Flood Abatement Read online

  Flood Abatement

  a novel of noir

  by

  James D. Norton

  Copyright© 2011 James D. Norton

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without permission in writing from James D. Norton.

  Other novels by James D. Norton

  Dan Hagerty Novels

  The Supernumerary

  Summer Jobs - Coming Soon

  Negative Proofs

  For Patrick

  Chapter 1

  July, 1974

  “Hey, Norm,” Rhonda called. “How come I didn’t get these messages when I came in?”

  A muscular, bald man kept reading his magazine. “How the hell should I know? You got ‘em now.”

  The stage manager handed her four pink message slips as she walked back into the dressing room to take off her feathers from the first show. One was from her friend Marcy, “Knickerbocker is out!” That asshole. One was from a pit boss in the casino. Only in your dreams, toad. And, the third was from her sister, Alice. It was marked “Urgent, Nana.” The time on the slip was 3:42 PM. The phone number was in LA.

  She used the backstage phone at The Frontier to place a collect call to her sister. A man picked up the phone on the third ring, then handed it to Alice. “Hello,” she giggled.

  “So, who’s the guy?”

  “None of your business?”

  “What’s up?” Rhonda ruffled her blond hair where her headpiece matted it down.

  “Nana’s in trouble. You’ve got to help.”

  Rhonda took a piece of plumage from her tongue. “Why?”

  “She said it was critical that you talk to her.”

  Rhonda would have rolled her eyes, but that wasn’t a good idea with all the blue glitter on her lids. “What’s going on?”

  “She’s having some kind of mental collapse.”

  Keep cool, keep cool. Rhonda exhaled. “What do you mean?”

  “Her house near the parkway was flooded out two of the past three springs. The city offered to buy hers and all the other houses.”

  “Yes …”

  “Nana refuses to sell. She won’t listen to any argument.”

  “So …”

  “This morning the County Sheriff, what’s his name, Barry, came to evict her, and she shot at him.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “She didn’t hurt anybody, yet. But, she’s being very stubborn.”

  Rhonda rubbed built-up lipstick from the corner of her mouth with the little finger of her right hand. “What are the cops doing?”

  “They’ve got the place surrounded and they’re trying to talk her out.”

  “Okay … good.”

  “But she says she’s not coming. She wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ll call her right away.”

  “She wants to see you.”

  “Oh.” She would have to get past Elizabeth, the dragon lady sister of the casino owner.

  “She asked for you.”

  Rhonda knew her boss wouldn’t understand. She looked at the clock over the pay phone. She could make the one-thirty flight. “I’ll be there in the morning.”

  “Make it early. The cop I talked with sounded like he’d run out of patience.”

  “Shit. Okay, okay!”

  “You can stay at my place. Call me when you know more.”

  Chapter 2

  As Rhonda danced off the stage for the last show of that evening the thought crossed her mind that Barry was the cop her grandmother had tangled with years ago. The pervert was trying to hit on Rhonda and began to harass her when Nana shut him down. The old girl went around with the cops a number of times over the years, but that last time was a major donnybrook. Nana got the guy fired. If the current Sheriff was the same Barry, that could be a problem.

  Rhonda’s loss of concentration as the chorus line kicked off stage caused her to trip and stumble. The heavy head piece pulled her forward past two other girls and into Norm’s waiting arms.

  “Thanks honey,” the burley man said as he clamped her nearly naked body against his chest.

  Rhonda got her balance. Well, a quick feel verses a broken ankle wasn’t a bad trade. “Okay Norm, you can take your hand off my ass.”

  He held tight.

  She said the magic word. “Elizabeth.” He let her go like a hot iron. Rhonda straightened herself and headed for the dressing room. There might be some people still in the Sheriff’s department who wouldn’t mind bouncing Nana around for old time’s sake. Gotta hurry!

  With just enough time for Rhonda to wash the blue glitter off her body and pack a small bag, she caught a redeye from Vegas to Milwaukee. Just past six, a cab dropped her off at Alice’s place a few miles from Nana’s house. It took her another quarter hour to get the spare house key from Mr. Kolchak, the elderly neighbor. Then she was off to see her grandmother in Alice’s white Javelin.

  On the worst day of the year, it was a ten minute drive from the ‘50’s clapboard bungalow to Nana’s little house along the Menomonee River, a few blocks from the village of Wauwatosa. When Rhonda was nine, her mother bolted to Nashville to pursue a singing career. With her older brother and younger sister, Rhonda spent many hours at their grandmother’s house while her dad was off building up his trucking business. When they weren’t roaming the banks of the river, they were at the Hart Park field house playing tennis, or basketball, or ice skating depending on the time of year. She wouldn’t let them push Nana out.

  The sun was almost up as she drove north on 70th Street, down the hill to the river. A warm breeze rustled the leaves in the large elm trees that lined the streets. The familiar scents of the river and the heavy undergrowth along its bank filled the late summer morning. It smelled like home to her.

  Red lights flashed to her left on Chestnut as she crossed the river. The Sheriff’s men were waiting. This didn’t look good!

  There were eight shotgun-toting deputies and as many squads in the streets and yards around her grandmother’s house. An ambulance was backed up to the front porch steps. The house next door lay in rubble beside a bulldozer.

  Rhonda, in jeans, a pink tank-top and white Keds, was out of the car and running through the dusty street an instant after she parked. Too late, the front door was off its hinges. The cops had forced their way in rather than wait for her to talk her grandmother out.

  An immense deputy yanked her into the air as she sprinted toward the men bringing a gurney out of the house. “Whoa, honey, where do you think you’re going?” He held her tight to his chest.

  She flailed and hollered, “Put me down, asshole. That’s my grandmother.”

  He jerked his arm tight around her waist. “Settle down.” He jerked his arm again. “If I put you down will you wait for the lieutenant?”

  Rhonda nodded. When the deputy let go, she took off like a shot and made it to her grandmother’s side before the cop could get to her again. Nana was strapped to the gurney, conscious. A bruise crept out of the bandage on the left side of her throat.

  Rhonda leaned close to the old lady. “Nana?” The woman’s unfocused eyes looked up at her. “It’s Rhonda.” The old lady smiled. The cop and his lieutenant rushed up behind them.

  Rhonda knew better than to swing at the cop so she stepped into his face and yelled, “Why’d you choke her, you scum-bag son-of-a-bitch?”

  A hot, short shouting match ensued among the three people in which the words shove, stick, kiss and yours were all used
with a variety of terms for a specific part of the human anatomy. A compromise was struck. Rhonda rode to the hospital with her grandmother.

  Rhonda sat with Nana in the ER while the old woman slipped in and out of consciousness. When they were alone for an instant, Nana turned to Rhonda. “Don’t let’em take the house.”

  Rhonda called her cousin Sam, the one who went to law school. He arrived later as the hospital staff settled Nana in a secured room. A nurse motioned them over to the bedside and pulled back the sheet from the old woman’s neck and pointed at the large blue bruise. It was the unmistakable imprint of a hand.

  Rhonda whirled to run into the hall, but Sam grabbed her arm. “I’m gonna kick that lieutenant’s balls,” she hissed.

  “Hold on, honey,” he said. “Let’s get the law to really hurt them.”

  Chapter 3

  The guard at the California State Prison in Lancaster called, “Knickerbocker Smith” and the heads of seven prisoners and two guards turned toward the little man. Nick Smith barley listened as he concentrated on Rhonda Lapinski. She slapped a restraining order on him then had him tossed in the clink.

  When Rhonda walked into Todd’s party and found him there, she went right to the phone to call the cops. Shit, he introduced her to Todd. And, he’d been at that party an hour before that bimbo shined around. He’d bet good money she set him up.

  The sergeant called, “Knickerbocker Smith” again. Nick stepped forward to the desk to pick up his possessions.

  “What’s the deal, Smith? You like it here so much you wanna stay a little longer?” a red-headed guard asked. “Got a sweetheart inside you can’t bear to be without?”

  What did those schmucks know? Today, he was being released. On the other hand, that guard might just have an interesting idea for a new movie. The gay market was opening up. He’d have to think about that later.

  Without looking at him a bald guard said, “Sign here, Knickerbocker.”

  Smith smiled at the corrections officer. Why would I care what you think? You dumb screw. One more station, change into my clothes and I’m outta here.

  Smith walked out the prison’s side door and across the street to Nuygen Thom, a Vietnamese woman in her twenties. She waited behind the wheel of his ’61 Benz convertible. The smoggy air outside wasn’t exactly clean, but the absence of the institutional disinfectant odor was refreshing. His wide lapeled suit had been folded in a box for the past hundred and eighty days, but it would have looked the same on him if it was newly pressed. He kissed the girl firmly on the lips as soon as he reached the car then turned back toward the prison and gave the institution the double finger. “Ha!” When he was seated next to Thom she pulled the car from the curb and headed toward his house in Hollywood.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “You don’t want to go there now.”

  “No, I do. I really do want to go there.” First, she threw him in jail. Second …, there was probably another reason, but he didn’t really need one.

  Thom looked through the steering wheel as they sat at a stoplight. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “Well, somebody does.”

  “You have other fish to cook.”

  “Fry, baby.”

  “What?”

  “Fish to fry.”

  “Fry, cook, who cares. Lucerio called. Wants to know when you will finish their movie.”

  Nick stared out the windshield as they slogged through the midday traffic. “It’s in the can. Just needs cutting.”

  “Well, Paulie stop work two weeks ago. Says you already into him for five grand. He wants the rest in hand before he will finish up - another twenty-thousand.”

  Chump change, “Everybody’s got a problem. Call’em and tell’em I’ll get him the money in a week.”

  “He does not want to talk to me. He wants talk to you.” The Vietnamese woman made a quick turn into the right lane in preparation for the exit two miles ahead. “And, that title sucks. What the hell is The Prespiopia Identity?”

  “Damn! Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.” He looked at a shapely redhead in the car next to them. “Who cares what the title of a porno film is anyway?” The business was changing radically. Since it came out in ’72, Deep Throat grossed something over $40,000,000 against production costs less of than two hundred grand. His movie was going to cash in on that breakthrough. The wave of the future was a ninety minute feature motion picture, not just some grainy short with a guy in ankle-high black socks.

  Thom nodded as she drove. “You think you can come up with that much money, quick?”

  “Oh yeah, I have my sources.” He smiled because he knew that one of the benefits of working in porno was that every so often you came up with some excellent blackmail material.

  Chapter 4

  When Thom turned onto his block, Nick saw Lucerio standing next to a yellow Lamborghini admiring his manicure. This was not the guy Nick wanted to deal with just at this moment.

  As they pulled the silver Benz into the driveway, the tall Columbian lit a cigar with a wooden match, let the smoke curl out around his full mustache, then lowered his sunglasses to the tip of his nose. “Hey man, good to see you out and about again.”

  Nick attached a wide smile to his face as he strolled down the drive and offered his right hand to his business partner. “Good to see you Lu. Come in for a drink.”

  “No, I can’t stay. Besides, you’ve spent enough time with men. You should spend some time with your lady.” He put his left arm around the little man. “My friends, your backers, need some reassurance that the investment they made in your last film is still good.”

  Nick took a step back. “Lu, my man, I’ve been inside and things have slowed down.”

  “Everyone understands that complication. They just want to know that things will be proceeding quickly now. No more hitches.”

  “Tell them not to worry. It’s in the can. Editing has begun. Just a few details to work out and we’ll have the finest skin flick ever made. It’ll be like printin’ money.”

  The Colombian smiled and pushed his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. “That is what they want to hear.” He got into his car and drove away while he replayed the arrangement in his head.

  Lucerio knew Nick had committed the cardinal sin of all film makers. He spent his own money to make a movie and compounded it by running out before he could finish. That’s when Lucerio came on the scene. His group of Colombian businessmen had cash lying around and a porno movie seemed like a good place to invest a little. Reinvesting the wages of sin. To secure his investment Lucerio now needed to get his hands on the un-cut prints that were with the editor.

  A great idea with one drawback, Lucerio and his Columbian friends were silent partners. There was no paper trail giving them any rights to Nick’s film. The editor was not about to turn over the prints to him. He approached Rhonda. She was still so steamed at Nick that she looked at it as a fantastic way to screw the little bastard. Then something went wrong. He didn’t know what, but she disappeared in one swoop, the bitch. To top it off, Nick claimed to still have the prints. Someone was lying. That was all the more reason for Lucerio to get the movie into his hands.

  Chapter 5

  The yellow scrap of paper read, “Up yours, Kickerbocker,” The purple letters were drawn in Rhonda’s flowing parochial school script.

  “That’s two, bitch, that’s two I owe you.” Nick bent down to take a long look into the desk drawer. Shit! There was supposed to be an envelope, his list of customers for his extra special flix.

  The phone rang in the dimly lit office as Nick sat mulling his options. It was Paulie, his film editor.

  After the niceties about the little man being back on the street, Paulie came to the point. “You understand I still want to work with you. Everything we’ve seen so far is very innovative - a true advancement in the genre, but no more credit. You need to pay in advance. I think twenty grand will get you a finished movie.”

  Nick didn’t w
ant to talk with this guy. He just wanted to get off the phone and hunt down Rhonda. “I should have the money in a week or two.”

  “I thought you got money from some South American?”

  “There were cost overruns in production.”

  “Hmm, well when you have the cash just bring the film back and I’ll put you at the head of the list.”

  “Bring it back?” This was unexpected and confusing. “What film?”

  “The one the girl took.”

  “What?”

  “When I told the girl I’d stopped she came over, paid the five grand. She took the working copies of the movie.”

  “Which girl?”

  “The one in the film, the main character. What’s her name, Rhonda?”

  What the hell? Nick’s heart rate doubled. Deep breaths stay cool. “Not a problem. The cans are sitting right here by my desk.” Don’t let Paulie know what a screw up this is. Get off the phone and get going. “Okay, gotta go. Talk to you later.” He studiously laid the handset in its cradle then threw the phone across the room. “Son-of-a-bitch!”

  Rhonda took his movie, his Deep Throat. All the more reason to hunt her down. Payback’s a bitch, bitch.

  Now, right now, he needed to drive up to the mountains to get his backup copy of the film. The money he’d spent for the second print was gonna pay off. She slowed him by a day, but the drive would be invigorating. He promised himself he would stay in control. Finishing The Prespiopia Identity was the main thing, for the moment. He needed to keep his focus. Half an hour later he was on his way up to the cabin in the Sierra Mountains.

  Chapter 6

  Bernie Keagan, Attorney at Law, stood before the office coffee maker and stared down into his mug. “Crap.” When they disbarred him, he would have to find a new line of work, maybe something in food service.