Stolen Away

“Frank. I can’t let Hauptmann fry. He’s a fucking patsy, and I can stop it, now, all I gotta do is sit that kid on the Governor’s desk, and…”

“Don’t get yourself worked up. You’ll start bleeding or something.”

“I got to get out of here, I got to stop them, if I don’t…”

“Hauptmann’s dead.”

“Exactly!”

“No. I mean: Hauptmann’s dead.”

“What? He’s…what?”

“Executed couple nights ago,” Nitti said, matter-of-factly. “By the State of New Jersey.”

“What the fuck day is this?”

“Monday.”

“What date?”

“April sixth.”

“Jesus. Jesus.”

“You were hurt bad, Nate. We brought you back here, but you lost a lot of blood.”

“Fuck! You want me to believe I was in a coma or something. Bullshit, Frank. You kept me doped up! You kept me out of commission, out of the game.”

“This is a hospital, Nate. Don’t say foolish things.”

“Hell. You run this fucking place.”

He shrugged. “What’s the difference? You’re alive, and Hauptmann isn’t. I’d suggest you go along about your business.”

“They…must’ve given him a few days’ reprieve. He was supposed to go at the end of March.”

Nitti was nodding. “Yeah. Right at the last minute, that hick detective Ellis Parker had Wendel arrested for confessing; it even went before a grand jury. They had to give Hauptmann a temporary stay.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Wilentz and Wendel got together and repudiated the confession. Wendel told tales of getting the shit beat out of him in basements and so on. Ellis Parker and a bunch of his boys are under arrest, now.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised. Goddamn!”

“Easy, now. Take it easy.”

“What about the Lindbergh kid?”

“They found that baby dead a long time ago.”

I tried to sit up but couldn’t. “You expect me to keep quiet about…”

“Yes.”

Rage and frustration bubbled in me; if I hadn’t been so goddamn weak, so fucking tired, I might have screamed or even grabbed the little bastard. But all I could manage was, “Or I’m fish food, Frank?”

He stood; he patted my arm, like a father soothing an infant. “Be a good boy, Nate. You think I let Hauptmann die? I didn’t let him die. Your pal Lindbergh did. You think that phony son of a bitch deserves his son? The only thing I’d like about that kid turning up is the embarrassment that phony flyboy would suffer. Any time anybody suggests to him his son might still be alive, he bites their goddamn head off. That boy is with a family who loves him. He’ll have a good home, a good upbringing, out of the public eye. What’s wrong with that?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. The image of the little boy clinging to Carl Belliance, saying “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” popped into my brain. The little boy loved the father he had, the father he knew. Would it be such a wonderful thing to yank him away from that? Hadn’t once been enough?

But the thought passed as quickly as it came. “That’s a bunch of bullshit, Frank, and you damn well know it.”

“You go looking for that boy, Nate, and you probably are going to have a dead kid on your conscience.”

“Why…what…?”

His lip curled ever so slightly; it was almost a sneer. “You think Paul and Al are gonna let this come out? You saw what the Waiter was gonna do; you were part of what he was gonna do. You go public, or you go looking, you’d be giving the Belliances a death sentence, and probably the boy, too. You want that on your conscience, Nate? You go ahead. You go look for ’em. I won’t be able to protect them, then. Or you.”

I thought about that. Finally I said, “What about you and Ricca?”

His smile was faint but it was there. “Now I have something, now I know something, something I can use, where Paul and Al are concerned. Now I’m not so worried about Al getting out, or Paul moving up.”

“Ricca could go looking for the Belliances and the boy…”

“Not without crossing me. Paul’s not ready to openly defy me just yet. And by the time he ever does, this will be ancient history.”

I shook my head, smiled mirthlessly. “You would never have let this come back on the Outfit, would you, Frank?”

“Never,” he admitted.

Hauptmann wasn’t the only patsy in this case.

Now I was worried. “Maybe you’re right that Ricca won’t go after the Belliances and their ‘son.’ But he sent those fuckers to kill me, too, Frank. What’s going to keep him from doing that again?”

He patted my arm. “Me, Nate. And you. Our respective reputations. I told Paul you were took care of. You been paid off. He’s heard about you, about the Lingle case; he knows you’re…discreet.”

I laughed harshly; it made my side hurt. “He figures I’m for sale. Maybe I am, at that. So what’s this worth to you, Frank? How much am I gonna get for keeping quiet about the ‘crime of the century’? It ought to be worth a lot.”

“Oh, it is. And I think you’re gonna like what you get.”

“What do you mean?”

“You get to wake up tomorrow, Nate.”

“Oh.” I tasted my tongue again. “Well. That is fair.”

“I’m even throwin’ in picking up your hospital bill.”

I was shaking my head. “Frank, there are people who are going to want explanations from me. Governor Hoffman, for one….”