by Ace Atkins
“You’re going to ruin your hat.”
“Some steam is good,” Phil said. “That mud helping you breathe?”
“Like an elephant on my chest.”
There was a strange sense about lying neck-deep in the mud—you lost the sense of your body, your outline, and shape. You didn’t see yourself anymore, couldn’t find yourself. Phil seemed fine with it, though, a big smile on his face and chomping on that wet cigar, refusing to take off his big brown Stetson.
“So she knows who you are?” Sam asked.
“Sure,” Phil said. “No sense in hiding it. I think Zey kinda gets a kick out of the danger. She slips out with me at night, kinda like we’re a couple kids. She doesn’t care for Ma Murphy a bit. The old woman puts them on a schedule of when they eat, when they take their exercise, and probably when they go to the toilet.”
“How many guards?”
“Two.”
“You know ’em?”
“Couple Frisco cops. Uniform boys outta uniform. Never seen ’em.”
“Can we get the girls out?”
“Sure.”
“Arbuckle’s new attorney, Gavin McNab, wants ’em.”
“When?”
“Soon as we can.”
“The problem won’t be the cops. The problem is the girls.”
“How’s that?”
“They got the life up here. They get served a big fat breakfast and go for walks and swims. They take mud treatments and mineral baths. I mean these girls don’t have to do a thing.”
“Maybe they’re bored.”
“Can we have one more night with ’em?”
“Sure thing.”
“I don’t know if I could stand much more anyway. I’m up in the hills with my field glasses when they go for their treatments, when they dip ’em in mud and massage ’em and all that. I’m there when they come outside to the hot springs. Do you have any idea what that can do to a man?”
“It’s a rough assignment, Phil.”
“You bet it is,” Phil said. “They come out in robes, their bodies all slathered in dried mud, like they got some kinda tight brown dress on, still showing their curves and humps and all that, and then dip down into the little hot springs. All that steam and heat bubbling up from the earth, the women not even having the decency to stay covered. They get up and play on the rocks and just plain frolic.”
“It’s the frolicking that bothers you.”
“You bet. You ever seen a nude woman frolic? Let alone two? It ain’t good for your head.”
“I’m real sorry, Phil. Nude showgirls. Tough stuff.”
“You’ll see.”
A very large woman in white walked into the baths and without a word opened a large spigot over Phil’s tub, dropping in more mud, and then opening another over Sam. Sam closed his eyes and tried to breathe with the heft on his chest. He thought of being outside himself and liked that idea, hoping he could emerge from the bath with a repaired body but knowing better.
“What’s your favorite part?” Sam asked.
“Of what?”
“The girls.”
“Zey has a mole on her ass. I don’t know why, but it does something for me.”
“We should get the car gassed up tonight.”
“Will do.”
WHEN ROSCOE FIRST SAW Judge Louderback, he thought to himself, You got to be kidding. The guy looked like any other Joe walking the street, playing the market and punching the clock at some downtown firm. He was thin and young—too young, in Roscoe’s estimation, to be a judge—with neatly combed brown hair and a casual, friendly way of addressing the court. Light smile and eyes, soft voice. Roscoe thought a judge should be an old man with a weathered face and crooked fingers that wrapped around the gavel, not some young businessman type.
McNab sat by Roscoe as they waited for Louderback to finish up his docket before they started the first round of jury selection. A frail Chinese man in silks with a down-turned head and a woman translator stood small and distant before Louderback as Louderback read out a short list of charges, most of them dealing with theft. Apparently the Chinese man, Yuk Lee or something like that, had stolen five bags of rice from a grocer and then gunned down the grocer.
Louderback continued to run down the list of charges, his eyes skimming the papers before him, and then casually and with little anticipation sentenced the Chinaman to be hung. The gavel was swift and hard and final, and the Chinaman was led away, dead-eyed and emotionless, and tossed into the arms of a big fat deputy who yanked him into a back doorway and disappeared.
“For rice?” Roscoe whispered to McNab. Roscoe loosened the tie at his throat.
Louderback called the next order of business, the people of San Francisco versus Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle, charged with the manslaughter of Virginia Rappe. McNab stood and nodded to Roscoe and walked through the short swinging doors and launched his crocodile briefcase on a waiting table as if he were a dog pissing on a rock to mark his territory. Arbuckle and McNab stood before the judge with Brady and weasel-faced U’Ren beside them, shoulder to shoulder. Words were spoken, legal motions made, and with all of ’em standing there Brady said the prosecution objected to several witnesses added to the list.
“Which ones?” said Louderback.
“Where do we start?” Brady asked. “This hotel detective, Glennon. He was recently released from his position due to dereliction of duty. And these so-called character witnesses from the south who serve no other purpose than to blacken the dead girl’s character.”
Big Gavin McNab stood with his arms folded across his sizable chest. He shuffled his feet and rubbed a hand over his gray bristly head, never looking over at Judge Brady, only seeming to wait for Brady to take a damn breath so he could speak.
“Mr. Glennon has exceptional information on the girl’s condition and statements made before she died,” McNab said.
“He is a disgruntled ex-employee of the St. Francis,” Brady said.
“Since you’ve chosen not to produce Mrs. Delmont, we have no other course.”
“Where did you hear that?” Brady said, turning to the larger man. His face reddened. “Where did you hear that?”
“Well, are you?”
“Of course.”
McNab smiled. “We’re so pleased.”
“I will take this all under advisement, gentlemen,” Louderback said, shuffling papers from a large file. “Shall we start? We have a long day ahead of us.”
“There is one other matter, Judge,” McNab said. His voice, deep and weathered and melodious. “The girls.”
“Who?” Louderback asked.
“Miss Prevon-Prevost and Miss Blake,” McNab said. “The district attorney’s office has spirited the women away, giving us no chance for interviews. I understand these young women are being held against their will in some secret location. Since these girls are some of the few witnesses to the party, we should have every chance to talk to them. Or perhaps Mr. Brady is aware of a separate school of law?”
Brady’s face was crimson.
“Mr. McNab will have every opportunity to speak to the young ladies.
They are being looked after for their own protection.”
“Under armed guard,” McNab said.
“That’s simply a lie. A rotten lie.”
McNab cracked a smile. “Two guards with the San Francisco Police Department.”
Brady turned to U’Ren and U’Ren looked away. The exchange wasn’t lost on McNab, who couldn’t help but smile.
“Their changing statement of what occurred in that hotel is troubling,” McNab said. “It’s almost as if the girls were being coerced.”
“May I remind Mr. McNab I do not bow to his social position in this city and I resent his implications that I diddle with the law,” Brady said. “I am the district attorney of this county and will prosecute this case the way I see fit.”
Roscoe looked up to the judge on the bench. Judge Louderback looked at his watch and stifled a yawn. “
I will take this under advisement. Shall we begin?”
Roscoe just stood there staring at the bored judge, curious and incredulous, but felt McNab’s big paw on his arm leading him back to their table. Roscoe opened his mouth, too confused to speak, Louderback tilting his head and knitting his brow.
IT WAS DINNERTIME at the Calistoga Hotel and Phil and Sam sat at a corner table not far from a stone hearth with thick logs blazing, red wine in their glasses and hot rolls between them. Sam helped himself to another glass as an old woman set down a plate of pork chops with mashed potatoes. The hotel, a big, ramshackle wooden number, reminded him of some places he’d been in Montana, places left over from another century, a world away from streetcars and movie houses and airplanes. The wine was good and felt warm in his chest. He wondered if the baths and all that mud didn’t have some kind of effect on his condition. He felt better than he had since before the war.
“Don’t worry,” Phil said. “They’ll be here. Would you pass the butter?”
“Maybe Zey met someone else.”
“You wanna bet? She’s crazy about me. After we take care of matters at hand, I let her wear the hat.”
“You’re kidding.”
“She loves it,” Phil said. “Sometimes she wears it while we’re taking care of the business, riding me like I’m a horse.”
“Yee-haw.”
“You think I’m crazy ’cause I said these girls are trouble. You don’t know about women trouble. Look at you. You’re married and have a kid. It’s easier that way. You know what to expect every day. You got a beautiful wife, Sam. That counts for a lot. I’d love to have something like that. A man knows where he stands. When did you know it was good with Jose? You know, for keeps?”
“I had to make a choice.”
“How’d you know?”
“It was the right thing.”
“Do you ever stop thinking about women? That’d be the hardest part for me.”
Sam cut into his pork chops and took a bite. He took a sip of wine and just looked over at Phil. The younger, larger man smiled back, a slight grin on his face. His eyes then cut over to the tall front doors and watched as the two now-famous showgirls entered. They handed their coats to a crinkle-faced old woman who hobbled after them. They passed by the table, Phil smiling up at Zey and Zey smiling back at Phil, and they found a spot by the warm fire. It was all dark and very cozy in the room. Hearth fire, kerosene lamps on the tables.
“You met that Blake girl once, right?”
“I did.”
“Kinda screwy.”
“Kinda.”
Sam finished off half the plate and pushed it away. Phil finished his and asked for some more potatoes. They were already onto a thick slab of apple pie topped with melted cheese with a pot of coffee between them when the girls joined them. Zey was all smiles and giggles and huddled up close to Phil. Alice sat down next to Sam, who drank his coffee and smiled over at her as she said, “Craig Kennedy.”
Phil looked to Sam and Sam shrugged.
The old woman was chatting away with the two cops who’d joined her. They were Irish lunkheads, beat cops, who would squint over at the table and then back to Ma Murphy. Probably jealous the girls were talking to some other men. Zey swung her arm over Phil’s shoulder.
“How’d you shake loose?” Phil asked.
“We said you were a couple salesmen we met at the springs,” Alice said.
“They can’t say no to us. I said we were getting bored. They don’t like it when we’re bored.”
“Good to see you, Zey,” Sam said from across the table.
She acted like she didn’t remember him and played with Phil Haultain’s ear.
Alice smiled over at Sam and Sam pulled two cigarettes from the Fatima pack and offered one to Alice. Alice said, “Thank God,” telling him that Ma Murphy wouldn’t let them smoke or drink and the whole thing had been murder on her nerves. She wore a black dress with a fur collar, maybe rabbit but not mink. Her makeup was lighter than he remembered it, and she was prettier without all the red paint on her lips and cheeks.
“You know, my real name isn’t Kennedy,” Sam said.
“You don’t say.”
She grabbed the matches and lit her own and then handed the pack to Sam. Sam lit a cigarette and pushed away the pie, keeping the cigarette going on the coffee saucer. Phil whispered something to Zey and she cackled so loud that people across the room turned their heads. She put her hand over her mouth but kept on laughing.
Ma Murphy screwed up her face when she noted the cigarette in Alice’s hand. Alice looked over at the prune-faced woman and stuck out her tongue.
“We’ve been drinking all day,” Alice said. “That’s all there is to do around here, drink. We go for treatments and a swim. I’m tired of all that goddamn mud. You got to take ten showers to get it out of all your cracks. I want to go back to Frisco.”
“That can be arranged.”
“How?” she asked. “Those boys sleep outside our door. Did I tell you that Ma Murphy tried to get both of us to start wearing a corset? Can you imagine? This is 1921!”
Alice breathed in a long drag from her cigarette and turned her head to the ceiling, blowing out the smoke. Zey said they needed to get back, meeting the eyes of the nervous cops and Ma Murphy up by the hearth.
Alice leaned in, her eyes brown and sleepy, and felt for Sam’s fingers under the table. She moved his hand over to her knee and slid it up her dress, his hand crossing over her stockings and deep up her thigh, and he could feel the warmth of the sun on her skin. The higher she moved his hand, the warmer it got.
Sam just kept smoking and nodding and talking across the table to Zey and Phil. Zey talking about going horseback riding tomorrow. His hand reached the end of her leg, fingers delicately moved across a warm patch of silk between her thighs. Sam took the cigarette from his mouth with his free hand, met Alice’s eyes, and shook his head.
She leaned in and with hot breath said, “Come for me tonight.”
And with that, she pushed his hand away from under her skirt and back to his own knee and very pleasantly stood and said good-bye to Phil. The girls returned back to Ma Murphy and their guards.
“You were right, Phil.”
“About what?”
“It ain’t easy,” Sam said.
“Told you.”
“Fill up the machine?”
“Yep.”
“You can get by the guards?”
“Cake.”
“We go tonight.”
20
The girls stayed in a small white cottage fitted among a half dozen along a dirt road called Palm Row. The little cottages had little front porches with rocking chairs, picket fences, and small chimneys, some blowing smoke up into the cold night. A full moon shone silver on the endless patchwork of brown-and-green hills and across acres of grapes dying on the vine, toppled trellises broken apart by dry agents. Sam took in the scene beside the little flivver they’d taken from the Pinkerton motor pool and in the darkness smoked and checked his watch. They’d made arrangements with the girls to make the move at midnight when the guards would change. But here it was, eleven minutes after, and Phil walked back to the Ford to tell him that the fat Irish kid was still sitting on the girls’ cottage porch with a shotgun and reading a goddamn copy of the Saturday Evening Post.
“Can we get ’em out back?”
“Back leads to the springs. Sometimes the other fella’s out there.”
Sam checked his watch. “Aw, hell.”
Phil and Sam climbed the wall and circled the hot springs, now throwing off a mess of steam since the temperature dropped. The springs bubbled up in a little grotto surrounded by the chest-high wall of stone, and the men followed the circular path by moonlight, leaving the guns in the car in case they got caught, and trailed a row of shrubs to the back window of the cottage.
They heard giggling and music from a Victrola. Inside the wavy panes of glass, Sam saw Alice jumping up and down on th
e bed, a big suitcase nearby latched with a thick man’s belt. He knocked on the panes softly and then harder, and that got Alice down to the floor, where she removed a needle from the record. The music stopped.
She tilted her head and walked to the glass, a big smile on her lips, and opened up.
