly in mob rooms — Skinny D’Amato’s 50 °Club in Atlantic City; Moe Dalitz’s Desert Inn in Vegas; Ben Madden’s Riviera in New Jersey; and of course the Chez Paree here in Chicago.

At the seventeenth floor, the uniformed thug deposited us in an entryway about the size of my first apartment. The plaster walls were light gray, and the penthouse door — and another around to the left labeled FIRE STAIRS — a deep charcoal. A few furnishings — a table with cut flowers in a white vase under a mirror, a golden Egyptian settee with a scarlet cushion — hugged the walls, and a sunburst clock opposite the penthouse door matched the sunburst doorbell, which Joey didn’t press — he used a key.

“Hey, Rocky,” Joey called, cracking the unlocked door. “It’s me — Joey! Are you decent?”

Now there was a question.

The only response was a muted railroad whistle — woo! woo!

Joey grinned at my confused expression. He said, like I’d understand, “Sounds like Rocky’s in his own little world again.”

I followed Joey inside. The spacious living room had the same light gray walls and a charcoal slate floor, warmed up by pastel furnishings, including two peach sofas facing each other over a coffee table on a white carpet near a fireplace over which hung a big gilt-framed painting of peasants picnicking in what I’d wager was a Sicilian countryside setting. Past a grand piano, through sheer drapes, I could make out — through the wall of glass doors — the terrace-style balcony with its white wrought iron furniture and millionaire’s lake view.

“Not bad, huh?” Joey said, as I took the place in.

Occasional little railroad whistles — “Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!” — punctuated this nickel tour.

“Nice,” I said, thinking it didn’t look like anybody lived here; an adjacent formal dining room looked similarly showroom perfect. Of course I knew the Fischettis only stayed in Chicago about half the year — must have been about time for them to head down to Florida, where they wintered (and supervised their criminal activities in that state).

The ostentation didn’t surprise me, though — one of Rocco’s nicknames was Money Bags, because he liked to flash his dough around.

Joey led me down a hallway off of which were a spotless white modern kitchen and a bathroom. Finally, he knocked on a door, edged it open, stuck his head in, and said, “Hey, Super Chief! We got company.”

“Yeah, yeah,” a gruff voice said.

I followed Joey in — possibly designed to be a master bedroom, the large room’s only furnishings (other than a few scattered movie-set type canvas-and-wood chairs) were tables of various sizes and various heights, the central one a good four feet by six, to accommodate the towns and villages, the valleys and mountains, the tunnels, bridges, loading platforms and stations, of an enormous, sprawling, demented model railroad.

Miniature freight elevators unloaded grain, water tanks filled the steam engines of locomotives, and a coal mine provided chips of real coal. Tiny conductors, engineers, railroad workers, and passengers inhabited this landscape, as did billboards, farmhouses (with livestock), and much else. On shelves were model trains of every conceivable sort: steam, electric, freight, military, passenger, one of which was on the tracks now, taking the incredibly elaborate journey through the world Rocco Fischetti had created.

The Almighty God of this mini-universe was a homely, pale, pockmarked, shovel-headed hood with a wide yet sharp chin, a long knobby nose, and dark close-set eyes under slashes of black eyebrow; his hair was black with skunk streaks of white. Five-ten, sturdy-looking, he sat mesmerized before a control panel of switches — watching his train take its circuitous, even dangerous, route — wearing a maroon silk house robe and slippers — and a railroad engineer’s cap.

He wasn’t alone: seated across from him, bored senseless, was a cute shapely twentyish blonde (I thought I recognized her from the Chez Paree chorus line) in a silver silk robe and her own engineer’s cap. Also, a black eye.

“Sorry to bother you, Rock,” Joey said.

The train said, “Woo woo! Woo woo!”

Rocco’s back was partly to me — he had not seen me yet, or anyway not acknowledged in any way that he had. “I’m busy,” he said. “Don’t I look busy?”

“You look busy, but I got Nate Heller here with me.”

After a tough day beating up his girl friends, or a hard night torturing an informer, a guy needed to let his hair down. And Rocco had found a way to unwind while expressing his creativity, fashioning this intricate model railroad complex.

He threw a few switches and his train slowed to a halt, its last “woo woo” sounding a little weak, even sad.

He looked at me, and said, “So how’s the dick?”

“Swell,” I said. “And you mean that in a good way, right, Rocky?”

He smirked; we knew each other a little — though I now knew him better, having glimpsed Model Train Land — and we always spoke, even kidded some. He was the kind of guy who expected respect but liked being treated like a regular joe.

“We been wanting to talk to you,” Rocco said, “Charley and me.” Rather resignedly, he plucked the railroad cap from his head and tossed it on the control panel. To his brother, he said, “Go on up and see Charley... I’ll get dressed and join you.”

The girl said, “Should I get dressed, too, Rock? Are we going out for dinner?”

He glared at her. “Did I ask you anything?”

“No.”

The flatness of their voices in the room was almost a surprise: yelling across the mountainous landscape between them, you’d expect an echo.

“Did I fucking ask you anything?”

“No.”

“That’s right. Go on and get dressed. Put something on that eye — it’s ugly.”

“Yes, Rock.”

“And call Augustino’s and get us the regular table.”

“Yes, Rock.”

But she hadn’t moved from her perch. She was waiting, respectfully, for us to leave. I guessed.

Rocco ushered me out of the railroad yard, putting a hand on my arm, giving it a gentle, friendly squeeze. He too smelled of Vitalis and Old Spice, though less potently than Joey, who trailed down the hallway behind us.

“You gotta be tough on these dames,” Rocco said. “Gotta know how to handle ’em.”

“You’ve certainly got a touch.”

He knew I was kidding him, and he liked it. “You’re a card, Heller.”

“Yeah, a joker!” Joey chimed in, grinning, pleased with his wit.

Rocco gave me a look that admitted his baby brother’s idiocy, but fondness was in there, too. And before we left, he patted Joey’s cheek and said, “Ask Charley to wait for me, before you talk business.”

So we were going to talk business. Wasn’t that a delightful notion.

We summoned the elevator and its cauliflower-eared guardian, who delivered us to the eighteenth floor. The entryway was identical to the floor below’s, only this time Joey pressed the sunburst doorbell.

“I don’t ever just bust in on Charley,” Joey said. “He don’t like it.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t bother him,” I said. “We can do this some other time...”

But Joey rang the bell again, and before long, Charley — presumably after checking the peephole — revealed himself in the doorway.

Broad-shouldered, kind of stocky, Charles Fischetti was around fifty, an almost-handsome guy with an oval face, bumpy nose, knife-scarred jaw and small mouth that could flash in a surprisingly mischievous smile. Under black slashes of eyebrow that reminded you he was Rocco’s brother, Charley’s hazel eyes beamed an icy, unblinking intelligence. Charley dyed his gray hair platinum and combed it back in traditional George Raft gangster style; he seemed taller than his brothers, but that was the elevator shoes.

“Sorry to drop in on you, Charley,” Joey said.

No dressing robe for Charley Fischetti: his pin-striped single-breasted Botany 500 was so dark a gray, it looked black; his shirt was a light blue and his tie a slip-stitched gray with dots of red, like precision splashes of blood.

“Joey,” Charley said, in a mellow, mildly scolding baritone, “I told you bring Heller around, but I didn’t say just pop by with him.”

Joey had a panicky look, so I jumped in with, “It’s my fault, Mr. Fischetti.” I didn’t know Charley very well, and couldn’t take the same liberties as with Rocco. “I got the date wrong, but Joey said I might as well come on up, anyway.”

Charley smiled at his forty-year-old baby brother, and patted his cheek, much as middle-brother Rocco had. “You’re a good boy, Joey. I shouldn’ta doubted you.”

I said, “If you have another appointment...”

“I do have somebody coming around...” He checked his watch. “...but that’s not for almost an hour.”

Joey explained that Rocco would be joining us.

“Well that’s fine,” he said to his brother. Then, as he gestured for me to step inside, he said, “And let’s make it ‘Charley’ and ‘Nate.’”

“Thank you, Charley.”

“Hey — any friend of Frank Nitti’s is a friend of mine.”

We had stepped into the living room when I replied: “Frank was a fine man. He was almost a father to me.”

That was overstating it, but I wanted to be welcome in these circles, and of course Nitti had been the successor to their beloved cousin Capone.

“Do you like modernist?” Charley asked. “I like modernist.”

Charley liked modernist, all right. The penthouse had the same layout as Rocco’s, with the same light gray walls and charcoal slate floor, but offset by the turquoise of a biomorphic-shaped sofa, the forest green of a sculpted plywood lounge chair’s webbed upholstery, and the salmon pink throw rug (with black geometric squiggles) on which this stuff sat in front of the out-of-place traditional fireplace, over which a huge metal-framed Picasso lithograph squinted with its various eyes.

“Oh yeah,” I said, amazed and appalled by the array of atomic age nonsense: kidney-shaped glass on a claw hand of sculptured walnut serving as a coffee table, green Fiberglas chairs with black wire legs, black metal floor lamp that looked like a praying mantis.

“Most of this,” he said, gesturing expansively, “I buy overseas. The Scandinavians get all the credit, but the best modern design is Italian. Carlo Mollino, Gio Ponti, Gian-franco Frattini...”

“No kidding.”

“Take a look at this,” Charley said, waving me over to several framed paintings on the wall (Joey had taken a three-legged Fiberglas chair, proving it could be sat in). The canvases were abstractions, doodlings in color and geometry.

At his side, I regarded these masterpieces, wondering if Drury’s microphone was snugged behind one of them.

“You know, the great artists, they all had patrons,” Charley said. “In the Renaissance. Guys like Da Vinci, Michelangelo. It was an Italian thing.”

“So I heard.”

“See, I have a lot of fine pieces in my collection. I have three Dalis. That’s a Picasso over the fire. I got a Miro, and a Klee. Worth a goddamn fortune. But these, these mean more to me.”

“I take it these are new painters.”

The tiny mouth curved in a slice of a smile. “You know, Nate, you impress me, your sensitivity. Your insight.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re absolutely right. I’m tight with Ric Riccardo. He’s my artistic advisor.”

An accomplished artist himself, Riccardo ran a popular, artsy cafe on Rush Street out of a converted warehouse, where he had single-handedly started the local craze of restaurants and merchants exhibiting artists and sculptors.

Charley was saying, “Ric only recommends the best of the new young talent.”

What, as compared to the old young talent?

“You see, Nate, I’m not just a collector — I’m a patron.”

Like the Borgias, I thought.

“Take this one here,” he said, pointing to a canvas that appeared randomly splattered with green, brown, and black. “Ric says this fella is going to be the next Jackson Pollock.”

I didn’t burst Charley’s bubble and point out there already was a Jackson Pollock; I merely nodded and murmured appreciatively if nonverbally.

He slipped his arm around me. He smelled like Vitalis, too, but the cologne was something more expensive than Old Spice — something more expensive than I could recognize.

“Nate,” he said, “I feel comfortable with you. I really do. I am so used to uncouth company.”

“Yeah, I hate that.”

“I hope you feel comfortable with me. A lot of people get the wrong idea about me, you know.”

“I know what you mean.”

“People like us — you’re from the West Side, right?”

“Right.”

“Maxwell Street?”

I nodded.

Stepping away, he shrugged elaborately. “You know about coming up from the streets. Rough beginnings.” He leaned near again and put a hand on my shoulder and whispered: “That’s the trouble with Joey. We pampered him. He come to be a man when we already had our family position, our fortune.”

“That can be hard on a kid.” Even a forty-year-old one.

“What I mean is, coming up, we all make youthful indiscretions. Now, I’m a respectable businessman — and a connoisseur of the finer things.”

“Obviously.”

“I’m not gonna kid you, Nate — you swim in the same Chicago sewers I do...”

From connoisseurs to Chicago sewers, in one leap.

“...and you know I have to keep my hand in certain areas of... we’ll call it entertainment. Servicing public needs. You were Frank Nitti’s friend, and you know that it was his dream to be entirely legitimate.”

“Problem is,” I said, “these days, legitimate business isn’t entirely legitimate.”

He patted my shoulder, twice. “Excellent point. Excellent point. And politics... which is an area of expertise of mine... it’s no better. The reality of business is compromise. Only in the arts can a person be truly uncompromising.”

He continued showing me around his sky nest — spent a good fifteen minutes showing off his collection, about a third of which was valuable stuff by name artists, the rest junk by “up and coming” new “talents.” Charley spoke well for a mob guy, but he wasn’t fooling me.

For all his posturing and pretension, and his man-of-the-world airs, this was still the same Charley Fischetti who’d been his uncle Al Capone’s bodyguard/chauffeur, and nicknamed Trigger Happy.

This was the same Charley Fischetti who started as an alky cooker and rose to be Capone’s top lieutenant, who had been implicated in several murders though arrested only once — by Bill Drury — with a conviction for carrying a concealed weapon (reversed in the higher courts).

And this was the same Charley Fischetti who was the Outfit’s top political fixer, tunneling endless money into local and national campaigns, whose criminal business interests extended to St. Louis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and Miami.

Gambling. Prostitution. Narcotics. Extortion. Usury. Bribery. Murder. Those were the arts Charley Fischetti was a patron of.

“Hey, I don’t want you thinking I’m a goddamn snob,” Charley said. “Let me show you my TV room — we’ll talk there... Joey, wait out here and bring Rocky in, when he shows.”

My host took me by the elbow — he had a barely perceptible limp, from a long-ago gun battle — and soon we were in a more casual room, with cork-paneled walls and windows with closed Venetian blinds and geometric-design drapes. A pair of boxy pink foam-cushion couches hugged two walls to form a V, with a couple chairs of the same ilk, only light blue, forward of the douches at left and right, all squatting on fuzzy white wall-to-wall carpet, sharing space with light-blond oak tables. The seating faced a blond console — as wide as the couches — with a TV in the middle with a huge screen... twenty-one inch, easy... and built-in radio and record player and album storage bins, with a cloth-covered speaker as big as the picture tube.

“Yeah, I’m a TV fan,” Charley said, man of the people that he was, slipping behind the blond oak bar along the side wall. “Care for something?”

“Rum and Coke, ice.”

“I got martinis made.”

“That’s fine.”

He poured from a pitcher. “I’m addicted to that damn tube... Ed Sullivan, Sid Caesar, and this Studio One — now that’s serious drama.”

“So is watching Jake La Motta catch Dauthille with a right.”

He came around, a martini with olive in either hand. “No frog is gonna send one of my people to the canvas.”

By “my people,” I wasn’t sure whether Charley meant an Italian or a mob-owned boxer — La Motta fit either category, after all.

We sat on the pink sofa opposite the massive TV console and he gestured toward it, with his martini. “What I’m afraid of is this Kefauver clown will be the next Uncle Miltie.”

“They’ve been televising some of these hearings.”

“Yeah, and ’cause of the response, all the New York hearings, after first of the year, are going nationwide!” He shook his head. “That’s why I can’t testify... Not that I have anything to hide, but the bad publicity... That I can’t abide.”

He set his martini on the coffee table and reached in a sportcoat pocket for a small round silver box, the lid of which he popped off; he selected two small pink pills and took them with a drink of martini.

“This bum ticker of mine,” he said, shaking his head. “Goddamn business pressures.”

Joey and his brother Rocco came in — Rocco had traded in his maroon robe and railroad cap for a dark brown sportcoat, lighter brown slacks, and a yellow shirt.

I nodded to Rocco, and he nodded back; he went behind the bar and came back with a bottle of beer. He and Joey sat on the adjacent sofa.

“What took you?” Charley asked Rocco, a faint edge of crossness in his voice.

Rocco’s ugly face got uglier. “That cunt — she got mouthy again. She’s fuckin’ worthless. I told her to pack her fuckin’ bags. She’s got half an hour and then I throw her down the fuckin’ stairs.”

Shaking his head, Joey said, “She used to be such a nice kid.”

Rocco sneered, shook his head once, and had a gulp of Blatz.

Charley sipped his martini, shrugged, and said, “Sooner or later they all wear out their welcome... Rock, we were just getting started, here. I explained to Nate how we don’t like this bad publicity.”

Rocco nodded, belched. “This traveling dog-and-pony show, it’s really just a sham, y’know. Kefauver don’t know his dick from a doughnut.”

“A sham?” I said.

“Don’t misunderstand my brother,” Charley said. “The senator is a sincere, honest man — but he’s a man, with weaknesses, or anyway... traits.”

“What kind of traits?”

“Well, he’s impulsive for one. Look at him, bull in the china shop, with this investigation. Not thinking about the political ramifications for his own party.”

“What I heard,” I said, “was he’s not coming to Chicago till after the election.”

Which was only a month and a few weeks away. This was an off-year national election, after all, and Kefauver’s fellow Democrat Senator Scott Lucas — a powerful man in Washington, the Senate majority leader — was up for re-election. And the Demos locally were running Captain Dan “Tubbo” Gilbert, chief investigator of the State’s Attorney’s office, for Cook County sheriff.

Both Lucas and Gilbert were bedfellows of local political boss Jake Arvey — which meant they were also bedfellows of the blond-haired art connoisseur sitting next to me.

“Also,” Charley was saying, “Kefauver’s ambitious. He wants to be the next president.”

“So you think this gangbuster stuff is just publicity-seeking.”

Rocco said, “Goddamn right.”

“Whatever the case, the more stable minds around Kefauver,” Charley said, “were either able to maneuver him, or talk reason to him. Anyway, even though he’s got staff poking around here, he postponed the Chicago hearings, yes, till after the election; he’s in Kansas City, now.”

“Truman must love that,” I said, thinking about the President’s own ties to convicted felon, Boss Tom Pendergast.

Charley was beaming at me; he hadn’t noticed I hadn’t touched my martini — I hate the things. “Now, Nate, I won’t insult you — I guess we know where you stand, if you get called to testify.”

I shrugged. “Nobody’s talked to me yet.”

“They’ll get around to you.”

I didn’t question how he knew this, I just said, “They’ll be wasting their time.”

Rocco sat forward and said, “You heard about this fifth amendment thing, ain’t you? Charley, tell him about this fifth amendment thing.”

Charley’s small mouth formed a smile large with condescension. “I believe our friend Mr. Heller knows his constitutional rights, Rock.”

Rocco said to me, “Even if they get us on contempt, for not answerin’? A few months and you’re on the street again.”

“Rocky,” Charley said, “Nate can decide for himself how to handle this unpleasantness.”

So that’s what this was about: getting my assurance that the Outfit had nothing to worry from me, if I testified.

Or so I thought, till Charley went on to say: “What we really want to talk to you about is this guy Drury, who works for you.”

“He doesn’t work for me anymore.”

“You let him go? Fired him?”

“That’s right.”

“When?”

“Recently.”

Charley thought about that, then sighed and said, “I understand you’re friends — you were on the department, together. He saved your life. That has to carry weight.”

“Bill is still my friend. But he’s his own man.”

“You need to talk to him. He’s making trouble. Settle him down.”

I gestured with an open hand. “I don’t carry that kind of weight with him. Nobody does.”

Charley’s eyes narrowed under the dark slashes of brow. “You could offer him his job back — at an increased salary, if he concentrates on his work for you. I could arrange to pay you the difference, every month.”

“That’s generous, Charley. But I don’t understand — if you’re not really worried about the Kefauver Committee—”

“I told you: it’s the bad publicity. This lunatic Drury, he’ll testify, he’ll bring up all kinds of ancient history, he’ll spin his yarns, and we’ll look like a bunch of gangsters.”

Can you imagine that?

“He’s a hard-headed Irishman,” I said. “Proud as hell and twice as stubborn — you can’t buy him, and you can’t scare him. And if you... do anything else, you’ll really have bad publicity.”

Rocco glared at me. And this time I didn’t feel like kidding him.

Charley looked unhappy, too, as he got up and poured himself another martini. Still over at the bar, he said, “What you’re implying is out of line, Nate. That’s the old school. This is not 1929.”

Joey said to Charley, as he was sitting back down, “Ask him about Frank.”

Charley sipped his fresh martini and said, “You ask him. Frank’s your friend.”

Joey swallowed and sat forward. “Nate, you must’ve seen Frank out in Hollywood.”

“Just the other night, actually. Why?”

Joey’s handsome face contorted as he said to me, “I can ask him, but what’s he gonna say? I mean, to me? Being who I am. What do you think?”

I said, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Joey held out open palms. “Where does Frank stand?”

“Oh. Well — he’s scared right now. The feds are squeezing him — you want bad publicity, try being a show business guy labeled a Red.”

“Never mind that,” Charley said. “What’s your opinion of Sinatra’s integrity?”

“I can’t see him selling you guys out,” I said.

Rocco asked, “Too scared?”

“No. He likes you guys. Respects you. You know how some people feel about movie stars? That’s how he feels about you.”

Charley thought about that, nodded, set his martini glass on the coffee table. “Appreciate your frankness, Nate. Your insights.” He checked his watch, then patted my shoulder. “Gotta chase you out, now — before my next appointment.”

When Charley stood, so did I, and his brothers. I shook hands with Charley and Rocco, and Joey walked me to the elevator.

“Thanks for standing up for Frank,” Joey said, in the entryway. “I’ll get you a ringside table, opening night.”

“Make it a booth,” I said.

Afternoon was turning to dusk, as I reached my car, parked across from the apartment house. I sat for a while, wondering if Drury had gotten his ass out of there yet. But I was also waiting to see who the next appointment was.

A heavy-set man in an expensive topcoat with a fur collar walked up the sidewalk to where George the doorman held the door open for him, like he was a regular. Maybe he was: the guy was Captain “Tubbo” Gilbert, candidate for Cook County sheriff.

I was chewing that over when the blonde showgirl with the black eye came out, wearing a pink long-sleeve sweater and pink slacks and carrying two big pink suitcases with a gray garment bag over her arm. I had a hunch her railroad cap wasn’t in either suitcase.

She was stumbling; she’d been crying. George looked like he might want to help her, but didn’t.

She must not have had a car of her own, because she hauled the suitcases to the corner and sat on them, like she was waiting for a bus. A cab might come by, eventually — maybe she’d called one. I knew I should mind my own business.

Instead, I called out, “Hey!”

She looked up and squinted across the street at me.

“You need a lift?” I asked.

She swallowed and nodded.

So I got out and went over and helped with her bags, and loaded them — and her — into my Olds.

As I headed back to the Loop — it was on the tail end of rush hour on the Outer Drive — she looked over at me, timidly, using big brown eyes that were beautiful even if they were bloodshot. “You... you’re not one of them, are you?”

I figured she meant, was I a mob guy?

“No,” I said, and hoped to hell I was right.