Devil's Garden

by Ace Atkins

  “Good question, Phil. Ask it to me again when we reach The City.”

  ROSCOE WOKE Up Monday morning on the couch, a watery glass of Scotch in his lap, hearing the sounds of Powell Street below. He glanced over at Freddie, tall, dark, athletic Freddie, who’d snuggled up with the singer he’d met at Tait’s Café last night as Lowell walked into the bedroom shaved and showered, a fresh drink in his hand, wanting to know what everyone wanted for breakfast. His girl, a skinny redhead who wore knickers like a boy, appeared from one of the two adjoining bedrooms, trying to straighten the flower in her hat. And Roscoe said he’d love some eggs and toast and coffee. And then he told Lowell, who was on the telephone to room service, to skip that coffee and have another case of gin sent up. He was feeling like gin blossoms this morning.

  “Don’t you want to go out?” Freddie asked, slipping his broad shoulders into a navy blazer. He futzed with his thick Romanian eyebrows in a window’s reflection. “See the city?”

  “Why’d I want to do a fool thing like that?”

  Roscoe walked over to the window facing Powell Street and looked down at the rooftops of cars lined up for the valet. Freddie’s gal joined him and pinched his waist.

  “You aren’t so fat, Mr. Arbuckle.”

  “Thanks, girlie,” he said. “Hey, you wanna jump? I will if you will. You think any of ’em would care?”

  She narrowed her eyes a bit but then caught his smile. She smiled back.

  “You mind signing something for my kid sis?”

  He turned and smiled at her. “You’re not leaving, are you? The party’s just started. Go ahead and crank up that Victrola.”

  The girl found the “Wang Wang Blues” and “On the ’Gin ’Gin ’Ginny Shore,” and she and Roscoe were making a beautiful duet as the boys wheeled in the breakfast, Freddie on the phone to some showgirls he’d met at Tait’s last night.

  About the time they’d finished eating, the mixing of gin blossoms in fine form now, the telephone rang, the telephone having rung nonstop since they’d all arrived, and Freddie said, “Come on up.”

  “Who’s that?” Roscoe asked.

  “You remember that big-eyed girl of Henry Lehrman’s? She was at Keystone a few years back.”

  “Sure, sure. She comin’ up?”

  “She’s here.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Virginia Rappe.”

  “A virgin what?”

  By the time Virginia walked into the party, Roscoe was on his third blossom of the morning and greeted the woman with a slight bow. “I do know you.”

  She winked at him.

  She was indeed a big-eyed girl with a scandalous little bob and good arms and shoulders. She cocked her hip as she talked, a bit meatier in the bust and butt since he’d known her but still looking luscious and sensual. Dynamite smile. A sharp dresser, with clothes that looked straight out of a French fashion magazine. Smelled just like a plucked rose.

  “I like your hat,” he said.

  “Knew you would,” she said.

  She smiled and stuck it on the fat man’s head—way too small—and Roscoe made a straight face, walking back to the bathroom for another gin blossom, in pajamas and robe and that ridiculous little hat.

  “You mind if I invite a friend up?” Virginia Rappe asked.

  “Send her up. Send them all up. All girls welcome. Didn’t you see our sign?”

  He pressed a gin blossom in Virginia’s hand as she sat in a green chair, crossed her legs, and dialed the house phone. The Victrola played “Second Hand Rose,” one of Roscoe’s favorites, and he clutched old Freddie near and sang to him as if he were a fine ole gal under a paper moon.

  PHIL HAULTAIN DROVE to Eddy Street and helped Sam up to the third floor and the one-bedroom apartment he shared with his new wife, Jose. She pronounced her name like Joe with an s on the end. Sam knew she’d be waiting up for him, probably walking the floor with worry, and that perhaps would be worse than the beating.

  “What happened?” she asked, unlatching the door chain and helping Phil get Sam into the room and then to the bedroom, where they set Sam down.

  “I tried to kiss a tiger,” Sam said.

  “Who are you?” she asked Phil.

  “The new Pinkerton man,” he said. “Your husband is training me.”

  “Lesson four,” Sam said. “Remove head from oncoming bricks.”

  “Someone hit him with a brick?” Jose asked. She had a rosary in her hand.

  “He took a pretty beatin’ this morning, ma’am. But he didn’t want to go to no hospital, only wanted me to stop by a speak and then drop him here. I seen him cough up a pool of blood, though.”

  Jose shook her head and told the young partner that was another matter. She tucked a pillow up under Sam’s head, now feeling the same way as he had up at Cushman’s sanitarium in Tacoma, and she went to the bath, returned with a cool towel, wiped his face, and made him turn his head. He felt those goose eggs right quick and let out a few choice words.

  “Be still. I’m just trying to help.”

  “Are you trying to play nurse again?” Sam said. “Phil, my wife’s crazy. She loves blood.”

  “Apparently you do, too,” Jose said.

  “I’ll be goin’, ma’am.”

  “What your name?”

  “Phil. Phil Haultain. I see you’re expecting, too. You mind me asking when?”

  Out the good eye, Sam watched Jose smile at the big fella.

  Jose was a woman of healthy proportions with bright blue eyes and brown hair and nice little sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She’d been so damn cute back at Cushman’s that he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off of her. And she didn’t seem to mind him being a lunger.

  A few months after a long rainy day at a little hotel, he’d gotten a letter down in San Diego. Apparently, he’d left something with her.

  He heard Phil and Jose talking in the main room of the apartment and then the door closing. She returned to the room and closed the drapes.

  “I was worried.”

  “I figured.”

  “But I knew you’d be back.”

  “Like a bad penny.”

  “That’s my man.”

  Sam winked at her.

  It hurt to wink when only one eye worked.

  THE SHOWGIRLS ARRIVED at the St. Francis a short time later. One was an absolute doll, with brown eyes and soft lips, and the other had bulging blue eyes and crooked teeth. But she had big tits, and nice legs, too, and Roscoe wasn’t in a picky mood, opening the door wide. Freddie took an instant liking to the pretty one, Alice, while the other one, calling herself Zey, wanted to sit on the love seat next to Roscoe and run down all the tunes she could sing. She had very cute knees.

  But her singing wasn’t much better than her face, and Luke howled when she hit the high notes. How he loved that dog.

  “Do you sing, Mr. Arbuckle?” she asked.

  “Caruso once called me a beautiful songbird.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He sings. Well, he sang. He just passed.”

  Roscoe studied her to make sure she wasn’t joking and caught the eye of Virginia, who was now standing next to the window, the curtains flowing in the hot afternoon air, most of the folks in the room now sweating, and he smiled.

  She smiled back, and he noticed the dark circles and the sad black eyes.

  Roscoe went back into the bathroom, where they’d set up the bar, and found more ice in the sink and a fresh bottle of Scotch. The gin blossoms were starting to hurt his throat a little and he thought the Scotch would calm it all down.

  He looked at himself in the mirror, adjusting the collar of his silk robe along his sizable neck. He plugged a cigar in the corner of his mouth, bit off the end, and winked back at his own reflection.

  And then he thought more about it, straightened his pajama collar, and blew himself a kiss. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin a bright pink.

  In room 1220, Virginia’s friend Maude wa
s dancing on the fireplace hearth. She was wearing Roscoe’s pajamas, the striped material swallowing her body, this weird-looking fella who claimed he was in the movie biz egging her on as she went through a whole routine, sweating in the tent of clothes, her black hair matted to her face, not once losing a drop of the alcohol from her glass.

  She was a fine little gal, too. And Roscoe was glad to add her to the collection.

  He watched her, standing back from a small crowd, and as the song ended Maude took a polite bow. The big record needle caught on the sea of dead space and swam and swam, all eyes turning back to Roscoe. He narrowed his eyes at Maude, friend of that bit-part chippie from Los Angeles. His pajama top loose and raggedly buttoned on her, split nearly down to her navel.

  That straight face slowly cracked into a grin and then into an all-out laugh, and everyone laughed with him, and the Victrola was reloaded and Roscoe guzzled down the Scotch, now thinking of Kentucky bourbon, and he rocked and danced, the space between the ice in the bathroom and the big chair where he held court seeming to stretch and spin and grow with life.

  He wiped his face and took off his robe. The breath and laughter and people in the room had brought in so much heat, and Lowell came by and introduced a pretty green-eyed girl with a pert nose and Roscoe was thinking, This was the one. Yes, Daddy, this was the one. Her name was Mae, and he’d promised to take her for a ride in the Pierce. He remembered.

  “Want to get married?” Roscoe asked.

  Lowell laughed at his drunken leer and said the girl was already married and to keep his paws off, and, on top of it all, Roscoe would never guess in a million years who her father-in-law was.

  “Kaiser Wilhelm.”

  “Billy Sunday.”

  Roscoe laughed and laughed.

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “What would Reverend Sunday say about this party?” Roscoe asked the girl.

  “He’d say his little sweetie would like another drink,” she said.

  “I knew I liked that guy.”

  “You’ll take me for a ride?”

  “I’ll let you drive.”

  Up on the hearth, Maude tossed her sweaty black hair from side to side and swung around, doing high kicks with that Semnacher fella until she couldn’t breathe, and then she told everyone to step back and they did. And the dark girl with the nice build removed the pajama top and showed off her fine, sweating breasts.

  Roscoe licked his lips and stood and shuffled over to her, moving Semnacher away and trying to dance with this girl Maude, tugging at the pajama bottoms she had tied into a knot.

  And Maude pushed him away and played like she was going to slap his face. One of the new girls—the showgirls—joined her up on the hearth stage, removing her top, saying her figure was much better, Maude saying she didn’t stand a chance.

  Maude tried to bump the girl from the hearth with her hips and butt.

  The girl got down to her brassiere, the jazz and the room so damn hot. Everyone dancing and carrying on, and there was knock at the door from the hotel dick and Lowell sent him away with a twenty-dollar bill before he could peep into the room.

  Roscoe joined the showgirls—Alice and Zey, that was their names—and they took to singing every other chorus of a new record called “I Found a Rose in the Devil’s Garden.” And that ugly Zey girl could really sing now, Roscoe telling her that after they’d sung the record five times, him nearly tripping over a couple rolling around the floor in an impromptu petting party.

  Maude tore at the brassiere of the showgirl and ripped it from her chest and the girl gave a pleasant little shriek, modestly covering her breasts, but then breaking away and opening her arms wide in display. The girl so proud that her breasts were twice the size of Maude’s. Her nipples so long and rubbery that Roscoe licked his lips again.

  They shook and shimmied together, both showing off in fine form. Roscoe changed records and danced with Alice Blake. He kept dancing with her, her nude back hot and wet and wonderful, and then stumbled toward the bathroom.

  “Aren’t we going for a ride?” asked Mae.

  “Freddie’s got the car,” he said. “He’s taking Miss Whosit to Tait’s. I need to freshen up, my daisy. Get dressed.”

  “You promised,” she said. “Who is that girl?”

  Roscoe winked back at her.

  When he walked back into the adjoining room, room 1219, he found Virginia splayed out on his bed, eyes glassy and face as white as a boiled shirt. Roscoe looked at the girl and tilted his head. He got to his knee and smoothed back the bobbed hair from her big black eyes and she turned a big look up at him.

  The stare startled him.

  “Hello there, snuggle pup,” she said.

  Roscoe walked back to the door and closed it with a light click. The music was muffled and the laughter coming from a million miles away.

  He wet his lips, hearing the girls still singing and men egging them on.

  Sometime later, Roscoe would be jostled awake, hearing hard banging on the door and that girl Maude screaming for him to open the door. More pounding and that Maude woman yelling, wanting to know why the girl had screamed.

  “Is someone hurt?”

  Roscoe got to his feet and ran his hand over his sweaty face. He opened and shut his eyes, adjusting to the thin light coming through the breaking white curtains. His pajamas were soaked.

  Another voice yelled, a man’s voice, after the pounding, this time announcing it was the hotel detective and to open the goddamn door.

  3

  Maude Delmont screamed for everyone to back the hell up and let the poor girl breathe. Roscoe just snorted at her, looking down at both of them huddled on the single bed like they were some kind of pathetic pair. And then the fat man had the nerve to walk right past the hotel dick and into the bathroom to refill his Scotch glass. Maude cradled the girl’s head in her lap and felt her forehead and told the dick to run find a doctor, rocking Virginia like you would a small child and breathing her drunk breath into her ear, “There, there, it will all be all right.” Virginia looked truly terrible, her green dress wringing wet, skin clammy, and eyes half closed.

  “What s’matter with her?” the hotel dick asked.

  “It’s a complex medical situation, sport,” Lowell Sherman said. “She’s plastered.”

  “I better call the doc.”

  “You want a drink first?” Lowell asked. Sherman already wearing a fresh pin-striped suit, hair pressed and neat, after Maude had let him have his way in the bathroom in room 1221.

  The dick looked down at the sweating and moaning girl and shrugged. “Maybe she’ll sober up.”

  Zey Prevon popped into the room and then came the other bobbed tart, her better-looking twin, that dark-eyed showgirl, Alice Blake. Alice said that her rehearsal at Tait’s Café had been canceled, but it didn’t matter because she could sing and dance the number in her sleep and didn’t care that much for the song anyway. “That’s why I try to mix it up a little bit in my mind. No one likes to hear a song when they know where the notes hit.”

  “I like the standards,” Roscoe said, coming from the bath with a tall Scotch, Virginia’s little straw hat with long ribbon still cocked on his head. “I used to sing them for seventeen bucks a week at the Portola Theater. ‘By the light of the silvery moon.’ ”

  “ ‘By the light. By the light.’ ” Alice perked up and copied his soft-shoe move, tap for tap.

  Maude held Virginia, feeling her shaking body, and thinking how Virginia sure was a good egg. And she whispered to her, so light, like a child praying, “You’re doing great, sister.” She let go of Virginia’s head and tried to stand up, all those Scotches belting the hell out of her brain. But Maude found her feet, knowing she was in control the moment she felt her toes in the carpet and stood, using the nightstand that separated the two beds.

  She wobbled over to Roscoe, parting the two showgirls and brushing by Al Semnacher with a sloppy wink, and shook her paw up at Roscoe, saying, “What did you d
o to her, you fat ape?”

  “Nothing.”

  “She’s not right. Can’t you see? Can’t you see?”

  “I can see you’re a crazy nut who wasn’t invited. Either you get her out of my room or I’ll throw both of you out the window.”

  Sherman stood in the doorway. He looked at Virginia and then back at Maude and dismissed it all with the flick of a wrist. “Let’s crank up the Victrola.”