Ace Atkins - Devil’s garden

She had a warmth about her, a heat. And the films grew into the rental of a little downtown flat where the passing streetcars would clang past and rumble the building, he and Jose not seeming to notice, the little metal bed they shared rocking so hard it would skip across the beaten-wood floor, traveling from wall to wall, the pair joined at the hip.

Sam flicked the cigarette into the lapping waves.

The beams crossed over each other, one from the shore, one from the island, nearly connecting but passing, and it was night and blackness again. The horns sounded. Sam lifted the collar on his suit and tucked his hands into his jacket, moving toward the front of the ferry, whistling.

A solid fist knocked him square in the gut, dropping him to the deck, him crawling.

A big black shoe came for his face and split his lip.

Another hard kick in the gut. Sam rolled to his back, trying to find just a pocket of air for his squeezed lungs. He stared up at the man and saw the face, the dark man smiling down at him and offering a hand. Sam found an inch of breath and crawled backward, trying his feet but only getting his knees, wiping his lip, a boxer just trying to make it to round’s end.

The man kept his hands in a large black overcoat. A wide-brimmed black hat sat on his gray head. He just kept smiling at Sam, quickly glancing around him through the thick blankets of fog misting their faces. He kicked at Sam hard once more, and Sam landed with a giant thwack on the deck, his mouth reaching for air, nothing coming into him, and he blacked out for a moment but never lost sight, trying just to right himself, the beams crossing overhead, cutting across the man’s dark skin and misshapen ear. He toed at Sam as if he were a dead fish found on the shore.

Sam tried to breathe. The bovine horns called through the fog, dueling from the islands and shore. Sam’s vision scattered, rolling to his hands, the deck a patchwork of wooden planks, blindly searching, cold and wet. More horns. They were close to the Ferry Building now. Four more kicks.

No questions.

The Dark Man reached for Sam, finding the back of his suit and belt and hoisting him to his feet and pushing him to the railing, forcing him to look at the churning water, light cutting across and through the fog and darkness, and whispering something in his ear about the way of the world, repeating “the way of the world” at least twice, but Sam not getting much, his mind turned back to ’17 and the wooden sidewalks of Anaconda, the cold sprays of fog and bay tasting like copper smelting in his bloodied mouth, moving into the heart of the little mining town, the beaten floor-boards in a rooming house and Frank Little’s empty bed. As his feet were hoisted from the creaking deck, Sam’s body halved across the ferry’s railing and he grabbed and reached for something to hold, finding only slick metal, the man pushing with all his weight, pushing Sam farther off the ferry and into the blackness and fog. Sam saw Little twirl from the trestle, that first light cutting across the barren, raped hills and over the sack that covered the labor leader’s head, and he let go, the horns sounding loud and close, reaching into his tweed jacket and leaning back with a little heft to his legs and aiming his boots for the deck, collapsing in a crushed heap.

The Dark Man pressed against him again.

Sam turned.

He shot straight into the Dark Man’s heart with his.32.

The man held his chest, a look of surprise on his lips, as Sam flat-handed him backward and lifted with everything he had, toppling the man over into the darkness and foam, catching a glimpse of an air pocket in his black coat, the rough, strong currents of the bay flushing him out toward midnight and the Golden Gate and into the great sea-the Pacific-and nothingness.

Sam dropped to his knees, pressing his back to the steel of the ship, shaking and gasping for breath. The front of his shirt was damp with sweat and sea mist. He closed his eyes and just thought about breathing.

A big, booming bovine horn called him home.

SHE MET HIM at the lunch counter of the Owl drugstore. It was midnight. A guy in a paper hat behind the counter cleaned out coffee mugs and shined forks with a dirty rag.

“You look like shit,” Daisy said.

“Shucks. You’re just sayin’ that.”

She smiled and asked the guy in the paper hat for more coffee. She lit a cigarette and blew it from the corner of her mouth. In the bright light, her eyes looked very silver.

“We busted up LaPeer’s stills last night,” she said. “Out toward Palo Alto, place called Logan’s Roadhouse. One of our boys, De Spain, got wind of automobiles and trucks loaded up with barrels and demijohns and the like.”

“How much?”

“Four thousand of mash, one-fifty of jackass brandy, and truckloads of his bonded stuff brought in on the Sonoma-Scotch, Old Crow, you name it. But the big thing was the stills. Two of ’em. The latest design, all electric, new, and ready to crank out thousands of gallons.”

“How’d it taste?”

“Not bad,” Daisy said. “Little rough. But, get this-when we got warrants for LaPeer and found him at the Somerton Hotel, he claimed-”

“He didn’t own the place.”

“No, better,” she said, grinning. “Said the gallons of mash were actually hair tonic and he had big plans to get the stuff in the hand of every bald man in the States.”

“A true innovator,” Sam said. “He make a fight of it?’

“Nope,” she said. “Kinda sad. I brought my twelve-gauge and dressed for the newsboys. We had boys all in the lobby of the Somerton and along the stairwell and holding the elevator. Me and De Spain knocked on his door.”

“And he just walked out with you?”

“In a robe and slippers. Meek as a kitten. He smiled for the cameras. It’s all a big laugh to him.”

“What’s gonna happen when his suppliers don’t get his dough?”

“Cry me a river,” she said. “They got most of it back. The Seamen’s Bank has it. Makes me sick. I just hope they spell my name right. It’s Simpkins. With an s. Sometimes they spell it without the s and it annoys the folks back home.”

“They still haven’t found the rest of it.”

“They will.”

“It’s long gone.”

Sam didn’t say anything for a while, catching Daisy’s profile as she tipped her head and let out some smoke. They were the only two at the counter, a dozen or so empty stools down the line.

“Was that true what you said down in Los Angeles?” he asked. “About LaPeer killing your man?”

She shrugged.

“Did I tell you LaPeer had ratted out his two partners back in September, Jack Wise and a Jap named Kukaviza?” she asked. “He went straight into Mr. F. Forrest Mitchell’s office, gave him what we needed, and then took over their turf. That’s some balls.”

“You look shook-up.”

“You need glasses.” She pulled her hand away and fiddled with another cigarette. “Why are you asking me so many questions about LaPeer’s dough? He’s in the life. He paid out a half mil, got the booze, and now lost it all. Cry me a river.”

“You said that.”

“So why do you care?”

“What would you do if you had a chance to keep his coin?”

“I’d be on a slow boat to China.”

“I’m serious.”

“Are you gonna eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I want to eat.”

“Then eat.”

“Are you going to Australia?”

“I haven’t decided,” Sam said.

“It ain’t up to you. I thought it was up to the Pinkertons.”

“I’m not a number.”

“Why so touchy?”

The courtroom was packed, but no one expected to hear Roscoe’s name. They all thought he’d stay silent as a sphinx, all the papers commenting about the film star sticking to his talents since the arrest. What the hell was he supposed to do after both Frank Dominguez and McNab told him to shut his goddamn mouth or he’d find himself tainting the jury pool, pissing off the court, and then getting a quick trip to see the hangman? But he was ready as McNab ushered him to the stand, finding a spot on that hard wooden chair, carrying nothing with him but a pencil, and feeling sharp as hell in a nicely cut blue suit and blue tie, crisp-laundered white shirt, and silk stockings with soft leather shoes. Everything he wore was new and fresh. Early that morning, he’d been sheared and shaved by a barber off Columbus. He felt like a million bucks.