Kaleidoscope

by Darryl Wimberley

  When she left the yard, he almost missed her.

  Jack was expecting the Boss Lady to leave Griffith’s in her truck, naturally, with The Giant riding shotgun. But there was Luna Chevreaux, now, driving the Studebaker coupe! Jack realized that she must have had somebody from town bring out the car which meant that Luna had more on her mind than wood and hay.

  Jack got the T’s magneto firing, engaged the hand-operated clutch and pulled out to follow Luna south toward Tampa. He was fortunate to have a truck laden with shade tobacco to put between himself and Luna as he tailed the Boss Lady down the narrow blacktop. They picked up perhaps half a dozen trucks on the road and as many automobiles. Jack began to resent his present chore; in other circumstances, he’d have taken the day off from pounding stakes and shovelling shit to tour Tampa’s Gulf-Coast diversions. He might have admired the homes of rumrunners and cigar magnates. He might have paused to appreciate the Moorish cast of the city’s architecture, minarets rising across the river at the Tampa Bay Hotel. Maybe get out on the water. Eat a decent steak. Hell, if he played his cards right, Jack could imagine living down here. Provided they did something about the damn flies.

  If he ever got out from under Bladehorn’s thumb, Jack promised himself a vacation with his son in this sundrenched city. They’d get a room someplace, get out on the water. And for sure he would take Martin down to Plant Field to see where the Cincinnati Reds camped for spring training.

  There were carnal pleasures, too, and carnal opportunities. Tampa’s tropical climate combined with its distinctive minarets to conjure images of harems and women and Arabian nights. The Green Parrot was reputed to be one of the quickest clubs in town. It was no problem for a man with gladrags and cash to find himself a honey at the Parrot.

  Those idle thoughts jarred to a stop when Jack realized with a sudden sense of disorientation that Luna was not taking her car into downtown Tampa. Instead, the Studebaker continued west across the Hillsborough River before turning south to the still-new Davis Islands Bridge.

  Jack had heard only a smattering of gossip concerning the Islands, even though it was big news for Tampa realtors. The Davis Islands were one of the first pieces of real estate to be created artificially, the islands no more than a series of landfills developed specifically for speculative investment. Some big money had been spent on the project. Before it was even completed, fat cat investors, bankers and crooks were cutting each other’s nuts to crowd in.

  So what was Luna up to on the Islands?”

  The newly finished bridge spanned not much more than a hundred yards from the mainland to the Islands and it was over that abbreviated causeway where Jack Romaine now followed Luna’s car. Rump, rump, rump…Jack could hear his tires as they hit the seams separating the bridge’s spans. The smell of salt air and sea breeze rushing through the cab of his flivver.

  Seagulls and terns flew overhead, their lazy wheeling transformed in an instant with the plunge to beak some bounty from the salty water. There were people plunging into the water, too. Jack spotted a marina slipped with sailboats and other pleasure-craft, but he was sure Luna wasn’t here for sailing, or any other recreation.

  The bridge gave onto quiet, well-landscaped streets lined with palm trees and bougainvillea. Within minutes Jack had followed Luna up a paved driveway passing a well-tended display of palm trees and oleander to reach the grounds of the most spectacular hotel he had ever seen.

  You approached the Mirasol Hotel on a drive punctuated with palm trees forty feet tall. Jack waited until Luna gave a valet her keys before sputtering past to find his own parking on the south side of the hotel. The automobiles in the garage made Jack’s flivver look like a delivery van. He thought he had seen some pretty douche rides in Cincinnati, but this—!

  The hotel and grounds embraced a sensibility even more exotic than what Jack had seen downtown. He found shade in a loggia supported by columns that looked to have been filched from a Greek temple. Finding his way back to the main entry he saw that every window and door in the place was arched like some kind of mosque. Jack recalled the article about the hotel he had read on the train down to Tampa. So was this Venetian Gothic? Looked like a cross between General Franco and Ali Goddamn Baba.

  Still, you had to admire the work. Lots of detailing on the windows, the cornices, shields cast in plaster to decorate the stuccoed exterior. The hotel’s main tower was six, seven stories tall with two wings offering spectacular views. The railings on the balconies were wrought in iron, all the castings turned.

  Unless you arrived at the hotel by boat, you entered the Mirasol through a door flanked on either side by a trefoiled transom and French doors. A short hallway and a stroll past potted palms before you entered the Grand Lobby. Jack had no idea what you’d need a fireplace for given his experience of the climate, but there it was, an enormous hearth framed with fixtures of brass and iron. Fairly dark in the lobby, but a great view of the yacht basin below; Jack saw a sloop easing out from a slip, a soiree of gents and ladies playing croquet nearby on a lawn flat and green enough for billiards.

  A tall ceiling overhead was carved like a mosque’s interior into interlocking patterns of hexagons and squares. Like a kaleidoscope, Jack realized, and for a moment was tempted to spin on his heel for that effect. The wood itself was interesting, too, the entire ceiling finished in pecky cypress, that worm-eaten timber unique to southern forests. Everything in the lobby reeked of expense, the Chippendale recliners, the Corinthian leather binding the books in the adjoining library, the fireplace, the Persian rugs. The Mirasol was opulent, decadent, luxurious. A destination for foreigners and millionaires.

  The fuck was Luna Chevreaux doing in a place like this?

  The queue was five deep at the desk, rich folks not accustomed to waiting for anything waiting to be checked in. Clerks and bellhops scrambling to accommodate. Jack scanned the faces and figures for Luna. No dice. Which meant she wasn’t here for a room, at least not right away.

  Jack strolled over to the concierge.

  An artificial smile.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  “I’m looking for my party.”

  “Party, sir?”

  “You couldn’t miss her. Six feet tall, black hair, blue skin. All over.”

  “Ah! Miss Chevreaux.”

  “Yes,” Jack did not miss a beat.

  “The dining room, sir. And welcome to the Mirasol.”

  He picked up a paper from a divan in the lobby before entering the hotel’s sun-filled dining room. The lobby was a little dark for Jack’s taste, but the dining room was built to compensate, lots of tall windows and light. A mahogany bar was backed by a mirror must have been twenty feet long. There looked to be a hundred tables or more. Which one was Luna’s? Jack considered a moment. Not the center of the room. She probably would not want a seat that would invite attention. But there were a score of screens and potted plants that allowed islands of privacy all over. She could be seated almost anywhere.

  It took a while, but eventually he spotted her at a corner table behind a blind of ferns. A rattan chair, looked like. She was leaning over an untouched plate of shrimp and she wasn’t alone. Jack could tell there was a conversation engaged in earnest. But he could not see Luna’s companion. Maybe if he skirted the fern. Jack was about to improve his view when he got the sudden, sure feeling that he was being watched.

  The maître d’.

  Jack turned to find the headwaiter zeroed in on him as if he were a target. Jack was about to dash, but then reversed field to face the major-domo head on.

  “I need a table.”

  “Are you a guest here, sir?”

  “Meeting somebody,” Jack improvised.

  “Oh?” the maître d’ took another step to close the distance between them.

  “I’m treating my partner to dinner,” Jack amplified.

  “Partner?”

  “From Sarasota. We’re buying a carnival.”

  “I see.” The man’s curiosity imme
diately faded. He knew about carnival people. Let them stay in Sarasota.

  “Is that table free?” Jack nodded toward a set of high-backed chairs.

  “I believe so, yes sir.”

  “Thanks,” Jack smiled.

  He was seated without being discovered. A hedge of greenery was situated between his table and Luna’s. The newspaper offered added cover. From behind that rag Romaine was able to see Luna through the ferns, but all he could see of her companion was a pair of well-brushed shoes and a pair of baggy slacks. A wreath of some pleasantly aromatic cigar haloed over the table.

  Luna was animated in her discussion with her smoking companion. Jack saw her shaking her head vigorously.

  “‘No, now!’” he thought he heard her say.

  And then she slipped an envelope across the table.

  “Right away,” she declared with heat.

  Jack saw Luna’s date place his cigar on a crystal tray, a clean hand extending from a shabby suit to take the manila folder.

  Who the hell was this character?! Jack took a long moment before risking another glance at the smoke-wreathed table. The meeting was clearly concluded. The smoker had already retrieved his cigar. Jack would love to follow this gent. Run him to ground for a private conversation.

  ’Scuse me, bud, but what’s your business with Luna Chevreaux, what’s in the envelope and by the fucking way does it have anything to do with stolen cash and railroad notes?

  But if Jack was going to follow the fixer, he couldn’t let Luna spot him.

  She was already rising from her table, turning—

  Christ, she was headed directly for his table!

  Jack slid from his chair, still hiding behind his paper, to beat a hasty retreat from the dining room. Wending his way carefully through the gathered waiters and tables and guests. Trying not to rush. This was no time to draw attention. No time to spill somebody’s soup. And he had just about made it. Jack was two tables from freedom when he glanced, briefly, to the mirror above the bar.

  And there was Luna, fixed on Jack’s reflection in the frozen glass. Looking. Staring.

  Shit!

  He kept walking. He heard no challenge as he left the elegant room, but he kept walking anyway, never stopping until he was across the Persian-rugged lobby and through the arched doors.

  Once outside Jack broke into a run and didn’t quit until he was piled into Tommy Speck’s Model T. By the time Luna emerged from the Mirasol’s pleasant interior, Jack was merging with Duesenberg’s and Packards on the far side of the drive. Luna waited for her valet alone, her bagman nowhere in sight. She must be able to see Speck’s car rattling across the way!

  But there was no challenge. No pursuit!

  Jack felt his heart hammering in his ribs.

  Slow down, he told himself. You made it. She didn’t see anything, he told himself, as the Mirasol’s grande entrée receded behind. It was a mirror, he told himself. She couldn’t tell. Not for sure.

  Jack clattered with the cover of other motorized tourists and pleasure seekers toward the Hillsborough Bridge, his hands shaking like a drunk’s on the wheel. He’d give anything at that moment for a drink. Sell his soul for a pint of whiskey. He did not notice the cab trailing three cars behind.

  He did not see Charlie Blade at all.

  Jack returned to Kaleidoscope to find The Giant unloading lumber from the Big Truck, but Luna was not with him. By evening chow she still had not returned. Jack wolfed down a bowl of monkey stew, drank a pitcher’s worth of iced tea and went to his shack. The afternoon’s excursion had convinced Jack that, despite signs of fraternity, he was being conned, that in spite of his apparent assimilation into Luna’s community, there was something going on, some unnamed thing that was being deliberately hidden.

  The only source he could trust at all was Charlie Blade. Jack knew better than most that a junkie would tell you anything to get a fix, but it was Charlie who had confirmed Jack’s suspicions that there was outside money coming into Kaleidoscope. And it was Charlie who had pegged Terrence Dobbs as the man taking the alias of Alex Goodman. There had always been the chance that Luna’s one-time patch might have known something about the source of her money, but perhaps Mr. Dobbs aka Goodman had been more deeply involved than that.

  Maybe Alex had been a fixer with sticky fingers. Maybe he was the goose who stole the golden goddamn eggs.

  Is that what got him killed?

  And who was this character at Luna’s hotel rendezvous? Was he just another alderman collecting a payoff, or was he Kaleidoscope’s newest fixer?

  The sun was well set when Jack finally rolled out of the sack. He struck a match to check his watch. Time pissing away. The performers would be gathered in the G-tent by now. If he was going to get the answers he needed, he was going to have to take a risk.

  Jack arrived to find a tent filled with freaks mostly ignoring a bed sheet stretched tight between a pair of poles. A strobe of light and a clatter of celluloid threw a ripple of black and white images onto that makeshift screen, Marlene Dietrich stretching seductively beneath the big top. The Blue Angel—Jack recognized the film. But it was a crap game that had the freaks’ interest. Penguin and Giant and Half Track crowded the pit. Friederich The Unparalled had chucked his wheelbarrow for the occasion, seated on his own scrotum opposite Pinhead and the Damier Brothers, who were fully in character as The Wild Men Of Borneo.

  The only thing in the tent not in thrall to the fall of the ivory was the freak’s mangy hound.

  “Off, Boomer,” Jack shoved the dog’s snout out of his crotch on his way to the pit.

  “Mind another player?” Jack displayed his roll.

  “Why not?” Tommy Speck smiled. “Nothing better than takin’ money from a brodie!”

  Lots of laughter with that remark. Kidding all around. Somebody had brought some hooch. Jack took a long and conspicuous slug when the jug came his way.

  “Go tiger!” Cassandra seemed to like her chances this evening.

  Jack spread his cash carelessly on the straw.

  “Let ’em roll.”

  He won a small pot right away. Then he pissed away those winnings, two bits at a time to different players. Spreading it around. Everybody was winning something off the brodie and within an hour everybody was loose. Lots of inside jokes, Jack still could not follow them all. Lots of winks and asides.

  Was not hard to keep losing. People liked gamblers who lost and God knew he’d had practice. Jack had just about pissed his pay check away when it came his turn to toss the dice.

  “Cat’s eyes,” he looked straight at Cassandra and threw.

  And lost.

  “Did I win?” Pinhead seemed startled at the possibility. “Tommy, din’ I win?”

  “Yes, ya dummy,” Half Track groused. “Now, shut up.”

  “Does me in, boys.”

  Jack pushed his remainders into Pinhead’s pot.

  “Thag you,” the man said sweetly.

  Half Track shook her head. “Boy can’t spell his name and he’s gettin’ rich.”

  “Lady Luck,” Jack assured her. “Let’s try sevens.”

  He threw again.

  “Did I wiiinnnnn?!” Pinhead clapped his hands.

  “I’m gunna flipper that boy to death,” Penguin threatened.

  “Gonna have to wait for me,” Tommy chimed in and everybody roared.

  Jack laughing along with the rest. Reaching clumsily for the jug.

  “Half Track, tell me somethin’, the other brodies, they like to gamble?”

  “Sure. Hell, yeah.”

  “How about Dobbs?”

  “Oh, sure, he—”

  The dye clicked in instant silence. Pinhead looking around confused.

  “Did eeeyeee win?”

  Half Track did not reply.

  “So,” Jack stoppered the jug. “Apparently somebody here did know Mr. Dobbs. Or should I say, Alex Goodman.”

  “You never quit, do ya?” Tommy fumed.

  “Not if I
think somebody’s pulling my chain,” Jack shot back.

  “What difference does it make?” Penguin shuffled uncomfortably. “‘Dobbs’, ‘Goodman’—nobody here uses their real names. Nobody cares.”

  “You folks seem to care,” Jack replied. “You seem to care quite a bit. Enough to hide it from me.”

  Half Track dragged herself up to take Jack by the shirt.

  “Leave it alone, Jack!” she bit off the words. “Leave…! It…! Alone!”

  She nearly tipped over as she dropped away. Jack reached out to steady her.

  “Get yer hands off me!” she cried, and then, “Come on, Pinhead.”

  “Did eyeee loose?”

  “C’mon, sweetheart,” Half Track seemed suddenly to deflate. “Jenny’s tired.”

  Pinhead rose dutifully, gathering the severed woman in his arms like a bag of groceries. The Giant collected the blanket, the dice. Jacques & Marcel would not meet his eye. A circle widened about Jack as the aristocrats of Kaleidoscope made their separate departures. Jack found himself finally alone with a siren flickering on a bed sheet and Tommy Speck.

  “Here,” Tommy jerked a telegraph from beneath his cap.

  Jack fingered the envelope. “How long you had this?”

  “So keep the tip.”

  Tommy left without apology. Jack tore off the end of the envelope and raised the telegram to catch the projector’s lamp.

  Slap, slap, slap—Emil Janning’s masterpiece now completely unreeled.

  Jack read his blunt summons. No way to stall this one; he had to find a phone. It wasn’t hard to break into Luna’s café. The street was deserted on all sides, the geeks retired to their trucks and trailers. HighWire was sound asleep at his wireless and Luna was nowhere in sight.

  Even so, Jack entered the café looking over his shoulder. The back door would be easiest, he figured correctly. Just a tap of his knife dislodged the hooked latch which was the only barrier to entry. Jack closed the door carefully behind him, rehooked its flimsy latch before making his way carefully in the darkness to the counter and the café’s hand-cranked phone. It took ten minutes just to get through, even calling collect.