A fat blonde in a polka-dot dress was scrunched beside me, putting on her lipstick, looking in her compact’s mirror, as we moved through the sea of flesh; she managed to put the lipstick on without mishap, as well as make a comment.
“I’m disappointed,” she told me. “He didn’t look like his pictures in the paper. He looked like any other dead guy. But what the heck—I think I’ll get back in line and go through just once more.”
“Good idea,” I said, and we burst out through the door into the hot, fresh air. The guy in the orange cap and orange tie was back with a fresh tray of ice and juice. I couldn’t help myself: I bought a cup and swigged it down. It was cool and tasted good. Spending time in a morgue can make you appreciate the little things.
I was walking toward where my coupe was parked when a father, gesturing with one hand, the other on the shoulder of a weeping eleven-year-old boy, walked briskly by, saying, “Now I wanted you to see that as a moral lesson, Tim—it’s like Melvin Purvis says: Crime don’t pay, remember that!”
The father held one of the bloody swatches of handkerchief as he gestured.
I kept that in mind as I drove to the Banker’s Building, where I hoped Purvis and Cowley would both still be on hand.
24
They seemed almost glad to see me.
Cowley, in a brown baggy suit, was standing over by nattily dressed Purvis, seated behind his big glass-topped desk, and they looked toward me as I came in, followed me with their eyes as I approached them. There was no college boy in the receptionist’s slot this time to try to stop me—it was nearly six and most of the desks in the big office were empty, the windows half-open, letting in some warm but anyway fresh air and a glimpse of the day dying out there.
I stood across from Purvis and pushed my hat back on my head; I was still in shirt sleeves—sweaty ones, by now. I probably didn’t smell any better than the rest of the crowd at the morgue.
I said, “Looks like things have settled down around this joint.”
Cowley found an uneasy smile for me. “You should’ve seen it this morning. Real madhouse.”
Purvis mustered an unconvincing smile, and stood. “Nice of you to stop by, Mr. Heller,” he said in that faintly Southern drawl, as if he’d requested this visit. He gestured with an open hand back toward where I’d come in. “Let’s step into the conference room down the hall, for a chat….”
I didn’t see why not.
We sat, the three of us, with me in the middle, at one side of a long table for twelve in a big room that had a few smaller tables, apparently used for interrogation, along the wall by the windows. Through the windows I could see the Rookery just across the alley, looking enigmatically on. The Rookery was an early near-skyscraper, whose eleven stories had an oddly moorish ornamentation that made it stand out among its newer, taller, sleeker neighbors and its older, more staid, stodgy ones, too.
Speaking of staid and stodgy, Cowley started in. “I haven’t seen you quoted in the press as yet.”
“You will.”
Purvis, on the other side of me, spit out the words; his cordial pose hadn’t lasted long. “What have you said?”
I scooted my chair back so that I could look at both of them, undercutting the double-teaming routine they were trying to pull. I gave them a brief rundown on what I’d told Davis, and they seemed relieved, and relieved was what they should be: it was a whitewash, after all.
Purvis said, “You didn’t mention Anna Sage? Or Polly Hamilton?”
“No. But I did tell Stege their names, when he came to see me last night.”
Cowley looked momentarily glum, but said, “We know. We’ve dealt with that.”
“Oh really?”
Purvis said, “Stege was questioning Anna at the Sheffield Avenue Station this afternoon, but we sent our men to pick her up.” A thin smile flitted across thin lips. “We told ’em it was a federal job and squelched the interrogation. She’s in federal custody, now. Protective.”
“She’s in jail?”
“No,” Cowley said. “We’re just looking out for her.”
“What about Polly?”
“Her too,” Purvis said, nodding.
“I notice you’ve kept their names out of the papers. You think that’s going to last?”
Purvis smirked. “Not since you gave the women’s names to Stege. Once the Chicago cops have it, the papers soon will, too. Those louts would sell their grandmother for a cup of java.”
I couldn’t help smiling; when Purvis tried to talk tough, it was kind of pitiful. I said, “You shouldn’t worry. You boys are getting good press on this.”
Cowley was impassive, but Purvis had a smug, tight little smile.
I decided to wipe it off his face by saying, “You are aware by now that you killed the wrong man, aren’t you?”
Purvis threw his hands in the air and said, “Jesus! Not that again!” Cowley just sat shaking his head, like I was a promising student who continually disappointed him.
