by Ace Atkins
“Sure. Rye.”
“Ice. Ginga-rale?”
“Sure thing.”
The man snapped his fingers and more Orientals appeared and laid down a bowl of cracked ice and a single glass with a pint of brown alcohol. The man proudly displayed the cap sealed with wax.
“Five dollar.”
“What?”
“Five dollar.”
“You got to be kidding?”
“The ‘Dragon Show.’ The ‘Dragon Show,’ ” he said, pointing to the stage as if any of that made a lick of sense. The fat man looked confused.
Sam poured the whiskey but didn’t add ice. He drank and pointed to the girl on stage. The man smiled a big row of crooked teeth and said, “No, no, no,” before walking away. Sam shrugged, feeling good to sit down, and poured another. Phil Haultain, hat in hand, walked by, leaned in and whispered, “At the bar,” and moved across from Sam. Sam pointed to one of the boys for another round and another glass. He poured one for Phil and left him at the table with all that beautiful booze, cracked ice, and ginger ale.
The bar was a long black-lacquered affair, with two skinny Orientals in white coats pouring. Fishback was turned toward Sam and talking to the woman who’d been on stage, and she seemed friendly and at ease with him as he touched the chopsticks in her hair and did a twirling motion with his fingers to make her turn around. The girl gave an easy laugh. Sam still couldn’t see Fishback’s face, only the long red nails of the woman clutching the Hollywood director’s shoulder and laughing. She held a cigarette in a long holder and spilled smoke from the corner of her mouth as if she were uptown. Fishback’s hand twisted around the girl and placed it flat on her fanny and the girl leaned in and whispered.
Fishback kissed the girl on the cheek.
He left the bar.
Phil picked him up by the door.
Sam waited a beat, pushed his way through a long, confusing red curtain and walked out onto a short balcony, into the night, looking down on Grant. He spotted Phil, who’d stalled under the awning of a grocer and then turned to the alley running alongside the Manchu. Rows and rows of laundry hung over the narrow shot, obscuring his view, and Sam saw Fishback only in breaks until he stopped and spoke to someone. Fishback turned and looked up at the Manchu, seeming to look right at Sam, but turned back and started talking to a man Sam couldn’t see.
Sam saw hands shake. There was a fat envelope. The director accepted it and walked away.
Fishback headed back out the alley. Phil followed.
Sam bounded down the steps to the first floor, made it to the corner, and then saw a man emerge from the mouth of the alley and turn the opposite way onto Grant. He was short and in a gray suit, gray hat. His hair silver and clipped close on a swarthy neck.
Sam made his way to the opposite side of the street, the man passing over Washington, Jackson, but turning west at Pacific and then looping south again on Stockton. Sam stopped and smoked a cigarette and looked into the window of an import/exporter, surely made. He started to cough again, the sweats on him rough. He felt feverish and sick, knowing the body had turned again and knowing the work was too much. He coughed more into the rag and there was blood.
The man in gray did not look back but continued to walk through Chinatown, back to Clay. Sam took a ragged breath, looked behind him, and nearly vomited.
He saw darkness and lights and then rows and rows of headlights coming from a concrete mouth. Sam reached into the pocket of his tweeds, wiped his lips with the back of his fist, and followed the dark man into the darkness and cold wind of the Stockton Tunnel.
THE CHANDELIER COST sixty thousand and weighed nearly a ton, and one hour before Enchantment was set to roll at the Granada the workers couldn’t hoist it. Hearst was furious beyond words, watching a dozen men with ropes and pullies working like mules up the gentle slope of the theater, muddying the red carpet and trying to get the damn thing up into the gilded ceiling. The architect was making apologies for the foreman, the foreman was blaming his workers, and the workers didn’t speak English. As ten employees surrounded Hearst, in tails and holding his top hat, he simply held up his hand and walked away, trailing up the stage and behind the screen and nodding past two guards as he entered Miss Davies’s dressing room.
Marion sat in a chair, looking like a discarded doll. She wore the same chiffon frock and beaver hat from when he’d seen her that morning. The gown he’d ordered from Paris hung from a hook. The jewels still in their velvet cases.
“What’s the matter?”
Marion just looked up at him with those enormous sad eyes and bowed little mouth. The mouth quivered a bit.
“I f-f-feel like I’m gonna be sick.”
“Don’t you worry.”
“What if they don’t like it?”
“They’ll love it. Besides, you know what I say.”
“Only r-read the good reviews.”
“Right.”
“But it seems the only good r-reviews come from Hearst papers.”
“Now, that’s a lie, Marion. Everyone is in love with you.”
“I don’t need this, W.R. We c-can live without all this.”
“You are the most naturally talented little woman I ever met.”
“Little woman?” she smiled, her little bowed mouth pursed like a flower.
He leaned down from his heights and kissed her on the forehead. “Now, get on with it. Smiles. All big smiles.”
Hearst returned out onto the stage and watched the men, now double in strength, pulling and straining with the chandelier. The wooden roof creaked, but the joists were built of redwood beams, large enough for a clipper ship. He stared out at all those empty red velvet seats and into the balconies where they would watch the premiere. Thousands of roses would be brought in just moments before the film started, letting those in the theater live the experience, that soft sweet smell blending in their mind with the picture on the screen. Marion, soft-focused, so lovely, forty feet tall, and so modern.
Enchantment, the perfect vehicle for Marion, Hearst so proud to have directed the writer. The story centers on a girl, Ethel Hoyt, a modern girl in every way, spirited, beautiful, and lively, with numerous suitors. The girl spends her time dining and dancing, going to parties with different men, with her father back home worrying about her and knowing the only thing he can do is find a proper suitor for her, and it’s on the night of her birthday—how very proper—that he takes her to a performance of Taming of the Shrew. There he finds the man who can tame Ethel, a man named Edison—Hearst’s idea because of the connotations of inventiveness—and from there Edison suggests Ethel for the lead in his next play, Sleeping Beauty—again, Hearst’s suggestion to the writer—and as Edison falls for Ethel, so will the audience, to see Marion as Sleeping Beauty—in ringlets, with her moist lips parted—as one of the most fantastic, erotic images ever put on film.
“Mr. Hearst?”
“Hmm?”
A little newsboy held up a copy of the afternoon edition of the Examiner and Hearst reached down from the stage to grab the copy. The boy tipped his cap at Mr. Hearst and Mr. Hearst reached into his pocket and flipped him a silver dollar off his thumb. The boy caught it in midair with such a natural gusto that it brought a smile to Hearst’s face, and he unfurled the paper and saw the banner headline: ENCHANTED SAN FRANCISCO. He flipped below the fold to see a photo of the fat man at the defense table, his new attorney, McNab, held in conference, the fat man looking confused and worried, starting straight into the camera as if a startled animal.
He’d brought it all on himself.
Hearst looked up from the pages to watch the chandelier finally rise off the ground, tinkling, crystal winking in the light, the men grunting and straining and marching down the aisles up to the waiting doors through which fans of Miss Davies would soon pour. He looked back at the photo and stared at the face of the fat man, so dumb and confused, a sick animal, with animal virtues and animal desires. How drunk would a woman have to be to see someth
ing in that soft, doughy face and stupid eyes? How drunk and confused would a woman have to be to let herself be bedded by a millionaire brought into this world in a Kansas mud shack who lived his days cleaning out saloon spittoons before becoming a buffoon to millions?
Hearst had sat in darkness for days when the detective had come to him about the party. He had told him about the actors and Hollywood types who had filled the beach house with their gay laughter and alcohol and jazz music from a Victrola brought out onto the sand. They had danced away the last night of 1919 with cases of the last legal alcohol in this country and the fat man had been the king there, twirling around small, fresh Miss Davies, plying her with drink until even his doughy face could be attractive. All his tailored suits and manicured nails and twenty-dollar haircuts couldn’t hide what he’d been. And the thought of him sleeping under the roof that Hearst had built for Miss Davies made him want to vomit, but how could he be angry at Marion? How could he ever fault Marion for the appetites of a fat man? A buffoon.
The fat man had simply walked away that first day of 1920 without a moral headache of consequence—maybe the bright sunlight had brought him some discomfort or perhaps he could not gorge himself on cakes or pies that day. But he had escaped without a bit of gentleman’s remorse, the tainted, now-illegal liquor in his blood, driving in his ridiculous automobile like a circus oddity. Hearst rubbed his head and his eyes. He must gather himself. Someone called to him, but he waved him away. Someone called to him again.
He had not a bit of remorse for what he had done. He had only wanted Fatty caught, pants around his ankles, his appetites and vileness and poor breeding known to those who sat in the darkness and giggled at his antics. And now that that had happened, he was finished with the man. He had nothing to do with the death of that girl, absolutely not a thing. That girl was an extra, a supporting player, in a perfectly designed drama written and produced by Hearst with direction from that odd Hungarian fellow, Fishback, although Fishback hadn’t the slightest idea who’d given him the script. The Dark Man handled it all for Hearst, finished it off for Hearst, and now the justice for the fat man was in the blind woman’s hands.
Hearst heard yelling and grunting and opened his eyes, suddenly aware of all those watching him up on stage and in the light. The beams in the ceiling groaned and strained, the chandelier halfway up through the mammoth space, rising to the very top, the topping to the wedding cake, and Hearst saw the faces marvel at the theater, the perfection, every attention to the slightest detail. Hearst stepped back, hands in the pockets of his tuxedo, and placed the top hat back on his head.
“Yes?” he asked, turning to those who called him.
And then there were yells from the men, the whoosh of the hemp rope from calloused hands, the release of tension of the creaking beams above, and finally a giant, spectacular crash of the chandelier breaking and scattering across the Granada, the thousands of hand-fitted crystal pieces raining around him on stage and into the seats like sleet. Hearst turned his head, a piece of glass ricocheting off the floor and tearing across his cheek.
“Mr. Hearst! Mr. Hearst!”
He turned, the broken crystal all at his feet.
“Mr. Hearst, are you okay?”
Hearst nodded and stepped forward in a crunch.
“You’re bleeding.”
Hearst reached for the silk handkerchief in his pocket and touched his cheek, dabbing off a bit of blood. He said to no one in particular, “So I am.”
SAM SAW THE MAN twice in the glow of scattering headlights. The long brick cavern grew black again and soon there was only the sound of feet clacking in the tunnel and a constant drip of water from the roads above. He walked straight into the darkness at a decent clip, the man a good distance ahead of him. Another car passed and Sam caught sight of the fella looking back over a shoulder; another car passed and the man was gone, maybe running now, Sam knowing he was in no shape to follow. He kept walking, darkness and light, two machines at a time and then three, the constant rhythm of his leather soles thwacking hard and ugly under him. He could just make out some streetlamps from where the tunnel ended under Bush Street. Sam stopped and listened, the tunnel dripped, no cars, little light. He stood still and lit a cigarette.
In the strike of a match, he saw a man’s face.
Sam fumbled for the match and it dropped to the wet ground with a hiss.
He felt the point of a gun in his ribs, smelled sulfur, and heard a voice say, “Keep walkin’. ”
Sam kept moving down the slope toward the mouth of the tunnel, a hand rough inside Sam’s jacket pulling the .32, where streetlamps bled light into the cavern. A little Essex Coach roared past them, honking its horn twice. The man kept close, Sam smelling his ash breath on his neck. When the machine had disappeared, Sam closed his eyes, waiting for a bullet to tear through his spine.
But they kept on, the tunnel growing into a wide open mouth. He could see people coming out of an apartment building and a billboard advertising cigars. THE SIZE PLEASES YOU. THE QUALITY PLEASES YOU. THE PRICE PLEASES
YOU. DON’T ARGUE. DON’T INFER. A NICKEL WILL PROVE THE ASTONISHING GOODNESS OF THE NEW CURRENCY CIGAR!
Fog seeped outside on Stockton, headlights cut through banks, while more machines roared into the tunnel. Sam’s shirt was completely soaked now, and he moved dead-leggedly, feeling feverish and sick. When the light met them gray and weak, the gunman faced him. Sam’s breathing stopped for a moment, but he stared back at him, dead-eyed, with a steel bluff. The man recognized it and smiled back, calling it.
He handed Sam back his gun. “Beat it.”
Sam pointed his gun into the man’s ribs.
“Why don’t you reach for my wallet?” the man asked.
“I’m not a thief.”
“Reach for it.”
Sam reached inside the man’s jacket and pulled out a fat, battered leather wallet.
“Come on,” the man said. “Open it.”
Inside, Sam found a small silver badge like the one he carried. PINKERTON NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY.
“You get it now, Sam?” he said, smiling and snatching the wallet and placing it back inside his coat. As he turned, Sam noted half the man’s ear was gone and he felt a stab of recognition.
Anaconda mines. Montana. Four years back.
Sam wavered and for a moment lost sight, hearing the feet steadily fade. Sam held on to the tunnel wall, tried to follow, but knew the man was gone. All he could think about was watching Frank Little swing from under the railroad trestle like a pendulum.
23
You scared me plenty, Sam,” Phil Haultain said. He laid an old horse blanket across Sam’s shoulders and handed him a hot cup of coffee. “Wandering around like that, muttering to yourself about some man named Little. What was that all about?”
“The TB can sometimes make you screwy.”
“You’re talking straight now,” Phil said. “Glad of it. Now, what’s this about Fishback meeting with another op?”
They sat in the middle of Phil’s little apartment, Sam in the only chair in the room and Phil on his Murphy bed drinking straight whiskey. An illuminated clock on his nightstand read four in the morning. Sam massaged his aching head and coughed in a spasm longer than was comfortable. Phil handed him a handkerchief and sat back on the bed, leaning forward to listen.
“He had a badge,” Sam said.
“Coulda been phony.”
“Sure.”
“But you don’t believe it?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Drink that coffee up. You still got the chills.”
Sam had never been to Phil’s apartment before, a basic city special, a studio with a bathroom and a small kitchen with a narrow gas stove topped with a speckled coffeepot. On the wall hung a small painting of an Indian on a horse holding a spear up in the air, ready for battle. Haultain’s big hat hung on a hook by the front door over a rain slicker.
Sam finished the coffee and stared at the
painting of the Indian. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“So you had a bad night.”
“That guy coulda knocked me out with his breath.”
“You’re the best shadow man I’ve ever seen, Sam.”
“My body’s giving out.”
“You gonna die?” Phil said, looking genuinely sad.
Sam shrugged and smiled. “Would you come to the funeral?”
“You betcha.”
“You’re a good egg, Phil.”
Phil stood up and walked back to his small kitchen and brought the coffeepot. He poured out some more into Sam’s mug and laid the pot back on the stove.
“You know, I got an escape plan,” he said.
