Devil’s garden

11

When Minta arrived at the Hall of Justice it was early morning and Roscoe had been asleep on his bunk, dreaming of the dusty town where he’d lived as a boy in a little hotel closet alone, scrubbing floors and cleaning spittoons and falling in love with this nineteen-year-old singer who smelled of lilac and taught him to harmonize and dance. The meeting of their voices on a tinny old piano had made him smile and feel warm as he slept until he heard the clank and turn of the key and he imagined he was driving a wagonload of meat, reins in one hand, some little girl’s knee in the other, and the wagon suddenly buckled and tilted on a wide dusty road and the whole thing tipped and fell and he awoke on a stone pillow looking up into the face of Minta.

“Hello there, honey dear,” she said.

He smiled.

“How’s my boy?” Ma Durfee said.

The door jangled closed and the lock clicked.

Roscoe found his feet and fisted the sleep from his eyes. He stood and hugged Ma first and then Minta, still feeling inside a dream. He held Minta close and saw her angelic face, the soft reddish brown hair peeking out from a silken turban, beads of gold dangling from one side of her face like a veil.

Ma smiled a toothless smile and pinched his cheek.

“How ’bout a family shot for the boys?” asked a man with a camera.

Roscoe picked up the bunk rail with one hand and twisted it to run lengthways with the wired wall of the cell. He gathered Minta to sit on his right and Ma on the left, their backs turned to the dozens of newspapermen who the jailer had let in. The newsboys called to them and muttered but never moved, standing close to the wire wall, listening and scribbling down every breath and gesture.

Roscoe placed a meaty paw around Minta and Ma and whispered, “My best friends in all the world. How was the trip?”

“There was a train wreck in Iowa,” Ma said. “They served minestrone soup and cheese biscuits. Twice.”

“We stayed an extra day in Chicago,” Minta said in a whisper. “I met people who knew the Rappe girl.”

“Later,” Roscoe said. “Have you a hotel?”

“Mr. Dominguez got us a room at the Palace.”

“You’ll love the Palace. Say, Ma, they have this wide-open space in the middle of the hotel called the Garden Court. The ceiling is made of glass, and it’s so big that sometimes birds live their whole lives inside, hopping back and forth on the fig trees.”

“Do you like minestrone?” Ma asked.

“Better than this jail grub.”

“I spoke to Mr. Dominguez’s partner, Mr. Brennan,” Minta said, pulling off her gloves and placing them in her neat little jeweled purse. “He met us in Sacramento and rode with us to Oakland. He’s going to cable men in Chicago. This girl had a very low start, Roscoe. She was an orphan who turned to men for money. She has a child and was known to be quite loose.”

Roscoe walked to his homemade coat hanger and slipped into a fresh dress shirt, pulling suspenders over his large shoulders. He washed his face in a small bowl and stared at his ruddy cheeks in a rust-flecked mirror.

“I have to be in court today,” Roscoe said, toweling off. “I wish I could show you the city, Ma. I’d take you down to the wharf and we’d eat steamed crabs and motor down to this wonderful garden in the park. You’d just love it. You could get lost there for days.”

Roscoe felt Minta’s eyes on them.

“Come now, Minty,” he said, “Mr. Dominguez will straighten all this out. You know I didn’t touch that girl.”

“Roscoe!” Minta said.

“I’m sorry,” Roscoe said, looking down at the beaten-wood floor and the silk socks on his feet.

“Why would you say such a thing to me?” Minta asked.

“You look thin,” Ma said. “I’m sending out for food. How ’bout a big plate of spaghetti?”

Roscoe hugged them, pulling them both in close, their backs silhouettes and questions to the newsmen. He heard the men grumble and groan, big flashes exploding and popping in the long hall. One reporter complained to the jailor that the big gorilla wouldn’t even turn around and that he wanted his dollar back. And finally Roscoe had enough, releasing his weight from the bunk and stepping toward the mesh-screen wall, an open frame looking back through the little wire squares at the newspapermen, and he asked who’d called him a gorilla.

The men scribbled and grinned, one more than the others, and he smiled even more as he mashed a cigarette under his heel. Roscoe put his hand to the mesh, running his hand over the wire, and looked at the man, saying, “How ’bout five minutes alone in here, bub? Anytime you like.”

The flashes snapped so quickly they blinded Roscoe and he hit his hand hard against the cell frame, rattling the cage, not eliciting fear but excitement, the questions coming at a furious pace.

Why’d you do it?

Did she scream when you squished her, Fatty?

How’s the dryin’ out taking you?

He bashed the wall with the flat of his hand until Minta grabbed his wrist and led him back to the bunk, where he rested the weight of his head in his large hands. Ma stood and walked over to Roscoe’s suit of clothes and shifted them on the hanger, straightening out the wrinkles, and pulling a scarf from her purse to buff out his shoes.

The newsboys were still calling out questions as the jailor ushered them out.

“How long has it been?” Roscoe asked, kissing the side of Minta’s face. She smelled of French perfume and the cleanness of powder.

“Five years.”

“How’s the money?”

“Check comes every month as promised.”

“This business won’t affect any of that,” he said, running his hands over his profile and through his hair. “Jeez, I’m sorry about all that. I feel like an animal in here.”

“You remember what I told you when we first met?”

“You said, ‘I don’t like fat men and I don’t like blondes.’ ”

“After that.”

“In Long Beach? At the Byde-A-While?”

“Backstage at the theater.”

Roscoe shook his head, feeling something wet running down his cheek.

“I told you to quit apologizing. I know who you are.”

IN MANY WAYS, the girls from the Arbuckle party had been getting more ink than Roscoe himself. Alice Blake’s pretty mug was on the front page of the three papers almost every day, with police looking for their LOST WITNESS, while little personal tidbits about her affairs and those of Zey Prevon got to be regular fixtures in the news. The world learned that Zey was from Alabama and that Alice had grown up in the city. Alice’s repertoire of songs and dance numbers were cataloged, as were her dreams of making it to the screen. Some even wondered if Zey Prevon was using the name Prevost because maybe she was related to the Prevost sisters, who’d made it big down in Hollywood.

Sam rolled a cigarette and sat back down on the apple crate.

Since dropping off Minta and Ma, he’d been watching the house owned by Alice Blake’s mother and logging entries in a little notebook. Back at the Flood Building, he’d type it all up in a neat report for the Old Man, who’d then make his own report and cable it on to the home office in Baltimore.

It was six a.m. Sam picked up the Examiner.

He read yet another story about a girl he hadn’t even known had been at the St. Francis. Her name was Betty Campbell, and it turned out that Betty was the true virgin at the party. Or so she said. Despite the big front-page spread, with a photo of Betty and Lowell Sherman wrapped in a heart, she admitted she barely met Arbuckle, let alone Virginia Rappe, who’d already taken sick and been moved to a room down the hall. But the boys sure got this Miss Campbell to call what she witnessed a “gay alcohol orgy” and to share how Lowell Sherman had tried to trick her into going to a back bedroom with him.

Sam wondered if Lowell Sherman ever got tired, because this would’ve been after his in-depth conversation with Alice in the bathroom.

He finished the cigarette and put down the paper, wiping the fresh ink on his pants.

It was early morning on the street, and men in suits and ties were starting their machines and driving into the city. Negro women with large baskets of cleaning supplies knocked on doors to start their days. Wives emerged from doorways with baby carriages or children in hand, heading to the market.

A little after nine, Sam thought about walking over to Sunset and Irving and trying out a little diner he’d seen that advertised a plate of eggs and bacon with coffee for fifteen cents. He checked his watch again and noted the time.

Slipping out the back door, he rounded his way to the front lawn and sidewalk just about the time three police cars slowed to a stop and a half dozen men in uniform climbed out. A plainclothes man that Sam didn’t know walked up to the house and knocked on the door.

Sam stood from across the street and watched.

A half minute or so passed and the fella in plainclothes stepped back and nodded to a couple red-cheeked Irishmen in blue. One of the cops held an ax.

They knocked again, and then, seconds later, the big cop tore into the front door of the narrow home, breaking apart the wood and lock. He kicked inside, followed by his uniformed brothers.

Sam lit a cigarette.

The men soon pushed Alice Blake, screaming, hands behind her back, wearing nothing but a nightie and one stocking, out onto the street. She craned her neck and caught Sam’s eye, giving him a hateful glance and spitting in his direction. She screamed and yelled that the men hadn’t got any right, but all that stopped when they pushed her in the back of a car.

Sam noted the time.

He wrote it into the book.

MINTA PICKED OUT a blue suit for Roscoe, a new one Dominguez had brought from Los Angeles, and a crisp white shirt with a red-and-blue-striped tie. He was clean-shaven, his shoes spotless thanks to Ma, and he smelled of Bay Rum and powder, walking between two guards down the jailhouse steps and around a cove toward the Hall of Justice police court. He had a smile on his face, chewing gum, waiting for this big mess to blow over. But when he entered the second-floor hallway, the guards had to stop and cut a path through a room choked with women. They sat on stairways, on benches, leaned against walls, and blocked doors. Hundreds of them. Some were young with skirts almost to their knees, but most were gray-headed, with thick brooches, fur hats, and long black dresses. The room smelled of perfumed sweat and stale breath, the big courthouse windows not helping with the September heat wave.

According to the papers, the temperature was a record setter.

All heads turned to Roscoe and he didn’t meet an eye, following the guards, Minta and Ma already waiting for him inside, as the tall doors parted. Roscoe walked an endless path lined with more women dressed in black, the sweetness covering up a mass body odor so strong he placed a silk handkerchief over his mouth, everyone silent, wooden benches creaking as the women strained to get a good look at Roscoe C. Arbuckle.

He felt a trickle of wetness on his neck and at first thought he was sweating, but then he felt more pock on his cheek and suit coat, like the first drops from a rainstorm, and he craned his neck away from the path and looked up into the sea of faces up in the court balcony and the old women with eyeglasses and fur hats and prune faces who looked sour and distant. A few more bits on his face. The old women spat on him and whispered, murmured, sounding like the summer buzzing of insects high in the trees.

The policemen called out for them to stop.

The judge, Sylvain Lazarus, entered the room in his long black robe and quickly took control, and hit the gavel over and over until the women stopped the noise and took their seats, and he launched into a big speech about how the women were in a court of law, not a Broadway spectacle, and if they came for entertainment or to make comment they might quickly find themselves tossed out on their ear.

“Are we understood?” asked the judge.

Roscoe took a seat beside Frank Dominguez and his young attorneys, Brennan and Cohen. Minta and Ma at the table. Minty sat beside Roscoe and reached under the heavy wooden table and squeezed his fingers.

Roscoe took a breath. It felt like the first breath in a while, as he used the silk hankie to remove sweat from his brow and spit from his cheeks and lapel. Judge Lazarus said something about the court not trying the film star but in a larger sense the community was trying itself.

Roscoe wanted a drink.

His heart would not stop jackhammering in his chest and he was afraid to turn around and look back at all the hate-filled faces staring at him. He felt the stares, their eyes on his back, the heat of it all burning so badly that he shifted in the chair. Minty’s hand squeezed his even tighter.

The court called Al Semnacher.

The big doors parted and the man passed Roscoe, taking the stand beside the bench. He was sworn in and faced Milton U’Ren from the district attorney’s office, and Roscoe tried to remember where he’d met Semnacher before the party but failed.

Roscoe wanted a smoke.

He looked down at the nicotine-stained fingers of his free hand.

Semnacher was a small-eyed man, even in those big horn-rimmed glasses, with a thick head of graying black hair and thick, furry eyebrows.

Roscoe looked to Dominguez and Dominguez gave a polite nod, a confident smile, and soon got to his feet, replacing U’Ren before the bench.

“Did you see Mr. Arbuckle under the influence of liquor there at any time?” Dominguez asked.

“No, not under the influence of liquor.”

“His conduct was perfectly proper the whole time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that of a gentleman?”

“Absolutely.”

“Did he show any marked difference in his treatment of any one of the ladies there at all?”

“No, sir. He was the entertainer of the party.”

“In other words, he treated all the ladies who were present the same way he did Miss Rappe, isn’t that true?”

“Yes, sir.”

U’Ren was on his feet spitting out objections, his weaseled face red and pinched and sweating. Words were exchanged, and he returned to his chair, only to return minutes later before Semnacher. Roscoe watched but didn’t whisper over to Dominguez or shake his head or show any bit of emotion. He’d just let it all play out, let the fellas tussle on their own.

“Did Mr. Arbuckle say he had mistreated Miss Rappe?” U’Ren asked.

“No, sir.”

U’Ren gave a little laugh. A crooked little smile.

“He didn’t make the remark that he’d placed a piece of ice in Miss Rappe’s person?”

Roscoe held his breath, watching the smile on the lips of that bastard, knowing where it was all headed. He clenched his jaw, his right hand trembling.

“I don’t recall.”

“You don’t recall if he made the statement or where he placed the ice?” U’Ren asked.

“I never said ‘in.’ ”

“What did you tell the detectives, sir? I remind you that you are under oath.”

“On.”

“Where was the ice placed?”

Semnacher looked right at Dominguez, only catching Roscoe’s eye, and then back at U’Ren, shifting in his seat, uncrossing his right leg and then crossing it again. Come on, you bastard.

“On her vagina.”

Roscoe let out all his breath.

“Would you please repeat the exact word told to you by Mr. Arbuckle? Or would you prefer me reading your statement to Detective Reagan?”

“It’s not proper.”

“Sir?”

“I said it’s not proper.”

“It’s completely proper in the context of the proceedings.”

Semnacher glanced over at Judge Lazarus, who nodded with his chin.

“He said he placed it on her snatch.”

Women gasped. One squealed with horror. Roscoe turned in his chair to see the words repeated into an old woman’s tin horn. The old woman’s eyes grew large and she began to choke.

“But you don’t consider the placement of a piece of ice on a nude young woman improper?” U’Ren asked.

Dominguez stood and objected. Roscoe dropped his face into his waiting fingers and rubbed his eyes and forehead.

“He was trying to revive her,” Semnacher said.

“Would the court please instruct Mr. Semnacher to only answer the question?” U’Ren said. “He is not here to speak on Mr. Arbuckle’s intentions.”

Through his loose fingers, Roscoe watched U’Ren turn to the courtroom. He leaned a skinny arm against the witness stand, looking as loose and disjointed as a scarecrow. He peered up into the ladies hanging over the balcony railing and for a second gave a little grin. A confident batter at the plate.

“At what time did you hear Mrs. Delmont screaming for Mr. Arbuckle to open the door to room 1219?”

“I didn’t hear her scream.”

“Mr. Semnacher?”

“I don’t recall her screaming.”

“Surely you heard her banging on the door with the heel of her shoe?”

“That’s not what I recall.”

“Are you having memory problems, sir?”

“The mind is a funny thing.”

“Some minds are funnier than others.”

U’Ren paced back and forth in front of Judge Lazarus. Judge Lazarus followed the little lawyer with his eyes, never moving his big jaw from his hand. U’Ren walked back to the prosecutor’s table and exchanged whispers with the district attorney, Judge Brady. Judge Brady stood and walked to the railing, leaned over, and whispered something to the Delmont woman.

Maude Delmont, dressed all in black, nodded her head and wiped her nose with a handkerchief. Roscoe looked to Dominguez and Dominguez raised his eyebrows, hands resting on his large stomach waiting to see what was about to be sprung.

“Is it not true that you left the party with Miss Rappe’s undergarments? Her brassiere, bloomers, and garters?”

“I fished a waistcoat from the trash bin.”

“For what purpose?”

“I planned on joshing her later about her condition.”

“Did you not tell Mrs. Delmont, the very person who accompanied you to the Arbuckle suite, that you needed the clothing to wash your machine? Which was it?”

Women laughed. Lazarus stopped the court and spoke for a while, and U’Ren asked the question again. Al Semnacher leaned forward from the witness stand and cleared his throat, speaking loud enough for the ladies in the balcony.

“Maude Delmont is a known liar,” he said.

MAUDE DELMONT GASPED, closed her eyes, and pretended to faint. Kate Eisenhart caught her and hoisted her into her big lap, tapping Maude’s hand over and over and calling her name. Women craned their necks and whispered, and policewoman Kate Eisenhart told the lot of them to get back as she picked up Maude Delmont, threw her over a shoulder, and walked her from the courtroom like a big-game prize. As she walked, Maude opened one eye and looked back at Semnacher on the stand.

That bastard. That lousy prick.

Big Kate took her down the steps and out the front door of the Hall of Justice and told them newspapermen if they took one snap, she’d kick ’em all in the balls. She yelled for a glass of water, fanning Maude Delmont’s face and unpinning the wide-brimmed black hat. Maude fluttered her eyes open and then closed them again.

“Maude?”

She opened her eyes and righted herself on the granite steps, looking out on Portsmouth Square.

“That horrible man,” Kate said.

“The heat is awful,” Maude said. “All this black.”

Kate had a copy of the Examiner she’d plucked from the hands of a curious newsboy and waved it high up and down, breezing Maude’s face. A cup of water was placed in Maude’s hand and she stood.

“He can’t make up those things,” Kate said. “Not in this town, he can’t.”

“Movie people are all alike,” Maude said. “I’m never returning south. It’s a place without shame or a conscience.”

Kate shared a smile with her. The midday sun was a burning white. “Could you please call me a cab?” Maude asked.

Kate disappeared. Maude waited at the foot of the steps of the Hall of Justice for several minutes until Al Semnacher skipped down them, a mongrel group of newsmen at his heels. He tipped his bowler hat at Maude and there were pictures taken.

“I see you’ve made arrangements,” she said.

“How are things at the Palace? Heard the St. Francis kicked you out.”

Maude turned her head away. “I had my luggage moved to the Palace. The accommodations are much more to my liking.”

Al laughed. “Luggage? The only luggage you ever carry is a fresh set of bloomers in your pocketbook.”

Maude leapt at his throat, black hat rolling from her head, dropping her pocketbook and reaching her fingers around Al Semnacher’s skinny neck, trying to wring it like a chicken. His glasses were knocked off and Al fell to his back, swearing and cussing and calling her a nasty whore, and she kneed him in the balls and slapped him across the face until she felt a big arm reach around her waist and pull her back, the sweet voice of Big Kate telling her that her cab had come.

“Mrs. Delmont, are you okay?”

Maude put her hand to her chest and just breathed. “I have no idea what came over me.”