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:
- 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.
When I turned off the water, I understood that list was self-contradictory and pared it down:
- Try not to get killed
- Get deeds from the bank
- Avoid Bugsy
- Avoid the LASD
- Call Liddy and offer the deeds
I liked Billy, really I did, but this whole thing was his mess and he could have been more helpful to me when I called upon him. Once I got done toweling off and was staring at my old slimy clothes, I amended the plan for a third time:
- 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
Try as I could, I could not part with the vision I had out in the last past Solvang. The idea of turning over that vision to the big man's dancer wife made my stomach turn. Let them have the lands south of Los Angeles. But they could not be allowed to sully what I saw out North.
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.