***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin, Private Investigator - After You’re Gone

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

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 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 to the journalist who uncovered the relationship , Joshua Lawrence Breslin, 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 don’t exactly meet the nicest people in the crime detection business, private eye variety. Sure once in a while some forlorn housewife uses her pin money to search for a wayward husband, maybe he is a machine- operator or something like that, who had gone on a toot, or had just gone, and she wanted him back. But even that dear forlorn housewife has only limited resources to expend on   

that useless search and would cry uncle before she spends all that money she was saving for a fur, or something, on that damn deadbeat. No sleuth could make a living, maybe could not even pay office rent if that housewife and her brethren were the main source of income. So every detective from high-profile shamus to keyhole peeper, including one Michael Philip Marlin, depends on the fact that the rich have wild children or wives. That, or that some well-heeled gangster has a job that his normal hit man can’t handle and calls in for some private service at a daily rate plus expenses. That is what Marlin thought he had agreed to when Steve Silver showed up at his door one day looking for his old sweetie, Lorna Reed. 

Now the reason that Steve had rapped on Marlin’s office door was that Marlin had been had been instrumental in sending Steve up to the Q for a dime’s worth on a bank robbery that he had done solo.

That time Marlin had been working, working hard since a twenty-five thousand dollar reward came with any recovery from the Consolidated Bank Association and picked up the change when    

Steve made the mistake of showing at the Club Paris one night, spending big, with no known source of income. Now this Steve was built, built big, rugged and strong so when he coped a plea saying he had done the job solo nobody argued the point. And in some ways, in the matter of women especially, this Steve was soft, soft as mush and so it was really not that weird Steve would be in Marlin’s office looking for help. Let by-gones be by-gones he said as he practically broke Marlin’s hand with his handshake.

Of course Steve had been out of circulation for eight years (he drew two years off for good time) and so this Lorna Reed could have been anyway, or nowhere. He hadn’t heard from her in six (which raised Marlin’s eyebrows more than a little) and he had had no success, none, trying to trace her at their old haunts. Yes, times change, change fast in places like L.A. and so when he went over to the Club Paris all he found was a vacant lot with construction of high-rise apartments scheduled to go on that site.See Lorna had been a warbler, a singer, a torch-singer at that old club and Steve, when he was working for Marty Walsh and his gang, had hung out there. He and Lorna had met between sets and that was that.

That was that since no one would dare to go near Lorna once she was his “girl” and Lorna sensing that no good would come of trying to avoid Steve when he had his wanting habits on played along with him while he was in the dough. Since he was clueless about where to find her he thought of Marlin and his skills at finding people. Besides you do not say no to a giant, a giant who may or may not squeeze the life out of you if you decide the wrong way. So Marlin had a client, a client in a missing person’s case.

After Steve left the office and Marlin thought about how he was going to proceed with finding Lorna he began to think about certain things. Certain things like how he had been tipped, tipped anonymously that night at the Club Paris when he collared Steve and got his big reward. Hell, it might very well have been Lorna looking to dump Steve. Probably the only way she knew how to do so. Yeah, she had called him although the voice he heard had obviously been disguised. More importantly he began to think about an eight year cold trail and how somebody, almost any ordinary joe or jill, who wanted to be unfound had all the best of it. But what really scared Marlin, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it, was that he did not want to go up against Marty Walsh and his organization in order to find the elusive Lorna.    

The picture of Lorna that Steve had provided (and which he had  apparently kept on his cell wall since it was in pretty rough shape) could have been any of a hundred warblers, starlets, party girls; long legs, good shape, big brown eyes, long brown hair and ruby red lips that he would not mind taking a run at himself. The streets of Hollywood, the studio lots, and the cafes, were filled with such types, some prettier, some just willing to do more to get ahead in that wicked old world of Hollywood in the 1930s. Well it was Steve’s dime.           

The first thing Marlin did was to trace some personal (non-Marty Walsh and his associates personal) who had worked the club back then, and who knew Lorna. He worked that angle for a while without success until his friend on the L.A. Police Department, Sergeant Sam Sloan, cobbled up some information for him (on the QT) about the guy who managed the club, Phil Foner. He gave Marlin an address, an address that he knew from a couple of other capers that was in the seedy part of town. He went there, found out from his wife that Phil Foner had been dead for five years, and after going out and buying a big jug of low-shelf Scotch got this wife to bring out some old professional photographs of the girls (“broads” she called them) and right in the center of the pile was a very much better photo of Lorna Reed (working under the name Lorna Sweet). Mrs. Foner, half-loaded by that point, said she did not have a clue where this Lorna was but Marlin sensed by her manner took it that she was lying.

Then Marlin got his big break, although maybe it wasn’t such a big break after all when the shooting was over. He took the picture around to a talent agent that he knew, Larry Levine, to see if he could help. Jesus could Larry help him he said- where had Marlin  been the past couple of years, that was Lorna Lavin the talk of the Frisco town night club circuit who was getting ready to break out big nationally any day now. Any day that Marty Walsh, her lover/ manager would unchain her talent for the national radio audience. Marty said in more than one interview that he wanted the right moment. And Marlin as he made plans to head up to Frisco to interview Lorna thought he was in a no- win situation once Larry sprung Lorna’s new life on him.     

Marlin needed not to have bothered because the cards were being dealt differently behind his back. This Steve maybe having been in stir too long, maybe just because he was a guy who thought nothing of holding up a major bank on a main street in daylight was also working his own way around the case. He had found Mrs. Foner and beaten her within an inch of her life until she told what she knew (she knew as Marlin surmised where Lorna was, was in fact receiving checks monthly from Lorna, or Marty, to keep quiet). She spilled the beans about her whereabouts at the Hi-Hat Club in Frisco and he had headed that way, headed there a day before Marlin got there, got there too late.

Steve in his frenzy to get his Lorna back had busted in the closed club, confronted a Walsh henchman, shot him point- blank, and proceeded to Marty’s office.  As bad luck would have it Lorna was there with Marty, alone. Steve, as cool as a cucumber, just said “hi babe, long time no see.” Lorna just smiled, smiled the kiss of death and said “Steve, I’m sorry I called copper on you but I didn’t know any other way to get you out of my life once Marty made his play for me.”

Steve, again cool, just said “that was the way I had it figured, but let’s get out of here and go have a couple.” Marty saw that he had no choice but to waste this guy, put him down in the ground hard, very hard pulled out a gun, and shot Steve four times. Steve still standing although already starting to slump put two right through Marty’s heart and he crumbled. After that Steve dropped to the ground mortally wounded and as Lorna came over to him to see if she could do anything he said “you were going with me, weren’t you?” Lorna lied, “sure Steve, sure I had just been waiting for you to show up.”  Steve smiled, or maybe half-smiled and then died. Marlin, although too late by about three hours, when he heard that just said “damn, damn it, some guys really have it bad for a dame no matter what”