I figured one thing in the closet was Vallee himself, only not literally. But our Germanic landlady seemed to have a pretty good fix on what was in her tenants’ apartments.
And she was right to call it to my attention. In the closet, among Vallee’s spare work boots, a few other shoes, work clothes, and a single suit, were two rifles, leaned against the back wall.
I parted the clothes on their rung to get a better look.
The rifles were both M-1’s, the standard implement of war for the infantry. Gas-operated, semi-automatic, clip-fed. Using .30-06 rounds, in clips of eight. Speaking of which, on either side of the rifles were stacked ammunition boxes, twenty rounds per oblong box. About half Winchester, the other half Remington. Like maybe he’d bought out a store’s supply of one brand and had to start in on another.
Kneeling there, I counted fifty boxes.
On my feet again, I turned to see Mrs. Peters pointing to a dresser, the Ghost of Christmas Future indicating Scrooge’s gravestone.
She was right again. In the dresser, I found a .22 revolver. A Smith and Wesson model 22. Just one box of ammo, though, Remington brand …
… of 2,500 rounds.
“You will take away all of this contraband,” she said, at my side again.
“No. Actually, it’s not illegal, owning this stuff. It’s not even illegal to say you want to kill the President, though it does get the attention of certain people.”
“I no longer care that he pays his rent on time. I wish you to take him away.”
“You have every right to throw him out on his tail, you know. You don’t need a reason to ask a tenant to leave.”
Those curves of eyebrow were diagonals now, trying to form an upside-down V together. “What, and have that nice little man shoot me? I do not think so.”
I smiled. “Anyway, please don’t throw him out until after this weekend. We like knowing where he is.”
At the door, I gave her my card, after adding the Secret Service number under my regular ones.
“If you witness anything else suspicious regarding Mr. Vallee,” I said, “or odd in any way … you let me know.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Heller. If this happens, you will hear from me.”
She smiled, and the light blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on Lake Königssee. At Berchtesgaden.
You may think that’s a cheap shot, but before I left, I let my hostess talk me into a cup of tea in her kitchen, which was down a hallway where family photos finally kicked in, and I swear I glimpsed a framed Hitler Youth photo. You could never be quite sure about these German DP’s.
But I still kind of dug her.
* * *
When I got back to the Secret Service office, I found Chief Martineau with my friend Dick Cain in the former’s office. They were preparing to go to another presidential trip meeting, this one in the auditorium of police HQ at Eleventh and State.
“It’s a special security coordination conference,” Martineau said, “with the sheriff, PD and us. I really don’t have time to hear your report right now, Nate.”
I pulled up a chair next to Dick and sat.
“Yes, you do,” I said, and filled him in quickly and thoroughly about the breakfast conversation with Vallee and my visit to his rooming house.
“It does sound serious,” Martineau allowed. “But your loon is
not
one of the suspects the FBI gave us that your friend the AG wants us to concentrate on.”
“Well, I can see ignoring this,” I said lightly. “It’s just a guy with a kill-Kennedy collage on his walls and a couple of M-1 rifles in his closet and thousands of rounds of ammo. Nothing to sweat bullets over, right?”
Dick—who’d been studying me with that disconcerting gaze of his, with the one milky eye—said, “Nate’s right, Marty. You need to put this joker under surveillance.”
“I can’t spare the men,” Martineau said, his frustration palpable. “How about loaning me a couple of your guys from the SIU, Dick?”
The sheriff’s man shook his head. “No—we’re short-staffed, too, working on stadium and street security. But I know a couple of guys from your old bailiwick, Nate—the Pickpocket Detail? Dan Gross and Pete Shoppa. I could get them for you.”
“I know them a little,” I said. “But they’re way after my time on the Pickpocket Detail.… Still, anybody with that kind of training is perfect for surveillance.”
Martineau seemed almost amused. “The sheriff’s chief investigator is making PD assignments now?”
I reminded him, “Dick was on the PD for a lot of years.”
Cain was sitting forward. “I can approach Captain Linsky about it—
he’d
have to make the assignment. But I’m sure I can swing it.”
“Swing it then,” Martineau said, rising to go out. Dick was also on his feet. “And when I get back, I’ll get the Washington office on rounding up information for us on this Vallee character. We have till Saturday, after all.”
Right.
Less than three days.
CHAPTER
13
In downtown Chicago, after dark, the two most brightly illuminated buildings were easily the Wrigley Building and the Silver Frolics nightclub, unlikely neighbors on the north bank of the Chicago River. Unlikely but fitting, since what was more American than chewing gum and sex? Particularly when you factored in the Doublemint Twins.
And if the Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue was the heart of Chicago commerce, the Silver Frolics—in its shadow to the west—was the city’s navel, or the glittering costume jewel in it, anyway.
That jewel liked to call itself “Paris in Chicago,” but “Chicago in Paris” was more like it. The gaudy neons outside and the billboard-like come-on painted on the former warehouse’s side promised
FOLLIES INTERNATIONAL, 35 ARTISTS, GLAMOUROUS GIRL REVUE,
and (best of all)
NO COVER,
NO ADMISSION.
Thousands of conventioneers and small-town visitors, and even the occasional local, learned soon enough that the ballyhoo omitted the four-buck minimum. And the only resemblance to the French capital would be limited to froufrou decor and one Parisian production number per show.
Few complained, however, as the Silver Frolics’ exotic dancers were unanimously considered the best-looking in town—young, well-built, and pretty, and exclusive to the venue, appearing in a revue elaborate enough to rival Broadway, including a chorus line and the kind of acts (comic magician, contortionist, ventriloquist) that Ed Sullivan on TV made you sit through Sunday night waiting for the really big show.
This was no 606 Club—nothing so crowded or poorly ventilated, no pockmarked tables or pockmarked dancers, either, the former wearing white linen, the latter elaborate costumes, to start with, at least. The clientele was classy for a strip joint, too, men in suits, the few women in smart dresses, attire appropriate for the most plush legit nightclub. Which the Frolics resembled, seating perhaps 250, tables for four arranged so that none was more than two or three rows away from the large stage, which bumped up against a dozen ringside seats.
Still, there was something about the place that felt quaint, even old-fashioned—especially compared to the plush Playboy Club on Walton Street, with its Bunnies spilling their beauty-contestant bosoms from sleek, satiny, colorful, cottontail costumes, cut thigh-high to expose lushly nyloned legs. The Silver Frolics, from its ornate hoop-skirted floor-show costumes to the inevitable pasties and G-strings (never more, or rather never less, not at the refined Frolics), seemed damn near nostalgic in its approach to naughtiness. Strippers teased. Bunnies promised.
Working on a rum-and-Coke, I was seated somewhat away from the stage and relieved to be, as right now dark-haired yuck-it-up stripper Tinki DeCarlo was dumping various items of discarded clothing on the heads of ringside customers. It was a Christmas routine, and she came out Mrs. Santa Claus and was down to electric pasties that glowed red like Rudolph’s nose and a bunch of sleigh bells dangling off her G-string.
“She’s good,” I said to Helen, able to converse easily over the small orchestra, “but I don’t care for funny strip acts. Maybe I take sex too seriously.”
We were two at one of the four-seat tables.
“It makes men feel uncomfortable,” Helen said, with a knowledgeable nod; she was between sips of her Champagne cocktail. “They’re already a little embarrassed, just coming to a place like this. But you’re right, for that kind of thing, she’s not bad.”
Helen was flying under the radar tonight, nothing overtly Sally Rand about her, in her navy-blue dress with white Peter Pan collar and her blondeness pinned up in curls—an extremely attractive middle-aged woman who might still turn heads, anywhere except a club where girls in their twenties were peeling down to their most appealing.
I wore a dark-green Stanley Blacker hopsack blazer, my tie striped dark orange and white, shirt a very light orange. My slacks were brown H.I.S., and my shoes darker brown Hush Puppies. But the most distinctive aspect of my dressed-to-kill ensemble was the shoulder-holstered Browning, Lytton’s in the Loop having tailored the blazer without spoiling the line.
Because I wasn’t going anywhere now without the nine-mil.
We had arrived around ten
P.M.
—the place didn’t open until nine-thirty—and were here to talk to manager Ben Orloff about the possibility of a booking for the world’s most famous fan dancer. This had taken a good deal of discussion, since the Frolics was, for all its pretensions, a strip club. But none of the legitimate nightclubs in town had offered Helen a firm date, despite half a dozen meetings and gracious reception from all concerned. Nobody wanted to insult a living legend in the burlesque biz. Just seemed like nobody wanted to hire one, either.
I had frankly little hope for the Frolics, as they had never hired the big-name exotic dancers like Gypsy Rose Lee or Tempest Storm, preferring to stick to their own stable of younger unknowns, none older than early thirties. But Sally Rand was a Chicago institution, and I’d done a couple of jobs for Orloff, so when I called him, he issued a positive response in his gruff baritone: “Stop by tonight.”
Helen and I had dinner at the Cape Cod Room at the Drake, in part because it was the best seafood in Chicago (narrowly edging out Ireland’s) and also because back in 1934, when we had first become friendly, Helen had lived in a suite at the hotel. Some very friendly times, in fact, were spent in that suite.
The show ran two hours, and would start back up in half an hour, lengthy enough a break to clear some of the tables out for newcomers. During the hiatus, Ben Orloff came trundling over, all smiles. He was short, balding, heavy-set, in a well-tailored brown suit with a brown and green tie a little too wide for the fashion—like his club, he looked fine but out of step.
He bowed to the seated Sally Rand and took her hand with respect, as behooved such flesh-trade royalty. She liked that and beamed at her host.
“Miss Rand, a real, genuine honor. Where would any of us be without you?”
I know he meant this nicely, but it reminded her that she was a museum piece, and anyway, lovely as Helen had been in her prime, I had a hunch if she’d never existed, guys would still be paying to see good-looking women take their clothes off.
“Mr. Orloff,” she said, “I can’t believe we’ve never met. This has to be the most beautiful club of its kind. And your girls are stunning.”
Orloff took the chair nearest Helen. There had been a nod between us that sufficed.
“Please call me Ben. And is Sally okay?”
“Sally is fine.”
“I guess you know,” he said with a shrug, “we don’t normally book big acts in here.
But
… we might consider an exception for a star of your stature. And with your special connection to Chicago.”
“At risk of reminding you that I’ve been around a while,” she said, her smile as broad as it was beautiful, “we
are
celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the fair.”
He grinned and his eyes damn near popped. “I’ll never forget going to that wingding! I was still in high school, and had to lie about my age to get in to see you.”
Her smile remained, but turned strained. She was aware of an inescapable fact—like the Frolics itself, she was an anachronism. Like strippers.
Like private eyes.
I was wishing I’d never suggested this, but the club manager surprised me.
“I will tell you right now,” he said, taking her hand and patting it, “no beating around the bush whatsoever, that I am prepared to book you in here.”
Nothing strained about her smile now.
“That’s wonderful, Ben,” she said, almost purring.
He raised a cautionary finger. “But here’s the thing—we may not be here long.”
“What? Why?”
Her question got an answer out of him, but he aimed it at me: “Nate, it’s that son of a bitch Wilson. Do I have to tell you he’s shuttered half the clubs in town?”
I shook my head—very old news. Plenty of the other strip joints had converted to movie houses, showing nudie-cutie fare like
The Immoral Mr. Teas
and
Not Tonight, Henry
. Apparently Mayor Daley’s reform police commissioner, Orlando Wilson, had less objection to cinematic skin than the genuine article.
The Summerdale police scandal a couple years back—eight cops had formed a burglary ring in their off hours—had forced Hizzoner to finally do something about police graft here in the City That Worked, hence Commissioner Wilson and his new broom. (Wilson’s presence probably had something to do with Dick Cain leaving the PD and winding up with the sheriff’s department.) I didn’t mind this Wilson character cracking down on some of the rampant police department corruption, but enough was enough. A guy might want to get a parking ticket fixed.
Ben was talking to both of us now. “We had a bad incident last month, and the hammer could fall any time.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Anything I can do?”
He shook his head glumly. “We had a bunch of doctors in here. I don’t know if you know much about doctors, when they decide to let their hair down, but they go wild, turn into one nasty bunch of assholes, in my experience. They caused a lot of trouble, got very plastered, threw tables and chairs around like a bar fight in a John Wayne picture, and played the kind of grab ass with our girls that we don’t put up with in a respectable club like the Frolics.”