The Fame Thief (2 page)

“Yes, Mr. Dressler?”

“Tuffy,” Dressler said. “You I don’t want. Where’s Juana?”

“She’s got a headache.” Despite being the size of a genie in
The Thousand and One Nights
, Tuffy had the high, hoarse voice of someone who gargled thumbtacks.

“So mix her my special cocktail, half a glass of water, half a teaspoon each of bicarbonate of soda and cream of Tartar. Stir it up real good, till it foams, and take it to her with two aspirins. And get us a bottle of—what do you think, Junior? Burgundy or Bordeaux?”

“Ummm—”

“You’re right, it’s not a Bordeaux day. Too drizzly. We need something with some sunshine in it. Tuffy. Get us a nice Hermitage, the 1990. Wide-mouthed goblets so it can breathe fast. Got it?”

Tuffy said, “Yes, Mr. Dressler.”

I said, “And put on an apron.”

Tuffy took an involuntary step toward me, but Dressler raised one parchment-yellow hand and said, “He just needs to pick on somebody. Don’t take it personal.”

Tuffy gave me a little bonus eye-action for a moment but then ducked his head in Dressler’s direction and exited stage left. Dressler said, “So. People try to kill you.”

“Occupational hazard. I’m working for crooks, but I’m also catching crooks. If I solve the crime, the perp wants to kill me. If I don’t solve it, my client wants to kill me.”

“Nobody’s really tough any more,” Dressler said, shaking his head at the Decline of the West. “You know how we took care of the Italians?”

I did. “Not really.”

“Kind of a long way to say
no
, isn’t it? Three syllables instead of one. So, okay, the Italians came out to California first, and when we got here from Chicago it was like Naples, just Guidos everywhere, running all the obvious stuff: girls, betting, alcohol, unions, pawnshops, dope. Well, we were nice Jewish boys who didn’t want to make widows and orphans everywhere so you know what we used? Never mind answering, we used baseball bats. Didn’t kill anybody except a few who were extra-stubborn, but we wrapped things up pretty quick. See,
that’s
tough, walking into a room full of guns with a baseball bat. Ask a guy to do that these days, he’d have to be wearing Depends.”

I said, “Huh.”

Dressler nodded a couple of times, in total agreement with himself. “But let’s say the people who want to kill you, give them the benefit of the doubt, let’s say they could manage it. And all that nonsense with a different motel every month isn’t really going to cut it, is it? What’s the motel this month? Valentine something?”

“Valentine Shmalentine,” I said, feeling like I was drowning. “In Canoga Park.”

“Valentine Shmalentine? Kind of name is that?”

“Supposed to be the world’s only kosher love motel.”

“What’s kosher mean for a love motel? No missionary position?”

“Heh heh heh,” I said. He wasn’t supposed to know about the motel of the month.
Nobody
was, beyond my immediate circle: my girlfriend, Ronnie; my daughter, Rina; and a couple of close friends and accomplices, such as Louie the Lost. But, I comforted myself, even if word about the motels had leaked, I still had the ultra-secret apartment in Koreatown. Nobody in the world knew about that except for Winnie Park, the Korean con woman who had sublet it to me, and Winnie was in jail in Singapore and had been for seven years.

“So the motels don’t work,” Dressler said, “not even taking the room next door like you do, with the connecting door and all, to give you a backup exit. It’s a cute trick though, I’ll give you that. So I’ll tell you what you need. Since you can’t hide, I mean. You need a patron, so people know you’re under his protection. Somebody who’s got the kind of weight that people wouldn’t kill you even if they caught you playing kneesie with their teenage daughter, and you know how crooks are about their daughters.”

“What I need,” I said, “is to quit. Just do the occasional burglary, like a regular crook.”

“Not an option,” Dressler said. “You agree that everyone, even a schmuck like Bernie Madoff, has the right to a good defense attorney?”

I examined the question and saw the booby trap, but what could I do? “I suppose.”

“Then why don’t they deserve a detective when some
ganef
steals something from them? Or tries to frame them, like Vinnie De Gaudio? You remember helping Vinnie Di Gaudio?”

“Sure. That was how I met you.”

“See? You lived through it. You got told to keep Vinnie out of the cops’ eyes for a murder even though it looked like he did it, and you kept me out of the picture so my little line to Vinnie shouldn’t attract attention. This was a job that required tact and finesse, and you showed me both of those things, didn’t you? And now you’re eating this nice cheese and you’re about to drink a wine, a wine that’ll put a choir in your ear. So quitting is not an option.”

“What
is
an option?” I held up the platter, feeling like I was making an Old-Testament sacrifice. “Cheese? It’s terrific cheese.”

“You can lighten up on the cheese. I know it’s good. You thought this dodge up all by yourself, Junior, and I respect that. Something new. Gives me hope for your generation. Like I said, a patron,
patronage
, that’s what you need. And an A-list client, somebody nobody’s going to mess with.”

“A client and a patron,” I said. “Two different people?”

“That’s funny,” Dressler said gravely. “You gotta work with me here, Junior. I’ve got your best interests in mind.”

“And don’t think I don’t appreciate it. But I—”

“I
do
think you don’t appreciate it,” Dressler said, “and I don’t give a shit.”

I said, “Right.”

“And also, I gotta tell you, this is a job I wouldn’t give to just anybody. The client, for example—”

“I thought you were the client.”

“Literal, you’re too literal. I’m the client in the sense that I’m the one who chose you for the job and the one who’ll foot the bill. But think about it, Junior. Am I somebody some crook’s going to hit?”

“No.”

“How stupid would anybody have to be to hit me?”

“Someone would have to be insane to take your newspaper off your lawn.”

“Not bad. Sometimes I get glimpses of something that makes me think maybe you’re smart after all. No, the client, in the sense that she’s the one who got ripped off, the client is—are you ready, Junior?” He sat back as though to measure my reaction better.

I put both hands on the arms of my chair to demonstrate readiness. “Ready.”

“Your client is … Dolores La Marr.”

There was a little
ta-daaa
in his voice and something expectant in his expression, something that tipped me off that this was a test I didn’t want to fail. So I said, “You’re kidding.”

“Dolores,” he said, nodding three times, “La Marr.”

I said, “Wow. Dolores La Marr.”

“The most beautiful woman in the world,” Dressler said, and there was a hush of reverence in his voice. “
Life
magazine said so. On the cover, no less.”

Life
ceased publication on a regular basis in 1972, which I know because I once stole a framed display of the first issue, from 1883, paired with the last, both in mint condition. I got $6,500 for it from the Valley’s top fence, Stinky Tetweiler, and Stinky turned it around to a dealer for $14 K. A year later it fetched $22,700 at auction while I gnashed my teeth in frustration. So it seemed safe to ask Dressler, “What year was that?”

“Nineteen-fifty. April 10, 1950. She was twenty-one then. Most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life.”

The penny dropped. Dolores
La Marr
. Always referred to as “Hollywood starlet Dolores La Marr” in the sensational coverage of the Senate subcommittee hearings into organized crime at which she testified, reluctantly, during the early 1950s.

I said, “She’d be what now, eighty?”

“She’s eighty-three,” Dressler said. “But she admits to sixty-six.”

“Sixty-six?” I said. “That would mean
Life
named her the most beautiful woman in the world when she was four. I know journalism was better back then, but—”

“A lady has her privileges,” Dressler said, a bit stiffly. “She’s as old as she wants to be.”

“Well, sure.”

“I gotta admit,” Dressler said, “I didn’t expect you to know who she was. What’re you, thirty-eight?”

“Thirty-seven,” I said again.

“Oh, yeah, I already asked that. Don’t think it’s ’cause I’m getting old. It’s ’cause I don’t care. But you know, you’re practically a larva, but you remember Dolly.”

“Dolly? Oh, sorry, Dolores. I remember her because I’m a criminal. I read a lot about crime. I pay special attention to that, just like some baseball players can tell you the batting averages of every MVP for fifty years. I read the old coverage of the Congressional hearings into organized crime like it was a best-seller.”

Tuffy came in with an open bottle of wine and a couple of glasses on a tray. To me, he said, “Say one cute thing, and you’ll be drinking this through the cork.”

I asked Dressler, “You let the help talk to your guests like that?”

“Tuffy, be nice. If Mr. Bender and I don’t reach a satisfactory conclusion to our chat, you have my permission to put him in a full-body cast.” Dressler looked at me. “A little joke.”

I waited while Tuffy yanked the cork and poured. Then I waited until he’d left the room. Then I waited until Dressler picked up his glass and said, “Cheers.” Only then did I pick up my own glass and drink. An entire world opened before me: fine
dust on grape leaves in the hot French sun, echoing stone passageways in fifteenth-century chateaus, the rippling laughter of Emile Zola’s courtesans.

“Jesus,” I said. “Where do you get this stuff?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dressler said. “They wouldn’t deal with you. Tell you what. You take care of Dolores and I’ll see you get a case of this.”

“And a case of the one we had last time,” I said. “I’ve thought about it every day since I drank it.”

“You drive a hard bargain. Done. If you can fix things for Dolores. If not, I’ll let Tuffy pay you.”

“I don’t need threats,” I said, feeling obscurely hurt. “If I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it. And I’ll do it the best I can.”

“That’s fine,” Dressler said. “But I might need better than that.”

“So,” I said, halfway into the second glass, “what did somebody do to Dolores La Marr?”

“What’s the most valuable thing we’ve got, Junior?”

“We?” I asked. “Or me?”

“Let’s start with you.” Dressler rang the bell again.

“My daughter,” I said. “Rina.”

“Okay, that’s you. That’s good, family should always come first, but think bigger. Look, there’s one thing you’ve got that someone can steal, you listening? Of course, you’re listening. And once they steal it, they’re no richer, but you’re a lot poorer. You know what it is?” Tuffy came into the room. “Be a nice guy,” Dressler said to him, “and get us some green olives. The big ones with that weird red thing in it.”

“Pimento,” I said.

Dressler said, “Did I ask you?”

“Sorry.”

“In the refrigerator. In the door, second shelf down, on the right. Jar with a green label. Don’t bring us the jar, just put three olives each on six of the big toothpicks, in the second drawer to the left of the sink, put them on the good china with some
napkins, and bring them in. That’s eighteen olives on six toothpicks. And don’t touch them with your fingers.”

Tuffy’s forehead wrinkled in perplexity, and I thought he probably did that a lot. “How do I get them on the toothpick without touching them?”

Dressler said, “You want I should come in and do it myself?”

Tuffy took a step backward. “No, no, Mr. Dressler.”

“Good. You figure it out. Every time I have to do something myself, I figure that’s one less person I need.”

As Tuffy scurried from the room, and I said, “I admire your management style.”

“We’ll see how much you admire it when it’s aimed at you. Answer my question. What do you have that somebody can steal and it hurts you but doesn’t give them
bupkes
?”

“Oh,” I said. Rephrased, there was something familiar about it. “I’ve got a kind of tingle.”

“So tell your neurologist. Do you read Shakespeare?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me, one eye a lot smaller than the other. “And? What is it?”

“My good name,” I said. The window to my memory opened noiselessly, and in my imagination I dropped gratefully to my knees in front of it. I closed my eyes, and said,

“Has been slave to thousands,” Dressler prompted, and I finished it up:

“Iago,” I said. “Not someone who deserves a good rep.”

“If he hadn’t had one,” Dressler said, “he’d have been hung before the end of Act One. Play should have been called
Iago
, not
Othello
. Why name a play after the mark?” He drank the wine as if it were Kool-Aid. “Who needs a good reputation better than a crook?”