Short Story: The Gates Man

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James Rose carefully checked his watch and backed up 90 minutes to declare the time of death. It was a pity, such a beautiful woman with a bullet through her head. If there was one thing he had learned in the Marine Corps, it was that all corpses looked the same: DEAD. This one was no different; one minute a vibrant screen actress and the next minute one for the morgue.

His fellow detective Frank Irwin said “I think I saw her one time at the picture show. She played a gangsters dame, she sure was beautiful” his voice travelled off as he said “then”. Jim didn’t exactly trust Frank he was one of Gates men. Gates was the next guy behind the throne and his tactics were considered heavy handed even by the roughest of the flat foots. Los Angeles certainly wasn’t the place to be if you were a minority or “didn’t fit in”. Homosexuals were actively searched and rooted out in the community.

Jim was in his 30’s and his life had taken drastic turns to the right and left in his career. Sitting in his single breasted Hart, Schaffer and Marx suit with highly shined brown cap toes he did his best to look good on the job. Even he had to admit, the suit made him look good. If you could get them to look at your suit instead of your face, you would do alright in life and it did, the suit did fit him like a glove. He liked to wear custom fitted suits, it was one of his …show more content…

“Round up the usual suspects and lets interrogate them. See the Madame and see if she will give me a room to talk to the errrrr ladies. If she won’t cooperate then shut the place down as a crime scene”. Adding like he knew something “and find this Rae, she sounds like she would know something.” Pausing “also, see what the mob is up to.” He knew what his boss would tell him “this is 1945 and we have millions of GI’s coming back to their families. We want their money and their lives to be spent in LA. If they hear about a crime spree, they end up in Iowa” Jim’s job was to make sure they moved to