For maybe the next half hour, I sat and tried to think if there was something I could do about Jackie — do
So I went back to work, and dealt with the matters Lou Sapperstein had for me, and a couple of other things. Then at four o’clock, Bill Drury was shown into my office, his usual natty self, blue suit and gray homburg.
“I’m not alone, Nate,” he said, the homburg in hand, exposing his thinning dark hair. “Someone’s with me — this is business. Can I have him come in?”
“Sure.” I hadn’t got up to greet Bill — I was still sitting behind the desk.
Drury turned to the open doorway and crooked his finger. A rather fleshy man in his mid-forties stepped in — six foot, hatless, with a square head, dark alert eyes highlighting strong features, and black, gray-at-the-temple hair, wearing a dark gray vested suit with a gray-and-blue tie. His name was Marvin J. Bas, and he was an attorney and Republican politician, in the Forty-second Ward — the turf of notorious saloonkeeper/alderman Paddy Bauler.
I stood up as Bas approached, smiling anxiously; we shook hands across the desk, said hello — using each other’s first names, though we didn’t know each other well, at all.
A folded newspaper tucked under his arm, Drury — who seemed uncharacteristically edgy — shut the door and came over and sat next to Bas, the pair filling both client chairs across from me at the desk.
“I’m a little surprised, Bill,” I said. “I thought you were coming around to settle up — return equipment, collect a paycheck. I hope Marvin’s presence doesn’t mean you plan to sue me.”
I’d said that with a smile, but anything was possible.
“No,” Drury said, with his own small smile, the newspaper in his lap like a napkin, “I realize I’ve taxed your patience, and took advantage of our friendship, these last few weeks... putting you on the spot, thoughtlessly.”
“If you’re expecting an argument—”
“No. I returned the tape recorders, and I’ll forgo any further paychecks from the A-1. Frankly, I’ve really been working for myself, for a good month now... longer, but prior to that I did earn my agency paycheck.”
“Fine. Is that why you’re here — to apologize? Patch up our friendship? And does that take an attorney?”
Bas, who had a resonant voice, sat forward and said, “Actually, we’re here to seek your help — not to ask a favor, based upon your long-standing friendship with Bill... rather, to hire you.”
“Really. To do what?”
Drury said, “I have a witness — a new witness — to an old crime.”
“And what crime would that be?”
“A murder, Nate.” Pouchy as those dark blue eyes of his might have become, they had lost none of their unsettling penetrating power as he fixed them on me like magnets seeking metal. “A murder you and I tried to solve together in 1946.”
“...You have a new witness to the Ragen shooting. Another eyewitness?”
“Not an eyewitness,” he said, but nodded and kept nodding as he continued, “a witness who will testify to Yaras admitting being one of the assassins — and that Tubbo Gilbert himself covered up the murder. That the witnesses who recanted did so due to Tubbo using a prostitute to—”
I held up a hand. “I know the story, Bill — each of the witnesses admitted to the same chippie that you told them what to say and who to identify.”
“Which was pure utter horseshit,” Drury said.
“It was enough to invalidate them as witnesses... and get you suspended.” I turned to Bas. “You’re working for Babb’s campaign?”
Bas had intense eyes, as well, and his courtroom orator’s voice gave him further weight, as he said, “That’s right. But I’m also working for the Chicago Crime Commission. Virgil Peterson and I are old college chums. I share his enthusiasm for cleaning up this—”
“The idea being,” I said, “expose Tubbo for the corrupt, mob-connected bastard he is, and your man Babb wins the race for sheriff.”
Bas winced. “That’s an oversimplification, but... yes.”
“So why do you need me?”
Drury said, “We have to meet with this witness, tonight — our first face-to-face.”
Bas said, “It’s strictly been intermediaries and phone calls... till tonight.”
I shrugged. “So meet with him.”
Drury said, “That is where you come in, Nate — you and your Browning. I’m hot right now — never hotter. We need backup. The address is at Orchard and Frontier... near the El.”
“That’s a rough neighborhood. Edge of Little Hell.”
Drury raised an eyebrow. “You can see why we need help. This could be a setup.”
A guy didn’t need Drury’s list of blood enemies for this meeting to be dangerous — you could get killed without trying, in that part of town.
“I really want to stay out of this,” I said.
Drury seemed almost jittery — I’d never seen him this way. “Nate — please. If this is a trap, I need somebody with your balls, and your savvy. You can handle yourself, if the lead starts flying... Nate, who else can I ask?”
“How about your new friends on Kefauver’s advance team? They have their own private investigators working for them — a couple ex-FBI agents, or so I hear.”
