Now we were at the Buick.
“I know Mickey a little,” I allowed.
Johnny Stompanato was smiling, a handsome guy, beautiful features, pleasant. I wondered whether that was a revolver or an automatic bulging under his left arm; the bulge in his trousers would have been of more interest to the females in the crowd.
“Well,” Stompanato said, “Mr. Cohen thinks highly of you, and wondered if you’d had breakfast yet.”
“Actually, I grabbed a doughnut, earlier.”
“Mr. Cohen said to tell you he has fresh-squeezed orange juice and his cook makes a killer omelet.”
That was an interesting choice of adjectives.
“Is this an invitation, or a demand?” I asked. I had my own bulges, after all.
“Simply an invitation.” This guy was smooth. “Your partner Mr. Rubinski suggested to Mr. Cohen that you two might share a conversation, while you was in town.”
“Where are you parked, Johnny? May I call you Johnny?”
“Sure, Nate. Right behind you-the Caddy?”
“Should have known. Can I follow you, or do I have to ride along?”
“Follow me, by all means. I’ll keep the speed down, keep you in my rearview mirror.”
I trailed the dark blue Caddy down Sunset to the exclusive suburb of Brentwood, adjacent to Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean, home to many movie stars and other celebrities, including one Mayer Harris Cohen, AKA Mickey, the pint-size Capone who controlled bookie operations in Los Angeles.
Cohen did not live in a mansion, just a slightly oversize white Cape Cod cottage hugged by flowers exploding with color, surrounded by a wide, manicured lawn basking in the sunshine. This was the home every returning G.I. longed for, for his bride and himself, the postwar dream exemplified. Of course, Cohen’s World War Two service had been limited to home-front black marketeering, since as a felon he couldn’t serve.
No walls and no guard gate for celebrity gangster Cohen-though Stompanato stopped at a squawk box on a pole at the mouth of the wide driveway, checking in. I slid the Buick up next to the Caddy, parked right in front of triple garage doors. The only indication that this home belonged to a celebrity-particularly of the underworld stripe-was the floodlights on telephone-style poles surrounding the estate; after dark this place would be lit up like night football, and the lawn was big enough to field a game, at that.
I followed Stompanato to the front door, which opened as we got there, a middle-aged colored maid in full livery waiting for us. The maid peeled away and Stompanato did the honors, leading me across plush pile carpeting through a series of lavishly appointed rooms with gleaming woodwork and indirect lighting, each decorated in bold tones of a single color: a green room, a blue room, a mauve room, a pink room. From upholstery to the telephones, from the wallpaper to the fresh-cut flowers perched on the French Provincial furniture, one color at a time prevailed.
“Morning, Mrs. Cohen,” Stompanato said to a petite redhead in the pink room, nodding to her, not introducing me.
Mickey Cohen’s wife wore a pink top and blue slacks as she sat curled up on a sofa reading Better Homes and Gardens — the perfect little woman to go along with the dream cottage. And in that outfit, she could move from the pink room to the blue one with impunity.
“Morning, Johnny,” she said in a distracted monotone. Her heart-shaped face had pretty, Shirley Temple-ish features, highlighted by huge dark green eyes; her expression was blank, in a stunned, recently poleaxed manner.
Before long, Stompanato led me into a bedroom that broke the pattern by risking two tones-tan and cream. This was apparently the master bedroom, though there was no indication a woman shared these conspicuously male quarters. From a large bathroom off to the left came the machine-gun tattoo of a shower-in-progress.
Stompanato stuck his head into the steamy room. “Boss! Mr. Heller’s here!”
A raspy second tenor echoed back: “Great! Fine! Thanks!”
A few awkward seconds slipped by. Then, just making conversation, Stompanato said to me, “I, uh, understand you was a Marine?”
“Yeah. You too?”
He nodded, the curly locks staying perfectly in lacquered place. “Tarawa.”
I said, “Guadalcanal.”
“Semper fi, mac,” he said, extending his hand, which I shook. “Pleasure.”
I nodded, wondering if we’d be shooting on the same side in the next war.
The big double bed had a cream-color spread with a grandiose MC monogram; one wall was a mirrored closet, another had recessed shelving arrayed with more brands of men’s colognes and creams than the May Company’s men’s toiletries department. Along one windowed wall, its exotic-plant-patterned drapes drawn, a comfy-looking love seat squatted next to a corner phone stand, over which staggered a few photographs of Mickey’s fishing escapades… including the hood posing next to a marlin bigger than he was. Which didn’t necessarily make it a very big marlin.
In one corner was a much smaller version of the double bed, duplicate mattress, duplicate monogrammed spread, except labelled TC. Stretched out on it, looking up at me suspiciously, was an ugly little bull terrier.
“That’s Tuffy,” Stompanato said. “Don’t try to pet him.”
“No problem,” I said.
Stompanato said, “Mrs. Cohen has her own bedroom. Mirrors and walk-in vault for furs and jewels. Real feminine boudoir-you oughta see it.”
Apparently he had.
Before long, the hairy, squarely built little Cohen, possessor of perpetual five-o’clock shadow, stepped from the shower stall, emerging from behind the moisture-streaked door with a towel wrapped around him, sarong-style. His black thinning hair flat to his egg-shaped skull, Cohen had the same broad forehead as his terrier, same pugnacious chin, similar flat blunt nose. The major difference lay in the eyes-the dog’s big brown eyes radiated intelligence.
“Hey, Heller,” Cohen said good-naturedly, giving me a glance, stepping up to the big mirror at a counter where a small army of toiletries stood at attention, waiting for commands. “Looks like we’re both still alive.”
“Luck on our part,” I said, “bad marksmanship on theirs.”
Cohen hacked a laugh, and began washing his hands in the sink-apparently they’d gotten filthy in the shower. “Johnny, leave Heller and me be. We’re old friends. He saved my buddy Jake Guzik’s ass, couple years ago. Didn’t you, Heller?”
“I’ll do just about anything for money,” I said.
Soaping his hands, he said, “Johnny, ya can even let him hang on to that roscoe he’s packin’, under his arm.”
Those eyes may have looked stupid, but they didn’t miss much. On the other hand, calling a gun a “roscoe” was fairly ridiculous these days.
Stompanato nodded to me, said, “Nice meetin’ you,” and slipped out.
I stood in the doorway of the bathroom as Cohen-finally convinced his hands were clean, all damned spots out, for now-used a handheld electric chrome hair drier on his wispy locks. The drier made a small roar that we had to work to speak above.
“I hear you’re working for my pal Jim Richardson,” Cohen said, “over at the Examiner.”
“Yeah-background on the Dahlia murder.”
“Great guy, Jim. I known him since I was a kid, hustling papers at Seventh and Broadway. Jim used to let me sleep in the Examiner ’s men’s john, waitin’ for the presses to roll off on some red-hot extra.”
“Why’d Jim give you such special treatment, Mick?”
Cohen grinned at me, his hair dancing under the drier’s wind. “That was back in his drinkin’ days. Richardson was a fuckin’ lush, y’know, back then. I’d sober him up, walk him to his desk… Brother, he’s riding high on this Dahlia deal, ain’t he?”
“It’s a big story.”
“I knew her, y’know.”
“Really? News to me.”
“At the Gardens. She was workin’ there. Sweet kid. Prick tease, but really sweet… I don’t want that in the papers
, understand.”
“Understood.”
His hair was dry. He shut off the drier, set it down, and selected a green vial of hair tonic and began drizzling it on. “So you busted Fat Ass’ beak, I hear.”
“You should know-he works for you, doesn’t he?”
Cohen gave me a quick glare. “Says who?”
“That’s the word on the street.”
“What is?”
“That Sergeant Finis Brown is your bag man-I figure Lansom’s running hookers outa the Gardens, and you’re getting a taste. Why not?”
This glare wasn’t quick-he held it on me and I would swear I could feel the heat. “Why not?” he growled. “Because Mickey Cohen don’t traffic in no female flesh. I don’t do that-that’s fuckin’ low, low as fuckin’ dope. You tryin’ to piss me off, Heller?”
“No. I just-”
Still frowning, Cohen returned his attention to his reflection. He put the hair tonic down and began massaging his scalp. “You just get them sleazy fuckin’ thoughts outa your sleazy Chicago conk. I’m a businessman, not no fuckin’ pimp.”
“No offense meant, Mick. So who does Brown work for?”
“Himself! He’s one of the biggest bookies in town.”
“A cop is one of the biggest bookies in town?”
Cohen hacked another laugh. “Fat Ass is the fuckin’ LAPD’s in-house bookie, Heller… and Lansom, he covers all of Fat Ass’ big bets.”
I frowned, trying to make this work. “Mark Lansom is Fat Ass Brown’s layoff man?”
Another quick glare, as Cohen began to brush his hair. “Do I fuckin’ stutter? Yeah, that’s what Fat Ass was doin’ at Lansom’s house, when you rearranged his nostrils-business with his backer… Get me my hat, would you?”
“Where is it?”
“Should be on the dresser.”
It was-a pearl-gray Borsalino that would have made Harry the Hat envious. When I reached for the lid, the bull terrier-whose corner I had neared-began to growl.
“Tuffy!” Cohen called. “Shut up, you little bastard!”
The dog stopped growling.
I handed Cohen the hat from the bathroom doorway.
Cohen put the Borsalino on-he would have looked absurd enough in the oversize sombrero, but wearing nothing but a towel…
“Listen, Heller, you mind me losin’ the towel? It ain’t no queer thing. It don’t make me no faggot ’cause I like to stay clean-it’s just, I’m just late for a meet and I gotta get myself ready.”
“Do what you gotta do, Mick.”
He removed the towel, folded it up, and set it on the counter. For an ugly little shrimp, Mickey Cohen had always attracted a good class of fine-looking women and I now knew what they saw in him.
The hairy naked little (in stature) gangster now selected a can of talcum powder from the battalion before him. He began shaking the talc all over himself, pausing now and then to put the can down and rub in the powder.
“Listen, I know all about these smalltime McCadden heisters,” he said, standing in the little snowstorm (the hat, apparently, was to protect his hair from the talc blizzard), “and Fred told me about some of your thinkin’, where this dead bimbo is concerned.”
“I can tell you one thing, Mick-it’s no sex crime. She was smiling the informer’s smile.”
“Tell me about it.” The talcum can was empty; Cohen-who looked as if he’d been dipped in flour, awaiting a frying pan-selected a new can and started the process again. “But Brown is gonna keep steering the investigation in that sex maniac direction, ’cause if his partner the Hat starts diggin’ into the Florentine Gardens, well, the Hat’s gonna find out his fat-assed partner is the LAPD’s house bookie.”
“Don’t you think Hansen must already know that?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Cohen said, shaking more talc on himself. “Sure bet the Hat knows his partner is a fuckin’ crook-but not necessarily the department’s win-place-and-show window.”
“Or maybe the Hat does know,” I said, thinking aloud, “and might relish exposing Fat Ass.”
“Either way,” Cohen shrugged, “Brown wants to keep that investigation outa the Florentine Gardens.”
“And your old pal Jim Richardson likes the sex angle better than a dime-a-dozen mob rubout, anyway-sells more papers.”
Nodding, powdering himself, Cohen said, “That’s why no paper in town has noticed that cut-up bimbo got dumped in Jack Dragna’s backyard.”
I was leaning against the doorframe. “Then you agree with me, Mick-that Dragna had this murder done, to send a warning to Savarino, to shut him the fuck up?”
The naked gangster in the Borsalino shook his head, chin wrinkling. “I do not agree, in any way, shape, or form.”
I almost fell over. “Jesus, Mickey-Jack Dragna tried to hire those McCadden boys to bump you off!”
He put down the empty can of talc, reaching for a third. “Yeah, probably. That’s just business.” He began salting himself again. “Gotta remember, Jack was the big boss in town before your buddy Benny Siegel and me got sent out here. We butted in on Dragna’s territory, no question-two Jews, yet. But Dragna couldn’t do nothin’, not out in the open, ’cause he had ties to Lucky and Meyer.”
Luciano and Lansky.
“So every now and then,” Cohen continued, “Jack tries to stop my clock, but tries and make it look like it was somebody else’s idea. But much as it would do me a favor having you go whack his wop ass, I can tell you without no doubt, Jack Dragna did not have that broad killed.”
My head was reeling. “Why do you say that, Mickey? How can you be so goddamn sure?”
Patting himself with powder, he smirked at me. “Heller, how well do you know Benny Siegel?”
“Well.”
“He’s got this crazy reputation, right? Screw-loose killer? Do you believe it?”
I shrugged. “Not entirely.”
“Do you think Benny or me, you think we would kill somebody just for the sheer fuckin’ hell of it? Would I stick icepicks in some person, just to torture them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, thank you. Thank you very fuckin’ much.” He was rubbing the powder in. His eyes were clenched tight in the shadow of the Borsalino brim. “I can tell you I never killed a man, or had a man killed, who didn’t the fuck deserve killing by the standards of our way of life. The same is true of Benny, and the same is true of Jack Dragna.”
I could hardly believe my ears-Mickey Cohen defending Jack Dragna.
“Dragna was going to have you killed, Mick!”
“From his vantage, I deserve it!” Cohen selected a blue bottle of cologne from the toiletry troops and dabbed some behind either ear. “I took business away from him! I stole his prestige! Tell me, Heller, when did you ever see any mobster bump a civilian? What did this good-looking piece of ass, God rest her soul, do to deserve that lousy fuckin’ fate? Not a damn thing!”
“Then who did do it, Mick? Who marked Elizabeth Short as an informer, when she wasn’t one? Just to warn an informer off?”
Carefully, Cohen returned the cologne bottle to its position. “Hell, I don’t know. You’re the detective. Who else would benefit from shutting Savarino up? Anyway, Dragna’s old school-he wouldn’t have the stomach for a kill like that.”
“Are you sure? The sex-crime aspect of it sent the cops down the wrong path.”
He gave me a brief Bronx cheer. “The only way that coulda happened was if Dragna ordered this girl killed, and some goom-bah went off his noodle, and got carried away havin’ a little too much sick fun… In which case, Dragna woulda knocked this boy in the head. There’da been some Dragna gangster turn up dead in a ditch, and there ain’t been any.”
The bathroom floor, around his feet, was carpeted with talcum powder. He used a towel to rub some of the powder off, then looked at his naked reflection and held out his arms, as if in welcome.
“Now I can get dressed,” Cohen said.
The powder crunched under his f
eet as he walked bare-ass-but-for-his-Borsalino into the bedroom, where-after pausing to bend and pet and exchange sloppy kisses with Tuffy (none of which was pretty to see)-he took the hat off, set it on the top of the dresser, and from a drawer selected a pair of monogrammed silk shorts.
“The rumor,” Cohen said, climbing into them, “is Mark Lansom was trying to get the Short kid in the sack and havin’ no luck whatsoever. So he loses his temper and kills her gorgeous ass. Now, at the same time, Fat Ass Brown is supposedly into Lansom for five grand-and agrees to help cover up the crime, if Lansom wipes the money slate clean.”
“Is that what you think happened, Mick?”
Cohen shook his head. “Sounds like horseshit to me. First, Lansom don’t got the balls. Second, the bastard is swimmin’ in quality tail, so why’s he chasin’ some little cock tease? But, anyway, that’s what I’m hearin’, so maybe you should know.”
Soon he was in gray silk socks and a white silk shirt with a red silk tie. He curled a finger for me to follow him into a walk-in closet smaller than New Jersey where he selected a blue-gray modified zoot suit with wide, long lapels and tapered trousers, from hundreds of similar suits of various shades hanging there.
“I never wear a suit after it’s been dry-cleaned,” he said, with a little shudder, leading me out of the closet, me carrying his suit on a hanger for him. “Makes me itch… After a while, I give ’em to poor people.”
“Mick, I still want to hear Dragna’s version of this.”
Cohen smiled tightly, put a hand on my shoulder. “You go see Dragna, if you like, talk to him about this, but Heller, I guarantee you one thing: you’ll be dead in a vacant lot. No fancy cut job, just a bullet behind the ear, which will do the fuckin’ trick, don’t you think?”
“I can handle myself with gangsters, Mick.”
He hacked one more laugh, as he stepped into his trousers, then looped in a black leather belt. “This ain’t Chicago, Heller. These people got no history with you, no respect for you or dead Frank Nitti.”
From a drawer he removed a snub-nose Colt. 38 in a small holster, which he snapped onto the back of his belt, so that the gun rode his spine. Then he tapped my chest with two fingers; for some strange reason, he smelled strongly of talcum powder.
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