Incubus

by L. J. Greene

  They both stared at me.

  “He has a good hand,” Alice said.

  “Aye, he does,” Betts agreed, and they both folded.

  “Shows what you know. I was bluffing.” I gathered up all the cards to shuffle again without showing my hand. But they’d been right; I could have swept them both if I’d grinned a little less brightly.

  “Leo would be excellent at this game,” Alice said suddenly. “Don’t you think? He’s got that marvelous way of tucking his emotions back inside him, like a secret drawer in a writing desk.” She rose to refill our glasses while I dealt the next hand. “Don’t you think so, Cole?” she asked, as she topped up my bourbon.

  “I can’t say I’ve noticed.” I bent my cards up to look at them, but they might as well have been blank. I forgot them as soon as I put them flat again. “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “Well, one never know what he’s thinking. He looks at me and smiles, and he looks at you and smiles, and he looks at Reggie and smiles. And it’s all the same smile.”

  “A cat may look at a king,” Betts observed.

  I glanced at my cards again. It was a poor hand. “He cares for you very much,” I told Alice. “And for Reggie,” I added, perhaps a shade too hurriedly.

  She did not reply, but put in her bet.

  Betts won the round, and I was starting to think I should bow out gracefully before I lost any more. But my bourbon was full again, and Alice was looked so lovely that night in her cloud of pale blue silk, and winking diamonds at her throat and wrist. Her winter-colored eyes seemed fixed to my face every time I looked up.

  “How does he kiss?” she asked.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I’ve always found that a kiss is the most honest thing about a person, and if they can’t kiss with abandon, they’re probably a liar. So how does Leo kiss?”

  My ears started to burn. I had no idea how much Betts knew about what had gone on last night, or if he knew what Alice was getting at. He stared at his cards and then frowned at the cash in the pot.

  “I’m not rightly sure how to answer that,” I said awkwardly.

  “Aren’t you?”

  If she was going to play the game, no reason I couldn’t play too. “You can’t go on talking about kissing like that. You’ll give a man impure thoughts.”

  “Oi,” Betts said, sitting up straight and glaring at me. “Watch it.”

  But Alice laughed. “He’s only flirting, Betts. Settle; there’s a good chap.” She put a cigarette in her ivory holder and leaned forward expectantly until I lit it for her. Betts put in his bet to the pool. It was my turn next, but I was mesmerized by Alice.

  She said: “But it’s hard to keep a straight face. What do they call it; a tell? Most people have a tell, don’t they? A tic or a habit that gives away their true feelings unconsciously. That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “My smirking must be mine,” I said ruefully. “What’s Betts’?”

  “He blinks when he’s excited.”

  We both looked at Betts, who was, indeed, blinking rapidly.

  “I fold,” I said immediately. I trusted Alice’s judgment more than my own.

  “Devil take you,” Betts grumbled.

  “What’s yours?” I asked Alice.

  She let a curl of smoke drift from her parted lips. “I tug at my hair.”

  “You most certainly do not,” I scoffed.

  “Well, a lady must have some secrets,” she said, and I liked the glint in her eye. She added, “I know what Leo’s is. He smokes. I saw him go through half a packet of Gauloises one night when Reggie kept asking him why he’d been to Chateau Marmont so often that week. Leo said he liked the atmosphere.”

  I happened to be taking a sip of bourbon, and ended up with a bigger mouthful than I’d intended. I had to swallow hard.

  She asked, “How are you at blackjack, Cole?”

  “I’ve never tried it.”

  “We’ll try it next winter. I think you’ll like it. We can make it our game. Leo prefers roulette, but the odds are so poor. Though I believe that might be why he likes it.”

  “Next winter?”

  “In Monte Carlo. We winter in the Riviera. We met Gabriel last time we were there, didn’t we Betts?”

  “Believe so, milady.”

  “Gabriel has been rather slippery lately. Sneaking around at all hours.”

  “Needs a good dressing down,” Betts said robustly. “Don’t tell me he’s disturbing you, milady? I’ll box his ears for him.”

  “No, he’s never in the east wing. But I’ve seen quite late, coming from your wing, Cole. Carrying Leo’s shirts.”

  Didn’t seem to me that Gabriel would be creeping around in the middle of the night due to Leo’s urgent laundry needs. I thought darkly of Michael, dismissed from service after I’d caught him on his knees for Leo.

  Something occurred to me. “I thought your brother hired Gabriel here in Los Angeles. Said he came from some agency.” They both studied their cards and said nothing. “Well, thanks for the offer,” I sighed, “but I could never pay my way out to the Riviera.”

  Alice looked up at that, surprised. “Oh, but that’s not a consideration at all. Not anymore. You need to get used to having whatever money can buy. Whatever you want in the whole wide world, Cole. Or whatever he wants, anyway. But you’ll soon find they’re the same thing, your wants and his. Perhaps you’ve found that already.”

  I looked at her, disconcerted. She gazed back, closing her eyes a little against the wisps of smoke from her cigarette. Betts shuffled the leftover deck and hummed happily to himself. It sounded like a waltz.

  “I did try to warn you off that night,” Alice said gently. “That first night you set eyes on the whole abnormal lot of us. Now here you are, at His Majesty’s pleasure.” My mouth trembled, but I had no response. She said, “I’m tired,” and stabbed out her cigarette. “I fold. I’ll leave you to it. Good evening, gentlemen.”

  With that, she swept out of the room.

  “Shall we keep on?” Betts asked hopefully, and broke me out of my reverie.

  I shook my head. “I’m cleaned out tonight. Let my wallet recover some.” I pushed my cards away.

  “Suit yourself.” He started to lay out another Solitaire game, and I went over to the Victrola, where I started up Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter. I felt too out of sorts to go to bed. Alice’s talk had thrown me, reminded me just how trapped I really was.

  “You think she’s right about Leo’s smoking?” I blurted out, and Betts looked up. “That it means he’s…”

  “Telling porky pies?” He shrugged. “Dunno, mate. He’s mixed up in so much I doubt he knows the truth himself.”

  “What’s that mean? What’s he mixed up in?”

  Betts played his cards out for a few moments, and then said, “I don’t want to tell tales out of school. Not my place.”

  “But?”

  He put his cards down and gave me a sympathetic look. “You’re not the first. You’re just the latest.”

  “It’s not Leo leaning on me,” I protested. “I’m here because of that goddamned limey.” I remembered too late Betts’ nationality. “Sorry. No offense.”

  He waved a hand as though brushing my words from the air. “And no doubt it seems that way, that his Lordship is pulling the strings. But whatever Mancini wants, Mancini gets. Haven’t you noticed that by now? Her Ladyship was right about that.”

  You’ll soon find they’re the same thing, your wants and his.

  I’d thought she meant Cresswickham.

  I had to sit down. I felt dizzy; too many thoughts were smashing together in my head. Leo—was Betts right about him? Was Alice? Leo, pulling the strings. Leo, the one with the real power. If they were right, then I’d been a fool, more of a fool than I even knew. Blinded by love, I thought sickly. Bad as any half-brained dame crying after a pretty cad.

  “Hullo,” Betts said, “you don’t look well. One over the eight?”

  “I
’m fine. Say, why don’t you tell me about yourself?” I asked, breathing through my nose and trying to quell the nausea.

  “Nothing much to tell.”

  “Well, how did you meet Alice? The Riviera, too?”

  “I met himself before I met her Ladyship.”

  It took me a moment to untangle his meaning. “And where’d you meet Lord Cresswickham?”

  Betts gave a deep sigh. “I was under his command in the war. Saved me from a nasty end, he did; threw himself right in front of the bullet coming for me during the Kasserine siege. Hold up—are you sure you’re alright?”

  “No,” I said, trying to swallow down my gorge. “No, you’re right. I—I’ve had one too many. I’ll take myself off to bed.”

  I locked my door that night and sat up in bed with a bottle of bourbon watching the doorknob. I stared and stared, expecting the handle to be tried, jiggled, waiting for a soft knock on the door, until I was overcome by exhaustion.

  Chapter 33

  I was pulled from dark dreams early in the afternoon by muted but insistent knocking. I made my bleary way out of the twisted, bourbon-sticky sheets and pulled on the same pants from the night before. It took some effort to fumble the locked door open, but soon enough I was blinking sore eyes at Gabriel.

  “What do you want?”

  “The laundry service is here,” he said. He stared resolutely past my right ear.

  “Don’t they usually come tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel agreed, and hung around like he had more to say.

  I hazarded a guess. “Do you want mine?”

  “Please.”

  I dragged over my linen bag and we both watched it collapse at his feet. He made no move to pick it up.

  “And…” He paused, a helpless look on his face. “Mr. Mancini and his Lordship are both out today.”

  Mancini was out. At least I could avoid the man for today. A bloom of relief made me clutch my chest, but I turned it into a lazy scratch for Gabriel’s benefit. I’d play sick at dinner, have something sent up to my room, and that way I wouldn’t have to look Leo in the eye until I’d decided how to play things. Betts’ revelation the night before had rocked me harder, somehow, than all the other lies Leo had told.

  Gabriel hissed on in the half-whisper he used whenever he talked about Leo: “Mr. Mancini always has laundry.”

  “So you want me to get his bag for you, is that it?”

  “If you would, sir,” he said, relieved. “House staff are not allowed to retrieve the laundry bags.”

  My eyebrows skyrocketed, and I laughed. “Don’t tell me his Lordship takes care of his own dirty laundry.”

  He shuffled his feet and wouldn’t look at me. He mumbled, “Mr. Mancini usually…”

  Now that seemed more likely; more in keeping with the way Cresswickham sought to keep Leo in his place. Making Leo deal with dirty underwear would be something the Englishman enjoyed. “Gimme a minute,” I told the kid. I needed to splash some cold water on my face.

  His nerves rolled off his skin like radiation and made me hurry despite myself. I followed him to Leo’s room, where Gabriel knocked as a courtesy, waited as though really listening for a Come!, and then looked at me.

  “House staff are not permitted in Mr. Mancini’s room when he is not—”

  “Alright, already,” I said, and opened the door for him.

  I’d never been in Leo’s room without him. It seemed void, like his warm features gave life to the cold ecru wallpaper and expansive floor space. Not even the large bronze mirror over the dresser helped. Its reflection sapped colors and turned everything sepia. Mancini kept no ornaments, no photographs, no decorations, only a bottle of his scent on the dresser top and, incongruously, a rosary on his bedside table. If it hadn’t been for the luxurious bed and extravagant furniture I’d’ve been reminded of a monastic cell. Every space was empty, even of dust. If no house staff were allowed in alone, did he stand about and watch them dusting? Or did he clean it himself? No. I was sure he wouldn’t do it himself.

  “There’s no bag here,” I said to Gabriel. “Maybe he doesn’t—”

  “There is always a bag,” Gabriel insisted. He was hovering around the doorway like he meant to make a break for it if Leo suddenly strode up. I felt as jumpy as Gabriel did, truth be told.

  I ducked my head into the adjoining bathroom. There was nothing there other than the shower cubicle, a sparkling porcelain toilet and matching sink with a comb tucked behind one of the faucets. But there was a door in the other wall, which I opened. Beyond it lay another room, dark and cool. I could find no switch for a light, but there was, just as Gabriel maintained, a large cotton drawstring bag slumped against the wall right next to the door. I blinked against the blackness of the room. I didn’t have time to wait for my eyes to adjust, so I lifted the bag to take it into the bathroom.

  As soon as I hoisted it I knew something wasn’t right. It was too heavy, for one thing, and something hard banged against my shin. Under the dull glow of the bathroom light, I tugged at the tight knot of the drawstring.

  “Is it there?” Gabriel whispered from the bedroom.

  “Just a minute,” I muttered back, and with a final effort, untied the bag. The first thing I saw was Leo’s pale, pinstriped shirt from the day before, and the blue one Cresswickham had been wearing.

  Under them, though, lay a film reel canister. Several canisters, none of them marked on the outside. Thrown in amongst them, plump with their contents, were plain yellow envelopes. I recognized them at once; these were the same as the envelopes Leo left on my desk each week, stuffed with cash. But these were filled with something soft and spongy when I grabbed at them.

  Each of the envelopes had something scribbled on it, but in the current circumstances I didn’t want to squint at them until I could make the writing out. I’d need better light to decipher the scrawl. For one fleeting moment I thought about taking the bag back to my room and searching it thoroughly. But there’d be a price to pay for that, and the notion that Gabriel might end up paying it instead of me didn’t sit right. So instead, I pulled an envelope from the bag and shoved it into my back pocket just as Gabriel appeared in the doorway.

  He went pale when he saw I’d untied the bag, and starting braying. “House staff are not allowed—under any circumstances—”

  “Then you can quit your quaking, since I’m not house staff,” I growled at him. I knotted it back up as tight as I could and took another glance at him. “Am I?”

  He pursed his lips in a way that made me want to split them.

  “You’ve got your goddamn bag,” I said. “You should be happy about that.”

  “I don’t think…” He hesitated, and I could see his thought process. He was keener to leave it where I’d found it.

  “Mr. Mancini will be furious if his clothes aren’t clean and ready for him when he expects them. Won’t he?” I asked, and that did the trick. Gabriel looked a shade away from frightened at my suggestion, and reached out to grab the bag. “On the other hand,” I said, whisking it behind me, “perhaps I should be the one to hand it over. Then it’s all above-board, see? He won’t be able to accuse you of anything you shouldn’t have done.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “I’m the only one who can confirm that story,” I said bluntly. “You want me to stand by you, or not?” I learned that day I’d make an awful society blackmailer. No subtlety at all. It worked okay on Gabriel, though.

  He blanched. “Follow me,” he said stiffly, and we made our way through endless corridors to the back of the house, to the staff entrance. Outside, a man was leaning against a beat-up car, his hat pulled down low over his face. He was reading a copy of the Examiner. They’d found a new photograph of Lynette Rochelle bedecked in a string of pearls, and slapped her on the front page again. GARROTED, read the single word headline. She smiled at me, full of beauty and hope and youth, until the man folded up the newspaper and pushed back his hat.

  “About bloody ti
me,” he said, and then he recognized me.

  In other instances, Fred King’s shock and dismay might have been funny. I did grin at him, but there was no humor to it. “Hullo, there, Freddie,” I said. “Fancy you running a linen service on top of all your other undertakings.”

  King worked his mouth like a fish gasping for air on dry land.

  Gabriel, looking between us so fast I thought his neck would snap, started gabbling. “Mr. Mancini was not at home, and so—”

  “It’s alright, Gabriel. Fred and I are old friends. Aren’t we, Fred?”

  King seemed to come around then. He cleared his throat, and folded up his paper. “I just came around to see how you are, mate,” he said. “Clear the air. Offer an olive branch. There’s—there’s a new job come up, see—”

  “Oh,” I said. “So you’re not here to run the laundry service?”

  He tried a laugh, but it came out strangled. “Don’t know what you mean, mate.” He wrung the rolled-up newspaper in his hands like the neck of a chicken.

  “How’d you know I was here, anyway?” I asked, smiling. I swung the bag a little with a turn of my wrist.

  “Word gets around.”

  “That’s poor plotting, Freddie, even for you. Golly, this bag’s heavy.” I let it go, and it crashed to the ground, the metal canisters jolting each other. Gabriel and Fred couldn’t take their eyes off it. “Guess I’ll just leave it here for collection. You want to come in, Fred? I’ll order some afternoon tea in the parlor. Seems you didn’t know to come to the front door instead of driving all the way around to the servants’ entrance.”

  “Can’t stay, mate,” he rasped.

  “Of course you can.” I wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily. “Come and tell me all about this new job. I could use a distraction from the life of Riley I’m living these days.”

  He was still screwing up the newspaper in his hands. All of a sudden it seemed strange to me that he’d do it the way he was doing it. Not rolling but twisting, like he wanted to destroy it.

  “Gee, I left the details at the office,” he tried again. “I’ll have to telephone them through later after all.”