Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 03 (4 page)

Chapter Five

Hickey crossed the point and drove along Sunset Cliffs, admiring the foamy Pacific stirred by an onshore breeze. His eyes followed the white-capped rollers that hastened toward the beach looking serenely confident until the ebb tide slapped them silly.

In Ocean Beach he cut west down Newport Avenue, cruised slowly past Stuart’s grocery, and peered inside to the check stand hoping to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth, but a Mexican fellow was clerking.

He parked at the foot of Newport Avenue in front of the Surfrider Motel, crossed the street to the beach, and walked in the sand a hundred yards south to the bluff. As he climbed the zigzagging steps etched in rocky dirt, from one place he got a clear view of a few charred beams and a chimney—all that remained of the house where Johnny Sousa had died. According to the police report, Sousa looked to have fallen asleep in the bathtub.

Atop the bluff sat eight dwarfish cottages in two rows. Sided in whitewashed plywood, with porthole-sized high windows, they slanted inland as though braced against a gale. Number three was second from the cliff in the north row. Red block letters above the door announced
marty’s digs
. Alongside it, in cursive of various colors, an inscription proclaimed,
Life without music would be a mistake
. Somebody inside played a bass run on the piano, repeating it like a chant. Hickey caught the scent of marijuana. He knocked and waited, listening to the hurried shuffle of feet and the scrape of a chair leg on tile.

The door opened a crack and a gravelly voice said, “Yeah, man. What’s up?”

“Marty?”

“Who’s asking? You look like a cop.”

From inside, a man yelped, “Hey, cop, you figure you can bust us, think again. Last of the weed just gone up in smoke.”

The man at the door laughed gruffly the way he used to when he played piano with Clyde McGraw’s orchestra at Rudy’s Hacienda, when Hickey owned the place.

“Weed’s
your
problem, Marty. Mine’s trying to spring Cynthia out of jail. Name’s Tom Hickey, remember?”

“Yeah, hey. I see you now, boss.” The door creaked open and a tall fellow appeared, his shoulders hunched and his neck crooked like a vulture’s. Wispy gray hair, skin like crinkled paper. “Help me calculate, it’s been how many years since Rudy’s got boarded up?”

“Seven, eight. Still making noise with your fingers?”

“Hey, it’s either that or work.”

“I hear you. Clyde still around?”

“Naw, long gone, to Seattle or Portland, one of those green places, with Lady Gotrocks. How about—what was your partner’s name, the spic dude that stiffed us a couple weeks’ pay? Castillo.”

“He must’ve stiffed the wrong guy. Got stabbed in New Jersey, a few years back.” Hickey reached for his billfold, plucked out the hundred-dollar bill he always kept hidden there, folded into the coin pocket, for emergencies. He passed it to Marty. “Two weeks’ pay and some interest.”

“Whoa. Gracias, man.”

“You going to let me in?”

“Soon as I fetch the red carpet.”

The place was cluttered like a junk shop. Three sofas, one nearly hidden behind a drum set: snare, tom-tom, and cymbal. An upright piano, a stand-up bass leaning in a corner beside the window that overlooked the foot of Newport Avenue and Hickey’s car parked at the curb. A man with pomaded wavy black hair sprawled on the couch behind the drums, wearing a cocky sneer. Curled into a tattered stuffed chair beside the piano, a tanned young fellow in an undershirt and boxer shorts dozed, his lips tooting like a kazoo.

Hickey sank into the nearest couch. It was almost 4
p.m.
The sleepless night had finally caught up and walloped him. Marty took a seat on the piano bench. “How you going to spring the redhead?”

Hickey shrugged. “One thing, I could plug the holes in her alibi. Who’s this character saw her go out and talk to the beachcomber? Jack Meechum?”

“Yeah, that’s him. Plays trombone with the Undertakers.”

“Why’d he shoot off his mouth?”

“Aw, he’s been trying to pounce on Cynthia forever. Finally gave up, I guess, decided to pay her back the grief.”

“So he’s lying?” Hickey asked.

“Who knows? He probably saw her go outside. If anybody saw, it’d be him. Tags behind her like a caboose.”

“How about you get him over here?”

“Gone, man. They’re blowing a lounge act in Vegas.”

“Vegas.” In casinos you’d always find headbusters and gunsels making pals with the musicians, who usually had females to spare. “Ever known Meechum to run with any hard cases?”

“You mean tough guys or dames?”

“Anybody tight with Charlie Schwartz, Mickey Cohen.”

“Yikes. Hey, I see a Jew with his hat pulled low, I hotfoot it like Seabiscuit. All I know is Meechum plays the ponies and takes a snootful now and then. If he misses a Sunday jam, you can bet he’s on the road, flying high, or down at Caliente.”

The man on the couch drawled, “Frankie Foster.”

“Who’s he?”

“Meechum’s uncle or something. They say he used to work for Bugs Moran in Chicago. Now he’s an old fart, lying low. They say.”

“Around here?”

The man stretched, settled deeper into the couch, and grinned as though stalling Hickey pleased him tremendously. “
¿Quién sabe?
I seen him up in Santa Monica, at the Doubloon on the pier.”

“How about this beachcomber? You guys see her talk to the beachcomber?”

Marty waved toward the man on the couch. “Rollo wasn’t here. Me—maybe she stepped out a minute, could be, but that ain’t long enough to burn down a house. All I know is, every time I looked up, she was around.”

“So where do I find the beachcomber?”

“Nobody seen Teddy since the fire. If I was looking, I’d try Mexico. If he ain’t there, he’s six feet under or making like plankton.”

“Somebody buttoned his lips, you mean?”

“Yep. Hey, you oughta stick around. An hour, cats’ll show up and we blow. Bring the old tenor with you?”

Hickey thought, Be nice to these hopheads, Tom, no matter if they drift a little. “Who do you figure would’ve snuffed the beachcomber, Marty?”

“The guy that paid him to torch Sousa’s pad.”

“And that’d be?”

The pianist gave a mighty shrug. “Want a brew, Tom?”

“Naw. Where’s the beachcomber live?”

“A shack down by the jetty.”

“Show me.”

Marty got up and stretched, wandered into the back room, and returned with a sweater he snaked into and a pair of huaraches he crammed onto his feet. He led Hickey outside, down the trail to the beach, and walked south toward the jetty, about a quarter of a mile from the bluff. As they passed a family picnic, a few sunbathers, and a trio of boys throwing a baseball, slinging long flies to each other, Hickey quizzed the pianist about Cynthia.

As far as Marty remembered, from the time she’d run out on her gig at the Mission Beach Ballroom nobody he knew heard a peep from the girl—until 1947, when a guitarist they called Mas Grande opened the door to his hotel apartment on Market Street. Cynthia fell into his arms. Standing beside her was a rugged looking two-year-old. Her son Casey.

Cynthia flopped with Mas for a few months, acting wild and vicious. She hurled dishes. Tore sheet music into confetti. Screamed at her boy while she changed his diapers. Flung Grande’s shoes and metronome out the window. Sometimes, like when he found her sharpening knives, Mas took the kid for safekeeping and locked Cynthia in the flat, to howl and weep alone about the flyboy, her husband Carl. During every tantrum, she’d threaten revenge against her sister, the Bitch, whom she believed had hired an army mechanic to sabotage her husband’s plane.

Moving to the beach seemed to calm her. She would sit by the tide line beneath the bluff for hours watching the ocean while Casey ran, waded, dug for sand crabs. A few months of beach therapy and Cynthia was on her feet, auditioning. But something in her voice had gone scratchy and bitter, and her moves had transformed from a promise of savage embraces to a threat that she’d rip out your heart. The only job offers were for second billing, which Cynthia would never play. Three years now she’d been living off the army widow’s and orphan’s pensions, wandering the beach like a ghost in low-hemmed and long-sleeved dresses and a straw hat and singing at Marty’s jam sessions every Sunday.

Where Abbott Street ended at the San Diego River channel, a court of bungalows slowly rotted. Adobe-colored paint flaked off in sheets like parchment. The French windows had more plywood panes than glass ones. A few stunted palm trees survived in the courtyard, surrounded by the five bungalows and a toolshed with an add-on room sided in tin: Teddy the beachcomber’s shack. A few yards behind it, where the dirt gave way to sand, a ring of stones about six feet across framed a pile of ash from many large bonfires.

Hickey walked around to the courtyard side and rapped on a door that looked like the gate off a redwood fence. After he stood a minute waiting, Marty tapped his shoulder and cocked his head toward the courtyard.

A man with a hairy gray face, thick spectacles, and a crooked baseball cap was staring out the window of a bungalow. Hickey walked over and nodded cordially at the man, who lifted his window and bent forward to stick his head out.

“Let me guess,” Hickey said. “The cops’ll give you twenty or so if you call and report that Teddy or anybody’s prowling around his shack.”

“Could be,” the man chirped.

“Yeah. Or could be it’s somebody else, not the cops. Go on, call them. Make a few bucks. Tell them Tom Hickey’s snooping around.”

He walked back toward Teddy’s place, past Marty Eschelman, who’d found a seat on the planter box around a palm. Hickey lifted the latch and stepped inside the shack. The floor was plywood with carpet scraps placed like throw rugs and scattered stacks of tabloids. Inspecting a few of the piles, he found several dozen copies of the
Racing Form
. There was scribbling, updated odds, and remarks about jockeys and trainers on every Agua Caliente page.

In a corner lay a single child-sized mattress with army blankets heaped on top. Pinup girls adorned the wall above the bed. One of them sported an extra pair of breasts. Beside the bed sat a large mason jar filled with one-, two-, and five-dollar tickets from Agua Caliente.

A threadbare sport coat, a jacket, and a few work shirts hung on a broomstick that angled across a corner above two cardboard boxes full of jeans, socks, and underwear. A pair of grease-soiled deck shoes sat beside them.

Behind a curtain that had once been a brightly striped Mexican serape, the add-on room was a merger of kitchen and bath: a toilet, a tin shower stall, and a miniature sink, cupboard, stove, and icebox unit, probably salvaged out of a trailer home. Next to the sink, in neat order, sat a toothbrush, a dish full of baking soda, a straight razor and shaving soap.

Hickey turned back outside and told the pianist, “Unless Teddy kept a spare travel kit and wardrobe, it doesn’t appear he made vacation plans.”

“He’s shark feed.” Marty turned to rolling a Bull Durham.

They backtracked along the beach, talking music. Marty asked if Tom still blew sax, and why not. Hickey admitted that with swing, bebop, and jitterbug, playing sax got him jumpy. On clarinet, he could dream.

The jam session was on. A trio of drums, bass, and baritone sax droned a gloomy mood. Marty pointed the way up along the bluff to the Sousa ruins.

The sun appeared to sizzle behind a fogbank. Hickey maneuvered along the cliffside trail to the burnt house, a sidehill place with high block foundations. There were piers, and the blackened short lengths of floor beams, and plumbing that suggested a den or bar room downstairs. The upstairs alone would’ve measured twice the size of the biggest house Hickey’d ever occupied, five times as spacious as his Tahoe cabin.

He scanned the ashes and rubble, looking for nothing in particular except inspiration. A sudden gust blew soot that flecked his shirt and slacks, rasped his weary eyes.

Chapter Six

From a pay phone outside a curio shop, Hickey phoned the captain, made a date: five-thirty at the Café Milano. That would give him a few minutes to check on Elizabeth. Just time enough to get a hello-goodbye kiss and apologize for not staying longer. He walked up Newport the two blocks past the dime store, hardware, and resale shops, one Chinese and one greasy spoon café, to Stuart’s grocery.

If Elizabeth wasn’t around, on the off chance Stuart was at work instead of shooting pool or handicapping ponies around some lowlife’s poker table, he’d grill the dear boy about the beachcomber and the trombonist—Jack Meechum. Both of them haunted Ocean Beach and Agua Caliente, like Stuart.

The produce in the bins beside the checkout counter looked wilted. With half the overhead bulbs burnt out, the store was dark as a movie theater.

After waiting for a pause between customers, Hickey asked the pudgy Mexican clerk for Mrs. Crump. The clerk said she had gone to the wholesaler’s and might not return to the store until morning. Hickey didn’t leave a message.

He drove the coast, up Abbott Street past the beachcomber’s place, followed West Point Loma Boulevard to Midway Drive, and cruised alongside the wartime housing project of shoebox apartments and duplexes painted surplus gray. On the lawn, a team of Negro and Filipino boys faced off against a gang of whites. Somebody hiked a ball. They mauled and pounded each other while a giant, probably Samoan, charged through their midst. Young men lounged on the hoods of their jalopies assessing the girls who paraded down the sidewalk, past women in shapeless dresses hanging laundry on a wire that sagged so the cuffs of jeans scraped the lawn.

Hickey swung onto Barnett and turned into the parking lot in front of the Café Milano, where the Sons of Italy dined.

A square flat-roofed building of dark-stained planks, it looked about as swanky as the Midway housing project, except for the cars on the gravel lot: two Lincolns, a Jaguar, a Bentley, Cadillacs galore. Every one appeared spit shined. Hickey’s mud-caked, bug-splattered Chevy fit among them like a mutt in a kennel reserved for purebreds.

As Hickey approached the door, a swarthy fellow ambled out, then stiffened and iced his gaze, as if Schwartz or one of the cops had passed the word that this snoop was on his way. When Hickey gave his name, asked if a guy was waiting for him, the maître d’ leered as though at something he might roast for supper. He swept his arm toward the doorway.

Inside was mostly candlelit. There were trellised partitions between the booths and tables. Waitresses flashed around in short tutus, black net stockings, and heels like stilts. If a guy enjoyed spice on his privacy, this was the place. But Hickey got led to the most exposed location, a small table beside the swinging kitchen door, where the captain sat nudging the cherry around the surface of his Manhattan with a toothpick as though marveling that a cherry could float. In candlelight, the captain’s face looked ruddier than ever, his thin brush-cut hair redder. He showed Hickey his bulldog smile, reached out his beefy hand.

“Scotch, Tom?”

A bargirl arrived wiggling her tutu, took Hickey’s order, and wiggled off. The captain asked about Wendy. Through his first scotch, Hickey outlined Wendy’s transformation from a crazy, terrified, dull girl everybody figured must’ve possessed only half a brain into a happy woman.

“How about you, Tom?”

“Better than ever.”

“Leo tells me your bride cracks the whip, drags you to church every Sunday.”

“Leo can make the Himalayas out of a dust mote. The truth is, whenever the choir’s singing, Wendy goes to church. Sundays, Thursdays. I tag along sometimes. Your brood prospering?”

“Sure.” He flagged the waitress.

Hickey bought a round and turned to business. “Any of your boys talk to Frankie Foster?”

“Nope. Should we?”

“You know him?”

“Uh-huh. A Jew from Cicero. Used to drive and who knows what else for Bugs Moran, until one Valentine’s Day. Bugs’s mob gets bushwhacked, Foster takes a powder. Last I heard, he was living up the coast, Laguna or Santa Monica. What about him?”

“Your witness, Meechum—the
only
one who noticed Cynthia gabbing with the beachcomber—he’s some relative of Foster’s.”

Thrapp nodded. “Soon as Meechum gets back from Vegas, I’ll bring him in, nag him all over again.”

“Too late, Rusty. I mean to settle this business tomorrow. Maybe tonight.”

“How’s that?”

“First thing, I’ve been leaning on Charlie Schwartz.”

“Aw, Tom.” Thrapp groaned. “Besides that it’s one of your favorite pastimes, why’re you pestering the sorry old creep?”

“Because Cynthia isn’t the firebug.”

“Which you’re presuming on account of you work for her.”

“Yeah. I’m also presuming that marital problems could arise when one spouse is holding hands with the Jew mob, like Johnny did, and the other’s playing footsy with the wops. That’d be Laurel. She’s been having a ball with Angelo Paoli.”

“So I heard.”

“I’ll bet dollars to pesos it wasn’t Cynthia hired Teddy to torch the place. It doesn’t fly, unless you figure she also disposed of the beachcomber, who’s been gone a week without his toothbrush.” Hickey noticed fresh drinks in front of them but couldn’t recall their arrival. He made a fist around the tumbler. “I stopped by Teddy’s shack. Nobody home this week.”

Thrapp leaned backward to fold his arms and scowl. “We’ve been dropping by the place. So Teddy’s on the lam, so what?”

“So you figure Cynthia hired the guy for a firebug, what’d she pay him with, her pension check?”

“Hey, I never said the beachcomber torched the place. No reason Cynthia couldn’t of done it herself. She’s a big girl.”

“So where’s the beachcomber? Why’s he on the lam?”

“Went to visit his maiden aunt in Lodi, for all I know. You ever heard of coincidence?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t got time to consider it, so I’m pinning the fire on the Italians or the Jews.”

Thrapp plucked the cherry from his fresh drink, slapped it into his mouth, and made a face as if some joker had switched the cherry for a lemon. “Okay, Tom, you win. First thing tomorrow I’ll call Mickey and Angelo, tell them to gather their boys, go on down to the nearest precinct, surrender, make their confession.”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Rusty. Just introduce me to somebody belongs to Angelo. I’ll take it from there.”

Thrapp grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Explain, pal.”

“The way I figure, either Charlie, Mickey Cohen, or Angelo—one of them set up the girl. She makes a topnotch patsy, having threatened her sister a couple hundred times. Now, if Angelo did it, Mickey or Charlie got no love for him and vice versa.”

“So?”

“So, like I reminded Charlie, I can be a pest. But as soon as anybody spills enough to make you wise up and cut the girl loose, I disappear. Back to the woods and outta their hair. A bargain all around.”

“Damn clever, Tom,” the captain snarled, and sullenly watched a smoke ring float by. “I got a wild idea. Suppose I tell you, before I’ll let you risk toying with Mickey or Angelo, I’ll buy the DA a fat steak and libations, see to it the girl’s sprung?”

Hickey spread his arms in mock satisfaction. “Sure, Rusty. That’d work just fine. You tell me that, tomorrow noon I’m back home.”

“Sorry, Tom.” Thrapp killed his Manhattan and stared into the glass as though making sure it was dry. “Here’s the deal. I make an introduction. You stir the caldron, for about five minutes tops. We’ll take it from there. See, you gotta promise to scram. Tonight.”

Hickey sipped, licked his lips, and pondered. “Deal. Soon as I catch a few hours’ sleep and get breakfast with Elizabeth. But if you’re still holding Cynthia in a couple weeks, after the baby shows up, I’m coming back to stir the caldron again.”

The captain rolled his eyes, nodded irritably. “How about we eat first. They got exquisite lasagna.”

“Naw. I’ll grab a sandwich at Leo’s.”

Thrapp reached for his wallet, slapped down a tip. “Drink up, before I change my mind.”

Sucking an ice cube, Hickey stood and followed the captain around a trellis to a booth where two young Latins and one about Hickey’s vintage sat nibbling antipasto.

The fellow on the outside closest to Hickey looked barely of age. He wore his hair in a pompadour and had a pinstripe mustache, probably for the same reason Hickey had one, to distract from his prodigious nose. Thrapp introduced him as Pete Silva, then rushed through the other introductions while Silva rose and shook Hickey’s hand familiarly. The older man nodded curtly at Hickey and turned to swabbing salad oil off his plate with a hunk of bread. The other young fellow refolded his napkin, leaned back, and lit a smoke.

“Funny name, Hickey,” Pete Silva drawled. “Say, you must be Lizzie Crump’s old man. I heard about you. How about you tell her to dump that juicer? Best thing could happen to Lizzie is you kick Stuart’s ass down the road. I’ll take it from there.”

Hickey rubbed his head, futilely attempting to put out the sparks. “Let’s talk about it outside.”

“Sure thing.”

The boy hoisted his shoulders back and swaggered ahead of Hickey and the captain. He passed behind two waitresses, gave each a swat in the tutu. Out on the gravel he turned and shrugged for directions. Hickey motioned to the right and nudged Silva ahead of them to a dark place at the corner of the building. As they stepped into the shadow, Hickey grabbed the boy’s shoulders, shoved them against the wall, pinned them hard.

“You getting tough with me, Pop?”

“Not yet. That’ll come soon as you make another crack about my daughter.”

“Hey, no offense, huh? She’s a dish, that’s all.” He reached up to brush Hickey’s hands away, but the hands didn’t budge until Hickey let go, in his own time.

The punk straightened his coat while Hickey stepped back, pulled out his billfold, peeled off a ten, and folded it into Silva’s coat pocket. “I need to hire a message boy. You look like the type.”

Silva’s hand jerked from his lapel to his side: waist high and fisted. “That’d be an insult, right? You make me for a dope, like I’m gonna slug you with the cop standing by, so you can run me in and put on the thumb screws. That it?”

“Yep. Make your move, Pete.”

“Maybe I will.” Silva managed a fusion of snarl and smile, as though he’d practiced in front of the mirror for weeks. “First, what’s the message? To who?”

“Angelo. Tell him Charlie Schwartz figures to pin the Sousa fire on him.”

“That so? Where do you come in?”

“Pretend I’m Cynthia’s guardian. She got stung. It oughta be Angelo or Charlie taking the fall, you know as well as me. Either’s okay, as long as the girl walks.”

Silva’s grin looked touched with genuine delight. “You a crazy man?”

“Could be. Make your move, Pete?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’ll come around.”

He plucked the bill out of his breast pocket, tossed, and let it flutter to the ground. With a chuckle, he turned and swaggered past the captain, who was leaning on a Jaguar.

The boy disappeared inside the café and Thrapp hustled over, clutched Hickey’s arm, then crossed the lot to Hickey’s Chevy.

“Silva’s got insight,” the captain said.

“Meaning I’m crazy?”

“Sure enough. Now get moving. I’ll tail you awhile, until I make sure I’m the only one.”

***

As he cruised alongside the flood channel, Hickey watched the fishermen, conjuring memories that softened his head, which allowed him to think about Wendy, to miss her, worry, and forget to look over his shoulder. He’d stopped across from the ballroom at the end of West Mission Bay Drive to make a right onto Mission Boulevard when he spotted a giant white car as it crested the bridge behind him, so fast it launched itself into the air. The instant he saw it, he jumped on the gas and shot around the turn, goosed the Chevy up to 45, and held steady, one eye fixed on the mirror the entire mile or more to Leo’s place. The big car didn’t appear. He swung the left turn into Pismo Court and onto the gravel of Leo’s carport, beside the old Packard.

As he climbed out, spooked by a screech and rumble, he jumped to the rear of his Chevy and looked back up Pismo just as the Cadillac roared across Mission from the alley that parallelled the boulevard on the bay side.

His gun was in the suitcase locked in his trunk. By the time he got it out, they could drive this far idling and perforate him a dozen times. He dashed for the house, grabbed the screen door, yanked it off a hinge. He groped at the entry door and wrenched the knob. It wouldn’t turn. He kicked, pounded, dropped to his knees. Tried to disappear behind the Packard.

“Open up! Leo!”

A bullet cracked, sparked the concrete walk, ricocheted into the door. Behind the Packard, feet hit the gravel and skidded. Another bullet sparked off the concrete, then glass shattered. A shotgun boomed. A man yelped. Pellets rang against metal. A car door slammed and the Cadillac squealed away, spewing gravel that peppered the carport and the Packard.

Hickey turned and lay frozen against the doorjamb, his heart on triple time like a string bass jamming boogie-woogie. When the door whooshed open, he barely cocked his head to look.

Warily, Leo Weiss stepped out. Over the past few years, his walrus mustache had grayed and his chest finally sunk to his belly. His shoulders looked like pillows. But from Hickey’s angle, and as he cradled a shotgun, Leo appeared a titan.

“Now can I come in?” Hickey mumbled.

“Sure, for a minute. Then I’m chasing you and your car off my property. What a guy. Doesn’t even tell us he’s coming to town. This your idea of a grand entrance?”

“Yeah. The actors cost me a bundle.”

Leo reached out his free arm. “Stand up like a man, will you? Tom, anybody ever point out you’ve got a gift for aggravating people?”

“Nope.”

“Must be everybody’s scared to offend you. How long you been in town?”

“All day. I would’ve called soon as I got a minute, but I didn’t get one.”

“We’ll let it pass. So, who all did you rile today?”

“Lots of guys. What’d they look like?”

“I only saw the shooter. Tall, tailored suit. Hair like one of your classier pachucos.”