The Goering Slaying - A Hollywood Land Adventure

[Greg Grant]

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.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter II:

I woke at dawn and took the Topanga down to the Pacific Coast Highway. It was a mistake. The traffic on the narrow Topanga highway snarled and some truck broke down in the middle of it. I bought some nuts and berries for breakfast at a local stall near a picturesque view and waited for the traffic to clear.

Out of sheer boredom, I read the papers. The Soviets were steamrolling through Poland but Lord Halifax, Musso-macaroni, von Papen and the President of Poland and its bald headed general Prime Minister were confident they could be stopped at Warsaw and thrown back into the Urals. Noticeably absent from this chorus line was whoever was in charge of France these days. Seemed the frogs wanted to sit out this war and make a deal with Uncle Joe in Moscow. Appeasement might have died in England when Chamberlain got put into the ground and the Baltics were swallowed up by the Soviets, but it was alive and well in Paris. Then again, I don't recall reading about any British or Italian troops in Poland either. Maybe the French were just being more honest. As always, the German ambassador to the United States von Ribbentrop remained optimistic and assured all that Germany would win the war and this was but a minor setback. Ribbentrop was the type of guy who would described being cornholed as being closely tailgated.

The traffic cleared before I could read the hot stove editorials condemning President Roosevelt for remaining silent on the issue of the war in Europe. I chucked the paper in the bin, got in my car and made my way down to my place, where I got a change of clothes and ambled up to my office.

I was officially licensed as a private investigator, because that allowed me to list my cash gigs as legitimate work from nonexistent clients to avoid cheating on taxes. Shaking down pimps, collecting debts and watching illegal Mexican poker rooms the American people can understand, but nobody likes a tax cheat and the Federal government will convict you for it. Just ask Capone. Speaking of cash, I counted up the big man's roll when I was changing clothes. I had two and a half grand. Enough to last me a year, provided I didn't crawl into a bottle or get high on my own product of poker.

The bell jangled and a profoundly unpleasant short little ugly creep oozed into my office. He wore a light brown suit and white gloves and smelled vaguely of lilac. He had a face made for radio. There was a small secret society pin on his jacket lapel. He seemed to have a limp and his smile was crippled.

"Mister Smythe, is it?" he said too carefully, trying to hide his ever slight German accent.

I nodded. I changed my name when I moved up to Los Angeles from Elsinore. No sense in bringing my past life baggage into this one. A lesson I learned at Elsinore when I moved down there from Indio.

"My name is Voormann. Michael Voormann. I'm a writer."

He said that like it should have meant something to me. I might have given a shrug, or I might not have.

"Mr. Goering and I were... associates."

"My condolences, Mr. Voormann."

"Thank you. You were there. Who do you think did the foul deed?"

"It was dark, Mr. Voormann. I didn't see much and when I did, was too busy ducking."

"I see. Tell me, did he say anything to you last night before he expired?"

"Just cussed out his killers, called them bastards, or something like it."

"I see. Did he happen to mention Indio?"

My butt hairs twinged, but I shook my head and studied the sawed off runt.

"Pity. Well then, good day to you, Mr. Smythe." And he oozed out.


I went to my bookshelf and looked for a map of Los Angeles. It was too specific and listed just Los Angeles and not the surrounding areas. There was a library two blocks down from me. I took the walk. Leafing through the map of Indio brought back memories and all of them unpleasant. But nothing on it started with "Moron" or even "Mor." For giggles I consulted the index and found nothing. I then walked back to my office and found a stunner in a black dress cooling her heels in the dingy hallway outside.

It took me a moment to realize it was Liddy, the big man's lawful wife. Though her pals called her Lida. Big Willy found her on his brother's set and got lost in her wild eyes and thighs. I couldn't blame him.

"I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am."

"Thank you. If you return the three rings you took off his body, I won't ask about the cash."

I blinked, nodded and gave up the three rings I pilfered. Her voice retained traces of her guttural Czech and when she spoke quick and glib, it had a way of cutting to the bone.

"Let's talk in your office, Dick."

I flinched. No one called me by my real birth name since Indio days. My head turned and my eyes must have shown more than I wanted on account she took a step back. She went too far and knew it, and gave a smile full of apology and no mocking. I decided not to let her walk into the door nose first and stepped inside my office and flung it open. She walked in, with a lot more caution than when she first flashed her secret knowledge.

"Sorry. My nerves are... I'm sorry, Mr. Smythe. But you have to understand, I'm an actress in a town full of 'em. And my meal ticket is gone."

I nodded. She sounded sorry, and sincere. Christ, I'm a sucker for redheads. Didn't matter that she was as much a natural red as I was an Eskimo, she wore the dye well, real well.

"Did anyone come to see you yet, about my late husband, I mean?"

"Some runt named Voormann."

She sucked air through her teeth. Like everything about her, her teeth were perfect.

"Well, I suppose you being male, he didn't try to get under your skirt."

"You suppose right, ma'am."

She dug out a cigarette and I lit her up. Up close that mane of hair made me want to grab it. And I already got laid not eight hours before. I could only imagine what she'd make me do if I wasn't sated.

"My late husband was trying to close a rather important business deal, Mr. Smythe. Very important. Did he happen to mention something about it to you?"

"No, ma'am."

"Did he say anything about, uh, Indio?"

"No, ma'am."

"What about Palm Springs?"

I shook my head. Palm Springs was a town just west of Indio, closer to Los Angeles.

She searched for an inspiration. I tried not to look at her chest, but that only made me look at her hair.

"Did he say anything to you before he died? Anything at all?"

"Just cursed out his killers, ma'am."

"Yes, I suppose Willy would do that. He was... Well, with men he was hard."

I might have nodded at that, or not. She suddenly stood and I became aware of her butt. Like I said, everything about her was perfect.

"I'd like you to hire you, Mr. Smythe."

"Hire me? For what?"

"Well, obviously not to find my husband's killers. We all know it was Bugsy Siegel."

She might have known, but I sure didn't. Bugsy was buggy, but he was a man who appreciated earners, being one himself. Sure he loved his former business partner Mickey Cohen, and I'm sure he could have avenged the shaving accident, but Goering brought money to the fellas whose last names in vowels and you don't kill an earner for the East Coast outfit unless you're prepared to take his place an earn even more to make them forget the other bastard even existed. Bugsy wasn't prepared for that. Well, at least in my view. The merry widow continued:

"I want you to look into his business dealings in Indio. I will give you an address and a list of his associates there and those here in town, who might worked with him on it. My late husband was quite excited by the prospect of something out there. Said it was… He was quite excited. I want to know what he planned. And since I squat when I pee, none of those tough guys will tell me anything, not unless I suck them off first and I won't be doing those type of favors any time soon, Mr. Smythe."

I know I blinked at that little speech and don't recall shrugging.

"We can call what you stole off my husband's corpse as the first payment. I will give you another thousand in a week if you take the trouble to drive out to Indio and talk to a dozen people. Three thousand if you bring me... whatever he was working out there. I will bring you a list tomorrow."

And she left without giving me a change to agree or disagree. Redheads. Jesus.


Bugsy Siegel was waiting for me outside my apartment. He had a great tan, a better suit and six no-necks. He crooked his finger when he saw me and I walked over, hands away from my pockets. Bugsy didn't like people who made them nervous. Trouble was, everyone made him nervous.

"Mickey Cohen liked you."

I smiled and nodded.

"You want to run some poker rooms out in TJ?"

I smiled and nodded.

"That fat piece of shit was doing something out in Indio. I want to know what he was planning. Go out there and find out for me. I'd do it myself, but my prick is clipped and they know it out there and they don't much like it. I'm guessing that midget Voormann and the fat bastard's wife already dropped a bug in your ear about it, so no one will ask too many questions about why you're there. Bring me what the fat bastard was planning out in Indio and I'll take care of you. Farshtay?"

"Ikh farshtay," I said, despite being born a Quaker. Mickey taught me some Yiddish.

Bugsy nodded back and was chauffeured away. An identical car peeled away after him, with two no-necks inside, seated in the exact same positions as him and his driver in the first car. Then two more cars drove off, each with a no-neck apiece. One took up the lead of the convoy, the other brought up the rear. Bugsy was careful ever since the old mafia don of Los Angeles Jack Dragna accidentally drowned in a pool out in Santa Barbara. After Mickey's shaving accident, he got even more careful. As I watched the four cars drive off, it occurred to me that with the big man gone, the bosses back East would want another earner in his spot, and with no other name popping into my head, they would have to turn to Bugsy. Maybe Bugsy did bump Big Willy off after all, huh?

As I was wool gathering, a Packard drove up. It was the cleanest car I'd ever seen in my life. The man who sat behind its wheel was dressed in a black three piece suit, despite September being the hottest month of the year in Los Angeles, and had gold wire blue tinted glasses. His gloves were black leather. His face showed barely a hint of humanity.

"Mr. Smythe?"

I nodded.

"Mr. Hughes would like to speak with you."

"Mr. Hughes?"

"Mr. Howard Hughes."

I had me a day and a night to kill before the merry widow brought me the list of names, and going for a joy ride to meet the strangest man in the strangest town on Earth seemed like a good idea, at the time. I got in and Blue Glasses drove us off.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter III:

Blue Glasses drove me down Pacific Coast Highway, then turned inland at a road with no name. We snaked our way up what the East Coasters would call a mountain, but we good California natives would only designate a hill. There was a bungalow up there with a garage and an aircraft hangar. Blue Glasses dropped me off in front of the hangar.

"Mr. Hughes is waiting for you inside."

"Don't you wanna introduce me?"

"He saw us drive up."

I did not ask how, because I was better off sleeping at night not knowing and took a minute to find a door. It was set at an odd angle where I least expected it. I opened inside and was struck dumb and deaf by the sight of the biggest pair of breasts I had ever seen. They filled a third of the wall of the hangar. Gradually I realized they were attached to a woman in a white blouse. She was a brunette judging by the thick canopy on her head and was reposing on what appeared to be straw. In her hand was a cowboy six shooter. It was a projected image. The projector was on my left. On my right stood a nervous little man with a strange mustache in pajamas. Instead of shoes he wore tissue boxes. He had a respirator slung over a shoulder, but the mask was around his chin and not his mouth. He was gazing up at the image, sadly.

"She did not wear it."

"Mr. Hughes?"

"My bra. I created it just for her, you know. But she did not wear it. I can see that now. How sad."

So far Hughes was living up to his billing.

"You asked to see me, Mr. Hughes?"

"Goering. He was a good man. A fine pilot. A great stuntman. His brother is a good director. Follows my directions. Find his killers. I'll reward you."

I said the biggest amount of money I could think of: "$25,000?"

"Yes, yes. Fine. Finds his killers. She should have worn the bra."

I gave a courtier's bow and departed. Blue Glasses took me back to my house. Howard Hughes might have been the only human being on the planet who would describe Goering as a good man in 1939. That the fat bastard was a fine pilot I will not doubt. His stunt work was pretty good, especially when he flew in his brother's flicks, until the big man crashed one time too many and got addicted to greenies and most of Hollywood saw him for what he was - a drug addled monster. But Hughes stuck with him even after that, and got him a job busting unions, skulls and strikes. And that's when the big man became a bigger legend. Prior to Goering, strike breakers weren't what you'd call organized. After all, they were created to break up organized labor. Goering made them into an army. Drilled them. Marched them. Plenty of the ole' skull breakers weren't much enthused for that sort of thing and quit. After all, those Okies and cowboys didn't come to Hollywood to do real work, they came out to be in the pictures, figuring them owning a pair of boots and knowing a lasso trick would make them into movie stars. Once that failed, they fell into all kinds of jobs. Knee cap breaking being the easiest. And here came a kraut with funny ideas about getting organized and not making it so easy any more. So some of them fell out with him, but plenty of real bastards stuck it out and saw results. And that's how Goering became the toast of the town. If you had a union in your plant or in your back lot, one phone call got a truck full of sturdy young thugs in your loading dock or studio and you didn't have a union no more.

Now the worst part, I almost joined his goon squad to make an easy buck, and only didn't on account Mickey Cohen got me a gig. This whole thing was starting to reek of bad old memories, and now I was going to go to Indio, to face the worst of the lot. And I couldn't even get drunk properly to chase away the old demons on account if I drank tonight, I'd be gone for a week, or I'd be dead. Whiskey and I aren't friends no more. Never been friends actually. More like allies.

Left alone on the curb outside my house with a pocket full of bad memories and a storm cloud promising more of the same, I went to a movie theater to let the moving images wash over me and try to push out the bad things running through my skull. The picture was awful though and did not do its job. But a funny thing about it, the co-writer on it was one Michael Voormann, the director was Al Goering and an associate producer of it was my old sometime pal, the owner of Ciro's, Billy Wilkerson. Billy also owned a couple more clubs and a local paper. He is a Southern gentleman and the most degenerate gambler I ever met. He once even bet that Bela Lugosi's career would recover. Then again, he almost won that bet, even though he cheated by being the one to call in a favor and get that washed out Hungarian junkie an important straight bit in "The Wizard of Oz." Sadly for him, Bela was Bela, and within a year he was playing sadistic Soviet commissars in poverty row pictures.

I went back to my place and rang up Billy.

"Jesus, guys, how long is it going to take?"

"Billy, it's me."

"Oh, thought it was the taxi. Waiting on those bastards to take me to the airport."

"Going out to Vegas again?"

"What else can a good man do in Los Angeles on a Monday night?"

"Right. Won't stop you. What do you know about Michael Voormann?"

"What, he put a hand up your skirt?"

"No, but I got a client that is saying he's worth a shakedown."

"Is she female?"

"I got priest-penitent privilege over here, Billy."

"Uh-huh. Your gal is leading you to monastery. Voormann is connected to his Honner."

That was not good. Frank Shaw has been Lord Mayor Emperor Pope of Los Angeles for now close to a decade, and was so utterly corrupt, Chicago and New Orleans papers would mock us for it.

"Uh, how?"

"Voormann wrote that Northridge speech for him."

"Uh-huh."

"Christ, you have no idea what I'm talking about you, do you?"

"Nope."

"Reading is good for you. You should try it. His Honner made a speech at Northridge, up in the Valley, six months ago, proposing the use of forced labor work camps to attempt rehabilitate persistent political enemies of good law and order."

"Ain't that a peach? Does he do more than write speeches?"

"Plenty, per the starlets."

"I meant, does he collect debts and send out warnings?"

"Not that I heard. But he's an oily tick, so who knows. Stay away from him, pal. And don't go trying no cowboy stuff. Hey, I'm hearing a car outside. That must be the taxi. We'll talk in a week!"

Billy hung up before I could thank him for the warning. The last guy to make life difficult for his Honner got himself blown up in his garage. The papers called it a tragic accident.

Lana called just then, wanting to talk. I let her talk herself out, while I looked up the maps. Somewhere in my closet lay a brochure from a do-gooder organization into which a girl I was throwing a hump into on a regular basis two years past belonged. The do-gooders proposed the creation of "free-ways" to make life easier for the people of Los Angeles. Like all things that involve LA City Hall and public money, it all came to grief. Federal Highway 99 would get me from Los Angeles to Riverside, and the good part was that it was almost half gravel and had four lanes in a quarter of the places. Then I'd make do with the old Federal 60 all the way to Indio. Seems simple enough, until you get out there.

Now, highways might not seem like a big deal to you folks who are not lucky enough to have been born in California, but you have to understand the scope of our beautiful state. You can fit all of England and Scotland between Los Angeles and Oregon. Highways are a matter of life and death here.

I suddenly realized Lana stopped talking and said, "And what does your agent think?" And that got me an earful of bullshit for another fifteen minutes as I outlined my plan for tomorrow's travels.

Indio. Shit.

I contemplated driving up to the Valley to spend another night with Lana, but did not want to her think I needed her as badly as I did. About four hours after she rang me up, I called it quits, bid goodbye and turned to sleep.

I woke to the radio telling me the Soviet tanks entered Warsaw. As omens go, that was not a good one. Then my phone rang. It was the big man's old lady.

"I will be in your office in fifteen minutes, Mr. Smythe."

The line went dead.

I decided to make her wait and ambled up to my office in half an hour.

There was no one in the hallway.

When I opened my office door I saw an envelope on the floor. I picked it up and saw a woman's writing. Inside were ten names and addresses. The addresses were familiar to me. I was from Indio, after all. Of the names, I recognized only two and both were well known rancid assholes even before I crawled into a bottle. With a heavy heart, I got into my car for a long ride to nowhere.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter IV:

Halfway to Indio, when the DJs started playing the same damn songs I heard already on every station, a little voice whispered to me to head south, to Tijuana and change my name again. After all, I had two and a half large in my pocket. I figured it'd last until I learn Spanish well enough to pump gas and think of nothing but the tips from customers, women and football. Then I realized they don't play my kind of football south of the border and besides, I'm the curious type. I wanted to learn the meaning of "moron" even if it meant I was being one. So I ignored the voice and tried the stations at the far end of the nob. It was like getting bathed in shit.

That the Soviet threat was making folk nervous I already knew. That the Soviet threat was making folk look at their neighbors funny was no great surprise to me either. But that the Soviet threat made every spewer of hatred and propagator of horseshit conspiracy theories suddenly almost respectable I did not cotton unto, even with the good people of New Jersey electing a Jew-baiting drunken former comedian Frank Fay into Congress. That was Jersey. This was California. Only you wouldn't know from AM. If it wasn't for the accents, I'd swear I was listening to a feed from Georgia Klan rallies. The world might have been going to Hell, and the country was getting weird, but somehow I'd hope the almost paradise of California would be quarantined from the sickness of it all. It wasn't. Times like these, it was hard to remember that while I had quit drinking I still stayed an alcoholic.

I was ways to go to Palm Springs, never mind Indio, when I saw it. If it hadn't been for the accident, I probably would not have, but on the outskirts of a horseshit town of Cabazon, way in the middle of nowhere, some idiot tried to make a hard right off the highway unto a street that had the temerity to call itself Broadway. Trouble was, the idiot banked too hard and went ass over tea kettle into the ditch, delighting the squaws with the stupidity of the pale faces. I was cursing the idiot and the squaws when I saw a corrugated metal sign: "Morongo Indian Reservation."

Morongo. Moron. Now, Cabazon ain't Indio. But the big man's lawful wife did say Palm Springs, and that ain't Indio either. And it was west of it. Cabazon was west of Palm Springs. It was worth a shot, though the overturned truck meant I couldn't make the Broadway exit. I scanned the highway for a sign of a next exit, but there wasn't one, so I turned around on the highway and went the other way, twenty other assholes around me getting the same idea for different reasons. I got off on Paradise road and drove through Cabazon towards the Reservation.

For those of you who haven't been to a Reservation, don't. Not unless you have a hankering for soul crushing poverty, hostile glares and rampant alcoholism. And I'm allowed to say that by the way, on account I'm one-sixteenth Cherokee princess on my grandmother's imaginary side. Cabazon was what I pictured it to be, until my wheels found solid asphalt road with nary a crack in it. The road lead to the Reservation and widened to account for four lanes, with a Mex crew assigned to the widening taking a siesta by the side of their unfinished work. The foreman was white, drunk and looked familiar. I pulled over to the side, getting some stares. As I ambled up to the crew I suddenly realized they weren't Mex, or at least not fully, here and there some red showed, and I don't mean they were Commies. The foreman turned his unshaven mug in my direction and I gave a smile.

Lothar the Terrible was my favorite heel in the pro-wrestling mat game, a vicious brute of a Hun stalking the squared circles of Southern California who would beat up on the good looking nice guys until felled by the best looking and the purest of heart. That was back when I was a kid, and Lothar did not go blind in one eye from wrestling on unwashed mats in shit gyms and his left arm did not have boils on it from too many bounces off too many dirty ropes and his ears did not resemble stricken beehives from getting ground into by hairy forearms of sweaty mopes doing their hardest to make people think wrestling wasn't fixed by making it too real. But even in his much reduced form, the barely-human pachyderm was impressive. Big Willy got him a job shaking down the hardest to reach pimps in the darkest part of town. Rumor has it the bad man once took a knife in the ribs from a particularly offended whoremonger and merely laughed and beat the shit out of the guy, one handed.

"Hey, Lothar. Remember me?"

Lothar gave a wary nod. He didn't, but didn't want to offend me. So I got closer so he could look at me with his one good eye which wasn't that good but still better than the other one. Lothar smiled.

"What are you doing here, bad man?"

"Watching them build a road. What about you?"

"Was taking a drive to Indio to deal with some old family ghosts. There was an accident on the highway, so I pulled over to get me some ribs and wait out the traffic. Any good joints in town?"

Lothar almost drooled and actually smacked his lips. Superman might have been invulnerable, but the rest of us have at least one weakness.

"There is a place over there."

"Wanna tell your crew to take a siesta and get a rack? I'm paying, since I got lucky at poker last week."

Lothar opened his mouth to say, "No," but his head was already nodding.


"Don't mind telling you, bad man, that seeing asphalt in this horseshit town was a surprise."

"Yeah, don't make much sense to me either, but The Leader wants it, so he gets it."

I shrugged. It didn't pay too be too nosey and press too hard with the bad man. And given how he referred to the big man as if he was still living, no one broke the news to him. Guessing the local papers don't cover LA gangland murders.

Three racks later, the bad man got three longnecks. I tried not to stare at the suds.

"I don't got nothing against them, you understand, but still, doing work for them, it grates on me."

"But you running the crew, ain't you, bad man?"

"Yeah, but the road we doing, it runs right to the house of this chief and his race traitor squaw. The Leader said I was to make sure we build it right to his driveway. And, uh, his car is... He has a new car."

I made significant sniffing motions.

Lothar shook his big head.

"No money in that out here. No money in anything out here. Don't understand it."

I stayed quiet and let the bad man pontificate on the matter:

"I even thought, ya know, there was gold in them that there hills. But there ain't. Just squaws living in shacks with seven brats by seven different fathers. And injuns pissing in buckets. No indoor plumbing."

The last phrase was the harshest criticism Lothar could levy against anyone. Can't blame him. Had I gone blind in one eye from unsanitary working conditions, I'd get real serious about public hygiene too.

"The Leader has his reasons," I said, using the unnatural appellation the big man liked to use when being addressed by his union busters.

Lothar nodded his head, grimly.

"Bad man, I got some bad news for you, I'm afraid."

"Warsaw fell to the Judeo-Bolshevik hordes?"

"Uh, yeah, but there's worse news."

"What can be worse than the rape of Europa?"

"The Leader is dead."

"What?"

"Got shot. Two nights ago."

That set off such furious swearing that the locals and passing truck drivers made sure to avoid eye contact with our booth and waitresses huddled in the galley, seeking safety in numbers.

"It was that Juden bug Bugsy Siegel!"

"Maybe. The Leader was envied by many."

Then Lothar broke down in tears and I was embarrassed. If he was a woman, I'd have hugged him. Since he was a man, I just looked the other way and concentrated on the shitty coffee. When I judged him to be at his lowest I hit him with a barrage a quick questions that he answered intersped with wailing and self-pity. I'll spare you the dialogue and get to the nut of it:

The big man told Lothar to come out here two months ago and they've beautifying the town and making life easier for a Mex who somehow got named one of the chiefs of the tribe and his squaw. They spent a lot of money, all of it cash, and Lothar was told to use locals. The only man from the big man's crew who would come out here to check on progress was the big man himself. It was an off the books affair.

Soon the bad man became insensible and I left him to his grief and ordered him a whiskey. I drank vicariously through him and watched and listened him rail against enemies of the Anglo-Saxon race. Then helped him back to the construction work and sat him back in his Okiefied barcalounger made of a stolen office chair and three rotting milk crates and let him drift off into unsweet dreams. The Mex-red crew was much amused by this, but I gave them an evil look to silence the most pungent bits of Spanish.

I was on the verge of doing more when a cherry red Ford DeLuxe Convertible prowled up with a blonde princess at the wheel. The crew damn near stood their pricks at attention, but the princess elected not to pay attention to their hungry lust filled eyes or bulging sack pants and drove up to the biggest house I could see among the rambling shacks. She parked the car in gravel, badly, and stumbled out, a tiny slip of a barely out of her teens girl, made all the more fragile by the booze percolating in her system and her vision obscured by baby fine blonde hair that hid her right eye.

"Who is that?" I found myself asking out loud.

"The chief's woman," said one of the laborers.

The blonde princess had by this point decided to sit back down in the car, but had forgotten that she already closed the car door and plopped unto the gravel. I gallantly raced to the lady's aid.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter V:

I reached the seated blonde princess just as she became aware of her predicament. I bent the knee as knight errant and lifted the visor of my helm - the brim of a fedora that has seen better days, well, years.

"You all right, miss?"

"No. I'm in Morongo."

I nodded, stood and offered a hand.

She contemplated my hand, then my rumpled suit and mug. I could see sprockets turning and an abacus making ruthless actuary value of my spending abilities. She sighed and offered a hand, giving me a look I had often seen at two in the morning before the bar got closed. It was a look of a woman who knew you were full of shit and going nowhere, but who did not want to go home alone. I loved that look.

I pulled her to her feet and she wobbled in her heels. She brushed back the hair from her right eye and gestured towards the house door. I led her to the threshold and she frowned. She had forgotten her purse in the car. I left her leaning against the door, went to the car and got her purse.

I opened the purse for her to find her keys. As she searched, I saw an almost finished bottle of whiskey and a vial of little pills. She did to find the keys and looked up at me and sighed. "Inside the engine."

I took this to mean the keys to the house and the car were on the same chain and presently still in the ignition. I set the purse on the porch and returned to the car and removed the keys. There were five on the chain. One was for the house, one for the car, the next two were duplicates of the first two, carelessly sharing the same chain as the originals and thus defeating the whole purpose of having them, while the fifth was a locker key. I recognized it right away, it was for Union Station, in downtown Los Angeles. The station opened just a year ago (due to some not quite slight delays owing to corruption and the wrong marble being used - long story, will fill you in later). It was the envy of all civilizations. Or at least the bastards in Frisco and San Diego.

I took off the house key from the chain and presented it with a triumph to the princess. She took it with an almost curtsy and almost fell. Then concentrated on the quite complex task of inserting it into the keyhole, while I took the Union Station locker key off the chair and slipped it into my pocket.

The princess managed to open the door and staggered inside and I followed.

"Can I get you a water?" I offered.

The princess ignored me and collapsed unto a futon, face first. She sighed again, rolled unto her back, propped herself up on both elbows and regarded me with eyes that were calm and clear as a blue lake, despite the alcohol in her tiny body. She frowned as she reexamined me, while her slim left leg shook back and forth as if taking aim at my body. The motion jostled her anklet and it skittered to her foot, dangling like a prize and no doubt driving a leg man into a frenzy. Too bad for her, I was a breasts and butt guy, well that and I liked me good hair as well.

She pouted and sat up straighter.

I sat down opposite, dug out a cigarette case, fed myself and lit up, before becoming once again aware of her existence and offering a taste. She took the cigarette, fed it carefully into her pretty mouth and waited for me to give her light. I did. She fluttered her fine lashes and that almost did it. She noticed and smiled, a small victory restoring her faith in herself and giving her the power to carry on a conversation.

"He's dead you know."

"I know, miss."

"He loved me."

"I don't doubt it."

"All I need is one good part."

"I'm sure."

"I had three small ones. Very small. I need one good one. And I could be a star."

I gave a nod.

She smoked in silence and then gave a sigh again:

"Why are you here?"

"Why do you think?"

"If I had the money, do you think I would have stayed?"

"Of course not," I said without a moment of hesitation, despite my confusion.

"And if I knew where it was, I'd take it. I would run. Run to Mexico. And... I would run."

I gave another nod, much friendlier this time.

"I think you should leave."

I nodded and stood up.

"Stay."

I shook my head.

The princess tried to stand, but couldn't. She nearly fell and I came to her aid again.

"If I help you find the money, will you go with me?"

I nodded.

She started crying. I held her in my arms and thought of how little sense it all made. The big man was a sucker for dames. Hell, we all are. But no dame would make the big man risk the ire of the East Coast outfits in skimming money off the top, and certainly not in such an obvious fashion. She was part of the puzzle, but not the key. Though the key might have now laid in my pocket.

"Don't hurt him. He knows so little."

I gave yet another nod, realizing the second "him" must have been the other poor sucker in her triangle. She passed out. I laid her down on the sofa and looked around. There was a happy couple photograph on a new piano. She was the princess, he was a grinning fool. It was hard to tell in the portrait, but he looked full on Mex to me, with no shade of anything red in him.


I went through the roll top desk in their shared bedroom. Her jewelry was gaudy and new. A mannequin hand held twenty female rings. I chose not to steal them. His side of things included nothing special, except a small velvet ring bag with the USC symbol on it. It was empty. I scanned the walls. Sure enough there were two USC degrees, both issued to Alonzo Del Gado. One for a bachelor's degree in something I could not make out and the other making him a Juris Doctor. A third memento on the wall of ego was a Master of Tax Law from a college I did not recognize. As I got closer I realized it was some clown school in Santa Monica. Knowing what I was dealing with I was sure I would find business cards in his desk, embossed and on creamy paper. I did. He had two offices listed on them. One in Los Angeles, in what had to be a P.O. box, and the other here in Cabazon. The phone in the bedroom had a paper glued just below the rotary dial with a typed out phone number for the Del Gado residence. I wrote it down.

I went out and the princess snored quite fearfully. I almost kissed her on the forehead, but decided against it and crept out of the house. Resisting the urge to drive up to her alleged boyfriend's place of business in her car I went back to my sloppy jalopy and drove off to Del Gado's office. I did not need a map, because the town was not large enough and his address was listed as being on Broadway.

I still managed to get lost, driving north when I should have been heading south but soon found a block of dilapidated and sun drenched buildings whose addressed matched the business card. The paint on the staircase were chipped from a quick job someone did on it no more than a month ago. I had a feeling I was walking into an oil town at the start of a boom or a cowboy watering hole in a town where a silver vein was just uncovered.


Del Gado was not in his office, so I jimmied open his door and wandered inside, leaving the door wide open, allowing me to plead innocence should anyone ask what I was doing inside. There was a wall safe in the corner without a speck of dust it, while the book case held a fine sheen of it on two out of the three shelves. Four rivulets interrupted the sheen on the third shelf. Three naked trails in a sea of dust led to ponderous tax law tomes, for county, state and Federal level, respectively. The fourth thick book was on the sovereignty of Indian reservations. I picked it up and looked it over. There were three dozen bookmarks of various sizes. Some looked old. Others were more recent.

I carried the book over, shut tight, to the desk, pointed it spine first at the table and dropped it. The book landed with a thud and opened on a page with many underwritten passages. I am no lawyer, nor played one in a two-reeler, but the gist as far as I could tell was that injun land should not be taxed at county or state level and as such an implication could be made that county and state laws need not apply. It was a mess and I could not quite grasp the finer points. I carried the book back into the shelf and walked away, without bothering to rifle through Del Gado's desk. I saw how he kept his diplomas and jewelry back home. Everything would be hidden in that safe or on his person. I locked the door and walked off.

I came down the staircase just as Del Gado was coming up and said nothing to him. I needed time to think through my approach. Failed starlets I can handle any time, but I don't tangle with a lawyer without preparation. My divorce taught me that.


I climbed into my car and weighed my options: the Union Station key was burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted to find out what it held, but my allegedly paying client expected me to visit Palm Springs and Indio and more importantly Bugsy expected me to go out there. I checked the list. Three of the names on the big man's lawful wife's list were located in Palm Springs. I decided to take a drive there and spend the night and then, in coming morning, either drive back to LA or puddle around in Indio.

My car had other notions. It refused to start. I got out and checked under the hood. The battered radiator gave up the ghost. I could see the cracks, yes - plural, in it. Two months ago I'd have gone to look for a mechanic, but the heavy roll of twenties weighed on my mind, and pocket, and seeing that cherry red Ford DeLuxe made me want to get a convertible of my own. I know. Wise choice.

I rooted through my car and found enough personal garbage to fill a small valise I stole from the cheating husband of a gal I drove to a train station a year ago. The 15-watt AM police radio scanner filled out a battered suitcase whose origins were hazy to me. I left both in in the trunk of the old car and I walked down a block down Broadway to a clapped out Chevy dealership manned by a lazy drunk and his pervert mustached nephew. As I scanned the second hand lot in the second hand town and warded off second hand salesmanship, my heart suddenly skipped a bit. An asphalt scrapping coffin nosed crimson Cord soft-top sat wedged between a pair of Chevy pickups. As its scarlet shaded body sang its siren song, I took my eyes off it and pretended to be interested in a pale red floozy Ford sedanette. I let Pervert Mustache almost talk me into buying the sedanette for a shade over one large, when I suddenly shook my head and let him lead me to the only other crimson paint job on the lot - the Cord - and settled on buying it for $900. My funds thus cut in not quite half, I drove off the lot with the car of my dreams. Or at least close enough to them to make me smile.

The outdated AM police scanner looked out of place in the Cord, though the Cord was two years older than the gadget. Trouble was, I knew FM transmitters were all the rage these days and LAPD already followed Boston's flatfoots' lead in getting them, so even though the Cord predated the scanner, it was still a fine automobile while the scanner looked about as good as downtown Warsaw. I snuck the brute in the backseat and resolved to leave it at the office once I returned to Los Angeles. As I drove to Palm Springs, the maligned scanner suddenly warbled to life:

"Still no sign of him, Clem. Over."

"Well, keep an eye out. Remember, he's driving..." and Clem proceeded to describe my old jalopy.

There was no place to pull over, so I kept driving and listened as these two hillbillies with badges bickered over how long they would have to keep an eye out for the man from Los Angeles. Then someone got on the horn and told them to pipe down and they did. Looks like I was expected.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter VI:

As I got closer to Palm Springs I saw my welcoming committee: a pair of battered police Fords with Riverside's Sheriff's Office badge paint job flanking the two lane highway. I drove past them, trying to act natural. Since I'm no natural, it didn't quite work, but there were Riverside cops and having been one for fifteen years, I can tell you we're not the sharpest forks in the drawer, never mind the knives. I turned in Palm Springs and tried to think.

My heart was pounding my ribs too hard for my mind to settle. Back when I drank this never happened. I always knew what to do, without much thinking about it. I rested my hands on the wheel and thought about who could possibly wanted me in trouble and possibly dead. It was depressingly long list. It was getting dark. I had to either stay in Palm Springs or go back to Los Angeles. Both did not appeal to me. Whoever set up my ambush here could have just as easily set one up back home. I drove south, through the sun drenched nothingness, then took winding mountain roads back west to a one (dead) horse town of Temecula, and before my brain could quite make out the plan, my wheel turned left up another terrible road and I went north, to Elsinore.

Once upon a time pretty little town of Elsinore, located on a high ground with a sparkling lake, was the type of place where movie stars like Bela Lugosi would have their summer homes. By 1936, it was the type of place where movie stars like Bela Lugosi would have their summer homes. I drove up to a hotel, parked the car where I could see it and got a room for the night. No one recognized me and I woke at dawn and drove back up to Los Angeles, chased by old memories and bad thoughts.

It took me four and a half hours to get to the Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Since the wrong marble was used in its multi-million dollar construction, it was no longer glistening. The marble came from the quarry owned by a friend of a friend of a guy whose roommate went to USC law school with his Honner's aide. It was indoor marble. They used it outdoors. In six months it went from white to blacker than Stalin's heart. Newspapers had a field day. San Diego newspapers that is. And those in Chicago. And whatever passes for the dailies out in Santa Barbara. No paper in Los Angeles said a word about it. Not even the "Examiner."

I parked the car in the lot and strolled inside the palace to trains and corruption. It took a moment to orient before I found the locker I wanted. I sat on a bench that let me have an unobstructed view, got a paper and waited to see if anyone followed me or was scouting the locker. In the hour it took for me settle my nerves and allay my jangling suspicions, I learned the French had offered to mediate the conflict between the Soviets and the Allies and there were competing editorials on whether the Poles should throw in the sponge or wait for the Brits and the Eye-ties to get their stuff together and help them beat back the Bolsheviks.

I chucked the paper and walked up to the locker and turned the key. Inside was a briefcase. I slipped it into my valise and strolled out, looking both ways and sweating. Going back to my place seemed ill advised and staying in the parking lot seemed silly. I drove up to The Valley, and through it, to the orange groves in the North by the foot of the mountains, listening to the AM transmitter. I parked the car in a dirt field and walked through the trees until I found a clearing, sat down in what I hoped was an area devoid of ants and cracked open the valise and the rather nice briefcase. The papers were arranged in three neat folders on its bottom, and there was something in the flap on the other side. I looked into the flap first.

Inside the flap, wrapped in an oil cloth, was a Blue Max medal. It was a very good copy of the very good copy Big Willy typically wore around his neck. The real one was torn off the big man's neck when he got home from the war. He told me the story once, when he was zonked out on pills and having just ended his affair with Lupe Velez and before he found Liddy's eyes and thighs. He got off the train in Munich in late 1918, still not sure why his beloved Fatherland lost the Great War and a roving band of raving revolutionaries stripped him off his honor at gun point, having decreed war medals baubles of imperialism. He resisted, a bit, and they stomped him and almost killed him. He got better, hunted them down and killed them all, one by one, and then got the Hell out of Germany.

The other two things in the cloth were an Iron Cross and an airman's gold watch. The Cross was a copy, but the watch looked legitimate, though I could not read German. A Luger lay at the bottom of the packet. I set aside the gun and shiny things and turned to the folders.

The first folder contained nothing but German documents, except one: an English certificate of marriage from the German Chapel Royal, St. James's, London, between Henry Ernest Goering, aged 45, and one Fanny Tiefenbrunn, aged 26. Once I realized I was witnessing the day the big man's momma was made an honest woman - in London of all places - the meaning of the rest of the contents of the first folder fell into place. School records and military personnel files jostled with photographs of a slim young man with clear blue eyes slowly turning to baby fat and getting more medals on his wide chest and pips on his broad shoulders. There were also handwritten notes and what appeared to be falling apart notebooks full of diary entries. I put them back all into the first folder and set it aside.

The second folder held deeds, and lots of them. His Honner might have owned more real estate in and around Los Angeles than the big man, but Goering was no slouch. Through a winding paper trail full of shell games, the big man owned wide tracts of land in Indio, Palm Springs, Cabazon and something called Santa Ynez. He also owned taxi companies, construction outfits, several gentlemen's clubs and chunks of Mascot Pictures, an old movie company long out of business. Tucked discretely into a pocket of the folder were IOUs from half dozen people and one rat I just met two days before: Michael Voormann. He owed the big man two and a half thousand dollars. I pocketed that particular slip and then studied the others. The largest slip was for $25,000. It was signed by my part-time pal and full-time degenerate gambler Billy Wilkerson. I pocketed that one as well. The rest did not intrigue me, except the slip signed by the actress Vivian Coe in 1936. It was for two large and given Vivian married a millionaire in 1937, I figured that one I could easily collect. I set aside the second folder and picked up the last.

Inside was a solitary document: an agreement between the Danish-American Colony Company and a shell company controlled by the big man to have the big man's company create a four lane highway between Solvang and Santa Ynez. In return for this, the land enclosed in the agreement was to be parceled out. The land whose deeds I saw in the previous folder. Solvang vaguely rang a bell. And the use of Danish-American hit the bell a couple more times. Solvang was a place where humorless Danes could be dour despite the wonderful Southern California weather. It was a village of old countrymen doing things the old country way.

It was also north of Santa Barbara and way north of Los Angeles. I returned to the second folder and studied the deeds. All other lands owned by the big man were in Los Angeles or were southeast of it. But while there were more deeds for Palm Springs, Cabazon and Indio, in sheer terms of acreage, nothing beat the huge swathes of land the big man was buying up by Solvang. I flipped through the deeds again. Per the registry dates, the Los Angeles properties were bought over the last ten years. Palm Springs was waylaid ten months ago. Then, three months ago, in one fell swoop, Indio, Cabazon and Solvang/Santa Ynez and Palm Springs again. I returned to the first Palm Springs deed. It was for a club. The most recent deed was for a tract of land near an Indian reservation. Ditto for Cabazon. Same for Indio. There was no reference to any reservation in the Solvang papers, but Santa Ynez papers included a lease between the tribal council and a fake company. The big man had a hankering for injun land, but the drive for all other purchases near reservations was the mass deal he made up North.

I didn't much feel like driving up to Solvang without knowing more about it, and going southeast again with its welcoming committee did not much intrigue me either. Liddy would be of no help and I would be powerless before her crimson canopy. Bugsy might know something, but I wanted to know of it before he did to earn my keep and not have him swoop in on this... deal, I suppose. Billy Wilkerson was off in Vegas. That left Voormann. Trouble was, he worked for his Honner, writing his speeches. But, I didn't know how many people wrote for his Honner and how he felt about his writers. If they were anything like writers at the studios, then he would not care if he was dropped into the ocean or who was doing the dropping. But maybe things are different in politics.

I gathered up the things in the briefcase and valise and drove off until I found a small bank off Topanga in the Valley. I created an account and filled out the deposit slip under a false name and dropped off the folders and medals in three different safety deposit boxes, but kept the briefcase, gun and valise. The briefcase went sailing into the brush as I hunted for a phone well.

I had a nickel all ready to go when I saw a notice next to the coin slot proudly announcing this particular utility was now charging seven cents for any conversation longer than twenty seconds placed anywhere outside the western half of The Valley. Naturally, there were no slots to put in a penny, only nickels. Which meant you would pay ten cents to make a call that should have cost a nickel but was billed as seven cents. Three guesses the nephew of which mayor had a place on the board of directors of this utility. I fed two nickels and dialed someone I knew at the "Los Angeles Examiner," the semi-respectable paper of record for all things gangland and corruption.

"Tell me about Voormann."

"Which starlet did he feel up on now?"

"Can't say. Priest-penitent privilege. But she's scared on account he's tight with his Honner."

"Says who?"

"People."

"Yeah, well, the voice of the people is the voice of the Devil."

"Doesn't he write for his Honner?"

There was laughter on the other end.

"I heard he wrote the Northridge speech?"

"Voormann wishes he wrote that. His stuff couldn't stir a randy goat to screw a lamb in heat."

"I need to know if I can shake him down."

"I wouldn't shake him too much if I were you."

"Give me a name."

"Billy Wilkerson."

"Billy is his patron?"

"Well, he sure is Hell not getting any work in Hollywood based on his great writing."

Billy owned the "The Hollywood Reporter," and that paper could do a lot of damage to a studio and aid another. I could see what Voormann would get out of being Billy's boy, but what would Billy get out of the deal:

"Billy don't usually patronize the under-gifted."

"And he usually doesn't knock up starlets either."

"Where does Voormann come in?"

"Someone had to put a ring on her finger."

"And when did this go down?"

"About a year ago."

"One last question and then you can go back to looking through his Honner's trash and writing hot stove editorial on the Fall of Poland - do you happen to know where Voormann lays his head?"

"402 South Fremont Street. Apartment 15. If you sit on the leather couch, you can get pregnant. Oh, and I wouldn't sing Poland's swan song as yet. I got a sawbuck on the plucky bastards living through the Spring, and then, well, a lot of things can change."

"That's what I love about you, you're an eternal optimist."

"I gotta be, to live with that son of a bitch as my mayor."

I hung up, fed another dime's worth and rang up a professional bed sheet sniffer over at the "Hollywood Tattler" to check on the Voormann-starlet-Wilkerson connection. He confirmed it. I got in the car and started driving downtown. That Billy lied to me about Voormann was now beyond all doubt, or at least my doubt, which is the only doubt that mattered. But his reasons for doing it were hazy. Feeding me the "Voormann works for his Honner" line was done to spook me off, yes, but let us not jump to too many conclusions. Remember, when I called Billy I said I was allegedly asking about Voormann on behalf of a client, a female client. So good ole' Billy might have just lied to me to get me off the back of a pal who jumped a grenade for him. Heck, I'd hope he'd do the same for me if somebody came calling to him to make trouble for me. In this town, everyone lies, and most of the time they do it for decent reasons. Meaning, Voormann and I had to have a chat. I made sure the Luger was loaded.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter VII:

Voormann's apartment was on the second floor. I knocked. No one answered. I knocked again. Silence held lease. I broke in and closed the door behind me. The infamous leather couch was the first thing I saw, seated under the window with piss yellow lace curtains in the living room. I was standing in a small hallway with three doors. The one to the living room was opposite me and sprung open. The one on my left and right were closed. I slipped out a pair of gloves, not out of fear of leaving fingerprints, but because something about the creep bothered me. I spilled the door on the left with a knuckled knock. It was the bathroom. Nothing exotic stared back at me except my own reflection in the mirrored panel of the medicine cabinet. I really needed a shave. Inside the cabinet were various foot related medicines as well as cotton swabs, rolls of gauze and some horse tranquilizers. As dope went, it was a curious choice.

I checked the closed door opposite the bathroom. It was a walk-in closet with suits and strange shoes. He wore lifts to appear taller. And one lift was larger than the other. I took a step back and eyed the closet. Something was off with it. I very gently tried to shove the coat hangers to the right, but faced resistance on the rough beam from which their metal hooks were hanging. When I nudged them left, they slid along a much smoother journey that must have been made many a time before. I pushed them all the way to the left and looked over the open space and saw... nothing.

I squatted down and checked the floorboards and gained nothing but muscle cramps in the back of my ankles. I then felt up the right side wall. She didn't mind, but gave me nothing. I looked at the top shelf and saw nothing. Then turned my attention to the now leftmost garment of me: it was a winter coat with fur topped collars and cuffs. In Los Angeles. Where it gets cold enough to use the ice scraper four days a year in February. It was September.

I examined the coat and found its inner pockets jammed with small white sack cloth rifle ammo pouches. Whatever was inside them was soft. I pulled one of the pouches out and had a hard time unbuttoning the flap with my gloves on. Which seems to me a design flaw, given that soldiers are supposed to do this sort of thing while under fire in all kinds of weather. Finally, I got the button free and wished I hadn't. A pair of big girl panties were staring back at me. I wanted to fling it, but didn't. I simply closed the pouch and then slipped it back into the coat and patted down the rest of it. Finding nothing in it by the pouches. I got the clothes more or less back into the positions in which I thought I found them.

The living room was next and I had already wanted to gag. It was not a good sign. I stepped into the room. The wall east of the couch had a groaning bookcase and a closed door. West of the couch was a tiny kitchen with a radio and an icebox. I examined the bookcase. It was a mess.

I took a step back, forgot about the panties in the ammo pouches and concentrated on the bookcase. Soon a pattern emerged. The bottom shelf was reserved for religious books. The Torah sat side by side with the Bible and the Far Eastern faith stuff. Most of the books were in English, some were in German and one appeared in squiggly lines I could not comprehend. The bottom shelf had the most amount of dust. The shelf above it were history texts. There was the least amount of dust here than anywhere else, and too many rivulets appeared in the sheen of motes to make it easier to figure out which texts were more popular than the others. As in the bottom shelf, the texts were in English and German.

The second shelf from the top was a bit chaotic. Dictionaries, English grammar rule books and yellowed barely bound manuscripts sat next to a wide variety of books that had nothing in common with each other or the other shelves: detective novels, romance books, a car mechanic's guide, a Sears-Roebuck catalogue and a magazine for the devotees of black powder weapons. I puzzled at this shelf for a moment, or twelve, until I realized I was looking at a grab bag of research material. In the flick I saw, which had Voormann listed as a cowriter, one of the characters collected muskets and in one scene explained his marriage woes by way of describing the issues of a Brown Bess muskets used by redcoats.

That bit of mystery solved there remained the last shelf. The top most one. It was the only one that had space for more books to be added. There were not just rivulets, but rivers, in the dust. It was heavily used. Five books stood separate from the rest, nudged against the right side. They were slim cheap printed novels: "Michael Voormann's Early Years," "Those Who Love the Sun," "Judas Ischariot," "Ulex" and "Eve." The first three were printed in English, the last two had German Gothic typeface. I did not pick up any of them, for the first book of the lot made realize they were the runt's literary ejaculations.

The books huddling to the left of the frivolous five included the same law book regarding sovereign rights of injun lands that I saw in Del Gado's office in Cabazon. I picked it up. It had no bookmarks or creases. I flipped the book to the page Del Gado most favored, regarding the taxes, dug out a pocket knife, excised the four pages before and after it and slipped them into my pocket, then set the book back in its place. Next to it were maps of Los Angeles, Indio and Palm Springs, but not Solvang. Stranded in a no man's land between the injun interests and the runt penned opuses stood two battered and much read books: Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and something very thick and in German Gothic typeface penned by someone named Hitler.

I gave a self-pitying little sigh and turned the doorknob of what I knew and feared was the bedroom. It was. The queen sized bed was at least made up, so I was spared some horrors. To the right of it stood a battered wooden desk with a typewriter. The desk had only one drawer. Inside it was a hideously large bound together tome of notebooks filled with tiny German Gothic script. The diaries.

Below the thick tome lay two well used phone notebooks. The first looked straight forward enough. Names and numbers. Among the names were William Richard Wilkerson (Billy), Hermann Wilhelm Göring (the German way of saying "Goering") and Louis B. Mayer (the second "M" in the MGM). The second phone book was rather confusing. For starters the names were harder to read, and each was accompanied by strange annotations. Then I came across a crossed out name of one Jean Harlow, now dead for these two years, and realized every name in the second phone book was devoted to women. I leafed through this, thankful I was wearing gloves. The numbers were measurements, height, weight and cup sizes, made more difficult to decipher due to the runt's use of the metric system and European conventions. The annotations were the notches in his bedpost. I wanted to fling the book away, but instead, using Jean Harlow as my Rosetta translated the entries I thought might be helpful.

Some of you might be wondering how I knew so much about Jean Harlow. Billy introduced us, when Mickey sent me to break his kneecaps over owing him money. That's how I met Billy, and he, unable to get me boozed up, offered the pleasant company of Jean for the evening. I wasn't going to brag earlier, but Jean and I became well acquainted, and given what I knew about her husband and her fragile health, I am fairly confident I was the last man she was with before she passed away. Once again, wasn't going to brag, but I guess I am. Harlow had a reputation, even in her dying days, of being a rough customer. She liked girls and she liked men, and she liked them to like her, vigorously. The memories flooded my mind and my crotch and I had to put the phone book down, because getting hard in a pervert's bedroom has a way of ruining your appetite for a week, or two.

Speaking of... I turned my attention to the bed, held my nose and lifted the mattress. A pocket sized notepad sat in the third corner I checked. The writing was uneven and in different colored ink from many pens and maybe some quills. Most of the pages were filled to the brim with German, but some were in English. Words like "Stalin" jumped out at me, along with "Göring." My name made an appearance as well. Entries were written daily. I went back to the desk and cross checked it against the massive diary. Sure enough, some of the diary entries matched, but there were differences that even I could spot, despite his horrible handwriting and me not knowing a lick of German. The notepad was the rough draft of the diary. The cleaned up version of events recorded for posterity went into the diaries in the desk. I pocketed the notepad.

The tickling in the back of my throat was getting worse and I had no intention of checking the underclothes drawer set under the bed, so I walked out of the bedroom and out of the apartment. I needed to find someone who could read German but be trusted not to talk about what they read. I had no likely candidates. Then hit upon a notion and drove up to Westwood through the winding Sunset Boulevard and then snuck south along Hilgard and struggled to find parking. I walked to Royce Hall, guided by intuition that UCLA had to have someone who could read German and that someone was more likely to be found in the only building that was neither a library nor named after one of the physical sciences. Blundering along the ground floor I stopped a young radical college girl and asked her where the German literature department could be found, she gave me a bit of direction and a lot of lip. I shrugged it off and went to my destination.

The UCLA German department consisted of a single small office with too high a ceiling. It was full of books, but otherwise deserted save for one middle aged clearly Jewish intellectual with the hair of a man who was in the middle of discovering something and had no time for a shower. He was frowning a lot as he read some thick tome. I loudly pulled up a chair and plopped down.

"I was burglarizing the apartment of a little deviant who felt up a client of mine on a movie shoot and found this," I said matter-of-fact and put the notepad on the table.

The Intellectual looked up and blinked, twice.

"Do you like Chesterfields?" I asked placidly while smiling.

The Intellectual shook his head, while eyeing me full of suspicion:

"I smoke a pipe."

"What do you take?"

"Granger," he said puzzling still.

"This deviant's handwriting isn't the greatest, I know, so it might take time for you to plow through it. How do you like your burger?"

The Intellectual blinked and eked out that he liked cheeseburgers done well. Being Jewish and being able to take dairy and meat the same time showed him to be a man whose relationship with Kosher was as complex as mine with the faith of my mother.

"If you can stand the bacon, how about I get you a Hangtown fry?"

The Intellectual nearly drooled and nodded.

I smiled and stood to leave.

The Intellectual eye the tobacco and then the notepad, and then studied me.

"What do you hope to find?"

"A confession would be nice. Then I can get him to leave the girl alone and get a restraining order."

"Are you... a private investigator?"

"That I am."

"Is this...? This is...? Is this legal?"

"Me breaking into the pervert's apartment? Nope. You translating what I found? Sure. I never asked you your name, did I? In case anyone asks, I can just say I found some guy. But no one is going to ask. On account if it says what I think it says, just the simple act of me quoting it back to the creepy bastard will get him to fall to pieces and I might not even need a judge. Farshtay?"

The Intellectual blinked in shock and studied me. Then muttered something in Yiddish.

"Not part of your tribe, just worked with some of them," I offered, smiling still, and walked out.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter VIII:

I got in the car and drove off down Sunset, finding a tobacco shop was easy, finding a decent food joint was harder. But soon enough I had it, parked and went inside to order the Cali famous bacon, oyster, chuck steak and egg omelette. It cost me a half dollar. The curly fries were an extra dime. Looking at it made my saliva flow, so I ordered one for myself as well and sat down in the corner booth and killed time by reading the free UCLA newspaper I snagged on the way back to the car - "California Daily Bruin." It made the Commie papers of New York look right of Kaiser.

The littlest red rag was full of cautious but optimistic support for the Bolshevik demonstrations in Berlin, Paris and London opposing their governments' support for the "bourgeois pirate regime of Warsaw." Clearly the UCLA subsection of Stalin's lovers thought the Red Army was coming to Poland to liberate the horribly oppressed minorities those vicious Polish brutes were thought to beat up on a regular basis. And clearly the editorial was written before the Frenchies offered to mediate the conflict. But sandwiched between this horseshit lay a cheaply printed pamphlet from the "UCLA Real Americans" denouncing Stalin, the Bruin editorial staff and the cowardly French. It was making a lot of sense to me until they made a reference to the "Rosenfeld" administration. California was rapidly coming apart at the seams between the loony left and the reactionary right, with the rest of us decent folk confused. Then again, I am not sure I could call myself decent after robbing a corpse, stealing from a drunk girl, breaking and entering (twice) and committing a burglary.

I wolfed down my Hangtown fry and turned to the entertainment section of the rag as they were making the other fry to go. Even in the movie reviews, politics seeped into the paper along with my fat smeared fingerprints. Thus Amalie Riefenstahl's foray into a not-quite-Carole-Lombard musical comedy was both criticized as something "that is not what the world needs right now" and simultaneously praised for giving a female director a chance to shine without anyone actually saying if the flick was any good or not. While slobbering praise was lavished upon "The Bolivian Story," telling the story of how the brave Bolshies down there got their skulls bashed in by the "feudal fascist fringe." But at least in that review they almost talked about the film by mentioning that Tor Johnson "imbued his portrayal of the regime's malevolent murderous mastermind Ernesto Julio Roehm with considerable menace."

The traffic wasn't awful and the fry was still hot when I brought it to my dismayed, confused and engrossed Intellectual. He devoured the meal with gusto, and nearly choked when he attempted to talk and eat at the same time. I stopped him and told him to eat and then talk, while I concentrated on removing bits of salt from the fries from under my fingernails. Once he was done eating I offered him Granger tobacco, and he lit his pipe and we commenced to talking.

"This man is... awful."

"Private eyes typically don't investigate saints. We leave that to the Vatican."

"This is a diary. It is... most confused. But on the other hand, he has discovered the German plural for 'messiah' which is most illuminating. And his Greek is very passable. Some of the terms he uses are very... This man is quite educated. But you care not for that, I should think. He confesses to several... He calls them 'slavish distractions owing to Eros.' I do not wish to be vulgar. But he describes five different encounters with four different women. Not all of them entirely consensual, I should think."

"Keep talking."

"These women, I do not wish to be... indecent. I do not think I should say their names."

"Fair enough. What time do the diaries cover in that notepad?"

"The last three weeks."

"Hmm. My client might not be referenced in them then. But maybe he talks of her in there?"

"What is her name?"

"Rita Cansino," I said, recalling the brunette with good cheekbones and nice gams from the terrible flick I saw where the associate producer was Billy Wilkerson and the writer was Voormann.

"She is not there, unless her pet name is 'Else?'"

"Don't much think it is, doc."

"He also talks of 'Anka.' She may, however, not be entirely real. Not in the way he describes her as his womanly ideal forever lost to him due to the cruelties of fate and Eros."

"Nope, she's not that either. Doc, I gotta level with you. This guy, he gets away with a lot because he has powerful friends in the Industry. Does he brag about any of that in there?"

"He... It's complicated. He references something or someone called the Visionary a lot. At first I thought he was talking about such a creature in a metaphysical essence, but then he mentions having met him in person and talking with him and unless he means in a vision form, this person may be real."

"Tell me about him."

"The author of the diary marvels at his genius for seeing that which others could not."

"Does he say anything else about him?"

"He feels conflicted at having... longing for the Visionary's 'handmaiden.' He is at once attracted to the notion of seeing her as the Visionary sees her and repulsed by his presumption to look at her in the same way as the Visionary. It is quite strange."

"Any chance he mentions the Visionary or the Handmaiden by name?"

"The Visionary is simply called as such, as is the Handmaiden."

"Any talk of time and places?"

"Not as it relates to that. He has a lot to say about the current situation in Europe, but when it comes to the Visionary and Handmaiden... he does not say much. "

"A bit. Anything about North of Los Angeles?"

"I think not. Though he talks of seeing the vision shared between him and the Visionary while they were near a desert and he weeps, having been overcome by the dream of the future being shown to him and only him, and that has no geographic description, as near as I can tell."

There were no deserts near Solvang. Miles of scrubland and brush, but not deserts. But plenty of those southeast of Los Angeles near Indio and Palm Springs. Voormann did not know about Solvang. Or at least he did not reference it in the bird language bullshit in his diary.

"I saw a reference to 'Göring?'"

"Yes... it is rather confusing. His entry states, 'Death comes from the philistines. The part others called 'Göring' is lost. The vision blurs. Moses reduced to Peter. Fingers, not hands. Must go to Smythe and learn of the squalid details.'"

"Does any of that makes sense to you, doc?"

"Not one bit."

"That part you said earlier about plural for 'messiah...' what is the plural for 'visionary' in German? How would you say 'visionaries'?"

"Uh, it depends. There are several words that could be translated into 'visionary,' but, uh, the word the author chose is 'seher,' which is the same in singular as it is in plural. There are ways to tell them apart of course, by use of articles and genitive and dative changes as well, but, uh, this is a bit embarrassing, his handwriting is... I cannot tell what he wrote, despite him using the word several times. Given the rest of the wording, I, however, assumed it was singular, not plural, especially when you consider the use of 'handmaiden.' After all, how can one woman be shared by two men who are visionaries?"

Somewhere inside my head the electrical engineer stopped playing the ukulele, finished up his lunch break and started making sure the circuits were firing. The visionaries were Big Willy Goering and Billy Wilkerson. Their vision involved injun lands and Voormann was pleased as punch to be part of it. Then disaster strikes and big man is killed and Voormann is sent by the other visionary to quiz me on what I knew about the grand vision, while this visionary packs his bags and flies off to Las Vegas, or so he says. Billy could be living in South America now for all I knew. Except, why did he stick around for as long as he did? I got him at home on a Monday night while he was waiting for a cab. If my partner in crime was whacked, I wouldn't stick around for 24 hours asking questions and waiting for a car, I'd be fighting or fleeing. He lingered.

Then again, the trouble with using Goering as your partner is that he is liable to be killed for something other than your bold grand vision. He had a lot of enemies, and that is why Billy stuck around. He wasn't sure why the big man got bumped off or who did it, and how much of his grand vision was under threat. So instead of running, he stuck around asking questions, including sending off Voormann to quiz. Then he decided to leave, just to be on the safe side. Or he wanted to not seem like he was panicking. Though that part did not jibe. Everyone knew Billy was a degenerate. He could have said he was flying off to Vegas on Easter Sunday and no one would bat an eye. He did not have to wait for Monday evening to throw anyone off the scent. He stuck around for another reason. And I had a funny feeling that other reason was Solvang by way of Morongo. They knew about Liddy. But they might not have known about the blonde princess. And come to think of it, they did not know about Morongo. They mentioned everything around it, but not it. But they could have suspected that the big man had other parts of the jigsaw puzzle scattered about and spent a day looking for them.

Liddy suspected something as well, soon as she heard me mention Voormann back at the office. And knowing he was on the scent, she decided to sic me on it as well, for her own reasons. Bugsy must have heard something was afoot as well and also stuck in his oar, and Howard Hughes? Well, he was strange enough to want to learn the secret just for the sake of it, though I had my doubts there.

But all of that is academic. The more serious question revolved around who set up the welcoming committee for me at Palm Springs and whether they wanted me dead or just shaken and speaking. If it was the first, then I had a real problem. If it was the latter, I'd have gladly told I know to anyone. I had a new car and more than a grand in my pocket. I wanted to live.

I thanked the Intellectual, hid the notepad among some dry as an Alabama county on a Sunday Latin books in the stacks of the library building south of Royce Hall. My intention was to clear my mind and look at the pretty buildings by taking a stroll around the campus. Then I saw a demonstration by the Commie UCLA students' union and some potato faced fascists getting ready to break it up with fists and saps, and just walked back to my car. The orange grove in the Valley beckoned as a place to do some serious thinking, being devoid of politics due to being devoid of humans.

My AM scanner hissed to life as I approached Sepulveda. There was a code 187 - homicide. The victim was identified as "Voormann, Michael." The person of interest being sought was one "Smythe, John."

 

[Greg Grant]

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.

 

[Greg Grant]

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:

1. Try not to get killed
2. Contact the big man's wife and work out a deal with her on the deeds
3. Get the deeds from the bank
4. Try to talk to Billy to find out what he knew
5. Avoid Bugsy
6. Avoid Howard Hughes
7. Avoid the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
8. Avoid anyone who would rat me out to the Sheriff's Department
9. 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:

1. Try not to get killed
2. Get deeds from the bank
3. Avoid Bugsy
4. Avoid the LASD
5. 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:

1. Try not get killed
2. 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
3. Avoid Bugsy
4. Avoid LASD
5. Call Liddy and offer the deeds
6. 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.

 

[Greg Grant]

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!"

 

[Greg Grant]

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.

 

[Greg Grant]

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.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter XIV:

Billy wasn't around. He was out gambling. I made myself at home. There was a small safe next to the door to the toilet, but I ignored it and checked the shoes in the closet. Sure enough, the sole of the right foot snow-white soft shoe held four Indian Head golden eagles. I pocketed them, almost doubling my worth. Well, current worth. I had $147.53 in a bank in Los Angeles. Trouble was my checkbook was back at my place and the bank had half dozen branches and all near LA. Given I was a wanted man, by many, that money was out of reach. With my return journey now paid, I felt more secure and felt one of the knots between my shoulders untie. There were plenty more of them back there, but one was gone.

Back when I was on the sauce, I loved stakeouts. Nothing beat getting paid to sit and do nothing but drink while waiting for some shit heel to present himself for your arresting pleasure. Staking out while sober was not joyous. I paced a little on the threadbare carpet and kept myself alert by thinking of all the wrong things I did since I stepped out of Ciro's. I stopped counting after three dozen when the key turned and a slumped shouldered Billy staggered inside, reeking of cheap cigarettes and cheaper booze. He did not notice me and looked like shit, which cheered me up tremendously.

"Hiya, Billy."

He turned around and blinked.

I wanted to slap him, but stopped myself. Had I made contact, I would not stop at slapping. I had me a lot of anger. The animal blood lust in my eyes must have shone through, because he took a step back, but his rotgut sapped legs could not handle such a quick movement and he went down on his ass.

I towered over him, eyes blazing and fists curled.

"Start talking, Billy."

"I thought I was doing Voormann a solid, John. Honest."

"Lying to me about being his Honner's scribe you mean?"

"Yeah."

"And the rest?"

"What are you...?"

I made contact then. Reached down, yanked him up by the lapels of his jacket and flung him on his bed. He skipped across it like a pebble and went down on his side against a wall. I strolled up, suddenly aware I was sporting half an erection.

"Start talking, Billy."

"I'm sorry, pal. I'm so sorry. Really, I am. They didn't tell me nothing."

I bull snorted, not in derision, but in anticipation of nailing a matador to a wall.

"John. You gotta believe me. You must. I didn't know nothing about it. Voormann double crossed me with Bugsy, same as he double crossed Hughes with me."

I kept my face angry and blank:

"When did you figure it out?"

"Pops. Pops Squire told me. Pops knows everything out here. He said Bugsy was buying up land here. Twisting arms. Rough stuff. That little runt sold me out to him. He was playing us all. All of us."

The runt's second to last words came to me: "I am the hero now." "This is my tale."

"When did he approach you, Billy?"

"Three, four months ago. I was... I was talking. My accountant sat me down just the night before. He proved to me that I spent $150,000 out here in Vegas in the last year. It... It hit me hard. I was drinking and talking, to everyone. Girls included. And even to that no talent perv. He told me the only way to beat the house is to be the house. I laughed it off, but he said there was serious money coming to Vegas to build casinos and that me and him should get in on the ground floor. He said he knew people. He did. I didn't know how then, but he did. Then I realized it was from the research he did for Hughes."

"And what did he want in exchange for all of it?"

"He had a screenplay. It was garbage, but he wanted it made into a movie. And he wanted Clark Gable in the leading role. As well as final approval over the cut and the say in which girls got cast in it. No studio would go for it. It would be... almost impossible. But I could get it done. Maybe."

"When did it all go pear shaped?"

"From the start. Soon as we lined up a seller, we'd get turned down. That's when I figured he was playing me and using my name to get Bugsy interested. He didn't spread the name of Hughes around. But mine. Oh mine he spread. Got Bugsy hooked. Bugsy bought some land out here. I had nothing. Still have nothing. Nothing at all."

Only thing I hate worse than a clown is a sad clown, so I kicked him in the ribs. There's an art to kicking people. Use your shin too much and you'll get it destroyed. Put all the weight in your ankle and you'll wake with it the size of the fruit bowl on Carmen Miranda's head. I kicked right. I had some experience. He vomited up his liquid brunch and started crying. I sat down on the bed and lit up a Chesterfield.

"Who ordered the hit on Goering?"

"I don't know. I don't know nothing."

Or at least I think that's what he said. Was hard to make out between sobbing. I dug out another Chesterfield, lit it with mine and stuck it into his vomit covered lips. He sucked on the coffin nail as if it was a pacifier. I used the pillow case to clean his puke of my new shoes.

He curled with his back to the wall, smoking in earnest.

"Indio. What did big man have out there?"

"A six-monther."

A six-month contract is what you gave to a pretty girl when she walked in through the door of your movie studio, but couldn't sing, dance or talk much. Five years ago, some of 'em ended up working for Lee Francis on Sunset. Now, some of 'em ended up keeping house for hoodlums. Progress.

"Besides that."

"He had a Mex lawyer out there, working on some kind of tax scam."

"Oh?"

"Booze, I heard. No excise tax on tribal lands. No county taxes at all, from what I heard. Cigarettes included. Rumor had it, the big man was going to open up nightclubs there and sell booze and smokes cheap. That's what I heard."

"Billy, you ever been on injun lands?"

"He was going to bring in some music acts I heard. Comedians. The works. Turn it into a thing."

"Did that stick in Bugsy's craw?"

"Everything sticks in his craw."

Christ, could it be have been that easy? The big man got lead poisoning on account Bugsy thought the kraut was going to build nightclubs out there and sell booze and cooze cheaper than at the rate he offered in his clubs? That'd be some irony - Goering getting killed due to the very disinformation he spread himself to cover up a much bigger scheme he cooked up. I almost smiled. Almost.

"Billy, what did Bugsy know about Goering's plan for the night clubs?"

"Everything. Even had blue prints."

The big man outsmarted himself. He came up with a perfect cover for his real plan, right down to the plausible explanation for the blue prints for hotels and casinos, and it got him killed regardless. I was almost convinced. Except for one thing:

"Who runs the Sheriff's Department now?"

"Anyone with a fruit basket and a crate of whiskey. You know that."

That I did. And it made the jigsaw puzzle messier. If Bugsy wanted me to dig up what the big man planned and hunt down those deeds for those clubs, he would not had the welcoming committee out by Palm Springs. And Bugsy is not the type of guy to send two squads for the price of one, never mind three. And I had three waiting for me at Union Station: Sheriff's, Bugsy's boys and Goering's knee-breakers. There were other players in this game.

"Who knew about Goering's scheme besides you, Voormann and Bugsy?"

"I have no idea."

"With the big man dead, who runs his strike-breakers?"

"Bruno. Bruno Loerzer."

Bruno was an absolute idiot. Well, not absolute, but close enough. Goering imported him from Germany and immediately set about making him his number one guy. Trouble was Bruno spoke English about as well as a dolphin. He also had the organizational skills of your drunken uncle. Rumor has it, Bruno saved the big man's life once during the War and the big man took that rather personal.

If Bruno was in charge of the knee-breakers, then no one was in charge of them, which meant they were for hire to not just the highest bidder, but any bidder at all. That put them on par with the LASD. Hell.

"What does Liddy know?"

"Willy didn't talk business with girls."

"All men pillow talk."

"Willy and Lida haven't been sharing a pillow for a while."

"What's 'a while?'"

"Not since he nailed her baby sister."

"She has a sister?"

"Zora, uh, Dawn. Came out here last year to become a star. Got pregnant instead."

"And then what?"

"I got her married off, to Voormann, and shipped off to New York."

The starlet Voormann married. It wasn't a favor for Billy. It was a favor for Big Willy. Only Billy arranged it, on account of the $25,000 debt. The puzzle got worse and better at the same time.

"When did Liddy find out who knocked up her sister?"

"She thought it was Voormann for a while, but... Her sister called her last week. Told her things. She called me to confirm. I lied of course. But..."

"Did Liddy know about the six-monther?"

"She knew there was someone near Palm Springs."

"The six-monther - who found her for the big man?"

"I, uh, suppose I did. I owed the big man... a bit."

"If 25 large is a bit, I'd hate to see what you think is more than a bit, Billy."

"How do you know about that?"

"I have the IOU now, Billy. Good luck. Hope you win some before you come to LA and I call collecting."

I walked out of the room, shook off a couple more chorus girls and got me a cab to the airport. I tipped the unshaven mope a fiver to get there on time to catch a return flight to Los Angeles. I had me two pretty dames to disappoint and I did not want to be late.

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter XV:

Mr. Lee Jackson landed in Burbank safely, got in his car and drove out to the orange groves in the Valley to soothe his battered soul. He stood among the trees, breathing deep, then went to the bank and got the medals, gold watch and the deeds for everything but Solvang. He took what he withdrew and took a stroll to a pay phone and dialed up the pad of Virginia Hill, the grandest gun moll of the Chicago mob who kept Bugsy buggy in Los Angeles in the Fall. Bugsy himself picked up the phone.

"Yeah?"

"It's me, Mr. Siegel."

"Pronouns, pal."

"Smythe."

"Where you been?"

"Finding the big man's deeds for the clubs he was building out in Indio and Palm Springs."

"Let's meet."

"I don't swim well, even without cement shoes."

"If I wanted you dead, you'd be humping dirt already."

"Is that why you sent your squad to the Union Station?"

"Don't give me lip."

"Don't mean it. But I'd like to know why you were waiting on me?"

"Lida sent the gunsels, I sent my boys to get you to me safe."

"How'd you know I was going there?"

"One of her maids likes it big and I got the inches."

Idly, I wondered if it was the same maid Voormann felt up and felt owed him loyalty.

"There were Sheriff's men there as well."

"So?"

"So what's their angle?"

"A pay day."

"That's the part that worries me. You're a businessman. They're hicks with guns. And they knew I was going out to Indio."

"Everyone knew you were going out to Indio."

"Yeah, but how many knew I was going to Palm Springs?"

"Hmm. You thinking Lida?"

"I'm not a thinker, Mr. Siegel. You are."

"Ain't you sweet, doing it with no teeth like that?"

"All I want is to walk away from all this with a good job in TJ, and the not the kind that involves being a begging cripple."

"You get me those deeds and you'll run the Flamingo."

The Flamingo was the biggest casino in all of Tijuana. Three stories high, with twenty poker rooms, a dozen bingo halls and a battalion of cold and hot running whores. Bugsy named it after Virginia Hill. Frank Fay would clip his prick and stop eating pork before Bugsy would give that to me. He was lying.

UCLA was opening its season against TCU at the Coliseum tomorrow. 100,000 fans should have been an adequate cover. Well, 60,000. TCU was not big enough of a name to sell out the game.

"Get me a three dollar ticket for UCLA-TCU and we'll talk there?"

"It'll be at the will-call window and so will I."

"I'll be there half hour before kick-off."

"See you then."

I hung up and checked the watch. The kick-off was at two tomorrow. It was just after three now. I had bought myself less than 24 hours to get clear of this mess and find a way to get some land far enough away where Bugsy could not get to me. Trouble was, near as I could, the only place where Bugsy could not get me would be Hell or Soviet Russia, which amounts to the same thing.


I stared at the phone, hoping it would provide me some answers. If only Bugsy had promised me a poker room, or six, out in TJ, instead of the whole operation. Then I would have blissfully ignorantly walked into trap, with a beating and an interrogation, followed by a murder. Instead he had to give the game away and now I was standing here, aware, afraid and scheming. Bastard.

I needed someone or something who could stop Bugsy. That was not a long list. Given my meager connections in the world of the scary and the powerful, the portion of that list to which I had access was even less. One name kept popping up.

I walked across the street into a hamburger place and thought through the scenario while eating fries and smearing ketchup on my chin, then walked back to the bank and got a roll of nickels.

I picked up the phone, fed a coin, dug out the phone book I lifted from Blue Glasses and called the first number listed under "HH." No one picked up the phone. I hung up. Fed another coin and called the second number. The fourth one yielded a butler with an accent worthy of title who tenored out, "Mr. Hughes residence."

"This is John Smythe, Mr. Hughes asked me to look into the Goering killing. Tell him I have news."

"Mr. Hughes is currently unavailable, but I will..."

"Hey, Jeeves, I'm the guy who knows how his driver, the one with blue glasses, got killed. Tell him."

There was dignified silence, followed by a stentorian, "Please wait," with a side of a hissy fit.

The son of a bitch made me wait fifteen minutes while I fed nickels at each warning beep.

"Mr. Smythe?"

"Mr. Hughes, I'm..."

"Mr. Siegel's lines are tapped by the Mayor. Any agreement with him would be compromised."

That explained the fifteen minutes. Mr. Hughes was turning the tables on me. Good for him. The creep even tried to suggest he listened in on the deal, except he couldn't. If his Honner was the one doing the tapping, that meant a tape that would then be transcribed unless someone felt hot enough at this deal to stake out a man to monitor Bugsy's phone and call his Honner (or Mr. Hughes) of what they heard. The last part sounded fanciful. But this is a town built on fancy.

"Uh, thank you, Mr. Hughes."

"You're very welcome. I want you to know the actions of my employees do not reflect that of my own. But I would like to know how they came to their end. My driver in particular?"

"Uh, well, Mr. Hughes, he knocked me out and had me kidnapped and brought to this place. And, uh, after he found out what I knew about the Goering scheme..."

"Which 'scheme?' The one in Vegas or his plan to create garish night clubs on tribal lands?"

Hughes did not know about the casinos on injun lands. Perfect.

"The tribal lands part, Mr. Hughes."

"I see. Do continue."

"Well, uh, he told me he was going to kill me. And I, uh, defended myself, Mr. Hughes."

"By provoking Mr. Voormann into killing him and the hired muscle?"

"Uh, yes, Mr. Hughes."

"That... makes sense. Do you have Mr. Goering's deeds on you at this time?"

"Not on me, no. They are in safe place."

"The bank half a block down from where the pay phone where you currently stand?"

I looked around and ducked.

"Mr. Smythe?"

"Uh, yes, Mr. Hughes. They are in the bank."

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Mr. Hughes?"

"You live by your wits, Mr. Smythe. You overcame the ravages of the pestilence of liquor and emerged from it cleansed of the terrible disease. You are a survivor. But there is a difference between surviving and living. Do you wish to live? And if so, what would be your purpose for living?"

"I... I don't know."

"I know the picture business and the airplanes, Mr. Smythe. I have little knowledge of the world of gambling, though one could accuse me of being a gambler myself. I am not. I have been advised on the gambling world. Ill advised. I would listen to some of your advice, if you were to work for me."

This is the part where I should have fallen to pieces and grasped at the chance to work for the strange little man. And I would have. But I was well fed and almost rested, which meant I noticed how this Hughes sounded nothing like the man I had first encountered. The strange little man wearing tissue boxes was dead. Long live the cold blooded businessman.

"Mr. Hughes, I was not calling you for a job. I was calling you because I think you are the only person in this town who is not afraid of Bugsy and I have a plan to get you those deeds for those injun lands."

"The two things are not mutually exclusive. Mr. Siegel had never attacked my employees."

"He might make an exception for me. Let's talk business, Mr. Hughes."

 

[Greg Grant]

Chapter XVI:

"I am listening, Mr. Smythe."

"If you will send me a lawyer with a blank movie contract, in a four-seat soft-top, with the top down, today and I can get those deeds signed over to you, and give you the name of the person who got Goering killed. In return, you forget I got your driver killed, straighten things out with the Mayor and the LASD, and get me that $25,000, in cash."

"The deeds for which lands, if you please?"

"The lands out by Palm Springs and Indio."

As much as I tried Solvang held it's spell on me and I couldn't divulge it.

"I rather liked my driver, Mr. Smythe. But I will agree. Under one condition. You turn over the promissory note Mr. Wilkerson wrote out to Mr. Goering."

"That note is for 25 large."

"And you have not the hope of ever using it. But should it fall into the hands of Mr. Siegel..."

"Bugsy might get in on the Vegas acts Billy took and make trouble for you out there."

"Not trouble at all, but troublesome for a bit."

That made no sense to me, but I nodded, then realized we were talking over the phone.

"You have yourself a deal, Mr. Hughes."

Then the mogul hung up and I went into the bank, confusing everyone there yet again, and withdrew the Solvang papers. I drove down Topanga until I found a sizeable bus stop, went inside and rented a small locker. There went the Solvang papers and the gold watch. I did not want Hughes guessing where I stashed things. Then I got in the car and drove back up Topanga, slowly, thinking.

Bugsy tipped me off that Lida's maid was reporting to him, so calling the house was out of the question. Showing up there unannounced and concluding a deal with her before Bugsy rolled up and smeared me along the wall was all also not recommended. Today, however, was Thursday. And every Thursday, Mrs. Goering took dance lessons in a studio in Santa Monica. She wanted to stay in fighting shape, to ward off anyone who would capture her husband's attentions. Well, she lost that bout, but people are creatures of habit. I checked my watch. I had time, if the lawyer would arrive in a car with enough ponies under the hood.

I parked my Cord two blocks down then got to the phone booth and waited for the only four-door convertible that a man like Hughes would bother to get - the Mercury Eight. In one came, jet black. The man behind the wheel was slim, freshly scrubbed, and white as a ghost and dressed in a three piece black suit with matching gloves. He wore no glasses.

No Glasses eyed me suspiciously, but I simply got into the backseat and gave the dance studio address. We made it to it in no time, wind blowing through our hair and the gorgeous California sun roasting the tips of my ears all the while. I told him to park the car in the shade and step out. This he did. And I followed suit, one hand in the pocket at all times. He stood like a log while I picked up the bulldog edition the "LA Times" put out for the mail trains for the rubes in Fresno and San Berdoo.

The lead story was the new government in Germany. Deputy Chancellor Hindenburg spoke glowingly of his cabinet of all talents. There was a laundry list of them that followed, each with a short note to allow those of us not versed in German politics a sneak peek at their potential. None of the names struck me as memorable, except one. The writer of the book at Voormann's pad - Hitler - was named minister without portfolio to represent his corporal's guard numbered deputies in the Reichstag. The party was called the True National German Workers' Party. Herr Hitler was once a semi-detached member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party before leaving it in a huff when the brothers Strasser took it into the now failed National Socialist Movement faction of the now defunct Papen coalition. Someone named Bohle of the original Party (the non-True one, I suppose) commented acidly, to an Associated Press man interviewing the locals in Berlin, that Hitler would not have been his first choice to join the coalition. This was countered by some jamoke named Hess, who extoled Hitler's virtues.

In more important news, all ten NFL teams were going to play this Sunday, and one game was going to be broadcast locally in the theaters - the Los Angeles Spartans were taking on the Boston Redskins. Smart money was on the 'Skins, but the Sparties had a fighting chance in my book.

A hopped up little phaeton drove up and Liddy stepped out, heels clacking and no bra. I palmed my dachshund down and begged him to be a good boy and play dead and then strolled up to the merry widow, fedora brim jerked up and a smile on my face.

"Ma'am?"

"What? What are you doing here?"

"I have the deeds to the injun lands Willy bought. Here. With me."

"Oh. Well then. I don't have the cash."

"That's all right. I have me a lawyer, over there. If you'll sign over the tribal lands to Mr. Howard Hughes, he'll make you the star of any RKO film of your choice."

Liddy temporarily lost the power of speech. Then those striking eyes embered with rage and she let loose a stream of volcanic Czech. I finally figured out the meaning of the word "sublime" watching her deal with the latest twist in her fate. Then she calmed, a bit, and switched to English:

"You were working for him, this entire time?"

"Not the entire time, ma'am. But a lot of people want these lands and some of them don't mind taking a pot shot at me. Safest place in the storm is in a good harbor. I found me a good harbor."

She reappraised me while I thought of baseball and my landlady's neck fat.

"Suppose I refuse?"

"Then I walk away with the deeds."

"That land is mine."

"Yes, but you'd need a lawyer to prove it and once it goes to court, Bugsy will..."

"Men."

I wasn't sure what she meant with it but she surely meant it. I kept thinking of football.

"How do we do this?"

"That's for the lawyer to cipher."

Enter No Glasses. He spoke like a robot. Or at least how I pictured a robot would speak. Then he dug out a portable typewriter and Mrs. Goering, he and I went into a soda jerk place. He typed quickly, while she regarded me with those eyes of hers. Her leg brushed against mine and I had to sit up straight. She shot me a smile, leaned back and played with her hair. I had to sit up straight again.

The lawyer finished up typing. He went through thirty pages. Liddy read through them all, while I had a strawberry shake. Eventually, she finished reading and No Glasses gave a pen, a Parker of course. Liddy signed. Then the lawyer. I finished up my shake. And out we went, back into the land of yellow brick roads. I let the lawyer go first, still not trusting him, or anyone for that matter. She let me go on ahead, then gripped me by the wrist and whispered hot in my ear: "Bugsy is going to kill you."

"If that happens, a letter will go out to fifty very reckless journalists telling them how you told Bugsy about your lawful husband's plan to build nightclubs on injun lands to motivate Bugsy to kill him and then told me as soon as we met that Bugsy was the one who killed him."

Her pretty mouth twisted and she was about to deny it, but I just walked on.

The heel clacking behind me sounded ominous and I turned in enough time to avoid getting hit by a tiny uppercut. I grabbed her at the elbow at the funny bone and gave a squeeze. She yelped.

"Liddy. You're better than this. Now fuck off."

Then I released her and went back to No Glasses. The wind in my face felt glorious as we drove up to the Valley and he dropped me off by the bank. I produced the IOU and the deeds and he took out a kit bag with cold hard cash. He would not make the exchange until I gave him the name of the guy who killed Goering. I fingered Bugsy, and Bugsy alone, because I'm a sucker for redheads.

I watched No Glasses drive off, then got in the Cord and drove to the bus stop, took the Solvang papers, but left the gold airman's watch. Then I called up the blonde princess. It was ten rings before she managed to find the phone.

"The big man's gold watch is at bus locker at Topanga and Roscoe. The key to the locker is the orange grove off Devonshire and Tampa. Five trees up and three to the right. Check under the roots."

"I won't remember any of that."

"Then you should write it down."

"Never commit anything to paper. The guy paying my rent taught me that."

"Then you are in a quandary, miss."

"We should meet. So I can tell you things."

"I don't wanna hear nothing but the sound of the waves."

"I wouldn't mind listening to them with you?"

"Drive up to the bus locker. Now. I'll wait for you."

I could hear her smiling.

Then I hung up and she no doubt dialed Bugsy, or Bruno, or Billy some other mug to ambush me.

I got in the car and drove north. When darkness fell, I was in a motel room in San Jose, listening to reports of British paratroopers fighting side by side with Polish and German soldiers and the Soviets reeling. Come morning, I would be in Frisco. Maybe I will catch a flight to Miami, Florida. Maybe I will stick around in California. Somewhere out there, a redhead princess was waiting for save me from this cold cruel world. I thought it would a crying shame to let a dame like that down.

The End