Title: My Baby Chased Away the Blues
Author: R.A. Thorn
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: July 8, 2019
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 104700
Genre: Historical, LGBT, Romance, historical, gay, bi, genderqueer, cross-dressing, law enforcement, blue-collar, 1920s
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Synopsis
It’s 1925 in Los Angeles, and motor
patrol officer Del Randolph keeps making one mistake after another. Struggling
to keep his job with the Los Angeles Police Department, Del is also lonely and
heartbroken after his last lover left him.
But then he meets Ev, a gentle but
cynical invert, and has his heart stolen again. Del knows he’s no great
catch—he isn’t smart or particularly handsome or rich—but he’s determined to
show Ev how much he loves him.
Unfortunately, his misguided attempts at
winning Ev’s affections might end up destroying their relationship instead. Del
joins a hapless gang of bootleggers to try to make some money but quickly winds
up in trouble. Soon he’s in debt, breaking the law, and lying to Ev about all
of it.
Excerpt
My Baby Chased the Blues Away
R.A. Thorn © 2019
All Rights Reserved
Del pointed at the double white line
running down the center of the road. “See that?” he said to the motorist he had
stopped. “You need to stay on the right side of those lines, Mr…?”
“Hollister. My name is Ernie Hollister.
I own a bakery on Thomas Street—that’s where I’m headed now, in fact, and I’m
going to be late. All I did was stray slightly—very slightly—to the side of
that line.” An indignant flush covered Hollister’s cheeks as he glared at Del
through the open window of his car.
Del strove to keep his tone polite,
wishing Hollister would keep his voice down at the very least. “You were all
the way over in the other lane, sir. And you missed that stop sign back at the
last crossroads.”
Hollister spluttered. “I did no such
thing, officer. More to the point, this traffic situation has gotten completely
out of hand. Two years ago, we didn’t have any lines on the road. A year ago,
it was a single line. Now it’s a double one. Where is this all going to end?
Doesn’t the government of Los Angeles trust a grown man to drive an
automobile?”
“Thousands of people die in accidents
every year, sir. We need to make the roads as safe as possible.”
“I was in no danger of causing an
accident. It’s four in the morning—no one else is on the road.”
“I was on the road,” Del pointed out.
“And you never know when another car might appear, or a pedestrian, or a
streetcar.”
“There is such a thing as being overzealous
in the pursuit of duty,” Hollister said, growing more heated. “Interfering with
law-abiding citizens and tagging them for no good reason—why aren’t you out
catching bootleggers or raiding a speakeasy? There’s enough of them in this
town to keep the whole passel of you busy.”
Del looked away from Hollister’s
outraged expression, focusing on the traffic tag and trying to keep his hand
steady as he wrote the information. He couldn’t afford to have citizens making
complaints to Captain Gardner about him.
“I’m a traffic patrolman, sir. My job is
to enforce the laws.” He handed the tag to Mr. Hollister, who snatched it from
him, almost tearing the paper.
“Mark my words, officer, you will hear
the full measure of my displeasure. I shall speak to your captain this
afternoon.”
So much for being polite. But being rude
to Hollister would only make it worse, so he said, “Yes, sir,” and waited for
Hollister to drive away in a huff before returning to his motorcycle and
heading back to the police station. His shift was almost over, and he still
needed to write up his report.
The streets of Lincoln Heights were
pretty deserted in the early hours of the morning, but there were always those
like Mr. Hollister who thought obeying traffic laws was a choice rather than a
requirement, and it was his duty to deal with them. But he did hope Hollister
wouldn’t follow through on his threat. His appointment to the motor patrol had
come about mainly through luck. Carl Hutton was supposed to get the position,
but his mother had fallen ill, and Carl had taken time off to look after her.
Captain Gardner promoted Del instead, elevating him from his previous duties of
walking a beat and directing traffic at an intersection. Now he got to ride a
motorcycle, which he loved, and his pay had been raised too. But Carl’s mother
had passed away two weeks ago, and now Carl was back on the force. Any slip up
on Del’s part and Carl would be there to take his place.
At the station, Del parked his
motorcycle and headed inside to write his report and change out of his uniform.
As he came around the corner of the building, he ran right into Tom
Kirkpatrick.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Minus,”
Kirkpatrick said, a smirk twisting his mouth. Kirkpatrick worked on the morals
squad and had several years’ seniority over Del, although he was still a
harness bull, not a detective.
“I told you not to call me that,” Del
mumbled, avoiding Kirkpatrick’s eyes and wishing yet again he had never
acquired the stupid nickname.
It had all started when Chief August
Vollmer came down from the Berkeley Police Department the year before. A bunch
of the reformers in town who thought the police were too cozy with the
politicians at City Hall asked Vollmer to reform the department and weed out
some of the corruption. Vollmer gave a big speech about how policemen should be
drawn from the best of the nation’s manhood and how the department should
operate on a professional basis. Officers needed to be appointed based on their
qualifications, not because some commissioner owed them a favor, he’d said.
Vollmer made all of the cops, Del included, take a whole bunch of intelligence
tests. The Army Alpha to start with, followed by psychological tests, and even
a test where you had to write an essay. Del had made it through the seventh
grade, but he had never been able to write a decent essay to save his life.
Harry Mackenzie sneaked a look at
everyone’s scores and told Del he’d gotten a “C-minus” on the Army Alpha. Del
wasn’t sure if that was true or not—Mackenzie could be a real shit when he
wanted to be—but he knew he hadn’t scored an “A” either. Luckily, Vollmer gave
up when it became clear the mayor and his cronies at City Hall didn’t intend to
surrender their influence over the police. Vollmer went back to his high-hat
college cops that he recruited from the university in Berkeley, and the LAPD
settled back into its usual rhythms of bribery and payoffs before anybody could
fire Del for not having enough smarts. He thought the whole thing was bunk—he
didn’t need to have gone to college to know when someone blew through a stop
sign.
But Mackenzie blabbed about the scores
to Kirkpatrick, and Kirkpatrick took to calling Del “Mr. Minus.” Del knew he
wasn’t smart. Only last week Lieutenant Miller called him into his office to
reprimand him for a number of misspellings in Del’s reports and ordered Del to
improve his handwriting because he couldn’t read a “damn word of his chicken
scratch.” In fact, it would be best if Del typed his reports, Miller had
decided. Del had attempted the typewriter yesterday and dreaded his next
encounter. It took him a good minute to type most words, as he had to hunt for
every letter, plus the paper got stuck and ended up all crumpled when he
finally managed to yank it free.
He was trying his best—he’d spent all
winter studying traffic laws until he could recite them backward and forward in
order to qualify for the motor patrol. When he got the promotion, he figured
Kirkpatrick would stop with the nickname, but it appeared it was going to stick
with him his whole career. He didn’t get people like Kirkpatrick, always trying
to run a fellow down. Del had never done anything to him except be born a few
years later. Sure, the veterans gave all the rookies in the department a hard
time, and he shouldn’t give a damn what Kirkpatrick called him, but the
nickname hit a sore spot.
“Don’t call you that?” Kirkpatrick
laughed. “I can call you whatever I want, Randolph.”
William Brooks, another cop on the
morals squad, strolled over and slapped Kirkpatrick on the shoulder. “Ah, leave
the kid alone, Tommy. Let’s go write our report. The missus said she’d cook
sausages this morning. Don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Kirkpatrick snorted, but he turned to go
inside. Del would have liked to avoid their company, but he couldn’t very well
hang around on the front steps, so he followed a pace or two behind. Brooks and
Kirkpatrick started bickering about a bet they had going over whether Dazzy
Vance would pitch a no-hitter in his next game with the Brooklyn Robins, but
Sergeant Friedman, stationed at the front desk, motioned for them to be quiet.
“What the hell, Friedman?” Kirkpatrick
said. “You think the bums in the drunk tank are gonna complain?”
“You know who walked in here not ten
minutes ago?” Friedman replied, his voice hushed. “Dick Lucas. His car’s parked
down the block.”
That silenced Kirkpatrick, and Del
swallowed, looking uneasily down the hallway.
“The Gray Wolf’s enforcer, huh?” Brooks
said. “Damn—does he have business with Captain Gardner?”
“I guess so. Captain’s been here all
night—word is there was some trouble with the Italians.”
“Crawford wouldn’t take too kindly to
any infringements on his territory, that’s for sure.”
Kirkpatrick nodded. “Yeah, those wops
should know better than to try and take over any of the legging from the Gray
Wolf.”
Del, still hovering behind them,
experienced a sick thrill at the idea of meeting anyone connected with Charlie
Crawford. Crawford, known to many as “the Gray Wolf,” controlled the vice trade
in the city.
“This might be a good opportunity to
introduce ourselves to Lucas,” Brooks mused. “Let him know that if he ever
needs the right men for a job, we’re available.”
Del sidled off in the opposite direction
from Captain Gardner’s office. Maybe Brooks would consider trying to get the
attention of the Gray Wolf of Spring Street, but he sure as heck wasn’t about
to risk it. Certainly not with Dick Lucas. That guy walked around the downtown
police station in broad daylight with a Thompson submachine gun slung over his
shoulder, bold as brass. He’d brush Del away like an irritating fly.
The typewriter went about as well as Del
had expected, and the sun was rising by the time he finally left. He squinted
against its brilliance as he took the streetcar home. Maybe soon the lieutenant
would give him a few more day shifts. Night shifts weren’t as bad in the
summer, but he still wouldn’t mind going to sleep when it was dark instead of
having to block the light in his bedroom as best he could. Then there were all
the daily noises of his apartment building to contend with—kids shouting,
people talking and listening to the radio, water pipes clanking, and alligators
barking.
He had chosen his apartment based on the
attractive price, which had seemed low considering the spacious rooms, private
telephone, and full electricity. Only after he’d moved in had he discovered it
was near the alligator farm located across from Lincoln Park. The gators’
raspy, throaty bellows sounded day and night. There had to be hundreds of
alligators there, and if a couple of them got going, it sure made a racket. At
least he was on the second floor. Mrs. Howser down the street had found an
alligator in her backyard one morning, and every time the rains got heavy, a
couple of the gators escaped the fences around their ponds and relocated to the
park to the delight of the kids and terror of their parents.
But moving seemed a lot of effort, and
he could endure loud alligators in exchange for the telephone and lower rent.
Even with his higher salary, the bills seemed to pile up, and he always had to
send money to his father every month. Aunt Sophie might be willing to let her
brother live with them, but some extra cash made it easier. His father’s bad
leg meant he wasn’t able to work anymore, and he depended on Del to help.
His last lover, Lawrence, sure had hated
Del’s apartment, though. Lawrence hadn’t liked a lot of things, including the
green and yellow chintz armchair Del now sat in while undoing the laces on his
boots and then pulling them off. Personally, Del thought the colors were a
cheerful combination, and it had been on sale. But after he’d wrestled the
thing up the stairs, Lawrence had made him cover it with a sheet.
“Those are appalling colors, Del,” he’d
said. “What were you thinking? It’s going to give me a headache looking at it.”
“I thought you would like it,” Del had
mumbled. “You were saying as how I didn’t have any comfortable chairs here, and
you wanted somewhere nice to sit and listen to the radio.” At the time, he had
only had the four hard-backed chairs around the kitchen table.
“I didn’t mean you should run and buy
the reject from the upholsterer’s bargain bin,” Lawrence had replied.
Of course, nothing Del did was ever good
enough for Lawrence. He’d ended up leaving Del for a rich stockbroker who had a
fancy car and could take him on vacations in Florida.
It was the story of his life, really. No
matter how hard he tried, he always came up short.
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Meet the Author
R.A. Thorn lives in Northern California, though her heart remains in the Colorado mountains. When not tracking down odd historical facts or dreaming up new fantasy worlds, she enjoys hiking and swimming. She is perhaps too fond of footnotes and dark chocolate and looks forward to lazy weekend mornings watching anime and drinking tea.Website | Facebook
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