There are stories, and then there are JJ Armes stories.
Jay J. Armes was El Paso’s most famous private investigator, a Lower Valley kid from Ysleta who lost both hands at age 11 when he accidentally detonated a pair of railroad torpedoes. Most people would have let that be the end of the story. Armes let it be the beginning. He replaced his hands with steel hooks, built a private detective empire called The Investigators on Montana Street, drove a Rolls-Royce, kept a small zoo of exotic animals at his compound, and became famous enough to have a toy action figure made in his likeness.
And then there was the Marlon Brando case.
The Version JJ Armes Told at Dinner
Picture it: March 1972. Marlon Brando is in Paris filming “Last Tango in Paris.” That same month, “The Godfather” drops in theaters and turns him into the most talked-about actor on the planet. And somewhere in a cave on the volcanic coastline of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, his 13-year-old son Christian is being held by a dangerous group of hippies…