High Spirits

by Alice Duncan

  However, that’s neither here nor there. I led the trembling Mrs. Kincaid to the sofa, where I tenderly lowered her and plumped a pillow at her back. Then I drew up one of those lovely dark red medallion-back chairs over to the table before the sofa, sat on it, pulled out the pretty little embroidered bag I’d made especially for the cards, and began to shuffle.

  Because I felt compelled to do so, I gave Mrs. Kincaid a gentle lecture as I shuffled the deck. “You know, Mrs. Kincaid, the cards can only tell you what may happen. They aren’t absolute, and sometimes they’re downright wrong. The best way to make sure your life is pleasant is to ensure that your surroundings are pleasant.”

  She nodded unhappily.

  Sucking in a huge breath for courage, I then went farther than I’d gone so far in the Stacy Kincaid debacle. “If your daughter is causing you trouble—and I know she is—because of her inappropriate behavior, you might be well advised to take a firm hand with her. Sometimes firmness goes a long way toward straightening out a twisted path.” I used the twisted path reference because spiritualists are supposed to say stuff like that.

  I didn’t know this for a fact, of course, because I didn’t have any children of my own. However, I vividly recollect some of the lessons in discipline I got as a child and how much of an impression they made on me. Or on my behind, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. Not that I expected Mrs. Kincaid to throw Stacy across her knee and paddle her bottom, but a stern word here and there, or even a threat to withhold money, might help. If it wasn’t already too late, which was what I feared. Somehow or other, I didn’t think Stacy Kincaid would take well to discipline delivered so late in her life. And the brat was only my age, for Pete’s sake!

  Mrs. Kincaid sniffled miserably and mopped up more tears. “I know. I know. It’s all my fault. I should have left her father earlier. I should have been more forceful with her.”

  I had a hard time envisioning Mrs. Kincaid ever being forceful.

  “But Harold isn’t like Stacy! Or his father! He turned out quite well!”

  He did, indeed. He was one of my dearest friends, in fact. “I don’t know the answer,” I admitted. “But someone needs to take Stacy in hand.”

  Yeah, but who? Oh, well, she wasn’t my problem. Thank God! The particular piece of reality brightened my mood considerably, believe it or not.

  Therefore, without further ado or lectures, I told the cards—you’ve got to do things like that when you’re pretending to be a spiritualist—that we wanted them to tell us anything they could about the future of Stacy Kincaid. Then I dealt out a Celtic cross pattern and read the results thereof. Mrs. Kincaid was in tears again at the end of my reading. But, darn it, that wasn’t my fault! The cards fell where they fell, and I didn’t have anything to do with it. Nor did fate. Heck, cards are cards. They can’t think or predict or anything like that, no matter what people think.

  I must say, however, that I felt a certain degree of satisfaction that their so-called prediction seemed so dire if Stacy Kincaid didn’t straighten up.

  Poor Mrs. Kincaid took no satisfaction whatsoever from the reading, although she thanked me lavishly, even pressing money into my palm. Because I felt guilty (my most pervasive emotion at that time in my life), I actually dared to put my arms around her and give her a hug. She evidently didn’t mind because she hugged me back so hard, she darned near suffocated me.

  She even led me to the door, usurping Featherstone’s prerogative as butler. Sniffling all the while, she said, “Oh, Daisy, I can’t thank you enough for coming here today. I know I shouldn’t burden you with my problems, but you’re such a comfort to me.”

  I was, was I? Perhaps that’s why she was still crying, thought I to myself. Stifling my sigh, I lied outright. “You’re never a burden, Mrs. Kincaid. I only wish I could offer some sort of advice to help you in your hour of need. Alas, the only thing I can do is consult the Other Side.” What hogwash.

  Anyhow, my conscience was somewhat assuaged by the knowledge that I actually had offered the woman some sound advice. She could either take it and discipline her daughter, or she could ignore it and allow Stacy to slide farther into the world of gangsters, booze, and illegality. It didn’t really matter either way to me. The more Stacy misbehaved, the more Mrs. Kincaid would call on me. And, while sometimes her calls were inconvenient, they always resulted in lots of money. I had no reason to complain.

  Until I encountered Stacy Kincaid tootling up the long driveway as I drove down it. She looked as if she were just returning from another night’s debauch. When I saw her, my temper erupted just like photographs Billy had shown me of Mount Kilauea doing in the National Geographic. I think I honestly saw red for a minute.

  Bringing the Chevrolet to a screeching halt in the middle of the drive so that Stacy couldn’t pass, I rolled down my window and waved to the wretched female. She looked at me with the sneer she reserved especially for me. But she stopped and rolled her window down, too.

  “Are you just getting home?” I demanded.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “It means a lot to me, because it means a lot to your mother. I suppose you were consorting with those bums Maggiori and Jenkins, too.”

  “So what if I was?”

  It’s undoubtedly good that she seemed to be suffering from last night’s overindulgence, or she’d probably have ripped right on past me and gone to bed, even if it meant sheering the door handle from the family’s lovely new Chevrolet. But her eyes were puffy and red, and she looked as if she were suffering from a zinger of a headache. Her face had a kind of greenish tinge to it.

  I was so mad by that time, I actually opened the door, got out of the car, and stomped over to the driver’s side of her car, a glossy, wildly expensive Wills Sainte Claire Roadster.

  “You miserable brat! Don’t you know that you’re killing your mother with your irresponsible, not to mention criminal, behavior? Don’t you realize that your mother endures agony every time you act up and pretend to be something out of a Fitzgerald novel? Don’t you understand that you’re totally unprepared to deal with the kinds of people you’re running around with now?”

  “What do you know about it?” she asked sulkily.

  “I know a heck of a lot more than you do, evidently! Do you know that Jinx Jenkins, that fellow you’re so fond of, beats his women black and blue for fun?”

  Her bloodshot eyes popped wide, and her mouth opened, but I stomped flat any words she’d been planning on saying.

  “And don’t you realize that Vicenzo Maggiori is a vicious hoodlum who’d have no more compunction to fill you full of Tommy-gun holes than he would stomp a bug? Have you see Flossie Mosser lately?”

  “No. She hasn’t been around.”

  “And do you know why that is?”

  “I don’t care.” Boy, was she sulky now.

  “You’d care if you could see her. Your precious Jinx blackened both her eyes and nearly broke her ribs the other day, and all because he got mad about that raid you and I were picked up in. And I was only there because your mother was hoping I could help keep you out of trouble.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing! I’m through with that. Nothing can keep you out of trouble. You’re just a moth drawn to a flame, aren’t you? You won’t be satisfied until you’re killed in a raid, or beaten to death by your precious Jinx and your mother’s prostrated with grief, will you? Well, I think that stinks! I think you stink!”

  And with that last, not-very-professional sally, I turned on my somber black heel, marched back to the Chevrolet, pressed the starter button, pulled to the right of the drive, and high-tailed it out of there. I shot a glance at Jackson as I sped past the gate, and he was smiling broadly at me and giving me a thumbs-up gesture. I guess he’d heard my diatribe.

  That probably should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. I knew I’d behaved in a most unprofessional and wildly ill-considered manner, and I only hoped word wouldn’t get around to my other cli
ents. Or to Mrs. Kincaid. She might despair of her daughter, but I’m sure she didn’t want idiots like yours truly yelling at Stacy in her mother’s own driveway.

  I went home after that and prayed nobody would call me about anything at all. I almost got my wish. Mrs. Bissell, from whom I’d received Spike as a gift after ridding her home of a ghost (it wasn’t really a ghost), called and asked if I could work as a palm-reader during a party she aimed to hold in April, which was fine by me. I always picked up lots of clients when I worked parties. Billy only looked at me.

  “Want to go for a walk?” I asked because that look of his made me edgy. “It’s not as cold today as it was yesterday.”

  Naturally, since Spike was a smart dog, he started going wild as soon as he heard the word “walk.” I should have spelled it, although it wouldn’t have surprised me if Spike learned to spell next. He could already sneeze when I said gesundheit, a trick I taught him one morning at the breakfast table, profiting from a sneezing attack on his part.

  “Sure.”

  So we walked. We got a little farther that day, probably because the weather cooperated with us and no cats crossed our path. We got all the way to the end of the block, where Marengo met Bellefontaine, before turning around and heading home.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” said Billy, and my heart soared, although my arms ached like crazy.

  “You’re getting stronger every day, Billy,” I said, and even as I spoke the words, I wasn’t sure if they were true or if hope colored them.

  “We’ll see,” said he. Billy always was more practical than I.

  Nevertheless, I felt jollier for the rest of the day, especially after Johnny Buckingham came to call, and he and Billy had a grand old time chatting about the good old days, when they’d played baseball and football on the high school team, and life was bright and unbothered by Kaisers, mustard gas, gangsters, or the problem of making a living.

  Amendment time. I felt better until after supper. That’s when Sam Rotondo showed up to cast a blight on my evening. Not that Sam did anything, mind you. He was just there, a great, big physical reminder of the trouble I was in.

  Chapter Ten

  Billy, Pa, and Sam were having a grand time playing gin rummy, Ma was reading An American Tragedy, Aunt Vi was flipping through a cookbook, and I was playing the piano, softly so as not to disturb anyone, when a knock came at the door.

  “Who in the world can that be?” Ma asked, looking up over the rims of her reading spectacles.

  I popped up as if I’d been yanked by a puppet master, saying brightly, “I’ll see!”

  My heart pounded like crazy, and I prayed it wasn’t Flossie Mosser or anyone else from the Maggiori clan, or ... Good God! Could it be Stacy Kincaid, come to shoot me? Or Mrs. Kincaid, here to tell me never to darken her door again?

  All those possibilities and more flashed through my brain, although I altered the one about Mrs. Kincaid. She’d call on the telephone and wail at me.

  When I scooped up a hysterical Spike and opened the door, enlightenment didn’t dawn. Utter bewilderment prevailed. I stood there, puzzled, staring at a large man in a dark suit and overcoat with its collar lifted in back and with a dark hat pulled down over his eyes.

  “Mrs. Majesty?” His voice was an ebony rumble and reminded me of jagged, velvet-covered rocks and stuff like that.

  “Yes?” I said, still puzzled.

  “Mr. Maggiori says youse is supposed to come with me.”

  “M-Mr. Maggiori?” I stammered, feeling my knees getting weak and my heart sink. I cast a panicky look at the gin-rummy table. Sam nodded at me. The miserable rat! I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, but he only nodded again. Pa and Billy were studying their cards.

  “Yeah,” said the man. “Mr. Maggiori’s in the car. Waiting.”

  Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. This time when I glanced at Sam, I gritted my teeth and hissed at him, “Sam!” He only nodded again. Darn it!

  However, there seemed no salvation for me unless I wanted Maggiori’s goon to toss a bomb into my beloved home, thereby killing my beloved family, so I reluctantly told the man to wait on the porch while I got my coat and hat and handbag. I shot a hateful look at Sam when I put Spike on the floor at Billy’s feet. Sam only smiled benignly.

  I ripped my housedress over my head and scrambled into a sober suit, quickly donned stockings and black shoes, pinned a black hat to my head, grabbed my black handbag and coat, and hurried to the front door. Turning and saying, “Be right back,” in as chipper a voice as I could manage, I then scrammed it out of there before anyone could ask me anything.

  A long, black car that went darned well with my outfit was parked at the curb in front of our house, and it felt as though I were headed directly to my doom as the big man and I approached it. The big man opened the back door politely, and said, “Mrs. Majesty, Mr. Maggiori.” And, with one last glance back at the house I figured I’d never see again, I slid into the car. Vicenzo Maggiori sat on the other side of the back seat, smiling at me.

  That’s when I knew for certain I was done for. I’d figured all along that Sam Rotondo would be the death of me, and it looked as if this was the night. I was one unarmed female in a car full of three murdering hoodlums, and nobody’d probably ever see any part of me again.

  Perhaps, if they shot me and took me out into the Mojave Desert to dispose of me by allowing vultures to clean my carcass, a coyote might run across my mouldering corpse and carry a thighbone to a nearby ranger’s station or something, but I doubt that anyone would know it was my thighbone.

  Or maybe, if they took me to the end of the Santa Monica pier and threw me into the drink wearing cement overshoes, my bones might wash up on the beach someday, but again, would anyone recognize them as my bones? Certainly not.

  I was truly depressed in spirits as that big black motor rumbled away from my cozy abode on Marengo.

  Mr. Maggiori’s voice, horning in as it did on my melancholy thoughts, surprised me so much, I must have jumped a foot. “It was very kind of you to join me this evening, Mrs. Majesty.”

  I gulped. “Sure.” My voice was barely a squeak, and it annoyed me. Darn it, it wasn’t my fault I’d become involved with these blackguards! Stiffening my jellied spine, I said, “Certainly,” much more forcefully.

  “I want you to see the new place. We’ll be opening up on Monday, and it would be swell if you could do a séance and get in touch with my godfather. He needs to know how we’re carrying on the business.”

  The business, eh? Hmm. Still, it didn’t look as if Maggiori was going to direct his henchmen to dispose of me. Yet. “I’ll be happy to hold another séance for you, Mr. Maggiori,” lied I, “but you didn’t have to come in person. You could have telephoned.”

  “Naw. I like the personal touch.” He pronounced it da poisonal touch. “Besides, I want you to see the joint. That way you can tell me where’s the best place for you to do the deed.”

  Do the deed? Or, rather, do dah deed. Reminded me of the Camptown Racetrack. However, that’s neither here nor there. “Very well,” I said, striving to recapture my spiritualist serenity. “I shall be happy to.”

  I can’t remember a single other time in my life when I’d said so many lies in so short a period of time. Well, unless you count all the séances I’ve held and tarot cards I’ve read and Ouija boards I’ve manipulated. Oh, all right, I guess I’m a fairly accomplished liar—but only in business situations.

  “Good. That’s good.” He rubbed his gloved hands together, and I instantly envisioned those hands tightening around my throat. Oh, boy, this was bad. Sometimes I wish I were as unimaginative as my mother.

  However, we all got to Lamanda Park in one piece, and the machine stopped behind what looked like a perfectly respectable house surrounded by orange groves. There were a lot of orange groves in Pasadena at that time. In April, you could positively swoon from the fragrance if you drove near some of those orchards. It was heavenly. Which made the existence of Maggiori’s
speakeasy amongst those innocent trees even more of a blasphemy than the one in the sycamore grove had been, in my opinion, not that anyone cares about that.

  Maggiori’s goon was Johnny-on-the spot when it came to opening doors and stuff. He leaped from the front seat of that automobile and had my door opened before I had caught my breath. Then he rushed to Maggiori’s side of the car and opened the door for him. At least he’d opened mine first.

  “Right this way, Mrs. Majesty,” said Maggiori, taking my arm and guiding me gently through the back door. Although I felt like yanking my arm from his grasp, I didn’t, thereby demonstrating that I can occasionally control myself.

  The same goon who’d met Harold Kincaid and me at the door of the former speakeasy, met Maggiori, his henchman, and me at the door of this one. He must have been watching through the peephole because he had the door open before we’d reached it. Boy, were these guys organized! The Pasadena city government might want to take lessons.

  “Right this way, Mrs. Majesty.”

  “Thank you,” I mumbled as, feet dragging, I reluctantly crossed the threshold. Wasn’t there something in Dracula about a person not being vulnerable to the vampire’s fangs until she or he had walked into the count’s castle of her or his own accord? I think so, and I felt kind of like Jonathan Harker must have felt when he’d entered Dracula’s castle on that long-ago night. Except that Jonathan Harker didn’t have a clue that the count was an evil so-and-so, and I knew these guys were. The more fool me, I reckon.

  “Let me show you around.” Maggiori, like Count Dracula, sounded perfectly at ease. “Would you like to take off your hat and coat first?”

  How polite. “Um ... no, thanks. I really can’t stay long.” Even if I had to walk the seven or eight miles home in the pitch-black of a cold February evening.

  “Right. Well, I’ll just show you around a bit then.”

  “Thank you.”

  My heart thundered like mad as he led me through that place. Yet there was nothing remarkable about it, really. It looked as if it might have been a farmhouse once upon a time. Probably the people who’d planted the orange groves had lived there. It looked to me as if a couple of walls had been knocked out to create what would probably be a dance floor on Monday night, and a long shiny bar ran along one wall of that room. They must have pinched it from the old place after the police had left. Another few rooms were, I suppose, where people could gather, drink, and chat if they felt like it because several round tables resided in them, all of which had chairs upended on them.