City of Secrets (39 page)

Miranda's breath was quick. She was unsure, in open territory. No-man's-land.

“Why'd you have him follow me, then? Why search my apartment?”

Mickey shook his head, like a priest with a disbeliever. “Lady, lady, lady. You call yourself a shamus. But you ain't no dick.” He laughed again, and the men laughed with him, Flamm more relaxed. Mickey coughed, swallowed hard, ordered Suspenders to get him a whiskey. Changed moods, suddenly all business.

“You owe me, lady. Whitey saved your fucking life. You're fishin' around Flamm here 'cause his ex-twist got herself iced. Flamm gets nervous, 'tween the murder and the swastika on the temple—somebody calls it in, he figures maybe it was tied up, maybe he was bein' framed for somethin' he didn't do. You tumble?”

She said it slowly, not taking her eyes off him. “You had me followed, see what I'd turn up. Is that it?”

“Yeah. Figured you could work for us and not even know it. 'Cause we know somethin' you don't know, which is that Lima's got trouble with a wop from Chicago named Benedetti. Now, we get along with everybody out in New York, Jews, wops, micks, Mexicans, whatever. Same way in L.A., no troubles, and up here Lima's a goddamn lamb. Even works with those chink bastards. But these Benedetti sonsofbitches don't wanna play with us 'cause they don't like Benny Siegel, an' they start mouthin' off about Jews, and the whole goddamn deal looks like it's fallin' apart.”

She pointed the cigarette at him. “You thought Benedetti might've killed Pandora and the other girl to set you up.”

Mickey raised his hands in the air, open-palmed. Exaggerated shrug. “We don't know. The cop could take the rap, no problem. But with you diggin' around, we wanted to make sure if you turned somethin' up on Benedetti, we'd get it. So Whitey's orders were to keep you alive—alive, sister, because Angelo wants you dead.”

He leaned back in the chair, hands behind the head again. Smug smile.

“Whitey saved your life. Shot that fuck-head Scorsone out on Treasure Island after he took a potshot at you. Shadowed you but good, sister—when Scorsone pretended to be from the goddamn phone company, when you was being watched. Whitey's your fucking guardian angel.”

Last puff on the Chesterfield, crimped the stub out with her fingers. “And now?”

Mickey frowned. “An' now I don't know what to do wit' you. Benedetti's gone back to the hole he crawled out of. We got things set up between Lima an' us pretty cozy, enough for me to get back to some goddamn sunshine. This fucking city's too cold.”

She nodded. “And maybe too hot. Clever to launder money between the Black Cat Café and Chat Noir. I heard there was new money in town getting washed. Didn't figure it was from L.A.”

He grinned up at Suspenders. “See, Paulie? Smart broad.” Back to Miranda. “I'm a man a' culture, Miss Corbie. I like it when my boys speak French.” He laughed again, loud and long. Looked at her shrewdly.

“You're a good-lookin' dame, even with that cut on your cheek. And you're smart. You know if you talk, Whitey won't be your guardian angel no more. Besides, you owe me. You owe me personally. An' one of these days I'm gonna collect.”

He jerked a thumb at Flamm. “This bozo ain't killed nobody except a racin' form. We checked on him—don't want no heat from nobody, and he's dumb, but not dumb enough for this. He's a runner, picks up chits, uses the temple. Which—by the way—we donate to. You think them funds for the war orphans and such come cheap?”

Shook his head. “No, lady, you're on your own with your case. No Whitey, neither, he's back down in L.A.” He looked up at Paulie in the red suspenders, suddenly tired, his face drawn.

“Get her back where she belongs.”

“Can I ask Flamm a couple of questions first?”

He thought about it for a few seconds. “OK, sister. But make it quick.”

She turned to Flamm, still sullen, Paulie's large hands still on his shoulders. “Harry—did you suggest Pandora go to Calistoga?”

He snorted. “Suggest, hell. I paid for it. We was through ages ago, after she come back from the place. Never the same after that. Nutty broad, she was—talkin' about becoming a Jew, like fucking me somehow made her one.”

Mickey and Suspenders laughed, Flamm joining them after a few seconds. Miranda held his eyes.

“Did you know a doctor up there sterilized her? Because she said she was Jewish?”

Mickey's face darkened, his short, thick neck pivoting toward Flamm, chin stuck out. Harry went white. “What's this Nazi shit, Harry? You know this?”

“N-no, Mr. Cohen, no sir. Never heard nothin' about it.”

Mickey looked at Miranda, features shoved together, flushed and angry. “This doctor kill the girl?”

“I don't think so. But there's a group—call themselves the Musketeers—a doctor involved was sterilizing Jewish girls. They also tried to bomb Treasure Island.”

A vein in Mickey's neck popped in and out. He barked, “Name?”

Miranda shook her head. “I took care of it, Mickey.”

He scoffed. “You—a broad? Besides, you ain't even Jewish.”

“I told them I'd kill them. And I meant it.”

She tried to hide the trembling in her legs, focusing the fear in a cool, unbroken stare at Mickey. A smile slowly spread across his chubby face. He spoke softly.

“See, boys? Investment.”

He nodded to the man in suspenders. An order to leave.

Miranda stood up. Paulie walked behind her to the door.

Mickey's voice was loud behind her.

“You owe me, Miss Miranda Corbie. Don't forget it.”

 

Thirty-three

Mitch was leaning against the counter, propped on a stool, sulking to the man in the T-shirt, face still red. He glared at Miranda, threw some car keys to Paulie.

“You take her home. Only way I wanna see the bitch again is in a casket.”

Paulie chuckled. “I'm bettin' on the broad.”

Sour smell of day-old dishwater followed them out the door. The big man opened the door of the Packard for her, still smiling.

“Climb in, girlie. Where you wanna get dropped off?”

“I can take a streetcar.”

He shook his head, frowning. “Mickey likes his guests treated the right way. You climb in.”

She sighed and climbed in, careful of the ankle. He shoved it into gear, grinding the transmission, and pulled out into the Sutter Street traffic. Said conversationally, “Don't worry 'bout Mitch, sister. He ain't so important to Mickey no more.”

Fifteen minutes later, he rumbled to a stop in front of the Monadnock.

Paulie leaned over and smiled, held out his hand. “I'm Paulie Fein. Mickey'll call when he needs you.”

She hesitated, then shook his hand. Climbed out in front of a flower stand, buckets heaped with carnations and roses, man in a blue serge suit buying one for his lapel. Watched Paulie dart between a Municipal and a White Front, laying on the horn while he flew down Market Street.

So that was the money-laundering racket Fisher told her about. Back and forth, Black Cat and Chat Noir, gambling money, racing wires, Los Angeles extending a warm and sleepy hand north, courtesy of Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen. Big names, big crooks, and the Lanza mob rolled over, glad for company.

She shook her head, walked toward the big double doors. Couldn't tell Fisher. Cohen would be watching for any move of her mouth, and Whitey would come back, not her angel anymore.

*   *   *

Rick was pacing in front of her office door. He looked up.

“Jesus, Miranda, you're pale. What happened? You OK?”

She unlocked the door, hobbled in. Sank into the overstuffed leather chair.

“Yeah. I'm OK. Flamm didn't kill Pandora or Annie.”

He raised his eyebrows. “How do you know?”

“Let's just say I have it on solid authority.”

Authority from a fucking mobster, Siegel's West Coast lieutenant. She passed a hand over her forehead. Unlocked the right bottom drawer, took out the bottle of Old Taylor. Poured herself a shot in the Castagnola glass, still on the desk, drank half of it down in a shot.

He watched her. Then took off his brown jacket and threw it on one of the chairs in front of her desk. He was wearing the shoulder holster for the Spanish .38.

“Only way I could bring this back without getting stopped by a flatfoot.” He unbuckled the holster, slid it off, set it down on the desk in front of her.

“Thanks, Rick.” She gestured to the bottle, almost empty. “You want some?”

He shook his head. “Bomb story was squashed. But I figured you'd know that.”

She nodded, swirling the whiskey, watching the drops form on the sides of the glass.

“Thanks. For everything. I hope you got something they'll print.”

He shrugged. “Sure. A lot of tourists out here for the Fair. Paper likes fluff pieces on where to go for what.”

“It's not front page.”

“Still pays.” He picked up his hat from the chair, put his coat back on. Looked down at her.

“I don't like leaving you like this, Randy.”

She winced, staring at the glass. “S'OK, Rick. Gotta get out to the Gayway, soon as I make a few phone calls.”

He turned to go. His voice was soft. “Be seein' you, Miranda.”

“Be seein' you, Rick.”

*   *   *

They thought they owned her.

Something she feared a hell of a lot more than dying.

Battlefield Gayway, not a bad place to die, no place was good, silk sheets or stuffy apartments filled with perfume samples, stage where men could come pay a quarter and get a photograph close-up of your nipples, sell them on the street corner in Los Angeles, tell people it's Lana fucking Turner.

She poured another drink, bourbon sloshing the sides.

Fuck Whitey and his Panama hat, and fuck Mickey Cohen and the twisted, sick bastards at Murder Inc., business of America is business, said Henry Ford, and they made a goddamn killing. Siegel and Costello and Mr. Ice Pick Abbandando, and somehow they never got the chair, never shit their pants with a last meal, last cigar, when the state turned the lights out and the gas came seeping through the cracks.

No, they'd get killed by an upstart, rubbed out by an enemy, but they were too fucking big for the police department or even Thomas Dewey, too big for J. Edgar Hoover and his publicity machine. Because the business of America was fucking business, and that's what they were, what they all were.

Businessmen.

She drained the bourbon, craned her neck to ease the tension in her muscles. Fuck the mob, wherever they came from. She'd handled Martini and Coppa. If Cohen's mob came knocking, she'd handle them. And in the meantime, Mickey might even make sure Gosney wouldn't be practicing much surgery.

Miranda raised the glass in a mock toast to herself. Tried to feel bad, feel guilt, but she wasn't feeling anything at all. Maybe she'd have bad dreams, but fuck … she didn't know any other kind.

*   *   *

Phone jarred her awake. Fever dream, half-asleep, whiskey and the late afternoon sun.

Dead girls, cut open, lost children, child and mother. Gosney and Parkinson and a fat little haberdasher in powder blue, chomping a cigar, eyes like dry ice. Flamm and Kaiser and the Gayway, Artists and Models, ice pick through the neck, word written in red. Written in blood.

She blinked. Stretched her hand toward the phone. Fisher.

“Miss Corbie?”

“What's wrong?”

His voice was hesitant. “No leads on the bomb squad. I've, uh … I've made reference to your claims, but word from on high is—no dice.”

“Figured as much.” She yawned. “Excuse me.”

Miranda set the phone down. Rubbed her eyes, slapped her cheek to get some feeling back in her face. Picked up the receiver again. “Got some news for you—Angelo Benedetti's gone back to Chicago.”

Voice was sharp. “How'd you find that out?”

“Solid authority, Inspector. Solid authority.”

He grunted. “Can't say I'm sorry to hear it, but I'd feel better if I knew your sources.”

Wry grin. “Not sure if you would.”

“What's that?”

“Nothing.” She pulled open the drawer, shook the last cigarette out of a pack of Chesterfields. “So why are you calling?”

“I'm sorry about your murder case. No traction here, right now it's ‘bomb, bomb, bomb'—narrow squeak, let me tell you, not that the public'll ever know. The, uh—the chief is grateful, and so is Johnson.”

Miranda placed the stick between her lips, snapped on the desk lighter. “Johnson's a crooked bastard. I don't know about the new chief. If I live long enough, maybe I will.”

He chuckled. “Gonzales is coming back for a couple of weeks, by the way. Told me to say hello.”

She felt her pulse quicken, swore under her breath. “Well, he wanted to meet some fifth columnists.”

“Yes, yes, he did. I think he'll be taking an interest in the Musketeers.” He lowered his voice on the last word. “Not that anyone's mentioned that name down here.”

She smiled to herself, puffed the cigarette. Said: “About the Duggan case. Henry Kaiser's the number one suspect, lion tamer I told you about. But I've got a question. Hugh R. Parkinson, dentist. Is his father still in politics?”

Hesitation, then Fisher cleared his throat. “Not politics, exactly. He's a retired surgeon, was on the former State Board of Lunacy. Does a lot of charitable work these days, made a run for state senate couple of years back. Name's Hugh F. Parkinson.” Added in a lower voice, “Owns a number of businesses, including Healthy Holdings, Incorporated—which holds the title to Dr. Aalder's Sanitarium in Calistoga.”

“You dug that up.”

She could hear him grin. “You were pretty adamant this morning.”

“Yeah. It's been a long goddamn day.” She stared at the cigarette between her fingers, red ember burning down the white tube of tobacco.