The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles - Ken Kuhlken (funny books to read txt) 📗

the Biggest LIAR
in Los Angeles

 

 

a Hickey Family crime novel

1926

Ken Kuhlken

 

Praise for Ken and his novels

 

" . . . brings a great new character — and a fresh voice — into the mystery field." Novelist Tony Hillerman

 

"Kuhlken is an original, and in these days of cookie-cutter fiction, originality is something to be prized." San Diego Union Tribune

 

" . . . brings the social and cultural scene of the period vividly to life. " Publisher's Weekly

 

" . . . a tale as sensitive and heartfelt as it is action-packed." Kirkus Reviews

 

" . . . takes readers into dark experiences and deep understandings that can't help but leave them changed." Novelist Michael Collins

 

"Kuhlken weaves a complex plot around a complex man, a weary hero who tries to maintain standards as all around him fall to temptation. " Publisher's Weekly

 

" . . . a stunning combination of bad guys and angels, of fast-moving action and poignant, heartbreaking encounters." Novelist Wendy Hornsby

 

" . . . captures the history and atmosphere of the 1970s as well as the complex dynamics of a fascinating family." Booklist

 

" . . . a tale as sensitive and heartfelt as it is action-packed . . . Crime, punishment and redemption." Kirkus Reviews

 

" . . . fast-moving adventure, effectively combines mainstream historical fiction with the conventions of the hard-boiled detective novel." Booklist

 

"A wonderful, literate, and very ambitious novel that does everything a good story should do. It surprises, delights, it jolts and makes you think ." Novelist T. Jefferson Parker

 

“ . . . a pleasure to read.” Novelist Anne Tyler

 

"Elegant, eloquent, and elegiac, Kuhlken's novels sing an old melody, at the same time haunting and beautiful." Novelist Don Winslow

Copyright © 2010, 2013, 2020 by Ken Kuhlken

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2009942190
ISBN: 9781005557126
BISAC: Fiction, Mystery and Detective, Historical FIC022060

Smashwords Edition

Published by Hickey and McGee, 2020.

Hickey & McGee

8697-C La Mesa Boulevard

La Mesa, CA 91942

hickeybooks.com

 

Originally published by Poisoned Pen Press, 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Thanks

 

To Barbara Peters and Robert Rosenwald, to my writing pals Alan Russell, Gene Riehl, Ron Argo, Lynne Kennedy, Mark Clifton, Dave Knop, Maynard Kartvedt, Barbara Hopfinger, Barbara Gardner, and especially to Gary Phillips for help finding my way around old Los Angeles; to all the novelists who made me want to be one; to Jackie Miller of the Foursquare Heritage Center; and to the writers of history, including Kevin Starr, J. Eric Lynxwiler, Kevin Roderick, Ben Proctor, Dennis McDougal, Cecil M. Robeck, and Daniel Mark Epstein, who made my stay in 1926 Los Angeles so enchanting.

Contents:

The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, page one
The Good Know Nothing, a preview

A Request

The Hickey Family Crime Novels

About the Author

For my Darcy, Cody, Zoe, and Nick — who bring me a world of joy.

 

 

THE BIGGEST LIAR IN LOS ANGELES
One

TOM Hickey rented in a court near the intersection of Wilshire and Normandie, halfway between downtown Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. He shared the cottage with his sixteen-year-old sister Florence. Almost six years ago, Tom had snatched her away from their mother, Millicent Hickey, a seamstress for Universal Pictures.

He hadn’t spoken to Milly since the day he and Florence ran off with nothing but his clarinet and a suitcase of clothes between them. At first he believed their mother would track them down, have him arrested or beaten by a gang of her fellow spiritualists. But all these years, she had left him alone.

He credited Leo Weiss for that blessing.

When Tom was in fourth grade, Milly rented a two-bedroom bungalow on Orange between Highland and La Brea. The owners, who lived next door, were Violet Weiss and her Leo, a detective with the LAPD.

At first, Leo and Vi appreciated Milly. She kept the house spotless, and her passion for gardening transformed the yard into a wild yet orderly scene reminiscent of Eden. But soon, Vi caught Milly whipping Tom with a rope while shouting in “tongues.” Leo warned her, politely, hoping to keep Tom and Florence next door where he and Vi could observe and react.

Then Vi rescued Tom after Milly lashed him to a fence post in the back yard and left him while she ran errands. For that offense, Leo threatened jail next time. Milly moved them to Hollywood, several miles away.

Tom snatched his sister when he was sixteen, Florence eleven. A few days afterward, he reported to Leo what his mother had done to the girl. Then Leo informed Milly that although minors running from their guardians was only a misdemeanor, torture was a felony that got rewarded by long prison terms.

NOW, in 1926, before Tom was twenty-two, the other musicians in the dance band he joined last year drafted him to lead, on account of his skill at arranging, though most of them were twice his age.

Tonight the musicians roamed around the vacant storefront owned by Archie the drummers uncle, trading jokes and filling the room with a smoky blue haze.

Tom hoped a high C would grab their attention. He lifted the clarinet to his lips.

Then Oz came loping in. He carried the tattered case that protected his alto sax, and a fistful of leaflets. He shoved a leaflet at each of the boys. As Tom took his, Oz said, “None of you white folks go telling me the Klan don’t be here out west.”

The leaflet was a broadside entitled The Forum.

It declared:

 

LYNCHING.

We who ask to live in peace; who came to this City of Angels hoping to leave the terror behind; who judge no man without cause; who take only our meager share of the promise this nation affords to those unbound by color; who wish to believe that justice will someday prevail, must now pause to weep.

On Monday, the 11th day of October, a gentleman who shall here go unnamed went out walking in Echo Park just as sunlight spilled over Angelino Heights. In the glare of dawn, a vision appeared. So terrible it was, the gentleman believed he had not risen but was in the throes of a nightmare.

A dark man hung limp from the live oak not ten yards off Park Avenue, not fifty yards from Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's majestic temple.

Before this heinous act, the "Invisible Empire," resurrected by Mister D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," would have us believe that in our locale they limit their hooded activities to preserving the Good Book's values by smashing the furniture and windows of speakeasies, flogging the occasional adulterer, marching to protest the election of our first Negro assemblyman, and rallying voters to elect candidates opposed to unfettered growth. Now, with one act, despicable in both substance and symbolism, they have declared war against peace and decency.

The test of a community lies not in the occurrence of sinister deeds. Evil will always live among us. No, the test of our mettle lies in our reaction to manifestations of evil. In the case of this deed, more vicious than simple murder because it targets the spirit of a people, we who seek truth, peace and justice must mourn to our depths more than the loss of an innocent. The implications of the lynching go so deep, they mock the very concept of justice. When public servants attempt to obliterate the truth, they shatter our dreams of a world that could be.

Members of the Los Angeles Police Department carried off the body in such haste, only one early-rising gentleman witnessed the shameful deed. Let the reader judge: has the briefest account of this heinous crime appeared in the Times, the Herald, or the Examiner?

To our knowledge, no publication but the Forum has risked offending the powerful by reporting the murder of Franklin Gaines.

 

The floor beneath Tom rose and fell, as if another earthquake had struck, and worse than any earthquake he had known. He back-stepped and leaned against the brick wall. “Frank Gaines,” he muttered.

Two

TOM would have gone directly from rehearsal to check on Florence. According to his rule, she was to walk straight home following her after-school job sweeping and ushering at the Egyptian Cinema in Hollywood. But the broadside changed Tom’s plans. He caught the streetcar on Pico, transferred to the coach line up Western and Wilshire and hustled the several blocks through the drizzle on slippery pavement to the neighborhood where he once lived.

The Weiss home was a Craftsman bungalow with a low-pitched roof and a rock walled porch extending the width of the house. Leo came to the door in blue cotton pajamas, no robe. He rubbed his eyes and scratched his head through a tangled web of thinning hair.

Though Tom hadn’t seen him in months, since early summer, he didn’t waste an instant on pleasantries. He gave Leo’s meaty hand a quick shake and said, “Who put a lid on the Echo Park lynching?”

Leo peered at Tom as if to assure himself this was no impostor. He scratched his head again, then turned, took a couple steps inside, and flopped into a rose-patterned easy chair with doilies on the arms. “Sit down.”

Tom entered and shut the door behind him.

“Lynching?”

From his hip pocket, Tom produced the Forum, which he tossed. Leo caught it, raised and held it close enough so he didn’t need his glasses. While he read, Tom watched for a reaction but saw the profile of a poker face.

Leo folded the broadside in half and set it on the chair arm. He looked up and shrugged.

“How about it?” Tom said.

“Meaning you want to know did it happen?”

“Meaning I know it happened. What I want is to know what you cops are going to do about it?”

Leo stared above, as though tracing the route of a crack that bisected the plaster ceiling. “What’s it to you?”

Tom folded his hands to keep from shaking a fist. “Besides that a man’s dead, and no doubt a whole lot of colored folks are barricading their doors, and a murderer, or a gang of them, is on the loose?”

“Yeah, besides all that,” Leo said. “See, last month a Chinese couple got robbed. The creep raped the gal and dumped both of them off the Santa Monica pier. You must’ve heard, but you didn’t come running to me.”

“Frank Gaines was a pal of mine.”

“Musician?”

“An old pal,” Tom said. “Long ago, at the mission on Azusa Street, Frank used to take me down the block to the Arkansas Diner, all those times Milly couldn’t break away from the Holy Ghost long enough to feed us. Frank was a gentleman. Not a morsel of spite or bitterness in him. Good will toward everybody.”

“1 see.”

“Meaning you’re going to tell me who put the lid on?”

“Who says I’m in the know?”

“I’m asking, are you?”

Leo shook his head.

“Okay then, are you going to find out?”

Leo drummed his fingers on the chair arms. “No.”

“Oh,” Tom said. “Orders from Two Gun Davis?”

The way Leo grimaced meant Tom had stepped out of bounds, which didn’t stop him. “You’re not a fan of his, are you?”

“He’s my boss.”

“Yeah, and I hear he’s trigger happy as Billy the Kid.”

Leo said, “The city’s crawling with bad guys. Chief Davis is following the will of the people.”

“Which people?”

“Most of them. Listen, back when you belonged to Milly, in one year, more than a hundred of us cops got killed. Maybe you recall?”

“So?”

“So when Davis sends the message about the crook you fail to kill tonight could be the one kills you tomorrow, we’ve got reason to heed his warning.”

“And to