Max Collins - True Detective

I was off-duty at the time, sitting in a speak on South Clark Street drinking rum out of a coffee cup.

When two guys in topcoats and snap-brim hats came in and walked over without crawling out of em, I started to reach for the automatic under my jacket. But as they neared the table, I recognized them: Lang and Miller. The mayors bagmen.

I didnt know them exactly, but everybody knew them: the two Harrys Harry Lang and Harry Miller, the detectives handpicked by Mayor Cermak to handle the dirty linen. Lang Id spoken to before; he was a guy about ten years my senior, thirty-seven or eight maybe, and a couple of inches under my six feet, a couple pounds over my 180. He had five-oclock shadow and coal black hair and cold black eyes and the sort of shaggy eyebrows you dont trust; even the impression of hair was a lie: under the hat his forehead kept going. Miller was forty and fat and five eight, with a blank face and blanker eyes the kind you can take for stupidity if you arent careful. He was cleaning off the lenses of his wire-frames with a hanky, the glasses having got fogged up in the cold. His ears stuck out; when he put his glasses on, they stuck out more. The Coke-bottle lenses magnified the blank eyes, and it struck me he looked like an owl an owl that could kick the crap out of an eagle, that is.

Before he was a cop, Miller was a bootlegger one of the Miller Gang, who were West Side Boys. That made it Old Home Week: we were all West Side Boys. Maxwell Street, where my fathers stall had been, was where I knew Lang from.

But I didnt know Lang well enough to merit the old-drinking-pals camaraderie he suggested in his words if not his tone: Hiya, Red. Heard you hung out here.

Red wasnt my name. Heller was. Nathan Heller. Nate. Never Red, despite my mothers reddish-brown hair I was carrying around.

The joints halfway between Dearborn and LaSalle Street stations, I shrugged. Its handy for me.

It was around three in the afternoon, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves: just me, the mayors front-office dicks, the guy at the door, the guy behind the bar. But it was a cramped, boxlike joint with lots of dark wood and a mirror behind the bar and framed photos everywhere: celebrities and near-celebrities, signatures on their faces, were staring at me.

So were Lang and Miller.

Buy you a cup of coffee? I said, rising a little. I was a plainclothes officer, working the pickpocket detail, bucking for detective status. These guys were the best-paid detectives in town, sergeants yet, and they maybe didnt deserve respect, exactly, but I knew enough to give them some.

They made no move to sit down. Lang just stood there, hands in his topcoat pockets, snow brushing his shoulders like dandruff, and rocked on his heels, like a hobbyhorse; but whether it was from nerves, or from boredom, I couldnt say: I could just sense there was something I wasnt being let in on. Miller stood planted there like one of the lions in front of the Art Institute, only meaner-looking. Also, the lions were bronze and he was tarnished copper.

Then Miller spoke.

We need a third, he said. He had a voice like somebody trying to sound tough in a talkie: monotone and slightly off-pitch. It shouldve been funny. It wasnt.

A third what? I said.

A third man, Lang chimed in. A third player.

Whats the game?

Well tell you in the car.

They both turned toward the door. I was supposed to follow them, apparently. I grabbed my topcoat and hat.

The speak was on the corner of Clark and Polk. Out on the street the wind was whipping at package-clutching pedestrians heading for Dearborn Station, which was around the corner and a block down, where I should be getting back to, to protect these shoppers from losing whatever dough they had left after Marshall Fields got through with them. Skirts and overcoats flapped, and everybody walked with heads lowered, watching the pavement, ignoring the occasional panhandler; dry, wind-scattered snow was like confetti being tossed out of the windows during a particularly uninspiring parade. Across the way the R.E.A. Station was busy, trucks pulling in and out, others being loaded up. Four women, pretty, in their late twenties, early thirties, bundled with packages, went giggling into the speak wed just exited. It was a week to Christmas, and business was picking up for everybody. Except for Saint Peters Church, maybe, which was cattycorner from where we stood; business there looked slow.

There was no parking in and near the Loop (which was loosely defined as the area within the El tracks), but Lang and Miller had left their black Buick by the curb anyway, half a block down, across the street; it was the model people called the Pregnant Guppy, because the sides bulged out over the running boards. The running board next to the curb had a foot on it: a uniformed cop was writing a ticket. Miller walked up and reached over and tore it off the cops pad and wadded it up and tossed it to the snow-flecked breeze. He didnt have to show the cop his detectives shield. Every copper in town knew the two Harrys.

But I liked the way the uniformed man handled it, a Paddy of about fifty whod been pounding the beat longer than these two had been picking up the mayors graft, that was for sure. And clean, as Chicago cops went, or he wouldnt still be pounding it. He put his book and pencil away slowly and gave Miller a look that was part condescension, part contempt, said, My mistake, lad, and cleared his throat and shot phlegm toward Langs feet. And turned on his heel and left, swinging his nightstick.

Lang, whod had to hop back, and Miller, his face hanging like a loose rubber mask, stood watching him walk away, wondering what they should do about such unbridled arrogance, when I tapped Lang on the shoulder and said, Im freezing my nuts off, gentlemen. What exactly is the party?

Miller smiled. It was wide but it didnt turn up at the corners and the teeth were big and yellow, like enormous kernels of corn. It was the worst goddamn smile I ever saw.

Frank Nittis tossing it, he said.

Only he dont know it, Lang added, and opened the door on the Buick. Get in back.

I climbed in. The Pregnant Guppy wasnt a popular model, but it was a nice car. Brown mohair seats, varnished wood trim around the windows. Comfortable, too, considering the situation.

Miller got behind the wheel. The Buick turned over right away, despite the cold, though it shuddered a bit as we pulled out into light traffic. Lang turned and leaned over the seat and smiled. You got a gun with you?

I nodded.

He passed a small .38, a snubnose, back to me.

Now you got two, he said.

We were heading north on Dearborn. We drove through Printers Row, its imposing ornate facades rising to either side of me, aloof to my situation. One of them, tall, gray, half-a-block long, was the Transportation Building, where my friend Eliot Ness was working even now; he seemed a more likely candidate to be calling on Al Capones heir than yours truly.

Howd you finally nail Nitti? I asked after a while.

Lang turned and looked at me, surprised, like hed forgotten I was there.

What do you mean?

Whats the charge? Whod he kill?

Lang and Miller exchanged glances, and Lang made a sound that was vaguely a laugh, though you could mistake it for a cough.