Los Angeles Stories (14 page)

Ever since you got here, I thought. “Tell him to come and get you.”

“I came out by myself.”

“How did you get here?”

“What's it to you. You're just bluffing.”

“I'm interested, that's the way I am.”

“I took a bus as far as Tulsa, then I met a guy with a car. He rode me the rest of the way. Gave me a ride, I mean. In his car, for crissakes. When we got here, he wanted to go to the beach; he said he'd never been there. He said he wanted to go swimming. We were drinking and he passed out. I left something back there. You could help me if you wanted to. I thought you liked me, maybe I was wrong.”

“Help you how?”

“Maybe you're the kind of man that takes advantage when a girl is in a tight spot and can't pertect herself.” Ida stuck out her chest like a girl in a tight spot.

“A man like me might get into a real tight spot nosing around a Lincoln belonging to Earl McDonnell. Earl being the kind of man who likes to go swimming in his overcoat.” I shook the car keys at her.

She shot out of the chair like she had a firecracker go off in her pants, and came right at me. “Give me those goddamn keys!” she hissed. I pushed her back down in the chair. She sat there glaring at me, ready to pounce again.

“I'll give you a full report, Ida.” I left. She didn't try to follow me. She was mad, but more scared than mad. It was all very familiar, somehow. Lydia was right, there was a certain resemblance.

(Baker Boy message, Truman Bradley lead­-in.)

Before I was married, I didn't know too much about the retail clothing business, or women. I bought one pair of shoes a year, shirts every six months, and a new suit every three years. The railway provided the cap and badge. I've never been much for dressing, but at the same time, I'm not hard on clothes like some fellas.

When I met my future ex­-wife, she was working at Grayson's department store on Spring Street. She was in women's blouses, on the second floor, and the sister of a fellow motorman named Fred Keller. Her name was Inez. Fred introduced us one night at the Round­house. He was going off shift and I was coming on. Inez was meeting him for dinner. Looking back, I think she was there specifically to meet me. I was living with my mother on Hoover, and had just started as a motorman with the Los Angeles Railway Company.

We started going out together on my off­ nights — movies, bars, dancing now and then. Inez liked to go out and drink, and she liked to talk. We'd get in a place and sit down and she'd start talking about her job at Grayson's. She was really hipped on the subject. One night, after we'd been seeing each other for about a month, she told me a story.

“See, Ed, the higher ­up in floors you go, the more things cost. All the cheap stuff, like costume jewelry and makeup, is on the street level. Second floor is sportswear, like blouses and handbags. That's my floor. Third floor is women's suits and shoes and better accessories. But the fourth floor is the good stuff — fur coats and real jewels and watches, and that. There's a floorwalker on each floor to keep an eye on things, but there's two floorwalkers on the fourth. They lock everything up at the end of the day and unlock it in the morning. Everything on the fourth has a serial number and a catalog number. They watch you like a hawk up there.”

“That's very interesting, Inez. You know a lot about it.”

“You bet I do, I made a study of it.”

“Why?”

“Look, Ed, you and I are getting along pretty good, wouldn't you say? So, you won't be surprised if I tell you that I got a system figured out to make some pretty good money.”

“Don't they pay you well enough?”

“Are you kidding? A salesgirl doesn't make enough to live on and never will. I want things, Ed. Nice things like they got up on the fourth. Don't you want me to have nice things? Don't you want me to be happy?”

“Well, sure I do, but what can I do about it? You know I make a motorman's wage. It's nothing fancy. If I didn't live with Mom, I couldn't even afford a little house like we have.”

“That's just what I'm talking about, Ed. If you want things like I do, then if you help me, we can get the things we both want. I think you like me just that much, don't you Ed?”

“Maybe you had better tell me what you want to do, if we're going to do something together.”

Inez laid it all out for me that night. She had gotten started by stealing blouses, one at a time. The trick was to take them right after an inventory of stock was done. Every salesgirl was afraid of the inventory, afraid to get blamed if something was wrong. But there was always what they called “shrinkage.” The inventory, which was supposed to account for stock and sales receipts and actual cash, never came out quite right, so they called the discrepancy a “shrinkage” and wrote it off. The trick was to know how much shrinkage they would accept. If it was more than usual in some department, they got suspicious. Inez knew where shrinkage was typical and where it wasn't. Apparently, shoes was a shrinkage-­free department; also, the luxury goods on the fourth floor. Shrinkage was not acceptable up there.

I listened. Inez looked at me to see how I was reacting so far. “So, you take a blouse here and there,” I said.

“We all take little things. I can't afford clothes from that store, even with the employee discount.”

“So, what's your plan?” I asked. We'd had a few drinks in this place she knew about, and it made me kind of unconcerned.

“It's this. The store manager's name is Guy Richard Cummings. He's a big, fat man that acts superior to all the girls. All high-and­-mighty. He eats Sen­-Sens all the time because he sits up in his corner office on his fat ass and drinks and talks on the phone all day. But I found out about Mr. Guy, and this is what it is: We take cheap little blouses, but he takes the store's money. He steals money from the accounts. He fixes it so he can show the money is disappearing from ten different places. Very hard to trace. Then, he charges it back to the head office. Then, the head office accountants pay back the loss, but they pay it directly to him, in cash. It's normal, because the store uses a lot of cash every day. But he puts the extra money in his pocket! That's some trick, wouldn't you say?”

I realized then that Inez Keller was nobody to fool with. “Are you going to turn him in?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? I got his fat ass right where I want it. He's going to help you and me steal a mink coat, maybe two or three.”

“Wait a minute. How did you find all this out?”

“He called me up to his office. He said the ledger showed I was short three blouses, and he was going to dock my pay. He accused me of stealing. Unless, of course, I was willing to be reasonable. ‘Reason­able,' you get it, Ed?” Inez made a circle with one thumb and forefinger, and pumped the other forefinger in and out. “So I said, ‘Mr. Cummings, you accuse me with three blouses, but I know you are bluffing, because I only took one. You already put in a receipt for the cash value of three; then you put the extra money in your pocket. Am I right,
Guy
?' He turned white in the face. I was sitting in his lap at the time, and I saw it up close. He said, ‘You got balls.' I said, ‘That's not all I got.' It was the happiest day of my life.”

“What's wrong with the head office that you know all this and they don't?” I asked.

“I don't know that,” she said. “I think someone there is shielding him, but I don't care. I want that mink coat. I've got it picked out; I know which one it is. I want that coat more than anything in this world. Except for you, of course. Do you want me like I want you, Eddy?”

We were married on her lunch hour, one month later. She moved her stuff in with Mom and me in the little house down on Washington and Hoover. Mom and Inez never got along, they argued about everything. She said she needed me to help with the coats. We were going to be a team. Cummings was on the hook, he was the inside man. It was going to be a three­way split. I stalled her. I said I had to think it over. Finally, an accounts investigator discovered the cash rake-­off, and they arrested Cummings. He had been under suspicion for some time. Then the police showed up at our house one morning after Inez had left for work. I was asleep since I had the night shift at the railway. They told Mom that a mink coat was missing from the store and that Cummings revealed he had given it to Mrs. Inez Breen, and that she was blackmailing him. He claimed the whole embezzle­ment scheme was her idea. She denied the charge, but the officers found the coat in the garage. Being the husband, I couldn't testify in her defense. Inez made a deal for a petty larceny charge and drew a five-­year sentence, which she is still serving, as far as I know. Cummings was the big fish they were after. “Your mother turned me in, how about them apples? See you sometime, Eddy,” was all she said. Mom got the marriage annulled on a technicality.

(
Baker Boy message, Truman Bradley lead-­in.)

In the daylight, Playa del Rey looked like a dump. There was a small neighborhood of older houses up along the bluffs to the south; then you had the marsh and the half­-dozen beach cottages built on the dirt levee along the creek. Will Build to Suit signs sprouted here and there, and a fish and chips stand that was closed for the winter. I walked down the sandy dirt road leading to the cottages. The first four looked lived in, but the fifth and sixth had realty signs posted. Of the two, one garage was locked, and one was not, so I took a look.

The Lincoln was tucked away in there, all nice and neat. It was a Continental convertible, just the kind of flashy car a bright boy would choose for a trip out west. The registration was missing. There was a lot of loose junk on the floor, like someone had been looking for something. The little trunk lid was open: nothing in there and nothing in the backseat. I raised the hood. A Lincoln twelve-­cylinder, ready for the road. What about that air cleaner? Big as a saucepan. I unscrewed it and lifted it off the carburetor. I removed the filter unit and felt something like a small package in the bottom of the metal container. I put the filter back inside and tried to get the clumsy thing back on the carburetor. It was dark in the garage, and hot, and I couldn't see what I was doing. I got dizzy, and then I got scared. They'll notice somebody's been handling it, I thought. I went out and looked around. There wasn't one person anywhere, just the wind and the sound of the surf, which was about a hundred yards away: How did you get Earl down there? A woman couldn't drag a man that far, you must have lured him down to the water somehow. In the dark? In the overcoat?

My hands were oily. There was just enough water in the creek to get most of the oil off, but it worried me. There was a man's hat lying in the creek bed. I picked it up. It had a Tulsa haberdasher's name on the hatband and the initials “EMD” stamped in gold. So you and Earl went shopping, I thought. You wanted to see how much cash he had.

I put the oilskin bag under my shirt, in back. I had a jacket on and it felt like it was covered up good enough to get going. I walked up Culver, then north through Venice, as far as Washington Boulevard. It took a long time. I kept thinking someone was following me, but nothing happened. I caught the Washington car and rode downtown.

I didn't recognize the motorman. Normally, I would have talked to him, like hey buddy this and hey buddy that, but I was so tired and hungry I almost passed out. Then I saw the Pup Café up ahead on the right. You can't miss it, it's made to look like a big dog sitting there by the sidewalk. You walk inside through his stomach. He looks worried, as if he missed his lunch. I had a cheeseburger with onions and tomatoes and pickles. Then I ordered another. The counterman said, “Seein' you wolf down your food reminds me of somethin' happened here last week. You want to hear what happened?”

“Sure,” I said between mouthfuls.

“It was quittin' time, nine o'clock. A colored man comes in, kind of a large man, and says: ‘Five cheeseburgers, with everything, to go.' Just like that, just as bold.”

The counterman waited for me to make a comment, but I kept eating, so he continued. “Well, I says, ‘We're closed.' And you know what? He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a fistful of money like you ain't seen before and shows me a hundred-dollar bill! And he says, ‘Make it six, with pie, and step lively!' ” The counterman waited for a reply, so I said, “All right, so you made six cheeseburgers.”

“Well, you're darned right. No colored man in my experience ever had a roll like that unless he's a gangster or a dope fiend or some desperate character. I made up the order, and he gives me the hundred dollars! And then he says, ‘You ought to mind your manners, Bub, you never know who's coming through the door. I'm Charlie Parker. You ought to keep that hundred-dollar bill; it might be worth something someday. Tell your little ofay grandkids.' And he left. Got in a great big Cadillac and took off! Can you tie that? The things I seen here — I could write a book.”

“How 'bout a slice of apricot pie,” I said. You can have all the cheeseburgers and pie you want when you have twenty-five thousand dollars.

I showed Lydia the money first. “I say we split it up three ways. Ida gets one third, and you and me can take the rest. What about it, Lydia?” I was all excited.

Lydia shook her head. “You kill me, Ed. You been a motorman in this town for fifteen years, but you never got the hang of it. You can't see what's going on outside of that trolley car. It's just ding­-ding, smile, fares please, and thank-­you­-laze-­and­-jellmen.”

“Wait a minute, what's so wrong with that? It always worked for me. I made a lot of nice friends that way, including you. This is the only chance a guy like me is ever going to get.”

“Ed, I wouldn't give you a nickel for that money. If Ida Jenkins doesn't get what she thinks she's got coming, then I wouldn't give a nickel for your chances. You got away lucky with Inez. For Ida Jenkins, I just wouldn't give a nickel.” Lydia went back to the counter. I walked upstairs and knocked.