Ace Atkins - Devil’s garden

“You know, my real name isn’t Kennedy,” Sam said.

“You don’t say.”

She grabbed the matches and lit her own and then handed the pack to Sam. Sam lit a cigarette and pushed away the pie, keeping the cigarette going on the coffee saucer. Phil whispered something to Zey and she cackled so loud that people across the room turned their heads. She put her hand over her mouth but kept on laughing.

Ma Murphy screwed up her face when she noted the cigarette in Alice’s hand. Alice looked over at the prune-faced woman and stuck out her tongue.

“We’ve been drinking all day,” Alice said. “That’s all there is to do around here, drink. We go for treatments and a swim. I’m tired of all that goddamn mud. You got to take ten showers to get it out of all your cracks. I want to go back to Frisco.”

“That can be arranged.”

“How?” she asked. “Those boys sleep outside our door. Did I tell you that Ma Murphy tried to get both of us to start wearing a corset? Can you imagine? This is 1921!”

Alice breathed in a long drag from her cigarette and turned her head to the ceiling, blowing out the smoke. Zey said they needed to get back, meeting the eyes of the nervous cops and Ma Murphy up by the hearth.

Alice leaned in, her eyes brown and sleepy, and felt for Sam’s fingers under the table. She moved his hand over to her knee and slid it up her dress, his hand crossing over her stockings and deep up her thigh, and he could feel the warmth of the sun on her skin. The higher she moved his hand, the warmer it got.

Sam just kept smoking and nodding and talking across the table to Zey and Phil. Zey talking about going horseback riding tomorrow. His hand reached the end of her leg, fingers delicately moved across a warm patch of silk between her thighs. Sam took the cigarette from his mouth with his free hand, met Alice’s eyes, and shook his head.

She leaned in and with hot breath said, “Come for me tonight.”

And with that, she pushed his hand away from under her skirt and back to his own knee and very pleasantly stood and said good-bye to Phil. The girls returned back to Ma Murphy and their guards.

“You were right, Phil.”

“About what?”

“It ain’t easy,” Sam said.

“Told you.”

“Fill up the machine?”

“Yep.”

“You can get by the guards?”

“Cake.”

“We go tonight.”

The girls stayed in a small white cottage fitted among a half dozen along a dirt road called Palm Row. The little cottages had little front porches with rocking chairs, picket fences, and small chimneys, some blowing smoke up into the cold night. A full moon shone silver on the endless patchwork of brown-and-green hills and across acres of grapes dying on the vine, toppled trellises broken apart by dry agents. Sam took in the scene beside the little flivver they’d taken from the Pinkerton motor pool and in the darkness smoked and checked his watch. They’d made arrangements with the girls to make the move at midnight when the guards would change. But here it was, eleven minutes after, and Phil walked back to the Ford to tell him that the fat Irish kid was still sitting on the girls’ cottage porch with a shotgun and reading a goddamn copy of the Saturday Evening Post.

“Can we get ’em out back?”

“Back leads to the springs. Sometimes the other fella’s out there.”

Sam checked his watch. “Aw, hell.”

Phil and Sam climbed the wall and circled the hot springs, now throwing off a mess of steam since the temperature dropped. The springs bubbled up in a little grotto surrounded by the chest-high wall of stone, and the men followed the circular path by moonlight, leaving the guns in the car in case they got caught, and trailed a row of shrubs to the back window of the cottage.

They heard giggling and music from a Victrola. Inside the wavy panes of glass, Sam saw Alice jumping up and down on the bed, a big suitcase nearby latched with a thick man’s belt. He knocked on the panes softly and then harder, and that got Alice down to the floor, where she removed a needle from the record. The music stopped.

She tilted her head and walked to the glass, a big smile on her lips, and opened up.

“It’s just me, honeybee,” she said.

“You girls come on,” Sam said. “And be quiet about it.”

“Zey’s not going.”

“Come again?” Sam said, whispering.

“She likes it here,” Alice said, leaning down, whispering, elbows laid across the threshold. “ ’Sides, she ain’t got a job since the Old Poodle Dog was busted. She’s got no dough and nowhere to stay. Did you have the fried chicken tonight?”

“Pork chops.”

“You shoulda had the chicken.”

“I’m coming in,” Sam said.

Phil laced his hands together and propped up a place for Sam to stand, lifting him through the cottage window. Sam fell with a thud to the floor and waited there for a moment, and, not hearing anything, then whispered to Alice about where he could find Zey.

She whispered back, “I’m telling you, it won’t do no good. She likes the treatments, too.”

Alice Blake closed the window and curtains behind him and walked to the bed. She lay back into the mattress, propped on her elbows, and crooked her finger at Sam. “We got time.”

Sam gritted his teeth and took a breath.

Alice started to unbutton the length of her dress and Sam watched her, unable to speak until the entire front of the dress was open. She wore a brassiere and bloomers, lots of lace and silk, tall laced boots, stockings, and garters. She ran her fingers across her stomach, stroking her white belly, the way a proud owner shows off a fine machine.

“I’m married.”

“I won’t tell.”

“I’ll know.”

“Poo.”

Alice smiled and parted her legs. She crooked her finger again. She reached down and unsnapped a single garter. Sam walked to her and reached for her hand, pulling the short girl to her feet. He put a hand to her shoulder and closed his eyes. Her eyes closed, too, and her mouth parted just as Sam snapped the garter back and began to work on the buttons up the line, stitching them closed.

“I thought you were fun,” she said.

“A damn dirty lie.”

Sam followed her into a long hallway, noting the front door to the porch was closed, and Alice rapped on a bedroom door twice. Zey appeared in a long Oriental robe, hand on her hip, and said, “About goddamn time. Where’s Phil? And where the hell are my goddamn records, Alice? Are you trying to take the Victrola, too?”

“Phil’s outside,” Sam said. “Waiting.”

“Outside? That doesn’t do us any good.”

“Come on,” Sam said. “Get packed.”

Zey made a pouty look and shook her head. The inside of her room smelled of lavender and candy-sweet perfume and glowed red from a silk handkerchief she’d placed over a lamp. Undergarments and stockings were strung across the room and over bedposts. An open armoire spilled out unfolded clothes. A bottle of unmarked wine sat on the bed stand with two teacups.

“Where’s the Victrola, Alice?” Zey asked.

“Take it.”

“And the records?”

“They’re yours. But I packed that new one though. ‘Dangerous Blues.’ ”

“I liked that one. You know I liked that one.”

“Ladies,” Sam said, holding up his hand, Zey still keeping herself wedged in the doorframe, hand on her hip. “All the way to Frisco.”

“Well, you tell Phil that if he didn’t have the class and decency to come in and say good-bye, then I don’t care if I ever see him again,” Zey said. “No, tell him I hope he gets hit by a bus. All of you can go straight to hell.”

She slammed the bedroom door.

The front porch creaked and the screen door opened. The copper knocked on the front door. “Hello?” the man called out, sounding more like a boy. Sam motioned to Alice with his head and she followed him back to her room.