City of Dragons (42 page)

She turned back toward the doors, the craving driving her forward to Gladys, whoever the hell was in front of her.

A flower seller in a dirty newsboy cap insinuated himself in between Miranda and the door. He held out a white rose and tipped his cap, not looking at her.

“Lady like you should be wearin’ flowers.”

Surprised, Miranda stopped, smiled, and took it from his rough hands. Still, he wouldn’t look at her.

She smelled the rose. A little peaked around the edges, but the perfume was good. She wondered why she’d never seen this vendor before, whether he was selling just for Valentine’s Day.

“Thanks, that’s very—”

A low voice scratched her ear, and at the same time she felt something in her back. Something hard.

“I ain’t happy to see you, lady. So you know what this is.”

The flower vendor finally raised his face to Miranda. His eyes said, “Sorry, lady.”

Twenty-Seven

T
he barrel in her back prodded her forward. The raspy voice breathed pastrami in her ear, and said: “Natural like. Move to your left. We’re around the corner, where you couldn’t see us from your window.”

Her muscles tensed at the gloating tone, the sense of superiority. And she remembered something Burnett told her once: “Make ’em underestimate you. Let ’em think you’re nothing.”

So she nodded, letting her arms dangle naturally to the side. She’d play with the boys.

She started to turn toward the left, guided by the pressure on her spine. From the corner of her eye she could see a brown suit, not shabby. From the position of his mouth, he was about six feet, from the voice, between forty and fifty. Breathed a little too hard. Clutched her arm a little too tight. Cheap muscle, not top trigger man.

She walked north down the sidewalk toward the Ferry Building. There were too many people jostling by to hear his footsteps, but she caught sight of his shoes. Cheap, flashy wing tips from Sears. Make that extra-cheap muscle. Probably a local boy, not an L.A. import.

Once they turned the corner, someone else drew up to them on the right, slowly and deliberately. Miranda snuck a glance over, and recognized Bennie, Wong’s gunman. Maybe Wong thought she’d reneged on the deal. Maybe that’s what this was about.

Pastrami Man prodded her toward a dark blue Ford, ’36 or ’37, that waited on the corner. Someone in the driver seat, and one more in the front passenger. A lot of heat for Wong to be burning up. Bennie reached over and opened the car door, no recognition on his face. The gun in her back pushed her forward, and she climbed in, Bennie shoving in next to her on her right, the dime-store torpedo walking around the car and squeezing in from the left.

No one spoke. The driver started the engine. He was wearing a chauffeur’s hat and leather gloves, and from the rearview mirror looked Filipino. Probably one of Charlie’s boys.

The man in the passenger seat turned around and grinned at Miranda. His silky gray fedora and matching doeskin gloves shone dully in the dusk of the car. Hawklike nose, swarthy face, scar over his left eyebrow. White teeth, most false, a couple of gold molars. Brown eyes, predator eyes, calculating the percentage of profit in any action. White silk scarf around his neck.

An L.A. gangster, style cues from Warners, made and bred on the side streets of Santa Monica, the casting-couch city for trouble boys. Gray fedoras and gold teeth were about as plentiful as buxom blondes on a studio lot.

“Well, ain’t she a looker. What a nice mix of business and pleasure … or business is pleasure, as the boss likes to say. I’m putting in my claim right now, boys, after he gets through with her.”

Miranda stared at him, keeping a bored look on her face. “The boss” couldn’t be Wong. That worried her. But they wouldn’t see it.

He didn’t like her eyes. Mottled color washed over his face, and he barked out to Pastrami Man: “You check for a rod, Malone? Roundheels here’s got a ticket, which means she can pack.”

Slight hesitation. Sideways glance at Miranda. Then he lied. “She ain’t carryin’. Bennie here braced her ’fore we got her in the car.”

Bennie sat like a statue, his eyes fixed out the window, his face immovable. Dandy Gun turned around in the seat to look at him.

“That right, Bennie?”

Bennie’s idiot voice came out low and a little sad. “What Malone says, boss.”

Malone laughed nervously, tugging at his collar. “You know how Bennie is. He don’t know his right from his left, but you tell him to do something and he does it. And he’s got plenty of swift where it counts.”

Dandy Gun smirked at the joke, relaxed, glanced briefly at Miranda, and turned forward again. “Yeah. Only place it does count.”

She’d been watching the road, the directions the driver took, though she knew where they were headed. Down the waterfront, a swing around, and back through by Washington Square to Pacific Avenue and 110 Cordelia Street. No one spoke again until they pulled up outside the dilapidated house, the shiny blue Ford as out of place as a Rockefeller in a breadline.

The driver climbed out first, crossed in front, and opened the door for the Italian. Once he stepped out, straightening his gloves, Bennie joined him, while Malone jerked his head at Miranda, and she clambered out on the sidewalk side, directly in front of the house.

Bennie flanked her on the right, Malone on her left, while Little Caesar headed the triumph up the short stairs, kicking off some peeling paint along the way. The chauffeur disappeared with the car, leaving the small driveway empty.

Rap on the doorway, three knocks. Scuffling behind it, answer asked and given. Then the door pushed open, a pool of darkness spilling out over the moving shadows of the porch.

110 Cordelia Street.

Bare lightbulb, old man at the door, wizened face, red eyes, smell of cheap liquor. No rug, rickety staircase swallowed by black. Hallway, doors, basement door by stairway. Odor of sweat and unwashed bodies suffocating, omnipresent.

110 Cordelia Street. The place where they kept the women.

Malone growled “Upstairs” and gestured at her with the gun. She gripped the banister, felt it wobble. Bennie was in front of her, leading the way into the darkness.

On the landing they walked toward the left. Three doors upstairs, some noise behind one of them. Quick sharp groans.

Miranda walked in through an open door into another room with another bare bulb, a table and two mismatched wooden chairs, two cots, and a radio. Malone shoved her toward a chair with the heel of his hand.

“Pat her down, Bennie. Don’t want to lie to the boss.”

Bennie moved easily behind Miranda, and followed her body with his hands as if he were dressing a wax dummy. No lust, not in Bennie. He stopped at the cigarette case, pried it out of her pocket, and handed it to Malone. Miranda forced herself not to turn around.

“Big case, lady. You must like your smokes.”

“Gift from a client—ten carat. I was on my way in for some more Chesterfields when you boys snagged me. Nice work.”

The admiring tone deflected his interest, and he tossed the case back on the table, where it landed with a clank next to Miranda. The latch held, and she let out a small breath.

“You must got some choice clients, lady, but like the boss said—you’re a looker. Turn around and sit down.”

She complied, crossing her legs and leaning back. Malone stared at her, twitching his mouth.

“You really a shamus?”

“Check my pocketbook and see.”

“Don’t get smart with me, sister. Gimme that purse over there, Bennie.”

Bennie had brought up Miranda’s bag. Malone opened it, spilling the contents on the table besides the cigarette case. He fumbled through the compact and lipstick, keys and coin purse, opened the pocketbook, shut it again.

“I’ll take your word for it. Boss says you are, and the other boys say you are. You may remember ’em—they tried to pick you up the other night.”

He laughed, nodding at Bennie to join him, which he did, the gesture automatic and meaningless. Bennie sat in the other chair, staring ahead, laughing for a moment, then blank, utterly blank. She was worried about Bennie. More worried about Wong.

Miranda reached up to rub her cheek ruefully, and Bennie leaned forward, gun in hand. Malone looked over at him, scoffing.

“Relax, jerk. My God, but you’re wound up. Fast and slow, fast and slow, like a goddamn watch that never keeps the right time. She ain’t got no gun, she’s a broad, stupid. We ain’t been told to kill her yet.”

“Your boss must be a top man.”

“Yeah, he looks like one, don’t he? I ain’t a sap, lady, you ain’t getting’ nothin’ out of me.”

“Oh, I know you boys are smart. I’m not asking for a song. I just figured he rates, the way he looks and all. And the way you boys nailed me, and me not even seein’ you coming.”

“Smooth work, she says. Y’hear, Bennie? The skirt says we do some smooth work.” He picked his teeth with his thumbnail, flicked whatever he caught onto the floor. “The boss rates, all right. But he got a boss higher than he is, and I figure that’s who’s gonna decide what we do with you.”

“You got any ideas what they want with me? Warning didn’t take, obviously, but since you boys could’ve dumped me in the Bay by now I figure they want something.”

Malone looked at her, rubbed his heavy chin with a paw, and stuck his hand back in his pocket to feel his gun.

“I don’t know what they want you for before, but I figure I know what they want after. What you get depends on cooperation, sister, always does. You in the mood to cooperate? Maybe a little early cooperation with Bennie and me?”

Her stomach clenched at the leer, and the shakes from no cigarettes were getting stronger. She forced herself to sit back, and rested her arm on the table, near the cigarette case.

“You heard what he said. I don’t think he’d like it if you and Bennie and I got too friendly.”

Bennie made a noise. “Mr. Wong won’t like it.”

Malone looked over at him, disgust on his face. “You’re off the fucking track, moron. Wong’s dead, remember? Knocked off, bumped, croaked. He ain’t here, ain’t gonna be here. Jesus Christ, Bennie, how fucking stupid …”

The gun came up in Bennie’s hand, pointing at Malone. Bennie’s eyes were flat, dull. Animal eyes. Malone choked on the words.

“Jesus Christ, Bennie, put the gat away. I ain’t meanin’ no disrespect, like I said, you’re fast where it counts, and Mr. Wong was a right gee.”

Something in the words pacified Bennie, and he lowered the gun. Malone stared at him for a minute, rubbing his chin again.

“You got the twist covered. I’m goin’ to find out what they want us to do with her. If you go out to take a piss, tie her up and gag her.”

He lumbered toward the door, his skull thick and heavy and shaved close, his brown coat stained with mustard from a pastrami sandwich. Bennie said nothing, just stared straight ahead. Malone shut the door behind him, didn’t look back.

Miranda looked over at the short, squat man in the chair.

Wong was dead. Her best chance gone.

And she was alone in the room with Bennie.

_______

Not a lot of time. Once Malone came back with a decision, they’d follow it. Whatever it was.

She looked at Bennie, opened softly.

“Mr. Wong was a good man, Bennie.”

He grunted, fidgeting with his gun. She tried again.

“Sorry to hear about—”

“—made me kill him. That wasn’t right. Wasn’t right, was it? Him and his hat and his gloves. Just like the big man.”

He was leaning forward, holding the gun out as if he was about to fire it, but not at her. At something she couldn’t see. Bennie was shaking a little, focusing on the door. Goddamn it, use it, Miranda …

She shifted her weight a bit so that her right hand could pick up the case on the table. Bennie trained the gun on her, his eyes still focused on the past. She ignored the weapon, looked at Bennie, at the brown eyes, puzzled, raging, hurt.

“No, that wasn’t right. The man with the gray hat made you kill Mr. Wong?”

He swung his head side to side, like a lion in a zoo cage, and jumped out of the chair. Started to pace.

A shrill scream from one of the other rooms made Miranda jerk her head, made Bennie cock the .38, then safety the hammer again. A few loud thuds and a crash, a male voice, then another, some laughter, a gurgled version of another scream. Then nothing.

Miranda exhaled, started again. “The boss man—”

He pivoted faster than she could follow, gun pointing at her breast, his voice almost hysterical. “He ain’t my boss! Wong was my boss! And he made me kill Wong so he could boss me, but he ain’t! He ain’t!”

Soothing noises. Inarticulate noises he’d understand. He calmed down, sat, his left hand caressing the gun. Her hand was almost touching the case now.

“ ’Course he isn’t, Bennie. Anybody could see that.”

“My wife don’t like it. Don’t like Coppa.”

Coppa. The silent partner in the Martini show. Dandy Gun was Coppa, second lieutenant, the Little Caesar to Martini’s Nero.

“Your wife’s smart.”

He slumped over further in the chair, letting the gun dangle between his knees, barrel aimed at the floor. “Yeah. She don’t like it. She liked Mr. Wong.”