You Bet Your Life tp-3

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Chico nodded agreement. Harpo said nothing.

  “I could sure use the money,” sighed Chico.

  “What a surprise,” Groucho responded.

  Business talk went on for another hour. Then there was a pause for nostalgia, with memories of living out on Grand Avenue when they were in Chicago in the old days. They talked about former wives, assorted kids, aunts and uncles.

  They spent about two hours talking, beating the extended record I had for conversation with my own brother. Once I had talked to Phil for almost fifteen minutes before he threw a telephone book at me. I’m not sure that time should count though because he was questioning me in his office about a murder.

  A little after eight-thirty, I suggested that we get ready. Chico was especially prepared for the event. To meet the gangsters, he had put on a black suit, black shirt, and white tie. Both Groucho and Harpo wore heavy tweeds that looked as if they came off the same racks I used.

  Narducy was waiting for us at the curb with his cab. His face was eager, and his neck was straining to look at the three brothers, who sat silently in the back seat. I got in front with Narducy.

  Before we pulled away, Narducy turned and surveyed the trio of brothers, deciding which was which. Then, in an Italian accent out of Leo Carillo by way of Henry Armenta, he said: “Hey boss, the garbage mans a here.”

  “Tell him we don’t want any,” Groucho shot back.

  Then Narducy switched to his Groucho imitation. I elbowed him hard in the ribs before he got very far, but it didn’t slow him down.

  “Now the next thing we’ve got in this contract,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “is a sanity clause. You know what a sanity clause is, don’t you?”

  Chico shot back in his now Italian accent: “Take it out. You canta fool me. There’s no Sanity Klaus.”

  Encouraged by the response, Narducy did a gookie toward Harpo that merited him donations for plastic surgery. Harpo returned the gookie.

  “I like this guy,” said Groucho, nodding at Ray, “but then again, I like cold toilet seats.”

  “You think we might get moving now?” I said. ”Half the underworld is waiting for us.”

  “And if you do one more imitation of us,” added Groucho, “we’ll turn you over to these guys and tell them you’re Chico.”

  Narducy started the car with a grin. He pushed his glasses up his nose, narrowly missed a new Nash as he pulled into traffic, turned his voice up to a near falsetto and did an imitation of Kenny Baker singing “Too Blind Love.”

  Groucho moaned.

  Narducy switched to his operatic tenor and tried Allen Jones singing “Alone.”

  “I give up,” cried Groucho. “We’ll give you the $120,000 if you stop.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Chico said. “He always gets this way when he’s nervous.”

  Groucho folded his arms and looked out the window.

  As we turned at Michigan and Cermak, I saw the police car Kleinhans promised parked across from the Michigan entrance of the hotel. Narducy pulled his cab around the corner on Cermak and told us the street was named after the mayor who had been assassinated when he took a shot meant for FDR. Cermak, according to Narducy, was a much bigger target. I told him to move far enough down so the cop car couldn’t spot him and no one from inside the hotel would know we came in his cab. It might turn out to be safer for all of us.

  There was an empty taxi stand a half block away with a little place near it-a shack where you could buy coffee. I told Narducy he could go in there and get a cup, but to be back out in ten minutes in case we had to move fast.

  Then the brothers and I got out and walked to the New Michigan. None of them had anything to say. In the lobby they still had nothing to say. Costello was there, and a different night clerk. Some of the ladies who worked out of the place were taking an evening break in the lobby. Chico beamed at a blonde nearby. She beamed back. Groucho caught the exchange of beams and gave Chico a dirty look. Chico shrugged and smiled. Harpo said nothing and looked seriously at the approaching Costello. His arm was still in a sling. His eyes looked at us up and down and across.

  “Lift ’em,” he said.

  I lifted my arms and he frisked me.

  “You three, too.”

  When Costello was satisfied, which took him extra long because he had only one hand to work with and wanted to be sure he didn’t make the kind of mistake that had resulted in my getting away from him in Cicero, he nodded for us to go in the elevator.

  Chico managed to say something to the blonde, who gave him a deep laugh, a laugh from just above her knees.

  “Which one’s Chico?” Costello said in the swaying elevator.

  “I am,” said Chico. Costello gave him a less than friendly look and went silent.

  I’d been through this whole thing before. We got out at the same floor, went down the same hall, and found the same Chaney waiting and guarding the door.

  “Swordfish,” said Groucho.

  “Huh?” said Chaney.

  “Swordfish,” repeated Groucho. “That’s the password to get us into this speakeasy. If you don’t know your business, you shouldn’t be on the door. Chico’s had more experience at it than you have.”

  Chaney’s face was blank and confused.

  “Never mind,” said Groucho. “Forget I said anything. I have a feeling you will anyway.”

  “He’s being funny,” Costello explained.

  “I don’t get it,” said Chaney.

  It was my turn, and I asked if we could just go in. Chaney opened the door and led us into the same room I had been in before. Costello was behind us. The room had the same furniture, a card table with chairs, a sofa, an old worn easy chair and a picture on the wall of a horse. The big difference was the people. Nitti was in the same chair at the table as if he hadn’t moved in days. A heavy-set guy with greying curly hair and a familiar face sat in the easy chair. I figured him for Ralph Capone, but I never found out for sure. Two unfamiliar men stood on either side of the room, far back and silent. One was leaning against the wall, smoking and watching us. The other was just watching us. Their job may have been to hold up the wall, but I had the feeling they were there to back up the curly head in the soft chair. The one person missing from the picture was the one we’d come to see, Gino Servi.

  “Who’re they?” Nitti said through his teeth, indicating the Marxes.

  “Oh,” said Groucho stepping forward, “permit me to introduce ourselves. I am Mr. Hardy and this is my friend Mr. Laurel. The gentleman next to him is Edgar Kennedy.”

  Nobody in the room cracked a smile or gave any indication that they realized Groucho was trying to be funny. Costello had some experience with Groucho and said, “He’s being funny, Frank. The talker is Groucho. The one next to him is Chico and the other one is Harpo.”

  Nitti looked at Groucho, his eyes narrow, and whispered, “Don’t talk no more.”

  Groucho opened his mouth and Nitti’s hands clenched, turning red-white.

  “Grouch,” said Chico. “Don’t.”

  Harpo put a hand on Groucho’s shoulder and Groucho shrugged, found a chair, put his elbow on the table and rested his head in his hand.

  “Well,” said Chico, “Which one is Servi?”

  “Not here yet,” said Costello. “Soon.”

  “O.K.,” said Chico rubbing his hands together, “How about a couple hands of poker, or-”

  I cleared my throat loudly and Groucho groaned. Harpo walked over to look at the picture of the horse.

  We sat around for about fifteen minutes, looking at our watches. Chaney and Costello spent some of their time looking at me. The curly-haired guy lifted his hand, and one of the guys near the wall came to him. They whispered. The guy left the room and came back five minutes later with a dark drink with ice for the guy I was sure was Ralph Capone. Nitti looked at him.

  “You bring those cops?” said the guy in the soft chair.

  “Me?” I said pointing to my chest. “Wh
at cops?”

  “The ones parked outside,” he said calmly, putting away half the liquid in the glass with two swallows. We all watched his Adam’s apple.

  I didn’t say anything more. I didn’t know what he knew. Maybe their boys in blue had told them something. If they did, I could lie and get caught. I could tell the truth or say nothing. I kept my mouth shut, and the guy who must have been Capone didn’t push it. Ten minutes later he looked restless.

  “Where’s Servi?” he asked Nitti.

  “I don’t know. I told him nine. He knows better.”

  “Can I say something?” said Groucho.

  “No,” said Nitti.

  “Yes,” said Capone.

  Nitti’s head spun toward Capone, who started to get out of his chair. The two boys near the wall moved forward. Costello and Chaney put their hands in their coats. Harpo pretended to keep looking at the horse, which he had been examining steadily for twenty minutes.

  Nitti’s eyes stayed on Capone and he spoke softly.

  “Talk,” said Nitti, “but no smart-ass Jew talk.”

  “This guy Servi’s not coming,” said Groucho. “He’s not coming because he can’t identify Chico. He’d walk into this room, look at the three of us and make a wrong guess, because I think this guy Servi helped set you up with a guy imitating my brother.”

  “The guy who got killed on the West Side yesterday,” I threw in. “Old actor named Morris Kelakowsky. I think maybe Servi set it up for him to take you for $120,000. Then he tried to hold Chico up for it.”

  Nitti rose, glaring from Groucho Marx to me. Chico just leaned back and watched.

  “Sounds possible to me,” said Capone.

  “Gino’s my cousin,” said Nitti.

  Capone laughed.

  “You never heard of a cousin doing in a cousin, or a brother a brother? They may be right, Frank. Gino set all this, got rid of Bistolfi, the Canetta kid and the Jew to keep them from talking.”

  “Maybe,” said Nitti, rubbing his chin.

  “If he did,” said Capone, “I want him. Bistolfi was working for me.”

  Capone motioned to Chaney and told him to make some phone calls, to track down Gino. We sat while Chaney reached for the phone and started his calls. He got nervous and turned his eyes down. On the third call, to the Fireside, he got lucky, and kept saying, “Yeah, O.K.” He hung up and talked slowly to Nitti.

  “Gino left there two hours ago, said he was coming right here. He ain’t been home or to any of the other places. You want me to check the hospitals?”

  “No,” said Nitti.

  Capone got up and nodded to the guys against the wall.

  “Remember, Frank. I get him.”

  “We talk to him first,” said Nitti.

  “Sure,” said Capone, “you talk to him. Then I talk to him.”

  It was my turn.

  “Then we can go?”

  “You can go back to the Drake and stay there till we find Gino,” and Nitti. “Then you get out of town fast if things don’t look good for him. We’ll let you know.”

  Groucho was going to say something, but Harpo moved quickly to his side and touched his shoulder, shutting him up. Chico put five bucks on the table, reached down and cut the deck of cards in front of Nitti. Nitti smirked and looked up at him with something that might have been dyspepsia or grudging respect. Nitti cut the cards. Chico’s card was a five of clubs, Nitti’s a jack of hearts. Chico led the way out of the door with Costello and Chaney behind us.

  When the door closed, we could hear the voices of Capone and Nitti, but couldn’t make out the words.

  No one said anything on the way down. In the lobby, Chico suggested when he saw the blonde that he might be back at the Drake a little late. I suggested strongly that he do as Nitti said and just go to the hotel.

  It had worked out, but not the way I expected. All I had left to do was stick around till the mob nailed Servi. In the morning, I’d tell Kleinhans that Servi was the triple killer. I didn’t think the cops would get to him first. Then I’d call Mayer and tell him the whole thing was wrapped up.

  The cop car was across the street when we went through the door. Costello followed us out into the wind with his hands in his pockets. He moved his blue face close to me so that I’d be the only one to hear.

  “When Frank gives you the word to go,” he said without moving his lips, “you got exactly two hours to be out of town and not come back, not ever. Got it?”

  “I got it,” I said, and led the way around the corner to Narducy’s cab. The street was pretty well deserted. The area was mostly industrial. A couple of big factories stood in the sky, silhouetted against the moon. We got in, and Narducy asked how it had gone. The Marxes were quiet. I told Narducy everything looked fine.

  We pulled away, and he made a U-turn to take us back to Michigan Avenue. Something bumped in the car and rattled. Narducy said he’d check it later and guessed it was a loose muffler.

  We got back to the Drake in ten minutes, and the Marxes got out. I said goodnight and that I’d see them in the morning. Groucho leaned through the door and said “Thanks.” No gags, no smirk. No sour face. Harpo shook my hand and grinned, and Chico suggested that he never knew when he might need my help again. I closed the door, and Narducy pulled away singing “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” in his Groucho voice. I didn’t mind.

  When he pulled in front of his apartment building, I paid him and marked the price and tip in my black book. He said he’d be on the street for a few more hours. I turned to head in and up to Merle while Narducy got out of the cab to check the loose muffler.

  About twenty seconds later, he caught me going up the stairs. His eyes were wide and he had something to say, but words weren’t coming out, not even an impression of Cary Grant. I followed him back down the stairs and out to the cab.

  “Muffler wasn’t loose,” he finally said, breathing fast in little gulps. “It was the trunk. Someone broke the lock.”

  He pointed to the trunk and I went over to it. It was partly open. I opened it the rest of the way and found out what had happened to Gino Servi. Someone had put a bullet in his forehead and folded him into Narducy’s trunk. Narducy didn’t move around to where he could see the corpse again.

  “Well?” he said as if he had to find a toilet fast.

  “No, not well. Not well at all.”

  A large caliber bullet had not only cancelled Gino Servi’s life but maybe the chance for Chico Marx to walk away clean and me to turn a killer over to the cops.

  I was five squares back with nowhere to go, and I was tired, damned tired.

  “You got two choices, Raymond,” I said, looking down the street to be sure no one was coming or looking. Whoever had given Narducy this present probably knew about me, Narducy, and Merle. Sooner or later he was going to find it easier to get rid of me than to keep sweeping witnesses out of my path. “You go to the cops and tell them you found this gentleman in your trunk, or you dump the body someplace. I suggest you avoid the questions and dump the body.”

  “I never-” he started. “I can’t.”

  “I have,” I said. “And I can. Get back in and tell me a good place to put our friend where the cops can find him.”

  Ten minutes later, we left Gino sitting on a bench in Lincoln Park looking at a bunch of icebound pleasure boats in a harbor. Ten minutes after that Narducy had dropped me at the Ambassador Hotel. He was too nervous to tell if someone had followed us, and I was having too much trouble scheming to worry about it.

  The doorman at the Ambassador was tall, black, and polite. He was also young and handsome in a blue uniform. We were a nice contrast on every point. I made my way to the desk walking on a carpet four feet thick. Just off the desk was a restaurant with a sign indicating it was “The Pump Room.” Someone opened the door of the Pump Room and I spotted a Negro waiter dressed like Punjab with a big turban. It looked like the kind of place where Ian Fleming would feel at home.

  The desk clerk wore a modified tu
x and was too classy to even give me a suspicious look. He just called Fleming’s room and announced me, and Fleming, apparently, said I should come up.

  11

  Fleming opened the door with an amused smile on his face, a drink in one hand, and his pearl cigarette holder in the other. He wore a dark smoking jacket that looked as if it were made of velvet. The only other time I had seen anything like it was in a Ricardo Cortez movie a good ten years earlier.

  “Mr. Peters,” he said genially. “To what do I owe this pleasure? Another attempt on your life?”

  He stepped back to let me in, and in I went to a large, carpeted room with plenty of soft furniture and a tall, black-haired woman in a black dress. She looked like an ad for expensive perfume. She didn’t look soft like the furniture.

  “Were you followed?” Fleming asked matter-of-factly.

  “Maybe,” I said, looking at the woman, who raised a drink to her mouth as if she were in a fashion show. The mouth pouted and the face did not show signs of pleasure in my company.

  Fleming turned off the hall light behind us and moved quickly to switch off the overhead light in the room, leaving only the light of a table lamp in the corner and the silhouette of the woman.

  “I always take rooms on this floor in the Ambassador when I’m in Chicago,” Fleming explained. “Someone was overzealous on the doors, and there is a distinct gap between floor and door.”

  I looked at the door and could see the light from the hall spreading evenly onto the carpet.

  “If someone approaches,” he explained, “no matter how softly, their shadow will show. Learned that from a Japanese diplomat I was following in New York City last year. Formidable group, the Japanese.”

  He sat comfortably in the chair after smoothing his smoking jacket behind him and asked me if I wanted a drink. I passed, and tried not to look at the tall woman. Fleming acted as if she were not there and might have gone on ignoring her had she not cleared her throat.

  “Ah, yes, Mr. Peters, this is Prosephone Fabrikant, a not very old and not yet a dear friend.”

  The woman winced at both the phoney name and the comment, but said nothing.