***Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-The Private Eye Is Out

FromThe Pen Of Frank Jackman

Some guys never learn, yah, they just never learn. Take Robert Streeter, smart. street smart as befits a working private eye, a good looking guy, a guy built for 1950s grey flannel suit action, hefty, actually beefcake would be a better description, barrel-chested, with enough guts to take on some tough stuff but with enough whatever it is that moves dangerous dames to have them all over him like some magnet to make things dangerous (or was it that he was fatally attracted to them, such things are not always what they seem). But in the end he took the fall, took it hard and wound up with plenty of mud on his face in some dusty ditch. But here is where the never learn part comes in, he didn’t get mixed up with just one frosty dame who sent him reeling but two. So, no, we of the fraternity need not bleed, at least not for long, over one Robert Streeter, gumshoe, shamus, peeper, private dick, whatever you happen to call guys who work for cheap dough and plenty of aggravation tilting at windmills in this wicked old world. But his story might just be a cautionary tale. So listen up.

Robert Streeter frankly had gone through a rough patch, had had a few cases that fell through the cracks, the customers weren’t satisfied and didn’t pay up, stuff like that, and therefore had to take on some divorce work, although he usually was loathe to do such peeping in shady motel bedroom work. She, Faith Smythe, had called him up, had told him her requirements, told him of her need to get some stuff on her husband, some scandal to pave the way to that happy future divorce she craved and to be settled with enough dough to head south, maybe Mexico, maybe further down. But here was the catch, and the place where even we of the fraternity had to give Robert some slack, he was in such a tough spot for dough that he took the case sight unseen, sight of her unseen, took it because it sounded, well, sounded like finding money on the street once she said she would have his retainer sent over posthaste. A few days’work, he figured, maybe stretch it out for a week or so and collect his money. Maybe a bonus since this involved serious money, society money, rather than the usual butcher’s wife thinking her husband had run off with a starlet that the bedroom peepers spoke about. Easy.

And it was easy, easy getting enough material on one Horace Smythe, one wealthy for about five generations wealthy, Los Angeles patron. He openly philandered, even had a suite reserved at the Hilton where the bellhops were eager to help out anybody if the dough was right, so that Mrs. Smythe (it wasn’t Faith at that point) had an open and shut case in the courts. She just had to file, wait her time, and then flee south. Then, bringing her the photographic proof she needed for her divorce over to the house, he got his first look at her. And then he knew, knew right for the moment she opened that damn door that whatever it was that she was looking for beyond that divorce, and she was looking for more as every fiber in her being cried out, was going to put him through his paces.

There was no need to describe her, young, very young, brunette, brown eyes, slender, wasp-waisted and trouble, trouble the minute he heard that in person metallic money voice in person that spoke of treachery, and guys in grey flannel suits duplicity. Certainly she was not what he had expected, not after having seen old guy Horace, that dirty old man. He had expected some aging gracefully with plenty of help matron and with lots of time on her hands. Maybe too hiding a little tryst or two herself along the way in order to settle scores with old Horace and even things up. She, after opening the door, a drink in hand, scotch, practically swooned in his arms, just to see if he would catch her. He did. Yah, some dames are like that, she was like that. And from then on he knew whatever happened their fates were joined, no rhyme or reason to it, but there it was. He bedded her that night after some arch banter over a drink or seven (or rather she let him bed her, no resistance, none) right in that old man’s house. He was hooked, hooked bad, but he had to play his hand out, play it to the end.

Playing out that hand meant nothing but murder, murder one, plain and simple when she got under his skin. Oh sure, once she saw him at the door and maybe later in bed she had it figured that Robert would have no trouble with the old man, taking him down and then they, yah, he was in the sunny sky of Mexico scenario now, could be off to the southland and sipping high- grade tequilas. And, at first it could have worked out just that way, they had set it up so perfect. An ‘accident’ with Horace’s car, and some wayward young thing beside him, after some drunken night out. Then the poor bereaved and jilted widow and all. But then one night, a few nights before their plan was to become operational, they got sloppy. They had been drinking heavily all afternoon and evening and he had, in the heat of the moment, carried her up to her bedroom for a frolic.

Unfortunately about nine o’clock Horace showed up at her bedroom door, pretty drunk himself, and yelled bloody hell. Yelled that there was no way she was getting any dough now that he had the goods on her, now that he knew she was just another tramp. He called her that many times practically ready to throw her out the window in his rage. Robert, very drunk and a little wobbly, tried to defend her, they tussled and Horace went down quickly, out for the count, but not before clubbing Robert with a fireplace iron which sent him tumbling as well. When he regained consciousness and he checked on the prostrate Horace he had already gone to meet his maker. And then the madness started, the closing off of their plans had left them with no out except to flee, no matter what Robert’s condition. They had to flee to Mexico where she had a stash of cash that could carry them for a while. Just enough dough until they could figure out what they could do next. But she persuaded him that they had to move just then or else. That was the way she played it, played it to an addled love- smitten fall guy with a big bump on his head and a massive headache.

And then the madness really accelerated. Faith started acting a little erratically, making wrongs decisions since Robert was still reeling from his head injuries and was not able to think things through, heading south. They had also stopped at a doctor’s place in some podunk town in the high desert going east out of L.A. and then fled when he became suspicious after viewing Robert’s injuries. The doctor reported that visit to the police who had been alerted to the couple by an all- points bulletin put out by the Los Angeles police and who then began the final massive manhunt that a few days later that would corral them near the border. As they approached the border Faith, really freaked out and showing signs of extreme duress, drew a gun from her purse and was ready to put one in Robert when he said that they should surrender. She shot blindly wounding him in the shoulder as she tried to make a run for border alone. Once cornered she let go with the last of her ammo. A police sniper brought her low as she stumbled to make those last few steps to the Mexican side and freedom. She never made it.

Robert only learned the following information later. Later after the guns had stopped blazing and Robert had been cleared of any wrongdoing, legal wrong-doing anyway. It seemed that Faith had been married previously to some insurance guy from Fresno but when Horace started courting her, spying her in an LA hotel, that guy found himself as what the police called a “suicide” after Horace bought some hefty police cooperation. As it turned out she had snuffed the poor guy out one night with a pillow. Here is the beautifully ironic part though. Robert hadn’t killed Horace at all. He died of asphyxiation. Faith, after Robert had gone in his coma had done her signature work with a pillow and had convinced him that he had done it. Obviously she was more than ready to let him take fall if there was any backsplash over Horace’s death. As it also turned out, and this is when Robert finally understood why Horace was running around with other dames, Faith had been in and out of half the private mental institution in California. She had turned out in the end to be a very expensive and dangerous trophy wife.

So that was indeed a close call and one would have thought that Robert would have learned a serious lesson, maybe retired into monkhood or something but not our Quixote, not our windmill chaser. After a few months recuperation, needing dough, needing it badly now that Faith had gone to the great beyond and there was no easy street in his future, he put his shingle back up-open for business, come on in. No divorce work though although after what was to happen later that might actually have been a better course, maybe just confine himself to a clientele made up of butcher’s wives or something like that. It seems that Kirk Stevens, yes, that Kirk Stevens, the big mobbed up guy who ran all the action in Reno sent one of his men down to fetch Robert for a certain delicate job that involved a wayward dame. Kirk had heard about his tangle with Faith and was impressed. Kirk figured Robert would not be burned twice by some twist with brown eyes and bedroom dream ideas with the next available man. Go figure.

What Kirk needed was to get a certain Jane Stevens, his wife, back from where ever she was, and more importantly, a certain two hundred thousand dollars that she fled with, fled south to Mexico from what he knew of her movements. Robert licked his chops, no, not for the come hither dame, but that resolving Kirk’s problem would make him well, well in the bank, well in his profession. He also knew from the picture that Kirk showed him of his fleeing wife that this one would be easy, a month’s work (he wanted to really get well in the bank), and he would have her corralled. And that picture told him she was definitely not his type. This was like finding money on the ground. Besides you do not turn Kirk Stevens down when he sends one of his boys down to fetch you. Thanks Kirk, thanks for the business.

Well he found Jane alright about a week later down in sultry, sweaty Sonora. Found her in the shadowy Tres Pesos cantina that she visited every night looking, looking for something, maybe kicks with the natives, who knows. She had enough dough for a lot of things, lots of kicks, kinky or not. So he waited for her one night once he had tracked her down. Then she showed.

Maybe it was the way she came in the door, all fresh as dew in the sweltering night, wearing a summer dress topped off by a fashionable wide- brimmed hat. Maybe it was her walking right in and sitting down at his table and asking for a match when he could see she had matches tucked the cellophane wrapper of her Camels. Maybe, it was because a close up look of her told him that that photo Kirk showed him did not do her justice, especially her dancing eyes and big kissable ruby red lips. And maybe, just maybe, it was that gardenia perfume or whatever she was wearing that said seamy adventure did him in. All he knew even before they said word one to each other was that Kirk would freeze in hell before he got his money, or her, back. So it started, started like a million things start. He followed her to her room after a few half-hearted drinks, bedded her and decided that whatever the hell happened this was the hand he had been dealt and he would play his hand out until the end.

And for about a month Robert’s hand looked pretty good, looked very good. Then Kirk got antsy, got to wondering why an ace gumshoe was getting nowhere fast on his search according to his reports. That set Kirk, no fool toward men, if a little off-balance with women, decided to pay an unannounced visit to old Sonora, accompanied by a couple of his gunmen. And as luck would have it Kirk and the boys were going into the Tres Pesos cantina as Robert and Jane were leaving. Bad karma, bad karma indeed. Robert turned around trying to run for the back door. No good, no good at all. Maybe with his injuries, maybe being dame-addled, maybe just realizing that he was a goner he stopped before that back door. The boys grabbed him, grabbed him roughly. You know the rest. Most of it. He was found in a dusty back alley a couple of days later with a couple of well-placed slugs in him. Case unsolved according to the Federales, figuring probably just some busted gringo drug deal. Jane, well, Jane was sitting up in Reno playing the devoted wife of one mobbed up Kirk Stevens. Maybe too waiting for that next click to come. Yah, so the next time someone asks you to go looking for some frail, some freshly perfumed femme fatale run, run like hell the other way. Yah, and Robert Streeter RIP.