Chapter 22
Another cab came for Don almost as soon as Arlene’s pulled away. It took all of his resolve not to tell the driver to follow her. All he wanted was to strip her bare in the moonlight that would be streaming in through her bedroom window and ravish her. Spend the night showing her how much he wanted her. But again, Frankie Martino had found a way to muck things up for him. To leave him no choice but to disappoint Lena.
But it wasn’t just about him and Lena. Eddie had no idea how much trouble they could be in. To be safe, they should move hotels. Stay under an assumed name. Frankie could still find him at the studio, but he had protection there. They wouldn’t try anything right under the nose of Harry Evets, surely?
“The Hollywood Starlight Inn on Vine. There’s a Hamilton in it for you if you hurry.” Don didn’t really have money to be throwing away, but this was urgent. The driver took the promise of an enormous tip seriously, speeding off through the night and gunning the car through every yellow light they happened upon. Don had to hold on to the bench to avoid sliding around the back seat.
When they arrived at the hotel, it looked quiet. Seedy as ever, but quiet. Don breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that was a good sign. He threw a stack of bills at the driver, not even bothering to count it, and sprinted for the front door. But he paused when he noticed two men in gray suits, snoozing in the chairs near the stairs. The hotel clerk was there, nursing a cup of coffee. They probably wouldn’t try anything in front of him. But this hotel wasn’t exactly a popular haunt for snappy dressers in fedoras. No, they had to be some of Frankie’s guys. He crept around to the back alley and found Eddie’s window on the second floor. Luck was with him; it was to the right of the fire escape.
Don yanked down the ladder and began climbing while it was still shrieking its way to the ground, the sound of metal against metal echoing down the alley. He winced and kept climbing. There wasn’t any time to lose. He hadn’t climbed a fire escape in nearly seven years, and here he was doing it twice in less than twenty-four hours. At least the first time, it had been intentional.
Once he got to the landing on the second floor, he leaned over and knocked at the window. He pressed his face against the glass, but he couldn’t see anything inside. It was completely dark. He knocked harder. “Eddie. Eddie, wake up, we got a problem.”
The window ricocheted upward, opening with a heaving force. “Eddie, put some clothes on. We gotta go.” But an arm as thick as a ham extended from the window and wrapped its hairy knuckles around Don’s bicep. Don didn’t recognize the hand, but he had a sinking feeling he knew who it worked for.
Frankie Martino stuck his head out the window. “Going so soon?”
“Frankie, I…didn’t expect to see you here.”
Frankie smirked. “I’ll bet you didn’t. But seeing as you’re here now, I’d say it’s only polite we have a little nightcap.”
Don could see now that the hairy hand was connected to one of the ugliest men he’d ever seen, a lug of a guy with a nose that had been broken at least three times and the cauliflower ears of a washed-up prizefighter.
“You know, I’d love to, but I’m trying to cut back…stay in shape for the pic—” Don didn’t get the last word out before the thug hauled him in through the window with shocking force. Trying to find his bearings, Don searched frantically around the room for Eddie. But everywhere he looked, all he could see were the menacing grimaces of Frankie’s henchmen.
Frankie laughed, and the cold, eerie sound filled Don with a bottomless dread. “If you’re looking for Mr. Rosso, I’m afraid he’s otherwise engaged.”
Don saw red and lunged for Frankie, but a pair of goons, including Mr. Hairy Knuckles, immediately grabbed his arms, restraining him.
“Tsk, tsk, is that any way to greet your manager? After everything I’ve done for you?”
Don growled. “My manager. That’s right. Not Eddie’s. Where is he? He’s not part of this.”
Frankie smiled, a threat of malice in the curve of his mouth. “Don’t worry, we didn’t hurt him. In fact, I would say Mr. Rosso is rather enjoying his evening. We sent a dame to distract him. Had a hunch you might come to him first if you realized the jig was up. And I knew you would get wise sooner than later ’cause Eleanor Lester can’t keep her stupid mouth shut.”
Don exhaled. He had a sneaking suspicion that leggy blond that had drawn Eddie’s attention away from Eleanor was not some random dame. But at least Eddie was safe. He had to hand it to Frankie. The man knew a mark when he saw one. Eddie would lose his head over anything with a comely pair of legs. It was a surefire way to keep him out of their hair for the evening. Maybe even into the next morning.
He wrestled against the big lug holding his arms behind his back, but it was futile. It was best to play dumb. “The jig? I don’t understand. Why are you here, cornering me in the middle of the night? You know how to reach me if you need me. I’ve been phoning you with updates. Is that not enough? I’m busy making the picture. Besides, it’s you who’s been too busy to take my calls lately.”
Frankie rolled his eyes. “I haven’t been taking calls because I’ve been busy traveling across the country to deal with some faulty merchandise.” He gave Don a pointed look that made it sickeningly clear that he was the merchandise in question.
Don continued to squirm, twisting his head to try to get a good look at the fella who had his arms pinned behind his back. “Would you let me go?”
“You promise not to misbehave?” Frankie sneered and the man holding Don chuckled, his laugh like the growl of a boat’s engine.
Don swallowed his fear and rolled his eyes. “I’m not a child.”
“Funny.” Frankie laughed. “Because I hear you’ve been acting like one. An ungrateful one.” Frankie waved his hand and the goon dropped his arms. Don rolled back his shoulders, making sure everything still worked right. His neck was sore from the way the man had wrenched his arms back, but it wasn’t anything permanently damaging.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Don had been caught red-handed, but Frankie was not the sharpest tool in the shed. He preferred brawn to brains as a persuasive technique. If he kept playing dumb, maybe he could convince Frankie that Eleanor had been hysterical and Robert had it all wrong.
“You don’t? Let me jog your memory. Boys.”
One of the goons grabbed Don’s arms again, and the other one punched him square in the gut, making him double over. “That ring any bells?”
Don shook his head.
“Well, maybe a black eye might help.”
The goon slugged Don again, this time in the face. He’d closed his eyes in time with Frankie’s warning, but the blow still smarted. Don knew his eye would be swollen in the morning. If not also bright purple. Still, he said nothing. If he admitted wrongdoing now, he was a goner.
Frankie grabbed his chin and lifted his head, leering at him. “Still no idea why I might be here? Why I might’ve needed to make an emergency trip to Hollywood?”
“Something happen with one of your racehorses?”
Frankie didn’t appreciate his goods talking back to him. He gripped Don’s jaw even harder, twisting Don’s face to let the streetlight in the alley illuminate first his nose and then his mouth. “What do you think, boys? Will Hollywood still want their new golden boy with a broken nose and some missing teeth?” The goons chuckled ominously. “If that doesn’t help him remember, there’s always his legs.”
Don groaned. His legs. His feet. They were all he had. If he couldn’t dance, he was nothing. “All right, all right, I know why you’re here.”
“Because you were two-timing me,” Frankie spat out. “Imagine how I felt when I heard that my little Donnie, who was nothing until I found him hoofing in a downtown dive, was planning to run out on me when he was about to make good.”
“I wasn’t—”
Frankie backhanded him, the oversized diamond in his ring scraping at Don’s cheek as it made contact with his face. “Don’t lie to me.”
“You were still gonna get your money.” Don struggled to get the words out, the throb behind his eye and the sting in his cheek a distraction. “I wasn’t gonna welch on our deal. I would’ve bought you out.”
“Why would I want the pittance of what’s left on our contract when I could have so much more?”
Don didn’t answer.
“You’re about to be the biggest star in Hollywood, and it’s because of me.”
“It’s not.” Frankie slapped him again. This time on the other cheek, sending Don’s head winging in the opposite direction. But Don couldn’t help himself. “You want to take credit for discovering me? Opening some doors? Fine. But you haven’t earned anything through an honest day’s work in your life. You used me. And Eleanor. It was our talent, our dancing that got you money and power. We’re the biggest gravy train you’ve ever managed to catch a ride on. Now that we’ve wised up enough to want out, you don’t like the idea of watching us walk off into the sunset, leaving you in the dust.”
Frankie came so close to Don’s face that their noses were almost touching. “You’d be nothing without me,” he sneered. “Just a putz who stank like the fishing boat you crawled off of. No matter how many society dames you slept with, no amount of perfume would’ve covered your stench the day I found you. Your daddy hated you, was ashamed of you. And he should’ve been. Little twinkle toes. Too bad he didn’t figure out he could make some dough off of those pretty little feet. He might’ve loved you then.”
Don spat at Frankie’s feet, a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. The last blow had sliced the inside of his cheek against his molars. But it was the mention of his father’s disdain for him that hurt. “It’s you who’d be nothing without me. That’s why you’re here. Because you know it’s true. You know that if I go, you’ll lose everything.”
Frankie poked his finger into Don’s chest. “Wrong! I’m here to get what I’m owed. And that’s sixty percent of whatever contract this Evets character signs you to. In perpetuity.”
“I owe you nothing. I’ve paid my dues twelve times over.”
Frankie’s eyes gleamed with a gleeful malice. “Besides, I’ve been thinking I could use a little sunshine. I hear there’s money to be made here.”
Don laughed. “Los Angeles is Jack Dragna’s territory. You think he’s gonna let you move in on it? You’ll be at the bottom of Santa Monica Bay before you can blink twice.”
“Dragna owes my boss a little favor,” Frankie said as he smiled, and it was a more horrifying sight than any of his sneers or pugilistic grandstanding.
“Good. Stay in Los Angeles for all I care. But I’m done. I’ll finish out my contract, pay you what I owe you, and we’re through.”
“I thought you might say that.” A car drove down the alley and the lights that hit the wall cast an eerie shadow over Frankie’s face, making it look like a skull. Don suppressed a shiver.
“You can’t force me to sign a new contract. If I buy you out, it’s over.”
Frankie laughed, a high-pitched giggle that didn’t match his tough-guy persona in the least. It was almost girlish and disturbing in its tenor. “He thinks he’s got me all figured out,” Frankie announced to the room. The goons began to laugh nervously, imitating their boss. “Thinks he can put a little cash in my pocket and I’ll walk away.”
He lunged at Don and grabbed his face once again. “You’re mine and you always will be.” Frankie pressed his thumb into the side of Don’s cheek where it was cut. The wound pressed against his teeth and Don’s mouth filled with blood. He spat it in Frankie’s face, a mask of red coating the gangster’s face.
Don grimaced, his teeth stained red with his own blood. “I was never yours.” He huffed it out. Each word was painful. Frankie slugged him in the gut, and this time when Don doubled over, the goon let him go, leaving him to fall to his knees. Don spat a fresh mouthful of blood onto the hotel rug and struggled to catch his breath, holding his stomach while he looked up at Frankie with every ounce of hate he could muster.
The rage was gone from Frankie now. He was chillingly still. He methodically took a white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the blood from his face. “That may be. Tell you what, I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
Don closed his eyes in relief. Fine. Frankie would let him go. For now. If nothing else, Frankie didn’t know about Lena. Thank God for small miracles. Don would need some extra help from the makeup department tomorrow. But then he could figure out a new plan. It would be harder now. But not impossible. All he knew was he was never going to spend another day working for Frankie Martino. No matter how much time he had to think about it.
“But if you’re not gonna be mine, you sure as hell ain’t gonna be anyone else’s either.” Frankie landed a vicious kick to Don’s side, sending him careening to the floor. “Seems like you could use a vivid reminder of where you came from. Good thing fishing season has been disappointing this year. Lots of empty space.”
Don groaned, understanding implicitly where Frankie meant to take him. To the docks at Terminal Island and the cannery warehouses. The reeking pits of fish and misery that his father had wasted away his life in. That Don had been determined never to return to, never even to mention. He’d arrived in New York intending to bill himself as an orphan with no past to speak of.
Only Frankie knew the truth. He hadn’t had to work hard to get it out of Don. The night the stooge had signed him to a contract and sold him some fatherly nonsense about wanting to know more about his clients, Don had opened up to him like a can of sardines, explaining in detail his father’s job, how his parents met at the canneries, and the expanse of the warehouses that his father occasionally did maintenance work on. Frankie had immediately turned the information into a cudgel with which he could beat Don into submission. Taunting him with the reminder of his father, his origins, and the past he wanted no part of. After that, Don never told anyone else.
That meant that even if someone realized Frankie was kidnapping Don, no one would ever think to look at the canneries. Not Eleanor. Certainly not Eddie. The only one who had any prayer of guessing where he was would be Lena.
Oh God, Lena. What would she think? That he’d been lying? That he’d disappeared in the night and left her and the picture high and dry? He had to try to leave a message. To get some word that she could understand. To let her know he’d been here. He clawed at the tie around his neck, loosened by Frankie’s goons. He managed to undo the knot and pushed it under Eddie’s bed. “What do you think you’re doing?” snarled Frankie.
Don scrambled frantically across the rug, burning his forearms as he tried to use his finger to write words in the weft of the carpet. He drew a symbol before starting to write out Dad Cannery . He had started to the draw the a in Cannery when someone clubbed him on the back of the head with something cylindrical and heavy. From the haze of his pain, he heard Frankie say one word: “Boys.”
One of the goons grabbed Don by the scruff of his neck and hauled him to his knees. His head was throbbing too much to fight back. The other pressed a cloth to his nose and mouth, and as Don realized it was laced with chloroform, everything went black.