Devil’s garden

14

They met at a little place called Philippe, a short walk from the train yards near the Mex district on Aliso Street. Sam finished up three cigarettes and two cups of coffee before Pete showed up in a dark suit with a red tie. He’d switched out the turban for a beaver hat he laid on a hook by the front door and slid into a booth across from Sam, folding his hands together like he was about to pray, with a devilish smile on his lips.

“Thanks for losing the getup.”

“You should see this robe I got,” Pete said. “It’s made of Chinese silk and little emeralds. They look like stars.”

“Nice.”

Pete was medium height, medium weight, with brown hair and brown eyes. He could be a million men, if judged by Bertillon. No scars, no marks. Even if you’d never seen him, you’d think he was someone who used to date your sister.

“You’ll like this place,” Pete said. “They make roast beef sandwiches on thick rolls like they do back east.”

“I just ordered some hash and eggs.”

“You’re a hash-and-egg kind of guy, Sam.”

“So tell me about Lehrman.”

“Hey, aren’t you gonna give me the stroke? Ask me about the boys in San Quentin or whores we’ve known. Butter me up a bit before you stick it to me like that.”

“You want coffee?”

“Sure.”

“So tell me about Lehrman.”

“I mean, he is what he is. He’s a guy who needs a guy like Dr. Bagwa. I came up with the idea when I was on the train from Chicago, I read up on this guy in New York, some Oriental, who did these soul paintings. I didn’t make it a night before I had these movie people lined up around the block for me to smear some colors on the canvas. That’s the beauty, Sam. I can’t even draw a fucking cat.”

Sam scratched his face. He needed to find a cheap hotel and a shave. He hadn’t slept the whole way on the train, thinking about Arbuckle and the Vigilant women, and Jose about to burst and what he was going to do with a kid without two nickels to rub together.

“Breakfast on you?”

“I’ll expense it.”

“How much for the goods on Lehrman?”

Sam smiled and scratched his face again. He drank some coffee. He looked at the time on a big clock over the lunch counter where workers in overalls had come in from the train yards. They carried lunch pails and punched time clocks and worked with their hands in the same place every day, getting a regular check from the bossman.

“Go ahead and tell Lehrman about me,” Pete said. “The son of a bitch is broke.”

“Living in that ole shack?”

“Place belongs to some fella in Boston who backs his pictures. It’s his family’s place and he lets Lehrman stay there. The guy is a big fucking phony.”

“Coming from Pete the Fink.”

“I know who I am, Sam. I don’t confuse myself. Lehrman believes he’s some kind of artist ’cause he makes moving pictures. He calls himself an artist with a capital A at least a hundred times a day. Oh, and he’s a fucking psychic, too. The other day he tried for half an hour to move a saltshaker across the table. Finally when he’d closed his eyes, I moved the fucking thing and then clapped for him. I thought he was going to cry while I started telling him again about the eight principles of peace. That’s what ‘Bagwa means’-I read up on it at the library. You can find out all kinds of things at a library. Books make you smarter. It’s true.”

Pete the Fink fished into his coat pocket for a matchbook. When he opened the cover, it read BETTER YOURSELF IN TEN MINUTES A DAY.

“It’s no joke,” he said.

The waitress brought the hash and eggs. Pete ordered something called a French sandwich and a seltzer.

“He mention Virginia Rappe?”

“Are you putting me on? That’s all he’s been talking about since the girl went and got herself squished in Frisco. He’s called every newspaper in the country, reversing the charges, making me send telegrams to William Randolph Hearst himself.”

“About what?”

“About the dead girl. It’s all bullshit about these cuff links saying ‘To My Love, Henry’ and all that. He doesn’t even have cuff links. The bastard doesn’t wear clothes except when he leaves the house. He’s a nut. I mean, you get used to it, wandering around with your schlong waving around. I think he likes the breezes down there or something because I never seen him with a boner even when his girlfriend, Miss Leigh, is naked. I got to sit down and kind of cross my legs, think about things that aren’t sexy like baseball, or this one time I walked into the crapper and saw my grandma in the tub. God, she had tits like flapjacks.”

Pete winced with the memory.

“He knows Hearst?”

“He’s fishing for money. I took the telegram to Western Union for him and thought, Good luck. But it wasn’t two hours later that he got a goddamn telegram back from Hearst himself. Can you believe that? William Randolph Fucking Hearst. He answered back with two hundred dollars.”

“I had a run-in with some of Hearst’s people once.”

“What were you doing?”

“Strike busting.”

“And they call me the fink.”

“So Lehrman lied about knowing the girl?”

“He talks about her too plain to make it all up in his head. Because he ain’t that kind of crazy to make up things that never happened and repeat them back like they really did. I think, at the heart of it, he knows he’s a phony bird. That’s halfway between crazy and a con man, and that’s the middle of the road, brother.”

“Tell me about the girl.”

“She lived with him at the mansion for maybe a year or more. He was punching her ticket but wasn’t trying to make her a star. Lehrman’s a doper and so I guess she probably was a doper, too. I heard from the help that she’d become a real mess and finally he threw her out. She kept on coming back, yelling at him from over the fence like some kind of cat in heat about how much she loved him. But he was done with her, moved on to Miss Leigh, and that was that.”

“She ever in his pictures?”

“How should I know?” Pete asked. “I don’t go see pictures. It’s a fad.

People will come to their senses and realize they’re just looking at a big flip-book. Remember when the Jew street peddlers used to hustle those in New York? I had one with a silhouette ice-skating. The world has gone nuts. Women wanting to marry that Valentino fella after seeing his picture. Folks chasing down Charlie Chaplin in London, ripping off pieces of his clothes and trying to sell them. I mean, these people are just making pictures of what I’ve been doing all my life, and that makes their shit not stink. They ain’t princesses or sheiks or little tramps or any of that. I remember when they used to bring actors to town in stages, like circus animals.”

“What happened to the girl? After Lehrman?”

Pete looked down the counter at a waitress carrying his French sandwich. He tucked a napkin into his shirt collar over the red tie and thanked the woman, calling her sweetheart.

“I don’t know.”

“Can you find out for me?”

“For a price.”

“I’m buying that goddamn sandwich.”

“You’re a smooth talker, Sam.”

“Hey, Pete, I went and got myself married.”

“Come on.”

“It’s true.”

“Well, congratulations.”

“A baby on the way.”

“Well, there’s hope for all of us.”

“Amen,” Sam said.

“Amen,” Pete said.

“I THOUGHT I told you never to come here.”

“You told me not to come to your house,” the Dark Man said. “This isn’t your house.”

They were on the beach, and the Dark Man and Hearst followed the shoreline, salt water retreating and then breaking over Hearst’s bare feet. His trousers were rolled to his knees and he carried his shoes and socks in his hands, a little dachshund trying its best to keep up with its little legs.

“What if someone saw you?” Hearst asked.

“No one saw me besides your driver.”

“That’s George. He’s not my driver.”

“Quite a spread.”

“It belongs to a quite talented and beautiful lady.”

“Your mistress.”

Hearst stopped walking. The surf came up high above his ankles as he stared at the man. “I was told you’re good at your job.”

“That’s true.”

“Then please do not speak unless spoken to. Do not arrive anywhere unannounced. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Hearst.”

“I note a tone of sarcasm.”

“No, sir.”

“I suppose here is as good as anywhere.”

“You wanna know if Fatty killed her?”

“Well, did he?”

The Dark Man shrugged. He still had on his dress shoes but had removed his hat and his black hair whipped down across the ragged half ear. His wool suit and jacket were too warm for the climate, but the man didn’t seem to notice or to perspire.

“That’s a question I can’t answer,” the Dark Man said. “It seems Miss Rappe and Mr. Arbuckle are the only two who know. The door was closed.”

“What about your man?” Hearst said. “The one who arranged the party?”

“What about him?”

“Does he know?”

“No.”

“This whole affair has been quite troubling,” Hearst said, picking up the little brown dachshund and rubbing the dog’s ears. He smelled the dog’s fur and the scent reminded him of Bavaria and the wonderful food and people. How he loved Germany.

“I didn’t come for money,” the Dark Man said.

“I would hope not.”

“The police know about Mrs. Delmont,” he said. “They know about the cons. They probably know about her string of husbands, too. I don’t expect the district attorney in San Francisco to keep the same level of interest.”

Hearst nodded and looked down at the much shorter man. He kissed the little brown dog on her head and smelled the sweet scent. He just simply smiled at the dark, very troubling man. The man was compact and muscular, giving the impression of a loaded spring about to snap.

“The case may fall apart,” said the Dark Man, adding, “Mr. Hearst.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“How’s that?”

“Mr. Arbuckle’s trial is already over.”

Hearst whistled for the dog and walked briskly away from the man, leaving him to chew on the idea.

“HOW ’BOUT A RIDE?”

“No thanks,” Sam said.

“It’s me, Daisy. Remember the Old Poodle Dog? I was the girl with the shotgun.”

“I remember.”

The Hupmobile trailed Sam along Aliso Street, the engine clicking and whirring, some faceless dry agent at the wheel. The girl rested her head across her forearm on the open window, trying to play it blue and lonesome. Sam kept walking and checking his watch.

“Where you headed?” she asked.

“I’m gonna hop a streetcar over to Echo Park.”

“What’s in Echo Park?”

“Mabel Normand.”

“Mabel and Fatty,” she said. “What a team.”

“You’ve been following me since I stepped off the Owl.”

“You bet.”

“Why?”

“Looking for a bootlegger.”

“I’m not.”

“Does the name Hibbard mean anything to you?” she asked.

The Hupmobile drifted on at about five miles per hour. A machine behind them honked its horn twice before speeding by.

“What about Jack Lawrence?”

“Nope.”

“You without a machine and us without a lead,” she said.

“What’s in it for me?”

“A rest for your feet.”

“I like your hat,” Sam said.

Still resting her head across her forearm, she rolled her eyes upward at the little velvet hat cocked just so.

“Nice angle.”

“Yeah? I thought so, too.”

Sam stopped walking. He checked the time. He steadied his breath. “Get in,” said Daisy Simpkins, famous female dry agent.

THEY DROVE BACK into the downtown, to a building called the Bradbury, a big, old hulking brick structure built before the turn of the century. The roof was made of glass and the inside had been designed like the exposed guts of a machine. Scrolled iron balconies boxed the open atrium, with two caged elevators zipping up and down, large iron wheels turning whirring cables. The light inside seemed almost to be magnified, more real than it was on the street, and Sam followed the girl and the other agent across the big, wide lobby and to a staircase they mounted and followed, and Sam looked at the elevators zipping up and down and stopped to rest on the second floor, his hand on an iron banister as he caught his breath.

“You okay?” Daisy asked.

“Dandy.”

They followed the balcony ledge on the third floor to an office advertising U.S. GOVERNMENT on the frosted glass. Inside, it bustled with the activity of a dozen or so men working in their shirtsleeves and ties, talking into telephones and typing out reports. One woman waited at a front desk and led them to a back office, where Sam was introduced to a delicate young man named Earl Lynn and a toadlike older man who didn’t get out of his chair to shake hands.

He grunted at Daisy.

He was Lynn’s father.

Earl Lynn was in his early twenties and handsome in a girlish way, with perfect slick hair, a flawless shave, and long thick eyelashes that seemed to flutter nervously. He took a seat by an open window and crossed his legs at the knee. He wore silk socks with small gold designs and a vest that matched his pin-striped suit. He had a rose on his lapel and smelled of flowers.

The flower smell was soon covered by the scent of Old Dad’s wet stogie that he relit with fat-thumbed flourish. His son tried to get a cigarette in an ivory holder going but failed at least three times.

“Mr. Lynn is an actor,” Daisy said. “He contacted us yesterday about the Arbuckle party.”

“You were there?”

“My God, no,” Earl Lynn said. He pulled the cigarette from the holder and broke it in two as if somehow it was the cigarette’s fault for failing to catch fire.

“Mr. Lynn had a run-in with one of the party guests,” Daisy said. She found a spot on the end of the desk, sat down, and crossed her thin arms across her bosom. They were nice bosoms, high and tight, and Sam had to redirect his attention back to the young man.

“Maude Delmont claimed she got the high hard one from my son and carried his seed,” said the father.

“Father,” Earl Lynn said.

“Six months ago, I paid that woman five thousand dollars to peddle that story somewhere else.”

“You and Maude?” Sam asked.

Earl Lynn tucked his tongue into a cheek and rolled his eyes. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But you did know her?” Sam asked.

“We went to the same parties. Knew the same people.”

“What people?”

Lynn named some and they meant nothing to Sam, Hollywood people, but he wrote them down anyway.

“But you two weren’t…?”

“My Lord, she’s an older woman!”

“So you got roped.”

He nodded.

“Why’d your old man pay if the baby wasn’t yours?”

“There was no baby,” Lynn said. “But I have an image, characters known to women in the world, and to think that I had impregnated a married woman… Well, it’s that simple.”

Sam took a seat beside Daisy. Even from the back office, you could hear the giant iron wheels turning and moving and groaning and stopping the elevators. An elevator stopped near the floor and he could hear the gate slide open and then slam shut, the wheels turning again. Sam felt like he was on the inside of a clock.

“What do you do, Mr. Lynn?”

“Me?” the old man grunted. His head looked to be the size of a melon, with a nice slab of fat hanging from his insignificant chin. He resembled a contented hog.

“Oil.”

Sam nodded.

“Why’d you call the dry agents?”

Earl Lynn tried with a second cigarette in the ivory holder and finally got the smoke going and watched it trail up to the ceiling and then stared back at Daisy and Sam. “I thought the government should know what kind of people were at this party. Mrs. Delmont surely had something to do with that liquor. She’s a lush. A hophead, too.”

“You think she conned Mr. Arbuckle?”

Earl Lynn sucked on the ivory and held the holder loose in his long fingers. “I would not be surprised by the depths of her evil. She once got me drunk and tried to unbuckle my trousers.”

“The horror,” Sam said.

“Can we go?” the old man barked. “This man is a tiresome smart aleck.”

“Did you recognize the others?” Daisy asked. “At the party?”

“I know Lowell Sherman, of course. We play tennis. But he’d never be mixed up with a woman like Mrs. Delmont. That was my own error in judgment.”

“The other women?” Sam asked.

“I met Virginia Rappe once. She didn’t impress me. A little tart. A leech.”

“Fishback? Semnacher?”

“Al Semnacher is the one who introduced me to Mrs. Delmont,” Earl

Lynn said. The tip of his cigarette had grown long and fell off with a plop in his lap. He brushed off the ash with lots of busied annoyance.

“How did you know him?” Sam asked.

“He’s in the business. Haven’t you read the papers? He books acts for Mr. Grauman at the Million Dollar.”

Sam smiled at Earl Lynn and then back at the fat father, who’d rested his thick hands across the top of his stomach. The old fat man looked like he might doze off in the thick leather chair, the cigar smoldering in the corner of his mouth.

Sam tucked a Pinkerton’s card in the man’s stubby fingers. He jostled awake with a snort.

“We’d like to see you at the trial,” Sam said.

Earl Lynn said it would be his pleasure.

“Does the name Jack Lawrence mean anything to you?” Daisy asked.

“Should it?” Lynn asked.

“He supplied the liquor, and maybe the girls, too,” Daisy said. “Mr. Lawrence may be the source of the biggest bootlegging ring in California.”

Lynn repeated again that he didn’t know the fella. His father seemed to grow awake very quickly, fast enough to stand and relight the cigar before walking out. “Okay? All right? Are we done here?”

Sam took the fat man’s seat. He could still smell Earl Lynn’s perfume. “He’s a pretty one,” Daisy said as the door closed.

She sat behind the desk that displayed a brass marker reading DIRECTOR and lit a cigarette. She placed her feet up on the desk, and finally said, “Why won’t Arbuckle name the man who brought the liquor?”

A small fan on the table whirred and spun.

“Besides the confession leading to a federal indictment?”

“Besides that.”

“Maybe he’s a standup guy,” Sam said. “That’s what I’d call a fella who doesn’t rat on his friends.”

“You know what I’d call a fella who buttons up with his ass in a sling?”

“Please tell me.”

“A fool.”