My name is Johnny Casino. I'm a retired P.I. with a past. I just hope it doesn't catch up with me. Before I went legit, I ran numbers in Jersey for Big Louie "Fingers" D'Abruzzo and then busted heads in Miami for Big Eddie "Mambo" Fontaine. But at the ripe old age of twenty-four, Little Johnny beat a hasty retreat to L.A. when somebody slipped the cops a hot tip and all of a sudden, I became the fall guy for the Mob.

I opened my first detective office off Sunset three years later and tried to bury the guy I used to be. I'd catch glimpses of him in the mirror sometimes and it scared me, but it also made me work harder as a P.I. For fifteen years I occupied my time by digging around in other people's garbage. I was getting used to the smell. But thanks to a grateful client, I retired at the slightly riper age of thirty-nine.

The rich old gal who hired me wanted to know if her third husband was fooling around. He was. She changed her will, which he didn't like. She shot him five times, which he probably didn't like, either, then killed herself. I was her sole beneficiary.

A year in court with some disgruntled and disinherited relatives left me with a handsome nest egg, her big house located north of Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Angeles, and a cabin in the mountains. I rented the fancy house to a fading movie star and moved to the piney woods above L.A. to get away from it all. For the last three years I've been sitting on my butt clipping coupons and thinking my life had finally sorted itself out.

But when people get to a certain age, they change. We spend the first half of our lives trying to live, and the last half preparing to die. I had obviously reached that second stage. At forty-four, I was watching the birds and reading the obituaries…


Case #1: You Can Only Die Twice
Date: April 13, 2002
Location: Logjam, CA


It was an early Saturday morning in April. Dirty piles of gritty snow were still banked along the road waiting for the spring sun to filter through the trees and melt them to mush. I was relaxing on the back deck watching a Canvasback duck plop onto the water near the bank. He paddled into the mist while a flock of Canadian geese flew north sounding like a New York street riot. I hadn't seen any Mallards so far, but it was early in the year. Their green head and white collar reminded me of the parish priest back in Jersey. Funny, I'd lived in the woods long enough to tell the difference between the Mallard's honk and the old Canvasback's squawk, even on a cloudy day. I don't know where I learned so much about ducks. When I lived in Jersey, duck was a verb.

I was listening to the lonesome cries across the lake when I read of Walter Dugan's demise in The Logjam Gazette. I stood up so fast I knocked over my glass of orange juice and vodka. I grabbed the cordless phone on the large redwood table and began punching in the familiar number before I noticed its "battery low" LED flashing. Damn high-tech piece of crap. I hurled it into the trees. It wouldn't be alone. There were three others in there somewhere along with an obstinate microwave.

I read the obit again. I couldn't believe it. What the hell happened? That's when I noticed the date. It said Walter died Tuesday. That was a neat trick. Walter and I had dinner together on Wednesday.

Walter Dugan billed himself as "The Gravel King of Southern California." It was on Wednesday when he was telling me this long, drawn out tale about some gal who wanted to go into business with him.

Walter had retired to the mountains, too, but Walter was worth about fifty million dollars more than me. He made his money in gravel. Hard to believe anybody could get worked up over rocks, but the characters in L.A. get worked up over tofu, so anything's possible.

Walter told me L.A. was going retro. They were paving streets with cobblestones. Restaurants were going European with outside cafes, striped awnings, and waiters up the wazoo. In France they eat on the sidewalk so you can't see the cockroaches inside. Big deal. In Jersey, the only people who eat outside, do it in a Dumpster. In Los Angeles, they sit on the sidewalk and pay seven-fifty for a glass of domestic wine and the privilege of breathing exhaust fumes from expensive cars. You figure it out.

I went through the French doors into the living room to telephone on a more conventional device. This one had an answering machine with a tape recorder built into it. The one in the master bedroom had call waiting and call forwarding for people who didn't know if they were coming or going. I used speed dial and called Walter's place.

I don't know what I expected. The Gazette must have gotten the day wrong. They probably meant Thursday. That begins with a "T." Kelly at the paper couldn't spell "beans," much less Thursday.

After waiting through three rings and a chorus of click, click boogie, Walter's answering machine was telling me in his deep, crusty voice to leave a message.

"Put down the phone, Johnny," said the same crusty voice behind me.

I turned around and saw my old friend.

Walter Dugan hadn't died on Thursday, either.

"Walter, what's this all about?"

"They're trying to kill me, Johnny. They're trying to kill me… again."