The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles by Ken Kuhlken (adventure books to read TXT) 📕

her lover. He sat. “Where’s it all start, Miz Hickey?”

“I’m no Hickey,” she said.

“You’re not Missus Boles, I’m betting. Again, where’s it all start?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Teddy, Harriet and Frank. I hear you all go back a long way, back to Azusa Street?”

“What if we do?”

“One thing, I want to know how Frank ended up with Teddy’s wife.”

“Frank stole her away. He was a charmer.”

“So you caught Teddy on the rebound?”

Tom suspected, from his mother’s wily, shifting eyes, she was going to play for Florence. Maybe she believed she just might turn the tables on her evil son and walk out of the room at her daughter’s side, reunited.

“Teddy and I didn’t find each other until years later.”

“How many years?” Leo asked.

“Seven or eight.”

Teddy muttered, “Two, the first time.”

She cocked her head his way and no doubt shot venom with her eyes.

“Meantime,” Leo said, “you and Harriet stayed friends, seeking heavenly bliss with the Eden crowd. Gypsies, are they?”

Milly tossed a haughty smile her daughter’s way. “I rarely met with the Edenists. Harriet was the devotee.”

Though Tom knew a wise fellow interrogator wouldn’t intervene, a suspicion had come with such force, he acted on it. “Question.” He approached the foot of the bed. “I hear Frank and Pastor Seymour could be twins. Both of them gentle, strong, kind and all. I remember you were stuck on Pastor Seymour.”

Milly gave a little hiss and looked away.

“Did you ever meet up with the Pastor later, after you left the mission? Ever sit down to tea or coffee, say four years ago? Like the day he died?"

She must’ve caught his accusation, the way she stretched out and curved her lips, got ready to spit on him if he would only lean closer. But soon she resumed the haughty pose. “I don’t talk to Judas.”

“Don’t call Tommy names,” Florence commanded.

“Oh? Then you don’t agree he ruined my life when he stole away with my precious beauty, my only little girl.”

“You know why.”

“I most certainly do not, unless it was out of jealousy. You were your mama’s little girl and the Judas never loved me. He’s the image of the devil who left me with nothing, left me on my own to raise two babies.”

For a minute, Florence peered at her mother and leaned ever farther Milly’s way until she had to brace herself with a hand on the bed. All the while, Milly lay still, her face a portrait of long-suffering woe.

When Florence straightened, she turned and gazed at Tom. She gave him a smile, but her eyes didn’t lose a trace of their wildness. Once again, she peered at Milly, then at her brother. “Tommy,” she said, “let’s rip her clothes off and put her in the closet.”

He left his post against the wall, went to Florence, and pressed her head against his shoulder. “Good idea, babe. Maybe we’ll do that. Only later. First she’s got to talk.”

Milly called out, “Goldilocks,” once Florence’s nickname. “Can’t you see the truth about these heartless creatures who use us and cast us off. They only care about our beauty, to stare and paw and show us off to the fellows. To them, we’re things. They say they’ll protect us, but look.” She jabbed a finger in Teddy’s direction. “He never loved me, even in a man’s miserable way. I just couldn’t compare to his Harriet. Sweet, patient, buxom Harriet.”

“So Teddy couldn’t let Harriet go,” Leo said. “I guess he must’ve hated the ground Frank Gaines walked on.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Milly shouted, and Tom thought, she’s lost her mind and can’t even see the trap.

Again Milly speared a finger at her man. “I told him a hundred times, it wasn’t Frank to blame, but her, and Teddy himself. Him more than her. He didn’t treat her any better than Hickey treated me. She got out of line, he slugged her.”

Florence broke away from her brother and yelled at Milly, “My daddy never once slugged you.”

“You don’t know,” Milly said.

Leaning between them, Leo asked, “Teddy knocked his wife around?”

“Sure he did. Why do you think she ran to Frank, and had every right to? Frank was a kind gentleman while her husband was a moocher, a brute, a gigolo.”

All through her rant, Teddy had sat as though suffering through the thousandth performance. Now, he said, “I never been any gigolo.”

“So, Teddy,” Leo said, “you figure Frank got tired of Harriet and bumped her off after he found a younger doll, or one who could buy him things. That why you killed Frank?”

“I didn’t.”

“Sure you did. And who could blame you, after the law called Harriet a suicide. Nobody was going to serve justice unless you did.”

Teddy sighed. “I didn’t.”

Tom passed by Florence. Another step put him looming above Teddy. “Tell me who was with you in the Chevy?”

Teddy’s eyes rounded. “Chevy?”

“Parked across the street from Frank’s place.”

“What’re you talking about?”

Tom felt his sister’s hand on his shoulder and he noticed her watching Milly.

“She knows. Look at her face.” Florence climbed onto the bed and crawled to beside Milly. “Who was with Teddy when he went to kill Mister Gaines? Come on, Mama.”

“Goldilocks,” Milly pleaded.

“Stop it,” Florence yelped.

Then Milly spat.

Tom stood waiting, part of him hoping his sister’s claws would fly and blood would spill. But Florence, without so much as wiping her face, turned to her brother and spoke softly. “Tommy, let’s clean out the closet.”

“Sure,” he said. “We don’t need her. We’ll get the truth out of Teddy.”

Instead of going to the closet, he watched his sister while she grabbed a clump of Milly’s linen skirt, a pattern of yellow rose petals, and yanked. The skirt tore away. As Florence reached for the bright yellow slip, Milly yelped, “I’ll tell you. Why should I cover for him?”

“No reason,” Leo said. “Let’s hear it.”

“Every blessed day, he couldn’t stop telling me Frank killed his darling.”

“Hey there,” Teddy said. “If you’re going to spill the beans, make it the truth.”

“Which is what?” Leo asked him.

“Truth is, she was the one hollering that Frank killed my wife.”

“Liar,” Milly screamed.

“Yeah, yeah. About that Chevy. After a while, I came around to believe her. So I gather a couple boys, from where I used to work at the shipyards.”

“The guys you introduced me to at Casa del Mar,” Tom said.

“Yeah, sure. We stopped by Frank's place, figuring to get the truth out of him.”

Boles was staring at Milly as if he feared her more than anything they could do, as if she could send him to hell. No doubt she had shown him a foretaste.

Leo rolled his hand, and Teddy said, “The way Gaines told it, if somebody killed Harriet, his guess was Milly. I got mad for that crack. I socked him. He got right up and said, ‘Let’s go see her, maybe I can prove it.’ So we brought him over to my place.”

“And you killed him there?” Florence demanded.

But Teddy had clammed up. He didn’t say a word until Leo flipped his Colt, held it by the barrel and passed it to Florence, who was still on the middle of the bed. “Hand it to Tom, will you.” She did, and Tom, holding the barrel, lifted it to a good angle from which to crack Teddy’s head.

“Remember the Smokehouse,” Leo said.

“What do you want?” Teddy yipped.

“Who killed Harriet?”

“He did. Frank. Sure he did.”

“Why?”

“Maybe she was going to leave him.”

“Maybe she was cheating on him,” Tom added.

“Yeah, maybe she was.”

“Like she cheated on you?”

“Sure,” Teddy grumbled.

“But you didn’t go and kill her. You might’ve felt like it, but all those years, you let her get away with it. Because you loved her. But not Frank. He didn’t have the guts. Everybody thought he was a saint, but he was a coward, and a killer.”

“You got it.”

Tom leaned closer. “So you killed him.”

Once again, Teddy clammed up. Only this time he gave Tom a look that had to mean go ahead and whack me, I’m done talking.

“Want to know what I think?” Florence asked. “I think Frank got it right. I think Mama did poison Harriet.”

All but Florence stared at Milly, who lay gaping as though at a world gone berserk.

“Why so?” Leo asked Florence.

‘Well,” she said, “That’s exactly what I would’ve done, if I had a man that kept loving a cheat like Harriet, when he ought to been loving me. And, see, I’m Milly’s daughter.”

“Well you’re a liar,” Milly shouted.

What his sister said so distressed Tom, he made his way back to the wall beside Madeline, who reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. Then another. Her second squeeze worked some magic. Allowed him to think.

He said, “Outside of you two — ” He pointed at his mother then at Teddy. “ — I’m the only one who knew both Frank and Milly enough to believe one of them over the other. And Frank was nobody’s liar.” Staring at Milly, he felt something inside him begin to collapse. He reached back and again found Madeline’s hand. “Think about it, Boles. Milly could be the biggest liar in L.A. Maybe Sister Aimee plans to make her a star."

Teddy had been gnawing his lower lip, and now a line of blood ran down his chin, while he stared at Milly and shook his head, and lifted his bound wrists to prop his chin with his folded hands. “She stabbed Frank,” he said.

Milly screamed, “What else could I do? Frank grabbed for the knife. He was going to kill both of us, Teddy and me.”

Teddy sat shaking his head. “No. He didn’t do anything. I’ll bet he didn’t even kill my wife. I'll bet you did.”

Fifty-two

WHILE Milly lay exuding disdain as if nothing anyone but her said made any sense or in any way mattered, Tom sat slumped against the wall. His mind felt like quicksand only hot as hell. Madeline stroked the arm that hung limp at his side. Florence knelt in the middle of the bed, staring at her mother as though in awe and clawing at the satin quilt.

Leo said, “Frank’s dead. Now who dreams up the lynching?”

“Who do you think?” Teddy had crooked his head back to face the ceiling. “The brains of the outfit.”

“Milly.”

“Sure it was her.”

“Don’t go telling me she trucked him there and hanged him on her own.”

“Naw, that was me and a couple of the same boys roughed up Tom. You think I’m giving out names, you’re gonna find out different.”

“Could be the fellas at the Smokehouse will ask you that one, but it’s not a concern of mine. Not now. The cover up. Milly the brains of that one?”

Every eye in the room, except Tom’s, fixed on Milly’s disdainful gaze.

“Beats me,” Teddy said.

“Hmm,” Leo turned to Tom, studied him, began to speak, then shook his head and turned back to Teddy. “Maybe she repented, and called her friend Marion.”

“Why would I repent?” Milly screamed. “After the way that phony preacher treated me.” Then she rolled over, buried her face in one of the pillows, and screamed so madly she horrified Florence, who jumped sideways, dove off the bed, and crawled to her brother and Madeline. They parted to allow her between them.

Now the girls, on the floor against the wall beside the closet, held each other and stroked each other’s hair. Tom heaved to his feet and offered each of them a hand. He helped them up and ushered them out to the hall.

Florence appeared barely able to stand. Her eyes were no longer so wild. Now they were bleary. The last time he had seen her anything like this, she snuck off, went to the Top Hat, and met a creep who invited her to the Palomar to see Paul Whiteman. When they arrived at the hotel, she discovered Whiteman had never played the Palomar nor was he scheduled to. But the creep had a room there. She gave him a goodbye punch in the ribs and then hiked, barefoot, as her shoes weren’t for walking. All the way home, she got whistled at, propositioned, belittled, and chased.

The way she looked when she arrived home that night wasn’t only exhausted and outraged but bewildered. And now, when she looked the same only doubled, Tom worried any second she might slip away into some permanent nightmare.

“Now what?” he asked.

Madeline said, “How about we get