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

away from this spooky hotel, take a walk someplace you two can talk it over.”

Tom agreed. He knocked. When Leo came to the door, he said, “The girls need some air.”

“By the time you get back,” Leo said, plenty loud enough for Milly and her man to hear, “I’ll judge if they should go to the Smokehouse.”

Tom and the girls walked arm in arm, him in the middle, past the staircase and into the lobby. The spiritualist's lecture was about to commence in a ballroom at whose entrance a mob stood, waving, shoving, yelping pleas at the two guards who held them back.

Raleigh had packed up and left for the day. A couple of dejected matrons occupied his shoeshine station.

Across Ivar Street and up Hollywood Boulevard, the Hickeys and Madeline passed hustlers offering thrills, solace and the like to surly men leaning on posts. Other men slumped in parked cars waiting for the lecture to conclude and their wives to come bore them with tales from the beyond.

With a girl on each arm, which earned him some jealous glares, Tom walked until they found a vacant bench at a bus stop. Then they sat holding hands.

“What do you think?” Tom asked his sister. “Could Teddy be lying?”

Though Florence seemed most intrigued by passing cars, she turned and said, with quavering assurance, as though to convince herself, “Mama stabbed Mister Gaines.”

“What about self-defense, Frank reaching for the knife? You think Teddy lied when he said not so?”

“Why would he lie?” Florence asked.

“Say, to get back at Milly for all her accusations.”

“She probably says mean stuff every day.”

“So Milly killed Frank,” Tom said, “and maybe Harriet.” And, he thought, maybe Pastor William Seymour. And just maybe Charlie Hickey. He squeezed both girls’ hands too hard.

Florence whispered, “Ouch.”

Madeline leaned and kissed his cheek.

“Yeah,” he said, “Mama’s a murderer.” He watched Florence turn as if to stare again at Hollywood Boulevard, only her eyes were shut.

Then tears came in a flood. She let them roll off her pale cheeks and fall onto her lap. Twice, she tried to speak but gave in to sobs. At last, after a mighty shudder, she said, “We can’t turn our own mother over to the police, can we, Tommy?”

“Not for murders the cops say didn’t happen.”

Madeline said, “Maybe you can get her into an asylum.”

“Probably not without a police say-so.”

“We can’t let her go on killing people, can we?” Florence asked.

Then she fell on Tom, wrapped her arms around him, and wept with abandon, while a motor coach appeared as if out of nowhere and took on the half dozen passengers Tom hadn’t noticed gathering around them.

When the motor coach pulled away, Florence put her lips close to her brother’s ear, so even Madeline couldn’t hear. She whispered, “What if we need to kill her?”

Fifty-three

IN the hotel lobby, the mob around the ballroom doors had multiplied. Chauffeurs and reporters squeezed between princesses and dowagers in custom outfits pricier than Milly’s creations. Some of their jewels sparkled as bright as the crystal chandelier. If not for a platoon of wandering guards, a pickpocket could’ve earned a king’s ransom.

When Leo opened the door to 142, Tom said, “Cut them loose.”

“Both of them?”

“Teddy served his time, living with her.” He glanced in Milly’s direction.

“And her?” Leo asked.

Florence pressed herself against her brother’s side, stood on her toes, and whispered, “Tommy, we really aren’t going to kill her?”

“No, Sis. We’re not going to kill anybody. You know why?”

“No. I mean, I’m not sure.”

“Because we’re Charlie Hickey’s kids, not hers.”

“But she killed Mister Gaines. And maybe Teddy’s wife.”

He turned to Leo and crooked his head toward his mother. “Get her out of here.”

Leo used his pocketknife on the ropes. For a minute or so, Milly sat rubbing her ankles and staring vile accusations at each of the others. Then she rolled off the bed, stumbled, and rushed out of the room as if from artillery fire.

While Leo freed Boles, Tom said, “You want to stay out of the Smokehouse, here’s the deal. You’ll keep an eye on Milly, don’t let her run off.’’

“Yeah. Hey, no hard —”

“Shut up. Where do we find you?”

With a newly freed hand, he pointed to the pencil and stationery on the nightstand. Tom fetched it. Teddy jotted the name and address of his brother in El Segundo. “She can have the duplex,” he said. “Christ, it hasn’t been my place since the day she moved in. What’re you going to do to her?”

Tom glared a warning.

Teddy passed along the address then stood and limped to the restroom. When he came out, he limped to the door, then stopped and peered over his shoulder at Florence. He shook his head and might’ve soon begged her forgiveness.

“Get lost,” Tom commanded.

When the door closed behind Boles, Leo asked, “What now?”

“I say we talk to Kent Parrot.”

“Oh? Tom, you think the boss might arrest a gal who’s got Hearst’s pet on her side for a murder he prefers to maintain didn’t happen, you’ve still got a heap to learn about the ways of the world.”

“Give me a better idea.’

While he waited for an answer that didn’t come, Tom checked his Elgin. A few minutes past 9:30. If Friday night traffic didn’t stall them, he thought, they might reach Sugar Hill Barbershop before it closed. “I’m guessing a barber on Central would know how to get the word out, maybe buy us a day or two.’

Leo pointed to the phone. “You know how to use one of those gadgets?”

“Give me a lesson, smart guy.” He reached for his notebook.

“With all your occupations,” Leo said, “you ought to be getting a telephone as soon as one of those prospects of yours pays off.”

Florence, who sat beside Madeline on the bed watching them, didn’t second Leo’s advice. Because his sister regularly begged and wheedled for a telephone, he knew she had gone far away.

The barbershop phone rang until Tom gave up on it, after Leo said, “See here, if the tommy-gunners are going to visit the Klan, it’ll be during a meeting. Meeting time’s probably over for today, and tomorrow’s won’t likely be till evening. I say we all could benefit from sleep.”

Tom agreed. Madeline concurred. Florence said nothing. On their way out of the hotel, Tom saw Milly, at the edge of the mob trying to bully her way in. She nudged a fellow with her shoulder and jabbed a reporter with her elbow.

Someday, he thought, maybe I'll forget she ever lived. But after a moment, he knew better.

Fifty-four

IN the Packard, Leo suggested they stop in Chinatown for dinner. The others stared as if he were telling jokes at a funeral. Tom found opening his mouth to talk a struggle. His sister sat with arms wrapped around herself, as if they held her stomach together. Madeline hadn’t touched either of the Hickeys since they left the hotel room. When Leo pulled to the curb in front of Bruno’s grocery, she didn’t say goodbye, only gave a little salute.

Between there and Cactus Court, Leo attempted to console the Hickeys. “Don’t forget, Teddy’s nobody’s star witness. Could be Harriet was suicide, Frank self-defense.”

“Could be, all right,” Tom said, for his sister’s sake.

Leo parked, jumped out, ran around, and helped Florence to the sidewalk. “You going to be okay?”

Florence didn’t answer, but made a face as though astonished he would ask such a question.

“How about you, Tom?”

“Sure,” he said. But he owed Leo the truth. “I mean, how the hell do I know?”

Florence would’ve stumbled into the cholla Tom hadn’t demolished, but he caught up and deflected her. In the cottage on the sofa, she pressed her knees to her chin. “Tommy, is our mama really evil like that Roman emperor Nero? Or is she just crazy?”

Tom asked himself if there was a difference. “Probably crazy.”

“What makes her like that?”

He shrugged. “Give me a couple days to think.” He went to the kitchen and fixed them a snack of soda crackers, canned tuna, and apple slices. They left most of it on the plate.

In her bedroom, Florence didn’t turn on the radio. Tom lay in bed listening for any sound. He heard some moans. Several times, he thought her heard her get up and went to check. Every time, she appeared to be sleeping, although once she jerked with little spasms. He sat on her bed and sang, just above a whisper, two Stephen Foster songs. “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Aura Lee.” He wasn’t much of a singer, but they were all he could offer, the most peaceful melodies he knew.

Back in his room, after another hour or so of listening for signs that his sister needed him, he slept until the first gray light seeped under his shade. He drank coffee on the porch while he wrote on the backside of sheet music blanks a somewhat orderly report, all he had gathered about the deaths of Harriet Boles and Frank Gaines.

Leo arrived before seven. “Boss Parrot’s an early riser,” he said.

A mild Santa Ana rustled the palms. When Florence came out in a green and white summer dress, a pattern of vines like ivy, Tom thought of asking her to change. Not because the dress showed too much leg, back and shoulder. Because it looked like Milly.

But other matters occupied him. All the way downtown, he wrestled with Florence’s question, what made Milly who she was. He could’ve simply said vanity, that she was one of the legion of California crazies, too proud to make peace with broken dreams. Except he believed the truth went deeper. That was the problem with truth. You never quite got to the bottom of it.

He tried to recall anything she had told them about her childhood, aside from the fact that her parents were immigrants from Bohemia and Austria, her father ran off to the Klondike after gold, and her mother died of a broken heart. Hardly an original story among Los Angelenos.

Leo parked behind the Hall of Justice in a space reserved for detectives. He led the way through the common room where only a few detectives and uniformed cops scribbled or typed or leaned on their desks. Instead of knocking, he waved at a fellow in uniform and pointed to the door. The man hustled over, knocked softly and listened then opened the door a crack. “Sir, you got a minute.”

Tom didn’t hear an answer, but the cop entered the office and said, “Detective Weiss is out here, wanting to see you. Him and Tom Hickey and a gal.” The cop stepped out and ushered the three of them into the office.

The way Parrot sat, tall, chin high, forearms at ease on the armrests of his rolling chair, he looked like royalty awaiting petitioners. As they entered, his eyes trained on Florence and followed her every move.

“Please, have a seat,” he said, in a voice far more toney than he had used on Tom alone.

Florence seated herself beneath the portrait gallery. Tom went to the big teak desk, reached for the stapler, used it, and slid one copy of the report, which he had started last night, finished and copied this morning, across the desk to the man. Then he sat in the chair next to Florence’s. Leo stood by a window looking out while Parrot gave a few seconds to each page of the report. Either a fast or careless reader, he soon looked up. “Quite a tale.”

“News to you?” Leo asked.

Parrot didn’t answer. “This Millicent, she a relative?”

“Do you mean to charge her?” Tom asked.

The man stood and went to the window as if to learn what had caught Leo’s attention. But he didn’t look out. He returned to his desk and again sat tall and straight. “For what? A suicide? Or, at worst, self-defense against a colored fellow who’s already been planted?”

Tom rose, went to the desk, reached across and retrieved his report.

“Where’s it go now?” Parrot asked.

“Depends. Socrates, or if he’s not available, how about Fighting Bob Shuler.”

Parrot’s face broke into a smile, then a hearty laugh. “First thing Shuler’d do is figure a way to blame it on Aimee McPherson. Next, he’d use it to start a race war. That what you want?”

“What I want is Socrates out of jail.”

When the boss opened a drawer on the right side of his desk, Tom wondered if the boss had taken all the complaints and demands he could abide and now a gun would speak for him. But the items Parrot took from the drawer were several issues of the Forum. He