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

held them up and asked, “Who’s his backer?”

“Huh?”

“No ads. Gets his money from the Bolsheviks.” He let the broadsides fall onto his desk. “You still want him?”

“Yes sir, whatever he is.”

“You’ve got him. Give me a couple days.”

“Why’s that?”

“Red tape.”

“Until after the election?”

Parrot motioned for Tom to approach, and although Leo and Florence were present, he spoke as though in strictest confidence. “I’ll tell you, as a teammate, what the people believe doesn’t matter. What does matter, is how they vote. Tom, don’t get the wrong idea. We have no intention of harming this Socrates, or even silencing him. We’re not cruel people.”

“Who is we?’ Tom asked.

“Whoever you think we are. We’re not out to hurt people, as are the Bolsheviks.”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “You’re only out to make money, I hear.”

“If you think it’s that simple, so be it.” Parrot stood, went to the door, and opened it. He politely aimed a finger at Florence then at the exit. She obeyed, and as she passed him, he called out, “Mitchell, take care of Miss Hickey while I have a word with the fellows.”

Parrot shut the door behind her. “Tom, you should know I’ve informed Detective Love, if anything befalls Tom or Florence Hickey, he’s out of a job. However, I suspect he doesn’t care. He’s the kind, if we turned him away, he’d go right to work for Ardizzone's mob or Charlie Crawford 's. Weiss can tell you about him. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” Leo said, in a voice Tom would’ve called murderous coming from anyone else.

Fifty-five

LEO drove them to Sugar Hill Barbershop where Tom delivered his report, asked the barber to read and act on his conscience, and to pass it along to Socrates as soon as the publisher got free.

Leo and Florence stayed in the PackardEver since they left Kent Parrot, neither of them had spoken or glanced any way but straight ahead. On the drive home from the barbershop, Tom asked, “What’s eating you two?”

“I’m fine,” Leo grumbled.

“Why’d you clam up?”

Leo shook him off.

Maybe. Tom thought, they both were steamed, as was he, at Parrot because he wouldn’t call a murder a murder. Still, one way or another, he supposed, the truth would burn them all. Boss Parrot as well as Leo and both Hickeys.

At home, he asked Florence to use the Villegas phone and call the Egyptian Theater, claim she was too sick to work today or tonight.

She gave him a withering look and muttered, “One of us needs to bring home the bacon.”

A few minutes later she came out of her room wearing the harem girl uniform. After she left, Tom attempted to read the beginning of a book about Marco Polo, hoping it might carry his mind far away. It accomplished something even better, put him to sleep until dusk. Then the front door rattled. Socrates, he hoped. Instead, he found Vi, her puffy face grim and hands clutching her dress at the hips. “Are you busy?”

“What is it?”

“Leo started drinking as soon as he got home. Why, Tom?”

“Did he tell you about Milly?”

She reached for his hands. “Tom, I’m dreadfully sorry.”

“Yeah.” Letting go one of her hands, he walked to the porch steps and lowered himself. She sat beside him. He asked, “He tell you Boss Parrot won’t budge?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Maybe he’s done being a cop and doesn’t know how to not be one.”

“But today,” Vi said, “it’s something more. Shortly after he came home, he took a phone call and chased me out of the room. All day, he’s been chasing me out of the room, making phone calls. A call, he pours a drink. Next call, he pours another. And he looks so angry, savage I could call it, he was frightening Una. I took her to a neighbor.”

“Who’s he talking to?”

“He won’t tell me.” She lowered her eyes as she turned his way. “I picked up a few words. Fitch. His bootlegger friend, the one the police gunned down. O’Doul, who may be a fellow detective, first name Donald. And something about love. You don’t suppose—”

“Let’s go see him.”

“Yes, please. Will you drive?”

“I don’t have a car.”

“No, I stole Leo’s Packard.” Vi shuddered. “I didn’t want him to leave before I came back with you. I hope I didn’t break all the gears.”

Tom drove, defying the speed law while Vi, in the shotgun seat, kept her eyes pinched closed and squeezed the door handle as though preparing to fling it open and jump.

They found Leo at the kitchen table in the dark, staring at a half full tumbler. He glanced up at them. “Did you wreck my Packard?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just went and fetched Tom.”

“What if I needed the car?”

“Did you?”

He looked at the wall clock and squinted to bring it into focus. “Another half an hour or so I would’ve.” He patted the table across from him. “Sit down, Tom, as long as you’re here. Vi’s going to allow us some privacy.”

Tom complied. Vi disappeared.

Leo pointed to the tumbler. “Drink that, will you? And you catch me going after another, sock me good and hard.”

Tom pulled the tumbler his way and tasted the smooth whiskey. “Canadian?”

“Came on a sailboat from Vancouver. Sid picked it up on the backside of Catalina.”

“Let’s hear it,” Tom said.

“Hear what?”

“Tell me.”

He met Tom’s eyes and held them, which appeared to require an effort of will. “You’ll get it out of me. I might as well spill it. Drink up.”

Tom gulped a mouthful.

“Here goes. A couple of Sid’s boys, the ones took over the business, are set to make a drop at a house on Cosmo, off Hollywood, next block toward downtown from Cahuenga. Chief’s sending four of us to meet them.”

“So you’re not fired?”

Leo shook his head.

“Davis sends you gunning for your pal’s boys?”

“That he does.”

“Does he know about you and Fitch?”

“What all he knows, I couldn’t say. Only he knows plenty.”

“Good God,” Tom muttered. “You’re going?”

Leo spread both hands flat on the table and lifted himself a few inches. “I got my reasons,” he said, in a voice that warned Tom against arguing.

Fifty-six

IN the backseat, behind Detective O’Doul, Tom wondered why Leo hadn’t much objected to his riding along though when he asked for a gun, Leo refused.

He didn’t expect to get the gun. Long ago, while Leo coached him about the difference between boys and men, between dreams and real life, he had claimed pulling a trigger was to shooting a person what playing toss was to throwing a touchdown Hail Mary pass in the Rose Bowl. The first time out, at least, a guy would be lucky to hit the target, never mind the bull’s eye.

Because Leo and O’Doul discussed nothing, Tom presumed they had settled plans by phone. O’Doul brought the tommy-guns and laid them on the seat between himself and Leo. They drove a mile or more before the detective asked, “Why’d you bring the kid along?”

“Can’t shake him,” Leo said.

O’Doul turned just far enough. “Hickey?”

Tom nodded. “O’Doul?”

“You got it.” The detective turned back toward the front and asked, “You doing all right, Weiss?”

“Splitting headache,” Leo said.

As they passed the new Warner Brother’s Theater, Leo said, “Tom, get down low.”

Because he recognized the car in front of them, he obliged without question. The Packard pulled alongside the tan Nash.

O’Doul stuck an arm out the window and waved at the Nash. Leo passed, pulled over, parked, and backed up.

Both detectives climbed out, for a meeting on the sidewalk with the driver of the Nash. With both the side windows open, Tom listened to Fenton Love crabbing, “Vitale's a louse. Busted his arm, did he? Fell out of a tree, did he? I tell him, ‘Can’t use the Thompson, a pistol will do.’ Chump says he’s no good left handed. He’s yellow, is what.”

“Nobody replacing him?” O’Doul asked.

“I made a call, sure I did. Davis says, ‘We got plenty of business tonight. You three boys can handle it.’ I tell him, ‘Sure we can.’ How about it?”

Leo said, “Fenton, you go up here.” He must’ve pointed but Tom couldn’t see. “Park, sit and have a smoke until you hear gunfire. See, we’ll come in shooting, from down there.” He pointed toward Selma, the far end of the block. “They’ll be attending to us, you creep in and hold them while we come running.”

“Sure thing, I’ll hold them,” Love said, and croaked a laugh.

The detectives returned to their cars. As the Packard pulled away from the curb, Tom said, “Love’s a partner of yours?”

Leo made the turn onto Wilcox. “Sit up, if you want.”

He drove to Selma, made a left, and parked at the T-intersection, straight across from the foot of Cosmo Street. He climbed out and peered at Tom through the open rear window. “Get out, if you want. But stay behind the car.” A tommy-gun hung from a strap at his right side. He reached inside his coat and pulled out his Colt. “Only if the whole deal goes wrong.” He gave Tom the gun, reached into a trouser pocket, and handed over the key to his Packard. “You hear me yelling, jump in and start it up.”

After the detectives crossed Selma and entered Cosmo Street, Tom climbed out and followed, holding the revolver at his side.

Cosmo didn’t have streetlamps. A clear sky, a half moon, and the lights from inside a few houses allowed him to see silhouettes. He stood beside a eucalyptus and watched Leo and his partner making their way up the block, using parked cars for cover.

Then he saw Leo’s weapon rise, and heard it fire, while bullets sparked out like tiny flares. Tom ducked behind the eucalyptus.

For a minute, tommy-guns, some closer than others, fired dozens of bursts. About half way up the block, a motor sputtered to life. A Chevrolet swerved out of a yard and raced in Tom’s direction. He squeezed against the tree, in case bullets ricocheted his way off the car. But the shooting was over. The Chevrolet turned onto Selma and sped east.

Tom waited as long as he could restrain himself, then left his cover and ran the way the detectives had, pausing behind the same parked cars, until he saw that a man was down.

Leo and O’Doul stood gazing at Fenton Love, who was stretched out long at their feet. Blood seeped from his neck, dribbled out of his torso and arms, and poured from one of his thighs. His homburg lay beside his right hip as though meant to collect alms. A quake passed through him, head to feet.

Leo used his shoe to nudge a tommy-gun farther away from Love’s hand. “Shame.”

O’Doul said, “Yeah, Chief’s gonna raise hell.”

Fifty-seven

BY morning, Tom had absolved Leo of murder. Though he had no doubt wanted to kill Fenton Love on account of and ever since the Sid Fitch massacre, he hadn’t. The bootleggers had, Tom believed. Besides, even if Leo had conspired to kill the man, he was following orders, maybe from Chief Davis or Parrot, and had agreed so as to protect Tom and Florence, and to serve everybody Love would’ve otherwise wronged. Like cops pledged to do.

Tom asked his sister to dress in something without flowers, and to wear a sun hat. While she fussed over her outfit and makeup, he walked to Abuelito’s Grocery and bought a hunk of white cheese to eat with their soda crackers and apples, about all they had left in the kitchen.

Though Tom understood a sensible fellow wouldn’t spend most of his last few dimes on the streetcar and a rowboat, he suspected Florence needed a taste of peace and normalcy.

Since Leo had promised to stop by with any report about Milly, Tom left a note on the door, giving their destination and predicting they would return mid-afternoon.

They arrived at Echo Park and secured the boat before the first service at Angelus Temple let out, at which time a line would form at the dock. While Tom rowed and Florence navigated, guiding him past other boats, obstinate ducks, and clusters of lily pads, he wrestled with thoughts about Milly.

He had advised Florence to think about most anything except their mother. As usual, she paid his advice little mind. Setting a half-eaten apple on her lap, she said, “Tommy, do you think evil is in our blood?”

He stopped rowing. “Let’s suppose evil’s a family trait. Maybe we’ve got nothing but evil ancestors, all the way back to