Devil's Garden

by Ace Atkins

  “W.R.?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “I s-sure am hungry. C-can we eat?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Miss Davies sat alone at the end of that big table and pulled off the leg of the turkey and wrapped her other hand around a jeweled goblet of wine.

  Mr. Hearst paced.

  His feet made cavernous clicking noises, and he moved back and forth and back and forth, and then forward, toward the big set for tomorrow’s scene at the Tower of London. He leaned into the fake brick wall—just plaster—and felt for the shackles that hung there, thinking of what George had told him, and he whistled for George, and George, knowing what a whistle meant, came running with a writing tablet in hand, ready to cable the Examiner offices. The story would be fed to the Hearst wires, cabling from coast to coast and around the globe.

  “A virgin. A star of tomorrow. A waif.”

  George wrote down the words.

  “And Arbuckle. A bloated beast. Three hundred and fifty pounds and lecherous and thirsty. An absolute animal.”

  “The girl?”

  “A simple insect drawn into the spider’s web.”

  “Do you want a drawing of that, sir?”

  “George, you are a smart one,” Mr. Hearst said. “You should be the one running the newspapers.”

  “I do my best.”

  “Make sure the spider has the bloated face of the man and that they have plenty of booze bottles in the web.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The air was thin and cold, and the only sound came from electric fans blowing away the heat from the stage lights. But there was a feel to the set, the props became real in shadow, and, in the camera’s eye, everything came into focus.

  4

  The newspapermen were at the Hall of Justice when Roscoe pulled up in a cab with his manager, Lou Anger, and his attorney, Frank Dominguez. Anger wandered off to talk to the desk sergeant about bail while two cops in stiff blue walked Roscoe and Dominguez up to the second floor and through a big, silent desk pool of plainclothes cops and into a back room where a door of frosted glass clicked shut. Roscoe heard a couple of the cops snicker about him wanting to join the force, and it was all a bunch of laughs because of all those Keystone shorts that made him famous. But the cops sitting across the big schoolhouse table didn’t look anything like Al St. John or any of the other Keystone boys. They didn’t look like they’d jump at the sound of a gunshot or slip on a banana peel or allow some felon to steal the keys on their hip. These were big, beefy Irishmen. One of them, a cop called Tom Reagan, had a head like a bullet and a thick chest and muscles. He had blond hair and a boyish face, and stood and shook Frank Dominguez’s hand but opted not to address Roscoe except to nod over to another big Irishman named Griff Kennedy, with pomaded red hair and pale blue eyes, who just nodded to Roscoe and blew smoke from his nose.

  “And this is Assistant District Attorney U’Ren,” Reagan said. “Judge Brady is out of town, but he’ll be back tomorrow. Mr. U’Ren will be handling the case.”

  “Not much to handle,” Dominguez said. “Is there?”

  Dominguez was as big as any of the men in the room. Not as muscled as the cops but not as fat as Roscoe. Just a well-fed Spaniard on retainer for Paramount who wore a two-hundred-dollar suit with a silk neckerchief and a solid gold wristwatch that looked sharp against his dark skin.

  “A young woman swore out a complaint on ole Fatty here,” Griff Kennedy said, poking his thumb sideways. “She sez she was at the party and Miss Rappe told her she’d been assaulted.”

  “Roscoe,” Roscoe said from the seat, looking down at his hands and then glancing up at the beefy detectives. “My name is Roscoe.”

  Kennedy looked to Reagan and Reagan looked to U’Ren. U’Ren, the only small guy in the room, glanced down at the files in front of him and then peered up through his pince-nez glasses slid high on a weasely nose and said, “You’ve been charged with murder. These men will take you into custody as soon as we finish up.”

  Dominguez stood. “Could someone get me some coffee? This is going to be a long night.”

  U’Ren stood, too, and began to pace, with hands behind his back, head tilted up in thought, and it was all very theatrical. He stopped after a while, placing little knuckles on the table and leaning into where Roscoe sat across from Frank Dominguez and said, “Let’s be practical, Señor Dominguez.”

  Roscoe narrowed his eyes at Dominguez. Dominguez leaned back in his chair.

  “Judge Brady offers a reasonable sentence.”

  “Any type of sentence isn’t reasonable to me.”

  “Mr. Arbuckle pleads guilty,” U’Ren said. “And we can perhaps spare the hangman’s noose.”

  “You don’t have a scrap of evidence against my client. And please let me remind you that Mr. Arbuckle here is beloved the world over.”

  Milton U’Ren grinned, his teeth crooked and sharp in the long, lean face.

  “I know of Mr. Arbuckle’s reputation in those silly films,” U’Ren said. “And I also know he came to our city for his alcohol-fueled jazz orgy at our best hotel. This is gutter-trash morals that we will not tolerate. If you think that’s acceptable, perhaps you should have both remained in Los Angeles.”

  “We’re through,” Dominguez said. “Either charge us or let us go.”

  U’Ren raised off his knuckles and wiped his brow with a handkerchief from his tight-fitting coat. He cleaned his glasses and plunked them back on his weasely face. “As you wish. Detectives?”

  Griff Kennedy and Tom Reagan took a big arm each and moved Roscoe from his chair and out of the back office and into a hallway, where they prodded him up a large spiral staircase to the highest floor of the Hall of Justice. There they strung a board around his neck with the porcelain number 32052 and told him to turn to the left.

  Roscoe looked over at Dominguez and Dominguez shook his head with disgust. Roscoe smiled weakly at him and gave him a little wink.

  In a loud, booming voice, Roscoe told the camera man—loud enough for the reporters to overhear—“You don’t need to tell me what to do in front of the camera. How’s that profile looking?”

  The newsboys laughed and wrote it all down.

  SAM WENT INTO THE OFFICE on that Monday to pick up his weekly check of twenty-one bucks and to see if anything had come across the wire from the Baltimore office. Usually they’d get some tips on some fugitives from the east or a wandering daughter from New York headed their way. Wandering-daughter jobs were constant. Nine times out of ten, the poor girl split because she was engaged to some lunkhead banker’s son and the thought of going through with the act made her physically ill.

  The Pinkerton San Francisco branch office was in room 314 of the Flood Building. It was a small office, without the need for an anteroom or a secretary, and Sam rapped on the door before finding old Phil Geauque with his feet up on his desk, dressed in high trousers and suspenders over a crisp white shirt and short red tie. He was smoking a cigar and was in midconversation with a fat Latin man, who stood and was pacing and cursing and didn’t stop as Sam closed the door behind him.

  Geauque remained seated but introduced the Spaniard as Frank Dominguez, a defense attorney from down south.

  “I’ll be down at Clinton’s for coffee.”

  “Stay, Sam,” the old man said. “We may have something for you.”

  Sam stood but Dominguez sat. He was a neat dresser, even wearing a red silk scarf tied at the throat. And it was odd for a man to wear a scarf, but somehow on Dominguez it looked regal.

  “Mr. Dominguez represents Mr. Arbuckle. I imagine you know all about that mess.”

  “I’ve heard a thing or two.”

  Geauque lowered his big feet to the ground and leaned in to tap a three-inch ash off his cigar. He plunked the cigar back in his mouth and asked Dominguez, “What about witnesses?”

  “Roscoe drove up with a couple of his buddies, Lowell Sherman and Freddie Fishback.”

  “Fishback?” Sam asked.
“Hell of a name.”

  “Who else?” Geauque asked.

  “His chauffeur and his dog, Luke.”

  “I once saw him in a picture where that dog could climb a ladder,” Sam said. “I didn’t believe it.”

  “You a fan of Mr. Arbuckle?”

  “I’ve always been partial to Wallace Reid. My grandmother said I favored him.”

  “No need to worry about Sherman and Fishback,” Dominguez said. “They can testify to Mr. Arbuckle’s behavior and to the fact that he was alone with Miss Rappe for only ten minutes. At no time did they ever hear screaming or violent sounds coming from the room.”

  “Who else was there?” Geauque asked.

  “Mainly a bunch of floozies and showgirls and the like. A nightgown salesman named Fortlouis. Some fella named Kingstone we can’t find.”

  “Doc Kingstone?” Sam asked. “He’s a boxing promoter. Met him down at the Wonderland on fight night. You have the names of the girls?”

  “Well, there’s Maude Delmont. Mr. Geauque has a copy of the complaint signed. She said the Rappe woman told her that Mr. Arbuckle had forced himself on her and, in doing so, crushed her.”

  “What do we know about Delmont?” Geauque asked.

  “Not a thing.”

  “The Rappe girl?”

  “Typical Hollywood chippie. The papers have been calling her a starlet, but I can’t find a soul in Los Angeles who can name a picture she’s been in.”

  “She and Arbuckle friendly?” Sam asked.

  “Mr. Arbuckle said he didn’t even discover Miss Rappe was in his room until he’d finished taking a shower. She’d passed out by the toilet.”

  “How’d she get to the bed?”

  “Mr. Arbuckle said he carried her.”

  “Other witnesses?” Geauque asked.

  “Cops are looking for a couple of showgirls who were in the room when Miss Rappe made the statement to Maude Delmont. About Roscoe hurting her.”

  “Names?” Sam asked. He opened his tweed coat for a little notepad and pencil.

  “Alice Blake. Zey Prevon or Prevost—something like that. Roscoe said one of the girls, Miss Blake, worked at a joint called Tait’s. You know it?”

  “Sure,” Sam said.

  “This Prevon or Prevost woman worked as a cigarette girl somewhere.”

  “I’m on it,” Sam said. And the men turned away from each other, but Sam stayed by the door until Geauque turned back and caught Sam’s eyes.

  Geauque showed him the palm of his right hand and nodded. “Of course.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a check ledger, writing one out to Sam for a week’s advance.

  “How’s Jose?” he asked.

  “Big as a house.”

  MAUDE DELMONT HADN’T LEFT the St. Francis except to visit Virginia once at Wakefield Sanitorium before the poor girl died. She’d told the day manager she just didn’t have the energy to change hotels and he instantly started an account to pay for all her room service and phone charges, as she called down to Los Angeles every other hour looking for that rat bastard Al Semnacher. She ordered room service a lot, had her two outfits laundered daily, and read stories in The Call, the Examiner, and the Chronicle about a producer she knew named Henry Lehrman calling Arbuckle a beast for what he’d done to Henry’s poor sweetheart. He said if he came face-to-face with Fatty, he’d kill him.

  That was a riot. Last she’d known, Lehrman wouldn’t answer a single cable Virginia sent to New York.

  That afternoon Maude lay on the thick feathered mattress in a black housecoat—thinking black was a nice touch when she had the doorman go out and fetch some items for her—with one arm draped across her eyes, the Victrola from the party now in her room but this time playing a slow funeral dirge and some other kinds of depressing music, mainly opera. She really liked the stuff from Tosca, and the bellman told her they were going to do a performance of the opera in a couple weeks, it being opera season and all.

  Maude thought San Francisco was some kind of town to actually have a goddamn season for opera.

  An hour later, two cops stood at the foot of her bed. Another one stood by the hotel door. A big woman in a big blue wool sweater and big skirt down past her ankles. She wore a woman’s version of a police hat pinned to her head and kept a little brown purse clutched to her side, where she probably kept her gun.

  The cops, Griff Kennedy and Tom Reagan, introduced her as Katherine Eisenhart.

  “Now, these two girls, were they friends of yours?” Kennedy asked.

  “No.”

  “Had you met them before Mr. Arbuckle’s party?”

  “No.”

  “Were they with Miss Rappe before she went to room 1219?” Tom Reagan asked.

  “Yes,” Maude said, dropping the arm from her eyes. “Yes. They were admiring her dress and hair. I remember that.”

  “What about after?”

  “When I beat down the door?”

  “When you said you knocked on the door,” Reagan said.

  “Hammered with all my might against that beastly lock?”

  Kennedy looked to Reagan and Reagan back to Kennedy and, for the life of her, Maude could barely tell the two thick Irishmen apart except that Kennedy—or Griff, as he said—had red hair and Reagan’s hair was blond, and Reagan’s head looked like some kind of melon.

  “Do you know where we can find these young ladies?” Kate Eisenhart asked, stepping away from the door and out of the shadows. A window was open in the hotel room and they could hear the high tinny squawk of horns and the clanging of the cable cars out on Powell. The curtains blew slightly in the breeze.

  “No.”

  “What about Mr. Semnacher?” Eisenhart asked.

  “I don’t know what’s become of Mr. Semnacher. He left shortly after Miss Rappe became ill.”

  “Did he speak to Miss Rappe after she became sick?” Reagan asked.

  “Did he know Miss Rappe well?” Kennedy asked.

  “Did he see the girl sick in 1219?” Kate Eisenhart asked.

  Maude Delmont tossed her head from side to side on the pillow and groaned. “My head feels like it’s going to explode. All these questions and I’ve yet to put my best friend in the world in the ground. Can’t I mourn for her?”

  Kennedy looked over to Reagan. Reagan walked to the open window looking out over Union Square and the Spanish-American War Monument.

  Kate Eisenhart sat on the bed and there was a noticeable shift in the mattress as she felt Maude’s forehead and traced the line of her jaw with the tips of her stubby man fingers. Maude smiled up at the big woman and the woman’s cheeks flushed.

  “Did anyone else hear Miss Rappe say that Roscoe Arbuckle had hurt her?”

  “Just the girls.”

  “Alice and Zey?” Reagan said.

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t know them?” Reagan asked.

  “No.”

  “And you don’t know where to find them?” Kennedy said from the window.

  “One of them sang at a speakeasy. I don’t know what the Zey girl did. To be honest, she was the less attractive of the two, although I think she fancied herself as an actress.”

  Maude watched the two men grow restless and play with their felt hats in their hands, kneading the wool and exchanging glances, and all Maude wanted was for room service to arrive with her lamb chops with mashed potatoes and a cherry tart on the side.

  Maude closed her eyes and opened them again, and Kate Eisenhart was smiling at her, and, from the big weight on the bed, Maude could feel the policewoman’s breathing grow heavy and labored whenever she met her eye. The thick roll of fat under Kate’s jaw trembled a bit.

  “Now, now. I know what it’s like to lose a friend. I bet you can’t even eat.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Tom, Griff—you two skedaddle. I’ll stay with this poor creature.”

  “We have a few—” Tom started.

  “Thank you,” Maude said. “My nerves are raw as a side
of beef.”

  The big fat policewoman tucked the covers up to Maude’s chin and turned off the bedside lamp. She stood and pushed Kennedy and Reagan toward the door.

  “I dreamed of her last night,” Kate said.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Virginia. She wanted people to know what that Fatty had done to her. He’s a monster. A vile, disgusting creature. If I had my way, they’d chop his man bits clean off.”