what would you do

... if an alleged Phoenix mobster named Kemper Marley floated by in the canal below your second story apartment in Mesa while you were listening to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club LP "Howl"?

I can't seem to puzzle this city out. The canals are full and tipping the brim while the rivers and lakes not fed by massive underground pumps are dry as high mountain bones. Watch while the downtown opera is fed by a steady stream of limos stocked with iced California Champagne as if that weren't redundant, oxymoronic or just pathetic here in the desert.

There are big hairless howling-rats everywhere. Large venomous scorpions and poisonous toads seem to crawl out of the powdered clay and into the drain in my shower every other day. Packs of dangerous snakes huddle under cover near walkways and culverts during the heat of the day and crawl into the beds of children when evening descends.

There is no relief from the heat except by stroke and they occur regularly striking the young as often as the elderly. Dark colored vehicles explode from heat buildup without warning. Concrete melts and forms an oatmeal like slush that sears skin on contact. Throw an ice cream cone into the air and it will evaporate before it hits the ground.

And this is in May.

In June, the outer edges of Lake Havasu begin to boil lightly and lake-cooked fish are legally harvested until the arrival of the monsoons in July. The monsoons do not provide cooling or rain. Instead, they bring the lightening storms designed to turn the entire state into a massive and uncontrollable wildfire. Most flee while others remain. I will remain.

Once I move there, of course.

The following is an excerpt from a long essay about Kemper Marley:

The situation in Arizona was, for a long time, reminiscent of that line in "Memphis Blues" that goes, "Mistah Ed Crump, he runs this town." Only "The Man" in Arizona was named Kemper Marley, beer baron extraordinaire, player with real estate and other lucrative ventures too numerous to mention. At the time of his death in 1990, Marley was said to own "5 square miles of Carefree -- the highest priced real estate in Arizona," according to B. Downing Quig. Sort of like having hotels on Boardwalk AND Park Place, in addition to a monopoly on booze -- but of course that's the name of the game.

Right after the Second World War Kemper Marley had a monopoly on liquor distribution in Arizona. In 1948 his company, United Liquor, ran afoul of federal liquor laws -- fifty-two of his employees went to jail, including Jim Hensley. Some say that Hensley took a fall for Marley. Hensley was general manager of Marley's firm at the time. Be that as it may, when Hensley re-emerged from the slam, Marley rewarded him with a Budweiser distributorship which is now said to be worth $200 million, even though Hensley was prohibited from working in the liquor industry for the remainder of his days.

But Marley was more than just an entrepreneur. Quig writes that for forty years "Marley bankrolled Harry Rosenzweig who doled out Marley's great wealth to a slate of Republican candidates who were almost universally successful in obtaining high political office."

But that isn't all -- it seems that "Marley was able to control the Democratic party as well. Every congressman and every senator in Arizona currently owes his position to the Marley machine." So you see, it's sort of like W.C. Handy said: "Mistah Ed Crump, he runs this town." Crump controlled the Tennessee Democratic Party from his stronghold in Memphis, and ran the state's Republican Party as a sort of sideline, using a venerable old gentleman named Perry Howard as his front man. (In those days the Republicans were the "colored man's party" in Tennessee).

Nobody from Arizona made it to Congress without his approval -- and that includes Barry Goldwater. The following quote regarding a crook named Gus Greenbaum is from Brian Quig:

"Greenbaum was a Phoenix socialite seen at all the society balls in Phoenix, usually in the company of the Barry Goldwaters and Harry Rosenzweigs. In 1958 Greenbaum and his wife were found dead in their bed -- their throats cut. This inaugurated a series of grisly gangland-style slayings." Yes, I know that Quig is a left-wing ding-a-ling, but that doesn't make his information wrong, does it? Would that it did. (Actually, Goldwater's acquaintance with Greenbaum is well established).

Kemper Marley, the Arizona godfather, certainly didn't lack for connections. In 1948, when so many of his employees were sent to prison, Marley had a slick mouthpiece who kept him in the clear. The lawyer's name was William Rehnquist.

Marley was often seen on the periphery of scandalous or illegal activity, but was never directly implicated in any of it, although strong suspicions persist even to the present day, particularly with regard to the murder of an Arizona Republic reporter named Don Bolles. According to Michael Wendland, who belonged to a group of journalists known as the "Investigative Reporters and Editors" that set up shop in Arizona to investigate the slaying, the group concluded that Marley was behind the killing of the Don Bolles.
It seems that Marley had arranged his own appointment to the state's racing commission by Governor Raul Castro when Bolles began writing a series of articles about him detailing his checkered past. Bolles' expose forced Marley to resign from the commission. One of the revelations involved Eugene Hensley, who had done five years in a federal prison for skimming profits from a business venture. Bolles also mentioned that the Hensleys had sold their dog track to an individual connected with Emprise Corp., a mobbed-up dog track interest. Quig notes that Bolles' motives in writing the articles may not have been entirely pure -- he appeared to have been living beyond his means and had been dealing with certain underworld figures. When he testified before the House Organized Crime Committee, Bolles had asked for and was given immunity.

Bolles was killed when a bomb was detonated beneath his car. In a ganglike slaying.

He lived long enough to gasp, "They finally got me. The Mafia. Emprise. Find John (Harvey) Adamson." The police arrested Mr. Adamson who admitted placing the bomb, but maintained that it had been detonated by Jimmy (The Plumber) Robison. (It seems that Robison actually was a plumber who only did such odd jobs as a sideline). Tom Fitzpatrick of the Phoenix New Times wrote in an article dated February 10, 1993, that Phoenix police believed Marley wanted revenge against Bolles and sought the help of a local contractor named Max Dunlap who owed him a favor. Marley had once loaned Dunlap a million dollars and later told him that he needn't bother paying it back.

The state prosecuted Dunlap for allegedly hiring Adamson to carry out the murder of Bolles, and Adamson, in turn, is alleged to have hired Robison to assist him. All three were convicted. Robison was subsequently acquitted in a retrial on appeal. Dunlap remains in prison. Both he and Robison maintain that they are innocent. Marley was never arrested. He died in 1990. According to Quig, the Phoenix police prepared a profile of Marley about a week after the murder of Bolles. It showed that at one time Marley had been directly connected with the Capone mob operating the Transamerica Wire Service, used by bookies throughout the country. It was established for Capone's successors in 1941 by Gus Greenbaum.

Another member of the "Arizona Project" as the journalist's task force was known, a reporter named Don Devereux, thinks they may have been taken in by local authorities. "We accepted very uncritically their scenario. In retrospect, we were very naive to get led around," he said later. "It really isn't something that we should be running around congratulating ourselves about," After most of the reporters had departed, Devereux stayed on and continued to dig into the Bolles case as a reporter for the Scottsdale (Ariz.) Progress. It was largely on the basis of his reporting that Dunlap and Robison were granted new trials. Robison was acquitted and Dunlap was convicted again.