Valentino Will Die Read online

  He skimmed through the entries. The nightly take for the casino was eye-popping. So were the nightly expenditures. The heading on the very last page of the ledger was “Shareholders.” The entries were listed in a typical double-entry fashion, debit on one side and credit on the other. Only three names were listed: Miles Donahue had supplied twenty thousand dollars; Jack Dragna had invested three times on three different dates to the tune of ten thousand a pop; Rudolph Valentino had contributed to Cornero’s floating casino in five installments of different amounts ranging from five thousand to twenty-five thousand—much more than Bianca had told Oliver about. None of the investors had realized any return, not yet. This was not surprising for such a new business. But the interesting thing about the debit column beside Valentino’s name was that someone had penciled in “cancelled.”

  Either Cornero had already paid Valentino back in full, or now that he was dead, Cornero no longer worried about paying him back at all.

  ~ Bianca works her Magic on Tony the Hat ~

  Bianca watched Doug chase after Donahue, who was heading down the corridor toward the restaurant. She intended to allow Doug a few minutes alone with Donahue before she interrupted. It was probably true that Donahue would speak more freely to another man, but Bianca considered this her murder investigation, and she was not going to let anyone usurp her role as chief interrogator. She watched as Doug caught up to Donahue at the entrance to the restaurant, but before she could follow, she was waylaid by Glazer again. His persistence was business as usual for Hollywood, and in other circumstances Bianca wouldn’t have minded his flattering attention. She was on the verge of extricating herself from Glazer’s company by means of some wildly inappropriate language when she was saved.

  Tony Cornero himself was walking through the deck, greeting the gamblers and playing the gracious host. A tall, silent, bald bodyguard followed along in Cornero’s wake. Tony locked eyes with Bianca, recognized her at once, and interrupted Glazer’s monologue. “Good evening. I hope you are enjoying the house’s hospitality, Miss LaBelle, Mr. Glazer.”

  Bianca thanked her lucky stars for the intrusion and slipped her arm through the crook of Cornero’s elbow. “This is an amazing vessel you have here, Mr. Cornero. I would love a tour of the ship, if you have the time.”

  Bianca’s sparkling green eyes, winsome smile, and gorgeous gams convinced Cornero that he had all the time in the world. “I would love to give you a tour, Miss LaBelle.” They left Glazer standing in the corridor, fuming.

  Bianca had recognized the notorious Tony Cornero from his pictures in the paper, and there had been plenty of them. The bootlegger was a young man, not yet thirty. He was attractive as well. He was of average height with thick black hair and an impish look in his black eyes. Cornero had been smuggling Canadian whiskey into Southern California with his fleet of freighters for only three years, but he was already spectacularly successful at it. He was the major supplier for clubs, restaurants, and moguls all up and down the coast, becoming a millionaire by the time he was twenty-five years old. Cornero’s criminal enterprise was also a cozy family business. Tony’s brother, Frank, and both his sisters were managing partners. The law had been after the Corneros since the first day they landed a shipment of whiskey on the beach, but thus far Tony had had smarter lawyers and faster speedboats. He had more trouble dealing with other gangsters than with the feds.

  Tony showed off the beautiful movie star on his arm to the high rollers while he proudly showed off the beautifully decorated high roller cabins to her. He was a charming man, clever and full of jokes, and Bianca had to steel herself to keep from liking him.

  “How come you decided to branch out into gambling ships, Mr. Cornero?” she asked. “Your importing business is doing so well.”

  He smiled at her choice of words. “Importing” sounded so much better than “smuggling.”

  “Please, call me Tony. You have to keep moving forward when you’re in business, or you’ll end up moving backwards. Prohibition has been great, but it won’t last forever. Them knuckleheads in Congress will repeal it eventually, and when they do, I plan on already having another ace in the hole. The Monaco is my test case, Miss LaBelle. Running a floating casino for fat cats is all very well and good, but what I’d really like is to have an armada of gambling ships for regular Joes. You know, accountants and shop clerks and insurance salesmen. Honest games, no cheatin’ anybody, just a good night out with your pals or with the wife. A game of cards, a good steak, dancing. Maybe even a show.”

  They passed through the restaurant, and Tony interrupted his narrative to show off the decor and comment on the French-inspired menu. Bianca did her best to appear fascinated and ignore Doug Fairbanks and Miles Donahue sitting with their heads together at a table in the corner.

  After Tony had properly impressed her with the food offerings, he returned to the topic of his future plans as they walked toward the stairwell and down to the lower deck. “Just picture it, Miss LaBelle. A ship twice as big as this tub. One whole deck is a ballroom with a live band and a singer. Two shows a night. I’m thinking of hiring a comic—I know a guy who will make your sides split. None of them smutty jokes, either. Clean stuff a guy won’t be embarrassed for his wife to hear.” They stepped out of the stairwell onto the lower deck. “Now, this deck is closed to the public. It’s mostly offices and crew cabins. Almost two hundred people work on the Monaco, fifty of them full time. Can you imagine? I had to have help to fill all the positions…” He gave her a sly wink. “…with honest workers, that is. Now, what I want to show you down here is the kitchen. Absolutely state of the art. It’s located below the dining room, and we got dumbwaiters and an elevator right in the kitchen so that the servers don’t have to climb up and down the stairs or even go out into the passageway.”

  He was waving his free arm about, pointing out this and that, but Bianca wasn’t listening. She was distracted by the two men in tuxedos walking away from them, toward the stairs at the opposite end of the corridor.

  Tony didn’t seem to notice them, but the bodyguard (whose presence Bianca had forgotten) slipped around from behind his boss and followed the duo. By the time all three men had disappeared up the stairs, Tony was telling her more about his plans for the future. “I got a magician lined up too. He calls himself Fabulous Franz from Bavaria. What an act, him and his skinny little assistant, Gretel! You got to see this guy. I didn’t want him to get away, get another gig before I got the new gambling ship outfitted, so I’ve got him working upstairs as a croupier. His hands move so fast that all you can see is a blur.”

  Something tickled in Bianca’s brain. “A magician? You have a magician working for you?”

  “I do. I’ll tell you what, as soon as I show you this swanky kitchen, I’ll take you up top and have him do a trick for you.”

  ~ Douglas Fairbanks had never seen the Ugly Side of Donahue before. He Did Not Enjoy the Sight. ~

  “She was my only daughter, the light of my life. She met ‘Vasilino’—that’s what I call him, the little greaser—at one of my fundraisers.” Miles Donahue paused and fingered his glass thoughtfully. “But Jenny will be back. It’s just a matter of time, now that the spaghetti-gargler is gone for good. I’m her father and she’s my girl. She can’t stay away from me forever.”

  Douglas Fairbanks leaned back in his chair, away from the miasma of misery that surrounded Miles Donahue. Fairbanks had worked with Donahue on charity projects and had played poker with him many times, as had Valentino. In fact, he would have sworn Valentino and Donahue had been friends, or at least friendly. After Donahue had stormed out of the Salle Blanche, Fairbanks had caught up with him quickly and suggested they join one another in the dining room for a drink and a chat. He had thought he’d have to persuade Donahue to tell him what had happened between himself and his daughter. He didn’t have to persuade very hard. Donahue must have been about to burst with the need to talk, and who better t
o spill your guts to than Robin Hood himself?

  “I saw them talking to one another at the gala and didn’t think anything of it,” Donahue said, “but then they left together. She said they only went for coffee, but he took her to luncheon the next day. I warned her about him, told I knew for a fact that he was a syphilitic, womanizing, half queer, Italian Bolshie who’d ruin her reputation and break her heart, but she wouldn’t listen. I forbade her from seeing him. She defied me. I know because I put a tail on her. I locked her in her room, but one of the maids let her out. When Vasilino got involved with that Polish actress, things cooled off, and I figured that would be the end of it, but by that time Jenny was in such a lather she wouldn’t speak to me. She said I ruined her life. I cut off her funds, but she got the job as Fitzmaurice’s assistant. I knew they met up again while he was shooting that sheik movie. I tried to get Fitzmaurice to fire her, but he wouldn’t do it. She told her mother that she loved him, Vasilino, that orchid. I couldn’t stand the idea of him touching her. Putting his dirty hands on her.”

  His gaze wandered off and a feral look came over his face. “Then he died. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Jenny took it bad. She quit Fitzmaurice and told her mother that she was going to leave California, get a job back east where she could make a lot of dough fast and leave the country. I’ve got a bunch of guys trying to find her. I don’t know where she is. She may have told her mother where she was going, I don’t know. Angie isn’t talking to me, either. She says I drove Jenny away.”

  For a long moment, Fairbanks said nothing. Such vulnerability from another man made him uncomfortable. To tell the truth, deep feelings of any sort made him uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Donahue,” he said. He had agreed to help Bianca try to locate the elusive Jenny by introducing her to Donahue, but this had turned out to be a dead end. Donahue didn’t know where she was, either, and bringing up the subject had only managed to upset him. Fairbanks signaled the waiter. “Bring us a couple of whiskeys. And leave the bottle.”

  ~ Sleight of Hand, Illusions, Yet Has All Been Revealed? ~

  Cornero escorted Bianca to the main casino on the top deck, pausing at one gaming table after another to introduce her to anyone who was anyone. Bianca was growing annoyed at being shown off like a prize racehorse, but she bit her tongue, determined to endure at least long enough to get a gander at Cornero’s magician-cum-croupier. Bianca tried to pretend she hadn’t seen Jim Quirk wave at her when they passed him at the baccarat table. She didn’t need a reporter sniffing around her tonight.

  She scanned the room, looking for Oliver. She had recognized him as one of the men heading for the stairwell below decks. She didn’t know the other man he had been with, the one posing as his valet, but she guessed Oliver had recruited him to help the investigation. Had they been snooping through the ship’s offices? She had been a little worried when Cornero’s man followed the two as they left the lower deck, but when she caught sight of Oliver sans his companion, standing at the roulette table and chatting with Jack Dragna, she relaxed. It was Oliver’s task to investigate the gangsters, and she trusted him to know what he was doing.

  “Miss LaBelle,” Cornero said, “I’d like you to meet Fabulous Franz.”

  Bianca wrenched herself out of her reverie and extended a hand to the thin, dark-haired man dealing cards at the blackjack table. The dealer grasped it and nodded a greeting. “Excellent to meet you.” He spoke with a heavy German accent.

  “Franz, show the lady what you can do with a deck of cards,” Cornero commanded.

  What Franz could do was mind-boggling. Cards appeared and disappeared before the astounded onlookers’ very eyes as he shuffled faster than they could follow. He dealt four aces off the top, then four queens off the bottom. He called for a volunteer to name four random cards and produced those very cards from the deck in the order called. To begin with, Franz’s only audience was Bianca and the gamblers already seated at the blackjack table, but as his tricks grew more and more fantastic, Franz drew a crowd.

  Bianca paid little attention to Fabulous Franz’s amazing feats of legerdemain. She was scrutinizing his eyes. One was brown. The other was gold.

  She extricated herself from Cornero the moment the demonstration was over, making the excuse that she had to get back to her escort in the Salle Blanche before the next hand began. Cornero looked as though he would object, but he was interrupted by his bald bodyguard, who appeared out of the crowd and leaned in to whisper something in his ear.

  While Cornero was distracted, Bianca sped toward the stairwell. She didn’t dare speak to Oliver at the roulette table, not here among all these witnesses. The best she could do right now was find Doug as fast as possible and tell him what she had seen.

  ~ All things come to he who waits, Even a Punch in the Mouth. ~

  Oliver and Juan had made their way back up top to the casino to wait for Oliver’s seat at the table in the Salle Blanche to open up. They had managed their stealth surveillance mission without getting caught, but Oliver hadn’t wanted to press his luck and spend too much time in Cornero’s office. The lower deck was usually quiet on high rollers’ night, but they could still be seen by someone with a lot of nasty questions about their presence.

  Juan took up a position beside a potted palm and did his usual fading-into-the-background act, while Oliver wandered around the casino for a few minutes, checking out the action and trying to decide the best use of his time. His mind was made up for him when he saw Jack Dragna, Black Hand blackmailer, member in good standing of the Los Angeles mob, and the third investor in the Monaco, at the roulette table. He elbowed aside a woman in a blue sheath to stand beside the gangster.

  Oliver put a hundred-dollar chip on black twenty-nine. He had no emotional investment in black twenty-nine, but it was next to red thirty, where Dragna had placed his chips. He lost on the first spin, as did Dragna, which gave him an excuse to commiserate. He lost another couple of Cs before gaining them back by betting on red even. Dragna won big on the third spin by sticking with his red thirty. After their shared good fortune, Oliver figured he had built up enough proximal camaraderie to offer to buy Dragna a drink.

  Before he had a chance to issue the invitation, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find himself face-to-face with Tony Cornero.

  Cornero was sporting his most hospitable smile. “Mr. Nash, would you please come out on the promenade with me? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  Jack Dragna raised an eyebrow. “What’s up, Tony?”

  “Just business, Jack.” Cornero didn’t take his eyes off of Oliver.

  If he had had the chance, Oliver would have asked what subject Cornero could possibly want to discuss with a lumberman from Washington state, but the bald man’s expression, not to mention the vise-like grip on his arm, stifled his inquiry. He cast a desperate glance toward the potted palm, but Juan was nowhere to be seen.

  * * *

  Bianca was halfway across the casino when she saw Cornero and his thug pull Oliver away from the roulette table and head outside. She paused mid-step, suddenly unsure of what to do. She was desperate to tell Doug about the magician whose eyes did not match. She did not want anyone to know of her association with Oliver, but she especially did not want K. D. Dix to know, and there were a number of people on this boat who’d be only too happy to spill the beans.

  Whatever Cornero had wanted with Oliver, it didn’t look good.

  She could at least try and find out if her inside man was in trouble. If he needed help, she had the option to call on Douglas Fairbanks to stage a rescue, after all.

  * * *

  Once the bodyguard had propelled Oliver outside onto the promenade deck, Cornero turned to face him. The friendly expression he had put on in the casino had disappeared. “Who are you?”

  “Oliver Nash from…”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. My head of security here saw
you come out of my office with your sidekick, who he recognized, by the way. Your gorilla is K. D. Dix’s hatchet man. You work for Dix.”

  Oliver could feel the sweat pop out on his forehead. He figured his best bet was to make out like this was all a case of mistaken identity. “What the hell? What kind of joint is this? I come all the way down from Seattle and think I’m going to have a little fun and drop some dough on a night out and you sic Baldy on me? What do you want from me?”

  “Don’t make a fuss, Mr. Nash, or whoever you are. I’d hate for my associate to have to toss you overboard.”

  Oliver’s options flashed through his mind. Most of them had the potential to end very badly. Swimming to shore three miles in what direction he didn’t know, through shark-infested waters in pitch darkness, did not appeal.

  Where the hell was Juan?

  Baldy patted Oliver down, took his wallet out of his jacket and handed it to Cornero, who looked it over. “Well, well. A gumshoe. I’d heard that Dix had hired an op to find out what happened to her boob of a son. Looks like she decided to send you on a spying expedition. So, what does she want from me?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about. I’m just here for…”

  Cornero cut him off. “Spare me the lies. I ain’t got all night.” He turned to Baldy. “Take this imbroglione to the boiler room.”

  Oliver considered trying to fight his way out, but even if he managed to get away from Cornero, where would he go? He was on a ship. No matter where he hid, they’d find him eventually. His options narrowed to one when Baldy pulled out a .38 and pointed it at Oliver’s belly.

  Oliver threw up his hands. “All right, all right. Tell your torpedo to back off. We don’t have to make a big deal out of this. We don’t have to go anywhere, either. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Nash, I ain’t going to kill you. My associate here is just going to put you on ice for the rest of the evening and you and me are going to have a little talk. You’ll still be in one piece when you leave for shore on the last ferry at dawn.”