***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator,  – Gringo Blood  

 

 

As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one such story although not about Marlin but about an operative for the largest detective agency on the West Coast, John “Stubs” Lane that he ran across on some cases and who taught him a thing or two about private detection work. (Stubs nick-named for a habit picked while sitting alone endlessly in cold cars drinking cold coffee and picking out cigarette stubs from the ashtray after his fresh deck ran out).

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

 

One never really associated one of our tough guy private detectives, our primo organizational gumshoe, John “Stubs” Lane, out in the slumming streets of Los Angeles when that port of call was just a dusty burg out in the desert's edge (and the ocean's edge too) with women, women to get involved with romantically and not just some twist who is good for a night or two under the downy billows. Oh sure, Stubs liked women, maybe even had loved one or two in his time, and he certainly was not that way, you know, what did they use to call it, oh yeah, “light on his feet,” no way, not like some Hollywood houseboy or something like that. But women in his life were are kind of used merely as flowery backdrop. Yeah women to Stubs were like in some of those Chandler novels and short stories as damsels in distress like General Sternwood’s daughters in the Big Sleep or low-down femmes fatales, like Velma in Farewell, My Lovely nothing to get excited over except in that dogged pursuit of some kind of rough justice in this wicked old world. Certainly Stubs was not some closet feminist waiting to proclaim some rough equality of sexes by his very actions. No, that was not part of his code, no way, prone was his favored position when he was younger and if not that then leave them alone.

However every once in a while, and the story ahead is one of them, a past love, a past forlorn or at least unattainable love interest showed up to give us a glimpse of what our man Stubs was up to before he got so dogged about that rough justice kick. Naturally, that love interest, Bess, was unattainable back in the day, although a flicker, maybe more than a flicker, remained as the two were reunited under trying circumstances after some time had elapsed. The reason that Bess was unattainable by the way was very easily understood, if not by Stubs then should be by the reader. She was in love with another man, let's call him Spanish Johnny just to keep things easy, a man who also happened to be our man Stub’s best friend back in the day. A guy, a professional politician with some money, who could give Bess things, lots of things. Coming from nowhere and with nothing that is what she wanted. So let's just say that Bess played the percentages in the struggle for plenty of life's goods and it came out Johnny. Stubs to the rear.

That long ago romance would have stayed there, stayed down in the embers, except Spanish Johnny (he had plenty of Spanish blood, old time Spain Spanish blood from back when the conquistadores ran amok in California not some Mex bracero stuff with the from hunger eyes and eternal stares) got himself killed, got himself good and killed, got murdered, got murdered at close range in his office and everything pointed, on the surface anyway, to a professional hit. A professional hit assumed to be ordered by the governmental machinery in power in town, Mack Sturgis’ guys who controlled city hall and who were hooded up with Bags Magoo’s criminal outfit back then. Bags had the whole town sewed up, women, gambling, dope, fencing stolen goods you name it that was the name to be reckoned with, or else. They certainly wanted to eliminate Johnny because he wanted to end the endemic corruption in our 1930s city of angels. Tough job, too tough for one man as Stubs would have told him if he had asked his advice. But that was Spanish Johnny, on the taking on tough stuff part, and the not taking advice part too. Yeah, Spanish Johnny went in big time to upset their gravy train. So the idea of a hit was a no-brainer. End of case and RIP sweet boy Spanish Johnny-so long old amigo.

But appearances are sometimes deceiving, some things just didn’t add with the evidence at hand. It was too clean, had the look of an obvious set-up, was made to look too cosy for the cops to come to that hit conclusion. Of course they were more than happy to write it down as a hit after fifteen hard minutes on the case and then throw the thing in deep cold file heaven. But see Stubs has an uneasy feeling that there was something amiss with the political hit theory, something that spoke of a more personal motive to slice Spanish Johnny up.

So in Stub’s mind, in Stub’s twenty year private operative mind the percentages were against that idea, although he knew as well as anybody over the age of about twelve that the city's political machine was ready to move might and main to close down Spanish Johnny’s investigations. That included a standard roughing up of Stubs, a serious third- degree as it came out later, to keep the lid on things just in case he got wise to something. Or maybe they roughed him up just because they could do it, just to show him that if he intended to go too far that he would like very much like Spanish Johnny did when he was found in his office looking kind of peaked.

Here is where things went awry though, awry for the cops, the crooks, and the city hall boys. Went awry after a few false leads and a few bodies piled up, a couple of Bags’ boys and a cop or two. Stubs finally coped to what happened on that murderous day when Spanish Johnny took his hit. Seems that old amigo Spanish Johnny was playing footsie with the help, one blonde bombshell secretary named Zelda whom hot-blooded Johnny was having affair with (and had had a string of previous affairs with the female help and a few bar-room queens as well). Bess, tried and true Bess, couldn't take that hard fact of his philandering anymore and so she put a few slices in him to show her displeasure. Spanish Johnny, although bleeding profusely, lived long enough to mess up the evidence to keep Bess in the clear so Bess must have had, in the end, as big a hold over Johnny as she had over Stubs. See Stubs let her walk, walk free out of some sense of friendship for the wishes of a fallen brother. And Bess? Well Bess tried to rekindle that old flame thing with Stubs, that old flame thing that had suddenly flickered out cold back when there were choices to be made. And as we leave that scene Stubs, professional, hard-boiled private operative was mulling over that possibility. Jesus.