Not long ago Miami Beach had been a sixteen-hundred-acre stretch of jungle sandbar thick with mangroves and scrub palmetto, inhabited by wild birds, mosquitoes and snakes. Less than thirty years later, the wilderness had given way to plush hotels, high-rent apartment houses and lavish homes, with manicured terraces and swimming pools, facing a beach littered brightly with cabanas and sun umbrellas.

That didn’t mean the place wasn’t still infested with snakes, birds and bugs—just that it was now the human variety.

It was May 22, 1941, and dead; winter season was mid-December through April, and the summer’s onslaught of tourists was a few weeks away. At the moment, the majority of restaurants and nightclubs in Miami Beach were shuttered, and the handful of the latter still doing business were the ones with gaming rooms. Even in off-season, gambling made it pay for a club to keep its doors open.

The glitzy showroom of Chez Clifton had been patterned on (though was about a third the size of) the Chez Paree back home in Chicago, with a similarly set up backroom gambling casino called (in both instances) the Gold Key Club. But where the Chez Paree was home to bigname stars and orchestras—Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Ted Lewis, Martha Raye—the Chez Clifton’s headliner was invariably its namesake: Pete Clifton.

A near ringer for Zeppo, the “normal” Marx Brother, Clifton was tall, dark and horsily handsome, his slicked-back, parted-at-the side hair as black as his tie and tux. He was at the microphone, leaning on it like a jokester Sinatra, the orchestra behind him, accompanying him occasionally on song parodies, the drummer providing the requisite rimshots, the boys laughing heartily at gags they’d heard over and over, prompting the audience.

Not that the audience needed help: the crowd thought Clifton was a scream. And, for a Thursday night, it was a good crowd, too.

“Hear about the guy that bought his wife a bicycle?” he asked innocently. “Now she’s peddling it all over town.”

They howled at that.

“Hear about the sleepy bride?…. She couldn’t stay away awake for a second.”

Laughter all around me, I was settled in at a table for two—by myself—listening to one dirty joke after another. Clifton had always worked blue, back when I knew him; he’d been the opening act at the Colony Club showroom on Rush Street—a mob joint fronted by Nicky Dean, a crony of Al Capone’s successor, Frank Nitti.

But tonight, every gag was filthy.

“Hear about the girl whose boyfriend didn’t have any furniture? She was floored.”

People were crying at this rapier wit. But not everybody liked it. The guy Clifton was fronting for, in particular.

“Nate,” Frank Nitti had said to me earlier that afternoon, “I need you to deliver a message to your old pal Pete Clifton.”

In the blue shade of an umbrella at a small white metal table, buttery sun reflecting off the shimmer of cool blue water, Nitti and I were sitting by the pool at Nitti’s Di Lido Island estate, his palatial digs looming around us, rambling white stucco buildings with green-tile roofs behind bougainvillea-covered walls.

Eyes a mystery behind sunglasses, Nitti wore a blue-and-red Hawaiian print shirt, white slacks and sandals, a surprisingly small figure, his handsome oval face flecked with occasional scars, his slicked back black hair touched with gray and immaculately trimmed. I was the one who looked like a gangster, in my brown suit and darker brown fedora, having just arrived from Chicago, Nitti’s driver picking me up at the railroad station.

“I wouldn’t call Clifton an ‘old pal,’ Mr. Nitti.”

“How many times I gotta tell ya, call me, ‘Frank’? After what we been through together?”

I didn’t like the thought of having been through anything “together” with Frank Nitti. But the truth was, fate and circumstance had on several key occasions brought Chicago’s most powerful gangster leader into the path of a certain lowly Loop private detective—though, I wasn’t as lowly as I used to be. The A-1 Agency had a suite of offices now, and I had two experienced ops and a pretty blonde secretary under me—or anyway, the ops were under me; the secretary wasn’t interested.

But when Frank Nitti asked the President of the A-1 to hop a train to Miami Beach and come visit, Nathan Heller hopped and visited—the blow softened by the three hundred dollar retainer check Nitti’s man Louis Campagna had delivered to my Van Buren Street office.

“I understand you two boys used to go out with showgirls and strippers, time to time,” Nitti said, lighting up a Cuban cigar smaller than a billy club.

“Clifton was a cocky, good-looking guy, and the toast of Rush Street. The girls liked him. I liked the spillover.”

Nitti nodded, waving out his match. “He’s still a good-looking guy. And he’s still cocky. Ever wonder how he managed to open up his own club?”

“Never bothered wondering. But I guess it is a little unusual.”

“Yeah. He ain’t famous. He ain’t on the radio.”

“Not with that material.”

Nitti blew a smoke ring; an eyebrow arched. “Oh, you remember that? How blue he works.”

I shrugged. “It was kind of a gimmick, Frank—clean-cut kid, looks like a matinee idol. Kind of a funny, startling contrast with his off-color material.”

“Well, that’s what I want you to talk to him about.”

“Afraid I don’t follow, Frank….”

“He’s workin’ too blue. Too goddamn fuckin’ filthy.”

I winced. Part of it was the sun reflecting off the surface of the pool; most of it was confusion. Why the hell did Frank Nitti give a damn if some two-bit comic was telling dirty jokes?

“That foulmouth is attracting the wrong kind of attention,” Nitti was saying. “The blue noses are gettin’ up in arms. Ministers are givin’ sermons, columnists are frownin’ in print. There’s this ‘Citizens Committee for Clean Entertainment.’ Puttin’ political pressure on. Jesus Christ! The place’ll get raided—shut down.”

I hadn’t been to Chez Clifton yet, though I assumed it was running gambling, wide-open, and was already on the cops’ no-raid list. But if anti-smut reformers made an issue out of Clifton’s immoral monologues, the boys in blue would have to raid the joint—and the gambling baby would go out the window with the dirty bathwater.

“What’s your interest in this, Frank?”

Nitti’s smile was mostly a sneer. “Clifton’s got a club ’cause he’s got a silent partner.”

“You mean…you, Frank? I thought the Outfit kept out of the Florida rackets….”

It was understood that Nitti, Capone and other Chicago mobsters with homes in Miami Beach would not infringe on the hometown gambling syndicate. This was said to be part of the agreement with local politicos to allow the Chicago Outfit to make Miami Beach their home away from home.

“That’s why I called you down here, Nate. I need somebody to talk to the kid who won’t attract no attention. Who ain’t directly connected to me. You’re just an old friend of Clifton’s from outa town.”

“And what do you want me to do, exactly?”

“Tell him to clean up his fuckin’ act.”

So now I was in the audience, sipping my rum and Coke, the walls ringing with laughter, as Pete Clifton made such deft witticisms as the following: “Hear about the doll who found a tramp under her bed? She got so upset, her stomach was on the bum all night.”

Finally, to much applause, Clifton turned the entertainment over to the orchestra, and couples filled the dancefloor to the strains of “Nice Work if You Can Get It.” Soon the comic had filtered his way through the admiring crowd to join me at my table.

“You look good, you rat bastard,” Clifton said, flashing his boyish smile, extending his hand, which I took and shook. “Getting any since I left Chicago?”

“I wet the wick on occasion,” I said, sitting as he settled in across from me. All around us patrons were sneaking peeks at the star performer who had deigned to come down among them.

“I didn’t figure you’d ever get laid again, once I moved on,” he said, straightening his black tie. “How long you down here for?”

“Couple days.”

He snapped his fingers, pointed at me and winked. “Tell you what, you’re goin’ boating with me tomorrow afternoon. These two cute skirts down the street from where I live, they’re both hot for me—you can take one of ’em offa my hands.”

Smiling, shaking my head, I said, “I thought maybe you’d have found a new hobby, by now, Pete.”

“Not me.” He fired up a Lucky Strike, sucked in smoke, exhaled it like dragon breath from his nostrils. “I never found a sweeter pasttime than doin’ the dirty deed.”

“Doing dames ain’t the only dirty deed you been doing lately, Pete.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Your act.” I gestured with my rum-and-Coke. “I’ve seen cleaner material on outhouse walls.”

He grinned toothily. “You offended? Getting prudish in your old age, Heller? Yeah, I’ve upped the ante, some. Look at this crowd, weeknight, off season. They love it. See, it’s my magic formula: everybody loves sex; and everybody loves a good dirty joke.”

“Not everybody.”

The grin eased off and his forehead tightened. “Wait a minute…. This isn’t a social call, is it?”

“No. It’s nice seeing you again, Pete…but no. You think you know who sent me—and you’re right. And he wants you to back off the smut.”

“You kidding?” Clifton smirked and waved dismissively. “I found a way to mint money, here. And it’s making me a star.”

“You think you can do that material on the radio, or in the movies? Get serious.”

“Hey, everybody needs an angle, a trademark, and I found mine.”

“Pete, I’m not here to discuss it. Just to pass the word along. You can ignore it if you like.” I sipped my drink, shrugged. “Take your dick out and conduct the orchestra with it, far as I’m concerned.”

Clifton leaned across the table. “Nate, you heard those laughs. You see the way every dame in this audience is lookin’ at me? There isn’t a quiff in this room that wouldn’t get on her back for me, or down on her damn knees.”

“Like I said, ignore it if you like. But my guess is, if you do keep working blue—and the Chez Clifton gets shut down—your silent partner’ll get noisy.”

The comic thought about that, drawing nervously on the Lucky. In his tux, he looked like he fell off a wedding cake. Then he said, “What would you do, Nate?”

“Get some new material. Keep some of the risque stuff, sure—but don’t be so Johnny One-note.”

Some of the cockiness had drained out of him; frustration colored his voice, even self-pity. “It’s what I do, Nate. Why not tell Joe E. Lewis not to do drunk jokes. Why not tell Eddie Cantor not to pop his eyes out?”

“’Cause somebody’ll pop your eyes out, Pete. I say this as a friend, and as somebody who knows how certain parties operate. Back off.”

He sighed, sat back. I didn’t say anything. The orchestra was playing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” now.

“Tell Nitti I’ll…tone it down.”

I saluted him with my nearly empty rum-and-Coke glass. “Good choice.”

And that was it. I had delivered my message. He had another show to do, and I didn’t see him again till the next afternoon, when—as promised—he took me out on his speedboat, a sleek mahogany nineteen-foot Gar Wood runabout whose tail was emblazoned Screwball.

And, as promised, we were in the company of two “cute skirts,” although that’s not what they were wearing. Peggy Simmons, a slender pretty pugnose blonde, and Janet Windom, a cow-eyed bosomy brunette, were in white shorts that showed off their nice, nicely tanned legs. Janet, who Pete had claimed, wore a candy-striped top; Peggy, who had deposited herself next to me on the leather seat, wore a pink longsleeve angora sweater.

“Aren’t you warm in that?” I asked her, sipping a bottle of Pabst. I was in a shortsleeve sportshirt and chinos, my straw fedora at my feet, away from the wind.

“Not really. I get chilled in the spray.” She had a high-pitched voice that seemed younger than her twenty-two years, though the lines around her sky-blue eyes made her seem older. Peggy laughed and smiled a lot, but those eyes were sad, somehow.

I had been introduced to Peggy as a theatrical agent from Chicago. She was a model and dancer, and apparently Clifton figured this lie would help me get laid; this irritated me—being burdened with a fiction of someone else’s creation, and the notion I needed help in that regard. But I hadn’t corrected it.

Janet, it seemed, was also interested in show business; a former dentist’s assistant, she was a couple years older than Peggy. They had roomed together in New York City and came down here a few months ago, seeking sun and fame and fortune.

The afternoon was pleasant enough. Clifton sat at the wheel with Janet cuddling next to him, and Peggy and I sat in the seat behind them. She was friendly, holding my hand, putting her head on my shoulder, though we barely knew each other. We drank in the sun-drenched, invigorating gulf-stream air, as well as our bottled beers, and enjoyed the view—royal palms waving, white-capped breakers peaking, golden sands glistening with sunlight.

The runabout had been bounding along, which—with the engine noise—had limited conversation. But pretty soon Clifton charted us up and down Indian Creek, a tranquil, seawalled lagoon lined with palm-fringed shores and occasional well-manicured golf courses, as well as frequent private piers and landing docks studded with gleaming yachts and lavish houseboats.

“Have you found any work down here?” I asked the fresh-faced, sad-eyed girl.

She nodded. “Some cheesecake modeling Pete lined up. Swimsuits and, you know…art studies.”

Nudes.

“What are you hoping for?”

“Well, I am a good dancer, and I sing a little, too. Pete says he’s going to do a big elaborate show, soon, with a chorus line and everything.”

“And he’s going to use both you and Janet?”

She nodded.

“Any thoughts beyond that, Peggy? You’ve got nice legs, but show business is a rough career.”

Her chin crinkled as she smiled, but desperation tightened her eyes. “I’d be willing to take a Chicago booking.”

Though we weren’t gliding as quickly over the water now, the engine noise was still enough to keep my conversation with Peggy private while Pete and Janet laughed and kissed and chugged their beers.

“I’m not a booking agent, Peggy.”

She drew away just a little. “No?”

“Pete was…I don’t know what he was doing.”

She shrugged again, smirked. “Pete’s a goddamn liar, sometimes.”

“I know some people who book acts in Chicago, and would be glad to put a word in…but don’t be friendly with me on account of that.”

She studied me and her eyes didn’t seem as sad, or as old, suddenly. “What do you know? The vanishing American.”

“What?”

“A nice guy.”

And she cuddled next to me, put a hand on my leg.

Without looking at me, she asked, “Why do you think I came to Florida, Nate?”

“It’s warm and sunny.”

“Yes.”

“And…” I nodded toward either side of us, where the waterway entrances of lavish estates, trellised with bougainvillea and allamanda, seemed to beckon. “…there’s more money here than you can shake a stick at.”

She laughed. “Yes.”

By four o’clock we were at the girls’ place, in a six-apartment building on Jefferson Street, a white-trimmed-pink geometric affair among many other such streamlined structures of sunny yellow, flamingo pink and sea green, with porthole windows and racing stripes and bas relief zig-zags. The effect was at once elegant and insubstantial, like a movie set. Their one-bedroom apartment was on the second of two floors; the furnishings had an art moderne look, too, though of the low-cost Sears showroom variety.

Janet fixed us drinks and we sat in the little pink and white living room area and made meaningless conversation for maybe five minutes. Then Clifton and Janet disappeared into that one bedroom, and Peggy and I necked on the couch. The lights were low, when I got her sweater and bra off her, but I noticed the needle tracks on her arms, just the same.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing…. What are you on? H?”

“What do you mean?…. Not H.”

“What?”

“M.”

Morphine.

She folded her arms over her bare breasts, but it was her arms she was hiding.

“I was blue,” she said, defensively, shivering suddenly. “I needed something.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Pete has friends.”

Pete had friends, all right. And I was one of them.

“Put your sweater on, baby.”

“Why? Do I…do I make you sick?”

And she began to cry.

So I made love to her there on the couch, sweetly, tenderly, comforting her, telling her she was beautiful, which she was. She needed the attention, and I didn’t mind giving it to her, though I was steaming at that louse Clifton.

Our clothes relatively straightened, Peggy having freshened in the bathroom, we were sitting, chatting, having Cokes on ice like kids on a date, when Clifton—in the pale yellow sportshirt and powder-blue slacks he’d gone boating in—emerged from the bedroom, arm around Janet, who was in a terrycloth robe.

“We better blow, Nate,” he told me with a grin, and nuzzled the giggling Janet’s neck. She seemed to be on something, too. “I got a nine o’clock show to do.”

It was a little after seven.

We made our goodbyes and drove the couple of blocks to his place in his white Lincoln Zephyr convertible.

“Do I take care of you,” he asked with a grin, as the shadows of the palms lining the streets rolled over us, “or do I take care of you?”

“You’re a pal,” I said.

We were slipping past more of those movie theater-like apartment houses, pastel chunks of concrete whose geometric harshness was softened by well-barbered shrubs. The three-story building on West Jefferson, in front of which Clifton drew his Lincoln, was set back a ways, a walk cutting through a golf green of a lawn to the pale yellow cube whose blue cantilevered sunshades were like eyebrows.

Clifton’s apartment was on the third floor, a two bedroom affair with pale yellow walls and a parquet floor flung with occasional oriental carpets. The furnishings were in the art moderne manner, chrome and leather and well-varnished light woods, none of it from Sears.

I sat in a pastel green easy chair whose lines were rounded; it was as comfortable as an old shoe but considerably more stylish.

“How do those unemployed showgirls afford a place like that?” I wondered aloud.

Clifton, who was making us a couple of rum and Cokes over at the wet bar, said, “Did you have a good time?”

“I like Peggy. If I lived around here, I’d try to straighten her out.”

“Oh yeah! Saint Heller. I thought you did straighten her out—on that couch.”

“Are you pimping for those girls?”

“No!” He came over with a drink in either hand. “They’re not pros.”

“But you fix them up with friends and other people you want to impress.”

He shrugged, handing me the drink. “Yeah. So what? Party girls like that are a dime a dozen.”

“Where are you getting the dope?”

That stopped him for a moment, but just a moment. “It makes ’em feel good; what’s the harm?”

“You got ’em hooked and whoring for you, Pete. You’re one classy guy.”

Clifton smirked. “I didn’t see you turning down the free lay.”

“You banging ’em both?”

“Never at the same time. What, you think I’m a pervert?”

“No. I think you’re a prick.”

He just laughed at that. “Listen, I got to take a shower. You coming down to the club tonight, or not?”

“I’ll come. But Pete—where are you getting the dope you’re giving those girls?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I don’t think Frank Nitti would like it. He doesn’t do business with people in that racket. If he knew you were involved…”

Clifton frowned. “You going to tell him?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Maybe I don’t give a shit if you do. Maybe I got a possible new investor for my club, and Frank Nitti can kiss my ass.”

“Would you like me to pass that along?”

A grimace drained all the boyishness from his face. “What’s wrong with you, Heller? Since when did you get moral? These gangsters are like women—they exist to be used.”

“Only the gangsters don’t discard as easily.”

“I ain’t worried.” He jerked a thumb at his chest. “See, Heller, I’m a public figure—they don’t bump off public figures; it’s bad publicity.”

“Tell Mayor Cermak—he got hit in Florida.”

He blew me a Bronx cheer. “I’m gonna take a shower. You want a free meal down at the club, stick around…but leave the sermons to Billy Sunday, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

I could hear him showering, singing in there, “All or Nothing at All.” Had we really been friends, once? I had a reputation as something of a randy son of a bitch myself; but did I treat woman like Clifton did? The thought make me shudder.

On the oblong glass coffee table before me, a white phone began to ring. I answered it.

“Pete?” The voice was low-pitched, but female—a distinctive, throaty sound.

“No, it’s a friend. He’s in the shower, getting ready for his show tonight.”

“Tell him to meet me out front in five minutes.”

“Well, let me check with him and see if that’s possible. Who should I say is calling?”

There was a long pause.

Then the throaty purr returned: “Just tell him the wife of a friend.”

“Sure,” I said, and went into the bathroom and reported this, over the shower needles, through the glass door, to Clifton, who said, “Tell her I’ll be right down.”

Within five minutes, Clifton—his hair still wet—moved quickly through the living room; he had thrown on the boating clothes from this afternoon.

“This won’t take long.” He flashed the boyish grin. “These frails can’t get enough of me.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Naw. I’ll set somethin’ up with her for later. I don’t think she has a friend, though—sorry, pal.”

“That’s okay. I try to limit myself to one doped-up doxy a day.”

Clifton smirked and waved at me dismissively as he headed out, and I sat there for maybe a minute, then decided I’d had it. I plucked my straw fedora off the coffee table and trailed out after him, hoping to catch up with him and make my goodbyes.

The night sky was cobalt and alive with stars, a sickle-slice of moon providing the appropriate deco touch. The sidewalk stretched out before me like a white ribbon, toward where palms mingled with street lights. A Buick was along the curb and Pete was leaning against the window, like a car hop taking an order.

That sultry, low female voice rumbled through the night like pretty thunder: “For God’s sake, Pete, don’t do it! Please don’t do it!”

As Pete’s response—laughter—filled my ears, I stopped in my tracks, not wanting to intrude. Then Pete, still chuckling, making a dismissive wave, turned toward me, and walked. He was giving me a cocky smile when the first gunshot cracked the night.

I dove and rolled and wound up against a sculpted hedge that separated Clifton’s apartment house from the hunk of geometry next door. Two more shots rang out, and I could see the orange muzzle flash as the woman shot through the open car window.

For a comic, Pete was doing a hell of a dance; the first shot had caught him over the right armpit, and another plowed through his neck in a spray of red, and he twisted around to face her to accommodate another slug.

Then the car roared off, and Pete staggered off the sidewalk and pitched forward onto the grass, like a diver who missed the pool.

I ran to his sprawled figure, and turned him over. His eyes were wild with dying.

“Them fuckin’ dames ain’t…ain’t so easy to discard, neither,” he said, and laughed, a bloody froth of a laugh, to punctuate his last dirty joke.

People were rushing up, talking frantically, shouting about the need for the police to be called and such like. Me, I was noting where the woman had put her last shot.

She caught him right below the belt.

 

After a long wait in a receiving area, I was questioned by the cops in an interview room at the Dade County Courthouse in Miami. Actually, one of them, Earl Carstensen—Chief of Detectives of the Miami Beach Detective Bureau—was a cop; the other guy—Ray Miller—was chief investigator for the State Attorney’s office.

Carstensen was a craggy guy in his fifties and Miller was a skinny balding guy with wirerim glasses. The place was air-conditioned and they brought me an iced tea, so it wasn’t exactly the third degree.

We were all seated at the small table in the soundproofed cubicle. After they had established that I was a friend of the late Pete Clifton, visiting from Chicago, the line of questioning took an interesting turn.

Carstensen asked, “Are you aware that ‘Peter Clifton’ was not the deceased’s real name?”

“I figured it was a stage name, but it’s the only name I knew him by.”

“He was born Peter Tessitorio,” Miller said, “in New York. He had a criminal background—two burglary raps.”

“I never knew that.”

Carstensen asked, “You’re a former police officer?”

“Yeah. I was a detective on the Chicago P.D. pickpocket detail till ’32.”

Miller asked, “You spent the afternoon with Clifton, in the company of two girls?”

“Yeah.”

“What are their names?”

“Peggy Simmons and Janet Windom. They live in an apartment house on Jefferson…I don’t know the address, but I can point you, if you want to talk to them.”

The two men exchanged glances.

“We’ve already picked them up,” Miller said. “They’ve been questioned, and they’re alibiing each other. They say they don’t know anybody who’d want to kill Clifton.”

“They’re just a couple of party girls,” I said.

Carstensen said, “We found a hypo and bottle of morphine in their apartment. Would you know anything about that?”

I sighed. “I noticed the tracks on the Simmons’ kid’s arms. I gave Pete hell, and he admitted to me he was giving them the stuff. He also indicated he had connections with some dope racketeer.”

“He didn’t give you a name?” Miller asked.

“No.”

“You’ve never heard of Leo Massey?”

“No.”

“Friend of Clifton’s. A known dope smuggler.”

I sipped my iced tea. “Well, other than those two girls, I don’t really know any of Clifton’s associates here in Miami.”

An eyebrow arched in Carstensen’s craggy puss. “You’d have trouble meeting Massey—he’s dead.”

“Oh?”

“He was found in Card Sound last September. Bloated and smellin’ to high heavens.”

“What does that have to do with Pete Clifton?”

Miller said, “Few days before Massey’s body turned up, that speedboat of his—the Screwball—got taken out for a spin.”

I shrugged. “That’s what a speedboat’s for, taking it out for a spin.”

“At midnight? And not returning till daybreak?”

“You’ve got a witness to that effect?”

Miller nodded.

“So Pete was a suspect in Massey’s murder?”

“Not exactly,” the State Attorney’s investigator said. “Clifton had an alibi—those two girls say he spent the night with ’em.”

I frowned in confusion. “I thought you had a witness to Clifton takin’ his boat out…”

Carstensen said, “We have a witness at the marina to the effect that the boat was taken out, and brought back—but nobody saw who the captain was.”

Now I was getting it. “And Pete said somebody must’ve borrowed his boat without his permission.”

“That’s right.”

“So, what? You’re making this as a gangland hit? But it was a woman who shot him.”

Miller asked, “Did you see that, Mr. Heller?”

“I heard the woman’s voice—I didn’t actually see her shoot him. Didn’t actually see her at all. But it seemed like she was agitated with Pete.”

Other witnesses had heard the woman yelling at Pete; so the cops knew I hadn’t made up this story.

“Could the woman have been a decoy?” Carstensen asked. “Drawn Clifton to that car for some man to shoot?”

“I suppose. But my instinct is, Pete’s peter got him bumped. If I were you, fellas, I’d go over that apartment of his and look for love letters and the like; see if you can find a little black book. My guess is—somebody he was banging banged him back.”

They thanked me for my help, told me to stick around for the inquest on Tuesday, and turned me loose. I got in my rental Ford and drove to the Biltmore, went up to my room, ordered a room service supper, and gave Frank Nitti a call.

“So my name didn’t come up?” Nitti asked me over the phone.

“No. Obviously, I didn’t tell ’em you hired me to come down here; but they didn’t mention you, either. And the way they were giving out information, it would’ve come up. They got a funny way of interrogating you in Florida—they spill and you listen.”

“Did they mention a guy named McGraw?”

“No, Frank. Just this Leo Massey.”

“McGraw’s a rival dope smuggler,” Nitti said thoughtfully. “I understand he stepped in and took over Massey’s trade after Massey turned up a floater.”

“What’s that got to do with Clifton?”

“Nothin’ much—just that my people tell me McGraw’s a regular at the Chez Clifton. Kinda chummy with our comical late friend.”

“Maybe McGraw’s the potential investor Clifton was talking about—to take your place, Frank.”

Silence. Nitti was thinking.

Finally, he returned with, “Got another job for you, Nate.”

“I don’t know, Frank—I probably oughta keep my nose clean, do my bit at the inquest and scram outa this flamingo trap.”

“Another three C’s in it for you, kid—just to deliver another message. No rush—tomorrow morning’ll be fine.”

Did you hear the one about the comic who thought he told killer jokes? He died laughing.

“Anything you say, Frank.”

 

Eddie McGraw lived at the Delano, on Collins Avenue, the middle of a trio of towering hotels rising above Miami Beach like Mayan temples got out of hand. McGraw had a penthouse on the eleventh floor, and I had to bribe the elevator attendant to take me there.

It was eleven a.m. I wasn’t expecting trouble. My nine millimeter Browning was back in Chicago, in a desk drawer in my office. But I wasn’t unarmed—I had the name Frank Nitti in my arsenal.

I knocked on the door.

The woman who answered was in her late twenties—a brunette with big brown eyes and rather exaggerated features, pretty in a cartoonish way. She had a voluptuous figure, wrapped up like a present in a pink chiffon dressing gown.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Is Mr. McGraw home?”

She nodded. The big brown eyes locked onto me coldly, though her voice was a warm contralto: “Who should I say is calling?”

“I’m a friend of Pete Clifton’s.”

“Would you mind waiting in the hall?”

“Not at all.”

She shut the door, and a few seconds later, it flew back open, revealing a short but sturdy looking guy in a red sportshirt and gray slacks. He was blond with wild thatches of overgrown eyebrow above sky-blue eyes; when you got past a bulbous nose, he kind of looked like James Cagney.

“I don’t do business at my apartment,” he said. His voice was high-pitched and raspy. He started to shut the door and I stopped it with my hand.

He shoved me, and I went backward, but I latched onto his wrist, and pushed his hand back, and pulled him forward, out into the hall, until he was kneeling in front of me.

“Frank Nitti sent me,” I said, and released the pressure on his wrist.

He stood, ran a hand through slicked back blond hair that didn’t need straightening, and said, “I don’t do business with Nitti.”

“I think maybe you should. You know about Pete’s killing?”

“I saw the morning paper. I liked Pete. He was funny. He was an all right guy.”

“Yeah, he was a card. Did he by any chance sell you an interest in the Chez Clifton?”

McGraw frowned at me; if he’d been a dog, he’d have growled. “I told you…what’s your name, anyway?”

“Heller. Nate Heller.”

“I don’t do business at my apartment. My wife and me, we got a life separate from how I make my living. Got it?”

“Did Pete sell you an interest in the Chez Clifton?”

He straightened his collar, which also didn’t need it. “As a matter of fact, he did.”

“Then you were wrong about not doing business with Frank Nitti.”

McGraw sneered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Mr. Nitti would like to discuss that with you himself.” I handed him a slip of paper. “He’s in town, at his estate on Di Lido Island. He’d like to invite you to join him there for lunch today.”

“Why should I?”

I laughed once, a hollow thing. “Mr. McGraw, I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t put your hands on me again. I’m just delivering a message. But I will tell you this—I’m from Chicago, and when Frank Nitti invites you for lunch, you go.”

McGraw thought about that. Then he nodded and said, “Sorry about the rough stuff.”

“I apologize for bothering you at home. But you don’t keep an office, and you’re unlisted.”

“Yeah, well, nature of my business.”

“Understood.”

I held out my hand. He studied it for a moment, then shook it.

“Why don’t you give Mr. Nitti a call, at that number, and confirm your luncheon engagement.”

He nodded and disappeared inside the apartment.

Half an hour later, I knocked on the door again. Returning had cost me another fin to the elevator boy.

Mrs. McGraw, still in her pink chiffon robe, opened the door and said, “I’m afraid my husband has stepped out.”

“I know he has,” I said, brushing past her into the apartment, beautifully appointed in the usual Miami-tropical manner.

“Leave at once!” she demanded, pointing past the open door into the hall.

“No,” I said, and shut the door. “I recognized your voice, Mrs. McGraw. It’s very distinctive. I like it.”

“What are you talking about?” But her wide eyes and the tremor in her tone told me she was afraid she already knew.

I told her, anyway. “I’m the guy who answered the phone last night, at Pete’s. That’s when I first heard that throaty purr of yours. I also heard you warn him—right before he turned his back on you and you shot him.”

She was clutching herself, as if she were cold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please leave!”

“I’m not going to stay long. Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around and put your hands on that door.”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna frisk you, lady. I don’t figure you have a gun hidden away on you, but I’d like to make sure.”

“No!”

So I took her by the wrist, sort of like I had her husband, and twisted her arm around her back and shoved her against the door. I frisked her all over. She was a little plump, but it was one of the nicer frisks I ever gave.

No gun—several concealed weapons, but no gun.

She stood facing me now, her back to the door, trembling. “Are you…are you a cop?”

“I’m just a friend of Pete’s.”

She raised a hand to her face, fingers curling there, like the petals of a wilting flower. “Are you here to turn me in?”

“We’ll see.”

Now she looked at me in a different way, something flaring in her dark eyes. “Oh. You’re here to…deal.”

“Maybe. Can we sit down over there?” I gestured to the living room—white walls, white carpet, glass tables, white chairs and couch, a white fireplace with a big mirror with flamingos etched in it.

I took an easy chair across from the couch, where she sat, arms folded, legs crossed—nice legs, muscular, supple, tan against the pink chiffon. She seemed to be studying me, trying to get a bead on me.

“I’d like to hear your side of it.”

Her chin titled. “You really think you can make a positive identification, based just on my voice?”

“Ask Bruno Hauptmann. He went to the chair on less.”

She laughed but it wasn’t very convincing. “You didn’t see me.”

“Do you have an alibi? Is your husband in on it?”

“No! Of course not.”

“Your side of it. Let’s have it.”

She looked at the floor. “Your…friend…was a terrible man.”

“I noticed.”

That surprised her. Looking right at me, she asked, “You did?”

“Pete used women like playthings. They weren’t people to him. Is that what he did to you?”

She nodded; her full mouth was quivering—if this was an act, it was a good one.

Almost embarrassed, she said, “I thought he was charming. He was good-looking, clever and…sexy, I guess.”

“You’ve been having an affair with him.”

One nod.

Well, that didn’t surprise me. Just because McGraw was his business partner, and a hood at that, wouldn’t stop Pete Clifton from going after a good-looking doll like Mrs. McGraw.

“Can I smoke?” she asked. She indicated her purse on the coffee table. I checked inside it, found no gun, plucked out the pack of Luckies—Pete’s brand—and tossed it to her. Also her lighter.

“Thanks,” she said, firing up. “It was just…a fling. Stupid goddamn fling. Eddie was neglecting me, and…it’s an old story. Anyway, I wanted to stop it, but…Pete wanted more. Not because…he loved me or anything. Just because…do you know what he said to me?”

“I can imagine.”

“He said, ‘Baby, you’re one sweet piece of ass. You don’t have to like me to satisfy me.’”

I frowned at her. “I don’t know if I’m following this. If you wanted to break it off, how could he—”

“He blackmailed me.”

“With what? He couldn’t tell your husband about the affair without getting himself in a jam.”

She heaved a sigh. “No…but Pete coulda turned my husband in for…for something he had on him.”

And now I knew.

Clifton had loaned McGraw the Screwball for disposal of the body of Leo Massey, the rival dope smuggler, which put Clifton in a position to finger McGraw.

“Okay,” I said, and stood.

She gazed up at me, astounded. “What do you mean…‘okay’?”

“Okay, I understand why you killed him.”

I walked to the door, and she followed, the sound of her slippers whispering through the thick carpet.

She stopped me at the door, a hand on my arm; she was very close to me, and smelled good, like lilacs. Those brown eyes were big enough to dive into.

Her throaty purr tickled the air between us. “You’re not going to turn me in?”

“Why should I? I just wanted to know if there were any ramifications for my client or me, in this thing, and I don’t see any.”

“I thought Pete was your friend.”

“Hell, he was your lover, and look what you thought of him.”

Her eyes tightened. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. You had a good reason to do it. I heard you warn him.”

“You’re very kind….” She squeezed my arm, moved closer, to where her breasts were pressed gently against me. “My husband won’t be home for a while…we could go to my bedroom and—”

I drew away. “Jesus, lady! Isn’t screwin’ around what got you into trouble in the first place?”

And I got the hell out of there.

 

I said just enough at the inquest to get it over with quick, and was back in Chicago by Wednesday night.

I don’t know whether Frank Nitti and Eddie McGraw wound up doing business together. I do know the Chez Clifton closed down and re-opened under another name, the Beach Club. But Nitti put his Di Lido Island estate up for sale and sold it, shortly after that. So maybe he just got out while the getting was good.

Mrs. McGraw—whose first name I never knew—was never charged with Pete Clifton’s murder, which remains unsolved on the Miami Beach P.D.’s books. The investigation into the Clifton killing, however, did lead the State Attorney’s Office to nailing McGraw on the Massey slaying; McGraw got ninety-nine years, which is a little much, considering all he did was kill another dope smuggler. The two party girls, Peggy and Janet, were charged with harboring narcotics, which was dropped in exchange for their cooperation in the McGraw/Massey inquiry.

Pete Clifton really was a prick, but I always thought of him, over the ensuing years, when so many dirty-mouthed comics—from Lenny Bruce to George Carlin—made it big.

Maybe Clifton got the last laugh, after all.