Shadow of the Bomb

Chapter 19

The next day, I phoned the city desk from my apartment on North Clark Street, telling them I would be an hour late showing up on my beat because of some family business. They could hardly object, as I had been putting in extra hours on the Hyde Park murders.

My “family business” was actually a stop at Police Headquarters, 11th and State, but then, I thought of several of the people down there as a sort of family. I walked into the press room at 9:15 to a chorus of jeers.

“Well if it isn’t old what’s-his-name,” Packy Farmer brayed. “Back from the wilderness of the South Side.”

“Have you come to see how first-class reporters work?” Dirk O’Farrell added.

“No, for that I’d have to go over to the press room at the County Building, or maybe to the City Hall,” I shot back. “Mac, are these miscreants treating you okay?” I asked MacAfee.

“Oh yes,” he said, standing. “Do you want to use your desk?”

“Sit down. It’s your desk now, for as long as you’re here. I’m just a visitor passing through.”

“Well, since you’ve been down on the South Side, you have truly made a mess of things,” Anson Masters rumbled. “Can’t you stop people from killing each other on that damned campus?”

“What are you complaining about, Antsy? Look at all the headlines your paper is getting,” I fired back. “And those outraged editorials as well.”

“Well, I can tell you that we are loving it,” Eddie Metz chimed in.

“Of course you are,” Farmer said. “This stuff is just the kind of meat that the Times thrives on.”

“Well, your own rag hasn’t exactly been shy and reserved in its coverage,” Metz said, referring to Farmer’s Herald American. “Particularly that headline, ‘Another Ghastly Killing in the Halls of Ivy.’”

“Ah, I cannot begin to tell all of you how much I have missed this warmth and camaraderie,” I announced. “But as stimulating as the conversation here is, I fear I must be on my way to faraway places. Mr. MacAfee, would you do me the honor of accompanying me out into the hall?”

Mac nodded and we stepped into the corridor. “This is your turf right now,” I told him, “so whatever you say goes. With your permission, I would like to go downstairs and question Fahey about the current status of the Dieter Schmid investigation, and I am happy to have you there with me. What do you think?”

Mac looked at me with those earnest blue eyes of his. “Snap, whatever you want is just fine with me. You were good enough to let me switch beats with you during Flora’s pregnancy, so I think you should go down and see Fahey alone. Be warned, though, that he’s not in the best of humor these days.”

“So what’s new?” I replied, heading downstairs.

“Well... a face from the past,” Elsie Dugo exclaimed as I entered her anteroom. “What brings you back to our corner of the world?”

“I couldn’t stand to go another day without seeing your shining countenance.”

“Uh-huh. So my face is shiny, is it?”

“Don’t twist my words, you lissome lassie. Is the lord and master at home?”

“Last I looked, he was.” She pressed the button on her intercom and told Fahey that “An old friend is here to see you.”

“Friend? I don’t have any friends,” came the squawky reply. “Send whoever it is in.”

“Whaddya mean, you don’t have any friends?” I said as I strode into Fahey’s office. “Who but a friend would bring you a whole pack of Luckies, unopened?” I tossed them onto his blotter.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Did the brass at the Tribune decide they couldn’t do without you here?”

“I’ll take that as a thank-you for the smokes. And in answer to the question, I’m still on the South police beat. Just thought that I’d stop by for old times.”

He tore open the cigarette pack and eyed me dubiously. “To answer the question you haven’t asked, but no doubt are about to, there hasn’t been a break in the U of C case yet. Or are you here to give me some news?”

“Don’t I wish.”

Fahey lit up and scowled. “There are times when I hate this job, and this is one of them.”

“A lot of pressure right now?”

He nodded. “Not only from the press and City Hall, but from the Feds as well.”

“FBI?”

Another nod. “Arrogant goddamn bastards. They treat us like a bunch of stupes. Had one of ’em in here yesterday in his goddamn dark suit and dark tie and snap-brim hat — no offense — and he was grilling me about our procedures and how he thought that we could be more efficient. Couldn’t understand why we hadn’t nailed Bergman’s killer. He told me that if we’d gone about this right — whatever that means — we would have caught the murderer and there wouldn’t have been a second killing. Prick.”

“Did he have any helpful suggestions?”

“Of course not! He told me the Bureau would begin its own investigation, that national security is at issue. Said that Hoover himself is taking a special interest in the matter.”

“Just what you need.”

“Yeah. God, I hope to hell we find whoever did it, before those pompous jackasses do.”

“Their interest just about clinches what the folks I’ve talked to down on the Midway have suspected all along.”

“Which is?”

“That both Bergman and Schmid were involved in a super-secret research program to develop some sort of weapon, very likely what’s called a nuclear one.”

“We’ve heard some similar stuff,” Fahey growled. “Myself, I don’t know nuclear from nickels, but apparently, this is big, really big.”

“That’s what I’m told by these wiseheads I’ve hooked up with. They know something’s going on; they’re just not sure exactly what it is. And some of them think it’s insane to be messing around with dangerous weapons material right in the middle of a city.”

“I agree with them on that. Why don’t they take whatever it is they’re fooling around with and go out in some damn desert?”

“That’s something you’d have to ask a guy named Enrico Fermi.”

“Who’s that?”

“He’s the guy who’s apparently running these experiments. Famous in science circles, I’m told. Got one of those Nobel Prizes a few years back.”

“Well, how wonderful for him,” Fahey snapped. “So maybe I should interview him about the killings, eh?”

“Don’t you think those friends of yours in the dark suits and snap-brim hats already have?”

The chief scowled. “Of course they have. I was being sarcastic.”

“I didn’t notice,” I said, taking a Lucky out of the pack on Fahey’s desk and lighting up. “Well, I’m off to beautiful Hyde Park, land of students and slayings. I’ll see if I can find a murderer for you before the FBI does.”

“Well for God’s sake, be careful,” Fahey snarled. “The last thing we need is a third murder down there — and of a newspaperman at that.”

“Thanks for your kind thoughts and your solicitousness,” I said over my shoulder as I went out into the anteroom and winked at Elsie, who did the same. “Come back again sometime, will ya?” she said.

“With you here, how could I possibly stay away indefinitely?”

“Oh, how I miss that sweet talk. Your young Mr. MacAfee seems like a fine gent, but he is very shy, unlike yourself.”

“Haven’t I told you that after I was born, they threw away the mold?”

“I do believe you have. Now you take care down there on that South Side, hear?”

“I hear, ma’am. You don’t have to worry about me. Before you know it, I’ll be back here toiling at my old stand and coming to see you every day.”

“I can hardly wait,” she said, rolling her dark brown eyes with exaggerated coquetry.