The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles by Ken Kuhlken (speld decodable readers TXT) 📖

on me? Give up?”

“Busy,” Tom said. “I’m afraid giving up’s not in my nature.”

She sat on edge of the sofa and leaned his way. “You don’t look so good.”

He wanted to tell her about belladonna, the suicide diagnosis, Flora, and Frank’s woman’s real name. But within that quagmire were paths he didn’t know if he would ever be willing to lead her down.

“Discouraged?” she asked.

He couldn’t deny that, so he nodded.

“I’m here to help, Tommy,” she said. “Really. It’s a standing offer.” She stood and kissed him on the forehead, then continued on to her room.

For some minutes, Tom sat and listened to her barefoot steps, the rustling of her clothes, then her splashing in the bathroom. After she turned off her bedroom light and shut her door, she sang a verse of “Gimmee a Lil’ Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?”

HE DIDN’T hear Leo until the knock. He opened the door and put a finger to his lips, hoping they could keep from waking Florence.

Leo sat where Florence had, only he sank deep into the cushion. “Hmm,” he said. “Where to start? Teddy Boles?”

“Yeah.”

“He flew the coop all right. At least he didn’t come to work all this week. You must be scarier than I thought. Next, would you care to hear about my tribulations?”

“Get it over with,” Tom said.

“A couple of the boys who’ve been tailing me walked up and handed me my walking papers. Cause, insubordination. And one of them says, ‘You want to talk about it, Chief Davis will see you.”

Tom made fists and rapped them on his ears. “Go talk to him, then make a beeline for the Owens Valley.”

“Hold on. I haven’t yet told you what you sent me out to find.”

The bedroom door cracked open.

“Sis,” Tom said, “If you’re listening anyway, get on out here.”

Florence appeared wearing a silk teddy Tom had told her to save for her honeymoon. Any other day, or with any other man but Leo, he would’ve sent her back for a robe. or gotten up and fetched it.

After Leo greeted her, he watched Tom until he got a nod that meant go ahead and talk.

He only glanced at Florence. “Her Romeo drives his swanky auto into the garage at the Examiner."

“Hey, what is this?” Florence snapped.

Leo held up a hand, palm in her direction. “A minute later, he walks out and down the street to a vacant lot. He gets into a jalopy. Next stop, his digs. A duplex on Del Valle.” He handed Tom a card with an address.

“The rat,” Florence said, in a voice so ghastly, Tom shivered. His sister’s eyes had darkened and shrunk. Cherry red blotches appeared on her cheeks. “The filthy rat.” She glowered at Leo, then at her brother. He wouldn’t have bet a nickel on whether the rat in question was him, or Leo, or Pablo. Or men. When she sprang to her feet, he worried she’d find something to hurl.

But she ran into her room, slamming the door, and threw herself at the bed. Tom heard the frame collapse. Then she broke into loud sobs. He would’ve gone in if other such spells hadn’t taught him to wait until the noise subsided. For now, she was inconsolable.

“You’re going to do what it takes to get back on the force. Am I right?”

“Not on your life.”

“Leo, Frank’s dead. To you, he was nobody. And if some guys shoot up a Klan meeting, maybe the dragons will wise up and make tracks for Utah. Who knows what’ll come of it all? Anyway, what’s the odds the two of us can outsmart Hearst and the whole rotten oligarchy?”

“What’s eating you, Tom?”

Maybe tomorrow he’ would tell Leo about belladonna, Harriet Boles, and Fenton Love. “Not a thing,” he mumbled. “Looks like Hearst used Pablo to go through Florence and get the low-down on me.”

“Looks like. Question is why?”

Thirty-eight

HE boarded the bus at dawn. The other bus passengers on westbound Wilshire were gardeners, maids, a few guys so tattooed with black grime, no doubt they were riding to the oil fields.

Tom didn’t look toward the La Brea tar pits, but he smelled them and grew so disturbed he failed to notice the Fairfax stop. A few blocks along, he jumped off. He walked down San Vicente and along Del Valle, watching for the address on the card Leo gave him.

The duplex was a miniature hacienda with lots of redwood trim. Tom strode to the front door of the east side unit, and knocked hard. The door had a peephole. He stood to the side and knocked again, harder, telling himself he was ready for whatever Pablo might come at him with. If it was a pistol, he would kick the door shut and dive. Otherwise, he would rush.

The door opened a crack. “Who’s there?”

“Tom Hickey.”

“Oh. Yeah. Give me a minute.” Pablo retreated.

He’d left the door open. Tom shoved it open wider, looked around, and entered a barren parlor. The wall had separated at a corner seam, probably during an earthquake. Two chairs leaned backward against the far wall. A stack of magazines served as the coffee table. On top of another stack a dead aloe repined.

When Pablo came out of the bathroom, Tom said, “I guess you didn’t bring Florence here. She would’ve screamed.”

“I’m not proud of the place.” Pablo rubbed his eyes. “Now that you’re on to me, now what?”

“You’re going to talk.”

“Hey, sit down. Java?”

Pablo’s housekeeping was enough to make Tom decline. Besides, yesterday he’d learned too much about poison. He shook his head and followed Pablo into the kitchen. The counter featured a bowl of spoiled fruit and a scattering of cafeteria-style dishes, probably nabbed, and so caked with food residue, Tom got an impulse to put them soaking. He resisted. “Hearst,” he said. “What’s his game?”

“Okay, he’s my boss, but I don’t talk to the guy. Not much anyway. How should I know what he’s up to?”

“Sure. You just follow orders.”

“You got it.”

“And the orders were?”

“Get the lowdown on Tom Hickey, what he’s snooping around after.”

“Florence?”

Pablo made as if the brewing required all his attention. He stared at the coffee pot until it began to perk, then turned down the fire on the stove. “Hey, Tommy, listen.”

“Let’s don’t pretend we’re amigos, Pablo.”

“That’s the way you want it. Sure you won’t have a cup?”

Tom glared.

Pablo poured his coffee and laced it with milk from a can. “Okay, here’s the straight dope. I’m going one way down the hall, Mister Hearst is going the other. He gives me this long look, the kind makes you feel like your nose must be dripping. After we pass, he turns back my way and says, ‘You there.’ Well, there’s nobody but me there. So I say, ‘Yes sir?’ He takes me up to his office, sits me down, and asks do I want to be a reporter. You bet I do. He says, ‘Well then,’ and he tells me keep tabs on you, and he says if he was the reporter, he’d get chummy with Florence. Didn’t say I should or I shouldn’t.’

“He knew her name?”

“Sure. Not a lot Mister Hearst doesn’t know.”

“He got you into Casa del Mar?”

“No problem.”

“Teddy Boles and the others, they on Hearst’s payroll?”

“Who?”

“The boys that worked me over?”

“Hey, I don’t know where they came from.”

Tom gave him a long, hard stare, yet Pablo didn’t squirm. “So this big shot who knows most everything, what’s he know about Frank Gaines?”

“Don’t ask me. Only place I ever heard about Frank Gaines was from Florence.”

“And what you heard, you passed on to Mister Hearst?”

“Yeah, okay, I did reports. But you got to know, I wouldn’t hurt Florence. She’s a prize.”

Tom stepped closer. “Maybe some years from now she’ll be a prize. Right now, she’s my kid sister.”

“Got it,” Pablo said, as some coffee sloshed out of his cup.

“Drink it down,” Tom said. “Then you’re going to come clean about Hearst and the cover up.”

“Cover up?”

“The lynching.”

“Oh yeah. Hey, you know more than I do.”

“Then get yourself dressed.”

“What’ve you got in mind?”

“Where’s Hearst this time of day?”

“They say he sleeps in, works late nights.”

“Let’s wake him up.”

Wearing a look that meant Tom must be loco, Pablo shrugged and left the kitchen.

His jalopy was a Model T, pre-war, without the electric starter. It rattled over every rut and pebble.

According to Pablo, their best chance of catching Hearst in the morning was in Santa Monica at a construction site, the beach mansion Hearst was building for Marion Davies. “His doll baby’s the only one can get him up early, so they say, and just yesterday she rolled in from New York. Bound to want to check up on the builders.”

“Tell me about Jack Chavez,” Tom said.

“Chavez, huh. I’m supposed to know him?”

“Hearst reporter.”

“Oh yeah. That guy. He doesn’t write much. A feature now and then.”

“What’s he got to do with Sister Aimee?”

Pablo swerved to miss a white cat. An oncoming Chevrolet’s horn blew. Pablo leaned out the window and shouted in Spanish. The outburst appeared to relax him. He smiled and said, “You tell me.”

“See here,” Tom said, “I’ve got no reason to keep from treating you like a punching bag.”

“That so? Well, I’m in a fix here, Tom. Mister Hearst pays my salary.”

“Not anymore. You’re bringing me to him. Means you failed him. You’re as good as fired.”

Pablo sighed. “Yeah, well then, Mister Hearst’s got somebody planted at Angelus Temple, I hear. Chavez maybe. Could be more than one of them. See, Mister Hearst’s got snitches planted all over, so they say.”

“Who’s they?”

“No sir. A reporter doesn’t give out his sources. Not ever.”

“You’re no reporter.”

“I aim to be.”

Wilshire Boulevard ended at the bluffs of Santa Monica. With the wind at his back, Tom could’ve punted a football from the curb where Pablo parked his jalopy to the public pier. He shaded his eyes, looked south toward Ocean Park Beach and imagined the mobs that overran the place in hopes that Sister Aimee would rise out of the sea.

He followed Pablo to the edge of the bluffs and along the path until they stood looking down at the foundation and some framed walls of what could become a ritzy hotel or beach club. “No sign of Hearst,” Pablo said.

“That’s the mansion?”

“You bet. Mister Hearst knows how to treat a gal.”

Up the street, a line of men paraded into a cafe. Rotarians, Tom thought, a suitable recommendation. He asked, “You run a tab for expenses?”

“Yeah, why?”

He pointed at the cafe. “Mister Hearst’s treating to breakfast.”

While they walked that way, Pablo said, “I don’t know. He fires me, maybe I’m stuck with the tab.”

“That’d be a shame,” Tom said.

“I bet he’ll pay up,” Pablo mused. “Mister Hearst’s no tightwad.” In the cafe, they sat beneath a stuffed swordfish. Along with his coffee, Tom ordered a steak, three poached eggs, hotcakes, and fresh squeezed orange juice. Pablo scowled and settled for oatmeal.

Tom said, “Tell me about Florence.”

“Hey, you’re her brother.”

“When you took her out, where’d you go?”

“A club or two. Dancing. Fancy dinners. She can eat, I’ll tell you.”

“Drinks her share, does she?”

“Her share, I’d say.”

“And when you put the moves on her, what else does she do?”

“Moves?” He raised a hand and held it hallway between them. “I won’t tell you lies, Tom, that doll can give a fellow the heebie-jeebies. But she’s a good girl. Hell, you know that, don’t you?”

“Go on.”

“And smart. No Joe’s going to pull the wool over that one. Something else you probably know. You don’t want to cross her. We’re in a club, some chit makes a crack about her dress, later on pokes fun at her hairdo. It’s all I can do to keep Florence from grabbing the floozy and pitching her out the window. Fourth floor.”

Tom pushed his plate aside. He knew about Florence’s temper, where it came from and what it could mean. A reminder was hardly what he had hoped to hear.

Pablo said, “You’re not going to finish that steak, I’ll give you a hand.”

Thirty-nine

AS Tom and Pablo sat on the edge of the bluff, legs dangling in the air, they didn’t talk. Tom had nothing left to ask, and Pablo might’ve supposed silence was the safest strategy.

Tom checked his Elgin and began to doubt Hearst would show. He turned his thoughts to Sister Aimee