by Sam Moffie
Alexei hated sending the codes to Boris. Not because they were instruments of bad news. On the contrary, there had been many good-news coded puns. It was the neighborhood in Los Angeles that he had to send the messages from that he despised.
Alexei sent the coded message from an old horse racing wire service company that served many capacities for its customers. In the world according to Alexei Aleksandra it was the neighborhood of South Los Angeles and its inhabitants that pissed him off when he had to visit the old wire service place in Echo Park.
“How can such a wealthy country have so many down-and-out people?” he asked Ivan after he had returned from sending the pun.
Here we go again, Ivan thought, knowing his partner’s soft spot for the less fortunate, which Ivan had grown to ignore with each passing day in America.
“America loves winners and hates losers. The people in that neighborhood are losers,” Ivan pointed out.
“I wish I could change that,” Alexei said.
And on his way to deliver the pun, he had made a few people’s day better in the seedy neighborhood where the international cable was available.
For instance, he came across a man who was severely sunburned on his face and upper body. Alexei asked him how he got so sunburned, but the man wouldn’t answer. Alexei took him to a consignment shop that he had seen many times before during his visits to the cable service operator and bought him a few shirts, sunglasses and a hat with a visor. The man nodded his appreciation and cried when Alexei drove him to a pharmacy, which was on the outskirts of the bad neighborhood, and proceeded to buy him not only sunscreen, but also a gel that cooled sunburns. When the man wasn’t looking, Alexei hid a $50 bill in the front pocket of one of the shirts. After driving this man to the Santa Monica pier, Alexei drove back to the neighborhood and parked his car. He was a block from where he had to go when he was almost knocked over by three young youths who were running from a shopkeeper. The shopkeeper stopped to help Alexei and to see if he was okay.
“Are you okay?” the man asked Alexei.
“Never better,” Alexei said, after all, how could three young American youths hurt him? He thought. “What is all this running and bumping about?”
“These kids around here! All they do is steal, steal and steal some more. No discipline, no parents and no cops around when you need one,” the shopkeeper said with a sigh.
“You seem like a nice fellow,” Alexei began “what do you own?”
“A grocery store. And you, what are you doing in this neighborhood?” the grocery store owner asked Alexei.
“I’m wiring some money back to my grandparents,” Alexei lied.
“You would never survive around here. Around here, most people steal from their grandparents,” the grocery store owner said.
“That’s too bad. How much did they steal from you?” Alexei asked.
“Let’s see… three oranges, a pack of cigarettes, four cokes…,” the man began.
“No, not items, how much did it cost you in money?” Alexei asked.
The man who owned the grocery store looked at Alexei — totally stunned that someone would ask him a question like that.
“Well?” demanded Alexei.
“Twenty-five dollars,” the man said.
“Here’s $50,” said Alexei as he reached into his pocket, opened his wallet and gave the man a $50 bill.
“God bless you,” the man said as he walked back to his store.
Alexei smiled and tried to pick up the trail of the youths. He was going to find them, help them and then place the cable to Gila.
“I wonder if Communism would work better if God and religion were allowed?” he said as he found himself trailing the youths in an even worse part of the neighborhood. He looked around and thought God certainly isn’t helping these people.
He thought he had come to a dead end, marked by a high, chain-link fence, when he heard some voices bitching about not having matches. He knew he had found his prey, who were leaning up against a building that was too close for comfort to the chain-link fence. Alexei immediately knew it was a good location for the youths, because a man of his size could never come straight in at them: by the time he reached where the youths were, they would have bolted through a hole in the fence.
“Hello,” he yelled out to the three teenagers.
They froze, thinking that Alexei was a cop. Gave him the once-over and turned their backs on him.
“Hello again,” he yelled out.
“Fuck off, birdbrain,” one of the youths yelled back.
“Is that any way to treat a stranger in a strange land?” Alexei yelled back.
The three boys stopped trying to light their butts, turned to Alexei and walked in his direction.
“What was that again, birdbrain?” the one boy, who Alexei assumed was their leader, said.
“Look, I just met the man you guys stole from,” Alexei said. “He’s a decent guy trying to carve out a living. Leave him alone. He hasn’t done anything to you boys, has he?”
“This is our turf, birdbrain. We take from who want to,” said the leader.
“How about if we play a game. You boys decide who is the strongest. He gets a free punch at me. If he knocks me down, I’ll give you each $50. If he doesn’t, then it’s my turn,” Alexei said.
“I was wrong. You’re not a birdbrain,” said the leader, “you are shit for brains.”
His two companions nodded their heads in agreement. The one with the big mouth took off his jacket and walked toward Alexei. Alexei knew that the big mouth would be the one they would send.
Big mouth punched Alexei on the left side of his face. Alexei didn’t move a muscle and before the boys could react he punched all three of them in their stomachs and knocked them all down.
“Who has shit-for-brains now?” Alexei asked them.
The boys said nothing, they were too busy moaning, rubbing where they had been belted and catching their breath.
Alexei helped each boy get up. They were too scared and in pain to run off or fight him.
“Everyone okay?” he asked them after they were all standing and breathing easy.
They nodded.
“There are better things to do than robbing little stores, no matter where the turf is,” Alexei lectured them.
“Easy for you to say. You don’t starve around here,” the leader of the three boys said.
Alexei reached into his pocket and took out three $50 bills. He handed each boy one of the bills.
“Thanks,” said the leader. “What’s the catch?”
“Try to find another hobby,” Alexei said as he turned to send the cable to his boss.
“Hey mister!” yelled the leader “for another $50, you can hit us again!”
Alexei chuckled and picked up his pace. He had other things to do.
Alexei arrived at the international cable office and couldn’t get started on his task.
Maybe it’s the fact I failed? Maybe I need to realize that killing John Wayne isn’t going to happen? Maybe I need to leave this business? Maybe I need to leave America? Maybe I have to accept the fact that I can’t save everyone with a fifty-dollar bill? Maybe I need to stop asking so many questions? He pondered all this as he took a deep breath, straightened up and went to the window to place his international cable.
“Can I help you?” the clerk asked.
Alexei sent the cable. Of course it didn’t go directly to Moscow. It went to a little town in Eastern Poland named YaYa. In YaYa, Poland his cable would be picked up by the organization that he worked for and sent directly to Boris Gila’s office. YaYa, Poland was the chief training ground for people like Alexei who were being readied to work for Mr. Zavert’s organization. Ivan had been sent there for a crash course in everything that he had learned before they departed for Hollywood.
“That’s a funny cable,” the clerk said to Alexei.
“My family is full of comedians. We always try to make each other laugh,” Alexei said.
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br /> “I understand,” the clerk said as he rolled his eyes at the cable he was sending.
This is what Alexei’s cable said to Boris: “A fish with no eyes is fsh”.
When Boris’ secretary came in with the cable, Boris’ eyes lit up.
“Read it to me,” he ordered.
She took a deep breath and read the message that Alexei Alexandra and Ivan Viznapu has sent him.
“A fish with no eyes is fsh,” she stammered, because she had no idea how one was supposed to pronounce fsh; not to mention having no idea what that message meant. For in a world of spying, where messages were many, this one made absolutely no sense to her.
“Dismissed!” Boris yelled out as he waved her out of his office. “Leave the cable, though.”
And she placed the cable on his desk and quickly exited her superior’s office.
Toughski shitski he thought. He knew the cable was bad news all around. “Lousy pun means lousy results at killing John Wayne.” He said softly. Now he had to go to Mr. Zavert and inform him. He gathered up the message and went to his file cabinet. He pulled out the incredibly large file on the operation that just wasn’t going nearly as well as everything else he had touched since he was promoted, and he headed upstairs to Mr. Zavert’s office. At this point, the only good thing about being Boris Gila was that he didn’t have to make an appointment to see Mr. Zavert. Once inside Mr. Zavert’s huge office, it would only be a few seconds before Boris was allowed entry. About half way to Mr. Zavert’s, Boris decided to try to convince Mr. Zavert to scrap the mission to kill the Duke, call back Alexei and Ivan and find something a lot easier, productive and less expensive for his two men.
He arrived in Mr. Zavert’s office and sat down. The secretary nodded to him and pushed a button on the intra-office telephone.
“Go on in, comrade Gila,” the secretary later motioned to Boris.
“Someday, I will figure out how you two communicate so quickly and silently,” he said to her with a smile.
“No you won’t,” she replied.
“Comrade Gila,” Mr. Zavert said as he rose from behind his mammoth wooden desk to greet Boris. He grasped both of Boris’ hands in his own and pumped them up and down.
“I have failed you. I have failed the party and I have failed Russia,” Gila said softly.
Mr. Zavert stopped pumping Boris’ hands, but gripped them tighter.
“Anything I love more than winning is someone who takes responsibility,” Mr. Zavert said. “You know if this were ancient Rome I would be telling you to go home and fall on your sword.”
“I know. I know,” Boris said. “Would that make it easier?”
“Of course not, comrade. Just idle talk. I see you have brought something. Care to share?” Mr. Zavert asked.
“Trying to kill John Wayne isn’t working and won’t work,” Boris said directly.
“I know they failed. But they have only tried once, comrade. I trained you to be patient… so be patient. The mission stays on as planned,” Mr. Zavert said coolly.
“How do you know they failed? No one else has seen the cable,” Boris said.
“I am not like everyone else. Besides, I didn’t read an obituary in The New York Times or The Washington Post about Wayne being killed. Furthermore nothing came over the BBC or any of the wire services. Tell our boys to hurry up. My superiors are itching for this to happen and I’m telling you to make it happen. Do not even try to get me to scrap this mission,” Mr. Zavert said.
Boy, is he good, Boris thought.
“Keep up the good work, Boris, and bring me the pun that we both long for,” Mr. Zavert said.
“Yes, comrade,” I will, Boris hoped as he walked back to his office remembering that he now had to send a pun back to Alexei and Ivan that would be coded, but would mean that the mission was to press on.
This is the pun that Alexei received when he returned to the international cable office: “A new type of broom came out, it is sweeping the nation.”
And Alexei knew this meant to keep on trying. He walked to the nearest phone booth to call Ivan at Seven Zeros. As he was entering the phone booth he heard someone yelling in his direction. He turned towards the direction of the loud voice. Surprisingly, it was the leader of the boys he had taught a lesson to. A lesson they had obviously learned. For you see, the boys were all wearing aprons and either sweeping up in front of the grocery keepers’ store, stocking items to be sold out front or washing the windows. Alexei turned and saluted them. He then retired into the phone booth and called his partner to tell him about the pun.
“What do we do next?” Ivan asked Alexei.
“Continue to work on our gangster movie and put together another mission to take out Wayne. We underestimated what was going to happen on that prank and overestimated our own clout,” Alexei said.
“I am depressed Alexei, really depressed,” Ivan said with a sigh as they met for the day at their production office.
“I know. We should have been able to carry out our duty to Boris, Stalin and of course to Mr. Zavert,” Alexei said.
“Not about that. Our movie is going to be a real piece of shit,” Ivan said.
“I forgot about our movie,” Alexei said.
“Let’s go to the set and see if we can’t turn it around,” Ivan said.
“While we are there, let me tell Johnny Stomp we need another favor from his girlfriend,” Alexei said.
“Can’t we just stake out Wayne and kill him?” Ivan asked.
“I think the only thing more difficult than that would be trying to stake out Mr. Zavert and kill him,” Alexei said as he ushered his partner out the door.
They arrived at the set; immediately Ivan went to find Barney, and Alexei went to find Johnny.
Ivan was lucky and Alexei was not. Barney pointed out all the things that were going wrong with the set, not to mention the people that he was being forced to work with, and of course the disappearing costumes and props.
“At least the food budget hasn’t been ransacked,” Ivan noted.
“That’s because I got smart, Ivan,” Barney said. “After the first few days of eating high-end Italian specialties, I had the caterer stop those delicacies and just bring in tuna fish, egg salad, peanut butter and jelly with potato chips.”
“If Boris knew that…,” Ivan joked to Barney.
“It was good pay-back,” Barney said.
“Toughski shitski for their taste buds,” Ivan joked. “Is Stompananto around?”
Barney shook his head.
“Let’s get shooting,” Ivan said to Barney. They both walked back to the set and started going over the scene that Barney was working on.
Alexei was shocked in more ways than one when he couldn’t find Stompanato on the set… especially since it was a scene that Johnny Stomp had written especially for their movie. After looking around and asking Johnny’s friends where he was, a rather tough looking, well-dressed but short man asked about his interest in Johnny Stompanato. Alexei had never seen this man before and thought he might be someone they didn’t want nosing around.
He was right on that, which is what shocked him.
“My name is Mickey Cohen,” said the man extending his hand. Johnny has nothing but nice things to say about you, Alexei.”
Alexei shook his hand and said “And Johnny has said nothing but nice things about you, Mr. Cohen.”
Mickey Cohen: If Alexei Aleksandra would have been living in America in the early 1950’s he would have watched the television news’ live broadcasts of the Senate Select Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, better known as the Kefauver Committee from Washington, D.C., and he would have found out that most Americans didn’t say nice things about Mickey Cohen. And, why should they? Except for a few bouts as a prizefighter in his early teens, Mickey Cohen was the epitome of an American mobster. From running liquor for his brother to enforcing for Al Capone and setting up big-time gambling operations in Las Vegas — Mickey Cohen had done it all. And doin
g it all for the Mafia meant killing, cheating, lying, maiming, robbing, extorting and evading. Believe it or not, it was the evading that got Mickey in trouble after he succeeded Bugsy Siegel as the head of the West Coast mob. But it wasn’t evading trouble that got Mickey thrown in jail — after all, when he had found out that Bugsy was dead and received a tip where the hit-men where, Mickey tucked two .45 handguns into his waist and went to the lobby shooting up the place — demanding that the killers of his friend come down and face him. For obvious reasons, they didn’t and Mickey went to prison for evading his taxes.
The American Mafia works very efficiently, especially when one of its bosses is in jail. Mickey Cohen still ran everything from his jail cell, because he trusted captains like Johnny Stompanato to look out for everyone’s best interest.
But now Mickey was out of prison and checking out how Johnny Stomps’ movie-making venture was going.
“Lots of broads around here,” Cohen said to Alexei.
“Hollywood is full of broads… lots of them,” Alexei agreed.
“I don’t like a business that has so many broads around, unless it’s a whorehouse,” Mickey said with a laugh. “Let’s take a walk where we can talk.”
And Alexei automatically knew that he was taking on a new partner. Because in big-time Hollywood, the mob and movies were as close as peanut butter and jelly, and no one knew how to work it better than Mickey Cohen.
The mob knew unions. The mob owned unions. The mob knew movies couldn’t be made without unions, so they extorted money and favors, but mostly money, from the men who ran the studios. If they gave out Oscars for mobsters who knew how to do the aforementioned, Mickey Cohen would have won many Oscars. However, Mickey Cohen was interested in making money, not winning awards, and like many American mobsters he loved his money so much he never paid his taxes, so he was sent to prison where, with the help of Stompanato, he kept control but lost a ton of money.
“Know what the worst thing about being in jail is, kid?” Cohen asked Alexei.
Alexei knew jails, because of what he was back in Russia. He knew that no matter how much Americans complained about their penal system, that it couldn’t even come close to being as horrific as the penal system in Communist countries. He shook his head no.