Memorial Bridge (21 page)

The following Monday morning the U.S. attorney's press officer announced without explanation that the Selective Service charges against one man, Raymond Buckley, had been withdrawn.

Within an hour of the announcement, Sean Dillon and Father Aloysius Ferrick were shown into Eddie Kane's office at police headquarters. Since their last meeting in the dean's office at Loyola the year before, Kane had been promoted to superintendent, and his large office was an emblem of his new position as Chicago's top policeman. A pair of leather couches flanked a low table at one end. Kane's oversized desk dominated the other. The walls were covered with framed citations and photographs, including one, prominent behind the desk, of the stocky policeman side by side with FDR.

"Congratulations, Eddie," Father Ferrick said once the three had taken seats on the couches. Dillon and the priest sat opposite Kane.

"That's right, Father. I haven't seen you since my promotion."

"No." Ferrick fixed him with a disapproving stare. "You haven't seen me since Doc Riley disappeared."

Kane blushed, and Dillon sensed that only this old priest could cause such a reaction in the man. Kane looked at Dillon. "But I'm not the only one moving up, huh? You're with the Bureau now."

"Yes."

"I hear you guys are pressing hard on the draft thing."

"Maybe too hard. We've had to admit we were wrong with one guy. A friend of yours."

"Really? Who?"

"Raymond Buckley."

Kane eyed Dillon carefully. "We all noticed when you hauled him in. I mean, we noticed it was you. Or I did, anyway."

"Why? You thought it might be personal?"

"But you dropped the charges?"

"An hour ago. In time for you to read about it in the afternoon papers. The indictment against Buckley has been quashed. You look surprised, Eddie."

"You had him for a sure five years, I heard." Kane shrugged. "Not like the Bureau to make a mistake." The policeman leaned back against the smooth leather couch, a man whose new furniture still gave him pleasure. "What can I do for you?"

Dillon took a folder from his briefcase and handed it over. Kane flipped it open, leafing through the dozen pages quickly. "What is this?"

"The summary of what we have so far from Buckley, what he's been putting out in exchange for his release. Look it over, Eddie. See for yourself. Names, dates, records of meetings, descriptions of his arrangements, a list of violations matched up against a nice selection of Buckley's associates, a three-ring circus of life in the new Chicago."

"New? As I recall, you brought me a list like this once before."

"Not quite like this one. Besides, in those days, Buckley was denying it. Now he's giving it to us." Dillon watched Kane read for some moments, then he added quietly, "And this list differs in one other way. Your name is on page eleven, Eddie."

The cop flipped to the page.

Dillon looked across to the priest. "It seems Raymond Buckley recalls in some detail a series of their meetings at Comiskey Park last summer. Eddie and Buckley had adjoining boxes behind the dugout on
the first-base side. Buckley had been complaining to Eddie that his payments were lagging, and so the Sox games were set as a series of deadlines."

"What payments?" Surprise snapped out of the priest. "Eddie got into debt to Buckley?"

Kane ignored the two, reading. His lips moved.

Dillon shook his head. "Nothing so crude as debts, Father. Buckley's not just a loan shark anymore. He's an informal banker for the whole machine. He supervises off-the-record collections and disbursements, keeps track of things for Kelly himself. Eddie had to fork over fifteen thousand dollars for his new job, for this nice new office and the clout that goes with it. Five installments, wasn't it, Eddie? Three thousand each time? You met Buckley in the men's room under Grandstand C, wasn't it? Bottom half of the fourth inning each time? Have I got it right?"

At last Kane looked up at Dillon. "What do you want?" he asked hoarsely.

"I want Buckley."

Kane shook his head, in confusion, not negation. "But you have—"

"I have you, Eddie. I have Jimmy Martin. I have Sonny McCue. I have a shot at six judges, a dozen other cops and maybe the mayor. Even given my jurisdictional problems, with Buckley as a ready witness, I can develop federal cases against most of you. And the stuff that isn't federal will become public anyway. It seems Raymond Buckley just doesn't want to go to jail, not even for the draft. He's giving me the whole machine."

"But—"

"But what I want is him, and you know why. It
is
personal. I want you to get him for me. I used the draft to break Buckley for
this,
so that I could come back to you, Eddie, and give you a second chance. You saved his skin once, and this is the thanks you get. He sold you out for bribery, and that's just the opener. What else can he give me about you if I express an interest?" Dillon paused, then said, "I want Buckley, and not just for a measly draft violation, but for racketeering, loan sharking, gaming—everything. I want him for
murder,
Eddie, but I can't get him for it. You can. The mayor can. The D.A. can. The judges named in those summaries can. All the people who've been protecting him can."

"I still don't get it."

"Check with the pols I interrogated at the Bureau offices last week. This is my show. I'm the only one who knows what's in that folder. I typed the damn thing myself. That's why there are hash marks and typos everywhere. I'll trade those pages. You develop the case against Buckley, including murder. You get your pick of his murders, Eddie, but make sure you choose one you can prove. Bring the charges, get the conviction, send him away for life. And meanwhile I forget I ever heard of any of what's in those pages. In fact, I disappear from Chicago. I go back to Washington."

"You want Buckley that much?"

"Yes. You know my reason. Now you have a reason too. And so does Kelly."

"How do I know you'll really—?"

"That's why I asked Father Ferrick to come along." Dillon looked at the priest. "He knows the score. I wanted him to witness my solemn oath. My oath as a Catholic." Dillon faced Kane once more. "I swear that I will never use the material I have from Buckley against you or against anyone. And I swear no one else in the Bureau has seen it or will see it but me. So help me God and my immortal soul." Dillon let a beat of silence fall, then added, "No one but me, with one proviso. If I should have an unexpected accident or, say, if I should disappear, my personal security box at the Bureau will be opened. It holds a copy of Buckley's statement and a description of this meeting, including the fact of Father Ferrick's presence." Dillon looked at the priest. "Another reason I asked you to come. One sacred reason, one profane."

Kane stared at Dillon and the priest, pale and unsure. His voice cracked as he said, "But if Buckley has talked to you, once we press him he'll talk to everybody."

"You and the Chicago D.A. will control what Buckley talks about, and you'll control who he talks to, the same way Ness hemmed in Capone once they made their case. You can keep the focus on what Buckley did. Anything he tries to give away will be dismissed as the moves of a desperate man. The same system that operated so efficiently to protect Buckley can operate now to destroy him."

Kane closed the folder and looked at Ferrick. "Does that oath he just took mean anything?"

The priest nodded. "The immortal soul is not to be trifled with, Eddie. I'd say Sean's oath gives you a chance to do something about your own soul."

"Check with your bosses," Dillon said. "See if they don't agree. One way or the other, Buckley is a problem for you all. I'm giving you a way to dispose of it. And Eddie?"

"Yes?"

"Buckley in court is the
only
way I want it disposed of. I don't want him hit on the street. Tell that to Kelly. The deal is off if Buckley is killed."

"I could bring charges that would get him the electric chair. You don't want that either?"

"I'll leave that to the jury. My point is, I want it by the law. Do you remember the law? Buckley deserves anything you throw at him, but do it by the book."

Kane laughed nervously. "Is this by the book?"

But Dillon ignored him. "Otherwise I stay in Chicago. I bring the Bureau in, and we go all the way with this."

Dillon held the cop's eyes until Kane couldn't stand it. He stood up. "So in one move we get rid of him
and
you?"

Dillon and the priest stood. "That's right, Eddie. What a deal, huh?"

As Father Ferrick moved toward the door, Kane touched his arm. "And what about our friendship, Father? Does this mean we can be—?"

"You took an oath too, when you got your badge. Fulfill it this time. Then talk to me about friendship."

Dillon and Ferrick left the police superintendent standing in his office, holding the folder. On the street outside the priest stopped Dillon. "Is that true?" he asked. "You got all that from Buckley? He
talked
to you?"

Dillon felt ambushed. How could he lie to this priest? Yet he had promised himself he'd keep Cass out. Her transcripts, the true basis for the document he'd composed, was his absolute secret. He said coolly, "Yes, it's true, Father. Buckley would deny it, of course. But I cracked him. He didn't want to go to jail."

"But now he will. He
really
will. But the rest of them, you meant that? Giving up what you had against them all, not to use it?"

Dillon forced himself to grin. "Of course I meant it. I swore, didn't I? Don't ask me to explain." He slugged the priest's shoulder affectionately. "But I bent the rules with Buckley. I could never have used the stuff in court anyway." Dillon laughed, and then the priest did, not sure why, except that this young man had done it again, made him feel great about himself.

In the late morning of the next day, November 17, 1940, Raymond Buckley finished his usual string of breakfast interviews at the Stockyards Inn, but they hadn't gone smoothly. The ward boss had been nervous from start to finish, as if one of the supplicants across the fancy table from him was going to pull a black rose out from under the linen cloth. At one point he thought that his coffee tasted strange, and he made the waiter bring him a fresh cup, but he couldn't drink that either. The feeling wouldn't fade that something awful was going to happen to him, and he knew why. He'd demanded that the feds drop the bullshit draft-law charges, but when they had the day before—only his charges, and no explanation for it—he knew enough to be afraid. The fuckers.

Now, as he went outside to his canvas-topped coupe roadster, his hands twitched to be on the steering wheel. He longed to be gone from the yards, driving in a crowd of traffic downtown where no one would single him out. And sure enough, as he began to pull away from the would-be Tudor manor house, three sedans converged on Buckley's car, making him stop. He knew this was it. They were going to kill him. From two of the cars men leapt carrying shotguns and drawn pistols. He reached down to the floor for his own gun, but then he saw their uniforms. Cops! His own guys! From the third car came newspaper photographers, whose flashbulbs then blinded him.

Chicago policemen! Not assassins. And not feds. What the fuck—? "All right, Raybo!" one of them cried, grabbing him, knocking his gun away and hauling him from the car. He recognized Dooley, and then Griffen. They slammed him against the fender, cracking his skull, making him think he was passing out. "You're under arrest!"

What? Not dead? Not gunned down? What was happening?

His mind fled his body as they wrenched his arms back, savagely handcuffing him, and he took refuge in the meaning of it all, the epiphany. Buckley instinctively calculated the equation between this moment and the endless afternoon the week before. He pictured that agent leaning against the wall, staring at him through the smoke. That prick's silence had made him almost crazy, but now at last, in the detached spin of his brain, Buckley heard Sean Dillon's voice. He heard the words Dillon hadn't said at all last week, but a long time before: I owe Doc Riley. I owe him you.

***

"South Side Politician Charged with Murder, Rackets," the headline read. "Mayor Kelly Announces Major New Crackdown."

Framed by the headlines and the story columns was a grainy photograph of Raymond Buckley pinned against the hood of a car, his face twisted in pain, his eyes distended with fear, like a stockyards animal.

" 'The last gasp of gangland Chicago,'" Sean Dillon read out loud. " 'Buckley is a throwback, an exception, a blot on the honor of Chicago's new politics.' So says the mayor in announcing the arrest." He raised his eyes to look at Cass Ryan.

They were on the boardwalk of the Oak Street Beach. It was cold and dank. It had been raining, and would rain again.

"His own people turned against him?" she asked, staring over his shoulder at the newspaper. "
They're
the ones who did this?"

"Yes."

"Because of you?"

"Because of what you gave me."

"But you said that was—"

"I lied about those pages, Cass. No one knows where Buckley's secrets came from. I lied to everyone. Including Father Ferrick."

Lied? What were lies, compared to what Buckley had done? But she knew what Sean was telling her, that he'd crossed a line here. For her?

"What will happen now?"

"A trial, a sure conviction, a merciless sentence. They need him executed or in jail more than we do."

"No, they don't."

"They have him for murder, Cass. Buckley's finished. We're finished with him." Dillon put his fingers lightly on her lips. "We don't ever need to speak of him again." He smiled, wanting to cut through her mood. "Do you think Adam and Eve ever spoke of the snake?"

"After they were banished?" She stared into his eyes more deeply than ever, aware that what had stood between them was gone now. Not Buckley, she thought strangely, but our innocence. Unable to speak, she wanted him to.

When he did, it was to say simply, "I'm going back to Washington. I'll be there through the war, at least. Will you come with me?"