LITMIR.BIZ

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or question his veracity.

      By the time she was missed, she was hundreds of miles away in Santa Paulina. By then, she knew Teague’s plan for her future, which differed greatly from the one she and her parents had aspired to. An escape attempt ended in a concussion and broken arm. Teague said he’d kill her if she tried to escape again.

      Angel is happy at the Rexford with Jack. They belong together, two complex people with complicated histories. She can’t imagine being with anyone else…ever. The last cigarette in the pack is broken. As she tries piecing it together, there’s a knock at the door and she crumbles the tobacco into the ashtray.

      “Come on in, Albie,” she says, tightening the sash of her robe and setting her coffee cup on the table next to the chair.

      “Mornin’ Miss Angel.”

      “Morning, Albie.”

      Albie delivers the Santa Paulina Morning Sun, three cents a copy, a nickel on Sunday. He’s an enterprising little squirt with an engaging personality and ready smile. He’s smaller than most ten year olds, wears saggy overalls and a red cap with the bill turned sideways. He gives Angel the paper. She hands him an extra dime to bring her cigarettes from the machine.

      Albie is the closest thing the hotel has to room service. He can hustle up almost anything you need…a magazine…cigarettes…complimentary coffee from the lobby or take-out from the Memory Lights Café. He can steam a suit, press a shirt, shine shoes…anything except run numbers for Toots McGee out of the back room of the Tammany Hall Bar, although the offer is still on the table.

      Albie’s father, Jake Sherman, is head of the hotel janitorial and housekeeping staff. On Saturday nights he blows a mean sax at Smokey’s Barbecue Pit by the river. There was once a Mrs. Sherman, but she left town with a fancy-man in a sharkskin suit and an ace of diamonds in his hatband.

      Jake and Albie live in the furnace room, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. They have cots in an alcove beneath the ductwork, a bathroom and shower at one end of the basement and a communal laundry with clotheslines stretched across the ceiling. It’s warm in winter, cool in summer and it’s free. Those poor folks in the Hooverville on River Road would give anything to have it so good.

      Albie returns with cigarettes and Angel gives him a nickel tip to jingle in his pocket with the rest of his morning take.

      “Thank you, Miss Angel.”

      “You must be rich as Rockefeller,” she says, leaning down to straighten the collar of his shirt.

      “I got fifteen dollars in my coffee can.”

      “That’s a lot of money, Albie. Be sure you keep it in a safe place.”

      “Mr. Reese in 320 says if I loan him ten dollars, he’ll give me twelve when his ship comes in.”

      “Don’t you listen to that man, Albie. Mr. Reese’s ship went to the bottom in ’29. He gets any wise ideas about your money, he’ll have Jack to deal with.”

      “Yes, Ma’am. Jake wants me to bring all them flashlights up from the basement in case we lose power. You think it’s really going to get that bad?”

      “Better to be safe than sorry. Run along now so I can get dressed.”

      * * * *

      Around noon Angel goes downstairs wearing a beige raincoat and carrying her blue umbrella. In the lounge, men sit around the radio drinking their morning coffee, ashes growing long on their cigarettes as they lean close to the speaker.

      Cantor Nemschoff, with his long white beard, is looking more solemn than usual. “Shhh! Just listen,” he says, when Angel approaches. She takes a seat beside him. The voice on the radio belongs to Nathaniel Forsythe, the anchor of the daily news editorial, Up To Date:

      “In July, construction commenced on the Sachsenhousen Concentration Camp at Oranienburg, near Berlin. By September 23rd, it housed 1000 inmates labeled enemies of the state, ordinary citizens incarcerated without due process: Gypsies, Jews, 7th Day Adventists, Catholics, intellectuals, the mentally and physically defective and anyone who questions Nazi authority. Pogroms and mass exterminations are reported in outlying Polish and Russian communities.

      “On October 1st, criminal court judges in Berlin took mandatory oaths of allegiance to Hitler. Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels has banned film criticism, allowing the Nazi-controlled German film industry to pursue its blatantly anti-Semitic rants.

      “We’re out of time for today, but tune in tomorrow for continuing coverage of the growing Nazi threat to the civilized world. Until then, I am Nathaniel Forsythe reporting.”

      The room is suddenly a-murmur with voices, some listeners buying into every word, other thinking something so outlandish couldn’t possibly be true.

      “Don’t you have a brother in Berlin?” says Angel, turning to the Cantor.

      “Years ago I begged him to bring his family to America, but he didn’t vant to valk avay from his successful gallery. He had a Van Gogh, a Kandinsky and a von Werefkin among other fine paintings. Now, da SS is quartered in his home and da gallery seized.”

      “Have you heard from them since this happened?”

      “No von knows vat’s become of dem. My cousin Moisha, a vell-respected urologist, has lost hospital privileges. My nephew, Schmueli, ousted from University. All Jewish students gone, gone, gone and Schmueli has fled to Paris.”

      “I’m so sorry. Isn’t a pogrom some kind of riot?”

      “It’s da organized massacre of an ethnic group. It’s vat da Turks did to da Armenians and vat da Germans do to us. It’s dere method of confiscating property vithout compensation and viping us from da face of da earth so ve can’t tell.”

      Angel sits quietly for a moment, trying to take it all in. “Come up to my room, Cantor. Let me make you a cup of tea.”

      He smooths his long white beard and rises shakily onto his cane.

      “No tank you, dear. I tink I’ll lie down avile. Dese old knees predict rain better den da veaderman.” Angel rides with him up the elevator and sees him safely to his room. When she returns to the lobby Hank is behind the desk sorting mail.

      “You heard what Forsythe said. Is there going to be another war?” she asks.

      “There’s always going to be another war, but this time Jack and I won’t be in it. We beat them s.o.b’s once already. If they’re smart, they won’t make us do it again.”

      CHAPTER 2

      Officer Jim Tunney is my partner. He was my first friend when I hit town. He’s red-Irish with a touch of the old Viking blood. His blue eyes are as pale as drinking water and he has the kind of fair, freckled skin you don’t parade in the noonday sun.

      Soon after we met, he said S.P.P.D. had never had a bona fide, big city detective on the Force, and after checking me out, Chief Garvey was all for it. I considered telling a whopper about my inglorious departure from B.P.D. but decided to play it on the square.

      “They forced me out in Boston,” I said. “I couldn’t crawl out of the bottle back then. I’m doing better now.” The Chief joked that as long as I don’t fall off the floor, I haven’t reached my limit. I was in like Flynn.

      Jim and I streak to the site, where Ted “Curley” McDaniel is sprawled on the highway near Sparkey’s Roadhouse. Only one road can be considered a highway in these parts. Everything else is a street, a dirt road or a cow path. The highway runs from the Tehachapi Mountains in southern California, through the Central Valley and on to points north. When we arrive on the accident scene, the ambulance attendants are splinting Curley’s leg for transport to Santa Paulina General, a spacious three story house that was turned into a rehab center for wounded soldiers of the Great War.

      “The s.o.b plowed right into me,” moans Curley. “Busted me up pretty bad.”

      “I

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