Pete joined the U.S. Marines to bag a green card. Frank stayed with the family in Quebec and went to medical schooL
Pete got hip early. Frank got hip late.
Don’t speak French, speak English. Lose your accent and go to America.
Frank hit LA. with a hard-on for money. He passed his medical boards and hung out his shingle: abortions and morphine for sale.
Frank loved showgirls and cards. Frank loved hoodlums. Frank loved Mickey Cohen’s Thursday-night poker game.
Frank made friends with a stickup guy named Huey Cressmeyer. Huey’s mom ran a Niggertown scrape clinic. Huey got his girlfriend pregnant and asked Mom and Frank for help. Huey got stupid and heisted the Thursday-night game-Pete was off guard duty with the flu.
Mickey gave Pete the contract.
Pete got a tip: Huey was holed up at a pad in El Segundo. The house belonged to a Jack Dragna trigger.
Mickey hated Jack Dragna. Mickey doubled the price and told him to kill everyone in the house.
December 14, 1949–overcast and chilly.
Pete torched the hideout with a Molotov cocktail. Four shapes ran out the back door swatting at flames. Pete shot them and left them to bum.
The papers ID’d them:
Hubert John Cressmeyer, 24.
Ruth Mildred Cressmeyer, 56.
Linda Jane Camrose, 20, four months pregnant.
François Bondurant, 27, a physician and French-Canadian émigré.
The snuffs stayed officially unsolved. The story filtered out to insiders.
Somebody called his father in Quebec and ratted him. The old man called him and begged him to deny it.
He must have faltered or oozed guilt. The old man and old lady sucked down monoxide fumes the same day.
That old babe at the bar was fucking Ruth Mildred’s twin.
Time dragged. He sent the old girl an on-the-house refill. Walter P. Kinnard walked in and sat down next to Gail.
The poetry commenced.
Gail signaled the bartender. Attentive Walter caught the gesture and whistled. Joe Barman zoomed over with his martini shaker– regular boozer Walt packed some weight here.
Helpless Gail searched her purse for matches. Helpful Walt flicked his lighter and smiled. Sexy Walt was dripping scalp flakes all over the back of his jacket.
Gail smiled. Sexy Walt smiled. Well-dressed Walt wore white socks with a three-piece chalk-stripe suit
The lovebirds settled in for martinis and small talk. Pete eyeballed the pre-bed warmup. Gail guzzled her drink for courage–her jaggedy nerves showed through plain.
She touched Walt’s arm. Her guilty heart showed plain–except for the money, she hates it.
Pete walked over to the Ambassador and went up to his room. The setup was perfect: his room, Gail’s room, one connecting door for a slick covert entrance.
He loaded his camera and attached a flashbulb strip. He greased the connecting doorjamb. He framed angles for some face shots.
Ten minutes crawled by. Pete listened for next-door sounds. There, Gail’s signal–”Damn, where’s my key?” a beat too loud.
Pete pressed up to the wall. He heard Lonely Walt pitch some boo-hoo: my wife and kids don’t know a man has certain needs. Gail said, Why’d you have seven kids then? Walt said, It keeps my wife at home, where a woman belongs.
Their voices faded out bed-bound. Shoes went thunk. Gail kicked a high-heeled pump at the wall–her three-minutes-to-blastoff signal.
Pete laughed–thirty-dollar-a-night rooms with goddamn wafer-thin walls.
Zippers snagged. Bedsprings creaked. Seconds tick-tick-ticked. Walter P. Kinnard started groaning–Pete clocked him saddled in at 2:44.
He waited for 3:00 even. He eeeeased the door open–that doorjamb grease lubed out every little scriiich.
There: Gail and Walter P. Kinnard fucking.
In the missionary style, with their heads close together– courtroom adultery evidence. Walt was loving it. Gail was feigning ecstasy and picking at a hangnail.
Pete got closeup close and let fly.
One, two, three–flashbulb blips Tommy-gun fast. The whole goddamn room went glare bright
Kinnard shrieked and pulled out dishrag limp. Gail tumbled off the bed and ran for the bathroom.
Sexy buck-naked Walt 5’9”, 210, pudgy.
Pete dropped his camera and picked him up by the neck. Pete laid his pitch out nice and slow.
“Your wife wants a divorce. She wants eight hundred a month, the house, the ‘56 Buick and orthodontic treatments for your son Timmy. You give her everything she wants, or I’ll find you and kill you.”