One Arm was waiting by the low wall in front of the stone cabin. Joe parked the Packard and searched One Arm’s face as he walked up to him. “Is it Al?” he asked, “ he didn’t try to break out, did he?” The telegram had said, COME TO TWO BUNCH PALMS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. STOP. MUST TALK. There had to be a serious problem for One Arm to avoid the telephone and resort to a telegram. He’d left immediately, pushed ninety all the way from L.A., watching for cops, the sun just setting as he turned onto the dirt road at Garnet Station.
“Naw, Al’s fine,” One Arm said, “still in the pen.” He laughed that croaky laugh. “Pennsylvania Pen, treatin’ him like royalty, I hear. Leave it to the boss, still doin’ business even in prison, safest place after the St. Valentine’s mess. You’re looking good, Joe.” He leaned his shotgun against the wall, and shook Joe’s hand.
“Com’n up to the turret. I got hot coffee and a couple blankets. Want to watch the road a bit in case you been followed.”
They walked around and up the stairs. “I wasn’t followed,” Joe said as he followed One Arm up the stairs. “I know enough not to be followed.”
“Yeah. Know you do. Just antsy about what might be comin’ up that road next.”
One Arm and Joe settled into the chairs with their hot coffee. It was good to be back. Joe looked out at the still, cold night, the sweep of the desert, a half moon peeking over the eastern foothills. No sound but the click of an owl swooping out of the bearded palms, hunting lizards or pack rats, and the distant yelp of coyotes. “MUST TALK.” He waited for One Arm to explain.
One Arm was thinking of Gladys, remembering the first night Al had brought her here. How she climbed these same steps to the roof, taking him his supper, calling out so he wouldn’t blast her to smithereens. He remembered how stunned she was by his ruined face in the lamp light, not to mention his grizzly-ate-my-arm story. More’n ten years now. So much had happened. Lucky to be alive, all of them.
“How’s the baby?” One Arm said finally.
Joe smiled. “Fine. John John’s with Gladys and Ida. He’s beautiful!”
One Arm nodded. “Takes after his momma.”
“Strong like his daddy, almost fifteen pounds already.”
“That Gladys, she might be small, but sure ain’t no milk toast, herself” One Arm added with a chuckle.
Silence again, and then Joe asked, “What is it we had to talk about?”
One Arm cleared his throat, not that it would help his voice any. “Yeah, well ... might as well spit it out. We’re done here, Joe, foldin’ up.” The flickering lantern seemed to twist the scarred ridges on his cheeks and jaw. He swept his solid wood arm in an arch, taking in all that was hidden by the night, the palm oasis, the hot springs pool, grass sloping to open desert. Paradise, Al had called it. The casino with its stained glass windows was empty and quiet now. “Too risky any more,” he said. “Oh, me and the boys could ‘a handled other bootleggers, but how the hell we gonna fight the whole damn Los Angeles police force?”
“Police? They’ve been out here?”
“Not yet, but they know about it. Ain’t worth it, Al says. They’d torch the place right down to the river rock. It’d break his heart.” He stopped, shook his head. “Least the mob’s gotta code, stick to the territory, but them cops ... “
Torch the place. Joe thought of the plush furniture in the rooms below, all that beautiful dark wood and red velvet. Al and his lavish tastes. The four-poster bed where Gladys lay beside Al when they tried to assassinate him.
“Shit!” the smack of One Arm’s wooden arm on the low table made Joe jump, the sound echoing. “Ain’t nothin’ worse than a crooked cop,” One Arm said. “Like puttin’ a badge on one ‘a them Moran thugs. Doin’ their sweeps, ‘Red Squads, bum blockades’ they call ‘em, but it ain’t police work, Joe, believe me.” He breathed in to control his anger, then bent over the table, holding his face in one huge hand. Joe felt One Arm’s sadness. He’d lived here more than ten years, from when it was just trees and clumps of grass where the mineral water seeped up. He’d watched over all the building and handled the bootlegging business from here to Mexico and along the coast.
One Arm turned. Still hunched over, he looked up at Joe, his face even more distorted, and he saw the look that froze others when they’d run into him on a dark wharf. The wharves of Long Beach were scary enough, picking up bootleg from boats out past the harbor.
“L.A. police,” he went on, his voice low. “Them coppers are leavin’ bodies all over the back alleys. They hear of a bootlegging operation, just wipe it out. Innocent, guilty, they don’t give a shit. Line ‘em up and shoot ‘em. You’ve mostly been in Chicago lately, so you missed it. But I seen it, Joe. More than once. Only thing saved me was this here.” He lifted his club arm. “Bastards. Two or three of ‘em ain’t getting’ up anytime soon.”
Joe couldn’t help smile, but One Arm didn’t notice.
“Crooked from the top down,” he said. “That fucker Chief Davis, runnin’ whores and hootch and who knows what, bigger than shit. There’s a stink to it, a filthy stink. Like that Collins woman who lost her son. You heard about that, didn’t you? How they tried to pawn some other kid onto her? What they put that poor woman through?”
Joe shuddered. “Yeah, I followed the case. Poor woman. God, if anything happened to J.J. ... “ His voice broke as he thought about how much little John John meant to all of them. “They ever find her real son?”
“Naw. That ain’t gonna happen, but who can blame her for hoping. Bastards! That scum Chief Davis is the one who kicked Al out of L.A. two years ago. Didn’t want the competition. You were in New York then, visiting Gladys I think.
Joe nodded, “She was working out a contract for The Ape back then.”
“Well, that bastard Davis gave Al twenty-four hours to get out of town. Said if Al didn’t go, he’d set he whole force on him. Fuckin’ goon squad in blue. I was with Al that day. Boss just shrugged. So be it. If he was in Chicago, it’d be different, but there was only a handful of us here. So he did a little sight seeing and headed back to the train. Wasn’t about to play into Davis’ filthy hands, end up dead in some gutter.” One Arm shook his head. “Ain’t that the way. Government makes Al Public Enemy No. 1 while one of their police chiefs is up to his elbows in blood. Hell, Al would’a found the Collins boy. He wouldn’t ‘a wasted a minute. You know how Al is about ... family.”
“Yes,” Joe said, “I do,” thinking about how Al doted on his son by his wife, Mae, and how Gladys wasn’t sure if Al would ever see John John.
So. Two Bunch Palms was finished. Never mind. He had a wonderful family now. Ida was hanging in there. Gladys was dedicating her life to raising John John. Joe would do everything he could to keep them safe.
One Arm stared intently at Joe and said, “I’m glad we got this chance to talk. Wanted to tell you myself about the close down. Don’t mention it to Gladys yet. Al wants to tell her himself as soon he gets out in a coupla months.
By the way, the money in his safe right now? He wants us to split it up. Called it a bonus for the years we’ve spent out here holding it together for him. Forty or fifty grand ought’a help you keep John John in diapers for a while.”
"The Changeling"
This dynamic movie depicts the unbelievable corruption raging unfettered during Prohibition Era Los Angeles. Capone wasn't immune to its affects on his West Coast business.
Los Angeles Cops lead to Capone's
closing down his West Coast Hideaway !
Corruption was rampant.
The increased brutality and corruption of the LA. Cops, coupled with the Feds breathing down his neck, forced Capone to fold up his West Coast operations.
