Golden Throat

by James P. Alsphert

  Crazy Jack opened his door wider and smiled at Zelda. “Pretty lady—come see Jack’s house—Jack has mouse—elephant, too! Ha! ha! But I don’t know! I don’t know! Come see Jack’s house?”

  Zelda peeked into Jack’s putrid mess of a room. “Ah, no thank you, Crazy Jack—if I may call you that. But I really do think you’re crazy.”

  Jack laughed. “I don’t know! I don’t know! Jack crazy like squirrel—feed squirrel at park—not in dark, come see?” He reached out gently to pet Zelda’s arm. She recoiled in fear. “Jack no hurt—squirt! Ha! ha!” he laughed. I could tell this was Crazy Jack’s way of flirting, but somehow Zelda didn’t quite get it.

  “Let him touch you, Zelda. Remember what you keep telling me about accepting someone’s overtures graciously? Well, now’s that time.”

  Zelda held her hand out silently, looking up into Jack’s eyes. He slowly took his fingers and stroked her arm. “Aha! Crazy Jack touch girl! But I don’t know! I don’t know! She fear Jack. Jack no fear girl…”

  Finally Zelda grew up for the moment. “I don’t fear you either, Jack. It’s just—just that everything here—I mean, you and where you live and all—is brand new to me. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!” Crazy Jack said as he took his hand back and held it against his stomach, as if protecting it. “You like Cable? I like Cable. Cable like you, okay…”

  “Yes, I like Cable a lot. He is my friend, too. Is that alright with you?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know! Jack live in lonely place—see?” He pointed to his filthy one room. Then he looked at me with sullen eyes, his head twitching. “Murder—a lonely place, Cable. No go there. Too late for friend—but I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  “But Jack, where can I find him? Are you sure there’s no way I can locate and save him? I’ve been going nuts all day.”

  “Jack say—today—friend die, desert heat—too late…Cable…But I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  I thanked Jack and Zelda and I went back down the rickety stairs onto the dark street. “Why does he always follow up with that ‘I don’t know! I don’t know” stuff?” Zelda asked. “Seems really weird to me.”

  “Hey, Jack was attracted to you, kid. You should be flattered. I’d never seen him do that before. You must’ve touched a heartstring.”

  “Oh, yeah, swell. If that’s the kind of guy I attract then I must be crazy myself. Can you see me going around saying ‘I don’t know! I don’t know! all the time?”

  “Maybe…” I kidded her.

  She slugged me lightly on the shoulder. “Oh, you! Why can’t it be someone like you who falls for me?” She locked her arm under mine as we walked toward the streetcar line. “Cable…could you ever see your way clear to maybe take me out one more time before you and Honey get married? Because then I’ll have to leave and find another place to live.”

  “Well, if Honey doesn’t mind, we can go cut up the rug one more time, I guess.” Then she looked at my face in earnest.

  “But your heart’s not in it, is it?”

  “I’ve just got a lot of stuff going on right now, Zelda. Be happy to go out dancing. Didn’t you say you had a great time when we went?”

  “What…what if there was a teeny, weeny little chance that we could go out and when we got home before Honey—you could—you could—you know…I’m too embarrassed to say it…but you know, maybe we could make whoopee?”

  I laughed under my breath. “And…uh, just exactly what would that entail, young woman?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…whatever happens, I guess. You could start by kissing me goodnight. Then, if you liked that, I’d take my dress off for you and maybe you could touch me—”

  “—it’s not gonna happen, Zelda. Keep it to the dancing and a coke—and you’ve still got a deal.”

  She pouted all the way back to the little bungalow. As we neared the front door I saw a figure lurking in the shadows. I felt for my .38 as we approached. It was Joe Lorena. I gestured for Zelda to go in. I took a deep breath. My intuitions were going nuts. I knew Lorena did not come to bring me good tidings. “Hello, Joe. What brings you out so late?”

  “It’s your friend, Cable. I thought if I told you up front, you’d handle it like the man I know you are.” He came closer to me, his kindly eyes sympathetic and gentle. “They put a contract out on Mario Angelo.”

  “Who put a contract out on him, Joe, you? Downtown? The cops?”

  “I’m afraid this time he stepped on big financial toes, Cable. Word is the Jewish mafia out of Chicago got the contract from higher up. Corporations are more dangerous than banks or organizations like mine.”

  “So, can I get him out? Bribes, getting him out of the area, money—what? I can’t just sit back and see Mario get wasted!”

  “I told you on the phone, Cable. Let him go. It’s too late. Your friend bit off more than he could chew. I wish you had warned him ahead of time.”

  “Goddamnit, Joe, I did! Several times! I saw it coming. I begged him to cool off until the timing was right. But he wrote some stupid article telling all, so I hear…and now—”

  “—I’m sorry, Cable. I felt it fair to you that I was the one to tell you. The ball’s out of your court, Officer Denning.”

  “Ex-officer Denning after tonight, pal. I knew the straw would break this camel’s back sooner or later. Tonight’s it. Finito—over—done with!”

  “What will you do? You and Honey both will have to earn some money, you know.”

  “I’ve been thinkin’ about that, too, Joe. I’ve been mulling over the possibility of becoming a private investigator. That way I’d be out on my own chasing down errant husbands and wives, girlfriends and lovers, caught in the act. All I have to do is come up with a pretty photo of the happy trespassers for court.”

  Joe Lorena smiled. “Now, that’s not half bad, Cable. I like the idea. You can name your fees, your hours—I might even hire you now and then to trace down someone who’s disappeared—”

  “—you mean like Mario?”

  “Not exactly. More like someone who’s confiscated funds that belong to the organization, or someone’s wife having an affair with someone she shouldn’t be having an affair with.”

  “By the way, I always wanted to ask you. Did you really love Honey’s mother? I mean, being an alien and all?”

  Joe became still and folded his arms in. “I was completely, helplessly in love with her mother. You see, Cable, the universe is populated with the same emotional potential for all. Deciding to accept it, is an individual choice. But we all have the capacity.”

  “I see…well, thanks, Joe, I just wanted to be sure. Honey cares a lot about you—and—and, uh, it would disappoint her if she felt you may not have been the real thing with her mother.”

  “Good night, Cable,” he said and he walked away. “Again, I’m sorry about your friend…”

  As I watched Joe Lorena walk away, I knew my life was about to change. The silent tears I had for Mario, quitting the police force, my impending marriage to Honey, my continued deep feelings for Adora—and the forbidden unknown that may yet be in store for me concerning the mysterious Lei-tao and the God of Our Fathers.

  Just like Crazy Jack said, two days later they found the remains of Mario Angelo in a ditch, baking in the hot desert sun near Palm Springs. That sorrow alone threw me over an edge of despair and hopelessness. I knew that would stay with me the rest of my life. Yeah, sure I’d get over it someday, but what it meant and how it stayed locked in my craw as a lesson in my life primer book would take a toll that robbed me of any semblance of my remaining youth. Thus at twenty-nine years of age I had grown-up to the real world, and any blinders I might have had stuck to my eyes, I threw away on that day. Now there was only the march of time…then oblivion.

  Honey and I attended the funeral at Calvary Cemetery on Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles. It was a place where a lot of the old Catholic entert
ainers were buried, as well as early pioneers in the formation of Los Angeles. Rosalie Elena was shaken to her roots with grief. She grabbed for my arm when they lowered Mario into that cool, hard earth. It was a closed casket rosary service because the assassin put a bullet hole right through Mario’s temple and somehow the head began to swell until he was unrecognizable anymore. So Rosalie Elena had only memories now, memories of a vital young man filled with a zest and enthusiasm for life and a wonderful love for those values of home and hearth and family that I seemed to lack.

  I used to think murder must be a lonely profession, even if you enjoyed it. Now I felt that both murder and death were lonely places, when all the props were kicked out from under you—and the end result was final. You couldn’t return the sales slip for a refund. When you’re watching someone you loved disappear down a dark hole of no return, there’s something about the finality of it that stops you in your tracks, makes you realize how fragile our mortality really is and that someday it’ll be your turn. At twenty-nine years old, holding the hand of a beautiful woman with honey-colored hair who loved you with her warm and wonderful heart and body, it was hard to imagine that trip to never-never land would ever happen to you. Yet it happened to Mario and even though he was 3 years older, that was close enough. It made you think, you either fear life and play it safe or you just plow into it with gusto and your convictions—and if you die in the process, I guess you die doing what you really believe in. So, in the end, is any cause worth dying for? Standing there in the morning Los Angeles sunlight I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was best to live out a quiet life of desperation like so many. But at least there was a roof over your head, food on the table and a beautiful babe in your bed.

  Parked in a limousine not far from the gravesite sat Joe Lorena. As Honey and I said good-bye to Rosalie Elena and her family, Joe got out and approached us. “Hello, Honey, Cable…is there anything I can do?”

  I looked back at the gravesite. “Naw, I think you and your kind have already done it, Joe,” I said throwing my usual sarcastic barbs his way.

  “I told you, Cable, orders for the hit probably ultimately came from Louis "Lepke" Buchalter out of New York and what the press is calling his Murder, Inc .”

  “Does it really matter, Joe—you know my Mother taught me something when I was a kid. ‘Tell me who you go with and I’ll tell you who you are,’ was her advice to me. So you can see, birds of a feather, consigliere, eh?”

  Joe looked at his daughter. “Do you feel the same, Honey?”

  “I don’t know what I feel right now, Joe,” she said. “All I know is that Cable’s best friend was murdered by people who contract with each other to kill innocent people. If you’re part of that, then I’m ashamed for both of us.”

  Joe got a pained expression on his face. “You’re right, Honey. That is part of it. I won’t lie to you. And I know there’s nothing I can say or do that will change either of you from seeing me in that light.” He turned to get back into the limousine but stopped and added…. “But I will say, that most of the people who end up on a hit list are hardly innocent, but usually also involved somehow in one of the organizations…especially with the prohibition element. So your dear friend, Cable, was an exception.” As he got into the car he said, “Again, my condolences to Mario’s wife and family.” He got in and the black Lincoln pulled away.

  “God, Cable, I want to love him so much. But when I see things like this, I don’t know. It is like your mother told you, guilt by association. How can I separate out the caring parent from the mouthpiece for the syndicate?”

  “You can’t. Mario signed his own death warrant because he cared about causes that represented goodness, basic accountability and honesty. But that runs contrary to the bums who run city hall, the police force…and the mob. To me, it doesn’t matter whether it was Dragna or the long arm of the New York bosses, they all smell the same and sleep in the same bed.”

  Honey took my arm and we walked toward her car. Birds sang across the way, flitting out of trees onto tombstones. One wonders if they knew the difference between life and death? Maybe for them being present in the now was all that mattered. Don’t think about mortality—take it a moment at a time—don’t expect anything, just grab that next fly out of the air or that worm out of the ground, sleep on a comfortable branch, sing your best song in the morning to wake you up, bicker with your fellow birds when necessary and mate once a year to perpetuate the species. Hmmm….it all seemed pretty simple to me.

  As I helped Honey up on the running board of her Packard, she turned to look at me. “You do know, Mister, I could never bear losing you. I think Rosalie Elena was a hell of a lot stronger than I’d be. I think I would either melt into nothingness at your gravesite—or jump in after you.”

  I smiled, trying to make light of it. “Well, it’s the Khitan tradition in China and also in India, that when the husband kicks off, they bury the wife with the husband or they toss the wife on the pyre for good measure and they both get toasted while the in-laws look on.”

  “Talking about in-laws, I need to meet your mother soon—all this time you’ve never taken me. And you need to meet Bert and Mable Combes.”

  “Yeah, I’m not really good with in-law crap. You know, it’s like I’m marrying you and not them. But I suppose if we gotta—”

  She threw her arms around me. “Oh, darling Cable, I love you so! Let’s go home, have a stiff drink and make love.”

  Chapter 15

  CABLE DENNING, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

  O’Malley looked at me like I was crazy the morning I tendered my resignation from the Los Angeles Police Department. “Thinkin’, I was, you’d be made of stronger stuff, Denning,” he admonished me. “We’re all very regretful about your fellow officer Mario Angelo, but he was warned, you know, and we can’t be everywhere at the same time, Denning.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry your head about that anymore, Captain. We all take the punches different…and you and I are just as responsible for Mario’s death as any of the mob bosses or their goons, and you know it.”

  He looked at me strangely, but then moved on. “O’Flaherty tells me you’ve been exemplary as a policeman. Yeah, sure, you complain about the system—so do I—but we had real plans for ya. I know for a bloomin’ fact that Chief Davis picked ya out to lead that new Dragnet thing he’s been dreamin’ up.”

  “I’m goin’ where the sun shines brighter, O’Malley. One of these days some semblance of law and order will return to the department—and hopefully, our city at the same time. Maybe downtown will toughen up and suddenly wanna become honest when Prohibition’s over. Maybe then the criminal elements of this city will lessen their grip and double-dipping will be harder to come by.”

  “My, my, but you’re hard on us poor, hard workin’ folk, Denning. But as I said before, I’ll be over-lookin’ it, lad, ‘cause you’re bein’ a good Irishman with a lot of spunk. I’ll give ya that. Good luck, Denning.” He shook my hand and I left his office. That day ended almost seven years of a difficult relationship. On the plus side, I suppose you could call it a crash course in human behavior and just how muddy the lines are between law and order, graft and corruption. But it was time to move on.

  Becoming a private investigator in 1929 was going down to city hall, paying a few bucks for a license to operate, proving you’ve had some kind of allied background and finding a place to ‘hang your shingle’. I never checked if I needed a permit to carry my .38, but nobody brought it up.

  For $35.00 a month I found an apartment at 6400 Franklin Avenue, Suite B, in Hollywood, that was laid out perfectly to be an office with living quarters in the rear. It was on the second floor and suited me just fine. All I needed was a phone. The largest window looked out over Franklin and my bird’s eye view was just swell. I would give up my little flat, hang out here when I wasn’t at Honey’s and get the business rolling. Trouble was, I didn’t know exactly what to get rolling. I knew private dicks did things like ta
ke Kodak Brownie photos of people in secret trysts and compromising positions to hold up in court, deliver documents, serve legal papers, trail people who were suspected of miscellaneous and sundry infringements of the law, investigate alleged fraud, verify insurance claims, find missing persons, personal surveillance and protecting persons or celebrities whose safety may be in jeopardy. At least that was the starting list. I had this feeling things of more gravity would be coming my way once I got established.

  I had saved a few bucks being a cop and had sufficient bankroll for about six months of operation. If I hustled, I thought, I could get a couple of juicy cases to pay my $20.00 per day plus expenses fee. Hell, with just two clients a month, each case entailing about two weeks, I’d be making enough to start a small checking account that might read, Cable Denning, Private Investigator, 6400 Franklin Avenue Suite B Hollywood, California. Yeah, that had a nice ring to it. And in the ensuing days I got my telephone installed, got listed in the Los Angeles Business Classified Directory. And the new $25.00 edition was just about to come out in August—putting me right up there with only three other private investigators, none of whom I knew and all in downtown Los Angeles. Damn, a few business cards printed up and I was in business!

  Honey seemed delighted that I had gotten out of the old police force atmosphere, especially after Mario’s death. When I called Adora and told her, she was also happy for me. Just talking to her on the phone made me feel desire for her. It was like I had always been in love with Adora Moreno and meeting her in the flesh was somehow a continuation of something we had both lived before. Maybe it was the fantasy of knowing we could indulge each other in deep and sensual pleasures without any of the strings, or maybe it was that whatever part of me belonged to her had a mind of its own and kept me from throwing her overboard. Time and again I had asked her what she derived from our secret and forbidden liaisons—but she always answered the same. “Whenever we can be together, I am completely happy to be with you, mi amor,” was always her response. Now I was facing the prospect of not seeing her—ever again.