The Prince of Beverly Hills (31 page)

Three weeks after that, he was home. So was Glenna. He was a civilian now. Two studio cops were guarding the house at all times.

IN MARCH OF ’43, assisted by a cane, he hobbled down the aisle next to Glenna at Eddie and Suzanne Harris’s house. Among the ton of flowers, Rick had seen a large horseshoe of roses with a card reading,
I wish you both every happiness. Ben Siegel.

Rick didn’t believe it for a moment, but he had been awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for his squadron’s sinking of the Japanese carrier, and Siegel wouldn’t want to mess with a war hero. Not yet, anyway. He would bide his time, and Rick would just have to be ready.

64

JUNE 1947. Eddie Harris sat in Sol Weinman’s old office, going over the plans for a new soundstage. Weinman had been dead for a year, and Eddie was now chairman and CEO of the studio. Rick was head of production and working in Eddie’s old office.

Building materials had been in short supply since the beginning of the war, but lumber was starting to become available again, and Eddie was thinking about starting construction on a new soundstage. He was going to need it, if his plans for a television production department were going to develop on schedule.

Eddie’s phone buzzed, and he pressed a key. “Yes?”

“A Lieutenant Ben Morrison for you. He says you know him.”

“I know him. Put him through.” He picked up the phone. “Ben?” He had spoken to Morrison often over the past seven years.

“Yes, Mr. Harris.”

“Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to make this call, but you told me if it became necessary, to call you and not Rick Barron.”

“Yes, I did, Ben. Tell me about it.”

“This is for your ears only.”

“Of course.”

“My people arrested a medium-level mob guy a couple of days ago.”

“He works for . . . ?”

“He’s out of New York, the Genovese family. They were looking at him hard for two murders back East, and he came out here to reduce the heat.”

“I see. And this affects us how?”

“We’ve been sweating him, and he’s starting to play ball a little. He wants to go to Mexico, but we’re in his way, so we have some leverage with the guy.”

“Go on.”

“This guy has just come back from Naples, where he took a vacation, and where he spent a fair amount of time with Charlie Luciano.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Yeah, it is. He says that during this time, he and Charlie Lucky fell into conversation about West Coast activities, and Charlie tells him, in the way of an anecdote, about a blackmail thing that Ben Siegel was running out here.”

Eddie froze. “Are we talking about . . .”

“We are.”

“And Luciano said
Ben Siegel
was running it?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Did Stampano’s name come up?”

“It did. Luciano said that Siegel was using Stampano for the legwork, the setting up of the girls.”

“Holy shit.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“How much credence do you place in this guy’s story?”

“I sat in on the interrogation and we went through this backward and forward, and I can’t see that this guy has any particular ax to grind with Siegel or anybody else out here. He’s just looking to get out from under. I think the subject came up because he was looking to entertain us a little.”

“I see.”

“There’s more. He says Siegel sent Rick and Glenna some flowers on their wedding day, with a message. You know anything about that?”

“Yes, I saw them and the message myself.”

“This guy says Siegel did that to get them to relax. Then, in due course he would get around to them. This guy says Siegel is still deeply angry about the busting up of his plans and the killing of his guy.”

“I haven’t heard much about Siegel lately.”

“He’s been spending his time up in Las Vegas. He bought this hotel and casino, and he’s expanding it—word is, with mob money.”

“Yeah, I did hear something about that.”

“We’ve had reports that Siegel has given up all his mob activity except this casino, but our guy says that’s not entirely true.”

“What is true?”

“Siegel flies back and forth to LA in a private airplane, makes him hard to keep track of at times. This guy says that soon, on one of his trips back, he’s going to personally settle the score for Stampano. Siegel has always been known to be a guy who holds a grudge forever.”

“Personally?”

“That’s what this guy says.”

“And you think he’s credible?”

“There’s no way to check this, of course, unless it’s finding Rick with a bullet in his head, but this guy has given us other stuff that’s been verifiable. I tend to believe him.”

“Where is Siegel now?”

“I hear he’s coming back to LA today, to meet with some people from New York. Seems he’s into a lot of cost overruns with the casino, and it’s not going down well with the boys putting up the money.”

“Does Siegel still live in that house he made Lawrence Tibbet sell him?”

“No, he had to sell the place to raise money for the casino. He lives at Virginia Hill’s house now, when he’s in LA.”

“I know the place. Well, Ben, thank you very much for the information. I’ll see that you get a little something in the mail very soon.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Harris.”

Eddie hung up and sat thinking for a moment, then he rooted around in his desk drawer for a slip of paper he knew was there somewhere. He found it and dialed the number. It rang several times then was finally answered.

“This is Al,” a voice said.

65

RICK, DRESSED IN TENNIS CLOTHES, lay on a blanket in the backyard of his newly built house, watching, fascinated, as his two-year-old daughter ran through the grass chasing a retriever puppy. Both of them seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, he thought.

He could see Glenna leaving the house with a tray of glasses, heading his way. She was past playing tennis now, being due for another child in a month, but Eddie and Suzanne Harris were expected, and they had said they were bringing a fourth.

He loosened the brace on his knee a notch. He didn’t want it too tight, it would cut off the circulation. He’d been playing again for a month or so, and he was getting around the court quite well.

Glenna set the tray on a nearby table. “They should be here soon, shouldn’t they?”

“Soon.”

“Your dad is coming at one, for lunch.”

“Great.”

Rick looked back toward the house and saw the Harrises and another couple coming. As they got closer, he saw that the man was David Niven. They had not seen each other since the war. He got to his feet.

“Rick, my dear fellow,” Niven cried, smiling broadly. They pumped hands, and Niven introduced Rick to his wife.

“I gave David the new script this morning,” Eddie said. Suzanne and Mrs. Niven went to greet the little girl. “You seen the paper yet?”

“Not this morning.”

Eddie handed Rick the Los Angeles
Times
. “I thought you’d be interested in this.”

Rick took the paper and was greeted by a photograph of a man in a suit, sprawled on a sofa. Some of his face was missing. The headline read: “Ben ‘Bugsy’ Siegel Dead in Apparent Mob Slaying.”

“Holy shit,” Rick said.

“My sentiments exactly,” Eddie said. “Word is, Ben spent way too much of some other people’s money on this casino thing of his in Nevada; made his investors unhappy. Other people have already taken over the project.”

Rick looked at the text of the story. “A 30–06 rifle, many shots fired. Sounds like a BAR.”

“All sorts of war surplus stuff available these days,” Niven said.

“Yes,” Rick agreed, glancing at Eddie, who seemed to be avoiding his gaze.

“Well,” Eddie said, “that’s that. Tennis, anyone?”

Rick went and handed the paper to Glenna. “Read that when you get a chance.”

“How’s the knee?” Eddie asked as they walked down to the court.

“Never better,” Rick said. “Funny about Ben Siegel getting it that way.”

“I don’t think it was a mob hit,” Eddie said.

“No?”

“Nah, I think Virginia Hill had him blasted. Probably caught him with another woman. Ben always liked the girls.”

“Maybe a little too much.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “maybe a little too much.”

“I like the mob hit theory better, though.”

“That works for me, too,” Eddie said. “You serve. Cripples first.”

“That remark is going to cost you, pal,” Rick said.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want, once again, to express my thanks to my editor, David Highfill, and all the people at Putnam who work so hard to get my work to its readers.

I’d also like to thank my literary agents, Morton Janklow and Anne Sibbald for their continuing attention to my career over the past twenty-three years. Where would I be without them?

I’m grateful to the master gunsmith, Terry Tussey, who makes .45s very much like Rick Barron’s, for his patient tutorials on firearms.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.

However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my Web site at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all of my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.

If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.

Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.

When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I
never
open these. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.

Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions, or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.

Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of
Writer’s Market
at any bookstore; that will tell you how.

Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Publicity Department, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

Those ambitious folk who wish to buy film, dramatic, or television rights to my books should contact Matthew Snyder, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90212–1825.

Those who wish to conduct business of a more literary nature should contact Anne Sibbald, Jan-klow & Nesbit, 445 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my Web site, www.stuartwoods.com, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Putnam representative or the G. P. Putnam’s Sons publicity department with the request.

If you find typographical or editorial errors in my book and feel an irresistible urge to tell someone, please write to David Highfill at Putnam, address above. Do not e-mail your discoveries to me, as I will already have learned about them from others.

A list of all my published works appears in the front of this book. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If you wish to obtain hardcover copies of earlier novels or of the two nonfiction books, a good used-book store or one of the online bookstores can help you find them. Otherwise, you will have to go to a great many garage sales.

BOOKS BY STUART WOODS

FICTION

Reckless Abandon
⁺
*

Capital Crimes
^‡

Dirty Work
⁺

Blood Orchid*

The Short Forever
⁺

Orchid Blues*

Cold Paradise
⁺

L.A. Dead
⁺

The Run
^‡

Worst Fears Realized
⁺

Orchid Beach *

Swimming to Catalina
⁺

Dead in the Water
⁺

Dirt
⁺

Choke

Imperfect Strangers

Heat

Dead Eyes

L.A. Times

Santa Fe Rules

New York Dead
⁺

Palindrome

Grass Roots
^‡

White Cargo

Deep Lie
^‡

Under the Lake

Run Before the Wind
^‡

Chiefs
^‡