Grave Phantoms

by Jenn Bennett

  “That should do it,” she said, accepting a towel from Winter to wipe the dark green sticky substance off her fingers. “Now, over the next few hours, you might notice a strange itching sensation. That’s the muscle knitting back together. The wound should be completely closed by tonight. With any luck, you can cut out the stitches tomorrow.”

  “Why do all of your cures smell terrible? I hate mint.”

  “It’s not mint, and I didn’t beg you to let me speed up your healing,” Velma reminded him. “Did I mention it’ll leave a nasty scar? Winter can attest to that. This is the same poultice I used on his eye a couple of years ago.”

  “Scarred me up good, but I didn’t lose my eyesight,” the bootlegger bragged, tapping the break in his eyebrow, a reminder of the automobile accident that had killed the Magnusson parents and left Winter with mismatched eyes.

  “I don’t give a damn about scars,” Bo huffed. “I just need my full strength back as soon as possible.” Being injured was not an option. Not when there was a wild man with a knife out there, eager to cut Astrid’s throat.

  The first thing Bo had done this morning was tell Winter everything that had happened with Max and the idol—wisely leaving out the part about putting his own hands all over the man’s sister . . . and her putting her hands all over him.

  But.

  He did confess everything else, and to his great surprise, Winter did not rip off his arms. All he had said was, “Just keep her safe. If that means we need to pay Mrs. Cushing a visit, say the word.”

  Winter’s visits were never genial, but Bo didn’t want his help. He could take care of it himself. And he suspected that the reason Winter was so forgiving about the whole situation was because the man was convinced something was going on with Aida. But if she hadn’t told Winter about the potential pregnancy, Bo damn sure wasn’t going to. None of his business whatsoever.

  But he’d take whatever distraction he could get because he had things to do. Calls to make. Witch doctors to see with their cloyingly minty-smelling sticky cures. Astrid to follow . . .

  He’d heard her voice before he woke that morning. She’d been in the stairwell, arguing with Greta. From the sound of things, she’d been trying to get down to see him and give him one of Dr. Doom’s morphine tablets. Greta had no idea he was hurt and was too busy being aghast that Astrid wanted to stroll inside his quarters while he was still in bed. If she only knew what they’d been doing in the car last night, her head would surely rotate on her shoulders and explode.

  His head might do the same if he kept thinking about the way Astrid melted in his arms when he kissed her ear. The way her legs pressed together. He could still see it now, the beautiful Y shape made by the dark crease of her skirt trapped between her clenched knees and how it ran between her legs and molded the apex of her thighs. And to feel that Y rub against his—

  He really must stop. His cock hadn’t stayed down a solid hour all morning, and he’d already had to pleasure himself twice. So much for honor.

  The first time was upon waking from a morphine dream in which Astrid was a blond fox who cornered him in an elevator that never stopped ascending. She stood upright like a human, but what started with her licking his wound ended up in a confused coupling that had him waking in sweat-soaked sheets before dawn.

  The second time was after he’d woken for good. Upon forcing himself to shake off the druggy haze of the pain pill, he’d remembered a word he overheard Astrid saying when she’d been confessing to Le-Ann in the Moons’ parlor: My feelings for him are sempiternal.

  He had no idea what that meant. But like anything else he didn’t know, he sought the education he required between the pages of his humble library. He was able to sound the word out and find it in his battered Webster’s.

  Sempiternal: eternal, everlasting.

  My feelings for him are sempiternal.

  That did it. He was probably the only man alive to masturbate after reading the dictionary. Clearly his self-control was in shambles.

  Perhaps Velma’s foul-smelling cure would help to restore it.

  He’d found out not a half hour ago that Astrid was on her way out—as in, going out in the city alone, when she damn well knew that Max could be anywhere. Sure, Bo had put one beautiful bullet right through the man’s leg. Two inches lower, and he’d have shot out the man’s kneecap—which is what he’d been aiming for and had unfortunately missed. A bullet in the leg wasn’t as devastating. Max could be up and about today. Not likely, but who knew what kind of weird magic animated the son of a bitch.

  It just wasn’t safe. Astrid wasn’t alone. She’d gone out with Jonte. And Jonte, like Greta, took care of the Magnussons like they were his own flesh and blood, but he was sixty-two and had a bum leg. The old Swede also refused to carry a gun. At least he had the sense to telephone Bo and warn him that Astrid had asked him to drive her around town. When Bo found out where they ended up, he was going to give her a piece of his mind.

  “Bo?”

  He glanced up from the fresh bandage that covered his minted stitches and found Velma and Winter staring at him like he’d lost his damn mind. Maybe he had.

  “I was asking you about that disk,” Velma said, pointing to the piece of gold that sat on the handkerchief spread over Winter’s desk. “That looks an awful lot like the symbol on the front of that idol you showed me.”

  Winter frowned. “You’ve already shown her, too? And Lowe? Am I the last person to see it?”

  He was, because right after Bo had confessed everything to Winter that morning, he’d taken his dinged-up Buick over to the Presidio, found Little Mike on guard duty, and handed him a parcel containing the turquoise idol.

  Minus the gold disk with the symbol.

  No longer giving a damn about preserving either an archaeological treasure or a magical object, he’d taken an ice pick and a hammer and pried the thing off in about ten minutes. Funnily enough, he’d discovered that the “disk” was actually a gold coin that had been melted down on the front and engraved. The back of the coin was still mostly preserved. It was very old. Spanish. A doubloon, he thought. If he had time, he’d take it to Lowe and Hadley or possibly to the Wicked Wenches for verification.

  “This is for Mrs. Cushing,” he’d told Little Mike when he’d handed over the parcel. “I ended up tracking down that man I was looking for last time I was here. He asked me to return this.”

  He’d included a friendly note inside the package that said:

  You’ll get the gold coin back when you tell me what the symbol means. When you’re ready to talk, send a note along to Pier 26. And if any of you comes within a hundred feet of Miss Magnusson again, I’ll burn your house to the ground.

  Straight to the point, Bo felt. And it wasn’t an idle threat. He didn’t care whether these people were magical pirates or murdering occultists, they could be buried like anyone else walking around on two legs. Bo’s patience for bullshit was at an end.

  The telephone rang. He waved Winter off and walked around the desk to answer it, re-buttoning his shirt. “Magnusson’s,” he said into the mouthpiece.

  “It’s Jonte again,” a Swedish-accented voice said over the crackling line. “I just dropped her off and am waiting outside for her to return. So far, no trouble. I can see the building entrance from here and no one is following.”

  From the dings and clangs in the background, it sounded as though he was calling from inside a restaurant. “Where are you?” Bo asked.

  “I am inside Golden Lotus. Miss Astrid is across the street in your old apartment building in Chinatown.”

  Bo stared at the telephone cord as if it were a snake, and hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack.

  Jesus H. Christ.

  Astrid was visiting Sylvia Fong.

  —

  Astrid smiled at the wary eyes that peeked through the cracked apartment door on the fou
rth floor of Bo’s building. “Hiya,” she said. “Not sure if you remember me, but I met you at Gris-Gris.”

  No acknowledgment.

  “We took a taxi together,” she clarified. “I was with Bo.”

  Never mind that Sylvia had actually arrived with Bo; Astrid went home with him. Sort of. Her life truly was a mess, wasn’t it?

  “Bo?” the woman looked very confused. She turned around and spoke to someone over her shoulder in rapid Cantonese. The answer came back in another feminine voice. “Yeung Bo-Sing.”

  The door opened. Standing inside the apartment was a beautiful woman dressed in a smart coat and hat. A woman who looked just like Sylvia Fong . . . were it not for the fact that her hair was much longer. Astrid’s brain was having trouble making sense of this.

  Footfalls raced toward the door, and seconds later, Sylvia’s bobbed head poked around her shoulder. “Miss Magnusson,” she said with a smile.

  Stars, there were two of them. Two!

  “This is my twin sister, Amy,” Sylvia provided helpfully. “Amy, this is Astrid Magnusson.”

  “O-oh,” Amy said, looking her up and down with greater interest, and then checking behind her—as if she expected Bo himself to be there. Astrid could practically smell the disappointment when the twin found the hallway empty. “Nice to meet you, but I’m late for work. Tell Ah-Sing I said to call. I miss him.”

  Astrid’s smile faltered. She would absolutely not be telling him that. But before she could think of a response, Amy was sidling around her and racing down the hallway. Astrid watched her leave, and then turned to Sylvia and cleared her throat. “I was wondering if you had a few minutes to chat.”

  Sylvia eyed her with suspicion for a moment before making a sweeping gesture with her arm. As she did, the bell-shaped sleeve of her silk pajamas swung gracefully. “Come inside, won’t you?”

  Astrid stepped into a narrow entrance filled with tiny shelves lined with knickknacks—figurines, souvenirs from the San Francisco Seals baseball team, and several decks of playing cards—and followed Sylvia’s slender figure into the main room. It looked much like Bo’s did on the second floor, with its small kitchenette on the back wall and the living and dining area in the front. They passed between two rolling racks of clothes and sat together on a small sofa facing a window. Soft gray light filtered in from the dreary sky outside along with the sounds of midday traffic.

  Sylvia tucked elegant feet beneath her and fitted a cigarette into a shiny black holder. “Would you like one?” she asked, holding out a silver case. Astrid waved it away and crossed her legs, waiting for her to strike a match and light it. “This is a most unexpected visit. What brings you here today? Did Bo send you?”

  Astrid shook her head. “He doesn’t know I’m here.” And he won’t be happy when he finds out. I had a favor to ask, but while we’re on the subject . . . How long have you known Bo?”

  “Let’s see,” she said, blowing out a cone of smoke. “Three years, I think? Yes, I think we moved in here that winter. It took me several months to get to know him because he rarely stays here. He says his room at your family’s home is as big as a bread box, but I guess a fancy bread box is better than a run-down palace.”

  “He always said he stayed with us for the home cooking,” Astrid said.

  “The boy loves to eat,” Sylvia agreed, smiling. “Not an ounce of fat on him now, but wait until he’s fifty.” She puffed up her cheeks and mimed rubbing a rounded belly.

  Astrid chuckled.

  “With his luck, he’ll probably still be devastatingly handsome and that will just make me mad.”

  Sylvia thought he was devastatingly handsome? Well, of course she did. Isn’t that what Astrid had come out here to discover? Since the wound had already been opened, she dug a little deeper. “Were you and Bo . . . ?”

  One dark brow lifted. “Were we . . . ?”

  Fine. Astrid said it. “Lovers.”

  Sylvia held her gaze for a long moment. “He hasn’t told you anything, I assume,” she finally said, flicking ash into a silver ashtray surrounded by bottles of fingernail polish. Sylvia’s nails, much like Astrid’s, were perfectly manicured, the middle of each painted ruby red beneath curved white crescent tips.

  “He says you’re friends,” Astrid said.

  “We are,” Sylvia confirmed. “He’s terrific fun, and I’d do just about anything for him.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.” She hadn’t meant to sound so accusatory, but there it was. She leveled her gaze at Sylvia and held it.

  Sylvia bristled. “What do you want to hear? Yes, we were lovers. Is that what you came to find out? We had sex right here on this sofa. Many times.”

  A sharp pang knifed through Astrid’s chest. Her ribs cracked open and she bled like Bo had, all over the sofa, until she was nothing but a hollow shell of bones and skin and a dried-up heart. Nothing but two empty eye sockets staring blankly at Sylvia, but not seeing.

  “I knew it,” Astrid whispered. A woman always knows.

  “It was a long time ago,” Sylvia admitted in a softer voice. “I adored him. But he was almost never around, and when he was, it was only for an hour here, an hour there. He was too busy working, always gone to Canada or running all over the city in the dead of night.”

  The perils of bootlegging. Astrid had spent most of the last ten years of her life getting used to this. First her father, then Winter. Now Bo.

  Sylvia puffed her cigarette and stared out the window. “I began to feel like I was just a last-minute diversion. That maybe I wasn’t exciting enough to keep him. It was never sentimental between us, but I wanted more than he was willing to give, so I resorted to risky tactics.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was Amy who suggested a way to grab his attention. She was always more adventurous than me. And at the time, I was willing to try anything to keep him—even sharing him.”

  Astrid stilled. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Don’t you?” Sylvia said, pulling her knees to her chest, allowing the implication to hang between them like a threat.

  “At the same time?” Astrid asked in a small voice.

  She only heard bits of the next few sentences. Three of us. Drunk. One night. Her mind scribbled out the rest while her already-pained chest withstood the battering blows of conjured salacious images.

  Sylvia. Amy. Bo.

  Bo. Amy. Sylvia.

  It sounded like something in a stag film. Astrid felt light-headed and queasy. And curious . . . but mostly queasy. Her hands were trembling.

  “When?” was all Astrid could get out. God help her, she had to know.

  Sylvia shrugged. “Summer of ’26.”

  Astrid let out a shaky breath. Two and a half years ago.

  “That’s when I lost him for good,” Sylvia was saying. “For someone who helps to run a criminal empire, he is strangely honorable. He said he couldn’t see me, that it wasn’t right. That we could remain friends, but nothing more. And when I pressed him, he said—” She laughed bitterly and screwed up her mouth. “Imagine thinking that the man you’re crazy about has fallen for another woman. Now, imagine finding out that he wasn’t even seeing that other woman, only looking at her from afar.”

  “There was someone else?” How many girls had Bo been with? Had he slept with half the city? He never told her any of this, and they used to share everything; apparently he’d been leaving out the juiciest details.

  “Yes, there was someone else.” Sylvia lifted her hand in frustration. “He refused me for the fantasy of you. You! A little girl still in school. You were, what? Sixteen? How insulting is that?”

  Astrid wasn’t sure how to answer. Emotions roiled and abated inside her—jealousy and indignation, anger and surprise. Relief and sadness. Bo had ended things with Sylvia in the summer of 1926.

  That’
s when he’d taken Astrid to the redwood forest.

  Part of her wanted to press Sylvia, to make her tell exactly what day this little erotic triumvirate occurred among the three of them. To find out if it happened before or after the redwood forest. But another part of her didn’t want the answer. Didn’t want to know. And did it really matter now?

  “So, yes,” Sylvia said. “Bo and I were . . . and then we weren’t. But it is over, so you can stop looking at me like you want to claw my eyes out.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve wanted to claw your eyes out, too.” She gave Astrid a tight smile. “The only thing that made me feel better all this time was knowing that you were an unreachable dream that he could never have. That was my small consolation. But now here you are, asking me these questions, so I think maybe I was wrong. And that makes me sad.”

  She was sad? She’d had his body. His affection, too, obviously. God only knew what secrets they’d shared. Had he kissed her the same way he’d kissed Astrid? Had he said the same things?

  And if Sylvia thought Astrid would feel sorry for her, she could think again. Had Sylvia spent years living off nothing but incidental touches and hope, knowing that none of it could be made public? Did she have to pretend like she was someone else?

  Angry tears threatened. “Bo and I can’t just run off into the sunset. You must know that. So if you want to keep feeling smug about your past victories, don’t let me stop you. Because you’ve had more of him than I’ve had—maybe more than I ever will.”

  Sylvia frowned at her and looked away. Neither of them said anything else for a long time. Outside the apartment’s windows, rain pinged against the fire escape, and a horn honked as rumbling cars sped over wet streets.

  “I’m not smug,” Sylvia finally said. Dark eyes slid toward Astrid’s. Humor stirred behind them. “But I’m proud, and I see that in you, too. We aren’t so different, I don’t think.”