The Devil's Interval

by Linda Peterson

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Lovely city, lovely hotel.” I tried to sneak a look at the envelope, but he held it in his hand, flat against his leg, only the sealed-flap side showing. I turned to face the glass side of the elevator. I knew the St. Francis elevators the way Southern California moms know Space Mountain. They provide the best cheap-thrill ride in town. For the first six floors, the glass is dark, the elevator shaft still inside the building. Suddenly, at the sixth floor, the glass wall hits the outside, and with a suddenness that always startles, no matter how many times you’ve experienced it, the City view opens up, and you feel as if you’re rushing straight up in thin air, with the floor falling away from beneath your feet. If you’re in the elevator with kids, you hear them exclaim “oooh” and see them cautiously move back from the glass, a little dizzy and disoriented. My kids always insisted we bring out-of-town visitors to “ride” the St. Francis elevators.

  I braced myself for the “reveal,” and as soon as it happened, I swayed and bumped, hard, right into the bellman. He dropped the envelope, grabbed my arms to steady me. “Lady, are you okay?”

  I leaned against him, and looked at the carpeted elevator floor, where the envelope had dropped, face up. Room 926, it read. I straightened and gently disengaged. “Oh, thank you, I’m fine.” I gestured to the glass wall. “That view just startled me.”

  He laughed. “Always gets the first-timers,” he said. He bent and picked up the envelope, then looked at the buttons. “Where are you headed? You forgot to press your floor.”

  “Sorry,” I said, “I’m not staying here, just meeting a friend for lunch at the top.” He pressed the Penthouse level. The car stopped at nine and he got out.

  I rode to the top, killed a few minutes standing at the windows, looking at the City below, then stepped back into the car and rode back down to the ninth floor.

  I stepped into the long, carpeted hall, and waited a moment. No sign of the bellman. I glanced at the room number directions on the wall, and walked quickly toward 926.

  I could see the corner of the envelope sticking out from under the door. I tapped on the door. Nothing. “Ivory,” I called, and knocked a little more insistently. I waited a moment more, puzzled. Ivory or Gus or both of them had to be inside; otherwise, why would they have called down a “do not disturb” message to the switchboard? Though, oddly, there wasn’t a “do not disturb” sign on the door. Faintly, from the inside, I heard something. I renewed my knocking, louder, calling “Hello? Anyone there?” I stopped and heard what sounded like a groan, and someone mumbled, “Go away.”

  “Ivory,” I tried one more time. “It’s Maggie. I have something to tell you about Travis’s case.”

  I heard another moan, and then a crash, then silence. I tried knocking again, then pounding. I turned on my cell to call the front desk, but the little screen said, “No signal.” The door to the right flew open, and a middle-aged man in a bathrobe stuck his head into the hall. “What the hell is going on?” he barked. “I’m trying to take a nap.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, starting to feel a little frantic. “My friend is inside, and I think there’s something wrong with her. I knocked and knocked, called her, and I heard her moan and then there was this crash, like something fell or she fell or I don’t know.”

  He shook his head, “For Christ’s sake, she’s probably trying to take a nap, too,” he growled.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Could I use your phone to call down to the front desk? I think this is an emergency, and I can’t get cell service.”

  It took some persuading at the front desk, but finally, the young woman who answered the phone agreed to call security. In a few minutes a bulky guy wearing a blue blazer with a breast pocket badge strode down the corridor, followed by a slight bellman in a uniform that looked at least two sizes too big. When they got to the door, I could read what the patch said on the big guy’s breast pocket: Security, Dan Clover.

  Clover said, “What’s the problem, miss?” I retold the story. The wannabe napper was hanging out in the hall by now. I’d ruined his siesta, so he’d become interested in the possibility a drama might unfold.

  Clover listened impassively, gestured me to step aside from the door, and gave three forceful raps on the door, “Mr. Reeves? Ms. Gifford? Is everyone okay in there?”

  Silence. Clover nodded at the bellman, who inserted his cardkey into the door and pushed it open.

  As soon as the door swung open, I heard Clover say, “Oh, crap.” I peered around him, so I could see into the room—and then I saw Ivory. She was crumpled on the floor, her arm outstretched in front of her, her legs scissored underneath, looking like a swimmer yanked from the water, and tossed on dry land, still trying to do an overhand stroke. I froze and in a rush plunged back to the terrible moment when I had discovered my friend and editor, Quentin Hart, dead in his apartment. “Please, no,” I whispered to whoever might listen, in that room or any other.

  Clover rushed into the room, moving quickly for a guy who looked like a football player gone to seed. He bent to Ivory, leaned close to her face, and spoke loudly, “Ms. Gifford?” He turned to the bellman, who danced nervously from foot to foot. “Call the house doc,” he barked. “And tell the front desk to call 911.”

  While he was issuing orders, I made myself move, sidestepping past him, and knelt on the floor next to Ivory. She was breathing, I could see the uneven, up and down of her chest. “Thank you,” I whispered. There was a fresh-looking cut on her forehead, with a trickle of blood running down, and pooling in the fine hairs of her eyebrow.

  Then he turned to me, “You know her, right?”

  I looked up, “Yes, I do.”

  “Know of any medical condition that might cause her to pass out—diabetes, seizures, anything?” he asked over his shoulder, as he disappeared into the bathroom. He came out with a towel.

  “She’s had a stroke before,” I offered.

  He knelt next to me, and pressed the towel to the cut, “Doesn’t look like a blow,” he said. “Looks like she grazed her head, maybe when she fell, trying to get to the door.”

  I sat on the floor, and picked up her hand. I leaned on one elbow, almost prone, next to her body, leaning in, putting my mouth as close as possible to her ear.

  “Ivory,” I said. “Please be okay, please.”

  The bellman had edged his way toward us, eager to see, half-excited, half-frightened by this unexpected turn of events. I sensed more than saw him, as he crept around the room. “Hey,” he said suddenly. Clover and I both looked up. The young bellman stood next to the desk, just in back of Ivory, and pointed. On the desk, next to an ice bucket, and a short, high-ball-style glass, sat a gun.

  “Don’t touch anything,” barked Clover. He struggled to his feet. “In fact, get out of here, and just wait outside for the doc and the 911 crew. Don’t let anybody else in here.” The bellman was shaking now, and backing toward the door. “And don’t run your mouth about this, either,” said Clover.

  “I’m staying,” I said firmly. “I don’t want to leave her alone.” He shook his head. “Not to be rude,” I said, “but you’re not a police officer. You can’t order me to leave.”

  He scowled. “Stay right where you are,” he said. “So I can watch you. And don’t touch anything.”

  I nodded meekly, and leaned back down to be close to Ivory.

  Time took on that awful quality, slowed down, so that each minute felt as if it would never pass. I watched Ivory’s chest go up and down, willing those small, precious movements to go on, and continued to press the towel to her forehead. On an impulse, I put my mouth right to her ear, and whispered, “Ivory?” Her eyes opened wide, then closed. I put my face right next to hers. “Ivory, it’s Maggie. You’re going to be okay.”

  Without opening her eyes, she said, “I heard that music.”

  “What music?”

  “That…klezmer music,” she said. Suddenly, a rap at the door, and a deep voice called “Dr. Stewart. Open, ple
ase.”

  Clover opened the door, and the house doctor strode in, bag in hand. “Excuse me,” he said, gesturing me out of the way.

  “She just came to for a minute,” I said. “She was trying to talk.”

  “Let’s have a look.” I scrambled to my feet too quickly, and felt dizzy. I leaned against the desk, and watched while the doctor examined Ivory and the paramedics arrived. Stewart stepped back and they lifted Ivory onto a gurney. I picked up my purse and followed the stretcher down the hall. “Where’s she going?” I called after the EMT.

  “St. Francis Hospital,” he called over his shoulder.

  “If she wakes up,” I called back, “tell her Maggie is on her way.”

  I followed them to the freight elevator, and watched the doors close. “Maggie,” said a voice at my elbow, and I turned to see John Moon, and then I burst into tears.

  He took me by the arm, walked me to a nearby plush bench, ordered me to stay put, and disappeared. In a few minutes he was back with a cup of hot tea. I took a sip. It was piping hot and sickeningly sweet. “Yuck, John. It’s got sugar in it.”

  He nodded. “Good for you when you’ve had a shock. Drink up.”

  Between sips, he made me walk him back through the last hour—from retrieving Ivory’s calls to the awful moment when the door was opened, and I saw her on the floor.

  “That’s it?” he asked, when I finished.

  “That’s all I remember.”

  “You save that message from Ivory?”

  Without a word, I dug the cell phone out of my purse and dialed up the voice mail. I skipped forward to Ivory’s message and handed it over to him. He put the phone to his ear, listened, then pressed replay and listened again.

  “What does it sound like to you?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “I don’t know, for sure. But it sounded as if she was struggling with something, and then had decided what to do.”

  “Suicide?”

  I frowned. “I can’t imagine that she’d leave Travis behind,” I said. “And that’s what suicide would have meant. That makes absolutely no sense to me. However terrible all this has been—his arrest, the trial, the sentencing—not to mention what’s happened to her—the stroke and the fire—I find it incomprehensible that she’d leave Travis to fend for himself.”

  “Unless she’d decided it was hopeless and thought it would be a relief to him not to have to worry about her any more,” suggested Moon. “In addition, there are a number of confusing things at the scene. It appeared that Ivory could have fallen ill from drugs in her drink—but who put the drugs in her drink? And why a gun? Women who kill themselves almost never use a gun.”

  “I don’t know,” I faltered. “This seems impossible to me, but could Ivory have killed Grace and been ready to confess, to save Travis? And she was drinking to get her nerve up? Or, she felt threatened, and that’s why the gun was there. But who would threaten her? And if someone did, wouldn’t Gus the fierce protector have wrestled that person to the ground? And where is Gus, anyway?”

  “We’re trying to find him,” said Moon. “Anything is possible. That’s what I’ve learned from being a cop. Absolutely anything.”

  “Are all of the possibilities terrible?” I asked.

  “Usually,” he said. “But not always. Some day I’ll tell you a few good stories.”

  But not then. Then, it was time to collect myself, to call Michael, to call Anya and check in on the boys, and leave one St. Francis (the hotel) and head over to the other, the hospital, just a little west and north, but miles away in spirit and purpose. In the City of Saint Francis, the man who asked God to “make me an instrument of thy peace,” there seemed precious little of that commodity to be had.

  CHAPTER 43

  When Travis was a kid, he used to make up stories about his father. About how he must be a captain of something—a ship, an airplane, soldiers in a unit. That gave him a pressing reason not to show up. He stopped asking Ivory about him when he heard her describe herself as “a very happy single mother” to the father of one of his friends. As an adult, he realized that guy must have been hitting on his mother. But at the time, all he thought was—if she calls herself a single mother, that must mean my father is never coming back. Now, he wished his father had come back. Or Ivory had given in to one of her other suitors—who was that lawyer she’d dated? Welsh or Welch or something? Instead, here she was, still unsteady after the stroke, and with no one but…Travis winced a little at the thought: no one but Gus to look after her.

  CHAPTER 44

  Moon insisted that I shouldn’t drive myself over to the hospital, and made me promise to wait for one of his detectives to give me a lift. I protested, and then abruptly shut up when Moon began threatening to send me directly home. “I’ve ordered an officer to guard Ivory’s room,” he said, “and it’s just as easy for me to take you off the cleared-visitor list.”

  “She called me,” I protested. “Ivory wanted to talk to me.”

  “Fine,” said Moon. “Then do what I tell you. My guy’s waiting for you by the front desk, his name’s Pollock.”

  “How will I recognize him?”

  Moon laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll spot him. He’ll be the only guy in the lobby of the St. Francis wearing a bolo tie. How many of those do you see in the City?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said, thinking of Doc, Mr. Delta Oscar Charlie with his bolo and lame come-on patter at the Crimson Club.

  I took the elevator down to the lobby and walked over to the front desk. It seemed like hours since I had stood in exactly the same spot, trying to fast-talk my way into getting Gus and Ivory’s room number, but the same clerk was behind the desk, showing some tourists how to find something on an open San Francisco map. He glanced at me, and pursed his lips with displeasure. I ignored him and scanned the people on either side of me, looking for a detective in a bolo tie. And then I spotted him, none other than Delta Oscar Charlie himself, snakehead bolo tie and all. His eyes met mine, and then continued to glance around, scanning the room as I had been. I walked up to him, “Detective Pollock?” I asked.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, “Who’s asking?”

  I held out my hand. “Maggie Fiori,” I said. “We’ve danced, I believe, but we’ve never been properly introduced. John Moon told me you’d take me over to St. Francis Hospital.”

  A series of expressions washed over his face—suspicion, annoyance, sideways glances that made me think he was looking for a quick escape, and then he shrugged. “Yeah, fine. Whatever. Let’s go.” He took me by the arm and began walking me toward the parking garage entrance. I began to feel a little panic. I’d gotten in a car I shouldn’t have a year ago and it had been nothing but trouble. I stopped cold in my tracks.

  “Let’s walk,” I said. “It’s just a few blocks away, and I’d like to get some fresh air.”

  “The lieutenant told me to drive you over to the hospital,” he said. “It’s more than a few blocks and it’s uphill.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Well, I’m walking, and you can walk with me or you can drive without me. But I’m not getting in a car with you.”

  He tightened his grip on my arm. “You are not issuing the orders around here, little lady.”

  I inched my heel over to his instep, while leaning in a little closer. “Let’s remember that the ladies issue the invitations in the places we hang out together,” I whispered. “And that maybe your boss and my friend, John Moon, would be interested to know where you spend your free time.”

  He let go of my arm. “I could have been undercover,” he said.

  “Really? Wearing the exact same tie you have on today?” I asked. “Doesn’t seem likely to me.”

  We walked through the lobby and toward the revolving door. Despite the confusion and chaos of the events up on the ninth floor, despite the presence of more than a few police officers, and an injured Ivory being whisked via gurney down the freight elevator and out to the waiting ambulance, life in the lobby
continued as if nothing unusual had happened. Conventioneers wearing name badges greeted each other and networked madly; elegantly dressed couples lingered in the bar over Flirtinis and dark-amber Scotch in heavy, cut-crystal glasses. Just a few steps up from the lobby, the staff in the hot restaurant du jour, coffee, cream, and celery-toned Michael Mina, quietly rushed from table to table making preparations for hungry people with well-padded wallets who would be dining there when evening fell.

  “Life goes on,” I muttered. “I forget just why.”

  Pollack looked puzzled. “How’s that?”

  “Line from a very sad poem by Emily Dickinson,” I said. “Never mind.”

  Pollack allowed me to go through the revolving door out to the street. As I waited for him, I glanced over at the glassed-in display cases at the entrance. One held the menu from Michael Mina, and next to it was a poster promoting the musical group performing in the rooftop bar. I took a step closer, “Klezmer Katz & Their Musical Kapers,” read the poster. I sighed. Suddenly, I realized Pollack was at my elbow.

  “What are you staring at?” he asked.

  I pointed to the poster. “Something Ivory said when she woke up for a moment,” I said. “She was trying to tell me something about hearing klezmer music.”

  “I hate that stuff,” said Pollack. “Makes me feel like I’m trapped in a long, boring Jew wedding.”

  I regarded him with new distaste. “Let’s go,” I said.

  We turned north up Powell, away from Union Square and up the hill toward the hospital.

  “You weren’t undercover, were you?” I asked Pollack. We were both breathing a little harder, as the hill grew steeper. A cable car clanged and passed us, going back down the hill, toward the cable car turnaround. It was crammed, as usual, with tourists leaning far out, their cell phones in one hand, shooting friends and family, as they obediently waved from the steps.

  Pollack shrugged, “Nope. I like that place,” he said. “Nothing illegal in that.”

  “Guess not,” I said.

  “Hey,” he shot back, “let’s remember you were there, too, Missy.”