He had wanted to bring her real flowers, but that idea hadn’t lasted long. There weren’t any, and even if there had been, he knew they’d only have poisonous thorns or smell like offal. He’d done the only thing he could think of – drawn her a bouquet of round-petaled daisies on a piece of paper supplied by the hotel front desk. The sheet was folded carefully in his pocket.
He pushed through the back door into a cramped hallway that opened into a large backstage storage area crowded with props, set pieces, and costumes. The chorus singers milled around, indistinguishable – except for their makeup – from the denizens out on New Bodie’s streets. He could hear the orchestra warming up, if the nails-on-chalkboard shriek of violins qualified as tuning. Amid the cacophony of the backstage preparations, Puccini’s voice rose, haranguing someone in Italian again. Alan pushed his way toward the dressing rooms lining one wall. Anticipation at seeing Sally again sent a thrill through him.
A gunshot cracked.
Alan stopped dead, frozen as much by the instant silence that descended backstage as by the report itself.
The door to Sally’s dressing room banged open, and the round man Alan had seen once before on stage burst out. Eyes bugged wide and hair disheveled, he hesitated, faced with the rest of the cast. A wild sob escaped his throat, and he shoved his way through the singers, past Alan, and out the stage entrance into the street.
Alan ran to the dressing room door, beating the nearest chorus members through the doorway by inches. They shoved in behind him.
Sally knelt, lifting a pistol off the floor. Just beyond her, partially hidden beneath a rack of costumes, Puccini lay dead, shot in the chest. Even as Alan stared, the body dissolved and disappeared, returning to the Undertaker, leaving nothing but a wet stain behind on the floorboards.
Turning, Sally met Alan’s gaze, her jaw slack. “He shot him!” she said. “Luigi shot him!”
*
Alan paced outside the stage entrance, waiting with the throng of onlookers. Several shotgun-toting deputies kept order, but the crowd seemed mostly curious, not riled up. Finally, the marshal escorted Sally out, long fingers clenched around her upper arm. She was still costumed as Minnie, her blonde hair mussed and falling out of its braids. She appeared lost and vulnerable in that sea of big men, and Alan would have done anything to grab her and run away to safety with her.
Behind her came two more deputies, and the man who had run earlier, whom someone in the crowd had identified to Alan as the tenor, Luigi Bonzoni. He was a short, round man, with curly black hair, a dark complexion, and a thin swooping moustache under a Roman nose. Unlike Sally, Bonzoni did not appear to be restrained. Quite the contrary. He was talking openly in broken English to the deputies, the panic he’d displayed earlier gone, replaced with a self-assured confidence. Alan took an instant dislike to him and his smug attitude.
“Alan!” Sally called.
He pressed forward until he could catch her free hand in his. She squeezed it hard.
“Please!” she said and burst into tears. “They’re charging me with the murder. I didn’t do it! Help me! Promise me you’ll take my case.”
“Don’t worry,” Alan said. “Of course, I will.”
A burly deputy straight-armed him out of the way, and Alan watched Sally escorted down the street, Bonzoni, the deputies, and the onlookers following close behind.
“Said you wouldn’t hurt for clients.”
Alan turned to see Masterson joining him. Alan gestured after Sally and murmured, “I didn’t think my first client would be somebody I cared about.”
“This is hell. You think it would be somebody you didn’t care about? Where’s the torment in that?”
He sure couldn’t argue with that statement.
“Come on,” Masterson urged. “That earlier offer still stands. Come on over to Josie’s and let’s play some cards.”
Alan nodded. “I will. But later. I need to talk with Sally first.”
*
He expected to find the marshal’s office a small hole-in-the-wall affair, but it was abnormally spacious inside. The potbellied wood-burning stove squatted alone and ignored in the center of the room. A padlocked gun rack hung on the wall behind the marshal’s desk. Two deputies’ desks stood on the other side of the room, and there were even two cots in the corner. To Alan’s surprise, the marshal was the only one inside. The crowds had dispersed. Alan supposed murder was so common that unless it was something really unusual, it didn’t keep the mob entertained for long.
“You the young man Missus Lockett retained as her attorney?” the marshal asked.
Alan nodded.
“I’m Marshal Lee Hall. You know that Luigi Bonzoni says she did it.”
“She said he did it,” Alan said.
“I know. And no other witnesses, unless the Undertaker sends the deceased back here fast. That would sure settle it! But somehow, I doubt it’ll be that straightforward. It’ll be the tenor’s word against hers, and since this isn’t the first time this has happened to her, her credibility’s not holding up too well.”
“What?” Alan felt the floor start slipping out from under his feet. “She’s … she killed someone before?”
Hall shot him an incredulous look. “This is New Bodie, sir. Who hasn’t killed somebody?”
“But, what happened?”
“The last time? Oh, she shot the last tenor. I forgot his name. She claimed he was upstaging her. No one was sorry to see him go. She got off. This time she won’t be so lucky.” The marshal shrugged. “Or Luigi Bonzoni won’t.”
Alan closed his eyes, a pit of despair opening in his stomach. This wasn’t good. He recalled the scene in her dressing room, the way she’d been picking up the pistol. It hadn’t looked like she’d shot it herself, but then he had a hard time picturing the petite woman wielding a gun. Then again, he remembered her temper and how quickly she’d tried to grab Dead Hat Joe’s gun straight out of his holster. She seemed to know her way around a firearm.
“Got any weapons?” Hall asked.
He held the sides of his coat open for inspection, and the marshal waved him through a door. The hall beyond had at least ten cells, most of them with snoring occupants. Sally had been given a cell to herself, down at the end. Hall clanked the barred door shut behind Alan, and she rushed into his arms. She smelled of gunpowder and blood, but under it he detected a hint of flowers. He held onto that. Alan took her arms from around him and sat her beside him on the cot. “What happened?”
“That damned composer. I don’t care what his problems are; we got our own too, you know? He just wants to put on a decent performance, break free from his torment for one night. Well, he’s not going to get it, not in hell. And I don’t want to sing any more. I can’t! I’m done, Alan. He just pushed back one time too many.”
“How did he die?”
She ignored the question and checked the others cells to make sure no one was listening. Quietly, she said, “The bartender at Josie’s told me he overheard you tell Wyatt that you can’t lose a case.”
“What? How –”
“I like you.” She blushed slightly. “I asked around to see if I could find out more about you, is all.”
“Sally, you’re changing the subject. This is important.”
“So is this,” she said. “Is it true? You can’t lose a case?”
Reluctantly, he let her coax the admission out of him: “It’s true. If I lie in court.”
She traced the side of his bruised face with a gentle touch, then a dimpled smile spread across her face, and she leaned in and kissed him. Startled, he tried to pull back. She giggled and said, “Then it’s perfect. I wanted to check with you first, but Giacomo was just yelling and demanding that I sing what he wrote for once, and I just couldn’t stand it another minute. So I took a chance the bartender had heard right.”
“What are you talking about? Are you saying you killed him?”
“Well, Luigi sure didn’t have the guts, even if he was as ti
red of singin’ that opera as I was. But that’s why it’s perfect! It’s just his lawyer’s word against my lawyer’s, and your word, honey, is golden. You can lie in court and say Luigi did it, and we’ll win the case, easy as pie!”
He stared at her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You saw him. You saw the way he treated me. The way he yelled and screamed at all of us. That happened every day. That’s abuse, ain’t it? I got a right to defend myself according to some law or amendment somewheres, ain’t I?”
He was at a loss for words.
She snuggled into his arms and rested her head against his chest. The scent of her hair tickled his nose with the fragrance of bruised roses. She was so warm, and all his. So, what was the problem? he asked himself. This was all he’d been doing for the last year. He’d lied for people he didn’t even know, let bits of his soul slip away for nothing. Not like this. Sally was his girl. Now lying mattered. Now the price was worth something. Wasn’t it?
“Sally,” he said suddenly, “will you sing to me?”
Her gaze darted around the jail, the rise and fall of her breathing accelerated. “Right now?”
“Yes. Sing anything.”
“I…” Her hand touched her throat self-consciously. The color in her cheeks darkened. She opened her mouth, then closed it, and shook her head. “Not now, Alan. Not here, in this awful place. Please don’t ask me to. Please?”
He forced himself to nod, disengaged her arms from around him, got to his feet. “I need to go.”
“It’ll be all right, won’t it?” she asked, her expression so crestfallen, he leaned down and kissed her. She was so beautiful.
“It’ll be all right,” he echoed.
*
Josie’s interior glowed with the amber light of myriad lamps. Smoke drifted in a gray haze along the ceiling planks, and the clink of bottles and glasses warred with the rise and fall of a dozen conversations. Every gaming table was crowded, except for the table in the far corner, where Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson sat alone.
Bat pulled out a chair, and Alan dropped into it. He didn’t see either man signal, but a barkeep plunked a whiskey glass down on the felt tabletop a moment later. He drank the shot down, coughing and gasping as the fiery, foul-tasting alcohol burned all the way down.
“She did it, didn’t she,” Masterson said, and it wasn’t a question.
Alan looked up. “How did you know?”
“Son, Wyatt and I have been lawmen a long time. A liar is easy to spot, even when they’re fetching and have tears streaming down their pretty faces.”
Alan gestured to the bartender for a refill.
“Why are you so distraught? Isn’t this a perfect setup for you? You can’t lose,” Masterson said. “You told me so yourself.”
“I know. But if I do, Luigi Bonzoni will hang.” He slammed the empty glass down against the table. “Why does that bother me? I don’t know that guy from Adam.”
“If you don’t lie, Sally Lockett will hang,” Earp said.
But she’s guilty, Alan wanted to say. Damn it to every corner of hell, she was guilty. She’d murdered the composer in cold blood, for no good reason, knowing she had an ace in the hole to get her off. She was counting on his love for her.
But love had no bearing on truth. The law was supposed to be objective, and it was supposed to protect the innocent. Even in hell, he had to acknowledge there were still innocents. Luigi Bonzoni was innocent. It had been a long time since Alan had felt that passion: it was what had made him go into law in the first place. He remembered those early days of enthusiasm and even joy, when he had reveled in the cleanness of the law. He’d lost that perspective while he’d still been alive. His time in hell had driven the remainder of it right out of him.
He glanced up again, studying Wyatt as if seeing him for the first time. “How do you do it?” he whispered. “You’ve been down here for a lot longer than me. How does it still matter to you? Right, wrong, truth, lies … how can it matter down here in hell?”
“Not down here,” Wyatt said. He tapped his chest. “In here. The only place that still matters, the only place that is still yours. If you didn’t learn that in life, then you oughta learn it now.”
“But Sally … I love her,” Alan said. “Damn it all, I love her.” Moodily, he reached in his pocket suddenly and pulled out the paper with the bouquet he had drawn for her. He smoothed it on the table top.
“No one said doing the right thing is easy,” Wyatt Earp said softly. “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
And what choice did that leave him?
He listened to the swell of conversations and the rattle of a ball rolling around a roulette wheel, the simultaneous shouts of approval and disappointment when it pocketed. The pop of a cork tugged from a bottle at the bar. The purr of a deck of cards riffled together. And from the streets, the faint claps of gunfire.
Alan lifted the paper and tore it in half, then half again, then let the shreds fall to the floor.
Masterson, watching, murmured, “Addio, fiorito assil.”
“What?” Alan asked.
“Nothing.” Masterson shook his head. “Just something I heard in another Puccini opera, once upon a time.” His voice brightened. “Did you know The Girl of the Golden West premiered in New York City with Enrico Caruso? Arturo Toscanni conducted. I remember the hoopla, though I didn’t attend myself. Maybe when Puccini’s resurrected this next time, the powers that be will let him switch operas.”
“Maybe they’ll reassign him somewhere else,” Wyatt said. “Surely we’ve been tortured enough?”
Masterson rolled his eyes. “Wyatt, I don’t have to remind you where we are, do I?”
“Just wishful thinking.” Wyatt smoothly shuffled the cards. His blue-eyed glance flicked to Alan. “You in or out?”
Alan took a deep breath. “In,” he said. “Teach me how to play this game.”
The Adjudication of Hetty Green
By
Allan F. Gilbreath
Edward (Eddie) J. O’Hare, Esquire trudged slowly up the chipped stairs to the overly worn door at their top. The slightly crooked lettering on the age-etched glass stated that he had arrived at the Office of Adjudications, New Hell Branch. Eddie jiggled the door handle until he felt the internal workings connect so that the door would actually open. He stepped over the small pile of hand bills and envelopes slid under the door during his absence. He picked them up and crossed the yellowed, unwaxed linoleum floor to yet another aged door, hanging precariously near collapse. As this door opened, its hinges squeaked at the exact pitch that sent involuntary shivers up Eddie’s spine.
Eddie sighed as he sat at a military-style all metal desk that had seen better days forty years ago. The chair creaked and groaned with every move he made. After tossing the papers to the desk, he pulled a gold colored pen from its cheap wood-grained stand and attempted his first notes of the day on a legal pad that looked like each page had been slightly moistened, then allowed to air dry. The minute bubbling effect on the paper’s surface made the pen skip every so often.
No sooner had he begun than Eddie caught sight of himself in the small, dirty mirror askew on the wall over his desk. Eddie looked at the forty-six year old face. Anything that had been attractive about his forty-six year old face while alive was now twisted and drab in afterlife.
Eddie was relatively new to hell (after a lengthy stay in limbo while his final disposition was decided). Looking at the squalid office reminded him of the days after he’d first passed the bar. If this was hell’s idea of hazing, Eddie didn’t really mind. He’d soon figure out the best watering holes, whom to associate with, and how to rise through the ranks. Certainly, most of his old business associates were here in hell someplace. He’d run into them sooner or later. In the meantime, he would handle his cases, make contacts, and watch for opportunities. It had worked for him before, it would work again. This was hell, after all, and he’d had a lifetime of helping people en
joy their vices.
Oddly, New Hell reminded him of his last home, Chicago. Both were full of unhappy people who were always up to something. There weren’t a lot of vehicles, so you paid attention whenever you saw or heard one going by. And there were certain people or hellish entities you had to avoid. Following his instincts, so far Eddie seemed to be adjusting fine.
The adjudication department had been established to help place clients whose problems were complex. Regardless of faith or beliefs, most people basically committed the same kind of sins over and over again. This made assigning their punishments fairly easy. However, a minority of sinners achieve hellish goals during their earthly lives and therefore may qualify for custom-tailored damnation. To add to the mess, each level of Purgatory has it quotas to meet and damnation departments to keep busy. A junior adjudicator such as Eddie must weigh the evidence, gather information, negotiate with claimants, and issue a summation to the Judgment Panel. Hell, if nothing else, wanted to make sure that each soul got exactly what he or she deserved.
Eddie glanced at the clock. Time to get to work. Of course, time-keeping was a bit dodgy in Hell. Time had a way of shifting back and forth that managed to keep everyone off balance. Eddie picked up a battered leather portfolio from the desk and flipped it open to reveal the latest H-pad. Its screen displayed pertinent information about his case for the day.
To his surprise, he knew this woman. While he had not met her personally, he knew her story. He touched a few icons on the screen and her profile flipped by: Hetty Green, The Witch of Wall Street, had a variety of claimants for her soul. He touched a few more icons and the list appeared. Before he began his review, he got up, walked over to the coffee pot, wiped out a white coffee mug with a dubious-looking dish rag and poured it full. A perk of the office, the pot immediately refilled itself. He took a sip: the dark liquid was tasteless. So far, all the food and drink he’d had in hell was devoid of flavor. With his routine needs met, Eddie got to work learning about his client of the day.
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