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

meet with Socrates.”

“You be coming to the wrong place,” the barber said.

“What’s the right place?”

“City Jail. He been a guest of the police since last night.”

Forty-six

TOM decided his sister was safe enough until school let out. Socrates, in jail, wasn’t safe for a minute. You don’t write the truth without making a host of enemies amongst the liars.

Waiting in a Hall of Justice line, Tom felt like a different, more desperate man than yesterday. Now, he figured his mother as a likely accessory to murder. He longed to avenge the wrongs done to his sister. And if anyone but himself stood a chance of preventing a bloodbath, he couldn’t guess who it would be.

The one advantage he could recall of growing up with Milly, his good manners, failed him. He had waited in a line five deep, rapping his knuckles and checking his Elgin every minute or so. When he reached the desk officer, the fellow excused himself and began shuffling papers.

Tom reached over and slapped the papers flat onto the desk. “I’m here to see Mister Kent Parrot.”

The officer was a puffy fellow with a black streak on the temple of his mouse brown hair. All the people in front of Tom, he had treated with admirable patience. “Is that so?”

“It is.”

“On what business?”

Tom felt like saying, I’m planning to toss him through the window into the street, in traffic. “Murder. Tell him my name’s Tom Hickey. Played football for USC, like he did.”

The officer’s eyes rounded. “Follow me,” he said.

He opened a gate, led Tom around desks whose occupants watched his moves. From their faces, he guessed he had spoken his name too loudly and what they knew of him wasn’t all about football.

The officer led him to a wing beyond the common room and to an unmarked door. He told Tom to wait outside, rapped on the door and entered. Tom moved closer and tried to listen, but whatever was said inside got drowned beneath gab and shouts from the common room.

When the officer came out, he left the door open and nodded in that direction. Tom entered, crossed the room in a couple strides, and planted himself in front of glossy teak desk behind which stood a tall, solid, dark haired man with a square face, a navy-blue pinstriped suit, and a lighter blue silk tie tacked to his shirt by a king-sized diamond. He offered his hand and a curious smile. While Tom reached across the desk and they shook, the man said, “I never did quite grasp why you left the school, the team.”

“Other obligations.”

“Busy fellow, aren’t you, Tom?”

“You ought to know.”

“Have a seat.” Parrot motioned to a pair of chairs beneath a side wall adorned with photos of Governor Young, President Coolidge, Mayor Cryer, and Chief Davis, all of them stern.

Tom remained standing. “Sir, if you want to waste your manpower following me, that’s your business, and I don’t mind. But I’d appreciate if you’d get word to Detective Fenton Love, tell him if he’s of a mind to assault or harass my sister again, he’d be wise to kill me first.”

Parrot nodded. “Anything else?”

“Matter of fact, though it’s hardly my place to advise a person of your stature, it’s my sense that jailing a publisher on account of his reporting could be the end of you.”

“A threat, Tom?”

“No sir, a warning. I believe it’s been proven by our forefathers that you can only push folks so far. And when you and the news gang cover up a lynching and then step on whosoever speaks the truth about it, about the time it backfires and the shooting starts, one of those fellows on the wall is bound to go looking for a scapegoat. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re it.”

“This jailed publisher would be?”

“Name’s Socrates, of the Forum.”

The man reached for a pen and jotted the name. “Crusader, are you, Tom Hickey?”

He considered that a real question, and one he needed to answer for himself. He gave himself moments to ponder. “At least if it looks like I’m the one guy willing to do what needs to get done.”

“Admirable.” Parrot leaned his elbows on the desk. “And nothing I say or do will convince you to go home, play your instrument, and leave police work to the police department. Correct?” Another real question, Tom thought, which deserved a serious answer. Though he felt not the least suicidal, at some point in his rather brief life he decided that if a guy starts letting people push him around, he might not be able to stop.

“You could call a murder a crime and act accordingly,” he said. “Or you could have the police find a pretext to gun me down, like they did to Sid Fitch and his boys.”

“They were criminals, Tom. You’re not. And now you’ve said your piece?”

“Almost. Since we’re not exactly teammates but close enough, I’m going to ask if you’ll look me in the eye and tell me there was no lynching.”

The man’s game face slipped into a mild frown. “To the best of my knowledge, there has been no lynching.”

“Damn,” Tom said. “Sir, you’re a mighty fine liar.”

Parrot smiled. “You’re welcome to your opinion. Be that as it may, I’ll take your advice about the publisher under consideration.”

“Thank you, sir,” Tom said.

As he walked outside, he heard the streetcar and ran to catch it. He rode up Temple, transferred to the Sunset line, and arrived at Hollywood High toward the end of third period, unless they had changed schedules since he graduated. Protocol required a stop at the office to ask for a student helper to fetch his sister out of class. He decided not to waste the five or ten minutes.

He left his hat behind a bush and strutted down the hallway, impersonating a high school boy, and stopped at Room 12, where he had dozed through most fifth periods of his senior year. Not that he didn’t appreciate literature, or Mrs. Rigby. But he worked nights and needed a nap whenever the opportunity presented.

As he entered the room, he saw they were writing. Mrs. Rigby looked up from her correcting. Fresh and attractive as four years ago. She stood and came to meet Tom at the door.

“A friendly visit?” she asked.

“Next time,” Tom said. “This one’s an emergency.”

“Oh?” She looked truly puzzled.

“Florence needs to come with me.”

“But Tom, look around.”

He did. A full classroom of students watched him. “No Florence,” he said.

“True, and what’s more, according to the daily report, she hasn’t been in school at all today.”

Forty-seven

MILLY, Tom believed. After Florence saw his notes on the sofa and deciphered the shorthand, she went to Milly on her own.

Outside the high school, he dashed across Sunset and strode east, too anxious to wait. He hadn’t gone a hundred yards before he recognized the danger in going to Milly’s alone.

She would be waiting, backed by Teddy Boles and his shooters or other men she had lured to her side, a skill she long ago mastered. He needed a gun of his own, and a clearer head than he could count upon when facing his mother.

He needed Leo, who might still be around Echo Park. Tom was about to dash back across Sunset and catch the bus, ride it up Highland to Hollywood Boulevard where he could transfer to the streetcar line. A horn’s beep stopped him. A truck pulled to the curb beside him. Alamo Meat. The driver leaned out the passenger window and asked, “Where you been, Tom?”

He hardly knew the driver, a young fellow so plump and doughy looking, a butcher had nicknamed him Muffin. Muff for short, and the nickname stuck.

“How about a lift?”

Muff frowned. “I would, except I’m running behind.”

“Yeah, and I’m trying to save my sister’s life.”

“Gee, no kidding?”

Tom reached for the door handle. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Muff leaned back.

Tom climbed in. “To Echo Park, is all.”

“Only I’m on my way down Central. I don’t make the drops before the lunch crowd, Mister Woods is gonna hear about it.”

“Mister Woods is going to hear if you don’t give me a ride.”

Muff sighed. “You’re a favorite of his, aren’t you?”

“Maybe I am,” Tom said, with a twinge of gratitude because the boss hadn’t spread around the bad blood between them.

As the truck pulled out, Muff asked, “Want to tell me about your sister?”

“No.”

“Sure, that’s none of mine. Say, where you been all week? You didn’t quit, did you?”

Tom nodded while eyeing the westbound autos in case one of them might be Leo’s Packard.

“Where you working now?”

“I'm not."

“Tell me you didn’t really quit.”

“Turn up here and take Wilshire down to Glendale.”

Muff slowed and made the turn. “You got money in the bank?”

“Not a cent.”

“Oh, the orchestra. That’s why you quit. You’re going to make a record?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Tom said, to keep the fellow from rubbing in the grim facts. Which were, supposing he could rescue Florence, bring some killer to justice, and give a few big shots a sleepless night or two, he still was broke. With no job, no band, and with a sister who still needed him.

They turned onto Glendale Boulevard, and he saw a Packard. But the driver had a bony, dark face. As they neared the park, Tom peered all around and across the lake. No Packard. He groaned in fear for his sister, beset by dread as if he had just fumbled the ball that would decide not just a game and not just a season, but everything.

Then he spotted Leo by the lake, puffing a cigar and tossing something to the ducks. “Here,” Tom yelped. “Pull over.”

Forty-eight

MILLY S door was locked. Tom pounded with the side of his fist. He waited a few seconds and glanced at Leo, who nodded. Tom leaned back, raised his foot high, and attacked the door just beside the knob with the sole of his shoe. The lock held, but the molding tore away.

“Stay back,” Leo said, and put his free hand on Tom’s shoulder. He lifted his Colt .38 Special to waist high and entered the house with Tom on his heels. They stopped before the entrance to the hallway. Leo leaned around the corner and peered. Tom held still and listened. What he heard terrified him.

He dodged around Leo and dashed up the hall, past the first doorway and into the second room on the right. Milly’s bedroom, he knew, because it smelled like a blend of mothballs and lavender.

A chair-back was jammed under the closet doorknob. He kicked the chair so hard it crashed into a dresser against the far wall. He started to reach for the knob but stopped. Because his sister wasn’t hollering his name or anything sensible. She was singing.

"Oh, a grasshopper sittin’ on a railroad track, Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day, A-pickin’ his teeth with a carpet tack, Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day."

When Tom opened the closet door, she didn’t miss a beat or move from the back corner into which she had wedged herself.

He slung dresses and hangers over his shoulder until he could see her. Bound at the ankles. Again at the knees. Her arms at the wrists and elbows.

Her legs were bare. The yellow skirt was hiked up around her waist. A smell more pungent than perfume or mothballs wafted out into the bedroom. Without looking back at Leo, Tom said, “I’ve got her. You can go look around.”

He ducked and entered the closet, leaned and wrapped his arms around Florence. She melted into his arms, still singing,

"He sneezed so hard with the whooping cough, Sing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day, He sneezed his head and tail right off, Sing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day."

He carried her to Milly’s bed and lay her on top of the orchid quilt. “Mama,” she whimpered, “what if I need to go pee pee? Why can’t Raggedy come with me. Oh Mama, I’ll be a good girl. I’m freezing, Mama. When you come back I’ll be a block of ice, you wait and see.”

“You’re okay, babe,” Tom said, “Mama’s gone.”

Whoever bound her used a knot like a double figure eight. It required such patience to unravel, Tom thought of calling for Leo to work on her feet while he loosed her hands. Only Florence appeared in no hurry to get free.

But the instant he’d loosed the cord around her ankles, she pitched off the bed. She landed on her knees and