Cohen’s dark eyes flashed from bodyguard to bodyguard. “Fellas, some privacy?”
The two nodded at their boss, but each stopped-one at a time-to acknowledge me, as they headed to a side door, to an adjacent room (not into the shop).
“Semper fi, Mac,” Stompanato said, flashing his movie-star choppers. He always said this to me, since we were both ex-Marines.
“Semper fi,” I said.
Niccoli stopped in front of me and smiled, but it seemed forced. “No hard feelings, Heller.”
“About what?”
“You know. No hard feelings. It was over between us, anyway.”
“Frank, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
His hard, pockmarked puss puckered into an expression that, accompanied by a dismissive wave, implied “no big deal.”
When the bodyguards were gone, Cohen gestured for me to sit on the couch against the wall, opposite his desk. He rose to his full five six, and went to a console radio against the wall and switched it on-Frankie Laine was singing “Mule Train”…loud. Then Cohen trundled over and sat next to me, saying quietly, barely audible with the blaring radio going, “You can take Frankie at his word.”
At first I thought he was talking about Frankie Laine, then I realized he meant Niccoli.
“Mick,” I said, whispering back, not knowing why but following his lead, “I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”
Cohen’s eyes were wide-he almost always had a startled deer look. “You’re dating Didi Davis, right?”
Didi was a starlet I was seeing, casually; I might have been trying to patch up my marriage, but I wasn’t denying myself the simple pleasures.
“Yeah, I met her a couple weeks ago at Sherry’s.”
“Well, Nate, she used to be Frankie’s girl.”
Cohen smelled like a barber shop got out of hand-reeking heavily of talcum powder and cologne, which seemed a misnomer considering his perpetual five o’clock shadow.
“I didn’t know that, Mick. She didn’t say anything….”
A whip cracked on the radio, as “Mule Train” wound down.
Cohen shrugged. “It’s over. She got tired of gettin’ slapped around, I guess. Anyway, if Frankie says he don’t hold no grudge, he don’t hold no grudge.”
“Well, that’s just peachy.” I hated it when girls forgot to mention their last boyfriend was a hoodlum.
Vaughn Monroe was singing “Ghost Riders in the Sky” on the radio-in full nasal throttle. And we were still whispering.
Cohen shifted his weight. “Listen, you and me, we never had no problems, right?”
“Right.”
“And you know your partner, Fred and me, we’re pals.”
“Sure.”
“So I figured I’d throw some work your way.”
“Like what, Mick?”
He was sitting sideways on the couch, to look at me better; his hands were on his knees. “I’m gettin’ squeezed by a pair of vice cops-Delbert Potts and Rudy Johnson, fuckers’ names. They been tryin’ to sell me recordings.”
“Frankie Laine? Vaughn Monroe?”
“Very funny-these pricks got wire recordings of me, they say, business transactions, me and who-knows- who discussing various illegalities…I ain’t heard anything yet. But they’re trying to shake me down for twenty gee’s-this goes well past the taste they’re gettin’ already, from my business.”
Now I understood why he was whispering, and why the radio was blasting.
“We’re not talking protection,” I said, “but straight blackmail.”
“On the nose. I want two things, Heller-I want my home and my office, whadyacallit, checked for bugs…”
“Swept.”
“Huh?”
“Swept for bugs. That’s what it’s called, Mick.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I want-part of what I want. I also want to put in my own wiretaps and bugs and get those two greedy bastards on my recordings of them shakin’ me down.”
“Good idea-create a standoff.”
He twitched a smile, apparently pleased by my approval. “You up for doing that?”
“It’s not my speciality, Mick-but I can recommend somebody. Guy named Vaus, Jim Vaus. Calls himself an ‘electronics engineering consultant.’ He’s in Hollywood.”
Tdark eyes tightened but retained their deer-in-the-headlights quality. “You’ve used this guy?”
“Yeah…well, Fred has. But what’s important is: the cops use him, too.”
“They don’t have their own guy?”
“Naw. They don’t have anybody like that on staff-they’re a backward bunch. Jim’s strictly freelance. Hell, he may be the guy who bugged you for the cops.”
“But can he be trusted?”
“If you pay him better than the LAPD-which won’t be hard-you’ll have a friend for life.”
“How you wanna handle this, Nate? Through your office, or will this, what’s-his-name, Vaus, kick back a little to you guys, or-”
“This is just a referral, Mick, just a favor…I think I got one of his cards….”
I dug the card out of my wallet and gave it to Cohen, whose big brown eyes were dancing with sugarplumbs.
“This is great, Nate!”
I felt relieved, like I’d dodged a bullet: I had helped Cohen without having to take him on as a client.
So I said, “Glad to have been of service,” and began to get up, only Cohen stopped me with a small but firm hand on my forearm.
Bing Crosby was singing “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” on the radio-casual and easygoing and loud as hell.
“What’s the rush, Nate? I got more business to talk.”
Sitting back down, I just smiled and shrugged and waited for the pitch.
It was a fastball: “I need you should bodyguard me.”
“Jesus, Mick, with guys like Stompanato and Niccoli around? What the hell would you need me for?”
He was shaking his head; he had a glazed expression. “These vice cops, they got friends in the sheriff’s office. My boys been gettin’ rousted regularly-me, too. Half the time when we leave this place, we get shoved up against the wall and checked for concealed weapons.”
“Oh. Is that what happened to Happy Meltzer?”
“On the nose again! Trumped-up gun charge. And these vice cops are behind it-and maybe Jack Dragna, who’s in bed with the sheriff’s department. Dragna would like nothin’ better than to get me outa of the picture, without makin’ our mutual friends back east sore.”
“Hell, Mick, how do you see me figuring in this?”
“You’re a private detective-licensed for bodyguard work. Licensed to carry a weapon! Shit, man, I need somebody armed standin’ at my side, to keep me from gettin’ my ass shot off! Just a month ago, somebody took a blast at me with a shotgun, and then we found a bomb under my house, and…”
He rattled on, as I thought about his former bodyguard, Hooky Rothman, getting his face shot off, in that posh shop just beyond the metal-lined door.
“I got friends in the Attorney General’s office,” he was saying, “and they tell me they got an inside tip that there’s a contract out on yours truly-there’s supposed to be two triggers in from somewheres on the east coast, to do the job. I need somebody with a gun, next to me.”
“Mickey,” I said, “I have to decline. With all due respect.”
“You’re not makin’ me happy, Nate.”
