Chapter 2

Guy Lambert was my eyes and ears down at the paper. Bred from pure Irish stock, he was a bulldog of a mick and a damn fine reporter. He specialized in the social lives of gangsters and the company they kept. Normally any bone headed rag man dim enough to stick his nose into someone like Dickey Bernard's business had another thing coming, but Guy Lambert knew just how to play the game. He treated them like stars of the silver screen or robber- baron millionaires. If Dickey had dinner out at La Botana, the new steakhouse down outside of Culvert city, Guy was there snapping photos and taking quotes. The next weekend you would have better luck getting a seat behind the mayor's desk than you would at La Botana. If, however, Guy overheard Dickey complaining about his fettuccine being overcooked, well La Botana might as well pack it up and try again in Peoria. Any respectable paper in any respectable city would have rightfully turned their nose up at what Guy called his stories: Gossip and rumors centered around gangsters and their social lives. But Guy was smart enough to be employed by neither a respectable paper nor a respectable city. The bottom line was his stories sold papers and lots of them.

Guy made his living riding the coattails of dangerous people while staying on this side law, and he did it by making everybody happy. The gangsters loved seeing their picture in the paper and the public loved reading about them. The bulls down at county couldn't hold much against him either, as long he kept people like Bernard high profile, they figured they would be easy to keep an eye on. Any case dealing with Dickey Bernard was bound to start with Guy.

I phoned him down at his office and asked if he could meet me for a steak and a beer. He tried to blow me off with some crow having to do with tracking down a lead involving Cheeks Carmichael and his missing prize bulldog, but all it took was the mention of one name.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone and finally Lambert said simply, "Buster's grill, 5:30. Beers are on you." The click on my receiver told me that that was all Lambert had to say on the matter.

I looked at the clock on the wall. Buster's was thirty minutes away with traffic so that gave me two hours. Already this afternoon I had more work under my belt than the last two weeks combined. I buzzed Sylvia and told her I would be reading up on this new case and to hold my calls and tell visitors I was out. I took a folder out of the bottom right draw of my desk, opened and spread its contents over my desk. Then leaned back, propped two sized 12 leather dogs on top of it all, and put my hat over my face. I'm sure Sylvia could hear my snoring from the outer office.


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At 6:10 Guy rolled into Buster's, sat down across from me in the booth, and held up two fingers to the bartender.

"I got two in me already, Guy," I told him nodding towards the glasses I had emptied waiting for him, "don't worry about me."

"You shamuses think everyone's just out to do you favors all the time don't you?" He asked as the bartender set two mugs down in front him. He gripped them both and neither one of them slid my way. He didn't say anything for a couple of minutes and I let him get intimate with his suds.

He was a big guy, taller than me and broad as the doorway he walked through to get in here. A patch of red hair that had forgotten what a comb was perched above his ears and eyebrows and I couldn't help noticing that there was less of it lately. He had that type of chin that micks seem to have patented, hard and sharp and for all I know he used it to open his beer bottles. His brown suit looked like he'd slept in it and his shirt cuffs were frayed and stained with ink. These newspaper men are all the same, too busy chasing leads to do their dry cleaning but still self aware enough to hide their three day stink with half a bottle of Five and Dime aftershave whenever they went out.

He finished his first beer, and pulled out a tin cigarette case. He pulled out two hand rolled cigarettes and handed me one. I don't smoke, but it didn't seem like the time to bring that up. I accepted the flame of his lighter and inhaled what seemed like a combination of stale tobacco and fresh fish.

"These things are disgusting," I said through the thick blue haze between us.

"Sissy Kanopolis, eh?" He said, taking no notice of my critique. "You're going to sit here and tell me that Dickey Bernard just strolled into your office and asked you to track down Sissy Kanopolis? And that you agreed? I got to hand it to you Maxwell, either you're dumber than I thought or times are tough and you're mouth starts watering at the first smell of a fresh twenty."

"It's probably a little both," I told him, "though I never got the impression that you ever took me as too smart."

"That you got right. But seriously Maxwell, you been around this town just as long as I have. You know what you're into here and it ain't tracking down some fussed up kid's milk money. These people don't kid around. You don't dig up this fellow's dame and you're as good as finished. And I don't mean as a private dick, though you can count on that, I mean finished period. I don't think you swim too well with concrete boots on." He exhaled the rest of his cigarette and shook his head. "In any case I hope you got your will wrote up."

"If the homily's over, Father Lambert, why don't you tell me what you know? Who is this girl and whys Dickey take it so personal that she bumped off? Can't he just find some other arm candy to show up to the theatre with?"

Guy sort of scoffed and shook his head, took another mouthful of beer and started. "He met her down at the Showtime. She was dancing and he was paying. She's a broad shouldered gal, a little thick around the middle but she fills it out nicely and looks good in heels. I guess she reminded Dickey of the tough broads that he used to rope cattle with back in Tulsa and he took a liking to her. What Dickey wants, Dickey gets and what broad waiting tables and dancing for dimes wouldn't want to be on the arm of the most powerful man in town? The rest is history. That was only a few weeks before Cherry's..." he hesitated, the reporter in him choosing his words wisely, "accident, so there are those who suggest maybe Sissy was some sort of catalyst for what went down." He shook his head and lit another square. "But I've never been sure. That's another thing that really gets me about this girl. I'm square enough with Bernard's crew that they don't mind me poking around a little when there's a bite of gossip to be had. But bring up the girl and I come up with a roomful of clams. That's the way the game goes. Dickey lets me put his picture in the paper and the people are happy and the bulls think they got their eyes on him, but all he's really doing is catching their eye with what doesn't matter and holding the rest of his cards right up against his lapels."

"Sounds like a fine romance" I said, "but I could have read it down at the drug store for a penny. But I don't buy that pulp. Why's he want her back so bad, why not rescue some other doll, clean her up, feed her Filet Mignon and call it at that?"

"For a Dick you sure don't listen good." Lambert replied rolling his eyes. "She's more to him than just showing off. He took a liking to this one and doesn't let anyone get too close to her. She popped off on him and now he's hurt. I probably don't need to tell you how queer it is that Dickey would come to any old private Dick to track down his ladies. Believe me, whatever Dickey needs tracked down, he's sure as hell got his own people to track it down for him. But I think the fact that he's willing to drop dough your way means he's a little embarrassed. He's outsourcing so his own people won't know how desperate he is to get some broad back." He sat back and stared at the ceiling fan spinning slowly in the center of the room. "I don't envy you Maxwell," he said finally, "Dickey Bernard is dangerous enough, but get him desperate and who knows what he's likely to do."

"If you're done philosophizing, why don't you tell me where I'm likely to find her?"

"Like I said, I don't know much more than what I've told you. After she and Dickey were spotted around town together a couple of times, I started doing some homework. All I could dig up was a brother in San Bernardino who wouldn't return my calls and a small criminal record. Little things from before Dickey picked her up, drunk in public, shoplifting. Nothing that would sell any papers." He took a folded up scrap of paper from his breast pocket and slid it my way. "There it is, what I've dug up over the last year, it all fits on one sheet of paper."

I took one of the bills that Bernard had given me, reached over the table and tucked it into his shirt pocket. "Thanks Guy, you're a pal."

"Curtis," he said, using my first name, "For a minute here, I'm not a newspaper man, I'm your friend and I'd really hate to write your obit. I mean it, this thing could get ugly."

"Thanks for the concern, old man, but I've been watching my back long enough to know when someone's sneaking up. I've dealt with love-sick Johns before, and gangster or not, just get their lady back to them and they're happy."

He didn't agree, but he didn't argue either. We ordered a pair of steaks and ate in silence. By the time we finished and Guy had packed it up it was 8:30. Too late to drive to San Bernardino, but still too early to bribe the night watchman down at the courthouse to let me poke around in the records. I drove back to my apartment, took off my jacket and spent the next couple of hours getting caught up on some drinking I'd been meaning to do.