Road to Purgatory

by Max Allan Collins

  The burly man Michael had pistol-whipped was unconscious, and his skinny partner was piled squirming on top of him, like shower night at Joliet. Before the surprised partner could get his bearings, Michael leaned in and slapped him across the side of the head, too, with the .45 barrel.

  The partner slumped on top of his pal, as if in postcoital exhaustion.

  Michael was collecting the two fallen weapons when the shot-up stairwell door cracked tentatively…

  Then it opened wide, and Eliot Ness stepped out, his own .38 in hand.

  Ness, very much his public image in fedora and brown suit, had a spooked expression, not at all like his public image. Clearly the gunshots fired at that door had been meant for him. Seeing Michael, Ness opened his mouth.

  Before any words could come out, however, Michael yelled at him, “Who the hell are you? What’s going on here?”

  Behind Ness, from out the stairwell, came a firm-jawed, dark-haired guy in a homburg and beautifully cut charcoal suit with black vest and red tie. His natty attire might not say plainclothes cop, but his manner—and the badge pinned on his breast pocket, plus the Police Special in his fist—did. As he joined Ness, a pair of uniformed cops with weapons in hand also emerged from the stairs.

  Ness strode up the hall, saying, “I’m Eliot Ness, with the Federal Social Protection Division. This is Lieutenant William Drury, from Town Hall Station.”

  Drury stayed back, talking to the two cops, sending them into a room down on the right, next to the stairwell.

  “These are suspects in a jewelry robbery,” Ness said, nodding toward the fallen duo.

  “You mind if I get some clothes on,” Michael asked, “while you handcuff these boys?”

  “Not at all.”

  Michael rejoined Estelle in the blue suite, where—the bedside lamp switched on—she’d already put on a simple business-like brown-and-white suit. As he got dressed, Michael explained that he’d apparently just captured the two jewelry bandits for the cops.

  “But that fed Ness is along for the ride,” Michael said.

  Confusion merged with indignation in her response: “What does he have to do with catching jewel robbers?”

  “Nothing. He’s probably here to try to shut you down.”

  She followed Michael to the door, but he turned and took her by the arms. “Let me deal with this.”

  Estelle drew in a deep breath, considering taking issue; then she let the air out and nodded. She sat in a chair by the window, and folded her hands primly in her lap, Rush Street neon winking through the curtains next to her.

  In the hallway, Michael saw the T-shirted bandits, too groggy to be pissed off yet, on their feet and in the process of getting hauled off by the uniformed men.

  Michael gave Ness a hard look, indicating it wasn’t safe to talk, and said, “I heard the gunshot and ran out into the hall…I have a license to carry.”

  He patted the .45, snugged back under his shoulder.

  “Fine,” Ness said. “Come with me.”

  Michael followed him down the hall and past a shot-up door into a suite done up in whorehouse red, though otherwise identical to the blue room.

  Cowering under the covers, wide eyes peeking over their edges, was a 26 girl named Marie, a cute little brunette Michael knew only to say hello to; apparently the robbers had been sharing her, or maybe one had opted for the sidelines. Neither Ness nor Lieutenant Drury acknowledged her existence, much less her presence.

  Drury was standing at the bedstand, where a wallet was open and the detective was thumbing a wad of bills.

  “Pretty flush couple of fellas, huh?” Drury said idly.

  Ness asked, “Without the jewelry, can you make it stick?”

  Drury nodded; he had dark alert eyes, a jutting nose, and, though not particularly heavyset, a double chin that cushioned his firm jaw.

  “We have the fence,” Drury said, “and we can put both of ’em in the hotel. I think they have an accomplice here, probably a bartender, who called and gave ’em the all clear. We’ll see if they give the guy up.”

  Ness was shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter. They’re finished here.”

  Not sure he understood what Ness meant, Michael asked Drury, “What’s going on?”

  Drury was the police contact Ness had mentioned several times, so he knew damn well who Michael was; but with the little naked brunette witness quivering under the bedsheets, the detective knew enough not to make that evident.

  “You’ve figured out,” Drury said, “that we were after those jewelry punks.”

  “But the robbery warrant gave us entree to the Colony Club,” Ness said, “where we’ve discovered all kinds of law-breaking—including, on this floor, prostitution.”

  Marie said, “I am not!”

  Ignoring that, Ness said, “Anticipating as much, we brought along half a dozen paddy wagons. We’ve already shut down the casino, though with so many lawbreakers on the premises, we’ll have to make a number of trips.”

  “And about now,” Drury said, “my boys will be knocking on doors all up and down this floor—taking johns and whores into custody.”

  “I am not!” Marie insisted.

  Ness said to Michael, “We appreciate your help, sir…We haven’t got your name yet, have we?”

  “It’s Satariano. Michael Satariano.”

  Playacting, Drury said, “Oh, Medal of Honor winner! Well, you deserve another one, for nabbing these bad guys.”

  “They’re not local,” Michael said. “I’ve been around the club every night this week, and heard ’em making conversation at the bar. They said they were salesmen.”

  “Selling what?”

  “Judging by who they turned out to be, I’d say selling themselves as salesmen.”

  Ness nodded, apparently liking that analysis.

  Drury asked, “Speak to them yourself, Mr. Satariano?”

  “No. They were obnoxious. I kept my distance. But looking back, I can see they suddenly turned into high rollers, after that robbery.”

  “Thanks for not keeping your distance tonight,” Drury said. “We knocked on the door and announced ourselves, and they started shooting. We ducked in the stairwell, and they ran out and shot some more. We’re both lucky not to be ventilated.”

  “Glad to help,” Michael said flatly. “Anything else, fellas?”

  “Unfortunately,” Ness said, “you’ll have to come over to the station house, to make a statement.”

  “Can’t I make that here?”

  With unmistakable, nonnegotiable firmness, Ness said, “No.”

  “Well, I’m down the hall with my girlfriend. I assure you I’m not a john, and she’s not a whore.”

  “Me neither,” Marie whimpered, mascara running.

  Michael continued: “She’s one of the owners and managers of the club.”

  “Estelle Carey?” Drury asked.

  Michael nodded.

  “Well,” Drury said smugly, “that’s handy.”

  “What do you mean, handy?”

  Ness said, “We want to talk to her, too.”

  Michael did his best to reassure Estelle that everything would be fine, though sounds from the street below—officious yelling by cops, car and paddy wagon doors slamming, the frightened/irritated yammer and babbling of those being rounded up—undermined his efforts.

  Finally Ness came around to collect them. Drury was chatting with another plainclothes cop in the hall, a Sergeant O’Connor, who was taking over the supervisory role. Then Michael and Estelle were escorted by Ness and Drury down the elevator and through the downstairs, where a small army of boys in blue were ushering indignant socialites out to waiting paddy wagons on Rush Street, the red-and-blue lights of police vehicles competing with neons.

  Michael and Estelle were driven in an unmarked car to turn-of-the-century Town Hall Station, a formidable red-brick building on the corner of Addison and Halsted. Within ten minutes, inside a small interrogation chamber whose walls and ceiling were acou
stically tiled, Michael and Ness sat at a small scarred wooden table.

  Michael—his tie off, his collar open—glanced around: the usual two-way mirror was absent.

  Noting Michael taking stock, Ness tossed his fedora on the table and said, “It’s secure.”

  “It’s not rigged for eavesdropping?”

  “No. Some of the other booths are. Like the one Lieutenant Drury’s questioning your friend Estelle Carey in.”

  “You’re shutting her down?”

  “The Colony Club’ll be a memory by tomorrow.”

  “Won’t it reopen? It’s a protected joint.”

  He shook his head. “Tomorrow morning I’m holding a press conference at the Colony. Every paper in town will have pictures of the casino and the third-floor cathouse.”

  “Sounds like good advertising.”

  “No. They’re done. Something will open to take its place, no doubt—but the Colony’s over.”

  Michael grunted a humorless laugh. “Real blow you struck for Uncle Sam—some serviceman hangout.”

  “It’s the Outfit we’re squeezing. That was fortuitous, tonight.”

  “Me saving your ass, you mean?”

  Ness smiled, barely. “Well…that, and it giving us a chance to talk privately. You’ve been something of a stranger, Michael. You don’t call…you don’t write…”

  “You said you were going to be out of town.”

  “I gave you Lieutenant Drury’s number. You’ve been back from Miami for well over a week. What went on down there?”

  “Why, what do you hear?”

  “Just a few rumblings.”

  “Such as?”

  Ness shrugged. “They’ve imported some new staff.”

  Michael shrugged. “Security’s an issue, on the Capone estate.”

  Eyes narrowing, Ness leaned forward, slightly. “Did you see Capone? Talk to him?”

  “I saw him.”

  “What’s his, uh…mental state?”

  Michael fixed a cold gaze on the fed. “You knew, didn’t you?”

  Ness, all innocence, blinked twice. “Knew what?”

  Now Michael sat forward. “You manipulated me into infiltrating Frank Nitti’s inner circle, so I could finally settle up with the man who had my father killed.”

  Michael slammed a hand on the table—hard.

  But Ness didn’t jump. Or even blink.

  “And all the time you knew—knew ‘King’ Capone was a drooling imbecile.”

  Silence held the room for perhaps thirty seconds. Michael felt himself trembling and hoped it didn’t show. Ness seemed a statue.

  Then finally the G-man said, “We didn’t know. We suspected—medical projections were made, based upon his condition when he was released, back in ’39. But until right now…we weren’t sure.”

  “Hell, you oughta put Big Al’s puss on a poster and hang that up in all the barracks, and show GIs what VD really can do.”

  “…It’s an idea.”

  Michael snorted a nonlaugh and sat back and folded his arms. “So. I’ve fulfilled my mission, then.”

  “You have accomplished a major portion of it, at least. You’ve confirmed my theory that Frank Nitti has maintained his control over the syndicate by perpetuating the fiction that Capone was ruling from afar.”

  Twitching a smile, Michael said, “Haven’t you veered slightly off course, Mr. Ness? Aren’t you supposed to be protecting military bases and defense plants from painted women?”

  Ness gestured with an open hand—vaguely conciliatory. “Your sarcasm aside, Michael, that is indeed my job—but I’m also part of a coordinated effort by various government agencies to put the Capone bunch out of business.”

  “You think stopping Frank Nitti is a good idea.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Michael shrugged one shoulder. “Nitti’s not the worst man in his world.”

  Ness’s eyes at once widened and tightened. “You can’t be serious—what the hell kind of ‘world’?”

  Calmly, Michael said, “A legitimate world, within ten years, if Nitti has his way. Get rid of him and you’re looking at Paul the Waiter Ricca—and psychos like Stefano and Giancana, mad dogs up from the street. It’ll mean decades of gambling and whores and loansharking and narcotics. Capone’ll seem like Walt Disney.”

  The federal agent sat silent, stunned by this onslaught of words, coming from the normally taciturn Michael.

  Finally, Ness said, “Your father thought John Looney was the best man in their world. And look what it got him.”

  Michael snapped, “Frank Nitti is not John Looney, and I’m not my father.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Michael said nothing.

  Ness looked pale; almost sick. “You’ve…you’re not the kid I sent in, Michael. Maybe I made a mistake.”

  This time Michael’s laugh did have humor in it—dark humor. “What, I’m infected now? You oughta have access to penicillin, if anybody does.”

  Still wearing that stricken expression, Ness said, “You need to understand, Michael. Undercover work has unique pitfalls. You can easily become part of the universe you’ve insinuated yourself into.”

  “If you don’t, Mr. Ness, you get killed.”

  With a sigh, the fed said, “I know that. I know that.” Ness became suddenly business-like. “So I’m pulling the plug on you, Michael. This relationship is over.”

  Surprised that he cared, Michael said defensively, “Swell. What should I tell Frank Nitti, thanks for the summer job? Think I’ll head back to DeKalb and toss pizza?”

  Ness’s expression and voice seemed earnest. “Michael… you’ll find the moment. Ease yourself out. It’s not like you’re a made man.”

  Michael said nothing.

  Ness’s eyes froze.

  And when Ness next spoke, his voice was almost a whisper, as if he could barely bring himself to say any of this out loud. “Oh Christ…Then you did kill Abatte, in Calumet City. Self-defense, I know, ‘hypothetical,’ you said, but…Michael, we have to get you out of there.”

  “And where would I go? Bataan, maybe?”

  Ness was shaking his head, looking for words that weren’t presenting themselves.

  “You said it yourself, Mr. Ness. Our relationship is over… Are we done here?”

  Michael sat in a wooden chair against a wall in the big waiting-room area on the first floor of the station, with four rough-looking juvies waiting for their parents to come take them home.

  Finally, Estelle came down the wide wooden stairs, unaccompanied; in that conservative suit, she again looked almost prim, if shellshocked. Gratefully she took Michael’s arm as he led her into the cool dark of early morning.

  Michael walked her down the block to an all-night diner, where he called for a cab. Then he sat in a window booth next to her, waiting for the ride; they both had coffee.

  “What did Drury want?” he asked her.

  “He’s working with Ness, you know.”

  “Yeah, I gathered.”

  In the pretty face, her upper lip curled back nastily. “Hundreds of bent cops in this town, you wouldn’t think one honest flatfoot could cause so much trouble.”

  She meant Drury. But it applied to Ness as well. And without the cooperation of an honest copper like Drury, the G-man could never have executed a raid like tonight’s.

  Michael said, “They’re shuttering the Colony.”

  “I know. I know.” She leaned forward, the anxiety in her eyes terrible to behold; she reached out and clutched one of his hands. “Mike, please talk to Mr. Nitti. Tell him this wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know anything about those damn jewel thieves, and—”

  “It’ll be fine, baby.”

  She shook her head, blonde hair askew. “You don’t understand—the feds, they’re squeezing me. They want to pull me in as a witness on this movie-extortion business.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Not much.”

  But she didn’t sound convincin
g; she had been Nicky Dean’s mistress, after all, and bagman Dean was already doing time in the Hollywood case. Michael had overheard Campagna and Nitti expressing concern the hood might be bargaining for a shorter sentence by singing.

  And not in the way Estelle sang at the club, either…

  “I’m not going to cooperate, Michael. I told Drury less than nothing. But if the Outfit boys even think I might be spilling… You gotta talk to Frank for me!”

  “I will,” he said gently. “I will.”

  The cab arrived, and Michael took Estelle to his suite at the Seneca. In bed, he held her all night long, and she shivered as if she were cold or perhaps had the flu. Only it wasn’t cold in the penthouse, and she was a healthy girl.

  For now.

  THREE

  For the half year following Michael’s initiation into the Chicago Outfit, the made man’s life proceeded in a nonviolent, routine manner.

  At times he felt as if he’d wandered out of reality and onto a Hollywood soundstage. After all, his girlfriend looked like a movie star, screwed him silly on a regular basis, and made upon him no demands whatsoever. His apartment—appointed in a contemporary manner, all browns and greens—had a bedroom, living room, kitchenette, and a balcony view of the city. While he worked long hours, he for the most part sat around, reading magazines and novels, receiving a two-hundred-dollar-a-week check, for accounting purposes, and eight hundred cash, for his own.

  He dined out at top restaurants, from Don the Beachcomber’s to Henrici’s, and here at the Seneca Hotel, owned by Outfit investors, his meals, drinks, everything, was (like his suite) comped. A free ride at most nightspots was waiting, too, from the Chez Paree to the Mayfair Room. He wore custom suits from a Michigan Avenue haberdashery attuned to the special needs of the well-armed gentleman about town; and a company car was his on off hours, ration tickets no problem. And like any good American, he bought war bonds.

  As he floated through this easy, vaguely exciting life, directionless, empty, yet numbly content, only a few times a day did Michael feel pangs of…not conscience, exactly, more like twinges. Twinges of character.

  When he read the papers, morning and evening alike, and certain distinctive words popped out at him—Guadalcanal, North Africa, Stalingrad—something gnawed at his gut. Gratifying as good news from the Solomon Islands might be, he was frustrated by the absence of Philippines coverage. The government continued to keep the lid on tight, particularly about how Uncle Sam had left behind the boys on Bataan…all except Michael Satariano and General MacArthur…to twist in an ill wind from the Far East.