Monthly Archives: May 2018

A Burning Cold Morning (Part 33)

Posted on by
Reply

As mentioned before, Bakersfield in the 1920’s had a population of around thirteen thousand and much of the manufacturing and commerce of the town focused on the oil industry.  The first big oil strikes in the area had occurred just two decades before and there were large crews of men toiling away at extracting that black gold from the ground.  There was also a decent agricultural presence, centered around the growing of grains and alfalfa along with the raising of various kinds of livestock.  An additional number of people transited through the town on the railroad.  These three groups, but especially the oil field workers and the travelers, encompassed the people that Leo now planned to run his scheme against with Stanley.  Once he was satisfied that he had the right man picked out, it had been a fairly simple process to convince Stanley to join up with his idea, especially once it was explained how much money they might end up making as a result.  Leo breezed over any concerns about the police or penalty, ensuring his new partner that he was experienced enough to avoid any trouble.  As part of their deal Leo moved into the back area of Stanley’s repair shed, writing back to Olivia soon after to tell her of the change of address.  He still was waiting for that check from the sale of his possessions and his move to the shed solved another problem which had occurred to him soon after he had checked into the El Tejon.  He might have notified Olivia about the address but had not dared to tell her about the false name he was living under again, believing that she would refuse to send it to him given her previous anger over his aliases.  Now he simply told Stanley that he occasionally used different names and if anything showed up addressed to any, “first name of Leo, don’t worry about the last name,” well, that was to be given to him directly with no further questions asked.   Leo disliked the idea of anyone knowing his birth identity but he hoped his inexperienced partner would forget about the Hombert name quickly.  The idea of false names seemed to fascinate Stanley and Leo had to cut off the discussion to avoid telling him too much about his past.  He just ended it with, “it’s useful sometimes but complicated, you probably shouldn’t try it.” 

South Pacific train depot Bakersfield

South Pacific train depot Bakersfield

Their operational plan was simple.  Leo would purchase copper or brass which Stanley would turn into pieces of jewelry that were then electroplated to appear to be more precious metals.  Leo would take these items to a very small shop he had rented out in the main business area of Bakersfield where he hoped to sell them as “solid gold and silver”, mostly to drunk oil workers or unsuspecting persons passing through on the train.  His shop, which he had managed to get by offering the former occupant one hundred dollars to move, was well situated for the scheme as it was located right by the train depot and only blocks from several well attended establishments that were subverting the prohibition laws.  They started up production in late June of 1926 and Stanley had produced the first pieces by July 1st, just in time for the big holiday weekend.  It was on that day that Leo also informed his partner that he was changing his name again.

“Why now?” Stanley asked when told.

“It just works out better for me this way.  Up to now, well, I’ve been Lee O’Dare and that’s still a good name in this town.  Starting up our business I need to have a name that I can burn here.”

“Burn?”

“Well, yes, one that will be associated with this business we are running.”

“The illegal one, you mean?”  Stanley replied.

“Yes.  It’s just a good idea, don’t worry about it, just call me Leo from now on.”

“Leo O’Malley?”

“Yes.”

“So, what should my name be?”

“What are you, oh, never mind that, you need to keep your name, you’ve been here too long.  You can’t just change it after all that time.”

“But what if we get caught?  Isn’t that why you are using a different name?  So that if we get caught you can change it to something else when you run way?”  Stanley’s voice was rising as he spoke. 

“Who says I’m running away?  And we won’t get caught.”   Leo was getting tired of the questions.  “Now stop worrying about it.  Just produce the goods and I’ll sell them.”

“But, what if we do get caught.  I can’t stand it, I mean, my father would be devastated, he really would be.  It would be terrible.”  

“Just stop with the worrying.  I’ll worry, and you just work and keep quiet.”

“But what if we get caught?”

“Shut up!  I’ll protect you!”  Leo shouted back, raising his fist a few inches but then thinking better of it.  “Just shut up!”

Stanley wiped his eyes before replying.  “We’re going to get caught, I just know it.  But oh well, I guess that can’t be avoided.”  He then shuffled off back toward the front of his repair shop to go back to work.  Leo snorted and shook his head, thinking that maybe his plan to use Stanley had not been such a great idea after all.  This operation had to work though, it just had to, as it was his very own and he needed to prove to himself that he could be his own boss.  Any issues with Stanley would just need to be dealt with as they came up. 

The July 2nd opening of their store was a great success, aided by the general air of celebration for the Fourth of July festivities.  Everyone seemed in a good mood and were spending freely, with people clamoring for all kinds of goods including Leo’s falsely advertised jewelry.  His stock was depleted by the following Monday and Stanley had not kept up on inventory production over the weekend, choosing instead to do work for his father in their shop and also take a day off to relax.  That did not sit well with Leo, who scolded Stanley harshly and told him that he needed to get his priorities straight if they were going to make good money with their venture.

“But I can’t work on it all of the time.  My father will get angry, or suspicious, or both.  And if he starts asking questions, well, what am I supposed to say I am doing down here?”

“Fixing clocks obviously.”

“He knows there is not enough business to keep me that busy.  I don’t have many customers you know, this is mostly by hobby.”

“Tell him you have more customers then, tell him you have a big order.”  Leo was getting impatient again, his words spoken in a terse manner.

“That won’t work.  He’ll know, he knows everything about business in this town.  He talks to people.”

“Well, I don’t know what then but tell him whatever you have to.  The priority is our business, ok? Or don’t you want to make money?”

“I do.  But,”

Leo cut him off.  “Here’s your share for now.  Get to work.”

Staring down at the eighty dollars which Leo had placed into his hand brought a smile to Stanley’s face.  He thought about all of the things he could do, the women he could seduce, the fine food he could buy, maybe a good set of clothes for himself.  Closing his fist around the money he nodded and went back to work.  

…to be continued

A Burning Cold Morning (Part 32)

Posted on by
Reply
Lucky Strike

Lucky Strike

 

By the time that Leo and Stanley met, the Bittenhopper’s had been in Bakersfield for over a decade.  Ben was content in his surroundings and job, making enough money to get by and enjoy just a few select luxuries that he favored such as smoking Lucky Strike cigarettes and going to the movies.  He had in fact just returned from seeing The Flying Ace when he interrupted Leo and Stanley’s first meeting.  As he walked back from the theater he remembered that there was a piece of unfinished work that Stanley had promised to complete by the next day and he decided to stop by his son’s clock repair shed to remind him.  As much as he disliked going to the place, he just planned to duck his head in the door for a minute to speak to Stanley.  As he did so he observed Leo, a stranger to him of course, standing by the work bench although no one else was in sight.

The Flying Ace

The Flying Ace

“You here getting work done by my boy?” Ben asked.

“If you mean the clockmaker here, well, not exactly but I stopped by to talk to him.  You’re his Dad?”

“Where is he then?”

Leo motioned toward the darker area at the back of the shop.  Several seconds later Stanley emerged with a clock in his hands.

“Hey Dad, what are you doing here?”

“Just stopping for a second to remind you about that work for Jack Peters.  He’s coming for it tomorrow so you better get over to our place and get it done.  Who’s this fella?” 

“I’ll get it done, I said I would.  You better go before you get the vapors or something,” Stanley replied in a friendly but mocking tone, a small smirk on his face.

“Funny boy, very funny.  This fella?  Who is he?”

“What’s it to you?” Leo asked before Stanley could reply.

“I just ain’t seen you around before and I wondered.  Nothing wrong with being new, we all were at one point or another around here.  I just like knowin’ the people, that’s all.”

“Le, umm, yes,  Lee’s my name and I’m just here for a bit, shouldn’t be anyone you need to remember anyway.”  Internally, Leo scolded himself for almost blowing his alias which could have been an issue as he had introduced himself to Stanley very clearly as Lee O’Dare.  

Ben started closing the door and called back over his shoulder, “Don’t you forget that work Stanley.” 

Once he was gone Leo let out a low laugh.  “Kind of rough on you, huh?  Treats you like a kid.”

“It’s always that way, but he’s not a bad character.  Just sees me as a youngster still I guess.  We work together, me and him, gold and silver stuff mostly.  He’s right though about that other job, I really need to close up here.  This one will work for you, I think.”  He extended the small clock he had in his hands to Leo, who took it and gave it a quick glance before nodding.  “It’ll do.  How much?”

“I have to say that I don’t get many folks that come here just to buy a clock.  I’m not really a seller you know?  I just fix ‘em for people.”

“Yeah, well I like used things and I heard about you when I was asking around town about some other business ventures I’m looking into.  It peaked my interest.”

“What did?” Stanley replied, an openly quizzical look on his face.

“The work you do, I mean, mostly the stuff with your Dad I guess.  I heard you two were goldsmiths but I figured you might be more interested than he would be in a business proposition I might have for you.”

“Fixing clocks?”

“Not, not that at all.”

Stanley still looked puzzled and stayed that way as Leo paid him for the clock and then left after saying, “It’s just an idea for now but I will come around and we can get to know each other a little better.  Maybe then we can discuss business.”

Over the course of several more visits and some additional time the two of them spent hanging out together around Bakersfield Leo confirmed several key factors about Stanley.  One was that he did not have much of a conscience when it came to small crimes that did not seem to hurt anyone.  He even admitted that on occasion he had pulled a minor scam on customers that irritated him, were too demanding or whom he just did not like.  This usually involved substituting inferior material in some piece of metal work or inflating the price on a simple job.  He had to be careful of course as his father was a completely honest business man, so the opportunities had been few and far between up to this point.  It also became apparent that Stanley was not happy with his own lot in life, wanting to make more money and have better things.  He also very much wanted to woo one, or preferably some, of the pretty ladies he saw around town or who came to him with repair work.  He figured he needed money to do that properly.  And lastly, although older, Stanley was willing to have Leo, or Lee as he knew him, be the captain of their operation.  

That operation was one that Leo had developed as he sought out opportunities for a viable criminal enterprise in Bakersfield.   He was determined to find a way to run his own operation, to be his own man and not have to work for anyone else, preferably ever again.  He was tired of the demands, rules and betrayals he had experienced at the hands of those he had worked for previously and believed this move to the west coast was his chance to establish himself as a top operator.  Initially nothing had presented itself other than offers to work for other criminal operations, all of which he had turned down.  Then one day, while he was sitting outside of a bar and smoking a cigarette, he observed a local scam artist selling pyrite to an unsuspecting traveler who believed it to be gold.  Although he had no intention of getting into that swindle, a fortuitously overhead conversation the next day did give him another, similar idea.  That discussion happened to be between two men at the general store and it centered on the idea of electroplating.  Leo was unfamiliar with the term but he gathered enough to realize that it generally involved making things that were not gold or silver look like they were in fact those precious metals.  He probably would not have connected that idea with profit if he had not observed the pyrite scam the day before, but the beginning of an idea now formed in his head.  All he needed was a qualified and willing tradesman, one who needed money, had few scruples and was willing to work for Leo.  In Stanley, he had found such a man.  

…to be continued

A Burning Cold Morning (Part 31)

Posted on by
Reply

Stanley Bittenhopper was born September 19th, 1890 in Bristol, Connecticut.  He had an average childhood in an average household of the day, growing up as the youngest of four children in a middle-class family.  His father was a goldsmith who also worked as a jack-of-all-trades repairman and his mother ran the household while taking in neighbor’s laundry for extra money.  When Stanley graduated from high school in 1907 he was five feet eleven and weighed about one hundred ninety pounds, a lanky young man with dirty blonde hair and green eyes. 

Sessions company clock

Sessions company clock

Through connections that his father Ben had in town, he picked up an apprenticeship at the Sessions Clock Company, something considered to be a valuable way into an established line of work.   He stayed there long enough to gain an interest in clockmaking that would stay with him throughout the rest of his life, and picked up enough skills to make money doing so even after he left Sessions in 1911.   In October of that year his mother passed away and his father, with an empty house he did not want to live in and a life-long yearning for the west coast, sold everything and headed out to California.  He offered to take his youngest son along and teach him to be a goldsmith, an offer that Stanley accepted as he figured he could make more money in that line of work.  When the two of them arrived in Bakersfield on October 27, 1911 Stanley had to wonder what his father had been thinking.

When the two Bittenhopper men departed Bristol they had left an established, growing and robust city of around thirteen thousand people.  Getting off the train in Bakersfield they entered a place with a similar population but a totally different culture and atmosphere.  Their hometown on the east coast had been part of the original settling of the United States and was steeped in the history and traditions of its people dating back to the late 1700’s.  It had a settled economy, a population of established  families and the general air of the place was reflected in houses like that occupied by Stanley’s former employer at the Sessions Clock Company. 

Sessions Home

Sessions Home

Bakersfield was much younger, less refined and had an air of wild uncertainty about it.  Much of the community had been developed as a result of gold and oil being found in the area, bringing with it the unattached men and women from all over the place that usually flock to those kinds of locations.  It was a rough place and not one where either of the Bittenhopper’s initially felt very comfortable.  

Union Oil Company at Bakersfield 1910

Union Oil Company at Bakersfield 1910

They decided to stick it out though and eventually, over the course of a few years, they became well established in the area.  One benefit of a constantly evolving and changing place such as Bakersfield was that if you stuck around for a few years you became an old-timer in the area, “respected and connected” as Stanley’s father would say.  They also both welcomed the warmer weather, and eventually grew to appreciate the tone of the area’s interesting, constantly changing population.  By fall of 1913 they had a successful company established making, selling and repairing gold and silver jewelry and doing other kinds of metalwork.  Stanley also ran a side business repairing clocks, a venture that his father would not allow in their joint business due to the fire-gilding involved.

This was a skill that his son had picked up while working for Sessions, although it was certainly something that Ben Bittenhopper also knew how to do.  He had stopping doing it; however, many years prior believing that the rumored side-effects were true, if not actually worse than already realized.  He used electroplating in his metalworking and had taught Stanley the skills for that much safer practice.  He had trouble understanding why his son insisted on using fire-gliding when working on clocks.   They argued about it often, with Stanley repeating a version of the same reason every time; “Bob Miller at Sessions taught me that this was the best way, the only way to do it, and the results look better than your way, it’s easy to see.”  Ben disagreed of course and so, to keep things sailing along smoothly, they both agreed to stop talking about it as long as Stanley kept it out of the shop.  This he was happy to do, renting a small shack about a mile away from their house for his side work in the clock repair business.  

Most of his work there did not involve fire-gilding at all, as it was usually just internal repair work or the replacement of gears and broken clock faces.  As stubborn as he was with his father, Stanley was aware of the suspected problems with the practice and only used it when necessary, or occasionally to impress an especially pretty female customer by turning an ordinary looking clock into a eye-catching piece of workmanship.   He did love the way the pieces would turn out and he always felt that the risk was worth the result.

Fire-gliding has been practiced for centuries and can most easily, without getting into arcane details, be described this way:  When gold or silver is added to room temperature mercury, these metals dissolve and form an amalgam, which is a spreadable liquid metal thicker than just the mercury would be by itself.  Once you have coated an item (ideally some kind of copper-based material such as brass or bronze as these allow for better adhesion), you then need to boil away the mercury.  That process, where the mercury is heated to six hundred and seventy five degrees, is where the dangerous part of the operation occurs.  Although this process does leave behind the gold or silver (although in a rough form that often needs to be burnished) it also releases elemental mercury into the air, and that is definitely not something you want to be breathing.  Prolonged and repeated exposure to this kind of mercury vapor leads to neurotoxin poisoning with symptoms such as high levels of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.  This has often, especially in the past, been referred to as Mad Hatter’s Disease, as that occupation as involves repeated exposure to mercury.  The symptoms can linger for quite a long time, especially if the periods of exposure are not too frequent or intense.  It would take quite awhile to become evident but Stanley Bittenhopper, known around Bakersfield simply as The Clockmaker, definitely was being poisoned.  

…to be continued