Devil’s garden

27

Roscoe stood outside the courtroom in a little corner by the big staircase made of mottled marble. Reporters gathered by the doors as spectators already started to fill the seats. Word had spread about the masseuse from down south who was going to testify about Virginia’s condition, about her having fits whenever she took a drink. Roscoe leaned against the wall, the newsboys sensing a black mood, knowing he wasn’t going to bullshit with them like most days. Roscoe started a smoke, saying, “The way I figure it, it’s damned if we accept those prints as mine. They’re trying to say I screwed that poor girl against a door.”

“He’s a fraud,” McNab said. “The professor. That chambermaid woulda been out on the street if she didn’t clean that suite properly. That room was cleaned time and again.”

All of a sudden the newsboys were on their feet and chattering with each other, a gaggle of them running out of the courthouse, a few running upstairs to the police offices. Roscoe followed McNab to court, getting into the rhythm of the days there, not much different than being on-set, only he wasn’t called to do a damn thing but watch.

“Where’s the fire?” Roscoe said to a couple fellas from The Call.

“You don’t know?”

“I give up.”

McNab held the great door open for Roscoe, trying to move him along.

“Your witness, the Swedish broad, is in the hospital,” the newsboy said.

“Someone went and poisoned her.”

SAM PATCHED TOGETHER what happened to Irene Morgan from a stack of reports from the op who interviewed her and from reading the tale in the afternoon editions of both The Call and the Examiner, no one really knowing if the girl would live or not. The whole series of events piecemeal from fact and fiction, headlines from the newsboys and statements from Morgan, rumor and fact. But apparently the girl had grown bored that first night and snuck out of the Golden West Hotel with another Arbuckle witness, a woman named Leushay. The pair made their way to Geary on foot, hopped the streetcar to Pierce, and then walked two blocks up to the Winter Garden Hall, where single girls could always find a dance and men could take their pick from ’em clustered on long rows of church pews. The unattached would sit and wait, hand-painted slides projected against a cracked wall as an all-darkie band played love songs from the South. The last little bit of information came from Phil Haultain, who sat across from Sam at a partners desk, reading the same report, smoking and laughing and peppering the facts with little insightful and sometimes off-color comments.

Irene never had to sit that night. As soon as the big blond Swede-or, as Phil called her, “the woman with incredible tits”-walked through the doors, she was accosted by at least a dozen men and chose two and then chose another two and so on. Her dance card was filled for hours, while the Leushay woman sat on a hard seat and drank bottles of Coca-Cola and chain-smoked cigarettes and gave wan smiles to the blonde as she made her way across the dance floor as large as four basketball courts. By the time Irene was tuckered out, maybe two hours later, she’d convinced some nervous, sputtering gent to give Miss Leushay a solid try while she was cooling her heels. And that was about the time that Miss Leushay’s side of the story ended and the op’s interview of Irene Morgan took over.

Irene had just come back from the ladies’ room and was making her way back to the floor, refreshed and ready for more songs, another twirl, a broad shoulder on which to lay her head, bootleg booze from a flask passed underhand to her. But this odd fellow tapped on her shoulder, much too old for her tastes, maybe about fifty or so. Dark skin and gray hair. She found it odd that the man wore a hat indoors. He asked for a dance and she politely refused, but the man pretended not to understand her accent and grabbed her rough by the elbow and took her for a twirl anyway. She recalled his breath smelling of cigarettes and mint, part of an ear missing, and him not talking much, being a horrible dancer, and finally landing her back where she started, where a much younger man with neatly oiled hair bowed to her and kissed her hand.

Say, didn’t that fella who jumped you in the tunnel have part of an ear missing?

Sam nodded and kept reading.

Irene was halfway through another song when she realized she’d seen the older man before at the Hall of Justice. He’d asked her for the time. Irene put off the whole affair, until it was midnight and Miss Leushay was bored again and worried the girls could get into some kind of trouble with Judge Louderback. Irene said her good-byes to the men, getting a purseful of business cards, finding it strange how many American men, especially shorter ones, had no problem dancing close, head upon her bosom like a child.

She’s kidding, right? I bet they were like soft pillows.

She was a bit drunk and tired when the older, dark man pulled to the curb in a new machine, a long green touring car, and asked the girls if they’d like a ride back to the hotel. She couldn’t even reply before Miss Leushay hopped in the backseat of the car and motioned for Irene to come on, Irene staggering from the curb and crawling inside, the car moving down Geary, heading down to O’Farrell, and dropping Miss Leushay at the Manx. Miss Morgan said she thought she was on the way back to the hotel when the man did something very kind.

“He offered me candy,” she said in The Call. “He said it was homemade.” Didn’t her mother tell her better? Candy? Jesus.

She didn’t know she was only a few blocks away from the Golden West. For all she knew, she could’ve been on the other side of the city. But the man kept them moving around in circles, up a street, down a street, a long ride along the Embarcadero, and then a long march up Market and back again, circling Union Square four times. She told the man she was beginning to feel a bit odd, a little queer, and he recommended she try some orange juice, slowing at the first drugstore, maybe the Owl. Miss Morgan ran inside, had a small glass, and then stumbled back to the car. She had the back of her hand against her forehead, as they drove some more, the very motion of the machine making her ill, and finally pleaded for the man to take her back to the hotel that very instant. He said some more candy would settle the stomach.

“And so I ate several pieces,” she said.

At the Golden West, she got out fast, knowing the man would want to walk her to the door. But he stayed in the machine, only letting down the driver’s window of the long green automobile and smiling at her. The smile was what struck her as odd and she wandered to him, cocking her head, and waiting for him to say what he had to say.

He smiled more.

“What?”

He looked her dead in the eye and said, “Go to hell.”

Irene covered her mouth with her hand, stumbling into the lobby, but never made the elevator. The last thing she recalled was collapsing in a heap and the bellman calling for a doctor.

How is she?

Docs gave her oxygen. Whatever was in that candy didn’t sit too well with her. We got an office pool going. You want in?

“THEY’RE CALLING FOR another witness,” McNab said, leaning over the table to talk to Roscoe. Roscoe was seated but turned around to tell Minta and Ma. Minta had on a blue dress and fringed hat. He’d never noticed that much about what she wore, but it sure was reported every day in the papers. Everyone wanted to know what the famous Minta Durfee wore to court as she stood beside her man. Roscoe decided he liked the blue, while watching Minta whispering in Ma’s ear. She had to whisper twice because Ma was deaf as a post.

“Who’s up?” Roscoe said, folding his hands over his stomach.

“Your pal,” McNab said, “Fishback or Hibbard, or whatever he calls himself.”

“Thought that wasn’t till later this week?”

McNab shrugged.

“That sick nurse gonna be okay?” Roscoe asked.

McNab shrugged again. “Do I look like a goddamn doctor?”

McNab approached the bench, and Louderback nodded and answered a few questions. McNab said hello to Brady and Brady just eyed him and turned on his heel. McNab laughed at that, walked back, and took a seat beside Roscoe, the jury trailing in as chipper as a funeral dirge.

“Do they always have to look so solemn?” Roscoe asked in McNab’s ear.

“Quiet,” McNab said and began a fresh sheet of paper for notes. “I didn’t call this son of a bitch.”

There were more whispers and loud talking. Jurors sat up straighter and notebooks appeared in their laps. Freddie was brought in from a side door and placed on the stand, where he stood and raised his hand. He was dressed to the nines-blue aviator jacket, crisp pleated trousers, and polished riding boots. His black hair had been oiled just so, and, as he turned, his profile looked like a silhouette from Photoplay.

Roscoe stared right at him. Fishback caught the stare and kept his eyes on Brady, who got the jury up to speed on who Fishback was, what he did, that he did indeed drive up to the city with Roscoe in September, all that business.

“And you directed Mr. Arbuckle in several moving pictures?”

“No.”

“But he is a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve known him for how long?”

“Since ’16, somewhere around there.”

“Where were you born, sir?”

“Romania.”

“And you took the name Fishback why?”

“I thought it was funny. It makes you think of the bones of a fish.”

The court laughed. Mainly women. Roscoe always kept Freddie around because his dark looks and athletic shoulders could pull some tail. Roscoe wrote on a piece of paper, “Why was he called?” He passed the paper over to McNab, who wrote back, “I am not of the psychic arts.”

Roscoe leaned back in his seat.

“Did you see Miss Rappe ill?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you think when you saw her?”

“I thought she’d had too much to drink.”

“So you tried to help her?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“I placed her in a cold bath.”

“Were you rough with her?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Did you bruise her?”

“No, sir.”

McNab stood. “A person hardly knows when they’ve inflicted a bruise.”

Roscoe leaned into the table. His heart raced a bit. Ole Freddie wouldn’t look at him. If he’d just give him a quick glance, Roscoe could tell if he was still with him. But he was sitting there, erect, stiff, answering yes or no, like they’d never met, never shared a drink, a song at a piano.

“But this was not the first time you’d met Miss Rappe?”

“No. I had met her some years ago.”

“When you worked at the same studio with Mr. Arbuckle?”

“Mack Sennett’s.”

“The master of comedy?”

“That’s what Mr. Sennett says.”

The court erupted in laughter again, the crowd loving handsome Freddie.

Roscoe looked up at the ceiling at the fan breaking and spreading apart the heat and wind in the room. There was a strong odor of bad breath and old stale sweat around him. He folded his arms in front of him and straightened his navy vest.

“Did Mr. Arbuckle know Miss Rappe?”

Roscoe’s eyes shot back to the stand and then back to McNab.

Freddie was still, composed, reading off his lines, not moving his eyes except to punctuate his words with the jurors and knowing goddamn well how to perform, direct the play, move the herd.

“He did.”

“Were they friendly?”

“They had met,” Freddie said. “The film colony is quite small.”

“There was a time when Roscoe asked for some help getting to know Miss Rappe?”

“Yes.”

Roscoe took the slip of paper and scrawled in all-capital letters,

BULLSHIT.

“He said he wanted to play a joke on her?”

McNab got his ass halfway out of his chair, Brady catching the move and saying, “How was the introduction to be made?”

“He wanted a key to her dressing room.”

Roscoe underlined BULLSHIT four times. McNab’s big hand enveloped Roscoe’s and gripped his fingers to the point of pain, no expression on the hard old man’s face.

“A joke?”

“He wanted to sneak in her dressing room.”

“Did you get him the key?”

“No.”

“Was he angered?”

“Very.”

“I told him this is where the girls, the Bathing Beauties, shower and such things. It was not proper. But he was insistent.”

The son of a bitch shrugged. Freddie shrugged. A move of “What can you do?”

And he performed it so well for the jury.

If only he would look at him. But Freddie just trailed away as McNab took a stab at him, asking him questions that Roscoe could not hear with the hot blood wooshing through his ears. The final insult was McNab asking Freddie if he was sure that it was Roscoe Arbuckle who asked him for the key, couldn’t he have been mistaken for another person on a very crowded lot, another portly man?

Freddie calmly caught Roscoe’s eye then and Roscoe stared back at Freddie, time seeming to stop as Freddie pointed his long index finger-never being asked to-and shot it straight at Roscoe.

Roscoe did not move. He could not breathe.

He felt McNab’s disappointment as the old man falsely gathered his papers, making motions, actions while he tried to make sense of what had just happened, like a man in shock after being run over by a bus. Roscoe leaned in and said, “I want to see the Pinkerton.”

“There are a dozen Pinkertons on your case, Roscoe.”

“I want the tall one. The thin man. The one who came south.”

“May I ask why?”

SAM WAS BACK on the deck of the Sonoma, working in the heated bowels of the ship, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, only taking a break for a quick smoke, checking in with the other ops to see if they’d found anything. There was a commotion down below on the pier where flashlights worked around the dark green water and on the mooring lines. A man in a diving suit had been dropped a half hour ago, an air pump chugging away, the lifeline running down into the black depths. Sam checked his watch. It was past nine.

He hadn’t eaten since morning.

They’d found some of the coin, the robbers dropping the strongboxes over the side of the ship suspended from hemp rope. More coin was found in drainage pipes, raining down on the heads of sailors when an old salt unplugged them to lay down a coat of paint on the deck.

There was still twenty-five thousand somewhere, but Sam figured they were all going through the motions now. The money long gone. A seaman by the name of Ducrest having disappeared hours ago.

He returned belowdecks, the ops being paid by Seamen’s Bank to go room by room, slowly down each level. And now Sam was back near the engine room, grease on his hands and forearms, still smoking a cigarette, checking out ventilation ducts. He ran a flashlight into them and pinged them with a rusted wrench, duct by duct, room by room. He wanted to get home.

Two hours later, there was a sound. A solid dull thud instead of a ping.

He used the flashlight to look into the shaft. Nothing. He reached deep into the grimy, oily shaft, stretching with his right arm and fingers until he touched the brass top of a fire hose and grabbed hold, pulling it out.

Sam was alone. Two levels down from the main deck.

The hose was heavy and full. He unscrewed the nozzle and found a continuous trail of loosely packed gold coins that jangled with heft in his hand.

When he glanced back up, he could see an image of himself in the glass of a porthole. Grease covered his face like war paint. He used a handkerchief to clean himself off, some of the white cloth spotted in blood. He looked back at himself and then lifted the hose back into the shaft, pushing it far back into the pipe and screwing it tight with a pocketknife.

He was back on deck when he saw a man he recognized as one of Arbuckle’s lawyers, the young one, Brennan. Brennan nodded at another nameless op and the op pointed over toward Sam.

Sam met Brennan halfway on the deck, still wiping grease off his hands. “Mr. Arbuckle would like to speak with you.”

“It’s a little late.”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

Sam checked the time again. Below, men were helping the fellow in the diving suit out of the water, a great brass helmet on his head that they had to remove with wrenches. The man had been out of air and took in great lungfuls when the helmet was removed.

“Where is he?”

“Waiting in the car.”

“What’s this about?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

“I’ve been reassigned.”

“This is important to Mr. Arbuckle,” Brennan said. “He’s having trouble sleeping.”

“Tough day in court?”

“The worst.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Lead the way.”