Tough Luck L.A., page 23
“And their son was dead. The kid must have thought he was being a hero.”
“Besides, he believed his own life was at stake.”
“If it had all worked out, he probably would have been well rewarded. How much you think?”
“Let me finish the family tree first.” Ellen turned to Augusta and said, “I hope this isn’t too much.” The old lady tried to smile and patted Ellen’s arm. “Augusta married a Mister Charles Smith. Mister Smith was a judge on the California Supreme Court.”
Mrs. Charles Smith lifted her chin with the proud memory.
“They had three wonderful daughters together. Darryl’s mother’s name was Cecilia. She was the oldest. The other girls were named Deborah and Elizabeth. Darryl’s mother and father and both sisters died in a house fire. It was during the summer and Deborah and Elizabeth were visiting Cecilia, who’d just moved back East.”
“So Augusta and her husband raised Darryl.”
The old woman started shaking. Ellen held her and talked to her quietly. Then, after a few moments, Ellen said that we should eat. But the old lady wanted to finish the thing. She gestured and made soundless syllables.
So Ellen said, “Darryl put Augusta in the home ten years ago. That was after her stroke. Mister Smith died eleven years ago. He was eighty-seven.”
“When you say nobody came to visit, does that mean Darryl too?”
“He came once the first year and that was it. Augusta couldn’t write at first, but the administrators there tried to do something. By the time she could communicate, she’d lost the desire to do so. She felt abandoned.”
“She was like his own mother and he literally forsook her. Yet he fronted for her keep.”
“It was probably too much for him.”
“Either that or there’s some guilt only he knows about.”
“That’s possible. Let me tell you: I found out about Augusta and I went to see her. No one else had been out. She lives in a rest home in San Bernardino, not too bad a place. We talked, and I learned about the grandson. After you got arrested in San Francisco, I took her out for the afternoon. Guess where we went?”
“To see Darryl.”
“That’s right.”
“Wait a minute. What made you so sure? Did Augusta know he was using a different name?”
“She told me she had a grandson in business whom she hadn’t seen for about ten years. I asked her if she knew about the tontine arrangement and she said that was why she had written her letter. She was worried that something might be wrong, that something might affect him. She felt hurt by his neglect, but she still cared about what might happen to him.”
“How did you know that Augusta’s grandson was Porter, who was really Darryl Hutchins?”
“I didn’t know that Porter was Darryl. I just knew there was something fishy about him.”
“How?”
“Don’t be silly. A man was killed. Either he shot himself or the other man shot him. What else was there to consider—you? Besides, the old trust papers were affiliated with the Bank of America. Porter was an officer of the bank.”
“What happened when you saw him?”
“We went to the bank. His office is in the large tower adjoining, but he wasn’t there. His secretary said he was taking care of something in the bank. She didn’t know how long he would be, so we decided to drop over and see if we could find him. He was on the second floor talking to an accountant. Augusta went up to him.”
“What did he say?”
“Granmama. He was quiet for a moment, then he started chirping away like everything was normal and wonderful. Asked her how she was, said he had meant to visit but hadn’t had the time lately. Things like that. I don’t have to tell you how Mrs. Smith felt. Darryl’s voice kept getting louder. Finally, he screamed at her to let him alone. It was horrible.”
“So what finally happened?”
“It got quiet as a church. People were looking at us. Then Darryl ran out of the bank. After that, I didn’t have any trouble talking to a few other people. With Augusta’s help, we confirmed his identity. Then we called in some auditors to go over his accounts. And that was it.”
I looked over toward the old lady. She was neither happy nor sad. Her face was masklike, and the wrinkles in her brow and down the sides of her cheeks were moving around like a puzzle that kept changing its pieces.
“I’m very sorry this had to happen,” I told her.
She lifted up her beautiful old hand and patted my arm. Then she patted Ellen’s arm. She took my hand and put it on top of Ellen’s. Then she pulled over her cannelloni and started eating.
56
Darryl’s plan, a life’s dream. He had probably spent twenty years trying to think of a way. And he had almost found one except for one wilting, nice, eighty-one-year-old woman whom he had disregarded as either boon or threat. She had just been trying to help. She had still cared. She had still remembered. But what she had remembered was a little boy, probably a somewhat sad little boy, but nevertheless a child who had been kind, affectionate, considerate in his own way.
Mrs. Smith had conveyed to Ellen that her three brothers had been partners in a construction company, and when the oldest, Stephen, had died, the other two had gone bankrupt. Stephen had been the brains. The tontine had been something that her brothers had thought would have a binding effect on the family circle. A friend of the family had done the same for his brood and he had been proud of it. This man had been in the insurance game where, as I found out later, phony tontine “policies” had been issued as enticing freebies in conjunction with selling life insurance policies. Big rivals like the Insurance Company of North America, Mutual Life, and Equitable Life had used this ploy in their client-recruiting campaigns. This was banned in most states before 1910. But as a private trust, the Swall Family Tontine had been completely on the up and up.
As far as the sharing, there could have been a lot of it. The original principal had grown from two hundred thousand in 1932 to a cool half million in 1950. That was when the Swalls had optioned out a certain portion of principal and interest for recommended investments controlled by the bank. With diversified investments in real estate, municipal bonds, and other marketable securities, the original principal had mushroomed to eight million by 1960. In 1965, Darryl had come to the Bank of America in San Jose. He had worked two years there, then had requested and received transfer to San Francisco in 1967. From the beginning, of course, he had been known as Christopher Porter. Ellen told me all of this and more—more than I really cared to know.
There had been ten potential members, but only five first offspring had survived to maturity. Four out of five of them were now dead. Unnaturally so. Crummy, very crummy odds. With close to twenty million sitting in the kitty. They were going to have an awfully hard time deciding who that dough belonged to. I assumed they’d probably divvy it up with what remained of the family.
I was lying back against six fat pillows waiting for Ellen to come back from shopping. I thought about the last night. We’d taken Mrs. Smith and the hired nurse out to dinner—an alternately sad and happy occasion. The old lady hadn’t had a vacation in over ten years. She hadn’t been able to see enough. Her features had taken on a childlike cast. We went to the latest Burt Reynolds movie and she kissed both of us afterward when the lights went up in the theater. Ellen had promised her that we’d come visit.
I looked at the new dressing on my shoulder. The first thing Ellen had done after lunch yesterday was to get a doctor to our hotel—a colleague of Daddy’s. We were staying in this quaint little five-room Victorian place on Union Street. It was modeled on the English Bed and Breakfast. Our room was called the Pines, and pine cones had been placed on the dressers and nightstands. The air gave off a fresh, hearty bouquet.
I sat up and spread some marmalade over my buttered English muffin, took a few bites, then leaned back again. I felt like some more orange juice, but I wasn’t about to bother ordering. Ellen had told me she was going to do an article on everything for her magazine. Her editor was really excited. He thought there was a movie in it. But they’d probably buy the police reporter’s story from the paper, then take a meeting with Sterling Silliphant on the screenplay. Dino De Laurentis would produce. Sex, Money, and Blood: Read the Bantam paperback! Maybe I could get them to take a meeting with me before they took one with somebody else. After all, it was my story.
“Big deal. What’s his track record. What’s the kid done anyway?”
I could feel a tic starting in my right eye. I put my hand up and rubbed it. I felt my face. It was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Ellen had shaved me with her leg razor in the morning. It took her twenty minutes. By the time she finished, she had shaving cream in her hair, all over her robe. She told me that I’d better not get into the habit of being pampered. I offered to pay her back by shaving her legs. When she got into the bath, she called me in, handed me the razor, and stuck out her leg. So I stroked it. Gently. I took my time, doing a good job, but found myself distracted.
I was at a definite disadvantage because of my shoulder, but it hadn’t mattered. The sun fell across the bed. Her breasts were ripely swollen, slightly pendulous. I was only one who could tell she was just a couple days away from her period. I’d missed them. They were so soft in my hand. I brushed her silky pageboy back off the rich and dusky olive skin. Then I just looked up at her face. After a few minutes. Her dark eyes grew darker, then stopped seeing me. Her mouth looked like it was sleeping with a good dream, and then she must have called my name about fifty times.
I could hear her again. It was a song. Just for me.
“Ben, Ben …”
Ellen’s song.
57
“Benjamin, wake up!”
“Hey, Ben.”
The first voice was part of the dream. The second wasn’t. I opened my eyes and Ellen was standing by the side of the bed with her arm around Petey. I couldn’t believe it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“It’s Friday. Thought I’d just take a vacation—for the weekend.”
“Sonofabitch.”
Petey looked uncomfortable. His hands were in his back pockets and he was flapping his elbows around like an ostrich. “If you’d a called me, maybe I coulda helped or somethin’.”
“Maybe I should have.”
Ellen let go of Petey and walked toward the bathroom. “Peter called me because he was worried about you.”
“That’s what I told him he should do if he didn’t hear from me.”
Ellen closed the bathroom door. Petey became solemn and stood there quietly, staring at my shoulder dressing. His mouth was open just a little. I felt like a decorated war hero, which made me laugh.
“What are you laughin’ at?”
“You, ’cause I missed you.”
“Is your arm OK?”
“Good enough so I can give you a bear hug.”
He came to me and let me hug him. I felt like I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what it was.
58
“This area was called Cellblock D—otherwise known as Isolation. You were sent here if you were black or if your life was being threatened by other prisoners or if you disobeyed a guard. Those who were brought here for the last reason might spend time in one of the six Dark Holes along this bottom tier. In these cells, the men were at the mercy of the guards. If a guard thought you needed it, you could be stripped of your clothes and forced to survive on bread and water. You would have no bed or mattress, so you’d have to sleep on your knees and elbows to avoid contact with the cold steel floor. There was virtually no light in these cells. If a guard wished to, he could leave open the small grate covering the meshed screen in the door. Or he could shut it, blocking out all light. Many men lost their minds here. More than we probably know. If you want to see what it was like, step right ahead and I’ll lock you in—just for a minute.”
We were on the Alcatraz tour. The kid was having the time of his life. He was absolutely spellbound with the likes of Machine Gun Kelly, Capone, the Birdman of Alcatraz, and all the other Hollywood dash and glamour that goes along with the territory. He grabbed Ellen by the arm and took her with him into one of the Black Holes. I didn’t want to go in, so I stayed out and watched. Almost everybody else in our twenty-five-man tour was in one of the cells. Our guide walked along the row of six cells and shut all the doors and grates. You couldn’t hear any of the squealing and chattering once the doors were shut. It was just me, a couple of old folks, and the young guide, who was done up like a Canadian Mounty in the park ranger’s uniform. He looked like he belonged in a forest. The guide and I talked about the weather for a minute, then he swung open hell’s doors and men and women wearing matching ensembles came out carrying their cameras and purses, babbling excitedly as they blinked their eyes and squinted into the light. Petey scooted away from Ellen and ran up on the guide’s tail so he wouldn’t miss a word as we headed toward the exercise yard.
The wind picked up as soon as we got outside. Ellen was upset because she was wearing a summery linen dress. It was a beautiful day on shore, but it could still get nasty out on the Rock. She had goose bumps all over her bare arms. I put my arm around her and held her close. We watched Petey following the guide and looked out across the bay at the city. It was quiet enough to hear a little traffic noise. Or maybe it was just the mechanical sound of the choppy waves as they washed up against the rocks all around the island. If you looked straight up over the middle of the bay, the sky was brilliantly blue, shimmering. When you looked out over the city, the sky went gray white like an old man’s hair. Down around the rock, the sea, the recreation yard, everything was dull and dark gray. It gave you a frightening, isolated, singled-out feeling, enough so to make you believe in divine retribution if there ever could be such a thing.
“I know it’s not very liberal of me, but I’d like to see Darryl and Denise put up in a place like this.”
Ellen frowned. “Forget about them.”
“I will, eventually.”
“Where did you say she was holed up?”
“In the St. Francis. For a week, I guess.”
“That’s right. One of the cops told me she’d charged enough at Macy’s to open her own dress shop.”
“Really? You didn’t tell me that.”
“I also didn’t tell you what she said when they took her.”
“Something sweet?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What was it?”
“Something like she should have killed you herself.”
“Me?”
“ ‘That cocksucker friend a hers’ I think were her words, to be exact.”
“Nice.”
Ellen smiled. Then she started to say something and stopped, a habit of hers. Her mouth opened, her lips formed a vowel, then no sound emanated and the cavity closed on a thought.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Something. What is it?”
“I don’t know how to ask, but did you love Vicky?”
“In some ways.”
“Change the subject?”
“Yeah.”
“What should we talk about?”
“Let’s talk about how sexy you are when you shiver.” I swallowed hard, then I said, “You’re everything to me. Do you love me?”
She laughed right in my face. Her eyes were watery and so were mine. She nuzzled in closer and put her cold hands in up under my shirt. “You’re so corny. That’s what I love about you.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
I looked down at our tour. They were moving out of the recreation yard and up the long stairs by a rubble of old buildings. Petey was waving at us to catch up.
“Look.”
Ellen looked over and saw Petey. “You’re not mad I had him come up here?”
“No.”
“Peter told me you shared yourself with him.”
“So were you surprised?”
“Yes. It meant a lot to him—and to me.”
“He didn’t say anything at the time.”
“Ben, you of all people should know how he is.”
I agreed with her.
“He was really concerned about you.”
“He was, was he?”
“Of course he was.”
“What the hell am I going to do with him?”
We were walking down toward the recreation yard. Petey was waiting for us and Ellen said, “That’s up to you.”
We came up to Petey and I said, “I bet you were scared when I had you deliver that message.”
He looked absolutely disgusted. “Are you kidding?”
I laughed at him, which made him look angry. “You’re a pretty tough guy, aren’t ya?”
He didn’t know what to say, so he started to walk back toward the tour.
“Tough enough for this place?”
“Maybe,” he called back over his shoulder.
“Hey, Petey, wait a minute. I wanna ask you something.”
He turned around. “What?”
“Are you tough enough to empty the garbage when it’s your turn, wash dishes, stuff like that?”
“What?”
“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”
“If you’re going to say it, say it,” Ellen told me.
“What I’m trying to say is that I’m gonna adopt you, you little bastard!”
Petey stood still. He was frozen and so was I. Then, the next thing I knew, I had him up off the ground. He was in my arms and I was crying like a baby.
“I’m sorry, kid. I just got a little overemotional.”
I wiped my eyes and put him down. He had rivers running down his cheeks. Ellen was working on an ocean.
“Is it OK with you if we have an extra roommate?” I asked her.
“I think so.”
“You knew this would happen, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“That makes you even cornier than I am.”
