Golden Throat

by James P. Alsphert

  Amadore whistled and a tall, lean man came out from the kitchen. “This-a—this is-a our cook-a, eh? Signor Carlo Anselmo He canna play any thinga you canna throw at ‘im, eh?” he laughed.

  Honey and Anselmo shook hands and went up to the stage. He looked at the music Honey handed him. “Nice-a song…whatta key are we gonna play for da nice-a people-a, eh?”

  “E-flat will do just fine, thanks,” Honey answered.

  Soon the two of them launched into a wonderful version of It Had to Be You and Affonso Amadore smiled. She started it slow, and made it into a romantically sexy song. For the second chorus, she stepped it up and I could see old Affonso tapping his feet. He really liked Honey. Somehow I could hear in her voice the lyrics were, at least in part, meant for me. ‘I wandered around and finally found somebody who, could make me be true, could make me be blue, and even be glad, just to be sad, thinking of you…”

  All activity ceased in the restaurant when Honey sang. That was a good sign. I hadn’t noticed until she launched into the slow part of the song, but standing in the background and leaning against a wall was a man who evoked something in me I didn’t like and it turned my alarm system on.

  Even the hired help applauded wildly when Honey finished. She had done a hell of a job and had all the makings of a pro. Amadore came up and kissed her hand again. “Signorina! Signorina! Che bella! You are hired!”

  I had been sitting at the back of the room when Honey thanked him and started to walk toward me. All of a sudden this guy who’d been watching her like a hawk came up and stopped her. “Miss—I’m sorry I missed your name, but I was very impressed with your singing. I’m Frank Laggore. Signore Amadore is wise to hire you. I’m sure you’ll bring him a lot of business.” He glanced over at me. “Are you with someone—or may I drive you home?”

  “My name is Honey Combes, Mr. Laggore, pleased to meet you,” Honey responded. “But yes, thank you, I’m with someone.” Then she walked away toward me, the strange anxious man watched her every move. He stood about five-ten with a very white skin and clean-shaven face. He wore an immaculate suit with black-and-white patent leather shoes. He looked toward me and scowled, then he turned and exited through the kitchen swing doors.

  “Babe—you were great! Didn’t I tell you? It’s that golden throat,” I said as I got up and hugged Honey. Then I kissed her and got red lipstick on my face. I got out a handkerchief and wiped it off. “So, is this how you mark your men?”

  I could tell Laggore had upset her. “Thanks, Cable—easy gig here. I like Mr. Amadore—but that other character—what in the hell do you think he was doing here in the middle of the afternoon? He gave me the creeps.”

  “Me, too, doll. I’ve seen the kind before. He works for someone in the mob, I’ll wager, and maybe sells illegal booze, drugs or pretty white dames who have a lot of talent in certain places.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Honey murmured.

  “Yeah, and celebrate, kid.” The irony at the Bella Notte that afternoon was the fact that I knew the more I plugged Honey into the entertainment world, the more I would risk losing her. It wouldn’t even be her fault, it was just that people sold parts of themselves in the pursuit of their drives and ambitions. And some people, once pointed in the right direction, were unstoppable. I had a hunch Honey was one of them. But I believed in her, I believed in her talent—and sometimes we have to sacrifice our selfish desires for the bigger picture. That’s how I felt about Honey.

  We went to Clifton’s Cafeteria downtown. We sat at a table on the mezzanine looking across from each other. She had a lot of love in her eyes. “You know, Cable, as much as I loved singing this afternoon, I was singing because of you—and to you. It wasn’t even the job thing, but my heart was saying how lucky I am to have you—especially when that creep showed up and I was forced to make a comparison.” Then she checked out my eyes. She was good at that. “I do have you, don’t I?”

  I took her hands and cupped them in mine. “You bet, babe. I don’t know how it happened, but yeah, you’re the tops on my list of dolls.”

  “List?” she repeated me.

  “Just kidding. You keep me happy, toots. I can’t even think of another woman right now. I just hope I can keep up with you. I have this feeling your career is gonna take off and leave me in the dust.”

  Her eyes misted a little. “No, Cable, I’m not made that way. I like balance. And I could not imagine not having your body next to mine at night—or sacrificing that opportunity to be shooting on a movie set all day with a bunch of ego-maniacs. I’ve seen them, some of them come in the club to check out the new babes in town so they can screw them while they’re promising them the moon—and a starlet’s contract.”

  “Sounds to me like you’ve got it together, sweetheart. I’m proud of you for doing your homework—and you’re not even a cop, are you?”

  “No, but you are—and that worries me. Is it something you’re simply crazy about—besides me, that is?”

  I snickered. “You got it. There are two things I love most in this world. Making love to you and chasing down bad guys and seeing justice done.”

  “Somehow I like the first part better. What will become of you, Cable? You know, it’s getting kind of serious with me—I mean, the way I feel about you and a possible future—”

  “—I don’t think we can go there today, toots. The quick answer is a guy like me puts himself on the line every day, one way or another, gathering up the guts to take down another hoodlum when the opportunity arises. Trouble is, I’m fighting the mob and city hall at the same time. I never considered myself marriage material. On my time off—even how you met me, I’m out boozing and womanizing at the local speakeasy—that’s what I do—drink to numb myself from the reality of that high brick wall in front of me, smoke to hurry along the disease that might someday kill me—and play in the hay with beautiful dames who might also happen to sing. I told Mario that I might be getting hung up on you—but it’s not a good idea. You see, babe, if I let my heart rule my head, I’ll be in deep shit and there’ll be no one to catch me in free fall when you go away or find that rich, handsome, educated dude that didn’t come from the wrong side of the tracks—”

  “—Cable, it would never be like that with me!”

  “Please let me finish. Some lives are penciled out ahead of time, Honey, and mine is one of ‘em. If you can enjoy me for now and stay in that magic, that sweet spot of warm nights and great sex, lots of laughs, a few drinks and most excellent companionship—then I’m your man—”

  “—Cable! Stop, please! You are my man, like it or not, buster,” she came back with her eyes misting and her voice firm. “There are some things not even you can control, Mr. Police Officer, so don’t get so verbose and make me fall again for that fast patter and cover-up language you use to conceal a hurt I’ve seen deep inside of you that I didn’t cause.”

  There fell a silence as we sat looking at each other across the table with the din of Clifton’s Cafeteria in the background. “Damn,” I finally said, “you’re one hell of a woman, Honey Combes.” I smiled at her and toasted her with my glass of water. “Am I, uh, to assume this is our first argument?”

  “Never, Mr. Denning. There isn’t time in life to argue. I just want you to love me—I can’t make you do that. Even in magic moments when you are able to accept us, belonging to us, and no one else. I never thought of marriage as an option for us, Cable. And I don’t think I can have children. The world is too cruel and I’d be selfish to wish that upon someone I love. I’m too damned independent and you are too…too much of a risk. I’d never know when they might be carrying you home in a pine box—and I couldn’t be that bonded to you and have to say the last good-bye at a cemetery.”

  I looked at Honey Combes feeling a lot of love, because this moment was tearing apart all that insulation that kept me from freely giving of myself—and the security that nothing lasts forever anyhow, so what was I afraid of? “So…babe…th
anks…thanks for that intelligent little head of yours. Yeah, I’m your guy, and if you’ll have me warts and all, I think I can stick it out with you until—whenever, whatever—”

  “—whatever, Cable. Don’t think about it. Just love me. Because I’m going to love you, Mr. Denning. Somehow the rest takes care of itself.”

  I needed to change the subject. “I—I, uh, need to tell you something, babe. Tomorrow I’m going to a funeral—no, don’t worry—it’s not mine— yet. Some big thug with the local branch of Cosa Nostra. The reason I’m telling you is, that I’m kinda off-the-record involved in a mysterious case that started at the county morgue and is going to end up at Hollywood Cemetery tomorrow, I hope. I might be approached by some pretty tough players and if I’m threatened, it will tell me I’m on the right track. Now, if for some reason I don’t call you tomorrow evening before you get to the dance club, call Mario.” I took a pen and scribbled down Mario Angelo’s phone number and handed it to her. “Tell him I was right about Ardizzone and the little creep that got it, but not to tell O’Flaherty—got it?”

  She looked at me as she took the paper. “This is how you live your life? On the edge all the time?”

  “Yeah, it gives me some fresh air, doll, a kind of high you can’t get anywhere else—except maybe in bed with you. So you see little deaths occur around us all the time, some inside of us, some outside—and then someday it all catches up with you and someone’s crying at your funeral.”

  “God, Cable, in a way I wish you wouldn’t let me know what you’re actually doing out there. It scares me just to picture you mixed up with those grease balls. I know some of them. They come into Gregario’s and round up some of the girls for the night—you know, the big parties up on Mulholland Drive some gangster throws every night. They keep pressuring me to go, but I hate who they are and what they do to the women who don’t have a clue about what’s going to happen to them. Some of them disappear…just disappear, Cable.”

  “Yeah, I hear you, babe. You stay as far away as you can from those mugs. White slavery is one of their games, and pretty young dolls like you can easily end their days as a drugged-up sex slave in some wealthy Asian’s harem.”

  “Oh, God, don’t tell me that. It gives me the shivers.”

  I got up and took out some money to pay the check, and smiled at this lovely babe. “Well, on the bright side of the world, today was a red-letter-day for you, Golden Throat. I’m your number one fan, you know. I hope you’ll remember me and autograph a picture for me when you’re famous and the world holds you up there beyond my reach.”

  She took my hand as we walked downstairs to the cash register. “I’ll never be out of your reach, Cable Denning. You’re the only man I want to be famous for--and don’t forget it.”

  We walked to pick up the streetcar. “I—I, uh, sort of had an important question to ask you. Neither of us discussed it, and I fault myself for not checking in with you the night we first—uh, you know… Anyway, you’ve had a constant spate of unprotected sex, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  She smiled and laughed lightly. “Oh, I noticed, lover man. But I can’t conceive, Cable—something doesn’t work in that department, like I don’t have eggs that can be fertilized, if you wish a clinical description.” Then she tapped me on the shoulder. “But keep trying anyway, Mister, the more you try, the more I like it.” She stood up on tiptoe and kissed me.

  We laughed and got on the streetcar. “Just let me know if I’m trying to hard—”

  “—hard is how I like it, buster. Keep it comin’, I’m your gal.” I

  took her home and then went back to my flat where I found Mario fast asleep. Soon I had joined him. A couple of hours of shut-eye was better than none, I thought.

  Chapter 4

  FUNERAL FOR ONE

  At the last minute, Mario decided to attend the funeral with me. You never saw such formal pomp mixed with an ample serving of bullshit. Even the Dragna Family had the nerve to show up, dressed to the nines and brilliantly composed, standing back from the Ardizzone mobsters, friends and relatives. In 1927, the Hollywood Memorial Cemetery looked sort of like a golf course with mausoleums and tombstones. The L.A. mob was expanding and most of the local big shots attended. A few I had seen before. In fact, that slimy creature who showed up the Bella Notte, Frank Laggore, was standing with the Dragna clan.

  Mob funerals always reminded me of a bad melodrama where everybody pretended, but you weren’t supposed to notice. Guys in their ties and immaculate suits bulging from packing iron, stood piously with their hands folded in front of them innocently. Back where Mario and I stood, several bodyguards were standing in outposts looking for trouble. The service was Roman Catholic, and the priest did his thing with the words and holy water over the coffin as they lowered ol’ Ernesto “Iron Man” Ardizzone into the earth. I’d never met the man, but when things began to break up at the gravesite, I noticed a few of the immediate family scoping Mario and me. We were on our way out to catch the streetcar when three of the goons ran up to us. “Thanks…for coming to Ernesto’s last rites, officers. I’m Jack Dragna and I know you two are cops. I need to talk to you for a minute, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yeah, sure, Dragna. We just came to pay our respects, seeing we’ve been scraping off Mr. Ardizzone’s dirty work from the city sidewalks for some years now.”

  He called us aside and we walked to the protection of one of those large pieces of granite where they laid to rest whole families. “Let’s hope…a new era has begun, gentlemen. But I—I, uh, need to caution you both on one point. My family and I would consider it a favor if you and your partner stopped snooping around down at the morgue. You’re never gonna find that missing thing you’re looking for. If…you value your safety, and wish to continue serving in the Los Angeles police department with our blessing, I would take this advice…to heart. This must not get back to Matrangas nor should his business dealings with the police department be disturbed—he thinks it below our duty to warn off police officers, so I’m telling you on the Q.T.” He started to walk away, then turned back to face me. “Oh, one other thing. We’re gonna get very involved in the entertainment industry—so if you value your little squeeze, the dame who’s gonna work for Affonso Amadore at the Bella Notte, I urge you to play it close to the hip, if you get my drift.”

  I looked at Dragna and then over to what must have been his brother Louie, and father, Attilio. Both of them had gangster written all over their faces, not to mention the family resemblance. But who in the hell was Matrangas? That was a name I hadn’t heard before. “You know, Dragna, because we’re in polite company today—oh yeah, and grieving about your plugging ol’ Ernie and all—I won’t cross that line and invoke your wrath. But I will say this….you know I know, and the cop in me is kinda like an old bulldog, he hangs on to his quarry by locking his jaws on it. And right now, my jaws are locked on certain unsolved mysteries down at the rue morgue, shall we say? I don’t let go easy, Dragna. You see, fear is what you count on to scare people off—and if that doesn’t work, they end up missing. I grew up with your kind—in fact, I used to be sort of your kind until I jumped tracks to the other side of town. So, you do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

  Jack Dragna was taken aback by my boldness in the face of danger. Mario was tugging at my sleeve to get the hell out of the situation. “That…could be very dangerous to your health. There’s such a thing as knowing too much for your own good. You’re one hell of a gutsy guy, I’ll say that—stupid, but gutsy. I kinda like your nervy patter. What’s your name?”

  “Denning…Officer Cable Denning to you.”

  “Well, Denning, in a way I’m sorry we’ve had this conversation and I can see we’re not on the same side. For now, let’s just say you’re on my ‘checklist’ and I wouldn’t push that envelope any further if I were you. It’s liable to get you—well, you know what I mean. I hope I won’t be seeing you around, Denning.”

  With that they moved of
f, leaving Mario and I watching the priest and his altar boys pack up his stuff and meander across the cemetery toward the chapel “Gees, Cable, what the hell? You’re gonna get us killed, buddy! What craziness possessed you to talk to him like that? See? That’s why I didn’t want to come. Now I’m marked by the mob for being in collusion with you.”

  “I’m sorry, Mario, but truth is truth, and I have a funny thing inside of me, like an alarm, that goes off when I hear bullshit from big mouths like Jack Dragna. We can’t cower under the pressure, pal, because if we do it means we’re no better than they are—and what the hell more is the present police force than a patsy for those hoodlums driving away in their black Cadillacs?”

  Mario reiterated he would not attend any more mafia funerals with me and we were on our way back to the streetcar stop when a man called to us from behind. We turned and there stood a very handsome middle-aged man with nice eyes and a good face. He cut a suave figure in a light-grey pinstripe suit and wore a nice grey fedora. “Officer Denning, may I have a word with you privately?” He looked at Mario who threw his hands up in the air with an expression that said we were never going to get out of the Hollywood Cemetery.

  “Are you friend or foe?” I asked, half flustered.

  “Definitely, friend,” he said in a light, warm voice. At closer look his eyes seemed fathomless, as if he looked right through me without even trying. I thought it curious, but I was young and still wet behind the ears in a lotta ways.

  I asked Mario to hang out for a minute while the gentleman walked a few yards with me down the sidewalk. “Mr. Denning, my name is Joe Lorena, I am consigliere for the Dragna family. I cannot caution you enough about the danger you may have gotten yourself into today. I am also concerned about the people around you, like Mr. Angelo and your new friend, Honey Combes.”

  “How come you guys even know all about the dames I hang out with? Don’t you ever mind your own business?”