David Bishop - Matt Kile 04 - Find My Little Sister (15 page)

We call our fair city, the C
ity of Angels, yet it can only be so if angels are also jungle animals. For, like beasts, the powers among us often lie in wait, snarling now and again to remind us they are close, then charge when they determine it is in their interest to do so. Their eyes are now fixed on Tony Cornero.

The beast remains on its haunches.

In the final analysis, people have always gambled and, likely, people will always gamble. When you remove Tony Cornero and a few lesser gambling ship operators from the picture, at issue is whether or not those of us disposed toward gambling will be free to do so lawfully on the gently swaying decks of ships. Should the court give the attorney general and our mayor the jurisdiction they seek, the ships will no longer be a viable gambling venue. If so, the gamblers among us will be left to wager only in onshore games controlled by the mob. In backrooms behind restaurants, upstairs over warehouses and in private hotel suites arranged through payments to hotel owners or managers.

I may be too simple, but to me
the preferences of a free population, not laws, should decide whether or not each of us gambles. This is, of course, only this man’s opinion. What I do know is that operating a gambling business should not put a man in jail in one jurisdiction, while making him the guest of honor at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in another.

Good night Mr. and Mrs. Los Angeles and the gambling ships at sea… . Good Luck, Suckers. Matt Kile

In October, af
ter having been cleared on the felony charge of bookmaking, Tony moved the Rex out of raiding range. He had the ship towed twelve miles into the Catalina Channel, far enough to keep Fitts away from his ship. The problem was it also kept the gamblers away, or most of them. The twelve mile ride was long and often cold in choppy seas. Seasick gamblers were not happy gamblers. Business fell off.

* * *

Tony quickly realized he had to get closer to shore for gamblers to return in sufficient numbers. So, early in 1939, he had the Rex towed back to his former spot, or close to it, a little over three miles off Santa Monica dry shore. Water taxi service resumed upon his return. The argument in favor of the water taxis was that they were serving foreign commerce because the Rex was in international waters beyond California’s three-mile jurisdiction. It was an old argument, but one not yet totally rejected by the state courts.

* * *

Near the end of March, the city’s new mayor, Fletcher Bowron, called me in to ostensibly remake the offer for Tony The Hat to come to work for the city. The offer was essentially the same one D.A. Fitts had made to Tony the year before. The differences were that Tony would now be working for the Mayor not the D.A., that the Mayor had a new and full term of office, and that he was offering a salary double what Fitts had been prepared to offer Tony. Another important difference was that Tony’s situation had become more problematic. The wolves were now at Tony’s front door.

I again carried the offer to Tony. He again shut it down. Tony was determined he would prevail when it got to court. He had won there before
. And, frankly, Tony loved pulling the tails on these pompous bastards and he wasn’t going to give up the theater of it all.

* * *

“What’s the status on Bowron’s efforts to get Cornero to walk away from his gambling ship and join the mayor’s staff?”

“
Mr. Cohen, I told you never to call me at the office.”

“I need to know
, damn it, if Cornero is going to play ball with the mayor. And what the mayor plans to do.”

“Listen,
I’ll meet you tonight at eight at the next-to-the-last place on the list I gave you. Get us a table in the bar. I’ll get there after you.”

The next thing Mickey Cohen heard was the dial
tone. He had been hung up on. He didn’t like that. Not one damn bit. The lady was an important conduit into the mayor’s trusted inner circle and he paid through the nose for the information he got from this source. He’d do what he had been told, but he didn’t have to like it, and he didn’t.

* * *

I had never been made aware of anything which connected Mayor Bowron to the gangsters. Still, I felt uneasy about the way the mayor expressed his determination to stop Tony and the other operators of the gambling ships while displaying much less determination and persistence with respect to stopping onshore gambling. Oh, sure, he gave speeches. Spoke of his commitment to rid the city of corruption. Noble words, but all the action, at least at this point in time, seemed directed toward the ships. Organized crime was likely cheering on State Attorney General Earl Warren, Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron, and Los Angeles District Attorney Buron Fitts.

If the politicians did sink the ships,
the gamblers of Los Angeles would be driven into the welcoming arms of the mob’s gambling dens. Now, that doesn’t mean the politicians are dirty and in concert with the mob, but it does follow that organized crime would clearly benefit by what our current crop of politicians were attempting to achieve.

* * *

Callie had called earlier and invited me to her place. After all the on-the-town meals we had shared she was offering a home-cooked meal. “Something simple and uncomplicated,” she said. “The kind of meal I doubt you eat often seeing you’re a bachelor, and the way your column requires you to run around town most nights.”

I accepted enthusiastically
. I could not recall my last home-cooked meal. Certainly, that was true if I ignored my own feeble attempts to prepare them. Cooking was something I always wanted to get better at, but, I confess, I never really made the effort. I had been invited several times to the homes of the publishers or editors on the local papers. They were fine meals and pleasant evenings. Still, theses were business dinners designed to get better acquainted, offer me employment directly for the paper in return for their exclusive right to my column, or to encourage me to treat a given news event in a manner which better fit with their editorial positions or alliances they might have with whomever.

At
six-thirty, with a bottle of cabernet in hand, I took the first of three steps that led from the front sidewalk to the raised walkway leading to Callie’s front porch. Her home was what the locals often called a bungalow, the outside covered in white stucco with a mostly flat roof except for a front gable over the kitchen crowned with red mission tile. The next set of two stairs took me past a small half-walled terrace, under an arched doorway toward a hand-carved wooden door which stood open, a screened door letting in the breeze that pushed up from behind me. The inside was well lit and looked homey and cheerful.

I could see
Callie in the kitchen, moving about busily. A red apron tied to her waist didn’t provide much in the way of coverage, but it did provide a place to wipe a cook’s hands as the preparation of the meal progressed. I slowed my approach and then stopped just to watch her through the window. She looked elegant and earthy at the same time, sexy, yet totally classy. I couldn’t understand how women did that. Actually, not many did so successfully, but Callie had every time I saw her.

Tonight
, she wore a black dress with a modest, yet enticing plunge in the front that tied behind her head in the halter style I had this very day saw featured on the fashion page of the L.A. Times. The dress had a belted waistband and a hemline that rested at her knees. The earlier years of the 30s had lower hemlines, but since last year the hemlines had been moving up. Still, mid-knee, as was Callie’s choice for tonight, would be considered racy by many women, certainly the more matronly. Apparently, the ladies agreed with the gentlemen’s preferences since the ladies were increasingly choosing the shorter dresses and skirts.

After another minute
or two, I began to feel a bit like a Peeping Tom. I crossed to her door where I reached out and knocked on the wood frame of the screen door.

She startled some when she heard my
knuckles rap on the wood. She looked to the screen door and smiled. She wiped her hands on the apron that fronted her thighs before waving like someone seeing a friend across the street. Her wave invited me to enter. The screen was not latched so I pulled it toward me and stepped inside.

Callie came
close. She hugged me gently. “Welcome to my modest abode, Mr. Kile.” She then leaned in again. This time she kissed me on the lips. Her open palm slid behind my head, her fingers briefly exploring the short hair at the back of my neck.

I held her hands and stepped back.
“You look lovely,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve seen that style of dress, those lines. As a man I don’t know what style it is, but as a man I know I like the way you make it look.”

“Thank you, Matt.” She wound her arms around one of mine, looking up into my eyes.
She often did this and I liked it. “I made it,” she said. “It’s not something I’d wear in public.”

“Oh? I admit the hemline is a bit high,
but not too high for me. And you do see them at the knee in some magazines, the movies, and in the newsreels of the fashion runways.”

“Why Mr. Kile, I
thought you covered the crime beat and the world of entertainment. I didn’t realize you knew so much about women’s fashion.”

“You’re playing with me, now, right?” She smiled and nodded her head. I said, “I admit women understand men’s
clothing much more than men understand ladies’ fashions.”

“What’s there to know about men’s fashion? White shirts mostly, various ties, belts, sometimes the lapels on jackets get wider or thinner. Not much going on
there either. And all of it comes with or without a hat, mostly with a hat, usually the same day after day with most men. No plunging necklines. No cleavage. No heels or legs to tease. Blah is the word which races to the front of my mind.”

I smiled and lowered my head to avoid her eyes.
“I must confess I lack cleavage and don’t think it would look good if I had some.”

“
I agree. Hopefully, I have enough for us both… . Am I embarrassing you, Matt? … Should I tone down my comments?”

“
Not on my account, Ma’am. Just give me a little room to adjust. No don’t. I like it. All I know for certain is that you look wonderful, enticing. Fetching is the word my father would have used.”

“I’m glad you like it.” She walked
around me to shut the door. Then turned and came back to me.

“I don’t just like it
,” I said. “I like it a great deal.”

She smiled.
“I hoped you would. I wanted to wear it the last night we went clubbing, but it’s just not something I’d wear out. When we’re alone, well, that’s a different matter. When it’s only the two of us, I’d like to wear the kinds of things you enjoy seeing me in… . Is that too forward of me?”

“Not in my opinion. I’m glad you feel that way.
It makes it sound like we’re a couple, something … anyway.”

“Don’t you think of us as a couple?” she asked.

“Well, tell you the truth I don’t know. I mean we set out to find Frances. We did. So, I wasn’t certain what relationship we’d have after that, if any.”

“You also said you’d be a gentleman at all times so I would not feel
you expected anything in return for your help.”

“Haven’t I been?”

“Yes. Very much so, but your help is over. We found Frances and regrettably achieved nothing. You are now released from that promise. In fact, I’m dying to know more about the real Matt Kile. I already know the perfect gentleman.”

“Well, first off, I’m hungry and whatever it is you are preparing smells scrumptious. And that dress
on you has diversified and expanded my hunger, if I can say it that way.”

“
Say it however you want. As I told you that night on the beach, I’ve been married before. I am familiar with the affections of a man and woman. My having made a wrong choice in a man in no way diminished my desire to please the right man.”

“
That’s good to know… . I’m not sure what to say here other than maybe a loud whoopee which somehow seems in bad taste.”

Callie laughed louder than I had ever heard her laugh,
throaty, and then rubbed her fingers across her mouth.

“Now let’s take care of your first hunger. I made meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I hope you like meatloaf.” I nodded
. She took my hand and led me into the small dining room off her kitchen. When I was seated, she returned to the living room to pull down the shades over the windows to the front street. After that she carried over the bottle of wine I had brought and gave it to me along with a corkscrew.

The night air silently joined us from under the raised window over the kitchen sink. Callie rubbed her bare arms. While I uncorked the wine, she went over and pushed down the window, lowered the shade, and joined together the two sides of a soft yellow curtain.
Next, she went to the stove and brought back two plates of food ready for eating.

“There’s more, of course, if this doesn’t fill you.”

An hour after dinner she took my hand and led me through a stucco archway, down a hall toward the back of the house.

“And now, Mr. Kile,
let us soothe your diversified and expanded hunger.”