My Kind of Town

by John Sandrolini

  After an hour of no great revelations, we left. As we pulled away, Sal said he knew a good barbecue place near Back of the Yards where a cop could grab lunch on the cuff. I checked my watch, said, “You bet,” catching a flash of a big dark car in the side mirror as I did. I watched it out of curiosity for a few seconds, but it slid into a parking space down from Capone’s house just as Sal went into a soliloquy about the “incredible brisket” they had at the place we were going.

  I shrugged. Lunch was calling. Barbecued beef sounded good to me, too.

  46

  The brisket was a little dry for me. Sal thought it was fabulous. But as my father used to say, “There’s no accounting for taste.”

  After lunch, we decided to split up to cover more ground. I stayed on the South Side while Sal continued on to the town of Cicero, a former Capone stronghold just west of Chicago. The Cicero sites were particularly dubious, but Sal knew the town well, so at least I could tell McBride I gave it a shot. I supposed I was going to have to tell Jack about my partner at some point, but half of nothing being nothing, I was pretty sure I could float his share.

  My first two stops were dry wells. After a quick map check, I jumped a bus on Archer and bailed out at Chinatown. Then I hoofed it east along the fringes of the old Levee District, a place of staggering vice whose bordellos and saloons had giggled and roared for blocks at the turn of the century. Just a hurled brick from the decrepit Lexington Hotel, this part of the neighborhood was even worse off, the fixed stares I got from a couple of young Negroes letting me know I was running hard along the edge of the color line. At Wabash, I turned south, tramped another block, and then stopped and gazed up at the site where an emperor came of age: the Four Deuces Club.

  Cribbing its name from its street address of 2222 South Wabash, the Four Deuces had been Johnny Torrio’s headquarters as well as the most notorious nightspot of the mid-1920s, with plenty of pleasure or pain to be experienced depending on your altitude. The upper levels were well known as a gambling hall and den of sin, but popular lore from my childhood had it that the basement was a mob inquisition chamber where rising star Capone and his crew put the pliers to many an unlucky man, none of whom were ever seen again.

  When Capone took charge of the rackets, he moved his headquarters west to Cicero, and the Four Deuces fell into disuse, quickly achieving the status of haunted house for kids on a dare. One day around 1928, Sal and I worked up the courage to jimmy a side window and slip inside, but ran out screaming with our hair on fire when a wino threw an empty at us. We laughed all the way home. I hadn’t laid eyes on the place since.

  Time had done nothing to improve it. The windows on the upper levels were shuttered; those on the first floor, boarded with plywood, as was the entranceway, although enterprising vagrants had peeled one of the sheets back enough to allow entry. I stood before it a good minute peering inside, listening for any sounds as my eyes adapted to the murk. Then I flexed the spray-painted board a few feet and slipped past its nail-studded edges into the legendary house of iniquity.

  Enough gray light entered through the naked window frames for me to clearly see the beer bottles, cardboard beds, and abandoned clothing of those too forlorn to fear the phantoms of Prohibition, but there was going to have to be a downright aureole for me to spot anything remotely related to a clue. Still, the legend of the place was intriguing enough to draw me farther inside.

  Picking my way through the effluvious ruins, I reached the skeleton of a back wall. Beyond it, there was what might have been a covered patio in its day but was now just an open-air mud patch leading off to an alleyway and the elevated train tracks above. The whole of the lot was strewn with junk and a couple of burnt-out areas marked off with loose bricks. Graffiti on the back wall paid a cryptic homage to the genius of Allen Ginsberg above a brace of Night Train bottles.

  But unless the fortified admirer had scribbled a note somewhere reading “This way to Capone’s loot,” it was just another dead end, albeit one laced with perverse nostalgia.

  Failing to spy any evidence of divine aid, I right-side-upped a fruit box, sat down, and shook out a Lucky. I sat and smoked awhile. A commuter train rumbled by in a dirty green-and-white blur on the elevated tracks then vanished. A truck on Wabash rattled the upstairs window frames as it passed. A police siren wailed somewhere in the distance. Other than that, it was silent in the Four Deuces. Just me, my thoughts, and the psychic echoes of the spirits.

  About my fifth drag, the smallest of creaks sounded behind me. I turned, jumping up into a defensive crouch, hands at the ready.

  What I saw made me want for the ghosts.

  47

  There were two guys. One big, one bigger. They were Italian American, but a quick look at their faces told me they hadn’t come to invite me to the Knights of Columbus pancake breakfast.

  I gave it a shot anyhow. “Howdy, boys,” I offered. “Don’t worry, I didn’t drink any of your derail stash here.”

  The big one wasn’t much for humor. He pulled out a revolver, aimed it at my chest.

  The bigger one walked up to me, drove one into my solar plexus. I went down in stages into the muck, giving up my brisket along the way.

  The pain was all-encompassing, bright red fuses burning their way along nerve endings as they raced toward my brain. As I lay there retching and gasping, the big one said solemnly, “Mr. Carpaccio says your Easter egg hunt is over unless you start doing it for him.”

  After three attempts, I finally managed to catch my breath well enough to sputter, “The hell you talking about? They told me . . . this was . . . O’Bannion’s flower shop. I’m here . . . here for the begonias.”

  The bigger guy smiled. “That’s funny, they’re out of season.”

  “Shut up, Tony,” the big guy said.

  Tony nodded.

  “Tony,” he said then, “pick up that brick. Mr. Buonomo is a little unclear on our instructions.”

  The big guy clamped onto a nasty-looking number, hefted it up in his hand. I struggled up to my knees, spitting out phlegm and vomit, trying to summon any energy at all. “Easy there, boys,” I wheezed, holding up a hand.

  The big guy looked at me, some faint hopefulness registering in his face. “You gonna play ball?”

  I got up to both hands on my knees, hunched over but coming around. “Yes, yes,” I replied. “Now . . . if you guys will just tell me where the begonias—”

  “Tony!”

  The brick went up over his head.

  A shot whistled out through the courtyard. The masonry fell into the muck. Tony fell alongside it.

  The big guy spun, looking for a target. I launched myself into his back, forearm first, and we went down in the mud together. Fortunato would’ve been proud of my technique.

  Then a very low but firm voice said, “If it is your wish to die today, Mr. Leonardi, I will happily grant it.”

  Leonardi and I looked up into taut sienna features and eyes like onyx, a gleaming automatic mere feet from our faces.

  “Ronnie,” I exclaimed through puke-smeared lips, “how nice to see you.”

  48

  Turned out that Mr. Leonardi did not want to die that day. Neither did Tony, although any aspirations he might have had as a shot-putter ended with the .45-caliber round Ronnie blew through his scapula. The two of them limped off together through the courtyard, mud-caked and bloody, the big guy holding up the bigger, Ronnie following them all the way with his weapon at the ready. The hoods fell into a dark blue Sixty Special, their filthy suits doing nothing for the tan interior. I realized then it was the car I thought I’d seen following me on Tuesday afternoon, then again on Prairie Avenue. As the big sled glided away down the alley, tail fins slicing by like tiger sharks on the prowl, I realized belatedly that I was in way over my head in some very troubled waters.

  Ronnie and I made our way back through the gutted club. He stopped
at the edge of the courtyard, taking in the measure of the place. “Guess we just added another chapter to one of the most infamous places in town,” he mused, rather pleased with himself.

  “Bully for you,” I replied, wiping some slime on a wall. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before those guys come back with reinforcements.”

  Then I headed off for the front door, shaking off mud and picking my way through the rubble, stealing out of the Four Deuces Club with my tail between my legs for the second time in my life, swearing out loud that there would never be a third.

  Ronnie drove us north in the Imperial. He let on that McBride knew about my room in the Gold Coast, so there wasn’t any harm in heading over to it. I could shower up and mix a drink in peace there, which was infinitely better than the hell I’d catch from my mother for coming home covered in mud anyway.

  Once we’d reached the safety of the Loop, I had Ronnie pull over at a pay phone on Clark. It took me a fistful of dimes to run Sal down at the old Hawthorne Hotel, one of the Cicero spots he’d gone to check. It was highly unlikely that anyone was going to hit a cop, but I told him what had happened and warned him to ease on out of there and get home.

  I got my third dirty look from a passerby as I hung up the phone, the middle-aged secretary type haughtily informing me, “If you’ve got the money to be buying drugs on the telephone, you can damn well afford a bath somewhere.”

  It’s a tough town.

  Ronnie was mum on the way to the Ambassador, deflecting my questions about McBride or flat out ignoring them.

  “Listen, Ronnie,” I declared as I got out of the car, “I’m going upstairs to take a shower, and I’m not the only one who’s gonna come clean here. You tell McBride he better have some answers for me about just what in the hell is going on here or he’s gonna need a new Sir Gawain. Savvy?”

  He nodded silently.

  “By the way . . . thank you. You probably saved my life back there.”

  Ronnie tipped his head, a faint curl appearing at the edges of his mouth as he put the car in gear.

  The Imperial rolled away as I entered my four-star hotel caked in muck, gaining admission only because the doorman recognized me. If Sy Huser had been present, he could’ve written another whole column about me judging from the startled glances cast my way as I rushed head down for the elevator.

  49

  The steam felt good. I stood in the shower a long time after the mud had washed away, letting the hot rivulets stream over me, the warm vapor soothing sore muscles and vacating a cluttered mind. I did some reassessing of my situation while I was in there. A long, hot shower is good like that.

  The hotel had those fancy Phonetel answering machines, but the message light remained dark in the bedroom when I peeked in. I shaved my face then slapped on some bay rum. The phone didn’t ring. I got dressed anyway.

  It was only Wednesday afternoon, but I put on the Saturday night suit—the midnight blue one—and paired it with a narrow navy tie with thin brown stripes. The day had been for shit, but the night still held promise. I figured I might as well dress for it.

  Gina picked up over at Sal’s house and put him on the horn. I told him to pack it in for the day. He said he was packing it in for good—how could I blame him? Then I asked if he wanted to catch Claudia’s show tonight, but he said he couldn’t make it till Friday. We said good-bye and hung up.

  I puttered around another five minutes waiting for McBride to check in. He didn’t.

  “Screw him,” I muttered, then went out, closed the door, and rang for the elevator. Didn’t matter anyway, I was all done with his crusade, too.

  I stepped out in the lobby and made for the revolving door, figuring I’d catch a movie at the Esquire, then grab the elevated to Uptown. Claudia’s first show was at nine and I had no problem being early.

  Halfway to the exit, a voice called out behind me, “Where the devil do you think you’re going, laddie?”

  I stopped, smiling sardonically as I turned to face Jack McBride, cocked sideways in the doorway of the Pump Room. The old rogue grinned at me, unabashedly resplendent in a gray houndstooth suit and forest-green turtleneck sweater, a tall glass of something that probably wasn’t mulled cider in his hand. “Come on up and have a drink with me, you sharpie,” he commanded.

  I extended a hand at the entrance. Instead of shaking, McBride clapped me on the back hard enough to make me miss a step.

  “You got some strength there, old boy,” I observed.

  “They don’t let Nancy boys play quarterback at Michigan, you know.”

  I ran my tongue against my back teeth, sizing up the old fossil. “Michigan? Really?”

  He took a deep swallow from his glass, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then stated with more than an inkling of satisfaction, “Varsity. Three years. 9-0-1 in ’09. You can look it up. I tell you, Buonomo, you’d be amazed at what the old Irishman has done in his day.”

  “Has he sold anyone else out to Carpaccio?”

  His eye narrowed, the white brow above it angling down with it. Then he put a heavy arm around me, steering me through the doorway. “Come inside,” he whispered. “Let’s not be so chatty among the hoi polloi.”

  We walked up to the first booth, a big, plush affair with a RESERVED card on top. McBride slid onto the curved leather seat then picked up the card and chucked it over his shoulder. “Boy!” he shouted out to a passing waiter. “Let’s have another drink here.”

  A waiter in a red jacket came over and stood at the ready.

  “What’s your poison, Gawain?” he challenged.

  I cut him a glance, turned toward the waiter. “Whiskey neat. Scotch and soda for King Arthur here.”

  The waiter nodded with a smirk and departed. McBride turned to me, grasped my hand, and looked into my face with purpose. “Damn crazy business, this waylaying people in broad daylight.”

  “Care to tell me about it?”

  “What’s there to tell? You got in a fix, Ronnie saved your corned beef and cabbage. You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “Oh yeah . . . thanks. Thanks for having me tailed again. Thanks for running me all over town from one ruin to the next. Thanks for leaving me out there like a bird on a wire to get plinked. Thanks for—”

  His fist came down hard on the table, rattling the glassware. “You didn’t think it was gonna be a goddamn walk in fields of clover, did ya? There’s a lot of money at stake here, and some other folks want it—bad enough to kill for it. It isn’t my fault you stuck your snoot into the Lexington the other day, you know? You hadn’t done that, we might not be dealing with these, these . . .”

  “Mobsters?”

  His voice dropped to a murmur. “Shhh . . . nobody uses that word up here in Potter Palmer land. Didn’t Ronnie put Carpaccio’s thugs on the run anyway? Oh, he can shoot that fellow, a dead aim he is.”

  “Nuts,” I sneered. “You’re crazy if you think you can outmuscle the mob. Your boy probably just started a war.” I cupped a hand to my ear. “Where’s your cavalry, McBride? ’Cuz I sure as hell don’t hear any bugles. All we have is one Indian, one crazy old man, and one damned fool smack in the middle.”

  “Oh, I’ve got heft, my boy, and it’s not all in my waistband. Carpaccio has a hammer—I have connections. He’s got guns—I’ve got clout. What do you think rates higher in this town?”

  The waiter arrived, put the drinks on the table. McBride feigned patting for his billfold several times. I made a face at him, handed the waiter a fin, waved him away.

  “Guess we’ll chalk that up to clout, huh, Jack?”

  He bit his lips, said nothing.

  Then I hoisted the glass, eyed McBride, and threw down a gulp. I let it run down and in, way back in the gills, easing back a notch as the liquor hit home.

  It was good stuff. I held the glass up again, examining the conte
nts, noting the color and the purity.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” McBride said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Whiskey, my boy. Al Capone made a fortune on it. These gangsters like Carpaccio—they weren’t always so stupid and clumsy, you know. Capone was a genius. An evil one, mind you, but a genius nevertheless.”

  McBride’s eye was alive now, his voice stoked in a growing timbre as he began to wax rhapsodic on days long gone. “He built an empire on whiskey, a vast, multitentacled octopus—the Syndicate, they called it. That syndicate ruled this entire town and half the criminals in America. And Capone ran it. Politicians, police, probies, distillers, importers, bootleggers, reporters, lawyers, accountants, gunmen—they all depended on him. He made hundreds of millions of dollars doing it.”

  McBride leaned way in, cut his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And he left it all behind—for you and me to find.”

  The old man was electric now. His ramble down memory lane had taken thirty years off him, and the smell of greed was as pungent as the corn mash in my glass.

  I listened to everything he said, turning it over several times in my mind.

  At length I asked, “Is it just me, Jack, or does this whole Capone thing infect everything it touches—like the clap he died from? Because the only thing I’ve found so far is man’s limitless ability to delude and corrupt himself. What good is this treasure if it costs you your life or your soul? I mean, I’m at it two days—two days—and I’m already neck deep with the mob. I’m done with that shit; I don’t have any more time to waste on them. What time I do have could be far better spent with—”