Eureka

CHAPTER 6

I met Ski at a restaurant on La Cienega called the French Kettle, which was a high-sounding name for a lunchtime hangout for reporters, politicians, and cops. The prices went up for the dinner trade. The place was owned by an ex-prizefighter named Andre DeCourt, who was once a very promising middleweight. He was one of those good-looking Frenchmen with dark shiny hair, a straight nose, and green eyes. The story goes that Andre worked his way up the rankings to a match with a muscle-bound hammer named Ray Rowles, who was next in line for a title shot. Andre was the favorite and the odds were up to about fifteen to one. Andre decided it was time to quit before he started looking like Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, who in turn looked like a bus had run into him, so he took all his savings, laid it off on Rowles, beat him to a pulp for seven rounds, and then lay down and took a nap. He used the winnings to open the restaurant, then took a rematch with Rowles, played with him for two rounds, and knocked him all the way to Madagascar in the third. Then he retired for good.

It was one of those high-ceilinged, wood-and-brass eateries that looked more like a cattle baron from Denver owned it than an Americanized Frenchman. There were booths around the perimeter and cubicles filled in the middle of the room. They all had high, etched-glass partitions, which looked fancy and expensive but were there mainly for privacy. When newsmen and politicians talk, they want privacy. Cops don’t really care, they don’t have anything to say. The place opened at 7:00 a.m. and closed at 11:00 p.m. In the morning they served eggs Benedict to die for, and the sandwich menu at lunch was two pages long. I couldn’t afford to eat there at dinner. If I wanted to spend that much money for a meal I’d go to Chasen’s. I had never been there either.

Andre was always there, seated in a small booth for two in the front of the place near the cash register. He always wore a tuxedo. At seven in the morning he was in a tuxedo. He changed the shirt three times a day and he wore a very subtle cologne that made you forget he once earned his living with sweat and a right uppercut. He also carried a tab for the breakfast and lunch trade, which was a nervy thing to do-newsmen, politicians, and cops not being known for their credit ratings. The newsies and dicks because they didn’t make much money, and the politicians because they were on the take from the start and who’s going to sue the mayor or a city councilman for stiffing a check or two?

He got up when I came in and gave me a fifty-dollar smile.

“Zee,” he said, “ Bonjour. Ski is here already. Over by the window in the corner.” He led me over there, handed me a leather-covered menu the size of the Rand McNally World Atlas, and retreated to his post.

Ski was devouring a large piece of Boston cream pie, which was his idea of an hors d’oeuvre.

“Why do you always eat your lunch backward?” I said.

“I don’t like to start with a bowl of weeds with a tomato sitting in the middle of it.”

The waiter came by and I ordered a corned beef on rye and a Coke.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I met a new friend.”

“Oh yeah? Male or female?”

“Female.”

“She a looker?”

“Your jaw would hit the floor if you laid eyes on her.”

He gave me a nod of approval.

“Rich?”

“Her old man owns the bank-and she has an office that would make Marie Antoinette jealous.”

He beamed lasciviously. “Do I hear wedding bells?”

“Yeah, sure, Agassi. I met her three hours ago and rolled her a cigarette. That was my big trick for the day. One of her cigarettes cost more than my car.”

“Which would be what, thirty or forty cents?”

“Very funny. So, what kind of a day have you had?”

He finished the pie and pushed the dish aside like a kid finishing a vegetable plate.

“Well,” he said, “I didn’t find a lot about who she was. But I found a lot about who she wasn’t. I talked to everybody at the tax office. Talked to them privately. She told just about everybody there she was from Texas. One of them she told she was from Waco, another one from San Antone, then there was Dallas, and Wichita Falls, which I thought was in Kansas. She arrived on the scene as Verna Hicks in early 1924. Was very discreet about her private life. Nobody knew she was dating Wilensky until she got married. Nobody’s ever been to her house, in fact few of them even know where it is. She was an excellent worker, always punctual, never missed a day. An ideal employee according to her boss. She turned down promotions several times.”

“Probably because the money wasn’t worth the responsibility, considering she had that five C’s floating in over the transom every month.”

“My thoughts exactly. Anyway, I went back to the station house after I left there and called the Bureau of Records in Waco, San Antone, Dallas, and Wichita Falls, and then checked the state bureau in Texas. Guess what?”

“They never heard of her.”

“You got it. The DMV here says she originally gave an address on Highland. I checked it. The street number doesn’t exist and never did. She changed it to the Meadows address when she renewed the license. They don’t check those things unless you get stopped for something serious.”

“In other words, Verna Hicks doesn’t exist prior to 1924.”

“Exactly.”

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“But why did she suddenly surface then?”

“Because she had to be somebody, Ski. Apparently when she moved here she decided to stay awhile. The net is, she could be anybody from anywhere, even her age could be a phony.”

Our meals arrived and he dug in.

“Your turn,” he said. “Did you come up with anything-besides Miss Vanderbilt?”

“I want to put it all together on the board. The checks came from a lot of different banks. Once or twice from here in town. But most of them seem to have come from up around San Pietro.”

He looked up sharply when I mentioned San Pietro.

“Hell, that’s Culhane territory,” he said.

“Culhane? He’s running for governor.”

“Not officially. He’s about to announce. He’s running against Claude Osterfelt and Dominic Bellini.”

“I read something about it in the paper but I didn’t take it seriously. Whoever heard of him?”

“The Times had a big spread on him last week. World War I hero. Racket-buster. Cleaned up his town, ran the gangsters out. It used to be called Eureka, which was like Frontier City, USA. Open gambling, prostitution. During Prohibition they served drinks over the bar. The sheriff was an old gunfighter named Buck Tallman. You have heard of him, right?”

“That was a long time ago. That’s history. Wasn’t he shot in a whorehouse or something?”

“Something like that. I’m thinking of running up to San Pietro. It’s only about a hundred miles up there.”

“The banks aren’t gonna tell you anything, Zee. All that stuff’s confidential.”

“I did pretty well this morning.”

“Ahhh, that’s because you rolled Little Miss Rich Britches a cigarette and showed her your heater.” He thought for a moment and added, “Are you hunching on this?”

“Can’t say.”

“I’m your partner. You think there’s more to this than just an accident, don’t you?”

“I don’t think Mrs. Wilensky was knocking down five hundred bucks a month for years and then slipped in the bathtub and got fried. That much coincidence makes me nervous. I’m not sure, but I think the check trail leads to San Pietro.”

“Moriarity’s gonna laugh you outta the office.”

“Hell, it’s worth a shot.”

“Moriarity’s gonna have a seizure.”

“I can con him into it.”

“Culhane’s a tough character, Zee.”

I shrugged. “We’re both lawmen. Maybe he’ll work with me.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe I’ll lose fifty pounds in my sleep tonight, too.”