Max Collins - Chicago Lightning

She had pale, creamy skin and her hair was almost white blonde. They called her the ice-cream blonde, in the press. I could see why.

Then I got around to her eyes. They were blue of course, cornflower blue; and big and sporting long lashes, the real McCoy, not your dimestore variety. But they were also the saddest eyes I’d ever looked into. The smile froze on my face like I was looking at Medusa, not a twenty-nine year-old former six-grade teacher from Massachusetts who won a talent search.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. Then she patted the stool next to her.

I sat and said, “Nothing’s wrong. I never had a movie star for a client before.”

“I see. Thanks for considering this job-for extending your stay, I mean.”

I was visiting L.A. from Chicago because a friend-a fellow former pickpocket detail dick-had recently opened an office out here in sunny Southern Cal. Fred Rubinski needed an out-of-towner to pose as a visiting banker, to expose an embezzler; the firm had wanted to keep the affair in-house.

“Mr. Rubinski recommended you highly.” Her voice had a low, throaty quality that wasn’t forced or affected; she was what Mae West would’ve been if Mae West wasn’t a parody.

“That’s just because Fred hasn’t been in town long enough to make any connections. But if Thelma Todd wants me to consider extending my stay, I’m willing to listen.”

She smiled at that, very broadly, showing off teeth whiter than cameras can record. “Might I get you a drink, Mr. Heller?”

“It’s a little early.”

“I know it is. Might I get you a drink?”

“Sure.”

“Anything special?”

“Anything that doesn’t have a little paper umbrella in it is fine by me…. Make it rum and Coke.”

“Rum and Coke.” She fixed me up with that, and had the same herself. Either we had similar tastes or she just wasn’t fussy about what she drank.

“Have you heard of Lucky Luciano?” she asked, returning to her bar stool.

“Heard of him,” I said. “Haven’t met him.”

“What do you know about him?”

I shrugged. “Big-time gangster from back east. Runs casinos all over southern California. More every day.”

She flicked the air with a long red fingernail, like she was shooing away a bug. “Well, perhaps you’ve noticed the tower above my restaurant.”

“Sure.”

“I live on the second floor, but the tower above is fairly spacious.”

“Big enough for a casino, you mean.”

“That’s right,” she said, nodding. “I was approached by Luciano, more than once. I turned him away, more than once. After all, with my location, and my clientele, a casino could make a killing.”

“You’re doing well enough legally. Why bother with ill?”

“I agree. And if I were to get into any legal problems, that would mean a scandal, and Hollywood doesn’t need another scandal. Busby Berkley’s trial is coming up soon, you know.”

The noted director and choreographer, creator of so many frothy fantasies, was up on the drunk-driving homicide of three pedestrians, not far from this cafe.

“But now,” she said, her bee-lips drawn nervously tight, “I’ve begun to receive threatening notes.”

“From Luciano, specifically?”

“No. They’re extortion notes, actually. Asking me to pay off Artie Lewis. You know, the bandleader?”

“Why him?”

“He’s in Luciano’s pocket. Gambling markers. And I used to go with Artie. He lives in San Francisco, now.”

“I see. Well, have you talked to the cops?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to get Artie in trouble.”

“Have you talked to Artie?”

“Yes-he claims he knows nothing about this. He doesn’t want my money. He doesn’t even want me back-he’s got a new girl.”

I’d like to see the girl that could make you forget Thelma Todd.

“So,” I said, “you want me to investigate. Can I see the extortion notes?”

“No,” she said, shaking her white blonde curls like the mop of the gods, “that’s not it. I burned those notes. For Artie’s sake.”

“Well, for Nate’s sake,” I said, “where do I come in?”

“I think I’m being followed. I’d like a bodyguard.”

I resisted looking her over wolfishly and making a wise-crack. She was a nice woman, and the fact that hers was the sort of a body a private eye would pay to guard didn’t seem worth mentioning. My fee did.

“Twenty-five a day and expenses,” I said.

“Fine,” she said. “And you can have any meals you like right here at the Cafe. Drinks, too. Run a tab and I’ll pick it up.”

“Swell,” I grinned. “I was wondering if I’d ever run into a fringe benefit in this racket.”

“You can be my chauffeur.”

“Well…”

“You have a problem with that, Mr. Heller?”

“I have a private investigator’s license, and a license to carry a gun…in Illinois, anyway. But I don’t have a chauffeur’s license.”

“I think a driver’s license will suffice.” Her bee-stung lips were poised in a kiss of amusement. “What’s the real problem, Heller?”

“I’m not wearing a uniform. I’m strictly plainclothes.”

She smiled tightly, wryly amused, saying, “All right, hang onto your dignity…but you have to let me pay the freight on a couple of new suits for you. I’ll throw ’em in on the deal.”

“Swell,” I said. I liked it when women bought me clothes.

So for the next two months, I stayed on in southern Cal, and Thelma Todd was my only client. I worked six days a week for her-Monday through Saturday. Sundays God, Heller and Todd rested. I drove her in her candy-apple red Packard convertible, a car designed for blondes with wind-blown hair and pearls. She sat in back, of course. Most days I took her to the Hal Roach Studio where she was making a musical with Laurel and Hardy. I’d wait in some dark pocket of the sound studio and watch her every move out in the brightness. In a black wig, lacy bodice, and clinging, gypsy skirt, Thelma was the kind of girl you took home to Mother, and if Mother didn’t like her, to hell with Mother.

Evenings she hit the club circuit, the Trocadero and the El Mocambo chiefly. I’d sit in the cocktail lounges and quietly drink and wait for her and her various dates to head home. Some of these guys were swishy types that she was doing the studio a favor appearing in public with; a couple others spent the night.

I don’t mean to tell tales out of school, but this tale can’t be told at all unless I’m frank about that one thing: Thelma slept around. Later, when the gossip rags were spreading rumors about alcohol and drugs, that was all the bunk. But Thelma was a friendly girl. She had generous charms and enerous with them.

“Heller,” she said, one night in early December when I was dropping her off, walking her up to the front door of the Cafe like always, “I think I have a crush on you.”

She was alone tonight, having played girl friend to one of those Hollywood funny boys for the benefit of Louella Parsons and company. Alone but for me.

She slipped an arm around my waist. She had booze on her breath, but then so did I, and neither one of us was drunk. She was bathed gently in moonlight and Chanel Number Five.

She kissed me with those bee-stung lips, stinging so softly, so deeply.

I moved away. “No. I’m sorry.”

She winced. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m the hired help. You’re just lonely tonight.”

Her eyes, which I seldom looked into because of the depth of the sadness there, hardened. “Don’t you ever get lonely, you bastard?”

“Never,” I said.

She drew her hand back to slap me, but then she just touched my face, instead. Gentle as the ocean breeze, and it was gentle tonight, the breeze, so gentle.