I was fresh off a job with a few dollars left. I'd cleared enough to pay Mrs. Plaut a month's rent, get my clothes repaired and buy a new Windbreaker at Hy's for Him, and have No-Neck Arnie bring my Crosley back to life, including a new door and a patchwork transmission. I'd also cleared enough to take Carmen, the ample cashier at Levy's on Spring Street, to two dinners, a Jimmy Wakely triple-feature, and an all-night Wrestle-Rama at the Garden. In gratitude for this lavishness I had received two generous wet kisses, a momentary left hand between my legs while I was driving her home, and an invitation to a taco dinner at the apartment she shared with her eleven- year-old son who in his kinder moments called me Wolfman.
I needed work and a fresh start.
I needed the new client in the shadows of the red-leatherette booth, who had told me to meet him at the Mozambique.
'Guy in the booth,' I said to Gannett without turning my head from my drink. 'How long's he been here?'
'Ten, fifteen minutes maybe,' Gannett answered. 'He's four ahead of you. He your old partner?'
'Why?' I asked.
'Looks familiar,' said Gannett. 'And looks like he's spoiling for something. So if you boys are bringing trouble, I'll ask you to find another bar. No skin off my ass either way. Know what I mean?'
'Seems clear enough to me,' I said, getting off the stool.
'That's my motto,' Gannett said, moving down to the army air-corps kid who was buying Herbert Tarryton's and paying for cheap bourbon for himself and the painted girl. She was holding up a hell of a lot better than he was.
'Can you move it, pops?' the tipsy air-corps kid said, waving a five-dollar bill toward Gannett. 'Lady's thirsty.'
'She can hold her liquor,' I said.
'Seems that way,' Gannett said, meeting my eyes.
'I'd say she was maybe fifteen, sixteen tops,' I whispered.
'Just turned sixteen,' Gannett whispered back.
'Pops,' the young man rasped and then seemed to forget what he was going to say.
'She's cute,' I said to Gannett behind the bar.
'Me and her mom think so,' said Gannett.
I nodded. 'Your kid?'
'Family business,' he said. 'Lillian, that's the wife, is too old for it. Bad legs, those veins you know. Varicose. Hard for her to stand and, let's face it, the looks go.'
'Family business,' I echoed.
'Jeannie's drinkin' tea from a bourbon bottle,' he whispered, nodding at his daughter and ignoring the boy in the air-corps uniform. 'She only works two, three nights a week. She's a good kid, she is. Good student. Glendale High. Sophomore. Thinking of going to Stanford if the grades hold up.'
'You must be proud of her,' I said.
'I am,' said Gannett, the barkeep smile gone. 'If you're really undercover, you've got nothing here.'
'No skin off my ass either way,' I said.
'Hey, pops,' the young airman shouted over the piano, 'you gonna wait on us or do we walk?'
'You want another beer on the house?' Gannett said to me as he held up a hand to quiet the kid.
'No, thanks,' I said, turning toward the booths along the wall.
'Talent's all gone downtown,' Gannett said behind me. 'The fleet's always in. The troops are always shipping out. Girls go where the money is. Family man has to make a living.'
The piano man was dourly humming 'I Want To Be Happy' to the keys of his piano as I inched past the two couples at the table.
One of the men, a guy with short gray hair, said,'… and Abie says… he says…' The guy was choking with tears of laughter as he said in what he thought sounded like the voice of an old Jew, 'So vot vould you vant from me, I should pay him cash?'
The other man and the two women at the table broke up. One of them slapped the table.
'Pay him ca…' one of the women gasped. 'Oh, Frank.'
One of the young sailors at the next table had picked up the tail end of the joke. He didn't find it funny. I would have given my old partner seven to four that the young sailor was named something like Bernstein and that he was now waiting for an anti-Semitic punch line. The automatic sensor on the back of my neck was ready to distance me and my potential client from a scene that might make Andy the Samoan's body-rolling act four years ago look like amateur night at St. Anne's Church.
I slid into the dark booth across from the man, who took a drag on his cigarette. The glow showed a familiar but slightly heavier and much more serious face than the one I had expected.
'Peters?' he said.
'Peters,' I confirmed, holding out my hand. He took it Clark Gable was dressed in a long-sleeved black pullover shirt. His hair, graying at more than the temples, was cut military short.
'Where've we met before?' he asked in a manner that could only be viewed as hostile.
'Four years ago. Hearst Castle. I interviewed you about a case I was working.'
'Yes, I remember now.'
'And before that,' I said. 'First day of shooting on Gone With the Wind. I was working security. An extra got killed, fell on his sword. You were there.'
'Yeah,' said Gable. 'I remember that night. I stayed out of the way, talked to a few people on the crew, some extras. Then that guy got killed. Don't remember you, though.'
'I've got one of those faces.'
'Okay, enough small talk. What are you pulling here?' Gable asked as I settled back in the booth.
'Pulling?'
'I don't respond to blackmail or threats,' Gable said, trying to control himself. 'And I don't have much left in the way of patience or understanding.'
'I'm missing something here,' I said.
The piano player rolled 'Anything Goes' to a gentle flourish and applause from Lester's daughter.
'Wow,' Sidney cried from the bar.
'Thank you, lady and bird,' the piano player said wearily as Gable handed me a folded piece of paper. I spread it and read the typed poem:
They die until you understand, They die by weapons in my hand. My father wept to be so cut From fortune, fame deserved, but I'll avenge the wrongs and slight To be there e'er the Ides and right Those wrongs and claim his prize And give to you a great surprise. First there was Charles Larkin And next Al Ramone. Do barken For on it goes and blood be thine Unless you learn to read my s.i.g.n.
When I'd finished, I looked up at Gable, whose hands were folded on the table in front of him.
'Turn it over,' he said.
I turned it over. My name and address were printed in the same ink and same handwriting as the poem. I looked up at Gable, as the piano player said without enthusiasm: 'And now, direct from appearances on the 'Voice of Firestone' and major roles in such movies as They Got Me Covered and Gone With the Wind…'
'You don't get it, do you?' Gable said, his eyes narrow, unblinking.
I started to speak but Gable nodded toward the bandstand. I looked toward the piano player, who was saying, '… San Fernando Valley's answer to Bing Crosby, Nelson Eddy, and Russ Colombo all rolled into baritone- Alan Ramone.'
More applause from Lester's kid, Jeanne. Frank at the next table, who had just launched into another Jewish joke, lowered his voice.
Alan Ramone, wrinkled suit, carrying about thirty pounds more than his fighting weight, wearing one of the worst hairpieces outside of Hollywood, walked onto the stage. His face was powdered. His teeth were even and false. He nodded in appreciation of his fabulous introduction and the nonexistent applause.
As the singer moved to the unnecessary microphone at the edge of the bandstand, Gable produced a newspaper clipping and slid it toward me. I laid it on top of the poem. It was from the Los Angeles Times., dated February 21, a week ago. The piano player ruffled the keys and Alan Ramone's less-than-solid flesh and more-than-
