***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator The Strange Death

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

Those who have been following this series about the exploits of the famous Ocean City (located just south of Los Angeles then now incorporated into the county) private detective Michael Philip Marlin (hereafter just Marlin the way everybody, except a few lady friends who called him Philip and his late mother who called him Michael Philip, called him when he became famous after the Galton case out on the coast) and his contemporaries in the private detection business like Freddy Vance, Charles Nicolas (okay, okay Clara too), Sam Archer, Miles Spade, Johnny Spain, know that he related many of these stories to his son, Tyrone Fallon, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tyrone later, in the 1970s, related these stories at his request to the journalist Joshua Lawrence Breslin who uncovered the relationship, a friend of my boyhood friend, Peter Paul Markin, who in turn related them to me over several weeks in the late 1980s. Despite that circuitous route I believe that I have been faithful to what Marlin presented to his son. In any case I take full responsibility for what follows.        

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You know one thing in this wicked old world, once you have been around the block a couple of times, have seen or done a couple of things, had some high moments and defeats, regrets too, and that is never to be surprised at what people will do for dough. For serous dough like some gold-digger marrying a millionaire (or now maybe a billionaire is the only way to spark interest), or some cheap jack-roll in some dark alley or some three- card Monte trick under the Midway it does not matter. Michael Philip Marlin, or just Marlin like everybody except his mother and one old flame lady love called him, knew better since not only had he been around that block a couple of time, had become long in the tooth during that time and if no wiser than when he was young not as prone to jump in head first, but trying to figure out people’s screwy antics was his business. Or you could say like the title of a book I read once by a guy, I think his name was Chandler, yeah Raymond Chandler you might have heard of him, who made it his business to write detective stories about screwy crime stuff about a guy named Philip Marlowe, trouble was his business.

So, yeah, like Marlowe in the Chandler stories Marlin was a gumshoe, shamus, private dick, private eye, or whatever you call a guy who takes on someone’s private sorrows for dough. He didn’t get offended by those names but he preferred to be called an operative. And Marlin, at times, when cases  were few and far between and the landlords were screaming for long overdue room and office rent, worked not as a lone wolf like old-fashioned Marlowe for the International Operations Organization. But like Marlowe with his tipped soft hat, Marlin worked just as hard as him sometimes when the bullets and fists flew. Marlin worked for the IOO out of Frisco town so you know he saw plenty of action, plenty of stuff out along that fragile coastline begging to be used for every nasty purpose. Especially a few years after the war (World War I for anybody asking) and Prohibition came in and that town was wide open, anything went. So when I said what I said above about his knowing “what was what” you can take it to the bank.

Take the Morse case. This guy Morse, an older guy, was in the employ of a local high-end San Francisco antique jewelry dealer of some prominence, Benny Gergen. Most of the business at that level is some rich family wanting say the Hope diamond and Gergen would broker the deal if the find worked out, if the item could be purchased and while maybe the Hope diamond was out of range he had been able to get pretty much what most clients wanted. So this was no starry-eyes into the showroom, pick out some cheapjack, overpriced trinket, then arrange for convenient weekly payments on the layaway plan. Also at that level any purchased items were personally delivered. And busy clients expected such service for they had no time to be running to Frisco when tennis or golf beckoned.

Morse had been the courier on most deliveries but he was also friend and longtime associate. So one day Gergen sent Morse out with a serious piece of jewelry to a buyer down in Los Angeles in exchange for twenty-five thousand dollars. (As it turned out later the piece was not antique and worth maybe a thousand dollars but since that is not important to the story I’ll let it pass.) The whole transaction went without a hitch, the buyer was satisfied and forked over the cash (on these high-end deals cash is the coin of realm both for buying and selling so Uncle Sam doesn’t get his cut). Morse was supposed to get back to Frisco by train on a Sunday night in order to meet Gergen at the Bank of America branch over on Mission come that Monday morning.      

 

The problem for Gergen, and how Marlin’s services came into the case,   was that this Morse never showed, couldn’t show because he was dead, very dead. Dead by foul play and found in a room in the Francis Drake Hotel with two holes in his chest by a housekeeper late that Monday morning (and yes she screamed like any normal person would, especially a woman, who walked into a set-up with a blood-drenched dead man on the floor but that is not germane to the story so that too shall pass). Naturally there was no dough, nothing in the room. So Benny Gergen hired the Organization to see about what was what, see what had happened to the dough, and, oh yeah, his pal Morse.  

Marlin grabbed the case and went out to see Gergen at his shop. He knew Gergen by sight from various charity things he did around town where Marlin did security for the event or was hired by some dame with a ton of jewelry on, real if you can believe that, who needed protection from the riff-raff, or the swells it was never clear. While in the shop Gergen introduced Marlin to his wife, Lola, a wife whom he at first thought was Gergen’s daughter. She was maybe twenty years old tops and something of a scatterbrain as the young ones are but a looker, no question. A looker who had that come hither look, and that fragrance, that essence of some luscious tropical plant or something, which would drive guys, young and old guys, crazy.           

That hard fact, that come- hither- giving- off- that- gardenia- fragrance fact, was what cracked the case, or at least satisfied Benny Gergen, if not the police. Here is the lay. This Benny Gergen was no much of a looker, no way, but any gold-digger would aim her arrows right at a guy like that since he was vain, could be led by the nose, and had plenty of dough, mostly that last part. Marlin figured, having seen the late Mister Morse, an older guy but with movie star looks, that this dame was two-timing Gergen with him and so that was where he took his paces.

Sure enough the pieces came together. Lola and Morse had been having an affair, something Marlin got out of her after some serious grilling. Morse had come back to Frisco early, registered at the Drake, and had waited for Lola to show up for a little off-hand tryst before meeting Gergen on Monday morning at the bank. The problem was that Lola was getting a little tired off older men, or tired of being cooped up with their boring routine party and country club crowds, and wanted to split. So she hired a friend, an ex-con named Pee-Wee Dugan, to rob Morse of that dough at the Drake. Problem was Drake put up a fight and drew two slugs for his efforts.

A bigger problem was that Marlin never did find Pee-Wee and the Organization and the District Attorney’s office never had enough on Lola to go to trial with. Guess why. Old sap Benny Gergen refused to cooperate, refused to let his two-timing gold-digging Lola take the fall (especially when that missing jewelry turned up at a pawnshop and the reduced value became known). Yeah, Gergen pulled out all the stops to make sure she was not tried. And so that was that.  The last Marlin had heard Lola had flown the coop though, had taken a fistful of antique jewelry, real stuff, and left the Gergen mansion on Nob Hill for points unknown. Jesus.