Los Angeles Stories (2 page)

“Boss!” she yelled.

“Where is he?” I yelled back.

“She! In the back!” A very thin woman was sitting at a tiny desk talking into a telephone. She slammed the receiver down and stared at me and said, “Well, what?”

I held the Book open. “This is a wonderful opportunity to list with the
City Directory
at no cost to you, the businessman.”

“Don't hand me that,” she said. “I run this place. Everyone out there is a mad dog from hell until proven otherwise, including you and that son of a bitch landlord on the telephone.” She lit a cigarette and blew smoke at me. “Trying to break my balls, can you believe the son of a bitch?”

“Why not give the Book a try for a year?”

“All right, hotshot, what's your name?”

“Frank.”

“As in what?”

“Frank St. Claire.”

“Nice. So lead off with it. Don't start with the ‘no charge' bit, make it sound good, give it a little class, dress it up for crissakes.” She filled out the form. “What made you come in here?”

“That's my assignment, beauty shops.”

“There's too damn many. It's a cut­throat business, it's very competitive. Do me a favor and don't list all of 'em right around this neck of the woods. Make me look good. The Biltmore, that's a ritzy crowd, they got sheckles in their pants.” I told her thanks, I'd do my best. I left, but then I went back.

“Let me ask you something,” I said.

“Fire away, Frankie.”

“How long can fingernails grow if you don't cut them?”

“Who knows? They keep growing, like hair. It's molecular.”

“Thanks.”

“Why?”

“I see this woman in Pershing Square every day where I eat lunch. Her nails are about a foot long, but curved back around.”

“Tell her to drop in for a manicure, I'll give her the professional discount.”

“Thanks.”

“You're a very thankful guy, Frankie. Go get yourself a new pair of glasses.”

I walked back to Pershing Square. The woman in black was gone. It was getting on toward evening, and I closed my eyes and fell asleep. When I woke up, she was back. “Precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little.” She seemed to be in a relaxed frame of mind. “Of money, some have coveted. They have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” I waited, hoping to hear more. I tried to give her a quarter, but she hid her face behind the Bible and wouldn't look at me. I left.

There's a bar at the top of Grand Avenue called the Los Amigos. They have a coin-­operated player piano, a shuffle­board table game, and booths along the side. The bartender's name is Russell. It was late, and the place was quiet. Russell saw me come in.

“Hiya, Frank. Haven't seen you around lately. The usual?”

“No. I want a whiskey sour. That's a good drink, right?”

“Sure, Frank, sure. One whiskey sour.” There was a woman alone in a booth, and she looked up when she heard my voice. It was the manager from Beauty by Rene.

“Thankful Frankie,” she said. I sat down across from her.

“How are you this evening, Rene? I guess I'm surprised to see you in my neighborhood.”

“Don't be.”

“How's it going with the landlord?” I asked, just trying to be delicate.

“That ball­-busting son of a bitch? I can't move now, things are just starting to pick up. Downtown's gonna take off when the war hits.”

“War?” I wasn't sure what she was talking about or how many drinks she'd had.

“War, kiddo. As in Adolf H.? You heard about him?”

“I'm not sure. I haven't seen the papers lately. Where is the war?”

“Get lost. Nobody's that out to lunch, but nobody. You better get your nose out of that book. Get yourself a girl, there's one on every corner.”

I was starting to pick up a slight drawl in her talk. “Where are you from, originally?” In Los Angeles, it's a harmless question.

“Amarillo, Texas. I caught the first thing smokin'. End of story.”

“How'd you get started in the beauty line?” I asked.

“I was a bartender in Amarillo. The L.A. cops won't let a woman tend bar in their precious town. I went to cosmetology school, I'm legal.”

Russell brought fresh drinks. “This whiskey sour is not bad,” I said.

“Look, I can't figure you out. I mean, you're all right, aren't you? Upstairs?” She pointed to her head and made a circle with her finger. “It's no act — the book and your job and all that?”

“It's no act. I work very hard. My boss is a bastard, like your landlord. I'll tell you a little story if you want to hear it.”

“Fire away, Frankie. Fire away and fall back.”

“I had one friend here on the Hill. Mr. John, an Italian opera singer. But he doesn't sing anymore, and you want to know why? Because he's dead, that's why. He jumped off the roof of the New Grand Hotel.”

“A jumper.”

“You come back to my place and I'll show you something you never seen in a month of Sundays. I can't believe it myself.”

“I got to get down the Hill before the train stops. Tomorrow is another day to be beautiful, right, Frankie boy?”

“You don't believe me. You think I'm one of those mad dogs, like you said.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Whiskey sour is a damn good drink.” She got up and left, just like that.

Russell walked by, checking tables for tips. “Can't win 'em all!” he said, clapping me on the back so hard I almost choked. I thought about leaving, but then Louie Castro walked up. Louie is a very fat, oily man with a fat, oily voice. Not the kind of man you'd care to know too well. He owns the Los Amigos and lives upstairs.

“Nice to see you, Frank. Always nice to see an old friend.” He slid into the booth. “Of course I heard about Mr. John. Tragic.” I nodded, like I was too sad to say anything. “I understand you came into a nice little bequest. That's the kind of man he was, generous to his friends.” Louie makes it his business to know about things; he likes to know the value of people and things. He sat there, looking at me, sizing me up.

I had to say something. “That's right. Records and books, Italian stuff. I don't understand Italian.” Basically true.

“Sentimental, that's the kind of man Mr. John was. And I'm very emotional, Frank. That's why I'm so upset about Mr. John.” Louie waited for a reply, but I couldn't think of anything emotional, so I kept quiet. “I'm glad we had this little talk,” he said. He maneuvered his big body out of the booth and went upstairs. Russell fussed around for a while. “Gotta close, pal. See you real soon!” I left.

Down below, the city sparkled and hummed like a giant beehive. I walked home. My apartment building is the oldest wooden structure on Bunker Hill. Each floor has a covered porch across the front, and the rooms open out onto it. At night, you can see the lights of the city stretching away to the east. The river, the train tracks, the gasworks, Lincoln Heights, El Sereno, and beyond. I like living there, even though the showers are downstairs. When I got back I checked the directory to make sure the money was all there. I listened to some opera records and looked at the poetry books. I hadn't been doing so well with my lessons. I knew some of the words but I didn't understand the poems. “Try harder,” Cousin Lizzie kept saying.

Next morning I went out to buy a paper from Lou Lubin, the gray­-haired newsboy who hangs out by the Angel's Flight platform. “ 'Lo, Lou.” I said. I always use that line with him. “What's this I hear about war?”

“Where you been, in the jug?” He's short, and he cocks his head to the side, looking up.

“I'm a working man, Lou, I don't have time to know all these things. Fill me in.”

“Hitler and Mussolini got it all sewn up tight. I haven't heard from the family in two years, don't know where they're at. It's all sewn up tighter'n Aunt Fannie's girdle.” Lou used to be a nightclub dancer and an extra in the movies.

“Sorry to hear it, Lou. I hope they're okay.”

“Thanks.”

“You know anything about Mr. John?”

Lou turned so that his back was to the street. “Some guys were talking to him. Very tough guys in a Cadillac. A Cadillac sticks out.”

“What'd they want?”

“I'm just the newsy on the street here. Gotta keep the nose clean. You were a friend of his. It was something they thought he had. Something small, something he had hidden in his place. They didn't find it, and they went away. Then they came back.”

“The police said it was suicide.”

“The Catholics would be out of business.”

“Where would a man go for clarinet lessons?”

“Look it up.”

Lou was getting nervous, he wanted me to leave. I looked up “Music Teachers.” It was mostly women teaching in the home. Mostly piano and violin. I came across
The Saxophone Shop, Leo Schenck, 319 Spring St. R1121
. I called the number from a pay phone. He sounded like an older man.

“This is Leo.”

“Do you teach clarinet?”

“Age?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“Too old.”

“I'd like to try.”

“Why?”

“I was given a clarinet.”

“Bring it in.” Leo sounded tired, and it was only eleven in the morning. I walked there. It was Saturday and the downtown streets were crowded with shoppers. Every restaurant had a line of people waiting to eat, but I had a salami sandwich in my pocket. The shop on Spring Street was tiny and dark, with saxophones hanging up and saxophone parts lying all around. Leo was a skinny bald man with horn-­rim glasses and a green visor like pawnbrokers wear. He opened the clarinet case and stood there looking at it. Inside the case, the clarinet was broken down into four sections. You could see it was old, but it had been well cared for. Leo looked at me through his thick glasses.

“I don't want to know how you got this,” he said. “I don't want to know about you or who sent you.” He closed the lid and snapped the latches. “I got a sawed­-off. I made it myself. You try anything, I'm taking you with me.”

“I represent the
City Directory
. No other medium can —”

“I got double­-ought buck here. They'll just turn the hose on you and wash you into the street.” He brought it up from under the counter and showed it to me, the meanest looking little thing I ever saw. I took the case and left. I started walking fast down Spring Street. I walked right through every red light and didn't stop until I got to my bench in Pershing Square.

I tried to calm down. People were coming and going all around me: kids, old folks, men and women, laughing and talking, friends meeting and calling out to each other. I was too scared to move. After a while, I opened up the case and looked at the four sections of the clarinet as Leo had done. I took the pieces out and turned them around in my hands, but it meant nothing. It was just one more thing I didn't understand.

“You don't look like a reed man,” said a voice next me. I jumped, but it was only Finchley, the retired hobo. He took the case and began assembling the pieces like he knew all about it. “Le Blanc, very nice. Something's stuck in here.” He fingered around inside one of the sections and brought out a rolled­-up piece of paper. “There's your problem,” he said, handing it to me. There was a little box in the case and thin pieces of wood inside the box. He took one out and moistened it with his tongue; then he fitted the wood into the end of the clarinet and put the end in his mouth and began to play a little tune. I recognized it. “Over the Waves,” which everyone has heard at some point. The woman in black appeared. She came out from behind a palm tree holding her arms straight out to the side and twirling around with the music. She had her Bible in one hand, but she seemed to have forgotten about it. People passing by stopped to watch her. She was a sight, with her torn black dress and her matted hair and those fingernails! After a while, Finchley stopped playing and tipped his hat. “Thank you, friends and neigh­bors, you're very kind, I'm sure.” He passed it around. Some people put money in the hat, others walked off. The woman sat down on her bench across the path and seemed to go right to sleep. “We did good business,” Finchley said. “Let us repair to a nice, cool bar. Should we ask your friend?” I shook my head. “She'll be fine,” I said “I need a drink bad.”

The nice, cool bar turned out to be the Tokyo Big Shot.

“Finchley!” said the Japanese bartender. His gold teeth lit up.

“And the shecker,” said the snaggle­tooth woman at the end of the bar.

“My friend is in a quandary, at a crossroads, and we have come here today to find resolution. For this purpose, we require your back table and a bottle of your cheapest whiskey,
tout suite
,” Finchley said. The woman grabbed her glass and made a bee­line for the curtain behind the bar, but Finchley said, “You'd best remain on watch, my dear. Be on the lookout for a midget carrying an umbrella.”

Behind the curtain was a tiny room with a round table and four chairs. There was nothing else in the room except a telephone and a Mexican pinup calendar from 1936. A lightbulb hung from a nail in the ceiling. The bartender brought a bottle and two glasses. “That will be all, Sammy. We'll call if we need you.” Sammy laughed and went back out front.

“A man conceals something inside a clarinet. He assumes it will be found by someone in particular, someone who will understand.” Finchley unrolled the paper and smoothed it out on the table. It was a photo­graph of three men, taken at a restaurant table. The men were looking straight at the camera. Their faces were flat and bright, like a flashbulb had been used. The picture was old, and the men were wearing clothes from another time.

I recognized one man. “It's Mr. John,” I said. “He was my friend, up on the Hill. He's dead now. But this is him, a long time ago. I know it's him.”