I rode in the back, Gilardino next to me, the other man taking the wheel. Neither had showed a weapon, but they didn’t need to – they wouldn’t be on the street without one. I squeezed my right hand in my left and tried to keep my breathing steady. I pictured Lizzie at the motel now, someone from the manager’s office fetching her for Acheson’s call, her grabbing the bags and disappearing.
‘Where’re we going?’
The driver ignored me and flicked the radio on. We travelled north until we came to Sunset, made a left onto Hollywood Boulevard and kept going, passing the colonial-style mansions and Angelo’s Liquor, palm trees overhead. At the Bank of America billboard, heavy traffic reduced our speed to a crawl, spooling out the tension in my guts; the music on the radio sounded so loud and so raw it seemed to come from inside my head.
Eventually we turned onto a side street and came to a stop outside the rear of a property that must have fronted the Boulevard. Gilardino climbed out and beckoned me. The driver hit the horn and after a few seconds, the back door of the place opened, a man I couldn’t make out standing in the shadows. The driver stayed behind the wheel, eyeing me in the rearview.
I stepped out of the car and looked around, bad flutters in my chest. It was a hundred yards back to the main street. Gilardino must have read my thoughts because he put a hand on my shoulder, making me flinch. He steered me towards the doorway.
The man inside pointed with his thumb. ‘Go inside, Yates.’ His accent was from New York – sounded like Queens or Brooklyn.
As I came closer, I could make out his face – Moe Rosenberg. Siegel’s right-hand man.
I stopped dead, scuffing loose concrete underfoot. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face, a thundering sound in my ears, everything rushing towards me even as I froze.
Gilardino pushed me from behind and I started moving again, stilted movements made on reflex. I could hear my own voice screaming in my ears, telling me to run, to do anything to sidestep this, that if I went through the door I was dead and so was Lizzie.
‘I didn’t kill William Tindall.’ Siegel’s representative in Hot Springs; it was all I could think to say, knowing they were wasted words.
Rosenberg nodded. ‘I know. We’ll talk about it inside.’
I heard the car take off behind me. Gilardino hustled me through the doorway and I stepped into the darkness and hesitated while my eyes adjusted. I looked at Rosenberg – thin hair on top, just a few strands combed back over his pate; sunken eyes, a roll of skin creeping over his shirt collar.
We were in a short corridor, a naked bulb overhead giving off little light. Rosenberg walked in front, to what looked like the door to a meat locker. He rapped on it; there was the sound of a heavy bolt sliding and then it opened. I could smell cigar smoke waft out. Rosenberg went in and I followed, Gilardino backstopping me. Nowhere to run.
As I stepped over the threshold, someone smashed their fist into my stomach.
Someone pulled my hair to straighten me up. Now I saw Bugsy Siegel to my right, just as he punched me again, harder, driving the air out of me. I tried to cover up, but they took my arms.
He laid his shots in – right, left, right, left. Siegel was a blur, clenched teeth, his necktie flying wildly.
He hit me one more time. They let go of my arms and I fell to my knees, spluttering spit and bile. He kicked me prone and kicked me in the side, then stood back, panting.
I lay still, the tiled floor cold against my cheek, clutching my stomach and gasping for air.
Rosenberg said something I didn’t catch to the others.
Someone pulled me up and pushed me against the wall. Gilardino. The other two stood in front of me. Rosenberg had a cigar in his hand now and I focused on the tip, glowing orange in the murk.
Siegel pointed his finger in my face, still breathing hard. ‘The trouble you’ve caused me.’
He slapped me, a heavy ring breaking the skin on my cheek. I lurched sideways and had to brace myself on a table. He stepped away, shaking his hand like he’d hurt his wrist. Pain ran up and down my abdomen from his blows; I steeled myself for more and swore to myself that I’d buy Lizzie as much time as possible to get away.
‘Sit him down.’
Gilardino dragged a wooden chair against the wall and I lowered myself onto it. I eased my head back against the bricks, still trying to get some air into my lungs.
Siegel threw a glass of water over my face. ‘I want you listening.’
It ran down my throat and neck and onto my collar. I drew my sleeve over my eyes and looked at Siegel. He was wearing a black-and-white checked jacket over a white shirt and patterned necktie. He had hooded eyes and his hair was pomaded back but with strands out of place over his forehead now.
‘Hot Springs is worth a mil-nine per annum to my organisation,’ Siegel said. ‘Bill Tindall had that place ticking over more than a decade.’
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘You said that already. It don’t excuse it.’
I touched my cheek, felt the laceration. The room was cramped and had no windows. There were three small restaurant tables pressed together along the length of the left-hand wall, a heavy ashtray and an open bottle of wine on one. There was another door opposite, closed. ‘What do you want?’ I said.
‘I want you nailed to a fucking tree with your throat cut.’
Just try to breathe. ‘It was Teddy Coughlin sold Tindall out. He was working against him. Against you—’
‘That cocksucker is not your concern.’
A bargain I’d made with Coughlin, not to rat him if he left us in peace – up in smoke as easy as that. To no avail.
Rosenberg drew on his cigar. Siegel went to one of the tables and took up a half-filled wine glass. He watched me over the rim as he took a gulp. The room was silent while he did, then he put it down, rushed over and gripped my face, pushed it to the side and against the wall, his finger in my eye. ‘Don’t you eyeball me, Yates. I can’t stand the fucking sight of you.’
He pressed harder, leaning his weight in, my neck feeling it was about to snap, his finger against my teeth. I let out a cry of pain.
He broke off and looked at Gilardino. ‘Kill him.’
Gilardino pulled a pistol and put it to my head. I flinched away—
No gunshot came.
I opened my eyes, Gilardino still standing there, the barrel an inch from my skull.
Siegel waved him off and put his hand in his pocket. ‘You remember how you feel right now.’ He stared at me from under those heavy lids, head tilted forward, his mouth ajar. ‘That’s how far you are from dying here on out. No matter where you are, you ain’t more than a second from a bullet. My say-so.’
I righted myself slowly in the chair and stretched my neck. Through the frenzy in my mind, I realised he was saying he wasn’t going to kill me then.
He shook his head in disgust and turned to Rosenberg. ‘I’m gonna choke him myself, I gotta stand here any more. Lay it out, then turf him.’ He looked at me. ‘I have to bring you back to this room again, you won’t see out the minute, you understand?’
Before I could find my voice, Gilardino slid the bolt and opened the door and Siegel breezed. When the door slammed shut again, it felt like I took my first breath in minutes.
Rosenberg set his cigar down in the ashtray and filled a wine glass with water. He stepped over and handed it to me, Gilardino looming next to me.
‘Ben’s given to theatrics but don’t let that fool you,’ Rosenberg said. ‘He won’t hesitate, you give him reason.’
I set the water on the floor, a rattle as it touched the tiles – tremors in my hands still. ‘You’ve made your point. What do you want?’
He paused over the ashtray. ‘Don’t sass mouth me. Don’t get brave on account of Ben leaving.’
I broke his stare, sickened that he’d called my number so easily.
He opened an envelope I hadn’t noticed on the table and took out a large photograph, held it up. It was a headshot of a young man, smiling at something in the middle distance off camera – a professional job. He had slicked hair, trimmed short, with strong features and a cleft chin. This town, a shot like that, had to be an actor. He passed it to me. ‘You know him?’
I shook my head, looking at it. Rumours of Siegel’s involvement with the studios were well known – off-ledger financing at last resort rates, sway over labour contracts, muscle for strong-arming the unions. None of it proven, all of it likely.
‘His name’s Trent Bayless. His working name, anyway. He’s been in pictures for Universal and Jack Warner – strictly B-stuff so far, topped out as third-lead, but he’s got the goods to move up.’
I looked up from the photo, waiting for the payoff.
‘He’s also a queer with a bent for muscle-boys and a lax attitude to privacy.’
An extortion racket, Bayless the target. I couldn’t see my part yet, but it was likely the only reason I was still alive. ‘What’s this got to do with me?’
‘Which outfit you work for now?’
‘I don’t.’
Gilardino shot him a look and straightaway I knew the lie was a mistake.
Rosenberg cast his eyes down and passed his hand over his mouth. ‘Which outfit?’
But I didn’t need the full picture to realise he needed me, and the thought buoyed me. The pain eased off just a little. ‘Blackmail – that’s what this is?’
‘This is you working off what you owe.’
Which outfit? – I got hip to his question. ‘You want me to be your mouthpiece.’ I shook my head. ‘You’ve got the wrong man. My newspaper will never run a smear story.’
‘Then you better convince him to pay.’
I stared at him, not understanding.
‘This is your gig,’ he said. ‘You talk to him, explain what needs to get done.’
I focused on his face, squinting in the gloom. ‘You want me to front your shakedown racket?’
‘Ben wants ten grand from Bayless, by Wednesday. Otherwise you run the story.’
‘That’s three days.’
He reached into the envelope and stopped. ‘You want I show you the pictures we got? He’ll pay in three hours.’
I shook my head, disgusted that I’d already slipped into negotiating for more time, as though it were any other goddamn deadline.
He held it up. ‘Copies are in here, same with his address. We want him to pay, so lean on him hard. Don’t swoon for any sob stories – he’s got a sugar daddy in the county that keeps him in champagne, so he can raise the gelt.’ He dropped it in my lap. ‘But if he won’t pay, you write the story. You make it good and you make it stick.’
There was a note of urgency in the way he said it that seemed out of place. But already my thoughts had run ahead, to the only way this could wind up for me. ‘And then what?’
‘It’s barely started yet, concentrate on the job at hand.’
‘There are more, though. To follow, I mean.’
He held out his cigar, as if thinking whether to answer, then let go of the breath he was holding. ‘We wouldn’t go to this trouble just for ten grand, no.’
Confirmed what I thought: a pawn at their disposal. Dead when they were through with me. Three days to get out from under it.
He motioned for me to get up, Gilardino at my arm. ‘We’re through. Vincent’ll see you out. Come back here at midday on Wednesday and bring good news. Do I have to spell out what happens if you screw around?’
‘No.’
‘Then all I’ll say is if you fuck this up, won’t be just you sees a bullet – but it’ll be you goes last.’