The syndicate, p.19
The Syndicate, page 19
“It wasn’t a decision I took lightly.” Mayer almost seemed to be justifying it to himself. “I had no interaction with him on a day-to-day basis. I loaned him money, that’s all. Plenty of other people loaned him money. The only difference was, we all knew we weren’t getting it back.”
“And in return he used his influence to keep the unions in check?”
Mayer nodded. “That was the limit of our engagement. It was worth it to keep Hoover off my back. At least before all this H.U.A.C. nonsense. Oh, the irony.” He looked at Craine. “I’ve had dealings with men I wished I hadn’t before, we both know that. But I had nothing to do with Siegel’s death and that’s the end of it. You’ve got nothing on me but a few account receipts.”
Mayer was right. There was no smoking gun. No conclusive evidence. No persons caught in flagrante.
“Why did you ally yourself with the underworld, Louis? After what happened before?”
Even though both men knew Craine would have more, Mayer went through the papers and then rolled them up. He had no intention of anyone seeing them. And he had no intention of saying anything else.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said, moving to the door.
Craine had been unsure whether to tell Mayer about Michael. But the history between them had to mean something. “They have my son.”
Mayer had one hand on the door handle. He didn’t turn around when he asked, “They have Michael?”
“Yes.”
Mayer didn’t say anything. He left the room.
Afterward, when he took a taxi back to Beverly Hills, Craine felt at a loss. He was too tired to be angry, but the truth was that all of his lines of enquiry had gone nowhere.
Craine could visualize Siegel’s murder. He could see the shooter creeping up through the back garden and killing Siegel in his house. He could picture the weapon. He’d probably even come face to face with Siegel’s killer last night.
But nothing had brought him any closer to understanding who that person was or what their motive for killing Siegel could possibly be.
There were only two potential leads remaining. The missing witness and the shooter’s car. And Friday was only two days away.
When he got to the hotel, Abe answered. He was dressed now, his jacket in one hand, the Savage in the other.
“Harvey called,” he said. “They’ve found Charlie Hill.”
Chapter 24
Conroy’s major break came a little before lunch, when Alice returned from the D.M.V. and handed Conroy a carbon sheet that went for several pages and was many hundreds of lines long. ‘CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES’ was written across the header.
“Blue and green vehicles,” she said, flicking the paper with her finger. “Packard and Nash.”
“Good work, Alice.” Conroy scanned the list. She flipped through the pages and frowned. “Wait, there are too many here to count, let alone call.”
Alice took a pencil and used it as a pointer. “But I’ve underlined the ones that were stolen in the last week. And I double-underlined the ones stolen Thursday or Friday. That leaves forty.”
“Forty cars were stolen last week?”
“And that’s not even unusual.”
“That’s still a lot of leads.” Conroy was contemplating how long it would take to track down and call forty irate car owners when she remembered something from her conversation with Cay Foster. “Wait a second. What else did she say . . .?”
Conroy slipped a piece of candy in her mouth, then went through her notepad until she found what she was looking for.
“Here. She said the license plate was yellow.”
Alice shrugged. “They’re yellow this year.”
“But she said the car wasn’t new. It was prewar.”
Alice didn’t say anything so Conroy explained, “Until recently, license plates in California have been yellow letters on a black or blue background.”
“Going back how long?”
“Well over a decade. But then in thirty-eight and forty the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued all-new license plates with black lettering on a yellow background. Which means our car is most likely a 1938 or 1940 model.”
Alice bit the side of her cheek. “Explain that again for me. After you’ve made me another of those white-people coffees.”
Twenty minutes later, Conroy and Alice had worked out that of the forty cars that were stolen in the last week, only fourteen were prewar. And only nine were ’38 or ’40 models.
It took less than fifteen minutes to work through the list between them. Of the nine, two didn’t answer. Five of the remaining seven matched the description entirely, but only one of those was stolen the night before the shooting.
The owner was a Mr. Webb, and when they called his home number his wife answered. They could do a background check on the owner but nothing from their conversation suggested they might be complicit. Mrs. Webb was a mother of two and her husband worked as a technician for Warner Bros. He’d finished work late after filming and gone for drinks with members of the crew. As far as she was aware, the car was stolen from the parking lot of the bar at approximately 11 P.M. last Thursday.
Had he sold it to the shooters? Possibly, but it felt unlikely. And was he where he was when he said he was? Maybe not, but in truth the details didn’t really matter. In fact, the information they had suddenly seemed useless. They had details of the stolen car, including the age, model and license plate, but none of that was relevant if they couldn’t find the car itself.
“We have a lot of information here.”
“Yes,” agreed Alice.
“But none of it gets us our automobile.”
“No,” agreed Alice.
Conroy tilted her chair back on its rear legs and popped another piece of candy in her mouth.
“You’re the shooter,” she mused. “You know you have a hot car. You haven’t removed the plates and you know that the police might be looking for your vehicle. You commit a murder where you’ve driven right up to the target’s address on a well-lit street. So what would you do with the car after? Would you keep it?”
“I could do with a new car,” Alice said. “Mr. Hickerson’s been promising to get us one since the war.”
“Alice—”
“I guess I’d sell it or I’d dump it,” she replied with a shrug.
“Exactly,” Conroy went on, playing this theory out. “And anyone in Siegel’s circles is unlikely to need the money. So they ditch it on the side of the road, or they drive it out of Los Angeles.”
Alice was biting her lip. “Why take the risk it’s spotted? You said yourself it connects them to the scene of the crime.”
“What, then?”
“Take it to a car wrecker.”
Conroy’s stomach tightened with excitement. Alice picked up the telephone directory and pulled her telephone toward her.
“Is it ‘S’ for salvage or ‘W’ for wreckers?”
“Try ‘A’ for auto wreckers,” Conroy said as Alice began flipping through the yellow pages. “And I’ll make us fresh coffee.”
Conroy practically skipped her way to the coffee station. They were no longer skirting the edges of this investigation. They were at the center of it.
The road to Pasadena took them past miles of concrete sidewalks and telegraph poles, a sprawling wasteland of billboards, pharmacies, garages and Chinese laundries.
“How’s the shoulder?” Craine asked when he noticed Abe grunting every time he turned the wheel.
“No better for you asking after it,” came the reply.
They came off the highway shortly after the Colorado Street Bridge and pulled up outside a row of old warehouse buildings. A sign outside said CAR REPAIR, TIRES, LAUNDROMAT.
On the outside, their destination looked to be a disused foundry or metalworks factory. Craine almost asked if they’d got the right address. But when they went inside Craine saw that the building had been converted into a giant office floor filled with men and women manning telephones.
“Siegel’s race wire service,” Abe muttered when Craine looked at him for an explanation. “It’s Dragna’s now.”
The floor was loud, people talking quickly into receivers and scribbling numbers down on paper dockets. Craine had heard years ago that an illegal wire service existed in Los Angeles. It relayed horse race results from tracks around the country directly to gambling houses in L.A. Controlling the wire meant by proxy controlling gambling at a national level. The financial rewards were unthinkable.
“Where’s Harvey?” Abe asked a man manning several telephones.
“Through the back. He’s expecting you.”
Abe took them through into a back room where Craine could see Harvey Sterling wiping his hands with a dark cloth.
“Hill through there?”
Harvey nodded. His face was wet with sweat like he’d been grafting. “Come through. But I warn you, it ain’t pretty.”
Abe and Harvey walked toward a metal door, speaking quietly between themselves. There was something undeniably clannish about the two of them, with contempt for anyone and everyone not born within four square blocks of where they grew up.
The room was a disused laundromat, filled with industrial-sized drum washers and steam pressing machines. At the far end a man he assumed was Charlie Hill was tied to a metal ceiling pipe. Fluorescent strips hummed above him. It turned the blood on the floor black.
Years of homicide work had hardened Craine. But seeing what men were capable of doing to each other never failed to make an impression.
Charlie Hill was stripped naked. His chest was peppered with cigarette burns, his torso covered in blood blisters and his face was so misshapen that his own mother would have struggled to identify him. Trussed like that with his clothes stripped off, Hill resembled something you’d see in an abattoir.
“That him?” Abe asked.
Hill looked horrified when Craine and Abe entered. Like new recruits were being brought in for a fresh round of beatings.
“It’s him alright,” Harvey said. “He was hiding out in a motel. I found this on him.”
Harvey took a pistol from a metal side shelf. Abe raised it to his nose.
“Been fired recently,” Abe said, looking at Craine.
“I didn’t shoot it,” Hill blurted out from the end of the room. “I swear to God.”
Harvey took a drag of his cigarette and Craine saw Hill’s Adam’s apple bulge with sick anticipation.
“Let me go,” Hill screamed, pulling at his restraints. “Let me go. I didn’t do nothing, I swear it.”
In response Harvey simply strode over and punched him in the stomach so hard that blood and vomit spurted out of Hill’s mouth.
“Then why did you run, you piece of shit?” he yelled.
Harvey began thumping Hill’s cheekbone with short sharp jabs, like a butcher hammering meat. There was something workmanlike in his approach to torture. It had the ease of a ritual. Craine wondered if there was a limit to the pain a man could handle.
“You had Siegel killed,” he said between jabs. “Then you went for these two at the Bradbury, didn’t you?”
Hill was winded. “I didn’t . . .” he managed through choked breaths. “I didn’t.”
Harvey wiped sweat and saliva from his lips. He seemed to be enjoying the intimate brutality. “You’re lying,” he said through gritted teeth. “Now you can keep lying or you can admit what you’ve done.”
Craine looked at Abe to do something. When Harvey glanced back to see if he wanted a few rounds himself, Abe signaled to let Craine come closer.
“Fine,” Harvey said. “But there’s no point going easy on him.”
Craine moved slowly, like he was approaching a rearing horse.
“Charlie? Charlie Hill?” he said softly when he was a few feet away. “Charlie, I need to talk to you.”
Hill grimaced and tensed, waiting for the blow. “I didn’t do it,” he said, blood dripping from his nostrils. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I’m not going to hit you, Charlie. So I need you to calm down.”
Up close, he could see Hill was young, barely out of his teens. Maybe only a few years older than Michael.
“Charlie, my name is Jonathan Craine. Meyer Lansky sent me.”
Hill had a bulbous lump pressing down on his right eye. He had to swivel his head so he could see who he was talking to. “Please,” he said. “Tell them I can’t take any more.”
Craine looked to Abe. “Get him down.”
Harvey stepped forward. “What are you doing?”
“Look at him,” Craine said. “He’s not going anywhere. I need him conscious.”
Harvey lit a cigarette in protest. He did nothing as Abe took out a small knife from his pocket and cut the ropes holding his wrists to the ceiling pipe. Hill slumped to the ground.
Craine was composed but firm. “I’m not here to hurt you, Charlie. All I want is information. But I’ll warn you now: you don’t want to lie to these guys. That would be a mistake.”
Hill took long, deep breaths like he’d been drowning. “Please,” he said, coughing and retching. “I don’t know who did it. I’m not working for anyone, I swear.”
The pain in his body must have registered because Hill began inspecting his wounds like a confused infant that had fallen over.
“Don’t look at the blood, Charlie. Look at me.”
“They’re trying to kill me.”
“Then tell me what went on and I can help you take care of your situation.”
“I’m sorry. I keep saying I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Explain.”
The ceiling tubes flickered and Craine had a momentary respite from looking at Hill’s face. He gave the poor boy a minute to gather himself.
When Hill had steadied his breathing, Craine asked, “What happened the night Siegel died? I want you to tell me everything that happened after you met Ben Siegel at Ocean Park. I want you to take your time. And I want you to tell me the truth.”
“Okay,” Hill cried like a child to his mother. “Okay, I promise.”
For the most part, Hill’s version of events was consistent with Allen Smiley’s. They’d met in Santa Monica, then come back to Siegel’s for drinks. When they got to the shooting, Charlie said that he’d been upstairs at the time with a girl he’d taken out. They heard the shots and ran downstairs to find Smiley screaming at them to call the police. The F.B.I. had arrived a few minutes before the police did, but Charlie Hill and his girlfriend were whisked away in an F.B.I. car before he could talk to anyone from the L.A.P.D.
When Craine asked him who the girl was, Hill offered a vague response. Craine didn’t probe it any further. You keep the secrets till last.
“Let me ask you something,” he said as if they were old friends. “Where is your sister? Where is Virginia?”
Craine tried to find Hill’s eyes. To see if he was hiding something.
“I don’t know,” he said earnestly. “Europe. Paris.”
“When did she leave?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Why hasn’t anyone heard from her?”
“I don’t know. Honestly. I don’t know.”
Behind them, Harvey muttered something but Craine held up his hand for silence. He didn’t push Charlie any further. Virginia Hill wasn’t the destination of this conversation. The mysterious woman at Siegel’s house was.
“The girl you were with . . . who was she again?”
Hill looked down. He didn’t want Craine to see him dissembling. “I told you. Some girl I met. She’s not important.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you seen her since?”
“No. Not really.”
“Not really?”
For the first time, Craine could see the boy reaching for answers. His body language changed.
“Tell me the truth, Charlie. Who is she?”
“Some girl I took home. That’s all.”
“Tell me about her. Tell me everything about her.”
“I’ve told you.”
“I don’t think you have,” Craine said calmly. He didn’t draw on anger or aggression. He didn’t need to.
“I have. I have, I swear.”
“Come on, Charlie. Tell me. Tell me so I can make sure these men don’t hurt you again. How did you meet her? What was her name?”
Craine went on like this, drawing on lost habits, every question designed not only to probe but to destabilize, to shake Hill’s calm until the information dropped out of him like coins from a piggy bank.
“Now these men will say you’re lying to me, Charlie. But I think you’ve simply made a mistake. She wasn’t a one-night stand, was she? You liked her, didn’t you? You’re protecting her because you have feelings for her and don’t want her to get in trouble. That makes sense. That’s something we’d all do in your position. So, were you lying? Or did you make a mistake?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice phlegmy. “I–I made a mistake.”
“Go on, Charlie.”
“We’ve been together a few months,” he finally admitted. “She’s a nice girl. A nice, sweet girl.”
“Where did you meet her?”
When Charlie didn’t reply, Craine heard either Harvey or Abe step forward behind him. He held up a hand again but more firmly. They stepped back.
“I’m not here to hurt you. And I’m not here to hurt her. But if you don’t help me, I can’t help you. Either of you. That’s the bottom line. I don’t need to spell it out in black and white. They’ll kill both of you. They’ll bury you in the desert if you don’t help me find out who killed Siegel. You understand? You understand that, right?”
Hill began crying. Most people carried secrets around with them; they were desperate to unburden themselves.
“She works for Virginia,” he said at last, the words coming out in a release of tears.
“As what?”
“Personal secretary,” he sobbed.
“Doing what?”
“She picked up her dry-cleaning. That kinda thing. Benny paid her.” There wasn’t bluff in his voice. He genuinely believed it. “But they were friendly, too. Like sisters. Virginia, she was good like that.”
