Cold Bullets and Hot Babes: Dark Crime Stories (9 page)

“So, you’re driving now,” he said.

“Have been for a while.”

“Dan tells me Duke Wayne is working on helicopters in Iraq.”

“He’s National Guard. Should be working state side but they sent him over anyway.”

“Leave it to Uncle Sam to rewrite the rules. He’s a strong kid. He’ll make it through. Heidi ever come back this way?”

“No. Ever hear from her after that night?” I asked.

“Never did. Me and Winona are just passing through, thought we’d say hi. Her dad is sick so we’re heading up north, see him one last time.”

I wanted to say something meaningful, but nothing came to mind.

“Well,” he said, pushing back his chair and standing. “Looks like I’ve taken up most of your afternoon.” He held out his hand and Dan shook it.

“You and Winona are welcome to bed down here for the night,” said Dan.

“Thanks anyway, but I think we’d better hit the road, catch a trucker going north.” He turned to me and patted my shoulder. “I’ll write when we get settled somewheres.” I nodded. I knew he wouldn’t and he knew I knew. It’s just one of those things you say to fill an awkward void. Without a word I wrapped my arms around his thin shoulders, that man in the boots and the button-fly jeans with the Camels tucked in his sleeve. I smelled the smoke in his hair, the whiskey on his breath and managed to hold back my tears.

“Have a safe trip, Gaylord.”

He held me at arms’ length.

“You’re a right pretty girl, Bossy.”

I watched from the porch as he and the Shoshone woman gathered up their things and walked down the driveway toward the highway. A few years later I heard he died of a stroke somewhere in north Idaho.

Duke Wayne came home on furlough a couple times. He looked older and war-weary. He still had nightmares and woke in a sweat, but I couldn’t tell if they were about the past or the war. On his third tour of duty, the boy who was named after a movie cowboy, returned home in a flag-draped box. Dan took his old suit out of the closet and buried his boy. He handled his loss with stoic grace but he was never quite the same.

The third day of the roundup was unseasonably hot.

“When you saddle Navajo would you toss a saddle on Buckwheat?” asked Dan. I felt the earth shift slightly on its axis. Dan had saddled his own horse since he was old enough to climb from a fence rail into the saddle.

“Sure thing,” I said. “You go finish your coffee.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “You been my right hand, Bossy.”

That night after a long day in the saddle, Dan went to bed and didn’t wake up in the morning. Dr. Moss said he’d been keeping his prostate cancer secret for about nine months.

* * * *

A few days later I sat across the kitchen table from our family lawyer, Gordon Benchley. “I’m going to skip over all the legalese,” he said, “and get down to brass tacks. The bank account, the C.D., the ranch and everything in it goes to his biological daughter.”

“Biological daughter? He never married. I didn’t think he had any kids.”

“He never married because his daughter’s mother was already married to someone else. He left it all to Evangeline Draper. That’s you, my dear.”

A moment of stunned silence followed.

“I’m confused,” I said. “You mean Heidi’s brother, my uncle, is my father?”

“He’s not Heidi’s brother. Heidi is a Haversham. Didn’t you know that?”

“I never heard that name before.”

“Well, it’s a fact. Dan and Heidi got together for a brief period of time when Gaylord was carrying on with that waitress from the Silver Spur.”

“That’s a lot to swallow in one bite, Mr. Benchley.”

“Well, this should make it go down easier,” he said, turning back to the will.

That evening I cried as I went through the documents in the attic trunk. I found the photo of my great-great grandmother, Evangeline Harper Wellstone, the lady who homesteaded this land. When I got around to changing my name in front of Judge Tenacre it was not to Cheyenne or Turquoise. I became Evangeline Wellstone, the person I was always meant to be.

* * * *

The next spring found me digging a garden patch behind the barn while the earth was still soft from the winter rains. I turned over the sandy soil one shovel-full at a time, taking in the scent of the warm earth, tossing aside buried bottles and rusty cans.

About fifteen inches down I unearthed a slender chain caked with dirt. I tossed the shovel aside, bent over and gave it a gentle pull. There was a slight tug of resistance before it surrendered. The chain was attached to something that almost fell apart in my hands. I brushed it off with my finger tips. It was the sorry remnant of a silver fish scale purse, fragile with rot. I turned it over, a million buried memories rushing back. The burns. The belt. The bottle of gin exploding against the side of Jason’s patrol car and Heidi banging her head against the window as the neighbor’s cheered and clapped.

I leaned against the barn to catch my breath and remembered the day that Dan told us he’d killed a rattler behind the barn. I tossed the purse aside, grabbed the shovel and kept digging. This time the slender heel of a lady’s shoe poked to the surface.

I tried to feel something, anything, for the woman who’d carried that purse and worn that shoe and bought a bottle of gin and a blonde wig on the day before she died. Maybe someday I’ll evoke a tender thought or produce a single tear, but today is not that day.

I could have dug deeper but I didn’t. Perhaps the earth has a right to the secrets it keeps. I re-interred the purse and the shoe and tamped down the soil with my boot.

I already knew all I needed to know.

I step off of the Greyhound Bus into the midnight rain. I’m wearing my one good pair of shoes, a decent suit beneath my trench coat and a brown fedora pulled low on my forehead. My leather suitcase carries the sum of my worldly possessions and tucked into my wallet is the paltry remainder of the fifty bucks Aunt Pearl bestowed upon me, provided I seek my fortune elsewhere.

Well, Santa Paulina, is about as ‘elsewhere’ as one can get from the stiff front parlors of Boston. I set my suitcase on the sidewalk and pull up my collar but the rain is already drizzling down my back. If this is an example of sunny California, I wonder what it’s like on a bad day.

I head down Cork Street toward The Rexford Hotel where my old war buddy, Hank Featherstone, is holding a job for me. It won’t pay what my cop salary had, but, I can drink on the job provided I don’t get as soused as I was the day I was allowed to resign from The Force. When I asked Hank what my duties entailed, he simply said, “keeping the lid on things.” I’m better at that than keeping the cork in the bottle, so I accept the offer.

I’m half way to my destination when an icy headwind gets the best of me and I duck through the first unlocked door I come to. I find myself standing in The Blue Rose Dancehall...a classy euphemism for Dime A-Dance Joint.

Couples are slow-dancing under a revolving mirror ball that throws dizzying arrows of light around the room. In the dark corners, pocket flasks catch the light. Prohibition has lost favor, even among the tight-lipped Bible thumpers that crammed it down our throats, so nobody’s all that worried about getting busted. You’d think the building was on fire for all the cigarette smoke. I inhale deeply and cough. Just my kind of place.

I check my things at the counter and spring for ten dance tickets like I can afford to blow a buck. I sit on a bench along the wall to dry off and size up the place. Soldiers, laborers, thugs, grifters, and farm boys straight from the Dust Bowl, circle the floor with ladies wearing too much make-up and too many artificial flowers in their hair. Beneath the testosterone and cheap after-shave is the undercurrent of lonely desperation. But hell, it’s 1933. Everybody’s on the skids except Al Capone.

I can’t take my eyes off the pretty girl in the blue dress. She has a heart-shaped face and a mouth like the pink lipstick kiss on a love letter. The problem is, the jug-earred loser she’s dancing with is holding her so tight she can’t breathe. She struggles and panics. He laughs and tightens his grip.

I forget about firing up my Lucky and walk over. The guy’s drunk. I can see he’s not the kind you can reason with so I knock him cold right out of the chute. I’m not the young gladiator I was when I joined The Force, but my fist is still a cinder block, A couple cheerful young soldiers scrape him off the floor and toss him into the rain.

Now the girl is with me. She looks too young to be out after dark. She’s even forgotten the heavy make-up and fake flowers. I ask her if she’s okay. She wipes away a frightened tear and nods.

“I’m Jack Dunning,” I say.

“Angel Dahl,” she says, but I take it for Doll, like if she uses her real name, some maniac might look her up in the phone book. I hand her a dance ticket and she settles in my arms like a soft little kitten. Then she tenses and I feel resistance along her spine.

“It’s not what you think,” I say. “It’s just my gun.”

She blushes. Her complexion is delicate and pale like a hothouse flower.

“Your gun?” she says.

“I was fifteen years on The Force. I’m naked without it.”

“I saw the suitcase. Are you coming or going?”

“I’m four days out of Boston. I’ll be working security at The Rexford.”

“That’s where I live. Maybe we could walk together after I get off.”

“Sure,” I say.”

The top of her head fits beneath my chin. Her hair smells like roses. We dance slow and sensuous to Stormy Weather and a jazz rendition of The Shadow Waltz. I drown in the scent of her and the knots at my center unravel.

The lights flick on and off and it’s closing time.

We walk toward The Rexford. I carry my suitcase, my other arm around Angel’s shoulders. No woman should walk alone on a night like this. The rain sounds like buckshot on the canopy of her umbrella. A flash of lightning. Thunder crackles and snaps like a frayed electrical cable.

We start across the alley between Sal’s Pawn Shop and The Rescue Mission when the goddamn Blarney Stone lands in the center of my back. I cave, fall to one knee, nearly paralyzed by the blow, my suitcase skidding across the sidewalk. I should be paying attention to my surroundings instead of thinking about the girl, how pretty she is, how good she smells.

Angel screams and her umbrella flies off in the wind. I struggle to my feet, pain radiating from my lumbar into my left leg. Jug-ears stands there grinning, swinging a sock that appears loaded with billiard balls. His breath is eighty proof. A match flame and the whole block would be gone.

I grab my suitcase so when he goes at me a second time I have a shield. He wields the balls like a medieval mace and leaves big dents in the leather. I can go for my gun, but blowing away a local on my first night in Santa Paulina might make a bad first impression.

Angel sees the patrol car before I do and flags it down. The officer bolts from the car, handcuffs at the ready, rain filling the brim of his cap. He’s big, red Irish with more than a drop of the old Viking blood.

“Drop the weapon like a good fellow, Elmer,” he says, like it’s not the first time he’s dealt with the miscreant. “I’ll give you a nice dry place to sleep it off.”

The cop wears heavy gloves and he drops the cuffs. He bends to pick them up and Elmer winds up for a head shot. I step in and snatch away the weapon before it picks up momentum. Red straightens up, walks up to the offender. “That wasn’t very nice,” he says, and lands a good one to the solar plexus. Elmer’s wind abandons his chest with a noisy honk. His eyes roll into his head and he drops like a stone. Red flicks his eyes in my direction.

“Grab an arm.” We dump him against the wall of the pawn shop beneath a striped awning. Red reaches out to shake my hand but my back seizes. I stumble into him and he feels the gun. We size each other up and sense a primal bond, like a wolf when he recognizes a member of his own pack.

“You okay?” he asks. He has blue eyes and pale, sun-sensitive skin.

“He got me a good one,” I say, tossing the weapon on the pawn shop roof. “I’ll be all right after a hot bath and a good night’s sleep.” I extend my hand and this time we connect.

“I appreciate your help. I’m Jim Tunney, S.P.P.D.”

“Jack Dunning, B.P.D., retired.”

He gives me a quizzical look. “Bakersfield?”

I laugh. “Boston.” Angel’s beside me again, her hand in the crook of my elbow.

“I thought you talked funny,” he says, good-naturedly. “You could have plugged that guy, but you didn’t.”

“No, but someone will sooner or later. Why rob them of the pleasure?”

“Good point. You must be Hank’s new security guy.”

“That I am. Word sure gets around.”

“No secrets in Little Ireland. Come on you two, get in. He can sleep it off where he is.” I grab my suitcase. The umbrella’s somewhere in Timbuktu.

We cross Dublin and Kildare Streets and he drops us off in front of The Rexford. We agree to get together for a drink once I’m settled in. I sense the change in Angel Doll the minute we walk into the lobby of the hotel. A man seated in a chair against the wall looks at her over his racing form with eyes as hard and cold as bullets. Except for a white tie and hatband he’s dressed completely in black. He has sharp high cheekbones and there’s not enough fat on his body to grease a frying pan. Angel’s eyes reflect both fear and defiance.

“Angel?” I say.

Without a word she pulls away from me and takes the elevator to the second floor.. The guy favors me with a victorious smirk. I figure I’ve got plenty of time to knock it off his kisser so I let it ride.

The lobby looks like a million lobbies in a million towns. It has comfortable leather chairs on an oriental carpet decorated with the requisite number of cigarette burns. There’s a scattering of potted palms, tables for magazines and newspapers and several art deco sand buckets bristling with cigarette butts.

The men who sit in the chairs look like a million men in a million towns. There may be a few female residents but the lobby is obviously a male domain. I see washed-up boxers, race track devotees, factory workers and pensioners of mild demeanor who probably went bust in ’29.

Hank looks up from behind the reception counter and his face lights up. He’s older and grayer than the last time I saw him. I walk over and slap him on the shoulder.

“You old son-of-gun,” I say. “Looks like you’ve done okay for yourself.”

“It’s not The Ritz, but it keeps me in brandy and cigars.”

My back cramps and I lean my elbows on the counter. “Some crazy son of-a-bitch blind-sided me with a sock filled with billiard balls.”

“That would be Elmer Ganguzza. He’s the town nut. I can have Doc McBane here in ten minutes.”

“Let’s see how I feel in the morning. Right now I’m beat.”

“Well, you’re a few days early. How about you relax over the weekend and start on Monday?”

“Sounds like a plan. By the way, who’s the mortician with the racing form?” I look over my shoulder. The racing form sits on an empty chair.

“Axel Teague. As soon as you walked away he followed the girl up the elevator. I’d watch your back around him if I were you.”

Hank opens a desk drawer. I recognize the envelope he hands me. It’s my termination check from The Department. I rip it open. It’s not like I’ve won The Irish Sweepstakes but it’s enough to keep the wolf from the door until payday at The Rexford.

“Want me to cash it?” asks Hank

“Sure thing.” I sign the back and he doles out the cash.

“If you want to keep your life uncomplicated, I’d think twice about the girl,” he says. “Teague gets a little touchy.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” I say. But I don’t want to think. I don’t want to change her, figure her out or psychoanalyze her. I want to hold her close and slow dance in the dark with my eyes closed. Hell with Teague.

My key goes to a corner room with a small private bathroom. The neon marquee from the movie theater across Cork Street bounces ripples of color from the asphalt onto my ceiling. After I loosen my muscles with a hot shower, I wrap a towel around my hips. I head for the bed, when there’s a knock on the door.

Angel says, “Jack, it’s me.” I open the door. She comes in and I lock it behind her. There’s a fresh bruise on her cheekbone.

“Teague?” I say. She nods.

“What’s his hold on you?” I examine the bruise and she winces.

“When my parents died I was thirteen. Teague showed up out of nowhere, said he was a distant uncle. I went with him because I had nowhere else to go. By the time I realized what he wanted me for I was trapped. Without me and a few of the girls from The Blue Rose, he’d have to get a job. You’re a nice man, Jack. You deserve to know the score.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this right now. I’m going to start by kicking the living shit out of the creep.

“He won’t be back until Monday when he’s gambled his money away.”

She turns toward the door. “I have to go. If I don’t meet my quota there’ll be hell to pay when he gets back.” The windowpane rattled in the rising wind.

I hold the door closed. “Wait, just wait a minute.” I remove one of the larger bills from my wallet and slip it into her beaded purse. “You’re not going out in the rain. I’ll see to it you don’t have to do this anymore.”

She turns to me and begins unbuttoning her dress.

“No, this isn’t...,” and I begin to fasten the buttons.

She presses her fingers to my lips. “Don’t say a word, Jack.”

The dress slides off of her shoulders to the floor. Another subtle shrug and she’s wrapped in nothing but the pale translucence of her skin. She reaches out and pulls the towel from my hips, takes my hand and pushes me back on the bed. A tremor runs the length of my body. Her perfumed hair falls over my face, her breasts warm and firm against my chest. She’s far too young or I’m far too old, however you want to look at it, but the urge is too strong and I haven’t been with anyone since.... A painful lump forms in my throat. I take my hands and press downward on her hips. She gives a sharp cry and I moan deep in my throat.

Her soft, full lips find mine but when I close my eyes it’s another time, another place...even another woman. I try to get her out of my head, but Sandra slips between us like a ghost, I’m twenty three again and she’s sixteen. We make love on a hillside with fireworks exploding in the midnight sky. She was my first true love and she loved me more than a’ bum like me deserved to be loved...until I ruined it all.

Suddenly, I’m back in the room over-looking Cork Street. I roll over and Angel is beneath me. Be here now, I tell myself. Be alive in this moment. I immerse myself in Angel, intensely and completely.

Afterward I light two Lucky’s and watch the streams of purple smoke dissolve in the semi-darkness. Lightning flickers and thunder rolls across the roof. Angel turns on her side, one hand in my hair, the other holding her cigarette.