Dead Extra Page 17

  Dave Hammond was a beat cop then. The old man had told him about Lanagan and Carr. Hammond knew who to look for and kept his eyes peeled. One afternoon, just after Jack had gotten back from school, Hammond swung by the house on Meridian with news. Lanagan and Carr had just ducked into a speakeasy on Figueroa between Avenues 56 and 57. The old man picked up a roscoe and said, “Come on, Jackie. Let’s go to work.”

  Hammond and the old man charged down Avenue 52 toward Fig. Jack tried to walk with them for the six blocks across. He couldn’t quite keep up. He’d trail behind and have to jog to catch them again. The two men didn’t talk.

  The old man stopped at a house on the corner of Marmion and Avenue 54. “You two stay out here,” he said. Jack sat on a low wall and watched a cat stalking a bluebird perched in a green jacaranda. Hammond fiddled with his handcuffs. Two minutes later, the old man came out with a galvanized two-quart bucket full of draft beer. He handed the bucket to Jack. “You get a smack for every drop that spills. You got that?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Good. Now you walk in front where I can see you.”

  Jack started up Marmion. He kept a rigid grip on the bucket and walked as slowly as he could. Hammond kicked him in the butt. “Quit crawling, kid. We got to move.”

  Jack sped up. A little beer sloshed out of the pail. The old man cracked Jack across the back of the head. “Pay attention.”

  For two blocks up Marmion and one over on Avenue 56, Jack walked a tightrope between not being too slow and getting a kick in the ass and not being too fast, spilling beer, and getting a hard slap on the back of the head. The old man stopped him on the corner of Fig and 56. He squatted down in front of Jack, took the bucket of beer from his hand, set it on the ground, and took two photographs from inside his jacket. “See these two fellows, Jack?”

  Jack took the photograph and studied their faces, the thick eyebrows and squashed nose of the one, the sleek mustache and chin dimple on the other.

  “I need you to go into that doorway over there and find these two men. Walk up to them and offer to sell them this bucket of beer. If they don’t buy it, sell it to someone else. But you notice where these two lugs are sitting. If they’re sitting at a barstool, you count how many barstools are between them and the door. If they’re sitting at a table, you draw a map inside your head and you come out here and draw that map for me with a stick in the dirt. You pay attention. Tell me what color suit they’re wearing. Tell me if they have a hat on. Tell me who they’re talking to. You notice everything and come back out here to paint that picture for me. Got it?”

  Jack nodded. It seemed like the easiest part of the caper.

  He walked the last half block to the speak with no one kicking or smacking him. He opened the large wooden door with a window slat at the top and stepped into the dark room. He waited for a half minute until his eyes adjusted. A long bar lined the wall to his left. There were no stools for him to count. Two women and six men stood along the bar. No bartender worked behind it. The men had a few bottles between them. An older kid sat on the end of the bar. Jack recognized him from grammar school. A working man in shirt sleeves and suspenders signaled the kid over. He gave the kid some coins and an order. The kid raced past Jack and out the door.

  Six four-top tables sat to Jack’s right. All of them were empty except the one farthest from the door. A man with bushy eyebrows and another with a sleek mustache sat with their back to the wall and eyes on the door. Joe Lanagan and Fast Eddie Carr. Lanagan wore a double-breasted pinstripe suit dark enough to match his wild black hair. Carr’s purple jacket hung over the back of the chair behind him. He wore a white shirt and an empty shoulder holster. His gun sat on the table, barrel pointed toward the door.

  Jack called out, “Bucket of beer. Twenty-five cents.”

  One of the workers at the bar dug into his pocket, grabbed a quarter and flipped it at Jack. The quarter splashed into the beer. Jack dug his dirty hand into the pail, fished out the coin, and passed the pail over to the man. The man shot Jack a mean look. Jack doffed his cap and said, “Thank you.”

  He raced out of the bar and around the corner to meet his father and Hammond. He’d picked up every detail and even drew a map in the dirt. Three times, he told his father that Fast Eddie had a gun pointed toward the door. The old man patted Jack on the cheek a couple of times. “You done good, kid,” he said. “Now run on home.”

  Jack looked at Hammond and the old man, then took off at a sprint.

  He turned left at Marmion and backtracked up toward Avenue 57. Halfway up the block, he heard gunshots: four or five of them in quick succession. Jack picked up his pace. By the time he made the corner of Fig and 57, he could see the old man walking out of the speak. He held Joe Lanagan by the collar with one hand and Lanagan’s money belt with the other. Hammond waited outside to slap the cuffs on the yegg. Fast Eddie Carr, Jack later learned, got himself shot that day, which made Jack the finger man.

  Twenty years later, Hammond shoved Jack’s cheek into a brick building side and fastened a pair of cuffs onto Jack’s wrists. Jack thought about that long-ago bucket of beer and what he’d learned about Dave Hammond over two decades. First, Hammond never did the dirty work himself if he could help it. He let the old man walk into the gunshots at the speakeasy. He sent Jack into all the dangerous situations when they’d been partners. So if Hammond was the one waiting outside for Jack, tripping him up, pointing the gun at Jack with a shaky hand, and slapping the cuffs on, Jack could feel certain that Hammond didn’t have anyone else to do this. So Hammond was working alone here. Jack summed it up. Dave Hammond—three months past his fifty-fifth birthday and never a tough guy when he was young—was out here trying to manhandle a twenty-six-year-old Jack Chesley, who’d survived on his own for months behind enemy lines in Germany.

  Jack relaxed all tension in his shoulders. “You can peel my face off the brick, Dave,” he said. “I ain’t fighting you.”

  Hammond grabbed the chain of the cuffs between Jack’s hands. He pressed the steel of the barrel against Jack’s neck. “You’re damn right, you’re not going to fight.”

  Hammond stepped back and dragged Jack in the same direction. Jack asked, “Which way is your car?”

  Hammond nodded in the direction of Alameda. Jack started walking that way. Hammond lowered the gun. He kept his hands on Jack’s cuffs and walked a step behind. A train whistle echoed across the bare night. Occasional cars sputtered along the downtown streets in the distance. The rest of the street was vacant except for the concrete and bricks and metal shutters and shadows cast by distant lampposts. A ’46 Ford sedan sat parked along the street a block away. Jack turned halfway back to Hammond to ask, “That your Ford?”

  Hammond nodded.

  “Sharp,” Jack said. “I was looking at those when I first got back from Germany. They got a rhino under the hood, don’t they?”

  “It can get up and go,” Hammond said.

  “Don’t want to ride in the backseat with those suicide doors.”

  “Hell, you know Gladys and I don’t have kids. No one rides in the backseat.”

  Jack let a little laugh slip out. “Really? You going to let me ride shotgun, all cuffed up like this?”

  Hammond smiled. “You’re riding in the trunk.”

  And, in that split second when Hammond’s guard dropped, Jack whipped around and head butted him in the nose. Hammond literally walked into the blow. Blood spurted out and across Jack’s face. Hammond accidentally discharged his gun into the sidewalk. He dropped it and raised both hands to his face. Jack swung a kick into the side of Hammond’s knee. The knee buckled from under Hammond, and he dropped. Jack kicked the roscoe down the sidewalk and buried his heel into Hammond’s Adam’s apple. “You got two choices, buddy,” Jack said. “You can stay down because you’re smart, or you can stay down because you’re dead.”

  Hammond lay perfectly still. If he tried to speak, no air could get past Jack’s heel.

  Jack took another quick
assessment of the situation. His hands were cuffed behind his back. Hammond had the keys. Jack couldn’t unlock himself. He couldn’t trust Hammond to unlock him. He couldn’t stand there all night with his heel crushing a cop’s throat. He couldn’t run away or Hammond would pick up the gun and shoot him. He couldn’t pick up the gun himself with his hands behind his back.

  The way Jack had it figured, he could either try to knock Hammond out with a quick kick to the jaw, then rifle around for the keys, or he could go ahead and finish crushing the air out of his old partner, then free himself. Knocking people out was hard. Jack had been around enough to know that. And Hammond was wily. As soon as Jack lifted the foot off his throat, Hammond would start fighting dirty.

  Jack whittled his options down to one choice. He leaned his weight onto the foot on Hammond’s throat. Hammond squirmed and gurgled, grabbing for Jack’s legs. Jack pushed down harder. A car swung around the corner and raced up Third. Jack could see Hammond’s face growing purple in the lights from the car. The driver skidded to a halt with the lights on Jack and Hammond. Jack turned to look. He couldn’t be sure at first, but that little coupe looked just like the one he’d inherited from the old man. The door swung open. Jack caught a glimpse of the driver’s fluffy white cardigan.

  The driver called out, “Jack, Christ, what are you doing?”

  Jack shifted his weight somewhat. He figured it would be enough to keep Hammond down and keep him alive. He said, “Gertie?”

  Gertie ran around to Jack. “What’s going on here?”

  “Hammond jumped me,” Jack said. “I need you to grab his keys and his gun for me.”

  Gertie knelt and grabbed the heater. She tucked it into her purse.

  Jack leaned a little harder onto Hammond. He said, “Dig out the keys to these cuffs and toss them a couple feet away from you.”

  Hammond moved one arm slowly toward his pocket, dug out the keys, and flung them against the wall. Gertie grabbed the keys. Her hands shook trying to work the key into the lock. It took her a couple of tries. When Jack’s hands were finally free, he pulled his Springfield out of its holster. He took one step back. Gertie took several. Jack aimed the Springfield at Hammond’s face. “You can thank Gertie here for saving your life,” he said.

  Hammond looked up at him with a pair of saucers for eyes.

  “I mean it, Dave. This all would’ve been worse if she hadn’t shown up. Be a square gee and thank her.”

  Hammond croaked out, “Thanks.”

  Just as Hammond said this, Jack got hit with a wave of something. His blood tingled and his temples tensed. He could feel his heart pounding and someone inside him screaming, “Kill him! Just fucking kill him!” The trigger of the Springfield felt warm under the middle knuckle of his forefinger. It would be so easy. Just a little squeeze, easier than opening the bomb hatches on his B-24.

  Maybe something in these thoughts crept across his face. Maybe Gertie saw it. She said, “Jackie, take a deep breath and let’s figure this out.”

  Jack sucked in the cool night air. It came in moist and tasted faintly of the ocean.

  Gertie said, “Why did Hammond jump you?”

  Jack waded through his clamoring thoughts and grabbed hold of one. “Bell sent him, I guess.”

  Hammond stayed on the ground. He rubbed his throat. Blood still trickled from his nose. A small puddle of it gathered underneath him. Gertie asked, “Did Bell send you?”

  Hammond nodded.

  “And where do you think he was planning to take you?” Gertie asked Jack.

  “Probably somewhere in the north valley to kill me.” Was that right? Jack spoke the thought as soon as it emerged. He didn’t take time to swish it around and see if it tasted right.

  Hammond shook his head wildly. “No, Jack. No.” His voice came out raw and splintered. “I just wanted to have a talk with you.”

  “You could’ve called him on the telephone to talk,” Gertie said.

  Hammond chanced sitting up. Jack and Gertie both took a step back. Neither stopped him. Hammond said, “Well, sure. Maybe I wanted to do more than talk. Maybe I wanted to knock you around a bit, beat some sense into you. But I was always going to let you live.”

  “How generous,” Gertie said. She propped a hand on her hip and turned to Jack.

  Jack looked at her and looked at Hammond. A little kick couldn’t hurt at this point. Just a little release. Jack whipped his foot into Hammond’s jaw, maybe a little harder than he intended but not hard enough to break anything or knock anyone out. Hammond’s hand slipped out from under him and he flopped back onto the sidewalk.

  Jack pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood off his face. He asked Gertie, “Did I get his blood all over my new suit?”

  Gertie brushed her thumb across Jack’s lapel. “Maybe a little.”

  “Is it ruined?”

  A long red streak of blood sat where Gertie’s thumb had just been. “It doesn’t look good.”

  Hammond struggled to pull himself up again. Jack looked at him and back at Gertie. “Should we go see Bell and find out what this is all about?”

  Gertie shrugged. “Should we?”

  Jack turned to Hammond. “What about you, Dave? You coming?”

  Hammond tucked the foot of his good leg underneath and willed himself upright. He placed a little weight on the knee that Jack had kicked. “I don’t think I can walk,” he said.

  Jack wasn’t about to let Hammond touch him, much less use him as a crutch. He said, “I guess that’s your tough shit, isn’t it?”

  Gertie climbed back into the driver’s seat. Jack unfolded the rumble seat for Hammond, then slid into the passenger seat himself. They watched Hammond hop across the sidewalk and alongside the car. Hammond dragged himself into the rumble seat. Jack tickled the safety of his Springfield and kept an eye on Hammond, but really, with the back window separating him from Gertie and Jack, there wasn’t much Hammond could do.

  Gertie backed onto Third and started winding their way north and east to Pasadena.

  WILMA, 1944

  BROAD DAYLIGHT. The first Sunday of June, 1944. Wilma stood on the porch of her ex-father-in-law’s house and wiggled the blade of a pocket knife against the window lock. Herbert Parker had shown her how to do this. She had practiced on the windows of her own bungalow until she could get the lock loose in fifteen seconds or less. John Sr. didn’t live in the type of neighborhood where people called the cops whenever they saw suspicious activity. Still, Wilma didn’t want to linger.

  She sprung the lock, lifted the dining room window, and crawled inside.

  On the first Sunday of every month for going on a year now, John Sr. had been collecting an ever-growing sum from Wilma and Gertie, then driving it up to Ma Breedlove in Oxnard. The trip took him no less than four hours. Wilma was sure of this. She’d timed it three months running.

  She’d given John Sr. an hour head start, figuring he wouldn’t turn around when he was halfway there. This left her two hours to ransack the place.

  First, she checked the types of spots where Jack liked to hide things: closets, books in the bookshelf, under dressers, and behind the armoire. No luck. She lifted mattresses. She dug under every cushion in the joint. She checked sugar bowls and the folds of dusty tablecloths and between 78s beneath the Victrola. She tapped floorboards searching for a loose one. There were a few in the bathroom. She lifted them. Sure enough, a suitcase of money was stashed there. A few grand, judging from the size and weight of the thing. She knew better than to take any of it. John Sr. would probably stash his ten percent here when he got back from Oxnard.

  The search went on. She checked drawers and boxes for false bottoms. She lifted rugs and picked through the shed out back. Nothing.

  As the morning drifted into the dangerous time when John Sr. might return, Wilma felt her options slipping away. Maybe it wasn’t here. Maybe her information had been wrong. She walked back into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Half of her curly
hair was matted to the sweat on her forehead and neck, the other half sprouted wild off the top of her head. The skin around her eyes was swollen and puffy. Had she been crying without even noticing it? Was she still? She moved in close to her reflection and said, “Think, Wilma. Where did the old man stash the goods?”

  No thoughts came. She leaned back. A trick of the noontime light creeping in the bathroom window exposed a gap between the mirror and the wall. Wilma ran her finger along the gap. Sure enough, something was underneath this mirror. Wilma lifted it gently from its hooks, set the bottom edge onto the rug, and leaned it against the toilet paper roll. A manila envelope was pinned to the wall. Wilma pulled the pin.

  The envelope contained about a dozen photographs, all eight-by-ten, all clear and well-lit. She flipped through them. A couple of the faces she recognized from films. A few other faces she knew from the society pages. The last two she knew from her nightmares: Myrna Laurie and Leslie Bell, going at it like a couple of alley cats.

  She snagged the photo, pinned the other eleven back to the wall, hung the mirror in its place again, and cleaned up the few flakes of paint and dust that had floated down when she pulled the mirror off. She raced out the back kitchen door, locking the doorknob behind her.

  Wilma took the next day off from the hash house. Carlotta Bell and her mother, Lavinia, picked Wilma up at the bungalow. Lottie led them on a white-knuckle ride down Ventura Highway and through Topanga Canyon. Lavinia convinced her to take it easy once they hit the coast road. Lottie slowed her pace down to moderately insane. Lavinia turned back in her seat and asked Wilma a flurry of questions about the Camarillo State Hospital. Wilma did her best with the answers. Problem was, Lavinia had read Wilma’s book so many times that she knew the book better than the author did. She gently corrected Wilma when Wilma’s memory didn’t match up to her prose. Wilma saved the morning by taking her little dobro ukulele from her valise and playing her ode to the bughouse. Lottie and Lavinia sang along to every “When I’m at Camarillo.”