“I never hurt nobody, Grace. That’s the first thing and it’s the truth.”
“Okay, what’s the rest of it?”
“Dope,” he said flatly.
“What, grass?”
“Horse.”
“Jesus.”
Frank hung his head.
“I never did it and I never sold it. I moved it, and I mean lots of it. Me and another guy, named Jimmy, we’d pick it up in Tijuana and drive it back over the border with a false bottom in the car.”
“That’s serious, Frank,” Grace said. “That’s serious time in the pen.”
“If you get caught, sure. I never did.”
“And you didn’t talk?”
“Never.”
“Then why Petey? What was his stink?”
“Started back in September. We were picking up a load…”
“You and this Jimmy?”
“That’s right. Got the car all rigged up and ready to head back to the Land of the Free. We made it across the border fine, just like always, but along these crummy backcountry roads to San Diego we got hijacked.”
“Hijacked! By whom?”
“Never found out, and I don’t guess it matters much now. Point is, these guys — two Mex and a colored fellow — ran us off the road and put the guns to us. I was ripe to give it over, because who wants a belly full of holes? Jimmy figured different. That old kid kept a shooter under his seat, and once he got a hold of it he came up shooting. I went down to the floor, I’m no dummy, and by the time the smoke cleared there were four corpses where there used to be five guys. I was the last one standing, or cowering if you like. Jimmy took care of those bastards, but it cost him his life.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Grace said with some caution. Neither of them was paying the slightest attention to their coffees, but both of them smoked like chimneys.
“No, it wasn’t. What happened next was a different jug of hooch. I got out of there, of course, and I hate to tell you but I left poor old Jimmy with the men he’d killed.”
“Right there on the road?”
Frank nodded soberly.
“I veered away from San Diego proper, made it fast as I could to a wide-open field in the Little Landers where I burned the car — horse and all.”
“There it is,” said Grace. She understood now.
“Yeah,” Frank said. “Probably five grand worth, up in smoke along with a swell Bearcat, too. I didn’t have too many friends after that.”
“Why didn’t you leave town, Frank? Head east or someplace safe?”
“I’ve got cheese for brains, for one. And where’s safe, when they’re all connected up? The fellas in Los Angeles are linked up with the fellas who run every other town between here and New York. All it takes is a telephone call to set the ball rolling and I’m Public Enemy Number One.”
“But they must have been gunning for you all this time.”
“They weren’t, which is how I got so sloppy. The way I see it now, I must have been watched ever since, to see if I kept onto that heroin. When they finally decided I didn’t have it, the order came down to finish me off. It just happened to be the night we were out together. God almighty, Grace, I’m so sorry for that.”
Grace sucked in a ragged breath and brought her cup to her lips. She sipped and made a face — cold. Shaking that off, she sat up ramrod straight and said, “The answer to our dilemma seems quite obvious then.”
“It’s obvious to me, too,” Frank said. “I got to get the hell out of here. You’ve been a regular peach taking care of me, and I’ll never forget it, but you don’t need this hell. I was plain stupid to think I could hide in plain sight from this mess and the last thing I want is to get you mixed up in it any more than you already are. Just let me get a fresh dressing on this shoulder and I’m gone, Grace.”
“You are stupid,” she said, “so you should listen to a clever girl for a change. I happen to earn a damned enviable wage acting in this picture, you know. Five grand isn’t exactly chicken feed to me, but I can swing it. We’re going to pay off these gangsters so they leave you be for the rest of your long, marvelous life.”
“You’re crazy,” he protested, gingerly touching his aching shoulder.
“That’s probably the truth, too. And you know, if that Bearcat was theirs, we’ll have to cover that, too. Make it seven thousand. I can have that in cash inside a week.”
“No, definitely not. I wouldn’t allow it.”
“Who’s asking permission?”
“This would ruin you.”
“What, you think this is my last picture? I’m just getting started, Frankie baby. This crummy bungalow will be a distant memory by this time next year. And these rotten gangsters you’ve been so worried about? Completely forgotten.”
“They won’t accept it.”
“How do you know? Have you tried?”
“These men kill people, Grace. Reason isn’t quite among their stronger virtues.”
“It’s worth a try, Sonny Jim. We have to try.”
“You don’t owe me a thing.”
“I take care of my friends. We’re friends, aren’t we, Frank?”
“You know we are, Grace. I’ve never known a better friend than you.”
She rose to her feet and pranced elfishly to the larder, where she found a decent vintage of pre-Prohibition wine and came dancing back with the bottle and a corkscrew.
“That Carrie Nation was still soiling her bloomers about hooch when this was bottled,” she said with a devilish grin. “What say we celebrate the end to your little problem?”
“Little is a relative word if I’ve ever heard one.”
Grace popped the cork and filled the coffee cups.
She said, “Salud!”
21
Her name was Louise, but in Ray Warren’s little black book she was listed at Lou-Lou Vanderbilt. I remembered the pseudonym, because it was one of those with a notation beside it from Mr. Charm himself. That alone told me half her story. She told me the rest over burned coffee that tasted like lead at Mel’s on Sunset.
“I came out here from fucking Little Rock to be an actress. It’s easy to think you can do that shit when you’re from nowhere. I wasn’t here a month before I found out I’d kidded myself into a goddamned pipe dream. I was waiting tables at a titty bar in Venice and doing two auditions a day. No callbacks, no nothing. Maybe I didn’t have it. Or maybe I’m just a small fish in a big sea.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Ray discovered you at the titty bar.”
“Easy guess, but you’re right. I had to deal with plenty of fucking creeps, but at least I was dressed. Well, mostly. Ray told me I had class and a lot of it. He wasn’t even interested in the girls on stage. The son of a bitch gave me his card, told me he had a system. He’d made careers for girls like me. He even said I could go ahead and give notice right then and there. I wasn’t going to need no damn job anymore.”
“Did you?”
“Not that night, but inside a week I did. I made more doing four shoots a week for Ray than six nights a week at the club ever netted me. And nobody touched my ass.”
“Not even Ray?”
“Not at first. I know he looks like a total frat bro, but he can charm the panties right off a chick. I’m a fucking retard, but I’m hardly the only one. Besides, I thought I was going to be famous and shit.”
“Famous for what?”
“What do you think?”
I raised my eyebrows and sipped my coffee.
“He says he’s not in the porn business,” she continued, “but that’s complete bullshit. It’s his bread and butter. I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with it, but he grooms girls to trick them into it.”