True Crime (26 page)

Something odd happened on the four-mile drive into Beaver Falls.

Nelson acted civil toward me.

I have no explanation, other than possibly the lack of an audience, prompting him to abandon, at least temporarily, his Cagney pose. Or perhaps it was his having to leave the tommy-gun appendage behind, settling for a modest .45 Army Colt stuck in his waistband. But as we rode in the Auburn, with me at the wheel, top down, he smoked a cigar, leaned back, relaxed, and shared his insights into Doc Moran with me.

“You know,” he said, blowing smoke out easily, sun low in the sky and streaming through the cornfields as we whisked by, “Candy Walker was a fuckin’ chump to let that drunken sawbones near ’im in the first place.”

“Really?” I said. I took one hand off the wheel and pushed the window-glass wire-frames up on my nose.

“Sure. When you get back, get a load of Freddie Barker’s fingertips. The doc did a scraping on them last spring. You know how this genius surgeon goes about that?” He grinned, cigar atilt, gesturing with both hands, relishing the gore he was about to describe. “He loops rubber bands around their fingers, at the first joint. Then he sticks a hypo of morphine in each fingertip—how’s that for laughs? Then starts scraping. With a scalpel, like he’s sharpening a pencil.” Nelson laughed, a high-pitched giggle like a kid. “Really carves the ol’ meat off. Ha ha ha!”

“Did the operation take?”

Nelson smirked, the wispy beginnings of his mustache riffling in the breeze like fringe on a curtain. “A couple of Freddie’s fingers got infected—one thumb swelled up like a blimp. They took him to a vet and got ’im some medicine, but he was burning up with fever for about a week.”

“But did the operation take?”

Nelson laughed again, same high-pitched giggle, blew out cigar smoke in a fat circle. “Take a look at his fingertips when we get back. You’ll see.”

I knew what I’d see. I’d never seen a fingerprint job that
had
taken; in every case I knew of, the telltale whorls stubbornly returned, forming patterns still discernible, if streaked with scar tissue.

“He’s got a big mouth, too, the doc. Comes in town and boozes and chases the local gash. Of course he knows better than to even
look
at one of
our
women.” He gave me a sideways glance that let me know that was a warning partially directed at me. “But Verle and Mildred got a nice thing going, usin’ the farmhouse as a cooling-off joint and all, so we got to be careful around the locals. Don’t need no drunken sawbones spillin’ his guts to every hunk of quiff he meets.”

“Why do the Barkers put up with him?”

The wind blowing as we sped along put Nelson’s cigar out; he relit it, shrugging. “Like the old bastard himself said, he’s useful. He did do some face-lifts that turned out, well…okay. Like on O.C.”

“O.C.?”

“Old Creepy. Karpis. Oh, yeah, you ain’t met him yet. He went to town with Mildred and her boys. Dolores is his broad. Hell of a guy. He’s from Chicago, too, from the back o’ the yards, like me. Hell, you’re from Chicago. Maybe you met him?”

“I only been in Chicago a year or so.”

“Oh yeah—you’re from out East.”

Was he trying to be cute, fishing like that? Or just making conversation? Maybe Nelson was more complex—and more intelligent—than I’d first given him credit for.

I said, “So Moran gave Karpis a face-lift?”

“Yeah—a pretty good one. O.C. didn’t have no earlobes, and that’s the kind of thing that sticks out on a wanted circular. And Moran did manage to fix him up with something that’s more or less like lobes. And O.C. had a busted nose since he was a kid and Moran straightened that. And tightened his face up. But his face is real scarred along his cheek by his ear. Both cheeks, I mean.”

“But it served its purpose, the face-lift.”

Nelson shrugged again. “I guess. I think O.C.’s changed his looks more from combing his hair straight back and wearing glasses than from what Moran done, but he seems satisfied. Enough that Walker wanted a face-lift, too. Big sacrifice for a ladies’ man like Walker to let that doc carve on his puss.” He laughed again, one short guttural laugh, but still high-pitched. “Well, he’s a ladies’ man in hell, now.”

We were coming up on Beaver Falls, now. Maple trees and two-story clapboards.

“I still don’t get it,” I said. “Why does Moran act like he’s so invaluable? There’s plenty of underworld docs around, doing first-rate face-lifts.” I took a hand off the wheel to gesture alongside my right ear. “See any scars on my face?”

“No,” Nelson admitted. “But Moran’s been valuable to the Barkers and Karpis in a lot of ways. I shouldn’t have to tell you he’s connected to the Chicago Boys, which can come in handy. And other ways.”

“Such as?”

Another shrug, another cocky puff of the cigar. “He was fencing hot money for ’em. He handled the Bremer ransom.”

“I thought that was Boss McLaughlin’s piece of work.”

“Him and Moran.”

“But the feds got McLaughlin, didn’t they?”

Like that other hot-money fence, James Probasco, ward-heeler McLaughlin had been hung by his heels from the Banker’s Building by the feds, seeking a third-degree confession; he hadn’t talked, but he was facing five years in Leavenworth anyway. He was still better off than Probasco, who as you may recall when similarly dangled did a dive into the cement court of the Rookery Building nineteen stories below.

Nelson continued. “The feds got McLaughlin, yeah—but he didn’t talk. And Moran still has fencing connections. Plus, like he’s always remindin’ us—he knows where the bodies are buried.”

“I see.”

“Pull in there,” Nelson said, motioning to a parking place in front of a store called Hubbell’s.

We left the Auburn at the curb and Nelson, his coat buttoned over his waistband, where the .45 was tucked, smiled and tipped his hat at a fat farm housewife with a faded brownish-blond marcel and a pretty little girl with corn-yellow hair in tow. The fat farm housewife and the little girl both smiled and the housewife said, “You’re Verle’s relation, aren’t you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“We could all use some rain for the corn.”

“We surely could, ma’am.”

The mother and daughter walked on by, and we went into Hubbell’s, whose store window was a display of fishing rods, and the narrow, yellow-painted interior proved to be a hardware store of sorts in front—hammers and nails, fishing rods, a wall display of jackknives—and a bar in back, with three side booths.

“This is where Verle picks up his messages,” Nelson said, sotto voce, behind a hand.

“Interesting place.”

Nelson smirked. “Half hardware store, half bar. Ever seen the like?”

“Nothing better, if you’re in the mood for a claw hammer and a shot of whiskey.”

Moran was down at the far end of the bar, bending over a bottle of bourbon and a tall glass, giving what was left of his attention, after the bourbon got done with it, to a busty corn-fed barmaid of twenty-five or so with short curly strawberry-blond hair, wearing a white apron over a red-and-white checked house-dress, looking very homey, wiping the bar with a rag while she smiled and listened to Moran’s smoothest line of bull. He was selling her a shopworn matinee-idol smile, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around the tall glass. If this was a movie, John Barrymore would play him and Joan Blondell her.

A man of about fifty was working the counter in the front, hardware half of the store; he had thinning blond hair and a shovel jaw and a disgusted look.

“Can’t you keep your friend away from my daughter?” he asked Nelson.

Nelson said, “Sorry, Kurt. You shouldn’t oughta let her tend bar, if you don’t want her meetin’ men.”

With tight anger, Kurt said, “Just because she’s divorced don’t mean she’s loose.”

“Did I say that? Anything for Verle?”

“Nothin’.”

“Can I use the phone?”

Still disgusted, Kurt nodded, and Nelson went behind the counter; he nodded to me, then toward Moran. I got the picture.

I went down and sat by Moran.

He turned and cast his rheumy gaze upon me. He was wearing a dark suit with a dark tie and a dark vest; it wasn’t as hot a day as we’d been having, and there were fans going in here, so he wasn’t sweating, and looked very professional, very proper. If a little tanked.

“Do I know you, young man?”

“I’m staying out at the Gillises. I walked in on the last act of your latest operation.”

He lifted an eyebrow, placing me, then nodded gravely, but I could tell Candy Walker’s death didn’t mean a damn to him; he’d seen too many outlaw and gangster patients die to be too concerned. And, in his defense, they were lucky to have him, often working under unsanitary conditions in cellars and hotel rooms, patching up hoodlums who could go nowhere else but to a “right croaker” like him for the tending of a bullet wound that would
not
get reported to the police, or to bring him a knocked-up moll or prostie so he could “pull a rabbit,” or to fix a too-familiar face, or what-have-you. The underworld needed its Doc Morans.

He offered his hand. “Joseph P. Moran. Doctor.”

“I know. I’m Jimmy Lawrence.”

He had a strong grip, but his hand was trembling. Whether from drink, fear or palsy, I couldn’t tell you.

The strawberry-blond strudel behind the counter started moving down the bar with the rag, and Moran called out to her, “Don’t leave, my dear! We’ve so much else to discuss.”

She smiled at him, a pixie smile in a prettily plump face, and said, “There’s always later, Doctor.”

“A misnomer, my dear. As my former patient, Candy Walker, may now realize…‘later’ is a commodity that can prove rare indeed.”

She didn’t understand that, so she giggled at it, and moved on down the bar, where a scruffy, apparently unemployed gentleman in coveralls had found a quarter to spend.

I suggested we move to a booth, and Dr. Moran agreed, taking glass and bottle along.

“Why are you here, young man?” he asked, pouring himself some bourbon, though his tall glass was already half full. “Getting hot for you elsewhere? Perhaps you’ve heard of my services. Not cheap, but well worth the price, I assure you. Now, don’t be put off by that unfortunate mishap with Mr. Walker. A one-in-a-thousand occurrence, a freak happenstance, a medical misfortune of the rarest order.”

“No. No thanks…”

“What you need,” he said, narrowing his eyes, holding his thumb up to his eye like an artist measuring distance, “is a good surgeon. I, myself, was an honor student, a young physician with a distinguished career ahead of me, when I ran afoul of fate. But that’s my story, and what we’re concerned with here is
yours
. Afraid of the authorities, are you? Well, you can go
anywhere
without worrying, after I’ve done a lift job on that face of yours. I’ll alter that nose—some Jewish blood in the line? Not to worry—change the shape of it entirely. And lift those cheeks, pull ’em up tight, even in a young fella like you it makes a difference…”

“Doctor…”

“I can change the expression of your eyes. I can raise those eyebrows…”

They were already raised.

“…take the sag out of your mouth. Your family, your best friends? They’ll never know you. And let’s see those hands—I can get rid of those bothersome fingerprints with the easiest, nearly painless little operation…”

“I already had a lift, Doctor.”

He drew his head back; reached in an inside coat pocket and took out some wire-rim glasses and looked at me close. “I say. Outstanding job. Who did it?”

“None of your business.”

He smiled, looking as sophisticated as a John Held, Jr., drawing. “Quite the proper answer, in your line of work. I have no difficulty with that answer whatsoever. Say! You have nothing to drink—we’ll remedy that—my dear! I prescribe alcohol for this young gentleman!”

The nicely chubby strawberry blonde walked over like an advertisement for making babies. I ordered a beer.

“Healthy lass,” he said, watching her go, almost licking his lips. “Good bone structure, beneath that well-placed beef. Ah—farm country. A rest in the country is just what I’ve needed, of late. By the way, what
does
bring you into the company of such notables as our friend Baby Face Nelson? An appellation, I might add, one might best refrain from using to the little weasel’s face.”

“Actually, Doctor,” I said, “I’m here to see you.”

“Me? Why, I’m honored, Mr. Lawrence. What brings you here to see me?”

“Frank Nitti.”

He swallowed, and he didn’t have a mouthful of liquor, either. The blood drained out of his face.

“He’d like you to come back to Chicago,” I said.

“Young man, I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m in the process of…relocating.”

“I heard you were well-connected.”

“Perhaps you’re aware of my dealings with one ‘Boss’ McLaughlin?”

“Just vaguely.”

“He suggested I dispose of certain funds—certain
warm
funds—by doling it out, a few dollars at time, to some of my patrons…if you follow me.”

“You mean, some of Nitti’s people were passed hot money?”

“Indelicately put, but true. In small amounts, Mr. McLaughlin thought the bills would cause little trouble. For his efforts he’s facing a penitentiary term. As for me, well…an emissary from Mr. Nitti passed me an envelope, shortly before I left the city. Do you know what was in that envelope, Mr. Lawrence?”

I said I didn’t.

“Nothing much,” he said, sipping his tall glass of bourbon. “Simply a single unfired round. A bullet. Do you understand that? Do you derive a meaning from that?”

It was a death sentence.

I said, “Perhaps Nitti would like to work it out with you.”

“Did he say as much?”

“Not really. He just said to tell you that he wanted you to come back to Chicago. He had work for you.”

“I see. Then I hardly understand why he bothered sending you—he’d know I wouldn’t return with so little assurance of my safety.” He looked at me as if he hadn’t looked at me before. “Unless, of course, you’re here to…but you don’t look like a gunman. Then looks at times deceive. Take, for example, the childlike countenance of the gentleman approaching…”