One Bright Summer Morning

Chapter Two

To understand what had been happening at Wastelands, it is necessary to go back three months to the day on which Solly Lucas, a Los Angeles attorney, put an automatic pistol to his mouth and blew off the top of his balding head.

Although, as a gangster’s mouthpiece, Solly Lucas had a disreputable reputation, he was considered generally as a very smart cookie with a golden touch for the Stock Market. He was sixty-five years of age when he finished his life. For the past thirty years he had been the mouthpiece and investment fixer for one of the most notorious criminals since Al Capone: a man known as Big Jim Kramer.

Kramer, now close on sixty years of age, had begun his criminal career as bodyguard to Roger Touhy. He had risen slowly and murderously to a gang boss, had been elected a member of Murder Incorporated and had eventually become the iron hand that ruled the Bakery and the Milk Unions: a man who finally amassed a fortune of six million dollars from the rackets and had been smart enough to have paid some of his income tax.

Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation had known that Kramer was a major criminal, a vice-king and the brains behind some of the biggest bank robberies, they had never been able to pin a charge on him. The combination of Kramer’s guile and Lucas’s brilliant legal smoke screens had proved too much for them.

When he had reached his fifty-fifth birthday, Kramer decided to pull out of the rackets. It is never easy for a gang boss to quit the rackets. Usually, the moment he appears to be chickening out, some hood arrives with a gun, and that is the end of the gang boss, but Kramer was no fool. He knew this. He had six million dollars salted away. He parted with two million to buy himself security and future peace. These two million dollars so greased his exit that he was one of the very few important gang bosses who was able to quit the rackets and retire in comfort, security and obscurity.

With four million dollars and Lucas as his investment manager, Kramer had no fears for the future. He bought himself a luxury villa at Paradise City, not far from Los Angeles and settled down to enjoy the social life of retirement.

While he had been a gang boss he had married a night-club singer, Helene Dors, a slim, big-eyed blonde, older than she looked, who accepted Kramer for what he was, not because of his money nor for his power but because she was unfortunate enough to fall in love with him.

But once away from his criminal activities and his associates, Kramer became a surprisingly genial man who played an excellent game of golf, a sound game of bridge, who could drink without making a nuisance of himself and who was accepted by Paradise City’s society — who had no idea of his past activities — as a well-off, retired business man and was generally popular. Paradise City’s society also took to Helene who, although a little overweight now and slightly faded, had still a gay, lyrical voice and could sit at a piano and improvise songs a little risqué, but never vulgar and caused fun on those evenings when the Country Club could get dull.

There were times when Kramer was on his own, when Helene had gone to Los Angeles for a day’s shopping, when rain cancelled a golf date, that he would hanker for the excitement of being a gang boss again. Although he hankered for his lost power, he did nothing about it. He was in the clear and that was something that seldom happened to a man with his criminal past. The F.B.I. had never caught up with him. Solly was turning his money over at an excellent yearly profit. He was, he kept reminding himself, well out of the rackets and a lucky guy.

In spite of his determination to keep out of the rackets, Kramer spent some of his spare time planning a spectacular robbery, a kidnapping or a bank raid. These plans, blueprinted to the final details, helped to pass the time and were to him like chess problems. He could select the Chase National Bank in Los Angeles and conceive a plan where five men could walk into the bank and walk out again with a million dollars. On a wet evening, while Helene was working on her petit point he would work out a blueprint for the kidnapping of the daughter of a Texas billionaire with a ransom of several million dollars. These exercises in crime not only amused him, but kept his mind alert. He had no intention of putting them into practice. Never once did he confide in Helene what he was thinking about in those long hours when he sat silent, staring into the flickering fire. Had she known what was sometimes going through his mind, she would have been horrified.

On the morning that Solly Lucas shot himself, Kramer had had one of his best rounds of golf. He and his partner entered the club bar, and they ordered double gins with a lime chaser.

It was while Kramer was setting down his glass after a thirsty drink that the barman said, “There’s a call for you Mr. Kramer, from L.A.”

Kramer got to his feet, went over to the booth and shut himself in. He lifted the receiver, humming happily under his breath. The humming quickly ceased. The harsh, unsteady voice of Abe Jacobs, Solly Lucas’s chief clerk, told him the news.

“Shot himself?” Kramer repeated and he suddenly felt a vacuum forming inside him.

He had known Solly for thirty years. He had known him to be a brilliant if crooked attorney with an uncanny instinct for making money, but he had also known him to be a fool regarding women, and an extravagant and reckless gambler. Lucas wouldn’t have killed himself unless he had come to the end of his financial road. Kramer felt cold sweat break out on his forehead. He had a sudden sickening fear for his four million dollars.

It took two weeks of concentrated ferreting to discover just why Solly had ended his life. It seemed that he had four important clients... Kramer being one of them. Each of these clients had trusted him with large sums of money. Lucas had used this money for his own purposes. He had been unlucky, or perhaps it was he was getting too old for a speculative gamble. He had thrown in more and more of his clients’ money to hold off disaster. Land, building and stock speculations had finally sunk him into a bottomless pit. When the crash came he was in the hole for nine million dollars, including Kramer’s four million. Lucas knew Kramer. This was something Kramer would never forgive. He saved Kramer the trouble of killing him; he killed himself.

It took Kramer some time to accept the fact that Lucas, who had been his prop and his friend for the past thirty years, had betrayed him into poverty. Apart from five thousand dollars in his bank, his shares, his bonds and even the cash in his safe deposit had vanished with Lucas’s death.

He sat in Lucas’s big, luxury office, facing Abe Jacobs, a tall, thin man with an egg-shaped head and close-set, shifty eyes.

Jacobs said quietly, “There it is, Mr. Kramer. I’m sorry. I had no idea what he was doing. He never confided in me. You’re not the only one. He’s lost something close on nine million dollars in two years. I guess he must have been crazy.”

Kramer got slowly to his feet. For the first time in his life, he felt old.

“Keep me out of this Abe,” he said. “I haven’t lost a dime... hear me? If the Press get on to me, I’ll get on to you!”

He went out into the sunlit street and got into his car. He sat for some minutes, staring blankly through the windscreen, seeing nothing but his bleak, dollarless future. Should he tell Helene? He decided he wouldn’t tell her, anyway for the time being. But what was he going to do? How was he now going to live? He thought of the new Cadillac he had ordered. There was this mink stole he had promised Helene for her birthday. He had booked a suite on a luxury liner for a trip to the Far East: not paid for yet, but Helene was wildly excited and could talk of little else. He had several commitments that involved a large sum of money. The paltry five thousand dollars in his bank would be swallowed up within a week if he tried to meet these commitments.

He lit a cigar, started the car engine and drove slowly back to Paradise City. During the drive, his mind was active. Something had to be done, and done fast.

Kramer hadn’t been known as a dangerous criminal for nothing. Okay, he told himself, savagely chewing on his cigar, he had been financially wiped out. Well, he wasn’t too old to start again, but how? That was the question... how? To make four million dollars when you are sixty years old wanted some doing... an impossible task... unless...

His slate grey eyes narrowed. His heavy sunburned face with its square jaw, lipless mouth and long thick nose set in a hard, expressionless mask while his brain poked and probed for a way out of this financial hole.

He arrived back at the villa to find Helene preparing to go out. She looked anxiously at him.

“Did you find out why he did it?” she asked as Kramer came heavily into the lounge.

“He got caught short,” Kramer said curtly. “He was a little too smart... like the rest of them. Look, baby, run along. I’ve things to think about.”

“You mean he went bust?” Helene stared: her green-blue eyes horrified. She had always regarded Solly Lucas as a kind of financial wizard. It was unbelievable to her that Solly of all people could lose his money.

Kramer grinned mirthlessly.

“That’s about it. He went bust all right.”

“Why didn’t he come to us? We could have helped him,” Helene said, wringing her hands. “Poor Solly! Why didn’t he come to us?”

“Are you going out?” Kramer said, his face darkening. “I’ve things to do.”

“I thought I’d drive down town... the mink stole. The girl wanted me to approve the skins.”

Kramer hesitated for a brief moment. This wasn’t the time to buy a mink stole, he told himself, but he had promised it to Helene. There would still be time to cancel the order if things got really rugged. He patted her arm.

“Go ahead. I’ll be seeing you,” and he walked into his study: a big room with books, a desk, three lounging chairs and a view of the rose garden.

He closed the door and sat behind his desk. He lit a cigar. He heard Helene drive away in her two-seater Jag. He had two hours, possibly more, to consider his position before Helene returned. The two coloured servants who ran the house wouldn’t disturb him. He sat motionless, his slate grey eyes fixed in a blank stare at the curling smoke of his cigar. The hands of his desk clock moved on. There was no sound in the room except for the faint ticking of the clock and Kramer’s heavy breathing. He sat there, a brooding evil genius, determined to win back his lost fortune if he could only think of the means.

He had been thinking for the best part of an hour when he abruptly got to his feet. He walked over to the window and looked out onto the neat lawn and the massed beds of roses without seeing them. Then he crossed the room, unlocked a drawer in his desk, and took from it a cheap manila file. He opened the file and looked thoughtfully at a number of Press cuttings that were neatly clipped into the file. He fingered the cuttings, his heavy face sullen in thought. He finally closed the file and put it back into the drawer.

Moving silently, he went to the door of the study and easing it open, he listened. Faintly, down the passage he could hear the murmur of voices of Sam and Martha, his servants, conversing in the kitchen. He closed the door, went to his desk, searched in the top right-hand desk drawer until he found a small, shabby address book. He sat down and consulted the book.

He finally found the telephone number he wanted. He told the telephone operator he wanted San Francisco. He gave the number which he read from the book. The operator said she would call him back.

He replaced the receiver, stubbed out his cigar and leaned back in the desk chair. His face was now a stony expressionless mask: his eyes were very bleak.

There was a long delay, but finally the operator called him.

“Your party is now on the line,” she told him. “The number has been changed.” She sounded irritated that she should have been put to so much trouble.

Kramer was listening to the clicks on the line. He heard a man say, “Hello? Who’s that?”

He said, “I want to talk to Moe Zegetti.”

The man said, “This is Zegetti. Who’s calling?”

“I didn’t recognize your voice, Moe,” Kramer said. “I guess it is a long time... seven years, isn’t it?”

“Who’s that?” The man’s voice sharpened.

“Who do you imagine it is?” Kramer said with a wolfish grin. “Long time no see, Moe. How are you?”

“Jim! For Pete’s sake! Is that you, Jim?”

“Who else do you imagine it is?” Kramer asked.

Moe Zegetti could scarcely believe he was listening to the voice of Big Jim Kramer. It was as astonishing to him as if he had been told the President of the United States was calling him.

For fifteen years, Moe had been Kramer’s right-hand man. Moe had been responsible for at least twenty major bank robberies that had been blueprinted by Kramer. During those fifteen years, Moe had come to be regarded by the police and the underworld as one of the top craftsmen in the business. There seemed nothing he couldn’t turn his hand to. Among many other things, he could open the most complicated safe, pick a pocket, forge a hundred-dollar bill, cope with the most foolproof burglar alarm, drive a getaway car and nick a playing card edgeways on at fifteen yards with a .38 automatic. But in spite of his technical skill, Moe lacked organizing ability. When he was given a blueprint for a job, he would achieve success, but put him on his own, let him plan his own modus operandi and he was hopelessly lost.

He discovered this depressing fact when Kramer retired. Moe attempted a fairly simple job on his own, based on his own planning. He was immediately picked up and he spent six heartbreaking years in San Quentin penitentiary, and because the police were certain that he had been responsible for so many brilliant bank robberies, the word went out to the warders and Moe had a very rough time.

He came out of the penitentiary a broken man. By now he was forty-eight, running to fat and with an inflamed kidney, acquired from one of the brutal beatings he had taken in prison. He was now only the shadow of the man known as the smartest technician in the rackets.

Although he had made an impressive sum of money during his career as a criminal, he had always been a soft touch and a reckless gambler. He came out of prison without a nickel, but at least he had a refuge to go to... his mother.

Doll Zegetti, aged seventy-two, ran two de luxe brothels in San Francisco. She was a massive, handsome woman who adored her son as he adored her. She was shocked at the change in him when he came to her ornate apartment on the day of his release from San Quentin. She realized his spirit and his nerve had been shattered, and if he was to get back onto his feet again, he would need very careful nursing.

She set him up in a three-room apartment and told him to rest. This Moe was glad to do. He spent long hours, sitting in a chair at the window, watching the shipping in the harbour and doing nothing. The very thought of turning his hand to crime again made his blood run cold.

This state of affairs continued for eighteen months. Often Moe thought of Kramer who he worshipped, admiring him for being so smart as to get out of the rackets with four million dollars before the chopper fell. It never crossed his mind to put the bite on Kramer. The idea that his late boss might help him some way or other did not occur to him.

Then things began to go wrong for Doll. Captain O’Hardy of the Vice-Squad retired and a new man climbed into the saddle. He was Captain Capshaw, a lean, hard-eyed Quaker who hated prostitution and was no man to be offered a bribe. Within three weeks of his appointment, he had slammed both Doll’s houses shut and had arrested most of her girls. Doll was suddenly without an income and heavily in debt. The blow seemed to paralyse her. She fell ill and was now in hospital undergoing certain tests: their mystery terrified Moe.

With his weekly income from Doll cut off, Moe was in trouble. He moved from the three-room apartment and took a room in a sordid tenement block close to the Frisco docks. Before looking for a job, he pawned his clothes and the various possessions he had collected, then faced with the prospects of starving, he reluctantly looked for work. Eventually he became a waiter in a small Italian restaurant. The one smart thing Moe did was to inform the Frisco telephone exchange of his changing telephone numbers. It was because of this foresight that Kramer found him.

It took several minutes before Moe could realize that it was really Kramer at the other end of the line. He had to control his excitement as he said, “Big Jim! I never thought to hear your voice again!”

Kramer’s familiar rumbling laugh came over the line.

“How are you, Moe? How are you doing... pretty good?”

Moe looked down the narrow restaurant with its close-packed greasy-topped tables, at the steamed-up windows and the ruins of many meals waiting for him to Clear. He caught sight of himself in the big flyblown mirror behind the bar: a short, fat man with a mop of greying thick hair, heavy eyebrows, a white sweating face and dark, scared eyes.

“I’m doing all right,” he lied. It would never do to let Big Jim know the mess he was in. He knew Big Jim: he had no use for failures. He glanced at Fransioli, his boss, who was counting the cash, then lowering his voice, he went on, “I have my own business now... doing fine.”

“That’s swell,” Kramer said. “Look, Moe, I want to see you. Something has come up... could be you’ll be interested. It’s big money... when I say big, that’s what I mean. Your end could be a quarter of a million bucks. You interested?”

Moe broke out in a sweat.

“This line’s not so hot,” he said. “What was that again?”

“I said something has come up,” Kramer said, speaking more slowly. “Your end could be a quarter of a million bucks.”

Moe closed his eyes. He suddenly was back in the small cell again, crouching against the far wall as two warders came in, grinning. Wrapped around their massive fists were leather belts. He felt the bile rise in his mouth and the memory of the awful beating he had taken set his mind quivering with fear.

“Hello?” Kramer’s voice was now impatient. “You still there, Moe?”

“Sure... sounds good. Just what is it, Jim?”

“I can’t talk on an open fine,” Kramer said, an edge to his voice. “I want you out here. We’ll talk about it. You know where I am... Paradise City. When can you come?”

Moe looked with dismay at his shabby clothes. The other suit he owned was now nearly as shabby. He knew the way Big Jim lived. The fare to Paradise City would be around twenty dollars, and he hadn’t twenty dollars. There were no days off at the restaurant: he even worked on Sundays, but something long forgotten stirred inside him. Big Jim and a quarter of a million dollars! Big Jim had never steered him wrong!

Lowering his voice so that Fransioli couldn’t hear what he was saying, he said, “I could get over there on Saturday. I’m pretty tied up right now.”

“What’s today... Tuesday? This is urgent, Moe. I want you sooner than that. You come Thursday. You don’t pick up this kind of money every day. How about Thursday?”

Moe wiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Anything you say, Jim. Sure. . I’ll be along Thursday.”

He became aware that Fransioli was listening now and staring balefully at him.

“Fly in,” Kramer said. “I’ll be at the airport. There’s a flight arriving at eleven-forty-three. We can drive out here and have lunch. Okay?”

This would cost him his job, Moe was thinking, but to be hooked up with Big Jim again!

“I’ll be there.”

“Fine... be seeing you, Moe,” and the connection was cut.

Slowly Moe replaced the receiver.

Fransioli, smelling of sweat and sweet wine, came over to him.

“What’s all this about?” he demanded. “You thinking of going someplace?”

“It’s nothing,” Moe said, wiping his hands on his dirty apron. “Just a drunk. I knew him years ago. He’s stupid in the head.”

Fransioli stared suspiciously at him.

“Just so long as you aren’t,” he said and began to wash glasses.

The rest of the day passed very slowly for Moe. The magic words “a quarter of a million dollars” burned into his brain.

Around four o’clock, Moe returned to his bed-sitting-room.

He had two clear hours before returning to the restaurant. He moved like a man in a desperate hurry. He tore off his greasy clothes and washed himself. He ran an electric razor over his dark, sprouting beard. He put on a clean shirt and his best suit. While he was changing he was aware of the strident sound of a transistor radio blaring offbeat music in the apartment below.

He paid no attention to the noise, but hurriedly completed his toilet. He ran down the four flights of stairs and into the hot street. A quick walk brought him to the trolley-bus stop. On the way, he had paused to buy a small bunch of violets. Every day, he bought the violets for Doll. They were her favourite flower.

The trolley-bus took him to the door of the hospital. He climbed the steps, walked along the corridors until he finally reached the long, depressing ward full of ageing women, ill or dying, who watched his long walk down the polished aisle until he reached the bed in which his mother was lying.

He was always shocked when he saw her again. She seemed to be shrinking. Her handsome, strong face was turning the colour of old ivory. Pain had made deep lines around her mouth, and now for the first time, he saw a look of defeat in her eyes.

He sat on the hard chair at her side and held her hand. She told him she was getting along pretty well and there was nothing for him to worry about. In a couple of weeks she would be up and about, then she would see what she could do to fix Captain Capshaw. There was still a faint fighting light in her eyes, but Moe had a horrible feeling that she would never set her big, firm feet on the floor again.

He told her about the telephone call he had had from Kramer.

“I don’t know what it’s all about,” he said, “but you know Big Jim... he’s never steered me wrong.”

Doll drew in a long, slow breath. The grinding pain in her left side became as nothing at this news. She had always admired Big Jim who had often come to her houses, brutally treating her girls, and then drinking half a bottle of Scotch with her before leaving. He was a man! Shrewd, clever and very, very smart! A man who had got out of the rackets with four million dollars, and now he wanted her son!

“You see him, Moe,” she said. “Big Jim’s never made a mistake! A quarter of a million! Think of it!”

“Yes... if Big Jim says a thing, he means it.” Moe shifted uneasily. “But, Momma, I can’t go looking this way... he wants me to fly down there. I haven’t got the money. I–I told him I was doing fine... owned my own restaurant. You know Jim. I couldn’t tell him the mess we’re in.”

Doll realized the sense of this and she nodded.

“I’ve got the money, Moe,” she said. “When you go down there, you’ve gotta go in style.” She reached into her bedside locker and took from it a black crocodile bag, one of her very few remaining possessions she had managed to hold on to. She took from it an envelope and gave it to him. “Use this, Moe. Get yourself a good suit: fit yourself up. You’ll want pyjamas, shirts and stuff like that. Get yourself a good-looking suitcase. Big Jim notices things like that.”

Moe peered into the envelope. His eyes widened when he saw it contained ten one-hundred dollar bills.

“For Pete’s sake, Momma! Where did this come from?”

Doll grinned.

“I’ve had it some time. It’s my emergency money, son. Now it’s yours. Spend it carefully. There’s nothing to follow.”

“But you need it, Momma!” Moe was still staring at the money as if hypnotized. “I can’t take it. You’ll need every dime you can scrape up if you’re going to get well.”

Doll pressed her hand to her side. The grinding pain was back again and making her sweat.

“You’re going to make a quarter of a million, stupid,” she said. “We’ll have all the money we need after you’ve talked to Jim. Take it.”

Moe took the money. He went back to the restaurant and told Fransioli he was quitting. Fransioli shrugged. Waiters, he said, came a dime a dozen. He didn’t offer to shake hands with Moe at the parting and this upset Moe: these days Moe was easily upset.

He spent all Wednesday buying the things he needed. Then he returned to his sordid little room and spent some time packing the pigskin suitcase he had bought and putting on his new suit. He had had a haircut and a manicure. Staring at himself in the mirror, he scarcely recognized the prosperous-looking man who stared back at him.

Carrying the suitcase, he hurried to the hospital, not forgetting to buy some violets on the way. The Ward Sister told him curtly his mother wasn’t receiving visitors this day. She was in a little pain, and it was better not to disturb her.

Moe stared at the slim, blonde girl, a sense of utter desolation and fear clutching at his heart.

“There’s nothing badly wrong, is there?” he asked timidly.

“Oh no. She is a little uncomfortable. She is resting. You’ll probably be able to see her tomorrow.” Nodding, the nurse walked away, casually adjusting her belt, her mind obviously occupied with other things.

Moe hesitated, then slowly walked towards the exit. It wasn’t until he reached the street that he realized he was still carrying the bunch of violets. He walked back to the flower seller and gave her the violets.

“Momma isn’t so good today,” he said. “You have them. I’ll get some more tomorrow. She would like you to have them.”

Back in his room, he sat on the bed and rested his face in his hands. He remained like that until the shadows lengthened and the room grew dark. He had forgotten how to pray, but he tried. All he could mutter over and over again was, “Sweet Jesus, look after Momma. Take care of her: stay with her. I need her.”

It was the best he could do.

When the transistor in the apartment below began its strident noise, he went down to the telephone booth across the street and called the hospital.

A woman’s impersonal voice told him his mother was still a little uncomfortable. When he asked to speak to the doctor in charge, he was told he wasn’t available.

Moe spent the rest of the evening in a bar. He drank two bottles of Chianti wine and when he finally returned to his room, he was a little drunk.