Hickey paced in front of the picture window: five steps, wheel, and back. He shot glances at the boss and at the doorways to the other cubes, in case Tyler, the maid, or Mac’s brunette had a rifle sighted on him. He listened to his breath, to the heart drumming his ears.
“So you whipped the Nazis, won the girl. Then what?”
It took a minute for the gambler’s question to cut through Hickey’s trance. “She was a mess,” he muttered, and got a sudden rush of joy, in which he realized that talking about Wendy would deliver him out of the present, and for now memory was the closest to her he could get.
“A couple years, till winter after the big boom in Japan, when I finally got discharged, Wendy stayed with my partner, Leo, and his wife and daughter. Only family she had was some aunts she didn’t know, in Oklahoma, and she wasn’t having any of them, people she’d never met. Anyway, they belonged to her old man. A sicko.”
“What kinda sicko?”
“The worst kind,” Hickey said as though issuing a curse. “The thing was, her brother Clifford was all she had left, and he didn’t make it. We got into a scrape in TJ. A Nazi blew his skull in half. And after the Tijuana business, the army wanted me long gone. They shipped me out to the desert: Tucson. Two years handcuffing drunks, slinging them into a panel truck.
“Now and then I’d get a day or week’s leave, drive home, and see Wendy. Every week, I’d drop my wages into the pay phone, calling her up.”
“What was left after you visited Nogales, right? Made friends with the señoritas?”
Hickey sat glowering.
“Hey, you don’t like interruptions, shoot me,” the boss quipped. He chuckled and clucked as though awed by his own wit. “Naw, I’m just ribbing you, Tom. I’ll zip it up. Go on.”
“See,” Hickey said, and reached for his pipe, “the Nazis messed her up bad. The first year, no telling when she’d bust out weeping or howling. It was all Leo and Vi could do to keep her from casting herself into the riptide. One time, they left her in the kitchen with Magda, their kid. Magda got careless, stepped outside, came back, and found Wendy with a knife aimed between her ribs, the tip already bloody. Most often, though, they could lift her spirits by promising in a week or two I’d visit, and reminding her that soon as the war wrapped up, I was going to take her up here, to heaven.”
“Whoa. Cut. You lost me.”
“See, when she was little, they lived down by Reno. One time they brought her up here, and she got the idea this place was heaven. So, after my discharge, I kicked the renters out of my house on Mission Bay, gave her my daughter’s old room. All winter, on account of I told her about blizzards and avalanches to keep her from coaxing me up here before spring, she worried about whether the angels had houses, slippers, and things.”
“Angels, you say?”
“If it’s heaven, there’s gotta be angels, right? She figured the place was infested with angels. Matter of fact, she still does.”
“I’ll be damned.” The boss leaned forward as though thinking intently. He touched his fingers together and worked them like twin Siamese spiders practicing knee bends. “You’re telling me she sees angels?”
“Nope. Only believes they’re hanging around.”
“How can she believe what she can’t see?”
“You believe in anything? Luck?”
“Naw. So, your wife’s got a screw loose?”
“Not anymore. Back then, after the war, she was a mess.”
“Yeah, but she musta been a tiger in the sack, or you’d have stuck her in a nuthouse.”
Hickey gave the man a contemptuous glare. “You’re a piece of work.”
“Huh? Why’re you giving me that look, like a snooty dame at some guy with lousy table manners?”
“Get this through your head: a man can keep his pistol in the holster if he wants to. I never more than gave her a squeeze till last year.”
“Naw.”
“Yep.” Hickey sighed wistfully, for a moment losing sight of the truth that right now some freak could be drooling on Wendy or rolling her into a grave. When he remembered, he wheeled and glowered savagely at the phone as if he could intimidate it into ringing.
“How long you kept her around like that?”
“About five years.”
“Five years!” Harry groaned. “And you’re calling me a piece of work. You’re gonna tell me she cooked and cleaned. So what? Meantime, you’re checking into the motel every time you wanta score.”
“I didn’t score.”
Harry flashed a grin that meant he’d finally caught on, seen how badly ol’ Tom was ribbing him. “Get lost. I’ve seen you at the club, overheard the dames chatting. Hardly a one doesn’t think you’re hot stuff.”
“Did I tell you I didn’t have offers?”
“What’re you saying here? That you’re such a lame you get an offer from a piece of fluff like Ruby the croupier and you tell her to hit the road?”
Hickey stood up, turned sideways, stepped a couple of paces to where he could see out the window while keeping Harry and the doors to every cube in sight. “I say, ‘No, thanks, babe. There’s somebody at home. If she knew it’d break her heart.’” His vision had blurred, his temples throbbed fiercely. For a minute, all his will got spent to keep from grabbing the closest Formica and hurling it through the picture window.
Moonlight cast a greenish, fan-shaped stain on the water. Thousands of stars pulsated like the headlights of spaceships nearing earth. From a tourist lodge across the lake beneath the silvery, jagged Rubicons, lights blinked like someone in distress dispatching a signal. Hickey got elated with hope, for a second, until his heart received the news that lights from over there always seemed to blink. He groaned and flopped back into his chair.
“Okay,” Harry said. “You telling me you did without, all those years?”
“Yeah.”
“Naw. I don’t buy it.” The gambler had stiffened and begun shaking his finger like a scolding grandma. “I mean, you take some hermit, stick him out in Death Valley for five years, maybe he don’t go crazy, long as he’s got a fist and a couple pinups. But you’re over there all this time, sleeping how far—how far can anybody get from each other in that shack of yours? Either you’re giving me the business, Tom, or you’re from Mars.”
“Let’s drop it,” Hickey said sharply, and checked his watch. “Get back on the phone. To Charlie Schwartz. By now he’s at the Golden Lion.”
“Yeah, soon as you come clean.”
“Do like I say,” Hickey snarled.
“Sure. Just one question. Okay, let’s suppose you’re giving me the straight dope, that you managed five years or so rooming with a doll before you wised up—what I wanta know is how you did it? And why?”
“You do what you’ve gotta.”
“What’s that mean?”
Stressing most every syllable, Hickey said, “It means I couldn’t risk shoving her back into hell. I had to wait till she grew up some, forgot some things, forgave herself for others. And till she quit wondering if every fella was a Nazi at heart.” Scowling viciously, Hickey waved his .45 toward the phone.
“Chrissake.” Harry groaned. “Five years!”
The aroma of baking bread wafted from the kitchen. Tyler stepped out and asked if anybody needed a drink or something. Hickey declined. The boss called for another ale; then, still wagging his head in consternation over Hickey’s five years of celibacy, he slid to the end of the couch and dialed the operator, who switched him through to San Diego information. He got the number of the Golden Lion, a downtown supper club with a lounge where, according to Lieutenant Palermo, Charlie Schwartz held court most evenings.
After giving his name to the maître d’ and waiting a couple of minutes, the boss growled, “Yeah, well, it’s about time, Maurice.” He turned to Hickey. “They’re bringing him a phone.…Yeah, Charlie, it’s me. You got my message?…And you figured urgent meant something like tomorrow. I’ll tell you what urgent means. There’s a chump up here thinks he’s gotta beef with you so he’s threatening to whack me.…Sure it’s Tom Hickey. He’s saying you sent some boys up to snatch his wife—who’s my neighbor and a personal friend, by the way—and I’d appreciate you cut her loose.…I ought to fix Tom, you say? How do I fix him when he’s hiding out someplace? I only got a call from him, is what I told you.”
Hickey caught himself biting his hand to restrain it from snatching the phone, so he could tell Schwartz what would befall him if the freaks didn’t bring Wendy home. Except Schwartz should’ve already gotten that message, through Leo. Besides, Poverman could talk and deal without throwing a tantrum, and his lying might save Hickey’s neck, if Schwartz’s boys were speeding this way, cleaning and loading their machine guns.
The boss sat rubbing his eyes. “Yeah? Well, do me a favor. Tell whoever oughta get told that Tom damn sure left San Diego already. He’s up here someplace.…What old guy?”
As Harry sat listening, he wheeled on Hickey and rapped his knuckles on his forehead. “Yeah, Charlie. I’ll pass it along, next time he calls.”
Harry slammed down the receiver, missed its mark, hit it on the second try. “I just figured out why you live in a shack, Tom, why you gotta toot a horn to make change. You got no brains. Hell, you had me fooled. All along I took you for a sharp one.”
“What’d he say about an old guy?”
“Some partner of yours name of Weiss. He pulled a move so crazy it makes your strategy look shrewd as one of Eisenhower’s. He goes to Charlie, says there’s some jerk works for the LA Herald is gonna rat on Mickey Cohen about a dirty deal he might’ve ran. Guns for Israel. Where Mickey set up that charity, raised a bundle. Your partner buys the rumor there wasn’t any ship set sail, no ship went down at sea, only some Herald reporter scribbling what Mickey tells him to say. This what’s-his-name …”
“Leo.”
“…says to Schwartz, ‘You get Wendy cut loose and this other dame sprung from the arson charge, I’ll hand over this fink’s name, you pass it on to Mickey.’ Who’s the old guy think he’s messing with?”
Hickey sighed and rubbed one of his throbbing temples. “Leo’s hated Mickey ever since back when. On account of he figures Jews more than anybody oughta play it straight, that whatever any one of ’em pulls gets pinned on the whole race.”
“Yeah, well, he ain’t the only Jew thinks that, but he might be the dumbest, going up against Mickey. Aw, hell, and I was dreaming another half hour, the Olds’d come rolling in with Wendy, let me get on over to the club. I got a business to run and a doll to meet.”
“What else did he say?”
“Number one, you’re screwy thinking he lit any fire or snatched the girl. Number two, it don’t appear like you’re backing off, as long as you’re threatening me and sending the old guy around to put the squeeze on him and try to pin a bum wrap on Mickey.” Harry flung up his hands in dismay. “Son of a bitch, I’m going stir crazy here. Hey, Tyler!” he shouted. “It’s suppertime. Tom, how about a T-bone? Potato, salad?”
“Nothing,” Hickey said. “Bring me the phone.”
While Tyler appeared, walked over, and took the boss’s order, Hickey called the operator and asked for Leo’s number. The phone rang long enough for a tortoise to run a dozen laps around the tiny beach house. When the operator returned, Hickey gave her Leo’s office number, which connected him to the answering service, a new girl named Susie who told him Mr. Weiss was out of town.
“Who’s calling?”
“Tom Hickey.”
“Ah-ha. Mister Hickey, I have to ask you a few questions. First, what was the name of your last captain on the LAPD?”
“Pepper. What is this?”
“Mister Weiss’s orders, sir. And what kind of dogs does your sister breed?”
“Poodles, damn it. Ugly ones.”
“Please, sir. Be patient. What’s your daughter’s birth date?”
“May ninth, nineteen twenty-eight.”
“Bravo. Mister Weiss is waiting for your call. He’s in the Los Angeles area, at Brentwood four-five-oh-five.”
Hickey grumbled thanks and hung up. Repeating the number out loud, he rose and sidestepped to the Formica table, .45 in hand. He picked up the note pad and pen, jotted the number. He took the phone and sat back down. Holding the receiver between his shoulder and chin, he dialed O, got connected to the Las Palmas Motor Court in Los Angeles, and switched to the line for room 6. Midway through the third ring, Leo gasped hello.
“You been out sprinting?”
“Singing in the shower. What’d you think of my quiz game?”
“Never mind your quiz game. How the hell you figure you’re gonna survive throwing beanballs at Mickey Cohen?”
“Survival ain’t everything, Tom.”
“Big talk. What’re you doing in LA?”
“Disappearing, mostly. Keep from getting more bullets lodged in my front door. And tomorrow I got an appointment to see a guy.”
“Who’s that? Not some reporter who plans to snitch on Mickey?”
“There’s no such guy, Tom. Wise up, will you? I’m going to see a fella named Gomez, FBI agent. You remember Arturo?”
“Yeah.”
“His kid’s a G-man. I figure he might shed some light on the action up your way, know some mob hideouts up there, give us a hand finding Wendy.”
“Swell,” Hickey said. “Now, you phone Charlie at the Golden Lion, tell him you’re full of crap up to the eyebrows, and you were just blowing steam about this person who’s gonna snitch on Cohen. And give him scout’s honor that you’re outta the whole deal, that Tom Hickey ordered you out, and that’s where you’re going. Got it so far?”
“I hear you.”
“Don’t go home. Stay hid. You put Vi somewhere?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, then call Thrapp. Talk sense to him, how the shooting at your place and Angelo’s boys waiting outside my place and Wendy getting snatched oughta make it a breeze for him to talk the DA into releasing Cynthia. Only make damn clear that Cynthia can’t get sprung till Wendy’s home. Cynthia walks, whoever grabbed Wendy’ll get so steamed he’ll …” Hickey’s jaw locked tight, of its own will.
“Yeah, Tom. I know what Charlie’d do.”
“So you gonna lay off Mickey Cohen?”
“You got most at stake. You call the shots.”
“Okay. I’ll do that. Soon as you talk to the Gomez kid, get yourself up here. I need somebody to spell me, give me a chance to sleep, maybe do some legwork. How about it?”
“Soon as I talk to Gomez, I’m on my way.”
“You driving?”
“Yeah.”
“Call from Sacramento. I’m at Harry Poverman’s place, Homewood six three three four.”
As Hickey placed the phone on the tile floor beside him, Mac’s Latin friend stepped out of the northeast cube, wearing a floral print dress that looked to pinch her everywhere and an ermine wrap. After shimmying halfway across the room, she stopped abruptly as if twenty feet was out of range of Hickey’s gun. “So Harry, you send Mac to China?”
“Tokyo. Hey, Gloria, you’re looking fine.”
“Thanks. Only what am I supposed to do about it? Me and Mac was going on the town.”
“How about you take the Jag, go on over to the club, and tell Pauline I’m indisposed. Tell her, any trouble, Big Steve can handle it. Tell her no phone calls to me. For nothing.”
“Ain’t the Jaguar gonna be freezing, Harry? Being a ragtop?”
“Naw. It’s got a heater big enough for the Taj Mahal. Go on. Tyler’ll give you the keys.”
“Okay. When you see Mac, give him a big smack on the face for me.”
“I’ll do that, and you keep thinking, If word gets out Harry Poverman’s letting a guy boss him around, Gloria had better hop a plane to Brazil.”
Gloria shimmied and tugged down the hem of her dress, tossed her hair, turned, and swished toward the kitchen.
“Tyler,” Harry shouted. “Give Gloria the Jag keys and get my dinner out here!”
The bodyguard poked his head out of the kitchen. “We figured you wanted the potato cooked, boss.”
“Skin the damned thing and fry it. I’m starving.”
Hickey gave up fretting about Leo, quit wishing the old man were here to make him laugh and breathe easier, to slap him around if he couldn’t convince him with words that our fears are usually a whole lot worse than the plots our worst enemies devise.
He put the phone on his lap and dialed. On the fourth try he got a ring instead of the busy signal.
“Claire Blackwood.”
“Any luck?”
“None so far, Tom, and I’m almost down to Placerville. Have you heard anything?”
“Only my partner Leo’s on his way, first thing tomorrow, to give us a hand, in case we haven’t got her back already.”
“Tom, I’ve been thinking. Wendy’s made it through so doggone much, I just know she’ll come through this one too.”
“Yeah. Sure, babe.”
“Have you said your prayers?”
“Think that’d help, do you?”
“I don’t know, except I believe sometimes people can talk to each other, heart to heart, even when they’re distant. Maybe, if you said a prayer, Wendy’d feel it.”
“Yeah, she’d get a kick outta seeing me on my knees.”
“That would please her, all right. Only thing, Tom—remember to keep one eye on Harry while you’re praying.”
“Yeah. Claire, I got another errand. You holding up?”
“Just fine.”
“Could you run to Stateline for me? In the Cal-Neva, talk to a bartender. He goes by Speedy. He’s most always got rolls of Mexican benzedrine. Sells to the all-nighters. I’m gonna need the bennies sooner or later. And a couple sandwiches, and a thermos of black coffee would sure hit the spot. Oh, yeah, and a tin of Sir Walter Raleigh.”