This blog has been established to provide space for stories, comments, and reflections on old North Quincy, your thoughts or mine. And for all those who have bled Raider red.
Friday, January 31, 2014
***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator –The Wind
As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one such story although not about himself but about an operative for the largest detective agency on the West Coast, John “Stubs” Lane. (Stubs nick-named for a habit picked while sitting alone endlessly in cold cars driving cold coffee and picking out cigarette stubs from the ashtray after the deck ran out). Marlin let Stubs tell it in his own voice and I will do so here.
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler
Sure I have been around the block, around the block of life, but also around the block of seeing stuff that is sometimes better left unremembered if not creating some vague sense of unease about my fellow man. Yeah, I am a detective, an operative if you don’t want an argument, no, not the kind that snoops looking into bedroom windows or stand outside the door of illicit hotel rooms listening for that sound, the sound, coming from within that meant a big payday for me in some divorce case (and no, not like some shamuses, I would not have lingered to hear the thrashing and grunts, no need to hear groans since I would have known the silky sheets were being messed up).And also not the kind that chases down some missing person who wants to stay missing, missing from some overbearing husband or wife. Although I have done my share of those cases, more than my share.
What I do is try to come in, paid by private parties to do so, and find out why somebody is embezzling the company, why the books don’t match up, why some guy committed a felony of some sort against my client, and sometimes why somebody got killed, got murdered doing something. Yeah, the cops, the public cops do okay most of the time if the whole thing is laid out for them like a guy shoots another guy and runs to the stationhouse to turn himself in pronto. That is they solve if they are not busy cadging coffee and crullers, shaking down the owner, or giving some poor sap who just blew into town the third degree for half the crimes committed over the past six years. For the more complicated stuff. the stuff that doesn’t make sense, they fumble the ball and let it die in some cold file. Me, I go at it tooth and nail. Go at it like in the Galton case, a case of murder straight out.
It did not start out that way. It started out as a case of trying to find who in the company, the Galton Company, was leaking information, sensitive information, about some formulas the company was developing to make heat-resistant shields for aircraft. Like a lot of industries the competition to grab the first patent or copyright to anything like that was worth millions, millions in government business or private later when things were regulated. So old man Galton, or rather his right hand man Jenness, called me in to see what was happening right under their noses.
Now when information, important information, gets leaked it is either a disgruntled, slighted employee nursing some grudge or a guy who is deep in hock, probably over some dame and her wanting habits, and would sell out his own mother to get out from under. Especially if a wanting habits dame is involved. So the first place I looked was through the employee records. Nothing. Then I nosed around the place, it wasn’t large, maybe a couple of hundred employees, to see who knew about anybody who had been spending big dough, or complaining about not enough dough, or grousing about his honey. Pay dirt.
Or almost pay dirt. One of the engineers, a young guy from Cal Tech, was always fretting about the wanting habits of his girlfriend, some wannabe starlet that he had picked up in some gin mill on Hollywood Boulevard and had gone nutsover like some guys will, although not always in Hollywood. But here is the hell of it before I could nail this guy down somebody shot him in a back alley behind the Hi-Lo Club over in El Segundo, shot him dead with two right where it hurts the most. The girlfriend did not know anything, the cops did their usual ho-hum felony robbery theory and let it slide. Me I had to double back on the thing. Something, didn’t make sense. A guy, a normal guy, with dough in his pocket when searched, got scratched for no reason just when I am honing in on him.
And that is where the whole thing came together. Seems that Jenness, that right hand man of Galton’s, was nursing both a grudge against old man Galton for not letting him take over day to day operations of the plants and had a secret honey, unknown to his wife secret, over in Malibu who was churning up expenses faster than he could steal the secrets. The engineer ran into the couple one day at the Santa Monica Pier and put two and two together. He became expendable, very expendable since the woman Jenness was with was not his wife whom he had met at Christmas party one year. They hung Jenness, hung him high up in the Q a while back. Watch out for those strange Pacific winds if you are ever out this way, and remember what happened to poor Jenness when you are here, okay.
***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Elmore James’ Look On Yonder Wall
…who knows when he first began to notice the difference, notice that the music, his parents’ music, the stuff, as they constantly told him, that got them through the “Depression and the war,” grated on his ears. Noticed that he had had enough of Nat King Cole, the Inkpots, Bing Crosby and the like. Had become tired unto death of the cutesy Andrews Sisters and their antics bugle boy, rum and coca-cola, under the apple tree music, tired of Frank, Frankie and Den, tired of Benny, Tony, and very tired of swing, the big band sound and even blessed be-bop, be-bop jazz. Maybe it was because he was showing serious signs of growing pains, of juts being a pain his parents called him, and just wanted to be by himself up in his room and let the world pass by until his growing pains passed by.
To placate him (or, heaven forbid, to keep him out of sign and therefore out of mind) they, his usually clueless parents, had gone to the local Radio Shack store and bought him a transistor radio to listen to music up in his room rather than lie around the living room all night changing the dials looking for some other stations on the old family Emerson radio which had formed the center piece of the room before the television had displaced it. This transistor radio was a new gizmo, small and battery-powered, which allowed the average teenager to put the thing up to his or her ear and listen to whatever he or she wanted to listen to away from prying eyes. Hail, hail.
And that little technological feat saved his life, or at least help save it. The saving part was his finding out of the blue on one late Saturday night Buster Brim’s Blues Bonanza out of WRKO in Chicago. Apparently, although he was ignorant of the scientific aspects of the procedure, the late night air combined with the closing down of certain dawn to dusk radio stations left the airwaves clear at times to let him receive that long distance infusion. He immediately sensed that the music emanating from that show had a totally different beat from his parents’ music, a beat he would later find came out of some old-time primordial place when we all were born, out of some Africa cradle of civilization. Then though all he knew was that the beat spoke to his angst, spoke to his alienation from about twelve different things, spoke to that growing pains thing. Made him, well happy, when he snapped his fingers to some such beat. What he was unsure of, and what he also did not found out about until later, was whether this would last or was just a passing fancy life those Andrews Sisters his parents were always yakking about. What he didn’t know really was that he was present at the birth of rock and roll. Geez, and all he was doing was snapping his fingers until they were sore to Elmore James’ Look On Yonder Wall…
Songwriters: ELMORE ELMO JAMES, MARSHALL SEHORN
Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane I got me another woman, baby, yon' come your man
Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane I got me another woman and, uhh, baby, yon' come your man
You hurried up and went to the wall, and you know it was tough, uhh I don't know how many men you's killed, but, I know you done killed enough for two
Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane I got me another woman, now baby, yon' come your man Ooh yeah
I love you baby, but you just can't treat me right, spend all my money and walk the streets all night But, look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane I got me another woman, and baby, yon' come your man
Thursday, January 30, 2014
***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Ike Turner’s Rocket 88
…she hadn’t thought about the upcoming date all that much, hadn’t thought about how Art was going to squire her to the first dance of the school year, the decisive Fall Frolic. Decisive in that one’s date, one’s successful date, at that event usually foretold who one would be going to the senior prom with. It wasn’t that she was crazy for Art, not in the way best friend, Jenny, was crazy over Sal, Sal with the wavy black hair and athletic build, crazy to let him do what he wanted with her, but she did see him a one part of her “item” for the senior year if only he showed a little spark her way. Damn, she almost had to force the issue and invite him to the dance herself after they had spent some time together in school talking and then he walking her home after school, talking. So they had spent their time together before the dance in that way. And here it was the big night and she was now preening herself, fluffing her hair, tightening that damn girdle to make her more slender than she already was, applying yet another touch-up on the make-up, as expected of any girl going to the Frolics with a guy that might form part of an “item” for senior year.
She wasn’t sure when she heard the rumble of the engine coming up the street, maybe just before the car stopped in front of her house, but she definitely heard it before Art knocked on the door downstairs as her mother welcomed him in while she was finishing her last preparations. As she came down she noticed that he looked especially handsome in his suit and with his hair parted just so. Things already looked up for the evening. She did not know the half of it though until he opened the front door for her as they were leaving and she spied that big old Cadillac sitting in front of her sidewalk. Seems that old Art, once he got the message from the time around the dance invitation, started his own version of the courting ritual and convinced his friend, Spider Mack, to let him borrow his souped-up Caddy. And off they went, she proud to be seem in the company of a man who knew how to bring a girl to the dance in style.
But that was only the half of it since once they got to the school gym when the Frolics were held annually Art seemed a man transformed as the cover band hired for the evening by the Fall Frolic senior committee (it was always a senior-sponsored affair, a kind of last gift to their fellow schoolmate), the Ready Riders, kissed off the old classics, you know Patti Page, Frank, Dean, those guys, that had guided previous dances and kicked out the jams. She noticed that Art had become almost a whirling dervish as he rocked to some older rhythm and blues stuff and then laid out the program when the band tore into a big riffing dose of Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 that everybody at Doc’s Drugstore over on Main was dropping endless nickels and dimes in the juke-box to hear over and over. As the dance ended she, they ran into Jenny and Sal, and she, she who had secretly scorned the stuff Jenny told her that she and Sal did down at Adamsville Beach, suggested that the foursome go down to that very beach to, well, she said “cool off” after the dance. But you know what she meant. So, yes, if anybody was interested she and Art were an “item” that year …
*********
Rocket 88
You woman have heard of jalopies You heard the noise they make Let me introduce you to my Rocket '88 Yes, it's great, just won't wait Everybody likes my Rocket '88 Baby, we'll will ride in style movin' all along
V-8 motor and this modern design Black convertible top and the girls don't mind Sportin' with me, ridin' all around town for joy Blow your horn, rocket, blow your horn
Step in my rocket and don't be late We're pullin' out about a half past eight Goin' on the corner and havin' some fun Takin' my rocket on a long, hot run Ooh, goin' out, oozin' and cruisin' and havin' fun
Now that you've ridden in my Rocket '88 I'll be around every night about eight You know it's great, don't be late Everybody likes my Rocket '88 Girls will ride in style movin' all along
In The Time Before The Rock ‘n’ Roll Jailbreak –They Shoot CD Players Don’t They
Some people ask, although I am not one of them, if there was music before 1950s classic rock ‘n’ roll. Of course there was and I have taken some pains to establish the roots of rock back to Mississippi country blues, electric blues as they traveled north to the heartland industrial cities, jazz as it got be-bopped and took to swing, certainly rhythm and blues, north and south and rockabilly as it came out of the white small town South. What it owes little to, or at least I hope that it owes little to is that Tin Pan Alley/ Broadway show tune axis part of the American songbook. That seems to me a different trend and one that is reflected in this CD under review, The 1950s: 16 Most Requested Songs, which is really about the 16 most requested song before the rock jailbreak of the mid-1950s. Let’s be clear about that.
I have along the way, in championing classic rock as the key musical form that drove the tastes of my generation, the generation of ’68, contrasted that guitar-driven, drum/bass line driven sound to that of my parents’ generation, the ones who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought World War II, and listened to swing, jitter-buggery things and swooned over big bands, swings bands, Frank Sinatra, the Andrews Sisters and The Mills Brothers, among others. In other words the music that, we of the generation of ’68, heard as background music around the house as we were growing up. Buddha Swings, Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree, Rum and Coca-Cola, Paper Dolls, Tangerine, and the like. Stuff that today sounds pretty good, if still not quite something that “speaks” to me. That is not the music that is reflected in this compilation and which, I think rightly, I was ready to shoot my CD player over once I heard it as I announced in the headline.
No, this is music that reflects, okay, let’s join the cultural critics’ chorus here, the attempted vanilla-zation (if such a word can exist) of the Cold War Eisenhower (“I Like Ike”) period when people were just trying to figure out whether the Earth would survive from one day to the next. Not a time to be rocking the boat, for sure. Once things stabilized a bit though then the mad geniuses of rock could hold sway, and while parents and authorities crabbed to high heaven about it, let that rock breakout occur and not have everything wind up going to hell in a hand basket. But this music, these 16 most requested songs were what we were stuck with before then. Sure, I listened like everyone else, everyone connected to a radio, but this stuff, little as I knew then, did not “speak” to me. And unlike some of that 1940s stuff still does not “speak” to me.
Oh, you want proof. Here is one example. On this compilation Harbor Lights is done by Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra. This was cause one for wanting to get a pistol out and start aiming. Not for the song but for the presentation. Why? Well, early in his career Elvis, while he was doing his thing for Sam Phillips’ Memphis Sun Records operation, covered this song. There are a myriad of Elvis recordings during the Sun period, including compilations with outtakes and alternative recordings of this song. The worst, the absolute worst of these covers by Elvis has more life, more jump, dare I say it, more sex than the Kaye recording could ever have. And it only gets worse from there with incipient things like Frankie Lane’s I Believe, Johnny Mathis’ It’s Not For Me To Say, and Marty Robbins’ (who did some better stuff later) on A White Sports Coat (And A Pink Carnation). And you wonder why I ask whether they shoot CD players. Enough said.
*******
Harbor Lights Lyrics (words & music by H. Williams - J. Kennedy)
I saw the harbor lights
They only told me we were parting
Those same old harbor lights
That once brought you to me.
I watched the harbor lights
How could I help it?
Tears were starting.
Good-bye to golden nights
Beside the silvery seas.
I long to hold you dear,
And kiss you just once more.
But you were on the ship,
And I was on the shore.
Now I know lonely nights
For all the while my heart keeps praying
That someday harbor lights
Will bring you back to me.
***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman February is Black History Month
50-50
50-50
I’m all alone in this world, she said, Ain’t got nobody to share my bed, Ain’t got nobody to hold my hand— The truth of the matter’s I ain’t got no man.
Big Boy opened his mouth and said, Trouble with you is You ain’t got no head! If you had a head and used your mind You could have me with you All the time.
She answered, Babe, what must I do?
He said, Share your bed— And your money, too.
Langston Hughes
The whole world knew, or at least the important parts of that world, that summer of 2012 downtown Boston world (near the Common say from the Public Gardens to Newbury Street but also near birth place Columbus Avenue), knew that Larry Johnson was Ms. Loretta Lawrence’s every day man (and it goes without saying her every night man too). Make no mistake, girls, women, even though they didn’t hold hands in public or throw public kisses at each other, and Loretta at five-ten and rail thin, fashion model day thin didn’t look like trouble, keep your hands off. And they did, those in the fashion industry, mostly her fellow models, and maybe a few longing sidewinder guy designers too. But somebody had Larry’s attention and Loretta was going to get to the bottom of it.
It all started back in February when Larry asked her for a hundred dollars one night, out of the blue. Now Larry had been on a tough stretch ever since the financial collapse in 2008 (although it only bagged him in early 2010) when the markets went crazy and he got caught short, and since business was bad he eventually got that old dreaded pink slip. And nobody was hiring so he had just been kind of living off his old time bonuses, and a little of this and that. Funny they had met at a bar down in the financial district where he had stopped off for a drink after passing his resume around for about the umpteenth time and she had just finished a shoot (for a cosmetic company that had keyed on her for her ravishing dark looks, brown hair, brown eyes, brownish high cheek-boned skin as they were trying to expand their markets) down near the water at International Place and her photographer had offered to buy her a drink. His eyes met hers, her eyes met his in return and before anyone really knew it he had moved in on her like something out of one of those old time novels that you read and at the end both can’t believe that you spent your good hard-earned rest reading and cannot believe that the “she” of the story would be so stupid in the end to have gotten mixed-up with a wacko like that.
Larry had moved in on her too, literally, after a few weeks of downy billow talk and his argument (which she was okay with, she wasn’t saying she wasn’t) that two could live as cheaply as one (which isn’t true but close enough) and he could cut down on expenses during his rough patch. And it was nice, nice to have a man around, with man’s things, a man’s scent, and a man’s silly little vanities that she had not experienced since Phil (she would not use a last name because Phil was well known, too well-known) had left her a few years back. Every once in a while though she would notice a ten here or a twenty there missing from her pocketbook but figured that either she, spendthrift she, had spent it on some forgotten bobble or Larry had taken it for some household thing and didn’t report the fact (although she, they, had insisted on a collective counting of expenses). Then came the night of Larry’s official request. And she gave it to him, a loan, a loan was all it was. The first time.
After a few more requests for dough, and the granting of those requests, Loretta started to try to figure out what the heck he was doing with the dough (he said it was to help get a job, or he needed new shirts, or something, something different each time). Then she thought about Phil, not about the money part (Jesus, he had thrown his dough at her when he was strong for her, called her his little money-machine and laughed) but as he started losing interest in her he stopped showering the money because he was seeing another woman on the side and showering it on her (that “her” being a friend of hers, and not even beautiful, just smart). And so she started thinking that Larry, Larry the guy who was sharing her bed every night (every night so it had to be a daytime dalliance), was having another affair. She resolved that Larry would get no more money, no more loans, as he called them and if she found out that he was two-timing her that woman had better leave town because, two-timer or not, bum-of-the-mouth or not, he was her man and she had told one and all hands off. And she meant it.
***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator –The Two Knives
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler
As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one such story although not about himself but about an operative for the largest detective agency on the West Coast, John “Stubs” Lane. (Stubs nick-named for a habit picked while sitting alone endlessly in cold cars drinking cold coffee and picking out cigarette stubs from the ashtray after his fresh deck ran out). Marlin let Stubs tell it in his own voice and I will do so here.
*******
You know not all cops are on the level, in fact most of them aren’t, aren’t on the level, and maybe don’t know what being on the level entails. Every twelve year old, maybe younger knows that hard fact, or should. Most cops, aside from hating what they call private peepers, are either “on the take” to some local gangster on their beat to turn the other way when some dope deal is going down, some back alley gambling was going on as they passed by or to let some wayward hooker ply her trade in peace (no pun intended). Or they want to be on the take.
Oh yeah, there is a good cop every once in a while, a guy not on the take one way or another, a guy who is okay with working for coffee and crullers, a guy like Detective Danny Shea down in the Los Angeles Police Department, a guy that I have worked with on a few cases. But even Danny gets squirrely ever once in a while like the time he threatened to have me locked up as a material witness in the Morton case when I refused to tell him what I knew, knew confidentially, in that grisly murder case.
See I should know about cops and their easy “on the take” ways since I run up against them as an operative for the International Operations Organization and have to pay a courtesy call on them occasionally. But that coffee and cakes part is right, they work for peanuts and so maybe they don’t feel too bad about shaving the law in the interests of their pocketbooks. And just maybe they are around crime so much it rubs off, gets easy to blur the distinctions between law and the jungle. Here’s a case in point from one I worked on the sides, the official cops got all the credit for busting one their own but it was a close thing, and a murder to boot.
Detective Johnny Ladd and Sergeant Billy Brooks had been partners for a few years, had cracked a couple of big cases, the famous Smoot kidnapping case and the Landry murder case, and so were moving up the line in the Ocean City Police Department. Both were on the take to Marty Sheen’s criminal operation but that doesn’t enter into this story, not the “on the take” part but allegiance to Marty’s part. This was strictly an independent operation on Billy Brooks’ part. He had met some dame, a looker, a real good-looker, Lana Wadsworth, a divorcee over at the Kit-Kat Club across from the 6th Precinct Station and the favored hang-out for off-duty cops. And for women, some cops’ wives too, looking for a roll in the hay with a man in blue. That kind of thing has been going on ever since there were cops, before actually with soldiers, guys in uniforms turn some women on. But like I said that is old hat. Well Billy went for her and she went for him, they met a few times after that first encounter, started dating, hit the satin sheets before too long and they had talked of marriage.
One night, one night after a heavy night of drinking first at the Kit-Kat then at her place where they usually wound up after such bouts Lana told him about her ex-husband, Jason Wadsworth, heir to the Peeps coffee fortune, a rich guy, real rich, and how she didn’t want a penny from him. He had offered a generous settlement, had included a house and car in the arrangement but she passed on that. She had said that things just didn’t work a while back, he was chasing another woman, had not satisfied her in bed, had different interests and she wanted it left that way. For herself she had stopped being in love with Wadsworth and like a lot of women that is the key, not the dough, and, yes, go figure. But like I said the guy was loaded, had no relatives, known relatives anyway except Lana, and that got Billy thinking, thinking about easy street, about getting away from the coffee and cakes life, the two-bit “on the take” life finally.
Of course a cop, a police officer has access to all kinds of information: finger prints, criminal records, evidence room materials, and the like. So Billy grabbed some opium from the evidence room and had one of hi stoolies goes over to this Wadsworth guy’s house in El Segundo and plants the dope in the house, in Wadsworth’s study, after having given one of the servants, some Mex who was one of those “No Habla Ingles” guys, some cock and bull story about inspecting something in the house. Then a few days, maybe a week, later he planted an anonymous tip to his fellow officers that this Wadsworth character was selling high-grade dope to the Hollywood crowd. Then Billy went all out by saying, through one of his confidential sources, that this Wadsworth operation was protected by some high-powered weaponry in the house. Naturally
the cops, including Billy who asked personally to be in on the bust,working undersome “eminent danger” theory went in like gang-busters. Wadsworth never knew what hit him as Billy fired point- blank at the man. Billy later said that Wadsworth threatened him with a gun, a gun that later proved to have been placed in his hand by Billy.
After the dust had settled and after some civilians wanted to know what the hell happened when one of the leading citizens in El Segundo was shot down like a dog the Police Commissioner was forced to conduct an investigation. The long and short of it was that Detective Ladd was assigned to do the investigation. Billy figured he was in clear, was all set to grab the dough, especially when Wadsworth’s will had been left as it was when Lana and he were married. She was to get all the dough. Thing was though that Ladd saw early on that this thing stank to high heaven. Even then, even after he figured out that Billy had set the whole thing up, had done it for the big payoff he was willing to cover him if he would just leave town and stay out, go east someplace.
Billy then offered him a cut of the proceeds and he almost went for it, had in fact agreed to it when a higher up in the department learned of Billy’s role in the caper through that stoolie who set the whole thing up. More importantly Marty Sheen did not like the idea that one, or two, of his hirelings in blue were acting on their own. With the heat on in all directions Detective Ladd was forced to turn Billy in, did it with a certain relish roughing Billy up before he brought him in. Had been ready to kill him if Marty needed that kind of help.Yeah, so the next time somebody, some rube tells you, the cops are on the level tell them the little story I just related to you, okay?
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
***Pete Seeger Passes at 94-Yes, Where Have All The Flowers Gone ....
There were more
profound influences on my music appreciation development than Pete Seeger like the
early Bob Dylan. There were more memorable songs than Pete’s that I heard when
I first came to folk music after listening to Dave Von Ronk’s Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies. Butthe transmission belt for all of that tradition,
all of that after Woody Guthrie’s health failed him, was one Pete Seeger. That
is a worthy epitaph for a man who gave the genre his all. RIP-Pete
***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator–The Scorched World
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler
As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one such story although not about himself but about an operative for the largest detective agency on the West Coast, John “Stubs” Lane. (Stubs nick-named for a habit picked while sitting alone endlessly in cold cars driving cold coffee and picking out cigarette stubs from the ashtray after the deck ran out). Marlin let Stubs tell it in his own voice and I will do so here.
*******
Oh sure I have a million stories to tell about my experiences now that I have retired after forty years working as an operative (peeper, shamus, gumshoe, private dick or whatever your dig at name for us, hah, hah now although in the old days I would get very hot under the collar if anybody called me anything except operative) with the International Operations Organization. Stories about murder and mayhem, deceit and deviousness, strange mental states and cold-bloodedness. Ordinary stories too about three-day lost husbands, bums for the most part, that the searching wives would best get rid of but you know love-at least three-day search love, hanky-panky among the upper-crust ending in huge settlements and nice payouts to the organization, andho-hum dead-beat repo cases. A few cases too, not many especially not in the hard-pressed 1930s, we didn’t take, mainly because there was crass and gross illegality involved or somebody wanted us to look the other way when we should not have looked the other way.
Yes I have seen it all the worst side of mankind (male and female okay, and sometimes the women were the worst capable of things no guy would even think of doing no matter how much he hated whoever he hated), the backbiting, the scratching eyes out to beat someone out of something, the heat of passion, and not in the bedroom where it belongs, turning to dust. Not a pretty sight and not for the faint-hearted which is why I lasted for forty years, forty years of slugging it out to get a little rough justice in this wicked old world, and some days just for the pay. A lot of days for the pay when I was younger, was married, shortly married, and had a couple of kids underfoot although this business like the public coopers is note for family men. Right now my mind in on one of the last cases, the Bradford case, not because it was the worst, far from it, probably the Giles case with murder, mayhem, sexual perversion of the worst kind, and some depravity fit that bill, but because it didn’t make sense, didn’t make sense that a couple of well-off young women with plenty of prospects, plenty of guys ready to tie into the Bradford fortune, would go over the deep end for no real reason, just for kicks, kicks that we had to move might and main to cover up. Let me tell you about it.
It all started when John Bradford, the biggest banker in San Francisco, whose family had started the business after the gold rush charging big interest for mining equipment and eats to half-illiterate prospectors, came to the agency looking for help when his two daughters, Anne and Prudence, went missing after not checking in for about a week. (Yes Mr. Bradford was some distant descendant of somebody on the Mayflower crew although that doesn’t, I don’t think, explain what happened, the problems of in-breeding among the rich and getting kinky results over the generations, not by any reasonable accounting) We had done a previous case with Mr. Bradford over an employee embezzlement scheme and so he came back to us on that recommendation, although we never apprehended the scoffer and last I heard still hadn’t although somebody told me once that had a lead on him in Tahiti.
You might well ask why if Mr. Bradford was worried about his missing daughters, maybe having been kidnapped or worse, he didn’t go to the police, the FBI or something like your average guy would do. That is where the rich, and in his case the very rich, are different. They are worried about image, maybe about what would that Mayflower forbear think, or the country club set they belong with old hags ready to spread any juicy gossip at the drop of a hat, they want things, including messy things and maybe especially messy things hushed up. They can also afford to pay for extra service, extra service that hard-pressed police forces could not or would not provide. Bradford did not want the case ending up after three days in the cold files. Besides in this case the two young women had something of a history of walking on the wild side and so hushing it up was just in case they were involved in some freefall caper. And so it landed on the agency’s lap and the boss assigned me to the case since he believed from what Bradford told him (not all of which he told me since Bradford worked, as he had on the previous embezzlement case which hinder our operation, on a need-to-know basis) that it would involve no heavy lifting, meaning no shooting or fists, not many anyway, something easy as I eased into retirement.
Here is the way it went down, I started with the servants at the Bradford estate to see if they knew anything. Usually when the principals, the guys paying, are clueless the help knows every juicy detail and can be coaxed into departing with that precious information for a few bucks. Nothing doing this time, except some information about the pair having packed several suitcase before they left. None of servants saw that as unusual since the girls had taken an entourage’s worth of baggage before even on short trips. Then I went the rounds of friends, relatives, and acquaintances but no dice, no dice mainly because these sources were apparently working under some national security directive about giving information to a cop, public or private. Once would think, although one would be wrong, to expect friends to let their concern for the whereabouts of kindred perhaps head down in some deep ravine to trump their blind loyalty.
A breakthrough did come when I went to the Knick-Knack Club, a place, a watering hole for the young, rich, and infamous where the young women hung out, a place they had been seen to frequent several times before their disappearances. That tipster, who shall remain anonymous just in case the forces of evil that were unleashed when we broke the case decide to do something further about it, told me that I should check with a guy named Johnny Firestone because Anne and Prudence had often been seen in his company. At first that name did not ring a bell but checking back with our agency files I found out that the name should have been ringing many bells. Johnny, or rather his father and then him when the father retired (retired to the bottom of San Francisco Bay whether by accident or foul deed was never ascertained but you figure out the percentages), was knee-deep in the drug trafficking business in the Bay Area which meant some big-time operations, many connections, many serious connections with the Asian sources and thus connected big time on the West Coast. It also seemed that Sonny Boy had taken up a new hobby, a new stream of revenue, branched out into high-end pornography. High-end meaning that the models were rich, wicked, perverted or whatever else made them get their kicks. Had been working out of some abandoned warehouse over in the East Bay, although the whereabouts took a little snooping, mainly tailing Johnny on his rounds.
So I followed that trail over to a converted warehouse in Haywood where Sonny Boy did his shoots. What would happen there, and what did happen with Anne and Prudence, was that Johnny would get them high, high as kites, for a while and then suggest that modelling scam. Maybe some smoke, maybe cocaine, maybe something spicier but get them indebted high then he would start to proposition them about becoming models, exclusive models who might make it onto a fashion magazine cover. If that lure was not enough the he would play to their wild sides. Get them all good and aroused to do something out of the ordinary, something new, something kinky. It came out later that he had that talent with women, at least rich young women. Then he could go either way-make money selling the photos to rich old perverts who got their kicks from seeing their own in a debased condition or, and here is where the real profit center was, blackmail guys like Bradford, bleed them forever. Nice work, Sonny Boy.
In this case both young women were eager to get their kicks that way. According to a girlfriend who went with them on one of the shoots they started taking their clothes off without prompting (and without a drug inducement). One afternoon, after trailing Johnny, and having another operative trail the girls from a sleazy walk-up over in East Oakland where the girls were hiding out and which I had discovered by following them one time rather than Johnny we closed down the operation. Before it was all over though some shots were fired, some fists flew, including mine on a so-called easy case, Johnny fell down wounded, and a very large sum of Bradford money changed hands in order to get all the negatives and all the prints bought and burned. Johnny is still operating his drug operations since no way on this good, green earth was scion Bradford pressing charges. Yeah, the rich. Last I heard the girls were married to some stockbrokers who are clueless about what their brides are capable of. Or maybe that is exactly why they grabbed the pair. Either way, good luck, good luck gentlemen reigning that pair in.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
***The
Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator –The Scorched World
From
The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler
As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the
son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip
Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private
eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua
Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one
such story although not about himself but about an operative for the largest
detective agency on the West Coast, John “Stubs” Lane. (Stubs nick-named for a
habit picked while sitting alone endlessly in cold cars driving cold coffee and
picking out cigarette stubs from the ashtray after the deck ran out). Marlin
let Stubs tell it in his own voice and I will do so here.
******* Oh
sure I have a million stories to tell about my experiences now that I have
retired after forty years working as an operative (peeper, shamus, gumshoe,
private dick or whatever your dig at name for us)with the International Operations
Organization. Stories about murder and mayhem, deceit and deviousness, strange
mental states and cold-bloodedness. Yes I have seen it all the worst side of
mankind (male and female okay, and sometimes the women were the worst capable
of things no guy would even think of doing no matter how much he hated whoever
he hated), the backbiting, the scratching eyes out to beat someone out of
something, the heat of passion, and not in the bedroom where it belongs,
turning to dust. Not a pretty sight and not for the faint-hearted which is why
I lasted for forty years, forty years of slugging it out to get a little rough
justice in this wicked old world, and some days just for the pay. Right now my
mind in on one of the last cases, the Bradford case, not because it was the
worst, far from it, but because it didn’t make sense, didn’t make sense that a
couple of well-off young women would go over the deep end for no real reason.
Let me tell you about it
It
all started when John Bradford, the biggest banker in San Francisco (yes he was
some distant descendant of somebody on the Mayflower
crew although that doesn’t, I don’t think, explain what happened, not by any
reasonable accounting) came to the agency looking for help when his two
daughters, Anne and Prudence, went missing after not checking in for about a
week. We had done a previous case with Mr. Bradford over an employee
embezzlement scheme and so he came back to us on that recommendation.
You
might well ask why if he was worried about his missing daughters, maybe having
been kidnapped or worse, he didn’t go to the police, the FBI or something like
your average guy would do. That is where the rich, and in his case the very rich,
are different. They are worried about image, maybe about what would that Mayflower forbear think, or the country
club set so they want things, including messy things and maybe especially messy
things hushed up. They can also afford to pay for extra service, extra service
that hard- pressed police forces could not or would not provide. Besides in
this case the two young women had something of a history of walking on the wild
side and so hush it was just in case they were involved in some freefall caper.
And so it landed on the agency’s lap and the boss assigned me to the case since
he believed from what Bradford told him (not all of which he told me since
Bradford worked on a need- to- know basis) that it would involve no heavy
lifting, meaning no shooting or fists, something easy as I eased into
retirement.
Here
is the way it went down, I started with the servants at the Bradford estate to
see if they knew anything. Nothing, except some information about the pair
having packed several suitcase before they left. None of them saw that as
unusual since they had done that before even on short trips. Then I went the
rounds of friends, relatives and acquaintances but no dice, no dice mainly
because their friends were apparently working under some national security
directive about giving information to a cop, public or private. A breakthrough
did come when I went to the Knick-Knack Club, a place, a watering hole for the
young, rich, and infamous where the young women hung out.
That
tipster, who shall remain anonymous just in case the forces of evil that were
unleashed decide to do something further about it, told me that I should check
with a guy named Johnny Firestone because they had often been seen in his
company. At first that name did not ring a bell but checking back with our
agency files I found out that the name should have been ringing many bells.
Johnny, or rather his father and then him when the father retired, was
knee-deep in the drug trafficking business in the Bay Area which meant some big-
time operations. It also seemed that Sonny Boy had branched out into high-end
pornography. High-end meaning that the models were rich, wicked, perverted or whatever else made them get their
kicks.
So
I followed that trail over to a converted warehouse in Haywood where Sonny Boy
did his shoots. What would happen, and what did happen with Anne and Prudence,
was that Johnny would get them high, high as kites, for a while and then
suggest that modelling scam.
In
this case both young women were eager to get their kicks that way. Before it
was all over though some shots were fired, some fists flew and a very large sum
of Bradford money changed hands in order to get all the negatives and all the
prints bought and burned. Last I heard the girls were married to some
stockbrokers who are clueless about what their brides are capable of. Good
luck, good luck reigning that pair in.
***The Roots Is The Toots-Billie’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame-Bill Haley And The Comet’s Rock Around The Clock
I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing a commercially- produced classic rock series over the past few years. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.
And we, we small time punk in the old-fashioned sense of that word, we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billie who I will talk about later, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.
Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery- operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Yeah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.
In many ways 1956 was the key year, at least to my recollection. And here is why. Elvis may have been burning up the stages, making all the teenage girls down South sweat, making slightly older women sweat and throw undergarments too, and every guy over about eight years old start growing sideburns before then but that was the year that I actually saw him on television and started be-bopping off his records. Whoa. And the same with Bill Haley and the Comets, even though in the rock pantheon they were old, almost has-been guys, by then. And Chuck Berry. And for the purposes of this particular review, James Brown, ah, sweet, please, please, please James Brown (and the Flames, of course) with that different black, black as the night, beat that my mother (and others too) would not even let in the house, and maybe not even in our whole white working- class neighborhood. But remember that transistor radio and remember when rock rocked.
Of course all of this remembrance is just so much lead up to a Billie story. You know Billie, Billie from “the projects” hills. William James Bradley to be exact. I told you about him once when I was reviewing a 30th anniversary of rock film concert segment by Bo Diddley. I told the story of how he, and we, learned first-hand down at the base, the nasty face of white racism in this society. No even music, and maybe particularly not even music, was excepted then from that dead of night racial divide, North or South if you really want to know. Yes, that Billie, who also happened to be my best friend, or maybe almost best friend we never did get it straight, in elementary school. Billie was crazy for the music, crazy to impress the tender young girls that he was very aware of, much more aware of than I was and earlier, with his knowledge, his love, and his respect for the music (which is where the innocent Bo Diddley imitation thing just mentioned came from although that story was later than the story I want to tell you now).
But see we were “projects kids,” and that meant, and meant seriously, no dough kids. No dough to make one look, a little anyway, like one of the hot male teen rock stars such as Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis. Now this “projects” idea started out okay, I guess, the idea being that returning veterans from World War II, at least some vets like my father, needed a leg up in order to provide for their families. And low- rent public housing was the answer. Even if that answer was four-family unit apartment buildings really fit for one family, one growing three boy family anyway, and no space, no space at all for private, quiet dreams. Of course by 1955, ‘56 during the “golden age” of working- class getting ahead (or at least to many it must seem so now) there was a certain separation between those who had moved on to the great suburban ranch house dream land and those who were seemingly fated to end up as “the projects” fixtures, and who developed along the way a very identifiable projects ethos, a dog-eat-dog ethos if you want to know the truth. It ain’t pretty down at the base, down at the place where the thugs, drifters, grifters, and midnight sifters feed off the rough-edged working poor.
That didn’t stop Billie, or me for that matter, from having our like everybody else dreams, quiet spaced or not. In fact, Billie had during his long time there probably developed the finest honed-edge of “projects” ethos of anyone I knew, but that came later. For now, for the rock minute I want to speak of, Billie was distractedly, no beyond distraction as you will see, trying to make his big break through as a rock performer. See Billie knew, probably knew in his soul, but anyway from some fan magazine that he was forever reading that old Elvis and Jerry Lee (and many of the rockers of the day, black and white alike) were dirt poor just like us. Rough dirt poor too. Farm land, country, rural, shack, white trash, dirt poor which we with our “high style” city ways could barely comprehend.
And there was Elvis, for one, up in big lights. With all the cars, and not junkie old fin-tailed Plymouths or chromed Fords but Cadillacs, and half the girls in the world, and all of them “hot” (although we did not use that word then), or so it seemed. Billie was hooked and hooked hard on that rock star performer fantasy. It consumed his young passions. And for what purpose? If you answered to impress the girls, “the projects” girls right in front of him, hey, now you are starting to get it. And this is what this little story is about.
This was late 1956, maybe early 1957, anyway it’s winter, a cold hard winter in the projects, meaning all extra dough was needed for heat, or some serious stuff like that. But see here old Billie and I (as his assistant, or manager, it was never clear which but I was to be riding his star, no question) had no time for cold, for snow or for the no dough to get those things because what was inflaming our minds was that a teen caravan was coming to town in a few weeks. No, not to the projects, Christ no, but downtown at the high school auditorium. And what this teen caravan thing was (even though we were not officially teens and would not be so for a while) was a talent show, a big time talent show, like a junior American Bandstand television show, looking for guys and girls who could be the next teen heartthrobs. There were a lot of them in those days, those kinds of backwater talent shows and maybe now too.
This news is where two Billie things came into play so you get an idea of the kind of guy he was back then. First, one night, one dark, snowy night Billie had the bright idea than he and I should go around town and take down all the teen caravan announcement advertisements from the telephone poles and other spots where they were posted. We did, and I need say no more on the matter. Oh, except that a couple of days later, and for a week or so after that, there was a big full-page ad in the local newspaper and ads on the local radio. That’s one Billie thing and the other, well, let me back up.
When Billie got wind of the contest he went into one of his rants, a don’t mess with Billie or his idea of the moment rant and usually it was better if you didn’t, and that rant was directed first to no one else but his mother. He needed dough to get an outfit worthy of a “prince of rock” so that he could stand out for the judges. Moreover the song he was going to do was Bill Haley and The Comet’s Rock Around The Clock. I will say he knew that song cold, and the way I could tell was that at school one day he sang it and the girls went crazy. And some of the guys too. Hell, girls started following old Billie around. He was in heaven (honest, I on the other hand, was indifferent to them, or their charms just then). So the thought that he might win the contest was driving him mad (that same energy would be used later with less purpose but that story is for another day)
Hell, denim jeans, sneakers, and some old hand-down ragamuffin shirt from an older brother ain’t going to get anyone noticed, except maybe to be laughed at. Now, like I said, we were no dough projects boys. And in 1956 that meant serious problems, serious problems even without a damn cold winter. See, like I said before the projects were for those who were on the down escalator in the golden age of post-World War II affluence. In short, as much as he begged, bothered and bewildered his mother there was no dough, no dough at all for the kind of sparkly suit (or at least jacket) that Billie was desperate for. Hell, he even badgered his dad, old Billie, Senior, and if you badgered old Billie then you had better be ready for some hard knocks and learn how to pick yourself up off the ground, sometimes more than once. Except this time, this time something hit Old Billie, something more than that bottle of booze or six, hard stinky-smelling booze, that he used to keep his courage and television-watching up. He told Mrs. Billie (real name, Iris) that he would spring for the cloth if she would make the suit. Whoopee! We are saved and even Billie, my Billie, had a kind word for his father on this one.
I won’t bore you with the details of Mrs. Billie’s (there you have me calling her that, I always called her Mrs. Bradley, or ma’am) efforts on behalf of Billie’s career. Of course the material for the suit came from the Bargain Center located downtown near the bus terminal. You don’t know the Bargain Center? Sure you do, except it had a different name where you lived maybe and it has names like Wal-Mart and K-Mart, etc. now. Haven’t you been paying attention? Where do you think the material came from? Brooks Brothers? Please. Now this Bargain Center was the early low- rent place where I, and about half the project kids got their first day of school and Easter outfits (the mandatory twice yearly periods for new outfits in those days). You know the white shirts with odd-colored pin-stripes, a size or two too large, the black chinos with cuffs, christ with cuffs like some hayseed, and other items that nobody wanted someplace else and got a second life at the “Bargie.” At least you didn’t have to worry about hand-me-downs because most of the time the stuff didn’t wear that long.
I will say that Mrs. B. did pretty good with what she had to work with and that when the coat was ready it looked good, even if it was done only an hour before the show. Christ, Billie almost flipped me out with his ranting that day. And I had seen some bad scenes before. In any case it was ready. Billie went to change clothes upstairs and when he came down everybody, even me, hell, even Old Billie was ooh-ing and ah-ing. Now Billie, to be truthful, didn’t look anything like Bill Haley. I think he actually looked more like Jerry Lee. Kind of thin and wiry, lanky maybe, with brown hair and blue eyes and a pretty good chin and face. I would say now a face that girls would go for; although I am not sure they would all swoon over him, except maybe the giggly ones.
So off we go on the never on time bus, a bus worthy of its own stories, to downtown and the auditorium, even my mother and father who thought Billie was the cat’s meow when I brought him around. Billie’s father, Old Billie of the small dreams, took a pass on going. He had a Friday night boxing match that he couldn’t miss and the couch beckoned (an argument could be made that Old Billie was a man before his time in the couch potato department). However all is forgiven him this night for his big idea, and his savior dough. We got to the school auditorium okay and Billie left us for stardom as we got in our rooting section seats. A few minutes later Billie ran up to us to tell us that he was fifth on the list so don’t go anywhere, like out for a cigarette or something.
We sat through the first four acts, a couple of guys doing Elvis stuff (so-so) and a couple of girls (or rather trios of girls) who did some serious be-bop stuff and had great harmonies. Billie, I sensed, was going to have his work cut out for him this night. Finally Billie came out, prompted the four-piece backup band to his song, and he started for the mike. He started out pretty good, in good voice and a couple of nice juke moves, but then about half way through; as he was wiggling and swiggling through his Rock Around The Clock all of a sudden one of the arms of his jacket fell off and landed in the front row. Billie didn’t miss a beat. This guy was a showman. Then the other jacket arm fell off and also went into the first row. Except this time a couple of swoony girls, girls from our school were tussling, seriously tussling, each other for it. See, they thought it was part of Billie’s act. And what they didn’t know as Billie finished up was that Mrs. Billie (I will be kind to her and not call her what Billie called her) in her rush to finish up didn’t sew the arms onto the body of the jacket securely so they were just held together by some temporary stitches.
Well, needless to say Billie didn’t win (one of those girl trios did, and rightly so, although I didn’t tell Billie that). But next day, and many next days after that, Billie had more girls hanging off his arms than he could shake a stick at. And you know maybe Billie was on to something after all because I started to notice those used-to-been scrawny, spindly-legged, pigeon-toed giggling girls, their new found bumps and curves, and their previously unremarkable winsome girlish charms, especially when Billie would give me his “castoffs.” So maybe his losing was for the best. My “for the best.”
*********
Rock Around The Clock
One, Two, Three O'clock, Four O'clock rock, Five, Six, Seven O'clock, Eight O'clock rock. Nine, Ten, Eleven O'clock, Twelve O'clock rock, We're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
Put your glad rags on and join me hon', We'll have some fun when the clock strikes one.
CHORUS:
We're gonna rock around the clock tonight, We're gonna rock, rock, rock, 'till broad daylight, We're gonna rock, we're gonna rock around the clock tonight.
When the clock strikes two, three and four, If the band slows down we'll yell for more.
CHORUS
When the chimes ring five, six, and seven, We'll be right in seventh heaven.
CHORUS
When it's eight, nine, ten, eleven too,
I'll be going strong and so will you.
CHORUS
When the clock strikes twelve we'll cool off then, Start rockin' 'round the clock again.
CHORUS
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