Deadly Valentines by Jeffrey Gusfield

Author:Jeffrey Gusfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

23

The Wicked Man

1929

As soon as the massacre is reported, the police begin hunting for the usual suspects. Chicago law enforcement is especially outraged that police uniforms have been used by the killers. It only takes a few hours for McGurn’s name to be mentioned on the list of those sought by police. He has been under suspicion from the minute Frank Gusenberg, dying of machine gun bullet wounds, is found crawling away from his six dead companions. With mayhem on the streets, and with police shaking down every known gangster, McGurn is still safely secluded in the Stevens Hotel with Louise Rolfe.

Jack and Louise are having much more fun at the Stevens than they did on any train. The Stevens is advertised as the world’s greatest hotel, which will remain true for the next couple of years (it later becomes a Hilton hotel). It is a massive structure that occupies the entire block on Michigan Avenue between Seventh and Eighth Streets, a twenty-five-story fortress with three thousand rooms, each with a luxury bathroom. It is essentially a small city within the city, with banquet halls, restaurants, and a massive hotel switchboard staffed with seventy-five operators, enough for a town of twenty-five thousand people. The barbershop has twentyseven chairs.1

This is where Jack and Louise are cuddling, eating from room-service trays, and enjoying what any couple would consider a honeymoon. Apparently there are days that go by when they hardly leave their room. Rarely has someone enjoyed the establishment of an alibi more. After the massacre, as police hunt for McGurn everywhere, the couple remains in the Stevens for two weeks, occasionally venturing out stealthily in the evenings to see a movie or visit the theater. They use the side entrances of the vast hotel, avoiding the scrutiny of the Stevens employees. None of the staff can recall seeing them enter or leave—an ignorance that may be prompted by abject fear. The lovebirds have most of their meals served in their room and get every edition of the morning and afternoon newspapers.2

When police finally discover them, the prosecutors investigating the seven murders are completely humiliated to learn that their “special headquarters” in the Stevens Hotel is three floors above where McGurn and Louise have been cohabitating. This is an auspicious beginning to an investigation that will cast a polluted shadow for the next eighty years.

When someone at the Stevens finally admits to the police that he believes McGurn is in the hotel, deputy commissioner John Stege, lieutenant William Cusick, and sergeant John Mangan immediately plan a raid on the room where the couple is holed up on the evening of February 27. For good reason, they are extremely cautious when it comes to approaching or confronting Jack McGurn. They actually wait until the couple calls down for room service. They dress a police officer as a waiter and stand outside while Louise answers the door, expecting the delivery of dinner. The “waiter” is followed by the law enforcement retinue as they rush in, guns drawn.

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