by Various
I had just changed to a new roll of film in my Leica when Frank Nitti strolled through the door of the restaurant, his wife on his right, a tall man who might be Hunyadi on his left. The crime boss surprised me. I hadn’t seen them go in, so I sort of sat there numbly when they walked out. Nitti wore a dapper dark suit, his hair slicked back and parted on the right, the Homburg again in his hands. Nitti’s wife, Antoinette—his second wife actually—walked ahead of him as the little group moved unknowingly in my direction.
Mrs. Nitti, shorter and squatter than her husband, wore a high-collared gray dress that nearly touched the sidewalk when she walked. She had black hair streaked with gray and wore it swept back in a severe bun. I had seen her a couple of times around town, and she perpetually looked as if her best friend had just died.
The tall man walking next to Nitti had his black fedora pulled low, leaving his face in shadow; but I could see by the street light that he had a very pale complexion, a pointed chin, and—despite his height—a muscular physique.
Hunyadi, all right.
Snapping out of my surprise, I clicked off half a dozen pictures before the Nittis climbed into a black Cadillac, two cars in front of mine. They pulled away and the tall man walked off in the opposite direction . . . without ever letting me get a better look at that mug of his.
Just as I settled back into my seat, a meaty paw poked through the open window and turned into a fist just into time to slam into the side of my head, so hard I saw stars, and I don’t mean Sinatra and Crosby. The camera dropped from my hand and clattered to the car floor.
“What the hell you doin’?” a deep voice asked as slowly, inexorably, he dragged me by the head through the open window like a big fish he was hauling onto the deck of a boat.
My mouth was closed and he held me so tight I couldn’t even open up to bite him. All I could do as I squirmed was smell his cheap aftershave and snatch up the bag of stakes from off the rider’s seat. Then he dumped me unceremoniously on my behind in the middle of the street.
Finally I was able to draw a breath as he backed up a couple of steps and reached toward the bulge under his coat. It was an ugly brown coat that went beautifully with his ugly brown pants and shapeless tan fedora. He had a wide empty face, like a gingerbread man’s, right down to the raisin eyes, no discernible neck, and shoulders that looked like he was wearing football pads under the shabby suit. His thighs threatened to tear through the pants and his chest bulged the buttons of his white shirt. A vile striped tie had come out and swung over his shoulder when he’d been manhandling me.
“You’re a broad,” he moaned slowly, as if accusing me of something.
“No, I’m right here in Chicago, you dumb ape,” I said as I looked up into his empty brown eyes.
It took me a second, but I finally figured out where I’d seen him before. He was Tommy Merloni, a low-level Nitti lieutenant that Bobby had dealt with on more than one occasion. If memory served, the short white scar that ran over Merloni’s right eyebrow was courtesy of my husband.
As I rose, the black bag swinging loose from my right arm, he pulled his rod, a large blue-black automatic that made my knees seem suddenly weak. I decided to put on a brave front.
“You better put that away,” I said, “while we’re still friends.”
Tommy grinned; his teeth were big off-white Chiclets. “Or whaddaya gonna do about it—hit me with your purse?”
“Not a bad idea,” I said.
He frowned in thought even as I swung the bag down across his wrist and knocked the pistol free. It skittered across the street down into the sewer and his eyes turned to watch it disappointedly, a kid losing his favorite toy, as I backhanded him across the face with the bag full of stakes. I heard the distinctive squishy crunch as his nose broke.
Tommy roared in anger and muttered an obscenity or two, but they got lost in the flow of blood down his face. He managed one step toward me before I smacked him two more times with the bag—another forehand and another backhand.
He sagged, staggered drunkenly for two steps, then fell in a heap in the middle of the street. Thinking that waiting around for any of Tommy’s friends to join the party might not be the best strategy, I jumped back into the car, started her up, and stomped on the gas. I was careful not to hit Merloni with the car, but before he had returned to relative consciousness, I was well on my way back to the office. The camera on the floor I hoped would hold the evidence I would need to convince Frank Nitti of just who—or what—he was in bed with.
* * *
After spending most of the night in the dark room, I had developed the pictures, learned what I could, and come up with a plan. By ten o’clock the next morning, I was on my way to Frank Nitti’s office.
Today I wore a white dress with black polka dots, the black belt and necklace, and the ebony heels again. They were a little tight, but I knew I looked good in them, and if I was going to get help from the Enforcer, I’d need every edge I could get.
Like his absent boss, Al Capone, Nitti kept an office in the Lexington Hotel at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Cermak Road. I showed up there about ten-thirty, my bag of stakes down in the car, my little black purse holding my wallet and my only weapon: my lipstick. Normally I’d have at least one stake tucked in my purse, but I figured I’d have to stand for a frisk and preferred not to have to explain myself.
The lobby was a forest of marble columns dotted with plush leather chairs, a few sofas, and ashtrays on dark-wood end tables. The place was substantial, with a sweeping staircase off to the left and a bank of elevators to the right. A tall, thin man with slicked back hair, a pencil mustache, and a holier-than-thou look on his face leered at me as I crossed, but I avoided him and went straight to the elevators.
Though I’d never been there before, I knew exactly where I was going. Bobby had been there more than once and, in telling me tales of his dealings with the Outfit, had shared with me most of the details.
I stepped into the elevator, and the uniformed operator, a little old man of maybe seventy with silver hair and almost enough strength to close the door, asked, “What floor?”
“Fourth,” I said, and smiled when he glanced at me in surprise.
He didn’t say anything as we rose to the fourth story, and when he opened the door he managed only to announce the floor.
I got out and turned to my right. Halfway down the hall, Tommy Merloni sat on a wide sofa on the right side of the hall. His face was heavily bandaged and he seemed to like looking at my legs as I approached him. I don’t even think he knew it was me until he looked up and I smiled at him.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, though with the bandage over his broken nose, the profanity came out thick and practically unintelligible.
I could see he wanted to get up, but his fat ass was pretty much sinking into the sofa, and as he struggled to rise, I placed a hand on his chest and grinned down at him. “Are you sure you wanna do that?”
He let himself slip back onto the sofa.
“I’m here to see Mr. Nitti.”
“You . . . you got an appointment?”
“You just tell him Bobby Winters’s wife is here to see him.”
“Is that who you are?”
“Yeah. Also, the hundred-and-five-pound female who kicked your ass last night. But I’m willing to keep that to myself if you make things go smooth, right now.”
He tried to look tough, but having been bested by a woman didn’t leave him with much room to argue. “I should at least pat you down,” he said, trying to win back a piece of his pride.
I put my hands on the hips of my skin-tight dress. “In your dreams.”
He lumbered up off the sofa and went to a nearby door and knocked. A thug in a gray pinstripe suit opened it. He had short brown hair, a reddish tie with tiny white and blue stripes, and a starched white shirt.
“Mrs. Robert Winters to see Mr. Nitti,” Merloni said, but I just swept past him into the suite.
I paused and turned to
watch the goons trade looks; Merloni managed only a shrug before the pinstriped guy shut the door in his face.
The living room was at least slightly smaller than Wrigley Field, if better furnished. Two Louis XIV sofas faced each other across a coffee table wider than my desk. The oriental rug under my ebony heels cost only a little more than the family Chevy. The walls were a pale pink, the ceiling high and white, the curtains spread enough to let in the sunlight . . . but not enough to make anyone in the living room an easy target from the building across the street.
I crossed the room, the well-dressed thug in my wake saying, “Mrs. Winters, I know Mr. Nitti and your husband are acquainted, but—”
“I’m glad,” I said over my shoulder as I crossed the room to a sliding door closed to what I presumed to be the dining room.
The thug came running up and grabbed me, rather gingerly actually, by the elbow.
“You can’t go in there, ma’am,” he said, his voice low.
His dark eyes were wide with surprise as if no one had ever questioned his authority before. He smelled of fresh cologne, something citrusy, and small beads of sweat decorated his wide forehead.
“I didn’t intend to,” I answered.
“But—”
“I thought you would go in, get Mr. Nitti, and tell him I’m here.”
“Mr. Nitti can’t be disturbed,” the man said, his voice exasperated and loud now, and unfortunately for him, he’d done exactly what he said couldn’t be done.
The sliding door banged open and Frank Nitti stood in front of us, his face a mask of irritation. “What the hell is going on out here, Johnny?”
Johnny didn’t seem to know what to say. His eyes went from Nitti to me, back to Nitti, then down to the floor. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nitti, this broad—”
“Broad?” I interrupted.
Nitti turned to see me for the first time and the anger melted from his face a little. “Hey, I know you, don’t I?”
“We’ve met,” I said quietly.
The dapper little mob boss seemed to suddenly remember that the dining room door was open and there were people in there. He turned to them, a couple of gombahs I didn’t recognize seated at the large oak table that dominated the room, and said, “I’ll be a minute.” Then he slid the door closed.
Nitti bestowed a small smile, almost but not quite flirtatious. “Now, why don’t you tell me where we’ve met before?”
Smiling back, I said, “You know my husband, Robert Winters—Bobby.”
The crime boss’s smile widened. “Yeah, I remember Robert. He’s a good boy—reliable. How is he doing?”
“As best he can. He’s overseas.”
He nodded somberly. “You should be proud.”
“I am.”
Touching my elbow with his hand, he led me toward the two sofas. “And why is it you’ve come to see me, Mrs. Winters?”
We reached the couches and he gestured for me to sit down. I did, and he dropped onto the sofa across the table from me.
“Where are my manners?” he said. “Coffee, tea?”
I shook my head. “I won’t be here that long, but thank you.”
He nodded and waited, waving for Johnny to leave us alone.
“I’ve come to see you about a problem,” I explained. “A serious one.”
Another nod and I could almost see the wheels turning as Nitti tried to figure out not only where I was heading, but how he could turn it to his advantage.
He said, “And you believe I can help you . . . with your problem.”
I shook my head and he looked like that RCA dog, head tilted; he was staring at me like I was speaking another language.
“Mr. Nitti, the problem isn’t mine. It’s yours. And I’ve come to help you.”
Folding his hands in front of him, the crime boss stalled for time as he tried to comprehend this. I was supposed to end up in his debt, not the other way around.
“And what problem do you believe I have?”
“You’re using a . . . clean-up man . . . to settle scores in this current disagreement among you and certain of your peers.”
My euphemisms amused him, mildly.
“And this . . . clean-up man . . . is a little, well . . . unusual, let’s say.”
The crime boss shrugged, not anxious to confirm any of this.
I pressed on. “His victims disappear and no one ever sees them again.”
Nitti’s face tightened. “If cleaning up was my goal, wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“It would, unless the killer is disposing of the bodies to hide how he killed them.”
“Wouldn’t that be the idea, Mrs. Winters?” He seemed to be losing patience.
“If he were doing it to cover your tracks, yes, but I’m saying he’s covering his own. Hell, your clean-up boy doesn’t even want you to know how he’s killing these clowns.”
Another shrug. “And why would it matter to me?”
“Because, Mr. Nitti . . . Frank? Pardon my poetry, but it seems you’re in bed with the undead.”
Nitti looked at me as if I were bughouse and his eyes searched the room for Johnny. I tossed the photo I’d taken at Franco’s on the table. Unable to find Johnny, Nitti glanced down at the print.
“So you got a shot of me and my wife and one of my boys,” he said, with another shrug. “And not a very good one.”
“Notice anything else about it?”
He shook his head. “Nothin’ except as a picture, it stinks.”
“It was taken just last night.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I put that together.”
“And did you leave the restaurant alone last night?”
He thought about that. “Me, Antoinette, and . . . one of my associates. And there we are.”
He gestured to the photo.
“Check the reflection,” I said, “in the restaurant’s glass front.”
“All right. There’s my wife and me and . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked down at the photo. “I don’t get you, Mrs. Winters.”
“If you’re looking for the third member of your little dinner party,” I said, “he isn’t in the reflection.”
“I told you it stinks as a picture.”
“Frank, this Hunyadi . . . that’s the name I know him by, anyway. . . .”
“That’s his name.”
No alias, after all.
“Hunyadi,” I continued, “doesn’t cast a reflection in a mirror. You know of anybody—anything—that carries that unusual characteristic? Not that any of you Outfit guys are terribly reflective.”
His eyes had narrowed. “No reflection in glass . . . or in a mirror . . . ? And that’s what you mean by . . .”
“Undead, yes. You’re from the old country. You know the stories—or maybe you know that they aren’t all ‘stories.’ ”
The gang boss looked as pale as a vampire’s victim.
“You’ve got a bloodsucker on your payroll, Frank. And I don’t mean somebody’s embezzling.”
The grave expression Nitti wore told me he was a believer. I didn’t need a hard sell with this European immigrant.
I shoved in the needle. “And here I thought you were a good Catholic, too.”
Nitti nodded, forehead tight now. “I am.”
“Then you see why I said you’ve got a problem.”
He swallowed thickly. His eyes had a pleading quality few would ever see in Frank Nitti’s face. “And you think you can help?”
“Yeah, it’s sort of a . . . sideline for me.”
“What is?”
“Let’s just say I have a client who’s hired me to do some cleaning up of my own.”
“Where”—He could barely say it—“vampires are concerned?”
“Let’s just say, I can take care of this problem . . . or you can continue aiding and abetting an undead fiend and face eternal damnation. Which is it gonna be, Frank?”
Obvious as the answer might seem, Nitti considered his choices for a long moment. H
e didn’t give away what he was thinking, but I thought I knew the man well enough to know that vampires were a whole different level of illegality than anything he wanted to get involved with. Crime was one thing; evil another.
He ran a hand quickly over his mustache and said, “So, if you really can take care of this problem for me, what’s it going to cost me?”
“A thousand,” I said.
“You said you had another client you were cleaning up this . . . problem . . . for.”
“Yeah. But this time it was more like . . . a referral. You want this problem to go away, Frank?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Well, my business is a little off right now, so I’m going to charge you a small fee. We both know it’s much smaller than this job is worth.”
Our eyes met and he nodded.
“Let’s just say then,” he said slowly, “that I’ll also owe you a small favor sometime in the future.”
“Seems fair to me. There’s just one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to point me in the right direction.”
He thought that over. Then he said, rather affably, “Okay, Mrs. Winters. You know the Chicago Tunnel Company?”
“Sure. They run freight beneath the city.”
Nitti looked at me with hard cold eyes. “Hunyadi’s down there somewhere.” He grunted a humorless laugh. “I thought he picked that hideout was just because hardly anyone goes down there.”
“Now you know it was to avoid having to come out in the sunlight.”
He sighed, half embarrassed, half spooked. “Now I know.”
I sat forward. “Any idea where? Those tunnels run beneath most of the city.”
Shaking his head, Nitti said, “We always met at Franco’s at night, but he could’ve gotten there from anywhere.”
“Think, Frank,” I pressed him. “Did you notice anything or did he ever mention anything?”
The crime boss’s eyes glazed over as he seemed to go over every conversation he’d ever had with the killer. “Wait,” he said finally. “We were talking once about the city, the sights. You know, guy’s new in town, after all.”
I nodded.
“Anyway, Hunyadi mentions how quiet the Field Museum is at night. And I thought that was kind of an odd thing to say, y’know . . . since the Field isn’t open at night.”
