Clea’s Moon
By Edward Wright
Copyright 2010 by Edward Wright
Electronic Edition Copyright 2010 by Untreed Reads Publishing
Cover art copyright 2010 by Untreed Reads Publishing, created by Dara England
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
CLEA’S MOON
By Edward Wright
This book is for Cathy
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain, including Russell James and Michael Jecks, and to my agent, Jane Conway-Gordon, all of whom made the first breakthrough possible; Jane Wood and Sophie Hutton-Squire for their professionalism and support; Todd Keithley, who offered expertise and encouragement early on; Mimi Cazort and Bob McLarty, the kind of kinfolk everyone should have; Marsha and Ted Baker, for their sharp eyes; the Los Angeles writers of The Group, for helping me get started; and my wife, Cathy, for everything.
I’m also grateful to those who, many years ago, created a Los Angeles on film so vivid that I would feel compelled to revisit it on the page. And I remember Al “Lash” La Rue, who gave a little boy his autograph back in a time when movie cowboys were the most memorable heroes of all.
* * *
HORN, JOHN RAY—B. 1909, Green Springs, Arkansas. Star of dozens of low-budget westerns for Medallion Pictures, 1937–1945. Described by one reviewer as “a cross between two silent-movie icons, William S. Hart and Harry Carey,” Horn was memorable for his laconic manner, penetrating gaze, and lanky frame. Most of his films featured him as Sierra Lane, an ex-cavalryman who seldom used a gun but who, when provoked, revealed a deadly side under his quiet demeanor. (In No Man’s Town, he methodically tears up a bunkhouse to get at the three men who killed his friend the sheriff.) Many of his films co-starred American Indian actor Joseph Mad Crow.
Horn’s career was interrupted by Army service in World War II. Discharged after being wounded, he resumed his place as one of Medallion’s reliable money-makers. In 1945, he was imprisoned for two years following a controversial conviction for assault and battery, and his career in films was effectively ended. His current occupation and whereabouts are unknown.
Films: Bloody Trail, Border Bad Men, Carbine Justice, Empty Holster, Hell’s Rockpile, The Lost Mine, No Man’s Town, Six Bullets, Smoke on the Mountain, Wyoming Thunder, many others.
—From White Hats: An Encyclopedia of Western Movie Heroes, edited by Jeffers and Block, 1949.
CHAPTER ONE
The street smelled of dust and regret. The loser’s side of town, Horn said to himself as he approached the rooming house, eyeing the front windows for any movement.
The neighborhood had the look of impermanence. The shingle-sided wood-frame houses had been thrown up more than twenty years ago as people migrated to Los Angeles looking for jobs. When the Depression hit, the houses sat vacant. Then the war came, and the houses filled up again. But now the war was over, the defense jobs gone, and all the little front yards on the street looked patchy and ill-tended. The people on this street weren’t exactly poor, Horn thought, they were just passing through. They kept at least one of their bags packed, waiting for him to knock on the door. Or someone like him.
First he checked out the car. It was one of two in the cracked-concrete driveway, a Chevy sedan maybe ten years old, and the Kansas license number matched the one on the scrap of paper in his pocket. It was the collateral, all right. The windows were rolled down because of the heat, and he stood for a moment by the driver’s window looking in, making sure of the ignition. He could manage it without a key if he had to.
Up the steps, the wood almost soft from the tread of countless feet, then through the unlocked screen door and down the hall—smelling of old food—a short distance to the first door on the right, the front room. As he rapped on the door with his left hand, his right curled around the roll of poker chips in the pocket of his cotton jacket. No harm in being prepared. This one could be bad, the Indian had told him with one of his hard-to-read grins. Not like one of your pictures, where you wipe the floor with everybody ‘cause that’s the way it’s supposed to turn out.
Horn hoped it would be no worse than the two fishermen brothers down in San Pedro, the ones the Indian had been ready to write off if Horn couldn’t collect. He had found them playing gin at a card table set up in their kitchen, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter beside them. When he told them why he was there, one of the men went for Horn’s eye with a knife. It was only a table knife, dull-edged and slicked with peanut butter, but it was his eye. The affair ended violently but reasonably well, and thereafter the Indian enjoyed referring to it as “the Showdown at Peanut Gulch.”
He rapped on the door again. The woman who opened it could have been anywhere from thirty to forty. The lower half of her apron was darkened with the grime of all her hand-wipings. She looked resigned to whatever he had brought with him on this summer afternoon.
Horn hadn’t expected a woman, and he felt some of the tension go out of his right hand. He tried to see past her into the room’s interior, caught sight of what looked like a young boy sitting on a sofa in the gloom. “Afternoon, ma’am,” he said. “I’d like to see Mr. Buddy Taro, if he’s in.”
“I’m Buddy.” The man moved into Horn’s line of sight. He was medium height and pudgy, wearing dress slacks with suspenders over an undershirt. His shoes were well-shined, and a single roll of flesh, smooth and pink, cradled his chin.
The man made a slight sideways shooing motion, and the woman moved back from the doorway, hands tucked protectively in her apron. He stepped into the hall. “We can talk out here,” he said easily. His face seemed open and friendly. Buddy puts on a good front, the Indian had said.
Horn gave the man one more good look up and down, then pulled his right hand out of his jacket. Maybe the Indian had been wrong. “I’m here for Joseph Mad Crow,” Horn said quietly after waiting for the door to close. “You’re into him for five twenty-five. He’s extended you twice. Today’s collection day.”
“Sure,” Buddy Taro said, nodding earnestly. “I knew it was today. Here’s the thing.” He touched Horn lightly on the elbow, a friendly touch. “I’ve got two hundred even. You can take it.
The rest I’ll have real soon.” His voice was smart and light and a little amused. A good gambler’s voice, Horn thought, for telling stories to the boys around the table, between hands, without giving anything away.
Taro pulled a small roll of bills out of his pants pocket and handed it to Horn. “Here it is,” he said. “Just tell him—”
Horn shoved the bills into the jacket pocket with the rolled-up chips. “I’ll have to take the car,” he said.
“What?”
“The Chevy. You put it up for collateral. Today’s the day. I’ll be taking it.” He started for the front door.
“I can’t let you do that,” Taro said, the easy tone gone from his voice as he followed Horn heavily through the hall to the door. “I need that car. I need to get places.” He sounded out of breath
.
Horn pushed through the screen door, took the porch in two strides and the steps in two more, then waited by the car. Get this over with, he thought. “Can I have the keys?”
Taro stood a few feet away from him, talking through clenched teeth. “Look, I got a sick kid in there, and the woman doesn’t do anything to bring in money. I got to get places. I got to find games.”
“That’s what got you into trouble,” Horn said to him in a tone that was not unkind. “Get yourself a regular job.”
“That’s right, a regular job. Maybe I could get one like yours.” Underneath the smart talk Horn could hear the desperation pushing to the surface. “I worked at Lockheed for a while, making airplanes, but there’s no more of that. So I guess I should get a job like yours, taking people’s grocery money.”
“If that’s what you like to do.” Horn made a come-on motion. “Keys.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw a slight movement. The curtain had parted at the front window to show the boy’s thin, pale face, watching.
“Huh-uh.” Buddy Taro was now the picture of comic defiance, arms crossed, face flushed, his middle straining at the undershirt over his trouser top.
“Never mind.” Horn reached inside the car window, pulled up on the door handle, and seated himself behind the wheel. From his left-hand jacket pocket he extracted a small screwdriver and a pocket knife. “I can manage.” He leaned sideways to study the ignition.
The other man was suddenly upon him, dragging at his left arm. Fearing a weapon, Horn came out quickly, the screwdriver held up protectively. But Buddy Taro simply stood there in front of him in an awkward crouch, eyes wide, as he doubled up a round fist and drew it back. Horn placed the flat of his hand on Taro’s face, fingers spread, and pushed quickly, hard. The man went over backward and sat down abruptly on the concrete pathway, his back against the lowest step. He stared straight ahead, looking dazed.
“Don’t do that again, all right?” Horn debated searching the man’s pockets for the car keys. But he caught another glimpse of the face at the window and decided to get back to work on the ignition. For a few minutes he could hear Taro’s labored breathing, then heard him heave himself to his feet, mount the steps, and go inside. Horn had the ignition pried out of its housing and was beginning to work on the insulation over the wires when he heard the screen door open.
“Here!” He looked up to see Taro fling a wad of bills into the front yard and driveway. They scattered over a wide area, like green leaves dropping off the trees too soon. “There’s the rest. Take it. You better count it.” He turned to the door. “Part of that’s milk money. I hope you get a big cut.”
It took Horn a long time to retrieve all the bills. He was counting them a second time on the hood of the car when he heard the voice. “Are you Sierra Lane?”
The boy was standing with one arm wrapped around the pillar by the front steps. He was maybe 13 or 14, extremely thin, barefoot and wearing corduroy pants and a multicolored T-shirt. Horn could see that one ankle, the one bearing no weight, was shrunken over the bone, like dried meat. Polio, Horn guessed, which meant that the whole leg probably looked that way.
“Who?”
“Sierra Lane. The cowboy.”
Horn shook his head.
The boy’s gaze never left Horn’s face. “Bet you are,” he said finally. “I seen enough of his movies. You’re dressed different, but. . . . What I mean is, I bet you’re the guy who plays him. Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“My favorite was Border Bad Men,” the boy said in almost a sing-song voice. “I seen it when I was little. You know, at the end, where Sierra talks the other guys into taking off their guns, then he fights all of ‘em. My friend Lee likes Sunset Carson, but I told him if we was in a tight spot, we’d want Sierra Lane on our side, ‘cause he could whup Sunset Carson any time.”
Horn shrugged as he rolled up the bills and put them in his pocket. “Maybe he could.”
“You sure you’re not him?”
“I’m sure.”
The front curtains rustled, and Horn saw the woman. “Come on in, honey,” she said.
The boy didn’t move. “Why’d you push my dad?”
Horn took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to,” he said finally. “You better get on inside.” Turning to the window, he said: “Ma’am, please tell Mr. Taro his account is square.”
Twenty minutes later, Horn slid into a seat aboard the trolley for the trip back. It was stifling in the car, and he shucked off his jacket and put his hat on his lap. His fingers were slick and stained, because some of the bills had landed in a puddle of engine oil in the driveway. He wiped his hands with his handkerchief, then leaned against the window and closed his eyes as the trolley bucked and rattled. The car was crowded and smelled of sweat. He heard the spark of the trolley against the overhead wire, and the air tasted as if he had a copper penny under his tongue. This is where I ride off and everybody cheers, he thought. Nice job, cowboy. You come back and see us.
* * *
“Here’s your money.” Horn tossed the roll of bills on the desk. The Indian, occupied as usual in financial matters, was toting up figures on his desktop adding machine, eyes scanning a ledger, the fingers of his left hand stabbing at the keys as his right worked the handle, ratcheting up the totals. He stopped, looked up.
“How’d it go?” he grunted.
“I bet you know how it went. Want to count it?”
Joseph Mad Crow was almost as tall as Horn but thicker in the chest and shoulders. He wore a white silk shirt with embroidery across the front. On his left wrist was an expensive Bulova, on his right a hammered silver bracelet with a turquoise the size of his thumb. He picked up the roll, stripped off the rubber band, and quickly flipped through the bills. Halfway through the wad, he stopped and looked up, his face gone sour. “They’re greasy.”
“It’s oil,” Horn said. “Some of them landed in the driveway when he threw them at me.”
“Threw ‘em at you.” Mad Crow suddenly broke into a grin. “That’s old Buddy.” In repose, his face was about as expressive as the face on the buffalo nickel. When animated, though, it was capable of a broad range, from a pixieish glee to the kind of clouded-over threat that would cause large men to duck their heads and quickly cross the street.
This time his expression suggested enjoyment of a secret joke. “I told you it could be bad.”
“I thought you meant different,” Horn said, taking the chair across the desk. To his left, most of the office wall was glass, allowing the Indian to look down on his domain, the Mad Crow Casino, biggest card parlor in this corner of Los Angeles County. Thirty tables and a bar crammed into a smoky, warehouse-like room. It was now late on a Saturday afternoon, and the place was beginning to fill up. Horn recognized some of the regulars, and he spotted the photographer who, later in the evening, would make the rounds of the tables taking souvenir photos for the high rollers who wanted them.
“What happened?”
“Not much. Buddy got worked up and came at me when I went for his car—”
“So you didn’t drive there?”
“Figured I’d better not. I left the Ford here and rode the Red Car, just in case.” Horn pulled a pouch of Bull Durham and a packet of cigarette papers out of his shirt pocket.
“Come on,” Mad Crow said disgustedly when he saw the tobacco. “Worst habit you picked up in that place. Don’t know how you can smoke that stuff. Here,” he said, leaning toward Horn and shaking a Lucky out of an open pack. “Be civilized, okay?”
Horn smiled, having heard the gibe several times, and took one. “I don’t mind. Anyway, Buddy wasn’t hard to handle. Only there was a woman there, and a crippled kid. That’s the part I didn’t like.”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Mad Crow said. “But who else was I going to send? Any of the other b
oys, it could’ve gotten messy. They might have come back with old Buddy’s scalp. You’re my diplomat.”
“Why didn’t you say that at the trial?” Horn asked, his attention on the cigarette as he lit up.
Mad Crow ran both hands over his hair, which was gathered in a short ponytail, and his face turned grim. “I did my best,” he said. “We all did. That son of a bitch had you in his sights, and that’s all it was. Clarence Darrow himself couldn’t have gotten you off that rap, my friend.”
The swivel chair creaked as he shifted his solid frame in it. “You hungry? I could send one of the girls out for a pastrami. What say?”
“I wouldn’t mind one of your beers.”
“Lula!” Mad Crow hollered through the closed door to his assistant in the outer office. “Couple of Blue Ribbons, if you please, honey.” He peeled several bills off the roll that Horn had brought in and laid them on the other side of the desk. “Your cut,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind some of the dirty ones. I threw in a little extra. Now you can get your phone turned back on.”
“It’s back on. I paid them the other day.” Noticing Mad Crow’s look, he went on: “I wasn’t broke or anything. I just let things slide, that’s all.”
“Good,” the Indian said patiently. “Well, now you can talk to people again, make contact with the world. I got awful tired of leaving messages for you at that rinky-dink garage. It’s like sending out smoke signals—you know, like in the cowboy movies.” He looked hard at Horn. “Something bothering you?”
Horn shrugged. “Just the kid,” he said finally. “He recognized me.”
“Ah.” Mad Crow leaned back in his chair. “I get it. One of your old posse. I don’t imagine you signed any autographs, did you? Sorry you didn’t run into him under better circumstances.” His face brightened. “Lookie-here.” He pointed to the corner of the room over Horn’s right shoulder. On the wall was a large, framed movie poster, what theater owners called a one-sheet. The movie was Carbine Justice, and the artist’s illustration, done in broad strokes, showed the profiles of two men on horseback—Horn, in western garb, in the foreground, and Mad Crow wearing buckskins, with a feather in his hair.
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