Read Online True Crime by Max Allan Collins - Free Book Online Page B

in the room, had his coat off but his tie snugged at his collar. He looked like he didn’t shave yet.
    “I’d like to see Sam Cowley,” I said.
    “If you’re with the press, you should know by now that all reporters are barred till further notice from this office.”
    “I’m not from the press. I’d like to see Sam Cowley.”
    “The inspector’s out of the office,” he said, crisp as dark toast. All these guys looked like college kids. Which they were—attorneys and accountants who, in better times, might be earning some real dough in private practice.
    “When will he back?”
    The rosy-cheeked agent had already looked away from me and back at what he was typing.
    “Tomorrow,” he said, not looking at me. Typing.
    I put my hand on the typewriter, on the platen, and kept it from turning; he looked up at me with round outraged eyes.
    “I pay your salary, junior,” I said. “Let’s have a little service, here. And some respect while you’re at it.”
    He sighed and smiled, just a little. “You’re right. My apologies. It’s hot.”
    “Yeah. Ever since Little Bohemia.”
    His smile faded momentarily, then returned; just a ghost of a smile, but it was there.
    “You’ll have to speak to Chief Purvis, if this can’t wait till tomorrow. If it’s about John Dillinger, that is.”
    “How did you know it was about Dillinger?”
    “You asked for Cowley. Dillinger’s his only case. And the only other guy that works on Dillinger is Chief Purvis.”
    “Every crank call you get, every little tip—”
    “Goes straight to Cowley and Purvis. Separate copies to each desk.”
    “Interesting. Could you tell me where Chief Purvis’ office is?”
    “This is the only office we have, mister. And that’s Chief Purvis back by the window, in the corner.”
    I should’ve spotted him before, but he was so small he was blocked. He was the only man in the room wearing his suitcoat, a smartly tailored light gray. The only difference between his desk and anybody else’s was that it was slightly bigger and glass-topped. And by an open window, where something approaching air was wafting in, along with street noise.
    I walked down a path between the desks and Purvis looked up from his work and in a rather high-pitched Southern drawl said, “You’re Nathan Heller, aren’t you? Sit down.”
    I had to admit (to myself) I was impressed; we’d only met once—Eliot had tersely introduced us and we shook hands—and had nodded at each other another time in the Federal Building, in a manner that didn’t necessarily mean we were acquainted and/or recognized one another.
    Like the guy Polly Hamilton was dating, Melvin Purvis was a dapper little man. He was only a couple years older than me, but still the oldest man in the room. He pushed aside a report he was reading, closing the file folder and smiling at me. His hair was brown with a stray lock dangling onto his forehead, his face heart-shaped with pointed, chiseled features, like a ventriloquist’s dummy. The eyes in that wooden face, however, were sharp and dark.
    “I’m surprised you remember me,” I said.
    “Ness introduced us. He doesn’t think much of me. That’s all right. I don’t think much of him. No offense meant.”
    “None taken.”
    “I just find your friend Ness, well—I find his penchant for press agentry a little much.”
    I resisted the urge to tell Little Mel that the thing he and Eliot had most in common was that particular penchant.
    Instead, I said, “Some positive press wouldn’t hurt you , right now, would it?”
    He smiled on one side of his face; it made a dimple bigger than Shirley Temple’s.
    “I can’t blame you for that crack,” he said. The Southern accent seemed soothing on this hot day. I wondered if Purvis being from the South had given him the ability to take heat like this in stride, sitting there in his coat like that.
    “You’re undoubtedly a busy man, Mr. Heller,” he said, without sarcasm. He seemed to have some of