From a pay phone outside a curio shop, Hickey phoned the captain, made a date: five-thirty at the Café Milano. That would give him a few minutes to check on Elizabeth. Just time enough to get a hello-goodbye kiss and apologize for not staying longer. He walked up Newport the two blocks past the dime store, hardware, and resale shops, one Chinese and one greasy spoon café, to Stuart’s grocery.
If Elizabeth wasn’t around, on the off chance Stuart was at work instead of shooting pool or handicapping ponies around some lowlife’s poker table, he’d grill the dear boy about the beachcomber and the trombonist—Jack Meechum. Both of them haunted Ocean Beach and Agua Caliente, like Stuart.
The produce in the bins beside the checkout counter looked wilted. With half the overhead bulbs burnt out, the store was dark as a movie theater.
After waiting for a pause between customers, Hickey asked the pudgy Mexican clerk for Mrs. Crump. The clerk said she had gone to the wholesaler’s and might not return to the store until morning. Hickey didn’t leave a message.
He drove the coast, up Abbott Street past the beachcomber’s place, followed West Point Loma Boulevard to Midway Drive, and cruised alongside the wartime housing project of shoebox apartments and duplexes painted surplus gray. On the lawn, a team of Negro and Filipino boys faced off against a gang of whites. Somebody hiked a ball. They mauled and pounded each other while a giant, probably Samoan, charged through their midst. Young men lounged on the hoods of their jalopies assessing the girls who paraded down the sidewalk, past women in shapeless dresses hanging laundry on a wire that sagged so the cuffs of jeans scraped the lawn.
Hickey swung onto Barnett and turned into the parking lot in front of the Café Milano, where the Sons of Italy dined.
A square flat-roofed building of dark-stained planks, it looked about as swanky as the Midway housing project, except for the cars on the gravel lot: two Lincolns, a Jaguar, a Bentley, Cadillacs galore. Every one appeared spit shined. Hickey’s mud-caked, bug-splattered Chevy fit among them like a mutt in a kennel reserved for purebreds.
As Hickey approached the door, a swarthy fellow ambled out, then stiffened and iced his gaze, as if Schwartz or one of the cops had passed the word that this snoop was on his way. When Hickey gave his name, asked if a guy was waiting for him, the maître d’ leered as though at something he might roast for supper. He swept his arm toward the doorway.
Inside was mostly candlelit. There were trellised partitions between the booths and tables. Waitresses flashed around in short tutus, black net stockings, and heels like stilts. If a guy enjoyed spice on his privacy, this was the place. But Hickey got led to the most exposed location, a small table beside the swinging kitchen door, where the captain sat nudging the cherry around the surface of his Manhattan with a toothpick as though marveling that a cherry could float. In candlelight, the captain’s face looked ruddier than ever, his thin brush-cut hair redder. He showed Hickey his bulldog smile, reached out his beefy hand.
“Scotch, Tom?”
A bargirl arrived wiggling her tutu, took Hickey’s order, and wiggled off. The captain asked about Wendy. Through his first scotch, Hickey outlined Wendy’s transformation from a crazy, terrified, dull girl everybody figured must’ve possessed only half a brain into a happy woman.
“How about you, Tom?”
“Better than ever.”
“Leo tells me your bride cracks the whip, drags you to church every Sunday.”
“Leo can make the Himalayas out of a dust mote. The truth is, whenever the choir’s singing, Wendy goes to church. Sundays, Thursdays. I tag along sometimes. Your brood prospering?”
“Sure.” He flagged the waitress.
Hickey bought a round and turned to business. “Any of your boys talk to Frankie Foster?”
“Nope. Should we?”
“You know him?”
“Uh-huh. A Jew from Cicero. Used to drive and who knows what else for Bugs Moran, until one Valentine’s Day. Bugs’s mob gets bushwhacked, Foster takes a powder. Last I heard, he was living up the coast, Laguna or Santa Monica. What about him?”
“Your witness, Meechum—the only one who noticed Cynthia gabbing with the beachcomber—he’s some relative of Foster’s.”
Thrapp nodded. “Soon as Meechum gets back from Vegas, I’ll bring him in, nag him all over again.”
“Too late, Rusty. I mean to settle this business tomorrow. Maybe tonight.”
“How’s that?”
“First thing, I’ve been leaning on Charlie Schwartz.”
“Aw, Tom.” Thrapp groaned. “Besides that it’s one of your favorite pastimes, why’re you pestering the sorry old creep?”
“Because Cynthia isn’t the firebug.”
“Which you’re presuming on account of you work for her.”
“Yeah. I’m also presuming that marital problems could arise when one spouse is holding hands with the Jew mob, like Johnny did, and the other’s playing footsy with the wops. That’d be Laurel. She’s been having a ball with Angelo Paoli.”
“So I heard.”
“I’ll bet dollars to pesos it wasn’t Cynthia hired Teddy to torch the place. It doesn’t fly, unless you figure she also disposed of the beachcomber, who’s been gone a week without his toothbrush.” Hickey noticed fresh drinks in front of them but couldn’t recall their arrival. He made a fist around the tumbler. “I stopped by Teddy’s shack. Nobody home this week.”
Thrapp leaned backward to fold his arms and scowl. “We’ve been dropping by the place. So Teddy’s on the lam, so what?”
“So you figure Cynthia hired the guy for a firebug, what’d she pay him with, her pension check?”
“Hey, I never said the beachcomber torched the place. No reason Cynthia couldn’t of done it herself. She’s a big girl.”
“So where’s the beachcomber? Why’s he on the lam?”
“Went to visit his maiden aunt in Lodi, for all I know. You ever heard of coincidence?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t got time to consider it, so I’m pinning the fire on the Italians or the Jews.”
Thrapp plucked the cherry from his fresh drink, slapped it into his mouth, and made a face as if some joker had switched the cherry for a lemon. “Okay, Tom, you win. First thing tomorrow I’ll call Mickey and Angelo, tell them to gather their boys, go on down to the nearest precinct, surrender, make their confession.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Rusty. Just introduce me to somebody belongs to Angelo. I’ll take it from there.”
Thrapp grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Explain, pal.”
“The way I figure, either Charlie, Mickey Cohen, or Angelo—one of them set up the girl. She makes a topnotch patsy, having threatened her sister a couple hundred times. Now, if Angelo did it, Mickey or Charlie got no love for him and vice versa.”
“So?”
“So, like I reminded Charlie, I can be a pest. But as soon as anybody spills enough to make you wise up and cut the girl loose, I disappear. Back to the woods and outta their hair. A bargain all around.”
“Damn clever, Tom,” the captain snarled, and sullenly watched a smoke ring float by. “I got a wild idea. Suppose I tell you, before I’ll let you risk toying with Mickey or Angelo, I’ll buy the DA a fat steak and libations, see to it the girl’s sprung?”
Hickey spread his arms in mock satisfaction. “Sure, Rusty. That’d work just fine. You tell me that, tomorrow noon I’m back home.”
“Sorry, Tom.” Thrapp killed his Manhattan and stared into the glass as though making sure it was dry. “Here’s the deal. I make an introduction. You stir the caldron, for about five minutes tops. We’ll take it from there. See, you gotta promise to scram. Tonight.”
Hickey sipped, licked his lips, and pondered. “Deal. Soon as I catch a few hours’ sleep and get breakfast with Elizabeth. But if you’re still holding Cynthia in a couple weeks, after the baby shows up, I’m coming back to stir the caldron again.”
The captain rolled his eyes, nodded irritably. “How about we eat first. They got exquisite lasagna.”
“Naw. I’ll grab a sandwich at Leo’s.”
Thrapp reached for his wallet, slapped down a tip. “Drink up, before I change my mind.”
Sucking an ice cube, Hickey stood and followed the captain around a trellis to a booth where two young Latins and one about Hickey’s vintage sat nibbling antipasto.
The fellow on the outside closest to Hickey looked barely of age. He wore his hair in a pompadour and had a pinstripe mustache, probably for the same reason Hickey had one, to distract from his prodigious nose. Thrapp introduced him as Pete Silva, then rushed through the other introductions while Silva rose and shook Hickey’s hand familiarly. The older man nodded curtly at Hickey and turned to swabbing salad oil off his plate with a hunk of bread. The other young fellow refolded his napkin, leaned back, and lit a smoke.
“Funny name, Hickey,” Pete Silva drawled. “Say, you must be Lizzie Crump’s old man. I heard about you. How about you tell her to dump that juicer? Best thing could happen to Lizzie is you kick Stuart’s ass down the road. I’ll take it from there.”
Hickey rubbed his head, futilely attempting to put out the sparks. “Let’s talk about it outside.”
“Sure thing.”
The boy hoisted his shoulders back and swaggered ahead of Hickey and the captain. He passed behind two waitresses, gave each a swat in the tutu. Out on the gravel he turned and shrugged for directions. Hickey motioned to the right and nudged Silva ahead of them to a dark place at the corner of the building. As they stepped into the shadow, Hickey grabbed the boy’s shoulders, shoved them against the wall, pinned them hard.
“You getting tough with me, Pop?”
“Not yet. That’ll come soon as you make another crack about my daughter.”
“Hey, no offense, huh? She’s a dish, that’s all.” He reached up to brush Hickey’s hands away, but the hands didn’t budge until Hickey let go, in his own time.
The punk straightened his coat while Hickey stepped back, pulled out his billfold, peeled off a ten, and folded it into Silva’s coat pocket. “I need to hire a message boy. You look like the type.”
Silva’s hand jerked from his lapel to his side: waist high and fisted. “That’d be an insult, right? You make me for a dope, like I’m gonna slug you with the cop standing by, so you can run me in and put on the thumb screws. That it?”
“Yep. Make your move, Pete.”
“Maybe I will.” Silva managed a fusion of snarl and smile, as though he’d practiced in front of the mirror for weeks. “First, what’s the message? To who?”
“Angelo. Tell him Charlie Schwartz figures to pin the Sousa fire on him.”
“That so? Where do you come in?”
“Pretend I’m Cynthia’s guardian. She got stung. It oughta be Angelo or Charlie taking the fall, you know as well as me. Either’s okay, as long as the girl walks.”
Silva’s grin looked touched with genuine delight. “You a crazy man?”
“Could be. Make your move, Pete?”
“Yeah, yeah. That’ll come around.”
He plucked the bill out of his breast pocket, tossed, and let it flutter to the ground. With a chuckle, he turned and swaggered past the captain, who was leaning on a Jaguar.
The boy disappeared inside the café and Thrapp hustled over, clutched Hickey’s arm, then crossed the lot to Hickey’s Chevy.
“Silva’s got insight,” the captain said.
“Meaning I’m crazy?”
“Sure enough. Now get moving. I’ll tail you awhile, until I make sure I’m the only one.”
***
As he cruised alongside the flood channel, Hickey watched the fishermen, conjuring memories that softened his head, which allowed him to think about Wendy, to miss her, worry, and forget to look over his shoulder. He’d stopped across from the ballroom at the end of West Mission Bay Drive to make a right onto Mission Boulevard when he spotted a giant white car as it crested the bridge behind him, so fast it launched itself into the air. The instant he saw it, he jumped on the gas and shot around the turn, goosed the Chevy up to 45, and held steady, one eye fixed on the mirror the entire mile or more to Leo’s place. The big car didn’t appear. He swung the left turn into Pismo Court and onto the gravel of Leo’s carport, beside the old Packard.
As he climbed out, spooked by a screech and rumble, he jumped to the rear of his Chevy and looked back up Pismo just as the Cadillac roared across Mission from the alley that parallelled the boulevard on the bay side.
His gun was in the suitcase locked in his trunk. By the time he got it out, they could drive this far idling and perforate him a dozen times. He dashed for the house, grabbed the screen door, yanked it off a hinge. He groped at the entry door and wrenched the knob. It wouldn’t turn. He kicked, pounded, dropped to his knees. Tried to disappear behind the Packard.
“Open up! Leo!”
A bullet cracked, sparked the concrete walk, ricocheted into the door. Behind the Packard, feet hit the gravel and skidded. Another bullet sparked off the concrete, then glass shattered. A shotgun boomed. A man yelped. Pellets rang against metal. A car door slammed and the Cadillac squealed away, spewing gravel that peppered the carport and the Packard.
Hickey turned and lay frozen against the doorjamb, his heart on triple time like a string bass jamming boogie-woogie. When the door whooshed open, he barely cocked his head to look.
Warily, Leo Weiss stepped out. Over the past few years, his walrus mustache had grayed and his chest finally sunk to his belly. His shoulders looked like pillows. But from Hickey’s angle, and as he cradled a shotgun, Leo appeared a titan.
“Now can I come in?” Hickey mumbled.
“Sure, for a minute. Then I’m chasing you and your car off my property. What a guy. Doesn’t even tell us he’s coming to town. This your idea of a grand entrance?”
“Yeah. The actors cost me a bundle.”
Leo reached out his free arm. “Stand up like a man, will you? Tom, anybody ever point out you’ve got a gift for aggravating people?”
“Nope.”
“Must be everybody’s scared to offend you. How long you been in town?”
“All day. I would’ve called soon as I got a minute, but I didn’t get one.”
“We’ll let it pass. So, who all did you rile today?”
“Lots of guys. What’d they look like?”
“I only saw the shooter. Tall, tailored suit. Hair like one of your classier pachucos.”
“Angelo’s boy,” Hickey said. “Vi home?”
“Last I looked she was diving into the kitchen, behind the counter. Going to make cocoa, I guess.”