Bitter Drink by F.G. Haghenbeck Page B

didn’t want to explain how his money had gone up in smoke. But Bobby La Salle didn’t have a choice. He told me that since I’d covered for him with the cops, he’d return the favor. He was a nice enough critter. You just had to keep him well fed.
    He dropped me and Billy Joe off at the Rio Hotel.
    The bartender was wearily presiding over a group of journalists from Chicago who were getting progressively drunker. Billy Joe paid the man for a round of mojitos and offered him such a healthy tip he was able to close up shop and call it a night. The journalists fell asleep at their table while we drank our mojitos.
    “How did you get to be a bloodhound,
soldado
?” the old man asked me, point-blank.
    “That’s a long story.”
    “This time of night, I won’t find my
barata
whores, so I’ve got time.”
    He was right. No whores for him and no Blondie for me; she was probably counting opium sheep by now. The old man and I would have to keep each other company.
    “I was sixteen when I left my mother’s house,” I said. “Nothing personal. I just couldn’t spend my life attendingfamily reunions on Saturday and mass on Sunday. It’s against my religion.”
    I didn’t usually feel comfortable talking about myself. Bloodhounds don’t do that; they just provide sarcastic back talk. That’s why they’re tough guys. But the events of the evening must have had an impact because I couldn’t shut up.
    “I thought I’d be better off with my father. Everything was fine until I hit him back. At least the blood stayed in the family: mine on his fists and his in my mouth.”
    “
Hermoso.”
    “An old LA detective, Michael Carmandy, hired me. He’d been a private dick during Prohibition, one of the best. A loner and heavy drinker who couldn’t be bought off. By then he was already a brand name. He had ten assistants and three secretaries, one of whom was a doll, beautiful, in fact.”
    “Your first heartbreak?”
    “No, just irreconcilable differences. She wanted kids, a house in San Diego, and a vacation home in Acapulco. I wanted booze, fun, and recreational drugs. When she married an architect from Chicago—a Mexican to boot—I quit. Carmandy recommended me to his contacts.”
    “You like him more than your father?”
    “Mussolini would have been better than my dad.” I ended my story abruptly, closing the curtain on that act. “Now I work for myself. Pays for my vices and the rent.”
    “A real winner.”
    I didn’t like the old man’s comment. I didn’t like his smile either. But I really didn’t like my own life story.
    Billy Joe and I retreated to my room. The bar had been closed for so long, the journalists were already snoring. I was certain that one of my bottles of gin still had something to offer. It was already three in the morning; the night couldn’t get any worse.
    I was wrong. It got worse. It looked like a hurricane had touched down in my room. Although a hurricane wouldn’t have been so rough. One of my surfboards was even broken in two. Billy Joe was more upset to see the broken bottle of gin, though.
    My clothes were such a mess it looked like the floor of my studio in Venice Beach, but at least there I would have known where everything was. Whoever did this did it with feeling. This had the stench of Mr. Antsy Underpants all over it.
    I could just imagine him enjoying this little remodel.
    “This wasn’t vengeance. You’ve got something. That’s why he didn’t kill you at the river,” Billy Joe declared.
    “I have nothing of value,” I said. “I always carry everything with me, and I already lost the Colt Carmandy gave me earlier tonight.”
    “You’ve got something,” Billy Joe repeated, lighting one of his British cigarettes.
    I looked at the mess, annoyed. What little was mine was there. Unless, of course, they were looking for something that wasn’t mine.
    “The roll of film,” I exclaimed. “The one I found at the house. I kept it because I didn’t want the cops