Girls in Pink

by Bob Bickford

  Within a year she was gone. I didn't realize I had probably been in love with her until she wasn't there anymore. I never had the urge to try marriage again. I figured I wasn't cut out for it.

  I finished the tolerable meatloaf, said goodnight to Roxanne and headed back to the street. It had gotten dark, and I needed to sleep. It seemed like a longer walk home past the cemetery. My legs were starting to ache with fatigue, and I wished I'd driven the Ford tonight.

  The wrought iron fence on my left stretched away into the nighttime ahead, disappearing and reappearing in the streetlights. My heels on the sidewalk made the only sound. I wondered if Cleveland's people were watching the street. I touched the gun in my coat pocket. I didn’t think it would help me much if it came down to it, but I wanted it handy just the same.

  There was motion in the darkness. A small girl had come out of nowhere on the cemetery side of the fence. She ran her fingertips soundlessly along the metal bars as she walked along with me. She wore a pink pinafore over her dress and skipped lightly around the occasional headstones in her way.

  “Not a place for a kid, this time of night. You ought to head for home.”

  My voice sounded hoarse. The girl didn’t look at me, and didn’t answer. She didn’t bother me any, so I shrugged and kept walking.

  “June?” I asked. “Are you June?”

  I felt instantly foolish. I didn't know where the question had come from. I was relieved that the girl didn't seem to have heard it. She kept pace with me on her side of the fence, never looking at me.

  Up ahead, a man stepped out of the shadows. He stood under the yellow light watching us approach. His hat pulled low, hiding his face, he bent and carefully placed something in the middle of the sidewalk, and then he turned away and went between the parked cars at the curb. I watched him cross the street and vanish into the dark.

  I thought about chasing him, but I couldn't think of a good enough reason. I glanced over at the girl, but she was gone, too.

  When I reached the spot where the guy had been, I looked at what he had left behind. A playing card, face down. I picked it up, turned it over, and saw the three of spades. I stood and looked at it in my hand for a little while, but it didn’t do anything and didn’t change, so I put it into my pocket.

  The cemetery fence finally gave way to houses. Most of the windows were black, but I supposed the girl had gone into one of them. Two more blocks and I reached home. The dog greeted me at the front door. I checked his food and water, and went to bed without turning on the lights.

  The dog's barking woke me up in the middle of the night. He had stopped by the time my eyes were all the way open, and I wondered if I had dreamed it. It was too dark to see much, but the luminous dials on the alarm clock said six minutes to three. I put my feet on the floor and was listening to the house tick when he started barking again. It alarmed me, since I had never heard him bark. Instinct kicked in, and I had the Browning in my hand as I started up the dark hallway.

  I followed the noise to the kitchen. I glanced at the darkened window as I went in. The night was bright; nothing silhouetted against the glass. The ceramic sinks and water tap caught some of the light from outside. The dog scrabbled at the back door, nearly wild.

  “Button,” I hissed. “Button, stop!”

  If he knew his name, he didn't show it. I finally caught his collar, herded him to the bathroom off the hall, and closed him in. He tried the door as I walked away. I heard his nails on the wood. I went back through the kitchen and peered through the glass. I heard myself take a breath as I snapped the switch mounted beside the back door. The yard flooded with light, and I opened up.

  The Gardiner’s ocelot sat thirty feet away, staring at me. In the dim light, it looked like nothing more than a large house cat. The breath left my lungs, a long exhale.

  “Troublemaker,” I said. “Go on home.”

  In a blink, he bolted over the fence into Annie's yard.

  I looked over at her house. The windows visible over the hedge were dark. I went far enough into the yard to see the Gardiner place on the other side. Their house was unlit, except for a single bulb over the back door. Everyone appeared to be sleeping, undisturbed by the ruckus. I looked at the moon for a minute; it was full enough to make the outside light pointless. I headed back inside, and stopped with my hand on the knob.

  There was a bullet hole in the door glass, and a playing card stuck into the frame. I hadn't heard a shot; the dog's barking had awakened me. I looked at the spidery bicycle drawing for a moment and then pulled the card free. A three of spades, just as I'd known it would be.

  I locked the door behind me and let Button out of the bathroom. There was no chance I would get back to sleep tonight. I took the bottle of bourbon from the cupboard, poured myself a knock and sat at the kitchen table to drink it. I was pretty badly rattled and got through it in a hurry. I stood up to get another as the telephone rang. The sound made me jump.

  I heard silence on the line, but it wasn't dead. I could sense the person on the other end. I waited.

  “I'm done playing with you, pally.”

  “What do you want, Cleveland?”

  His breath was audible, coming almost in pants.

  “This time you went too far, you son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “You went too far and you're going to pay in ways you can't imagine yet. You're going to pay and pay.”

  He seemed to be having trouble with some of his consonants, and I realized he was drunk. I also realized something else. He was crying. “I'm going to get you for this, and I'm going to do it personally. If I wasn't going to do this myself, you'd be dead right now. Look over your shoulder, you bastard. I'm coming.”

  “I didn't kill her, Cleveland. I found her there.”

  “Goddamn your excuses!” he half-screamed. The sound was harsh, gassy. “To hell with your lies! You couldn't get to me, so you took her out! You're going to get your chance at me, do you understand? Do you?”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “That bitch should have died in the fire,” he said. “This is all her fault. None of it would have happened. She and her mother started the whole thing, and they deserved to be in that house. They should have died.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Who should have died?” I asked.

  “The little girl died, and that wasn't my fault,” he sobbed. “Do you hear me? It should have been them! They let the little girl face the music.”

  “Are you talking about Annie Kahlo?' I asked. “Make some sense.”

  “Now she's got you running around, killing for her,” he sobbed. “I'm going to burn the bitch before I kill you, snooper. I'm going to burn her alive, and I'll make sure you know about it before you die. Do you hear me?”

  I held the receiver away from my ear and looked at it. His voice got tiny, but it still buzzed in my palm. I put the handset back in the receiver like it was infected, cutting off the sound of him. After a minute, I got up to pour my second drink. After I finished it, I picked up the telephone again.

  Danny Lopez answered on the second ring. He didn't sound like he had been asleep.

  “I'm going to need some help,” I said.

  “I figured you would, amigo. We're not very far away.”

  I waited on the veranda until an old truck with a staked bed rattled up the street and parked in front of my house. A man got out of the passenger side, crossed to the far side of the street and disappeared into the darkness. Lopez came up the sidewalk and mounted the steps. He indicated the direction the other man had taken with his chin.

  “My man will stay around tonight and watch the street,” he said. “We'll organize this better tomorrow.”

  I led him through the house and showed him the broken window and the playing card. I told him about the identical card dropped on the sidewalk in front of me earlier in the evening.

  “Think he'll come now?” I asked. “Or is tonight some kind of warning?”

  “Cleve
land isn't warning you,” Lopez said. “It's too late for that. He's taunting you. He's telling you he can get to you anytime and anywhere he wants to. If he can get close enough to deliver cards, he can easily deliver bullets.”

  “Not much I can do about it. I'm mostly worried about Annie. He says he's going to burn her to death, and that's just sick enough to have me worried.”

  “It's simple, amigo. If we don't let him get close enough to deliver cards, the threats don't mean anything.”

  I told him I had seen Mary Raw on the Gardiner's veranda before she got killed, and I didn't know why. They weren't involved, but I was still a little bit worried about them, too.

  “We'll watch the whole street,” he said. “You and your neighbors. Like a barrio...no one gets in or out unless we know about it.”

  “I'll need to tell them what's going on,” I said.

  He clapped me on the shoulder.

  “We'll meet up with them tomorrow,” he said. “Get some sleep. Everyone's safe tonight.”

  Part Three

  Handwriting, Green Tangerines, and a Pink Heart

  -Twenty Three-

  Monday, July 21, 1947

  Santa Teresa, California

  11:00 pm

  The yellowed papers had aged terribly in just these few weeks, and Annie handled them carefully. Crayon, paint, ink…they were alive, but not quite enough. This demanded colors that were lit, that would shine out against a huge darkness and bring it all back to life. She didn't know if the same darkness, which had followed her since she was a small girl, was finally going to swallow her.

  She did know the dead didn't always stay dead, not really, and that the most perfect beginnings were sometimes made out of endings.

  She moved the easel to the corner of her big desk, and sat to look at the crumbling pages.

  There was a noise from outside. Annie looked up and sat listening, her head slightly to the side, and then pushed her chair back and went to the window. There was nothing beyond the glass but the dark. She leaned forward and looked up, but the sky was empty. Out on the road, a figure stood beneath the yellow street light, perfectly still. She watched it for a moment and decided it had nothing to do with her. She crossed the room again, back to the colors.

  A children’s verse, she thought, but not just for children. With the right illustrations it could become a book, and books were alive There was no safer place, really, but she was afraid anyway. She picked up her brush and read softly. Her lips moved, but her eyes were still.

  She painted until it was time to go, and then she stood up. It wasn't enough, but the unfinished nature of the piece almost seemed to demand she return to it someday. It comforted her. She spent the next hour collecting what she needed. Now it was going to end, one way or another.

  At the open door, she shrugged on a raincoat. It was too warm for it, really, but she needed what was in the pockets. She checked to be sure she had the playing card. She did; she pulled it out and looked at the hearts in the dim glow from the street light. It was the last one in the deck, and she hoped its magic would be enough.

  When it was safely back in her pocket, she locked the door behind her and went down the walk to her car.

  -Twenty Four-

  “I used to live in Mexico,” Annie said. “Near Sayulita. I had a little house on the water. It was a wonderful place to paint, a wonderful place to live. I miss it. Sometimes if I close my eyes, I'm there.”

  “I know it well,” Lopez beamed. “My town is not too far to the north. Corazón Rosa. On a clear day, you can see Las Islas Maria from the beach. They seem to be close enough to swim out to.”

  “Corazón Rosa...Pink Heart. What a lovely, curious name. Why is it called that?”

  We sat at the glass table in the Gardiner’s back yard. The sun was bright, and the shade under the striped canvas awning felt blessedly cool. The flowered bushes on the borders moved in the breeze, alternately dappled with light and shadow. I looked for the ocelot under the jacarandas, but he was somewhere else today. The doctor served his over-sweetened martinis from a blue pitcher, but Annie and I stayed with the lemonade she had made in the kitchen. I was going to need what few wits I had.

  “I can't say for sure. Many of the buildings are in the old adobe style. The clay in the area has a lot of...”

  Lopez sipped at his martini, and grimaced appreciatively. I felt for him.

  “Delicious,” he said. “Absolutely delicious.”

  “A lot of...?” Annie prompted.

  “Iron. It gives the mud a funny color, and the adobe remembers a little of that color when it is dried. In certain lights at the beginning or end of the day, the whole town looks pink. Rosada.”

  “I love that,” Annie said.

  “That may not be the whole reason for its name.” He spread his hands. “All I know is that Corazón Rosa is the most beautiful city in the world.”

  In the far corner of the yard, the peacocks squabbled briefly. They flared wonderfully, defended their dignity and then subsided and stalked away in opposite directions. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of running water. This all seemed very far from the business we were here to arrange, and I wished it could all last longer than it was going to.

  “With all respect,” Mrs. Gardiner said to Lopez, “I'm glad to help, but I'm not sure what it is you’re going to do here.”

  He leaned forward. I had thought the Mexican jefe might be uncomfortable with the Gardiner's eccentric hospitality, but he was relaxed, courtly and nearly magisterial.

  “There's some trouble on your street,” he explained. “There's a very unpleasant group of men who may cause problems for Mister Crowe, here.”

  “Sal Cleveland and his boys,” she said. “I'm not a fool. I go to the movies like everyone else.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “A few men that I trust will be watching over these houses—yours, the lovely lady's, and Señor Crowe's. We will be here and there, as invisible as possible, and we hope it is only for a short while. We might ask to come in, or possibly to set up a cot in your front room.”

  “I don't care about that,” she said. “I like company. Are your people gangsters, too?”

  Lopez sipped at his martini again, and pursed his mouth.

  “We are simple gardeners,” he said. “No more than that. If you have any yard work you need done while we are your guests, we will happily do it.”

  “There's an ocelot that lives here,” she said. “I won't have you or your men bothering it.”

  Lopez looked at me, confused.

  “It's like a small tiger,” she said.

  “More like a small lion, really,” the doctor offered, in a rare outburst.

  The look of bewilderment on Lopez' face cleared and turned to mild alarm.

  “It's a big house cat,” I told him. “You won't see it...it hides. It goes between all three backyards. If it doesn't bother the peacocks, it won't bother you. Just don't let your men shoot it, whatever you do.”

  “I think you are some kind of good gangster,” Mrs. Gardiner told Lopez. “This Cleveland man is looking to cause grief for Annie. If Mister Crowe vouches for you, then you must be the good kind of hoodlum, a sort of Spanish Robin Hood. My husband and I will help however we can. You can stay as long as you like. When will all this start?”

  “It has already started.”

  Lopez looked at me.

  “I think he won't try anything drastic until things have cooled off,” I said. “There's already been enough trouble drawing attention to him. There's no way to be sure of that, though, and that's why we need to be careful right away.”

  “He'll move when the numbers tell him to,” Annie said. “He'll move when he sees it in the cards.”

  All of us looked at her and waited. Behind the dark glasses, her expression stayed unreadable. A brightly-colored scarf wrapped her hair, and she played with a corner of it while she thought. When she finally spoke, her voice was slow and nearly dreamy. “Sometimes numbers speak,” s
he said. “Numbers and colors and symbols. They all play together, in love and war and everything else. You can see patterns. Sal understands that, and he always did. The cards tell him what he should do, and the cards confirm his power.”

  “Like Tarot?” I asked. “But with regular playing cards? Is this a game he made up himself?”

  She shook her head, impatient. “It isn't a game at all, and the cards don't matter. It's the symbols and the numbers. He could use colored sticks, or dried leaves, and the effect would be the same. He can set a course, decide what to do, where and when. He can see, and that makes him magic.”

  Danny Lopez leaned across the table. He had a way of fixing his total attention on what was being said to him, and he and Annie locked gazes. “Are you a little bit magic too?” he asked. “Do you understand these...numbers and symbols?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Numbers and colors.”

  He stared at her for a long minute. No one else at the table spoke.

  “I think you must decide where your loyalty is,” he said. “It cannot be divided. Lives are at stake here.”

  “My loyalty is to my sister,” she said. “Only to her.”

  “Your loyalty needs to be to the people who are in danger with you,” he said. “And to those who are trying to protect you.”

  He was a little bit angry. He tasted his drink again, shuddered almost imperceptibly and put it down. He thanked the Gardiners and asked me to walk him out. On the street, we stood beside his ancient green truck.

  “She wears dark glasses so her eyes cannot be seen. Do you understand that?”

  “She's shy,” I said. “And a little eccentric. She's an artist, Danny. All artists are a little strange.”