13
Sam hired a taxi at the Los Angeles station early the
next morning after taking the Owl south late the night before.
Arbuckle was free for now, and Sam had his instructions from Frank
Dominguez and the Old Man. He read off the only address they had
for Virginia Rappe to the cabbie, taking him through the downtown
lined with wrought-iron streetlamps and palm trees, and then out
onto Wilshire and up on Western, through orange groves and large
mansions being built on loose, dusty soil. The machine hit potholes
and jostled him up and down as they made their way north to
Hollywood around where the cabbie said the circus had just
started.
“You think it was bad
yesterday,” said the cabbie. “Today they bury the poor girl. There
ain’t no telling how many people want to see that.”
“Why would they
care?”
“People feel bad for
her. Say, what kind of work do you do?”
“I work for the Fuller
Brush Company.”
“I’m bald, so no need
to work your spiel on me.”
“We also sell many
items for the ladies.”
“I read this morning
that Arbuckle was smiling when they let him out of jail. That made
me sick to my stomach. They say he walked right out of jail not
feeling bad for nothing he did, only going down to see some barber
and getting a free shave. You think the bastard would at least pay
for it, him driving a thirty-thousand-dollar machine.”
“Why should he feel
bad if he didn’t do it?”
“Come on. Where you
been? The guy’s an animal.”
The little taxi
painted canary yellow turned onto Melrose, two cars honking at the
driver from the crossroad and him waving them off with disgust,
turning so hard to the left that Sam thought the machine would lift
up on two wheels. But all was steady as the driver headed east,
passing the big barn buildings marked with signs for different
studios, all of them surrounded by high fences and shut with
gates.
“I pick up girls like
that at the station all the time,” the cabbie said. “They come in
with their little suitcases, all big-eyed and bragging about
winning Miss Corn Queen or the like, everything they own brought in
from Bumfuck, Iowa, and wanting to be the next Mary
Pickford.”
“I think we might give
a fella a break till his day in court.”
The cabbie turned
around in his seat, the cab rolling into oncoming traffic, and
said, “Didn’t you hear the bastard stuck a Coca-Cola bottle in her
pussy? Where I’m from, you find a rope and the tallest
tree.”
Sam didn’t say
anything as they passed a long fence and a corner grocery and
finally turned into a little neighborhood of bungalows. Most of
them freshly built, the kind they advertise in the papers for
veterans to start families. These were California specials, with
stucco and red tile roofs and a dwarf orange tree in every front
yard.
“Hey, you got a friend
with you?”
“Come
again?”
“That little Hupmobile
has been following us since the station.”
Sam turned and noted
the shadows of two figures in the coupe. He reached down to his
ankle and slipped the .32 in his hand. His arm rested on the
backseat, the gun in his lap, and he told the driver to keep
circling.
“That’s the house
right there.”
“Keep going,” Sam
said. “Don’t circle back till I say.”
ROSCOE WAS bowling to
opera.
Minta and Ma watched,
eating ice cream from the little parlor he’d had built in the
basement of his mansion on West Adams. It felt so damn good to be
back home that the last weeks felt like a feverish nightmare,
something from one of his pictures where he’d been locked up and
whistled for Luke the pooch to come running with keys.
Luke, who was really
Minta’s dog, sat at her feet under the wire parlor chair and waited
for her to finish her sundae to lick up all the ice cream and
pineapple sauce.
Roscoe let out all his
breath and closed his eyes, taking a few steps down the lane and
watching the ball glide and float to the pins, taking out all but
two. A little negro at the end of the lane cleared off the downed
pins as Roscoe hunted for another ball out of the dozens shining
and gleaming on a brass rack.
“Ma, how ’bout another
sundae?”
She shook her head,
the spoon still in her mouth.
He smiled over at the
pair, finally ditching the depressing black they’d worn in the
police court and now dressed like normal folks. Minta in a
green-and-white print dress and Ma still in her housecoat she’d
worn since running the servants from the kitchen and cooking a
skilletful of bacon and eggs.
Roscoe chose a red
ball, eyeing the two pins, and stood at the line. Holding the ball
up, he took a single step before hearing the warning bark from
Luke, and he stopped to see Frank Dominguez coming down the curved
wrought-iron staircase into the basement.
He was alone, still
dressed in his black suit and red scarf, a fat leather satchel at
his side.
Luke continued to bark
and jut in and out at Dominguez’s feet without ever really taking a
bite. Dominguez coolly smiled and threw down a biscuit the butler
had given him, and Luke wandered off to a corner.
Dominguez said hello
to Minta and Ma and then took a seat at the parlor
bar.
Roscoe put down the
ball and walked behind the bar and started to make Dominguez a
sundae without him asking. He made a hell of a one with three
different scoops of ice cream and three different sauces with
chopped nuts and fresh whipping cream. A few cherries to
boot.
“When did you put this
in?”
“Last year,” Roscoe
said. “You want to bowl a game?”
He slid the sundae
before Dominguez at the bar. Dominguez rested his satchel on the
barstool next to him. He smiled to Roscoe, a really tired,
worn-out-looking smile, as Roscoe cleaned out a couple dirty
glasses in some sudsy water, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his
elbows.
“Any word from
Fishback or Sherman?”
Roscoe shook his
head.
“You’ve called
them?”
“A million times,”
Roscoe said. “Lowell’s still in New York. God knows what happened
to Freddie. I even wrote the son of a bitch a letter when I was in
jail.”
“The Pinkertons can’t
find him either. They believe he skipped Los Angeles right after
you were arrested.”
“Some
friends.”
“We need
’em.”
“They’ll come around,”
Roscoe said. “Hey, how’s that sundae?”
It remained
untouched.
“Freddie Fishback was
in that room right after the girl took ill. He could testify that
the girl was too far gone to be making any dying accusation. He
also moved her into the bath and could account for those bruises on
her arms and legs.”
“People think I got
the leprosy.”
“You’ll be back on the
lot before the year’s out.”
“All my pictures have
been yanked, Zukor has stopped paying me till further notice, and
when I got back from Frisco I found most of my furniture had been
repossessed. Did you see upstairs? We don’t have a place to sit.
Lucky the bastards didn’t come down here or they woulda taken every
last pin.”
“Let me handle Zukor,”
Dominguez said. “We have a contract.”
“A million a year only
if I work. How am I supposed to work if they won’t let me on the
lot? They pulled Gasoline Gus and it
had only been out five days. No wonder the picture didn’t show a
profit. Those goddamn bastards.”
Dominguez looked down
at his sundae and then up at Roscoe.
“You got anything
stronger?”
“What’s eating
you?”
Roscoe dipped his hand
into the cooler and came out with a bottle of jackass brandy. He
poured a generous amount into a coffee mug.
“They want to replace
me.”
Roscoe laughed.
“Who?”
“Zukor. Lasky.
Paramount wants you to go with a bigger name. I think they’ve been
going behind my back with that big swinging dick in Frisco. He’s
the one who took on the Jack Dempsey mess.”
“’ Cause of that
shimmy girl, Bee Whosis, who shacked up with him?”
“Yeah.”
“That was just a dumb
case,” Roscoe said. “The girl’s beau sued Dempsey for theft of
love.”
“But the newsboys like
him and he’s local. Might make a difference with the
jury.”
“You still sore at how
that son of a bitch U’Ren kept calling you Señor
Dominguez?”
“I’m just saying this
fella, McNab, is local. You should do some thinking on this,
Roscoe. Don’t get all loyal and stupid on me.”
Dominguez finished the
brandy, picked up his satchel, and told Minta and Ma good
day.
Roscoe followed
Dominguez with his eyes as he twirled around the iron staircase and
disappeared up into the mansion. Roscoe set Dominguez’s untouched
sundae on the floor and whistled for Luke.
“Roscoe, you’re going
to make him fatter than he already is,” Minta said.
Roscoe took a seat on
the steps down to the bowling lane, eyeing those last two pins, and
rolled a cigarette. He massaged Luke’s nub ears as the dog licked
the glass clean and asked him, “What about you, boy? Can you see
the future?”
THE ADDRESS WAS A
BUST.
Sam read out
another.
The cabbie U-turned
and headed west on Sunset, away from the city, along the long,
barren road, and then cut up toward the cool, dark hills and
zigzagged up a rough-cut path.
The house was in the
old Mission style, a big, fat adobe number built up a steep drive
and surrounded by high shrubs and palms. The early-afternoon
shadows showed a set of twin hills, and the air smelled of
citrus.
The cab parked at the
curb. Sam walked to the gate and stared up at the mansion. The day
was cool, sky blue, and down below a bunch of men in overalls were
digging a trough through an orange grove. Up a long, curving
driveway, a butler washed a long Packard touring car.
Sam whistled to him
from the gate.
The man didn’t hear
him. Or pretended he didn’t.
Sam whistled again and
the man stuck the brush back in a suds bucket and wandered down to
the gate.
“Like to see Mr.
Lehrman.”
“He ain’t
here.”
“Tell him I’m a
detective from San Francisco.”
“I don’t care if
you’re the Emperor of Japan, he still ain’t here.”
“When will he be
back?”
“Next week,” the man
said. “Leave a card.”
Sam left a card and
walked back down to the cab and told the cabbie to wait. On foot,
he followed the wall of shrubs until there was a break and he found
a wrought-iron gate.
The gate was
unlocked.
Sam let himself inside
and walked down a winding path through some exotic trees and
bushes. There was hibiscus and lime. Lemon trees and palm. Flowers
planted along a spindled alabaster wall and up a little staircase
to behind the mansion.
Sam found three people
sitting by a little round pool with a fountain in the center. Two
men and a woman.
All were very
naked.
Sam smiled and took
off his hat.
“I guess I’m a bit
overdressed.”
A man with tight
slicked hair and a tiny mustache got to his feet. He was tall and
bony and hairless and made no attempt to cover himself. He just
wanted to know how the hell Sam had gotten into the
garden.
“Let myself in,” Sam
said. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Lehrman.”
“Please
leave.”
“I came all the way
from San Francisco.”
“Are you with the
police?”
“I’m a detective,” Sam
said.
“Please sit,” Henry
Lehrman said, sweeping his hand to a small lacquered table bordered
by four silk pillows. “Would you like some tea?”
“Sure.”
“I hope our nudity
does not shock you,” Lehrman said. “We find it to be quite natural
and nothing to be ashamed of. This is my home and we have our own
customs.”
“I heard I was born
that way.”
The woman remained
seated by the pool, eating an apple. She was young, maybe not
twenty, redheaded and freckled, her skin flushed with sun. Sam made
a note of her form as she was introduced as Miss Leigh. She smiled
at Sam and Sam smiled back, liking the smile and
shape.
Henry introduced the
man as his spiritual adviser, Dr. Bagwa. The man wore a jeweled
headdress and it jingled as he bowed. Sam couldn’t hide his smile,
which wasn’t lost on “Dr. Bagwa,” who returned back to his spot by
the pool with Miss Leigh.
“Dr. Bagwa is an
expert in soul painting,” Lehrman said. “Have you heard of
it?”
“Can’t say I
have.”
“He can see the colors
of man’s soul without the flesh and bone.”
“That a
fact.”
“He’s quite wise, you
know.”
Lehrman rang a little
bell and a maid appeared and he asked for two cups of flower
tea.
“I’m sorry about Miss
Rappe,” Sam said.
“She was my
fiancée.”
“What about Miss
Leigh?”
“She’s my
secretary.”
“I see.”
Lehrman looked off for
a long moment, seeming to study the hills, and turned back to Sam.
“She was my muse. My love. My friend. I
don’t know if I can work without her. She was to be the star of my
next film.”
Sam set fire to a
Fatima and laid the pack and matches on the table. “What was it
going to be about?”
“The film? Does it
matter now? It’s all lost.”
“How long did you know
her?”
“I’ve already answered
these questions for Judge Brady.”
“Just a few more, if
you don’t mind.”
The tea came. The maid
thankfully brought a robe, an Oriental affair, that Lehrman slipped
into and belted at the waist. He sat cross-legged on the pillow and
lit a jade opium pipe.
“She was just an
extra,” he said. “But she had a quality. You know they say she was
born from royalty?”
“I read that. Is it
true?”
“Virginia never knew
her father,” he said. “I suppose it could be true.”
Lehrman pulled on the
pipe and closed his eyes. He looked quite content on the little
pillow.
“She lived with
you?”
“She lived in the wing
of the house with my aunt.”
“All very
proper.”
“Well, of
course.”
“And you loved
her.”
“I did.”
“And how did she know
Mr. Semnacher and Mrs. Delmont?”
“I don’t
know.”
“But she was with
them?”
“I’ve met Mr.
Semnacher and find him to be quite distasteful. I know nothing of
this Delmont woman.”
“You didn’t care that
she’d gone to San Francisco?”
“We were free to live
our own lives.”
“But she was your
fiancée?”
Lehrman set down the
pipe. He made a show of smoothing down the little black mustache.
The wind blew off the shadowed hills, smelling of orange blossoms
and tropical flowers. He made a sad face, looking more comical than
sad. Sam watched him and fished for another Fatima.
He stole a side glance
of Miss Leigh, laughing and talking with Dr. Bagwa.
“When did you meet
Miss Rappe?”
“Two years
ago.”
“She was in one of
your pictures?”
“Yes.”
“And you fell in
love?”
“Madly.”
“And she moved in
here?”
“Yes. What does it
matter?”
“Did you know any of
her people in Chicago?”
“We decided not to
speak of her past or who we were before we met.”
“I see.”
“Did she have many
friends?”
“Of
course.”
“Who were
they?”
“I’m finding this
tiresome, Mr. . . . ?” Lehrman raised an eyebrow.
Sam introduced himself
and laid out his hand. Lehrman looked to his hand and stood,
holding on to the jade pipe and excusing himself. “This all has
been quite a troubling ordeal. If it wasn’t for the good doctor, I
don’t know what I would have done.”
Lehrman took a crooked
path back to the house. The glass doors rattled with a sharp
slam.
Sam sniffed the tea
and then took a small sip. It tasted like chopped flowers and
sugar. He stood and stretched his legs, smiling over at Miss Leigh.
She smiled back and crossed her shapely long legs. She wore her
hair loose and it fell softly against the fine shoulders and the
tips of her full breasts with small pink nipples.
Her eyes were wide set
and an innocent green without a trace of paint. Somewhere a farmer
was missing his daughter.
So intent on the girl,
Sam missed the good Dr. Bagwa as he took a seat at the table,
pulling loose a Fatima.
“Whatta you say,
Pete?” Sam said, turning his eyes back to the girl.
“Thanks for not
blowing it, Sam.”
“Man’s got to make an
honest living.”
“You ain’t kidding,
brother.”
“How long you been
with this four-flusher?”
“A
month.”
“Dr. Bagwa,” Sam said,
laughing. “That tops your minister act in Port-land. Or the English
duke in Cleveland.”
“I try.”
“You know where I can
get a decent plate of ham and eggs?”
Pete the Fink told
him. Sam said he’d meet him there in an hour.
“And
Pete?”
“Yeah?”
“Make sure you wear
some goddamn pants.”