The Gangster's Daughter

A Story of Booze, Broads & Gangsters. So add a slug or whiskey to your coffee and enjoy.

It had been the sort of baking Los Angeles day where no one felt like moving. Even the flies couldn’t be bother to buzz. I’d spent the afternoon in my office with only my inadequate air conditioning for company. It was better at making a racket than cooling the room.

I’d read the newspapers through twice. The crime pages were reduced to reporting minor incidents of car theft and dogs fowling the sidewalk; it seemed like the heat was even too much for the hoods to commit serious crimes. The sports pages weren’t much better as they once again reported on the dismal performance of the Hollywood Stars.

I’d hoped that someone would feel the need for the services of Dick Thrust, Private Investigator, $25 a day plus expenses, and give me a call, but the telephone remained stubbornly silent. So I gave up and went home early.

I’d shaved and showered and now with the cooler temperatures of the evening I decided to find somewhere that would be willing to supply me with a cold beer or two.

My feet took me in the direction of a bar I know; sometimes they have a mind of their own. I was almost at my destination when I found my way blocked by a large bull elephant.

The elephant didn’t have a trunk and was wearing a dark suit but it was the right size to be an elephant and had large ears. I moved to go around but he moved to block my way. I now noticed the bulge in his suit. He was carrying a gat and I was naked.

Turning around I found another elephant behind me, not as big but just as threatening. I was in the middle of a herd. A large limo was parked at the kerbside and the door swung open.

“Get in,” said the first elephant. Trapped between two hoods and a limo I hesitated, so he pulled back his jacket to show me his piece. It was a large gun for someone with such a small brain.

I got in and he followed behind me, closing the door. The inside of the limo was like a broad I once knew; long, cool and well upholstered. It was large enough to hold a small cocktail party.

There were two other occupants in the rear of the limo. The woman was stunningly beautiful. She was well made-up, coiffured and expensively dressed with a fur wrap over a long crushed velvet dress. The dress had a split almost to the waist showing a leg that went on forever in a direction I would have liked to have travelled. It was low cut. It looked like two bald men trying to see over a wall. The woman noticed the direction of my gaze and pulled her wrap tightly around herself. She gave me a look that said “you couldn’t afford me”; she was right.

The man was short and chubby. His face had the pockmarks of teenage acne. He was expensively dressed with a dark suit, silk tie with a diamond tiepin and spats on his feet. His dark hair was plastered down on his head. He had a large gold signet ring on one hand. The man’s aftershave fought with the woman’s perfume for my attention and neither of them won.

The second hood had climbed into the car next to the driver and we pulled smoothly away.

“Do you know who I am?” said the man.

Normally this is something asked by self-important non-entities but not in this case. This guy’s mug was frequently in the newspapers.

“You’re Bugsy Capone, successful businessman and patron of the arts.”

Actually I was riding in a car with one of the biggest hoods on the west coast. I knew he was a hood and he knew that I knew. This was worrying as previous travellers in this vehicle probably ended up in the foundations of a new skyscraper, or going for a swim in the Pacific Ocean wearing concrete overshoes. I tried to think back over my last few cases to see whether I’d upset anyone enough to warrant a visit from a group of violent gangsters, but I couldn’t.

“I called at your office this afternoon and you weren’t in.” This sounded like an accusation.

“If I’d known you were coming I’d have put a fresh pot of coffee on, cracked the seal on my best bourbon and waited around.”

“I’ve got a job for you. I want you to find my daughter and get her to come home.”

“You’ve got an army of…” I chose the next word carefully, “operatives, couldn’t you get one of them to find her?”

“She knows all my associates and wouldn’t come with any of them.”

This wasn’t a job I wanted. If I failed my employer might be ungrateful enough to cross me off his Christmas Card list, and people that happened to might not expect to be around for any New Year’s Eve parties. While I considered this I looked at the broad. I had to look somewhere and she was very easy on the eye.

“This is a best-efforts assignment. Providing you do your best then I’ll be happy.”

“You’d better give me the details,” I said reluctantly.

So he gave me the details.

Claudia Capone was twenty-two years old and didn’t approve of her father’s lifestyle. Things had started to get worse after her mother had died in a car crash two years ago. She had run away and moved in with a penniless musician living in a hovel in the Hollywood Hills. Capone’s “associates” had found them and explained to the musician that he wasn’t suitable son-in-law material. When he got out of the hospital he had moved to Florida for health reasons.

Claudia had run away again and been found and brought back a second time but now she was missing once more.

“Can’t you just wait for her return. If she comes back on her own then she’ll stay, and if you force her to come back then she’ll just run away again.”

“I have business rivals who might use her against me. She isn’t safe where she is. I need you to find her before they do and convince her to return. When she comes home she needs to think it is her idea.”

“That won’t be easy.”

“Do your best. If you succeed you’ll find me very generous.”

He gave me the photograph of a plain looking young women with a forced smile and told me she’d been spotted on the beach front in Santa Monica two days ago. Well that was a start at least.

“Why did you choose me?” I asked.

“You were recommended.”

“By who?”

He didn’t answer and I didn’t pursue the subject. You didn’t press a man like Capone to answer a question if he wasn’t going to tell you; not if you intended to keep all your fingers, that is. Whoever had recommended me must have been someone I’d crossed in the past and they were trying to get their own back.

The car came to a stop and Capone gave me his business card.

“Call me when you have any news,” he said dismissively.

We’d been driving for almost thirty minutes and I didn’t fancy a long walk home. But when he the door was opened by Capone’s goon I found we were back where we started.

“It wouldn’t hurt you to smile sometimes,” I said to the goon as I got out of the car. He said nothing.

I finished my interrupted journey to the bar and after a large whiskey to steady my nerves I put in a call to Barney Oles.

***

Barney is a drinking pal of mine and also a detective with the Hollywood robbery squad. I often let him take money from me playing poker as a way of paying for the information he occasionally gives me. It’s not really a bribe, you see. I could of course beat him if I wanted.

Barney now sat opposite me and nursed his third beer; the first two hadn’t lasted very long and I’d paid for them.

“Bugsy Capone is bad news and you need to steer clear of him,” said Barney.

“That isn’t going to be easy as he’s just given me a job.”

“What does he want you to do?”

“Client confidentiality prevents me from telling you.”

Only priests, lawyers and private investigators will claim this and I’m sure I’m on shakier ground than the other groups.

“As long as it isn’t illegal?”

I let the question hang and we sat in silence for a while. Barney sat staring at his beer and I was looking at the brace of brunettes at the next table.

“His name isn’t Bugsy Capone,” began Barney presently. “He only chose it so he sounds more like a gangster. He is actually the son of a poor Irish immigrant. His real name is Shamus O’Malley but don’t call him that unless you want to carry your teeth home in a bag.

“He controls most of the northern parts of the Los Angeles area. Prostitution, numbers, protection, smuggling; you name it and he has a hand in it. Many of his rivals found it easier to sell their businesses to him for a reasonable price and take early retirement for the benefit of their health.

“He’s even got a few legitimate businesses like bars and hotels. This bar belongs to him and his construction company built the Four Corners Hotel on Prospect.”

“What about his personal life?”

“He has one daughter who hates him. He was married and puts it about that his wife died in a car smash. She actually had an affair with their chauffeur and he found out. The couple might be happily living together on some remote Caribbean island or they might be at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. I’d give you even money of which one is true. There is even a rumour that he named his hotel Four Corners because you’d find body parts of the chauffeur in the foundations at the corners of the hotel, but no one wants to demolish the building to find out.

“This has nothing to do with his daughter does it?” asked Barney suddenly.

I shrugged and said nothing.

“Well, be careful, there’s trouble coming.”

“Trouble?”

“Some big boys from out east are looking to set up in LA and so we are expecting a turf war any time soon. They might try and snatch the daughter to use against him. There will be blood so make sure it isn’t yours.”

Barney had little more to tell me so we discussed the three B’s: baseball, broads and booze. After a while the conversation petered out and Barney took his leave. As the brunettes at the next table had left to be replaced by a middle-aged man with a plain looking girl young enough to be his daughter, I decided to make my own way home as well.

***

The next day found me on the sea front in Santa Monica, near the pier. There were plenty of bars, restaurants and tourist shops in the area and I started my long days trek of showing the picture of Claudia Capone around these establishments.

“Have you seen this girl? No? Thank you.”

It was lunch time and I was feeling tired and my feet hurt. The next diner I came to looked clean and the waitress wasn’t too unattractive, so I decided to get something to eat.

I ordered scrambled eggs on rye, Canadian bacon and a black coffee. I smiled sweetly at the waitress whilst making my order but only got a blank stare in return.

The nice weather had brought out the crowds. There were the middle-aged men in bright shirts and short, the blue-rinse elderly women, the young mothers pushing their babies along in strollers, the young men stripped to the waist who had more muscles than brains, and the beach babes who dressed to be looked at. The world was here and it seemed to be having a good time.

I scanned the faces of the young women as they walked by looking for Claudia Capone until it all became a blur and I gave up.

The waitress came over and asked if I wanted a refill of my coffee cup. I declined and she gave me the bill. I showed her the picture without much hope.

“Do you know this girl?”

“Yes, I know her. Hangs about with a group of layabouts.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“What’s in it for me?” She folded her arms and looked at me.

“I’ll leave you twice the tip.”

“They hang about at a bar called Muchas Cucarachas on the corner of Palisades and 4th. I’ve seen them there several times.”

I thanked her, put my money on the table and walked to the door.

“Hey! You’ve only left one dollar tip.”

“That’s twice what I would have left,” I said and quickly walked through the door.

I decided to go home, clean up and return to the Muchas Cucarachas that evening.

***

Palisades and 4th was well away from the tourist areas, so I wasn’t expecting the bar to be anything special. I wasn’t disappointed. I might have mistaken the building as a shelter for down and outs if it wasn’t for the neon sign that buzzed and flickered like a swarm of angry fireflies.

Inside the bar the lights were kept low; probably so the customers couldn’t see the shabby décor too clearly. There was a bar along one wall, booths along the other and mismatched tables and chairs dotted about the rest of the floor. I walked from one side of the room to the other to see if my prey was hiding somewhere in the gloom before taking a seat at the bar.

There was a juke box in the corner playing a song that was a hit last year by a young singer called Elvis Presley.

The bar tender wandered over from the far end of the bar, wiping his nose on his sleeve as he came and said “what’ll it be.”

He had a most pronounced squint and I wasn’t completely sure that he wasn’t talking to the women sitting at the next stool. When she didn’t answer I assumed he must be talking to me.

I ordered a beer and sat there wondering what I was going to do to pass the time while I waited to see if Claudia Capone turned up.

My drink arrived and it turned out to be surprisingly good. I lent on the bar and this turned out to be a mistake as the surface was sticky from the spilled drinks that had been left to dry there.

“Got a light?” asked the woman on the next stool as I peeled my arm away from the bar.

She pointed a cigarette at me in the end of a very long holder. I gave her a good look for the first time. She was dressed as a twenty year old but she was at lease fifty and those years hadn’t been kind to her. The bulges in her body suggested that her foundation garments were having trouble constraining the body within. The thought of the sudden release of her bulk when she unfastened them at night entered my mind and I shuddered. So I lied and told her I didn’t have a light and she didn’t seem too disappointed.

In this game you occasionally catch a break and tonight my luck was in. I was only on my third beer when Claudia Capone entered the bar with a group of friends. They found a table at the far side of the room and I watched them in the smeared mirror that hung behind the bar.

There were six of them, three men and three women, and five of them looked to be in their early twenties. The sixth was a man of about forty and the body language suggested that he was the leader of the group. Now I just had to await an opportunity to make contact.

It was about an hour later and the older man detached himself from the group and wandered over to the juke box. I joined him. The jukebox was playing the Elvis Presley number again.

“Do you think this Elvis fellow will be very successful?” I asked.

“No chance,” he replied. “No one will remember him by next year.”

“I’m Dick,” I said and he told me his name was Charles. We shook hands.

Charles was about forty, athletically built and a strikingly handsome. He would have no trouble attracting women. His voice was cultured and he’d be at home in a cocktail party at any of the Ivy league universities. I took an instant dislike to him as it would save time later.

His clothes were of good quality but were beginning to fray around the collar and cuffs. He looked like someone who used to have money but had fallen on hard times.

Now he’d started talking it was difficult to stop him. I was to learn that Charles was an expert of every subject and wanted to make sure you knew this. Anyone else who expressed an opinion he didn’t agree with would be put down brutally. Several times during my association with him I would have to resist the desire to punch him on the nose.

During our conversation I learned that the six of them lived as a sort of loose commune in a large house a few miles north of Santa Monica. Charles owned the house and the others paid him rent.

“I need somewhere quiet to stay for a few days,” I said in the middle of his diatribe about the mistakes President Eisenhower was making with the economy. “Would you have a spare bed?”

“Are you in trouble with the law?”

“No. But my ex-wife thinks I owe her some money. I just need to lay low until I join my ship in a few days. There’s fifty dollars in it for you. Bed and meals and no questions asked.”

“How do I know you’ll pay?”

“Thirty up front and the rest when I leave.”

“Alright,” he said. “Come and meet the gang.”

I won’t bore you with the names of all the group or what we spoke about for the few hours. None of that is germane to my tale. I’ll just give you the summary.

It was clear that all three girls were in awe of Charles, although Claudia less than the other two, and he would be able to bed whichever he might choose and quite probably had already with all of them. The second male would then get the next choice. Male number three was a scrawny youth who played no part in the conversation except to tell me his name was David. He had more spots than skin on his face. He looked like the “before” picture on an advertisement for extra strength acne cream. I can’t imagine that any of these girls would want to get up close and personal with him and I had to admit he made me itch a bit. I selected a chair at the opposite side of the table.

I learned that Charles was a member of one of the elite Boston families. He said that he’d decided that he didn’t like the hypocrisy and had left all that luxury and money behind; somehow I doubted this. He claimed he could trace his ancestors back to the Mayflower. With the number of people who claimed this honour the Mayflower must have been twice the size of the Titanic.

Claudia asked me a couple of questions about myself but I just stuck to my story that I was a merchant seaman and needed to lay low for a few days. When I offered no other information she gave up, but I saw her looking suspiciously at me several times during the evening.

It became clear that the others didn’t know of Claudia’s family connection to organised crime. The other two girls stayed mainly silent and hung on every word that Charles uttered. He spoke at length on many subject ranging from the fact that the Government were covering up UFO sightings to the way sedatives were being added to foods to stop people rebelling.

When it came time to leave I suggested that Claudia travelled in my car to make sure I didn’t get lost. I noticed she glanced towards Charles to see if he would disapprove.

***

We travelled in convoy with Charles and one of the girls in an old and battered looking open topped two-seater that I couldn’t identify, the others in an ancient pre-war Lincoln and my car bringing up the rear. Normally my Plymouth would be considered old and past its best but in this procession it was positively the most desirable vehicle.

Claudia was about medium height and build and with plain features. She had shoulder length brown hair which looked like it could do with a wash, or at least to be combed. She was wearing a shapeless man’s shirt and battered blue jeans. She was flat-chested; I notice these things. She wasn’t my type, especially as her father was a gangster who might remove my kneecaps if I interfered with his daughter.

“Have you been living with Charles for very long?” I ventured.

“Not long,” she said in a voice that made it clear she wasn’t interested in polite conversation.

However I persisted. It was a bit like pulling teeth, but by the end of our journey I had established that they lived in Charles’ house and paid him rent and they all worked around Santa Monica in low paid jobs. Claudia worked as an attendant in a gas station on the ocean highway.

We travelled north out of Santa Monica and then took the ocean highway for about 20 minutes before turning off into a residential area. As we travelled inland the housing got more sparse and the road more pot-holed. After about half a mile we came to a turning circle, which marked the end of the road, and parked outside the last house. There was another car that had seen better days sitting in the drive.

It was an unremarkable two storey clapboard house. In the pale light of the half-moon the house looked unloved and decrepit. Maybe it would look better in the morning but I doubted it.

I collected my duffle bag from the trunk and joined the others in the house. At the bottom of my bag was a half-pint bottle of bourbon I kept for emergencies and my .38 Police Special. I didn’t intend to shoot anyone with it. I used my gun when making an important point. Pointing it at someone served the same purpose as putting an exclamation point at the end of a sentence. I wasn’t even a very good shot.

Inside the house the theme of shabbiness continued. Giving the place a good clean would have improved it greatly.

Charles took me on a tour which didn’t take very long. Downstairs was a kitchen and open plan lounge. Upstairs were four bedrooms and a bathroom. Charles had one room, the boys shared another and the three girls another. I was to have the fourth bedroom which was also used to store things in. I stowed my bag under the bed, cleaned up and joined the others downstairs.

We spent the evening watching TV, drinking beer and smoking. Some of the others smoked marijuana but I stayed with tobacco as it was much healthier. I sat in an overstuffed armchair that would have been new thirty years ago and looked at Claudia trying to decide how I was going to get her to go home voluntarily. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to achieve this.

Eventually people drifted off to bed. Charles and one of the girls went up the stairs together.

My bed was as comfortable as a sack of rocks. Every time I turned over the springs groaned and twanged. This wasn’t a bed where you could make love discretely, as the noise would sound like an amateur jazz ensemble tuning their instruments. I hoped Charles’ bed was better sprung as his bedroom was next to mine and I didn’t fancy listening to his nocturnal activities.

It took me a long while to get off to sleep even after two slugs of medicinal bourbon but eventually I did manage a few hours. I had a weird dream which has no bearing on this story, so I won’t describe it here. I awoke late, feeling as fresh as a sumo wrestlers laundry basket, and shaved and washed before going downstairs.

Everyone except Charles had already left for their day jobs. He told me he was going into town later and asked if I wanted anything; I asked for the newspapers. I went into the kitchen and made myself a coffee and livened it up with a large splash of bourbon. I made myself some toast and then went for a walk around the outside of the house.

Someone must have loved this house once but that was a long time ago. When Los Angeles had its predicted earthquake this would be one of the first properties to fall down and no one would mourn its passing. The yard was uncared for and it was difficult to see where it ended and the scrubland beyond began.

When Charles left I decided to search the house. I started in the girls bedroom and went through Claudia’s stuff first being careful to put everything back as I’d found it. I then searched the other bedrooms and had a cursory look around downstairs. I didn’t know what I was looking for so I wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t find it.

After Charles returned I sat in the kitchen with a coffee and the newspapers. However it was clear that Charles wanted to share his opinions of World politics and how the Government was poisoning people by putting chlorine in the water supply. So I decided to finish reading the newspapers in my bedroom as even laying on a pile of rocks was preferable to listening to Charles pontificate and it took away my temptation to throw him through a window.

I lay on the bed and tried to decide how I could get Claudia to leave and the only thing I could think of was to let Charles know who her father was and that he was in danger by letting her stay, so that he would have to ask her to leave. But how could I do that without blowing my cover?

The others returned in ones and twos around six o’clock and the girls prepared some form of stew which turned out to be tasteless and very chewy. Maybe I should ask for a reduction in my rent.

It was during the meal that David said something to Claudia which livened up the proceedings.

“I almost forget. Two men came into the diner today looking for you.” David apparently worked as a waiter at a diner in Santa Monica although I think I’d lose my appetite if I was served by someone with his facial eruptions.

“How do you know they were looking for me?” she said, suddenly alarmed.

“They had your picture.”

“What did they look like?”

“Big men, wearing suits. They said they were friends of yours.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them where you were and they said they would drop by later.”

“I need to leave,” said Claudia standing up and rushing to the stairs.

They could have been associates of Claudia’s father but more likely they were representatives of his rival.

I left the table and went to find Claudia. She was in her bedroom stuffing things into a bag.

“I’ll drive you,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“Where will you go?”

“I’ll have to go back to my father’s house which is in the Hollywood Hills.”

It was then that a commotion broke out below. I went to the head of the stairs and looked down. The front door was off its hinges and there were two large men in suits in the lounge. Charles was in a heated discussion with one of the men and was jabbing him in the chest with his finger; probably telling him which section of the penal code they had broken by forcing entry to the house. The man responded by punching Charles in the nose sending him sprawling to the floor.

The other man started to climb the stairs so I moved back out of sight. As he reached the top I stepped forward and landed a roundhouse punch to the side of his head and he dropped like hooker’s knickers at an orgy. It had been a good punch and I was proud of it.

I rushed back to my room and retrieved my revolver and met Claudia on the landing. She was looking down at the man lying on the floor who was already showing signs of stirring. She was in a daze.

“This way,” I said and grabbed her arm.

There was a window at the end of the corridor, I opened it and bundled Claudia out. She seemed reluctant to drop so I gave her a gentle push. I climbed on the sill and before I dropped I looked back to see the hood struggling to his feet. That punch should have put him out for an hour.

I landed next to Claudia, grabbed her arm once again and ran across the back yard and into the scrubland beyond.

After we’d gone about one hundred yards I stopped and looked back at the house. One of the hoods had come out of the backdoor and was heading in our direction. I decided that I needed to discourage him so I took the gun from my pocket, aimed a little high, as I didn’t want to shoot anyone, and squeezed the trigger. I heard glass break and realised I’d shot out one of the windows but this had the desired effect as the hood hit the floor.

I grabbed Claudia and we made off once again into the darkness. Underfoot the ground was sandy with the occasional rocks to trip you up, and dotted with inconvenient sage scrub so that you couldn’t travel in a straight line for more than a few yards.

The sky was cloudy making the night very dark so after we’d gone a few hundred yards I figured that the hoods wouldn’t be able to find us. As Claudia had fallen a couple and times I decided we should stop for a few minutes.

We sat hidden behind a large sage bush. Claudia’s heavy breathing slowly subsided.

“Who are you?” she asked after a while.

“I’m someone who has been sent to keep you safe.”

“Did my father send you?”

“He was worried about you.”

This wasn’t the truth but it was a story that might make Claudia more likely to return to her father voluntarily.

We once again resumed our journey. I set off in a direction that I thought would take us to the coast. If I’d been in the boy scouts I would probably have known how to navigate by the stars, but I’d been too busy chasing girls and drinking beer which were activities the scouts frowned on. So I now used the simple rule that going downhill must be heading towards the ocean.

After another thirty minutes we saw the headlamps of cars travelling on the ocean highway. There was a gas station and diner off to our left and I decided to make for that as it would have a telephone.

The diner was empty of customers. There was a bored looking waitress who didn’t seem excited to see us. I ordered coffee for me and coke for Claudia.

“Keep a lookout for our friends from the house,” I said. “If they turn up then we’ll leave by the back way.”

I put in a call to Claudia’s father on the pay phone.

“This is Dick Thrust,” I said when Bugsy Capone came on the line.

“Never heard of you. Who gave you this number?” He didn’t seem happy.

“You did. I’m the one looking for your daughter.”

“Oh yes,” he said realising who I was.

So I told him what had happened and where we were and that he needed to get us picked up as soon as possible. I asked that he send someone that his daughter would recognise.

We kept a close lookout while we waited. The only people to arrive were four giggling teenagers who looked as if they’d been drinking. I ordered a second coffee and Claudia had an ice cream sundae. With her unkempt hair, no makeup and grubby jeans and shirt, she didn’t look her age. With the coke and ice cream in front of her she could easily have been taken for a fifteen year old.

“You don’t look like one of my father’s usual goons,” she said after a few discrete glances in my direction.

“Too handsome?”

“No. Too weak.”

That put me in my place.

“It drives me crazy, constantly being under the control of my father. I get no privacy.”

“Well you are in danger and so is everyone around you.”

It was now that I had one of my “good” ideas. Possibly I should have discussed it with my employer first but I’m not good at thinking ahead.

“You could get away. What about a finishing school in Europe? I’m sure your father could afford that.”

“I’m not sure…”

I could see she was thinking about it.

It was only twenty minutes until a shiny black limo arrived and a large man in a dark suit and unnecessary sunglasses got out.

“Do you know him?” I asked fingering the revolver in my pocket.

“Yes. His name’s Guido. He’s one of my father’s less stupid employees.”

So I paid the bill and we joined Guido outside. He opened the rear door of the car and we both got in without any exchange of words. I asked to be dropped off a block from my apartment as I needed a nightcap to steady my nerves and a friendly bartender I knew kept an excellent foreign whiskey under the bar for just such emergencies.

Whether it was the fact that I’d had three nightcaps or that I was once again in a comfortable bed I didn’t know but I got a good night’s sleep and woke up late. My car was still parked outside Charles’ house so I walked to my office. I picked up the newspapers on my way and arrived about mid-morning. There was a car waiting out front and Guido got out as I approached.

“Bugsy wants to see you.”

I thought I should be able to make some smart response to this but I couldn’t think of one and it would have been wasted on Guido anyway. Maybe I’m getting past it. He opened the rear door of the car and I got in. Our drive up into the Hollywood Hills took about twenty minutes. Guido didn’t say anything during our journey and I didn’t feel much like making polite conversation either.

Bugsy Capone lived in a Hacienda style single storey house behind high walls and strong metal gates. Guido announced his name into a speaking box and the gates swung noiselessly open.

Guido parked the car at the front of the house and came around to open my door but I beat him to it and was out of the car before he got there; he looked a little hurt. I guess he wasn’t used to people who could actually manage to open their own door.

I was halfway up the front steps when Guide overtook me and opened the door to the house for me to enter. The entrance hall was cavernous and cool.

“Put your hands on the wall and spread ‘em,” said Guido.

“But I hardly know you,” I said in a coy voice.

But I complied anyway and was expertly frisked. Guido didn’t find my gun as I didn’t have it. He seemed disappointed.

He showed me into a room where Bugsy was sitting behind a desk smoking one of the largest cigars I’d ever seem. Maybe he was trying to compensate for some other shortcoming? He didn’t get up or ask me to sit down.

“Here’s your money,” he said and pushed an envelope across the desk.

I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

“Aren’t you going to count it?”

“I trust you,” I said and got a stern look in response. I’d better not push things too far.

“Thank you for keeping my daughter safe. I understand you suggested she went to finishing school in Europe?”

Here it comes. If he considered it a bad idea I might find myself spending the next couple of weeks relaxing in a hospital bed eating my meals through a straw.

“It would keep her out of harm’s way.”

“It’s a good idea.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

At this point the door opened and a women walked in. She had the face of Claudia Capone but the rest was different. Her hair was neatly styled and her face made up. She was wearing a cream coloured silk blouse and tailored slacks. She was no longer flat chested. The previous evening in the diner she looked fifteen but now she looked more like thirty-five.

She sat on the arm of her father’s chair and gave me a sardonic smile but said nothing. He patted her leg and smiled at her and she placed her hand on his shoulder. It was like they’d always been the best buddies.

“You can go,” said Bugsy. “Guido will run you back into town. And never use my private phone number again.”

***

I got Guido to drive me to Charles’ house. My car was still parked out front along with Charles’s sports car; the other cars were missing. I was tempted to go inside as my duffle bag with a change of clothes and a half full bottle of bourbon was still there. But I wasn’t sure what the hoods might have done the other evening after our escape. The thought that I might find a few bodies in the house put me off.

So I started my car and drove away.