Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 03 (11 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Leo woke to the banging of garbage cans in the alley outside his bathroom window. He cussed and for a minute or so tried to muffle his ears with the pillow, but strategies for the day ahead already had chased off sleep. By the time he tossed the pillow, rolled across the bed, and grabbed his watch off the nightstand, his brain had slammed into second gear: 6:35
a.m.

He rolled to the other side of the bed, reached to the floor for a box of tissues, and took a couple out. After he blew his nose, he gathered the tissues he’d discarded during the night, rolled each one into a tiny ball, and sailed them across the room, into the trash can under the floor lamp. Seven for seven. Five swishes and two caroms.

The old man stretched his legs. Groaned. Heaved himself up and staggered into the bathroom just as the trash men slung the cans off the truck so they banged on the pavement, rattling Leo’s head. He yanked down the window and tugged the curtains together. While the water ran to hot, he splashed his face, got out his shaving brush and soap. He lathered, brushed. Picked up his Gilette and began scraping while he reviewed the day’s itinerary.

Breakfast at the Spring Street Café, near the Federal Building, where Preston Gomez, the son of his old partner, Arturo, had promised to meet him at the entrance, eight o’clock sharp.

Talking Preston into running a scam against Mickey Cohen was going to require a slick pitch, though all he planned to ask was that they drop a word on the street about how the G-men had gotten handed new evidence in the Guns for Israel fraud.

Gomez would pry. Refuse to budge until Leo’d spilled the whole story. So Leo’d have to decide between the truth and a whopper, if he could dream one up by then. At lying, he’d never rank better than amateur. On the other hand, he’d spun quite a yarn to Charlie Schwartz.

If he gave Preston the truth, he could already hear the kid’s rebuttal. If he admitted the lie he’d fed Schwartz—that there was a
Herald
employee who’d deduced that the stories about the Guns for Israel ship sailing and sinking were crap, and nothing but, and said employee was about to go public—“Oh, swell,” Preston would say. “Mickey chooses a
Herald
writer who’s called him a louse once or twice, decides he must be the guy. Knocks him off.”

While he made the second pass over his stubble, Leo rehearsed his counterargument. Cohen, he’d contend, would realize that the only way they could pin the fraud on him was if the reporter who’d gotten Mickey’s lies committed to newsprint—confessed that Mickey’d bribed or muscled him into writing the tall tale. So, rather than knock off every
Herald
employee, from editor to paper carrier, Mickey’d hit his own stooge. The G-men would be shadowing the reporter; they could nab Mickey’s boys in the act. Maybe this time one of them would rat on the boss. Anyway, by now the reporter’s prepped to sing like Caruso, since he’s on Mickey’s goodbye-card list.

No doubt Preston would argue, “Yeah, and suppose Cohen’s boys sneak up and pop this reporter before we can grab them? It leaves him paying damn high for writing a couple phony articles.”

“Nope,” Leo’d say. “What he’s paying for is throwing in with Mickey.” In Leo’s book, Cohen was page one. If Leo had gotten to choose between skewering the gangster or Hitler, Adolf would’ve been pleased. “See,” he’d tell Gomez, “if you collar Mickey’s boys doing the reporter, they’re left standing with their dicks in the meat grinder. One of ’em’s liable to get more spooked of the Rock or the gashouse than of Mickey.”

If that didn’t win Arturo’s son over, Leo thought, the kid was a bonehead.

He brushed his teeth, rubbed down his scalp, ran a comb through his short wiry hair, and stuffed all his gear into a drawstring pouch. He left the bathroom, stood in the open space near the front door, and bent to see if he could still touch his toes. The third try he got within a few inches. He changed his underwear and put on a clean shirt, his brown trousers and coat, and a tie covered with stars and tiny half moons.

He sat on the bed, gazed around to check if he’d forgotten to pack anything, and ruminated about whether to fly or drive to Tom’s place. The eight- or nine-hour drive would be cheapest, but he might cut off three, four hours by flying to Sacramento, then renting a car for the trek up the hill. Besides, that way if he skidded on ice and crashed, he wouldn’t dent his Packard, which lately had been puffing like it was on the homestretch. If he made it climb the Sierra Nevada, he might have to send the old workhorse out to pasture.

There was a phone booth next to the motel office. He still had time to call Tom; maybe Schwartz had bought his yarn and cut Wendy loose already. Then, Leo wondered, should he still try to burn Mickey? “Yeah,” he muttered. He’d already barged into the lion’s den. They couldn’t kill him twice.

He felt a little traitorous for lying to Tom about why he’d set up a meeting with Gomez. How he’d claimed Gomez might pass him some dope on mob hideouts around Tahoe, places worth looking for Wendy. That’d been an ad lib. He wasn’t thinking about Wendy, not when he called Preston. He was trying to bag Mickey. Although squeezing Cohen
might
save Wendy’s neck, keep her alive until Tom located her. With the pressure on, so Mickey or Schwartz might have to use her, say for a phone call to Tom, more likely they’d keep her alive. Release the pressure, they finish her off.

He might’ve spelled that out for Tom, except Tom couldn’t see straight, disturbed as he was. When he got this agitated, like eight years ago in TJ, Tom didn’t listen to reason. He got fanatical and bossed you around.

Leo put on his hat, checked its angle in the mirror, grabbed his satchel, and stepped outside.

An old acquaintance sat waiting, chin on his fist, elbow on his knee. On the right front fender of Leo’s car.

His real name was Gregory something. You only called him Bass when you were out of range. He’d gotten tagged with the nickname when a mercury-based medicine for some disease tinted his flesh, gave it a scaly grayish sheen. Framed by that skin, his eyes looked yellow. His nose was round and dark, like a bonbon. He slid off the fender, hand in his overcoat. Sauntered over to Leo. His lips hardly moved, only quivered as he said, “Lemme carry your suitcase.”

“Where to?”

“The car. Around the corner. Go on, you’ll see it. Big pea-green Lincoln.” He bent and swept his free arm like a matinee butler. “On second thought, you carry the suitcase. It ain’t so far.”

“Tell you what,” Leo said. “I’ll throw the satchel in my car and pull around the corner. Wherever it is we’re going, I’ll follow you.”

“Step on it, wise guy.”

“What you got in the pocket, hardware?”

“Yeah. Wanta see?”

“Sure,” Leo said, hoping to God somebody would be watching, notice the gun, scribble the green car’s plate number, and call the law.

Without lifting the gun from his pocket, Bass jammed the barrel into Leo’s gut. “See it? Now move along, Pancho.”

Leo walked ahead, slowly, hoping for a break: an open doorway he could duck through or somebody he could flash a hand signal to. Bass nudged him along, around the corner and toward the long green two-door Lincoln.

The shotgun door flew open. The man who stepped out looked dressed for a ball: a pin-striped black three-piece suit, tie of rich maroon, black shoes glossy as patent leather. His hair matched the shoes. Sleek and lush, it cascaded straight back into a ducktail. He stepped aside. Bass grabbed Leo’s bag, dropped it on the sidewalk, gave Leo a nudge, then a push into the front seat.

“Denny, you drive Pancho’s junk heap. It’s the Packard that needs a paint job.”

“I should maybe run it through Earl Scheib’s,” the sharp dresser said.

“How about it, Pancho? You got twenty-nine ninety-five?” Bass either coughed or laughed and jabbed Leo’s arm. “Toss me the keys.”

“Hand me the satchel, then.”

“Tell you what. You live through the day, I’ll buy you a new wardrobe.”

“You want the keys, hand me the satchel,” Leo commanded.

Bass offered a genuine smile. “This guy’s a card, Denny. I like him just fine.” He picked up the satchel, dropped it across Leo’s knees. The old man dug into his trouser pocket, fished out his keys, pulled two of them off the chain, and handed them over.

As his partner turned toward the motel, Bass jammed the front seat backrest forward and climbed in behind Leo. “You got a piece in the bag, right?”

“Yeah,” Leo snapped. “Any second I’m gonna unzip the satchel, dig for the gun, whirl around, and shoot you between the eyes so fast you won’t see it coming.”

“That won’t do, will it, Jeeves?”

The driver, a sandy-haired neckless kid, turned and scowled. “Jeeves. A guy takes the wheel, you gotta smart off and call him Jeeves. Maybe you’re mad at the guy. That it, Bass? On account of you can’t drive?”

They pulled from the curb, swung a U-turn at the intersection, headed west on Pico.

Bass must’ve lost his edge, Leo thought. Twenty years ago, even the boss, Arnold Rimmer, wouldn’t use his nickname. Now, he took guff from a kid. The driver had to be underage. He looked built out of stacked boxes. He had soft, beardless cheeks, blond fuzz on his chin. His hairline ran straight across the middle of his forehead.

The traffic was jumpy, every other driver hunting for a parking spot in front of the laundry or the dime store. The sun looked brownish and timid, as though sure to lose its battle with the haze. Something sharp as an ice pick jabbed Leo’s neck at the base of his cranium. “Grab the dashboard, Pancho. Keep your mitts up there.”

Leo obliged. The blade pricked deeper. Leaning forward, hands on the dash, he breathed rapidly through his nose and between his teeth, until his heart quit stammering. “You wanta dab the blood off my neck, Bass?”

“Mister Kitain to you, Pancho.”

“Guys I call mister gotta deserve the respect.”

“Hey, I’ll work for the honor. What’s it gonna take?”

“For a start, explain why you’re shoving me into a car and poking me with a shiv.”

“Got you stumped, huh? See, we’re kinda like vigilantes. Somebody calls, says this old fool’s spreading lies, making threats against one of the pillars of our community, we gotta take care of it. Else what kinda vigilantes would we be? Wanta know where we’re going, what for?”

“What you oughta be doing is taking me to Mickey.”

“Mickey who? Hey, I get it. Mickey Mouse. You wanta go to the movies. Naw, first we’re gonna go to this place nobody’ll hear you scream. Then we put you through all kinds of jolly fun till you spill the name of this punk says Guns for Israel was a fake. Next we go visit the punk, us and you, if you come clean early and still got all your major parts. Finally, we all reach an understanding.”

“You a Jew?”

“Naw. Maybe I oughta convert. You think?”

“Yeah, after you tell Mickey he stinks worse than I figured, sending a goy out to knock off a Jew.”

“Mickey again. So, after I give this message to Mickey, anything you want me to tell Donald Duck?”

“Yeah. Tell Donald to tell Mister Kitain to kiss my ass.”

Bass made clucking sounds and patted Leo’s shoulder.

After a minute of silence, the driver said, “Why’d you guys cut the routine, just when I was thinking you could hunt up a sponsor, take it on the radio?”

Leo glanced up at the stoplight ahead. At the far corner, around the bus stop, a dozen people stood. If the light changed in time, caught them on the red, Leo figured maybe he could throw some line of gab that’d catch Bass off guard, give him a jolt, a second of inattention. A chance for Leo to sling open the door and bail.

The light changed. The driver braked. Leo spotted the door handle, tensed his fingers in readiness. The instant he opened his mouth, hoping for something inspired to leap out, a dreadful idea froze him. These guys might’ve gotten to Vi. Fright weakened the muscles of his neck. His head fell forward and his mouth went dry. Phlegm began dripping out of his nose. “How’d you find me?” he rasped.

“Easy, Pancho. A pal of ours has a talk with your answering service. Susie, right? He sees her home, makes sure she gets there safe. In return, she gives him your number. He calls us, et cetera.”

They swung north onto Fairfax Avenue. The beauty parlors, laundries, and service stations gave way to rows of double-floor eight-plex apartment buildings with ornamental iron-barred windows and dwarf-sized balconies, tiny lawns dotted with yellow dandelions. A few blocks south of Wilshire, Leo got his first whiff of the tar pits. In the park that surrounded them, he used to find his daughter Una sprawled on the grass in winter or under the shade of a live oak in summer, dreaming herself into prehistoric times. Back when she was whole. Before the summer she visited Austria and got beaten. Picnicking beside the Danube when some Nazi was giving a harangue and she couldn’t hold her yap shut. Before the quacks declared her a schizophrenic and Leo had to question how they got away with calling schizophrenia a disease, when Una got it beat into her.

At Wilshire, the driver jumped the last instant of the yellow light, caught the red halfway through, and got awarded a symphony of horns.

Now Fairfax was lined with jacarandas, palms, elms, birds-of-paradise. Houses that Hansel and Gretel might’ve eaten. British cottages with mock-sod roofs. Moorish haciendas built to one-fifth scale with minaret towers where madam stored her linens. Everything that used to look silly stabbed Leo with nostalgia today. He and the girls used to live three blocks west of Fairfax in a bungalow that’d once been a duplex, with a courtyard in the middle. Out of all the stuff to remember, he wondered, what would be tops? What would blaze in his mind the last thing before he died?

As they turned right on Sixth Street he wondered what kind of prisoner he’d make. For sixty years he’d tried to imagine, ever since the first story he’d read or somebody’d told him about a firing squad and prisoners lined up against a wall. There was a swaggering colonel with a long waxed mustache, at least one prisoner down on his knees, whimpering, besides the hero who casts around his undaunted stare and, when offered a smoke, takes one puff and spits the cigaret onto the dirt. His eyes are clear and gleaming, because he sees all the way to glory.