The Goering Slaying - A Hollywood Land Adventure
- Thread starter Greg Grant
- Start date
We'll see how Udet ended up soon.
Hermann Goering came out to Hollywoodland in the early '20s to try his hand at the flying for the movies as the famed commander of Richthofen's squadron, and along with his brother Albert, the director, stuck around and branched out. He had a few pal(s) that came with him as well. One of the bigger differences to this particular TL Goering is that the role of a not-entirely-sane mystic-woman in his life is filled by Lupe Velez and not Carin von Kantzow. As a result, TTL Goering's drive is geared towards dangerous dames, fame and money, instead of politics. Not that TTL Goering is not filled with political beliefs and reactionary right wing notions, it's just that having gotten out of Germany early, he viewed the goings on in the old country with sporadic interest, though some things interested more than other.
The inspiration for Voormann's character appearance came about due to me wanting a Peter Lorre from "Maltese Falcon" to be in this story. It did not take me long to figure who I would fit the bill.
Now, to the story:
Hermann Goering came out to Hollywoodland in the early '20s to try his hand at the flying for the movies as the famed commander of Richthofen's squadron, and along with his brother Albert, the director, stuck around and branched out. He had a few pal(s) that came with him as well. One of the bigger differences to this particular TL Goering is that the role of a not-entirely-sane mystic-woman in his life is filled by Lupe Velez and not Carin von Kantzow. As a result, TTL Goering's drive is geared towards dangerous dames, fame and money, instead of politics. Not that TTL Goering is not filled with political beliefs and reactionary right wing notions, it's just that having gotten out of Germany early, he viewed the goings on in the old country with sporadic interest, though some things interested more than other.
The inspiration for Voormann's character appearance came about due to me wanting a Peter Lorre from "Maltese Falcon" to be in this story. It did not take me long to figure who I would fit the bill.
Now, to the story:
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Chapter IX
Chapter IX:
Once my balls stopped trying to crawl up into my belly, I listened to the AM scanner intently to learn whether I was being sought after by the LAPD or the Sheriff's Deputies. It was the latter. I kept driving in lieu of pulling over to the side of the road and puking my guts out from fear. I just paid a half dollar for an omelette and did not want my last memory of it be oozing out of my mouth streaked with bile. When my vision stopped being misted from fear, I realized I was in the Valley, still driving up to the grove. It made about as much sense as everything else that had gone on with me since I stepped into Ciro's. I pulled up to a station to get gas. Paid for full service and bought a quart of whiskey. I had cracked it open and was going to relapse, but caught my unshaven mug in the rearview mirror and stopped myself. The last time I drank, I lost my wife, best friend, job and sense of purpose. None of that would help today, much as I wanted to do it. I poured the demon liquor down the gutter as the bums stared at me in mystified horror. Then I got in the car and drove through winding pathways to the 101. I could use it to get to Solvang. It was the one place no one knew about except the big man and whomever read his papers, which were now stored in a small bank in the Valley.
I had almost a grand and a half on me and a beautiful car. I also had a gun. All I was missing was a plan. That could come later I figured, once I was in the middle of nowhere. As I hit the coast and drove along it northwards, I convinced myself this was the brightest choice. They would be expecting me in LA, and south and southeast of it. They could even, if they had the resources, track me down to Elsinore and Indio. But nobody would think of looking for me at Solvang. All this I ciphered out after I had made the decision to drive up there.
I struggled to find a big band to sing me songs of nonsense on the radio, but instead all I kept hitting were white jazz stations, featuring a bland mushy version of the real thing. My balls having finished their Napoleonic retreat from Moscow felt safe once again and began to ache. Having denied myself liquor, my body wanted to indulge in some other form of vice. But as vices went, this one was not awful. Not knowing what to expect at Solvang, except pale faced blonde Puritans in wooden shoes, I decided I needed to stop to get laid at Santa Barbara.
As I pulled off the highway into town, I began to have doubts about my decision. Santa Barbara was in the midst of its latest attempt at reinvention and rebuilding. If Los Angeles was a leering madam holding off the ravages of age with makeup, lewd conversation and guile, Santa Barbara was the dumb overripe spinster sister thinking she can finally get her dreamboat to notice her by buying that hat she saw Jean Harlow wear in a movie once. There was a hum of chaos in the air and the misapplication of funds. New hotels took place of old ones, but still looked like shit. Parks were created and torn down with the same amount of gusto and nonsense. And even the pathetic state college was being rebuilt and hot stove editorials proclaimed how it should take its rightful place next to UCLA and Berkley in the University of California system. It would not help settle my mind.
Trouble was, my balls had really began to ache in earnest and the possibility of throwing a hump into anything remotely attractive seemed slim to none at any point between where I was and Solvang. With a heavy heart and an anxious johnson I waded into what passes for bars in this remodeled jealous town. I was on my third Shirley Temple in a fourth dimly lit palace of pathetic when I walked into a room where the clientele was all male and listening to the radio. Nobody looked like a swish to me, but then again, shaking down queer bars in Los Angeles on behalf of Mickey taught me that anyone could be a swish. I sat down and caught the announcer repeat a series of names all ending on "-ovs."
The bartender appeared, looking like a failed actor from Los Angeles I am sure he was. Anxious to earn a tip or to inform the ignorant he explained it:
"Stalin killed four of his generals for failing to take Warsaw sooner. Oh and some German ace crashed."
"Which one?"
"Mulder, I think."
I never heard of him. Thought I am sure if the big man was still alive and next to me he'd have told me his weight, height and how he liked his beer. I remember once, the day Mickey had that shaving accident and I had to go pay homage to the newest crown prince of Los Angeles (his Honner the mayor was the king, always), I found him shaking his head and jabbing his finger at the paper, explaining in half controlled bursts how some jamoke called "Udet" being named head of the German Air Force would lead to a total disaster.
"Oh and Ribbentrop says Germany is going to win the war very soon."
I wasn't the only in the bar to laugh at that. It lightened the mood and we all had smiles. Von Papen might not have done many things right since he got named Chancellor, but getting his former war-time buddy named ambassador to the land of the free and the home of the brave sure improved our morale.
I declined the offer to try out the local beer and instead said I was in town for only a half day, on account I had to go south, back to wife and the kids. This I did with a martyred sigh. The barman elected not to notice that I had no wedding band and despite looking like he wouldn't know which end of the rifle would go boom, he almost discretely wrote down an address on a matchbook and suggested I go there. Then to drive home the point, he mentioned they charge by the hour.
In the interests of decency and in case some of you ate less than an hour before reading this I won't describe the gal I threw a hump into at that no-tell motel. I will just say that it is rare for me to meet a woman who is in a bigger need of having her nose hairs trimmed than me.
Utterly unsatisfied, and feeling dirtier than an oil-well roughneck I crawled into the car, got back on the highway and drove north. The cheerful wooden signs announcing how to get to Solvang depressed me further. The village itself was worse than I feared. In addition to clapboard houses that had no business existing in Southern California they actually had a full on story-book windmill in the middle of town. The number of happy Puritans around me made me wish I could make out with a pair of half-dykes in the middle of the town fountain just to make them all go blind from rage. I looked around for a lawyer's office, figuring the squareheads might breed an honest shyster out of sheer bloody mindedness. But finding anything in the fairy tale land was hard for a man with my outlook in life. I therefore asked someone and was directed to seek a man whose last name contained far too many consonants and whose office was on a street that would require me to speak like a crane trying to swallow to pronounce. I nodded and went off to get a translation of the pieces of paper I excised from the Voormann's copy of the injun land law book.
The Squarehead Shyster was in the office when I called upon him and hand no one in there with him. He greeted me warmly and asked me about my troubles. I almost told him, then screwed myself shut, dug out a piece of paper and told a story about being a private eye asked to look into the meaning of this found by my client who was suspecting her husband of hiding money to support his mistress.
Filled with the fiery indignation at the evasion of matrimonial duties, the Squarehead Shyster took the pages and studied them, frowning all the while. He ran a thick finger with a square cut fingernail along his thin bloodless lower lip and tapped it, the pale fine knuckle hairs of the finger shaking as he thought.
"I do not know what this would mean regarding the money of the husband of your client, sir, but I can tell you that this is intriguing. As you may know, Federal law governs the tribal lands within California. But there are overlays of state and county laws present as well. This case being cited here is not known to me, but it is very recent and I am uninterested in such things. But there are significant implications. If state and county authorities are unable to collect revenue in tribal lands, as the majority opinion of Hugo Black, writing on behalf of his fellow eleven Supreme Court judges, asserts, then it is logical that no state or county law can be applied to tribal lands at all."
"That means no deputy or detective can interfere with anything that goes on in tribal lands?"
"I... Yes, I suppose that would the extreme, but quite logical, conclusion of such a ruling."
"So in the case of my client, it could mean her husband could open up a bank account on a bank on injun, uh, tribal lands and put money there and not have that money taxed by anyone, and his wife not being able to get it back?"
"Why, yes, I suppose. Though as soon as he would try to withdraw that money and bring it off the tribal lands it would be subject to the jurisdiction of all law enforcement agencies in our nation. Though... Hang on, sir, I need a minute to think this through out-loud. The money she could call upon would be the funds she could claim at the time of deposit, but not the interest collected in said bank for the duration of the funds being there, but she may attempt to sue for the loss of income she would have made had said funds been left in her local bank."
"You lost me."
"Think of the tribal lands as a completely separate nation. What occurs there is beyond the touch of county, state and Federal law. Any activity there cannot be prosecuted. Therefore any gains made there, ill-gotten under the rule of Federal, state or county law, but legal in the tribal lands, would not be subject to..."
He lost me yet again as he talked of many things I could not grasp. But what I could made me realize we were talking of a big scheme - a place with no laws with two-three hour drive of Los Angeles. A half dozen Tijuanas, only inside the United States.
And that's when I saw it. Tijuana. Jesus.
"Uh, sorry, don't mean to interrupt, but can you answer this question for me. Settle a bet, as it were. Is gambling legal, under Federal law of the United States?"
The Squarehead Shyster revolted at the mere mention of the word "gambling," but being a decent sort, he commenced to thinking and despite being visibly disgusted by the whole affair, managed to whisper:
"No. I think not. It is not illegal. Not entirely legal. But not illegal."
He then launched into a speech on precariousness of such an argument, but I was lost in my own thoughts now. Tijuana poker rooms and bingo halls two-three hour drive from Los Angeles. That's what the whole thing was all about. That's a kind of scheme that a degenerate gambler Billy Wilkerson can get behind wholeheartedly. No more flying out to Vegas just to play some cards and bet on numbers. All you have to do is get in your car. And not just one place, but half dozen. There were injun lands all over. That's what the big man was buying. Access to the gambling halls not built as yet. Lands near highways. Places within easy driving distance and accessible to anyone with a hankering to gamble and ability to drive a car. I know I am repeating myself, but this was big. The mind reeled. We were talking millions. No wonder someone killed Goering for it. There was so much money to be made. And a lot of money to be lost once gambling went to these new places and away from the old ones.
Anyone with a vested interest in Tijuana had a reason to plug Goering, Voormann and now me. Not that they wanted me dead for the scheme, but merely to tie up loose ends because I was involved in the mess. I was to be just collateral damage. That did not make me worry any less. The scope of the scheme made me want to get not just drunk but to shoot those horse tranquilizers Voormann was using. I needed to lie down or to keep driving. I bade my thanks to the Squarehead Shyster, got to my car and drove out to Santa Ynez to take a gander at the field of not as yet fulfilled wonders and dreams.
It was sun kissed scrubland. Cows stared at me and shat. Deer found shade and ignored me. I wanted that drink real bad now. Voormann's deathless prose suddenly made sense. Well, some of it. I too wanted to weep at the vision of the future. I could smell the perfume of beautiful women in tight outfits, hear the clink of silver dollars, see the hot dice dance across green felt and feel the fat roll of twenties in my pocket. The last part made me snap out of it. I had me that roll of twenties. Not as fat as the vision before me, but thick enough. I was in the middle of nowhere and no one knew I was here. North and east of me lay boundless stretches of lands where I could get lost until I found myself. West of me was a narrow spit of land and then the ocean full of opportunities. South of me were the killers who bumped off five people already and were sizing me up for a wooden overcoat as well, and those deeds. The deeds sang a siren song. A stronger siren song than the scarlet Cord belted out in that Cabazon dealership. Yes, the deeds were in the big man's name and his shell companies, but possession was nine-tenths of the law, and besides I could resell them to someone who could lawfully claim them, or ask for a tiny fraction of a percentage of the earnings to be made here.
I drank the vision deeply, while the horrified electrical engineer in my brain kept hitting the console to make the right sequence fire. The scheme would never work. I would get killed ten times over before I could pull it off. And yet my dick was hard and my vision kept blurring. My wife's grandfather fought on the wrong side in the War Between the States and told me of the awful moment when he knew Lee's attack at Gettysburg would fail, but he would still need to take part of it lest he be called yellow. Well, no one would call me yellow for leaving it all alone. And I did not mind being called yellow. But the game was worth the candles. Even if the odds were against me and I was staking my life.
Once my balls stopped trying to crawl up into my belly, I listened to the AM scanner intently to learn whether I was being sought after by the LAPD or the Sheriff's Deputies. It was the latter. I kept driving in lieu of pulling over to the side of the road and puking my guts out from fear. I just paid a half dollar for an omelette and did not want my last memory of it be oozing out of my mouth streaked with bile. When my vision stopped being misted from fear, I realized I was in the Valley, still driving up to the grove. It made about as much sense as everything else that had gone on with me since I stepped into Ciro's. I pulled up to a station to get gas. Paid for full service and bought a quart of whiskey. I had cracked it open and was going to relapse, but caught my unshaven mug in the rearview mirror and stopped myself. The last time I drank, I lost my wife, best friend, job and sense of purpose. None of that would help today, much as I wanted to do it. I poured the demon liquor down the gutter as the bums stared at me in mystified horror. Then I got in the car and drove through winding pathways to the 101. I could use it to get to Solvang. It was the one place no one knew about except the big man and whomever read his papers, which were now stored in a small bank in the Valley.
I had almost a grand and a half on me and a beautiful car. I also had a gun. All I was missing was a plan. That could come later I figured, once I was in the middle of nowhere. As I hit the coast and drove along it northwards, I convinced myself this was the brightest choice. They would be expecting me in LA, and south and southeast of it. They could even, if they had the resources, track me down to Elsinore and Indio. But nobody would think of looking for me at Solvang. All this I ciphered out after I had made the decision to drive up there.
I struggled to find a big band to sing me songs of nonsense on the radio, but instead all I kept hitting were white jazz stations, featuring a bland mushy version of the real thing. My balls having finished their Napoleonic retreat from Moscow felt safe once again and began to ache. Having denied myself liquor, my body wanted to indulge in some other form of vice. But as vices went, this one was not awful. Not knowing what to expect at Solvang, except pale faced blonde Puritans in wooden shoes, I decided I needed to stop to get laid at Santa Barbara.
As I pulled off the highway into town, I began to have doubts about my decision. Santa Barbara was in the midst of its latest attempt at reinvention and rebuilding. If Los Angeles was a leering madam holding off the ravages of age with makeup, lewd conversation and guile, Santa Barbara was the dumb overripe spinster sister thinking she can finally get her dreamboat to notice her by buying that hat she saw Jean Harlow wear in a movie once. There was a hum of chaos in the air and the misapplication of funds. New hotels took place of old ones, but still looked like shit. Parks were created and torn down with the same amount of gusto and nonsense. And even the pathetic state college was being rebuilt and hot stove editorials proclaimed how it should take its rightful place next to UCLA and Berkley in the University of California system. It would not help settle my mind.
Trouble was, my balls had really began to ache in earnest and the possibility of throwing a hump into anything remotely attractive seemed slim to none at any point between where I was and Solvang. With a heavy heart and an anxious johnson I waded into what passes for bars in this remodeled jealous town. I was on my third Shirley Temple in a fourth dimly lit palace of pathetic when I walked into a room where the clientele was all male and listening to the radio. Nobody looked like a swish to me, but then again, shaking down queer bars in Los Angeles on behalf of Mickey taught me that anyone could be a swish. I sat down and caught the announcer repeat a series of names all ending on "-ovs."
The bartender appeared, looking like a failed actor from Los Angeles I am sure he was. Anxious to earn a tip or to inform the ignorant he explained it:
"Stalin killed four of his generals for failing to take Warsaw sooner. Oh and some German ace crashed."
"Which one?"
"Mulder, I think."
I never heard of him. Thought I am sure if the big man was still alive and next to me he'd have told me his weight, height and how he liked his beer. I remember once, the day Mickey had that shaving accident and I had to go pay homage to the newest crown prince of Los Angeles (his Honner the mayor was the king, always), I found him shaking his head and jabbing his finger at the paper, explaining in half controlled bursts how some jamoke called "Udet" being named head of the German Air Force would lead to a total disaster.
"Oh and Ribbentrop says Germany is going to win the war very soon."
I wasn't the only in the bar to laugh at that. It lightened the mood and we all had smiles. Von Papen might not have done many things right since he got named Chancellor, but getting his former war-time buddy named ambassador to the land of the free and the home of the brave sure improved our morale.
I declined the offer to try out the local beer and instead said I was in town for only a half day, on account I had to go south, back to wife and the kids. This I did with a martyred sigh. The barman elected not to notice that I had no wedding band and despite looking like he wouldn't know which end of the rifle would go boom, he almost discretely wrote down an address on a matchbook and suggested I go there. Then to drive home the point, he mentioned they charge by the hour.
In the interests of decency and in case some of you ate less than an hour before reading this I won't describe the gal I threw a hump into at that no-tell motel. I will just say that it is rare for me to meet a woman who is in a bigger need of having her nose hairs trimmed than me.
Utterly unsatisfied, and feeling dirtier than an oil-well roughneck I crawled into the car, got back on the highway and drove north. The cheerful wooden signs announcing how to get to Solvang depressed me further. The village itself was worse than I feared. In addition to clapboard houses that had no business existing in Southern California they actually had a full on story-book windmill in the middle of town. The number of happy Puritans around me made me wish I could make out with a pair of half-dykes in the middle of the town fountain just to make them all go blind from rage. I looked around for a lawyer's office, figuring the squareheads might breed an honest shyster out of sheer bloody mindedness. But finding anything in the fairy tale land was hard for a man with my outlook in life. I therefore asked someone and was directed to seek a man whose last name contained far too many consonants and whose office was on a street that would require me to speak like a crane trying to swallow to pronounce. I nodded and went off to get a translation of the pieces of paper I excised from the Voormann's copy of the injun land law book.
The Squarehead Shyster was in the office when I called upon him and hand no one in there with him. He greeted me warmly and asked me about my troubles. I almost told him, then screwed myself shut, dug out a piece of paper and told a story about being a private eye asked to look into the meaning of this found by my client who was suspecting her husband of hiding money to support his mistress.
Filled with the fiery indignation at the evasion of matrimonial duties, the Squarehead Shyster took the pages and studied them, frowning all the while. He ran a thick finger with a square cut fingernail along his thin bloodless lower lip and tapped it, the pale fine knuckle hairs of the finger shaking as he thought.
"I do not know what this would mean regarding the money of the husband of your client, sir, but I can tell you that this is intriguing. As you may know, Federal law governs the tribal lands within California. But there are overlays of state and county laws present as well. This case being cited here is not known to me, but it is very recent and I am uninterested in such things. But there are significant implications. If state and county authorities are unable to collect revenue in tribal lands, as the majority opinion of Hugo Black, writing on behalf of his fellow eleven Supreme Court judges, asserts, then it is logical that no state or county law can be applied to tribal lands at all."
"That means no deputy or detective can interfere with anything that goes on in tribal lands?"
"I... Yes, I suppose that would the extreme, but quite logical, conclusion of such a ruling."
"So in the case of my client, it could mean her husband could open up a bank account on a bank on injun, uh, tribal lands and put money there and not have that money taxed by anyone, and his wife not being able to get it back?"
"Why, yes, I suppose. Though as soon as he would try to withdraw that money and bring it off the tribal lands it would be subject to the jurisdiction of all law enforcement agencies in our nation. Though... Hang on, sir, I need a minute to think this through out-loud. The money she could call upon would be the funds she could claim at the time of deposit, but not the interest collected in said bank for the duration of the funds being there, but she may attempt to sue for the loss of income she would have made had said funds been left in her local bank."
"You lost me."
"Think of the tribal lands as a completely separate nation. What occurs there is beyond the touch of county, state and Federal law. Any activity there cannot be prosecuted. Therefore any gains made there, ill-gotten under the rule of Federal, state or county law, but legal in the tribal lands, would not be subject to..."
He lost me yet again as he talked of many things I could not grasp. But what I could made me realize we were talking of a big scheme - a place with no laws with two-three hour drive of Los Angeles. A half dozen Tijuanas, only inside the United States.
And that's when I saw it. Tijuana. Jesus.
"Uh, sorry, don't mean to interrupt, but can you answer this question for me. Settle a bet, as it were. Is gambling legal, under Federal law of the United States?"
The Squarehead Shyster revolted at the mere mention of the word "gambling," but being a decent sort, he commenced to thinking and despite being visibly disgusted by the whole affair, managed to whisper:
"No. I think not. It is not illegal. Not entirely legal. But not illegal."
He then launched into a speech on precariousness of such an argument, but I was lost in my own thoughts now. Tijuana poker rooms and bingo halls two-three hour drive from Los Angeles. That's what the whole thing was all about. That's a kind of scheme that a degenerate gambler Billy Wilkerson can get behind wholeheartedly. No more flying out to Vegas just to play some cards and bet on numbers. All you have to do is get in your car. And not just one place, but half dozen. There were injun lands all over. That's what the big man was buying. Access to the gambling halls not built as yet. Lands near highways. Places within easy driving distance and accessible to anyone with a hankering to gamble and ability to drive a car. I know I am repeating myself, but this was big. The mind reeled. We were talking millions. No wonder someone killed Goering for it. There was so much money to be made. And a lot of money to be lost once gambling went to these new places and away from the old ones.
Anyone with a vested interest in Tijuana had a reason to plug Goering, Voormann and now me. Not that they wanted me dead for the scheme, but merely to tie up loose ends because I was involved in the mess. I was to be just collateral damage. That did not make me worry any less. The scope of the scheme made me want to get not just drunk but to shoot those horse tranquilizers Voormann was using. I needed to lie down or to keep driving. I bade my thanks to the Squarehead Shyster, got to my car and drove out to Santa Ynez to take a gander at the field of not as yet fulfilled wonders and dreams.
It was sun kissed scrubland. Cows stared at me and shat. Deer found shade and ignored me. I wanted that drink real bad now. Voormann's deathless prose suddenly made sense. Well, some of it. I too wanted to weep at the vision of the future. I could smell the perfume of beautiful women in tight outfits, hear the clink of silver dollars, see the hot dice dance across green felt and feel the fat roll of twenties in my pocket. The last part made me snap out of it. I had me that roll of twenties. Not as fat as the vision before me, but thick enough. I was in the middle of nowhere and no one knew I was here. North and east of me lay boundless stretches of lands where I could get lost until I found myself. West of me was a narrow spit of land and then the ocean full of opportunities. South of me were the killers who bumped off five people already and were sizing me up for a wooden overcoat as well, and those deeds. The deeds sang a siren song. A stronger siren song than the scarlet Cord belted out in that Cabazon dealership. Yes, the deeds were in the big man's name and his shell companies, but possession was nine-tenths of the law, and besides I could resell them to someone who could lawfully claim them, or ask for a tiny fraction of a percentage of the earnings to be made here.
I drank the vision deeply, while the horrified electrical engineer in my brain kept hitting the console to make the right sequence fire. The scheme would never work. I would get killed ten times over before I could pull it off. And yet my dick was hard and my vision kept blurring. My wife's grandfather fought on the wrong side in the War Between the States and told me of the awful moment when he knew Lee's attack at Gettysburg would fail, but he would still need to take part of it lest he be called yellow. Well, no one would call me yellow for leaving it all alone. And I did not mind being called yellow. But the game was worth the candles. Even if the odds were against me and I was staking my life.
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Indian casinos in 1939, wonder if any one involved in the Osage killings are involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Indian_murders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Indian_murders
A good piece on Hollywood aerial pics of the 1920s.
Ormer Locklear was apparently the model for Waldo Pepper, and of course Ernst Kessler was based on Udet.
Presumably the barman's interpretation of Werner Mölders.
I was thinking of incorporating that, but held off against it, as the OK connection was not something I planned.
The barman indeed mangled that name.
Chapter X
Chapter X:
I got in the car and drove back through the picturesque nightmare of Solvang and got on the 101 highway to head back to the city of dreams. As I drove, I found a classical music station to not be distracted and started thinking in earnest who had the most to lose if the injun lands gambling became a thing. The list was long. Tijuana was not just run by Bugsy, it was shared by others as well. Even San Diego hoods had a stake there on account nobody wanted trouble for folks driving from Los Angeles down to Mexico through that town. The syndicates back East, however, might not have cosigned on these murders. After all, more gambling means more money for them, unless their noses were bent out of joint by the big man doing this under covers and on the hush-hush from them. Then they might kill him for keeping secrets from them. They might have presented themselves as businessmen, but they were as emotional as teen girls out back in New York and Chicago.
If Bugsy wanted me dead, I was in serious trouble, because he could get me dead, easily. Then again, Bugsy would not have used the cops to do his dirty work. Or he might have. My earnest thinking was clouded and not so earnest. The music did not help. My balls were drained, but felt slimy. And the vision of money from unbuilt casinos was refusing to go away. I was a mess. And I was driving to my doom. Great.
Bugsy could have sent the cops to find me, then quiz me and then kill me, once he knew what I knew. That would be a Bugsy move. It would also make sense that Bugsy would have taken it personally that I came back from a trip to Indio and not reported to him. Bugsy was not nicknamed as such due to his placid and sane nature.
A far more mundane reason to kill me that had nothing to do with what I knew about the injun land plan was that I was a witness to the big man's murder and everyone knew that, and that I was being sent off to due errands for his wife. Maybe the three trigger men who stamped Goering's letter decided I knew too much, not knowing the full extent of it. That'd be a cruel joke. Me being whacked for knowing too much about something I knew nothing, while knowing too much about what no one else knew.
But that would not explain away why someone went to the trouble of bumping off Voormann. Except of course he was a deeply unpleasant bastard and all it would have taken is some brother of some sister to learn of what he attempted on that couch.
It suddenly occurred to me that the next man on the hit list might be Billy Wilkerson. You probably already figured that one out, but like I said, my brain was not thinking right.
As I passed Santa Barbara I realized I was getting sleepy, despite it barely being magic hour. Not wishing to die at the wheel and deny the unknown cabal of my murders the pleasure of shooting me, I pulled in the next town and went about looking for a hotel, a task made more difficult by it not being much of a town, but simplified by the place only having one street to speak of. The township must have been called Carpinteria, for the fellow with a terrible haircut standing behind the counter had a copy of a paper on it called "The Carpinteria Herald." The news of the war took up most of the front page, but I was heartened to learn that a new signal light was being installed at Linden per the story below the fold. I got a room, crawled into it, collapsed on a surprisingly plush and comfortable bed and drifted off to anxiety riven whiskey-deprived sleep.
I woke in the darkness. Given my watch said it was five, I assumed it was morning, rolled on my back and realized just how much of a bad idea it was to fall asleep in your clothes. The sweat had cooled and congealed and my suit was glued to me. I peeled it off, fully knowing I had no change of clothes and would have to get back into it and risked a shower. For a wonder the pressure was decent and there was hot water. Huzzah for the town with the new signal light. As hot stream of water pounded my unshaven mug, I listed things I had to do today:
The clerk was nowhere to be found for me check out, and the idea of any place being open this early in this one dead horse town was laughable. I went back into my room, cleaned the Luger and listened to the radio. My thoughts were straight as an arrow.
As dawn broke, an announcer gave a news update: von Papen was removed from office by a vote of no confidence over his handling of the Polish War and a new coalition government was created to make sure all would be well. The new chancellor was some baron I never heard of, but the deputy chancellor was Hindenburg, son of the more famous one. Well, that explained the "vote of no-confidence" part. Though how anyone could say that with a straight face was beyond me. Von Papen was held up by bayonets, barons and big industrialists for a decade. His last democratic act was being outvoted fifty something votes to five-hundred in the Reichstag in the summer of '33. After that, they stopped pretending votes mattered in Germany. But I guess we were back to the bullshit again.
I saw someone heading to the front desk, finished cleaning the Luger (it really was a sweetheart of a gun) and strolled over to check out. The new clerk gave my unshaven mug a long look. Mentally I updated the last list I made with another entry, get a cut and shaved. Also, I needed a change of clothes and a pair of new shoes. I made it back to the Valley without any adventures.
Newly shorn, shaved, shoed and suited, I strolled back into the bank as a new man, grabbed what I wanted to grab and left what I decided to leave behind for the time being. I went down half a block, found a phone and fed a nickel to ring up Lana.
I got her roommate instead. Her male roommate. In an apartment with one bed. Dames.
I hung up, fed two nickels and called Liddy.
"It's been days since I've heard from you."
"I was busy, ma'am. Let's meet. Today. Union Station. Four o'clock. San Diego bound trains. Bring your checkbook and as much cash you can find around the house."
"What's this all...?"
I hung up and felt great doing it. Trouble was, she was still perfect and a redhead. The last time I nearly lost control and that was after a night with Lana. If I went into that meeting with her now looking to gun me down, in my current state I'd be a target the size of a barn and without a sidepiece. I needed to get laid, quick. And with someone whose nose hairs were more trimmed than mine.
A year ago, the classiest joint with the best broads at affordable prices was Lee's off Sunset. Trouble was, Lee decided last year that his Honner should not raise her rent, as he did every year, seeing as she always gave out gift baskets each Christmas and kept French champagne and Russian caviar for any boys he would send. She figured his Honner would not mind. She was wrong. Five Vice squads showed up at the same time, arrested everyone and drove poor Lee out of business. There was Mae's, a place high above Sunset, where the girls were cut up to look like MGM movie stars and even had costumes from the sets. But I was not in a Barbara Stanwyck kind of mood. I wanted an Ann Sheridan type, and I knew they would not have one for the money I was willing to spend. Granted, I had just spent a chunk on a new car, suit, shoes, shave and a haircut. But call me old fashioned, I don't like spending a hundred on what I can get for a sawbuck someplace else. That left the T&M Studios, a walk-up on Santa Monica Boulevard, where the fireplace always roared and some Hollywood swish played the piano next to it, while waiting for his straight studio partner to finish up upstairs.
I fed two more nickels and arranged a tryst. I gave my name as Lee Jackson, figuring neither patron saint of the dumbest cause in the world would mind, seeing as how both of them were long dead and buried. Mr. Jackson drove up to the place and indulge with a shy redhead. I tipped three silver dollars and feeling thus refreshed, drove up to the Union Station, two hours ahead of time to stake out the joint.
Bugsy's goons were crawling all over the place. As were Homicide Bureau dicks from the Sheriff's Department. And on top of that shit sundae sat the cherry of beefy strike breakers from the big man's crew. All that for little ole' me, from a single phone call to the big man's lawful wife. I sighed and went back to my car. Then the world turned blurry and perpendicular. For some reason the pavement rose up to meet me and we both stared at the tires of a very clean Packard before one of us passed out.
I got in the car and drove back through the picturesque nightmare of Solvang and got on the 101 highway to head back to the city of dreams. As I drove, I found a classical music station to not be distracted and started thinking in earnest who had the most to lose if the injun lands gambling became a thing. The list was long. Tijuana was not just run by Bugsy, it was shared by others as well. Even San Diego hoods had a stake there on account nobody wanted trouble for folks driving from Los Angeles down to Mexico through that town. The syndicates back East, however, might not have cosigned on these murders. After all, more gambling means more money for them, unless their noses were bent out of joint by the big man doing this under covers and on the hush-hush from them. Then they might kill him for keeping secrets from them. They might have presented themselves as businessmen, but they were as emotional as teen girls out back in New York and Chicago.
If Bugsy wanted me dead, I was in serious trouble, because he could get me dead, easily. Then again, Bugsy would not have used the cops to do his dirty work. Or he might have. My earnest thinking was clouded and not so earnest. The music did not help. My balls were drained, but felt slimy. And the vision of money from unbuilt casinos was refusing to go away. I was a mess. And I was driving to my doom. Great.
Bugsy could have sent the cops to find me, then quiz me and then kill me, once he knew what I knew. That would be a Bugsy move. It would also make sense that Bugsy would have taken it personally that I came back from a trip to Indio and not reported to him. Bugsy was not nicknamed as such due to his placid and sane nature.
A far more mundane reason to kill me that had nothing to do with what I knew about the injun land plan was that I was a witness to the big man's murder and everyone knew that, and that I was being sent off to due errands for his wife. Maybe the three trigger men who stamped Goering's letter decided I knew too much, not knowing the full extent of it. That'd be a cruel joke. Me being whacked for knowing too much about something I knew nothing, while knowing too much about what no one else knew.
But that would not explain away why someone went to the trouble of bumping off Voormann. Except of course he was a deeply unpleasant bastard and all it would have taken is some brother of some sister to learn of what he attempted on that couch.
It suddenly occurred to me that the next man on the hit list might be Billy Wilkerson. You probably already figured that one out, but like I said, my brain was not thinking right.
As I passed Santa Barbara I realized I was getting sleepy, despite it barely being magic hour. Not wishing to die at the wheel and deny the unknown cabal of my murders the pleasure of shooting me, I pulled in the next town and went about looking for a hotel, a task made more difficult by it not being much of a town, but simplified by the place only having one street to speak of. The township must have been called Carpinteria, for the fellow with a terrible haircut standing behind the counter had a copy of a paper on it called "The Carpinteria Herald." The news of the war took up most of the front page, but I was heartened to learn that a new signal light was being installed at Linden per the story below the fold. I got a room, crawled into it, collapsed on a surprisingly plush and comfortable bed and drifted off to anxiety riven whiskey-deprived sleep.
I woke in the darkness. Given my watch said it was five, I assumed it was morning, rolled on my back and realized just how much of a bad idea it was to fall asleep in your clothes. The sweat had cooled and congealed and my suit was glued to me. I peeled it off, fully knowing I had no change of clothes and would have to get back into it and risked a shower. For a wonder the pressure was decent and there was hot water. Huzzah for the town with the new signal light. As hot stream of water pounded my unshaven mug, I listed things I had to do today:
- Try not to get killed
- Contact the big man's wife and work out a deal with her on the deeds
- Get the deeds from the bank
- Try to talk to Billy to find out what he knew
- Avoid Bugsy
- Avoid Howard Hughes
- Avoid the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
- Avoid anyone who would rat me out to the Sheriff's Department
- Avoid anyone who would rat me out to Bugsy.
- Try not to get killed
- Get deeds from the bank
- Avoid Bugsy
- Avoid the LASD
- Call Liddy and offer the deeds
- Try not get killed
- Get the medals, watch, and the two folders with the personal papers and the Indio, Palm Springs, Cabazon and Temecula deeds from the bank, but leave the Solvang deeds behind
- Avoid Bugsy
- Avoid LASD
- Call Liddy and offer the deeds
- Reward myself with a roll in the hay with Lana
The clerk was nowhere to be found for me check out, and the idea of any place being open this early in this one dead horse town was laughable. I went back into my room, cleaned the Luger and listened to the radio. My thoughts were straight as an arrow.
As dawn broke, an announcer gave a news update: von Papen was removed from office by a vote of no confidence over his handling of the Polish War and a new coalition government was created to make sure all would be well. The new chancellor was some baron I never heard of, but the deputy chancellor was Hindenburg, son of the more famous one. Well, that explained the "vote of no-confidence" part. Though how anyone could say that with a straight face was beyond me. Von Papen was held up by bayonets, barons and big industrialists for a decade. His last democratic act was being outvoted fifty something votes to five-hundred in the Reichstag in the summer of '33. After that, they stopped pretending votes mattered in Germany. But I guess we were back to the bullshit again.
I saw someone heading to the front desk, finished cleaning the Luger (it really was a sweetheart of a gun) and strolled over to check out. The new clerk gave my unshaven mug a long look. Mentally I updated the last list I made with another entry, get a cut and shaved. Also, I needed a change of clothes and a pair of new shoes. I made it back to the Valley without any adventures.
Newly shorn, shaved, shoed and suited, I strolled back into the bank as a new man, grabbed what I wanted to grab and left what I decided to leave behind for the time being. I went down half a block, found a phone and fed a nickel to ring up Lana.
I got her roommate instead. Her male roommate. In an apartment with one bed. Dames.
I hung up, fed two nickels and called Liddy.
"It's been days since I've heard from you."
"I was busy, ma'am. Let's meet. Today. Union Station. Four o'clock. San Diego bound trains. Bring your checkbook and as much cash you can find around the house."
"What's this all...?"
I hung up and felt great doing it. Trouble was, she was still perfect and a redhead. The last time I nearly lost control and that was after a night with Lana. If I went into that meeting with her now looking to gun me down, in my current state I'd be a target the size of a barn and without a sidepiece. I needed to get laid, quick. And with someone whose nose hairs were more trimmed than mine.
A year ago, the classiest joint with the best broads at affordable prices was Lee's off Sunset. Trouble was, Lee decided last year that his Honner should not raise her rent, as he did every year, seeing as she always gave out gift baskets each Christmas and kept French champagne and Russian caviar for any boys he would send. She figured his Honner would not mind. She was wrong. Five Vice squads showed up at the same time, arrested everyone and drove poor Lee out of business. There was Mae's, a place high above Sunset, where the girls were cut up to look like MGM movie stars and even had costumes from the sets. But I was not in a Barbara Stanwyck kind of mood. I wanted an Ann Sheridan type, and I knew they would not have one for the money I was willing to spend. Granted, I had just spent a chunk on a new car, suit, shoes, shave and a haircut. But call me old fashioned, I don't like spending a hundred on what I can get for a sawbuck someplace else. That left the T&M Studios, a walk-up on Santa Monica Boulevard, where the fireplace always roared and some Hollywood swish played the piano next to it, while waiting for his straight studio partner to finish up upstairs.
I fed two more nickels and arranged a tryst. I gave my name as Lee Jackson, figuring neither patron saint of the dumbest cause in the world would mind, seeing as how both of them were long dead and buried. Mr. Jackson drove up to the place and indulge with a shy redhead. I tipped three silver dollars and feeling thus refreshed, drove up to the Union Station, two hours ahead of time to stake out the joint.
Bugsy's goons were crawling all over the place. As were Homicide Bureau dicks from the Sheriff's Department. And on top of that shit sundae sat the cherry of beefy strike breakers from the big man's crew. All that for little ole' me, from a single phone call to the big man's lawful wife. I sighed and went back to my car. Then the world turned blurry and perpendicular. For some reason the pavement rose up to meet me and we both stared at the tires of a very clean Packard before one of us passed out.
Chapter XI
Chapter XI:
The first thing I felt after waking was the faint smell of lilac. The next thing I saw once the vision stopped being blurry was the face of Michael Voormann. He sat on a chair opposite me, very much alive, and sipping tea. We were in a small bungalow with a silent air-unit. My valise sat on a chair next to a desk. The big man's two folders and medals lay on the desk's surface, as did my pocket knife and borrowed Luger. A lamp was switched and pointed at deeds. Blue Glasses studied them dispassionately. I was on an ugly settee, trussed up, with my legs strapped together and my arms bent behind in soft cuffs. The last time I saw someone treated as such was when I had to get Spencer Tracy out of Lee's brothel and he took a swipe at some studio exec in the lobby and pissed into a flower pot. Spencer hurt both of his legs struggling against the restraints. I did not. I merely shifted my weight.
"He's awake," said Voormann unpleasantly.
Blue Glasses slightly inclined his head and kept looking through papers. Then deigned to address me:
"What was the purpose of these land acquisitions near reservations?"
My world view was rearranged by that question, but I bluffed with a pained smile:
"Don't know. Was rather hoping the big man's wife might know."
"He's lying," helpfully suggested Voormann.
Blue Glasses ever slightly inclined his head once again. He then straightened out, with an evident distaste, the portion of the law book I excised from the injun lands law book from Voormann's shelf.
"Had he been to Mr. Goering's house?" queried Blue Glasses.
"No," said Voormann after a moment of thought, "I think not. The maids would have told me."
"From whose property did you remove these?" asked Blue Glasses.
"Voormann's pad on Fremont," I replied cheerfully.
Voormann paled. His eyes darted side to side like a wounded animal. He was anxious to know what I saw in his nest. And he was anxious to not have certain things said in front of Blue Glasses. Blue Glasses, for his part, merely nodded and kept rereading the passage.
We shared awkward silence for a long beat, then Voormann opened his mouth, looking at me and shooting glances at Blue Glasses. But Blue Glasses waved him off with a small flick of the wrist.
"Why did you remove this particular passage from the book, Mr. Smythe?"
"I don't know. It seemed the most interesting."
Blue Glasses crossed the room and opened the door. Two Okie shit heels staggered inside. They wore cheap shoes, slacks with suspenders and shirt sleeves. One had a leather sap. The other cradled a truncheon. They eyed me with the same glass eyed indifference that a butcher reserves for a fatted calf.
"I talk better if I'm sitting up," I confessed.
Blue Glasses waved off the Okie heels, but they simply stared in confusion.
"Leave," he had to say, pained and out loud. Naturally they forgot to close the door. Blue Glasses stomped across the floorboards and slammed it. He then pulled up a chair next to the settee and sat. There was another imperial wave, this one aimed at Voormann.
Voormann stared in the same confusion as the Okies.
"Sit him up," sighed Blue Glasses.
Voormann blinked, but finally managed to get to me and carefully rolled me into a sitting position.
"If anyone got a pipe, I got some Granger in my pouch," I offered.
"Smoking is forbidden here," sternly warned Blue Glasses.
"And I don't drink."
"Neither do I. Talk, Mr. Smythe."
"There's a tax law shyster out in Cabazon who had the same book Voormann had in his office and that passage was underlined in it."
"Where is Cabazon?"
"Just outside of Palm Springs."
"That would explain this deed then. What do you make of this passage, Mr. Smythe?"
"You can do all kinds of things on injun land you can't elsewhere."
"Such as?"
"I don't know."
Blue Glasses sighed and went to the door again.
"Casinos," I said.
Voormann stared. Blue Glasses blinked and turned to look at me.
"You can build casinos, on injun land."
Voormann's mouth gaped. Blue Glasses made a noise as if air escaped a balloon. He went back to the table, sat down and reread the passage. Voormann tried to speak, but Blue Glasses waved him off. He studied the passage for a long time. Longer still for me, being trussed up. Then he took off his glasses and cleaned them nervously on the fat end of his tie. Voormann got shushed again by him. I've been around enough actors in this town to last me a lifetime (poor choice words, I know), so I knew these apes were not faking it. They had no idea about the casinos. It made the situation more confused.
"Who else knows about this, Mr. Smythe?"
"The shyster who put it all together for Big Willy. Name of Del Gado. Out by Cabazon."
"Who else?"
"No one else that I know of."
"What about Bugsy?" asked Voormann.
The almost settled face of Blue Glasses twitched in annoyance.
The runt gave the game away. Whatever their scheme, Bugsy was not involved in it. Blue Glasses presaged a Howard Hughes involvement, or it might not have. After all, he was just a henchman. Voormann was here to either represent himself, or maybe Billy Wilkerson. It either meant Bugsy was working with Goering, which was not likely, given the many a night discussion Goering and his boys subjected themselves on the discussion of the "Jewish question," or we were in at least a three way dance, with Blue Glasses-Voormann faction competing on the same floor as Bugsy and Goering, and those two having a full but separate dance card. Forgive me if my metaphors are mixed and make little sense at the moment. My brain was concentrating on getting out of this predicament alive and my body was focused on not pissing all over itself from fright.
"What about him?" I asked cheerfully.
"Never mind Mr. Siegel, Mr. Smythe. Let us talk to Mrs. Goering. What if anything did you confide in her?"
"Nothing as yet. The plan was to give her the deeds in return for some cash, that is all."
"Does she suspect what those deeds signify?"
"You're going to have ask her that, on account I did not talk it over."
Voormann licked his lips and leaned forward.
Blue Glasses cleared his throat in annoyance, not even bothering with a wave:
"No, we will not be questioning her, at this time."
Voormann plopped back in the chair, not hiding his disappointment or sweat.
Blue Glasses studied me for a long beat, then stood up.
"Gonna kill me now?"
"More than likely."
"Shit. Mind explaining the scheme then?"
"It is not scheme, Mr. Smythe. It is a vision of the future. One that Mr. Howard Hughes felt kind enough to share with Mr. Goering and which Mr. Goering betrayed, cruelly, though now I realized it was in fact much more cruel than even I suspected."
"Continue, please?"
"Las Vegas, Mr. Smythe. A nickel and dime place in the middle of a desert, but unfettered by the layered foulness of the declining decadent death wish which wormed itself into the Western Civilization. Mr. Hughes was going to transform it. Will transform it still. But the Garden of Eden must be protected from snakes, and Mr. Hughes, unwisely, chose to use other snakes to protect it."
If I was not making much sense in this room due to being scared, then what was the excuse of Blue Glasses spouting of shit that would turn off a girl even after seeing a Clark Gable picture? Still, some of it was falling into place. Hughes was going to build casinos in Vegas, using Goering as the hired muscle to keep the worst of the goons out of his way. That's the vision that was making Voormann weep. The one in the desert of Vegas, not Indio. Trouble was, Goering cottoned on how much money new casinos in new lands could bring and went on to find a new Vegas all for his lonesome, and closer to Los Angeles to boot. Though one question lingered. Well, two. "Can you please not kill me?" and:
"Is that why you had Goering killed?"
"No, Mr. Smythe. In fact, Goering's perfidy, though suspected, only came to light after his death. And as I have just indicated, the extent of his betrayal was not fully surmised by me until just now. I had neither the motive to order the death of Mr. Goering, nor the desire to do so until proof was given. And as I have just said, the said proof was only given to me now."
I got the sense that Blue Glasses was a garrulous sort, but Hughes was not talkative or not the sort to let the hired help yak and so Blue Glasses had to restrain himself, but here, with me, he could let his hair down, even though it was slicked back. Scheherazade kept a horny sultan from killing her by telling him stories for one thousand and one nights. Maybe I could save myself yet by letting him tell me stories.
"If you had no idea it was about injun lands, then why did you have this book?"
"Mr. Voormann and I have grown to understand there was a connection between Mr. Goering and tribal lands, and one that portended a diabolical duplicity, but knew not the details. Mr. Goering was not much of a reader and yet this book was bought by him, specifically, thus Mr. Voormann and I obtained it as well to ascertain his motives."
"Uh-huh. And how long can you keep the genie in the bottle regarding injun lands now?"
"Decades, if not longer. Mr. Smythe, all legal decisions in this nation are built on precedence, even with Mr. Roosevelt perverting the course of justice with his sardine packing of the Supreme Court."
Well, at least he said "Roosevelt" and not dog-whistled "Rosenfeld."
"The case quoted in that excerpt, Mr. Smythe, refers to two women of dubious provenance not paying their taxes to the county and their decision being upheld after five years of decisions and counter-decisions. To be clear, we are discussing gambling on Federal land that is surrounded by states and counties and their authorities. The first time someone dares to run a bingo game in any tribal lands, their winnings would be confiscated as soon as the person leaves the reservation. There would then be a trial, then appeal, then another trial, then another appeal and so on, until many years from now, the Supreme Court would hear of such a case. There are many opportunities to derail the said case between now and then, Mr. Smythe. Mr. Goering's vision is but a false dawn."
Listening to this was painful, if informative. I bet this under-educated over-enunciating asshole owned a dictionary word a day calendar and read at least one book by Voltaire he would quote at dinner parties to old women with ugly hats and false teeth. Still, so long as the bey of the bungalows talked, my head was safely attached to my shoulders.
"Then maybe you don't have to fit me for a wooden overcoat?"
"I fear you know too much."
"Drop me off in Tijuana and you will never hear me talk of injuns."
"I am afraid that is not possible, Mr. Smythe."
"Can't blame a fella for trying. So, uh, what are you going to do about Voormann?"
Voormann frowned and stared at Blue Glasses.
"Nothing. He will return to his duties, as before."
"Except the LASD thinks he's dead."
"What?" exclaimed Voormann and jumped out of the chair. It was a pathetic gesture. But it annoyed Blue Glasses despite that, or may because of it.
"We spread a rumor that you were killed, Michael, and that Mr. Smythe here was a prime suspect."
"Is that why you had me sit here while...?"
"Try and be tranquil, Michael. We will..."
"Hey, Voormann, you know what happens once I'm dead, right?"
Voormann recoiled. Blue Glasses sighed. And I smiled wide and barked, "Luger!"
The first thing I felt after waking was the faint smell of lilac. The next thing I saw once the vision stopped being blurry was the face of Michael Voormann. He sat on a chair opposite me, very much alive, and sipping tea. We were in a small bungalow with a silent air-unit. My valise sat on a chair next to a desk. The big man's two folders and medals lay on the desk's surface, as did my pocket knife and borrowed Luger. A lamp was switched and pointed at deeds. Blue Glasses studied them dispassionately. I was on an ugly settee, trussed up, with my legs strapped together and my arms bent behind in soft cuffs. The last time I saw someone treated as such was when I had to get Spencer Tracy out of Lee's brothel and he took a swipe at some studio exec in the lobby and pissed into a flower pot. Spencer hurt both of his legs struggling against the restraints. I did not. I merely shifted my weight.
"He's awake," said Voormann unpleasantly.
Blue Glasses slightly inclined his head and kept looking through papers. Then deigned to address me:
"What was the purpose of these land acquisitions near reservations?"
My world view was rearranged by that question, but I bluffed with a pained smile:
"Don't know. Was rather hoping the big man's wife might know."
"He's lying," helpfully suggested Voormann.
Blue Glasses ever slightly inclined his head once again. He then straightened out, with an evident distaste, the portion of the law book I excised from the injun lands law book from Voormann's shelf.
"Had he been to Mr. Goering's house?" queried Blue Glasses.
"No," said Voormann after a moment of thought, "I think not. The maids would have told me."
"From whose property did you remove these?" asked Blue Glasses.
"Voormann's pad on Fremont," I replied cheerfully.
Voormann paled. His eyes darted side to side like a wounded animal. He was anxious to know what I saw in his nest. And he was anxious to not have certain things said in front of Blue Glasses. Blue Glasses, for his part, merely nodded and kept rereading the passage.
We shared awkward silence for a long beat, then Voormann opened his mouth, looking at me and shooting glances at Blue Glasses. But Blue Glasses waved him off with a small flick of the wrist.
"Why did you remove this particular passage from the book, Mr. Smythe?"
"I don't know. It seemed the most interesting."
Blue Glasses crossed the room and opened the door. Two Okie shit heels staggered inside. They wore cheap shoes, slacks with suspenders and shirt sleeves. One had a leather sap. The other cradled a truncheon. They eyed me with the same glass eyed indifference that a butcher reserves for a fatted calf.
"I talk better if I'm sitting up," I confessed.
Blue Glasses waved off the Okie heels, but they simply stared in confusion.
"Leave," he had to say, pained and out loud. Naturally they forgot to close the door. Blue Glasses stomped across the floorboards and slammed it. He then pulled up a chair next to the settee and sat. There was another imperial wave, this one aimed at Voormann.
Voormann stared in the same confusion as the Okies.
"Sit him up," sighed Blue Glasses.
Voormann blinked, but finally managed to get to me and carefully rolled me into a sitting position.
"If anyone got a pipe, I got some Granger in my pouch," I offered.
"Smoking is forbidden here," sternly warned Blue Glasses.
"And I don't drink."
"Neither do I. Talk, Mr. Smythe."
"There's a tax law shyster out in Cabazon who had the same book Voormann had in his office and that passage was underlined in it."
"Where is Cabazon?"
"Just outside of Palm Springs."
"That would explain this deed then. What do you make of this passage, Mr. Smythe?"
"You can do all kinds of things on injun land you can't elsewhere."
"Such as?"
"I don't know."
Blue Glasses sighed and went to the door again.
"Casinos," I said.
Voormann stared. Blue Glasses blinked and turned to look at me.
"You can build casinos, on injun land."
Voormann's mouth gaped. Blue Glasses made a noise as if air escaped a balloon. He went back to the table, sat down and reread the passage. Voormann tried to speak, but Blue Glasses waved him off. He studied the passage for a long time. Longer still for me, being trussed up. Then he took off his glasses and cleaned them nervously on the fat end of his tie. Voormann got shushed again by him. I've been around enough actors in this town to last me a lifetime (poor choice words, I know), so I knew these apes were not faking it. They had no idea about the casinos. It made the situation more confused.
"Who else knows about this, Mr. Smythe?"
"The shyster who put it all together for Big Willy. Name of Del Gado. Out by Cabazon."
"Who else?"
"No one else that I know of."
"What about Bugsy?" asked Voormann.
The almost settled face of Blue Glasses twitched in annoyance.
The runt gave the game away. Whatever their scheme, Bugsy was not involved in it. Blue Glasses presaged a Howard Hughes involvement, or it might not have. After all, he was just a henchman. Voormann was here to either represent himself, or maybe Billy Wilkerson. It either meant Bugsy was working with Goering, which was not likely, given the many a night discussion Goering and his boys subjected themselves on the discussion of the "Jewish question," or we were in at least a three way dance, with Blue Glasses-Voormann faction competing on the same floor as Bugsy and Goering, and those two having a full but separate dance card. Forgive me if my metaphors are mixed and make little sense at the moment. My brain was concentrating on getting out of this predicament alive and my body was focused on not pissing all over itself from fright.
"What about him?" I asked cheerfully.
"Never mind Mr. Siegel, Mr. Smythe. Let us talk to Mrs. Goering. What if anything did you confide in her?"
"Nothing as yet. The plan was to give her the deeds in return for some cash, that is all."
"Does she suspect what those deeds signify?"
"You're going to have ask her that, on account I did not talk it over."
Voormann licked his lips and leaned forward.
Blue Glasses cleared his throat in annoyance, not even bothering with a wave:
"No, we will not be questioning her, at this time."
Voormann plopped back in the chair, not hiding his disappointment or sweat.
Blue Glasses studied me for a long beat, then stood up.
"Gonna kill me now?"
"More than likely."
"Shit. Mind explaining the scheme then?"
"It is not scheme, Mr. Smythe. It is a vision of the future. One that Mr. Howard Hughes felt kind enough to share with Mr. Goering and which Mr. Goering betrayed, cruelly, though now I realized it was in fact much more cruel than even I suspected."
"Continue, please?"
"Las Vegas, Mr. Smythe. A nickel and dime place in the middle of a desert, but unfettered by the layered foulness of the declining decadent death wish which wormed itself into the Western Civilization. Mr. Hughes was going to transform it. Will transform it still. But the Garden of Eden must be protected from snakes, and Mr. Hughes, unwisely, chose to use other snakes to protect it."
If I was not making much sense in this room due to being scared, then what was the excuse of Blue Glasses spouting of shit that would turn off a girl even after seeing a Clark Gable picture? Still, some of it was falling into place. Hughes was going to build casinos in Vegas, using Goering as the hired muscle to keep the worst of the goons out of his way. That's the vision that was making Voormann weep. The one in the desert of Vegas, not Indio. Trouble was, Goering cottoned on how much money new casinos in new lands could bring and went on to find a new Vegas all for his lonesome, and closer to Los Angeles to boot. Though one question lingered. Well, two. "Can you please not kill me?" and:
"Is that why you had Goering killed?"
"No, Mr. Smythe. In fact, Goering's perfidy, though suspected, only came to light after his death. And as I have just indicated, the extent of his betrayal was not fully surmised by me until just now. I had neither the motive to order the death of Mr. Goering, nor the desire to do so until proof was given. And as I have just said, the said proof was only given to me now."
I got the sense that Blue Glasses was a garrulous sort, but Hughes was not talkative or not the sort to let the hired help yak and so Blue Glasses had to restrain himself, but here, with me, he could let his hair down, even though it was slicked back. Scheherazade kept a horny sultan from killing her by telling him stories for one thousand and one nights. Maybe I could save myself yet by letting him tell me stories.
"If you had no idea it was about injun lands, then why did you have this book?"
"Mr. Voormann and I have grown to understand there was a connection between Mr. Goering and tribal lands, and one that portended a diabolical duplicity, but knew not the details. Mr. Goering was not much of a reader and yet this book was bought by him, specifically, thus Mr. Voormann and I obtained it as well to ascertain his motives."
"Uh-huh. And how long can you keep the genie in the bottle regarding injun lands now?"
"Decades, if not longer. Mr. Smythe, all legal decisions in this nation are built on precedence, even with Mr. Roosevelt perverting the course of justice with his sardine packing of the Supreme Court."
Well, at least he said "Roosevelt" and not dog-whistled "Rosenfeld."
"The case quoted in that excerpt, Mr. Smythe, refers to two women of dubious provenance not paying their taxes to the county and their decision being upheld after five years of decisions and counter-decisions. To be clear, we are discussing gambling on Federal land that is surrounded by states and counties and their authorities. The first time someone dares to run a bingo game in any tribal lands, their winnings would be confiscated as soon as the person leaves the reservation. There would then be a trial, then appeal, then another trial, then another appeal and so on, until many years from now, the Supreme Court would hear of such a case. There are many opportunities to derail the said case between now and then, Mr. Smythe. Mr. Goering's vision is but a false dawn."
Listening to this was painful, if informative. I bet this under-educated over-enunciating asshole owned a dictionary word a day calendar and read at least one book by Voltaire he would quote at dinner parties to old women with ugly hats and false teeth. Still, so long as the bey of the bungalows talked, my head was safely attached to my shoulders.
"Then maybe you don't have to fit me for a wooden overcoat?"
"I fear you know too much."
"Drop me off in Tijuana and you will never hear me talk of injuns."
"I am afraid that is not possible, Mr. Smythe."
"Can't blame a fella for trying. So, uh, what are you going to do about Voormann?"
Voormann frowned and stared at Blue Glasses.
"Nothing. He will return to his duties, as before."
"Except the LASD thinks he's dead."
"What?" exclaimed Voormann and jumped out of the chair. It was a pathetic gesture. But it annoyed Blue Glasses despite that, or may because of it.
"We spread a rumor that you were killed, Michael, and that Mr. Smythe here was a prime suspect."
"Is that why you had me sit here while...?"
"Try and be tranquil, Michael. We will..."
"Hey, Voormann, you know what happens once I'm dead, right?"
Voormann recoiled. Blue Glasses sighed. And I smiled wide and barked, "Luger!"
This is logical - Hughes and Goering would have met through aviation (whether in the movies or not), and Fatso would be a logical choice for Hughes if the latter needed muscle.
Especially with the way Willy organized up the strikebreakers into stormtroopers...
Chapter XII
Chapter XII:
Voormann moved fast for a cripple. He snatched the Luger off the desk and pointed it at Blue Glasses. Blue Glasses merely sighed and shook his head. It was his lot in life to deal with idiots. Trouble was, he wasn't that bright himself. But he had enough brains to keep his hands up.
"Michael, we should..."
"Be quiet! You, Smythe, finish your thoughts."
"Far as the world is concerned, you're dead, Voormann. That means..."
"Michael, you cannot..."
"Shut up! Shut. Up. I am the hero now. Me. This is my tale. Smythe, talk."
"If everyone thinks you're dead, then it means..."
"Michael...!"
The runt pulled the trigger. Whether from anxiety, anger, or just having slippery fingers, I don't know. But he pulled the trigger. And the gun I oiled and cleaned did its duty. The bullet entered the highly annoyed face of Blue Glasses just above his left brow. It exited it out the side and carried a chunk of his brain box with it, along with hair, scalp, blood and other things. Blue Glasses was dead before his corpse slalomed to the floorboards.
That's when the Okie shit heels burst in.
Voormann let them have it, emptying the clip into the doorway. Most of his bullets hit the wall. But a couple managed to find the chest of the bigger of the two. The other crouched by instinct, then moved forward once the gun ran out of bullets. He was the one with truncheon and he beat Voormann to death with it before either man knew what was happening. By the time the Okie was done, he staggered against the wall, bathed in sweat and splattered in blood. His dull eyes shifted to me after he stopped swearing.
"I got a little over a grand in my pocket. Untie me and it's yours. Keep me alive and let me walk out of here and I'll get you two large on top of it."
The surviving Okie stared at me. He went to slick back his hair, not realizing it was covered in blood and then wiped his paw against his scarlet streaked slacks, smearing even more blood on his hands. I let him think. It took longer than I wanted.
Eventually, he nodded and moved towards me. He only realized he still had the bloody truncheon once he started untying me. He dropped the truncheon, got a pocket knife off the desk and nearly severed an artery cutting me free. My circulation returned in stages and with it, brought pain as my limbs came back to life.
The Okie stood over me the entire time, mulling over beating me to death and just taking off.
I dropped the remains of the roll I got off the big man on the settee, stood and moved to the table.
The Okie grabbed the roll, counted it with his thumb and moving mouth and then stared at me again.
I leafed through the things on the desk and found the IOU from Vivian Coe. It took five minutes for the Okie to understand what it meant and why he could get two large from it. But at last he understood, nodded and went out the door. I heard the squeal of tires and realized he might have taken my Cord. Then again I doubted they drove up in it. Well, too late for that now.
I went outside. I was standing atop a hill in the middle of nowhere. The bungalow was the only building on top of it. Clearly Howard Hughes had a hankering for hill top properties and this was yet another one. The only car left in the dirt lot next to the bungalow was a flashy baby blue Nash Hamilton. It revved nice and made a lot of noise, but I knew it to be an underpowered four-banger. Mentally I assigned the car to the dead runt inside the bungalow. I went back inside.
I took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, hiked up my pants and patted down Voormann and Blue Glasses. Blue Glasses had nothing by a phone book with only five numbers, all under "HH". Voormann had fifty bucks. Considering the Okie left with me less than two bucks this was a great find. Given the size of the room, an experienced detective would need thirty minutes to flip it. I was much confused and anxious to leave. So I only spent another quart hour looking for something worth taking. Nothing jumped out at me except Voormann's secret society pin, which looked cheap and unique enough to not yield nothing but trouble. I was hoping to find a firearm, but no such luck.
I left the bungalow with the big man's medals, watch and papers, along with my knife and some new gray hairs. The Nash did belong to Voormann. Driving the car of a man the cops thought I had killed more than a day ago did not seem bright, but neither was hanging around nor walking down a hill. I kicked the tires and checked out the trunk. He had a portable typewriter and a cardboard suitcase full of manuscripts and blank papers. The glovebox yielded registration and a manual, with its pages glued together. For the sake of my ungloved hands I hoped the pages were stuck due to age and California heat and no other reasons.
I climbed inside the underpowered Nash, trying not to touch anything and drove down the hill by a winding dirt road. The road lead to a gravel highway that seemed to run north-south. There were no designations and I was utterly lost. Guided by terrible intuition I drove south and hit the Pacific Coast Highway. I drove towards Los Angeles proper until I found a nice park with an ocean view, found an unfouled public restroom and heaved my guts out and babbled like a girl until I was out of bile and tears.
When I was done I drove down to Union Station. My Cord stood where I left it and despite it being almost dark out, it still had plenty of company. Union Station was busy. Good. I parked the Nash as far away as I could and ambled up to the Cord, slowly. Nothing jumped out at me and soon I was behind the wheel of my car, staring at the gray hairs on my temples in the rear view mirror. The car started fine, I tuned up the AM scanner and drove out and made my way back to the Valley. Heaving my guts out and having a good cry helped my stomach settle and my body remembered I had not eaten in a while. I had some Chinese food and weighed my options. There were not stellar, but the potential was there. The only trouble was, I still had no clue who killed the big man and what part Billy Wilkerson played in the whole affair.
I am a curious sort by nature, but the two questions had nothing to do with me wanting to solve a mystery and everything to do with me trying to make some money from this misadventure and walking out of it alive. I got into this latest jam after I called Mrs. Goering on the phone to arrange a meet. And looking back I got the welcoming committee out in Indio when she gave me a list of names and bade me to go out there. It was starting to look like Mrs. Goering either wanted me to enjoy the big sleep or was being used by some folks who wanted it. Look at me, making excuses for her just because her hair is red and her body is perfect. Christ, I'm a sucker.
Then there was Billy. If I was arranging a hit for half-a-wise-guy like Goering, it'd help to know where he was on the night I was planning to do it. And where was Goering on the night he met his end? Ciro's. And who owned Ciro's? Billy. Goering gave him a heads up he would be there that night on account he wanted to do his standup. But the hit did not take place there, did it? It took two blocks up at an ice cream parlor. Billy would not want blood spilled on his front door, bad for business that.
As to why Billy would want to take a whack at Goering...? I had no notion. Not unless Voormann worshipped three visionaries, not two, and Billy was in the trinity with the mogul and the big man.
Voormann was real anxious like to learn where Bugsy fit into this misadventure. And Bugsy was the one who asked me to look into the big man's activities out in Indio as well. And Bugsy's boys were waiting for me out in Union Station. Along with the big man's goons and LASD dicks.
Good thing I had fried rice in me, or else all this listing of enemies I gained would make me afraid. And I hadn't even spent any time thinking of what crazed multimillionaire Howard Hughes might do once he found out I got his driver killed. If finding Goering's killers was worth 25 big for the man in pajamas, how much was it worth it for him to find out who punched the driver's ticket? Was there a bounty on my head at the moment? And if so, how much?
Money. It makes the world go round.
Goering was part of a scheme that would cost money to the Hughes faction out in Vegas, but it would also hurt Bugsy in Tijuana. Except, if Bugsy figured the scheme, he would have no need to involve me, would he? Not unless he was looking for those deeds and sent me to find them. But if he needed me to find them, then he had to have nothing to do with the welcoming committee waiting for me on the edge of town. After all, why stop me looking into the big man's dealings if you needed me to find the paper trail and bring it all back in my mouth like a faithful hound?
It was getting dark and I needed a place to lay down and stay low. Mexico sounded good, but I would not make it. Not in my current physical state and not before it got really dark. San Diego might have been tempting, if not for me still holding on to those deeds and now only having fifty bucks. I found a motel off Sepulveda in the northern foot hills of the Valley and listened to a trucker next door go to town on a hyena. She was putting on a show and those bursts of staccato Spanish intersped with dirty English made for a perfect nighttime serenade as I chased dreams of gold and ran from nightmares of murders and poverty.
I woke at nine in the morning and reran the conversations I had with Bugsy and the big man's wife and realized neither of them asked me to find out who killed the big man. She assumed it was Bugsy. He did not give a shit. The latter made sense, regardless if Bugsy had something to do with it or not. The former made sense, after a fashion. Did she have nothing to do with the big man's killing, or was she knee deep and throwing me off the sent by naming Bugsy? Or was she even more devious than that and was naming Bugsy because she did work with Bugsy on it and wanted to name him to be able to misdirect. Dames. Everything is complicated with them.
I walked down the hallway in my pajamas and shoes to the payphone. According to the copy of today's "LA Times" on the floor, the German regime change inspired the limeys to give Halifax the heave-ho as well. He survived a vote of no confidence in Parliament, but only barely just, and resigned on the spot. The new boy's name stared with a "W." I caught a piece about him being a former Home Secretary, which I suppose meant something to someone. I fed two nickels and dialed a number that was glued to the phone in the Del Gado master bedroom. The princess picked up on the sixth ring.
Voormann moved fast for a cripple. He snatched the Luger off the desk and pointed it at Blue Glasses. Blue Glasses merely sighed and shook his head. It was his lot in life to deal with idiots. Trouble was, he wasn't that bright himself. But he had enough brains to keep his hands up.
"Michael, we should..."
"Be quiet! You, Smythe, finish your thoughts."
"Far as the world is concerned, you're dead, Voormann. That means..."
"Michael, you cannot..."
"Shut up! Shut. Up. I am the hero now. Me. This is my tale. Smythe, talk."
"If everyone thinks you're dead, then it means..."
"Michael...!"
The runt pulled the trigger. Whether from anxiety, anger, or just having slippery fingers, I don't know. But he pulled the trigger. And the gun I oiled and cleaned did its duty. The bullet entered the highly annoyed face of Blue Glasses just above his left brow. It exited it out the side and carried a chunk of his brain box with it, along with hair, scalp, blood and other things. Blue Glasses was dead before his corpse slalomed to the floorboards.
That's when the Okie shit heels burst in.
Voormann let them have it, emptying the clip into the doorway. Most of his bullets hit the wall. But a couple managed to find the chest of the bigger of the two. The other crouched by instinct, then moved forward once the gun ran out of bullets. He was the one with truncheon and he beat Voormann to death with it before either man knew what was happening. By the time the Okie was done, he staggered against the wall, bathed in sweat and splattered in blood. His dull eyes shifted to me after he stopped swearing.
"I got a little over a grand in my pocket. Untie me and it's yours. Keep me alive and let me walk out of here and I'll get you two large on top of it."
The surviving Okie stared at me. He went to slick back his hair, not realizing it was covered in blood and then wiped his paw against his scarlet streaked slacks, smearing even more blood on his hands. I let him think. It took longer than I wanted.
Eventually, he nodded and moved towards me. He only realized he still had the bloody truncheon once he started untying me. He dropped the truncheon, got a pocket knife off the desk and nearly severed an artery cutting me free. My circulation returned in stages and with it, brought pain as my limbs came back to life.
The Okie stood over me the entire time, mulling over beating me to death and just taking off.
I dropped the remains of the roll I got off the big man on the settee, stood and moved to the table.
The Okie grabbed the roll, counted it with his thumb and moving mouth and then stared at me again.
I leafed through the things on the desk and found the IOU from Vivian Coe. It took five minutes for the Okie to understand what it meant and why he could get two large from it. But at last he understood, nodded and went out the door. I heard the squeal of tires and realized he might have taken my Cord. Then again I doubted they drove up in it. Well, too late for that now.
I went outside. I was standing atop a hill in the middle of nowhere. The bungalow was the only building on top of it. Clearly Howard Hughes had a hankering for hill top properties and this was yet another one. The only car left in the dirt lot next to the bungalow was a flashy baby blue Nash Hamilton. It revved nice and made a lot of noise, but I knew it to be an underpowered four-banger. Mentally I assigned the car to the dead runt inside the bungalow. I went back inside.
I took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, hiked up my pants and patted down Voormann and Blue Glasses. Blue Glasses had nothing by a phone book with only five numbers, all under "HH". Voormann had fifty bucks. Considering the Okie left with me less than two bucks this was a great find. Given the size of the room, an experienced detective would need thirty minutes to flip it. I was much confused and anxious to leave. So I only spent another quart hour looking for something worth taking. Nothing jumped out at me except Voormann's secret society pin, which looked cheap and unique enough to not yield nothing but trouble. I was hoping to find a firearm, but no such luck.
I left the bungalow with the big man's medals, watch and papers, along with my knife and some new gray hairs. The Nash did belong to Voormann. Driving the car of a man the cops thought I had killed more than a day ago did not seem bright, but neither was hanging around nor walking down a hill. I kicked the tires and checked out the trunk. He had a portable typewriter and a cardboard suitcase full of manuscripts and blank papers. The glovebox yielded registration and a manual, with its pages glued together. For the sake of my ungloved hands I hoped the pages were stuck due to age and California heat and no other reasons.
I climbed inside the underpowered Nash, trying not to touch anything and drove down the hill by a winding dirt road. The road lead to a gravel highway that seemed to run north-south. There were no designations and I was utterly lost. Guided by terrible intuition I drove south and hit the Pacific Coast Highway. I drove towards Los Angeles proper until I found a nice park with an ocean view, found an unfouled public restroom and heaved my guts out and babbled like a girl until I was out of bile and tears.
When I was done I drove down to Union Station. My Cord stood where I left it and despite it being almost dark out, it still had plenty of company. Union Station was busy. Good. I parked the Nash as far away as I could and ambled up to the Cord, slowly. Nothing jumped out at me and soon I was behind the wheel of my car, staring at the gray hairs on my temples in the rear view mirror. The car started fine, I tuned up the AM scanner and drove out and made my way back to the Valley. Heaving my guts out and having a good cry helped my stomach settle and my body remembered I had not eaten in a while. I had some Chinese food and weighed my options. There were not stellar, but the potential was there. The only trouble was, I still had no clue who killed the big man and what part Billy Wilkerson played in the whole affair.
I am a curious sort by nature, but the two questions had nothing to do with me wanting to solve a mystery and everything to do with me trying to make some money from this misadventure and walking out of it alive. I got into this latest jam after I called Mrs. Goering on the phone to arrange a meet. And looking back I got the welcoming committee out in Indio when she gave me a list of names and bade me to go out there. It was starting to look like Mrs. Goering either wanted me to enjoy the big sleep or was being used by some folks who wanted it. Look at me, making excuses for her just because her hair is red and her body is perfect. Christ, I'm a sucker.
Then there was Billy. If I was arranging a hit for half-a-wise-guy like Goering, it'd help to know where he was on the night I was planning to do it. And where was Goering on the night he met his end? Ciro's. And who owned Ciro's? Billy. Goering gave him a heads up he would be there that night on account he wanted to do his standup. But the hit did not take place there, did it? It took two blocks up at an ice cream parlor. Billy would not want blood spilled on his front door, bad for business that.
As to why Billy would want to take a whack at Goering...? I had no notion. Not unless Voormann worshipped three visionaries, not two, and Billy was in the trinity with the mogul and the big man.
Voormann was real anxious like to learn where Bugsy fit into this misadventure. And Bugsy was the one who asked me to look into the big man's activities out in Indio as well. And Bugsy's boys were waiting for me out in Union Station. Along with the big man's goons and LASD dicks.
Good thing I had fried rice in me, or else all this listing of enemies I gained would make me afraid. And I hadn't even spent any time thinking of what crazed multimillionaire Howard Hughes might do once he found out I got his driver killed. If finding Goering's killers was worth 25 big for the man in pajamas, how much was it worth it for him to find out who punched the driver's ticket? Was there a bounty on my head at the moment? And if so, how much?
Money. It makes the world go round.
Goering was part of a scheme that would cost money to the Hughes faction out in Vegas, but it would also hurt Bugsy in Tijuana. Except, if Bugsy figured the scheme, he would have no need to involve me, would he? Not unless he was looking for those deeds and sent me to find them. But if he needed me to find them, then he had to have nothing to do with the welcoming committee waiting for me on the edge of town. After all, why stop me looking into the big man's dealings if you needed me to find the paper trail and bring it all back in my mouth like a faithful hound?
It was getting dark and I needed a place to lay down and stay low. Mexico sounded good, but I would not make it. Not in my current physical state and not before it got really dark. San Diego might have been tempting, if not for me still holding on to those deeds and now only having fifty bucks. I found a motel off Sepulveda in the northern foot hills of the Valley and listened to a trucker next door go to town on a hyena. She was putting on a show and those bursts of staccato Spanish intersped with dirty English made for a perfect nighttime serenade as I chased dreams of gold and ran from nightmares of murders and poverty.
I woke at nine in the morning and reran the conversations I had with Bugsy and the big man's wife and realized neither of them asked me to find out who killed the big man. She assumed it was Bugsy. He did not give a shit. The latter made sense, regardless if Bugsy had something to do with it or not. The former made sense, after a fashion. Did she have nothing to do with the big man's killing, or was she knee deep and throwing me off the sent by naming Bugsy? Or was she even more devious than that and was naming Bugsy because she did work with Bugsy on it and wanted to name him to be able to misdirect. Dames. Everything is complicated with them.
I walked down the hallway in my pajamas and shoes to the payphone. According to the copy of today's "LA Times" on the floor, the German regime change inspired the limeys to give Halifax the heave-ho as well. He survived a vote of no confidence in Parliament, but only barely just, and resigned on the spot. The new boy's name stared with a "W." I caught a piece about him being a former Home Secretary, which I suppose meant something to someone. I fed two nickels and dialed a number that was glued to the phone in the Del Gado master bedroom. The princess picked up on the sixth ring.
Very interesting will be following.
I'm curious about what happened to Hitler ITTL..
I'm curious about what happened to Hitler ITTL..
Probably Winston but they might have been lucky and got Walter Elliott. Or Woolton or Kingsley Wood
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIII:
"Hello, you might not remember me..."
"Did you steal my locker key?"
"Borrowed."
"You're a bastard."
"Nah, I happen to know the son of a bitch my mother married and I was unfortunately his lawful kid. I'm a jerk, miss. Not a bastard."
"What do you want?"
"There was no money in the locker, miss."
"Liar."
"Honest injun."
"Is that supposed to be funny?"
"Maybe. But it happens to be the truth. No money at all. Just some papers."
"What kind of papers?"
"No stocks or bond or nothing like that. Land deeds."
"Oh. In whose name?"
"Companies owned by the big man."
"Darn. That means that bitch gets them, doesn't she?"
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Maybe you can negotiate it out with her?"
"Fat chance. She hates me on sight."
"She knew then?"
"She suspected. Hermie wasn't a very good liar."
The vision of the tiny blonde princess with her hair playing peekaboo as she cavorted with the big man and called him "Hermie" gave me the case of the giggles and I had to cough it off.
"'Suspected' though. Did not know?"
"She knew there was someone else. She did not know it was me."
"Did she know where you live? Town, I mean."
"He would sometimes tell her he was heading out to Palm Springs. We liked it out there."
"One last question..."
"My turn. Did you find his gold watch at least?"
"That I have."
"I want it."
"You can have it. Did he talk of Bugsy?"
"That is not a phone conversation, Dick."
The use of my real name jarred me. I never introduced myself to her even with my fake one. Then again, she could have just been calling me "dick" for the Hell of it. Gals had done that before. And since I was a private eye for tax reasons, she could have just shortened it from "private dick."
"You there?"
"I'm there, miss. One last question..."
"I thought the last question was the last question?"
"You got me all fuddled, miss. You have that effect on lot of men, I suspect."
I could hear her smile.
"Did you happen to know what those deeds are for, miss?"
"Not a phone conversation either, shamus."
That settled it. The "dick" was due to her thinking I was a private eye. I almost breathed a sigh of relief.
"Third last question?"
"I'll allow it."
"Billy Wilkerson?"
"What about him?"
"You know who he is then?"
"What gal trying to be an actress doesn't?"
"Ever met him?"
"It's a long story."
"I got time."
"I don't."
"What did the big man think of Billy?"
"This and that."
"You have a good day, miss."
"Wait. Let's meet."
"So you can stonewall me in person?"
"No, so I can say things I can't say on the phone."
"I gotta run errands today, miss. But I'll ring you up tomorrow, around the same time?"
She agreed. I hung up, fed two more nickels and called the big man's lawful wife.
"Where were you? I waited for you out in the...!"
"Apologies, ma'am. Had car trouble. May we meet tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow. Not sure as to the time yet. My mechanic says it's a bad one. Cracked radiator. I'll call you tomorrow at noon and see how we can play it."
"All right. What did you find?"
"Not a phone conversation, ma'am. But sit tight. I found everything."
I hung up and started calling Vegas hotels. The fifth hotel admitted to having a Billy Wilkerson booked for the week. I hung up, checked to confirm I still had some nickels left and dialed the Union Air. The airport called itself Lockheed now, but everyone I knew still called them Union. If you didn't have a private plane, the only way to fly to Vegas was by Western Air, seeing as how they owned the only airport out there. They did three flights a day out to there from Union. I booked a one way ticket for twelve bucks I should not have spent and drove out to Burbank. Billy and I needed to have a sit down.
Nobody asked me for my name at the counter, but I gave it anyway. Mr. Lee Jackson was a proud sort. While waiting for the plane to arrive I read up on the story from the "Times." The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Kingsley Wood stared back at me, looking more like a small town pharmacist than a warrior leader of an empire, but he talked of beating back the Bolshevik threat and to show his seriousness announced the creation of the Ministry for War and having a full Cabinet-level minister for it, as opposing to merely having a Secretary of State for War. Once again, this surely meant something to someone, if not me. The new minister Duff Cooper got a few words in as well, talking about taking the fight to the Bolsheviks. The editorial tongue in cheek commented that with a change of rulers in London and Berlin, maybe Rome will follow suit. Fat chance that. That bald headed unearned-uniform wearing midget would have to be dragged out by his heels from the seat of power.
I haven't flown since the '33. Not much improvement was to be had in the intervening six years. Every bit of turbulence still jarred my teeth and two businessmen puked out their guts. One was seated in front of me and one behind me. I was calmer than the bodies of Stalin's former friends. I had more than likely pissed off the world's richest man by getting his hired help killed, was involved with a scheme that thrill-killer Bugsy wanted a piece of, was a person of interest in a murder before said murder took place and had two crazed dames angry at me. Dying in a plane crash would have been just too plain a fate for me for the fickle Lady Luck, the biggest dame of 'em all.
We landed northeast of the town, more or less in one place, and only a dozen people covered in vomit. I went outside and got a teeth full of swirling sand. The cabbie offered me a girl, a boy and then was about to suggest barnyard animals when I said I was here to just gamble on account I can get laid on my own back home. He wasn't happy with my answer but took me to the Arizona Club saloon at almost not the slowest pace. I walked in and was instantly greeted with the smell of desperation, hope, sweat, fear and sex. It was the only two story casino in town and the second floor was reserved for ladies of the night turning tricks in the day. I got to the front desk, clinked two dollars together and got the location of Billy’s room. It was on the first floor. I evaded the lazy stares of three overripe chorus girls and the attentions of an underfed underage one and made my way to the room. A "Privacy" sign was on it, so I jimmied open the door and stepped inside.
"Hello, you might not remember me..."
"Did you steal my locker key?"
"Borrowed."
"You're a bastard."
"Nah, I happen to know the son of a bitch my mother married and I was unfortunately his lawful kid. I'm a jerk, miss. Not a bastard."
"What do you want?"
"There was no money in the locker, miss."
"Liar."
"Honest injun."
"Is that supposed to be funny?"
"Maybe. But it happens to be the truth. No money at all. Just some papers."
"What kind of papers?"
"No stocks or bond or nothing like that. Land deeds."
"Oh. In whose name?"
"Companies owned by the big man."
"Darn. That means that bitch gets them, doesn't she?"
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Maybe you can negotiate it out with her?"
"Fat chance. She hates me on sight."
"She knew then?"
"She suspected. Hermie wasn't a very good liar."
The vision of the tiny blonde princess with her hair playing peekaboo as she cavorted with the big man and called him "Hermie" gave me the case of the giggles and I had to cough it off.
"'Suspected' though. Did not know?"
"She knew there was someone else. She did not know it was me."
"Did she know where you live? Town, I mean."
"He would sometimes tell her he was heading out to Palm Springs. We liked it out there."
"One last question..."
"My turn. Did you find his gold watch at least?"
"That I have."
"I want it."
"You can have it. Did he talk of Bugsy?"
"That is not a phone conversation, Dick."
The use of my real name jarred me. I never introduced myself to her even with my fake one. Then again, she could have just been calling me "dick" for the Hell of it. Gals had done that before. And since I was a private eye for tax reasons, she could have just shortened it from "private dick."
"You there?"
"I'm there, miss. One last question..."
"I thought the last question was the last question?"
"You got me all fuddled, miss. You have that effect on lot of men, I suspect."
I could hear her smile.
"Did you happen to know what those deeds are for, miss?"
"Not a phone conversation either, shamus."
That settled it. The "dick" was due to her thinking I was a private eye. I almost breathed a sigh of relief.
"Third last question?"
"I'll allow it."
"Billy Wilkerson?"
"What about him?"
"You know who he is then?"
"What gal trying to be an actress doesn't?"
"Ever met him?"
"It's a long story."
"I got time."
"I don't."
"What did the big man think of Billy?"
"This and that."
"You have a good day, miss."
"Wait. Let's meet."
"So you can stonewall me in person?"
"No, so I can say things I can't say on the phone."
"I gotta run errands today, miss. But I'll ring you up tomorrow, around the same time?"
She agreed. I hung up, fed two more nickels and called the big man's lawful wife.
"Where were you? I waited for you out in the...!"
"Apologies, ma'am. Had car trouble. May we meet tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow. Not sure as to the time yet. My mechanic says it's a bad one. Cracked radiator. I'll call you tomorrow at noon and see how we can play it."
"All right. What did you find?"
"Not a phone conversation, ma'am. But sit tight. I found everything."
I hung up and started calling Vegas hotels. The fifth hotel admitted to having a Billy Wilkerson booked for the week. I hung up, checked to confirm I still had some nickels left and dialed the Union Air. The airport called itself Lockheed now, but everyone I knew still called them Union. If you didn't have a private plane, the only way to fly to Vegas was by Western Air, seeing as how they owned the only airport out there. They did three flights a day out to there from Union. I booked a one way ticket for twelve bucks I should not have spent and drove out to Burbank. Billy and I needed to have a sit down.
Nobody asked me for my name at the counter, but I gave it anyway. Mr. Lee Jackson was a proud sort. While waiting for the plane to arrive I read up on the story from the "Times." The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Kingsley Wood stared back at me, looking more like a small town pharmacist than a warrior leader of an empire, but he talked of beating back the Bolshevik threat and to show his seriousness announced the creation of the Ministry for War and having a full Cabinet-level minister for it, as opposing to merely having a Secretary of State for War. Once again, this surely meant something to someone, if not me. The new minister Duff Cooper got a few words in as well, talking about taking the fight to the Bolsheviks. The editorial tongue in cheek commented that with a change of rulers in London and Berlin, maybe Rome will follow suit. Fat chance that. That bald headed unearned-uniform wearing midget would have to be dragged out by his heels from the seat of power.
I haven't flown since the '33. Not much improvement was to be had in the intervening six years. Every bit of turbulence still jarred my teeth and two businessmen puked out their guts. One was seated in front of me and one behind me. I was calmer than the bodies of Stalin's former friends. I had more than likely pissed off the world's richest man by getting his hired help killed, was involved with a scheme that thrill-killer Bugsy wanted a piece of, was a person of interest in a murder before said murder took place and had two crazed dames angry at me. Dying in a plane crash would have been just too plain a fate for me for the fickle Lady Luck, the biggest dame of 'em all.
We landed northeast of the town, more or less in one place, and only a dozen people covered in vomit. I went outside and got a teeth full of swirling sand. The cabbie offered me a girl, a boy and then was about to suggest barnyard animals when I said I was here to just gamble on account I can get laid on my own back home. He wasn't happy with my answer but took me to the Arizona Club saloon at almost not the slowest pace. I walked in and was instantly greeted with the smell of desperation, hope, sweat, fear and sex. It was the only two story casino in town and the second floor was reserved for ladies of the night turning tricks in the day. I got to the front desk, clinked two dollars together and got the location of Billy’s room. It was on the first floor. I evaded the lazy stares of three overripe chorus girls and the attentions of an underfed underage one and made my way to the room. A "Privacy" sign was on it, so I jimmied open the door and stepped inside.
The author of the most appropriately titled autobiography in history - Old Men Forget.