Browning Without a Cause

by Peter Corris

  I stepped into the office and found Stompanato there, talking urgently into the phone. It took me a second or two to register that he was speaking in Italian.

  'What the hell are you doing?'

  He whipped around, barked a few words into the phone and hung up. He was too deeply tanned to turn pale but he was clearly very agitated. So was I when he pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. I shook my head and sort of waved at the pistol with my hands, gesturing for him to lower it or point it somewhere else. He must have misinterpreted my action, or maybe he was just worked up. Anyway, he stepped closer and jabbed me in the ribs with the business end. I gasped at the sudden pain and for a second I thought I'd been shot. Stompanato swept the gun up, getting set to swipe me across the skull with it. I crouched and tilted myself away but I was slow and I knew it. Then he stopped the action. It sounds strange but in that moment of acute fear I actually saw him change his mind.

  'Browning,' he said. 'Fucking Browning, you came along just at the right time.' He pointed to the sets of car keys hanging on hooks on a board. 'What's the best heap you've got?'

  I almost pissed myself with relief. If he wanted to take a car he could have his pick. 'The Buick, goes like a rocket.'

  'Grab the keys and come with me. Do everything I say or I'll shoot you, I swear it.'

  I took the keys and he ushered me out with nervous, jerky movements of the gun. The barbecue was still going on but we were shielded from it by the stables. Stompanato jabbed me again. 'Bring the Buick as close as you can to the cabin, and make it quick.'

  I broke into a run and he ran off towards the cabin. I think he was the only gangster I ever saw run anywhere. Most of them got their exercise walking between cars and bar stools. As I got to the garage I heard the crackle of gunfire coming from somewhere not too far off. That speeded me up. I had the Buick started, backed and roaring towards the track that led to the cabin in record time. I saw Stompanato and Mr Lewis hurrying through the trees, Stompanato carrying a suitcase and Lewis hanging on to his hat and gasping for breath. I pulled up and opened the door. Stompanato shoved the pistol in my ear.

  'You're driving,' he said.

  He threw the suitcase in the backseat and almost threw Lewis in after it. The man's breath was coming in short, wheezing gasps and he was cursing softly and steadily in Italian.

  'Where're we going?'

  'Take that old road, the one you don't use.'

  'It's mostly pot holes, we'll bust a spring or an axle.'

  'Don't bust nothin'. Just do it.'

  To get onto the dirt road, disused for years before I had taken over the property, I had to pass close to the festivities. I saw Louise glance towards us as I shot by. God knows what she was thinking. I didn't see Dean and I hoped that he'd passed out. It was going to be hard explaining where the keys to his 'sickle' were. Funny the things you think about when your life's in danger. The road was as rough as I'd said and I had to drop speed to negotiate it. I could feel Stompanato's impatience but he could see that I knew what I was doing and he kept quiet. He chain-smoked and I could smell the rich aroma of a Havana cigar coming from the back seat.

  We came out on a back road and I stopped and set the emergency brake.

  'What d'you think you're doin'?' Stompanato growled.

  'You just needed me back there. You can take it from here.'

  He jabbed me again in the same spot. 'No dice. Get goin'. South.'

  I drove in silence for several miles, heading towards San Diego. There's not much to see on that drive — hills, towns, beach, more hills, more towns, more beaches. The traffic was light. I kept within the speed limit which meant that a lot of cars passed me. Stompanato didn't comment so I figured I was doing the right thing. On the outskirts of San Diego I had to stop for gas and I needed to piss.

  'Don't get funny ideas about writing on the mirror with soap,' Stompanato said as he got out with me and sauntered along towards the door marked 'Men'. 'Just get back here quick.'

  Of course I hadn't had anything so heroic in mind. My idea was simply to jump out a window and run. But there wasn't a window and Johnny was waiting for me when I came out. He escorted me back to the car. The guy who'd pumped the gas was standing around with his hand out and I paid him. Quite by accident I looked into the back seat as I accepted my change. The light was falling in the right way and I got my first and only clear look at Mr Lewis. I almost blacked out. I'll swear my knees sagged. Stompanato didn't notice and I climbed into the car with my hands and every part that could shake shaking. The man in the back seat was Lucky Luciano.16

  9

  LUCKY Luciano, 'Charley Lucky', top man in the Syndicate whether he was in exile in Italy or hanging around Cuba, even when he was in gaol. God alone knew how many men he'd put under the ground before they were ready to go. He was supposed to be in Italy where he'd been deported after the war, and now he was riding in the back seat of my car. It felt like playing chauffeur to Adolf Hitler if your name was Izzy Bernstein. Fear almost froze me but I managed to keep moving, get the car started and pull out of the gas station onto the road. I had tunnel vision and a roaring in my ears. It was lucky there was no other car coming along because I was scarcely aware of what I was doing.

  There was no mistake. Plenty of pictures of him had been published, mostly with him wearing dark glasses as he was now. But I remembered that I'd seen him once before, in Chicago in the old days when I was hanging around night-clubs, spending money on heartless women.17 Twenty-five years on and he was smaller and greyer of skin but I'd caught a glimpse just now of those scars on his neck he'd got in a knife fight when he was a crime apprentice. It was a mild day but I wanted to shiver as I smelled the rich cigar smoke coming from the back seat. Stompanato had taken the passenger's seat and was turned around, saying something in Italian in a low voice. A hundred things ran through my mind, none of them cheerful. I couldn't think of a single reason why they wouldn't bump me off when I stopped being useful. That was what I had to focus on — I had to come up with a reason.

  In the meantime it was crucial that they didn't know I'd identified Mr Lewis. I wound down the window a little more to dry the sweat on my hands and face and screwed up my courage to be old brash Dick Browning.

  'Say, Johnny, give me a cigarette will you?'

  'Smoke your own.'

  'I feel like a change. Don't you ever change brands? You ever think of quitting?'

  'Why?'

  Good question. In the gangster business you might as well have every vice you can manage because you probably won't be around long to enjoy them.

  The voice from the back was as cold as a meat locker. 'Give the guy a cigarette and tell him to shut up. I wanna catch some sleep.'

  Stompanato gave me one of his Camels and I lit it with the dash lighter. 'Same brand as James Dean,' I whispered.

  He looked vaguely interested. 'Yeah?'

  'Right. He was at the party. You should have dropped by to meet him and Rock and Liz.'

  'Fuck 'em.'

  'Interesting thought.'

  'When I said shut up I meant both of you. You driving, you talk funny. Where you from?'

  'Australia originally, Mr Lewis.'

  'They talk English down there?'

  'Yes sir, they do.'

  'Well shut the fuck up!'

  No question but he was addressing the two of us and we both went dead quiet until we heard the sound of soft snoring. I waited until the rhythm of the snores indicated deep sleep before I spoke.

  'Where are we going, Johnny?'

  'The border, Mexico, where else?'

  'Then what?'

  Stompanato turned slightly in his seat to look more directly at me. For one horrible instant I thought he might have realised that I'd recognised the passenger, but he just wanted to let me get the full force of his scorn.

  'What in hell could make you think I'm giving the fucking orders around here?'

  I chewed that over on the rest of the drive from San Diego to Tijuana. I
've never much cared for Mexico, but Tijuana isn't Mexico. I remember Raymond Chandler telling me that one time when I said I was going down there for the horse races.

  'It's a border town,' Chandler said, 'and a border town is just a border town. It isn't really anywhere except where it is.'

  He used to talk like that and I never quite understood him. Maybe it makes more sense written down. I wouldn't know, I've never read any of his books. Anyway, in those days, if you were white and driving an American registered car, you could come and go across the border and no one would bother you. Occasionally a border guard might ask to look in the trunk, but that was really just a way of bumming a pack of cigarettes or squeezing a few bucks out of you. Squeezing money out of Americans was what Tijuana was all about.

  Playing at being unconcerned is hard work. For example, you might decide to hum a little tune to show that you've got no worries. On the other hand, mightn't that show nervousness? Or that you're trying too hard? My best chance was for Luciano and Stompanato to think that this was just a little mob sideshow, nothing to get in a sweat over. Never before in my life had I so much wanted to read another man's mind. Did Johnny Stomp know I'd heard the gunfire? That made a difference. And why didn't they have a getaway plan ready for use? Why this improvisation? Of course I'd been keeping an eye out for cops, but Luciano would be a Federal matter and if there's any way to spot FBI agents driving along the public highways I don't know it.

  I tensed up as the bridge came in sight but that was only natural. Stompanato was edgy too and Luciano must have woken up because the snoring had stopped.

  'How do I play it?' I asked.

  'Don't do nothin',' Stompanato said. 'We got guys front and back.'

  Ahead of me was a grey Plymouth and in back a blue De Soto — solid, respectable-looking cars just like the Buick. I suppose they had been with us the whole way and I hadn't noticed a thing. Well, my private eye days were long behind me,18 and I never would have made much of a gangster. We barely got a glance from the border guards and rolled into Mexico as if we had come down for the whores and the tequila and the bullfights just like all the other suckers. A short shower of rain helped, making the guards reluctant to venture out from their shelter. The question for me was, were my troubles over now that we were out of US jurisdiction, or were they just beginning?

  I glanced at Stompanato who was chewing his bottom lip and looking almost as nervous as I felt. 'Where to now?'

  'The harbour.'

  I knew my way around Tijuana pretty well, better, anyway, than the driver of the Plymouth which fell back behind us. By the time the water came in view Stompanato had worried his lip raw. I drew up near the barrier to the main wharf and heard the back door open.

  'Wait,' Luciano said as he got out. The rain had stopped and steam was rising from the warm cement.

  There were two men in each of the cars, one about as big as me, the others smaller but capable-looking. Luciano joined them by the barrier and began to give orders, pointing here and there and gesturing with his hands.

  'I don't like this,' Stompanato said.

  'What?'

  'I know one of those guys. He'd rather cut a throat than fuck Lana Turner.'

  A strange thing for him to say in view of later events, but my memory of the conversation is clear as it is of all the occasions when I thought my last moment had come.

  'What're you saying?'

  'They'll get us out on the boat and bump us for sure.'

  Johnny Stompanato was not the man I'd have chosen to be my ally but right then I'd have taken Don Vito himself.19 'Well then, let's get the hell out while we've got the chance.'

  'Can't. His bag's still in the trunk. Probably got a hundred grand or so in it. They'd track us to the ends of the earth.'

  I couldn't believe it. My survival was going to turn on a little thing like a bag being in a trunk instead of in the car. I looked across at the gangsters. They were perhaps fifty feet away, still in what passed for conversation with Luciano, but at any minute one of them could come across and tell us what to do. Sweat was running freely down Stompanato's face and his hands were trembling. Maybe he'd put men in cement shoes himself in his time and he knew better than me what to expect.

  'Have you got a gun?' I asked.

  'Yeah, but you don't pull a gun on…'

  'I know who he is.' I'd played my only card and I had nothing to lose now. 'Listen, if I hop out, open the trunk and dump the bag will you fire one shot over their heads?'

  'Jeez, I dunno…'

  'One shot. Straight up in the air for christ's sake. I've done stunts like this in the movies. I can do it in about five seconds. We can be out of here inside ten seconds. They don't know the town and I do. We can be back in the States in a couple of minutes and then what can they do? Come on!'

  Stompanato gulped but he took out his pistol. 'Ok.'

  I knew if I thought about it I'd never have the nerve. I pulled the keys from the ignition, jumped out and sprinted to the back of the Buick. It's amazing how quickly you can react when your life's on the line. I had the trunk key at the ready as soon as I was in reach and slid it smoothly into the lock and turned. The lid jumped up and hit me in the face but I jerked the bag out and slammed the lid down, reaching again for the key. Although I was like a golfer, keeping my head down and concentrating on the shot, I was so pumped up I seemed to have wide angle vision. I saw the knot of men break up, heard voices and had a sense of two of them already on the move towards me.

  My brain was screaming: Shoot! For christ's sake shoot! but I didn't waste any breath. I had the key in one hand and the bag in the other. One of the smaller thugs was as quick as a bantamweight; he'd gained a yard on the other one and seemed to be reaching inside his jacket. Again, I didn't think; I swung the bag back and threw it at him, not aiming, just hoping. The bag slammed into his face and he lost balance. The guy behind fell over him and that's when Stompanato fired. I was back in the driver's seat with the sound of the shot still ringing out. Sweat was dripping into my eyes but I got the ignition key in again first time. The motor caught and I was in gear and accelerating with the door still swinging open beside me.

  'Go! Go! Go!' Stompanato screamed.

  The air filled with the smell of burning rubber and the screech of tortured tyres. The door slammed shut as I threw the Buick around a bend — just as well because the violence of the turn might have slung me out. I gripped the wheel and concentrated on covering as much distance as I could in the shortest possible time. It was close to sunset and there weren't many people around — a few sailors, a few strollers, some street vendors — they scattered like frightened sparrows as I roared down a narrow street, fighting to control the wheels on cobblestones that were greasy with trash and overflow from the gutters.

  I almost hit a lumbering, over-loaded bus as I made another turn and Stompanato shouted at me to slow down. He was still holding his gun and for a minute I thought he was going to shoot me. I eased off the gas and concentrated on steering straight and clearing my blurred vision.

  'We made it,' I said, after I'd driven along a quiet street for some minutes and checked the rear vision mirror. 'They're not following.'

  'Yeah, right.'

  'You don't sound too happy about it.'

  He put his pistol away and lit a cigarette with hands that trembled violently. 'I fired a shot at Lucky Luciano. I could've signed my death warrant.'

  'You said it yourself. We were dead men if we'd got on their boat.'

  'I need a drink bad. You know a place?'

  'Shouldn't we get back across the border?'

  'I need it now! Find a bar or somewhere we can get a fucking bottle.'

  The idea appealed to me. I drove for a couple of minutes getting my bearings and then headed for a liquor store near the bullring where you could buy whisky that hadn't been watered down too far. Stompanato seemed to be making a deliberate effort to relax. He lit a cigarette, handed me one and lit it with his gold lighter. I started to
relax too — a close shave but out of danger with the skin intact. All you could ask. Time to be generous.

  I puffed smoke out of the window. 'You fired the shot at just the right time. Really held them up.'

  'You did all right, Dick,' he grunted. 'Didn't know you had it in you.'

  'Situation like that,' I said, 'you've just gotta do it, not think about it. You were in the marines, you must know.'

  'Yeah. I tell you what, I felt safer on Guadalcanal with all them Japs than I did back there with Charley Lucky and his boys.'

  He was perking up and making me feel better. 'What was he doing here?'

  'Some top level meeting of mob guys. I don't think it went too well. Also, it looks like someone squealed. We had to move fast.'

  The bullring was in sight and the liquor store was still in business. I pointed it out to Stompanato. 'What kind of liquor d'you want?'

  'Scotch,' he said. 'Park in the alley there. We still gotta be careful'

  I pulled into the alley. He moved, I thought he was reaching for his wallet, but what hit me on the side of the head wasn't made of leather and it didn't have money in it.

  10

  WHEN I came to I was sitting in the alley with my back up against a damp wall and my feet in the usual Mexican refuse — cigarillo packets, sugar-cane fibre and broken glass. I couldn't have been there for long because my wallet was still in my pocket and I was still wearing all my clothes — tasselled loafers, slacks, a sport shirt and a cream linen jacket. I was also carrying a headache that was threatening to divide my skull in two. The car had gone, of course, and Johnny Stompanato had left his memento in the shape of a cut above my left ear that dripped blood down into the ear and onto the shoulder of my jacket. I touched the cut with a hesitant finger. Luckily, I still had a head of thick hair which had absorbed some of the impact of the blow and soaked up some of the blood. Still, I wasn't feeling nearly as chipper as I had been a few minutes before.