Three Strikes You're Dead

Chapter 6

Nothing sells like murder or sex, and the papers all saw the Martindale murder as a newsstand bonanza as they spit out extras and changed their banners for each edition. Among them were MOB GUNS DOWN REFORMER in the Herald and Examiner; MARTINDALE MARTYRED in the Times; and THE SYNDICATE STRIKES AGAIN in the American, while the Trib and the Daily News were less strident with CRUSADER’S LIFE SNUFFED OUT and KELLY VOWS ALL-OUT WAR ON CRIME, respectively.

In my interview with Fahey, which everyone else in the pressroom borrowed freely from or paraphrased, the chief said: “There is no question that this was an underworld hit” and “As long as the residents of this city continue to patronize the prostitutes and the policy wheels and the bookmakers and the slots, organized crime will continue to brazenly flaunt its power and wreak its terror, regardless of the best efforts of local and federal law enforcement agencies. We will continue to be unflagging in our efforts to fight the underworld but, plain and simple, we need more cooperation and more outrage from the citizenry.”

That set off the Chicago Crime Commission, a civic watchdog group whose president blasted Fahey in a press conference on the sidewalk in front of the LaSalle Street entrance to City Hall — not so coincidentally the identical spot where the late Lloyd Martindale had unleashed his own tirade against organized crime on New Year’s Eve.

The CCC head assailed the chief’s comments as “typical of the defeatist attitude the Chicago Police Department has adopted for years with respect to the crime syndicate. They wring their hands and shrug in helplessness. In their defense, the pathetic reality is that, to at least some degree, the police are indeed helpless. Why? In part because of the lack of support they receive from a city administration that is either corrupt or apathetic, or both.”

The Crime Commission was by no means alone in its outcry. The papers all rose up in a state of high dudgeon, each of them running editorials that blasted various elements of local government — Mayor, City Council, State’s Attorney’s office, Police Department — for their ineffectiveness in coping with the crime syndicate and its activities.

“In the days of Capone, the very word ‘Chicago’ became synonymous around the world with lawlessness and gangsterism and violence,” wrote the American in a rare front-page editorial, which Packy Farmer insisted on reading aloud in the pressroom. He continued: “Some among us were naïve enough to believe that with this pariah safely behind bars, all of that would change. It has not, and the callous murder of a reform-minded public figure has once again underscored the sorry state of law enforcement and good government in this mighty metropolis. Once again, we are sorry to report, Chicago stands unchallenged as a global symbol of organized crime and government ineffectiveness. Mr. Mayor, we at this newspaper offer a humble suggestion for the design of a new city flag: a smoking black Tommy gun silhouetted against a blood-red background.”

“Hah, that’s givin’ it to the bastards!” Packy chortled, flipping his paper onto the desk and leaning back with a smirk. “Don’t even need to guess who wrote that. Had to be Motherwell, that old cuss. Nobody spits vitriol like him. Bet he cackled all the time he was batting it out with two fingers on his Underwood.”

“It’s heartening to see you exhibit so much pride in your publication, Cyril,” Anson Masters said. “But don’t you think Mr. Motherwell’s writing is just a shade on the florid side?”

“Ah, go screw yourself, Antsy,” Farmer sneered. “Your damn rag is so prissy in its editorials that you can’t even tell who they’re mad at, or even if they are mad. Don’t those guys in your ivory tower over at Madison and Canal have any balls at all?”

“Hey, how ’bout we work up a pool on when the cops make an arrest,” Eddie Metz put in.

“My guess is, oh... August the 8th, 1943,” Dirk O’Farrell offered, clearly pleased by the laughter that followed.

“Seriously, do all of you think it really was a mob killing?” the City News kid asked, straight-faced and wide-eyed as ever.

It was clear from O’Farrell’s expression that he was struggling against making a sarcastic retort. He, like the rest of us, had become fond of the kid, despite — or maybe because of — his innocence.

“I can’t speak for these reprobates here,” Dirk said, making a sweeping gesture with his arm. “But how the hell else are you going to read it? Martindale, windbag that he admittedly is, starts making noise, lots of noise, about cleaning up all the vice around town, and whaddya know, he begins to draw a following.

“Pretty soon, a couple of the papers, including of course that good gray Madonna, the Daily News” — he tilted his head in Masters’ direction — “start praising the guy in editorials. It begins to look like Saint Martindale just might land the Republican nomination for mayor. And — although I admit it’s a long shot — he might also just push Hizzoner Edward J. and his Svengali, Pat Nash, right out of City Hall and onto LaSalle Street on the seat of their overstuffed pants.”

“Long shot is right!” Masters retorted.

“Okay, but even those long odds figured to make the syndicate boys edgy,” O’Farrell countered. “Life is jim dandy for them now, but if Martindale was rattling around City Hall out of control, which would have been the case, he’d have ended up cramping their style.”

“Yeah, but was it really worth killing him?” the City Press kid asked plaintively.

O’Farrell shrugged. “Where’s the risk? Damn, they’ve been knocking people off for twenty years now, and that includes a few reformers, but do they ever get caught? You honestly think that Chicago’s Best, and I use that term loosely, will ever nail the trigger man?”

The kid shook his head, not in answer to the question, but rather in what looked like bewilderment. “I just don’t figure Lloyd Martindale was a real threat to organized crime.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” I put in.

“So you really think somebody other than the Organization erased Sir Galahad, eh, Snap?” O’Farrell said with what I would describe as a sneer.

“Well, no... I can’t imagine who else it could have been. I was just concurring with the opinion of this man,” I said, gesturing toward the junior member of the pressroom. “I can’t see Martindale as a real threat to these guys.”

The Martindale murder got successively less play in the papers with each day, as February gave way to March. A couple of psychopaths, one of them recently released from the Dunning mental asylum on the Northwest Side of the city, confessed to the murder.

This sort of thing often happens in a headline crime, and, not surprising, each of their stories had more holes than the South Shore Country Club, so they were none too gently sent on their way by the police. There had been no real leads, although the cops hauled in three or four minor-league hoodlums and grilled them for hours, just to show they were on the job.

As usual, I made my daily trips to Fahey’s office, but after the requisite questioning about whether there was any progress in the case, his textbook answer was, “We continue to give this investigation top priority at all levels of the department.” Our conversation turned to such subjects as the Cubs’ chances for the pennant in ’38 and speculation as to who the Republicans would run against Kelly in ’39.

I saw Peter every Saturday, and sometimes he’d stay in the apartment with me until Sunday afternoon. We’d go to the coal mine at the Museum of Science and Industry or to the Planetarium or to a movie. Most recently I had suggested “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” in part because I wanted to see it myself after all the laudatory reviews I’d read about the Walt Disney animation, but that got a frown and an “Aw, Dad,” from Peter, who lobbied for “Submarine D-1” with Pat O’Brien and George Brent. We ended up going to the submarine film, which I was forced to admit wasn’t bad.

Another time, at his urging, we spent almost a whole day riding Elevated trains. We rode all the way north through Uptown and Rogers Park to Evanston and then back down on the Howard line and then out to Oak Park on the Lake Street train and back downtown and over to the Stock Yards on that branch, and he never got tired of it.

“I must have fallen asleep a half dozen times today on those old rattlers,” I told Norma after I dropped Peter off following our El marathon. He had gone to his room and we were standing in the living room. “I’ve never seen the roofs of so damn many apartment buildings and houses in my life. Or so many back porches with long johns hanging on their clotheslines.”

She laughed sympathetically. “Well, it’s clear from his face that he had a wonderful day. That was awfully nice of you to do.”

“Yeah, well I owe him a lot more days like that. There were too many times...” I didn’t have to finish the sentence, and she didn’t respond. “I’m trying to do better,” I said.

“I know you are,” she replied softly. “And he appreciates it; he looks forward to your times together, and he talks about them for days afterward.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Do you appreciate it, too?”

“Well, of course I do, Steve. I want to see him happy, and I think it’s terribly important that he have a close relationship with you.”

“So do I. Say, how about you and I have dinner one of these days, Norma? Maybe next weekend?”

“Um, I don’t think so... not right now, anyway,” she said, her voice still soft, maybe to keep Peter from hearing.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Well, I just don’t think it would be a very good idea right now, Steve.”

“You’re seeing someone?”

She nodded, looking away. “I’m sure Peter has probably said something about him.”

“He has, just a little. You like him quite a bit?”

“Yes, quite a bit.”

It was awkward, being in the living room of what used to be my home. I had never felt less like I belonged than at that moment.

On a Wednesday evening in mid-March, I swung off the Clark Street car and into a battering downpour, opened my umbrella, and paused on the sidewalk, wondering whether to go up to my apartment and fix dinner or stop first at Kilkenny’s for a beer or two. I decided on the Killer’s and turned north on Clark, angling the umbrella into the wind and the almost horizontal sheets of rain.

I didn’t notice the long car that was idling at the curb until I’d pulled even with it and a disembodied voice came from the rolled-down back seat window. “Hey, Mr. Malek.”

“Huh?” I turned to look and as I did, someone grabbed my arm from behind and moved me effortlessly toward the sedan.

“What the hell—”

“Easy there, Mac.” It was a second voice, this one belonging to whoever was doing the shoving. “Just get in and everything will be jake.” He grabbed my umbrella and pushed my head down, forcing me into the back seat, all in one fluid motion.

I found myself inside a large sedan, probably a Cadillac or its slightly smaller sibling, a LaSalle. On my left, his face partially obscured by a fedora and the darkness, was the one who had called my name. On my right, the shover, also wearing a fedora. And in the front seat was a third fedora, on the head of the figure behind the wheel.

“Mr. Malek, we need to talk to you,” said the man on my left, his voice scratchy and high-pitched, like he’d been shouting a lot. “Mel, drive around for awhile.”

“Just what is it that we’re talking about?” I asked in the toughest tone I could muster as the car eased from the curb and moved into the flow of traffic north on Clark.

“We talk, you listen,” Mr. Left said firmly, but with no trace of hostility. “Mr. Capone wanted us to see you. It’s about the unfortunate death of Mr. Lloyd Martindale.”

“What to you mean, Capone? He’s out in—”

I was cut short by a hard jab in the ribs on my right. “Shaddup and listen,” gruffed Mr. Right.

“Don’t have to get rough with him,” Mr. Left remonstrated with his partner as the car turned west on Addison at the Wrigley Field corner. “Now, as I started to tell you, Mr. Capone requested we talk to you. He has a message: It is that the organization had nothing to do with the Martindale death, no matter what the papers and the cops and the politicians say.”

I was breathing a little easier now, but still trying hard not to let my fear show.

“How can Capone — ugh!” I was cut short again by another painful jab to my right side.

“That’s enough, Monk!” Mr. Left said sharply. “Let him talk. Go on, Mr. Malek.”

I dropped my right arm, protecting my rib cage. “How can Capone know who killed Martindale? He’s been holed up out there at Alcatraz for almost four years now.”

My answer came from the left. “Listen good, Mr. Malek. He knows everything that happens on the outside.”

“All right, then. Why did Capone want to tell me, of all people, that Martindale wasn’t a... mob hit? And how do I even know that you really are messengers on this? And third, if this wasn’t a mob hit, just who did it?”

“You ask a lot of questions, just like Mr. Capone said you would. First, the reason he wanted you to know was that he says you’re a straight-shooter and you’re fair. Second, he said to remind you that when you talked to him down in Atlanta, you were wearing a light gray suit and a red-and-blue striped tie, and that you both ate beef and boiled potatoes and peas and apple pie. And that when he asked you how the Cubs were going to do that year, you said no better than third, that the Giants and the Cardinals were just too good for them. You remember?”

“Yes-s-s.”

“Good. Okay, and third, he doesn’t know who got Martindale, nobody does... yet. And he’s mad as hell that we — that the wrong people — are getting the blame on this.”

“So, what’s the purpose in telling me?” I asked as the driver wheeled back south on Ashland.

Mr. Left made a growling noise, down deep in his throat. “He says you’re a damned good reporter. Me, I wouldn’t know, because I think you’re all a bunch of wise-assed shits, and not very frigging smart on top of it. But he figured maybe you could find out who did the job.”

And in the process clear the “good name” of the mob, I thought but had the sense not to mouth. I took a safer tack: “So you’ve got no clues as to where I should start?”

“We got nothing. But now you’re ahead of the pack, because you know who didn’t do the job.”

Maybe, I thought. Or maybe I was being fed a line of bull, although if that were the case, I didn’t see the point of it. “I understand Alphonse is a pretty sick boy,” I said, recalling a piece that I’d read a few weeks back in the Trib about how Capone was diagnosed with an advanced case of syphilis out at Alcatraz. That earned me another jab in the ribs on my right ride, and this time Mr. Left didn’t voice an objection.

“Mr. Capone is just fine,” he snarled. “Just fine. Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers, including your own rag.”

As we were having our stimulating conversation, the driver had turned east on Fullerton and then north on Clark. When we got to the spot where I’d been picked up, the car slid to the curb. “Mr. Malek, this meeting never happened, did it?” Mr. Left asked.

“It never happened,” I repeated. Mr. Right, who I now knew to be Monk, got out and handed me my umbrella, grunting something unintelligible. I didn’t respond, figuring anything I said might earn me yet another whack in the ribs. As the car sped away, I peered at the license plate but could see nothing. The light bulb above it was out.

The rain had almost stopped, although I put up the umbrella anyway, with shaking hands. I rubbed my sore right side through my trench coat and took a step toward my apartment building, but checked myself again and set a course for Kilkenny’s. Now I really needed that beer.