Devil's Garden Read online

  He would go to the Flood Building and file a report using his Pinkerton number and not his name. You never used your name. The system didn’t work that way.

  He would skip coffee and some hash and go straight home. Jose would be waiting up, rocking the baby and looking down on Eddy Street, ready for him before he put the key in the door. She’d have something warm for him already, the Murphy bed laid out with clean linens, bleached white and fresh smelling.

  Jose.

  His face heated with shame.

  Shoes clacked on the wooden deck through the fog.

  Tacoma seemed years ago. She was the prettiest nurse by far, with those soft blue eyes and a hell of a body. She’d laugh at his jokes and let him follow her through her rounds at the sanitarium, helping her wheel out terminal patients onto that giant front porch on sunny days. And while the old soldiers would stare at the yellow-gray horizon with gaping mouths, they’d trade stories about Montana or about her time in London during the war. She convinced him he wasn’t terminal, that he’d be fixed up before he knew it, and it’d taken him a full two weeks before she met him in town for a plate of spaghetti and to catch a moving picture. They saw Pollyanna with Mary Pickford, and for weeks after that that had been his nickname for Jose every time she’d talk to him about his cure, sitting outside in that same spot watching those openmouthed, shell-shocked bedraggled men staring at the skyline. Pollyanna.

  She had a warmth about her, a heat. And the films grew into the rental of a little downtown flat where the passing streetcars would clang past and rumble the building, he and Jose not seeming to notice, the little metal bed they shared rocking so hard it would skip across the beaten-wood floor, traveling from wall to wall, the pair joined at the hip.

  Sam flicked the cigarette into the lapping waves.

  The beams crossed over each other, one from the shore, one from the island, nearly connecting but passing, and it was night and blackness again. The horns sounded. Sam lifted the collar on his suit and tucked his hands into his jacket, moving toward the front of the ferry, whistling.

  A solid fist knocked him square in the gut, dropping him to the deck, him crawling.

  A big black shoe came for his face and split his lip.

  Another hard kick in the gut. Sam rolled to his back, trying to find just a pocket of air for his squeezed lungs. He stared up at the man and saw the face, the dark man smiling down at him and offering a hand. Sam found an inch of breath and crawled backward, trying his feet but only getting his knees, wiping his lip, a boxer just trying to make it to round’s end.

  The man kept his hands in a large black overcoat. A wide-brimmed black hat sat on his gray head. He just kept smiling at Sam, quickly glancing around him through the thick blankets of fog misting their faces. He kicked at Sam hard once more, and Sam landed with a giant thwack on the deck, his mouth reaching for air, nothing coming into him, and he blacked out for a moment but never lost sight, trying just to right himself, the beams crossing overhead, cutting across the man’s dark skin and misshapen ear. He toed at Sam as if he were a dead fish found on the shore.

  Sam tried to breathe. The bovine horns called through the fog, dueling from the islands and shore. Sam’s vision scattered, rolling to his hands, the deck a patchwork of wooden planks, blindly searching, cold and wet. More horns. They were close to the Ferry Building now. Four more kicks.

  No questions.

  The Dark Man reached for Sam, finding the back of his suit and belt and hoisting him to his feet and pushing him to the railing, forcing him to look at the churning water, light cutting across and through the fog and darkness, and whispering something in his ear about the way of the world, repeating “the way of the world” at least twice, but Sam not getting much, his mind turned back to ’17 and the wooden sidewalks of Anaconda, the cold sprays of fog and bay tasting like copper smelting in his bloodied mouth, moving into the heart of the little mining town, the beaten floor-boards in a rooming house and Frank Little’s empty bed. As his feet were hoisted from the creaking deck, Sam’s body halved across the ferry’s railing and he grabbed and reached for something to hold, finding only slick metal, the man pushing with all his weight, pushing Sam farther off the ferry and into the blackness and fog. Sam saw Little twirl from the trestle, that first light cutting across the barren, raped hills and over the sack that covered the labor leader’s head, and he let go, the horns sounding loud and close, reaching into his tweed jacket and leaning back with a little heft to his legs and aiming his boots for the deck, collapsing in a crushed heap.

  The Dark Man pressed against him again.

  Sam turned.

  He shot straight into the Dark Man’s heart with his .32.

  The man held his chest, a look of surprise on his lips, as Sam flat-handed him backward and lifted with everything he had, toppling the man over into the darkness and foam, catching a glimpse of an air pocket in his black coat, the rough, strong currents of the bay flushing him out toward midnight and the Golden Gate and into the great sea—the Pacific—and nothingness.

  Sam dropped to his knees, pressing his back to the steel of the ship, shaking and gasping for breath. The front of his shirt was damp with sweat and sea mist. He closed his eyes and just thought about breathing.

  A big, booming bovine horn called him home.

  SHE MET HIM at the lunch counter of the Owl drugstore. It was midnight. A guy in a paper hat behind the counter cleaned out coffee mugs and shined forks with a dirty rag.

  “You look like shit,” Daisy said.

  “Shucks. You’re just sayin’ that.”

  She smiled and asked the guy in the paper hat for more coffee. She lit a cigarette and blew it from the corner of her mouth. In the bright light, her eyes looked very silver.

  “We busted up LaPeer’s stills last night,” she said. “Out toward Palo Alto, place called Logan’s Roadhouse. One of our boys, De Spain, got wind of automobiles and trucks loaded up with barrels and demijohns and the like.”

  “How much?”

  “Four thousand of mash, one-fifty of jackass brandy, and truckloads of his bonded stuff brought in on the Sonoma—Scotch, Old Crow, you name it. But the big thing was the stills. Two of ’em. The latest design, all electric, new, and ready to crank out thousands of gallons.”

  “How’d it taste?”

  “Not bad,” Daisy said. “Little rough. But, get this—when we got warrants for LaPeer and found him at the Somerton Hotel, he claimed—”

  “He didn’t own the place.”

  “No, better,” she said, grinning. “Said the gallons of mash were actually hair tonic and he had big plans to get the stuff in the hand of every bald man in the States.”

  “A true innovator,” Sam said. “He make a fight of it?’

  “Nope,” she said. “Kinda sad. I brought my twelve-gauge and dressed for the newsboys. We had boys all in the lobby of the Somerton and along the stairwell and holding the elevator. Me and De Spain knocked on his door.”

  “And he just walked out with you?”

  “In a robe and slippers. Meek as a kitten. He smiled for the cameras. It’s all a big laugh to him.”

  “What’s gonna happen when his suppliers don’t get his dough?”

  “Cry me a river,” she said. “They got most of it back. The Seamen’s Bank has it. Makes me sick. I just hope they spell my name right. It’s Simpkins. With an s. Sometimes they spell it without the s and it annoys the folks back home.”

  “They still haven’t found the rest of it.”

  “They will.”

  “It’s long gone.”

  Sam didn’t say anything for a while, catching Daisy’s profile as she tipped her head and let out some smoke. They were the only two at the counter, a dozen or so empty stools down the line.

  “Was that true what you said down in Los Angeles?” he asked. “About LaPeer killing your man?”

  She shrugged.

  “Did I tell you LaPeer had ratted out his two partners back in September, Jack
Wise and a Jap named Kukaviza?” she asked. “He went straight into Mr. F. Forrest Mitchell’s office, gave him what we needed, and then took over their turf. That’s some balls.”

  “You look shook-up.”

  “You need glasses.” She pulled her hand away and fiddled with another cigarette. “Why are you asking me so many questions about LaPeer’s dough? He’s in the life. He paid out a half mil, got the booze, and now lost it all. Cry me a river.”

  “You said that.”

  “So why do you care?”

  “What would you do if you had a chance to keep his coin?”

  “I’d be on a slow boat to China.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Are you gonna eat?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I want to eat.”

  “Then eat.”

  “Are you going to Australia?”

  “I haven’t decided,” Sam said.

  “It ain’t up to you. I thought it was up to the Pinkertons.”

  “I’m not a number.”

  “Why so touchy?”

  31

  The courtroom was packed, but no one expected to hear Roscoe’s name. They all thought he’d stay silent as a sphinx, all the papers commenting about the film star sticking to his talents since the arrest. What the hell was he supposed to do after both Frank Dominguez and McNab told him to shut his goddamn mouth or he’d find himself tainting the jury pool, pissing off the court, and then getting a quick trip to see the hangman? But he was ready as McNab ushered him to the stand, finding a spot on that hard wooden chair, carrying nothing with him but a pencil, and feeling sharp as hell in a nicely cut blue suit and blue tie, crisp-laundered white shirt, and silk stockings with soft leather shoes. Everything he wore was new and fresh. Early that morning, he’d been sheared and shaved by a barber off Columbus. He felt like a million bucks.

  McNab, being McNab, got right to it.

  “Mr. Arbuckle, where were you on September fifth, 1921?”

  “At the St. Francis Hotel. I secured rooms 1219, 1220, and 1221.”

  The spectators looked genuinely mystified, the block of black-hatted Vigilants whispering to one another, wide-eyed and in shock that the beast could speak and had a voice and was not just some kind of spirit conjured up from a projector. That morning Roscoe had decided to speak slow and deliberate, McNab telling him don’t be a goddamn actor, don’t enunciate, don’t project, they smell a phony and you’re done for.

  “Did you see Virginia Rappe that day?”

  “Yes. She came into my room about noon.”

  “Who was present when she entered?”

  “Lowell Sherman, Fred Fishback, and a nightgown salesman named Fortlouis.”

  “Did Miss Rappe come there at your invitation?”

  Roscoe tapped the stenographer’s desk with the tip of the pencil and turned his eyes to the jury. “No. And I did not invite Miss Blake, Miss Prevon, or Mrs. Delmont and her friend Mr. Semnacher either.”

  “They crashed your party, so to speak.”

  “Yes.” Roscoe’s eyes lingered on the jury, running down each one, face by face, name by name, cataloging each one of them.

  “And a Miss Taube. May Taube?”

  “She was invited. We had an appointment at three to go motoring.”

  “How were you dressed when the others arrived at your suite?”

  “I wore pajamas, socks, slippers, and a bathrobe.”

  No running from it, lay it all out like McNab said. When he asks a question, tell it the way it happened. Tell the truth down to the last detail, McNab said. And as Roscoe sat there running down that day, it felt good to say it just as it happened.

  McNab walked over to the defense table and brought Roscoe his blue robe, letting him feel the rough, rich texture and identify it. The old man cataloged it into evidence, showing no shame at the attire, nothing scandalous about a fat man wearing a robe at lunchtime.

  “Where, previously to seeing her in 1219 taken ill, did you see Miss Rappe?”

  “In room 1220. And I saw her go into room 1221.”

  “When did you go into 1219?”

  “About three o’clock.”

  “Was the door leading from room 1220 to 1219 open at that time?” Roscoe thumped the pencil on the desk. “Yes.”

  “Did you know Miss Rappe was in there?”

  U’Ren was on his feet, objecting, sniffing the air with his feral nose, and the judge sustained the bastard. A smile crept onto U’Ren’s lips, almost frothing to get hold of Roscoe. In a moving picture, he’d be rubbing his hands together. Roscoe would be on a silver platter, an apple in his mouth.

  “Where in 1219 did you see Miss Rappe?”

  “I found her in the bathroom.”

  “Now,” McNab said, talking and walking. “Tell the jury, Mr. Arbuckle, just what you saw and did.”

  “Well,” Roscoe said, smooth and slow, though not enunciating and projecting but just talking, finding it odd as hell being up on the stage with all these people and talking regular. “I went from 1220 into 1219 and locked the door, and I went right to the bathroom. I found Virginia Rappe”—saying her last name because he decided that was more appropriate and all—“lying on the floor, rolling around, moaning, and very ill. When I opened the bathroom door it stuck against her and I could only open the door a little ways and had to edge my way in. I lifted her up and I held her head. I held her head, pulling back the hair from her face, while she vomited into the commode.”

  “What else happened?”

  “Well, after I had helped her sit up, she asked for water and she drank a glass and one half. I wiped her face with a towel. She said she wanted to lie down, so I helped her from the bathroom and assisted her to lie down on the smaller of the two beds in the room. I went back into the bathroom and closed the door.”

  “When you came back out of the bathroom again, what did you observe?”

  “I found Virginia Rappe on the floor, between the two beds, rolling as if in great pain and moaning. I got her up and got her onto the large bed. She at once became violently ill again. I went at once to 1220, expecting to find Mrs. Delmont. I found Miss Prevost, told her what had happened, and she went right into 1219. I went back into 1219 and Virginia Rappe was tearing her clothes. She acted then as if she were in a terrible temper. She pulled up her dress and tore at her stockings. She had black lace garters on and she was tearing them, too. Then Fishback came into the room. At that time, Miss Rappe was tearing her waist. She had one sleeve almost torn off, and I said, ‘All right, Virginia, if you want to get that off I’ll help you.’ And I did help her to tear it off.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Well, I went out of the room for a few moments. When I came back, Miss Rappe was nude on the bed. Mrs. Delmont was rubbing her body with ice wrapped up in a towel. I saw a piece of ice on Miss Rappe’s body and I said, ‘What’s that doing there?,’ and Mrs. Delmont said, ‘Leave it there. You let us alone. I’ll take care of Virginia.’ She then tried to order me to leave the room. I said to Mrs. Delmont, ‘Shut up or I’ll throw you out of the window.’ ”

  “What happened then?”

  “Mrs. Taube came in and I told her to telephone Mr. Boyle, the hotel manager, and she did. She used the telephone in 1220. Then I went back into room 1219 and I told Mrs. Delmont to get dressed, as the manager was coming. I pulled the bedspread over the body of Miss Rappe. Then Boyle came upstairs. I took him into room 1219.”

  “What was done then?”

  “We got Fred Fishback’s bathrobe out of a closet and put it on Miss Rappe and then I picked her up and, with Mr. Boyle, started to carry her to room 1227.”

  “How did you leave 1219?”

  “Through the door leading into the corridor.”

  “Was that door open?”

  “Boyle opened the door.”

  “What next?”

  “Well, I carried Miss Rappe about three-fourths of the way. She kept slipping and I asked Mr. Boyle to h
elp me. We put her in bed in room 1227. Then I walked back down the corridor with Mr. Boyle as far as the elevator and then went to 1219.”

  “Was the door from 1219 into the hall unlocked on that day?”

  “Yes. Fishback went out that way when he left to take my car.”