“Thanks, Gladys,” he said. “I’ll be about ten minutes.”
I pushed the call button for the elevator and leaned against the wall. Wheeler looked like a college athlete. Young, good-looking, tall, athletic, and broad-shouldered. He didn’t have a wedding ring on. He definitely looked like a boy toy to me. He was dark-complected, and he sure as hell didn’t look like a Wheeler to me. There was a mirror next to the elevator and sure enough, Pretty Boy admired himself in it and straightened his four-in-hand.
I got on the elevator, so did Wheeler. I told the operator, lobby and that was where Wheeler was headed. I was lucky it was a fill-in operator who didn’t know who I was or call me by name. I let Wheeler get out first. He went to Marty’s and grabbed a deck of Luckies. Marty saw me and I put my finger to my lips. Marty nodded and didn’t even look at me. Wheeler paid and off he went.
“Hey, Marty, what do you know about that gee?” I said.
“Name’s Wheeler, he’s an architect upstairs, if that is his real name. Real ladies’ man. He moves on anything with a skirt, married or otherwise. He’s the kind of guy you give him a ten-dollar bill and he’ll give you change in threes and fours.”
“Gees, Marty, don’t hold back your opinion of the guy.”
“You know Johansson, the CPA on four?” Marty asked.
“Yeah, the bookkeeper that looks like a lumberjack,” I said.
“His wife came in to meet him. She goes upstairs then she comes down and is getting some mints here at the counter and Wheeler moves in. Next thing you know, they are over the corner barbering and before you know it they leave together. I walked out the door and watched them; they went straight into the St. Francis. He came back in an hour looking like a cat that just caught a mouse.” Marty smiled.
“Holy moly,” I said.
“That guy wears a path out between here and the St. Francis, three, four times a week, and it’s always with a different broad,” Marty said. “It’s a wonder the kid gets any work done, lucky bastard. That guy lays more pipe than a union plumber.”
“Thanks, Marty. I could have lived without that thought in my head.”
“What are you working on, Shamus?”
“I’m still working for that doctor you don’t like.”
“The one with the great gams?” Marty said.
“Yes, Marty, that would be her, and I’m working away on that Chinatown case too.”
“Those two G-men that came up a little while ago … they aren’t the only people looking for you, pal.” Marty gave me a serious look.
“Really, who else?” I asked.
“A single guy. Five feet four, round like a bowling ball. This gee is a real dick, all right. Soft-soled shoes, suit one size too big to cover the roscoe, and he never made eye contact with anyone. He ran his finger over the directory, stopped at your name, went up and came back down.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“Yesterday, while you were out. This guy was a pro, Sean. I can’t put my finger on it, but this guy was real smooth.”
“Swell, this Chinatown thing is getting real hot. I may be under FBI surveillance, now I got a PI on my tail. You looking for a new partner, Marty?” I asked.
Marty smiled.
“You may need a guy to go halves with you,” I said. “I need a new line of work where I am not so popular.”
Before Marty could respond, Morehouse came out of the elevator and lit a butt. He walked right past us and out the revolving door. It was time to shadow.
“Get to work, you worthless bum. You are scaring away the paying trade.” Marty smiled broadly. “I’ll keep an eye out while you are gone. When you get where you are going, call me here and I can tell you if you picked up a tail.”
“Thanks, Marty,” I said.
I followed Morehouse across the square. He nearly got ran down by a cable car as he bolted into the St. Francis Hotel.
In my opinion, the Fairmont and the Mark Hopkins are the two best hotels in the city, but they’re on Knob Hill. The St. Francis is in their league, with a quiet elegance. The lobby features a Magneta grandfather clock that controls all the other hotel clocks so that they’re are perfectly synchronized. The St. Francis has always appealed to upper-crust partygoers and nightlife lovers.
Morehouse got on an elevator and I watched it stop in the twelfth floor. I got on the next car and before the door could close, Jerry Ronkowski got in. He is the St. Francis house detective.
“Sean O’Farrell, as I live and breathe. You working, pal?”
“Yeah. I’m following a husband that has a zipper management problem.”
“Crap, I hate those kinds of cases. You have a much stronger stomach that I did, Sean.”
Jerry was a contemporary of Marty’s. He got shot twice in year on the job, and his wife laid down the law. He left the cops and got this swell job here at the St. Francis. It was a sweet deal.
“Is this guy meeting a broad?” he asked.
“I didn’t see him with anyone. He got off on twelve.”
“Your boy play a little cards, does he?” Jerry asked with a wry smile.
“As a matter of fact.”
“It’s against the law to gamble, as you know. But that doesn’t stop some big wheels from meeting on the twelfth floor for a friendly game once a week.”
“What room do they play in?” I asked.
He laughed.
“You are going to love this, Sean. They play in room 1219. Can you believe that?” Jerry gave me a knowing look.
The infamous room 1219 was the party room where Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle’s life came crashing down. Old Roscoe was better known as Fatty Arbuckle, Hollywood funny man. Back in September 1921, Fatty was throwing a party. Some bit actress named Virginia Rappe became ill at the party and died four days later, and Fatty was charged with rape and murder.
It was the crime of the century. And it was the sham trial of the century. San Francisco DA Matthew Brady pressured witnesses to lie. He was making a run for governor and needed all the favorable press he could get. Conservative groups called for Fatty to be executed. Movie studios ordered their stars not to stick up for Fatty because it was bad for business.
What would yellow journalism be without William Randolph Hearst? He sold millions of papers and made a bundle of greenbacks printing false stories about Arbuckle and fueling the flames. There were three trials; the first two ended in hung juries. In the third, in 1922, he was found not guilty.
The trial was so bad and the evidence so flimsy that the jury demanded to release a statement at the verdict. It took five minutes to read the letter of apology to Arbuckle.
But the damage was done. Arbuckle’s movies were banned. He owed about a million dollars in legal fees. He lost everything: homes, cars, his good name, everything and anything of worth. He was box-office poison. The studios would have nothing to do with him. Buster Keaton got him some work as a director, using the pseudonym William B. Goodrich. Will B. Good, what a name. He died in 1933 of a massive heart attack in his sleep. Ever the optimist, he was mounting a comeback in Hollywood.
There I was, outside the very door that destroyed the life of Roscoe Arbuckle. Inside Randall Morehouse was destroying his, one hand at a time.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I left the office and grabbed the Powell Mason Line and headed up the hill. If someone were following me, they’d find it hard to do on a cable car. On California Street, I got out and waited for a California Street cable car to come downhill. I was standing on the corner of the University Club, only two blocks from Chinatown, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t have a tail.
The California Line cable car came and I rode it till Grant Street and got off. I had about three level blocks down Grant Street to get to Wang’s place.
As I was walking down, two tiny Chinese guys came running up the street. Behind them
were two beat cops with their billy clubs out. The guy in front was young and fast, but the other guy was older, fat and slow. The two Chinese guys went down a set of cement steps into a cellar and slammed the steel door. The young cop was just about to head down the stairs when I grabbed his collar and pulled him back. He landed on his can and tried to get back up, loaded for bear.
“What’s the idea, Mack?” he hollered.
“You go down those stairs, junior, and you’ll break your neck for sure,” I said.
“Huh?” The young cop looked bewildered.
The older cop finally arrived, out of breath.
“Thanks, mister, you saved the rookie’s life,” he puffed, out of breath.
The kid got to his feet and dusted himself off, still upset.
“What do you mean, Sarge? I’m not clumsy.”
“You are new to Chinatown, kid,” I said. “You better learn the rules don’t apply here. This is Chinatown, and everything you look at may not be what it seems.”
I grabbed the kid’s shoulder and started him down the stairs.
“Take a look. The threads of the stairwell are curved. They all look alike. Now take a closer look. They get progressively smaller as you go down. Now look at the riser. That’s the part of the step that determines the height. It varies in height every step, some taller, some shorter. This was done on purpose. Every cellar stairs in Chinatown is rigged like this. It took a lot of planning and coordination to make that happen. It works great for a little Chinese guy with little feet; it is not so easy for a big white cop with big feet. They run, you chase, and you fall melon-first down those steps. They are long gone, kid.”
The older cop took over. “It’s okay, kid, it happens, it’s your first week. There are a million more little tricks like this that makes this place different. Let’s get back on patrol.” He looked at me. “Thanks, pal.” The kid’s color started returning to his face.
“Anytime.” I said.
The kid would learn that this place was like betting on the ponies: there was no such thing as a sure thing.
I walked another block to Wang’s club and asked the doorman to get Jimmy for me. He disappeared inside and Jimmy popped out a moment later.
“Come on in, Sean,” he said.
We took an elevator to the top floor. There was a leather bar up there along with a class restaurant. Jimmy ordered a Harbin beer, and I did the same. It was pretty good stuff.
“What’s up, Sean? Mr. and Mrs. Wang are all over me for a report,” Jimmy said.
“I have a report, Jimmy, and you don’t want it, Mr. and Mrs. Wang don’t want it, and I don’t want to give it,” I said.
“Come on, Sean, it can’t be all that bad,” Jimmy said.
“First order of business is if I tell you, you keep your mouth closed. You can’t tell the Wang’s, period,” I said. “This could get messy and thing are already messy enough.”
“All right, Sean. I’ll keep mum,” he said.
“The kid’s girlfriend isn’t a hooker, she isn’t a gold-digger, and she has never been married. It’s a lot worse than that.” I said.
Jimmy took a slug of beer and shrugged.
“The girl’s name is Dorothy Broadcreek. Her father is William Broadcreek, Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He is in charge of the organized crime task force looking into shutting down your boss in Chinatown.” I gave him a hard look.
I found out what Jimmy would look like as a Caucasian because he turned white before my eyes.
“Don’t even make jokes Sean, this is…” Jimmy said.
I cut him off. “This is on the level, Jimmy. No joke, these two love birds are the center of the storm. Her folks don’t know either.”
“Holy crap” was all Jimmy could say.
“We have other pressing matters. First, the FBI caught wind somehow that I was working for your boss, then I was spotted following the girl. Now I got G-Men following me around. Next it looks like there is private eye nosing around about me too. Did your boss have some else shadowing me?” I asked.
“No way, Sean. If he did, I would know.”
“How about Mrs. Wang?” I asked.
“Same thing again. The Wang’s are a lot of things, but underhanded and deceptive they are not. They would have said something to me.”
“Let’s start with this,” I said. “I don’t want you lying to the Wang’s. That could be trouble. You tell Wang that I am a hot item and the FBI is tailing me, that they may have bugged my phones. I wouldn’t put it past them. I need to keep a low profile for a while and stay away from Chinatown. I’ll call you directly from a pay phone. If I’m bugged, you can bet they are bugging your phones as well. If I call, you answer, then hang up and go over to the Telephone Exchange Building and I’ll call you there. Are there any guns at the club?”
“There are a couple of handguns. One is Mr. Wang’s.”
“Get them the hell out of there. The Feds could come with a search warrant. Now that Broadcreek is in a lather, he may move up any actions against the Wang’s. This is now personal for him. I haven’t worked this part out yet. I’m going to tell both Mr. and Mrs. Wang and Mr. and Mrs. Broadcreek at the same time, in the same place together. I’m going to need Righty and Lefty to be there.”
“Righty and Lefty?” Jimmy looked confused.
“You know, the two big guys that are always with the Wang’s.”
“Oh, you mean Chin and Loc. What are they for?”
“To keep the Wang’s from doing anything stupid.”
“Who is going to keep the Broadcreek’s in line?”
“I got a couple of FBI agents in mind.”
“Sean, you are nuts. How do you expect to make this work?”
“Working on it, Jimmy, working on it.”
I finished my beer and left the club. My old pals Ashwythe and Dunderbeck were on my tail. I wasn’t going to fool around anymore with these two cats. I took the direct approach.
I turned on my heel and walked right up to them. “All right, boys, we need to clear the air and fast,” I said. “Let’s go somewhere and talk. I’ll buy.”
Dunderbeck was still steamed. “So you can call our boss and turn us in taking a nip during working hours, wise guy?”
“I’m sorry I went too far. Let’s go somewhere and talk. You will be glad that you did.”
We walked to the California cable car and went up to the Fairmont. I headed for the lobby bar and the FBI guys followed. I ordered a beer, this time American, and they did the same.
“Look, I know I can be a real smartass, I thought you guys were coming over for a standard shakedown. You both need to know everything. The first thing I have to ask you is that not tell Broadcreek.”
“Come on, Shamus. You know we can’t do that.”
“All right, here’s the deal. I’ll give you the full crop, then you have decide how much, if any, to tell your boss.”
They looked at each other and nodded.
“I got hired by the Wang’s for a personal matter. They wanted to find out about the girl their college-age son is dating. It’s a white girl named Dorothy Broadcreek.”
Ashwythe and Dunderbeck both looked like they got kicked in the gut by a mule.
“Holy shit, is that the reason you were shadowing the kid?”
“Yeah.”
“Does Wang know his kid is dating the Broadcreek kid?”
“Nope.”
“Oh my God, what a mess” was all that Dunderbeck could say.
Ashwythe chuckled. “This isn’t funny, but old man Broadcreek loses his mind when one the secretaries brings back Chinese food for lunch. Can you imagine how this is going to play?”
“That’s where you guys come. I am going to set up a meeting with the Wang’s and the Broadcreek’s. I’m going to tell them everything together.”
>
“Oh, man, O’Farrell, you sure have a twisted sense of humor all right. Where do we come in?”
“I’ll call you with the meeting place and time. All the parties will be there. I have a couple of guys from Wang’s team along to control them. You two take care of the Broadcreek’s. I’ll make sure there are no rods in the room. I’ll have a retired cop watching the door and checking for the roscoes.
Dunderbeck was chuckling now. “Gees, if I could tell everyone in the office, I could sell tickets to this event.”
“You boys have got that right. And one last thing, there will be plenty of booze for afterwards.”
“The old man is a teetotaler. But he just might have a nip following that clambake.”
“Sorry, boys. I wasn’t thinking about the Broadcreek’s or the Wang’s. I’m thinking about us.”
Both agents looked at each other and nodded again.
“We’re in, O’Farrell. This whole thing is so farfetched it has to be true. We won’t say anything. Are you going to tell anyone else?”
“Yes, I am going to fill in Danny O’Day. It’s his neighborhood. I told him I would keep him in the loop, no one else.”
“A couple more things, O’Farrell. Call me asswipe again and I’ll clean your clock. Second, are you expensing these drinks?”
“Oh course, wouldn’t you?”
“What can I tell you, O’Farrell? Things can’t get any stranger? We just agreed to keep secrets from our boss with a private eye that we have under surveillance. And while we are at it, we just had a drink during working hours and it was paid for by Wang. If it gets any stranger than that, you be sure to let us know. We’ll be waiting for your call.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I bummed around the office on Friday and did as little as possible. I got to the office at seven a.m., nervous about my date with Kaitlin. With all that I have on my plate, you would think I would be worried about Broadcreek or the Wang’s. No, I was worried about a date.
About eight, I went down to Marty’s for a donut and a paper. His place was a beehive of activity. As I waited in line, Morehouse came in through the revolving door. Holy crap. I left him at the St. Francis yesterday at noon. Now here he was, walking through the door in the same suit, almost twenty hours later. He was sober, however. He wasn’t stumbling, but he looked like he was a street bum shatting on his uppers. At least I didn’t spend the whole night hanging out at the St. Francis, waiting for this duck to fly home.
The Halfway to Hell Club Page 8
