Neon Nights: Daymond Runyon meets James Ellroy in the Nevada Desert Read online

  The tin thermometer tacked on the front of our cabin advised us to drink “Orange Ade” soda pop. This wasn’t a bad idea, since it was only just after one and the mercury was nudging eighty‑five degrees with a promise to go much higher. We drove downtown and parked in front of the Federal building. A grey block building totally devoid of any personality like all the public works projects built during the depression. The room directory indicted most of the building was occupied by the Post Office and Immigration. The FBI office was located in the basement. I knocked on the door and a slightly over weight, baby-faced guy in his mid-twenties asked if he could help me. "Where can I find Agent Rogers?"

  In a distinct Chicago accent he replied, "You found him and what can I do for you?"

  I wasn't quite prepared for him. Most of the FBI types I’d met were older and more athletic looking like Ted Kemper. "I'm Kelly O'Brien and this is Dick Pearson we came down from Las Vegas to talk to the guy who was arrested for stealing the airplane parts."

  A wide grin spread across the agent's face and he said, "Oh yeah, your supervisor called and said you'd be along. I'm Mike." He stepped aside and invited us to, "Come on in.” He sat behind and old beat-up desk and pulled out a file from a drawer. “We were lucky to have caught his guy. If it wasn't for a spot check of cars leaving the base we never would have. I've tried to alert Washington to the possibility of theft, but until now they've ignored me. I can't seem to make them understand that there's thousands and thousands of dollars of military equipment sitting out in the desert with nothing more than a fence and a couple of guards to protect it. Maybe now they'll pay some attention to the problem." He furrowed his brow and said, "The only thing I can't quite figure out is why you guys are interested?"

  Dick filled him in about the murder of Johnny Del Rio and the allegation that Johnny and Jake Bozak were involved with stolen airplane parts.

  "Do you think this Jake guy killed him?" Mike asked.

  "We don't know," replied Dick. "Were not even sure they were getting their stuff down here, but this is the best lead we have."

  Mike Rogers stood up and said, "If you'll follow me down to the Police station, we'll find out what this guy has to say. I haven’t talked to him yet."

  Mike Rogers took the only parking space in front of the Police station. Dick double parked and told me to park the car and meet him inside. I had to loop around the block a few times before I found a space. I didn't see either Dick or Mike inside the Police Station. I identified myself to the desk sergeant and asked if he knew where Agent Rogers was. He said he'd look for him and suggested I take a seat and wait.

  I sat on a long, hard wooden bench. An old man with a cracked leather face asked me why I was here. I told him I was waiting to talk to someone. He gave me a knowing look. He looked like he'd sat on a lot benches waiting to talk to some cop. The desk sergeant returned and motioned for me to come with him. When I stood up the old man muttered, "Good luck."

  The sergeant escorted me into an interrogation room, and Mike told him to bring in Paul Hawk. The sergeant returned with a tall, skinny, pimpled-faced kid. He was trying to act nonchalant, but he was scared. Mike told him to sit and he started out by asking a few innocent questions like, "Do you drive a green truck and do you live on a ranch?"

  When he said he lived on a ranch, Mike asked, "Would you mind telling us where you got the money to pay off the loan?"

  Hawk replied in a far from confident voice, "I inherited it!"

  Mike leaned forward and asked, “From whom?”

  "An aunt of mine, she used to live in Utah."

  "Does she have a name?"

  "Sure, but she's dead. What good would her name do you?"

  "I'll tell you what good it will do!" Mike snapped. "We'll check out dear old auntie and see if she had any money to give you. So stop screwing around and give me her name!"

  "Her name is Olsen...Ruth Olsen."

  Mike wrote down the name, "Good, now we can contact her bank and find out what she had in her account. Where did she live?"

  "In Provo, but she didn't believe in banks and kept her money at home."

  "How convenient for you," Mike observed. Before the kid got too self-assured, and started thinking he could talk himself out of trouble. Mike played his trump card. He reached under the table, pulled out a sack, and set it on the table. He opened the sack and took out an instrument. He carefully laid it in front of Hawk, and tapped it with his pen. "Now, I'd like to hear your explanation of how you came into possession of these instruments, or did dear old auntie have them bundled up under her bed along with the cash?"

  The kid quickly lost his new-found confidence. The veins in his forehead were sticking out, and his voice suddenly developed a stammer. "I don't know anything aba..aba..about! I never sa...aw..aw..the..the..the..them...Bee..bee..fore."

  Mike feigned surprise and said, "Really? Then why were they hidden under the floorboards of your truck?"

  "That's a lie! Those instruments weren't in my truck!"

  Mike slid an instrument toward him, "Then explain how your fingerprints got on them?"

  The kid didn't answer. He dropped his head and looked at the floor.

  "Well, I still haven't heard an explanation or don't you have one?"

  In a low voice the kid said, "Okay, but I'm not the one who's stealing them."

  "Then who is stealing them?"

  "What's it worth if I tell you?"

  "It depends on what you have to say," Mike answered. "But I'll tell you one thing for certain, if you don't talk to me, it will be worth about twenty-years in Leavenworth."

  The kid slowly shook his head and said in almost a whisper, "I didn’t steal them. I was only holding them on to them."

  Mike Rogers slammed his hand down on the table with such force that I jumped. "Do you think I'm stupid?" he asked.

  "No sir!"

  "You must, otherwise you wouldn't be telling this load of crap!" Mike leaned forward and said, "You got one chance left. Either you tell me the truth or I'll string you up by your balls."

  The kid's only chance was roll over and roll over quick. "All right keep your pants on. I’m going to tell you. It started a couple of months ago. I was drinking beer with some of the boys and my supervisor Jack Ryan parks his butt on a bar stool next to me and starts talking me up. We're talking real pleasant so I tell him about my ranch and he says it sounds really nice. Yeah, I say, it's nice all right but I don't think I'm going to keep it much longer. He asks me why and I tell him I had to raise cattle in order to make the payments. But the beef market is no good, and I lose money every time I sell a steer. Now, I don't have no money to buy cattle, and I can't make the payments. About a week later Ryan tells me to come into his office. He says he's been thinking about my problem and asks if I'm interested in making some extra money. I say yes and he says he's got some friends that want some airplane parts, and they'll pay top dollar for them. I ask what they want and he says instruments and I tell him to forget it because they lock the instruments up right away. But he says he knows a way. At first I didn't want to do it but I get this overdue bill from the bank saying if I don't pay the last two months' mortgage, they're going to evict me. I don't have a choice. I told him I'd help."

  Mike tapped his pen on his pad and asked, "If all the instruments are locked up right away, then how did you steal them?"

  "We got them from planes that weren’t supposed to be scraped. They have white paper over the windows. So you can tell them from the ones that are going to be scrapped. I was a lookout. If I see anyone coming, I was to flash a mirror at the plane's windows. We wore overalls from the civilian contractors so if we were spotted they’d think it was the contractors. After Ryan was finished, then I'd help sweep the ground with burlap bags to cover the footprints. Then, I’d take the instruments and hide them under the floorboards of my truck. Because my truck could get through inspection easier than he could."

  Mike Rogers turned and said to Dick, "Do you have any questions
to ask Mister Hawk?"

  "Yeah, I'd like to know who Ryan sold the instruments to."

  "I don't know--he handled all of that. As soon as we got off base, he'd give me my money and take the instruments with him."

  Mike pointed at the instruments, "Wait a minute; you just said that Ryan took the instruments with him. Then where did these come from?"

  "A couple of weeks ago, after work, Ryan pulls me aside. He says he's having trouble with the people who are buying the instruments. He says they cheated him. He says until they pay him he's not going to do any business with them. He says he'll give me an extra hundred if I'd hide those instruments for him. I didn't want to but I couldn't say no. I knew I should have taken them out of my truck but I thought they’d be safer if I left them under the floorboards, since nobody ever checked there--until now."

  "What happened between him and these people?" Dick asked.

  "One of them came to talk to him. In fact, he wanted me to "cover" him while he met with him."

  "Why would he want you to do that?" asked Dick.

  "He was a little scared about the meeting and thought something might go wrong. I said I'd do it and he tried to give me a machine gun but I told him I wouldn't do that. I said all I'd do was watch the meeting and if something went wrong I’d call the cops."

  "What happened?"

  "Well, not much they went to this bar and talked for half-an-hour or so and the guy left. Ryan said he was going to have to talk to the other guy to get things really straightened out."

  I pulled out a picture of Johnny Del Rio and asked, "Was this the guy Ryan talked to?"

  Hawk looked at the picture and said, "Could have been. It was dark and they sat in the back but it kinda looks like him."

  "So why didn’t Ryan take the instruments then?” asked Mike.

  "I tried to give them to him but Ryan said to hold on to them until he got back from his vacation. He said while he was gone he was going to talk to the other guy and when he got back, he'd pick up the instruments and give me another hundred. But I haven't heard from him since."

  We asked several more questions but the kid had said all he was going to say. Mike summoned the jailer and had the kid taken back to his cell. "Well," said Mike. "Is he telling the truth?" Although it was possible the kid had accused Ryan to take the heat off him, both Dick and I agreed he was telling the truth. "I think so too," said Mike. "He hasn't got the brains to run an operation like this. Because if he had any brains, he'd have gotten rid of those instruments long ago, I think we'd better have a little talk with Mister Ryan."

  Mike said he was going to make some calls and left. As soon as he was out of the room, Dick said, "Damn, it burns my ass to have to share this with the FBI. If it turns out this Jack Ryan did kill Johnny, they're going to grab him for their own and we'll be lucky if we even get to talk to him."

  "You think Ryan did it?"

  "I don't know. But he could have because it a lead-pipe cinch Johnny wouldn't have let anyone he didn't know sit behind him and that's where the killer was sitting."

  "But if Johnny was having trouble with Ryan, would he let him sit behind him?"

  "Maybe he didn't think Ryan was a threat."

  Mike opened the door and said, "I just talked to Ryan's boss. He's two days overdue on his vacation. They've been calling his house but haven't gotten an answer. Let's see if a judge will sign a search warrant. Then let's toss Ryan's place."

  Jack Ryan's house was what real estate agents would politely call a bungalow, which meant it, had all the charm of a saltine box and about the same amount of room. Someone tried to make this one look more appealing by painting it bright pink. All that accomplished was to make it look like a pink saltine box.

  Judging from the brown lawn and the stuffed mailbox Ryan hadn't been here in awhile. Technically, someone should be home before we could legally search the house. I mentioned that to Mike and he told me not to worry.

  After trying the door, Mike and Dick went around the house trying the windows to see if any of them might be persuaded to open. I spotted a garage behind the house. The door was open and I went inside. Under a work bench was a pile of burlap sacks on the floor. They looked like the sack Paul Hawk had been caught with. I kicked the pile and my foot hit something solid. I pulled the sacks away until I found a sack that had something inside--a British Sten sub-machine gun with two loaded clips. Sten's are crude, ugly, little guns made primarily out of stamped tin. During the war, the rumor was the British government paid a staggering ninety seven cents a piece for them and they looked like it. Nevertheless, a Sten wasn't to be underestimated. They could fire thirty rounds in a few seconds. This one looked brand‑new and fully operational. I wrapped it up and put it back under the work bench. I’d tell Mike about it and let the F.B.I deal with it. I looked around the garage. Sometimes people hide stuff up where the ceiling joins the walls. I didn't see anything until I looked above the door. Something was up there. I ran my hand along the rafter and a set of keys fell to the floor.

  The second key I tried opened the back door. Mike and Dick were on the other side of the house trying to force open a window. They both were pushing on the sill and weren't paying attention to what was going on inside. I tapped on the window and Dick jumped back like he'd stepped on a snake. I opened the window and asked them if they'd prefer to climb in the window or go through the door. "Very funny," Dick snapped and stomped off grumbling to himself. Mike laughed and took off after him.

  The house smelt like stale air and dust. The place was a mess which worked in our favor. We wouldn't have to be overly careful to make sure everything got back into its correct place. It was important Ryan didn't catch on his place had been tossed. If he did, he could hide or destroy evidence before we could arrest him.

  Dick took the living room, Mike the kitchen, and I took the bedroom. I opened a closet and switched on the light. You can find out a lot about people by looking in their clothes. There wasn't much in the closet but except for a few dresses. They were cheap, flimsy, flashy numbers that had seen better days. On the shelf were a couple of empty hat boxes and a pair of shoes with a heel broken off.

  The other closet must have been Ryan's. He didn't have his wife's flamboyance when it came to clothes. His stuff was either grey or brown and plain looking. Most of the suits were old with big collars and baggy pants, but some looked new. Way in the back of the closet I found a pair of dark green overalls. Hawk said that they wore overalls from civilian contractors when they robbed a plane. He said if they were spotted out by the planes, the thefts would be blamed on the civilian contractor and these coveralls were from some kind of contractor.

  I searched the dresser and found a couple of empty drawers. All the rest were full of Ryan's stuff. There was nothing under the bed except for a mountain of dust. Between the mattress and box springs I found a small brown leather folder. It was stuffed with papers. Hopefully some would detail Ryan's illegal transactions. My enthusiasm faded when it turned out to be mundane stuff like insurance policies, a title to a car and a letter from immigration stating Carla Conetti upon marrying John Ryan was now a citizen of the United States. With the exception of that one document, there wasn't much in here belonging to Ryan's wife. It looked like she'd left but not on a vacation. This move looked permanent. I could hear Mike and Dick talking and I went to join them.

  Both were rummaging around in the kitchen. I asked Dick if he found anything in the living room. "All that's in there is about a million movie magazines. Did you find anything?" I told them about the overalls and Mike agreed it backed up what Hawk had told us.

  I helped them look around the kitchen, but the only thing we found were a couple of huge cockroaches. It was getting dark, and we couldn't take the chance of turning on a light. That would be an open invitation for a neighbor to call the police and we didn’t want Ryan knowing his place had been tossed. I told Dick and Mike I had something to show them in the garage.

  As soon as we stepped outside, a voic
e said, "Hello...Hello...are you there?" An old man was peering around the corner of the house. When he saw us, he stepped from behind the house. "Who are you?" he asked.

  "Real estate agents," Mike lied. "We've got a client who's looking to buy a house in this area and we've been looking for prospective houses." Mike pointed at the house. "Would you happen to know where the owners are?"

  The old man shook his head, "Don't have any idea, He's been gone a couple of weeks and she's been gone for a more than a month herself...good riddance I say."

  "Why would you say that?" I asked.

  "They're nothing but trouble. Always screaming at each other, she'd be cussing him in Italian and he'd be calling her words I hadn't heard since I got out of the Navy in nineteen-nineteen. I had to call the cops on them...twice. The last time, I thought they were going to kill each other. She was chasing him around the yard with a butcher knife. The cops showed up just in time to keep him from getting stuck!"

  "Not exactly ideal neighbors," Mike observed.

  "You can say that again, brother," the old man agreed. "The only good thing about them living here was when she decided to put on one of her little shows."

  "What do you mean by that?" Dick asked.

  "A show...you know a show for the boys. She'd put on one of those little black frilly things and wear it around the house with all the curtains pulled back. You could tell she liked doing it, too. Until he caught her and that was the end of her shows." The old man looked sad. "That was a real shame... she had a body straight out of East Hell and she didn't care who knew it!"

  Mike nodded in the direction of the car. "We'd better be going," he said.

  As we walked away the old man called after us, "If you guys want to buy a house, I'll sell you mine--cheap!"

  Mike suggested that we all go out for dinner. Dick said he had some work to do and declined. Maybe he did but maybe he didn't want to me to see how much he was drinking. Mike dropped him off at the motel and we went downtown. The Hotel Arizona served us thick slabs of steak with sliced tomatoes and mashed potatoes. Mike insisted we drink some Mexican drink named after a girl. It came with salt around the rim of the glass and wasn't too bad to drink. Mike said they had "Damn good cherry pie," and we had some for desert. During desert he said, "What was it that you wanted to show me in Ryan's garage?"