Once Again, One Johnny Rocco, More Or
Less, Is Not Worth Dying For-With Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell and Gloria
Graham’s “Macao” (1951) In Mind
As Told To Lance Lawrence by Frankie
Devlin
Macao, starring Jane Russell, Gloria
Grahame, Robert Mitchum, 1951
Frank McCloud, he of the U.S. Army
officer corps and a fistful of serious medals slogging through hell-hole Europe
during World War II said it best, said it best one night when we were in the
Park Plaza Hotel in Boston trading shots of whiskey shortly after the war,
maybe three years after, and he was trying to put his pre-war life back
together, trying to get back in the publishing business but was meeting
resistance at every level -“One Johnny Rocco, more or less, was not worth dying
for.” Meaning he was fed up to his eyebrows with defending this and that,
defending democracy when the old crap was just rising back up again after he
thought the war had put an end to that. See Frank had run into Johnny Rocco,
everybody back then knew Johnny ran every evil thing dope, gambling, numbers, high
and low-end pornography, women doing everything possible with man, woman, beast
and that was just the top of the iceberg, as the king-pin gangster boss out of
Chi town, Chicago down in the Keys, down in Key Largo I think it was not Key
West, when Johnny was doing some evil scheme to get back on top. When Frank
told me that, that dust up he had with Johnny I was all ears. Despite his keen
observation Frank went head to head with Johnny once Johnny made the fatal
mistake of trying to mess with Frank’s woman. Under those circumstances all bets
were off, all wisdom floated down the Gulf, as they should but Frank’s advice
is still stand-up stuff.
Soldier Cocrane should have listened
to those words, listened to his fellow ex-soldier it would have saved him a lot
of grief. Soldier from the time he was a kid out of Brooklyn hustling milk
money from young kids had been nothing but a two-bit grifter, a small-time operator
who had been run out of the States. Some say it was over a woman, another man’s
woman, in a bar, drinking, and that was that. He either killed the other guy,
or so grievously wounded him that he died later in the hospital. Took the guy’s
car, wallet and woman spent a few days running her to ground and when the news
came in slipped out the back door one night with her tied to the bedposts. Here
is where chance is a funny goddess, can play mean tricks. He decided to head west
instead of east that sultry night when things got too hot on the news of the other
guy’s death and Soldier decided he was built for love not cages.
Like every small time grifter, every
two-bit operator who tried to horn in on a good thing that was already somebody
else’s nut Soldier got run out of a few
places in the Orient too, the usual, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saigon so only one
place was left-the sinkhole, lands’ end the colony of Macao in the days when
that was something out of the Wild West in America. Late Chance Ranch some guy
called it when he was writing a novel based on the place. Every illegal venture
in the world, dope, gambling, women again being just the normal evil stuff and
descending from there to deep hells with sadistic adventures the least of it. Let’s
put it this way, the way that safe from harm novelist put it in one of the
books he which he set in Macao-life was cheap, cheap and expendable. Soldier had hopped the boat with about three
bucks in his pocket, the clothes on his back-and an idea. An idea he would ask
Vin Halloran to put him to work. Yes, that Vin Halloran, the American gangster
who “owned” Macao, owned every Portuguese colonial official and cop worth
owning and had everything tied up with a bow.
There, maybe elsewhere too they
mention his name in hushed tones. One hundred years from now their progeny will
be speaking in hush tones about Vin, about the days when men were not afraid to
get blood on their hands- or order the hit.
Not a bad idea on Soldier’s part since
Macao was the end of the road. If he couldn’t score there he might as well have
taken a ride in some sampan and put a hole in the bottom. He tried to move up
in class, maybe be an enforcer, a hit man, a repo man for Vin. Made sense since
Soldier was rugged enough, big broad shoulders, barren chest, good enough looks
that no woman would throw him out of bed and so no public eyesore for Vin to
bother about like some of the help whom he had to keep strictly for night alley
night work. Except on the trip over from the mainland he met this Jane, Jane
something but you know as well as I do it was alias so don’t worry about last
names. A brassy buxom no holds barred dame, hell, lets’ call things by their
right name, a tramp, any man’s woman, any man with some dough and a bottle
maybe, or dope she looked the type. Without getting hung up on silly morality
in those days, now too the last I heard, no decent dame was heading to Macao
when Vin was running the show. Period. So, although she claimed to be a song
bird, a canary, and did have one of those smoky voices she would have had a
hard time getting her cabaret license in New York City. Especially when Billie
was around. She was either going to some high-end whore-house Vin ran for Asian
businessmen with a taste for the wild side or into the South China Sea. Maybe
join Soldier in that holey sampan.
Here’s the funny part, not so funny
maybe but you never know what will twist a man’s mind. Vin went for her, went
big, gave her a spot singing and a nice nest. Turned out she could sing a bit
but even then she was nothing but bedrooms and booze. Worse, worse for her and
maybe she would not have to bother with that sampan gag was this other dame,
this Gloria something, again don’t worry about last names because when the
smoke cleared she would have another one didn’t want Janie girl around her man.
Period. The Soldier-Jane match-up was not made in heaven. No way.
Back to Soldier and his dreams since
this Jane would probably land on her back whatever happened. That good idea,
that enforcer, gunsel, hit man idea went nowhere. Vin was not in the market for
gringo enforcers since he had half the Tong Society on the payroll so Soldier
was down on his heels. Vin gave him five bucks and the air. Then this
sleaze-ball salesman, a guy he had almost met on the boat over, made Soldier a
proposition, makes him a sub-salesman, no, independent contractor, I guess you
would call it. Except it would all turn
out to be a ruse, bullshit. See he was really New York City cop who was on
Vin’s trail because another NYC cop had been trying to bust Vin and would up
down in some sinkhole for his efforts. Vin had started out in New York and the
cops there were looking to clean up their cold files docket by bringing his in
for the third degree. The problem for the coppers was that Vin was invincible
in Macao in those days as long as he didn’t go into international waters, the
three-mile limit. Smart guy, mostly, that Vin and maybe the locals were not
wrong to whisper his name in their dreams after all.
Dink salesman, Bill Bendix, or
something like that although he used another name, names, conned Soldier into
doing his legwork for some commission, a few thou which must have looked good
to Soldier since was living off the cuff. The deal the Bendix put forward was to
sell Vin a high-end diamond necklace cheap and Soldier would get his cut from
that end. Except silly Billy forgot to say said necklace was already owned by
one Vin Halloran who had been trying to sell the damn thing in Hong Kong where
his agent fell down, copped a plea and gave the necklace up to get to some safe
house in America.
Vin therefore took umbrage when Soldier
presented the proposition. Threw him in irons, ready to throw him into the
South China Sea with or without sampan if necessary. It is hard to read what
this Jane was thinking, making she had had sweaty dreams, although who knows
really but she switched sides. Queen Jane was giving up her kingdom with Vin
for no known reason when she decided that she should share her fate with
Soldier who was getting help from that blonde bundle of lust who was looking to
get Jane the hell out of Macao. When the story came out later it seems that Vin
was hard on his women like a lot of guys, like Johnny Rocco, hell, like Soldier
with that fluff he killed that deadass guy over. Once Jane, and Gloria too,
gave the drift on Vin and his sadistic habits, once Soldier claimed Jane for
his own, that taboo messing with a guy’s woman is what tagged Vin for the
undertaker, for the big step off. This is what I never figured about a smart
guy like Vin though he decided to go to Hong Kong to get that freaking two-bit necklace
(against his whole operation profits) stepping out of the three mile zone and
easy bait for the international police once Soldier decided to drop the dime. That
stoolie business got him maybe a new lease on life since the coppers were going
to go to bat for him with the New York authorities. Got him feeling good about
doing his good deed to save the world from bums like Vin, guys whom he too
thought would vanish once the war cleaned up the world’s mess.
Still Frank’s advice would have saved
Soldier a lot of grief since two things happened after Vin went to sleep with
the fishes. Gerry O’Leary, the rising American gangster out of Albany, New York
moving up the food chain took over Vin’s operations, streamlined everything and
made plenty of profitable changes like cutting the bribery payroll putting some
poor Portuguese coppers on public relief or something. And Jane decided she liked the idea of luxury
on Macao better than being some housewife in the Bronx and dumped Soldier for
Gerry. Yeah, Frank had it right, right as rain. (I heard later she was running that
high end whorehouse for Asian businessmen with a taste for the wild side and Gloria
was running the gambling tables. Jesus.)
