Out of nowhere shots began to ring and Laggore’s two punks folded up onto the tarmac, dead. Laggore spun around wildly, looking for the killer. “Jack—is that you? I knew you wouldn’t have…approved…but even if she was a moneymaker for you…she’s really better outta the way, you know. I’ll make it up to you, Jack. I’m back, Jack! Here to stay—” I slugged Laggore’s gun hand and the revolver went clanking to the ground.
Just then three more shots rang out of the night and found their mark in Laggore’s body, one hitting him squarely in the middle of the skull and he dropped like a potato sack. Out of the darkness came a figure with his gun drawn. Oh, shit, I thought, I’m next. But as he approached I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Joe! What the hell?” He came closer and put his gun away. He looked terrible, his face sunken, his eyes sad and tearing.
“She was my daughter, Cable. He killed my only daughter! I lost her mother through stupidity, but I lost Honey through ignorance. And you lost her because you neglected her. Your friend Crazy Jack knew. He had warned you again and again. Now…it’s too late…for all of us…”
“I’m—I’m sorry, Joe. It’s been a hell of a night.”
“I’m sorry for you, too, Cable. My tears are part of the ones you can’t cry yet. But you will. I know you loved Honey and she was nuts about you.”
“What’ll Dragna say when he finds out you killed Laggore and two of his henchmen?”
“Who cares, Cable? I have to go away. I may never see you again. You see, when one of my kind kills a human, it’s an automatic given that we be re-processed. We are pledged not to kill. I broke that rule.” He approached me. “Can you drive? If not, I can take you back to your office.”
“Shit, Joe, I can’t go back to my office. Not tonight. I’ve gotta walk—and walk, and then walk some more until the reality sinks in.”
“I understand. So…can I leave you off somewhere?”
“Yeah, how about Honey’s place? I have a few memories to clear out.”
Joe Lorena ended up being one of the nicest men I would ever know. We sat in the car in silence in front of Honey’s place. When it was time to go, I reached out my hand to shake his. Instead, he reached for me and hugged me tight and sobbed for a minute. Then he withdrew and smiled faintly at me. “Good-bye, Cable Denning, Private Detective. May you heal from all this and see yourself in the stars some perfect night, a night when this memory has faded and you recall your life. And in the balances, you’ll recall that to have really loved—even if suffering the painfulness of its loss—it was far better than never to have loved at all.”
I got out and he sped away into the night. I slowly made my way to the cottage. I used my key and opened the door. Sitting at the kitchen table with the saddest of postures sat Zelda. She had been drinking. “Cable!” she cried as she came running to me and threw her arms around me. “I heard on the radio. I went down to the hospital. But I was too late. They said you’d been there.”
I walked over to the table and stood, looking at the sink, still seeing Honey fixing our morning coffee. “Yeah, Zelda, I came in near the end, in time to…to hear…I heard…heard her last…her last words…”
“Oh, God, Cable. Stay here tonight. Can I fix you something? Like something hot or a drink of gin? Hell, even I’m drinking! I don’t think you should go back to your place tonight. Or maybe not even here. Do you want me to stay with you?”
Zelda’s voice was concerned and kind, but I couldn’t absorb much of it just then. “Maybe I’ll collapse on Honey’s bed for a few minutes. I just need to walk, that’s all. I’m supposed to be in court in the morning. But I don’t think I’ll make that.” She took my hand and led me into Honey’s bedroom. I lay on our pillows and I could smell Honey. I began to sob. Zelda kneeled on the bed and came over to me. In a most maternal fashion, she covered me with her ample body. She felt warm as I drifted into a restless oblivion.
I can’t remember much about the funeral. Hundreds of people formed a circle around my Honey’s coffin on a sunny Los Angeles afternoon. It was fitting that Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery abutted Paramount Pictures off of Gower and Santa Monica Boulevard. Honey might have liked that, yet I think her spirit was waiting for me on a few acres of land down by the ocean in Northern California. I think her heart was roaming hills of green grasses and soft breezes, daisies and blue skies with bluebirds chirping over the next rise.
I stood next to Zelda, Affonso Amadore and the entire staff of the Bella Notte, Chet James, her favorite trumpet player, and Honey’s foster parents from Northern California. I didn’t have what it took to speak to anyone that day, but the folks looked like the salt-of-the-earth type, lean and hard-working, sun tanned and windblown from life on the land. In the distant background I could see Father Carlo Tortelli and his assassin priests. Conspicuously absent was her father, Joe Lorena. But I knew why. His grief would not have permitted this parting shot fired over the bow of a tragic life. I could hardly bear up under it myself. My mother was also unable to attend due to illness…I think she was grieving for both of us. The preacher said something that hit me pretty hard that afternoon. “It is never fair when one we love is taken before her time. But who is to say what God’s time is for someone—or what is fair in the eyes of God? If it is true that the good die young, then Honey Combes created happiness for all who saw her beauty and heard her sparkling voice, either in person or on the radio or phonograph. Think instead, that this good-bye is not forever, for we all travel close behind…”
“…we all travel close behind…” Yeah, that was the statement that stuck in my mind. He was right. Maybe some curtain pulls away on that day we leave this dismal human existence and we rejoin those we knew and loved. I don’t know. It was a comforting thought.
I looked away as they lowered Honey’s casket into the cold, damp earth. I could not imagine that such a beautiful creature would decay and shrivel into the world of the forgotten inside a pitch-black wooden box. But it was a reality I had to face. As people broke up and I made my way toward the streetcar stop on Santa Monica Boulevard, Zelda took my arm. “Can I drop you off, Cable?” she said, her eyes red from tears.
“Thanks, Zelda,” I said, allowing her to lock her arm into mine. “Yeah, we can ride together, I guess.”
“Gees, Cable, I loved Honey so much. I think you knew that. I respected her, too. That’s why I never pressed you to—to do other things—with—with me, like you know…”
“Yeah, kid, I know.”
“Sometimes it takes a long time for something like this to soak in. I still can’t believe she’s gone.” We walked toward the streetcar island. Behind us a voice called out. It was Jack Dragna, and I walked toward him, leaving Zelda behind.
“Denning…” he said as he caught up to me. “I want you to know I’m—I’m sorry. Truly sorry. Honey was a wonderful young woman and a great find for the Bella Notte. I also want you to know I had no knowledge of Laggore’s plans. You know I would have stopped him. And I lost Joe Lorena in the bargain. Can’t figure that one out. Was he particularly close to Honey?”
“Yeah, he was her father,” I answered.
Dragna’s eyes widened. “You don’t say…” He shook his head. “You don’t happen to know where he went, do you? He’s just disappeared. The boys went to his flat. His clothes, money, furniture—everything’s there, untouched. As I said, I can’t figure it.”
“After he wiped out Laggore and his two goons, he’d probably had it with guys like you, Jack. Smart as he was, I don’t think he could take Murder, Incorporated anymore and had to jump ship. That’s my guess. Or maybe he did himself in, I don’t know.”
“Yeah…ya never know, Denning, ya never know.”
Of course I wouldn’t tell Dragna that Joe Lorena was an alien who had to return for re-processing for having killed humans. “See ya around, Dragna…” I said as I took Zelda’s arm and started to walk away.
Jack Dragna half-heartedly saluted me and began to back
away. “Again, Denning, my condolences. If there’s ever anything I can do, you know where to reach me down at the docks.”
“Yeah, thanks, Jack. I’ll be seeing you…” He walked away. Zelda stopped and looked at Dragna disappearing down the sidewalk. Then she looked at me. “Who was that guy? I got these really funny feelings about him.”
“Ah, forget it, Zelda. He’s a big-time racketeer, head of the local Mafioso. The days of his kind are numbered. He was Joe’s employer.”
“Gees…you sure hobnob with dangerous people sometimes, don’t you? I mean, people like that probably even kill other people all the time, huh?”
“Yep, if they get in the way.”
That incessant melancholy sax was wafting through the tunnels of my pain-ridden brain as we boarded the red car. It was singing a sad version of The Man I Love and it made me want to cry for the world, and then run from it—leave me alone with the music! Let me be! Let me suffer my way—and then let me heal when finally one day, no more pain can come! Invisible voices kept saying they knew how I felt—but no one could know how I felt! This was my cross—bring on the nails, I was victim and executioner, and while you’re at it, hammer the last nail into my head—then toss the dice and let me collect the robe of sin and redemption. Then maybe peace would come. At least I needed that break in life.
We ended up with me taking Zelda home to the little cottage she shared with Honey. I walked her to the door. “Well, Zelda, here’s where I get off. Whatta ya gonna do now?”
“Move to a less expensive apartment or rooming house or something, I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all my plants, though.”
“Well, if you’re really pressed, you can drop a few off at my office, as long as they look good. The place is kind of bare. But I don’t wanna fight through a vine-filled jungle to get to my phone.”
She laughed that wonderful laugh of a young woman. “I’ve always thought you a very funny man, Cable. But do you mean it? That you’d be willing to house sit some of my plants?”
“Well, there’s one catch. You’ll have to come once a week or so and water ‘em, because I might forget.”
“Oh, sure, as long as I live close by. I’d like to live close to you. Maybe we can go out to dinner and a dance again sometime.”
“Don’t count on it, kid. I’m a little raw around the edges these days, in case you haven’t noticed. It’ll be a while before I get kick-started back into circulation. Right now I’m kinda living on my nerves—and I don’t know how long they’re gonna last.”
“Well, maybe I shouldn’t bring over my plants quite yet.” She came up and hugged me, kissing my cheek. “I’ll give you my new phone number as soon as I find a place. You’re still over on Franklin, right?”
“Yeah. And by the way, thanks for holding me that night after…it—it felt good.”
She let go of me and looked into my eyes. “If you only knew, Cable, how many times I’ve longed to hold you all night—and the fantasies I had about us—you probably would never want to see me again.”
“I doubt that, kid. In fact, I’m flattered…remember what I said, find yourself a young man hanging out in one of those white-coat labs. I’m sure you’ll both be singing the same tune before long.”
I walked away, leaving Zelda Blodgett standing at her door. Life is a minefield of ironies, I was thinking as I boarded the streetcar and headed for Franklin and Cahuenga. That lonely sax was playing in my head again and I realized its song was my pain, the unhealed saga of the human condition, fraught with pitfalls, day to day existence, misery, relatives, money, politics, war and if you’re lucky, love…coupled with great music sung by a babe in a low-cut sequined gown in some smoky joint in the middle of the night, bathed in a dingy spotlight. Yeah, some things you just have to shove deep down inside and hope to hell they never erupt and tear you apart someday when you’re not looking. As for me? I think what’s left of my heart will travel on for a while, picking up little pieces of happiness here and there, until maybe memory and regret take a back seat and when I breathe in the sea air on an overcast night in this city I hate to love—it won’t hurt so damn much.
A fire engine’s horn blasted through the night, its siren the desolate reminder of our mortality, and as I rode past the uncounted faces in the store windows or walking the sidewalks, I knew they, too, had an expiration date stamped on their destinies. I got off the trolley and started to make my way to my office building. I felt like a stranger walking to a new life I had no clue about, an insipid nobody without an identity. Maybe no one knows why or how you carry on when all the props have been knocked out from under you and life becomes a numb motion of sameness and desperation. So I drink, smoke—maybe someday even have the courage to walk down into that smoky nightclub I was talking about, listen again to some hot babe warble a few great tunes amongst the din of clanking glass and loud voices trying to tune out the unbearableness of life. Avoiding the recognition that life is a one-way ticket that has been punched by the conductor—eventual destination?—a local cemetery.
And love? Honey had taught me a lot of things, but above all I learned that goodness comes from the deepest and simplest places inside—places branded into the makeup of a person where common decency still holds court and tells you that if someone like her existed in the world, the world can’t be all bad. The same could be said for Ginny Fullerton—and most definitely for a little Mexican babe named Adora Moreno.
I got to the top of the landing, a little winded from too many Lucky Strikes and rot-gut gin. I turned the key and opened the door. The sound of that damn sax was still filling my head like a haunting memory that won’t go away—and—the phone was ringing. “Yeah, Cable Denning here…”
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James P. Alsphert is the author's penname. Born Richard W. Weiss in San Francisco, CA, and raised in Cambria…a small town on the central coast of California. As a child he was somewhat of a loner and like many, he had his own imaginary friend and companion. There may be some question as to just how imaginary he really was…? His name was James P. Alsphert. Richard always felt a desire to honor his companion in some significant way in the future. Even as a youngster he was drawn to writing stories with mystery and fantasy plots.
While still a youth, Richard went full-bore into the music world as an operatically trained tenor, but performing in all major fields of music. During the next 35 plus years was when he adopted the professional name of Dario Vanni and his expertise expanded as composer, director, voice teacher/coach in the California cities of Santa Barbara, San Francisco Bay area and Sacramento.
It was not long after his farewell concert with the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra, that he began exploring his passions for writing. This, unexpectedly, became a 22 book chronological mystery series covering the fascinating life and times of Cable Denning, Private Investigator, from 1927-1954. Also, here was the opportunity to honor his childhood companion by using his name as author. Incorporating his extensive musical background into this project, again as Dario Vanni, he is responsible for recording fully dramatized versions of many of the books in this series, complete with actors, singers, complete musical score and some original songs.
James P. Alsphert says, "The gift of writing…like the gift of singing…is just that. It is a gem that must be buffed and polished. I hope I have accomplished some of those skills through the years and that they show in my books."
Acknowledgments
Cover Images:
Cable Denning: Kenneth A. Cox Photography
Black Dragon: Zyman Photostream
Honey Combes: Compliments of Elevate Costumes
Australia www.elevatecostumes.com.au
Lei-tao: Provenance unknown
Lotus Flower: Provenance unknown
Watchful Eye of Oculus: Rick Weiss
Gun in hand: © Can Stock Photo, Inc./oleggawriloff
Editing and Research Consultant: Frances Wal
ker-Moss
Original Cover Designs: Frances Walker-Moss
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