Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 03 (3 page)

“How about you let me in to see her?”

“No sweat. I’ll leave your name with the turnkey. You wanta look at the file, ask for Lieutenant Palermo. How about tonight? You still drink Dewar’s?”

“If I’m still around and can spare a minute, sure.”

“You wanta know what I think about the girl, after grilling her a couple hours myself on account of she’s your old…whatever she was?”

“Yeah, tell me.”

“I’d give twenty to one she torched the joint. The gal’s not one of your better liars.”

“Who’s the dead guy, Laurel’s husband?”

“Johnny Sousa. A fast talker outta LA. Checkered past. Two stretches in Quentin, for extortion. Produces a film now and then. Word is Mickey sent him down to cut in on the race track action, Caliente and Del Mar both, but the wops weren’t budging. You know Angelo Paoli moved out here from Jersey?”

“I heard. And you’re saying Laurel’s husband was one of Cohen’s boys?”

“That’s what they say.”

“Then it could’ve been one of Paoli’s crowd that torched the place.”

“Sure, Tom.” The captain sighed. “If your Cynthia hadn’t got to it first.”

Chapter Three

By the time Hickey’d used the john down the hall, walked back across Broadway, past the lot where he’d parked near the Pier Five Diner, and arrived at the police station and jail on Market Street by the tracks that ran along Harbor Drive, it was nearly 11
a.m.
Sunlight glared off the harbor. Hickey hadn’t been this warm in months.

The station had archways and a patio, a shady Mexican design. There were potted cactus, climbing bougainvillea, a dwarf palm at the entrance to the women’s jail. Hickey went in and slumped over the counter. The half gallon of coffee had lit his brain but enervated his muscles.

The sour matron who took his request reluctantly admitted she’d gotten a call from Captain Thrapp and showed Hickey the door to a visiting room, a lime-green cubicle with a wooden table and hard chairs, an aluminum shaded bulb hanging down. Waiting for Cynthia, he used a pocketknife to clean his fingernails and scrape his pipe. He wondered if she’d still be a beauty. When she sang at his club in 1942, she could’ve charmed Rommel into giving his tanks away. He couldn’t imagine her changing. But here she came. Making her entrance, she looked like a barfly, her face caked in powder and a solid coat of eye shadow, as if she’d tried to fill in wrinkles or scars. Her waist, tied in a drawstring around the jail tunic, had thickened. Her arms looked softer, puffy. Her neck had widened and compacted, making her small mouth appear even tinier. Still, she could stop traffic. Tall, formidable as ever, she gazed straight and viciously into Hickey’s eyes, her mouth twitching, too racked with fury to speak.

He got up and stepped close enough to touch her shoulder. As though his finger had hit the button, she snarled, “The Bitch has got Casey.”

Hickey wagged his head. “You’re already losing me. Casey who?”

“My son. My
real
son. The only reason I haven’t jumped off suicide bridge. They gave him to the Bitch. Now she’s got
both
of them. Casey’s as good as dead.” Her eyes looked like turquoise in the mask of a war goddess. “Unless you can save us, Tom.”

He took her hand and led her to a chair, seated himself. He leaned toward her, across the table. “I hear you. Now, back up a ways.
Who
gave your kid, Casey—who gave him to the Bitch?”

“The cops did. She fixed it, Tom, don’t you see? That’s why she killed Johnny and framed me. Now she’s got Casey. Without him, I’m dead. We’re all of us doomed.”

“All of who?” Hickey muttered.

She hissed, “Why in Christ didn’t you let them scrape me?” She covered her eyes. Her chest heaved. As though from fatigue, she fell into the chair across from Hickey and buried her head in her arms on the table. When he tried to take her hand, she jerked it away, clapped it against her opposite shoulder.

“I could probably get your boy away from Laurel,” he offered. “Most likely I can find a judge who’ll assign him to Hillcrest Receiving. Then it sounds like you’d as soon I quit meddling and went home.”

“But they’re saying I killed Johnny. You’ve got to set them straight.”

“Uh-huh. And the way you figure, Laurel torched her own place, right?”

“Don’t speak her name,” Cynthia snarled. “The Bitch.”

“Yeah. And you’re saying the Bitch torched her own place, right? Burned her own husband?”

“Sure.”

“You got any proof?”

“It must’ve been her. She hated him, like she hates anybody who won’t be her slave. Johnny was sharp, and his own man. She counted on breaking him, but she couldn’t. So Johnny kept playing footsy with the Jew mob, after the Bitch got cozy with Angelo.”

“Paoli?”

“Who else?”

“How cozy?”

“Cozy as it gets.”

Hickey took out his pipe, Walter Raleigh, and a tamper, filled the bowl. “Give me a clue about the fire. A witness, maybe? A turncoat? Laurel have a confidante? Somebody she goes to the powder room with who might be the gossipy or jealous type?”

Burying her head in her arms, Cynthia muttered, “The Bitch hates women, and she wouldn’t confide in anybody.” She lay quietly a minute; then her shoulders heaved. “Get me out of here,” she whined. “Go talk to Marty and the fellas. They’ll tell you I was at the jam session all afternoon. Is today Sunday?”

“Yep.”

“This’ll be the first of Marty’s jam sessions I’ve missed since last July, when Casey had chicken pox.”

“Marty who?”

“Eschelman.” She sat up, brushing the hair back off her face. “His place is number three, the cottages on the first ridge up the cliff from the foot of Newport in Ocean Beach.”

“I oughta go see Laurel. Where’s she live?”

“Dammit, quit using her name! Don’t you see? It makes her sound
human
.”

Hickey lifted his hands a few inches, in surrender. “Where’s the Bitch now?”

“Westwood, probably. She and Johnny got a place across the street from the botanical gardens at UCLA. The house down here they only kept for getaways and so the Bitch would have a hangout when she came to town to torment Casey and me. You see how she plays cat-and-mouse? That’s how the really evil ones do it, instead of just murdering you outright.” She looked up pleadingly, streams of eye shadow tracking rivulets down her face. “Get me out of here, Tom, and I’ll forgive you for everything.”

“In lieu of dollars, right?”

“You want money, you’ll get it.” Burying her face in her arms, she gave in to sobs and moans.

Hickey patted her wild cinnamon hair. When her sobbing quieted, he rose and started for the door, but she flew up, snagged his arms, leaned close to his ear, and whispered, “If you’re tough enough, you could beat the truth out of Charlie. Or maybe you wouldn’t have to. He might come clean, to fix her for dumping him.”

“Which Charlie’s that?”

“Schwartz.”

Hickey covered his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Charlie Schwartz?” he groaned.

“Sure. Where’ve you been?”

“In the woods, remember? And gossip’s not on top of my list of failings. So the Bitch dumped Charlie Schwartz. Which means they used to be an item?”

“Charlie and the Bitch were tickling each other for years, almost since you locked me away. She got favors out of him, and he got a cheap imitation of me. Until the old slob bored her one time too many. Then she looked up Angelo. Charlie was one of the reasons Johnny socked her.”

“Oh, yeah? When’d he sock her?”

“Lots of times.”

Hickey suddenly recalled what it meant to fraternize with Cynthia. Like a gifted preacher, every meeting she’d lure you a step deeper into her bizarre world. For now, at least, he’d gone far enough.

“I’ll pay Charlie a visit.”

He stood up, pocketed his pipe and tobacco, gave her a peck on the cheek, and left. He crossed the patio to the detectives’ office and found Lieutenant Palermo, a sleek fellow in a starched pin-striped shirt with suspenders, who ushered Hickey to a table and tossed him a file folder thick as the Bible.

Hickey skimmed the transcribed statements of eight jazz musicians, all of whom swore Cynthia never budged from Marty Eschelman’s cottage between about 1 and 7
p.m.
the previous Sunday. The ninth fellow told a different story.

A trombonist named Jack Meechum claimed Cynthia’d stepped out twice. One time a drummer was hogging the john, he’d stated, and she ran squirming to a neighbor’s place. Later, she walked out to the cliff and stood a minute talking to a wino. Meechum claimed she gave the wino something.

After digging through the pile for Cynthia’s statement, Hickey read twelve pages of her rage and denial.

The wino, she argued, was a beachcomber named Teddy who’d stood outside motioning to her, looking so pitiful she’d finally gone out, verified that he was starving, and fed him. A plate of bologna and potato chips.

The fire report was inconclusive, except that the investigator cited no apparent cause. He pointedly hadn’t ruled out arson. The detective noted on the bottom of the page that the house was only two or three hundred yards up the cliff trail from Marty Eschelman’s place.

Last, Hickey read the sister’s statement. Laurel hadn’t exactly accused Cynthia. She’d claimed they’d fought like demons that morning when they met outside the Spic ’n’ Span Café on Bacon Street. Cynthia had raved for the hundredth time about Laurel’s supposedly murdering Superman, meaning Cynthia’s late husband, Carl Jones, who’d crashed during 1947 on a test flight over North Carolina. Her sister had rushed away swearing she’d collect an eye for an eye. Or so Laurel told the detectives.

Hickey jotted addresses and phone numbers: Marty Eschelman and the musicians, Laurel Sousa in Westwood. As he handed the file back to Lieutenant Palermo, he asked, “Where do I find Charlie Schwartz these days?”

“That’d be home, office, lunch, or dinner?”

“Yeah.”

The lieutenant pulled a file, scribbled a list, and passed it over. “You going to visit Schwartz?”

Three young detectives besides Palermo had turned to stare. One was a smallish Mexican who’d been drumming on his desk with two pencils. “You plan to talk to Charlie like you did to Donny Katuolis,” he said, “we’d as soon you didn’t blab who told you where to find him.”

Hickey walked out scowling. He wouldn’t have figured the young cops to know who he was, let alone to remember the gunman he’d shot dead eight years ago. Charlie Schwartz’s protégé.

Chapter Four

When he got to his car, Hickey’s watch read eleven-forty. He wheeled a U-turn and headed west, made a right on Pacific Coast Highway, cruised past Lindbergh Field and a mile of armaments factories, turned left on Barnett. At the gate to the Marine Recruit Depot, where gangs of jarheads used to line up for taxis to speed them downtown or to Tijuana the last time Hickey’d driven this road, now only a pair of young women shoved baby carriages. Near the Loma Theater, an old haunt of his and Madeline’s, he swung onto Rosecrans and headed downhill. The gate guard at the Naval Training Center had forsaken his post and marched to the curbside bus bench, where he rousted a sailor who lay sleeping.

At the foot of Dickens Street, he parked at the curb, three slots down from a silver Chrysler limousine—a machine Charlie Schwartz would own—next to the loading zone in front of Luisa’s Seafood Mart.

A tattooed Negro carried bags of Guaymas shrimp over his shoulder into the rear of a wholesaler’s truck. Hickey sized up the market and walked around to the rear, to a covered patio where tables and benches overlooked the sport-fishing dock and the pier of a yacht club. Women in bathing suits or scanty sundresses posed over cocktails along the yacht club end, opposite Charlie Schwartz and his companions.

Charlie’s boys could’ve been identical twins except that one was gaunt while the other looked bloated. Both were sun-tanned, with freckles like squashed pinto beans and with thick carrot-colored hair that grew to within an inch of their eyebrows. The skinny one wore a checked sport coat. The other, in shirtsleeves, had his tie loosened, dangling like a neckerchief.

From afar, the gangster spotted Hickey. He reeled back a few inches, recovered, and folded his hands underneath his chin.

“Tom,” he called out, as if they’d never exchanged a harsh word. As if Hickey hadn’t knocked off Charlie’s top gun and Charlie hadn’t vowed to wreck Hickey’s life. “You gotta try the clams. Say, Colin, go hustle up another plate of clams. Plant yourself, Tom.”

As Hickey sat down, the fat twin rose, light as a ballerina. “What’re you drinking, chum?”

“Coke. In a bottle.”

Schwartz lifted his hand, holding a cigar, from where it had hung at his side. He puffed and let the smoke seep out between his teeth. His skin still looked jaundiced. His greasy black hair had gone monk bald in the middle. The mauve polo shirt, loose around the shoulders, appeared cinched at his middle. His voice sounded shallow, as if he possessed no lungs but carried all his wind in his mouth. “Come down off the mountain to see your kid? Or you just get homesick?”

“Aw, Charlie, you been keeping tabs on me.”

“Sure. I don’t wanta lose touch with the old crowd.”

“You’re not still planning to get even, huh?”

“Hey, you think I’m the kind to hold a grudge?” He tapped his forehead. “Naw. I’d have to be loony after all this time. Say, what’s this I hear you been working for Harry Poverman?”

“Harry a buddy of yours?”

The gangster shrugged and cracked a little smile. “Same ol’ inquisitive bastard. Ask a simple question, he spits one back at you.” He’d focused on the center of Hickey’s face, as though he were a student of noses, avoiding the eyes. He bent over his plate, dug a clam out of the shell, and slurped it. “Harry and me got mutual friends. What brings you to the tropics, Tom, business?”

“Yep. Same as ever. Nosing around in other people’s affairs.”

“That include mine?”

“Could be. I’m remembering how…fatherly you got with Cynthia Tucker. And didn’t I hear about you taking her sister out for strolls? Hell, Charlie, you’re like part of the family. Seems to me you would’ve got her sprung by now. I mean, there’s not a chance she torched Johnny Sousa and Laurel’s place. Everybody knows that, even the cops.”

Schwartz devoured another clam, his jaw quivering as though it tickled going down. “You think I own the cops?”

“Who knows? It’s not my town anymore. Maybe Angelo Paoli bought ’em. Came in with a higher bid.”

“Paoli’s a featherweight. Got chased outta Jersey, tail between his legs.”

Hickey nodded. “Want to hear my surmise?”

“I do,” the skinny twin muttered scornfully.

Schwartz gave his boy a scowl. “Go on, Tom. Paddy don’t wanta miss a thing.”

“See,” Hickey said, “I expect the cops are toying with Cynthia to keep from having to fool with Mickey Cohen. The way I hear, Cohen sent Johnny Sousa down to butt in on Angelo’s race-book action, only Mickey got suspicious that Sousa was playing both hands, doubledealing him with Paoli. So Mickey had him popped and fried.”

The gangster chortled. His belly rattled the table. “This is rich. Your idea or the cops?”

“Everybody’s. The thing is, the cops don’t care to know which one of Cohen’s stooges likes to play with matches. You know, who the hell’d wanta bring the guy in? Only some kid thinks he’s the Lone Ranger, maybe. Besides, a mobster whacks one of his own, who loses?”

The fat boy returned with a plate full of clams, slid them in front of Hickey, and wedged into the chair beside his brother. “They’re outta Coke.”

“Get him an ice tea, then,” Schwartz growled, pinching his eyes shut as if his patience had finally gotten overwhelmed. “What’s this about Mickey? Hey, Mick don’t need to play any games down here. Mick’s got his hands full in LA. He’s a pal of mine. I know how he thinks.”

Leaning back, lifting his hat to scratch his head, Hickey assumed his most bewildered pose. “You’re telling me Sousa and Cohen weren’t associated?”

“Naw. Try those clams.”

Hickey picked up a fork, toyed with a clam, set the fork down. “Maybe I’m a little outta touch. Yeah, now I see. The best thing I can do is, you being sweet on Cynthia, and on top of that a magnanimous guy—”

The redhead named Paddy snorted and wheeled his face toward the docks as though to cover a laughing fit.

“Magnanimous. I like that.” The gangster pursed his lips and nodded contemplatively. “So what are you talking…you could do what?”

“I got a plan,” Hickey said.

“Spill it, then.”

“You bet. I’m gonna turn the job over to you, Charlie. You get her sprung, I don’t ask who torched Laurel’s place. I retreat back into the mountains.”

Schwartz lowered his eyes, which had narrowed to a squint, and tried to cover his vexation with a wink, a grin, and a glance at a peroxide blonde careening on high heels as she chased a pigeon along the dock. Turning back, he smiled grimly. “You forgot to say ‘or else.’”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks.” Hickey stood, tipped his hat.

“Or else what?”

“Just I’ll be disappointed. Get her loose. Today, Charlie. Meantime, I’ll keep nosing around.”

He met the fat boy bringing his tea, accepted the glass and took a swallow, then set it on an empty table and strolled out of the place, grinding his teeth, knowing he should’ve held his cards closer to the vest. He should’ve played dumb, at least not accused Mickey Cohen. Except he only knew two ways to fight. Shrewd, cautious, laying back with his guard up, waiting for an opening to jab. Or throwing the big punch every chance, which left you wide open. One way was sensible. The other could get you a first-round knockout. It could land him at home by tomorrow.

In the car he stuffed his pipe and fired up, stared at the dashboard, and thought about Wendy. Right now, after lunch, she was probably in the armchair by the wood stove, reading the Isak Dinesen book Claire had given her. For two years, most every day, she’d sat reading, the dictionary at her side, determined to grasp each word. Trying so heroically to make Tom proud of her.