Blood and Oranges

by James O. Goldsborough

  Keep it close, keep it close, she told herself, pushing the plane to 360 with the tailwinds and feeling a thrill of flying like she’d never felt before.

  When they passed the final marker at Turtle Rock and began to turn back into the wind she’d closed to a quarter mile. She’d outflown him on the return! They both landed under thirty minutes for the run with spectators cheering and cameras rolling as they climbed from the cockpits and shook hands. He pulled her into an embrace. Never had she felt such exhilaration! At that moment she was in love.

  She had won by losing.

  The following week she found a letter in her box at Hughes Aircraft, unusual because she received little mail at work, intriguing because the envelope was blank except for the address and the stamp “official” where the return address should be. The little she knew about official mail was that it usually had the address of the sending organization clearly marked in the upper left-hand corner. This one did not. She took it with her into the canteen, poured a cup of coffee and sat down to read.

  Dear Miss Mull,

  Fresh from seeing the newsreel of your marvelous race with Mr. Hughes and reading your interview sent out by the wire services, I am writing to say that I am thrilled beyond words at your accomplishment and wholeheartedly agree with your comments on the role women pilots can play in the war. At a moment we are experiencing a serious shortage of pilots it is quite wrong to exclude qualified women from the USAAF. In Great Britain, as I’m sure you know, women have been flying for the Air Transport Auxiliary since the war began, thus it can hardly be a question of a lack of female aptitude or competence. It seems to me that the attention you’ve brought to the subject can be used effectively to argue for creation in this country of something similar to the British ATA.

  I suggest you write to Lt. Col. Robert Olds in care of the War Department to make the points you made in your interview. Col. Olds is in close contact with General Arnold, commander of the Army Air Corps. I’ve taken the liberty of sending your interview to both men in case they missed it, which I doubt, along with a note that someone should be sent to England to learn more about the ATA. I have also sent the interview and note to my husband.

  I think you should be part of any mission to England. It seems to me that the first step is to make an assessment of how many experienced female pilots we have in the United States. Perhaps that could be an assignment for you. You might want to bring the matter up with Colonel Olds or General Arnold.

  It is a capital idea you have proposed, and one I fully support.

  Yours sincerely,

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  It was typed on White House stationery and signed simply, Eleanor Roosevelt, in large, bold, slightly masculine script.

  Chapter 24

  Henry Callender had no one to play chess with. Cal had played with him for a while but then went off to war with all the other young men. His coworkers at the temple didn’t play chess, and even Nyx had lost interest. Nothing was the same anymore, although he gave Angie credit for how she’d stepped in for Willie. The temple was full, the shows, in part because of the war, were more popular than ever and, yes, he had to admit it, Angie had taken the truth of Jesus and hoisted it as high as Willie ever had. Coast to coast, thanks to KWEM radio, she was acclaimed, proof for women everywhere that they could do jobs once done by men only.

  But how he missed Willie! A day didn’t pass that he didn’t think of him, the man to whom he owed so much. Nor did a day pass that he didn’t think of Willie’s brother, the man who had cheated everyone.

  He still played chess on Willie’s board, the board that once belonged to Grandpa Otto Herzog of Monterey, the board Cal gave to him when he left and that now sat on the coffee table between his sofa and Nyx’s chair. Nyx still occupied the chair, though he mostly slept now, and Henry got no more advice from him. He still played Willie, and Willie sometimes won. He’d played Willie enough to know his thinking and know his moves, and he made them as faithfully as he remembered. But Willie had improvised, too, as any good chess player does, and Henry could not improvise for him. He could improvise for himself, and that gave him the edge, except when improvisation led to disaster and loss, as it sometimes did.

  He talked to Nyx more than ever and always on the same subject: There was something wrong in a world where a good man like Willie Mull was murdered and his evil twin thrived, growing ever richer, making a mockery of justice. The Lord has His ways, and that those ways are unfathomable to mortals remained as true as ever. But while accepting the mystery, Henry Callender never had been one to stand by and just let things happen. He’d gotten where he was by doing what had to be done. It had been that way on the trail. Nothing had changed.

  Months of brooding weighed heavily on him. In his long life, he reproached himself only one thing: that he had never settled up with Eddie Mull for having robbed him of what was rightfully his. He couldn’t do it when Willie was alive, or rather for Willie’s sake he wouldn’t do it. But Willie was gone, and Henry blamed Eddie for his death.

  Callender knew about the Providence, knew about the money that came from the ship, the alms money, gambling money, tainted money, money stolen from people who’d done honest work to earn it. When they prayed together, he’d heard Willie asking the Lord for forgiveness. “Penance, penance,” he would say, words telling Henry he was carrying a heavy burden, the burden of his brother, the man who’d made his fortune through every form of cheating, conniving, stealing, and transgressing and was passing the filthy lucre to his brother as payment for his silence. How could a sinner like Eddie Mull thrive while everyone connected with him was destroyed? What kind of terrible swift justice was that?

  One evening, he returned to his duplex, alone as usual, switching on the light, looking to the chessboard, smiling at Nyx. The cat did not move, did not even open his eyes. He was an old cat and mostly slept, but always opened his eyes when Henry came in, always acknowledged him in some catlike way even if he did not come over and rub up against him as in the old days. He was on his side as he liked to be when sleeping, head gently resting on his cushion. But he did not move. Henry bent down to stroke him, and still he did not move. He sat down, took Nyx in his lap and began to cry. Why did things have to be like that? He held him and stroked him and thought about the fragility of life, always hanging by a thread. It wasn’t right. The good die, and the bad go on living. There must be retribution. He’d talked to Nyx about retribution for so long, for so many years without doing anything, that the cat had died of frustration.

  He buried Nyx at the back of the duplex in the dirt area by the fence that separated his house from the yard behind. Afterward, he went into the bedroom and took down a shoebox from the closet. He sat on his bed, opened the box and took the Remington Derringer from the oilcloth in which it had lain wrapped since he’d taken it from his backpack years before. He took out a box of .41 shorts and carried pistol and ammunition into the kitchen. He fired the gun a few times, watching the firing pin move between the twin barrels at each pull of the trigger.

  The firing made a pure, clean sound, one he hadn’t heard in years, the sound of perfect engineering, of metal turned to the highest precision. He’d used the pistol before, but never to kill. He put a round in each barrel and aimed at the window. The half-moon handle felt natural in his gnarled hand. He took the rounds out, laid them on the table and pulled the trigger a few more times, getting used to the feel again and to the sound of metal on metal. It was an old gun, he doubted that they even made them anymore, but it was the only revolver he’d ever owned. He oiled it, wiped it clean with a rag and put it back in the shoebox in the closet.

  He’d never driven a car, never learned, never cared to. In the mountains and deserts you used horses or mules or walked, and in town you used buses and trolleys. Los Angeles had a good trolley system, the Red Cars and the Yellow Cars, and where one wouldn’t take you the other would. Callender loved trol
leys, rode them everywhere, rode some of them to places like Redondo Beach that didn’t have many people. Los Angeles was a smart city, running lines to places it wanted people to live and bringing them along afterward. That’s how the San Fernando Valley was built, first the trolleys, then the people. Next they ran lines to the beaches so the people could get away from the growing mess that was downtown.

  His favorite line was the Pacific Electric car west to Culver City, on to Playa del Rey and south along the beaches to Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo. It was his favorite Sunday after-church excursion, less than an hour from the temple to the pier in Redondo with only two changes and the whole thing for half a dollar. He’d get a good seat by the window and watch the city clang by—downtown, west on the avenues, past MGM Studios, through the beanfields to the coast. He’d slow his mind and just observe. From years of prospecting, he’d learned not to think, to empty the mind, just be. At Redondo, he’d walk out on the pier and drink a beer, eat a sandwich and watch the men with their lines in the water. The women would come out, too, pushing prams and spinning parasols, enjoying the bracing ocean air. Life as it should be.

  He never took the Venice line anymore, the Short Line they called it. Once it had been his favorite, especially Sundays when he had time before the evening show at the temple, and he’d catch it downtown, get off at Windward Avenue in Venice and stroll the strand with other Sunday flâneurs to Ocean Park. But Venice changed after it was annexed by Los Angeles and got a Sunday “sin” exemption, allowing Eddie and his crowd to turn the strand into a tawdry place of hawkers and hucksters and women who didn’t bother to hide what they had and what they were. Henry had worked with Willie to clean up Venice, to close up the dancehalls and brothels, but they’d lost that fight, lost it to Eddie, and Henry didn’t go to Venice anymore.

  But today he was. Dressing, he’d surprised himself by taking out his old clothes, not the new ones he’d worn since coming to the temple. Maybe that was the trouble: he’d shed his old skin, which was his real skin. That had been Willie’s problem too. The old clothes had been hanging for a while. The Stetson was up there, and he gave it a few swipes with a brush. The boots needed polishing, but he didn’t bother. He took the Remington Derringer out of the shoebox, loaded it and put it on safety. He walked into the kitchen and suddenly had a thirst, squeezing a couple of blood oranges and downing the pulpy red juice in a few gulps, feeling it hit bottom. A small, light gun, the Derringer bulged no more in his jacket pocket than a good wad would do if he’d had one. He combed out his mustache and set out for the Short Line.

  He caught the trolley at the Hill Street station and rode it past Venice to Ocean Park where he’d first met Eddie at the beauty contest and stayed on to the end of the line at Santa Monica City Hall. From city hall it was but a short walk down Olympic to the Santa Monica pier. He wasn’t expected at work until four o’clock to get ready for the evening show, but he wasn’t worrying about being late. Not on this day. Not ever again.

  He’d already been to the Providence, discreetly gone out twice to check on Eddie’s routine, to reconnoiter. Eddie was always out there Sundays—why wouldn’t he be since he never set foot in church? He went to pick up the proceeds from Friday and Saturday and stayed until late afternoon, usually having a few drinks with customers. Eddie knew time was running out on the Providence. Legally, the ship was beyond the three-mile state jurisdiction and untouchable, but with the war the nation was discovering virtue again. Even someone as crooked as District Attorney Barton Pitts couldn’t hold out forever against public disgust.

  Arriving at the pier, Henry kept on walking, past the fishmongers and restaurants, past the Sunday fishermen with their lines in the water. Santa Monica Pier was like Redondo, a quiet sea promenade of line-fishers and strollers, not at all like the noisy carnival piers of Venice and Ocean Park. Henry enjoyed the clear day and fine-looking people, some looking like they’d come straight from church. A few of them nodded politely, which pleased him. He’d long observed that Sundays did that to people. He watched a fisherman haul in what looked like a bass. Henry’s mind was on the fine day and his good mood. He was not thinking at all about the task at hand. At the sign marked “PROVIDENCE,” he slipped quietly into the line for tickets.

  Dressed in his trail clothes he stood out but didn’t mind the stares. On the trail no one dares stare, and city stares didn’t mean a thing to him. The people in the line were different from those walking the pier—noisier, edgier, no prams, no children, more men than women, though mostly older men like him. It took a few minutes to get down to the ticket office. The girl stared a moment but said nothing. She’d learned that cheap clothes didn’t always mean empty pockets. He slid her a quarter, the cost of the launch. A gangway rocking gently with the waves led to the launch at the bottom.

  Leaving a nice wake behind, the boat did three miles in under ten minutes, and people poured quickly out of it, up the gangway and onto the ship like rushing for seats at a football game. Boarding, you heard the clanging of slots and calls from the tables. It was early afternoon, and those looking for fortification pushed their way toward the bar and dining room on the first deck. Better to dine and drink while you still had money to do it. In the old days, he would have gone to the bar himself, but Henry was sober.

  Glancing around the crowded main salon, checking the closed door to Eddie’s office beyond the gaming area, he planted himself in a chair on the opposite side of the room, near a cashier’s booth, where he had a view across the room to Eddie’s office. There weren’t many chairs because you didn’t come to the gambling salons to sit unless there was a game in front of you. Beside him was a table with a box on it. He read the inscription on the brass plaque: “JUST A FEW DOLLARS OF YOUR WINNINGS WILL FEED AND HOUSE A POOR FAMILY FOR A WEEK.”

  He knew that box. It was the evil box, the snake box, the cursed box that had sent Willie to his knees in the chapel crying “penance, penance,” the box that held the filthy lucre that ate at Willie’s conscience, that bribed him to silence, that drove him away and got him killed.

  Henry sat by the box and watched the people, his eyes never straying far from the door across the room. At some point, Eddie would come out with his bodyguard, cross the room toward the cashier’s office with the intent of carrying the alms box into the room behind the cashier, collecting the money, filling his bags, and making his way down to the launch and back to Santa Monica to get ready for Monday deposits at his bank.

  It was the routine Henry had observed on his previous visits to the Providence, though never from this chair where Eddie would have spotted him. He didn’t mind being spotted today. Every step was clear in his mind. Eddie would cross the room greeting people, would not see Henry until he was upon him, and Henry would kill him. He would not kill the bodyguard. The bodyguard would kill him. It was clear in his mind, the way it had to be. He watched people come and go to the cashier, a few of them dropping something in the alms box. Some glanced or nodded, but most didn’t even notice him, just part of the décor. The ones coming to the cashier were mostly in a good mood. The ones in a bad mood didn’t need a cashier.

  The day grew later, and still Eddie did not appear. Henry patted his coat pocket and ran his hand over the smooth Remington Derringer, the twin barrels loaded, the safety catch on. It was a deadly pistol, but only at close range. Shoot someone in the heart from five feet and they were dead before they hit the ground. Shoot them in the hand, and they would never use that hand again. Two bullets would do the job. He’d brought no extras.

  Time passed slowly. He checked his watch, which said three o’clock. He’d been on the ship nearly two hours. If Eddie was on the ship, there would be some sign of him by now. Henry hadn’t been thinking about the temple. Why would he in the circumstances? But if Eddie wasn’t coming it was a different story. It took time to get to Echo Park from Santa Monica, even on the Short Line. He was suddenly discouraged. He’d planned it perfectly and said his p
rayers. He’d written a note and left it on the Nyx’s chair, where the police would find it, by the half-finished chess match, where Willie was up a bishop and likely to win. He’d steeled for what had to be done, and now it was off. He sat thinking about it a while before getting up. He perked himself up. There would be other Sundays.

  He walked out to the deck and sighted the launch speeding across open water toward him, spreading its foamy wake behind like a peacock spreading its tail. He looked toward Catalina Island and brought his eyes back over Palos Verdes Peninsula down the coast to Santa Monica. The launch was still a mile off, and he walked aft a few steps to gaze up the coast toward Point Dume. There were days when fog lay so low you couldn’t see your feet, others when smog hovered and your eyes burned so you had to step inside. This was not one of them. It was a beautiful day, the sky and ocean blue, the winds calm, and you could see forever.

  He came back as the launch pulled up. Lines were thrown, the gangway lowered and a new group of gamblers started up. Henry was at the front of those waiting behind the rope for the boat to empty so they could board for the trip back. He watched stylish men and beautiful women coming up, people clapping to the sound of the music from the restaurant, bubbling in anticipation of good times. On the Sabbath! He turned around to look at the people behind him, mostly silent, not so much bubbling. If there were winners among them, they weren’t showing it. Act like it’s not the first time. Losers, too, tried not to show it.

  And then there he was.

  Eddie Mull, the man who had broken every law and stolen everything—the oil, the temple, Willie’s life, Henry’s life and now from honest working people. Murderer? Something Willie once said about their mother’s death. Fatter now, always gross-mannered, the Mull good looks turned to sallow corruption. He was shaking hands with the launch captain and starting up the gangway, the last man off. He had no bodyguard. The bodyguard was on the ship ready to escort him back. Henry moved under the rope and started down.