City of Secrets (17 page)

“
Farò qualsiasi cosa, bella.
How can I help?”

She took a last hit on the stick, rubbed it out in the tray.

“Somebody's tailing me. Tried to get in my apartment. Skinny bird, Cordoba tan Ford.” She leaned forward. “If Tony Lima's trying to bump me off, Joe, I need to know. Maybe Gillio's back in town. I figured after the Takahashi case he'd try something, anything.”

Joe Merello's fingers tapped lightly on the desk, his mouth turned down like Pagliaccio in the second act. He glanced up at her, then back down at the reddish brown polished wood.

“Lima owes you,
cara
.
I concorrenti
—how do you call it—competitors. You helped get rid of them. I told you I never do business with Gillio's boys. Too hard, too rough.
Sono stronzi.
Life's too short, plenty of money to make in better ways.”

He pivoted the chair to fully face her, shrugged again. “I do not hear everything,
hai capito
? But I never hear Lima or the Lanza boys say nothing about you.
Niente.
They got problems of their own.”

“Like what?”

Joe stuck a chubby finger in his ear and wiggled it. His round faced creased with pain. “
Maledetto!
Goddamn ear.” He sighed.

“
Allora, bella,
Gillio is still in Chicago. Lima is busy with other men who betray him.”

Her voice was dry. “Any of them trying to kill me?”

Joe looked past her to the soundproof doors. Then he stood up, lines on his face deep. Waddled to where she still sat, legs crossed in the chair. Put his hand on her shoulder and lowered his voice to a whisper.

“
È possibile, cara.
I do not know much, you understand.
Non di certo.
But I hear things.
Un cugino di Martini, quel figlio di puttana,
making trouble for Lima.
Un traditore,
making his own
famiglia,
new family. Lima has more friends, better friends, in Los Angeles, he brings them up to San Francisco. For what,
non lo so—non domando, capito
? But this
cugino, questo culo,
he makes trouble, refuses to work with Lima's new friends.
È possibile
he wants to, to
vendicarsi
—to make revenge on you for his cousin. You know?”

She laid her gloved hand on Joe's, still on her shoulder. Squeezed it. Said heavily:
“Grazie sempre, Joe. Come si chiama?”

The short, stout man bent over to whisper in her ear, smelling of Chianti and cigars. Dots of red wine marred the white of his gold-buttoned vest.

“Benedetti. Angelo Benedetti. He came out from Chicago when Gillio ran away.”

He patted her shoulder and straightened slowly. Memories of Martini and a brain-splattered bathroom flooded through Miranda, her stomach clenched, drowning her in fear. Took a deep breath, closed her eyes. When she opened them, Joe was staring down at her, face in shadow. Worried.

“I have not heard anything against you,
bella,
you understand? Nothing. You have not been mentioned. If someone says something and I hear, I tell you. They don't try nothing in my club, don't talk around me. My boys let me know.”

She squeezed his hand and tried to smile. Stood up.

“I'd better get back to dinner. I've got friends coming.”

Joe took her by the arm, led her to the door. “
Qualcos'altro. Questi bastardi sono furbi e cattivi, molto cattivi
.”

He grasped her shoulders and turned her to face him, voice driven by urgency. “
Fai attenzione, cara mia, guardati. Capito
? They're not like me, not even like Lima or Gillio.
Sono fascisti
. They are Fascists.”

Miranda's eyes widened. She stared at Joe. Picked his hand off her shoulder, kissed his palm, and stepped out through the thick silver doors.

 

Fifteen

Bente was waiting for Miranda at the table, whispering something to Jorge while he replaced her gin fizz. Still no Rick.

“Bourbon, Jorge. Neat.”

The waiter smoothed his hair, shiny with oil, curled his lips at Bente, and danced toward the bar, hips narrow, waist tapered, lithe and smooth.

“What's wrong? You look like a goddamn Irish ghost, all white and green.”

Miranda opened her evening bag and took out her second-to-last Chesterfield, lighting it with one of the Moderne matchbooks on the table. Her whole body was trembling.

“I already ate. Order whatever you want.”

“Don't avoid the question. What the hell's happened?”

“I'll tell you what's happened. Belgium's through. King Leopold's surrendered.”

Rick sank heavily in the chair on Miranda's left as Jorge sidled to her other side and deftly set down a shot glass.

The reporter looked up at Jorge, stony-faced. “Scotch and water, and make it a double.”

The waiter bowed low, retreated.

Miranda took a deep drag on the cigarette, blowing smoke toward the palm fronds and phony marble columns, incandescent sparkling streamlined colors of the well-bred and well-to-do.

She almost felt sorry for them.

Couples swaying to the music, pressed together between tables. Singer warbling “The Way You Look Tonight,” scent of It's You and Blue Grass and Shocking.

Drink while the French were still making champagne, chatter about the Riviera and Sun Valley, fuck whomever you wanted to fuck and marry your kind, café society, toast of the town, because your kind won't last forever.

Your world is ending, masque almost over, goose-step, swastika, and blitzkrieg coming.

Better learn to march, not rhumba. Sold American.

Belgium lost, so much smoke. France next, and how much time could Britain hold out, tiny green island with twenty-one miles of water to cross. If Gertrude Ederle could swim it, the fucking Nazis could launch an armada across the Channel like a kid skipping a rock.

Miranda swallowed the bourbon until it bit her throat. Set down the glass, crushed the cigarette in the ashtray. Looked across the table at her friends.

“Au revoir, Belgium.
Tot ziens.
” She said it softly, raised her glass. “It was a beautiful country.”

They were both staring at her. No crooked smile from Rick, no Irish lilt in his voice. Crumpled clothes, cigarette ash, mustard on the navy tie. No display handkerchief. Bente eyed him with distaste.

“Looks like you're the one that surrendered, Sanders—don't you believe in dressing for dinner?”

“As much as you believe in Rockefeller. Pray, forgive my sartorial faux pas. The goddamn Nazis are overrunning Europe and I forgot to dress for the occasion.” He gave a mock bow to Bente.

Miranda drained the rest of the bourbon, gazed at the glass in her hand.

“Belgium died yesterday. Died in '38, when Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia and nobody did a goddamn thing to stop him.”

Bente sipped her gin fizz. “Whole world's on the ropes. What I want to know is why you walked out of Joe's casino room looking like shit. White as a southern governor.”

“You're not my goddamn mother, Bente.”

“No, but I am your goddamn friend, and so is Sanders. You going to tell us what's going on, or do I ask that fat salesman at the bar if he'll be a fourth for bridge?”

Bente Gallagher. Short-tempered, big-breasted, body like a Viking goddess. Half-Norwegian, half-Irish, all red, from hair to politics. Saw Spain, saw the '34 strike, saw her brother get killed by strike breakers. Found hope in Lenin and Trotsky, enough to keep her breathing, keep her believing in something beyond
Reader's Digest
and Jimmy Dorsey and whether hats were full on or off the face this season.

“I need your help.”

Jorge appeared with Rick's Scotch and fresh drinks, dinner menus. Bente opened the bright yellow-and-green covers, glanced at the pages.

“Hamburger steak and dinner potatoes. And chilled tomato slices. All together, not in courses, please. Meat medium rare, Jorge. Make it tender.”

The waiter grinned. Rick said in a clipped voice. “Roast leg of lamb dinner. Baked potato, cauliflower au gratin. Sliced tomatoes. All at once.”

Jorge glided toward the kitchen, throwing a last wriggle of his eyebrows and ass toward Bente. Rick leaned over the table.

“OK, what's up? Asking for help isn't exactly your style, Miranda.”

She held the small glass tightly, right hand warmed by the brown richness of the bourbon.

“War nerves, I guess. This case—these cases—I don't know. Feel like I walked into the middle of the third act.”

Bente shrugged. “Whatever I can do, Randy. There's been some trouble at the meetings—all this fifth column bullshit. People think every Party member is sending out invitations to Stalin.”

“Can you blame them? He signed a treaty with Hitler, remember—”

“Yeah, Sanders, but not every Party member is a Stalinite. I dropped the bastard a couple of years ago. Now he's trying to kill the only good leader we've got left, poor old Trotsky down in Mexico.” She shook her head in disgust. “He's like Hitler with a better mustache.”

Rick removed a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes from his jacket pocket.

“Whoever's behind it, the fifth column's not just hysteria. Check the
News
tomorrow. Some red-blooded American flew a swastika over the University of Idaho today. Reports are coming in from all over the country—swastikas on buildings, Jews threatened.”

His eyes drooped with tired shadows, mouth stretched downward in a wide, thin line of disgust.

“Another synagogue like Sherith Israel, Miranda, this time no swastika—just the word. Beth Hamidroth on Turk Street. And the police radio called in a fight on the corner of Arguello and Lake in front of Temple Emanu-El—a couple of Bund members in uniform singing ‘Deutschland über alles.'”

He shook his head, looked over toward the long chromium bar across the room.

“Like I said when I came in—Leopold surrendered. Rolled over and let the Nazis take Belgium without so much as a ‘Fuck you' to the French and English. And it's only going to get worse.”

“On that cheerful note, Sanders, why don't we ask Miranda what she needs?”

Miranda sipped the whiskey, body still cold. Dabbed at her lips with the dinner napkin, Red Dice lipstick leaving a perfect print on the white cloth.

“Pandora Blake was a starstruck girl from Lima, Ohio, looking for fame, fortune, and an MGM contract. What she found was work at a nudie show. Artists and Models at last year's Fair. Dated Henry Kaiser when she was rehired on for '40. He's a lion tamer for the jungle show, a sadistic bastard who likes to brand his girlfriends like cattle.”

Bente's face reddened. “I volunteer to use a whip on the sonofabitch.”

Rick ground the Lucky into the glass ashtray. “I checked on him, Miranda—one arrest for assault, two ex-wives. Moves around a lot. Assault warrant was in Bakersfield, working with the Christy Brothers Circus.”

Jorge sashayed toward the table with the busboy, who placed fresh drinks in front of all of them while Jorge served the food, bending down to make sure Bente's napkin was in her lap. The redhead grinned at him, and when he turned to leave, she lightly slapped his butt. The busboy blushed, bowed, smiled. And backed away.

Miranda's voice was wry. “Keep it up, Bente, and none of the waiters will turn their backs to you.”

Her friend shrugged. “I like a good piece of tail. What's wrong with you, Sanders?”

Rick was choking on a piece of cheese-covered cauliflower. He reached for a glass of water, swallowed. Caught his breath.

“I should know better than to eat with you.”

Bente snorted. “You're a reporter. You don't have a reputation to worry about.”

“All right, you two, listen. Kaiser was on the spot, but other than jealousy I don't have a motive. Pandora's most recent boyfriend was Ozzie Mandelbaum, a Jewish kid and an Aquadonis at the Aquacade. She moved in with him—they were going to get married.”

Rick wiped his mouth. “Is that the Jewish connection?”

Miranda sighed. “I don't know. Ozzie said she wanted to convert. And that's it … I need more information. On both Pandora and Annie Learner.”

“I've got some for you.”

Rick dug a reporter's notebook from his side pocket and flipped it open.

“Annie Learner knew Pandora Blake. Pandora's address was found in her address book—Hotel Potter. Different one than now, so it's before she started living with the Jewish kid. No update in the book, so maybe they weren't in touch very often.”

Miranda's left hand closed in a fist, knuckles white. “That's no fucking coincidence. Someone targeted both of them.”

“But only Annie was Jewish. Doesn't make any sense.” Bente's tone was sober.

Rick shifted in his chair. Picked up his fork, said it carefully.

“There's something else—something important. I got this just before I left, from a cop who was on the scene when they went over her apartment. Annie knew Duggan. Her address book was full of a lot of names—a lot of men—and Gerald Duggan was one of them.”

Miranda took out the last Chesterfield. Rick dropped his fork and lit a match. She inhaled deeply, holding his hand. Blew the smoke toward the ceiling, met his eyes again.

“Thanks, Rick. That changes a few things but not everything. Meyer believes Duggan's innocent. I don't know what I think.” She looked down at the fluted shot glass, shook her head.

“Why did a U.S. marshal escort Duggan to Quentin? Why no bail? I don't trust Johnson. I don't trust how fast they moved—complete hush-hush to immediate pinch. Doesn't jibe.”

Rick drained his Scotch and water, pushed away the white china plate.

“You sure you just don't want to admit the bulls are right for once?”