Devil’s garden

16

The Studebaker drove east, back through downtown, with its flashing signs and jostling streetcars, and joined up with Valley Boulevard until there was nothing but pasture and produce trucks and lonesome gas stations and the odd farmhouse or seed store. Daisy hung back a quarter mile, watching the Big Six’s courtesy lamp on the driver’s side like a beacon. Sam commented on the lamp being a great thing and Daisy shot back that it didn’t really matter because there was nothing else out here besides farmers and cows and orange trees. The hills were silver and rolling in the moonlight, the wind coming through the Hupmobile’s cab warm on Sam’s face, the dashboard glowing under the instrument panel and showing off Daisy’s lean legs as she mashed the accelerator when the Studebaker would disappear around another lone turn.

VISIT GAY’S LION FARM read the billboard. At El Monte on Valley Boulevard.

“You don’t think?” Sam asked.

“I don’t like animals.”

The Studebaker rolled off a little access road and Daisy slowed to a near stop. There was a dusty lot and a broad stucco entrance bragging about the place being Internationally Famous, and from his vantage point Sam could see the figure of the lean man walk through the gates and disappear. Daisy followed, parked, and killed the engine. The only other machine in the lot besides the Hupmobile and the Big Six was a long flatbed truck with slatted sides.

Flies buzzed in the back of the truck, and in the moonlight Sam could see rancid meat and blood.

The entrance gate was open, and they followed the man down a winding path of crushed pebbles. Signs to the lion cages were fashioned from bamboo and oak trees canopied the path, past small red barns and little kiosks that sold postcards and stuffed lions and gum and cigarettes. They were well down the path when they heard the first scream.

“What’s that?”

“The King of the Beasts,” Sam said.

“They keep ’em locked up, don’t they?”

“One would hope.”

There were more screams and roars-definitely roars-and Daisy stepped back from the lead to take a stride beside Sam, too worried to lead but too proud to follow. The trees looked old, spared from the bulldozer and plow, and it all seemed natural and prehistoric in the moonlight.

They stopped and listened for steps but only heard the screams until the screams seemed to be coming from all around them. It was a great ring, a chain-link circle as wide around as a baseball field, at least thirty feet high, with bleachers and long nets strung from what looked like telephone poles.

“Where are they?” she whispered.

“I don’t see ’em.”

“You see him?”

“I don’t,” Sam said.

“This was a goddamn fool thing to do.”

They kept on the path, over a little bamboo bridge and toward a long red barn lit up with tiny white bulbs. Sam nearly ran into Daisy when she stopped and pulled him behind the large trunk of an oak. From the barn, an engine started, and soon another flatbed truck, identical to the one parked in front, came rambling down the path, breezing past their hiding place and slowing to an idle by the giant cage. The headlights lit up the center of the ring, and the long, lean man, Jack Lawrence, unlocked a gate and walked inside. Sam and Daisy stood watching at the narrow spot in the path well back from the idling truck.

They watched Lawrence squat on his haunches and walk backward with the edge of a tarp, the dust and gravel falling away and choking the night air. The beams of the headlights caught the dust as Lawrence emerged into the light and removed one large wooden beam and then another before disappearing for several moments down below and returning with a large crate. They could hear the bottles jostle and rattle against one another as he slid the crate into the truck and went back for more. On his third trip down into the hidden hole, Daisy walked down the path and into the headlight beams and locked the cage door.

Sam followed.

Soon Lawrence emerged with another flat of hooch and walked to the closed doors and looked puzzled, before he saw Daisy and asked, “What gives?”

Daisy twisted her knee inward and removed the pearl-handled.22 and aimed it through a diamond in the chain-link. “Got to hand it you.”

“Who are you?”

“Daisy Simpkins, federal dry agent.”

“This isn’t what you think.”

“What is it?”

“It’s mineral oil,” Lawrence said with a noticeable Australian accent.

“For the animals.”

“Sam, hold ’im.”

Sam walked up to the man, who was still hoisting the crate in his arm, and he pulled a gun and showed it. He winked at Lawrence.

“I didn’t do nothing.”

Sam smiled back.

“Hey,” Lawrence said. “What’s she doing? Hey!”

Sam heard the rusted bars and the metal gates swing open one after another. The cries of the lions had stopped, and as the animals filled the ring through their now-open chutes there was soft, contented purring. Lawrence dropped the hooch. The bottles cracked and broke, and Sam shook his head at the damn shame of it all.

“Keep the gun on him,” Daisy called out.

“Them animals will kill me,” Lawrence said.

He rattled the door and Sam squeezed the padlock with a tight click. The purring became more insistent, and in the headlights Sam noted one male, with a large, regal mane, and three females. The male hung back, his noticeable set of balls moving to and fro, while the females circled the bootlegger.

A long, trailing spot of wetness showed on Lawrence’s trousers.

“Tell us about Frisco,” Daisy said.

“It’s a nice town,” Lawrence said.

Daisy fired off the.22 at his feet. The cats growled.

“I’ll shoot you in the leg, sure as shit,” Daisy said. “You brought the booze to Arbuckle.”

The man held up his hands in the light. The truck continued to idle.

“We met at this garage,” Lawrence said. “This man opened his trunk and we loaded him down. I was paid and the man drove away.”

“Who was it?”

“His name was Hibbard.”

“First name?”

“I don’t know. Jesus, I don’t know.”

“Hibbard,” Daisy repeated. “The stuff you brought matched cases we took out of a joint called the Old Poodle Dog in Frisco. That jackass brandy came in the same bottles. The Scotch was bonded out of Canada.”

“So what?”

“You work for H. F. LaPeer.”

“Never heard of him,” Lawrence said.

“If those big cats smell a little blood, they’re gonna want a taste,” Daisy said.

“You’re crazy.”

“When’s LaPeer’s next shipment?”

One of the female lions sauntered over and ran herself between’s Lawrence’s legs, purring and growling. The male jumped from five feet away, knocking Lawrence flat on his back, his screams not unlike those of a little girl. The male straddled his chest, balls in Lawrence’s face, and yawned. Another female licked at the man’s hand while yet another sniffed at his crotch.

“I can find out.”

“What’s that?”

In a whisper, “I can find out. I can find out. I can find out.”

“And what about the Arbuckle party?”

“It’s all I know. Jesus, God. Holy hell. Mother Mary.”

“What do you think?” Daisy asked.

“I think the man has been properly motivated,” Sam said.

ROSCOE FOUND FREDDIE FISHBACK at the Cocoanut Grove bar at midnight, talking to a barmaid wearing a beaded headdress and veil, a golden bodice, and a long flowing skirt. She was laughing at one of his jokes and Freddie was laughing, too, until he saw the shadow of Roscoe over him and his smile simplified into something more like Freddie, droll and impersonal, and he offered his hand.

Roscoe looked at his hand as if it were a dead mackerel.

Freddie shrugged and puffed on his cigaratte.

The girl in the Arabian getup looked to Roscoe and bit her lip before moving on back down the bar. People were whispering and pointing, and Roscoe didn’t give a good goddamn.

“You look very sharp,” Freddie said, his Romanian accent more pronounced. He wore a tuxedo. He was very dark, with black hair and eyes. The kind of guy with a heavy brow and thick fur on his hands.

“Your housekeeper said you were in New York.”

Freddie took a sip of his cocktail and said, “She was wrong.”

“I got ditched when you stepped off the Harvard,” Roscoe said. “I pulled my Pierce off the ship and waited for you to load your bags.”

“I don’t like to wait. Do you mind, Roscoe? People are staring.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

Freddie turned back to the bar. Roscoe touched his shoulder.

“Don’t be a stupid man,” Freddie said and raised his eyebrows. “The papers?”

Freddie ordered another drink, a cocktail served in a champagne glass with a cherry. “The soldiers made this up during the war,” Freddie said. “Call it a French 75. Like the big guns. How ’bout a drink? We drink and we forget, okay?”

“How ’bout I shove that champagne glass up your ass?”

“Why not a Coke bottle?”

Roscoe gripped Freddie by the front of his tuxedo shirt and twisted him into his face. He ground his teeth so hard, he could hear them grind and pop deep into his jaw.

“I only wanted to ask you a question,” Roscoe said. He could feel a barman or a doorman or someone’s hands on his arm. “Just a question.”

Freddie looked at him. The champagne cocktail had rolled from his fingers onto the bar, the thin glass breaking into shards. Freddie stared at him and breathed, a little smile on his lips.

“Why’d you bring her there? Why Virginia? You knew, didn’t you?” Freddie’s smile widened.

“You goddamn son of a bitch.”

SAM AND DAISY stayed up that night, finding an Owl drugstore downtown just like the one at the bottom of the Flood Building. Daisy ordered eggs. Sam ordered toast. They both had coffee and cigarettes, which was a fine thing to Sam at four a.m. when you were too tired to sleep.

“What’s it all about, Sam?” she asked.

“A good shot of rye and a warm bed.”

“You don’t let anyone get in there, do you?”

“In where?”

She moved her knuckles over to his forehead and lightly knocked. “What about you, sister?”

She sipped her coffee, elbows on the lunch counter, watching the fat man at the grill burning up a steak, bacon, and some home fries. Outside, a streetcar zipped past, littering electric sparks in the leftover night.

“You got a man?”

“Nope.”

“Family?”

“Back east.”

“Did you see the set of balls on that lion?”

“I did,” she said. “That one’s got it all figured out.”

“So why you working for the G?”

“What if I told you H. F. LaPeer killed the man I loved?”

“I’d tell you to peddle your story to the pictures.”

Daisy drank more coffee. The fat cook laid down a plate of ham and eggs and she didn’t touch it. Sam placed a pack of Fatimas on the counter.

“That’s not true, is it?” Sam asked. “About your man?”

Daisy shrugged. She reached for his cigarettes and lit up. The smoke was in her eyes and she fanned it away.

“Why do you gals paint your lips in the center?”

“The Kewpie doll effect,” she said, pursing her lips and closing her eyes.

She opened them and parted her lips and smiled at Sam. He turned back to his plate and grabbed a slice of dry toast.

“You don’t give a damn about Prohibition, do you?” he asked.

“I didn’t make the law.”

“But it bothers you that some places are off the books? Like the Cocoanut Grove?”

She shrugged again, looking good every time she shrugged, and took a bite of eggs. Her soft light blond hair tucked behind her ears and a slouch hat tucked over her head. Sam reached out and traced the edge of her jaw with his middle finger and she cut her eyes at him but kept eating, and he kept his eyes on her until she met his gaze.

Her eyes flicked back to the window and Sam glanced over his shoulder, watching a very dark, very compact man in a black suit staring in the window. He turned back to her and removed his fingers and hand and caught his smoldering cigarette in the ashtray. He looked back to the window and saw the dark man again.

Sam left his toast and laid down some coin and walked out the door. Daisy followed, and soon they were on the street, catching the back of the man and his dark hat and long coat, a coat too warm for Los Angeles. Sam was not shadowing him but calling out to the man’s back, which slumped as his legs pumped fast around the corner. He heard the start of a machine and Sam called out to Daisy to retrieve the Hupmobile.

He saw the car turn and pass him with a lot of speed, and he caught the dark man’s profile again, all so familiar from somewhere, some town, some old report.

“You could’ve said something back there,” Daisy said.

“I know him.”

“Who is he?”

“I’m not sure.”

“So why do we care?”

“It wasn’t his face,” Sam said. “It’s because he ran.”

The road led a quarter mile up the mountain into more cleared roads, more gravel and half-finished houses and open lots. Sam jumped out of the machine and searched the landscape, with his.32 in hand, for shadows and movement, finding only the gentle flickering of eucalyptus leaves and the burning smell of a big ancient oak on a smoldering pile. He rounded a large stack of brick and timber and made his way into a house without a roof, the ceiling big and black and pockmarked with bright stars, seeming not as real as those at the Cocoanut Grove.

He listened for feet and heard none.

A flash of headlights crossed over the open mountain ground and Daisy skidded to a stop and hopped out of the little automobile. She followed Sam on foot up a hill and into the elbow of an embankment. There were poured foundations and clearing machines. Fat, gnarled trees had been left naked in the cleared land and they looked prehistoric and skeletal in the moonlight.

They heard an engine crank and saw headlight beams flash from the back of a hill, and then the car was up and over the hill and coming straight for them. Sam pulled Daisy into him and around the back of a brick pile, and the car left dust and smoke and taillights as it disappeared over the lip of the mountain and down into the curving roads leading back to the city.

Daisy ran to the Hupmobile and circled back for Sam, soon catching the glow of taillights appearing and disappearing around curves and more straightaways, and then she headed west down a fire road, the bounce of the car nearly throwing Sam from his seat. Daisy smiled, grinning with her big white teeth, and leaned forward into the wheel, mashing the accelerator for all it was worth, skidding and spinning down through the dust and gravel, the beams catching the fender of the machine they followed. She drove through a tunnel of tree branches and across more cleared land, up the mountain and down again, and looping back on another fire road, coming out this time into a narrow entrance where the road just stopped.

There were giant earthmoving machines with large bucket scoops and heavy tracks as wide as a car. The car they followed had stopped cold at the mountain wall but then doubled back and idled.

The earth around them carved out like a huge bowl.

Sam told Daisy to switch off the lights and the two piled out of the car, moving for the rear and glancing around corners, waiting for the dark man to make his next move.

A few seconds later, the man fired. It was a big goddamn gun, something like a.44 that a man could feel hard into his elbow and shoulder and which could deafen an ear a bit, too.

Sam responded with a couple shots from the.32 that sounded tinny and small but clacked and echoed in the big earthen bowl. They squatted down behind a rear tire, and the man fired again, Sam and Daisy both covering their heads, the solid blam, blam, blam from the.44 like a drum all around them.

The bowl felt damn-near Roman to Sam, as he waited for the dark man to either speed forward his machine or keep trading bullets with them.

“I can’t see the bastard.”

“I hope he can’t see us.”

Sam squeezed off another few rounds from the edge of the Hupmobile. Blam, blam, blam.

The radiator cap blew off Daisy’s machine and steam shot out. “Goddamnit,” she said.

Another big shot from the.44 and a tire was out.

Sam reached into his coat pocket and reloaded some more bullets. The .44 answered before he could even aim.

“I think you pissed him off,” Sam said.

“Me?”

The big black car of unknown make or model, just a big goddamn closed-cab machine, built up speed, heading straight for Daisy’s little two-seater, as Sam squeezed off all six, aiming straight between the headlights and up for the driver. But it just kept coming, sounding like a choir out of hell.