The Sixteen Burdens

by David Khalaf

  Farrell set down the bloodletting device.

  “I’ve kept you alive. No one else would have a diseased thing like you. You are nothing but a burden on the world.”

  He removed a bandage and wrapped it roughly around Gray’s arm. It was painfully tight.

  “Now, let’s not fight,” Farrell said. “Say you’re sorry so I can forgive you.”

  Farrell rarely offered amends so easily, and Gray would be foolish not to take him up on it. He took a deep breath and could smell the overpowering clove and spice in Farrell’s Bay Rum aftershave.

  Gray Studebaker stuffed every feeling he had into a small box in his mind, then locked it up and covered it with a blanket of numbness. He was the Southern California sky, vast and empty. He was the Los Angeles River, rough and devoid of life. He was a Studebaker, his insides wrapped in steel, speeding down an asphalt boulevard, never stopping for anything or anyone.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, with all the feeling of an automaton.

  “There,” Farrell said. “Was that so difficult?”

  Farrell patted him on the head like a dog, then stood and took the upside-down bowl of blood.

  “Don’t be too eager to hate me,” Farrell said. “I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a friend.”

  Gray wanted to refute the words, but he couldn’t. It was truth, hard and gritty as a mouthful of sand.

  Farrell walked toward the door, then turned back with a flourish.

  “You’re not to leave the home for the next month. You’re on folding duty only. Take one step off this property and you’ll spend a week in the basement.”

  After Farrell left, Gray rolled onto his bed. Why he had never gotten placed with a family like the other boys, he never knew. He was already three or four years older than the rest of them; was he too damaged to find a home? Was it already too late for him?

  Gray felt a crumpling under him and pulled out the only map Helen hadn’t managed to destroy. It was wrinkled and half torn.

  I’d be lucky to sell this for a penny.

  He opened the map. A tear went right through a drawing of Nina Beauregard’s French Chateau-style mansion in Beverly Hills. The map would have to be updated if the actress turned up dead. Gray got a pencil from his drawer and drew a big “X” through the house.

  He wondered if any of the other abducted stars were on the map. He searched around the tiny hand-drawn homes until he found them, one by one: Tara Winward, Irene Leigh, Rebecca Santorini and Lucille Littlefield. Every abducted actress was featured on the map.

  Gray drew an “X” on each of their homes. That was five missing women; five homes in all. Together they made a rough circle. In the center of that circle was just one other home: a mock Tudor mansion that sat high upon its own hill. It was Hollywood’s most famous mansion, the site of countless parties and events, the one every notable figure used to visit when they came to Los Angeles.

  It was Pickfair, the home of Mary Pickford.

  Gray’s heart skipped a beat.

  The police always miss something.

  He could think of only one explanation: Mary Pickford was the one kidnapping the other women. Suddenly he understood why the actress didn’t want him selling his maps. Someone might notice what he saw; the maps incriminated her.

  This could be Gray’s big break. He could confront Mary Pickford and expose her crime—but it would mean disobeying Farrell.

  CHAPTER

  T HREE

  DARKO ATLAS WAS tired of bear.

  The troupe had been eating it for at least nine days now, and could probably eke out a couple more before the carcass went bad. The first three days saw a juicy bear filet roasted over a fire; the next three days were chunks of bear braised in a cast iron pot with some native sage and rosemary they had found in the local hills on a stop in Ventura. By their fourth day in Los Angeles they were down to a bear stew, with stringy pieces of meat mixed with soft carrots and potatoes.

  He tipped the bowl to his mouth and forced himself to down the rest of his meal. After ten years of stale prison food, he promised himself he would never turn down a good piece of meat. He dropped the empty bowl onto his table, the sound clattering off the fabric walls of his tent.

  What I wouldn’t give for a little lion.

  Or maybe a nice fatty hippo.

  His troupe had acquired the bear from a failing circus they had bumped into outside San Francisco. The ringmaster was relieved when he ran into Atlas at the train station and saw his cages full of exotic animals—monkeys, zebras, even a camel. The man naturally assumed the animals were part of Atlas’s strongman show. He explained to Atlas that he was heading east to family in Colorado and had nowhere to put his gentle bear, Buster, who was too tame to be let into the wild.

  Atlas took the animal and promised to keep him warm, which technically he did. He flayed the man’s pet beast that same evening and roasted him slowly on a warm spit. Even after the animal had been skewered, its dead eyes remained eerily intelligent in the glowing fire.

  They say intelligence in a person is attractive.

  But in a bear it’s delicious.

  More than anything he was tired of traveling. Tired of the circus. Tired of his alias. Tired of this charade. But four years of hunting were about to pay off.

  Just as Atlas was finishing his meal, Sugar poked her head through the flap of his tent.

  “She be wanting to speak to you.”

  Sugar’s day clothes were the same as her costume: a sleeveless flapper dress with loosely draping batiste that ended well above her knees. It allowed her to move quickly. Sinewy muscle rippled under her dark skin.

  Atlas turned down the desktop radio, which was broadcasting some kind of bluegrass band through the static.

  “Of course she does. Let her in.”

  He sat atop the two wooden barrels he used as a seat, wrapped in a navy blue robe that had been custom made from three rayon dresses his seamstress found secondhand in Salinas. Everything he wore was custom made.

  The flap to his tent opened, and Sugar ushered in their latest captive. To her credit, Nina Beauregard didn’t look around the dingy tent in fear, or shudder at the bear head sitting atop a wooden stake. She only flinched a moment when she took in the eight-foot, four-hundred pound man seated before her. She walked straight up to Atlas and craned her head upward to look him in the eye.

  “I demand to speak to my lawyer. You can’t kidnap me and hold me against my will!”

  She slammed the palm of her hand on his table to accentuate her assertion.

  Atlas had personally interviewed each of the abducted actresses, and each one had been more confrontational than the previous. They acted as if they were arguing over a movie contract, not pleading for their lives. Didn’t they know they were at his mercy?

  Pinch her head off.

  No, don’t pinch her head off.

  “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Beauregard,” he said, as if she had stopped by for tea of her own volition. “Please sit. I have just a few questions for you that will take only moments of your time.”

  Atlas’s voice was deep and resonant, with a heavy accent most people could only peg as something Eastern European. She refused to sit, but instead put her hands on her hips and shifted her weight to one leg. Beauregard was famous for her lovely, shapely legs.

  “You wait until my husband hears about this!”

  I’ll pinch his head off too.

  Shh.

  Atlas removed a file from a canvas bag that typically held the clowns’ juggling batons.

  “I have some information that concerns you, Mrs. Beauregard. Do you recognize this?”

  He showed her a yellowing page, one that had been ripped from a very old book. Along with some nearly illegible handwriting was a drawing of an object—a small cone with narrow bands of brass on each end that secured pieces of round glass. It looked like a toy kaleidoscope.

  Beauregard snatched the page from him and looked at it. For a moment Atlas lost his
concentration staring at her otherworldly beauty. Her glossy black hair cascaded off her head, framing a face of big blue eyes, a long but nicely rounded nose, and lips so red they hardly needed lipstick. She had plump, curvy features that filled out her dress nicely. But was she prettier than the others? Was she the most beautiful one of all? Atlas couldn’t say for sure, but he thought not.

  Kiss her.

  No, don’t kiss her.

  “If you want me to answer your question,” she said, “then stop staring at me like some mongrel desperate for scraps.”

  Atlas reached out, gently brushed her hair away, and then grabbed her throat. His hand went entirely around her neck. He didn’t squeeze; that would only be messy.

  Beauregard gasped for air. She eyed the steak knife on the table and fumbled for it. Atlas didn’t try to stop her. She raised the knife in the air and stabbed down on Atlas’s forearm as hard as she could.

  Atlas laughed; he admired her spirit. He let go of her and she sucked in air. When Beauregard thought to look at the knife still in her hand, she discovered that the blade was completely bent to the side. She dropped it to the floor.

  “Now, Mrs. Beauregard; have you seen that object before?”

  “I’ve never seen that before in my life, I swear!”

  “Interesting,” Atlas said. “Because we have information that suggests otherwise.”

  He turned the file toward him and flipped through blank pages, pretending to scrutinize them.

  “Well, your information must be wrong.”

  She turned for the door but before she could take a step, Sugar emerged from the shadows and stood in front of her, blocking her path.

  “I’m talking about the fact that you weren’t always as beautiful as you are now. Not until about ten months ago, when someone paid you a visit and made you an unusual offer.”

  Beauregard’s face became an ashen color, which made her look like a lovely china doll.

  “How do you know about that?” she whispered.

  “We have been tracking this woman for many years,” he said. “She’s dangerous. A Nazi spy and an enemy of the United States of America.”

  For the first time that evening Beauregard looked concerned. There were a surprising number of Americans who still supported the German Reich, but nobody wanted to be accused of it.

  “She used this device on you,” Atlas continued, “which makes you a willing participant. We need you to tell us everything you know or else we will consider you an accessory to her crimes. You’ll be shunned as a Nazi sympathizer.”

  It was a threat so empty and vague in its accusation that no self-assured person would feel threatened by it. But Beauregard was no normal person. She was an actress.

  “I had no idea what I was doing,” Beauregard said. “I promise!”

  “Then tell me what you know.”

  She told her story eagerly: A handsome older man knocked on her door, offering her a rare opportunity to try a new beauty procedure that was illegal in the United States. It sounded too good to be true. They went that very afternoon to see the doctor.

  “What did she look like?” Atlas asked, though he knew the answer.

  “I couldn’t say. She was completely covered in medical garb, head to toe.”

  Beauregard described the feeling when the tool was used on her, how she felt a kind of painful jolt, like an electrical shock that vibrated and transformed every cell within her body.

  “I wondered if she weren’t just a charlatan who had stuck me with a frayed electrical cord. That is, until I saw the results.”

  Beauregard described her transformation.

  “Do you believe me?” she said. “It’s a miracle. The only true miracle I’ve ever experienced!”

  Atlas did believe her. It was the same story from all of the women he had captured in Hollywood. At first he thought no one with any sense would hop blindly into a car and surrender themselves to the whims of a stranger in a dark room. And yet he got the exact same story from every actress.

  Beauty really is the most pathetic of all talents.

  Pathetic but powerful.

  Atlas looked at a large, unfolded piece of paper on his table. It was a map of celebrity homes Sugar had picked up when they first arrived in town two weeks ago. With his fork he scratched out the portrait of Beauregard in the margin. Other faces around the border were scratched out too. They weren’t the one he was looking for; they were all decoys.

  The one they were looking for was there, though, in the city. After so many years, they were finally closing in. They had traveled every place the magician had performed in his final year of life. New York, Montreal, every yokel city in the entire Northeast. Everywhere but Hollywood.

  “Is she a danger?” Beauregard asked. “Have I been poisoned?”

  “She’s extremely dangerous,” Atlas said. “And thoroughly un-American. You can imagine how embarrassing this would be for everyone if the press found out.”

  No one wanted to be seen as un-American, least of all an actress whose success depended on her popularity.

  “I was driven in a dark Buick, either blue or black,” she said.

  Atlas knew that already.

  “Anything else?” he asked. “Surely you heard or saw something of value.”

  Beauregard thought about it. She was so very helpful when her reputation was at stake.

  “Just one thing,” Beauregard said. “When the doctor was about to examine my eyes, I thought I saw a piece of hair slip out from underneath the medical cap.”

  “So?” Atlas said.

  “It was a golden curl,” Beauregard said.

  That wasn’t helpful. Half the women in Hollywood had golden locks.

  “Mary…Pickford.”

  The soft, rasping voice came from the corner of the room. Beauregard jumped. She hadn’t noticed the shrunken old man in the corner. Many people had passed his wooden wheelchair and assumed somebody had discarded a dark cloak made of hair. They didn’t realize someone was inside it.

  The old man had suggested her before, but Mary Pickford didn’t fit the profile. Everyone knew she hadn’t aged well, and eyewitness accounts of her botched facial surgery stretched from coast to coast.

  “Mary…”

  “Yes, I heard you the first time, Deda,” Atlas snapped.

  Rip his tongue out.

  No, no, no.

  “My apologies,” the old man said.

  Deda had become more irritating ever since they had come to Los Angeles. He was cumbersome to wheel around and nearly always needed a caretaker, but now he was chatty, too. Excitable. But the old man had waited for Atlas, all those years he had been imprisoned. It seemed cruel to dispose of Deda so close to realizing their goal.

  Mary Pickford.

  The girl with the curls?

  Beauregard shifted the weight on her feet and flashed what she hoped was a charming but deferential smile.

  “That’s really all I know,” she said. “May I go now?”

  Atlas nodded. Sugar was by Beauregard’s side in an instant, her hand around the woman’s arm like old friends.

  “It’s crucial that as few people know about this as possible. I hope you understand.”

  “I do,” Beauregard said.

  You don’t.

  You will soon enough.

  Atlas whistled, and Marco entered the tent. He always carried on him a whip and the stink of animal dung. When Beauregard passed through the tent flap, he indulged in a long, lascivious look.

  “What’re we going to do with her?”

  There might be use for her yet. Atlas watched the back of her curvy legs as she left.

  She’s a plump specimen.

  Not like that stick Littlefield.

  “Allow her to bathe and find her some clean sheets to sleep in,” Atlas said. “Tomorrow night have the cook set my table properly. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman for dinner.”

  CHAPTER

  F OUR

  FARRELL
NEVER STAYED angry long, not with a drink in each hand. All afternoon Gray plied him with Gin Rickeys, Sidecars, and Whiskey Sours from the private bar Farrell kept in his loft.

  Some new outfits had arrived from France—air mail—and Farrell had been twittering about the place all morning like a hummingbird on caffeine. Gray insisted on serving as valet while Farrell tried on his new clothes.

  The outfits were all custom, or as Farrell kept reminding him, “bespoke.” The double-breasted morning suit was too formal for anything Farrell ever did. The tweed coat with contrasting pants was too thick and scratchy for Southern California weather. A two-piece men’s swim suit with a striped top and a belted bottom was the only piece that might have made sense, except that Gray had never once seen Farrell go to the beach.

  By the time Farrell got to the maroon smoking jacket, he passed out on his bed, thoroughly zozzled. Orange rays of afternoon sun streamed in through the windows. Gray pulled the drapes and tucked Farrell in. He then left instructions with the cook that no one should wake him for dinner.

  He stole Lazy Eye’s jacket and was sneaking out the side door when he was stopped by Panchito, his new bunkmate.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out.”

  “Take me with you.”

  “I got business.”

  There was no way Gray was going to wheel this kid around the broken sidewalks and uneven pavement of the city.

  “Let me help you,” Panchito said. “Whatever it is.”

  “Help me? How you gonna help me with anything?”

  Panchito’s face reddened.

  “Sorry,” Gray said, “but I don’t need no help. I work alone.”

  “Working on what?”

  Gray wasn’t about to tell this kid about his plans to become a private eye. The idea felt too fragile, a bubble that would pop if he tried to touch it.

  “I’m working on getting out of this dump.”

  Panchito’s weak little hands grasped the arms of his wheelchair as if someone were about to roll him down a ski jump.

  “You can’t leave. I’ll tell Farrell.”

  “Farrell’s as embalmed as King Tut. Now mind your own potatoes.”