Someone in a memory I couldn’t quite reach at the moment.
The place had been a speakeasy in the basement roughly under the King Edward Hotel at Fifth and Los Angeles Street. The King Eddy was now a legit bar on the ground floor of the hotel. During prohibition, rumors said, an off-the-books piece of the action had been regularly passed to the LAPD and City Hall. Despite its underground location having been widely known while it had been a speakeasy, the King Eddie, to my knowledge, had never been raided.
He relieved his lips of his cigarette from time to time to take a drink of what looked like whiskey neat. After which, each time, he quickly returned his focus to me. Don’t you hate it when a stranger just stares at you? You don’t know who. You don’t know why. They don’t just glance or periodically look away, just staring.
He just sat there sipping, smoking, and watching. When the life of his cig got real short, his lips danced it to the right corner of his mouth. This moved the burning stub and its rising heat from directly under his considerable nose while he stubbornly pursued the last possible dose of nicotine. He narrowed his right eye to protect it from the curling smoke that climbed his cheek like a soldier desperate to find the nearest foxhole. The man was big. These last few minutes told me he was also patient. The cigarette going to the right suggested he was right handed, but I still couldn’t place who he looked like.
When his cigarette fin ally died, he buried it in the brown dampness at the bottom of his glass, stood, snugged his hat onto his head, lit a fresh cig, and walked over to me.
He started to speak, and then held up a moment as the clacking sound of a passing electric trolley rushed in th rough the front door opened by an arriving patron.
“I hear you’ve been asking about me. I’m Carter Mitchum , a fellow gumshoe.”
“I’m a columnist , Mitchum, so I don’t qualify for the nick, gumshoe.”
“Where it counts it makes little difference. We both walk in quiet shoes and listen with big ears.”
I knew his reputation: discredited copper. I also knew he was discredited because he wouldn’t go along with the corruption that had stunk up City Hall and the Los Angeles Police Department for as long as I could remember. Carter Mitchum had refused to go on the pad so after a steady diet of shit jobs from his captain, he put down his city shield and picked up a private one.
I put my hand out. “I figured we should meet. I’m—”
He interrupted. “I know who you are, Matthew Kile, you work the crime beat as an independent reporter. I figure you’re fishing for a new source. That why you figure we should meet?”
“Hey, you came over to me. I didn’t approach you. Maybe you got something you’d like me to print in my column?”
I was hoping he did. I get a fair number of nuggets th is way.
“I don’t need to tell you t he LAPD stinks to high heaven,” Mitchum said. “You’re in a position to know it as well as anyone. But I ain’t about to rat ‘em out.”
“ Is it not true,” I asked, “that you sometimes use force to achieve your ends?”
Carter Mitchum stood stone still, his eyes on mine. He didn’t blink or move any other parts. I matched him. Then he spoke. “It’s also true I sometimes use laxatives to achieve my ends.”
He reached for his nearly new cigarette, dropped it on King Eddy’s wood floor and stubbed it out with his toe. He pulled out the chair across from me, dropped his gray Fedora hat with a gutter-dented crown onto my table, and sat down. I motioned the barkeep to bring two more.
January 15, 1938 - Crime is Never Off Season.
The NFL season may be over and major league baseball not yet ready to crack open its new battle for the next World Series, but Los Angeles crime never closes for business. As long as customers want hooch, games of chance, and the intimate attention of a slim ankle, the hoods exist to serve those needs.
The place had been a speakeasy in the basement roughly under the King Edward Hotel at Fifth and Los Angeles Street. The King Eddy was now a legit bar on the ground floor of the hotel. During prohibition, rumors said, an off-the-books piece of the action had been regularly passed to the LAPD and City Hall. Despite its underground location having been widely known while it had been a speakeasy, the King Eddie, to my knowledge, had never been raided.
He relieved his lips of his cigarette from time to time to take a drink of what looked like whiskey neat. After which, each time, he quickly returned his focus to me. Don’t you hate it when a stranger just stares at you? You don’t know who. You don’t know why. They don’t just glance or periodically look away, just staring.
He just sat there sipping, smoking, and watching. When the life of his cig got real short, his lips danced it to the right corner of his mouth. This moved the burning stub and its rising heat from directly under his considerable nose while he stubbornly pursued the last possible dose of nicotine. He narrowed his right eye to protect it from the curling smoke that climbed his cheek like a soldier desperate to find the nearest foxhole. The man was big. These last few minutes told me he was also patient. The cigarette going to the right suggested he was right handed, but I still couldn’t place who he looked like.
When his cigarette fin ally died, he buried it in the brown dampness at the bottom of his glass, stood, snugged his hat onto his head, lit a fresh cig, and walked over to me.
He started to speak, and then held up a moment as the clacking sound of a passing electric trolley rushed in th rough the front door opened by an arriving patron.
“I hear you’ve been asking about me. I’m Carter Mitchum , a fellow gumshoe.”
“I’m a columnist , Mitchum, so I don’t qualify for the nick, gumshoe.”
“Where it counts it makes little difference. We both walk in quiet shoes and listen with big ears.”
I knew his reputation: discredited copper. I also knew he was discredited because he wouldn’t go along with the corruption that had stunk up City Hall and the Los Angeles Police Department for as long as I could remember. Carter Mitchum had refused to go on the pad so after a steady diet of shit jobs from his captain, he put down his city shield and picked up a private one.
I put my hand out. “I figured we should meet. I’m—”
He interrupted. “I know who you are, Matthew Kile, you work the crime beat as an independent reporter. I figure you’re fishing for a new source. That why you figure we should meet?”
“Hey, you came over to me. I didn’t approach you. Maybe you got something you’d like me to print in my column?”
I was hoping he did. I get a fair number of nuggets th is way.
“I don’t need to tell you t he LAPD stinks to high heaven,” Mitchum said. “You’re in a position to know it as well as anyone. But I ain’t about to rat ‘em out.”
“ Is it not true,” I asked, “that you sometimes use force to achieve your ends?”
Carter Mitchum stood stone still, his eyes on mine. He didn’t blink or move any other parts. I matched him. Then he spoke. “It’s also true I sometimes use laxatives to achieve my ends.”
He reached for his nearly new cigarette, dropped it on King Eddy’s wood floor and stubbed it out with his toe. He pulled out the chair across from me, dropped his gray Fedora hat with a gutter-dented crown onto my table, and sat down. I motioned the barkeep to bring two more.
January 15, 1938 - Crime is Never Off Season.
The NFL season may be over and major league baseball not yet ready to crack open its new battle for the next World Series, but Los Angeles crime never closes for business. As long as customers want hooch, games of chance, and the intimate attention of a slim ankle, the hoods exist to serve those needs.
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