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Long before Club Cabazon mysteriously burned to its foundations last December, it became clear to the townfolk that the only citizen who was making any profit out of Cabazon was Mayor Tallent. An opposition group, the Civic Improvement Association, began to gather recruits. The anti-Tallent cause was helped when Riverside County deputy sheriffs raided Tallent's home, claimed they found and photographed him nude in bed with his secretary, the wife of a Cabazon cop. Says Tallent, still up for trial on a misdemeanor charge: "I will definitely ask for a jury. I don't think you'd find one man in twelve who'd find anything wrong with a businessman occupying the same room with his secretary."
Just Deserts. Tallent's bedroom look cost him his majority on the Cabazon town council; it voted him out as mayor, although he kept his place on the council itself. It was L. D. Tallent who seized the initiative, forced a recall election of the council members, including himself. At high noon on election day last week, the temperature in Cabazon reached 110°. But resting beside his 40-ft., indoor swimming pool, Tallent was cool to the point of indifference. "I don't care if I win this election or not," he drawled. "I've got $2,000,000 worth of property here; I've got a thousand house lots to sell; and if I don't win, I'm going to concentrate on getting them sold and making that fortune I'm after."
When the returns were in, Tallent was off the council—and so was the three-man anti-Tallent majority. Aware that a new poker parlor was beginning to pay off, Cabazon chose Tallent's followers. "Yes sir," beamed Tallent, celebrating with gambler friends, "you can say I'm perfectly satisfied."