For the first time since I was released from the hospital, I feel the loss of the kidney, sort of a dull, lonesome ache.
Maybe Boots would have kicked my ass. Or me hers. Hell, I’d never gone at it with a woman, and lord knows I was scared. She was tough and smart and hit too close to the mark. Win, lose, or draw, my choices, it seems, were limited. Smart, which I had always equated with sneaky, seems to be the only answer. Since tough is out of the question.
—
Joe told us that Chez Jay’s was an old-line chop house, so we made late dinner reservations for four so we could have some elbow room with our beef, then crashed until dark-thirty, which found us in our best cowboy duds rolling up Laurel Canyon in the Eldorado, making our own damn way through the traffic. Milo let me drive the Beast, and boy did I.
“Where the fuck are all these people going?” he asks as we wait at the light at Mulholland.
“I never figured that out,” I say, “when I was spending time down here. Some years ago. And even if I had, it wouldn’t matter. LA’s a quick-change artist living on shaky ground.”
“I ask a real question, boy, and you give me cheap poetry. What the fuck’s the matter with you?”
“I’ve got to turn on my LA-mode, man, sharpen my attitude, just to survive the traffic.”
Then the light changes to green, I floor the Beast and roar through the intersection, blow two cars off on the right, and drift swiftly down toward the LA Basin, the true belly of the beast.
“Jesus, Sughrue,” Milo complains. “If you’re going to drive like that, you better get that piece out of your boot.”
“Shit,” I say, “I can maybe plead to a misdemeanor for the .38, but that sap in your boot is a guaranteed felony bust.”
“Maybe first thing Monday morning we should look for a seat cover man to build a hidey-hole for the Beast,” he suggests.
“I’m surprised you haven’t already,” I say.
“Maybe I’m slowing down in my old age,” he says.
But he doesn’t want a response so we ride in rubberneck silence down to Santa Monica Boulevard and turn west toward the ocean, Ocean Avenue to be exact, where Milo directs me to the Loew’s Hotel just across the street from Chez Jay’s. We check in with a couple of new, empty overnight bags and valet park the Caddy.
His brooding silence takes over again and carries us through two drinks at the crowded bar under the television, then through dinner. Finally, after the waitress pours our coffee, Milo asks, “Who the fuck are these people?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Anybody can sound like a mover and a shaker out here. They can all talk the talk.”
“Right,” Milo grunts, “but walking the walk is another story. Especially for our wooden-legged friend at the bar. Greasy-fucking-Leg indeed.”
The dude in question is tall and lanky, blond and beach-buffed, and not too many tattoos for a biker, dressed out for Saturday night in black and gold. Black jeans and boots, black silk shirt; an array of gold chains depend from his neck toward his large golden belt buckle, and gold nugget rings on his fingers. Clean-shaven except for a neatly trimmed moustache, his slightly puffy face still looks dirty around his hooded eyes, the kind of face you want to wash with your boots. And he keeps digging at his butt-crack, as if his jeans are too tight or he hasn’t changed his shorts in weeks.
“You think he’s our guy?” I ask.
“If he ain’t,” Milo says softly, “he knows him.”
We pay the check, step to the bar, Milo limping slightly, and sip slow Absolut martinis on the rocks until we can work our way next to our guy.
“Anybody sitting here?” Milo asks him, smiling loose and friendly, half-drunk but polite.
The guy nods carefully. Sometimes Milo can’t help sounding like a cop. Milo orders a round for us as I pull up on the stool beside him, then he offers the guy a drink, which he accepts with practiced ease. We tip our glasses at each other, when they come, and Milo introduces himself as Milton Chester. Me as his nameless driver. The guy says his name is George Hill, which is close enough for us.
“Never been here before,” Milo says. “Nice little place.”
“You guys from out of town?”
“Montana,” Milo says, “where men are men, women are scarce, and sheep are lying little tramps.” We drink to that as if we know what we’re talking about. Then he says, “Did you know, my friend, that two-thirds of unsuccessful bank robberies are planned in bars?”
McGeorge looks suddenly nervous; the spray of blackheads across his forehead disappears into his furrowed brow. “I don’t know anything about robbing banks, sir.”
“I know too damn much, friend. I used to be a cop,” Milo sighs sadly, then rubs his knee. “Till the goddamned telephone company bought me off. Then I took up ranching, fucking around, and chasing pussy.” Milo has a sip of vodka, then drops the conversation and turns to me, chatting about bad horses, the cattle market, and last year’s disastrous calf crop as he finishes his drink. “Pretty slim pickings, huh?” he says to me. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, Sonny.”
“Let me get you guys one before you go,” McGeorge says, waving at the bartender. When it comes, he raises his glass, then says, “The telephone company bought you off?”
“Yeah,” Milo says, smiling, “one of their fucking trucks ran over my leg during a bank robbery. Not once but twice. No more running after the bad guys for me.”
“Jeeze,” McGeorge says, slapping his wooden leg, “I know how you feel. A fucking semi took mine all the way off, but the fucking trucking company went bankrupt before I got a penny. Bastards.”
“I nailed the fuckers for six million,” Milo says.
“Well, good for you, buddy,” McGeorge says, slapping Milo on the shoulder.
Now we’ve got the fucker. Of course, the fucker’s got a hard-eyed Korean bodyguard, who follows us everywhere.
—
It takes three bars packed with expensive yuppies, a couple of cab rides, and enough vodka to make me feel as Russian as Milo before he asks McGeorge about his belt buckle. McGeorge says he made it, that he makes gold jewelry.
“I might like one of those,” Milo says, “tomorrow maybe. But right now let’s find a real bar, man.”
McGeorge leads us to the Circle, which seems as real as a heart attack. I can’t tell who anybody is here. When an ancient drunk tells me that the legless guy on a skateboard used to be a famous film director before he got hooked on crack cocaine and lost his legs driving his Ferrari into a school bus at ninety miles an hour, I almost believe it, until the old bastard tries to cadge a drink off me.
At closing time, somebody’s having an after-hours party somewhere, but Milo declines, saying we’ve got an early flight tomorrow. Then McGeorge says he’s leaving tomorrow, too, that perhaps Milo should take a look at his work, and slyly implies that the gold is hot, therefore cheap. So the three of us drift back to the hotel to break into the minibar in our suite, while the Korean goes to McGeorge’s Mercedes for a short run to pick up the goods. It’s only parked across the street, the creep says.
—
When we enter the suite, Milo saps him behind the knee so hard it sounds like an axe handle against a fence post, and I drop the butt of the Airweight at the base of his neck, and before McGeorge has a chance to complain, he’s duct-taped to the furniture, a complimentary pear stuffed in his mouth, and his prosthesis stashed in the tub. We also dig a Walther PPK out of his right boot and rip a flat throwing knife off his wooden leg. When McGeorge comes to life after I pour a bucket of ice into his silk shirt, he doesn’t know whether we’re cops or rip-off artists, and we don’t tell him.
“You guys ain’t half as slick as you think you are,” he says dreamily through the pear mush, then he spits, saying, “I’m connected and protected, and…and you fuckers can’t rip me off!”
“Spare me the fucking melodrama, okay?” Milo says, then motions me behind the chair and tosses me the spring-loaded sap. “You’re a two
-bit jerk-off hustler, and if we wanted to rip you off, asshole, you’d be dead. So don’t make me mad.” Then Milo pauses for effect. “Break his left elbow…”
At least I manage to say What? with my eyes. I once specialized in that sort of interrogation. But it had been years. Too many.
“…then his good kneecap.” Milo laughs wickedly.
That seems to get McGeorge’s attention.
“What a minute, man,” he stammers. “We can work something out, right? Who the fuck are you guys, anyway? I need to know who I’m dealing with.”
Milo holds up a hand to me, sighing, “An old fart who ain’t got a fucking thing to lose. Not a fucking thing. And you’re not exactly dealing from strength, either, asshole.” Then Milo stops, drops his face into his hands. This time the sigh sounds real, deep and sad, bone-tired. “Mr. McGeorge, I’m going to say a name, and you’re going to tell me everything you know about that name just as quickly as you can, or my boy there is going to fuck you up. Permanently.”
With a born hustler’s optimism—at least he wasn’t dead, yet—McGeorge starts looking for angles. “Hey, man,” he says, working on a sick smile, “I’m already permanently fucked up…”
Milo glances up at me. “Tell him.”
“We’ll wrap your hand around the Walther,” I ad-lib, “and kill the Korean, beat the shit out of you, then call the cops on the way out.”
“I don’t think I’d want to be a one-legged white guy in the new California prison system,” Milo says quietly. “Unless you can find a big bad white hubby who’s into stumps…”
“Just gimme the fucking name, all right, and let’s get this shit over with,” McGeorge mutters.
“Aaron Tipton,” Milo whispers.
“That crazy son of a bitch!” McGeorge barks, almost laughing. “Fuck, man, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble. I’d roll over on that crazy, worthless bastard for a ten-dollar bill. Hell, maybe I’d’ve paid you ten dollars…”
Then it all comes out in a rush. Until we’ve got all we need. Then Milo shoves the pear back into his mouth. We leave the knife and the empty pistol on the coffee table, plus five hundred-dollar bills, then leave the key in the door and go down the fire stairs, call for the car, and split like second bananas.
—
As we pull onto the Santa Monica Freeway, Milo points out that I had mentioned that surface streets were the answer to the LA traffic question. “Rush hours are over,” I say. “They’ll be empty this time of night.”
Sure. When we pull onto the 405, it looks as if somebody opened the gate down in San Diego.
“The gate to the fucking asylum,” Milo suggests, chuckling. It’s a true nightmare: slow cars locked in the fast lane; drunks lane-hopping; stop-and-go traffic; enough jerks on earphones to break down the cellular network; and carloads of absolutely dangerous kids, their psychotic desires unhidden beneath their cocked hats and crack-muddied eyes. I slip the .38 out of my boot and nestle it under my balls. Milo laughs, then says, “Wake me if we get home, Sughrue.” Then he tilts his seat all the way back, and the fucker goes to sleep. It only takes twice as long to get back to the Sportsman’s from Santa Monica as it did to get there.
—
Tom-John Donne is easily found the next morning. His dojo is listed in the telephone book. It’s Sunday, but we check it out anyway and find it surrounded by bikers in full regalia, hoods in shiny suits, and dozens of people in karate clothes, with a number of trucks and rough-looking guys in the alley for backup. We consider shooting our way into the dojo, but decide to at least ask a few questions before we start a firefight on a movie location.
A kid dressed out of L.L.Bean, carrying a walkie-talkie, stops us with a languid wave as we try to pull into the parking lot of the strip mall.
“I thought you guys had a convertible,” the kid says, “and you don’t fucking look bad enough to be cowboy hoods. And you’re way early, dude. We don’t have an extra penny of overtime in the budget…” Then he had an inspiration. “Hey, you’ve got your costumes in the trunk, right?”
Milo gets out of the passenger seat, walks around the Beast, then grabs the kid by his ear. “Listen, asshole, I’ve ridden more horses to death than you’ve fucked. So don’t say I don’t look like a cowboy. Okay?” The kid nods weakly. “I want to talk to Tom-John Donne.”
“He might be…”
“Fucking now, kid,” Milo says, giving his ear a final tweak that bounces him against the Caddy. “Watch the fucking ride,” Milo growls.
“Right,” he says, not bothering with his walkie-talkie. “They’re probably setting a shot right now…”
I cut the engine, leave the car sitting where we stopped, and join Milo, saying, “I smell barbecue.”
“Shit,” Milo says, “Montana only needs two things to be perfect.”
“What?”
“Less February and more barbecue.”
“What about Mexican food?”
“Make that three things,” Milo answers as the kid leads a medium-sized wiry guy out of the crowd. The guy’s wearing makeup, a black gi, and a friendly smile. But there’s something wrong with his smile. He’s got a set of shiny teeth lodged in a crunched black Irish face that looks as artificial as his straight nose.
“You boys scared the shit out of my PA,” he says, and holds his smile. “What can I do for you?” he asks in perfectly modulated tones. “You can’t hold me up for more money. Either I finish this piece of shit today or the goombahs finish it for me, and I can promise you can’t jerk them around at all.”
“Take a hike, kid,” Milo says softly, then turns to Donne. “We’re not in the movie business, Mr. Donne,” Milo says. “We’re in the drug business.”
“Oh, shit,” Donne says, a cracker accent creeping into his voice, his feet sliding into a combat stance. “What the fuck do you guys want?”
“Just a minute of your time,” Milo says, hooking his thumbs on his buckle. “And Aaron Tipton.”
“Burned you on a deal, huh?” Donne says, then glances at the New Mexican license plate. “I heard he was doing business down your way. Shit. Where the hell did you get my name?”
“The sheriff of Cocachino County,” Milo answers, “and a piece of shit in Venice Beach.”
“Fucking McGeorge. Jesus, man, they oughta make a law against even talking to people like that,” he says quickly, then adds, “Listen, man, Tipton is batshit crazy and the toughest motherfucker I ever met in my life. I wouldn’t hit him with a fucking train. You better shoot him before you ask him where the dope is, and then kill him good.”
“Where’s the car?” Milo asks.
“Fuck, McGeorge gave you that? He used to be a stand-up dude. Even on one leg.”
“We all get old,” Milo whispers, barely audible against the sound of the traffic. “We’d like to take a look at the car.”
“Sorry, man, we used it in a scene last night,” Donne admits. “It’s already being parted out in TJ. I went through it pretty good. Nothing there.”
“You know a guy out in the desert named O’Bannion?”
“Yeah, you better shoot him first, too.”
Milo reaches into his pockets, then shuffles through a sheaf of hundreds. “We need a favor, Mr. Donne, okay? The cops are right behind us. And they ain’t happy. Tipton killed the sheriff’s cousin. It was an accident, but the cousin’s dead nonetheless. We’d appreciate it if you could stall them for a day or two.”
“What do I get out of it?” he says, a shitty little grin opening his little mouth, exposing his brilliant teeth.
“You get to keep your fucking pretty teeth,” I say.
Donne is not impressed, but he looks at me carefully. “And two grand,” Milo says quietly. “That seems to be the going price for favors in LA.”
“Can be more, but it sounds good this morning. So you got a deal,” he says, nodding, grinning all the way. “No big thing. We wrap this fucker tonight, I’ll be on my way to the Big Island tomorrow. Take the fuckers a week
to track me down.”
Milo hands him the money, makes him shake his hand, then we climb back in the Caddy. But we do not depart friends.
“FYI, hard-ass,” Donne says, leaning toward my window. “My pretty teeth came from the government while I was in jail, as did my lovely profile, so you ain’t about to fuck up my livelihood, hard-ass.”
“It’s a date,” I say, and he nods, then goes back to work.
“Try to stay out of trouble,” Milo says.
“Goombahs,” I say as we drive away, “in the movie business?”
“Everywhere,” Milo answers. “Let’s see if we can follow that barbecue smell to its source.”
“I’m sure I can,” I say.
“Follow your nose, Sughrue,” he says. “Think he made the plate number?”
“Won’t matter,” I say. “I changed the three to an eight and the E to a B this morning. You’re not the only sneaky son of a bitch on this job.”
The night before, it turned out, Milo had blocked our trail at the Loew’s Hotel by using a credit card with the Milton Chester name on it. In fact, I was quite impressed with his whole set of working legal papers—credit cards, a passport, a checking account—so I asked him why he hadn’t gotten me one, too, and he said he assumed that I already had my own. Of course I did. But it was buried in an ammo box south of Fairbairn.
After lunch at a place that claimed to make Texas barbecue but put too much sugar in their sauce, we rent a couple of four-wheel-drive Subarus with Milo’s fake ID, cover a couple of other chores, then park the Beast at the Sportsman’s, have a drink and a laugh with Joe, and head for the desert, loaded for bear.
PART THREE
Milo
Following the mirage-flooded interstate down into the desert valley beyond Banning, I wondered again at the windmill fields stretching across the desert across I-10 from Palm Springs. I’d noticed them on the way back from San Diego when I was running from Maribeth—she wanted to mother me, and her boys wanted me to father them, which put a hell of a strain on our bedroom time, so I had to remove myself.
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