Ace Atkins - Devil’s garden

“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.