Chapter I
Chapter I:
Saturday, September 23, 1939 started off with a bang for me. As the clock struck midnight, I was in LA, at Ciro's, seated between a pair of out of work actresses and a guy who could blow himself, watching "Big Willy" Goering do a stand-up routine. Big Willy was a true Renaissance man, and in addition to being a murderer, dope peddler, bagman and all around swell guy, he also tried his hand at open-mic nights at any nightclub that would have him. He was about as funny as an infant with cancer, but nobody had the guts to tell him that, so on he went and bombed harder than the Red Front in Berlin. Didn't matter how much he tried. Didn't matter how many top notch Hollywood comedy writers he'd get to write material for him. Didn't matter. He was awful. And normally, I wouldn't care about that, but I had business with Big Willy tonight, so I showed up with an audience to laugh at his bad jokes.
"How long is his set?" asked Joe, the self-blower.
I shrugged.
"I was just thinking…"
"Nix. Leave that to professionals."
I gave Joe a twist of Devil's dandruff to bide him over. He got up to go to the bathroom to use it, but I jerked him back down and told him he could do it here. The nightclub was dimly lit and half-empty. 'Sides, I knew the owner, Billy Wilkerson. Joe looked both ways as if crossing the street, untwisted the paper, dug out his car key and slipped on a bump of white powder unto the grooves with shaky fingers. He stuck a key in his left nostril and snorted. The girls watched him, fascinated. Then dug out their apartment keys and joined in. I merely sipped club soda. I wanted to my wits about me today.
Big Willy reached the climax of his act - his infamously awful Ribbentrop joke. Now, I know what you're thinking, how could anyone screw up a Ribbentrop joke? Your maiden aunt can do one. It's the easiest setup and punchline in the world. But Big Willy botched it, every time. Tonight was no exception.
Afterwards, while the fat bastard was wiping flop sweat from a special fuzzy towel brought to him by a no-neck goon, I made my grand introduction, my captive audience in tow: "Great stuff tonight!"
He actually blushed. "Did you think so?" Normally, Big Willy could spot bullshit from a mile away, except when you paid him a compliment about his comedy. There, he took any compliments he could.
"Oh yeah. Loved the Ribbentrop bit."
Big Willy's big smile threatened to break his face. But his No-Neck eyed me suspiciously, so I moved on: "This is Lana and this is Annie, and this here is Joe, he can suck himself off."
"What'd you say?"
"Joe here says he can blow himself."
Big Willy appraised Joe. As did the No-Neck.
Big Willy commandeered a change room. Joe got down to his skivvies and asked one of the girls to jumpstart him. Annie drew the short straw and got him going. After that, Joe sat down on a crate and did indeed play his own skin flute. Big Willy's eyes were glazed and he kept muttering "Degenerate," over and over again, but he kept watching. He patted himself down, produced a pillbox, popped a handful of greenies and washed them down with a flask handed to him by his no-neck.
"You… Annie, is it?" the big man commanded, "Help him with the money shot."
"The, uh, what?"
Big Willy swore under his breath in his native tongue. His eyes were hard as flint and he was sweating from all visible pores in his body. The back of his tux was glued to the back of his neck and his face was greener than Leprechaun vomit. Annie took three steps back when he glanced away from Joe and turned his attention on the hapless girl. I stepped up and whispered into her ear. She nodded.
Big Willy directed the scene. I forgot that part of his Renaissance. Sometimes he'd direct smut films.
Afterwards, he was back to his jovial self. Cracking jokes that were almost funny. He told No-Neck to get Joe involved with a studio and bought the girls ice cream at a joint two blocks up from the club. I watched him destroy three sundaes before I dared to open my mouth, but got cut off with a:
"We'll talk business at the villa, yes?"
I nodded, as if I was given a choice in the matter.
No-Neck brought a giant Caddy from around the corner and we were all in the process of piling inside when three hoods in identical trench coats stepped out of the shadows with Chicago typewriters and raked us left to right and then right to left, all proper.
I hit the pavement soon as I saw them coming. Big Willy would have, but he was half way in the door, with Lana on one side and Annie on the other. He threw Lana to the ground to climb out, but it was too late. They hit him in too many places to count. No-Neck got it too. Annie got her jaw blown off. And Joe wouldn't be blowing himself or anyone else ever again. Lana ate the pavement with her hip and stayed down, more stunned than hurt, but that didn't stop her from screaming her head off as I watched the hoods drop their guns and walk away.
Once I heard the squeals of their getaway car, I half sat and slapped Lana, almost gently. She blinked.
"Have you been shot," I asked in a voice that almost sounded like mine.
She patted herself down and was about to shake her head when she saw Annie and threw up.
I checked on the others, but they were all dead. Except the big man. He was merely dying.
His sausage fingers grabbed me by the lapel of my now blood and dirt smeared jacket and he whispered, "Moron…" and then shat himself and died. Or maybe he died and then he shat himself. All I know is that his bulky ass was pointed to my knee when he expired and the brown dripped onto my kneecap.
I grabbed his scarf and cleaned my knee and waited for the coppers. In the meantime, I helped myself to a couple of his rings and thumbed through his wallet. The Masonic pinkie ring I did not touch, everyone knew he always wore it and I wouldn't be able to resell that any more than his pretty Blue Max around his neck's fat rolls. Too distinct. But the three rings on his left hand looked generic enough and had real gemstones. His wallet looked suspiciously light, and I only took a sawbuck from it. Then patted him down and fished out a fat roll of twenties. This I kept.
The Sheriff's Deputies and the LAPD arrived at the same time on the scene and had a moment. Technically, LAPD had jurisdiction, but the Deputies belonged to Big Willy ever since Mickey Cohen stabbed himself in the stomach seven times while shaving. Some asshole from City Hall showed up with a jacket and pants thrown over his pajamas and told LAPD to investigate, but for Deputies to secure the scene. That didn't solve nothing and only made things worse. Meant two different sets of harness bulls were sweating me for information. I told them the truth. Well, not all of it, of course. I told them my name and that I had come to meet Big Willy to try to get a gig, but did not say which one.
"D'he say anything before he die?"
"Yeah, he cursed at his killers. Didn't mention them by name though."
"Uh-huh. Stick around, pal. Homicide will be here soon."
I'd have been more impressed if it was somebody from Vice. In most places, murder police is considered the elite of the elite, and most folk believe it, too. I don't, because I used to be in it, back down in Indio, a no account place southeast of Los Angeles. Murder police is boring as dog shit and just as easy to pick up. Most killings involve a sobbing drunk sitting ten feet away from their murder victim. The only creative murders happen in the novels. We'll talk about why I ain't police no more sometime later.
Well, actually we can talk about it now, while I waited for the Homicide detective to show up and look important in his flash suit and hand painted tie. Those assholes always wear hand painted ties in LA. About three years, back while I was still in Indio, I crawled into a bottle, and by the time I crawled out of it, I lost a wife to my former best friend, was demoted and had everyone hating me. So I turned in my shield, moved to the city of dreams and made a living shaking down Mex pimps and their taco bending hyenas until Mickey Cohen got me a gig watching poker rooms and bingo halls down in Tijuana. I didn't steal from him and he appreciated that. And he appreciated me, until the shaving accident.
Eventually a phaeton drove up and a flash dick showed himself. He quizzed me for ten minutes, while sizing me up for the hit. I sighed and told him how I used to be a copper down in Indio, in the Homicide Bureau. That got him eyeing me differently. Not out of any sympathy, just an understanding I knew his tricks and so he moved on to Lana, while hitting on her. I killed a Chesterfield while waiting for him to be finished. The shit stain on my kneecap was really bothering me and I wanted to take a shower.
I was also bothered by the big man's last word. "Moron" was not a Goering word. He cursed much more violently. So it meant something else. And it was starting to bug me as much as the shit stain.
"Can you drop me off?" asked Lana. I nodded and we drove off in my jalopy. The Homicide dick didn't even bother to ask us not to leave town. Not that we wanted to leave anyway.
Lana lived in The Valley, which is north of Los Angeles. I lived off Sunset, which is smack down in the middle of the city. But I didn't mind a drive over the mountains. And so we took the Sepulveda pass and its snaking route. I smoked. She talked, a lot. MGM was interested in her. Of course it was. She was a great dancer. Naturally. She could sing too. I did not doubt it. Then she started crying. I pulled over at the Mullholland drive intersection at a closed gas pump and let my four-banger engine cool off from climbing the biggest hill, and let her smear her mascara on my shit, dirt, puke and blood stained jacket.
As she warbled, I realized the big man didn't say "moron." Not exactly. Big Willy didn't have an accent. Not much of one at any rate. And yet he mispronounced the word. I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but the accent was on the wrong syllable and provided that the sudden evacuation of his sodden breeches unto my knee or the bullets in his body were not interrupting his natural speech patterns, he said it like it was the start of the word and not a word in it of itself. It wasn't "moron," it was moron-something or other.
Lana pulled back and said something I could not understand. I nodded and drove on. She lived off Topanga Canyon. Which meant I drove across the whole of the Valley from Sepulveda. It was almost pretty, in that living on the edge of something better feel to it. A bit like all those shit Jersey towns on the wrong side of the Hudson from New York. Not that I've ever been. But my sister lives out there.
Lana lived in a small apartment just off the noisiest street in the whole sleepy suburb. But it had a shower. She squeezed in there with me and we both got dirty and clean at the same time.
Saturday, September 23, 1939 started off with a bang for me. As the clock struck midnight, I was in LA, at Ciro's, seated between a pair of out of work actresses and a guy who could blow himself, watching "Big Willy" Goering do a stand-up routine. Big Willy was a true Renaissance man, and in addition to being a murderer, dope peddler, bagman and all around swell guy, he also tried his hand at open-mic nights at any nightclub that would have him. He was about as funny as an infant with cancer, but nobody had the guts to tell him that, so on he went and bombed harder than the Red Front in Berlin. Didn't matter how much he tried. Didn't matter how many top notch Hollywood comedy writers he'd get to write material for him. Didn't matter. He was awful. And normally, I wouldn't care about that, but I had business with Big Willy tonight, so I showed up with an audience to laugh at his bad jokes.
"How long is his set?" asked Joe, the self-blower.
I shrugged.
"I was just thinking…"
"Nix. Leave that to professionals."
I gave Joe a twist of Devil's dandruff to bide him over. He got up to go to the bathroom to use it, but I jerked him back down and told him he could do it here. The nightclub was dimly lit and half-empty. 'Sides, I knew the owner, Billy Wilkerson. Joe looked both ways as if crossing the street, untwisted the paper, dug out his car key and slipped on a bump of white powder unto the grooves with shaky fingers. He stuck a key in his left nostril and snorted. The girls watched him, fascinated. Then dug out their apartment keys and joined in. I merely sipped club soda. I wanted to my wits about me today.
Big Willy reached the climax of his act - his infamously awful Ribbentrop joke. Now, I know what you're thinking, how could anyone screw up a Ribbentrop joke? Your maiden aunt can do one. It's the easiest setup and punchline in the world. But Big Willy botched it, every time. Tonight was no exception.
Afterwards, while the fat bastard was wiping flop sweat from a special fuzzy towel brought to him by a no-neck goon, I made my grand introduction, my captive audience in tow: "Great stuff tonight!"
He actually blushed. "Did you think so?" Normally, Big Willy could spot bullshit from a mile away, except when you paid him a compliment about his comedy. There, he took any compliments he could.
"Oh yeah. Loved the Ribbentrop bit."
Big Willy's big smile threatened to break his face. But his No-Neck eyed me suspiciously, so I moved on: "This is Lana and this is Annie, and this here is Joe, he can suck himself off."
"What'd you say?"
"Joe here says he can blow himself."
Big Willy appraised Joe. As did the No-Neck.
Big Willy commandeered a change room. Joe got down to his skivvies and asked one of the girls to jumpstart him. Annie drew the short straw and got him going. After that, Joe sat down on a crate and did indeed play his own skin flute. Big Willy's eyes were glazed and he kept muttering "Degenerate," over and over again, but he kept watching. He patted himself down, produced a pillbox, popped a handful of greenies and washed them down with a flask handed to him by his no-neck.
"You… Annie, is it?" the big man commanded, "Help him with the money shot."
"The, uh, what?"
Big Willy swore under his breath in his native tongue. His eyes were hard as flint and he was sweating from all visible pores in his body. The back of his tux was glued to the back of his neck and his face was greener than Leprechaun vomit. Annie took three steps back when he glanced away from Joe and turned his attention on the hapless girl. I stepped up and whispered into her ear. She nodded.
Big Willy directed the scene. I forgot that part of his Renaissance. Sometimes he'd direct smut films.
Afterwards, he was back to his jovial self. Cracking jokes that were almost funny. He told No-Neck to get Joe involved with a studio and bought the girls ice cream at a joint two blocks up from the club. I watched him destroy three sundaes before I dared to open my mouth, but got cut off with a:
"We'll talk business at the villa, yes?"
I nodded, as if I was given a choice in the matter.
No-Neck brought a giant Caddy from around the corner and we were all in the process of piling inside when three hoods in identical trench coats stepped out of the shadows with Chicago typewriters and raked us left to right and then right to left, all proper.
I hit the pavement soon as I saw them coming. Big Willy would have, but he was half way in the door, with Lana on one side and Annie on the other. He threw Lana to the ground to climb out, but it was too late. They hit him in too many places to count. No-Neck got it too. Annie got her jaw blown off. And Joe wouldn't be blowing himself or anyone else ever again. Lana ate the pavement with her hip and stayed down, more stunned than hurt, but that didn't stop her from screaming her head off as I watched the hoods drop their guns and walk away.
Once I heard the squeals of their getaway car, I half sat and slapped Lana, almost gently. She blinked.
"Have you been shot," I asked in a voice that almost sounded like mine.
She patted herself down and was about to shake her head when she saw Annie and threw up.
I checked on the others, but they were all dead. Except the big man. He was merely dying.
His sausage fingers grabbed me by the lapel of my now blood and dirt smeared jacket and he whispered, "Moron…" and then shat himself and died. Or maybe he died and then he shat himself. All I know is that his bulky ass was pointed to my knee when he expired and the brown dripped onto my kneecap.
I grabbed his scarf and cleaned my knee and waited for the coppers. In the meantime, I helped myself to a couple of his rings and thumbed through his wallet. The Masonic pinkie ring I did not touch, everyone knew he always wore it and I wouldn't be able to resell that any more than his pretty Blue Max around his neck's fat rolls. Too distinct. But the three rings on his left hand looked generic enough and had real gemstones. His wallet looked suspiciously light, and I only took a sawbuck from it. Then patted him down and fished out a fat roll of twenties. This I kept.
The Sheriff's Deputies and the LAPD arrived at the same time on the scene and had a moment. Technically, LAPD had jurisdiction, but the Deputies belonged to Big Willy ever since Mickey Cohen stabbed himself in the stomach seven times while shaving. Some asshole from City Hall showed up with a jacket and pants thrown over his pajamas and told LAPD to investigate, but for Deputies to secure the scene. That didn't solve nothing and only made things worse. Meant two different sets of harness bulls were sweating me for information. I told them the truth. Well, not all of it, of course. I told them my name and that I had come to meet Big Willy to try to get a gig, but did not say which one.
"D'he say anything before he die?"
"Yeah, he cursed at his killers. Didn't mention them by name though."
"Uh-huh. Stick around, pal. Homicide will be here soon."
I'd have been more impressed if it was somebody from Vice. In most places, murder police is considered the elite of the elite, and most folk believe it, too. I don't, because I used to be in it, back down in Indio, a no account place southeast of Los Angeles. Murder police is boring as dog shit and just as easy to pick up. Most killings involve a sobbing drunk sitting ten feet away from their murder victim. The only creative murders happen in the novels. We'll talk about why I ain't police no more sometime later.
Well, actually we can talk about it now, while I waited for the Homicide detective to show up and look important in his flash suit and hand painted tie. Those assholes always wear hand painted ties in LA. About three years, back while I was still in Indio, I crawled into a bottle, and by the time I crawled out of it, I lost a wife to my former best friend, was demoted and had everyone hating me. So I turned in my shield, moved to the city of dreams and made a living shaking down Mex pimps and their taco bending hyenas until Mickey Cohen got me a gig watching poker rooms and bingo halls down in Tijuana. I didn't steal from him and he appreciated that. And he appreciated me, until the shaving accident.
Eventually a phaeton drove up and a flash dick showed himself. He quizzed me for ten minutes, while sizing me up for the hit. I sighed and told him how I used to be a copper down in Indio, in the Homicide Bureau. That got him eyeing me differently. Not out of any sympathy, just an understanding I knew his tricks and so he moved on to Lana, while hitting on her. I killed a Chesterfield while waiting for him to be finished. The shit stain on my kneecap was really bothering me and I wanted to take a shower.
I was also bothered by the big man's last word. "Moron" was not a Goering word. He cursed much more violently. So it meant something else. And it was starting to bug me as much as the shit stain.
"Can you drop me off?" asked Lana. I nodded and we drove off in my jalopy. The Homicide dick didn't even bother to ask us not to leave town. Not that we wanted to leave anyway.
Lana lived in The Valley, which is north of Los Angeles. I lived off Sunset, which is smack down in the middle of the city. But I didn't mind a drive over the mountains. And so we took the Sepulveda pass and its snaking route. I smoked. She talked, a lot. MGM was interested in her. Of course it was. She was a great dancer. Naturally. She could sing too. I did not doubt it. Then she started crying. I pulled over at the Mullholland drive intersection at a closed gas pump and let my four-banger engine cool off from climbing the biggest hill, and let her smear her mascara on my shit, dirt, puke and blood stained jacket.
As she warbled, I realized the big man didn't say "moron." Not exactly. Big Willy didn't have an accent. Not much of one at any rate. And yet he mispronounced the word. I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but the accent was on the wrong syllable and provided that the sudden evacuation of his sodden breeches unto my knee or the bullets in his body were not interrupting his natural speech patterns, he said it like it was the start of the word and not a word in it of itself. It wasn't "moron," it was moron-something or other.
Lana pulled back and said something I could not understand. I nodded and drove on. She lived off Topanga Canyon. Which meant I drove across the whole of the Valley from Sepulveda. It was almost pretty, in that living on the edge of something better feel to it. A bit like all those shit Jersey towns on the wrong side of the Hudson from New York. Not that I've ever been. But my sister lives out there.
Lana lived in a small apartment just off the noisiest street in the whole sleepy suburb. But it had a shower. She squeezed in there with me and we both got dirty and clean at the same time.
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. My only real question: 