Chicago Confidential

5

The Stevens Hotel was hardly an out-of-the-way hole-in-the-wall where an investigator might discreetly interview informants. On Michigan Avenue between Balbo and Eighth, overlooking Grant Park and Lake Michigan, the massive, rococo hotel was the world’s largest, with its three thousand rooms, twenty-five stories and four finger-like skyscraper towers.

Still, it made some sense, Kefauver’s team camping out, here. Uncle Sam had a relationship with the Stevens, which had been used by the military during the war, for offices, training, and even billeting. And with all these rooms, all this activity — who knew how many conventions and conferences were going on in the hotel right now? — anybody could get lost in the crowd, or at least have an excuse for being here.

Though the Stevens was only a four-block walk from the Monadnock, a light rain encouraged me to hop a cab, which dropped me at the Michigan Avenue entry. A corridor of store-front windows opened into a two-story, ornate lobby bordered by yawningly wide staircases, leading to ballrooms and, no kidding, an ice-skating rink. Shaking the drizzle from my fedora, I strolled on into the vast white chamber, a world of marble pilasters, luxurious Louis XVI furnishings, and fluffy clouds drifting on a high, carved-plaster, gold-trimmed ceiling’s painted sky — what better setting for Chicago gangsters?

The elevators were to the left of the check-in counter, near an elegant sitting area of round button-tufted couches and overstuffed chairs. I spotted a small man in a brown suit and green snapbrim, seated in a chair between a couple of potted ferns, legs crossed exposing diamond-pattern socks over brown tasseled loafers. Though his identity was hidden by the Herald-American sports section, which he was holding high and close, something about the guy seemed familiar.

When I turned my back to this possible sentry — or spy — I continued to watch him in the polished bronze elevator door, to see if he peeked out over or around that sports section. He did not. Maybe I was just being paranoid — but that was okay, because I was, after all, a professional paranoid.

When I got off on the tenth floor, a short, burly-looking little guy — snappy, in a well-cut blue suit with blue-and-red striped tie and gray feathered hat — was waiting to get on. His hair was black and his eyes were like black buttons in a rumpled oval face made round by five o’clock-shadowed jowls.

I knew him and he knew me — and we both froze there, long enough for him to miss the elevator. We understood at once why we both were on the tenth floor of the Stevens.

“Well, hello, Jake,” I said, and offered my hand.

Jake Rubinstein’s grip was firm, but his smile wasn’t. “Been a long time, Nate. Since before the war, right?”

“Right. I thought you were in Dallas.”

“Yeah, yeah I still am.” He hitched his shoulders, Cagney-style, only without the confidence. “I had, uh... business back here.”

We both knew what kind of business — the Kefauver variety — but that went unstated.

Jake punched the DOWN button, and said, “So is Barney in town?”

“No, he and Cathy are in L.A. They got remarried.”

“Ah, that’s great. I heard he shook that monkey off his back. That’s great, too. Gutsy little bastard.”

This strained exchange referred to our mutual pal, Barney Ross, who had come back from the war with a morphine habit that he managed to kick, going public with his problem. All three of us had grown up in the Lawndale district, near Maxwell Street, and we’d all been little street hustlers as kids, only Barney went on to be a world’s champ prizefighter, I became a cop, and Jake a strong-arm goon and bagman for local unions. A few years ago Jake had moved to Dallas, where (among other things) he managed the Silver Spur, a nightclub.

The elevator made a return stop, and Jake and I bid our goodbyes, and he went on his way, and I on mine.

Once you got away from the area around the elevators, the halls of the posh hotel got as tight as a train car. I took a right down to the door of the corner suite where I’d been told to come. I knocked on a gold-edged ivory door.

After peephole inspection, the door swung open and revealed Drury’s fellow exile, ex-police captain Tim O’Conner, a lanky, blue-eyed, sandy-blond Irishman whose narrow, handsomely sharp-featured face was mildly ravaged by pock-marks (cheeks) and drink (nose).

“Doorman, now, Tim?” I asked, as he ushered me in. “That the only job available to an ex-copper these days?”

“I’m lucky anybody’ll have me.” Like Drury, O’Conner was well dressed for a cop, his off-the-rack brown suit livened up by a pale yellow shirt and dark yellow tie. “Actually, these gentlemen thought you might warm up to a familiar face.”

I stopped him in the hall-like entryway of the suite, off of which were closets and a bathroom. “Are you working for the committee?”

He took my raincoat and hung it up; I kept my hat, but took it off.

“In a roundabout way,” O’Conner said. “This local lawyer working with the committee, Kurnitz, I hired on as his investigator. He’s here, you’ll meet him, Kurnitz, I mean.”

“I’ve met him before.”

Kurnitz was an eccentric, full-of-himself lawyer in the Loop who did a lot of criminal work, both for white-collar criminals, like embezzlers, and blue-collar crooks, like heist men. He didn’t mouthpiece for the mob, though, which explained the committee using him — a guy with connections in the underworld who wasn’t connected.

O’Conner was saying, “The committee didn’t want to hire either Bill or me, because we’re controversial figures. We were fired off the police force, after all.”

“I’d think getting fired off the crookedest goddamn force in the country would be a glowing recommendation.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re getting the job done.”

O’Conner escorted me into the living room area of the nicely appointed suite, where my hosts were waiting. A sofa along the window overlooked Grant Park and the lake — a breathtaking view made irrelevant by the gray afternoon — with several easy chairs pulled up close, a coffee table between... a nice, cozy setting for an inquisition.

As we approached, the three men who’d been seated together on that couch rose as one. All three had dark-rimmed glasses and dark hair and receding hairlines — they might have been brothers.

Or maybe the Three Stooges — only all of them were Moes, albeit balding ones.

The one nearest me extended a hand — he was tall, lean, but sturdy-looking with an oblong face that had slits for eyes and a slightly wider slit for a mouth, which right now were combining to form a stern expression. Fiftyish, he wore a brown suit and a darker brown tie. “George Robinson, Mr. Heller, associate counsel. Thank you for joining us.”

It was a firm handshake, and his words were cordial enough; but his manner made me think of a high school principal regarding a problem student.

“Rudolph Halley, Mr. Heller,” said the man next to Robinson — a head shorter, a good ten years younger — in a high-pitched voice laced with a lisp. “Chief Counsel.” A compact character in a blue suit with a blue-and-red bow tie, Halley had a moon face, its roundness offset by a cleft chin and hard dark eyes.

“Mr. Halley,” I said, accepting his aggressive handshake. Then I turned to the remaining man, and said, “Mr. Kurnitz,” nodding to the lawyer, who was at right, standing slightly apart from the other two.

“Mr. Heller,” he said, nodding back, in a well-modulated courtroom baritone. He wore a gray suit, nicely cut, and a blue-and-gray tie, and would have been handsome if his intense brown eyes hadn’t been too large for his face even before his eyeglasses magnified them.

They returned to the couch and I took a comfortable armchair opposite them, with the coffee table — piled with various files and notebooks — between us. Water glasses and a coffee cup also rested on the glass top. The grayness of the afternoon filled the windows behind them like a bleak expressionist painting.

O’Conner, standing near the other easy chair but not taking it, asked, “Anybody want anything?” To me he explained, “There’s coffee and ice water and soft drinks.”

“No pretzels?” I asked.

Nobody but me found that funny.

Robinson and Halley asked for refills of their water glasses, and Kurnitz requested another coffee, black. I asked for a Coke. O’Conner hustled over to the wet bar and filled everybody’s orders. Glad to see the ex-cop had a significant job here on the Crime Committee.

“Mr. Heller, you’ve had an interesting and varied career,” Robinson said. He managed to make that sound like an insult.

Sitting forward, Halley said, “You can understand why we would like to have your cooperation.”

“I’m here,” I said with a shrug.

O’Conner was in the process of serving everybody.

“You left the police force, locally,” Robinson said, referring to a spiral notebook, “in December 1932, not long after an incident involving Frank Nitti.”

“Two crooked cops tried to kill him,” I said. “They expected me to lie for them. I didn’t.”

“You testified to that fact in April 1933,” Halley said. Unlike Robinson, he didn’t refer to any notes, and I guess I was supposed to be impressed.

O’Conner — after serving me last, handing me a water glass with ice cubes and Coke — settled into the easy chair at my right. He flashed me a nervous smile; he hadn’t gotten himself anything to drink.

“I don’t have anything to add, where that incident is concerned,” I said. “It’s all part of the public record — my testimony speaks for itself. Besides, that’s ancient history, isn’t it? Frank Nitti is dead.”

“Killed himself,” Robinson said, in a “crime does not pay” fashion.

I shifted in my seat. “Why do you need to ask me things you already know the answers to? If you have the FBI file on me—”

“We don’t have your file, Mr. Heller,” Halley said. That nasal voice of his was weirdly hypnotic. “J. Edgar Hoover has gone on record with his opinion that the Mafia is a myth — we are receiving no cooperation whatsoever from the FBI, which is why we have to work so hard investigating, on our own steam.”

I kept a poker face, but relief was flooding through me. I knew for a fact — because just last year, I’d been confronted with it in an interrogation in Washington, D.C. — that the FBI had a file on me as thick as the Chicago phone book. Once, a long time ago, I had told J. Edgar to go fuck himself (that’s not a paraphrase, by the way) and he had ever since taken a personal interest in my welfare. I had been expecting Kefauver’s advance team, here, to have that handy little reference tool to guide them.

“We do have the cooperation of the IRS,” Robinson said. “And Frank J. Wilson gives you high marks.”

Wilson had been one of the IRS agents who had nailed Capone; until recently, he’d been head of the Secret Service, another Treasury Department operation.

“That’s nice to hear,” I said.

“Eliot Ness also regards you highly,” Robinson said, referring to the former T-man who had been key in the Capone case. “He indicates you helped him, and effectively, on several matters in Cleveland, during his years as Public Safety Director.”

I said nothing.

He went on: “You are aware, certainly, that we’re concentrating on illegal gambling, in general, and the racing wire racket, in particular.”

“I am.” I grinned at him, which seemed to unsettle him. “And just why is that, Mr. Robinson?”

Robinson frowned in genuine confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Why gambling? Why aren’t you dealing with narcotics, or loan sharking, or prostitution? Or perhaps the relationship between machine politics and the mob? Or maybe the criminal infiltration of labor unions?”

Robinson looked at a page of his spiral notebook. “We have to begin somewhere, Mr. Heller. Gambling is our focus.”

“Gambling is a safe target, you mean — you don’t step on as many toes, in an election year. You can play Joe Friday, and look good, and still not get yourselves or your political parties in any trouble.”

Halley had been sipping his coffee; he set the cup down in its saucer, clatteringly. His nasal lisp notched up, in volume and indignation. “Mr. Heller, if that’s going to be your attitude, we won’t do you the courtesy of meeting with you in private. We’ll send you a subpoena and put you on public display with the rest of the hooligans.”

I saluted him with my Coke glass. “Oh, this is a courtesy? Five’ll get you ten — hypothetically speaking — there’s a mob watchdog in the lobby keeping track of every informant coming up the elevator to see you. Charley Fischetti and Jake Guzik and Paul Ricca and Tony Accardo and assorted ‘hooligans’ will all know Nate Heller was meeting with the Kefauver quiz kids, this afternoon. And I’ll have some explaining to do.”

“You have some explaining to do, right now,” Robinson said. The slit of his mouth curled in contempt. “You were James Ragen’s bodyguard the day he was shotgunned in the Chicago streets, were you not? In June 1946?”

“Yeah. I was Mayor Cermak’s bodyguard, too, and Huey Long’s.” I took a swig of Coke, and swallowed obnoxiously. “How’s that for a track record?”

“I’m afraid your point eludes me,” Robinson said.

“My point is, I do that sort of thing for a living... not always very well, obviously. It doesn’t mean I’m a mobster or that I have any particular insights into the breed. Look, I testified at the Ragen inquest; it’s all in the public record.”

“Ragen was your wife’s uncle, I understand.”

“She was my girl friend, at the time. She’s my ex-wife, now.”

O’Conner said to me, “Bill Drury thinks the way to bring the racing wire mobsters down is to crack Ragen’s murder. After all, Ragen was murdered so the Capone crowd could take over his racing wire business.”

I didn’t respond; I mean, it wasn’t a question.

Frustrated, O’Conner pressed on: “Back in ’46, you and Bill Drury searched out the eyewitnesses, Nate. You helped Bill!”

“We did find the eyeball witnesses,” I admitted, “and they ID’d the shooters — a trio of West Side bookies.”

Robinson read from his notebook: “David Finkel, Joseph Leonard, and William Yaras. Yaras is still a Chicago resident, and Mr. Drury would very much like to see him brought to justice. The whereabouts of Finkel and Leonard are unknown, though I’m sure Mr. Drury would like to see them brought to justice, as well.”

It was too late for Bill Drury or this committee or anybody short of God Almighty to bring Davey Finkel and Blinkey Leonard to justice, because I already had. I’d shot them both on a lonely moon-washed beach on Pacific Coast Highway, the night they blew Ben Siegel away.

But I decided not to share that tidbit with the Crime Committee’s representatives.

“The witnesses recanted,” I said. “Except for the one that was murdered.”

Robinson blinked. “Doesn’t that make you... angry?”

“It makes me... cautious.”

“Mr. Heller, do you really want us to call you as a witness?” Halley lisped. “Wouldn’t you prefer to help us, behind the scenes?”

“Gentlemen, call me to testify if you like. My answers will fall into two categories: taking the fifth amendment, against self-incrimination; and invoking attorney-client privilege.”

Halley reacted like I’d thrown a drink in his face. “You’re not an attorney!”

“Individuals you might assume are clients of mine are, in most instances, actually the clients of attorneys I represent... The attorney-client privilege pertains.”

All three of them were lawyers; none of them disagreed with me.

Kurnitz, though — who had stayed silent, thus far — seemed vaguely amused; his arms were folded — he was leaning back. “Where do you stand, Mr. Heller, where these gangsters are concerned?”

“You do criminal law around these parts, Mr. Kurnitz. I would imagine you just do your best to serve your clients’ interests and keep your head above these murky Chicago waters.”

Kurnitz smiled, arching an eyebrow.

“We can seriously embarrass you, Mr. Heller,” Robinson said, “if you force us to.”

“Mr. Robinson,” I said, “let me explain a couple things. First, the more sleazy and connected to gangsters you make me sound, the more desirable and glamourous I’ll seem to potential clients. Second, I’m a decorated veteran of the recent war, a Bronze Star winner. Maybe you boys would like to be embarrassed.”

“You were mustered out on a Section Eight,” Halley said.

I sat forward. “I was honorably discharged, after fighting on Guadalcanal — what’s your war record, Four-Eyes?”

Halley huffed, “I served my country,” but he didn’t say how.

“But thanks for reminding me,” I said. “I had amnesia, induced by battle fatigue, what they used to call shell shock. How’s that for a reason not to be able to recall this and that?”

“You’re a very unpleasant man, Mr. Heller,” Halley said.

“You’re not exactly Norman Vincent Peale yourself,” I said, and got up. “Thanks for the Coke... By the way, that fella out in the hall, getting on the elevator when I arrived?”

They all frowned, but they knew who I was talking about.

“Jake Rubinstein?” I reminded them. “Is he the kind of informant you’re counting on?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern,” Robinson said.

“Just be careful, is all. Whoever advised you to fly that guy in from Dallas, take a close look at.”

Halley sneered. “And why is that, Mr. Heller?”

That sneer deserved a smirk in return. “Here’s one free tidbit I will give you. My understanding is Jake is the liaison between the local mob and the Dallas boys. I’ve known Rubinstein for years... or, what is it he’s calling himself these days?”

“Jack Ruby,” Kurnitz offered.

The other two lawyers glared at him.

“A rose by any other name,” I said. “Never take a guy like that at face value. Any ‘informing’ Jake’s doing is likely a cover for what he can find out about what you fellas are up to.”

“That’s the chance we take when we deal with these kind of people,” Robinson said stiffly. “By necessity, informers come from the ranks of the gangsters themselves.”

Pompous ass.

“Swell,” I said, “but Jake, or Jack, is an old union goon, with strong ties to Captain Dan Gilbert — you know... Tubbo? Do you really want somebody from Tubbo’s camp pretending to be your buddy?”

Robinson and Halley exchanged glances.

Kurnitz said, “You must be aware, then, that your friend Mr. Drury is investigating Gilbert.”

“Sure, hoping to expose him before the election — but my knowing that isn’t important. The key thing is, Tubbo knows.” I made a sweeping gesture with my fedora, then put it on, saying, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Lots of luck in your fine effort to wipe out gambling.”

O’Conner didn’t walk me out. I had a feeling he’d probably given me a pretty good build-up — friend of Drury’s, ex-cop who’d stood up against mobsters — and I’d made him look like an idiot.

When I got off the elevator in the lobby, the guy in the green snapbrim was still reading the Herald-American sports section, but he had moved to one of the round couches. I settled in beside him.

“I thought that was you,” I told the guy.

Sam Giancana looked over at me from behind the paper, lowered it to his lap, and under the brim of the green hat, his gray-complected oval face, with its lumpy beak and close-set mournful eyes, gave me no clue to how he was reacting.

They called the little hoodlum Mooney because of his crazy unpredictability. The former chauffeur/bodyguard of Tony Accardo, and Paul Ricca’s likely heir as Chicago mob boss, Giancana was a quietly self-confident psychopath.

He smiled. “That’s what I like about you, Heller.”

“What is, Sam?”

“That you’re not afraid of me.”

“Maybe I’m just not afraid of you in the lobby of the Stevens at lunchtime.”

He laughed; it was a raspy, death rattle of a laugh. “That’s the other thing I like: you’re a funny guy. Natural fuckin’ wit.”

What he really liked about me was my discretion. I had done a job for him a couple of years ago, getting an embarrassing photograph back. He had paid well, and hadn’t forgotten I’d done right by him.

Also, he was probably comfortable with me because we were both Westside boys, though he wasn’t a Maxwell Street kid like Barney and me (and Jack Ruby); he was a product of the Near Northside’s infamous Patch, and a veteran of the vicious street gang, the 42s. His legend was based upon having endured an abusive father until he finally grew up, beat the shit out of the old man, and took over the household.

I said, “I hope you don’t mind my sitting down to say hello.”

“Not at all.” He folded the paper and put it next to him on the tufted couch. “You weren’t upstairs long. Having a quick one? What’s her name?”

“Kefauver.”

He twitched a sick smile. “I didn’t think ‘she’ was in town.”

“No, but her sisters are.”

“Good-looking girls?”

Now I twitched a smile. “Sam, don’t ask me to tell you who I talked to up there.”

“Did I ask? I don’t remember asking.”

“You see, the way this works, Sam, is I don’t inform on anybody, on either side. I’m not playing — I’m not even in this game.”

One shoulder shrugged. “If you don’t want to tell me you talked to Robinson and Halley and Kurnitz and Drury’s pal O’Conner, that’s fine. But I would like to know what you told them.”

I shrugged both mine. “I told them if they’re dumb enough to call me as a witness, my amnesia will recur. Or I’ll plead the fifth, or attorney-client privilege.”

The cold eyes were studying me. “That’s all you told them?”

“That’s all... Well — you saw Rubinstein, I take it?”

“Am I gonna not notice another Westsider? I saw the prick.”

“Well, I told them Jake went way back with Tubbo, and if he told ’em anything, they should consider the source. And that’s all the help I gave them,”

“That’s all?”

“That’s the boat.”

He nodded slowly. “I appreciate this. Your frankness.”

“Can I ask a favor?”

“Ask.”

“I told Charley Fischetti I wasn’t going to cooperate with these clowns; I think he knows I can be trusted. Sam, would you make sure Guzik knows? And Accardo, and Ricca?”

“I can do that.”

“I don’t need anybody thinking I’m a problem.”

“Like your friend Drury is a problem?”

“Like that.”

“What about your friend Drury?”

“He’s still my friend, Sam. But you probably heard, I fired him.”

“I did hear. That’s for real?”

“That’s for real.”

“Okay. Appreciate it.”

I knew this friendly, even charming little man could turn on a dime, but I had to risk it...

“Sam — these guys, these Crime Committee guys, you know they’re not worth killing anybody over.”

He had his shark eyes fixed on me. “What are you trying to say, Heller?”

“Bill Drury — and Tim O’Conner, for that matter — are just a couple of cops trying to get their badges back. Bill’s still flogging the Ragen shooting. Two of the shooters are long since missing, and the other one, well... that’s your world, not mine.”

“Seems like yesterday’s news to me.”

“I’m just saying, these committee guys — they got no power of arrest. The FBI wants no part of them. All Kefauver can do is turn what they find over to local law enforcement. So suppose they come up with some stuff, and then what? Turn the evidence over to Tubbo Gilbert?”

Giancana laughed, once. “You make a good point. But these things sometimes got a way of getting out of hand.”

“Well, Frank Nitti used to say, ‘Don’t stir up the heat.’ That’s good advice, Sam. ’Cause if this turns bloody, all bets are off.”

Kefauver wouldn’t even have been in the crime-busting business if somebody — probably Charley Fischetti — hadn’t ordered the slaying of slimy politico Charley Binaggio in Kansas City, last April. Binaggio had failed to deliver a post-’48-election wide-open K.C. to his out-of-town mob investors. The classic gangland hit — Binaggio and his top goon were found with two bullets in the head each, in the straight-row “two deuces” formation that signified a mob welsher’s ultimate payoff — made embarrassing national headlines... in part because the bodies were found in the local Democratic headquarters under Harry Truman’s picture.

“Are you saying if Drury has an accident,” Sam asked, “your attitude toward testifying might change?”

“Draw your own conclusions, Sam.”

Giancana reached out and gripped me by the arm. He was smiling and his voice hadn’t changed tone... he was still his charming self... letting his words convey the menace.

“You want to be careful, Heller, about threatening me. I like you, you’re a smart guy, and I like that smart mouth; it’s cute. But you don’t want to fuckin’ threaten me.”

I don’t know where he came from; I don’t know if he was staking out the lobby himself, or was on his way up to join his friend O’Conner with the Kefauver advance team.

But suddenly Bill Drury was yanking Sam Giancana to his feet, Giancana’s hat flying off, his grip on my arm popping open, just like the gangster’s eyes were popping when he saw the brawny Drury — in topcoat and homburg — right on top of him, all but screaming in his face.

“Are you getting rough with my friend?” Drury asked Giancana, gripping him by a bicep, looming over him.

I got up, saying, “Jesus, Bill — back off!”

Drury’s flushed Irish puss made a stark contrast with Giancana’s grayish Sicilian pallor. “You don’t want to get rough with my friends, Mooney.”

Giancana’s teeth were bared, like a growling dog. “You’re not a cop anymore, you dumb mick!”

Drury clutched Giancana’s other bicep, holding it as if to shake him. “I’m a licensed private investigator, Mooney. I’m an officer of the court. Are you packing? Care to stand for a frisk?”

I grabbed onto Drury and pulled him away from Giancana, whose eyes were wide and wild. I said, “Don’t do me any goddamn favors, Bill!”

People in the lobby, guests getting off the elevator, were noticing this, some frozen, others moving quickly on, but all of them wide-eyed and murmuring.

I turned to Giancana. “Sam, I apologize.”

His suit rumpled from Drury’s hands, Giancana was breathing hard, trembling with rage. He wasn’t looking at me: his crazed glazed gaze was strictly on the grinning Drury.

Giancana’s voice was soft — a terrible kind of softness: “You ain’t at fault, Heller. It’s your friend who has the problem.”

With me standing between them, my arms out like a ref who broke up a basketball court scuffle, Drury shouted at Giancana. “You’re goddamn right! I’m your problem, and all of you Sicilian sons of bitches better pack your bags, ’cause you’re either going to jail or back home to the motherland!”

Giancana picked up his hat, dusted it off.

I reached a hand out and said, “Sam...”

Snugging the snapbrim down over his bald pate, Giancana said, “Heller — you’re not to blame. You’re not to blame.”

And then the little gangster made a beeline through the white marble lobby, toward the Michigan Avenue exit, leaving his sports section behind.

Drury looked at me with concern. “Are you okay, Nate?”

“Am I okay? Are you drunk? Are you fucking crazy? That’s the looniest homicidal son of a bitch in the city! If you want to die, that’s your business — leave me the hell out of it!”

A hotel employee approached, a youngish man in a blue Stevens blazer. “Gentlemen — I’m afraid we can’t have a scene... You’ll have to leave.”

Scowling, Drury got out his badge — his P.I. badge — and flashed it and said, “I’m a cop. This is police business. You just get back to your desk.”

“Yessir,” the hotel guy said, and scurried.

I sat back down on the round couch, and flopped back, stunned.

Drury plopped down next to me, grinning, pleased with himself. “They’re all cowards at heart... Are you all right, Nate?”

“No, I’m not all right! What the hell was the idea?”

“That bastard was getting tough with you.”

“Do I look like I need you to defend me? If I want saved, I’ll go to a goddamn revival meeting. Jesus! Stay away from me, Bill — just stay away. I don’t want to be in your line of fire.”

Drury was spreading his hands. “What? What did I do?”

“You’re not a cop, anymore, Bill. They can shoot at you now — get it?”

He patted beneath his arm, where his shoulder-holstered .38 lived. “Let ’em try.”

“Oh, they will,” I said. “They will.”

He waved me off. “Don’t be an old woman.”

“The point is,” I said, getting up, “to be an old man.”

And I left him there to ponder that — though I doubted he would.