Heaven Ran Last

Chapter V

After she left I took another shower and went across the Loop to a bookie’s where there was generally a card game going. I didn’t have much else to do and sometimes ideas come to me when I’m playing cards.

Four guys were playing poker at a corner table, so I moved in to make it five. I knew the others: horse players, touts, or anything else that would turn a fast buck.

There wasn’t much action and I played a couple of hours, staying about even and not paying much attention to the game. I was wrapped up with angles on how to make the plan I had outlined to Alice look natural. It had to look natural or the coppers wouldn’t buy it.

About five I figured it was time to go back and get ready for my date with the blonde. I told the other players it was my last hand.

I was sitting on the dealer’s right. The man on his left opened for two dollars and the next hand raised. Artie Nolan was next and after a look at his cards he said, “What the hell,” and threw them in.

I picked up my cards one at a time. There was a deuce, a four, a tray, and a six — all clubs. I felt a nice little buzz of excitement.

I had four clubs, the two, three, four and six. Any club would give me a flush, and the five of clubs would make it a straight flush.

I put the last card in with the other four and shuffled them for a while. Then I spread them out slowly and took a look. There was the deuce. The trey. The six. The four. I moved the four of clubs real slow and took a peek at the last card. The five of clubs.

Somebody said, “Stop sweating them out. It’s four bucks to you. What d’ya say?”

With my straight flush I raised, of course. The dealer raised, too, and the two other guys called. I raised the dealer once again and he called.

One of the other guys must have figured we were trying to scare him out because he raised, and then there were a couple of more raises before all the hands were called and we were ready to draw cards.

The dealer was pat. The guy next to him took two cards, trying to help threes, I guess, and the next hand drew one card and I figured him for a straight, open at both ends, or maybe a four card flush.

I was pat. The betting was slow after we drew cards because of the two pat hands, but the two guys who drew cards helped their hands, so it wasn’t too bad.

It was a screwy deal, all right. The dealer had a pat full house; the next guy filled up an ace-high straight and the last man drew a pair to his threes and came up with another full house.

We saw all this after the betting was over and we put our hands down. I showed them my straight flush and picked up the money. There was seventy-eight bucks in the pot, which wasn’t hard to take.

The dealer tossed his cards on the table and said, “You do all right. A straight flush. I’ve heard of such things.”

I laughed. That was the way I felt. Lucky all the way down the line. I knew luck was going to be with me all the way — and with some to spare.

I put the bills away and got into my coat and hat.

“Too bad I can’t stick around,” I said. “I like the way you guys donate.”

The dealer said, “What’s the hurry?”

“What do you think would take me away from a soft touch like this?”

“A babe? Who is she?”

“That little blonde that works in the hotel restaurant. Know her?”

“I’ve seen her. Nice looking kid. How long you been chasing her?”

I grinned. “It’s the other way around. She’s been hugging my heels for months.”

It was an angle I hadn’t thought of before, but I realized now it would be a good idea to plant the idea that I’d been going around with the blonde for some time. It was a small thing by itself, but if anybody started asking questions around town they might find out I’d started dating her just a week or so before the big blow-up. Unless I could plant it otherwise.

So I said, “I been taking her out for a couple months now. She’s a good kid. Hell, I might even let her make an honest man out of me.”

They all laughed at that and then one of the guys, Artie Nolan, said, “Johnny, what ever happened to that dark-haired baby you used to run around with?”

The remark didn’t amount to anything, but I turned cold all over. This was the kind of crack that could grow into something serious.

I said, “Which one? You mean that babe who used to come in from Detroit?”

“I don’t know where she came from. I saw her with you a time or two. Out North, I think. She was tall, beautiful gams. Too bad she only had two of them.”

He meant Alice. I said, “She was a dancer. Used to work in a joint on State Street. Her name was Lola. I think she married some guy from Jersey. Probably got an apartment full of kids by now.”

“Yeah, she looked like a dancer,” Nolan said. “Real classy legs.”

“Well,” the dealer said impatiently, “are we going to play cards or sit around and talk about dames?”

“I got to be going,” I said. “Thanks for the contribution, boys. Take it easy.”

“Be good, Johnny.”

I went back to my room. It was about five-twenty then so I took a quick shower and changed my clothes. I dressed carefully because I wanted to impress this blonde right from the start.

I had a new gray gabardine suit that set me back a hundred and fifty bucks and it looked every penny of it. I wore that with a pearl gray shirt and a tie with a picture on it of a guy throwing a rope at a cow. It was one of those hand-painted ties and it cost like hell.

All the time I was dressing, my mind kept turning things over. The little brush at the card game made me nervous. If something slipped and the coppers figured it was a frame they might start nosing around and they could run into a guy like Artie Nolan who remembered seeing me with Alice. That would give them the tie-in.

I made myself a drink, lit a cigarette and sat down to think things over. If it worked the way I figured, there was nothing to worry about. Frank would come barging in, find Lesser with Alice, and shoot him quick — and dead.

That would be that. The cops would have an open-and-shut case. Murder is murder and it’s no different because the guy you kill happened to be cozying with your wife. You might get away with that in books but it doesn’t work in courtrooms. Frank wouldn’t get the chair — particularly if it was jury trial — but they’d send him away for a nice stretch.

What the hell was there to worry about?

I felt better then, even though I didn’t have all the details figured out. But they’d come. They would have to come.

After a while I went downstairs to pick up the blonde. She wasn’t around, but one of the other girls told me she was getting ready and would be out in a few minutes.

I sat down at a table and smoked a cigarette, not thinking much of anything until she came out of the powder room and walked over to where I was sitting.

She had on a white print dress, pleated across the skirt. Her make-up was on nice and even and the way her blonde curls were fixed close to her head made her look about sixteen years old. She was cute, all right. Nice little body, pretty legs, lots of make-up. She didn’t look cheap exactly, but she looked like what she was — a cute little waitress, out for a big time.

She smiled at me, showing even little teeth.

“I’m sorry I was late, but I was kind of rushed at the last minute,” she said.

“Think nothing of it,” I said, smiling. “Waiting for you is a good deal.”

She liked that, I could tell. The guys she knew probably never talked that way.

I took her by the arm and we went outside. I was taking her to the Palmer House so there was no point in using my car.

It was a hot night and the street was crowded with people on their way home and others looking for a place’ to eat. There was a lot of traffic and noise, so there wasn’t any use in trying to talk.

We waited under the canopy of the hotel while the doorman got us a cab. When one stopped we got in and I told the driver to take us to the Palmer House.

She looked over at me and smiled self-consciously. “I wish I’d known this morning I was going to the Palmer House. I’d have dressed different.”

“What for? You look swell.”

“I should have worn stockings,” she said. “A girl shouldn’t go out to dinner at a nice place without stockings.”

She looked down at her shoes. They were white, open-toed pumps that showed her red toenails. She had on an ankle bracelet and some kind of leg make-up. Her legs were pretty and it didn’t matter whether she wore stockings or not and she knew it as well as I did. She just wanted me to look at them.

The air was cool and fresh in the Palmer House lobby. We went up the steps to the Empire Room.

The head waiter smiled and said hello and led us to a good table at the edge of the dance floor. A bus boy put glasses of water and napkins in front of us and a waiter brought over the wine menu. She wanted a Tom Collins and I had a Martini and pretty soon we were sitting with drinks in front of us, looking at each other across a two foot table. She sipped her drink and looked at me over the edge of the glass.

She said: “You could have knocked me over with a feather when you asked me to go out today. Honestly, it was the last thing in the world I expected.”

“Don’t give me that. A girl like you shouldn’t be surprised when somebody wants to take her out. You should be surprised if they didn’t.”

We talked a little more, but she was a little embarrassed. She couldn’t figure out what I wanted and she didn’t want to be too agreeable until she knew what I had in mind.

The waiter came back and we ordered some food. The headwaiter was there to see that everything was all right. He said hello to the blonde and smiled at her as if she came in every night.

She got a kick out of that. She smiled back at him and acted damn near like she wanted him to sit down and have a drink with us.

After dinner we talked for a while and then I took her to a night club where they had a big name comedian and a pretty good floor show. This was Wednesday and about twelve o’clock she said she’d better be getting home because she had to work the next day.

We walked over to get my car and I drove out to where she lived, about the thirty hundred block on the North side, in a two-story frame house her father owned. They lived on the first floor and rented out the second floor to some of her old man’s relatives. Her mother had died when she was just a kid and she lived alone with her father.

The neighborhood was one of those respectable, lower-class districts, where everybody sits out on the porch in their stockinged feet after supper. The men smoke black pipes and the women, who seem to be pregnant the year ’round, just sit there and rock.

I knew that kind of neighborhood and I knew the people because I came from that kind of street. You go to church on Sunday, you play ball in the streets and in the summertime the firemen come around and open up a hydrant and give all the kids a bath.

We sat outside in the car and smoked a cigarette apiece and we didn’t talk. Finally I tossed my cigarette away and looked at her. “I don’t want to keep you up, honey,” I said. “You’ve got to be up pretty early.”

She looked at me in a peculiar way. “All right. I’ll go in.”

She got out and I walked to the front porch with her. I knew what she was thinking.

I caught her arm as she started up the steps.

“Wait a minute, honey. Are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad,” she said. “But it’s funny. A guy takes a girl out and acts like he likes her and spends a lot of money and then doesn’t even try to kiss her.”

She was facing me and I could see her pretty clear in the light from the street lamp. She didn’t look mad; she looked confused and a little like a kid about to cry.

“I feel different about you,” I said. “I like you in another kind of way.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I hardly know myself, but you’ve hit me hard, honey. How about tomorrow night?”

“Well, if you want to see me you can.”

“I want to. How about the same time, same place?”

“That’s fine, Johnny,” she said, and she looked at me, waiting for me to do something.

I didn’t do anything so finally she said, “Good night,” in a choked voice and went up the steps.

I waited until she was in the house, then I got back in the car and drove down town. I went up to my room and mixed a drink and stretched out on the bed.

All I could think about was Alice. I wondered what she was doing.

The next day I worked and caught up on my bets. My luck had swung around the other way and it wasn’t so good. I was still ahead of the game though, and bad streaks never last forever.

The night I picked up the blonde and took her to dinner and then made a stop at the Chez Paree. We had a table within spit-ball distance of a lot of characters who make the papers every day or so for being short on their income tax or having drunken rows with their wives in the middle of some hotel lobby. I told the blonde their names and her eyes opened wide.

She was impressed and for the rest of the time we were there she kept one eye on them like they were something that would grow mushrooms out of their ears.

I took her home pretty early and I kissed her a few times in the car. She seemed happy about that, but it was all pretty mild. Maybe that’s what she liked.

That was on a Thursday night. She had to stay home Friday night but I made a date for Saturday to take her to the track. That was her day off and she’d never seen a race.

When I got home that night I was worried and nervous. I hadn’t talked to Alice in a couple of days and it had me up in the air.

Friday morning at ten o’clock I called her. I didn’t have anything much to say, but I had to know how things were going. When she came to the phone, I said, “Johnny. Anything new?”

“I was going to call you at noon,” she said. “Something’s happened. Where can I see you?”

I thought for a minute. “There’s a bar on Jackson, just the other side of State, called Murphy’s. There’s a bar in front and some booths in back. I’ll be in one of the booths at one o’clock. All right?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Okay, see you.”

She hung up and I sat there for a while trying to figure out what could have happened. I lit a cigarette and turned a lot of thoughts over in my head. A million things could have happened. Whatever it was it was something important. I could tell that from her voice.

At one o’clock I was sitting in Murphy’s. The back part of the place was dark and there wasn’t anybody else in the place except an old guy in a wrinkled linen suit drinking a beer.

I ordered a beer and it was still in front of me when she came in about ten after one. She saw me right away and came over and sat down, facing me across the narrow wooden table.

We looked at each other a moment, not saying anything. Our hands were on the table, almost touching. She looked the way I liked her to look. A little tense and with that hard streak in her showing through.

“What is it?” I said.

“We’re leaving town Sunday night for three weeks,” she said. “We’re going to a cottage in Wisconsin for a vacation and then he’s coming back to his job.”

“When did all this happen?”

“Yesterday. He’s already made the arrangements.” She looked down at her hands and then she shot a quick glance at me. “What news do you have?”

“None. I haven’t got it figured out yet.”

“You’d better get busy.”

“This kind of thing can’t be rushed, baby. Why don’t you tell him to go to hell? Tell him you’ve work at the office you can’t leave.”

“He wouldn’t stand for that now, Johnny.” She looked down at the table and when she looked up again her eyes were wet and shining. “Johnny, I’m depending on you. Don’t let him take me away.”

“You’re not going, baby,” I said. I put my hand over hers. “I’ll get you out.”

And right then it came to me. It came just like the first idea, all in one piece, put together and ready to go.

She must have seen it in my face because she leaned forward quickly. “What is it, Johnny?”

“This Wisconsin deal is perfect. We couldn’t have hit on anything better.” I leaned closer to her and shot a look around the room. The guy in the wrinkled suit had finished his beer and gone. We were all alone but I cut my voice down anyway.

“How have you done with Lesser?”

“Just as you told me.”

“Has it worked?”

“Yes, it has. I had a drink with him last night before I went home. He seemed even more interested than usual today. I tried to give him the impression that the first night I had free would be a party for both of us.”

“Perfect. Now tomorrow you’re going to tell him your husband is going out of town Sunday night.”

“But I’m going too, Johnny.”

“Listen to me baby. Tell him exactly that. Tell him you’d like to see him Sunday night at your apartment for a drink. And make sure he gets the idea there’s more than a drink waiting for him. Can you handle that?”

“I think I can. I can get him to come, but what good will it do?”

“I’m getting to that,” I said. “Now you’re supposed to go with Frank Sunday night. How’re you going?”

“By train.”

“Has he got the tickets yet?”

“No, it isn’t necessary to get them in advance. It’s a night train and seldom crowded.”

“What time does it leave?”

“Seven-thirty, railroad time.”

“That’s eight-thirty, city time.” I thought fast, figuring out time angles. She was watching me, her eyes shining.

“Now,” I said, “you get to work on Lesser this afternoon. Don’t wait till tomorrow.”

“I’ll do it, if you say so Johnny, but I can’t see what good it will do.”

“Here’s what I’ve worked out. I want you to have Lesser come to your apartment at eight-fifteen Sunday night. Remember that time. Eight-fifteen. Make sure he’s right on time. And here’s the next step. You aren’t going to Wisconsin with Frank. Tell him you can’t make it and that you’ll meet him there Monday.”

“Johnny, he won’t stand for that.”

“You’ve got to make him stand for it. Everything depends on that. Tell him some work came up that you’ve simply got to handle at the office Monday morning. Tell him anything, but you’ve got to start him off to Wisconsin alone. That’s the way it’s got to be.”

She took a long breath and was quiet for a while. Then she said. “I can do it.” Her voice was bitter. She didn’t look at me, just kept her eyes on the table. “I know one way to make him happy. Tomorrow morning he’ll be agreeable.”

I swallowed hard. She couldn’t have made it plainer. “That’s up to you,” I said.

“All right. Then what happens?”

“I’m going to call Frank,” I said. “Maybe this afternoon. I’ll shoot the bull with him until he mentions the trip. Then I’ll offer to drive the two of you down to the station Sunday night. Got that? When he tells you about it remember to act surprised. Then when I get there Sunday night you won’t be going and that will be my turn to be surprised. But I’ll still take Frank down to the station alone.”

She looked at me. “Then on the way down you tell him I’m entertaining Lesser? So that he’ll come charging back like a wild animal? Is that it, Johnny?”

“I don’t do any crazy goddam thing of the kind,” I snapped. “Use your head, baby. How the hell would I know you were entertaining? Remember I know Lesser. I’ll just casually mention to Frank that I saw Lesser at lunch during the week. And I’ll say it’s too bad he couldn’t see you about those figures some other night. Frank thinks you’re working Monday morning, and when I drop the word that it’s Sunday night — that will touch things off.”

She twisted her hands nervously. “It seems terribly complicated,” she said.

“Well do we, or don’t we?” I said “Make up your mind. Do you want to get rid of that guy and live with me, or what?”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll do what you’ve told me and I’ll call you Sunday afternoon and let you know.”

I closed my hand over hers and squeezed it hard. “It’ll work out,” I said.

We didn’t talk any more about it then. We had something to eat and a beer and I got out. It was a chance being with her, a long one, but still a chance. I didn’t want some guy remembering a thing like that when this deal was over.

I went back to the hotel. My work had been messed up for the last week, and it’s a kind of business that costs you money when you aren’t watching all angles.

The day before, a long shot had come in and that hurt. I’d laid off most with the syndicate exchange, but I was still caught short.

I counted the cash in my wallet. I had twelve hundred bucks. There was a thousand more in the bank. That wasn’t too bad but there were times when it had been a lot better.

I put the money back in my wallet and was ready to go to work when the phone rang and the operator said there was a friend of mine in the lobby by the name of Frank Olson.

I sat there for a while just looking at the receiver.

“Mr. Ford? Shall I send him up?”

“Yes, send him up.”

I put the phone down carefully and sat down on the edge of the bed.

What the hell did this mean? He couldn’t have tumbled to anything.

I lit a cigarette and got up and walked back and forth trying to think of everything at once, and trying to get my nerves under control.

There was a knock on the door. When I opened it he was standing there, looking bigger than ever in civilian clothes now, a sports outfit and a shirt open at the neck.

He smiled slowly, and I thought he look a bit uncertain.

“Hope I’m not barging in while you’re busy, Johnny,” he said.