Ace Atkins - Devil’s garden

At seven, he called the porter and ordered a bottle.

He had three stiff drinks and found himself walking the deck, crowds gathering on the railing facing the dock, waving to their families. There was champagne being chilled by barmen, ready to uncork at sea, cigarettes being smoked by women in long dresses and men in tuxedos. Chinese women handed everyone stingers and confetti, gold dust to toss into the air at send-off.

Sam checked his watch. He watched a man light another man’s cigar with the crisp burning end of some currency. They laughed and blew smoke into the air.

The wind was brisk, deafening Sam’s ears as he stared in disbelief.

He returned down below for a drink.

He had three more.

He walked back to the deck and searched for Daisy, checking a half dozen times with members of the crew. He found a spot on the railing and smoked several cigarettes until the pack was empty. He noted the time again, watching the length of Pier 35 until it came upon half past eleven, the gangplanks gone empty, men in overalls ready by the taut lines stretching down to the dock.

Sam returned below, the ship’s horns blaring, porters roaming the halls calling for all those going ashore. He checked his timepiece, feeling a gentle hum vibrating the steel of the big ship. He drank down the last of the bottle, not even bothering with the glass.

Sam reached into the pocket of his tweeds, finding not a handkerchief but a rough card. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and stared down into his palm at the small, insignificant card with numbers hammered into the type and the ink prints of two small feet.

He staggered to his feet, searching for the hall, instead finding a dressing mirror. “Goddamn son of a bitch.”

When he opened the door, people were running crazy down the halls, throwing streamers and confetti, and champagne had already been uncorked while they were still moored. Sam staggered the hallways, using the walls for balance, getting lost, running into people, women kissing him full on the lips, until he finally found the porter and gave him a silver dollar and begged him to please unload his trunk before they sailed.

“Just set it on the pier,” Sam said. “I’ll find it. It’s been with me for some time.”

The man looked confused, black face wise and weathered, but pocketed the money. Sam wavered on his feet.

He followed the hall and then another and twisted down into the guts of the ship and down a staircase into the clanging engine room. Men in white coveralls shoveled coal into the red-hot furnace, stoking the fire, wiping their brows, getting the steamer prepped for the journey.

Sam could not breathe, the heat and grit of the place wrenching his lungs. Two crewmen passed, not giving him a second glance, and Sam rounded the short staircase up to the steel deck overlooking the workers. With his pocketknife, he again unscrewed the vent and pulled away the grille, reaching his arm far into the air duct, fingers fanning as far as they could for the hidden fire hose but only feeling the heat in the shaft and an endless void. He stretched in with all of his shoulder, finding the short curve where he pushed the nozzle, spreading out the length of his fingers, but he knew the gold was gone.

He pulled out his hand, wiping the coal dust on his pants, replaced the grille, and screwed the vent back in place.

Sam felt a hand on his shoulder.

He turned into the face of the first officer, the same man he’d met the first day on the ship. McManus. Sam gave him his best sober stare, his legs feeling unsteady.

“Already working?” the first officer asked.

“You?” Sam asked.

The first officer shook his head. “You’re the second person givin’ the engine room a good thorough look today.”

“And the other was a nice-looking gal with silver eyes.”

“How’d you know?”

Sam shrugged in the sloppy manner of a drunk.

“One last thing,” Sam asked. “Which way is up?”

FOR THE NEW YEAR’S PARTY, Hearst had a carousel delivered to the great dock at San Simeon. The guests had arrived by boat and stayed in tents all along the beach and were given rides up to the top of the hill where the castle was just beginning to take shape. Nearing midnight, Hearst finally gained his favorite carousel horse, a violent black mare with a fearsome carved face and golden saddle, and he delighted in his whirl around the sights, the dock, the tents, the vast hills. He laughed at it all, clowning for a little crowd waiting for their turn. Hearst made a big show of riding with no hands and, on another pass, sidesaddle, but what really got them was when he rode backward, waving to them all and laughing. Marion was alongside him and then behind him and then on the opposite side of the carousel, and after a few rotations, the night filled with the gay-piped calliope music, he walked in the opposite direction, the very axis tilting under him, until he made it nearly around and saw her sitting astride the giant white filly with the pink hair and the gay mouth, and she was laughing uproariously, holding a batch of cotton candy. And Hearst just stood there, seeing the enjoyment, taking pleasure in bringing it to her, very self-satisfied. He took another step forward with his giant black boots and removed his plantation hat, a stupid grin on his face, and then saw the Englishman there, holding the reigns of the false horse in his hands and performing dog tricks for his girl, pantomiming and laughing, jumping from one horse to the next.

The beach was dark, the loping hills nothing but rough-cut shadows, and the only warmth on the shore coming from the kaleidoscope of lights from the carousel and the little fires clicking along the beach where the Chinese would cook the fish and sweets in a giant party Hearst had organized to see 1922 meet its first dawn.

Hearst watched the Englishman, finding nothing attractive or charming or funny about him, wondering why the world would so adore a man like Charlie Chaplin.

Chaplin held on to the golden rod of the horse, pumping up and down, Marion laughing, and made his way onto Marion’s great white horse, the one Hearst had picked out especially for her. He shrugged and smiled with so much vanity, tipping the end of a delicate champagne glass to her mouth, drinking it, spilling on the dress, a great, horrendous laugh to follow.

Hearst walked into the turn of the carousel, hands upon his back, to much laughter and praise and thanks from his guests. Men dressed as women and women as men. There were harlequins and harlots and tigers and knights. He smiled and pleasantly told them all they were welcome and returned to his great black horse, hugging its neck, the carousel pumping and twirling twice until it slowed, the calliope music gently stopping to a single note.

“You s-silly man,” Marion said.

Hearst looked up from the horse’s neck. She took off his hat and kissed him on the head. She cocked her hip in a sexy way and tipped a bottle of champagne by the neck into her mouth and throat. She kissed him again.

“H-how ’bout another turn, W.R.?”

“Whatever the lady wishes.”

“You silly man.”

He smiled at her, tasting the champagne on her lips and smelling another man’s cologne on the nape of her flowered dress.

She smiled back.

THE SECOND TRIAL was well under way in January when Sam shadowed Fred Fishback to a Chinatown opium den, Fishback having been called by McNab but not showing up to the Hall. The joint was a Hip Sing Tong place, the tongs finally settling their latest turf battle in the colony, and the owner of the place offered a little cup of ny ka pa before taking Sam into the back room, where whites and Chinese had settled themselves along bunks and relaxed against silk cushions. A little Chinese boy with a pigtail worked to attach scrolls in the cracks of the hovel, a brisk January wind snaking through the cracks and dimming the candles in the room. The owner pointed to Fishback, who rested in a lower bunk with two women clutched to his chest, his own loose hand on his forehead, a great smile on his face when he saw Sam. One woman turned her head, awaking from her dream, and clawed her hand up at the wavering image of Sam.