Stolen Away

The words came quickly now: “Mr. Heller, come to Trenton. Allow me to make my case. You’re under no obligation. I’ll wire you the money for your train tickets. You can settle your affairs in Chicago and travel on Sunday. We’ll meet in my office first thing Monday morning.”

“Governor, the Lindbergh case is the last thing I want to get involved with.”

“I can offer you a retainer of one thousand dollars against your standard fee. Which is?”

“Uh, twenty-five dollars a day,” I said, doubling it and then some, “and expenses.”

“Done,” the governor said.

“Done,” I said, and shrugged.

We both hung up.

I put my feet back up on the desk, loosened my tie, and said to nobody, “Isn’t this the damnedest turn of events?”

After spending the rest of the morning doing credit checks by phone, I treated myself to the finnan haddie at Binyon’s around the corner, heading down around eleven-thirty to beat the luncheon crowd. That was where I ran into Hal Davis of the News.

“Hey, Heller,” Davis said, cheerfully. “Eating regular and everything.” He was a small man with a big head and bright eyes; he looked about thirty, though he’d never see forty again. “Who died and left you money?”

“I got a client.”

“That is news,” Davis said. He took off his fedora and joined me, even though he was on his way out, raincoat over his arm. “Buy me a cup of coffee?”

“Yeah,” I said, “if you’ll buy me a beer, after.”

“Sure.” He waved a waiter over. Binyon’s was all dark paneling, wooden booths and businessmen. “So—what do you hear from your pal Nitti?”

I grimaced; the sweet taste of the fish went sour. “Davis, I told you a hundred million fucking times. I am not connected.”

Davis smirked. “Yeah, yeah. Everybody knows Frank Nitti likes you, Nate. You done him favors.”

“I’m an ex-cop,” I sighed. “I know some Outfit guys. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Ever since you testified in Nitti’s favor that time…”

“Drop it, Hal.”

“Okay, okay! What do you hear from Barney?”

He meant Barney Ross, the boxer, welterweight champ in fact, who was a friend of mine since we were kids together on the West Side, and who incidentally was my landlord. We discussed Barney’s flourishing boxing career—he had just KO’ed Lou Halper in Philly in eight—and half an hour later we were in the Shamrock, the bar next to the Dill Pickle. Barney used to own the place, and boxing and other sporting-world pics still decorated the dingy walls.

Davis must have smelled a story, because he bought me a total of four beers. And on the fourth, something in the back of my mind clicked—or maybe snapped—and I decided to let him in on my new client. The thought of the publicity, and what it might do for my business, suddenly sounded as good as the hardboiled egg I was eating.

“Governor Hoffman, huh,” Davis said, his eyes glittering. “You don’t really think that kraut Hauptmann is innocent, do you?”

“Watch your language,” I said. “I’m of German heritage myself.”

“You’re awful sensitive today, for a half-mick, half-hebe.”

“The kraut probably isn’t innocent,” I admitted, “but I’m gonna keep an open mind. Besides, anybody who thinks that clown pulled the kidnapping and the ransom scam, all by his lonesome, is playin’ with the squirrels.”

Davis drank that in and then his face crinkled with amusement. “You know what I heard?”

“No. Illuminate me.”

“You know how one of the big pieces of evidence against Hauptmann was they found that old coot’s phone number written on a wall inside his closet?”

Jafsie’s phone number had indeed been found in that manner at Hauptmann’s apartment.

“Yeah,” I said. “So?”

“So I hear a reporter on the New York Daily News, Tim O’Neil, wrote that.”

“What do you mean, wrote it?”

Davis grinned, shrugged. “After they took Hauptmann away, the cops confiscated his apartment, and gave the press free and easy access. It was a slow news day, so O’Neil writes old Jafsie’s number on the closet-trim and calls the inspector on duty over and says, look what I found. Bingo! Front page of the Daily News that night. Is that sweet or what?”

“Would you do that for a story?”

“Hey, if the guy’s fuckin’ guilty, what’s the difference?”

“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But it just shows how from day one everybody’s been awful goddamn anxious to slap that poor bastard in the chair. Yet nobody seems to give a damn about his accomplices.”

“That’s ’cause this story needs an ending, Heller,” Davis said, matter-of-factly. “America’s had its fill of this one. Even Lindy flew the coop.”

Charles and Anne Lindbergh had taken their young, press-besieged son Jon to Great Britain late last year, in self-imposed exile.

“The New Jersey cops and prosecutors,” Davis said, “would rather let Hauptmann go to the chair and take the names of his accomplices with him, than let him miss out on a punishment he so richly deserves. And a lot of people in this country agree.”