Lilly White

 

By

Kim L Sellers

                                              

with his two goons in the office chaperoning us, Danny Diaz was doing all the talking.  It wasn't anything I hadn’t heard before as I had worked for Danny off and on for the last several years.  That was before I decided to take a year sabbatical, and I stress sabbatical because once you signed on with Danny, you were signed on for life.   

The catch was that in Danny’s line of work, he could as easily ask you to fetch a cup of java as rub out your best friend.  You just didn’t know when the other shoe was going to drop.  He paid top dollar, though, for services rendered; and if you didn’t mind the work (it was messy), you had access to an abundant lifestyle of big cars, big money, and that other thing men seem to have a penchant for, women.  It was a tempting proposition for most men, and most bought into it without a second thought. 

Today, Danny was whining about his girlfriend and some guy who’d burned him for over a million dollars.  Not bad, I thought, forcing down the laugh that was tickling the back of my throat.  You see, Danny’s girlfriend, and I had been an item before she threw me over for Danny.  She was the reason I’d taken the sabbatical and the reason why Danny had called me to his office.  He knew I was his best bet for finding the woman.  Or should I say finding his money, because nothing was more important to Danny Diaz than his money?

“I want you to find her,” he said.  “I want you to find her, and bring her back in one piece.  Alive.  Comprende, amigo?”

I’d been listening to his yammering for so long, I almost missed my queue.

“Oh, yeah, sorry Danny.  Sure, I understand.  What’d you say the new boyfriend’s name was?”

“He’s not her god-damn boyfriend, Nollie, he’s a fucking asshole, who stole a lot of money from me.  His name’s Leo Drummond.”

“I don’t think I know him,” I said.

“And you don’t want to either.  I’m told he’s a mean son-of-a-bitch.”

“So, what are you saying?”

“Kill him.”

I smiled and nodded.   

“Oh, one more thing. Nollie.  I want Bunny and Carmelo to tag along with you, okay.” 

Bunny and Carmelo were the two goons holding up the wall behind me, and now I understood why they were there.  Danny didn’t trust me, not with his girlfriend or his money.

“Thanks, Danny,” I replied, “but I already have a drawer full of door stops.”

He laughed, “Jesus, Nollie, don’t piss them off.  They only want to help.     

I acquiesced.

“You’re the boss.  I guess as long they do as they’re told there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Great, Nollie.”

I stood up, shook Danny’s hand, and passed Bunny my business card.  I didn’t think Carmelo could read.  Bunny mouthed the words silently: “Nollie Weeks, Private Investigator.”

I told them I’d call in a couple of days and left.

* * *

Her Christian name was Laverne Terrace and although she was born and raised on the North Side of Chicago, she told everyone her hometown was Tucson.  It was a white lie but she did it, she said, to protect her family.  No kidding.

Early on in her career, she got a break in a dance troupe and took the stage name of Lilly White, and by the age of twenty-two, they were advertising her as “The Child with a Woman’s Body.”  What people didn’t know was that she had graduated Cum Lade from Chicago University when she was twenty.  Lilly was no dummy. 

Which explains why she was so intensely ambitious.  And so, it wasn’t long before she possessed all the trappings of success: an upscale penthouse apartment, an extravagant wardrobe, a nice car, and a seemingly endless line of wealthy suitors.

I first saw Lilly at a party that a new client of mine had invited me to attend.  The client’s husband was an influential attorney, who apparently knew his legalese well enough, but didn’t have a clue about his wife.  She’d hired me to shadow him, telling me in my office, that she was convinced he’d been sticking his nose in places where it didn’t belong.  So, what’s new, I thought to myself.

The party was at the house of a friend of a friend; and while I was hanging out in the billiards room trying to be inconspicuous, I was also trying to figure out why an intelligent man, with a lot to lose, would openly screw around with other women, and then bring them to party’s, where half the guests knew his wife.  The woman, in question, was Lilly White.  

I’d done a lot of this kind of work before but I had no idea that I‘d hit the jackpot that night.  And when I delivered the salacious pictures of Lilly and my client’s husband, I was awarded a substantial bonus.  I left feeling full of myself. 

It was only a couple weeks later, while eating dinner at the Carriage Inn, in Hollywood, that Lilly glided into my booth across from me.  She looked stunning in her long black evening dress, that seemed to make her white skin and blonde hair shimmer in the light. 

She greeted me with a luxurious smile, and then flagged Eddie, the headwaiter, to ask him to bring her a tall ginger ale.  Her first words were: “Mr. Weeks, you’re much better looking when your mouth isn’t wide open.” 

I used my hand to push it shut.

“You don’t recognize me do you,” she said.

I swallowed hard.

“How could I forget, Ms. White?”

“I’m glad because I’d hate to think that a man who’d seen as much of me as you have, wouldn’t remember me.”

Eddie served the tall ginger ale and said:

“Anything else Ms. White?”

“No, thank you, Eddie.  How’s your lovely wife?”

“Oh, she’s fine Ms. White.  I’ll tell her you asked.”

“Please do Eddie.”

“Thank you, Ms. White.  Thank you very much.”

As Eddie glided back to his station, he looked like he was walking on air.

“Nice touch,” I said, looking at her.

“Comes with practice, you should try it some time.”

“No thanks, I like myself as I am.”

She raised an eyebrow, it was a pretty eyebrow, and then took a sip of ginger ale.  I was wondering if she’d just stopped by to visit or had plans of inflicting revenge.  At that moment, my last bite of steak was having problems navigating through my esophagus.  

She said: “I thought your work, Mr. Weeks, was unusually professional for the type work you were asked to do.  The pictures of me could have easily shown up in the tabloids.”

I cleared my throat in my napkin, and said, “Thank you, I hope there are no hard feelings.”

“No, not all.  On the contrary, I have a proposition I want to make to you.”

Proposition?  I pushed my dinner aside.

“Shoot.”

“Well,” she began, “I was thinking you and I would make a great team.”

I watched as her eyes moved around the dining room as though she was giving it the once over.  She leaned closer and added, “I was thinking we could turn the same trick again, except next time we’d make a killing...money wise that is, sorry.”  She pulled back, embarrassed by her faux pas. 

As we sat there looking at each other, I found myself wading into the depths of her warm blue eyes.  She didn’t move, not even a blink, she just sat there as though she were giving herself up to me.  It was salaciously seductive. 

Then she abruptly broke the spell. 

“Well, Mr. Weeks, what do you think?

I told her the truth, “I don’t think I’d be interested, Ms. White.  You see, I saw the movie and everyone ends up in the slammer.”

“It was only a movie, Mr. Weeks.”

“I don’t care what you call it, it’s still extortion, and people go to jail for that.”

Lilly’s smile didn’t waver.

“I’m sorry Mr. Weeks,” she said, standing.  “I guess it was a bad idea, good evening.” 

I watched her as she exited the dining room, and I had no idea if she knew all the people dining at their tables, but she certainly acted as if she did; nodding, and gesturing and kibitzing with nearly everyone she passed.

Two nights later, I found myself, sitting in her dressing room at the Palace Theater; watching her change between acts.  A fancy dressing screen separated us, but I could tell she was studying me.  She was flashing just a hint of self-gratification because I’d told her I had changed my mind.  What I didn’t tell her, was that I was tumbling for her. 

The plan was simple.  Lilly would select the mark; I’d do the background check, and photograph the dirty details.  Then, when the time was right, I’d deliver the ill-gotten evidence with an extortion demand.  If the mark confronted Lilly, she’d deny any complicity, even suggesting that the police should be called before they did anything, usually adding, “I have a reputation you know.”  Of course, the mark wouldn’t contact anyone, he didn’t dare.  The last step was the easiest, select a drop point, and pick up the money. 

We paid a C-note a week to a crooked cop, just in case the mark did contact the police.  And we paid Danny Diaz a ten percent of our net, for allowing us to work his territory.  Danny frowned on grifters working his side of the street unless of course they checked with him first, and paid the appropriate gratuity.

When I asked Lilly later, why she was doing this, she said it was because she wanted a nest egg; but I soon realized that that was a white lie too.  She did it because she was addicted to the excitement and danger, just as she had been addicted to stripping on stage and manipulating the affections of wealthy—powerful men.  It empowered her in some strange way, which made her dangerous. 

We worked the extortion scam for a couple of years, saved a couple of nest eggs each.  Then one day she told me she was quitting, that she was bored, that she wanted to move on, and that was the end of that.  As I watched her, I couldn’t help but wonder if my addiction for her would be as easy to kick as hers was for me.  I went home and cried in my beer.

* * *

When I reached my office on Wilshire Boulevard, I discovered Lilly waiting for me.  She’d been crying.

“Oh, Nollie,” she sobbed as she ran into my arms, “I’m in so much trouble.  You have to help me.”

As I held her, I realized that the first thing I had to do was get her out of my office.  It’d be our bad luck if Bunny and Carmelo, had decided to show up unannounced.

“Lilly,” I said, “we have to get out of here, it isn’t safe.”

She lifted her head from my shoulder.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

I sat her down on the couch, picked up the office telephone, and called a Cab.  “That’s right, Wilshire Boulevard, south of Fairfax.  Tell the driver to pull into the parking area at the side of the office and honk.  Thanks.”

When I sat down beside her, I noticed the suitcase.

“Where’s Leo Drummond, Lilly?”

Her eyes filled with fire, but then dimmed, when she realized that I knew everything.

“I left him cooling his heels in Vegas.”

“Listen, Lilly, we have to get you to a safe place.  There’s a motel in West Hollywood that I know, are you up for it?”

“Can’t I stay with you, Nollie?” 

“No, baby, Danny’s goons will be watching my place.”

She squeezed my arm hard.  The mention of the man’s name did that to people, even powerful people.

“I’m sorry I had to involve you Nollie, but I just didn’t know which way to turn.”

“It’s okay.  I would’ve been hurt if you hadn’t.”

I went into my office, took a pint of scotch, and my .45 from the bottom drawer.  I called my answering service and left stalling messages for Danny and his two henchmen; then rejoined Lilly, handing her a paper cup with a swallow of booze. 

A horn sounded outside.  I checked the window, it looked safe.  I gathered Lilly up, and with the suitcase, in hand, we left.

When I returned home at four the next morning, Bunny and Carmelo were waiting in their car for me.  I waved to them as I keyed the gate to the underground parking.  When I entered the lobby from the garage, they were standing at the front entrance.  All that was missing was their noses pressed against the glass.  I let them in.

Bunny said, “You out partying last night, Nollie?”

“Yeah, what have you two been up to?”

“Waiting for you, asshole,” snapped Carmelo.

I smiled at him.

“You better be nice, wetback, or I’ll crack your head open.”

Carmelo lurched at me but Bunny, who was twice his size, held him back with a wave of his thick arm.

“Come on Nollie,” he said, “you don’t have to piss the man off.  We’re just checking up for Danny.”

“Fine, Bunny, you’ve done your job.  Now go back home and tell daddy.”

“Okay, we’ll go, but I want to know what time we should be back?”

“Give me four hours, okay.  I’ll be human by then.”

He agreed and they left, Bunny dragging the seething Carmelo under one arm.

As I watched them drive away, I decided to return to the motel, where’d I left Lilly.  My gut was telling me that everything was about to unravel.

Later that morning, when I entered Lilly’s motel room, she was sitting on the bed watching the bathroom door, which suddenly opened, revealing a mean-looking little man.  I guessed it was Leo Drummond.

“I didn’t tell him, Nollie,” she cried.  “He followed us here.  Tell him, Leo.  You followed us, didn’t you?”

Drummond turned slowly, both his hands stuffed in his suit coat pockets. 

My .45 was in my hand, and oddly enough, it was in my coat pocket, too.

“She copped the dough.” Desmond barked.  “Left me with nothing; high and dry.” 

“You followed us then?”

“Yeah, I followed you.  I want what’s coming to me.”

I glared at Lilly.

“Get the money.”

Lilly’s mouth dropped open.

“No, Nollie, it’s for us.  A new start.”

I was watching Drummond’s hands as they fidgeted uneasily in his pockets.  This time I yelled.

“Lilly, get the goddamn money.”

“No,” she screamed.  “It’s my money!  Mine!”

“You called this ass hole didn’t you, Lilly.  You called him because you knew I’d kill him when I found him here.”

“All right, goddammit, I called him.  Now do your dirt and kill the son-of-a-bitch.”

Her body language was defiant; legs apart, arms akimbo, when suddenly Leo Drummond drew a shiv from his pocket and raised it at me.  It was a big mistake because I shot him dead.

We gathered up Danny’s money, packed a few things, and left Los Angeles, for Seattle, Washington where we obtained two fake passports.  We crossed into Canada, rode the train east, across the breadth of an extraordinarily beautiful Canadian landscape, and finally settled in Quebec.  Lilly, now Lorraine Hammond, met a handsome, French school teacher; they married, and had a couple of kids.  I was always close by, watching over her; and every now and then, she’d call, and we’d sleep together.  I guess it was her way of saying thank you. 

The End