by Arlette Lees
She watches Leland drive away, sets her opera glasses on the dash and thoughtfully taps a smoke from a pack of Old Golds. His secret life isn’t as secret as he thinks it is. When he goes into Little Ireland or Chinatown it’s not for corned beef or chop suey.
On the seat beside her, a 1910 Police Positive .38 special sits beside a silver whiskey flask, both gifts from her father on her sixteenth birthday, a time when her girlfriends were fluttering over hope chests and bridal magazines. Not Frances. She’s always been a no nonsense girl.
Fran is the only offspring of infamous bootlegger, Red O’Hara. When he was shot in the back off-loading contraband liquor in Monterey Bay, she inherited his fortune, his steel backbone and his serious cigarette cough. Now that Prohibition has ended, the fleet of brown and yellow O’Hara trucks continues to supply every liquor store and bar in the county.
She smokes aggressively and watches the cab deposit the girl in front of the Rexford Hotel. The kid was clearly terrified when Leland accosted her, almost as if they’d crossed paths before. The cold irritates her raw lungs and triggers a coughing jag that leaves her eyes watering. When she finally catches her breath, she spits bright red blood into her pristine handkerchief. She blames the damp weather and lights a fresh cigarette off the cinder of the last.
* * * *
“Let me help you into the lobby?” says Tom.
“No please. I don’t want to make a fuss.” Tom walks reluctantly back to the cab stand. He wants to ask her out to dinner or a movie, but the opportunity always slips away.
Angel runs into the recessed entry, umbrella gone, a shoe damaged, but her book intact. She still has nightmares about that long ago night with Dietrich. People can sometimes reclaim things that have been stolen from them, but the innocence of childhood isn’t one of them.
A movement in the corner of the sheltered entry catches her eye. She hears a whine, and two big brown eyes look up from a pugged dog-face with big bat ears. With his serious under bite and squat body, this little fellow is ugly in the most adorable way. She slips the book inside her coat and kneels down.
“Bo, what are you doing out here? You’re soaking wet.” Seventy-eight year old Lulu Barker doesn’t go anywhere without her dog. Angel looks through the double doors and sees Albie reading a comic next to the cigarette machine. He hurries outside when Angel raps on the glass.
“What’s Bo doing out here?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” she says, gathering the trembling little creature in her arms. “Let’s go to my room and get him dried off.”
“Where’s Lulu?”
“I don’t know, but I have the feeling something is terribly wrong.”
CHAPTER 3
When Up To Date comes on, Madame Zarina turns the radio to music so she doesn’t have to think about the bad things going on in the world. She was born, Cathleen Rose Cook, but she’s Cookie to her friends. She walks to the window over-looking Cork Street as the first drops of rain begin to fall.
After her husband Skipper died, Cookie moved into the apartment above Joe Crisalli’s Bakery, with its pink scalloped awning and charming bistro tables. Heavenly scents fill the entire building: cinnamon, vanilla, powdered sugar and coconut.
The first thing she did when she moved in seven years ago was hang her neon sign outside the upstairs window:
MADAME ZARINA.
FORTUNES TOLD FOR A DIME
Although she uses an exotic name to attract customers, she doesn’t wear a turban or pretend to be a Gypsy princess. On any given day she’s likely to give a reading in her housecoat and slippers, her grey hair fluffy with short poodle curls. When the weather allows, she can count on five or six customers a day. A few dimes here and there are nothing to sneeze at when gas is ten cents a gallon and bread eight cents a loaf.
As she stands at the window, a sharp flash of lightning blinds her and she flinches away from the pane. A vibration begins in her head and the muscles tighten painfully around her left eye. Migraine. It takes very little to wake the monster in its cave…a flash of light…a chemical odor…a sip of wine. Dr. McBane says only kidney stones or childbirth compare to the pain of migraine. Cookie doesn’t need a doctor to tell her that. She washes two aspirin down and hopes she can head it off at the pass.
The headaches began when she was knocked unconscious in a buckboard accident at the age of nine, the visions following shortly thereafter. Their family priest called in an exorcist, but the ritual didn’t take and the nuns at school said she had the devil in her. Her childhood doctor said she might outgrow the spells, but at 67 it was highly unlikely.
McBane calls her headaches “aberrant episodes” because they’re accompanied by dream-visions, sometimes as clear as snapshots, other times as surrealistic as a Salvador Dali painting.
After one of her visions a few years back she led police to the bludgeoned body of three year old Bucky Chapelle, hidden in a culvert on Silver Creek. Rather than gratitude, she was accused of complicity in the crime. How could she know so much if she hadn’t been there? She was exonerated when Bucky’s stepfather confessed to “maybe going overboard” with his discipline when the boy dropped his cigarettes in the toilet.
Cookie became less forthcoming after that. When fourteen year old Gretchen Fry gave birth in secret and extinguished the child’s brief flame of life she kept her own council. Six months later the remains of the infant were discovered beneath the chicken coop by the family dog. Even if she’d reported the incident the baby wouldn’t have been less dead.
Then came the stabbing of Louise Crowley, a girl who’d been left to die in a remote section of the cold, rainy woods. Because she believed the girl might still be alive, she risked coming forward and her information was instrumental in saving the girl’s life. Even the most skeptical cop had to admit, there was something to the mysterious visions of Madame Zarina.
Joe climbs the inner staircase and Cookie invites him in. He’s an industrious, handsome man, tall and fit with silver hair at the temples, kind brown eyes and a straight solid nose she finds very sexy. He’s considered quite the catch among the growing population of local widows.
Joe looks approvingly around the cozy parlor with its over-stuffed velvet sofa and chair. A flowered rug covers the floor and gold tassels secure the soft scarlet drapes. On a round table in the center of the room, a crystal ball rests on a cloth of midnight blue brocade. There’s a grandfather clock in the corner and Maxfield Parrish prints on the papered walls. Cookie is really quite the gal. He walks over and hands her a pink donut box.
“Your favorites,” he says. “French twists with cherry frosting.”
“You are so naughty,” she says. “You know I love all things French, including perfume, lace and kisses.” They share a moment of laughter and she gives him a peck on the cheek. She opens the box. “Look at all these. You’re going to make me fat.” She looks up and sees that he’s wearing his top coat. “Don’t tell me you’re closing early.”
“It’s the storm, Cookie. I’m going home to make sure Cooley’ delivered my sandbags. The Saddle Shop closed an hour ago because nobody knows how bad it’s going to get. Why don’t you come home with me? I hate leaving you by yourself.
“I don’t think so, Joe. If the creek goes over I’ll be stranded out there. Besides, the weatherman says it might not get as bad as predicted.” It’s really about her headache but Joe already has enough on his plate.
“You shouldn’t be living alone anymore, Cookie, especially with your heart condition,” he says.
“It’s just a little irregularity, Joe. That’s what the pills are for.” He studies her face. A beat or two passes in silence and she knows what’s coming.
“What?” she says, taking a bite of donut. “Do I have frosting on my nose?”
“What about my proposal, Cookie? I hope you’ve given it some s
erious consideration this time.”
“Believe me Joe, I’m thinking as fast as I can, but what’s wrong with things the way they are?”
“Cookie, I’m lonely in that big house. Sometimes I wake up at night and feel like the last person on the planet. No one to put my arms around. No one to talk with. You’ve had five years to think.”
“You do have Pumpkin,” she says, with a bewildered look.
“Yes, a cat is very nice, but he doesn’t keep up his end of the conversation.”
“I don’t mean to be so stubborn. You know how I feel about you, but after Skip died, I swore I’d never get trapped like that again. I wasted so many years putting up with that cad.”
“You were young, Cookie. You made a mistake. Besides, I’m not Skip.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes. “Skip wasn’t Skip either until I married him! Then I found out who he really was.” Her head begins to throb just thinking about her disastrous marriage.
“Alright, you win.” Joe throws his hands up in surrender. “The armory is opening its doors in case it floods, but you can’t wait until the last minute. If you like, I can drive you over.”
Cookie bristles. “With all the Shanty Irish piling in from across the tracks? I’d rather be hit by lightning.”
“You are one stubborn woman,” he says, patting her shoulder. Then more seriously: “I know a lot of ladies who’d give anything if just one person cared if they lived or died.”
“I’ll call if I need you.”
“Not tonight,” he says, a cool note of resignation creeping into his voice. “At least I know where I stand.”
“Now Joe, don’t…”
He turns abruptly and goes back down the stairs.
* * * *
As Joe warms up the car he looks up at Cookie’s apartment where a ruby lamp glows behind the pane. She’s been part of his life since they played kick-the-can as kids. He was despondent when she eloped with that handsome rascal, Skip Millstone. Skip probably broke her heart a million times with his philandering ways, people pitying her and laughing behind her back. A year later Joe caved in to parental pressure and married Mildred Lovisoni. He never made her feel second best, although the torch he carried for Cookie continued to flicker in secret.
Seven years ago Skip was killed behind the wheel of his roadster, a foot on the gas and his eye on a pretty young thing swinging a tennis racket. Pow! Right into a tree. Joe figured he had it coming.
Cookie reclaimed her maiden name, something unheard of in her generation. She said that Millstone was a bit weighty and she couldn’t lug it around anymore. The judge laughed and granted her request. A few months later, Mildred lost her struggle with lupus, and after a reasonable period of mourning, he set his cap once again, for Cookie.
After all these years she still fascinates him. He’d asked her once if she could really tell fortunes, if she could see into the future when she gazed into her crystal ball. Her response was surprisingly candid. She told him the ball was merely the focal point of her intuitive energies. Her talent was reading people, analyzing their concerns and knowing what kind of advice they needed to hear. It usually involved romance, money or guilt. How complicated is that? In the process, she’d become privy to more sins and secrets than Father Doyle at St. Finnbar’s or Chief Garvey down at the station. People are more inclined to confide in someone who lacks the power to relegate them to hell or jail. As for the visions? They’re the real McCoy, beyond her understanding or control.
Rain taps on the roof of the car and Joe turns on the windshield wipers. He pulls into the street and heads toward home where his fat orange cat waits in the window. He’s not getting any younger and he’s tired of lying alone in bed listening to the clock tick away the hours.
Something’s got to give and it looks like Cookie isn’t going to budge.
* * * *
I head home as soon as Angel calls the station and tells me that Lulu is unaccounted for. Jake is unlocking the Barker’s room with a passkey when I arrive. We hear a moan and Angel, Jake and I rush to the bedroom where Lulu’s husband Roland is cussing up a storm. Weighed down by a heavy plaster body cast, he’s wedged awkwardly between his bed and the wall with Lulu nowhere in sight.
“I pounded on that blasted wall half the night before I realized 307 was vacant,” says Roland. He’s a big man who stumbled off the curb four weeks ago, broke his femur and cracked his pelvis. Now he’s 275 lbs. of dead weight.
I look at Jake. He looks at me. He’s a tall colored man with shoulders like a bison. “Okay, let’s do it,” he says. He takes Roland’s upper body and motions for me to take his legs. One, two, three and we hoist him onto the bed, the patient grumbling all the way. My bad leg makes a popping sound at the hip and I pretend not to notice the pain that shoots down the sciatic nerve into my big toe. Angel fluffs his pillow and gently tucks the blankets around him.
“Are you comfortable now, Mr. Barker?” she asks.
“Do I look comfortable, Missy?” Angel turns her head and bites her lip to keep from smiling.
“Where is Lulu?” I ask. “Angel found Bo in the rain.”
“Oh, you mean the crazy woman I live with? She took off during the night. I tried to stop her and look where I ended up. She’s not herself anymore. Yesterday she looks at me and says, ‘Don’t I know you from someplace?’ How do I respond to something like that?”
“Any idea where she’s gone?”
“The all night café. Maybe the park. She forgot her purse so at least she’s not out there blowing my money.”
“We certainly can’t have that,” I say. I turn to Jake. “I’m going to drive around the neighborhood. If I don’t find her in thirty minutes or so, I’m filing a missing persons.” I turn back to Roland. “What is she wearing?”
“My raccoon coat, bobby socks and tennis shoes with holes in the toes.”
Albie appears in the doorway with Bo wrapped in a towel. He wiggles free and runs to the bedside, whining and prancing and waiting to be lifted onto the bed.
“Get him away from me!” says Roland. “Nothing smells worse than a damp dog. Lock him in the bathroom.”
“I’ll hold him,” says Albie, picking him up.
“Hold him? You can keep him.”
“Can I really, Mr. Roland?”
“French bulldogs are the most useless creatures on earth. That’s why Lulu’s sister gave him to us. They can’t hunt nor herd. They can’t breed without assistance or give birth without veterinary intervention. If they try to swim their big heads pull them right to the bottom faster than the Titanic.”
Albie walks to the window overlooking the back alley, Bo nibbling affectionately at his chin. “I think you’re cute,” he says, and gives him a squeeze. Beyond the window the rain falls steadily, the power lines whipping between the poles. “Where’s your car, Mr. Roland?”
“Where it always is, parked next to the garbage cans.”
“Ain’t there now.”
“You blind? It’s the green, Chevy sedan.”
Green sedan. That gets my antennae quivering.
“Like I say, it just ain’t there,” says the boy.
“Where do you keep the keys, Mr. Barker?” I ask.
“In the ash tray by the phone.” I walk over and take a look.
“They’re gone.”
“Since when has Lulu started driving?” asks Jake.
“She doesn’t drive,” says Roland. “I gave her lessons once, but it was like teaching a monkey to balance a check book. She couldn’t tell the difference between the gas and the brake no matter how many times I explained it. You need to get cracking, Jack. I want my car back in one piece.”
Jake turns to Albie. “Go get Agnes Peel. She’ll be cleaning on the second floor. Tell her to bring Mr. Barker some
soup. Then I’m calling his doctor.”
“And tell her not to forget the crackers.” says Roland. “I can’t eat soup without crackers. Not the big ones, either. Those little round ones.”
I can only take Roland Barker in small doses.
“I have to go,” I say.
“I’ll ride down with you,” says Angel. “Hank is holding my new book at the desk.” As we ride the elevator to the lobby I notice how pale she is. “Mr. Barker is the most ungrateful man I’ve ever met,” she says. “I don’t know how Lulu tolerates him.”
“By getting dementia.”
“Oh Jack, you’re terrible.”
“I know I am. Did you know there’s a button missing from your coat?”
Angel looks down. “So there is. It’s probably somewhere in the room.”
“Are you alright? You’re not coming down with something are you?”
“I got cold coming back from the book store. I didn’t think the light would ever change.”
The elevator bounces to a stop in the lobby and we get out. Hank retrieves her book from behind the desk and she thanks him. I peel a few bucks from my wallet.
“Here, in case you need something. Promise me you’ll eat.”
“I promise.”
I tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. It’s damp with rain and her hands are like ice. Something’s not right, something more than the weather, but I can’t put my finger on it.
* * * *
In a house set back from the highway, Kenny Geiger, age 6, sits at the table with his chin in his hands, looking at the empty chair across from him. The wind is up and a shingle flies past the kitchen window. His mother looks up from a sink of sudsy water. “Kenny dear, you might as well finish the last pork chop. If Georgie was coming, he’d be here by now.”
“I can’t Mom. I’m stuffed.”
“I can,” says Mr. Geiger, balancing his cigar stub on the edge of his plate. He picks up his fork, but his heroic girth seriously impedes his reach. Kay seizes the moment and stabs the chop with a fork. Within seconds she has it wrapped in waxed paper and in the ice box, obviously quite pleased with herself. She has a friendly mischievous face and a head of frizzy Orphan Annie curls. She’s as fit and quick as Harry is fat and slow.