Golden Throat (Cable Denning Mystery Series Book 1)

by James P. Alsphert

  One corpse was looking up at me with that cold, icy stare reserved only for the dead. That all too familiar glaze had already come over his eyes and Dr. Sandor probed and poked at the body until he was satisfied an autopsy would reveal what he needed to know. I couldn’t imagine a guy who liked to hang out in cold city morgues and slice up the old meat before it gets cremated or put six-feet under. But Sandor loved it. When I asked him about it, he answered in his strange, Karloffian way, “You’ll find, Officer Denning, the dead…give you far less trouble…than the living.”

  “So our sergeant wants Mario and me to follow up on this one—he’s kinda piled up with a lotta homicide cases lately.” Sandor grunted and walked off to attend other deceased residents. It seemed a lotta people wanted Ardizzone dead, not the least of whom was that poisonous viper named Jack Dragna, whose father and brothers also shared an equal mania for crime and violence. Suddenly the buzz is Dragna’s giving orders and taking over the family and their many illegal businesses, all the way from prohibition booze to white slavery. Oh, as I also said before, don’t forget to throw in mowing down honest cops when they got in the way.

  The other guy who got killed yesterday afternoon puzzled me. For one thing, the thug had no I.D.—and no fingerprints! He was a real John Doe. I asked Mario to lift the sheet covering this strange little man’s body. He also didn’t have a navel! Right away I went searching around for Dr. Sandor. I found him and led him by the arm to the corpse in question. Sandor peeled the sheet back and peered at the missing belly button but didn’t raise an eyebrow. “So, doc, isn’t it kinda weird, you know—no fingerprints, no wallet, no identification—and no navel?” I inquired of the pensive face.

  “Yes, I—I, uh, took…notice of it earlier, Officer Denning.”

  “Well, you’d better take good notice of this, doc. There are a couple of pieces here that don’t—don’t, uh, quite fit.”

  “Officer Denning, just because something doesn’t…’fit’ into the norm of your everyday existence, you mustn’t consider the anomaly mysterious.” He smiled an all-knowing, devious smile. “Besides, there is always an explanation for everything. Surely, as patrolmen you must have deduced that…when piecing together a crime scene…the result of some murderous villain venting his viciousness on the unsuspecting society. I will give this cadaver every due consideration—and rest assured, all the pieces will fit when I’m through. Now, I suggest you busy young men upholding the laws of our fair city be on your way. Think…of the living…while you can…” Then he surveyed the room. “Look around, gentlemen, it is…such…a short journey, from cradle to…to grave, isn’t it?”

  Mario and I left and got into our patrol car. I looked across at my partner, who seemed unusually quiet. “This no belly button thing bothers me, Mario. If both of us hadn’t seen that dead guy next to Ardizzone, I sure as hell wouldn’t have believed you if you had told me.”

  “Well, fingerprints can be sandpapered off, Cable, and hell, you know with these new fandangled medical things going on, he could’ve had an operation to get rid of his belly button, too, for all we know.” Mario mumbled.

  “But why in the hell bother doing that?” I persisted. “It wouldn’t surprise me if old Sandor found some other weird shit on that stiff.”

  “I don’t know…and I really don’t give a damn. Gangsters are gangsters—whether they’re lying in a pool of blood on the street or getting paid off down at City Hall.” Mario seemed unconcerned and nebulous about the whole thing, so I dropped it. Yet I had this gut feeling some more shit was going to come down the pike about this little guy with the big teeth.

  “I don’t think this is the end of it, either, buddy. I don’t know why, but I’ve got hackles going up on the back of my neck just about now.”

  My gut proved to be right. The next morning Dr. Sandor called Sergeant Mike O’Flaherty. Mario and I roomed together off of Alvarado and we got rousted out of bed by O’Flaherty’s phone call. He ordered us to meet him over at the Morgue, but since neither of us had a car, we caught a streetcar and made the quick trip. Mario and I were both tired from our all-night patrol duty and didn’t particularly look forward to facing the mean-spirited, feisty sergeant.

  “Well! About time, you two lackeys! I think you’re a knowin’ what this here thing is all about, now don’t ya?

  Old doc Sandor gave us a curious once over. “Of course they do, sergeant. Last night, both of these most efficient officers pointed out those physical anomalies in my presence last night. I believe they are to be…congratulated.”

  O’Flaherty grumbled something under his breath. “But that’s not the half of it, boys. The doctor’s autopsy revealed somethin’ else that we kinda want to keep hushed, so he tells me.”

  Dr. Sandor led the three of us into a special side room with large jars with all kinds of body parts in them. It was not only grotesque but stank to high heaven. Then the doc took us to a medium sized jar, labeled #1602-Blinthe, and brought a small lamp to bear on it. “See? See how it glows, gentlemen. Pure, 24-karat gold. It seems our mysterious guest had a gold-lined throat. And now, you see, it just floats, there in the clear solution. Curious…and, might I add, definitely unique.”

  “That’s it?” O’Flaherty barked. “You brought me and two of me officers down here because some murdered thug has his throat lined with gold?”

  “So much for all of your pieces fitting together, eh, doc?” I said in a rather droll voice. “Explain this one away and we’ll give you the Sherlock Holmes award of the year.”

  “Oh, fear not, Officer Denning, I shall….I shall, and I do not take kindly…to your…sarcasm. But I needed for you gentlemen to see it before I did anything else. I’m sure…you understand my precautions in such a delicate matter as this…and who knows…what twists and turns the clouded brain of man possesses? What mystery might be…shrouded…and what other blunt and horrible mischief might be unleashed? It is said, you know, murder and insanity are pale brothers.”

  I always thought Sandor a bit nuts anyhow, but he was increasingly teetering on the edge of sanity, I thought. Too damn many days and nights with the dead, maybe. Mario and I wandered over to the jar containing the throat of the deceased gangster. I noticed an indentation just above the Adam’s apple, as if something had been lodged there but had been removed. But I kept it to myself. Just then, O’Flaherty came up to us. “Before I leave, men, I wanted ya to know ya did the right thing here. As a matter of fact, I’d like to be trainin’ ya for the homicide detective division. I’m goin’ to be runnin’ short here in a few years—and bein’ prepared now mightn’t be such a bad idea. What would you be thinkin’ about that proposal?”

  “I’m game, sergeant,” I said. “I’ve always had a yen for that sleuthing detail stuff…” I looked at Mario. “I can’t, of course, speak for my partner…”

  Mario nodded his head and then looked at his sergeant. “Yeah, why not? You know, sergeant, it’s been like that since the beginning—wherever Cable goes, I go…leftovers from protecting each other's asses in the ghetto.”

  “Then so be it!” O’Flaherty crackled with his Irish accent. “I’ll be seein’ ya boys. Of course, you’ll have to be takin’ special classes in the field, observin’, and with Lieutenant Karfosky—but I warn ya this—he always carries an iron horseshoe in his glove when he hits—and he’s tough as nails, he is.”

  Mario and I discussed this opportunity as we took the streetcar home. We both knew it was a way out of being a flatfoot patrolman for life. We smiled and slapped each other on the back and soon Mario and I were home in our respective beds catching up on our sleep. After all, the dreaded nightshift came around soon enough.

  Chapter 2

  JAZZ ME A FLAPPER

  Somewhere in the night that same lonely sax played a haunting version of My Heart Stood Still and my young man’s imagination transported me to Amanda Baxter’s bedroom, and I was visualizing that amazing form of hers slipping on her night gown and wondering if she was thinking of m
e. The music wafted down the hill from a house above the dam. I could feel the sound wend its way into my ear like golden tones from sensual nights dancing with Amanda on the crowded floor of the Café Montmartre on Hollywood Boulevard. I had taken that dazzling dame up here to the Hollywood Dam at least three or four times before, but tonight she wouldn’t come, saying she didn’t want to end up marrying a cop, so I ended up listening to a concert of frogs instead. But that wasn’t so bad. What was decent and good in you often came from that deep association with nature and the lessons she taught you.

  But with pubescence the hormones start banging up against your brain and a young man’s fancy turns to wondering what’s really underneath a girl’s dress when a windy day reveals a pair of pink panties, or when she bends down to pick something up and those lovely young breasts are revealed in all their glory and suddenly a deep, primordial instinct snaps you to attention. Then chasing frogs and dragonflies takes a back seat to that sexual curiosity that gets all men in trouble sooner or later. I didn’t blame Amanda Baxter for not wanting to marry a flatfoot. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I was the marrying kind. Sure as hell I couldn’t support a wife and household on $168.00 a month! But then again, I was an honest cop. It was 1927 and some bluecoats were slithering, treacherous creatures, plying their nefarious trades in the underbelly of the fragmented, corrupt town below the dam—my town—Los Angeles. It was a city you loved to hate, yet the damn place was a strange harmony of contrasts. The darkest evil mixed with the highest good, and in between stood the rest of us, working our butts off for a piece of a decent life. The country was prospering as never before as Wall Street, the banks, rising corporative monopolies, and plain old greed gained status from lofty penthouses hidden in the dark hearts of men who had stepped into that slight-of-hand world of shadow and deception.

  Prohibition had turned thirsty citizens into a slew of lawbreakers, giving rise to the speakeasy, vice, gambling, crime and corrupt politicians. The mob set it up and were in cahoots with the cops as “protection,” making no bones about who ran what. And to add a further injustice to Mr. and Mrs. America, the stuff they served as libation was a virulent version of tainted death, known to rot out the insides of those who imbibed too frequently. Amanda’s Dad smuggled in real gin from England, the true Juniperus communis, containing anise, licorice root, angelica and grapefruit peel. It was here that I began a life-long enjoyment of this beverage, with or without the tonic. At thirteen I began to smoke the green packs of Lucky Strike cigarettes, which were advertised as ‘being good for you and relaxing as the day is long…’ Well, I was never too sure about that, but I got hooked anyway. So my formative years bent my fate toward booze, smoking and beautiful, fast women—it was all part of what identified me to myself—and to the world.

  But it was music that drew me like the proverbial moth to the flame and whenever I could I would take in a good ragtime band at a cheap speakeasy joint and get my foot to tapping, not to mention grabbing a gander at those sexy little flappers jazz-dance the night away. I don’t know where I got it from because no one in my family was particularly musical. But I had to have it, like I craved my Lucky Strikes. I never had a lotta dough, but for ten-cents a dance I would whirl around the floor with some cute babe who smelled of booze and perfume and sweat like a stale flower. Every once in a while I recognized a doll I grew up with in East Los Angeles, populated by the Irish, Italians, Jews, Chicanos and some other Eastern European immigrants lured to the American dream. Lincoln Heights was a tough and unforgiving battleground…the survival of the fittest, where either you had to win a fight or get the shit beat out of you three times a week. Across the river lay Little Italy and the Mics and Dagos had gangs that fought each other for no other reason than being of a different ethnic background. I hated that. And when times were really rough, and they always were, I grabbed a split baseball bat and whacked away at hoodlums trying to steal my mother’s wash hanging on the clothesline. If it wasn’t nailed down, they’d steal it in those days.

  My Dad died when I was six. I cried a lot when he left us because he would be the only early male influence I would ever know. He was a tough Irishman, stout with steely blue eyes and chiseled looks. He drank with the best of them, swore like a sailor, but he was sharp as a razor and twice as strong and worked at the stinking steel smelters a few miles away. I think to this day it was the filthy, belching smoke, sulfides and cinders flying out of those ovens that killed him. My mother was a beautiful woman of Irish-Scandinavian descent with dark, roiling red hair. She stood tall and stately, had a great figure with warm, brown eyes that told you she cared, kind of like a gentle mother deer. She was a kind and intelligent woman, took in laundry and worked in a dry goods store to make ends meet. I had no brothers or sisters, but I remember my mother lying sick in bed with a swollen belly as infection corrupted a fetus fighting for its existence inside her. I was too young to remember it all, but I know she barely survived that one, and no more children were forthcoming.

  But strange as it seems, my best friend, Mario Angelo, came from Little Italy. We bonded when I was twelve and he was probably about fifteen. We were pitted against each other in a hand-to-hand fight, prodded on by some of our respective gangs in a makeshift arena in a wrecking yard. We came to furious blows and Mario busted me a good one on the side of the head. I went down. But I had some hidden fury in me, an Irish temper that once triggered, turned killer. So I rushed Mario like a banshee screaming in the night, jumped on top of him and pounded him to the ground. Out of blind rage I kept hitting him when he was down until he blurted out, “Stop! You win!” When I recovered my senses and looked down at this hapless young chap’s face, filled with tears, blood and remorse, I knew we would be friends for life. The gangs were satisfied and slowly drifted away. Mario and I remained, sitting on the ground together. “Do you wanna come to my house for some lunch?” I asked the bleeding fifteen year-old. He nodded his head and from that day on we were all but inseparable. Even our families came to know and love one another and I got to experience Little Italy like few other Mics ever did.

  Ten Cents a Dance

  One night, Mario and I went to this underground dump called Gregorio’s, where the gin was eighty-proof poison. We went to laugh and dance a little, ogle the babes and check out the pickings. We were young and had a lot of steam to vent. Cops knew all the wild spots because the tainted police department was on the take and word traveled fast within the force. In fact, an officer could walk into a speakeasy in full uniform, order a drink at the bar and nobody would look up from his or her drink to give a damn.

  We were pretty high when I noticed this dazzling number come out of the women’s bathroom and survey the room. I was a pretty good looker myself in those days and brazen as hell when it came to approaching a dame. I winked at Mario and as we always did, we flipped a coin for her. I won. She was honey-blonde with wonderful blue eyes, stood about five-five and wore an off-the-shoulder black blouse with a pleated, white short skirt. Her eyes invited you into the bedroom long before you spoke to her. As I said, I was gutsy as hell in those days and approached her with an over-estimated confidence. “Hello. Are you—uh, up to taking a few spins around the room—or do you belong to someone?” I asked, taking in her perfect figure, which I estimated was somewhere around 38-22-34.

  “Do I look like a dog to you? I could never belong to someone, Mister,” she snapped back at me with a low, warm voice. “But if it’s a dance you want, you’ll have to wait in line. I’m pretty well booked for the evening, and if you do get to dance with me, don’t bring a collar.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess I’m at the end of the line, then, huh? And, by the way, I never use collars—because a good dog just…uh, naturally—gravitates to his master…”

  She did a double-take on me. “You got a gutsy style, buster—maybe a little too big for your britches. Yeah, but you do have an interesting patter. Are you an actor? I might like that.”

  “No, I’m not, but thanks. Maybe that’s
because I hear a lot of singers—and when I speak, I suppose words are like lyrics to a song for me—a musical poem, you know.”

  “Yes.” She took a token reserved for the next dance and tossed it over her shoulder at the young man waiting for his turn. He caught it and looked strangely at the dish. “Sorry, I…uh, forgot I promised my musical friend here I’d—I’d, uh, try him out first. Will you wait?”

  The young man nodded eagerly, if not gladly, glanced at me and then looked back at the dame. Then she took my hand and led me out into the middle of the crowded dance floor. The live combo had just started up with Gershwin’s Someone to Watch Over Me and we started to dance. Mario Angelo was flirting with some little number he’d hit on but glanced up at me long enough to shake his fingers as if he knew I had the best the evening had to offer. And, you know, I did. “My—my name’s Denning, Cable Denning,” I said, not knowing quite what else to say. She was remarkably beautiful up close and those liquid bedroom eyes also contained a vulnerable innocence.

  “They call me Honey Combes—my Dad’s a beekeeper.”

  I laughed. “That’s great! I enjoy your sense of humor—I like to laugh. But of course, you’re kidding, right?”

  She didn’t respond right away but held me about two feet out from her body as she looked into my eyes. “No….you didn’t thank me for putting you at the head of the line, Mr. Denning—and remember, you owe me ten cents.”