Free True Crime by Max Allan Collins Page B

decision, Mr. Heller?”
    “Yeah. Yeah, it is. And don’t bother having any of these Harold Teens try to tail me…you and your boys have been embarrassed enough lately.”
    His jaw muscles still jumping, he said, “There’s reward money in this, Heller.”
    “I know there is. I mean no offense, Purvis. I’ll be back in touch.”
    “Soon?”
    “Soon.”
    With Cowley, I thought.
    And left.

9
     
    I spent the afternoon tailing Lawrence and Polly for what I assured myself was one last time. Around noon I’d driven back to the apartment house on Pine Grove, near the lake, and, with suitcoat and hat off and tie loosened, had just got settled in on the rider’s side with my newspaper when a Checker cab pulled up, and Lawrence and Polly came out and got in. Lawrence was in shirt sleeves and bow tie and straw hat and yellow slacks; and Polly was in a yellow dress and matching hat. They looked like an advert for butter.
    I followed ’em to North Lincoln Avenue—just a block or so from Anna’s—and they got out of the cab. As I drove by I saw that, not ten feet away from them, two uniformed cops were standing on the corner, talking. Lawrence didn’t even glance their way. A squad car went by just after I parked, and it swung around to pick up one of the cops, and Lawrence and Polly, strolling along now, didn’t seem to notice or care. If this Lawrence was Dillinger, he was one cool customer.
    But apparently not so cool, on this blistering day, to be able to resist the strawberry sundaes he and Polly ate, in lieu of lunch, at the soda fountain next to Biograph Billards. Here they split up, with Polly beaming at him and giving him a peck on the cheek; off she went, presumably to shop—North Lincoln being a nifty little shopping area.
    I stayed with Lawrence. I hung a loose tail on him—if this really was Dillinger, he’d be picking up on me any time now, unless I was very careful. After all, he might be armed—though I didn’t see how: he had no coat on, and there was no gun bulge in any of the pockets of his yellow slacks.
    Whoever he was, he got his hair cut at the Biograph Barber Shop; and then went across to the Biograph Theater and in the door just to the right of the marquee. Visiting his bookmaker, no doubt—there’d been a bookie joint operating in the loft over that theater for years.
    A few minutes later he came out and walked down the street to a haberdashery, the Ward Mitchell Company, where he bought a striped shirt. This I’d glimpsed through the storefront window, and was on my way across the street, to maintain my tail at a distance, and almost missed it when Lawrence came out of the store and bumped into a beat cop who was walking by, swinging his stick.
    Lawrence dropped his package, and the bull helped him pick it up and they smiled and nodded to each other and walked on.
    The hell with it, I thought, and went to my car and headed back to the Loop. That flatfoot sure didn’t think Lawrence was Dillinger, and Lawrence didn’t exactly wet his pants on bumping into the law, either. Hell with it.
    By four that afternoon I was sitting in a booth in Barney Ross’ Cocktail Lounge, having a beer. Ceiling fans whirred overhead and, with the beer, made the heat almost seem to go away. It was a long, narrow, dark room with a bar against one long wall, a small dance floor at the far end, a few tables by the dance floor, and booths lining the walls. There were framed photos of fighters everywhere, and not just Barney—King Levinsky, Jackie Fields, Benny Leonard, among others. Barney himself was rarely around the place, these days—too public a figure for it, and Pian and Winch, his mother-hen managers, didn’t like him owning a bar, let alone hanging around in one. Barney had a wholesome reputation going for him, and counted plenty of kids among his fans, so him lending his name to the place was bad enough, much less actually being there.

 

     
SGT. M ARTIN Z ARKOVICH

 
    And he was busy. Not just