28
Minta thinks you’re a good egg,” Roscoe said. “Minta
is a sensible woman.” “That she is.”
There was a long
silence between the two men in the rear of the Pierce-Arrow
limousine. Roscoe was dressed in pajamas and a robe. He rolled
another cigarette, fumbling around with the paper and tobacco until
he got the thing made. The leather inside the cab reminded Sam of a
fine saddle; it all smelled rich and oiled.
“Now we got that
settled,” Sam said, “I need to get back to work.”
“I read about that
gold,” Roscoe said. “They said it was a ‘Mystery at Sea.’
”
“Not much of a
mystery,” Sam said. “We found most of it.”
“You found the
robbers?”
Sam shook his
head.
“Can I call you
Sam?”
“Sure.”
“Sam, I was set
up.”
“I know.”
“Fred Fishback
directed the whole thing. He arranged the trip, called the girls,
and brought the booze. The son of a bitch blindsided me. All that
crap he said on the stand about me asking for the key to the
ladies’ changing room is a bunch of hooey.”
“Why?”
Roscoe looked out the
window, the machine idling at Pier 35. A group of sailors passed
his car, eyes wide with amazement at the fine machine. He smoked
and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You remember me
asking about you knowing Mr. Hearst?”
Roscoe didn’t say
anything.
“Why’d you
lie?”
“I said I’ve met the
man once.”
“He’s taken an
interest in you.”
Roscoe turned from the
window, his profile in the glass.
“His bagman paid
Fishback,” Sam said. “I saw it. That same man poisoned the woman
who’d come to the city to testify on your behalf. Between Hearst
and Brady, the facts will never be heard. The real truth has
already been buried or burned up in an incinerator.”
Roscoe looked confused
but nodded, and then nodded some more.
Sam leaned into the
space between them. He checked his watch and rubbed his
head.
“Why do you continue
to protect him?”
Roscoe shook his
head.
“He’s walking all over
you,” Sam said. “Hearst is making you look like a fool. You keep on
keeping whatever you know a secret and you’re headed to San
Quentin. Why a grown man would want to be anyone’s whipping boy is
beyond me. My ass would get sore after a while.”
Roscoe looked at him
and Sam saw more rage than he expected. But the rage soon softened
and he started to cry, and he was very open about it. Sam had never
seen a grown man so open about weeping before another man. He
looked like he was about ten, wiping the mess away with his
fists.
“I’m not protecting
Hearst,” he said. “I’m no one’s whipping boy.”
Sam leaned into the
soft leather seats. He lit a cigarette, reached into the bar and
poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter. “Jesus Christ,” Sam
said, taking a long pull.
Roscoe reached over
and poured him another.
“I could get used to
this.”
“No, you couldn’t,”
Roscoe said, not looking at him anymore but staring out the window
and thinking. The hand-rolled cigarette burned between his fingers.
His robe was silk and probably cost more than Sam’s suit and shirt
and shoes put together. “All this makes you soft.”
“I left my hat on the
boat,” Sam said, reaching for the door.
Roscoe held up his
hand. “Hold on. Christ, let me think. I just don’t know. God damn.
I don’t understand any of it. It’s making my head
hurt.”
“It’s a simple story,
Roscoe. You walked into a frame job and the frame job went really
wrong. About as wrong as it can get. And that isn’t your fault. But
to hold out on me with anything isn’t just pigheaded, it’s damn
stupid.”
“Do you know that for
the weeks I spent in that jail, all I did was try to remember what
happened in that room?”
“What
happened?”
“I couldn’t. I thought
maybe I did kill her. I could imagine it. I could imagine me
falling asleep on her, touching her too rough.”
Sam finished the
glass.
“I’m so goddamn clumsy
when I drink,” Roscoe said. “I wanted to die. If there had been a
gun in that cell, I would’ve stuck it into my mouth. I convinced
myself that I’d killed her. I read the stories and those stories
rolled in my head. I saw myself crushing her. I didn’t really stop
blaming myself until today. When Freddie turned on me, I knew it
had been a frame job. He worked me goddamn perfectly. He arranged
the sets, brought in the actors, and had it play out just like he’d
written it.”
“Except for one
thing.”
Roscoe looked up at
Sam.
“The girl wasn’t
supposed to die.”
“Sure she
was.”
Sam shook his head.
“She was sick. No one was planning on that. But when it happened,
they changed the script and rolled with it, and now you’re being
railroaded to prison. So why don’t we cut out all the bullshit and
you tell me why William Randolph Fucking Hearst wants to destroy
your life.”
It began to rain
outside. The rain pinged on the waxed hood of the big machine.
Roscoe flipped a switch and told the chauffeur to drive. The wheels
rolled.
“I don’t want her
hurt.”
“A woman,” Sam said.
“Always a woman.”
“She’s a hell of a
woman,” Roscoe said, as the chauffeur kicked it in gear and they
headed down the never-ending row of piers, arc lights blazing the
way, the rain catching in their bright glow. “She saved my life.
And, above all, I want her name left out of this. She’s sweet and
gentle and caring. She saved my life.”
“You said
that.”
“Well, it’s
true.”
“And just how did that
work?”
“There was a New
Year’s party,” Roscoe said. “Two years ago. She owns a beautiful
beach home that looks like an old-fashioned plantation. We were all
very, very drunk.”
“What’s her name,
Roscoe?”
“Marion,” he said.
“Marion Davies.”
“The film
actress?”
Roscoe
nodded.
Sam nodded. He
waited.
Roscoe didn’t say
anything.
“And who is Mr. Hearst
to her?”
“A friend,” Roscoe
said. “Her benefactor.”
“I bet.”
“You ever have a woman
care for you when you’re down-and-out? When you feel like you’re at
the bottom of a well and can’t see for the dark?”
Sam glanced
away.
“I had problems,”
Roscoe said. “With my manhood. I confided very personal issues to
her. I was drunk and told Miss Davies. I was quite drunk. Very
drunk.”
“So you were drunk,”
Sam said.
“She said I lacked
confidence and the whole business was in my head,” he said. “We
walked on the beach when all hell was breaking loose with fireworks
and champagne bottles uncorking and all that, and she led me by the
hand behind a sand dune.”
“And proved you
wrong,” Sam said. He ashed his cigarette into his
hand.
Roscoe noted the
gesture and handed him a cut-glass tray.
“This is all in
confidence,” Roscoe said. “You must assure me.”
“I assure
you.”
“Miss Davies isn’t
what I call chaste,” Roscoe said. “Surely Mr. Hearst understands
that. He’s quite a bit older, and for him to go to all this trouble
. . . She’s known to entertain other gentlemen.”
“God bless
her.”
“No one saw
us.”
“Oh, someone saw you,”
Sam said. “You just didn’t see them.”
“The only thing on
that beach was shadows and moonlight,” Roscoe said. “I never told a
soul.”
“They’ll convict you,
Roscoe,” Sam said. “If Miss Davies is the friend you think, she’ll
give us the goods on Hearst.”
Roscoe shook his
head.
“This man has
destroyed your life.”
“I don’t believe it,”
Roscoe said. “Why would a man like Mr. Hearst go to all that
trouble?”
“Do I need to draw a
picture for you?” Sam asked. “You screwed his girl.”
“Mr. Hearst doesn’t
have time to take such an interest—”
“I’ve seen him take an
interest in a lot less.”
Roscoe watched Sam.
Sam drank some more. There was more rain and headlights cut across
the darkness of the cab.
“Miss Davies
is—”
“I’ve done some work
I’m not proud of,” Sam said. “I know for a fact Mr. Hearst once
sent a man, the very same man who paid Fishback, to kill a fella by
the name of Little. All Little did was try and help some miners and
he ended up with his neck stretched under a train
trestle.”
“That sounds like a
business matter.”
“It wasn’t just
money,” Sam said. “Hearst couldn’t control him. He spoke out louder
and better than any Hearst stooge. He attacked Hearst in his
speeches and on street corners. Workers listened to Little,
respected him.”
“I
can’t.”
“Get a message to Miss
Davies,” Sam said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
Roscoe shook his head,
arm casually resting against the door. The cigarette smoldered in
his hand, Roscoe seeming to forget about it.
“Hearst may have set
the trap, but I was dumb enough to be snared,” Roscoe said. “I’ll
carry my own water, thank you.”
“If you don’t speak
up, they’ll win,” Sam said. “This isn’t just Hearst, it’s the lot
of lousy bastards.”
“Who are we talking
about?”
Sam studied the fat
actor’s profile.
“He’s already won,”
Roscoe said. “And dragging Miss Davies into the mud won’t do a
goddamn thing.”
“Thinking like that is
the reason this country is a goddamn mess.”
“I don’t
follow.”
Moments passed. The
big black Arrow rolled on. Sam ran a handkerchief across his
sweating face. He felt his breathing slow as he composed himself
and smiled at Roscoe.
“How’s your”—Sam
pointed to Roscoe’s crotch—“now?”
Roscoe crossed his
legs. He turned his eyes back to Sam, face breaking into a
grin.
“Every time I see
those Vigilant women, I feel like a scared turtle.”
THANKSGIVING MORNING,
Sam awoke to the baby crying. He could smell coffee and bacon in
the tiny kitchen and hear Jose rummaging around with the groceries
and dry goods he’d brought home. He found his watch and his
cigarettes, neatly made the Murphy bed and closed it up into the
wall. He was still working on the cigarette when he walked into the
kitchen, Jose handing him a warm cup and smiling. He kissed Mary
Jane on the head. It was cold in the apartment. He owed the
landlady for the heat.
“And a turkey,
too?”
“A turkey, too,” Sam
said, sitting at the rickety table. “Not a bad-looking bird. Bit
skinny. Kinda felt sorry for it.”
“How much was
this?”
“It’s Thanksgiving,”
Sam said. “Rumor has it, we’re supposed to stuff
ourselves.”
Sam rubbed his head
and yawned, Jose laying the baby in his arms. She cried and cried
and he stood and rocked her, walking around the tiny flat and to
the window, fogged in the early morning. All of Eddy Street seeming
gray and cold.
“Jose, I may have to
leave for a spell.”
“Don’t worry,” she
said, “I’ll keep dinner warm.”
“Longer than that. Not
today, maybe next week. I may have to take that ship back to
Australia. They haven’t located the loot and the Old Man may want
me to sail with her.”
“I read The Call last night,” she said, face never
changing. “I heard the purser located some of the gold through a
dream. I found that odd.”
“So did we,” Sam said.
“But the fella we make for it jumped ship yesterday morning and
hasn’t been seen since.”
“How much is still
missing?”
“Twenty thousand,” Sam
said. “I’ll make sure you and the baby have plenty. I can pay up
the rent for some time.”
“How?”
“It’d be taken care
of. You wouldn’t have to worry for a thing.”
“I never asked for a
thing, Sam.”
There were just the
sounds in the kitchen for a while and the silence just kind of hung
there between them for a long moment, Sam searching for something
to say but Jose speaking first.
“I read about Mr.
Arbuckle, too,” she said, cooking eggs now, hard-frying them, and
browning the toast alongside in the skillet. “Doesn’t look good.
His friend Mr. Fishback said that Arbuckle asked him to sneak into
the women’s changing room to see Virginia.”
“Don’t believe
everything you read.”
“You want some of
those preserves?’
“You
bet.”
“Say, you’re good with
the kid, Sam. She asleep?”
“Like a
baby.”
“Ha.”
“I’ve been doing some
thinking about Mr. Arbuckle.”
“You have some
theories?”
“I don’t think the
autopsy was covering up her being pregnant. I think one of the
reasons she came to the city was to get rid of the
child.”
“Why do you say
that?”
“There’s a doctor,”
Sam said. “The one called by Mrs. Delmont to the St.
Francis. I shadowed
him sometime back and, among other things, he treats
whores.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s an
abortionist.”
“Easy enough to find
out.”
“But you don’t believe
he was protecting Miss Rappe’s virtue when he destroyed her
organs.”
“Nope.”
“You believe he was
covering for something he botched.”
“Yep.”
“You don’t say
much.”
“Nope.”
He
smiled.
She laid down his
plate of eggs. He slowly, very carefully, passed over the sleeping
child to her. She took the handoff with a smile, the kid still
dozing.
“That would be a hell
of a thing to prove.”
“It’s not my case
anymore,” Sam said. “Other men are on it.”
“But you’re still
poking around?”
“A fella I think is a
good egg asked me to.”
“That
simple?”
“Yep.”
“You’re a good egg,
Sam.”
Sam didn’t
respond.
IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON
when Sam stepped foot back on the Sonoma.
A couple of seamen in
coveralls painted the deck and smoked cigarettes. He recognized one
of them from the days before and gave him a short wave and hello,
looking for the first officer, McManus or Captain Trask, but was
told that both of ’em had gone ashore to meet with their families.
Sam was headed back down, stepping onto a staircase leading
belowdecks, back to the engine room and the hidden vent shaft, when
he heard his name called.
He
turned.
Tom Reagan stood there
looking down on him. He wore a black slicker and black fedora and
motioned for Sam to come on back up. “We need to
talk.”
Sam followed
him.
The wind on deck was a
cold bastard. He lit a cigarette for warmth. Tom did the
same.
“Hell of a place to be
on Thanksgiving.”
Sam
nodded.
“I think that gold is
long gone,” Tom said. “How ’bout you?”
Sam
nodded.
Tom smiled at him and
it was a knowing smile. Sam shuffled on his feet a
bit.
“’ Course it wouldn’t
take much to hide a coin here or there. A man could fill up his
pockets and walk right out.”
Sam studied Tom’s
face, his granite features pinching, taking a draw on the
cigarette. Those small eyes in that bullet head squinted at
Sam.
“I guess that’s
right.”
“Something’s not
sitting well with me, Sam.”
Sam watching him. He
waited.
“I don’t like when
someone isn’t straight with me. I like ’em to be
honest.
I like to lay out the
truth, plain and unvarnished, for all the world to see. I don’t
like cheaters. Even when I wrestled back in school, I knew the
rules and played ’em straight.”
“Get on with it,” Sam
said.
“Now, hold on. I need
you to listen to me. ’Cause I’m not even sure what to do about
this.”
Sam’s heart started to
race. He took in a breath of cold air and dropped his hands into
his pockets. He could smell the paint fumes from the deck ahead of
them and it was making him nauseated. He grabbed the edge of the
railing and felt it was slick with paint, which he wiped off on his
clean handkerchief.
“Goddamnit.”
“I like you, Sam,” Tom
said. “I think you’re a straight shooter and I respect that. I want
to give you a fair chance.”
Sam nodded. “How’d you
know?”
“Something’s been
wrong from the start. You can’t blame a person for cheating, but
this . . . this is something else altogether. Makes me
ill.”
“Tom—”
“Hold on,” Tom said,
putting up his meaty paw. “Hold on. Hear me out.
I don’t want a word of
this coming back to me. You hear me?”
Sam
nodded.
“Arbuckle is being
crucified,” Tom said. “Brady knows he’s innocent.”
“What?”
“There’s more,” Tom
said. “But I need you to figure some stuff out on your
own.”
Sam took a deep
breath, wiping more paint from his fingers. The sun was behind Tom
and it was weak and white through the clouds. The men painting the
deck whistled while Sam found his footing. He lit another cigarette
and began to walk side by side with Tom.
“You’re okay,
Tom.”
“You look
sick.”
“I’m okay
now.”
“So what do we
do?”
“What can you tell me
about Rumwell?”
“You don’t fool
around, do you? You go straight to it.”
Sam
shrugged.
“So you
know?”
“I guess
so.”
“I don’t know what to
believe,” Tom said, beside him, making Sam feel small although the
men were the same height. “Everyone on this case is a liar. It can
make you screwy.”
“I say we talk to him
about what we know.”
“Rumwell?”
“Why
not?”
“He won’t admit a
goddamn thing.”
“It’s a funny thing
the way the conscience works on a guilty man.”
“You look like a man
with experience, Sam.”
THE PINKERTON OFFICE
kept a running list of every greased palm in every hotel in The
City. You worked the city by who you knew, who you kept up with,
who you routinely paid for the privilege. And they had a beaut of a
list, starting with the top hotels, with names and numbers of the
hotel dicks, on-duty managers, and doormen. After meeting with
Rumwell for a solid three hours, Sam went to his apartment and then
returned to the office, placed exactly four calls, and soon came up
with a time and place, the Fairmont Hotel tearoom atop Nob Hill. He
waited in the office for an hour, used the time to type and then
retype a short letter, and then hopped a cable car up
Powell.
He wore his best
suit—his only suit—freshly pressed, with shoes shined. He was able
to make it to the tearoom before being stopped.
From where he stood,
talking to the maître d’, he could see the big party. The table
stretched behind marble columns and iron banisters, taking up
nearly half of the restaurant. Men wore their best black and ladies
wore their newest hats. There was gay laughter and toasts and
mountains of food. Turkeys with dressing, hams, fresh fruit, and
pies sitting atop silver stands. Sam smiled as he watched Police
Chief O’Brien uncorking a bottle and pouring a bit for District
Attorney Brady, Brady proposing a drunken toast, Mr. Hearst himself
wiping crumbs away from his mouth and answering the toast back,
clinking glasses with Mrs. Hearst and winking over at two boys who
looked nearly identical.
The maître d’ was
arguing with Sam, telling him that he could not enter. He said it
was closed, private, and the accent was vaguely German. Sam reached
into his coat, offering his apologies, and told the man he had
urgent business from Mr. Hearst’s office and it was absolutely
imperative that this letter reach Mr. Hearst’s hands and no one
else’s.
The man took the
envelope with great seriousness, taking pride in the task in the
way that only Germans can. He shook Sam’s hand warmly and told him
to consider it done.
Sam tried to pay the
guy a nickel for his trouble, but he looked at the coin in his palm
like it was a dog turd.
HEARST RECEIVED THE
LETTER not from the maître d’ but from his valet, George. And he
left the letter next to his half-eaten plate for many minutes,
almost an hour. He drank more red wine, just to taste, since he was
not a man to indulge in a weakness, ate a turkey leg, and clapped
with joy at the sight of the Baked Alaska.
While the men sat back
to cigar stewards and glasses of cognac, Hearst shared a story with
the table about serving the flaming dessert to Pancho Villa. He
said Villa had been a guest at his mother’s ranch, and after
demonstrating some of the most abhorrent table manners he’d ever
witnessed the revolutionary jumped from his seat and cocked a
pistol at the flaming Baked Alaska.
“He was convinced I’d
brought him a bomb.”
There was cordial
laughter and much harrumphing from the men, the mayor, the chief,
and the D.A., all of San Francisco’s elite. Millicent, Hearst’s
wife, smiled over at him, quite tired from her journey west with
the twins, prepared once again to make their way back to New
York.
Hearst would miss the
boys.
Millicent, as always,
had begun to bore him with her incessant talk of the Milk
Fund.
While the men grew
sleepy from the food and drink, plied with more cognac, cigars
burning and satisfied, the women’s talk began to dominate the
table. Chatter of the latest styles from Paris and of that handsome
Italian Valentino. They particularly seemed to like his eyes,
finding them oddly hypnotic, and Hearst thought to himself that
perhaps he should reexamine the man’s films, learn the technique
that had transformed a dishwasher into a lustful
attraction.
As his plate was
cleared, he remembered the letter, and tore at the envelope with
his thumbnail. The message was as simple and straightforward a
group of sentences as he’d ever read, so Hearst thought that it had
to have been written by one of his newspapermen, an insider. But
the last line made him know differently, and he looked up from the
cleared linen and smiled, just catching the last few words from
Millicent about the boys’ antics when they visited the British
Museum and begged their father to buy them an ape.
“He not only can climb
a tree,” Hearst said. “But he can serve cocktails.”
“He cannot,” Millicent
said, blushing.
“He’s quite talented,
you know. Better than a Chinaman.”
More laughter from
Hearst’s side of the table, and Hearst stole a glance at George,
who leaned against a marble column. Hearst crooked his finger, and
as soon as George was at his side he looked up from the long row of
family and friends, smelling of sweets and smoke and hearing
laughter and great mirth. “Take care of this, will
you?”
He dropped the
envelope into his man’s waiting hands as if the edges had been set
afire.