by L. A. Morse
“Would you boys like a Margaret?” Itchy said.
“I keep telling you it’s called a Marguerita, you fool,” Bitchy said.
“And I keep telling you I only make the damn things. I never claimed to be good at languages.”
“Now, now,” Twitchy said.
“Shut up and drink your Margaret, and stop clucking like an old lady,” Bitchy said.
O’Bee and I turned down another offer of drinks.
“You like my new eye shadow, Jake?” Itchy said.
“Oh, is that what it is? I thought maybe Bitchy’d hit you.”
“If only he would. He’s all talk and no action, that one. It’s called ‘Midnight in Paris.’ What do you think?”
“I remember it well.”
“I think,” Bitchy said, “that it makes you look like the model of Joan Crawford in the Hollywood Wax Museum.”
“Nobody asked you. You’re just jealous, because you have those little pink eyes and if you wore make-up, you’d look like a queer rabbit.”
“At least I don’t look like an over-the-hill drag queen.”
“That’s not fair. I’m not the one with the dress what’s-her-name wore in Gone with the Wind, hanging in my closet.”
“Well, I don’t wear it.”
“Well, I hate to think what you do do with it.”
“Uh, Jake—” O’Brien said, poking me hard in the ribs with his elbows
“Right.” I rubbed the spot. “Is Leo around?”
“I think he’s upstairs.”
“Okay. O’Bee, why don’t you tell these three what we want?”
“You want what they all want,” Bitchy said.
“Not this time, we don’t. O’Bee?”
“Thanks a whole fucking lot.”
“Don’t worry, Patrick,” Twitchy said. “We won’t bite.”
“Well, maybe only a little,” Itchy said.
The three of them started to giggle. As I walked away, I heard O’Brien call, “Hurry up, Jake.”
I laughed. The three had been playing this routine so long, I doubted if they or anyone else knew what was an act and what was for real. Never having tried to hide anything, they forced everyone to accept them on their own terms. That some people didn’t was one of the reasons I’d had to bail them out from time to time in the past. Outsiders their whole lives, they never seemed to notice the isolation of old age. If anything, it had been liberating—a new license to outrage, new preconceptions to shake. They were something, all right.
I knocked on the door to 212.
“Jacob! Come in.”
Leo Kessler was the only person who called me that, but he was also the only person still around who’d known me when I was a Spanovic. We went back so far, it was scary. Back to the neighborhood, to college, and then to Paris. After that our paths split, with Leo going on to Oxford, Cambridge, and a long and distinguished academic career, while I chose to associate with a slightly different class of people, like George the Roach and Slimy Solly Wiseman.
We lost track of one another for nearly thirty years, until he came out to teach in California, and we’d kept in touch since then. It was important for both of us to maintain contact with someone who knew who we had been so long ago, a link to a past that was rapidly ceasing to be even a memory. At the same time, though, it made us kind of uncomfortable, because we each somehow represented the other’s unrealized potential.
I went into the book-filled apartment. So many books that it seemed like there were no walls, only rows and rows of books in half a dozen languages, from the floor to the ceiling. I thought about my stacks of lurid paperbacks.
“Jacob, you’re looking as disreputable as ever, which I take to be a good sign.”
In the decades between Paris and California Leo acquired a vaguely British accent that was still with him, and that I found goddamn incredible for someone from my neighborhood.
“And as always,” I said, “you’re looking like you made a wrong turn thirty years and three thousand miles away from here.”
“You mean I’m wearing a tie.”
“Right.”
Actually, if anyone ever looked like the Central Casting idea of what he should be, it was Leo Kessler, Professor Emeritus of Literature. He was short and trim, in a brown tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a solid brown vest, a stiff, gleaming white shirt, and a carefully hand-tied dark-green and white polka-dot bow tie. Other than funeral directors, Leo must’ve been the only person in Southern California who wore a jacket and tie all the time.
I kidded him about it, but I couldn’t imagine him any other way. With his glossy white hair, gold-rimmed glasses, and highly polished little shoes, he was as neat and precise as the sentences he wrote in the authoritative scholarly essays that earned him his reputation. He had lots of little widows working themselves into lavender frenzies over him, but as far as I knew he was no more active in that regard than I was. At least, I thought somewhat meanly, I sure as hell hoped he wasn’t.
“You keep your nifty little tie on when you went to that beach?”
Leo smiled. “You heard about our excursion. Sorry to disappoint you, Jacob, but I did not participate. Living in the Tar Pits has certainly loosened me up, but, uh—”
“It hasn’t entirely untied you?” I helped out.
“That’s one way of putting it, yes. You know, Jacob, despite that, I sometimes wish that I knew back then”— he gestured vaguely over his shoulder with his hand— “what I’ve learned in the last few years.”
I shook my head. “Madness lies that way.”
“I know. But sometimes it’s hard not to want to correct the past. Especially when it seems, more and more, much closer than the present.” He made a sound of disgust. “But enough, right? You know all that.”
Did I ever.
I took a deep breath. “I’ve got a little bit of the present that might interest some of the people here.”
“Oh?”
Leo was one of the unofficial leaders in the Tar Pits, and I quickly told him what I wanted. That I needed help checking out some cars, finding out whether the color was light or dark, and who owned or drove it. I didn’t tell him why, just that I needed to know. Again, I wanted to keep quiet as-much of the situation as possible. If loose lips sank ships, Itchy, Bitchy, and Twitchy could put the whole Sixth Fleet on the bottom.
Leo looked a little disbelieving, then he shook his head and chuckled. “You’re still at it, aren’t you? You know, Jacob, you always amused—maybe even amazed—me. You were an intelligent, well-educated man, much more so than most of the tenured colleagues I’ve known, yet you chose to live like and with thugs. Incredible.”
“Gee, and I always thought you were the aberrant one.”
“And you’re still doing it.”
“Once a thug, always a thug.”
“Forgive me, but I say this as a friend. Are you really up to it?”
“Of course not. If I were, do you think I’d be trying to enlist the aid of the old croakers who live in this place? Come on, Leo, cut it out. I didn’t come for advice. Only to find out whether anyone here’d be interested.”
“Are you serious? The chance to play sleuth? You’ll have to beat them off with a stick.”
“You know, it’s not all that interesting. Basically, it’s just a matter of waiting around, as inconspicuously as they can, until they spot the car, and, if it’s dark colored, the person or people connected with it. Then they call in. That’s all.”
“Is there any danger?”
“Only if they doze off and miss their bus stop. At most they might have to use a bit of ingenuity to find out what I need. You know, go up to a house and pretend they have the wrong address, so they can get a look at whoever owns the car. That kind of thing.”
“That should be no problem. We’ve learned to become fairly ingenious around here. How many people do you want?”
“As many as you can get. There are about two hundred cars to check out and very little
time.”
Leo nodded. “I’ll start on it right away. I should be able to get you lots of help. I may have to somewhat enhance the way it sounds, though. A group here recently completed a class in self-defense, and some of them have been walking around with chips on their shoulders, just dying to try out what they’ve learned.”
I groaned inwardly, seeing some wild-eyed old geezer threatening to judo-chop someone unless he came clean. “Please, Leo. The idea is to do this quietly.”
Just then I heard hoots of raucous laughter coming from the courtyard, followed by O’Bee’s rather desperate cry of “Jake!”
Leo and I looked at each other. “Well, as quietly as possible,” I said.
I gave him the lists of license numbers and addresses, and explained in detail what I wanted and how we’d work it.
Another cry of “Jake!” from down below.
“I’d better get going.” I pulled out two of Sal’s C-notes. “This’ll cover bus fares, gas, whatever.”
Leo stared at me, then took the bills. “Oh, Jacob,” he sighed.
I got downstairs in time to rescue a grateful O’Brien from a complicated story involving a vat of Crisco and the old Hollywood Stars baseball team. As I’d expected, Itchy, Bitchy, and Twitchy were delighted to help, and said they’d get some other friends involved as well. O’Bee muttered something about every hairdresser in Hollywood being on the case. Even though we left them happily discussing where they could get summer-weight trench coats, I was confident that they’d be serious when it counted.
O’Brien and I took a very roundabout route back to my place, and managed to locate three of the cars on the list. One was light brown, one was a bilious green, and the third, while the right shade of red, belonged to a forty-five-year-old home economics teacher.
That left only two hundred and eight.
Progress.
CHAPTER NINE
With the aid of Leo and the merry threesome, I ended up with about thirty people spread throughout Southern California, trying to get a line on the automobiles. Damn, that was probably more agents than the local Pinkerton office had. For someone who’d run a one-man show for most of his life, it was rather an odd experience.
O’Brien stayed at my place. He manned the telephone and kept a careful record of which cars had been located and which hadn’t, which could be eliminated for whatever reason and which were still in the running.
I was on the street, moving as fast as I could. Like the others, I traced down cars, but I also checked on the possibles that were phoned in. About every two hours I called O’Bee, to find out any new developments.
As I’d told Leo, it was a slow, tedious procedure. Since it mostly involved nothing but waiting around, there was no way to speed it up. Fortunately, the one thing you learn—you were often compelled to learn—when you get old is how to wait. Most of my overage operatives were pretty good at it.
Another thing they proved to be good at was surveillance. It should have come as no surprise, since being old is almost as good as being invisible. Unless you mutter to yourself or make disgusting noises, nearly everyone either plain doesn’t notice you or makes a point of avoiding seeing you. Either way, you can hang around for long periods of time, without attracting attention. After all, what else does an old fogey do except hang around?
Things went along pretty well. Not well enough, because I hadn’t found my man, but they did keep moving. And movement was my only hope, if my long-shot gamble was to pay off. As I’d thought, most cars were eliminated as soon as they or their owners were spotted. That didn’t necessarily take me any closer, but it didn’t put me any further away.
I was also happy that there were very few incidents. The unbelievable Mr. Andrews proudly reported that one Mrs. Bascombe, owner of a blue Mercury, TAM 704, had decided to become the latest member of his household. Itchy called in to say that, while his lead hadn’t panned out, he had, however, met the most adorable young man, and he was leaving the hunt for a couple of hours. And a pair of fourteen-year-old girls with leather jackets and pink hair had tried to mug one of our old ladies. Unfortunately for them, they picked a graduate of the self-defense class and found themselves being used to mop up the sidewalk.
Even prim, professorial Leo Kessler joined the search. I happened to be home when he called in one time, very excited because he had executed some elementary scam in order to get the info we needed. He said he’d had no idea this could be so much fun. It sounded like his bow tie must’ve been askew. I figured it was only a matter of time before Leo would be wanting to borrow sleazy paperbacks from me.
Jesus.
What had I unleashed upon an unsuspecting city?
* * *
After four days, we were down to a short list of eighteen possibilities. All that meant, though, was that on the surface we hadn’t been able to eliminate them. The cars were all dark, and the drivers were roughly the right age and size, but beyond that, there was no reason to think any of them was the one I wanted. There were also still over thirty of the original two hundred eleven that we hadn’t been able to locate, a circumstance that did nothing to bolster my confidence.
As time went on, and with no positive results, the less likely I thought it was that my approach would work out. Hell, I had absolutely no reason to think that it would. However, I had decided to play the hand this way, and I knew I had to keep on with it, however small my chances. Without a better alternative, to change in the middle would only ensure defeat. That was known as having the courage of your convictions, an attitude that’d led to some pretty spectacular disasters.
Sal’s nightly phone calls weren’t helping much, either. He was getting increasingly panicked, needlessly reminding me that time was running out, that the kidnappers’ deadline was getting closer.
Thanks a lot, Sal. That was just what I needed. Otherwise, I might have forgotten. Shit.
He was right, though, and I did have to start moving. I decided to let the crew from the Tar Pits run down the remaining thirty cars while I concentrated on our short list. These were spread over a big hunk of Southern California. Since there was no way to choose between them, I was going to start with the closest ones and work my way out.
Meanwhile, I put O’Brien to work trying to get a line on our possibles. Even though he’d been retired for a long time, he still knew a fair number of people on the force. Some through the lieutenant, but more from when O’Brien had broken them in as rookies.
O’Brien also knew—naturally—every bar where cops hung out off-duty. If he could be casual and quiet about it—as if that were his style—maybe he could see if anyone recognized any of the names on our list. Even if they did, it wouldn’t necessarily mean anything, but we were at the point where we badly needed a break.
I supposed we could have gotten the lieutenant to run a check, but I really didn’t want to involve him unless absolutely necessary. He was much too sharp. If he ever got into this, I’d never get him out. And I still figured Tommy’s chances would be better if I could manage it on my own. So this had to be strictly a solo play, and I had to rely on the sense of fraternity, the old-boy network, that exists between all cops. It was owing, I guessed, to the fact that the only people who could understand what it was like were those who had done it, and anyone who had done it was always accepted as a member. If anyone could play the network, it’d be O’Brien.
I offered to give him some money so he could buy drinks, but he just wanted bus fare. He said if he couldn’t get those guys, to spring for an old fellow-officer, either he’d lost his touch or they were a pretty piss-poor lot.
“Well,” I said, “don’t get so looped you forget what you’re doing”
He held up his big hands, all innocence. “Only soda water, Jake. I’m on duty.”
“If I remember right, that never used to slow you down much.”
“Well, maybe a little something to give the soda some color, just to be sociable, you know.”
“Yeah, sure.”
<
br /> I dropped him off at Manny’s Jailhouse Bar, thinking this could be the last time I’d ever see him and wondering how I’d explain to the lieutenant that his old man ended up in the drunk tank in the line of duty.
* * *
The first possibility I checked out was FAM 714, belonging to a guy named Gregory Dupont. He was the right age and size. He was also a clerk in a fancy Wilshire Boulevard shoe store. He wore cute little patent leather pumps and walked without bending his knees. One look at his hands, small, soft, and white, like fluttering sea anemones, and I knew he never did anything more violent than toss a salad. Scratch little Gregory. Though, if I correctly remembered their taste, he might be of interest to Itchy and Bitchy.
BAM 784, a huge dark-brown Mercedes, looked a lot better. Its owner was named Lance Silver. That was enough to arouse suspicion. So was the fact that he billed himself as a producer. Of what, he didn’t say. Probably mischief. I’d seen guys like Lance in L.A. for as long as I’d been there, and in fifty years only the clothes had changed. He was a fast-talking, fast-moving hustler who knew everybody well enough to say hello, and who gave the impression of being at the center of fantastic action, a juggler with invisible balls.
It took me a while to run him down. His “office,” which I suspected was only an answering service, kept giving me new addresses where he could be found as he worked his way down Sunset, but he’d always moved on by the time I got there. Guys like Lance always had to keep going, afraid that if they stopped too long it’d all catch up with them.
When I finally spotted him—going around saying hello to everyone at an outdoor café—I recognized what he was as fast as I’d recognized Gregory Dupont. Only he couldn’t be dismissed so easily. At best his kind was borderline legit, and it never took much to push types like him over to the wrong side. Maybe they started off straight, but since their whole existence was predicated on making the big, easy score, they often grabbed at anything that came along, especially if the Benz was about to be repossessed.