25
Does this goddamn rain ever stop?” Roscoe asked. “How
do you people live here?”
“You lived here,”
McNab said. “You tell me.”
They sat in a private
booth, along with Minta and Ma, at the Tadich Grill off Washington.
The Tadich was all dark paneled wood and soft yellow lights. The
floors were honeycombed black and white and the waiters wore stiff
bleached linen. Roscoe felt human in a good restaurant again,
straightening his tie and relaxing into the booth. The waiters
called him “sir” and brushed away bread crumbs.
“Before the Quake,”
Roscoe said, “Sid Grauman hired me to work for seventeen bucks a
week. I sang to illustrated slides, songs like ‘Tell Mother You Saw
Me,’ crapola like that. Remember that stuff, Minta? Just like Long
Beach. Good money back then. But then there was the goddamn Quake
and I was out in the street, hauling rocks into oxcarts. Ma, you
shoulda seen the city back then, everything was on fire, any able
man was given a shovel or faced the point of a gun. I never seen
anything like it, and hope I never do again.”
“Roscoe?” McNab
said.
“Yeah?”
“I was here, too. The
Quake was tough on all of us, but we dusted ourselves off, buried
the dead, and built a brand-spanking-new city. Let’s skip over
memory lane and to the shitstorm at hand. ’Scuse me,
ladies.”
Roscoe adjusted his
silver cuff links, put his hand on Minta’s knee, and winked across
the table at Ma. Ma winked back. He loved Ma.
“We’re not so
different, me and you,” Roscoe said, pointing the nubbed end of his
cigarette at McNab. “We’re both performers with our own set of
talents. We both know how to work a room, feel a
crowd.”
McNab looked uneasy
and shook his head.
“You know the secret
of working a room?”
“Tell
me.”
“You have to be quick
on your feet. If a joke bores ’em, head off into a dance. If they
don’t like dancing, try a little physical stuff on stage. A crowd
isn’t just a bunch of people, it’s a single thing, and that single
thing reacts as one person. You just have to find that vein and tap
into it.”
“Why risk it?” McNab
said. “You talk too much and people think you’re a liar. You talk
too little and they think you have something to hide. Hell, Roscoe,
you’re a fat man. You sweat. The jury will think you’re
nervous.”
“That’s not what I was
saying.”
“Sure it
was.”
“That’s Zukor
talking.”
“Did I say a goddamn
thing about Al Zukor?”
“You don’t have to,”
Roscoe said, plugging a fresh cigarette into his mouth and striking
a match. “Zukor doesn’t think I’m able to take the stand. He thinks
I’m a kid no matter how much money I’ve made that
bastard.”
“Roscoe,” Minta
said.
Ma broke off a piece
of bread and chewed with her toothless mouth.
“Zukor is a Jew
bastard,” Roscoe said, breaking a match and starting a new one. “I
said it. Have I heard from him once since I left Los Angeles? He’s
waiting to see how this plays out. I think he wants me locked in
San Quentin. That way he can wiggle out of that
contract.”
A waiter opened the
curtain to the back booth and brought the table a bottle of white
wine and three bowls of soup, a loaf of sourdough. Roscoe poured
wine for Minta and McNab. Ma didn’t drink. The soup was hot and
steaming and perfect on a cold, foggy day. He could stay here all
afternoon, enjoy lunch, enjoy dessert and coffee, smoke a bit, tell
a few jokes, sing a few songs. Every time he walked into the hall,
he felt like a goddamn circus elephant paraded down Main
Street.
“Who do you work for?”
Roscoe said, pointing the end of his spoon at McNab.
McNab leaned back in
the booth and took in Roscoe, as if seeing him for the first time.
His craggy old face split into a smile, “I work for
myself.”
“You work for
Paramount.”
“I do what’s best for
the client,” McNab said. The waiter came over and tucked a towel
around McNab’s neck, setting a big bowl of steaming mussels and sea
creatures in front of him. The crusty old lawyer ate with beautiful
manners, dipping the spoon away from him, very little splattered on
the linen.
“Well?” Roscoe
said.
“A jury isn’t
vaudeville, Roscoe,” he said. “It can be a mob.”
“I can make ’em love
me,” Roscoe said. “They haven’t taken that away from me, have
they?”
McNab looked up from
the soup and over at Minta and then over to toothless Ma and there
was a steady silence in the booth, the sounds of the restaurant
carrying on, until they’d finished eating and made their way back
to court. Roscoe wasn’t two steps outside when someone tapped him
on the shoulder and called his name. At first he didn’t place the
rail-thin man, maybe the thinnest man he’d ever seen, but then he
knew it was the Pinkerton he’d met down south.
McNab stood beside
Roscoe and stared at the young detective.
“He’s all right,”
Minta said, waiting for her mother to get in the limousine and then
following her. “He’s with the Pinkertons.”
McNab looked at his
gold timepiece and crawled into the limousine and slammed the door.
“Hurry up with it.”
Roscoe buttoned his
jacket and pulled his hands into some leather gloves. “What a shit
day.”
“What’s your
connection to William Randolph Hearst?” the Pinkerton
asked.
Roscoe shook his
head.
“You know
him?”
“I met the man once,”
Roscoe said. “He’s been giving me a hell of a trashing in the
papers, but that’s no secret.”
“He have a
reason?”
“He’s an asshole. You
need much else?”
“He works with
Paramount?”
“He gets Paramount
distribution.”
“And they get Hearst
press?”
“Something like
that.”
“Then why’s he laying
into you, Roscoe?”
Roscoe shook his head
again but felt himself sweat underneath the coat.
He tried to keep a
light smile and shook the detective’s hand warmly. “I got to go,
Pinkerton. Judge Louderback doesn’t like to be kept
waiting.”
The detective just
stood there, watching him, waiting for an answer.
But instead, Roscoe
gave him an old pat on the back and climbed in the limousine, the
door barely closing before the big machine rolled up the hill and
toward Portsmouth Square. Roscoe took a deep breath, feeling more
trapped than ever, thinking of what it must be like to be swimming
under a sheet of ice.
WHEN Dr. RUMWELL saw
Maude sitting in his parlor having tea with his wife, he looked as
if he’d just shit his drawers. His little mustache, the one that
looked like he dyed it with boot polish, twitched under his nose
and his eyelids fluttered as he removed his hat and black overcoat,
leaving his well-worn medical bag by the door.
“Mrs. Delmont is such
good company,” his wife said, laughing. “So charming.”
Rumwell just stood in
the doorframe staring down at Maude, who crossed her legs and took
another cookie his wife had offered. She sipped some tea and smiled
up at Rumwell from the lip of the cup.
“Won’t you sit down?”
Maude asked him.
He shook his head.
He’d begun to perspire at the brow.
“Darling,” his wife
said, “Mrs. Delmont has been waiting on you for more than an
hour.”
“She may see me during
office hours.”
“But I tried to call
the clinic,” Maude said. “They told me you wouldn’t see
me.”
“Quite
right.”
Rummy’s wife looked
shocked and put down her tea. She was the kind of frail woman who
wore going-out clothes around the house, got the vapors, and would
invite some complete stranger into her little velvet parlor and
serve cookies and tea. Her husband’s manners were making her
physically ill.
“But, Doctor,” Maude
said, “you remember that itch I have? You’ve treated it
before.”
She smiled at him and
took another bite of cookie. The frail wife left the room, the
kitchen door swinging back and forth behind her, the woman
muttering something about dinner burning on the stove. Rumwell
looked as if he’d swallowed a turd.
“You must be going,”
Rumwell said.
Maude stood and walked
to him. He held out a hand as if she was some kind of leper and all
that unease was making Maude pretty damn happy. She smiled at him,
walking slow and swatting her giant hat from side to side and
against her buttocks. “Come on, Rummy.”
“Not
here.”
“I don’t believe you’d
see me anywhere.”
“I will if you’d
please leave.”
Maude turned from him
to a little wooden cabinet and opened a glass door. She pulled out
a little porcelain curio of a kitten and held it in the palm of her
hand, staring at it, appraising it. “Darling.”
“I will ring you at
the Palace.”
“I’m not at the
Palace.”
“I thought you were
getting the royal treatment.” He said it snotty. “It was in all the
newspapers.”
“Yeah, I was getting
the treatment all right, out on my ass.”
“What do you
want?”
“Two hundred
dollars.”
“You must be
joking.”
Maude shook her head
and said, “Nope.” She reached back into the glass cabinet and found
another little figure, this one of a little girl holding a basket
of flowers. She twirled it up in the failing light coming from the
front door and smiled. “Doesn’t this look like
Virginia?”
Rumwell grabbed her
arm and his fingers were tight and strong, but he couldn’t budge
her. She smiled at him. “Do you remember Mrs. Spreckles’s party?
You took me from behind in the garden. Like some kind of animal.
We’ve had so many adventures. I’ve brought you so much
business.”
“I won’t pay
you.”
“I have nowhere to
go.”
“That’s not of
issue.”
“Rummy,” she said. “Be
a gentleman.”
The wife returned, now
composed but flushed, and worked her best smile. She asked her
husband if Mrs. Delmont would like to join them for dinner. She was
baking a chicken and . . . But Rumwell stopped her, saying that
Mrs. Delmont had to be returning south, kind of giving the wife the
old brush-off, the frail getting his meaning and disappearing back
to the kitchen.
Maude held the
figurine up to Rumwell’s face and twisted it there. “Does it hurt
when you fill them with air?”
“This instant,” he
said, raising his voice, spit flying a bit.
“You hear it doesn’t
hurt,” she said, “but I would feel like a balloon inside while you
worked. And hands—you must have very steady hands.”
“I will call the
police.”
“And I will tell them
about your delicate work,” Maude said. “Your
specialties.”
“So be it,” he said,
disappearing into the kitchen.
Maude returned the
figurine to the cabinet and took a seat back on the little settee.
She sipped from the delicate china and watched the pendulum swing
on a large grandfather clock. A large gray cat stumbled into the
room and found a spot in Maude’s lap, settling in, and she stroked
the animal and played with its tiny paws.
Rumwell came back,
minutes later.
“It’s
done.”
“Don’t be
foolish.”
“They’re coming for
you now,” he said.
“Who?”
“The police,” he said.
“They have warrants for your arrest.”
“On
what?”
“Bigamy,” he said.
“They called me this morning at the hospital and I was given
instructions to ring them if I saw you.”
“You must think I’m a
fool,” Maude said, smiling. “This is a wonderful little home,
Rummy. The rugs alone must’ve cost you a fortune. That big clock,
all this mahogany. Very strong and solid. Do you have children? I
can’t believe I never asked.”
“You may wait here if
you wish,” Rumwell said. His wife, high-collared and sweating,
returned, locking her arm with her husband’s. She swallowed but
would not make eye contact with Maude.
Maude could hear the
pendulum of the great clock, the gears whirling inside making the
hands move. She finished her tea, stood, and walked toward the
receiving area of the home. She brushed straight past the two of
them, placed her hat on her head, and adjusted it in the mirror of
a hall tree.
“Two hundred woulda
saved you some heartache, kids,” Maude said.
“I can’t be bribed or
bought,” he said.
“Good man,” Maude
said. “And you’d be a hell of a doctor if your hands didn’t
shake.”
“YOU WANTED TO SEE ME,
SIR ?” Sam asked.
“Close the door,” the
Old Man said.
Sam closed the door.
He took a seat in a hard wooden chair and waited. “I hear you’ve
been making inquiries about an op from back east.”
“Yes,
sir.”
“Why didn’t you ask
me?”
“I figured this fella
was off the books.”
“Did you find
anything?”
Sam nodded. He pulled
out his cigarettes and struck a match, settling into the chair. The
Old Man had a cigar that had expired in a full ashtray on his desk.
His shirtsleeves were rolled above the elbows and he stood and
stretched and opened up a shade on the window.
“You got a
name?”
“Yes,
sir.”
“And what
else?”
“The fella is on
retainer to Hearst Corporation. He’s been assigned to them for
years.”
“What’s he have to do
with all this?”
“I saw him making a
payment to Arbuckle’s buddy, Fred Fishback.”
The Old Man looked
back at Sam from the window. “I’ll make sure McNab knows. He called
over here earlier today mad at hell. Said you gave the bum’s rush
to Arbuckle outside the Tadich Grill.”
“No, sir,” Sam said.
“I asked Mr. Arbuckle what he had to do with Hearst.”
“You know it’s just
the Examiner trying to dig up some
dirt, sell some lousy newspapers.”
“Maybe.”
“They were probably
paying off that Fishback fella to tell his story. Inside the St.
Francis party and bullshit like that.”
“Why hold a meeting at
a Chinatown speak?”
“Privacy.”
“I’ve seen this op
before,” Sam said. “Before the war, I was assigned to bust up some
labor in Montana. This fella approached me in a bar, bought me a
drink, and offered me a respectable payday if I’d take out the
fella making all the trouble. Next day, the guy winds up
dead.”
The Old Man reached
across the desk, grabbed the dead cigar, and tried to light it with
three or four matches, finally getting the stinking thing going, a
giant plug of orange growing red-hot.
“The mines were owned
by Hearst.”
The Old Man settled
back into his creaking chair, smoking and thinking. He shrugged.
“So?”
“So this ain’t the
kind of fella doing a nosy newsman’s work. He’s still on the tab
for Hearst.”
The Old Man nodded and
let out some smoke. His shoes, ragged-soled old jobs, twittered on
the desk. “Let’s let this one lie, Sam.”
Sam watched
him.
“Those two showgirls
are done with their act, and Phil’s keeping watch on that big
Swedish gal you found down south,” the Old Man said. “Really nice
job on that one. She may be the real ace in the hole.”
Sam watched the Old
Man and the Old Man gave him a soft, weathered smile. He had
twinkling old eyes that saw everything in the room while keeping
good contact, trying to pass along something without saying
it.
“I need you on another
job,” he said. “A ship called the Sonoma comes in early tomorrow. We just got cabled
that somewhere between Honolulu and Frisco, she got
robbed.”
“How
much?”
“Half a mil in gold,”
the Old Man said. “We think it may still be on board.”