The Crimson Shaw

by Elyse Lortz

  “Keane, would you—”

  I was interrupted by a startling coalition of heavy sounds that ended in my companion bellowing out a series of oaths that were not only imaginative, but increasingly heartfelt the longer he continued. As tempting as it was to enter into the hot winded squall, I was exceedingly pleased I had not when Keane stormed back into the kitchen dressed in his day clothes with his coat fully buttoned.

  “Get dressed, Lawrence, we’re going out.” You could have blown me over with a stiff wind.

  “Out? But you yourself said it was only four in the morning. Why the devil—”

  “Either get dressed or, by God, I’ll drag you out of here as you are. I’m certain it is nothing too scandalous to go around Los Angeles in one’s night clothes.”

  I WAS SUITABLY ATTIRED and out the door just as Keane started the car and together we were off at a feverish pace before the sun had so much as yawned over the flickering horizon. The darkness was only sparsely spotted with street lights or the brightly curved letters announcing the California nightlife. My finger’s instinctively went to the leather seat as Keane nearly plowed over a man teetering along the thin edge between the pavement and the road.

  “Good God, Keane! Someone will think you’re drunk!” He didn’t even glance at me.

  “Is that really anything unusual in this city? Besides, if a man is roaming the dark streets at four o’clock in the morning, he would probably be drunk too.” There was a coldness to his voice—a stiffness—I had seldom heard in the years of our acquaintance.

  And I might not have heard it again were it not for Keane’s quick action to avoid a light pole that leapt into our path. It was another few moments, or a collective two seconds, when Keane slammed onto the brakes just before pinning our fragile limbs to the rear of a large truck parked just outside the theatre.

  A very large, red truck.

  Keane had scarcely stopped the car before he was out of it, running along the pavement like a madman. His was an act hard to follow, but I did my duty dodging in and out of the throng of people stationed arm to arm around the theatre. It was an army of drunkards, showgirls, robed men, and women with hair curlers chattering loudly above the last few shrieks of sirens. I at last arrived at the man standing at the door just in time to see Keane lift him easily by his coat lapels. It was quite a feat, not because I thought my companion incapable of such things, but because the young man was built more like a steam boat, rather than a human being.

  “Hawkins, what the devil happened?” The stagehand shrugged out of my companion’s grasp, but I noticed that glint of fear that so often loosened tongues and rattled rusted minds into action.

  “Gosh, I don’t really know. Thought I saw a light in the back and, sure enough, a fire had been started right in James’ office.” I understood the situation then, the faint odor of smoke and the overall bustle of human bodies jamming against each other for a better look at the sudden rush of news old bitties could pass around over cups of coffee as they waited for their life to drain away into a wooden box nailed shut at the ends. Someone ought to make a newsreal for them, something like the OBA.

  Old Busibodies of America.

  No doubt we would hear about this tomorrow in the black, inked titles or, more likely, a small article strategically placed just below the obituaries. The front page was reserved for something nationally important. Like the horse races.

  Keane pushed his way further toward the group of uniformed men for a moment before quickly returning for another interrogation.

  “Where is James? With the firemen?” The young stagehand shook his head violently.

  “Couldn’t get a hold of him, so I called you instead. Hope you don’t mind getting up at this hour, but, gosh, when I saw those flames—”

  “—I understand, Hawkings.” He may have understood, but Keane’s temper had not quelled. It was; however, controlled.

  For the time being.

  “Did the men get the fire out?” I asked before my companion could risk his slim composure.

  “Oh, sure. It didn’t take them long. They even said there wasn’t any real damage to the building, just to some of the furniture. Oh, and the smoke might have ruined the wallpaper, not to mention those potted plants. But, gosh, when I saw—” Keane, who obviously didn’t give a rat’s ass of what the frightened man saw, cursely thanked him with a few well-valued bills and shoved me back toward the car.

  The second trip was far calmer than the first, but still retained that edge teetering between mere moroseness and complete insanity. Buildings passed like ominous old men glaring down at those of us still left to amble the earth. Their glass eyes were as unseing as those of death, and yet I could not shake the feeling that they were watching our every move—every breath—as though it ought to have been theirs and was not. The first glimpses of morning light had clawed upwards toward the horizon, just as sleep’s skillful hands pulled me down into the murky depths. So low did I fall, I was not aware of the shoulder beneath my head until it disappeared, awakening me with a startling jolt as I fell across the leather seat. I did not receive so much as a muttered apology as the tall frame to which the shoulder was connected, again scrambled out of the automobile with an agility that might have been impressive for a man of fifty-five, had I not grown to expect it. I sluggishly followed after him toward the grey, dull building; more out of curiosity than a true desire to go. Keane quickly strode up to the third floor, his long legs swallowing every other stair. God, did every building have that many stairs? I stood behind him as he pounded on the door. I was exhausted, groggy, but I was there. I was there too to witness my companion—rarely demonstrative, look of an Irishman, and soul of a poet—ram his shoulder brutally against the door and send it flying open with a solid crack of wood.

  The director’s rooms were, for the most part, well kept. The colors were a bit more reserved from the house he had offered Keane and I, but they were still incredibly obnoxious.

  “James?” Keane’s bellow echoed through the papered walls and was answered by a groan from one of the connecting rooms. “James, you son of a sea serpent, get out here this instant!” And indeed a door did open and the director stepped out into the room.

  And all my exhaustion was forgotten.

  I did not sink to the female practice of hysteric screams or nervous giggles. I was too shocked to say anything really. I forced my eyes to remain on the man’s face; to examine the constricted pupils, the light brush of sweat, and the slight pallor of his lips. It took Keane an excruciatingly long moment of tugging at his coatsleeves to pull a comprehensible string of words together, and even then it was only two accentuated nouns and an exceptionally firm verb.

  “James! Clothes! Now!” It is one thing to see the completeness of a person’s anatomy when it is spread out at a morgue or some other establishment to which such disclosure is necessary and hardly a pressing fact, but to find it staring back at you—living, breathing, and somehow entirely tan—that was a different matter entirely. Keane’s cheekbones turned a fierce, violent purple as his blue eyes flecked grey. As a man born under Queen Victoria, no doubt he felt a young woman of nearly twenty-five ought not see such . . . things . . . until after they had been gagged and bound in the holy chains of matrimony. But I had lived through a war, and injured soldiers on the brink of death rarely followed the gentleman’s dress code. Hospitals often were constructed of several rows of bloody men covered only by a single, white sheet, which in itself left very little to even the most sluggish of imaginations.

  I was quickly aware of Keane’s hand on my arm, shoving me none too gently toward a pitiful collection of chairs that could hardly call themselves a squadron, let alone a proper sitting room. His voice came like a bolt of lightning.

  “Sit.”

  I sat.

  I sat and watched silently as Keane began ransaking through every drawer and jar in the room. First he began with the smaller things, then he graduated to sticking his arm up the fireplace and w
iping the soot away in his hair, creating dark streaks through the light morning. As his efforts persisted, I noticed the top button of his coat had come undone and exposed his pajama shirt, rather than one of his nice white ones that went with those brown trousers of his. Just as Keane was growing desperate enough to shake the entire building upside down, Harrison reappeared in an unusual assortment of what I suspected to be the pants of a tuxedo and the brightest, most gaudy bathrobe I had ever seen in my life. Even so, it was a great improvement. Keane was still far from pleased.

  “Where are they, James?” The director blinked a few times.

  “Where are what?” But Keane had seen the mysterious item in the man’s bedroom and showed no qualms as he returned with the little bottle half filled with white capsules. He waved them just a few millimeters from the American’s nose.

  “I thought you gave these up years ago. By God, man, don’t you know what these can do to you? Didn’t you see what happened to that Smith girl?” However dulled Harrison’s brain might have been, his anger appeared quickly as a solid flush appeared on his tanned face. His voice was slurred, but somehow still retained that cold edge that can do nothing but harm its intended victim.

  “We can’t all be as perfect as the great Brendan Keane. Not everyone can be that perfect.” The man, who seemed scarcely above a drunken stupor, swiveled his body toward me. “Ya know, your friend here has survived jumping off a boat in the middle of a storm, being punched in the eye by an goddamn Italian, and some shrapnel from a German deck gun?”

  And being run down by an automobile, I added silently.

  What happens in Ireland stays in Ireland.

  With James Harrison; however, it seemed that what happened in the war was a no man’s land; able to be used as a subject whenever he damn well pleased. I was all too thankful when he again turned his attention back to a painfully rigid Brendan Keane.

  “Do you know what happened to me, Brendan? Do you? Shell-shock. You survive a hunk of shrapnel with nary a scratch to your shoulder, while I get shot down with damn shell-shock. Do you know what that’s like, Brendan? Do you know what it’s like to wake up in a cold sweat with your hands trying to strangle the fucking life out of your pillow? Or your wife? She married me right after the war. I was alright then, as you’ll remember. Quite the ladies’ man too. But then I snapped and she left like I was a fucking lunatic. A beautiful woman like that, and she ran off like I was a goddamn bastard. You shake those pills in front of my face, but they are the only thing keeping me from those hellish nightmares that have made up my life.”

  Ah.

  Addiction.

  By definition it was a physical and psychological dependence. However, to the human being not to be found in the rotting pages of a dictionary, it was pure hell. Dependence was often found the serviceman’s curse; instilled upon them as the world thrust armies forward into battle, only to abandon them as stupefied sacks on street corners. I had never collected the nerve to ask, but I suspected that it was in the navy Keane had developed his taste for cigarettes. I watched curiously as he pulled a packet out of his pocket, lit one between his thin lips, and slumped into an obnoxiously patterned chair. A thin veil of smoke enshrouded his head, a brief reminder that made him again raise his eyes to Harrison, who was half sitting, half lying on a chaise lounge.

  “I didn’t come here to reprimand you, James. David Hawkins—yes, the one who mans the curtain ropes—rang me this morning to tell me there was a fire at the theatre and—” Of all the emotions I might have expected from Harrison (perhaps an uncontrolled, even violent anger that sent him barging toward the door), his reaction far surpassed them all. He leapt from his seat and began closing all the curtains over the windows until the only light in the room was the orange dot spotting the end of Keane’s cigarette. I flicked on a nearby lamp, almost turning it off by the animal-like glare from its owner. But it wouldn’t have made any difference. The man dropped back into his seat, threw his head forward into his hands, and wept like a child. Keane said nothing. Rather, he looked upon me as though my femininity might have somehow instilled the solution to such matters; as if I could wave my hand and make the uncomfortable situation disappear.

  Not bloody likely.

  I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again with just as much to say as I did on my first attempt. Damn Keane’s irrational beliefs of my sex. I was nearly as inept as him when it came to ridiculous, emotional people. No, I was worse. Where Keane might carve them mercilessly with his sharp tongue, I would do so and finish without guilt or sorrow. At last, on the third attempt, a phrase did come out and, a pitiful excuse of a question though it was, it served its purpose with as much dignity as even Keane might have mustered.

  “What the devil is the matter?” Harrison’s weeping immediately ceased—thank God—and was replaced by short gasps that warned more of hyperventilation, rather than something weak and womanly that would soil his reputation as a man.

  “God, they—they found me. I knew they would. I knew it.”

  “James, who the devil—”

  “They. They found me.” A long sob grew into a moan as Harrison clutched the side of his stomach and began rocking forward and back in his seat. “Oh, God. I thought I could have—but of course I couldn’t have hidden from them. Not them. Oh, God. Oh, God. They will ruin me. Leave me to the streets. Burn my theatre. They already tried to kill you. God. God. God. They’ll kill us all. Murder us in our beds. God. Oh, God. Oh, God!” Keane leapt from his chair at the very instant Harrison’s thick, urgent tones turned sour with wrenching throws of cold vomit. Great globs of bodily slime filled an empty vase. I feared the worst, but painful moments with his head bowed down against his knees proved far more beneficial than a doctor’s overzealous hand. Long, laborious breaths gave way to another bout of quiet sobs. Each weeping cry sent his shoulders to trembling; his body rocking as a madness set down upon him.

  And then it stopped.

  Everything stopped.

  Keane, who had toyed indefinitely with the silver edging of his cigarette case, allowed the object to slip into its pocket with the air of a gentleman, and the compassion of a saint.

  “James,” My companion waited for the man’s head to lift slightly from his hands. “James, I can not help you if I do not know of whom you speak.”

  “Cohen.” Harrison groaned.

  And all the world shook.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I WAS ONCE MORE TUMBLING over into the abyss of sleep when Keane returned from helping the weeping man back to his bedroom; the mournful squeal of door hinges crying behind him. The angry flush had vanished from his face, but the consequences of an ill-used night had begun to make an appearance. Dark shadows suddenly lingered beneath his eyes with a thin scruff long since settled over his jaw. I sat up, expecting Keane to immediately dive into every nook and cranny of James Harrison’s many vices, but instead he ambled off to the kitchen and returned with a bottle and two matching glasses.

  “I believe now would be an ideal time for a stiff drink.” He announced, handing me the first glass poured with a moderate hand. I had half the mind to point out it was now only a little past six in the morning, but, as he filled his glass to the brim, I thought the better of it. Wasn’t there something Shaw said about not wrestling with angry sheep? Or was it pigs?

  God, I needed sleep.

  Keane threw his head back and dumped half the glass’ contents down his throat. It seemed to have done some good, for the stiffness in his shoulders began to ease away.

  “I think,” He began carefully. “I think that I should stay here a while longer to make sure James comes out of it alright. These damn pills . . .” He pulled the little bottle out of his pocket and handed it to me. My tired eyes were none too eager to be put to proper use; however, after a few seconds, the brown smudge along the label became letters strung together into a single word.

  Hydrocodone.

  Keane tapped the bottle slowly with his forefinger.
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br />   “They used to prescribe these in the war. Then they became self-prescribed when the shell shock set in. In essence, it is a painkiller with a thousand other devilish purposes.” I noticed when he uttered the last sentence, his hand came up to brush his left shoulder, as if he was dusting away a shadow.

  “Does it hurt? Your shoulder, I mean. Does it still bother you?” There was a dry, rough chuckle in my ear.

  “Lawrence, that was over thirty years ago. Are you still sore where you injured yourself as a child? No, I thought not.” Of course it didn’t hurt. Ridiculous thought. Perhaps it would become sore—even uncomfortable—if he went several nights without sleep or overworked that particular muscle, but beyond that? No. Poppycock. He downed the rest of the whiskey and poured himself another, more conservative glass. “If you want to go back to the house for a while, you can take the car. I’ll get a cab later when James wakes up again.” I tried to pull my exhausted features together in what I thought to be an offended expression.

  “Me? Take the car back? I’d crash into a tree with the lack of sleep. No, Keane, you can’t get rid of me that easily.” He nodded before we allowed the room to slip back into silence. Surprisingly, I did not drift easily into the realm of dreams as the minutes ticked passed on a clock shaped eerily like a black cat. Instead, I watched the curled tail swing back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and—