One for Our Baby

by John Sandrolini

  Nearby, an eighty-foot schooner bobbed at anchor, the stern lantern swinging back and forth rhythmically with the waves. As the faint yellow light seesawed across the transom, I made out the name Kingfisher in worn letters. It seemed like it should mean something to me, but it didn’t tumble.

  As I stood there, a feeling came over me—a tingling of recognition from old memories—and I began to gravitate toward the end of the jetty. I suppose I planned to circle around the building, or maybe just stare off into the night from water’s edge and look for that mermaid—I don’t know—I was feeling more than thinking at that moment.

  As I walked, I peered into the many arched recesses that encircled the base of the Casino. They were steeped in shadows, but all appeared empty. Rounding the midpoint of the walkway I stopped, looking out toward the dark water. In the distance, the Chimes Tower sounded on the hills, then fell silent.

  The sea breeze gave off a faint chill that clung to my face. Moonlight fell in shards through ragged clouds and bounced off the undulating water, the silver-blue haze washing out all color. A single long shadow from a gas lamp darted across the concrete and ran up the side of the Casino. I traced its path with my eyes up the wall to the balcony above that loomed over me, quiet and austere. There was no light, no sound other than the water.

  I pictured Helen standing high above on the parapet, laughing and glowing as we took five from dancing, her arms around my waist. I stood there a long time with her image in my mind. It hadn’t been so long ago.

  The acrid smell of a cigarette cut the cool air. Shaking from my daze, I turned my head to find the source. As I did, a woman spoke.

  “Hello, Joe,” she said in a velvet tone as she stepped out of a darkened archway into the bluish light.

  I just stared at her. I couldn’t do anything else—it just didn’t seem real.

  She looked at me for what felt like minutes, her lips trembling.

  “Helen,” I said finally, then broke forward, flinging my arms wide to embrace her.

  41

  I held her for ages—not daring to let go—running my hands through her hair, then caressing her cheeks, just reveling in the feeling of her. She looked up at me, and I kissed her lightly on the forehead. A heartbeat later we were locked in a passionate kiss—I just couldn’t stop myself. Then I drew her close, fading back into the archway, blending with the shadows, our lips enmeshed.

  My brain kept trying to make sense of it all, but the rest of me didn’t care. Everything else in the last three days had been disturbing, painful, or both, but this was wonderful. I wanted it to continue, I wanted to let go, I wanted to have her—and I didn’t give a damn where we were.

  And yet.

  And yet, I had to know.

  Nudging my head to one side, I pressed my lips to her cheek, then opened my eyes. Her breath was hot on my neck as she kissed it. I could feel her heart pounding in her chest, thrumming against my own, the smell of citrus and sandalwood suffusing the damp air around us.

  I stood there silently, catching my breath, hating myself for what I was about to do.

  “Helen …”

  “Let it wait,” she implored, her voice quiet, desperate. “Kiss me.”

  I hesitated.

  “Joe, make love to me. I need you,” she whispered, running her hands up my chest to my shoulders, pulling me close.

  “Baby,” I said, “I want you. I want you like nothing I’ve ever wanted in this life before … but I’ve got to know what happened and why you’re here. And I’ve got to know right now.”

  “Not now. Please.”

  I put my hands on her cheeks and raised that fabulous face up toward mine. I kissed her again, looked directly into her smoldering eyes. “Helen … people are dead; I almost joined them three times, and Frank Sinatra—your boyfriend—is beside himself with worry about you. What in the hell is going on, baby?”

  That did it. The spell was broken.

  She sighed deeply, eyes and arms dropping in resignation. We stood there in the shadows for the longest time, our exhalations the only sound in the dank chamber as the heat slowly left our bodies.

  Finally, she looked up, her eyes laced with sadness. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  42

  I walked toward the edge of the jetty, tugging Helen’s hand as she trudged behind me like a kid on the first day of school. We sat down on top of the crumbling concrete that covered the wall, overlooking the water that slapped off the rocks below.

  I surveyed the Casino, the jetty, and then the shore in both directions, searching for any sign of anyone, anyone at all.

  When I was sure we were alone, I turned to Helen and said, “Give. All of it.”

  “God, where do I begin?”

  “Try the beginning.”

  She started to speak, then paused and pulled the gold case out of her purse, extracting a thin cigarette and holding it out with a shaking hand. I lit it for her and she took a deep drag, holding it in.

  She drifted briefly into thought, arrived at some decision, and then exhaled the smoke through her nose.

  “I made a film,” she said quietly.

  “Must be a smash. People all over Los Angeles are dying to see it.”

  “Don’t do that to me. Not now.” Her voice was steel hard.

  “Well, what kind of film is this, hon, some top-secret Hollywood thing?”

  She waved her hand. “No. It’s a burlesque film—plain and sleazy.”

  “You?”

  “Yes. It’s not that kind of film, though, just something we made at Frank’s.”

  “Frank’s?” I could feel my eyes enlarging as I spoke.

  “Slow down, sailor. Frank was having a party in the desert. He likes to film those events—he’s into Super 8 movies, you know. Everybody got pretty bombed, and Lana and I started to do a burlesque dance for Frank. Just for laughs.”

  “Lana?”

  “Lana Turner. Not exactly a Vassar girl, you know.”

  “No. More of a Varga girl.”

  She made a face. “Anyhow, we got a little carried away and stripped naked and danced with Frank and Peter Lawford. That’s all.”

  A pair of headlights popped up around the far corner on St. Catherine’s Way, wending their way down the coastal road. I marked them as they drifted toward us, my natural wariness rising.

  “Helen, if that’s all, why is so much unchecked mayhem erupting around it?”

  “Betty …”

  “She’s dead, you know.”

  She cringed slightly but nodded her head. “Yes, I know. I saw it in the paper,” she said, her eyes glossing up.

  “Did you know that she was involved with Carmine Ratello?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that he was something of a mob meteor?”

  Pause. “I knew he was trouble, if that’s what you mean.”

  I leaned in. “Did you know she was on the junk?”

  Here her eyes flashed genuine surprise. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  The oncoming car made the bend at Descanso Beach. We were almost invisible in the dark, but I leaned over, reducing our exposure to a sliver. I looked up at Helen’s face as I moved toward her. It was seamed with worry.

  Tumblers began falling into place for me then, taking me to conclusions I didn’t want to make.

  “Honey, did you tell Betty about this film at any time?”

  “Umm, yes. We are—were—good girlfriends. She’s the one who told me I should get it from Frank to protect myself.”

  “Protect yourself?”

  “A lot of careers have been ruined by that sort of stuff, you know.”

  The car passed behind the casino, out of sight.

  “But Frank would never—”

  Then it hit me, my jaw dropping open as I made the connection. “Baby, you didn’t take that film without telling Frank, did you?”

  She lidded her eyes, put on a kid who broke the lamp look. “The other day. Just before we met you at th
e airport. I slipped into the library while Frank was outside.”

  She bit her lip when she finished speaking. That was a nice touch.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Oh, Christ. Let me guess, Ratello’s behind this. He wants to shake down Frank and Lana.”

  Beyond the Casino, I picked up the car moving down the road. It was white, with some kind of markings on the door. There were only a few dozen cars on the whole island, and just one with markings on the door—Rink’s.

  A bright red blur bloomed on the back of the car then as the driver hit the brakes.

  “Shit!”

  Helen looked at me, alarm flooding her face. “What is it?”

  “The sheriff. Must’ve seen my motorcycle. He’s busting my nuts as usual.”

  The car was flying backward now. It came to a halt with a screech just out of sight in front of the Casino. A door banged shut a moment later.

  “Come on,” I said, lifting her up. “He’s dying to toss me in the can. There’s at least one bad guy on this island looking for you, and I can’t protect you if Ruggles locks me up. We’ve got to get off this rock.”

  We tiptoed across the jetty, pressing up against the stone side of the building. The sound of boots clacking on the concrete rang out around the corner, still a ways off. Rink always was a study in the obvious.

  Helen clutched at my arm, whispered, “What are we going to do?”

  “I’ve got my plane at the airport. We just have to slip ol’ Sherlock here and we can split.”

  She beamed at me then. “The Electra? The one we took the other day?”

  “No, the DC-3.” I wrinkled my mouth in curiosity. “What does it matter? Neither one has a first-class section.”

  The footfall came clearer. I put my hand up to silence her before she could respond. Rink was coming up the near side, maybe halfway around already.

  I turned to Helen, pointing aggressively with two fingers toward the far edge of the building. “Step lightly,” I whispered.

  Then we snuck away in the dark, holding hands as we ran like young lovers in Dutch.

  43

  We made the bike unseen. I rolled it up the hill, hustled it down the road a bit, then cranked her up. Helen jumped on back and we were gone—scot-free.

  Only I didn’t want to get completely away. Rink was just cagey enough that he’d probably head straight up the hill to the airport, blocking my access to the DC-3. I had to get him to chase me, and then shake him. So I headed into Avalon, laying on the throttle and making a racket like hell’s bells ringing out as I tore down the street.

  I blew through downtown and swooshed around the bend at Wrigley, cutting back down through the alley behind Barbi’s, almost flattening a yowling Tommy as we zipped through the narrow passageway. The whole thing was kind of fun, almost exhilarating, and I’m pretty sure I heard Helen giggling at least once as I ground through the gears.

  I jerked the bike to a halt behind the Marlin Club. While we waited, I wrapped my leather jacket around Helen. It wasn’t quite the Hollywood style, but I thought she looked terrific.

  When Rink’s car buzzed by on Crescent doing fifty the opposite way, I knew we had him beat. I took one more alley and launched for the airport.

  We cleared town in ninety seconds, then began scaling Chimes Tower Road, the Indian’s exhaust backfiring once as we roared up the steep grade. Helen shimmied down low against me as we accelerated, her arms locked tight around my waist.

  Up and up we went. At each hairpin curve I glanced back, catching fragmented glimpses of her face. A hint of a smile through sienna lips, a gleam of light in electric eyes, ribbons of chestnut hair flowing in the air in wild tangles.

  I started to get that feeling again.

  The wind picked up steadily as we climbed, and Helen kept scrunching down closer to me to ward off the chill. You couldn’t have gotten an atomic particle between us at that point. Then she leaned forward suddenly and bit my ear—I felt that one way down inside.

  I suppose I was cold, but I couldn’t tell. Like I would have said anything to break that rhythm, anyway. There we were, back on the Indian, running free under the night sky above the sea. Just like old times on Catalina—if you didn’t count the fact that she was my buddy’s girl now and bodies were piling up all around me again.

  44

  Halfway to the airport I saw the headlights, maybe a mile and a half back, winding up the S-curves behind us. I was well ahead, but I put on some speed just in case.

  We rolled through several tight switchbacks with no further sign of the lights for several minutes. I started to ride a little easier and reached down and patted Helen’s hand.

  Then the lights shot out of the black, maybe a mile back and coming on quick. The car was speeding, going way too fast for the conditions. A lifer like Ruggles would know the roads well enough to go that fast at night and he was just crazy enough to do it. Ten to one it was him.

  I gunned the engine and opened her up as fast as I dared.

  “Aren’t we going a little fast, Joe?” Helen shouted out, a shrill edge sharpening her voice.

  I didn’t want to worry her, but I had no choice. I jerked my thumb behind me and yelled, “It’s Ruggles. He’s following us.”

  It went like that, minute after minute. The bike was quicker, but if I missed a turn we’d crack up, so I could only go so fast, especially with a rider. The driver of the car didn’t seem to care, barreling forward and narrowing the gap turn by turn.

  My pistol was still under the airplane seat if it came to that, but I had no desire to engage Ruggles in a gunfight. He might have been a nutcase, but he was still the law. I’d wind up shot or in jail if it came down to gunplay and I couldn’t afford either.

  After a gut-churning five minutes, the airport emerged just ahead, the flash of the beacon skipping off the low cloud bases and radiating into the night, backlighting Clint’s hangar and the terminal building in white, then green hues. I steadied my grip, told Helen to hang on tight, and opened the engine all the way up when we hit the straightaway that ran the last mile.

  But the car stayed right on us the whole way, the twin yellow beams matching my turns, then coming on like hellhounds when they reached down the final drag.

  We struck the raised railroad ties that broach the gulley at the field entrance doing sixty and the bike went airborne. That old Indian flew a good twenty feet before landing front wheel first on the asphalt. The bike wobbled beneath me back and forth and I nearly lost it, downshifting twice as I fought for control, Helen clinging to my chest like she was a part of me.

  I leaned hard left and made straight for the Gooney Bird. The car had eaten up more ground when I slowed and was streaking across the ramp just a few hundred yards behind us. I circled around the left wing and locked her up, skidding the back end in front of the aft hatch. Helen was off and moving before I had the kickstand down.

  “My gun’s under the left seat,” I shouted. “Anything happens to me, you protect yourself, baby.”

  She already had the hatch open and the stairs down. By the time I got off the bike, she was slipping through the doorway.

  Then brilliant yellow-white light flashed against the side of the plane, outlining me against the polished aluminum. A car screeched to a halt on the asphalt behind me, ending any chance we had of getting away.

  I turned to face the car, the headlights blinding me. The car was white—as I’d expected—but I couldn’t see much else. A man got out and strode forward into the aura cast by the headlights. His figure was a blur, but I could tell he was holding a gun.

  A big gun.

  “You’ve really lost it this time, Ruggles!” I yelled.

  Then he took another step forward, and I got a full look at him.

  He had a face like a foot. Beneath it he wore a hideous Hawaiian shirt, the unbuttoned red-and-blue obscenity flopping back and forth in the gusty plateau wind, flashing a savage red burn underneath.

  Bendix.

  “I’m
here for the dame,” he said in a big-city voice.

  The hammer clicked back on his revolver. “But first I’m gonna shred you, boy. Nice and slow.”

  45

  I stood perfectly still, focusing on Bendix and his three feet of gun. His features were as cold and heavy as a sarcophagus, his soulless eyes marking me vacantly.

  It might have been the last moment of my life, but the only thing I could manage to say was, “That’s a really ugly shirt.”

  I waited for the impact.

  The rolling rush of a sliding window whooshed out from the cockpit. Then a big .45 came dancing out of the dark opening—in Helen’s hand.

  “Stand back, Frankenstein, and drop the gun!” she shouted.

  I was amazed—but impressed.

  Bendix took a step back, still drawing down on me.

  “No, honey, I don’t think I wanna do that. I think I’m gonna keep pointing it at Tokyo Joe here. You shoot, he dies. Your move, sister.”

  I drew a bead on Bendix, looking for an opening. His eyes were darting back and forth between the cockpit and me. He was too far away to bum-rush but way too near with that cannon in his hand.

  I crouched down, hands primed, preparing to pounce if I got any kind chance at all. He’d surely blast me, but at least Helen could fire freely then.

  Tough break for me.

  “Listen, lady,” Bendix said, “I’m gonna blow a hole right through this guy in about three seconds if you don’t put that gun down.”

  “To match the one I’ll drill through your forehead, asshole. You think the only thing we did at 4-H club was milk cows? Just try me!”

  The tension was epic, every fiber in my body rigid. Something was going to give—and fast. I just didn’t know what.

  When it came, it took us all by surprise.

  A piercing beam from aft of the airplane cut through the darkness, bathing Bendix’s face in light. Then an amplified voice rang out across the ramp. “Put that gun down, boy! This is Sheriff Rink Ruggles of Avalon and I’ve got the drop on you! You move and I will blast you clear off this island.”