True Crime

by Collins, Max Allan

  “She—she never met Lawrence?”

  “No,” Nitti said. “And that’s to your benefit. Because that’s who you’re posing as.”

  “Jimmy Lawrence?” I said.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Nitti said, still smiling.

  K

  ATE

  B

  ARKER

  27

  The next afternoon, Tuesday, I parked across from the big brick three-story on Pine Grove and just sat there for a while, collecting my thoughts.

  In my billfold, where my Illinois state driver’s license should be, was an Illinois state driver’s license in the name of James L. Lawrence. I was wearing my white suit and a straw boater and gold-rim glasses with window glass in them. I felt faintly ridiculous. I probably was faintly ridiculous.

  I was calling on the mother of the Barker boys.

  Frank Nitti had spent another half hour with me, in his Bismarck suite yesterday, filling me in on Lawrence’s background.

  He—or I—had been born in Canada, moved with his—or my (our?)—parents to New York as a boy; the parents were both dead—the mother in childbirth, the father in a factory accident—and I’d been raised by my uncle and aunt. My uncle had worked in the garment district in the West Thirties, and I’d ended up a union slugger there, for Lepke—as Lucky Luciano’s chief lieutenant Louis Buchalter was inexplicably called—and eventually became one of Lepke’s top aides in the protection racket. But I had a New York murder rap hanging over me, now, and had been shipped out by the New York boys to their friends in Chicago about a year ago, who put me to work, after some plastic surgery.

  That much I’d learned yesterday afternoon. This morning around ten Campagna had dropped off the driver’s license and suggested I call a certain phone number, before noon. I did, and Nitti himself answered.

  “I got just the ticket,” Nitti said.

  We’d discussed the need, yesterday, for me to have a cover story, in addition to the Lawrence name and background—that is, a reason for getting in touch with Candy Walker and the Barkers apart from my real reason for being there, specifically, to spirit Walker’s moll away, which of course was nothing I dared advertise.

  “There’s a guy named Doc Moran,” Nitti said. “Ever hear of him?”

  “Yeah—isn’t he a pin artist?”

  “Abortions ain’t all he does, Heller, but yeah, I suppose that’s his specialty. He’s got a practice over on Irving Park Boulevard, and he’s done good work for us over the years. Lots of union work.”

  Underworld doctors like Moran came in handy, not just for providing abortions to Syndicate whores, but for dealing with the aftermath of union-busting activities, and any incidental gunplay Outfit troops might get involved in—the latter having declined since the rise of Frank Nitti, under whom less and less overt Syndicate violence was taking place.

  I said, “Would I be wrong in supposing Moran’s clientele the last year or so has been primarily of the outlaw variety?”

  “You’d be on the money, kid. Matter of fact, right as we speak, he’s in the Barker-Karpis camp…makin’ an extended house call.”

  So now I was crossing the street and walking up to the relatively ritzy apartment house where the real Jimmy Lawrence had lived, not so long ago. I’d been his shadow, then; now I was his ghost.

  In the entryway there were mailboxes with name cards; one of the ground-floor flats was occupied by the woman going under the name Alice Hunter. I knocked on her door.

  A voice from behind the door, a melodious if quavering voice, feminine with a hint of a drawl, said, “Who is it, please?”

  “Jimmy Lawrence,” I heard myself saying. “I’m a friend of your landlord’s.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” the door said, sincerely. “Why’d you drop by, Mr. Lawrence?”

  “I need to contact Doc Moran. Can you help?”

  “Why, I certainly would like to,” the door said. “Would you mind waitin’ out there a mite, while I make a telephone call?”

  “Not at all, ma’am.”

  I stood facing the door, straw hat in one hand.

  A few minutes later the door cracked open and two bright, dark eyes peered out at me from behind gold-rim glasses, in the midst of a fleshy face highlighted by a witchlike pointed nose and chin, and a forehead where little ringlets dropped out of a skullcap mass of curly hair borrowed from Shirley Temple.

  She was the oddest old lady I’d ever seen, and all I could see was her face, sideways, as she peeked around the door.

  She smiled; her teeth were false, but the smile wasn’t. “You’re a right handsome young feller. Where’d you get that suit?”

  “New York,” I said.

  “That’s one place I never been.” She was still just peering around the door. “Would you mind holding open your coat?”

  “Not at all,” I said, and did.

  She smiled some more, as she noted my lack of hardware. Then the face momentarily disappeared as she opened the door wide and gestured sweepingly with a plump hand on the end of a plump, stubby arm.

  I stepped inside. Just beyond the entryway where we were standing was a large living room, where a pastel-green mohair sofa with floral cushions shared the central space with several pastel-green lounge chairs, on a parquet floor somewhat covered by a fringed rug with a pastel-green-and-orange geometric design. Against one wall was a fireplace with a mirror with ivory-and-orange flowers superimposed on it. The apartment must’ve come furnished; this plump Ozark granny hadn’t decorated it. The place must’ve looked about the same when Jimmy Lawrence lived here.

  There were touches of the current tenant, however. In front of the straighter backed of the two lounge chairs was a card table on which a jigsaw puzzle was perhaps two-thirds completed: a country church on a fall afternoon, orange and red leaves, blue sky with fluffy clouds—a bunch of the sky was yet to be filled in. In front of the sofa was a round glass-top coffee table with a fat scrapbook on it; clippings stuck out of it like clothes from a hastily shut suitcase. Against one wall in a standing cabinet was a combination radio and phonograph, the cabinet lid propped up and open; the radio was on and a hillbilly song was blaring out.

  The fat little woman—she couldn’t have been over five feet two but must’ve tipped the scales at 170—moved gracelessly across the room and turned the hillbilly music down, but not off. She turned and smiled apologetically, girlishly. She took off her gold-rim glasses and tucked them away in a pocket. Her dress was a floral tent but she had what appeared to be a string of real pearls about her neck. Her stomach protruded enough to make the hem of her dress ride up and reveal the rolled tops of her stockings. She was a cross between an old flapper and a new tank.

  She gestured for me to sit on the couch and I sat. She sat next to me. She had lipstick on and smelled of lilac water and too much face powder. The oddest thing about her was, despite the false teeth and the jowly face and pointed features and absurd Shirley Temple curls, how nice a smile she had.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked. The place was air-conditioned, so the request didn’t seem absurd, despite the August heat outside.

  “That’s generous of you, Mrs. Hunter, but no thanks.”

  She waved at the air and turned her head coquettishly. “That name’s just for outsiders.”

  “We’ll make it ‘Mrs. Barker,’ then.”

  She was looking off absently. “Though I do like the name Alice…wish my folks had called me that instead of Arizona.”

  “Pardon?”

  She touched her massive bosom with a splayed hand; her fingernails, though short (possibly through biting), were painted red as her lipsticked mouth. “Isn’t that the most awful name? Arizona? Who can picture callin’ a little girl that!”

  In the background somebody—Gene Autry?—was singing plaintively about his horse.

  “I like ‘Kate’ better,” I said.

  “So do I. But you can call me Ma. All the boys call me Ma.”

  I suppose I
should’ve been honored or at least flattered at being admitted to the club so easily, so rapidly; but all I felt was a little queasy.

  I said, “You’re too kind…Ma. And why don’t you call me Jimmy?”

  “Jimmy. That’s a good name. I like it.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Well, Jimmy. How can ol’ Ma be of help?” One of her plump arms was brushing against me.

  “I wonder if you could put me in touch with Doc Moran—a mutual friend of ours has requested I find him, and bring him back.”

  She pursed her lips in what was meant to be a facial shrug but came off more like a grimace. She said, “Might be I could take a message for you.”

  “Are you going to be seeing the doctor?”

  “Might be. If I can find me a ride.”

  “A ride?”

  “The doctor’s with my boys Freddie and Arthur right now. They’re with that nice boy Alvin Karpis. Do you know Alvin?”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  “He’s a right nice boy. Anyway, I got to get to ’em, soon as I can.” Her fleshy face tightened. “They need me.”

  “You’re in regular touch with them?”

  She shrugged again, with her shoulders this time; the earth moved. “They don’t have a phone where they’s stayin’. But they call from in town now and then.”

  That sounded like they were in the country somewhere.

  “And you’re planning to join them, soon?” I asked.

  She nodded, said, “But I don’t drive. I have to find me a driver.”

  You never know when opportunity’s going to knock; it might even knock in the form of a fat little old lady from the Ozarks…Gene Autry, if that’s who that was, was suddenly singing something more upbeat, about the prairie.

  “I could drive you,” I said. Not too eagerly, I hoped. “My instructions are to see the doctor personally. No go-betweens.”

  She nodded sagely. “You gotta bring him back yourself. That’s your orders.”

  “Right.”

  “And orders is orders.”

  “Yes they are.”

  She put her hand on mine; it was cold, clammy—hers, I mean. Hell, mine too.

  She said, “Well, why don’t you drive me there, then. But I gotta warn you. Somethin’ big’s in the wind.”

  “Oh?”

  “Felt I should warn you. You might get caught up in it.”

  “In what?”

  “Somethin’ big.”

  “Well. Would that be bad?”

  She smiled enigmatically. Still a nice smile, despite the otherwise physically grotesque person it belonged to. “Not if you like money.”

  “I like money.”

  “Well, wherever my boys go, there’s money to be had. I got good boys who work hard, Jimmy. You looking to make an extra dollar?”

  “Sure.”

  She winked at me. “You’ll do no better than to stick with my boys.”

  “You seem proud of them.”

  “Couldn’t be prouder. So—do I have me a chauffeur?” She said it like ‘show fer.’

  “It’d be my honor. I even have a car…”

  “What kind?”

  That stopped me.

  “Chevy coupe,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Won’t do, won’t do.” She got up and clomped over to a chest of drawers against one wall. She pulled open a drawer and it was brimming with cash. She counted out a stack and trundled over and handed it to me.

  “There’s six hundred,” she said. “See if you can’t get a nice used twelve-cylinder Auburn. With a radio. I’m partial to twelve-cylinder Auburns with radios.”

  I put the fat wad of cash in my suitcoat pocket as she went back and closed the drawer.

  I said, “When would you like to leave?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon soon enough? Like to pack my bags, and take in a movie s’evenin’—I just love the movies, and when I’m out on the road with my boys I sometimes go weeks without a movie. Or bingo, or anything civilized. But a mother’s got to make sacrifices for her boys, don’t you know?”

  I said I knew, and told her I’d pick her up the next day at one.

  She walked me to the door, her arm linked in mine; gave me a pat on the cheek. Her fingers were cold and soft.

  “You seem like a nice boy,” she said. “You gone always to be good to your ol’ Ma, now, ain’t you?”

  I said I’d do my best.

  Then I went out and bought a used twelve-cylinder Auburn. With a radio.

  28

  The next afternoon I was tooling up Highway 19 through McHenry County—its green rolling hills interspersed with rich farmland, lakes and the occasional gravel pit—behind the wheel of the nicest automobile I ever sat in. Though only a ’32, the Auburn had quite a few miles on her, which had helped me land the sporty two-seater (we were keeping the top up today) at a reasonable price. It was just the kind of automobile every man dreams of owning, to impress the girl riding next to him. Unfortunately the “girl” next to me had more miles on her than the Auburn.

  She was wearing a hat that fit snugly on her skull, like something an aviator might wear, only floral. Her baggy dress was an off-white with light purple flowers that clashed with the hat and the snow-white seat cushions. Of course, she was sitting on a cushion of her own, an air cushion that boosted her up so she could peer out the windows; even with the air cushion, she was so squat she barely rose above the dash. Right now she was leaning forward, turning the tuning dial of the Motorola radio built under the dash, the needle on its little round face spinning like a hand on an out-of-control clock, as she desperately searched for hillbilly music.

  “The music this radio gets is just plain lousy,” she said, turning off Bing Crosby singing “Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.” There was an accusatory note in Kate Barker’s voice, as if had I been more careful in picking out this particular vehicle, I might have been able to get one that played “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine” continuously.

  But we’d been through all that when I picked her up, around 1:00 P.M., at the Pine Grove apartment. She’d taken a look at the Auburn coupe I’d arrived in and made a face like a displeased five-year-old.

  “You bought a two-seater!” she said, standing on the sidewalk, a bag in either hand, romance and movie magazines stuffed under one arm, oversize purse under the other. “I wanted a touring sedan!”

  I was standing alongside the car, leaning against the fender; it was as supple as a pretty girl’s hip. Shrugging, I said, “You said a twelve-cylinder Auburn. With a radio, which this has. I had to call all over town to find a used one, and had to pitch an extra hundred bucks in at that.”

  She frowned at me, then frowned at the Auburn. “We got a big family. We need more than two seats.”

  “You also need more than one car. Look, I was just trying to get what you asked me to get, Ma.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “And I like black. That’s blue.”

  She was right: it was as blue as Sally Rand’s eyes.

  I said, “I can’t take it back—it’s a used car: ‘All Sales Final.’”

  “Well…it is an Auburn V-Twelve. I do like my Auburn V-Twelves.”

  “With a radio, don’t forget. I was lucky to find one that way.”

  “Well, all right.”

  I put her suitcases in the trunk. “Could I have that extra hundred I had to give?”

  “You’ll get it,” she snapped, and went around to the rider’s side and waited for me to open the door for her. I did.

  Once we’d got outside of Chicago a ways, into the farm country, her spirits perked up, even if she couldn’t find any hillbilly music on the radio.

  “Goodie goodie!” she said, clapping her fat little hands together, a romance magazine open on her lap.

  “What?” I said. I was concentrating on my driving; despite being a two-seater, the Auburn was a big car, much bigger than my Chevy coupe, and it drove a little like a barge. On the
other hand, it was fast. I had to work to keep it down at fifty. My Chevy shimmied like your sister Kate when I went a mile over fifty.

  She was saying, “He had the ring…”

  “What?”

  “He had the flat…”

  “Huh?”

  “But she felt his chin…”

  “You okay?”

  “And that was that!” She turned her face toward me and that ungodly flabby pan split in a smile. “Burma Shave!”

  “Oh,” I said, and went back to my driving.

  From then on she was on the lookout. There must’ve been an industrious Burma Shave advance man working this territory, because the little signs, spaced a hundred feet or so apart, seemed to pop up every few miles, like wooden weeds.

  And it kept Ma busy.

  “Your beauty boys…is just skin deep…what skin you got…you ought to keep. Haw haw! Burma Shave!”

  She did have a faint mustache on her upper lip; maybe she was a potential customer…

  I was still wearing the window-glass wire-rim spectacles and straw hat, but today I had on a brown suit, as well as my automatic in a shoulder holster. I hadn’t carried the gun in a while, and it felt heavy under my arm; made me uncomfortable. For one thing, if I got stopped by a state cop for speeding (and with this Auburn under me, with a mind of its own toward how fast it wanted to go, that was possible) I would have some embarrassing questions to answer—like why I was carrying a driver’s license under James Lawrence’s name, when this gun was registered to somebody called Nathan Heller. And for another thing, I just plain didn’t like carrying guns.

  Barney had noticed the gun this morning; I hadn’t been wearing the straw hat and eyeglasses, but I was in the brown suit and the gun in the shoulder sling bulged a little. Like Little New York said, I couldn’t afford a tailor as good as his.

  “Is that what I think it is?” he said, frowning, nodding toward my left arm. He was waiting for his turn, shooting pool with a couple of his sparring partners. I’d gone looking for Barney in the small gym in the traveler’s lounge at the Morrison Hotel, and when I hadn’t found him, had gone next door to Mussey’s, and had.