True Detective Read Free Page A

pretty, in their late twenties, early thirties, bundled with packages, went giggling into the speak we'd just exited.
    It was a week to Christmas, and business was picking up for everybody. Except for Saint Peter's Church-maybe, which was cattycorner from where we stood; business there looked slow.
    There was no parking in and near the Loop (which was loosely defined as the area within the El tracks), but Lang and Miller had left their black Buick by the curb anyway, half a block down, across the street; it was the model people called the Pregnant Guppy, because the sides bulged out over the running boards. The running board next to the curb had a foot on it: a uniformed cop was writing a ticket. Miller walked up and reached over and tore it off the cop's pad and wadded it up and tossed it to the snow-flecked breeze. He didn't have to show the cop his detective's shield. Every copper in town knew the two Harrys,
    But I liked the way the uniformed man handled it, a Paddy of about fifty who'd been pounding the beat longer than these two had been picking up the mayor's graft, that was for sure. And clean, as Chicago cops went, or he wouldn't still be pounding it. He put his book and pencil away slowly and gave Miller a look that was part condescension, part contempt, said, "My mistake, lad," and cleared his throat and shot phlegm toward Lang's feet. And turned on his heel and left, swinging his nightstick.
    Lang, who'd had to hop back, and Miller, his face hanging like a loose rubber mask, stood watching him walk away, wondering what they should do about such unbridled arrogance, when I tapped Lang on the shoulder and said, "I'm freezing my nuts off, gentlemen. What exactly is the party'?"
    Miller smiled. It was wide but it didn't turn up at the corners and the teeth were big and yellow, like enormous kernels of corn. It was the worst goddamn smile I ever saw.
    "Frank Nitti's tossing it," he said.
    "Only he don't know it," Lang added, and opened the door on the Buick. "Get in back."
    I climbed in. The Pregnant Guppy wasn't a popular model, but it was a nice car. Brown mohair seats, varnished wood trim around the windows. Comfortable, too, considering the situation.
    Miller got behind the wheel. The Buick turned over right away, despite the cold, though it shuddered a bit as we pulled out into light traffic. Lang turned and leaned over the seat and smiled. "You got a gun with you?"
    I nodded.
    He passed a small.38, a snubnose, back to me.
    "Now you got two," he said.
    We were heading north on Dearborn. We drove through Printer's Row, its imposing ornate facades rising to either side of me, aloof to my situation. One of them, tall, gray, half-a-block long, was the Transportation Building, where my friend Eliot Ness was working even now; he seemed a more likely candidate to be calling on Al Capone's heir than yours truly.
    "How'd you finally nail Nitti?" I asked after a while.
    Lang turned and looked at me, surprised, like he'd forgotten I was there.
    "What do you mean?
    "What's the charge? Who'd he kill?"
    Lang and Miller exchanged glances, and Lang made a sound that was vaguely a laugh, though you could mistake it for a cough.
    Miller, in his monotone, said. "That's a good one."
    For a second, just a second, despite the gun I'd been handed. I had the feeling I was being taken for a ride. That somehow I'd stepped on somebody's toes and whoever it was was big enough and hurt bad enough to take it on up to the mayor, who Christ knows owed plenty of people favors, and now His Honor's prize flunkies were driving me God knows where- Lake Michigan maybe, where a lot of people went swimming, only some of them had been holding their breath underwater for years now.
    But they didn't turn right, toward the lake; they turned left at the Federal Building- which meant the Chicago River was still a possibility and the Union League Club ignored us as we passed. We turned again, right this time, at the Board of Trade. We were in the concrete