Authors: Ace Atkins
He had not a bit of remorse for what he had done. He had only wanted Fatty caught, pants around his ankles, his appetites and vileness and poor breeding known to those who sat in the darkness and giggled at his antics. And now that that had happened, he was finished with the man. He had nothing to do with the death of that girl, absolutely not a thing. That girl was an extra, a supporting player, in a perfectly designed drama written and produced by Hearst with direction from that odd Hungarian fellow, Fishback, although Fishback hadn’t the slightest idea who’d given him the script. The Dark Man handled it all for Hearst, finished it off for Hearst, and now the justice for the fat man was in the blind woman’s hands.
Hearst heard yelling and grunting and opened his eyes, suddenly aware of all those watching him up on stage and in the light. The beams in the ceiling groaned and strained, the chandelier halfway up through the mammoth space, rising to the very top, the topping to the wedding cake, and Hearst saw the faces marvel at the theater, the perfection, every attention to the slightest detail. Hearst stepped back, hands in the pockets of his tuxedo, and placed the top hat back on his head.
“Yes?” he asked, turning to those who called him.
And then there were yells from the men, the whoosh of the hemp rope from calloused hands, the release of tension of the creaking beams above, and finally a giant, spectacular crash of the chandelier breaking and scattering across the Granada, the thousands of hand-fitted crystal pieces raining around him on stage and into the seats like sleet. Hearst turned his head, a piece of glass ricocheting off the floor and tearing across his cheek.
“Mr. Hearst! Mr. Hearst!”
He turned, the broken crystal all at his feet.
“Mr. Hearst, are you okay?”
Hearst nodded and stepped forward in a crunch.
“You’re bleeding.”
Hearst reached for the silk handkerchief in his pocket and touched his cheek, dabbing off a bit of blood. He said to no one in particular, “So I am.”
SAM SAW THE MAN twice in the glow of scattering headlights. The long brick cavern grew black again and soon there was only the sound of feet clacking in the tunnel and a constant drip of water from the roads above. He walked straight into the darkness at a decent clip, the man a good distance ahead of him. Another car passed and Sam caught sight of the fella looking back over a shoulder; another car passed and the man was gone, maybe running now, Sam knowing he was in no shape to follow. He kept walking, darkness and light, two machines at a time and then three, the constant rhythm of his leather soles thwacking hard and ugly under him. He could just make out some streetlamps from where the tunnel ended under Bush Street. Sam stopped and listened, the tunnel dripped, no cars, little light. He stood still and lit a cigarette.
In the strike of a match, he saw a man’s face.
Sam fumbled for the match and it dropped to the wet ground with a hiss.
He felt the point of a gun in his ribs, smelled sulfur, and heard a voice say, “Keep walkin’. ”
Sam kept moving down the slope toward the mouth of the tunnel, a hand rough inside Sam’s jacket pulling the .32, where streetlamps bled light into the cavern. A little Essex Coach roared past them, honking its horn twice. The man kept close, Sam smelling his ash breath on his neck. When the machine had disappeared, Sam closed his eyes, waiting for a bullet to tear through his spine.
But they kept on, the tunnel growing into a wide open mouth. He could see people coming out of an apartment building and a billboard advertising cigars. THE SIZE PLEASES YOU. THE QUALITY PLEASES YOU. THE PRICE PLEASES
YOU. DON’T ARGUE. DON’T INFER. A NICKEL WILL PROVE THE ASTONISHING GOODNESS OF THE NEW CURRENCY CIGAR!
Fog seeped outside on Stockton, headlights cut through banks, while more machines roared into the tunnel. Sam’s shirt was completely soaked now, and he moved dead-leggedly, feeling feverish and sick. When the light met them gray and weak, the gunman faced him. Sam’s breathing stopped for a moment, but he stared back at him, dead-eyed, with a steel bluff. The man recognized it and smiled back, calling it.
He handed Sam back his gun. “Beat it.”
Sam pointed his gun into the man’s ribs.
“Why don’t you reach for my wallet?” the man asked.
“I’m not a thief.”
“Reach for it.”
Sam reached inside the man’s jacket and pulled out a fat, battered leather wallet.
“Come on,” the man said. “Open it.”
Inside, Sam found a small silver badge like the one he carried. PINKERTON NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY.
“You get it now, Sam?” he said, smiling and snatching the wallet and placing it back inside his coat. As he turned, Sam noted half the man’s ear was gone and he felt a stab of recognition.
Anaconda mines. Montana. Four years back.
Sam wavered and for a moment lost sight, hearing the feet steadily fade. Sam held on to the tunnel wall, tried to follow, but knew the man was gone. All he could think about was watching Frank Little swing from under the railroad trestle like a pendulum.
23
Y
ou scared me plenty, Sam,” Phil Haultain said. He laid an old horse blanket across Sam’s shoulders and handed him a hot cup of coffee. “Wandering around like that, muttering to yourself about some man named Little. What was that all about?”
“The TB can sometimes make you screwy.”
“You’re talking straight now,” Phil said. “Glad of it. Now, what’s this about Fishback meeting with another op?”
They sat in the middle of Phil’s little apartment, Sam in the only chair in the room and Phil on his Murphy bed drinking straight whiskey. An illuminated clock on his nightstand read four in the morning. Sam massaged his aching head and coughed in a spasm longer than was comfortable. Phil handed him a handkerchief and sat back on the bed, leaning forward to listen.
“He had a badge,” Sam said.
“Coulda been phony.”
“Sure.”
“But you don’t believe it?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Drink that coffee up. You still got the chills.”
Sam had never been to Phil’s apartment before, a basic city special, a studio with a bathroom and a small kitchen with a narrow gas stove topped with a speckled coffeepot. On the wall hung a small painting of an Indian on a horse holding a spear up in the air, ready for battle. Haultain’s big hat hung on a hook by the front door over a rain slicker.
Sam finished the coffee and stared at the painting of the Indian. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“So you had a bad night.”
“That guy coulda knocked me out with his breath.”
“You’re the best shadow man I’ve ever seen, Sam.”
“My body’s giving out.”
“You gonna die?” Phil said, looking genuinely sad.
Sam shrugged and smiled. “Would you come to the funeral?”
“You betcha.”
“You’re a good egg, Phil.”
Phil stood up and walked back to his small kitchen and brought the coffeepot. He poured out some more into Sam’s mug and laid the pot back on the stove.
“You know, I got an escape plan,” he said.
“Go figure,” Sam said, warming his hands on the coffee mug.
“No foolin’.”
Sam watched him head for a small closet and pull out a few boxes.
“I wanna show you something.” He pulled out a small wooden box and sat it on the edge of his bed. With great care, he opened the top and a few old rags and then held two halves of a black sphere, about the size of a cantaloupe. He broke the halves apart and held one aloft, the light from the single bulb that hung from his ceiling catching winking jewels and carved designs.
“That’s a hell of a soup bowl,” Sam said.
“It’s the skull of a very holy man,” Phil said. “A lot of museums would like me to give it to them. But unless they have the funds to buy it, I’ll keep it as a family heirloom.”
“Who was the holy man?”
“A guy who had a good skull.”
“What’s that spoon and stuff for?”
“I understand it was used to sip blood from human sacrifices.”
“Come off it.”
“An uncle of mine who lived in Calcutta sent it to me. It was taken as loot by a member of the British Younghusband Expedition to Lhasa, Tibet. I always figured the original owner mighta put a curse on it.”
The cold wind whistled around Phil’s boardinghouse and the single orange bulb in the room dimmed and buzzed back to life in time with the shaking power cables outside. Sam drank more coffee and reached into his coat, grabbed a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. Phil handed him the halves of the skull and he studied the way the jewels had been laid along the separate pieces.
“Heck of a story.”
“I hide it pretty good,” Phil said. “You’re the first I showed it to. Well, that’s not true. I showed it to some gal a few months ago. You know, to impress her that I wasn’t just a deadbeat and had some cash if I wanted it. But you know, it gave her the creeps.”
“Go figure.”
“I didn’t. I thought she’d like the jewels.”
“Can you imagine what some crazy collectors would do for that thing?”
“They’d probably try to bump me off.”
“I’d guess so.”
“Sam?”
“Yep.”
“You gonna talk to the Old Man about what you saw?”
“I am.”
“What if he sez to lay off?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’d lay off, Sam,” Phil said. “Just like you say, bang out that report, sign your number, and go home with a clear head.”
“That’s not so easy anymore,” Sam said.
“You’re not well, Sam.”
“No,” Sam said. “I guess I’m not.”
A
T NOON, SAM WALKED BESIDE JOSE, pushing Mary Jane through the Civic Center Plaza in a carriage she’d borrowed from the bootleggers downstairs. It was Sunday and Sam still had not slept, the sun bright and shining and harsh in his eyes as he kept up with his family, other families lounging on the green grounds with picnic baskets set up in front of City Hall. He felt wrung-out, dry, but too tired to sleep. He’d lain down for two minutes on the Murphy bed when he’d first come in, Jose on her way out, but he wanted to walk with them, leave the apartment, clean his head out and forget about the Arbuckle case.
“I read your notes,” Jose said.
“Which ones?”
“From Virginia’s autopsy,” she said. “Interesting stuff.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what?”
“Mary Jane.”
“She’s asleep.”
“So she is.”
“Didn’t you say Arbuckle’s lawyers have found people to testify that the girl suffered from spells brought on by drinking?”
“They did. I have to meet one of ’em in about an hour.”
“Who’s that?”
“A buxom Swede.”
“You’re a great kidder, Sam.”
“You know me.”
“I particularly like the part about ‘a young woman who lost her life so that San Francisco shall not be made the rendezvous of debauchee and gangster.’ ”
“Debauchee,” Sam said. “Good word. I like the way it sounds.”
“The autopsy troubles me.”
“It troubles me, too.”
“The city coroner said when he checked the pelvic cavity, he found it packed with cotton.”
“Pandora’s box.”
“Sam.”
Sam lit a cigarette and walked. “We know all this.”
“And the bladder, uterus, and rectum were absent.”
“They were removed and studied,” Sam said. “Destroyed soon after.”
“You got to ask yourself, why would a doctor do that? What’s he protecting?”
Sam shrugged, changing places with Jose, now pushing the carriage. Jose followed beside him. Sam tipped his hat at another couple walking in the opposite direction with their carriage and baby. The sunny kind of day brought on that kind of thing.
“And this lawyer, McNab, will argue the bladder was already diseased.”
“Yep.”
“Why would those first doctors cover that up?”
“I assumed they wanted a stellar virgin presented to the altar.”
“So the police pushed a cover-up?”
“I think so.”
“But this was done before the police were involved.”
Sam nodded. He pushed the carriage with one hand, smoked with another. “You know, we could carry a bar in this little buggy. It’s perfect. All that jostling around would mix a cocktail or two.”
“You are hopeless, Sam.”
“Too true.”
“You look terrible.”
“It’s the lighting.”
“You need to see a doctor.”
Sam looked at his watch. “I need to go.”
“Please come home. Lay down.”
“Just this one thing,” Sam said, winking at her. “I have to meet with an old friend.”
P
ETE THE FINK SPOTTED SAM just as soon as he stepped into the Ferry Building terminal, waving with a free hand and dragging a big leather suitcase with the other. A woman a good head taller walked beside him, carrying a small pink hatbox and wearing a hat and snug black dress trimmed around the neck and sleeves with white fur. She was a true blonde, with blue eyes and red lips and a beauty mark just beside her mouth. She looked nervous as she waddled behind the Fink and didn’t stop glancing all around the big Ferry Building even as she was introduced to Sam, Sam noting they stood at the same height as she said “How do you do” with a noticeable accent. She smelled like powder and perfume, and although a large woman, she wasn’t fat, just big and healthy.
Sam grabbed her hatbox, letting Pete continue to drag the big suitcase, and they walked through the main terminal, as large as a couple of football fields, a glass ceiling letting in the bright afternoon light. Pete nudged Sam in the ribs as they watched the big Swedish girl move ahead of them, her muscular and healthy buttocks swaying from side to side. The girl attracted attention from every man she passed, all of them craning their necks, just about tripping over their feet, mouths wide-open, watching the girl show a nice set of calves below the hem.
“Where you fellas puttin’ us up?” Pete asked.
“Are we supposed to put you up?”
“Sam, if you screw me, me and Miss Morgan here will get right back on that ferry to Oakland and be back in Los Angeles by midnight.”
“We got a place. The Golden West.”