Chicago Boogie Woogie

by Gregory C. Randall

  “Maybe she was killed over those two murders?” Alfano suggested.

  “That was ten years ago. My guess, anyone involved is either dead or in prison. Besides, they couldn’t pin the deaths on anyone. It was outside a local Irish bar on Halsted.”

  “Maybe she knew the killer or killers?”

  “Right now, anything is possible,” McDunnah said. “I’ve got Tuttle chasing a few leads.”

  “Don’t they have crime in Los Angeles? Tuttle got that much time on his hands?”

  “You are paying him a hundred bucks for this.”

  “What?”

  “Information costs money.”

  “What about the brotherhood of the police?” Alfano said. “Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

  “The key word is scratch, the one spelled with a dollar sign.”

  “Cynical Irishman.”

  “A good Irishman is always cynical; I’ll find the funds somewhere.”

  McDunnah walk back to his desk. Alfano knew without looking that the sergeant still walked with a slight limp from the gunshot wound to his leg a few months earlier. The sergeant’s job wasn’t unlike a concierge at a hotel. Everything was filtered through him, walk-ins, phone calls, mail, and interdepartmental communications. He assessed and then passed it onto the right person or team. Even before the gunshot, he seldom walked the streets. For Tony Alfano, Sergeant McDunnah was both his right and left hand.

  Alfano turned his full attention back to the board. He studied the photos of Kitty Mooney-O’Neal-Hill. The kill shots had come from a reasonably large-caliber weapon, possibly a .32, suggesting her assailant was most probably a man. Guns could be found anywhere. These days, it was easier to get a Colt revolver than a vial of cyanide. The scarf, sex either consensual or forced, the bruises on the arms, and the bullets themselves were confusing. And if she were a heroin addict, one more layer of suspects might be added. There were the two champagne glasses, one with Hill’s prints, the other wiped clean. The bottle of 1930 Moet & Chandon Brut had also been scrubbed. The door had been locked from the inside. And the watch—the Cartier watch. Expensive, Los Angeles bought, too easily traced, Polo Club logo—was it another clue, or a plant, or a misdirection?

  Alfano heard the welcome sound of a coffee cup tap the top of his desk. “Thanks, Sergeant. I’d have gotten my own coffee.”

  “Your favorite mayor just called. Eleven at his office,” McDunnah said.

  “Really, can’t he just leave me alone?”

  “I’m beginning to worry about you. You spend too much time in that downtown office, you don’t know what will rub off. Rumors will start.”

  Alfano picked up the coffee. Weak or strong, the sergeant’s coffee was always hot.

  “I have a question,” Alfano said. “Why would someone go to all the trouble to make this look like a cheesy True Detective story—even to the locked door?”

  “It’s possible the killer left through the connecting room door_it wasn’t even locked_then through Melnik’s room. All the other clues? Maybe they are not clues at all, but misdirection.”

  “Yes, maybe,” Alfano said.

  “Specifically, what do you mean?” McDunnah said.

  “The scarf: Is it Hill’s, or did the killer bring it? Did she know her killer? The two champagne glasses and expensive champagne suggest it. The room next door was Melnik’s. Roberts says he was fifteen miles away in Evanston when Hill was murdered. Where was Durant?”

  “I’m chasing it all down. The young lady says she was with Roberts but is dodgy on the details,” McDunnah said. “I’m also checking Melnik and Durant’s whereabouts and where they went that morning before the meeting with the mayor. They had nine hours since leaving the Evanston theater. Now, it may be impossible to know where they were.”

  “It still pisses me off that they took off,” Alfano said. “They knew they were leaving but said nothing.”

  “We could try and extradite them back here for questions.”

  “At the moment, it’s not worth it. I’ll let the mayor know when I see him. He was, when I first met this trio, blissfully unaware of any of this.”

  “Blissfully unaware, yeah. That just about sums up our mayor,” McDunnah said.

  Alfano sat in the overstuffed corner chair in the mayor’s outer office. He lit a cigarette. The secretary’s desk had been unoccupied when he arrived. Halfway through his first cigarette, the secretary walked through the office door and stopped, startled at the sight of someone in the chair.

  “You are ten minutes early,” she said, sounding more like a third-grade teacher than a mayor’s secretary.

  “And you were not at your post, Miss Sarah Jean Alcott. Anyone could have just waltzed in and gotten to your boss. Tsk-tsk.”

  “I was out for just a moment. And whatever my schedule, it’s none of your business, Detective. Too much tea,” she added under her breath.

  He grinned at her. “Some of that quaint Nebraska charm is beginning to turn to nasty Chicago grit. I like it.”

  “You are incorrigible.” Sarah Jean leaned across her desk and pressed the lever on the intercom. “Detective Alfano is here.”

  “Please let him in,” came the mayor’s voice. The door buzzed. Alfano stood.

  “Until we meet again, Duluth.”

  Her reply was to wave him toward the door.

  “Tony, Tony, come in, Detective,” Mayor Kelly said. He was sitting behind his desk, a cigar in the ashtray to his right.

  Alfano looked around. The mayor was uncharacteristically alone.

  “Good morning, Mayor. What can I do for you?” Alfano said.

  “Well, this will be short and sweet. I have the bishop, three nuns, and three honor students coming to visit me in about twenty minutes. So, I’ll get right to the point. I need you to represent the city of Chicago on a very important assignment.”

  “I’m right in the middle of the Palmer House killing. I can’t break away.”

  “This is possibly connected to the murder of that unfortunate girl. In fact, I may be able to help you while you help me.”

  “Really?” The thought of the Trojans and the Greeks and a horse came to mind.

  “Hines Melnik called me this morning. It was early here, damn early in California. You do remember Mr. Melnik?”

  The photo of Melnik on the murder board flashed across Alfano’s mind. “Of course.”

  “Well, it seems he needs you.”

  “That little shit torpedoed my investigation. The dead woman was his employee; she ran his production company. And then, without a word, he and those two actors got on an airplane and fled Chicago! If they were here, I’d throw them all in jail. If for nothing more than being smug Californians with tans.”

  Kelly smiled and took a pull on his cigar. “Mr. Melnik needs you to provide your professional assistance while they film his movie. He called you a technical advisor. He wants you to make sure that the characters and the story work—‘make it true to life,’ he said.”

  “Not a chance. There’s too much to do here,” Alfano said. “Besides, what do I know about making movies?”

  “He’s paying for two weeks of your time, all expenses covered, and a donation to the Police Orphan’s Fund.”

  “How generous.”

  “And he needs you in Los Angeles by Thursday,” Kelly said with a smile.

  “Thursday, this week? The train will take almost three days as is. I’m too damn busy. I have the Hill murder, and two others—the Herrington killing and the Jane Doe in Jackson Park. My office is close to breaking them open as well. I just can’t walk away and leave the other detectives high and dry.”

  “They are all good boys. Pass these other cases on to someone else. Use your time in Los Angeles to work on the Hill murder,” Mayor Kelly said. “You said yourself these LA people are your prime suspects. So, get up close. If one of them did it, I’ll back the extradition. And don’t worry about the timing or the train—they are paying for your plane ticket. You leave W
ednesday morning; you will be in Los Angeles the next afternoon.”

  “Plane ticket? I am fucking flying?” Alfano said, the color draining from his dark Italian face.

  “Detective Alfano, are you afraid of flying?” The mayor sucked on his cigar, exhaled. “I’ll be damned,” he said into a cloud of smoke.

  CHAPTER 9

  That afternoon and Tuesday, Alfano worked the case, trying to put Wednesday’s departure out of his mind. The body of Kitty Hill was unsurprisingly left unclaimed. McDunnah called Sierra Films and waited a full day for Hines Melnik to finally return his call. Melnick said he was sorry, but he was not interested in having the body shipped to California for burial. And no, he did not know if she had any next of kin. He would send a hundred dollars to help with the local funeral arrangements. Alfano was disappointed with the response by Kitty’s Los Angeles associates. It was another reason he wanted to tell the mayor to take the idea of him flying to California and stuff it in his snoot. Alfano convinced the coroner to hold the body until he got back from California.

  The inevitable arrived at 8:05 am Wednesday morning. As Detective Anthony Alfano quietly recited his rosary, the airplane rose gracefully, albeit very noisily, off the runway at Chicago’s Municipal Airport. They had assigned him the first row, starboard side, the first of the eighteen passengers. There was more leg room, though he was sure his seat assignment was intended to torture him; it was a longer walk to the toilet in the tail of the plane. He tried to convince himself that he was made of sterner stuff, especially considering that five of the seats were occupied by women who were all atwitter over their adventure. He was hardly able to keep down his breakfast.

  He was pissed at himself; he knew he was made of sterner stuff. In 1915, as a beat cop with two years on the streets, he’d been at the pier helping recover bodies from the Eastland ship disaster. He’d taken on the gangs and bootleggers through the 1920s. He was there the day they walked Al Capone out of his hotel to the bus to take him to jail. During his twenty years on the job, he’d worked for Mayors Busse, Harrison, Thompson (twice), and Dever. The two shortest terms were for the assassinated Anton Cermak and his interim placeholder, Frank Corr. And now it was Edward Kelly. To be honest, he hadn’t liked any of them—and he’d only personally met three of them. Sure, they shook his hand when he was awarded three citations for distinction in the line of duty, but Kelly was the only one with whom he’d had more than a two-minute conversation. Alfano was not a politician. He was a simple soldier in the never-ending battle between the not-so-good and the not-so-bad. He understood, but he never turned his back on the wronged and the powerless. He was no avenging angel, like Bureau agent Eliot Ness, a heroic figure in the unfolding gangland stories and deeds. After Capone was taken down for tax evasion, Alfano sat in on a couple days of the trial. It was an event—a circus_though it resulted in Capone’s conviction. He hoped the man would rot in hell.

  Alfano tucked the rosary beads into his pocket, looked out the window, and was hypnotized by the landscape that passed under the Curtiss T-32 Condor. His stomach had settled, the coffee stayed down, and the stewardess smelled delightful. The flight plan was due south to Memphis, six hours ahead of them. Then west through Little Rock to Dallas, and around midnight, weather permitting, El Paso, Texas. Then through the night to Tucson, Phoenix, Glendale, and eventually the United Air terminal in Burbank, California. All this was beyond him; he had never been west of the Mississippi River in his entire forty-two years.

  Late that day, after flying back and forth over the Mississippi River, they finally headed west. He ate lunch during the short layover in St. Louis, and had dinner in Texas, and breakfast in Glendale, before the last leg to Burbank.

  Late the next morning, twelve miles north of Los Angeles, Alfano walked through the recently completed Burbank United Air terminal and saw a woman in the lobby holding a sign with his name on it.

  “I’m Alfano,” he said, looking down at the incredibly beautiful young woman.

  “Good morning, Mr. Alfano. I am Gloria. I am your escort today; our driver is out front. Mr. Melnik told me to tell you that the day is yours. He knows you will be exhausted. However, you don’t look too exhausted to me, if I may say so. They say that flying can be so stressful.”

  “Thank you, I’m surprisingly not, Gloria. I’ve had stakeouts that were tougher and more uncomfortable.”

  “Stakeouts? Are you a G-man or a detective like Sam Spade? I’ve never met a true-to-life private eye.”

  “It’s worse than that, Gloria. I’m a cop,” Alfano said.

  “Golly, a real cop. And Mr. Melnik is doing a detective picture. What a coincidence.”

  “More than you can imagine. My bag?”

  “They will bring it there.” She pointed to a long counter near the lobby area.

  “I assume there’s a hotel or something in my near future?”

  “Yes, you are at the brand-new Georgian Hotel on the cliff above the beach in Santa Monica. I was told by Mr. Melnik that you should have the best. It’s quite a place.”

  “How long is the drive?”

  “With the traffic, maybe an hour, maybe less. You never can tell here in Los Angles. He said for you to relax, enjoy the day. Go to the beach. I am at your disposal.”

  Alfano looked at the girl; if she were twenty, he would have been surprised. Auburn hair, nice tan, athletic—if he were only fifteen years younger. Unfortunately, right now all he could imagine was that the girl’s father couldn’t be much older than himself.

  “Lead on, my dear. Adventure awaits,” he told her.

  They found Alfano’s one bag and met the driver at the curb in front of the terminal.

  “Detective Alfano, this is David Baine, our driver,” Gloria said.

  “David,” Alfano said.

  David opened the back door to the limousine and Alfano discovered he had the back seat to himself; Gloria took the front passenger seat.

  The drive across the San Fernando Valley was a dusty mixture of small towns, tract homes, and farmland. David then took them up and over the San Gabriel Mountains via Sepulveda Boulevard and drove west on Sunset Boulevard to the coast.

  “This is the most scenic route, Detective,” Gloria said as they cut south through the mountains. “Along Sunset is where all the swell and rich folks live. Me, I’ve got a small apartment in the Sawtelle neighborhood. It’s not far from Sierra Films’ production lot. I don’t mind. I think I’ve got a chance at getting a spot in a picture coming up—maybe even Mr. Melnik’s newest, a walk-on spot.”

  The driver harrumphed when he overheard Gloria’s expectation.

  “You never mind him, Detective Alfano. He wants to be an actor, too. I dearly believe half of LA wants to be in the pictures. So, I work where I can.”

  “Mind if I smoke?” Alfano asked.

  “Oh, please. I don’t mind. Thank you for asking.”

  “You want to be an actress?” Alfano asked “Where are you from?”

  “Denver. After my folks died, I took off. Hopped on the train here. I’m taking acting and dance lessons with some of the money they left me. I got dreams.”

  Again, the driver harrumphed.

  “David, you stop all that noise. I swear I’m going to make it.”

  “Detective, if I had a dollar for the times I’ve heard that . . . well, I could probably buy one of these limos and make real money,” David said. “That’s why Hollywood is here; it’s all fake. We all got dreams and live in a land of smoke and mirrors.”

  “Pay him no mind—and this is the Pacific Ocean,” Gloria said, pointing out the front window. “I remember the first time I saw it, I nearly cried, I did, nearly cried. I’d never seen anything so wonderful.”

  “Looks like Lake Michigan,” Alfano said, “but with palm trees.”

  The Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica fronted Ocean Avenue; it sat high on the bluff overlooking the ocean. David took Alfano’s one bag and carried it into the lobby; Gloria walked in with the detective. />
  “I’ve changed my mind,” Alfano said. “It’s almost three. I’m going to take a bath and get some sleep.”

  “You need some lunch,” Gloria said.

  “I’m good; I’ll get room service. Is David going to take you home, or somewhere?”

  “I was going to do some shopping, then take the trolley home. It’s not far, maybe twenty minutes.”

  “Tell you what—be back here at six and I’ll take you to dinner. You can tell me about Los Angeles, California, and why you left Colorado. And I’ll tell you all about Chicago. That a deal?”

  Gloria broke into a big smile. “That is a deal, Detective. Six o’clock, right here.”

  “You know a good place to eat?”

  “The best seafood is about a block from here.”

  Alfano looked at the desk clerk, who nodded. “She’s right, Mr. Alfano.”

  “It’s a date. Six o’clock,” Alfano said.

  “Do you need some help with your bag?” the clerk asked.

  “No. I’m good.”

  The clerk slid a key across the counter. “I have you for two weeks, excellent. Top floor, corner room. Just sign here.” He spun a large ledger to face Alfano.

  After signing, Alfano grabbed his bag and turned around. He was surprised that Gloria was already gone. And so was the driver, David.

  “I hope that you enjoy your stay, Mr. Alfano. If there is anything you need, just let us know,” the clerk said.

  The elevator attendant was a woman, something Alfano had never seen in Chicago, at least in the hotels. He walked the hallway to his room, slipped the key into the lock, heard a slight muffled cough from behind, and then the lights went out.