Chicago Confidential полностью

Didn’t Fischetti fill him in? “Bill doesn’t work here anymore, Tub... Still want to give me the two grand?”

“That’s a token of thanks from certain individuals in return for your cooperation in this laughable ‘crime’ inquiry.”

“Nothing more?”

“It could be considered a down payment. Have you had a falling out with Drury? Was it on bad terms, his parting from your employ?”

“Bill saved my life, once. We’ll always be friends. I just don’t want to have anything to do with his crusade.”

Tubbo twitched a sneer. “Vendetta, you mean.”

“You think he’s singled you out, Tub?”

“Not me, really. Charles Fischetti. Drury’s had a chip on his shoulder, for Charley, ever since Charley beat that gun rap, years ago. Silly damn grudge. Childish. As for me, I’ve always gotten along with Bill. I just ran into him in the Sherman Hotel drugstore, the other day — he plays handball in the gym, there.”

“Really.”

“Yes, and when you see him, tell him I was serious about my offer. It still stands.”

I grinned again — trying to bribe Bill Drury? Who was Tubbo trying to kid — himself? “What offer was that, Tub?”

“After the election, I’ll have an investigator’s slot waiting for him, on the sheriffs department. He’d like to be a cop again, I hear. Well, I’ll make him one.”

“I’ll pass that along. For what good it’ll do.”

He raised a fat finger. “You might advise him to watch the company he’s keeping.”

“What company is that?”

“These reporters. Did you see the Collier’s piece, by Lester Velie?”

“I skimmed it.”

His eyes tightened. “Your friend — your former employee — was the prime source. And of course he’s still feeding Lait and Mortimer wild stories and exaggerations.”

Jack Lait, a seasoned reporter and veteran of several Chicago papers, was now the editor of the New York Mirror; and Lee Mortimer was a syndicated columnist for that same paper. Starting with New York, they’d collaborated on several bestselling books on major cities — half smutty tour guide, half muckraking journalism. The latest one — Chicago Confidential, published early this year — had exposed to a national audience many Outfit secrets, including Tubbo’s role as the “elder statesman of political corruption.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said. “Bill was working for the Herald-American before he came to work with me. And his brother was a reporter. So he runs in those circles.”

The pouchy eyes narrowed; for the first time, a faint edge of menace crept into Tubbo’s voice. “You didn’t know he was feeding these yellow journalists his tripe at the same time he was on your payroll?”

“I did not.”

Tubbo shifted in the chair; the leather made a farting sound, as he crossed his other leg. “Have you ever seen these fabled notebooks of his?”

“The records, the files he keeps? I know about them. He’s mentioned them. He certainly didn’t keep them here.”

The dimpled chin lifted and he gazed down the pudgy expanse of his excess-ridden face. “If you could find them, they would be... of interest.”

“To you or to Charley Fischetti?”

An elaborate shrug. “Does that matter? Find them, secure them, deliver them — and there’s fifty thousand in it.”

“Jesus! Fifty thousand...”

His smile seemed almost puckish. “I thought that might get your attention.”

I picked up the envelope, riffled through the bills. This was the moment, in the pulps, in the movies, where the private eye threw that damn money in the crooked cop’s face.

“Thanks,” I said, and tossed the envelope in my top desk drawer. “I’ll see what I can do... But those notebooks are a long shot. I’m not promising anything.”

Tubbo nodded, pleased. He got up — it took a while. He gestured for me not to show him to the door — I wasn’t planning to, anyway. He was halfway there when he paused and asked, “Do you know this attorney — what is it, Bas? Marvin Bas?”

I shrugged. “Not well. He’s a Republican, pretty active in his ward. Represents some nightclubs, strip joints, on the Near Northside.”

Now his tone got casual — a little too casual. “Did you know Bas and Drury are thick, these days?”

“News to me, Tub.”

“It’s really too bad... distressing. You see, Bas is working for Babb.”

That was a lot of b’s, but what it meant was, Drury was tight with a high-ranking campaign worker of Tubbo’s opponent in the sheriff’s race. Drury might be digging up dirt on Tubbo — a job that wouldn’t take much of a shovel — for that candidate.

“It’s a pity,” Tubbo said, and shook his head. “Beating Coughlan woulda been a damn cakewalk.”

J. Malachy Coughlan, Tubbo’s original opponent in the sheriff’s race, had died in August; young, handsome, personable John E. Babb — an attorney and a World War Two hero — had been chosen to fill the slate.

“You’re a Democrat, Tub,” I said. “You got to try real hard to lose, in this town.”

Tubbo nodded that I was right, waved a jeweled hand, and slipped out — and he was barely gone before Sapperstein slipped in. He trotted over and took Tubbo’s well-broken-in chair.