Devil’s garden

26

They didn’t speak to Maude the entire way out of the city, rumbling along in a black Dodge Brothers, the kind with the steel-frame construction and hard top. All business, the only action coming from the fatheaded cop, Ke

She lit a cigarette and offered one to Big Kate, but Big Kate didn’t even acknowledge the question as the smoke flitted out the side window, a cool breeze shooting through the open cab and between the two lunkhead detectives dressed identically in black suits. Just as Maude settled in, flicked the cigarette from the window, and laid her head against the window, the car slowed.

Nothing around but the dirt road, a long fence, and those goddamn crazy cows making their way up the steep cliff.

“We outta gas?”

“Out,” said Griff, the lunkhead driver.

“I’m not squatting before you men.”

“Out,” Kate Eisenhart said, nudging her in the ribs with an elbow, pushing her toward the door being opened by Tom Reagan. She stood in the roadway, the sun high and golden. Maude pulled her hat down to shield her eyes.

“You are not to step foot back in San Francisco,” said Reagan, his head shaped like a bullet. Big head. Good teeth.

“Am I to walk back to Los Angeles?”

“Up to you,” said Griff Ke

“What about the charges you mentioned?”

Detective Reagan shrugged. “It’s all up to you now, Mrs. Delmont.”

“Hopper-Woods,” Kate added.

“You’re a laugh riot,” Maude said.

Kate stood wide-legged in a big black dress, black coat, and matador hat.

Her double chin bunched under her disapproving mouth.

“Is that it?” Maude said. “You can spare the lecture.”

“I don’t think she heard us, boys,” Kate said.

“Kate,” said Reagan, grabbing her arm, “c’mon, let’s go.”

“I’m not through with the twist.”

“Kate,” Reagan said again.

Kate shook his beefy hand off her. She walked toward Maude and Maude looked at her and shook her head with pity, gathering her black dress from her feet and starting for the road. Kate grabbed hold of her dress and spun her around. “You are to never return. Not under any name.”

“I heard you.”

“Good.”

“Please remove your hand,” Maude said.

Kate slowly let go, still staring right at Maude, but before Maude turned she gathered a good deal of spit in her mouth and let it fly into Kate’s chubby face. Kate hauled back with the palms of her hands and pushed Maude to the ground and, red-faced and angry, marched back to the machine.

Maude found her hands, looking for her feet.

“You people,” Maude said. “You don’t want to know what happened.”

“What happened?” Tom Reagan said, offering her hand.

She stood on her own and dusted herself off. “You’ll never know. You idiots.”

Big Kate returned from the Dodge, coat flying behind her, matador hat hanging crazy on her head, clutching a baseball bat. Her face heated, breathing excited, she looked as if her body would swell and explode like a balloon. Tom blocked her path.

“Outta my way, Detective Reagan. This saucy bitch needs a talkin’ to.”

“Not like that,” Reagan said.

Griff Ke

Kate hoisted the baseball bat in her hands. Tom stood in her way.

“Don’t you care?” Maude said, screaming. “Don’t you care? Rumwell is a liar.”

“Dr. Rumwell is respected,” Kate said, getting a better grip. “You are gutter trash.”

“Dr. Rumwell is an abortionist. A killer of children.”

“Liar,” Kate said, howling. “Black liar.”

Tom made a move for the bat, but Kate eluded him, circling Maude Delmont in all that open, hilly green space. The wind cold and salty off the Pacific. Overhead, a hawk circled.

“He killed her,” Maude said. “There you have it.”

“Black liar.”

“He removed the child from her the day before the party,” she said. “She was ill. I don’t care if you crucify the fat bastard, but there you have it. Take it.”

Griff Ke

Ke

“You don’t want it,” Maude said, laughing. “I serve the truth to you on a silver platter, but you’re so far gone with it you don’t want it. How wonderful. How pious.”

Kate choked up on the bat, the cop Reagan trying to get away from Ke

Maude spit out sand and blood. Her dress torn, ribs cracked, body battered. She wavered to her feet and tried to find the road south.

SAM WAS ON THE DECK of the Sonoma all of ten minutes before he was introduced by the captain, a man named Trask, to Daisy Simpkins. Daisy smiled at Sam and shook his hand as the captain explained she was a federal dry agent snooping for any alcohol that may have made it to Pier 35 unchecked. He kind of smiled about it, like it was such a big joke, as the morning sun shone over Oakland, the wind harsh in his ears. Behind Daisy, the light made her hair seem more gold than white, a lock covering up one of her silver eyes, red mouth pursed into a wry smile.

Sam walked beside her on the long, endless deck of the ocean liner, other Pinkertons interviewing hundreds of passengers and checking their trunks and suitcases before they could head down the gangplank. City cops prowled the guts of the big ship, Sam spotting Chief of Detectives Matheson and Tom Reagan; Reagan caught Sam’s eye but turned back to interviewing the purser.

“I heard it’s not a half mil,” Daisy said. “They carried a half mil, but the robbers only got a hundred and a quarter.”

“Still, a nice haul.”

“Would set me up for a while.”

“You check every boat that comes in?”

“We had a tip about LaPeer,” Daisy said, walking beside Sam, strolling the top deck like an average couple taking in the sights, through the backed-up passengers and out onto the aft deck loaded down with bunches of green bananas. Daisy wore a cape with a blue jumper dress, and the wind blew the cape up off her shoulders while they walked. “But I figure they already dumped the hooch at the three-mile limit.”

“You miss me?”

“I ached,” she said. “In the gut.”