Eureka (15 page)

She crossed her heart with a finger.

“I once won a loving cup at the Saturday-night jitterbug contest at the Palladium. To Benny Goodman's ‘Don't Be That Way.' Me and Julie Cluett. We also got twenty bucks.”

“Were you in high school?”

I shook my head. “Four years ago. I was scared to death one of the boys on the force would find out. Now when I go, I tell the guys I'm doing security.”

“How often do you go?”

“Whenever there's a big band. I don't dance much, I just stand up around the bandstand with everybody else and listen. He's going to be there next week, you know.”

“Who?”

“Tommy Dorsey.”

“At the Palladium?”

“Yep, with Buddy Rich, Sinatra, the Pied Pipers, the whole gang.”

“I've never been to the Palladium,” she said.

It sounded like a pick-up line but I knew better.

“It gets very hot and crowded.”

“Are you going?”

I smiled. “I'm doing security that night.”

She laughed again. Then she paused and asked, “Do you ever need an assistant?”

And there it was. One thing she wasn't, was shy. A lady whose cigarettes cost more than my car was pitching me. I wondered how long it would take for the novelty of that to wear thin.

“Look,” I said, “let's put it on the table. I wouldn't know a dish of caviar from a bowl of Wheaties.”

“So? I've never met anybody who was dancing for the piper. What's that got to do with anything?”

I couldn't think of an answer for that so I just stared into those gray eyes.

“Well, if you do decide you need an assistant, my number's Vandike 2578. I'll write it down for you, it's not in the book.”

“Vandike 2578. I remember things like that.”

“How about that? A cop who loves dogs and dancing and remembers phone numbers.”

I took out the makings.

“Want to try one of mine before I leave?” I asked her.

“I . . . yes, why not?”

I rolled two, fanned them dry, and gave her one. She lit hers with her gold Dunhill, I lit mine with my Zippo.

Obviously a match made in heaven.

CHAPTER 6

I met Ski at a restaurant on La Cienega called the French Kettle, which was a high-sounding name for a lunchtime hangout for reporters, politicians, and cops. The prices went up for the dinner trade. The place was owned by an ex-prizefighter named Andre DeCourt, who was once a very promising middleweight. He was one of those good-looking Frenchmen with dark shiny hair, a straight nose, and green eyes. The story goes that Andre worked his way up the rankings to a match with a muscle-bound hammer named Ray Rowles, who was next in line for a title shot. Andre was the favorite and the odds were up to about fifteen to one. Andre decided it was time to quit before he started looking like Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, who in turn looked like a bus had run into him, so he took all his savings, laid it off on Rowles, beat him to a pulp for seven rounds, and then lay down and took a nap. He used the winnings to open the restaurant, then took a rematch with Rowles, played with him for two rounds, and knocked him all the way to Madagascar in the third. Then he retired for good.

It was one of those high-ceilinged, wood-and-brass eateries that looked more like a cattle baron from Denver owned it than an Americanized Frenchman. There were booths around the perimeter and cubicles filled in the middle of the room. They all had high, etched-glass partitions, which looked fancy and expensive but were there mainly for privacy. When newsmen and politicians talk, they want privacy. Cops don't really care, they don't have anything to say. The place opened at 7:00 a.m. and closed at 11:00 p.m. In the morning they served eggs Benedict to die for, and the sandwich menu at lunch was two pages long. I couldn't afford to eat there at dinner. If I wanted to spend that much money for a meal I'd go to Chasen's. I had never been there either.

Andre was always there, seated in a small booth for two in the front of the place near the cash register. He always wore a tuxedo. At seven in the morning he was in a tuxedo. He changed the shirt three times a day and he wore a very subtle cologne that made you forget he once earned his living with sweat and a right uppercut. He also carried a tab for the breakfast and lunch trade, which was a nervy thing to do—newsmen, politicians, and cops not being known for their credit ratings. The newsies and dicks because they didn't make much money, and the politicians because they were on the take from the start and who's going to sue the mayor or a city councilman for stiffing a check or two?

He got up when I came in and gave me a fifty-dollar smile.

“Zee,” he said, “
Bonjour
. Ski is here already. Over by the window in the corner.” He led me over there, handed me a leather-covered menu the size of the
Rand McNally World Atlas,
and retreated to his post.

Ski was devouring a large piece of Boston cream pie, which was his idea of an hors d'oeuvre.

“Why do you always eat your lunch backward?” I said.

“I don't like to start with a bowl of weeds with a tomato sitting in the middle of it.”

The waiter came by and I ordered a corned beef on rye and a Coke.

“Sorry I'm late,” I said. “I met a new friend.”

“Oh yeah? Male or female?”

“Female.”

“She a looker?”

“Your jaw would hit the floor if you laid eyes on her.”

He gave me a nod of approval.

“Rich?”

“Her old man owns the bank—and she has an office that would make Marie Antoinette jealous.”

He beamed lasciviously. “Do I hear wedding bells?”

“Yeah, sure, Agassi. I met her three hours ago and rolled her a cigarette. That was my big trick for the day. One of her cigarettes cost more than my car.”

“Which would be what, thirty or forty cents?”

“Very funny. So, what kind of a day have you had?”

He finished the pie and pushed the dish aside like a kid finishing a vegetable plate.

“Well,” he said, “I didn't find a lot about who she was. But I found a lot about who she wasn't. I talked to everybody at the tax office. Talked to them privately. She told just about everybody there she was from Texas. One of them she told she was from Waco, another one from San Antone, then there was Dallas, and Wichita Falls, which I thought was in Kansas. She arrived on the scene as Verna Hicks in early 1924. Was very discreet about her private life. Nobody knew she was dating Wilensky until she got married. Nobody's ever been to her house, in fact few of them even know where it is. She was an excellent worker, always punctual, never missed a day. An ideal employee according to her boss. She turned down promotions several times.”

“Probably because the money wasn't worth the responsibility, considering she had that five C's floating in over the transom every month.”

“My thoughts exactly. Anyway, I went back to the station house after I left there and called the Bureau of Records in Waco, San Antone, Dallas, and Wichita Falls, and then checked the state bureau in Texas. Guess what?”

“They never heard of her.”

“You got it. The DMV here says she originally gave an address on Highland. I checked it. The street number doesn't exist and never did. She changed it to the Meadows address when she renewed the license. They don't check those things unless you get stopped for something serious.”

“In other words, Verna Hicks doesn't exist prior to 1924.”

“Exactly.”

“Now why doesn't that surprise me?”

“But why did she suddenly surface then?”

“Because she had to be somebody, Ski. Apparently when she moved here she decided to stay awhile. The net is, she could be anybody from anywhere, even her age could be a phony.”

Our meals arrived and he dug in.

“Your turn,” he said. “Did you come up with anything—besides Miss Vanderbilt?”

“I want to put it all together on the board. The checks came from a lot of different banks. Once or twice from here in town. But most of them seem to have come from up around San Pietro.”

He looked up sharply when I mentioned San Pietro.

“Hell, that's Culhane territory,” he said.

“Culhane? He's running for governor.”

“Not officially. He's about to announce. He's running against Claude Osterfelt and Dominic Bellini.”

“I read something about it in the paper but I didn't take it seriously. Whoever heard of him?”

“The
Times
had a big spread on him last week. World War I hero. Racket-buster. Cleaned up his town, ran the gangsters out. It used to be called Eureka, which was like Frontier City, USA. Open gambling, prostitution. During Prohibition they served drinks over the bar. The sheriff was an old gunfighter named Buck Tallman. You have heard of him, right?”

“That was a long time ago. That's history. Wasn't he shot in a whorehouse or something?”

“Something like that. I'm thinking of running up to San Pietro. It's only about a hundred miles up there.”

“The banks aren't gonna tell you anything, Zee. All that stuff's confidential.”

“I did pretty well this morning.”

“Ahhh, that's because you rolled Little Miss Rich Britches a cigarette and showed her your heater.” He thought for a moment and added, “Are you hunching on this?”

“Can't say.”

“I'm your partner. You think there's more to this than just an accident, don't you?”

“I don't think Mrs. Wilensky was knocking down five hundred bucks a month for years and then slipped in the bathtub and got fried. That much coincidence makes me nervous. I'm not sure, but I think the check trail leads to San Pietro.”

“Moriarity's gonna laugh you outta the office.”

“Hell, it's worth a shot.”

“Moriarity's gonna have a seizure.”

“I can con him into it.”

“Culhane's a tough character, Zee.”

I shrugged. “We're both lawmen. Maybe he'll work with me.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe I'll lose fifty pounds in my sleep tonight, too.”

CHAPTER 7

We split up again; Ski was going to check out the crime reporters at the downtown newsroom, some of the old-timers who might know more about San Pietro than what had been reported through the years. The newsies always had something in their back pocket. Stuff that was all rumor with maybe ten cents' worth of truth in it. Stuff they couldn't back up properly. Maybe they had a city editor who'd been sued once and was gun-shy of everything if they didn't have pictures, sworn statements, three sources, and a sworn statement from God that it was on the level. Ski was good at tapping them. He'd been around seven years longer than me. He'd go in with a pint of Seagram's Seven in his pocket, tell some jokes, give them a little piece of gossip they couldn't use, then sneak around to the subject and take out the bottle.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I answered truthfully. “Maybe just a word here and there.”

“It's what, seventeen years ago?” he said. “And for all we know, she was on Mr. Somebody's sleeve long before she showed up in Pacific Meadows.”

“I know it, I know it,” I said. “It's worth an hour or two. Maybe something happened up there in the early twenties, some two-bit scandal not worth an inch of ink down here. Something that'll give me more to go on than a bunch of bank names.”

Ski went his way and I went down to the main newsroom of the
Times
to look up Jimmy Pennington, who was one of the best reporters in town. We had started out at the same time, about two years after Verna Hicks Wilensky wandered into town with four grand in her girdle, a new name, a new house, and a new life except for somebody from the past who was underwriting her five C's a month. I could feel the nudge in my gut. Maybe it was because I've known a lot of people who disappeared. Just vanished, click, like that. I was in Missing Persons for two years. But this was the first time somebody had
appeared
out of nowhere. No previous history. No birth certificate. No high school prom pictures. Zip. But she had to appear from someplace before she appeared in West L.A.

Pennington and I were both rookies at our respective jobs in those days and I helped Pennington out when I could, giving him a tip that put him an hour ahead of everybody else. In those days there were seven newspapers, including the gossip sheets. An hour is as good as a week in the life of a breaking story. In exchange, he mentioned my name whenever he could. One hand washing the other. Now he was the top-slot reporter. The only homicide he would be interested in was if the mayor knocked off his mistress in the presidential suite of the Bel Air Hotel. But he had a memory like an encyclopedia, so he was worth a trip across town.

I stopped in the coffee shop on the corner, got two cups of black coffee, and took the elevator to the third-floor newsroom. I found Jimmy, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, talking into two phones at the same time, one cradled between his ear and his shoulder. With his free hand he was taking down notes. He was short, five-seven, but husky, had curly blond hair, and loved the ladies.

I sat on the corner of his desk, put a coffee in front of him, and rolled a cigarette. He mouthed, “Light that for me,” which I did. I stuck it between his lips and he kept writing and talking at the same time, the butt bobbing between his lips like the cork on a kid's fishing line. He finally hung up one of the phones and wrapped his hand around the mouthpiece of the other.

“What's up?” he asked.

“Want to pick your brains a little.”

He rolled his eyes. “I'm covering two stories at once and I got a deadline in two hours.” He held up a finger and said, “Okay, Ned, I need all you can get me in one hour, got that? Sixty minutes. The beast is breathing down my neck. Thanks.” He hung up the phone and flopped back in his chair like a man who had just suffered a coronary.

“I don't have a brain left to pick right now.”

“What do you know about Thomas Culhane?”

“Jesus, Zee, don't you ever read the papers? There was a three- column profile on him last week, second section front.”

“I mean the stuff that wasn't in the papers.”

His eyes narrowed. “What're you on to?”

“Nothing. I have to go up there on a civil matter. I hear he's a tough cookie.”

“You're in homicide, what're you doing chasing a civil matter?”

“It's an accidental death. I need to find a survivor to close out my report.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That's all there is to it,” I said, which at that point was true.

“He likes cops. He's been one most of his life.” He paused and took a sip of coffee. “Why would Culhane get tough with you?”

“Who says he's gonna get tough? You know me, I just like to have a leg up.”

“What kind of civil affair is this, again?”

I could see his nose twitching.

“I'm looking for a family member. It's an accidental death and I don't want to file the report until I notify the survivors.”

“That's why Bell invented the telephone. That's this gadget here.” He pointed to one of his phones.

“Ski told me Culhane was bad news, but you know Ski. He can make a federal case out of a hard sneeze. I happened to be in the neighborhood and I thought I'd get your take on him.”

He opened a desk drawer, which was his filing cabinet, and rooted around in the cloud of clippings that puffed up out of it. He finally found what he was looking for, snapped it out of the pile, and slammed the drawer with his knee.

“Here. That's thirty inches on Culhane. Three pictures. He's running for governor, you know, or did that get by you, too?” His face screwed up like he had just swallowed a tumbler full of white vinegar. “Jesus, what are you smoking these days?” he said, looking at the cigarette I had rolled him.

“You heard the one about beggars being choosers?”

“I ran out of Camels an hour ago and I haven't been off the phone since.” He took another drag. “I don't think Culhane has any secrets in his closet. He's tough; hell, he had to be to clean up Eureka, which was what the town was called before they dolled it up and started calling it San Pietro. It used to be the meanest town in central California. Now it's a playground for people with real money, the kind that tip with Ben Franklins and give their kids Cadillacs when they pass the fifth grade. But he runs the county with an invisible whip. You get out of line and
crack!
you got a welt on your back and you don't have any idea where it came from. On the other hand, he can be a charmer. He can get a smile out of a dead cat. You won't have any trouble with him. Like I said, he loves cops. Hates reporters, loves cops.”

“How come he hates reporters?”

“He played rough back when. One of his cops . . . what was his name? . . . it'll come to me . . . anyway, the cop knocked off a mobster named Fontonio, who was taking over the mobs up there. You know, starting a gangster's union—everybody joins up or they end up floating facedown to Hawaii. Woods, that was the cop's name, Eddie Woods. He claimed self-defense, there was a gun in Fontonio's hand; except everybody who knew the man, including his wife and bodyguards, said Fontonio was afraid of guns. Didn't carry one, didn't have one in the house. That's what bodyguards are for. Then they couldn't trace the heater. The boys up in Sacramento were about to look into it when Woods resigned, the D.A. dead-docketed the case, and that was the end of that.”

“So why does Culhane hate reporters?”

“Some of the muckrakers implied Culhane had Woods do the job. It did look pretty fishy. But Culhane said he had nothing to do with it. Then Woods said Culhane had nothing to do with it. And when Woods quit, the case went bye-bye. Culhane never forgot that. He said the press tried to ruin his reputation and, as far as I know, he's still got a hard-on about it. He's Irish just like you: you don't get mad, you get even. Culhane gets mad
and
even. That isn't in the story. It's irrelevant now.”

“When did this happen?”

“I vaguely remember it. We're talking mid twenties, thereabouts. I was just finishing college at the time and you were one of the Dead End kids. You know me. I remember weird stuff but I can't remember what I had for lunch.”

“What happened to Woods?”

He shrugged. “Hell, I dunno. I heard he was a P.I. down here, but that was a long time ago.”

“I have great respect for your memory, Jimmy.”

“It's a gift. My old man was a card shark. He could count cards in his sleep. Must be in my blood.”

The phone started ringing again. He snatched it up and snapped, “Pennington; hold on a minute.” He cupped the mouthpiece.

“No kidding, what's your interest? Are you on to something?”

“Like I said, it's a civil thing. If it works out, it wouldn't rate more than three lines on page twenty-two.”

“You wouldn't shit me after all we've been to each other?”

“When did I ever shit you?”

“This got something to do with that lady who took a bath with her radio?”

“How'd you hear about that? I haven't even filed a report yet.”

“Scuttlebutt.”

“I'm trying to locate a relative so I can let the family know before it hits the obit page.”

“Oh.”

I don't think he believed me, but the other phone started ringing again and the clock ticked closer to his deadline and he got busier than a centipede running across a hot rock. I thanked him, took the clipping, and got out of there before he got any nosier.