Playland (39 page)

The headline and accompanying story in the
Times
about the fire was discreetly placed on page eight, below the break:

Cosmopolitan Pictures’ Weekly Newsreel offered a series of shots of the still-smoldering construction site; in the background, fire and police officials could be seen picking through the embers and talking to Lilo Kusack and Benny Draper, who were unnamed and who I was able to identify only by running the film slow-motion, and then freeze-framing and technically enhancing the footage. In the stentorian tones that the commentators on those old studio newsreels all seemed to favor, a voice-over said: “A propane leak is the cause given for the explosion that destroyed what was to be America’s number-one gambling palace, La Casa Nevada, in the Mojave Desert near Las Vegas. Authorities here discount rumors of arson or other foul play. Here is Clark County Supervisor Lyle Ledbetter.”

There was a cut to Lyle Ledbetter, in an open-necked shirt and a straw cowboy hat: “I have been assured by Fire Chief Ben Hawk that his department’s initial investigation has indicated there is no truth to the speculation that this was anything else but what it was—a fire. These things happen …”

Then over a final shot of the still-smoking sign saying,
GRAND OPENING DECEMBER
31
ST
—
HAPPY NEW YEAR
, the commentator’s voice: “There is no immediate word as to when construction will begin again on La Casa Nevada. And now for a change of pace, the French Fillies promenade at the Easter parade …”

Jacob King was called in for questioning by the Los Angeles Police Department on the matter of the fire at La Casa Nevada. He appeared voluntarily without an attorney, and although he was fingerprinted and a mug shot was taken, he was neither charged nor held in custody. The police refused to be quoted even off the record, but I have culled all seven newspapers publishing
in Los Angeles at the time, and by incorporating the remarks each paper claims Jacob King made, and by throwing out repetitions and inconsistencies, I am able to draw together one coherent statement: “I’m a businessman. I can’t take those New York winters any more. My health. I’m looking for investment possibilities. Someplace where I don’t have to shovel snow. I say to Lieutenant Crotty, I’m having a little trouble here. Maybe you can help me out. This so-called felony you keep referring to. It occurred in Las Vegas, right? And Lieutenant Crotty, he says, Right. So I say to him, What are you guys in Los Angeles doing, bringing me in and mugging me and printing me on a Las Vegas case? You want to arrest me, arrest me, send me over to Vegas in leg irons. But you don’t do that, I say to him. So I keep reaching the same conclusion. You got nothing on me. And one last thing, I say to him. Under Section 516 of the California penal code, all photographs and fingerprints must be returned to the accused if no charges are brought and the accused has no prior conviction in this jurisdiction. You can look it up, I say to him. I did.”

In fact, Jacob King’s reading of Section 516 of the California penal code was accurate. Both the mug shots and the fingerprints were returned to him, and were found among his effects after his death. I find Jacob’s having the California penal code at his fingertips almost as interesting a comment about him as the homicides he is alleged to have committed. It bespeaks both an intelligence and a sense of humor that I had previously been unwilling to concede.

Morris Lefkowitz was eating lox.

“This was not the deal, Morris,” Jimmy Riordan said. “We wanted a nice straight business arrangement. Now a hotel burns down. I don’t want to know who did it. I don’t want to know how the person did it. I don’t want to point any fingers. All I know is Jake is putting us into the construction business, and we’re going to have to build our own hotel.”

“So we’re in the construction business,” Morris Lefkowitz said. “A new business, a new challenge.”

“You don’t just go out there, torch their operation, not expect another shoe to drop.”

“Sometimes it’s important to keep your eye on the big picture, Jimmy,” Morris Lefkowitz said, “not think all the time about shoes dropping.”

Jimmy Riordan approached from another angle. “And we got to deal Jackie Heller in.”

“His brother Leo was a nice boy. Did what he was told. No questions. Jackie will do what you tell him to do, Jimmy.” Jimmy Riordan did not miss the point. He would be the messenger bearing Morris Lefkowitz’s message to Jackie Heller. “It runs in the family.”

“What do you want to cut him in for?”

“Chump change,” Morris Lefkowitz said.

Jimmy Riordan wondered if he should try again, because that was his advocate’s obligation, but he knew that Morris Lefkowitz had already made his mind up. Nevertheless. “Morris, Benny is not going to let this happen.”

“Tell me, Jimmy,” Morris Lefkowitz said, selecting another slice of pink lox, smelling it, and then laying it on his plate as if it were a sable pelt, “would you rather be in business with Benny Draper or with Jackie Heller?”

Morris had already worked it through, Jimmy Riordan thought. As usual. In the best of all possible worlds, it was no contest. Jackie Heller was a boob who could be bought, as Morris knew, for chump change. Benny Draper was a crazy boob, with a significant piece of the action, the greed to want more, and a willingness to use violence to see that he got it.

“Have some lox, Jimmy,” Morris Lefkowitz said.

“Morris.” One last time. Explore all the options, as he had been taught at law school. Explain the possible repercussions. “Believe me. This could mean bad stuff.”

“You know what, Jimmy? I’ve seen bad stuff before, and I’m still eating lox.” He picked his teeth with the silver toothpick he kept on his watch chain. “Jacob’s there. We’re here. Go with Jacob.”

Blue Tyler was dancing by herself to the music of
Pal Joey
on Jacob King’s Victrola when she looked up and saw him framed by the French doors leading into the living room of the house on St. Pierre Road. She wondered how long he had been there, watching.

“I know this house,” she said. It was as if she felt no explanation was needed to explain how she had been allowed entry, and as if she knew he would not ask for one. “It used to belong to Chuckie O’Hara.”

“I don’t know any Chuckie O’Hara.”

“Well, then, you don’t know anything, do you?”

“That’s possible.”

“The director. He’s done three of my pictures. And now
Red River Rosie
. Chuckie’s a fairy. You know what a fairy is?”

She amused him, and amusement had never before ranked high in his pursuit of the carnal pleasures. “I think I know what a fairy is.”

“His boyfriend was the butler. Withers, I think his name was.”

“Woodson,” Jacob King said.

“Anyway I saw them necking in the kitchen at the wrap party for
Lily of the Valley
. Chuckie directed that, too. I was eleven. No, twelve. I came out of the kitchen and I said to my mother, ‘Withers is in the kitchen kissing Chuckie’s penis.’ ”

“You think you know a lot, don’t you?”

“I know that Arthur says you burned down La Casa Nevada.”

“If I burned down La Casa Nevada, it was stupid of you to come here.”

“Did you? I mean, burn down La Casa Nevada?”

“I was here last night.”

“Getting laid. By one of Brenda Samuel’s girls. Arthur says that was your alibi.”

“What else does Arthur say?”

“Arthur says you’re a gangster. Are you a gangster?”

The question did not faze Jacob King. It was one he had been asked most of his adult life by reporters and assistant district attorneys and by people ostensibly on the right side of the law, and he understood the frisson they received by asking, and the power he had over them by not minding that they had asked. “That’s a newspaper word. Some people use it. It’s like
movie star
. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“
Movie star
does too mean something,” Blue said quickly. It was as if Jacob King had challenged her entire value system, the only one that held any meaning for her. Usually she was in control, and here was a man she suddenly suspected would be difficult to control. “It means people don’t care what I’m in, they come to see me.
Movie star
means I can make any picture I want.”

“
Gangster
means I can shut it down.”

She was walking around the room now. There was a photograph in a silver frame. “Is this your wife?”

He nodded.

“Arthur told me you were married. Arthur said you killed people. What do you say about that?”

“I’d say Arthur leads a secondhand life. And I’d say you’re getting pretty sick of that.”

She looked at him for a moment, then turned, walked out of the living room, across the foyer, and slowly began to climb the main staircase. She had loved staircase shots since
Lily of the Valley
, when she, a poor servant child, was pretending to be the lady of the manor, only to be discovered and banished from the main house as a thief. She tried to have a staircase sequence in every picture. She knew where the camera should be placed, and how it should track her up the stairs, one long traveling shot and no cutaways.

After a moment Jacob followed her. When he got to the second-floor landing, he watched her disappear into the study next to the master bedroom down the corridor.

“It’s a Remington, and it’s a fake,” Jacob King said.

“Who’s Remington?”

“A famous painter.”

“What do you keep in the safe? Your tommy gun?”

Jacob pressed a button and the painting disappeared up into the ceiling. “It’s open. Open it.”

She pulled open the door, and gasped. The safe was full of loose cash and stacks of bills still in their paper wrappers. “You keep this kind of money in an open safe?”

“It’s one of the advantages of being a gangster. No one’s going to take it.”

She kept looking at the money, as if it were the fruit in the Garden of Eden. “How much is it?”

“A hundred grand. Maybe two hundred.”

She scooped a handful of cash from the safe and held it in her hands. “For my sixteenth birthday, I signed a seven-year contract that made me the highest-paid teenager in America. I make twelve thousand five hundred dollars a week this year, but I never see it. My agent sees it. My lawyer. My business manager. My accountant. I’ve only held a hundred dollars in my hands once in my life. And that’s when I made a contribution to the March of Dimes on behalf of the Industry. Mrs. Roosevelt thanked me.”

“Take it,” Jacob King said.

Suddenly she threw the money into the air, then watched it drift down, her childlike avarice almost as highly developed a sense in her as sex. “I don’t want your money,” she said finally as the bills dropped off her like snow.

“What do you want?”

“What do you think I came here for?”