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THE AUTOMOBILE’S BURLY driver turned the machine off of the main roads and into those sparse streets running alongside one of the parks. I saw some of the boys—Frank’s boys—playing baseball on the diamond. God, how I wished I was with them. I wished I was still playing a game, and not the roulette wheel of life. Why had I left? I left to help Keane. And why did I leave Keane?
To get yourself in a devil of a mess, I finished silently.
For that was what this was, a devil of a mess. And I had put myself in the clean middle of it. Rather, I had pinned myself shoulder to shoulder with one of the most lethal men in all of Los Angeles.
“I trusted you, Kid. Why’d ya have to go off and do something stupid?” I fought the urge to shift in my seat. Surely he did not know of our plans. Surely he knew nothing of our identities, our pasts, our follies. He couldn’t know. And yet, I found him rather like the wee man down below. Though he may not be God, he could still be omnipotent.
“Stupid? What do you mean?”
THWACK!
A sharp ringing in my ears erupted with the hot iron of blood in my mouth and a singeing fire spreading along my left cheek.
“I ask the questions. You give the answers. Got it?” I nodded. “Good. Now, what’s your job for old Jack?”
“I don’t know a Jack.”
THWACK!
My face was now melting with the brutal strikes of a trained fist. Cohen may not have had the finest reputation in the ring, but, by God, his right jab was enough to make a grown man weep. And we were sitting down.
I took in a steady breath and tried again.
“I don’t know any Jack, and that’s the truth. The only people I know around here are you, Sam Barker, Guy what’s-his-name, and Mr. McCormic.” My jaw tightened in preparation for another attack, but Cohen appeared to be considering whether another strike was necessary.
THWACK!
And then it hit me. Not the man’s fist, but a sudden mental jolt I cursed myself for not having undergone sooner. Jack. Old Jack. The Capone of Los Angeles.
I leaned back against the seat, the whirring of my mind created a confidence I had lost through the soreness of my cheek.
“You mean Jack Dragna, right?” Cohen’s fist did recoil slightly then, a timebomb to be set at will.
“Thought you said you didn’t know him?”
“I don’t.” I explained rapidly. “Not personally, anyway. I have just heard of him a few times; street corners and the like.” The fist remained a constant, the beating sun burning a desert’s dusty skin.
“You’re sure about that.”
“Quite sure.” My words were a gun, piercing his flesh with a bullet of silver truth and forcing crimson anger to wash outward into the leather seats of the automobile. He sat back easily, and yet he still retained eye contact as he nodded toward my face.
“What are you doing messing around with Sam Barker then? If you were a woman, I might think it was something harmless. But you’re a man.” And so was the great chovanistic pride of the male sex. Had I been truly myself at the time, rather than an American refugee having returned to play the epitome of the country’s stupidity, I might have mentioned some off-handed statement regarding Mrs. Cheveley. Mrs. Cheveley: a vile, infamous woman who tried to ruin Robert Chiltern’s position in public life. Though they were but characters born into a world carved at Oscar Wilde’s hands, I loathed her. And yet she was perhaps one of the few examples I could properly compare with the moral-less ideals of Samual Barker. Cohen was gambling on chips that claimed I was not a woman. But I knew the truth.
I was not a man.
And Barker worked for Dragna.
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I SLIPPED INTO THE hotel with a white scarf draped over the lower half of my face despite California’s singing heat. After gathering up whatever mail had been left for me at the desk, I desperately retreated up to my room, away from the piercing eyes of the public. How could Robert Chiltern adore public life the way that he did? It was almost indecent how his ambition churned the desire to stand before Parliament with decisions that could cause people to love him or hate him alike. I could not live such a life. I could not throw myself at the mercy of society. I could not do so for one dastardly reason.
I didn’t give a damn.
I peeled the scarf from my face, eyed the long patches of dried blood, and tossed it into the bin. My purpose was to pose as an up and coming mafia man, not a bloody scrapper who ought to be locked behind bars in an asylum. Fortunately the swelling, while painful, was more a discoloration than an unseemly deformity. As I ran a hand gently along my throbbing jaw, the faded type spotting the top telegram leapt upwards from the page.
Dearest Devon,
I ought to be disappointed in you, nephew of mine, for you haven’t written for much too long for your dear old aunty. You can find the return address on the label. I’ll be waiting for any news. Are there many postcards in Los Angeles? How many? Are they expensive? If the are, your uncle can always send more money.
Yours Sincerely,
Aunty Bek
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IT WAS ALL I COULD do to not throw the typed note on the table with helpless peels of laughter. I had long ago associated Keane with many things, but Aunty Bek was something far beyond the grasp of my own imagination. To most anyone it would seem the same sentimental dribble of any old Englishwoman, but beneath it all was that constant thread of humour which was always reflected in his rippling blue eyes. I could almost hear his rich, baritone timbre catching each syllable and translating it into something more meaningful than even a saint could decipher.
Dearest Devon. . .
Dearest Lawrence.
You can find the return address on the label . . .
I am stationed at that address.
Are there many postcards in America? How many? Are they expensive?
Did you find the photographs? If so, are there many more? Is it possible to buy them?
Yours Sincerely . . .
Aunty
Brendan Edward Keane
Bek
Having never been able to imagine Keane in a family role as I could an intellectual one, the prospect of an aunt, though ridiculous and impossible, was only mildly more shocking than finding him an uncle a few months before. In truth, he was a son, brother, uncle, cousin, brother-in-law, and no doubt half a hundred other things that were equally outlandish. The list had grown the longer I had known him, flourishing further as the list of unattended roles grew all the shorter.
He was not, nor had he ever been a husband. That I knew for certain by his own mouth, as well as that of his brother, Mrs. McCarthy, and the rest of the neighbors and townsfolk of Devon. He was the infamous bachelor; a Henry Higgins without a doubt.
In this way I was myself certain of another fact.
He did not have a son.
He had no children; no little brutes or heirs to his throne of intelligence. There was no offspring to whom he might share his valuable attention. There was no one to fight over his vast wealth accumulated over the years. I had so long ago learned that this was not so much due to some hatred of hereditary youth as it was the same logical reason Brendan Edward Keane—Professor Brendan Edward Keane—remained a bachelor.
He just never married.
And that, by his own morality, meant no children.
There was no one for him, save a long suffering housekeeper who did as much to clean his house as she did to soil it with her strong tongue. There was nothing between them but the most tirelessly forged business atmosphere of an employer and employee. Whatever friendship that might have been sowed through such a long association was purely second nature. There was Keane. There was Mrs. McCarthy.
Oh, and there was me.
That was something anyway.
I slipped Keane’s rather unusual letter into its envelope and tucked it into the edge of the hotel dresser, took out a piece of stationary, and strode over to a typewriter I had borrowed from a wealthy drunkard down the hall. As I sat down behind the dark, metal keys, I immediately took upon the mantle of my character; the beloved (damnably American) nephew.
The incomparable Devon English.
And so it began.
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DEAR AUNTY BEK,
You would be shocked to know just how many postcards this one shop has. Hundreds, at least; so, there is no need to send any money. There is stationary for letters as well. Everything is here; old and new.
Yours sincerely,
Devon
Two days later, a second envelope arrived for me at the hotel; this time bearing a stamp from San Jose.
Dearest Devon,
That is marvelous news to be sure. A variety means victories for smaller establishments. Would it be possible for me to visit soon? Or would it be prudent to wait a while until you send for me?
Yours Sincerely,
Aunty Bek
I posted my own rendition of the pitiful excuses of literature that very evening after dinner. As it happened, I made it a point to visit one of the restaurants suggested by Keane himself. The man may be many things, but subtle was perhaps not one of his accomplishments. His voracious temper was not to be ignored either, as well as a strict, undemonstrative nature. Sentimentality was seldom shown openly, and certainly not by physical attention. There had been those one or two instances of contradiction; a kiss or embrace when words at last failed, but that was all. It was all it had ever been. A friend’s compassion. A friend’s comfort. A friend.
Because that is what we were: friends.
Weren’t we?
Dear Aunty Bek,
Is it wise to make the journey? You know how dangerous such a venture can be in this modern world, and I certainly wouldn’t want you catching a cold at your age. A cold today, pneumonia tomorrow. It is your decision; however, and I bow to your irrevocable judgement.
Yours Sincerely,
Devon
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WHETHER OR NOT KEANE received this letter—or if it died from malnourishment of literary substance—I did not know for several days. Nearly a week, in fact. It was in those long, horrid hours reeking of tedium that I tied Devon English ever closer to Sam Barker, while building bridges into the infamous world of Mickey Cohen. One by one the pieces were set, as separable as chess pieces staring down the carved figurines stolid on the other end of the board. As I found myself shoved into the mobster’s automobile on several more occasions, my mind reeled further and further into the dark chasm of confusion. Sam Barker seemed neither a friend of Cohen’s as the parties implied, nor was he a distinct enemy. I could gradually sense the armories of Lexington and Concord drawing distinct positions in the earth; daring one another to fire that first shot that might be heard around Los Angeles. The gunpowder was stored. The guns had been cleaned and cared for by the failures of prohibition and the addictions of a thousand men. The crates of economic explosives had been stacked neatly inside the armory of powders.
All that was left was for some poor unfortunate buffoon, spawned from America’s pit of moral-less idiocracies, to light the match.
It was an immeasurable comfort to find a worn and yellowed envelope in my hands one afternoon as I carried my tense and aching body up to my hotel room. Though the words were not long or profound, they rang out with more reassuring glory than a thousand church bells swinging joyously in their steaples.
Dearest Devon,
I am coming.