1929 Book 4 - Drifter

by ML Gardner

  “Modest, are we?” she said as she struggled with a heavy bucket. “Brought you more hot water.” She grunted as she lifted it up and over the edge of the deep tub.

  I tucked my knees up, both covering myself and allowing room for her to pour the boiling water at my feet. Comforting heat swirled its way up the tub, warming my hips.

  She stood longer than I was comfortable with. When I looked up, she was smiling.

  “Don’t be nervous,” she said. Unsure if she were referring to her staring at me naked or meeting Mickey after I was cleaned up, I simply nodded.

  “Sit up. I’ll wash your back.”

  I leaned my stiff spine forward.

  “Relax,” she giggled. “You’re too uptight. You need a good massage—” She stopped, touching my back with light, cold fingers. “What happened to you?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. When I woke up, it was like this. It’s better than it was.” I craned my neck around as if I could see for myself. Instead, I saw her concerned face. “Isn’t it?”

  “Well, I didn’t see it before, and most of it looks healed. Still some deep scars…looks like gouging in some places. This spot doesn’t look good. It’s real red and swollen with a dark streak at the center. “This one is infected. It needs to be lanced.”

  I sat back quickly, sending water up and over the high back of the tub.

  “No, that’s alright.”

  “It might get to your blood. It needs to be opened. There’s something in there.”

  “I’m okay,” I insisted.

  “Alright, fine,” she said softly. “Let me at least wash it, then.”

  I reluctantly leaned forward. She was careful, gliding gently over the tender spots and massaging the healed and untouched skin. My head soon lolled and tossed as she worked.

  “Must be awful to not know who you are.”

  I opened my eyes, staring at the water. “It is.”

  “You don’t even know if you have a woman somewhere?”

  I shrugged and lifted my hands out of the water. “No ring.”

  “You might ‘ave had a sweetheart.”

  “No idea. But if I can find the ship I stumbled off of, they might know something about me.”

  “Do you think you worked on that ship?”

  Another shrug. “I’d like to think they wouldn’t leave me if I did.”

  “If you did work on that ship, it couldn’t ‘ave been for long.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You sound as American as they get.”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily pick up the accent, would I?”

  “Most do, a little. If you worked with it long enough.”

  “Hmm.” I lowered my head. “Tell me about Mickey.”

  “What’s to tell,” she said and started to lather a cloth with soap. “He’s the boss. He calls the shots. Runs a few dozen girls but makes most his money with opium. He’s got a wicked temper, so stay on his good side.”

  “Are you one of his girls?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “How can it be yes and no? Either you’re one or you’re not.”

  “We’ll have a nice long talk later, okay? Right now, you need to rinse off and get dressed. Mickey’ll be back soon and he’s wanting to talk to you.”

  She stood and smiled. “Don’t worry. Mickey’ll like you. He needs good men he can trust. If he trusts you, you’re in.”

  “How do I earn the trust of a complete stranger?” I asked, rinsing my back by throwing handfuls of water over my shoulder.

  “It’s like everything else around here.” She shrugged as she walked out. “You have to earn it.”

  ***

  The clothes fit well enough, though the buttons gave me a hard time. Gina was a good judge of size. I didn’t care for the cologne but I used it anyway. With the hair oil I combed my hair over to one side and then the other. I didn’t like either. I settled for combing it straight back. The deep waves resisted, but finally agreed and lay flat.

  I pulled the suspenders over the linen shirt and finding no tie, left the first two buttons open. The pants were cut with a high waist and they fit there, but the baggy pant legs were a little too long. The shiny black shoes fit perfectly.

  I stepped out of the bathroom not knowing what to expect. Gina was leaning against the wall waiting for me. She whistled.

  “You clean up very nice,” she said with a smile. “C’mon. Mickey’s waiting.”

  I followed her down a long dank corridor deep in the warehouse.

  “Do you live here?”

  She laughed. “Heavens no. This is just headquarters. I got a flat on the east end.”

  “The lower east side?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Do you know where that is?”

  “No, I just thought to ask.”

  “The east end here. You’re thinking of New York.”

  She stopped at a large metal door that slid open like a meat locker. “This is Mickey’s office. You don’t come here unless you’re called for, or if it’s an emergency.”

  She knocked hard twice and waited. With a loud clank, someone on the other side lifted the bolt and the door slid open. I stepped inside.

  The large room was lavishly decorated with massive candelabras burning brightly on each side of Mickey’s desk. Two large men—security, I presumed, stared at me as I entered. Gina rushed ahead.

  “Mickey, here’s the guy I told you about.” She turned and now all eyes were on me. Mine flitted nervously and I stopped about ten feet from the desk. The two men grabbed my arms, holding them out to the side and searched me. I winced as their hands slapped over my back and thighs.

  “Sit,” one of them ordered.

  I lowered myself into a comfortable leather chair opposite Mickey’s desk.

  “Gina tells me she found you down around the King George dock.” Mickey shot her a condescending look. He spoke with no national accent, but with the diacritical mark of a hard knock life. “What’s your name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? How the hell do you not know your own name?”

  “There was some sort of accident. I woke up in a stranger’s house after a few days, I think. They turned me out before I could walk straight and I ended up on some ship. I stumbled off and a guy introduced me to Gina. I needed medicine.”

  “Medicine?” Mickey smiled, raising his eyebrows. “That’s cute.” He threw a glance at Gina. “At least he ain’t been hooked long.”

  Setting his eyes back on me, he smiled.

  “I need a drink. You? What’s your poison?”

  Mickey held up two decanters in offering.

  I tried to remember what I liked to drink, or even if I did.

  Mickey studied my face. “Don’t you know what you prefer in the way of spirits?”

  I shrugged. “No, sorry.”

  Mickey smiled, sloshed brandy into a glass and handed it to me. “Give that a try.”

  He turned to Gina. “You’re sure you weren’t followed?”

  “Positive.”

  Swiveling his chair back, he smiled. “You understand our hesitation. There’s been a lot of people try to weasel in here and well, having no backstory is easier than passing a half assed backstory if someone wanted to get in here and interrupt what we have going.” He turned sharply toward Gina again.

  “Damn brilliant if you ask me. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Gina here has a lot of confidence in you.”

  “Look, I’m not interested in whatever it is you’ve got going on here. I just need to figure out who the hell I am.”

  Mickey eyed me critically, chewing on the inside of his scarred cheek as he thought. His eyes darted to one of the large men at the door and gave a barely discernible nod. The guard pulled out a pistol, holding it at his side, waiting for further instructions.

  “I’ve worked long and hard to build my little empire. I’m sure you understand, I can’t take any chances. One wrong move or one wandering
John Doe and the whole thing could come apart at the seams.” Another nod to the guard and he moved forward silently.

  “Wait.” Gina stepped up. “Mickey, you got it wrong. He is hooked.”

  Mickey didn’t look surprised. “I’ve seen the law hooked before.”

  “No. He’s telling the truth about his accident. You should see his back. It’s messed up pretty bad. Probably why he’s hooked.”

  Mickey nodded at him. “Let’s see your back, John Doe.”

  I hesitated. The two guards each grabbed an arm and yanked me to my feet. Spinning me around, they pulled up my shirt.

  Mickey stared. Slowly he rose and walked around his desk. I stared at the wall, smelling the stinking breath of the men who gripped my arms. I also felt Mickey approach from behind and felt a sick twist in my stomach. He leaned in close, reeking of hair oil and incense.

  I could see Gina watching nervously.

  He didn’t say anything as he reached around me and held out his open hand. One of his men placed a knife in his palm. Mickey took it and without warning put the cold tip of the knife to the infected mound on my back and sliced it open.

  I suppressed a scream with a guttural groan, going limp in the knees as blood and puss ran down my back.

  “You should thank me for that.” He handed the knife back to its owner, leaving him to clean it, and returned to his desk as I turned around, breathing heavily through my nose. “You’d be dead in a week if it wasn’t opened.”

  “Mickey, I just got ‘im cleaned up,” Gina said, exasperated. He ignored her frustration and waved her over.

  She bent over his chair with one hand on his desk.

  “What’s your interest in this guy anyway?” he whispered. His eyes floated all over her face, searching it. “He ain’t nobody.”

  “Exactly, Mickey. He ain’t nobody. And he ain’t been hooked long, like you said. We can get ‘im cleaned up and he can start doing jobs for you. If we limit his knowledge of what goes on here, he’ll be no threat. And, if he gets caught, he literally knows nothing. He’d be a good replacement for Pax.”

  Mickey nodded slowly and Gina stepped away, leaving him to think.

  “Tell you what, John Doe. Why don’t you stay here for a while at Hotel Mickey. The accommodations aren’t five star, but it’s better than the bridge, that’s for sure. We’ll wait and watch. See if you turn up in the papers or on some missing persons list. If you are with the law they’ll be looking for you and they’ll be loud about it.”

  “And then what?” I had recovered, mostly, though the gash on my back burned. I struggled to tuck my shirt in without moving too much.

  “And then you work for me,” he said plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “But I really need to find out who I am.”

  “And we’ll help you.” He nodded to Gina. I took it that he was putting her in charge of that. She stepped up and laced her arm through mine, leading me out of the room.

  ***

  Gina closed another metal door behind us with an echoing thud.

  “This’ll be your room while you’re here.” She held a bucket with towels, scissors and ointment.

  My eyes narrowed, surveying the room. It smelled wet, like everything else in London and also had the acrid smell of bad housekeeping. I spotted a stack of magazines and some personal supplies on the wooden box that served as a bedside table.

  “Looks like someone already lives here.”

  “Someone used to. Guy named Pax. But not anymore.”

  “Why didn’t he take his things?”

  “Didn’t need ‘em in heaven, I suppose.”

  “He died?”

  She leveled her head. “He crossed Mickey.”

  Setting the bucket of supplies on top of the bedside table with magazines—nudies, I gathered by the cover, she motioned to me. “Now take your shirt off and lay on the bed.”

  I stared at her, not sure which statement was more startling.

  “I need to clean up your back. But first…” She pulled a bottle from her pocket and tossed it to me. “To ease the pain a bit. I know that had to hurt like hell. Enough to make a grown man cry. But you didn’t.” She tilted her head and smiled. “I’m impressed. I think Mickey was, too.”

  I caught the bottle, stared at it in the palm of my hand. After a moment I relented.

  This was different than the syrup the old lady gave me, and very different than the tea on the ship. It was bitter and burned my throat. Strong. My head was spinning within minutes and I went groping blindly for the bed, eager to lay down.

  “After this you should sleep. Not much to do, sides. Some of the guys get together and play cards when Mickey don’t got work for ‘em.”

  I lay on my stomach, my head settling on the rough material of the pillow and my eyes began to close.

  “Not so fast, roll over.”

  I didn’t move so she pushed me to my side, limp as a rag doll. I was still awake, barely. She worked at the buttons of my shirt with a thin smile of satisfaction on her face. A few of them stuck, the holes being too small, and she grunted with the effort to get them out. Her lips pursed up in determination and her bosom shook with each button that gave way.

  As the room began to slowly tilt from one side to the other and wild colors began streaming, interwoven in the sunlight peeking through the window, I reached up, aiming for a grab at her breast but missed completely.

  She took no outward offense to this. In my state, with my free floating mind and having been deprived of everything for who knows how long, she simply took my hand and laid it back at my side with a smile.

  “Maybe later,” she said with a wink.

  She tossed each side of the shirt open and inspected my chest.

  “I imagine it was much nicer once, and it’s nice enough now,” she said. After taking a moment to admire it, she put her hand on my thigh.

  “There now, roll over.”

  I tried, but couldn’t will my muscles. She helped me, grabbing the waistline of my pants at the back and plopping me onto my stomach. The musky scent of cologne drifted up and filling the space around us.

  “I put out my favorite. I’m glad you used it.”

  Working my arms out of the shirt was a challenge as I lay face down and helpless, but she managed. She described the wound as a deflated blight, the skin dark and wrinkled around the thin line that had drained it.

  As she began to cut away dead skin I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer and drifted off.

  “That Mickey character sounds like a sadistic bastard,” Sloan said.

  Aryl’s face hardened. “He was. I hope he’s on his way to prison right now.”

  “I do, too.”

  Sloan shifted, making the bubbly water slosh around. “I don’t suppose you’d mind stepping out while I get dressed.”

  “Of course.” Aryl turned and then looked back. “And I don’t suppose you’d mind going to grab those clothes you offered me. I’ll drain and refill the tub in the meantime. And then you can tell me how you found out Daniel was Arianna’s brother.

  “Deal.”

  Aryl stepped out and Sloan dried off, committing Aryl’s story to memory so he could transfer it to the notebook later. He slipped his clothes on, rubbed his head with the towel again until it was sticking in all directions and pulled back the curtain.

  “All yours. I’ll grab a fresh towel as well.”

  “Thank you.”

  Aryl walked to the tub and pulled the drain plug, his eyes pulled to the water as it began to swirl. He watched it, hypnotized, until the last sucking sounds of water reminded him to refill the tub.

  He began to undress and got in before it was even half full. It felt wonderful.

  Eventually the water came to his chest, so hot he could barely stand it. He slowly sank under, letting the water fill his ears and wet his hair. When he broke the surface, Sloan was standing with the clothes and the promised towel.

  “Oh, one more thin
g before I start,” Sloan said. “It’s bad enough that I can’t give my wife a baby. But if you tell anyone that we told each other stories while we took turns soaking in a tub…” He held up a finger in warning. “I’ll find you again.”

  Aryl couldn’t suppress his grin as Sloan pulled the curtain closed behind him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lost in Translation

  Late one night I sat in my home office twirling the wallet between my fingers. Tossing it in the air and catching it, I let it fall from my fingers onto the desk, studying the white lines of aged leather, looking for some coded message that wasn’t there.

  I pulled out the contents and laid it out on my desk. There was a picture of a woman but all I could make out was that she was blond. The ID where I’d gathered the name Aryl Sullivan, and a pewter lighthouse charm wedged deep in the corner of the wallet were the only things salvageable. The rest, a folded note, a few dollars and some receipts, were water destroyed.

  Water. What was it with water this month?

  They say dead men tell no tales, but this dead man was talking. Trouble was, I couldn’t hear what he was saying to me. All the pieces of the puzzle lay before me, but none of them would fit. I was scrambling for a starting place. It wasn’t the first time I’d grappled for one. Man, was I losing my touch.

  ***

  The next day at work I was bleary eyed but had no hangover to blame it on. I’d lost track of how many days it had been since we found Helga. Three? Four? Everyone tried to act like it was another day at work, but we were all frustrated by the special unit that showed up the day before. To say that feathers were ruffled would be an understatement. Detectives were downright pissed off that Captain didn’t have enough confidence in his own men to handle this. The gears of the precinct kept turning but not much got accomplished, distracted as we were. At least I wouldn’t stand out as much.

  Fred knocked on my door and stuck his head inside.

  “What’s up, Fred?”

  He walked in looking like a scared rabbit. I remembered being young and new, damn clueless and afraid anyone with seniority would bite my head off if I looked at them. I think Helga’s was the first dead body he’d ever seen.