Neon Nights: Daymond Runyon meets James Ellroy in the Nevada Desert

by John Hudson

  The sign at Jimmy's Tropical Bar and Grill had huge neon palm trees that moved their fronds up and down every few seconds. The sign was classy but the place was a dump. It didn't seem to matter since the place was usually packed. I wasn't here because of the sign or the ambiance, I was here was to find one of my snitches. For some unknown reason he liked Jimmy's, and if I was lucky, I'd find him lurking around. Even if he wasn't, at least, I could stand to hang out at Jimmy's. It was a whole lot better than some of the other places he liked.

  I arrived at dusk and the palm trees were already beckoning the weary to come in. I opened the door and was hit by a cold blast of refrigerated air followed by a stiff jolt of raucous jazz. The jazz was okay but the air was freezing cold. Jimmy kept it that way so the patrons would have to drink to stay warm. I ordered a shot of dark rum and a glass of water. The waitress gave me a weird look and I couldn't blame her. The combination of rum and water sounded horrible to me too, until some British sailors got me to drinking rum and water during the war and eventually I got to like it. The waitress shivered when I poured the rum into the glass of water. She asked if I wanted anything else, and I asked her if she'd seen Gene Malloy. She gave me a blank stare and I added, "Maybe you know him better by the name Bottles."

  The waitress's face broke into a smile. "Sure, I know Bottles. He should be in later."

  One thing this place had was a hot jukebox. Jimmy kept it that way because a lot of his clientele were musicians and hipsters who hung out here and they insisted on listening to good tunes while they drank themselves stupid. This combination of booze and music suited Bottles, since he was an off-and-on musician and a devoted drunk and junkie.

  I looked around the room, and I thought how lucky a couple of guys, sitting in a back booth, were I wasn't with Las Vegas vice. The patrons didn't seem to mind their brand of action and I ignored them. I sat and grooved to the tunes of Roy Brown, Johnny Lee Hooker, Joe Liggins and Stick McGee for about an hour, before Bottle's stumbled in the front door.

  He got his nickname because he wore glasses that looked like the bottoms of Coke bottles. His ability to navigate in this world was further impeded by the fact he was always screwed up on one thing or the other. He sat at the bar and ordered a drink. I moved over and sat beside him. He looked right at me but didn't recognize me. He picked up his drink and I said, "Hey, what's going on?"

  Bottles cocked his head to one side and looked at me. "Not much man, how's it going by you?"

  He still hadn't recognized me, but I didn't want to identify myself to the other patrons of the bar."Real good, and Velvet Harry was wondering if you're playing any gigs. It's been awhile since he heard you."

  The name Velvet Harry made the connection. Bottles moved in real close and strained to see who I was. When I saw a flicker of recognition dawned on him, he recoiled like I slapped him. He looked around nervously and said he (in a shaky voice) "Oh lord, it's you, "Jeez-man, what do you want?"

  "Hey, that's no way to talk to an old friend, is it?"

  Bottles shook his head violently. "You ain't no old friend of mine--man!"

  "If I wasn't your friend, would I have saved your butt from spending the next fifteen years in the pen like your buddy Velvet Harry?"

  "That was a trumped up charge and you know it! We didn't do anything!"

  Bottles always gave me the same old lame crap about his innocence, and I'd have to remind him why he owed his freedom to me. It was getting old and I wanted him to know it was. I grabbed his arm and leaned into him "Knock it the hell off! You know as well as I do that the law doesn't look kindly on persons who are caught in a hotel room with a fourteen‑year-old girl and a half once of Mexican heroin. The law doesn't give a damn if you're the person the room is rented to, or just visiting. Either way they want you to spend sometime at their expense. After we nailed Harry, I was willing to let you walk. But now you're making me wonder if I should have been so kind. Maybe I ought to call the Reno Police and tell them I want to change my statement." Bottle's turned pale and started to shake.

  He took another drink and shook his head. "Hey man, you don't have to get nasty, I just figured it would be over by now. You know--like I've paid my debt to society."

  Bottle's logic was laughable. "Your debt isn't to society--it's to me, and you'll pay until I say it's even. You got that?"

  "Yeah, I got it. I'm your snitch forever, right?"

  I didn't reply because Bottles already knew the answer. "Come on, Bottles, don't take that attitude, think of it as doing your civic duty."

  Bottles stared at his drink and asked (in a low voice) "What civic duty do you want me to do this time?"

  "Just a simple little thing, I want you to find out all you can about what happened to Johnny Del Rio."

  Bottles stared waving his hands and said, "You don't give a damn what happens to me, do you? Those mob guys play rough if they even suspect you're a snitch."

  "Then you'd better be careful!"

  Bottles slid off his stool and looked at me. The lenses in his glasses made his eyes look three times as large as they were. "Sometimes, I wonder if you did me a favor or not back in Reno! At least in jail I wouldn't have to worry about my knee caps!"

  He turned to leave and I grabbed him by the arm. “Pronto is the word of the day on this one comrade.” I let go and he stumbled toward the door.

  I watched him leave and I thought about what he said. Most of it was self-serving crap but he was right about one thing. He, like all snitches, was a tool to be used and then discarded until I needed him. Maybe it wasn't fair, but Bottles put himself in this position. He might say differently, but we both knew he was a whole lot better off on the outside than he'd be on the inside. I finished my drink and went looking for another one of my snitches, Danny Daily.

  After a couple of dead ends, I heard Danny was shooting pool at El Rancho Billiards. El Rancho Billiards was way out of town and it wasn't much to look at when you got there. Most of the deputy sheriffs called it El Rauncho Billiards and it lived up to its nickname.

  The front of El Rancho Billiards was what passed for a cigar store. It was also well known they sold a whole lot more "Mexican" tobacco than anything grown in Virginia. The hop head who owned the place was careful about how he did business, and El Rancho Billiards had only been rousted a few times for selling marijuana. Most of the local vice guys figured as long as the hop heads sold mainly among themselves, they'd leave them alone.

  Behind the cigar store was the pool hall. I couldn't tell if Danny was here or not. It was dark as a tomb with the only light illuminating the pool tables. After my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw who I was looking for. Danny was in the middle of a game, and I'd have to wait until he was finished plucking his pigeon. I stood where he could see me, and when I caught his attention, he smiled and pointed with his cue-stick to a small table near the wall.

  I bought a beer and watched Danny at work. He moved around the pool table with the grace of a predator. He moved quickly, only pausing to rub the end of his cue stick with a cube of chalk. Then he'd settle down behind the cue ball and, with a stroke that was born from years of practice, send the cue ball on its way, down table. Each time he did, a colored ball would find a pocket and disappear with a clunk. The game was down to the last ball, and the cue ball rebounded off the cushion and stopped almost in a straight line with the money ball. Danny moved in quickly for the kill. He dropped the ball effortlessly into the corner pocket and his opponent threw money on the table. Danny scooped it up and asked his opponent if he'd like to play another game. The man shook his head, and Danny tried to encourage him by offering a handicap. But he didn't accept Danny's offer. When Danny offered to shoot left handed, the man walked away. Danny motioned to me to join him at the pool table. "Grab a cue," he said as I approached. "And rack the balls,--I'll be right back." It took me awhile to rack the balls since I rarely played pool and I had to figure out, in nine-ball, the balls were racked in a diamond rather than a triangle. Danny returned wit
h a drink in his hand and rolled the cue ball towards me. "Go ahead and break."

  Not wanting to make a fool of myself, I demurred, "No, you can break."

  Danny lined up the cue ball and hit it with considerable force. It hit the rack of balls and made a resounding crack. The balls scurried around the table, slamming into each other and the cushions. The four ball found a pocket and dropped in. Danny smiled and asked, "What are we playing for?"

  We both knew this would be no contest. The wager was just Danny's way of asking what I was willing pay for his information. "I'm feeling lucky...How about five."

  "Okay, five it is..." Danny bent over the table and looked to see if he could make the one ball in the side pocket. He lined up the shot and while he was bent over, asked so only I could hear him, "What do you need?" Before I could answer, he stroked the cue ball and it sliced the one ball into the side pocket.

  "What have you heard about Johnny Del Rio?"

  Danny stood up and walked around the table to look at the two ball. He said as he bent over, "Some people are real upset about Johnny. It seems they're upset enough to offer some serious money if someone will tell them who did Johnny and why." Danny effortlessly rolled the two ball into the pocket. The cue ball rebounded, and he shot the three ball without ever straightening up.

  "How much is it worth to them?"

  "More than you got."

  "Has anyone claimed the money?"

  "Nobody so far, but the offer only went out a couple of hours ago." I asked him where the offer came from, and Danny pointed his cue up in the air. "It came from on high." He walked around the table and used the tip of his cue to carefully line up a combination shot on the nine ball off the five. He hit the five ball into the nine. It rolled across the table, and with a clunk it disappeared into the corner pocket. Danny looked pleased with himself. "Do you want to play another game? That was just luck."

  Even though I was a cop, that didn't mean Danny wouldn't hustle me. "Luck my ass. You're too good for me."

  Danny held up his hands. "No problem, I'll spot you some balls, we can even it out."

  I took out a five and handed it to him. He grabbed it but I held on. "I want to know if anyone claims that money." Danny shrugged his shoulders and nodded in agreement. I released the bill and he put it into his shirt pocket. Danny wasn't like Bottles. He hadn't been caught wrong and had to snitch to keep his butt out of jail. Danny was a business man. He expected to be paid for his efforts and had no allegiance to anyone. Whoever was willing to pay got what he knew but he wasn't stupid. He could get into a jam by withholding information and he'd call if he heard something. He probably would make a few calls before he got around to calling me, but there wasn't much I could do about that.

  I hung up my cue and finished my beer. I left Danny amusing himself by shooting the cue ball around the table. As I walked to my car, I smelt the distinctive odor of marijuana drifting out of an old Pontiac parked in the shadows. Inside the Pontiac a guy said something a lady found real funny by the way she was laughing. Smoking boo was against the law. But I had the makings of a gang war which threatened to have bodies dropping all over the place and popping a couple of hops for taking a hay ride wasn't high on my list of things to do.

  It was almost midnight and I'd told Dick I'd meet him back at the station at twelve-thirty. When I arrived, Dick was talking to an old harness bull who ran the front desk. They were telling each other cop stories and eating doughnuts. I sat on the bench and waited for Dick to finish his story. When he did, the desk sergeant let out a loud guffaw. Dick picked up his coffee cup and ambled into the squad room. I fell in behind him. He looked over his shoulder at me, "Did you have a fruitful night?"

  "I picked a few plums. A juicy one is Vinnie Costello is offering a lot money to find out who did Johnny. So far no one's stepped forward to cash in."

  Dick nodded, "I heard the same thing. He's just covering his tracks by offering money he knows he'll never have to pay out." Dick took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and fished one out. He lit it and sat on an old leather couch in the squad room. "You got anything planned tonight?"

  "No, why do you ask?"

  "The FBI's got an operation going on and the head agent, Ted Kemper, wanted to know if we'd like to tag along--you game?"

  "Sure, what's going on?"

  Dick took a big drink from his cup. From the slight wince when he swallowed, coffee wasn't the only thing in the cup. "He didn't say. All he said was it involved a big mob guy." Dick drained his cup and stretched out on the couch. "I'm going to try and get some sleep. The Fed's party doesn't get underway until three-thirty."

  Chapter Three

  Desert Days

  There was no where to sleep in the squad room so I went out to my car. The seat of a nineteen-thirty-nine Ford coupe wasn't that comfortable, but I was able to fall asleep. It didn't seem like I'd been asleep any time at all when I was awakened by a flashlight beam in my eyes. Dick tapped on the window and said, "Hey, sleeping beauty it's time to get up!" A cold blast of air hit me in the face as soon as I got out of the car. I'll never get use to the extremes of the desert. You were never quite comfortable either in the day or night. Nevertheless, the weather was just right for Las Vegas. It, like the town, was on the limit of extremes. Bugsy did good when he picked this place to build his dream of paradise.

  Dick greeted me and told me, "Grab a cup of joe and I'll introduce you to Agent Kemper." He'd forgotten I didn't drink coffee and it was too early in the morning to explain why I didn't. Instead, I snagged a doughnut and followed him down the hall. He opened an office door and sitting at a desk was a young man. He looked like a typical college boy, which was exactly what the FBI wanted their agents to look like. Dick motioned over his shoulder and said, "Agent Kemper, this is my partner, Kelly O'Brien."

  He got up, extended his hand and smiled. "Hi, I'm Ted Kemper." He sounded like he was introducing himself to a fraternity pledge during rush week.

  I shook his hand and told him, "We've met before."

  It was obvious he didn't remember me but he wouldn't admit he didn't. "Of course we have. I thought you looked familiar."

  With the niceties out of the way, he got down to business. He pointed to a map on his desk. "This is where we're going to be paying a visit this morning. We plan on taking the suspect while he's still in bed. We've found it's an effective way of minimizing any threat of resistance."

  Dick said, "That's not what my ex-wife would say. She said I was most dangerous when I woke up unexpectedly."

  I giggled at Dick's joke, but Ted Kemper looked confused. When he realized it was a joke and gave a polite laugh. He looked at his watch and frowned. "If you're ready, we'd better get on the road."

  We followed him west on Charleston out into the Calico Hills. The area we were going to was currently being developed into half-acre "ranches". We turned onto an unmarked street and Agent Kemper stopped at the last house on the left. He got out of his car and was met by several more agents who appeared out of the darkness. When we approached him, Kemper held up his hand. "You guys had better stay here and let us handle this." Dick made no attempt to argue the point and we went back to our car to watch the show. Kemper gave a signal and the agents surrounded the house. Then two agents ran up and kicked in the door. As soon as they did, most of the other agents rushed into the house. All we could see were flashlight beams gyrating wildly, giving the house an eerie look. When the lights came on, Kemper appeared at the front door and motioned to us. Inside, sitting on the couch, wearing a red dressing coat was a small man with a big nose. Tuffs of white-hair stuck up in a chaotic manner. He was handcuffed and looked quite harmless.

  Dick shook his head and asked; "Is this who you needed ten agents and a raid at four in the morning to catch?"

  Kemper, overflowing with pride replied, ”Yes.”

  Dick sat next to the man. "Hell, if I'd known you wanted to talk to Al Bernstein, I'd have given you his phone number. You could have called him up and he'd
have stopped by the station."

  Kemper disagreed, "I doubt highly he'd have done that!"

  "Eight to five said he would. Of course he'd have shown up with his lawyers, and I'll agree they're a dangerous group."

  Kemper didn't look amused and motioned for the agents to take Al Bernstein outside. Kemper snapped, "I'm glad you found this whole thing amusing!"

  Dick jumped to his feet and pointed at Ted Kemper. "Take it easy, kid. All I'm saying is guys like Al Bernstein aren't dangerous. Hell, Al probably hasn't shot a gun in his life and if he ever did, it wasn't in anger. He fights with his lawyers, and dragging him out of bed isn't going to work, especially if you don't make your case. He'll sue your butt from here to L.A. just for the fun of it." Dick walked to the door and stopped, "Take a little advice. If you got to do this cowboy crap, at least do it after he's had his morning coffee. Then maybe he won't sue you for everything you got."

  Once Ted Kemper got Al Bernstein back to the station, he tried, unsuccessfully, to interrogate him, but all Bernstein would say was he wanted his lawyers, and a cup of coffee. Finally, Kemper let him call his lawyers and within twenty minutes they were swarming all over the place. After they arrived, they wouldn't let Kemper anywhere near him. Dick and I watched, for half an hour, Kemper's futile attempts to get around them. While an argument was going on about taking Bernstein's handcuffs off, Dick walked across the room and whispered something to Al. He nodded his head and Dick moved away.

  Ted Kemper stomped out of the station after Bernstein made bail. After he left, Dick suggested we, "Go for a ride."

  We took me on the same route we traveled early this morning back to Al Bernstein's house. Dick knocked on the newly replaced front door and some Mexican kid opened it. "Tell your boss Dick Pearson is here to see him."