“Where’s that?”
“At the beach, schmuck. It’s in Ocean Park.”
“Where’s Ocean Park?”
“Santa Monica. You can find the place. I got faith in you. You’re a detective.”
He flashed his smile and walked over to the open cage of the elevator. He was alone; no bodyguards. Despite his pallor, his loss of weight, his obvious lack of sleep, he didn’t seem worried for his life. I guessed it was safe to eat with him.
So I ate with him. Him and Chick Hill and Chick’s girlfriend, a cute little redhead who had taken over for Peggy as Virginia Hill’s secretary, and a smooth, silver-haired guy named Al Smiley, who was a business associate of Ben’s and wore a snappy checked jacket and snazzy blue patterned tie. Jack’s-at-the-Beach was an exclusive little joint, with rough-hewn wood and seafaring touches. We sat near a window where we could watch the waves roll slowly, foaming up onto the sand. It was peaceful, soothing, steady. The sea, the beach, were bathed in silvers and blues, thanks to a clear night and the moon and stars. I had the feeling of being on the edge of the world; and the feeling that that world was a tiny insignificant place in a vast universe. Of course, I’d had several glasses of wine, when all this occurred to me, so I wouldn’t put a whole hell of a lot of stock in it.
“Ben,” I said, after the remains of our seafood dinners had been cleared away and we sat chatting, “if you don’t mind my saying so, you look a little tired. Getting the Flamingo up on its feet’s been an ordeal for you. Why don’t you take a rest or a vacation or something?”
Siegel, who was sipping his single glass of wine for the evening, smiled almost shyly. “I am tired, Nate. And I am going to get away for a few days. My two daughters are coming out from New York by train. To meet me here.”
“Well, that’s great.”
He smiled more broadly, nodded. “They’re great kids. I promised to take them to Lake Louise up in Canada.”
“Now you’re talking,” I said, smiling back at him.
He glanced at his watch. “It’s early yet. Not even ten. How about coming back to the house with us? I got something I wouldn’t mind running past you.”
“I don’t know, Ben…”
He stood, picking up the check. “Aw, come on. Georgie’s gonna drop by around eleven or so, and we can play some cards or something.”
I hadn’t seen Raft this trip; I wouldn’t mind seeing him.
“Sure,” I said. “What house is this where we’re going?”
“Virginia’s bungalow,” he said. “Follow us up Wilshire. We’ll show you the way.”
Thirty-five minutes or so later, give or take, we drew up in front of the Beverly Hills haunts of La Hill, hardly a bungalow, rather a Moorish castle of pale pink adobe with a red tile roof on North Linden Drive. The near mansion had obviously cost big bucks, but it was surprisingly close on either side to its next-door neighbors, and the sloping lawn was relatively modest. I left my A-1 Agency Ford at the curb across the way, while the powder-blue Cadillac driven by Smiley (whose car it was) went up into the car port alongside the house.
Ben and his little party of three came down to greet me at the sidewalk and go up the short flight of cement steps to the walk, where at the front door Siegel produced a solid gold key (a gift from Tabby). Chick and Jerri, who seemed to be an item, had their arms around each other’s waists; Smiley had a newspaper, the early edition of tomorrow’s
Siegel unlocked the door, stepped inside, flicking on the hall light, and we all followed him into the spacious living room.
Which wasn’t a particularly attractive room, despite Virginia Hill’s redecorating efforts. I couldn’t help but think how classy Falcon’s Lair had been (a “dump” to Ginny) and how tacky this room was, with its bronze cupid statue, marble Bacchus statue, oil painting of an English dowager on the wall over the fireplace fighting a nearby art deco study of a nude with wine glass, French Provincial coffee table, the flowery chintz divan clashing with the flowery drapes of the windows behind it.
Siegel settled on that divan, at the right end of it, taking the newspaper from Smiley, who sat down at the divan’s left end. I took a comfortable easy chair to one side of Siegel, who said to Chick and his girl, “Why don’t you kids go upstairs? I want to talk some business with Al and Nate.”
Chick was agreeable to the notion of going upstairs with his little redhead-who wouldn’t have been? — and the redhead was equally agreeable and, so, they disappeared. Ben was glancing at the paper as he spoke: “I’d like you to come to work for me, Nate.”
“Ben, we’ve been down that road before…”
“No we haven’t. I’m not talking about security work.” He looked at me; bloodshot they may have been, but those baby blues were magnets when he trained them on you just right. “I think you got a lot on the ball. You gave me good advice at the Flamingo, when everybody else around me was either kissing my ass or stealing from me-or both, like Moey.”
“It was just common sense.”
“Yeah, well I seen how you’re doing with your own business. Which is to say, very well. I have a lot of legitimate business interests, now-that’s why I wanted you to meet Al, here. We got some feelers out on an oil deal; and we got a legitimate business in salvage materials called California Metals.”
Smiley was smiling, nodding. I didn’t know much about the guy, although Fred had mentioned this “business associate” of Ben’s had a rap sheet as long as a player-piano roll.
“Anyway, I want you to consider getting involved with me on a management level. An executive level.”
“That’s flattering, Ben-but I don’t really want to be doing business with the likes of Jack Dragna or even Mickey Cohen…”
“You won’t be. Those guys are involved in areas wholly outside what you would be. Nate, consider this…”
Glass crashed as gunfire rocked the room, shook Ben like a ragdoll, his right eye flying, nose crushed, and I hit the deck; so did Smiley, who yelped, a bullet nicking his arm. Rapidly, the gunfire, from a carbine, a.30–30 from the sound of it, chewed up Ben and the room, another slug entering from behind his head and turning his face into a mask of blood. Smiley was scrambling across the floor, like a crab, moving past the couch and the dead Siegel and from where I was plastered to the floor; he crawled inside the fireplace. I wish I’d thought of it.
Marble statues shattered; bullets ate patterns in the walls; the dowager in the picture took a slug; so did the nude with the wine glass. Meanwhile, Ben’s head rolled back against the divan as if he finally had found time to rest, but his body danced as more slugs came tearing through the couch behind him, cracking ribs, shearing muscle and organs.
Then silence.
There had been nine shots-a full carbine clip-and I waited, flat on my face on the floor, to see if another clip would follow.
Then Chick, in T-shirt and boxer shorts, was running into the room, a.38 in hand.
“Get down!” I yelled, and he had sense to.
A minute later, though, I moved toward the kid, staying low, and put my hand out. “Give me that-I’m going after them.”
“Who?”
“Whoever killed Ben. Give it to me!”
He did, and I crawled across the room and got up against the wall and edged along till I was next to the windows, that is the yawning place where the window glass had been. I thrust myself into that firing line, 38 held out in two hands, faced the jagged-edged former window, but there was nobody there: just the rose trellis beyond, where the carbine had no doubt been steadied.
I jumped out, feet landing on cement and glass, the latter crunching under my shoes.
I could see a figure moving across the enclosed back patio, by the pool; then he was hopping over the cement fence and into the alley, where a car no doubt waited.
Chick was looking out the window.
“Call Cohen,” I said. “Find out what he wants done, and then call the cops.”
