By M D Smith IV

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The rain came down dirty over 1938 Los Angeles, turning neon signs into smeared watercolor dreams and washing cigarette butts into the gutters. My office smelled of stale bourbon, old paper, and bad decisions. 

Then she sauntered in.

Blonde hair beneath a black feathered hat. Red dress hugging every curve. White gloves. Red heels sharp enough to open arteries. She smoked through a long ivory holder and glared at me like she might hire me or destroy me.

“Mr. Benny Goodfella?” she asked.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“Rhonda Collins.”

That name carried money. Her husband Anthony Collins owned shipping businesses, gambling interests, and probably a few things nobody talked about openly.

“My husband’s missing,” she said.

“How long?”

“Two days.”

“Maybe he’s drunk.”

“He’s done that before,” she admitted. “But never this long.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Tell me the rest.”

Her lipstick tightened. “Anthony’s had gambling debts lately. Missed payments on the mansion. And there’s another woman.”

“Name?”

“Pearl Moreno.”

That got my attention. Pearl was married to Frankie Moreno, nightclub owner and full-time gangster.

“At the Blue Canary club,” Rhonda continued, “people saw Anthony drinking with her several times.”

“So either he ran off with a gangster’s wife, or somebody collected on gambling debts.”

“I think something terrible has happened.”

Beautiful women always wanted certainty. Trouble was, certainty usually arrived wearing a coroner’s tag.

For two weeks, I worked the streets of Los Angeles. I bribed bartenders, drank rye with bookmakers, and spent nights at the Blue Canary watching Pearl Moreno glide through cigarette smoke like temptation itself.

One evening, she finally approached me.

“You’re asking about Anthony again?” she purred.

“You’re dodging questions again.”

“He liked talking to me. That’s all.”

“Frankie know that?”

Her smile faded. “Frankie knows everything.”

That sounded unhealthy.

A week later, cops found a shallow grave outside Griffith Park. The corpse wore Anthony Collins’ clothes, watch, and wallet. By all accounts, Anthony was no longer missing, but now dead.

But the body bothered me. The face had been mutilated too carefully. Fingertips burned away with acid. Sloppy work pretending to look like a professional hit.

Detective Harris poked the dirt with his shoe. “You think it’s Collins?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because real killers don’t leave bodies so easy to find.”

The next morning I visited the morgue. After leaning on the attendant hard enough, he admitted a John Doe had gone missing days before the grave was discovered.

That was enough.

Anthony Collins was alive.

I started tailing Pearl. Every evening she drove somewhere different in her cream-colored Packard. Then one Thursday night, she headed east out of town.

I followed from a distance. Another car—a black Cadillac—trailed behind her with its lights off.

Pearl turned down a dirt road lined with eucalyptus trees. At the end stood a lonely cottage glowing softly through curtained windows.

Pearl parked.

A man jumped from the black Cadillac and disappeared behind the house.

I killed my headlights and watched.

Pearl hurried to the porch and knocked hard.

Anthony Collins answered the door, alive as sin itself.

Even from fifty yards away, I saw panic flood his face.

Then Pearl started screaming. Not frightened screaming. Angry screaming.

I bolted from my car.

Gunshots exploded inside the cottage. Three. Four. Five.

Pearl stumbled backward through the doorway, shrieking hysterically.

I rushed inside with my revolver drawn.

Anthony Collins lay sprawled across the floor in a widening pool of blood, his chest torn apart by .45 slugs.

Dead this time for sure.

The back door swung open in the night breeze. Looking out, fresh tire tracks showed the black Cadillac already gone.

Frankie Moreno had followed his wife and settled the matter personally.

Pearl collapsed into a chair sobbing.

“You told him?” I asked.

“No!” she cried. “Anthony promised he’d take me away after he got the money.”

“What money?”

That part took another week to untangle.

Anthony had staged his own death after winning nearly two hundred thousand dollars gambling with mob money. He stole a corpse from the morgue, dressed it in his own clothes, and planned to disappear under a new identity.

Until greed and Pearl ruined everything.

Rhonda Collins took the news calmly. We sat beside her mansion lake while evening settled over the water.

“So he was leaving me anyway,” she said softly.

“Looks that way.”

“And now?”

“Frankie Moreno’s in jail for murder. And now you inherit everything your husband hid.”

She studied me over the rim of a crystal glass holding a gin martini before sliding a thick envelope across the table.

“Your fee. Plus a bonus.”

I tucked it into my coat.

Then she crossed her legs slowly and lit another cigarette in that long ivory holder.

“You know,” she murmured, “I might enjoy seeing more of you socially.”

Outside, Los Angeles glittered beneath the night like a city trying hard to hide its sins. Inside, I smiled at the widow in red and wondered how much trouble a man could survive before he stopped calling it trouble at all.