Chicago

by David Mamet

  “Of course,” Parlow said.

  “The cops and the North Side.”

  “Of course.”

  Mike held the magnifying glass over the photograph. Parlow looked down at the face.

  “They weren’t after me,” Mike said, as if repeating a catechism. “They just wanted to kill the girl.”

  “Who’d done what?” Parlow said.

  “They were sending a message to her father,” Mike said.

  Mike put the magnifying glass down. On the table next to it were ten or twelve clippings. Parlow read, “‘Continued Thefts from National Guard Armories.’”

  Mike picked up a newspaper clipping.

  The headline read Samuel “Nails” Morton, War Hero, Killed in Lincoln Park. The clipping showed two photos. On the right was that of a man in a riding habit, sprawled, dead, on the grass. The photo on the left showed a horse, crumpled, dead, in his stall; against the stall, prominently displayed, was a Thompson gun.

  “. . . Read all about it,” Parlow said.

  “The tommy gun,” Mike mused. “Nails Morton? Alright? Thrown from his horse. O’Banion? Comes in, machine-guns the horse to death.”

  “Tit for tat,” Parlow said.

  “Of course; and they leave the gun, as ‘tainted,’ alongside the horse’s body.”

  “It’s lovely. It’s medieval,” Parlow said.

  “Yes, and it’s wasteful,” Mike said. “Jackie Weiss, Teitelbaum, somebody says, ‘Our fellows leave these machines lying about? I’ll bet I can find someone who’d cherish them.’”

  “Jackie Weiss was in it with Teitelbaum?” Parlow said.

  “. . . They got cute. Guns go missing? Irish? Where do they look first? At the outsiders. Outsiders, in this case, as per usual, are the Jews. This case, they’re right.”

  “You figure this out at the whorehouse?”

  “No,” Mike said. “I just wrote it on a piece of paper.”

  Mike took his jacket from the back of the chair. He put it on and began to load the contents of his pockets, resting on the library table. He took his cigarettes and lighter, his reporter’s notebook, and a fountain pen, and put the small celluloid rabbit into his lapel pocket.

  “Where you going?” Parlow said.

  “I am going,” Mike said, “to close out accounts.”

  He took the photograph of the two men in overcoats. Parlow pointed, meaning, Those men?

  “This one,” Mike said, “is dead, the safecracker . . .” He ripped the photo in two. “And this one,” he said. “This one . . . ? I want to see his face again.”

  “What was in the safe?” Parlow said.

  “The hell I know,” Mike said.

  But he did know. The Teitelbaum letter had been in the safe.

  It cataloged the conspiracy of O’Banion’s North Side Jews to rob the IRA. And it contained the names of the recipients of the stolen guns, which were being sold to the Jewish mobs of Detroit, the plans for their transport, and a statement of accounts.

  Ruth Watkins had observed Jackie’s secrecy concerning the safe, and, one night, supposedly amorous, and supposedly drunk, had walked up behind him as he worked the combination, and embraced him as he turned the dials.

  Ruth knew the combination, Lita knew of the letter; after Weiss’s death they pooled their information. They opened the safe, read the contents of the letter and fled.

  Lita had told Mrs. Weiss’s lawyer she possessed the letter, and that confession had led to the safecracker’s attempt. He reported the safe empty, as, indeed, it now was; but he was not believed. He was killed, and Ruth Watkins was killed. The letter had gotten them all killed by the IRA.

  Lita had kept the letter. She offered to sell it to Mike.

  They settled on three hundred dollars, Mike’s life savings.

  He’d had the money wired to him, and met Lita that evening, outside the railroad station. He gave her the money, and she handed the letter to him.

  When his train was called, he stood and walked toward the platform. Across the waiting room, the sign read Colored Only. Lita Grey was sitting there, a suitcase beside her. She did not look up.

  Chapter 40

  The Hawthorne Hotel was the Cicero headquarters of the Outfit.

  The smoke shop, off the lobby, was the Outfit’s withdrawing room; those awaiting audience sought Capone’s underlings there, to present, each, his particular case. High management, and sometimes Capone himself, came to the smoke shop to savor that camaraderie, though now confected, which had suffused their early, struggling days.

  The smoke shop had a barber chair, a long counter behind which the glass-fronted shelves held the choices of tobaccos, and a window seat in the barred window. There was always a minimum of two bodyguards stationed in the smoke shop. One’s post was in the window seat, looking out; the other’s was in the doorway, keeping an eye on the lobby.

  Mike walked from the train station to the hotel.

  He saw the bodyguards on each of the four corners of the intersection, and did not see but knew of the sharpshooters in the buildings opposite. In the lobby he made out four heavies, stationed prominently.

  He was greeted by a manager in a morning coat. “May I help you?” the man said.

  “I have a message for Mr. Brown,” Mike said.

  “We have no Mr. Brown here,” the manager said.

  “That’s a shame,” Mike said. “Perhaps the Mr. Brown I speak of hasn’t checked in yet.”

  “No, sir, I would know,” the manager said. “And we’re all booked up.”

  “Well, he may be staying somewhere else,” Mike said. He turned away, then turned back. “But, perhaps you could do something for me,” he said.

  “What would that be, sir?”

  “I wonder,” Mike said, “if you’d oblige me, by holding on to this.”

  Mike made a slow demonstration of his gesture, reaching, elaborately, toward the top outside pocket of his overcoat. He saw the manager look anxiously around the lobby. Mike put the first two fingers of his right hand into the pocket and extracted a small envelope. He held it toward the manager, who looked over Mike’s shoulder.

  Then, “Of course, sir. Thank you. When will you be calling for it?”

  “Oh, in a while,” Mike said.

  “Would you like me to put it in the safe?” the manager said.

  “Oh, no,” Mike said, “it has nothing but sentimental value. But, I’d appreciate it if you held it. Behind the desk would be fine.”

  “Of course, sir,” the manager said.

  Mike nodded his thanks and turned to leave.

  One of the heavies had detached himself from his post and positioned himself in front of the revolving door. He nodded Mike over toward the smoke shop.

  Mike walked into the smoke shop.

  The bodyguards there hustled him through a door in the back and into a small parlor. One stripped the coat down to immobilize his arms. He frisked Mike roughly, tore off the coat, went through the pockets, and then wrung it between his hands. He found nothing. He did the same with the suit jacket.

  Finding nothing again, he pointed to a chair in the corner. Mike sat.

  After what Mike judged to be a quarter hour, Jake Guzik came through the smoke shop door. He held the letter Mike had brought. Mike had seen him last across the table at the Metropole.

  “Yeah, here you are again,” Guzik said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “I brought something for you,” Mike said.

  Guzik held up the letter, as a question.

  “Yeah? As you’d think, we know this,” he said.

  “No. That’s not what I have. That’s just the calling card,” Mike said.

  “Which proves what?” Guzik said.

  “Which proves,” Mike said, “my good intentions.”

  “Well, then, let’s hear it.”

  “I’d like to talk to Mr. Brown,” Mike said.

  “You’re talking to me,” Guzik said. “S’close as you get, and only ’cause you
made him laugh. Once. But listen to me: you’re close to it, and closer than this is: you’re either on the payroll, or you’re dead. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes. I do,” Mike said.

  “So, what’re you, some fucken ponce, gets his thrills rubbing shoulders?”

  “No,” Mike said. “No. You were kind enough, one time, I came to you about my girl.”

  Guzik mimed bewilderment. “Didn’t we do that? Aren’t you done?”

  “No,” Mike said. “I want to talk to him about the Duesenbergs.”

  “The Duesenbergs?” Guzik said.

  “That’s right.”

  Guzik looked around. “No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about the shipping business,” Mike said.

  “You writing about this?” Guzik said.

  “I’m not fucking writing about it,” Mike said, “and far be it from me. I know about it.”

  “You know what?”

  “I know you’re shipping various articles to England.”

  Guzik shook his head sadly. “You’re playing with fire . . .”

  “And I know something you don’t know.”

  “And what is that?”

  “That the English, and the Bureau of Investigation, are planning to hit the docks, East Chicago. First of the month.”

  Guzik said nothing.

  “They’re going in, to stop you shipping stolen cars to England.”

  “The Brits and the Feds, what do they care about some cars?”

  “They don’t,” Mike said. “While they’re there, they’re hoping to stumble on some Irish guns.”

  Guzik said, “Why the charade?”

  “They’re protecting a source. You’ve got a leak,” Mike said. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “Who is it?” the man said.

  “I don’t know,” Mike said.

  “You don’t know, but you know this,” Guzik said.

  “I’m a reporter,” Mike said.

  “No, I don’t like this one fucking bit,” Guzik said. “I don’t like it.” He looked hard at Mike. “Fella,” he said. “No one wants to hurt you.”

  “I understand,” Mike said.

  “But I don’t know why you come in here. To ‘do us a favor’?”

  “No,” Mike said. “I want something in return.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want a tip on a guy,” Mike said.

  “A tip on a guy, that’s all?” Guzik said.

  “. . . And I want a hunting license.”

  The Bureau of Investigation raid had proved abortive. They found no stolen cars; there were no stolen weapons.

  Those on the scene had reported consternation, and then fury, on the part of the local authorities; and much cursing, on the part of the Federals, most of it linked to the name of Capone. Vows for his imminent demise, and rage at his cunning, and suspicion, on the part of the Bureau, and British consul, of the Chicago police, who, after all, were Irish.

  The story reflected credit on no one, save the Capone Mob; but the story had limited currency. The raid was witnessed by few, those few prudently silent, and when it was discussed, in the various pubs of the East Chicago docklands, actual witnesses stayed mute, and the talkative concealed their ignorance of the true nature of events with an assumed wise discretion—the knowing wink was answered by the sage nod, and life went on.

  The raid established Mike’s bona fides with the Outfit, and the Outfit, in this case, made good their part of the deal.

  Mike was given the name and address of a certain Irishman who had, indeed, participated both in the trans-shipment of arms, and in the execution of those deemed to have impeded it.

  His name was Samuel Kerry. His current habitation was a flat just south of Division Street, on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. He walked his brindle bull terrier there every morning, at dawn.

  Mike had observed him doing so for the last three mornings. Kerry would stand in the entranceway of his tenement, looking through the small glass panel in the door, left and right. Should a car pass, he would retreat into the entranceway.

  Cars at that time of the morning were infrequent. Few local residents owned autos, and dawn was no time for deliveries. But he was unvarying in his routine.

  Should there be no cars, he would emerge from the entrance, the dog on the leash, and turn his head as if scenting the air. But actually, listening for the sound of a motor.

  Assured, he would set off with the dog.

  On his walks he would turn now right, now left, now directly across the street, and past the facing tenements, through the gangway, and out onto the towpath of the canal.

  Or he would double back, through the walkway abutting his tenement, out the rear, into the alley, and then, again, left or right, in an unpredictable pattern.

  But his dog got him killed.

  For, at the end of the walk, whatever route he’d set out on, he always stopped just under the Division Street Bridge and waited for his dog to relieve herself.

  And on the fourth day, Mike was waiting for him.

  The Irishman, now out of the wind, unsnapped the leash and let the dog go. He reached into his overcoat, and extracted his tobacco pouch and his pipe. The match flared as Mike stepped out from behind the abutment.

  Mike held the Luger in his hand.

  He looked at the man lighting the pipe.

  The man who, when Mike had last seen him this closely, had been murdering Annie Walsh. The man stood still. He was not cowering, he was not resolute. He just stood there.

  “You’re too regular in your habits,” Mike said.

  The man did not move. The match continued to burn.

  Mike thought, “Finally? He’s just a man.” And he no longer wished to shoot him.

  He shot him anyway.

  The Irishman fell backward into the canal.

  Mike tossed the Luger in after him.

  The dog ran, yelping, down the towpath.

  Mike kicked the ejected shell into the canal.

  The Retirement Party

  Chapter 41

  A Chicago couple shattered the National Dance Marathon record by doing the Charleston for twenty-two and one half hours.

  An unidentified man in nailhead denim was fished out of the Chicago River, wrapped in chains locked to a Duesenberg hood ornament.

  Leopold and Loeb, two deranged boys, had kidnapped and murdered a school chum. It was, for a year, “the Crime of the Century.” Clarence Darrow had been hired for the defense.

  He first pled the two boys Not Guilty, citing extenuation of a kind previously unrecognized in law. They were, he said, “deranged by privilege,” and, so, entitled to the same consideration the court might extend to poor youths undone by want. Also, no boy under eighteen, Darrow argued, had ever been put to death.

  The case absorbed the press, every day, every paper, every edition, for the year. The editorial pages took up, as per political bent, the questions of extenuation, motive, retribution, justice, and deterrence.

  The American held that mercy should trump justice, and that the boys were young. The Daily News opined that no one disputed their age, which was a fact, nor their crime, to which they had admitted, but that the law allowed the mitigation of premeditated murder only in cases of insanity.

  Three weeks into the trial Darrow changed his plea to Guilty.

  The Sally Port discussed it long and hard, deciding his move, though entertaining, would have no chance of success. For, the guilt having been stipulated, all that remained was the question of punishment, which would now be decided solely by a judge, and how, the facts being what they were, could the judge decide other than for death? This, all complained, though interesting, made no strategic sense.

  Yes, Darrow argued, they had committed the crime, and no, they were not insane, but, though guilty, they should escape execution because, the reporters thought, of some hodgepodge of excuses which, when reduced, amounted to this: they had
been ruined by overprivilege.

  The round table’s surprise at this boorish attempt to flout both custom and reason was surpassed by their shock when the judge accepted the plea.

  That Darrow refused to plead them Not Guilty by Reason Of was, even the Daily News conceded, his right. And he could, if he wished, put that case before the jury. But this baloney, it was held, was a monstrous disregard of all law and tradition.

  Every speakeasy, chance meeting, dinner party, elevator ride, wedding, or funeral was occupied, in whole or part, by the crime and the chaos it released. How could the rich boys kill? Why did they kill? Were they insane, or merely pure evil? Why had Darrow, in retirement, taken the case?

  He, known as the Patron of Lost Causes (and, some added, Lost Cases), had, by his own report, fought all his life for the underprivileged, the unwanted, and the underrepresented.

  He had defended murderers, anarchists, jury tamperers; and had, himself, narrowly escaped conviction for jury tampering, in the case of an anarchist bombing in Los Angeles.

  He was known to have said that the strength of the prosecution, in any case at all, was superior to the strength of the defense; that as the prosecution could hire expert witnesses from a bottomless purse, the defense should be entitled to the use of any monies available from any source. And as the prosecution had, as its minions, law enforcement agencies by no means reluctant to extort confessions, so the defense, though it could not administer beatings, might use the power of the purse to sway this or that juror or jurist to the side of Truth.

  But Chicago was set against Leopold and Loeb. And Darrow and the families concluded that to plead them non compos mentis, and to put the case before a jury, would result in their death by electrocution.

  Yes, the better solution, they determined, was to throw themselves upon the Mercy of the Court. But what of the bogus pleas that, while not insane, they had been marred in some other, unknowable way?

  Did this not come down to the argument that it was obvious that they were unbalanced, as they had committed a crime? And, then, of what use the law?

  At least they so reasoned at the Sally Port. Where Parlow had made a decided hit in quoting Kant to the effect that one should always act as if the postulate inferable from one’s actions could be adopted universally.