The Big Nowhere

Lucy Whitehall was shrinking back into the living room; Audrey Anders was blocking the doorway, barefoot. She pointed to Buzz’s lapel. “It’s a phony.”

Buzz caught the South in her voice; remembered locker room talk: the Va Va Voom Girl could twirl her pastie tassels in opposite directions at the same time. “Wheaties. You from New Orleans? Atlanta?”

Audrey looked at Tommy Sifakis, belly-crawling over to the curb. “Mobile. Did Mickey send you to do that?”

“No. I was wonderin’ why you didn’t seem surprised. Now I know.”

“You care to tell me about it?”

“No.”

“But you’ve done work for Mickey?”

Buzz saw Lucy Whitehall sit down on the couch and grab a stolen radio for something to hold. Her face was blotchy red and rivers of mascara were ru

Audrey laughed. “He knows trash when he sees it, I’ll give him that. What’s your name?”

“Turner Meeks.”

“Buzz Meeks?”

“That’s right. Miss Anders, have you got a place for Miss Whitehall to stay?”

“Yes. But what—”

“Mickey still hang out New Year’s at Breneman’s Ham ‘n’ Eggs?”

“Yes.”

“You get Lucy to pack a grip, then. I’ll run you over there.”

Audrey flushed. Buzz wondered how much of her smarts Mickey put up with before he jerked the chain; if she ever did the tassel trick for him. She went over and knelt beside Lucy Whitehall, smoothing her hair, prying the radio out of her grasp. Buzz got his car and backed it up on the gravel front yard, one eye on the Greek, still moaning low. Neighbor people were peering out their windows, spread venetian blinds all around the cul-desac. Audrey led Lucy out of the house a few minutes later, one arm around her shoulders, one hand carrying a cardboard suitcase. On the way to the car, she stopped to give Tommy Sifakis a kick in the balls.

Buzz took Laurel Canyon back to Hollywood—more time to figure out the play if Joh

It was coming on as a three-horse parlay: a grand from Gelfman, whatever Mickey slipped him if he got sentimental over Lucy and a shakedown or favor pried out of Joh

Laurel Canyon ended just north of the Strip; Buzz took side streets over to Hollywood and Vine, dawdling at stoplights. He could feel Audrey Anders eyeing him from the back seat, probably trying to get a take on him and the Mick. Pulling up in front of Breneman’s, he said, “You and Lucy stay here. I got to talk to Mickey in private.”

Lucy dry-sobbed and fumbled with her pack of cigarettes; Audrey reached for the door handle. “I’m going, too.”

“No, you’re not.”

Audrey flushed; Buzz turned to Lucy. “Sweetheart, this is about them pictures of you and that big old dog. Tommy was tryin’ to squeeze Mr. Gelfman, and if you go inside looking distraught, Mickey just might kill him and get all of us in heaps of trouble. Tommy’s got them rough edges, but the two of you just might be able to work things—”

Lucy bawled and made him stop; Audrey’s look said he was lower than the dog. Buzz headed into Breneman’s at a trot. The restaurant was crowded, the radio crew for “Tom Breneman’s Breakfast in Hollywood” packing up equipment and hustling it toward a side exit. Mickey Cohen was sitting in a wraparound booth, Joh

Buzz walked over; the gunman’s hand slid under his morning Herald. Mickey stood up, smiling; Joh

Buzz recoiled from a blast of cologne. “Much too long, big fellow. How’s business?”

Cohen laughed. “The haberdashery? I got a florist’s shop and an ice cream parlor now, too.”

Buzz saw that Mickey was giving him a shrewd once-over; that he’d caught his frayed shirt cuffs and home manicure. “No. Business.”

Cohen nudged the man on his left, a bony guy with wide blue eyes and a jailhouse pallor. “Davey, business he wants. Tell him.”

Davey said, “Men got to gamble and borrow money and schtup women. The shvartzes got to fly to cloud nine on white powder airlines. Business is good.”

Mickey howled with laughter. Buzz chuckled, faked a coughing attack, turned to Joh

Mickey pounded his back and held up a glass of water; Buzz kept coughing, enjoying the look on Stompanato’s face—a guinea Adonis turned into a busted schoolboy, his perfectly oiled pompadour about to wilt from fright. Cohen’s back slaps got harder; Buzz took a gulp of water and pretended to catch his breath. “Davey, you’re a fu

Davey half smiled. “Best in the West. I write all Mr. Cohen’s routines for the smokers at the Friar’s Club. Ask him, ‘How’s the wife?’”

Buzz saluted Davey with his glass. “Mickey, how’s the wife?”

Mickey Cohen smoothed his lapels and sniffed the carnation in the buttonhole. “Some women you want to see, my wife you want to flee. These two Dragna humps were staking out my house after the Sherry’s job, my wife brought them milk and cookies, told them to shoot low, she ain’t had it from me since Lucky Lindy crossed the Atlantic, she don’t want nobody else getting it either. My wife is so cold that the maid calls our bedroom the polar icecap. People come up to me and ask, ‘Mickey, are you getting any?,’ and I pull a thermometer out of my jockey shorts, it says twenty-five below. People say, ‘Mickey, you’re popular with the ladies, you must get reamed, steamed and dry-cleaned regularly.’ I say, ‘You don’t know my wife—hog-tied, fried and swept to the side is more like it.’ Some women you got to see, some you got to flee. Oops—here she comes now!”

Mickey ended his schtick with a broad grab for his hat. Davey the gagster collapsed on the table, convulsed with laughter. Buzz tried to drum up chortles and couldn’t; he was thinking that Meyer Harris Cohen had killed eleven men that he knew of and had to rake in at least ten million a year tax free. Shaking his head, he said, “Mickey, you’re a pisser.”

A group of squarejohns at the next table was giving the routine a round of applause; Mickey tipped his hat to them. “Yeah? Then why ain’t you laughing? Davey, Joh

Stompanato and the gagster slid silently out of the booth. Cohen said, “You need work or a touch, am I right?”

“Nix.”

“Howard treating you right?”

“He treats me fine.”

Cohen toyed with his glass, tapping it with the six-carat rock on his pinky. “I know you’re in hock to some handbooks. You should be with me, boychik. Good terms, no sweat on the payback.”