The Big Nowhere

Buzz ignored the jibe and smiled. “Tell Lucy hi for me. Tell her she’s so pretty I might’ve done it for free.”

Audrey laughed. “In a pig’s eye you would. Meeks, what is between you and Mickey?”

“I’ll answer that one with a question. Why you wanta know?”

Audrey blew two more rings and ground out her cigarette. “Because he talked about you for an hour straight last night. Because he said he can’t figure out if you’re the stupidest smart man or the smartest stupid man he ever met, and he can’t figure out why you blow all your money with colored bookies when you could bet with him for no vig. He said that only stupid men love danger, but you love danger and you’re not stupid. He said he can’t figure out whether you’re brave or crazy. Does any of this make sense to you?”

Buzz saw the words inscribed on his tombstone, all crimped together so they’d fit. He answered straight, not caring who Audrey told. “Miss Anders, I take the risks Mickey’s afraid to, so I make him feel safe. He’s a little guy and I’m a little guy, and maybe I’m just a tad better with my hands and that baton of mine. Mickey’s got more to lose than me, so he runs scared more than me. And if I’m crazy, it means he’s smart. You know what surprises me about this talk we’re havin’, Miss Anders?”

The question interrupted Audrey starting to smile—a big beam that showed off two slightly crooked teeth and a cold sore on her lower lip. “No, what?”

“That Mickey thinks enough of you to talk to you about stuff like that. That surely does surprise me.”

Audrey’s smile fizzled out. “He loves me.”

“You mean he appreciates the favors you do him. Like when I was a cop, I skimmed that good old white powder and sold it to Mickey, not Jack D. We got to be as friendly as anybody and Mickey can be ‘cause of that. I’m just surprised he plays it that close with a woman is all.”

Audrey lit another cigarette; Buzz saw it as cover for bad thoughts, good banter flushed down the toilet. He said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so personal.”

Audrey’s eyes ignited. “Oh yes you did, Meeks. You surely did.”

Buzz got up and walked around the room, checking out the strange chink furnishings, wondering who’d picked them out, Mickey’s wife or this ex-stripper/bookkeeper who was making him feel jumpy, like a gun would go off if he said the wrong thing. He tried small talk. “Nice stuff. Hate to see Jack D. put bullet holes in it.”

Audrey’s voice was shaky. “Mickey and Jack are talking about burying the hatchet. Jack wants to go in on a deal with him. Maybe dope, maybe a casino in Vegas. Meeks, I love Mickey and he loves me.”

Buzz heard the last words as bang, bang, bang, bang. He picked up the cash roll, stuffed it in his pocket and said, “Yeah, he loves takin’ you to the Troc and the Mocambo, cause he knows every man there is droolin’ for you and afraid of him. Then it’s an hour at your place and back to the wife. It’s real nice the two of you talk every once in awhile, but as far as I’m concerned you’re gettin’ short shrift from a Jewboy who ain’t got the brains to know what he’s got.”

Audrey’s jaw dropped; her cigarette fell into her lap. She picked it up and stubbed it out. “Are you this crazy or that stupid?”

Bang, bang, bang, bang—ca

It was bang, bang, bang, bang on the drive downtown, ricochets, old dumb moves kicked around to see how they stood up next to this doozie.

In ‘33 he’d charged six picket bulls outside MGM, caught nailstudded baseball bats upside his arms, took the boys out with his baton and caught tetanus—stupid, but the audaciousness helped get him his LAPD appointment.

Early in ‘42 he worked with the Alien Squad, rounding up Japs and relocating them to the horse paddocks at Santa Anita Racetrack. He grabbed a wiseacre kid named Bob Takahashi just as he was en route to get his ashes hauled for the first time, felt sorry for him and took him on a six-day toot in Tijuana—booze, whores, the dog track and a teary farewell at the border—bad Bob hightailing it south, a slant-eyed stranger in a round-eyed land. Very stupid—but he covered his absent ass by shaking down a suspicious-looking car outside San Diego, busting four grasshoppers transporting a pound of premium maryjane. The punks had a total of nineteen outstanding LA City warrants between them; he got a commendation letter and four felony notches on his gun. Another shit play turned into clover.

But the granddaddy was his brother Fud. Three days out of the Texas State Pen, Fud shows up at the door of then Detective-Sergeant Turner Meeks, informs him that he just stuck up a liquor store in Hermosa Beach, pistol-whipped the proprietor and intended to pay Buzz back the six yards he owed him with the proceeds. Just as Fud was digging through his blood-soaked paper bag, there was a knock at the door. Buzz looked through the spy hole, saw two blue uniforms, tagged blood as thicker than water and fired his own service revolver into the living room wall four times. The bluesuits started knocking down the door; Buzz hustled Fud to the cellar, locked him in, smashed the window leading to the back porch and trampled his landlady’s prize petunias. When the patrolmen made it inside, Buzz told them he was LAPD and the perpetrator was a hophead he’d sent to Big Q—Davis Haskins—in reality a recent overdose in Billings, Montana; he’d picked up the info working an extradition job. The blues fa

Stupid, crazy, sentimental, lunatic dumb.

But kissing Audrey Anders was worse.

Buzz parked in the City Hall lot, transferred all the cash to his doughnut box and took it upstairs to Ellis Loew’s office. Going in the door, he saw Loew, Big Dudley Smith and Mal Considine sitting around a table, all of them talking at once, garbled stuff about cop decoys. No one glanced up; Buzz eyeballed Considine four years after he gave him the cuckold’s horns. The man still looked more like a lawyer than a cop; his blond hair was going gray; there was something nervous and raggedy-assed about him.

Buzz rapped on the door and tossed the box onto the chair holding it open. The three looked over; he fixed his eyes on Considine. Ellis Loew nodded, all business; Dudley Smith said, “Hello, Turner, old colleague,” all blarney; Considine eyed him back, all curiosity, like he was examining a reptile specimen he’d never seen before.

They held the look. Buzz said, “Hello, Mal.”

Mal Considine said, “Nice tie, Meeks. Who’d you roll for it?”

Buzz laughed. “How’s the ex, Lieutenant? She still wearin’ crotchless panties?”

Considine stared, his mouth twitching. Buzz stared back, his mouth dry.

Mexican standoff. 50-50, Considine or Dragna.