Since Lou had also been a cop, and a friend of Drury’s, as well as a member of our poker-playing cadre, this seemed a vaguely insulting exclusion; but Sapperstein just shrugged and nodded and walked over by an oak tree, leaning against it, while O’Conner led me off between rows of headstones with their elaborate carvings and statuary.
“I know this shouldn’t be a surprise,” O’Conner said, hands dug in his raincoat pockets, his eyes hollow, “but somehow I thought Bill was... above anything anybody could do to him.”
“Nobody’s above a shotgun, Tim.”
He was shaking his head, staring at the earth, across which a few stray leaves were dancing. “I... this is fucking hard, Nate. Ever since I lost Janet...”
“She didn’t die, Tim. You fucked around on her, and she divorced you and took the kids.”
Now he looked right at me — his eyes tight with surprise. “Are you really this hard?”
“I see in the papers where you barely knew Bill.”
“Oh. That.”
O’Conner had been quoted as saying he’d had no business association with Drury in recent months — that in particular he hadn’t been part of his late friend’s journalistic endeavors. His comments had seemed designed to keep the heat off him with the Outfit.
Embarrassed, looking at the ground again, he said, “That was all true — I just didn’t mention that Bill and I had been working together, cooperating with Kefauver’s staff. I mean — that was confidential stuff.”
“Really? And are you still planning to spend your spare time, Tim, pouring Cokes and coffee for the Crime Committee?”
Chin up, now. “I’m still working for Kurnitz, and he’s still working with Robinson and Halley, yeah. I was hoping you’d come aboard.”
I laughed, once. “You think that’s the way to make this thing right?”
“You know there’s no way to make this right. Bill’s gone forever... and we let him down.”
“Bullshit. Bill was a grown-up. He knew the risks. He relished them.”
He was shaking his head; he looked like he was going to start crying again. “I just don’t want him to have died for nothing. I’m going to stick with the committee and see if I can help them bring these bastards down.”
“You really believe that? That Fischetti and Tubbo Gilbert and Ricca and the rest, that some out-of-town senators trying to make themselves look good politically can change the way life’s always been in Chicago?”
The wind shook the trees around us; the brittle brown leaves might have been laughing.
His chin was trembling as he withdrew a hand to point a finger at me, like a gun. “I’ll tell you this — if Tubbo was involved, he shot himself in his foot, this time. Halley says Kefauver is furious about these killings. Apparently, the senator says, to hell with waiting till after the election for the hearings.”
Maybe Kefauver’s outrage in the press wasn’t all talk.
But I wasn’t convinced. “I’m supposed to believe Kefauver’s not going to wait a little over a month, to protect the local Democratic machine? That he’ll screw over the same people he’ll have to turn to, if he runs for president?”
“It’ll be in the papers, any day now. Kefauver takes these murders as a personal attack on him and his committee, and he’s upping the ante.”
“How in hell?”
“The hearings have been moved up to October fifth.”
I frowned in disbelief. “Next week?”
“Next week. Right across the street from your office, in the Federal Building, Nate. And the senator’s got another couple dozen subpoenas ready to go. Not just the gangsters, this time — politicians, race wire operators, liquor dealers, jukebox distributors, even the wives of the big boys.”
“Why bother with the wives? They can’t testify against their husbands.”
O’Conner shrugged. “Halley says they can. Rules are different with congressional hearings than the usual courtroom procedure.”
If that was true, where did that leave the former Jackie Payne?
“Come work with us,” O’Conner said.
“No.”
He found a sneer for me. “Is that it, then? Bill’s in the ground, and you’re just going to walk away?”
“Did I say that?”
Now the leaves seemed to be whispering, but I couldn’t make out what they wanted with me...
“Nate... you’re not thinking of handling this... some other way. Your
“I don’t remember saying that, either.”
The bloodshot blue eyes seemed steady, suddenly — looking at me with a fresh focus. “You have a reputation for... sometimes people who have problems with you have been known to disappear.”
“Is that right?”
Car engines were starting here and there; the mourners leaving Bill Drury behind — they were just visiting, after all; he lived here.
O’Conner leaned close to me; surprisingly, he didn’t have liquor on his breath. “Listen — listen to me carefully, Nate. I would do anything to get even for Bill.
“Yeah?”
Those blue eyes were hard as marbles, now. “Are you listening? Do you hear me?”
“I’m listening. I hear you.”
“Promise me — if you do decide to try something... I don’t give a shit how crazy... you call me. And I’m there.”
“Be careful, Tim—”
“I know what I’m saying. I know what I’m offering. don’t try to do this alone.”
