Three Strikes You're Dead

Chapter 15

During the slow ride north on the Clark Street car, I held a handkerchief against my slightly bloodied and now swollen cheek, cursing Nicolette Stover and muttering that we would meet again. When I got back to my apartment, I would look her up in the telephone directory, and — assuming she was listed — pay her a visit at home, and soon. If she was not in the book, my plan was to wait for her outside Harding’s again and tail her home.

My knees barking their complaint, I eased off the red car at the usual stop and gingerly edged across Clark, giving a careening Yellow Cab plenty of leeway. As I neared the door of my building, an all-too-familiar form materialized from the darkness.

“Getting home from work kind of late now, aren’t you, Mr. Malek?” It was Monk, the long-faced rib-jabber from several weeks back who had pushed me into a car — probably the same car that he now was herding me toward.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’m really not up to a ride tonight,” I said over my shoulder, getting — what else? — a jab in the side.

Monk shoved me into the back seat, were I once again found myself beside the “Mr. Left” from our earlier meeting. “All right, Mel, move it,” he pronounced to the driver in that high-pitched voice of his. The car drew away from the curb with Monk settled in on my right, also as before.

“So, we meet again,” Mr. Left said. “What can you tell us?”

“About what?” I deadpanned.

“Come, come, don’t play games like that, Mr. Malek. They only waste everyone’s time. What have you learned about Lloyd Martindale?”

“Not a lot,” I told him honestly. “I have been talking to a number of people who knew him over the years, but so far... nothing.”

He made a grunting sound. “A good friend of ours, and a particular favorite of Mr. Capone’s and of Mr. Nitti’s, is being held. By the police.” He clearly expected a response.

I put on my interested and concerned face. “Yeah? On a murder charge?”

His scratchy laugh contained no mirth whatever. “You should know they don’t bother with charges, Mr. Malek. But they’re trying to... persuade him to confess. And they know how to persuade.”

“Does he have a lawyer?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Mr. Left said, the hawk-like features beneath his gray fedora accentuated in silhouette by the passing streetlights.

I chuckled nervously, feeling the perspiration build under my arms. “An occupational trait.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. The man we are talking about has not been allowed to see an attorney — far from it. He’s strong, but also isolated and at least for now beyond our help. And there are many ways to break a man.”

Sure, and you’ve used every one of them at one time or another, I thought before speaking. “Like I said, I’ve made almost no progress. And as you know, I do happen to have a job that takes a substantial portion of my time. Do you have any ideas or suggestions?”

“Mr. Malek, we should ask you that. Your job doesn’t seem to have prevented you from riding a number of trains recently.”

“Maybe so.”

“Not maybe.” His voice had an ominous edge. “And tonight, your face is bruised.”

“I mixed it up with a guy in a bar earlier — I think you could term it a minor disagreement over a woman. He looks a lot worse than I do. And that’s why I was a little late getting home,” I improvised.

“Be careful where you buy your drinks,” he cautioned. “What did you find out in your train rides from the LaSalle and Randolph Street Stations?”

“Almost nothing, dammit,” I said with feeling, trying to hide the surprise that I had been tailed at least as far as the downtown stations. “I was working on a couple of long shots, and they didn’t pan out for me.”

“That’s too bad, but there are other days, other times, Mr. Malek. And when you do learn something, which of course you will, we don’t want to read it first in your newspaper.”

“All right, then how am I supposed to get in touch with you if I do have some information?”

“There is a club not far from here — on Diversey, one block west of Clark on the south side of the street. It’s the Centurion.” I had heard of it, of course; a notorious syndicate joint that was said to be a bar that fronted for one of the biggest brothels in town.

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been by the place, but never stopped in.”

“Sit at the end of the bar nearest the door after 8:00 on any night and tell the bartender that you want to see the Brother.”

“Who’s that?”

“Just ask for the Brother, that’s all. You will not have to wait long.”

“Anything else?”

Mr. Left — a.k.a. the Brother? — wheezed an exhale. “Only that it would be smart of you to keep us informed about what you learn. From what we know, you are good at getting what your business calls scoops.”

“Shit, you’re giving me way too much credit. I haven’t had one of those in a long time.”

He looked out of the window and nodded deliberately as Mel eased the car to the curb at the same spot where I’d been picked up. “Here we are, Mr. Malek. And take care of that cheek, or you might have a permanent bruise. And remember: Mr. Capone likes you.” His tone suggested that I would be wise to keep it that way.

As the long black car — it was indeed a Cadillac — joined the northbound traffic flow on Clark, I watched the taillights fade into the night and I started to stack up questions: Was I being shadowed constantly? The comment about my boarding trains at downtown stations suggested that was the case. I hadn’t sensed a tail at any time, but then, I hadn’t been looking for one. They must have followed me only as far as the stations, which posed another question: Why didn’t Mr. Left mention my trips to Steel Trap Bascomb in Oak Park or my visit tonight to Harding’s? Was it because I made those directly from work, while on the Beverly Hills and Flossmoor jaunts I left from home? That would indicate the tail was posted outside my apartment, but not at 11th and State. Was it possible that the outfit, as brazen as it was, didn’t want to lurk in the neighborhood of Police Headquarters?

Also, why hadn’t my tail followed me as I rode those trains, I asked myself. I figured it was because he really would be easy to spot when we got off, unlike in the crowds of the city.

More questions occurred to me: Did the mob, perceived so often by so many, often including the press, as omniscient, truly have no information or no clues as to who killed Martindale? I found that hard to digest. It seemed strange that they would have to rely on someone like me — a rank amateur investigator at best operating alone — as a major source of information. Did they really not know the location where their man, purportedly a favorite of Capone, was being questioned? And who was the Brother the brother of — if anyone?

Also, on the subject of Al Capone, were these people indeed still in close contact with him? And was he still really calling the shots, or at least some of them, when it came to the syndicate’s operations in Chicago? My own answers to the last two queries leaned strongly toward the negative — one, given the supposed tightness of security at Alcatraz, and two, the apparently secure position of Frank Nitti as kingpin of the Chicago organization. My semi-educated guess was that whatever positive reputation I had with the syndicate had been passed along by Capone, and now Nitti, in his efforts to rehabilitate the mob’s reputation, was prepared to turn to any source, me included, for help.

Yet another question — actually a series of them: Why did the mob want me to tell them who I suspected of Lloyd Martindale’s murder, assuming I was able to find out? The quick answer would be that they planned to kill that individual. But what would that accomplish? Wasn’t it their goal to make it known that they didn’t murder Martindale? And if they indeed commissioned the actual killer, how could they ever argue that they were clean on the Martindale death?

Then there was the ultimate question: Where to go next? Tonight’s blessedly brief ride with the Three Stooges convinced me more than ever that a mob hit man had not killed Martindale. Assuming — which I was not yet prepared to do — that Nicolette Stover had pulled the trigger on her former neighbor (and apparent molester), she had to rank near the top of the list. But assuming that Martindale had messed around with Nicolette (and her long-dead brother), likely there were other kids he’d done things with as well, and maybe one of them had extracted long-delayed revenge. I now found myself with a headache from all the surmising, among other reasons.

Once in the apartment, I went directly to the bathroom mirror where I grimaced at what was looking back at me. My cheek was swollen and red, and I had the beginnings of a shiner. More than ever, I hoped that beer-bellied palooka had tossed his cookies on the Wabash Avenue sidewalk.

After peeling off my clothes and assessing the damage to my knees, both of them scraped and sore but neither one bleeding, I was at least comforted to note that there were no rips in the legs of my suit trousers — probably the only positive aspect of an evening that had been too filled with adventure.

The Chicago phone book listed “Stover, Nicolette” at an address in the 1900 block of Grace Street, less than a mile north of my apartment. I momentarily toyed with the idea of calling her, but outvoted myself, figuring that I’d just get hung up on. There was time enough for the skittish Miss Stover.

I took the expected razzing about the condition of my face in the pressroom the next morning. “Hey, Snap, did some raging and irate husband finally catch up with you?” Packy Farmer chortled as I eased into my chair.

“I guess you’d know about irate husbands, now, wouldn’t you, Pack?” Dirk O’Farrell sniped. “How many have run you off their property, be it either real estate or spousal, over the years?”

“Yeah, Packy, how many, huh? How many?” Eddie Metz put in as the City Press kid looked on with his normal mixture of puzzlement and dismay.

“Now that’s enough raillery, lads,” Anson Masters intoned with mock solemnity. “Let us now hear how our Mr. Malek got his physiognomy rearranged. Snap, you have the floor.”

“Physiognomy, eh, Antsie? So that’s what it is,” I replied in an amiable tone, passing a hand over my tender cheek. “All right, fellow knights, sit back with your piping of cups o’java while your ol’ Uncle Snap relates an inspiring tale of bravado and honor.”

O’Farrell flashed his lopsided grin. “Be it bullshit or not, I think I like it already.”

I cleared my throat and paused for effect. “Last evening, I find myself seized with a great thirst as I traverse the byways of our throbbing and exciting Loop, see. At that very moment, as Dame Fortune would have it, I happen by a public house — saloon to you vulgarians — and decide to partake of a sampling of their nectar.”

“As in Schlitz?” Farmer jibed.

“The brand, Sir, is irrelevant,” I sniffed, dismissing Packy’s interjection with a raised eyebrow. “I settle myself upon a stool and enter into a spirited dialogue with the publican, a learned chap equally at ease conversing about Plato or the Pittsburgh Pirates. Well, we are in deep discussions on myriad topics when a comely lass enters the premises — alone.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Metz nodded.

“Said lass, tall, raven-haired, and with more curves than a mountain road, takes a seat at the far end of the bar, of course attracting the attention of every red-blooded man on said premises.”

“Including you,” O’Farrell put in.

“Indeed including me. She’s been seated maybe ten minutes with a bourbon highball when a large, ugly specimen lumbers in, goes straight over to this doll, and starts shouting that she’d walked out on him. Using words she never learned in Sunday School back in Muncie, Indiana, the doll tells him to hit the road, and he grabs her by the arm and starts to drag her off the stool.

“With that, a slope-shouldered guy about five-seven gets up and takes a swing at the galoot, who blocks the punch like it was a slap on the wrist and proceeds to cold-cock the poor bastard with a right cross. So this would-be hero is flat on the floor hearing sparrows chirping.

“Now the big guy’s wrapped his arms around the doll’s waist and is truly dragging her out of the place, her feet not even touching the floor, and all the while she’s screaming like a banshee, got it? Okay, I know I’m giving away — what — sixty pounds? But I figure the galoot’s distracted now. So I block his way and he gives me a shove with a paw the size of Delaware while he’s holding the doll in his other arm. I pop him with a left jab, which knocks him back a little, but he counters with a right, and you can see where that landed.” I patted my cheek.

“His punch staggers me, and he relaxes for an instant — big mistake for him, good fortune for me. I drive a right into his overstuffed gut, and damned if the lummox doesn’t fold up like a pup tent when you pull out the support poles. Once he hits the floor, a couple of guys all of a sudden get brave, kick him and punch him and drag him to the door, leaving him lying out on the sidewalk groaning. He didn’t come back in.”

“That’s all very interesting, Snap,” Masters said, “but I fail to detect any bruises on your knuckles.”

“Ah, Anson, your keen powers of observation are among those things that make you stand out as a reporter. I wrapped my belt around my fist before I started swinging, like any good street fighter does, see?” I shot back without hesitation. “It’s second nature, Anson. And besides, how many bruises you likely to get from punching flab? So anyway, after this man-mountain gets dragged outside to lick his wounds, the doll sidles over and cozies up to me, cooing about how wonderful I am, which of course is true. She gets a cold, damp cloth from the barkeep and holds it on my face. And then she wants to buy me a drink — the best whiskey in the place.”

“Which of course you quickly accepted,” Eddie Metz said between slurps of coffee.

“Nah. I tell her that when I go into a bar, it’s because I’m looking for peace and quiet and maybe some stimulating conversation to boot, but not brawling, and that this place is too damn violent for me. Then I kiss her on the cheek, tell her to be more careful when she picks a companion, and walk out of the joint without so much as a backward glance.”

“Geez,” the City News kid murmured.

“God damn, Snap, you really had me following along until that last part,” O’Farrell announced, shaking his head. “You really are a master of bullshit, but here’s where your story falls apart: You just ain’t the type to turn your back on a warm honey and a cold drink. Try to deny that. Go ahead.”

The City News kid turned to me with a disillusioned expression on an unlined puss that had yet to meet a razor. “Well then, so how did you really get banged up?” he asked.

“You heard my story, son. And when you get yourself a good story, always stick with it. If these jaded old geezers don’t choose to believe me, hell, that’s their lookout.”

I didn’t get any more comments about my face from the pressroom crew after that, so my story accomplished its intent. And after all, there really were a few small nuggets of truth sprinkled through the tale.

The next morning at 8:00, when I stepped from the foyer of my building into the dazzling spring sunlight on Clark Street, I scanned the block in both directions, almost overlooking an innocuous gray Studebaker sedan at the curb several doors to the north. It was the only parked car in sight with anyone inside — a pair of heads in the front seat, much too far away to identify and both wearing fedoras that covered their brows. I wondered how many mornings they had waited there for my emergence. I also wondered if either of them had been among the trio in the Cadillac during my night rides.

Turning away quickly and striking what I hoped was a nonchalant pose, I lit up a Lucky, flipped the match aside, and strolled to the next corner south, where I waited three minutes for a southbound Clark car. I took a seat near the back of the streetcar and looked out of its open rear window at the Studie, which had pulled away from the curb and made a squealing U-turn, heading north. As they must have every day lately, the car’s occupants probably figured I was on my way to work, which meant they didn’t have anything to gain by tailing me.

They figured right.