Chapter 1

I was sitting in my office working my way towards the bottom of a cheap bottle of not quite new Scotch. It was August and the day was as damp as the back of my shirt and just a little warmer. I had only been back from lunch for 20 minutes and already I was thinking about dinner. I leaned in towards the small electric fan on my desk and thought about a pair of tall black pumps that I connected to a pair of legs that went all the way to the ceiling. With that and the hooch, it was nice enough to make an afternoon of.

The small electric buzzer on my desk rang like the grim reaper’s doorbell. I eyed it with suspicion and no small amount of loathing.

“Curtis a call for you.” Said Sylvia, my secretary. She was the third one in as many months and not unlike the others. She wore too much powder, probably stayed up too late on weeknights and rode around with boys that were no good for her and insisted on getting paid on time. A bothersome habit in my profession where work came at its own pace if it decided to come at all. I would have been happy to let the lot of them go, but then I’d have no one to answer the phone myself when Hilda, my landlady called pestering me about the rent on the office. Sylvia was good for brushing her off and reassuring her that I was off on a high paying case rescuing the duchess of Windsor’s grand champion pup or some nonsense.

“Tell her I’m not in. Better yet, tell her I’m at the post office right now, buying a money order with her name on it.” I hadn’t used that one on her in a couple of weeks, so it just might work.

“It’s not Hilda, Curtis. It’s a man, but I don’t think he is who he says he is, or else he wouldn’t be calling this office.” Sylvia popped her gum loud enough for me to hear and waited for my response.

“Unless he claims to be George Hatfield, put him through. Old George hasn’t talked to me since I won 50 off of him in Tahoe.”

“Whatever you say boss.” Replied Sylvia in a tone that implied that she either didn’t catch my jest or couldn’t care less about it. It was hard to tell with that one.

The small black rotary on my phone rang once, twice and on the third ring I picked it up out of its cradle and brought it to my mouth. “Curtis Maxwell here, Private Eye for hire, what can I do for you Mister…?” I trailed off, realizing I hadn’t caught his name from Sylvia.

“Bernard, Richard F. Bernard, Mr. Maxwell. It’s a pleasure to speak with you.”
I almost coughed up the mouthful of liquor that I had just imported, and I couldn’t tell you if it was from surprise or laughter. I managed to contain myself.

“You’re Dickey Bernard and that was Vivien Leigh that answered the phone. Listen mister, I got a lot or work to get to today so why don’t you go and buzzkill some other jokers?” That part about the work was a lie, but it beat talking to this clown.

“I can understand your skepticism, Mr. Maxwell. I got your name from a friend of mine down at the precinct. I’d rather not say who, if it’s all the same to you.” It was. “I’m looking for a missing person and he told me that you just might be the man to dig them up. I understand you’re quite adept at finding things that have gone missing.” I was. “Anyway I would consider this a sensitive matter and would rather prefer to talk to you in person. I have here the address where your office is located and will be there in approximately on hour’s time if it suits you.” It did.

“Sure it does,” I replied. “I’ll hold my breath.”

“I will see you in one hour then Mr. Maxwell.” He hung up and I sat there waiting for the empty line to sing to me. I put the mouthpiece back in the cradle and picked up the bottle next to it. Empty already. If Dickey Bernard really was coming to my office, I would need a little more liquid courage. I buzzed Sylvia and told her to run down to the corner and pick me up another bottle, and to two step it, would she.

* * * * *


Dickey Bernard had come out to Los Angeles from Oklahoma in ’29. Rumor had it he was born first of the year in double zeros and was exactly the same age as the century itself. But when it came to Bernard, it was hard to tell between truth and rumors. He had left the farm where his grandfather had homesteaded, and headed straight for the city. As if in response to his absence, the country withered up and died, blew east and all ended up in the Atlantic. He left behind his country ways, his Okie accent and his sodbuster boots. And judging from our conversation, somewhere between Tulsa and Malibu, picked up English manners and an East coast determination. But anyone who was born and raised on that hard Southern soil knows you can never get it out of your blood and the grit that lived in the bottom of Bernard’s gut was the same grit that paved the way to him owning half this town.

The story goes that the day he arrived in LA he strolled up to Cherry Maloney, a transplanted Chicago bootlegger turned gun runner and offered him his services. When Maloney laughed at his face and told his two goons to rearrange this young punk’s features, Bernard promptly broke one jaw, handed out a pair of black eyes and made history out some poor fellow’s pretty nose. Turns out Chicago polish is no match for mean Okie blood. Maloney had no choice but to hire Bernard and in just under 9 years, Bernard had worked his way up to second in command of Bernard’s empire. Just last year, Maloney was walking from Boulevard to Broad when he forget to look both ways and walked right out into a traffic of Tommy Gun fire. No one’s quite sure who ordered the hit but Bernard was quick to assume leadership and everyone was smart enough not to ask any tough questions. Since then this has been Dickey’s town.

He had told me he got my name from someone down at the precinct and that seemed square enough. Most of the bulls downtown are smart enough to walk a thin line between city hall and their actual bosses. The fact that Bernard had someone downtown who would sing a name on command didn’t surprise, but the fact that that name happened to be mine did. I mopped the back of my neck with my handkerchief and started naming names in my head.

Bernard arrived, just as he said he would, at 2:30. I heard a car park in the alley facing my office window and I looked down to a see a Rolls Royce in matte gray standing sentinel down below. It sat heavy and low on its shocks, probably from the quarter inch steel plates welded into the doors to make it bullet proof and the windows were tinted black as the ace of spades. A man in a plain black suit leaned against the door and smoked, the bald patch on his head staring up at me.

I heard conversation in the outer room to my office and turned to face the frosted glass on my door. Without a knock or an invitation, Dickey Bernard strode into my office. He wore a gray flannel suit that looked as though it had been pressed on the way over. His shirt was as white as a baptism gown with a green silk ascot tucked into it. His hair was parted in style and looked like it had been waxed right along with his car. Though his shave looked fresh enough, he had that hard Oklahoma edge that no razor can take off. He walked toward my desk, with only the faintest hint of a limp, most likely evidence of his latest survived hit. He sat down, took out a gold monogrammed cigarette case, stuck one in a ceramic holder and eyed me for a good long while. After what I supposed was long enough I held out a lit match and he accepted.

“You’re taller than in the papers.” I told him.

“As I said on the phone, Mr. Maxwell,” he began, without taking to my crack. “I seem to have lost something and I was told you might be able to recover it for me. I am sure that you need no assurance of my monetary standing and though I am not one for written contracts, I am good for my word. The job that I am offering pays fifty dollars a day with a guarantee of two hundred and fifty. That is all considering you come up with the goods.”

I looked at him long and hard, and nearly in the eyes. “Twenty five dollars a day plus expenses is my going rate, and no guarantee is necessary, I’ll get the job done. Considering of course, that whatever you lost wants to be found, and I can tell you from plenty of experience that that’s not always the situation. I can track down someone that’s looking ahead at their next move no problem, but a dame looking backwards, and don’t try and tell it’s not a dame you’re after, a dame looking backwards is almost always impossible to catch up with." He exhaled a elegant blue plume of French tobacco smoke and smiled. He reached inside his coat and took out two crisp twenty dollars bills and grinned across my ragged plank of a desk. He put the money on the particle board and slid it across with the bravado of a hundred dollar chip in Reno.

“I think you’re just my man Maxwell.” He said through his cigarette.

“Yeah sure,” I heard myself promising him, trying hard not to stare a hole in the bills, “and this sounds just like my kind of job.”