City of Secrets (18 page)

“No, goddamn it. Sure, at first I thought he was guilty. He's a real bastard, a crooked cop. And yeah—he hates women. Get in line for that one. I can see him shadowing Annie, losing his temper. Killing her in anger. Sudden, explosive, like a grenade. But stopping to write that word on her body—no. Not his style.”

Rick cleared his throat. “Not necessarily, Miranda. You asked me to dig up some information—connections with other groups. Duggan wasn't suspended from the police force just because he's a dirty cop who got found out.”

Miranda stared at Rick, rubbing the cigarette out in the ashtray.

Bente shifted in her chair. “What the fuck are you waiting for, Sanders? Tell us.”

“He's trying to persuade me to leave the case alone, Bente. You should know Rick's methods by now.”

Their eyes locked, unmoving. Blue irises searching hers.

“I appreciate your help. But you don't own me. No one does—and no one will.”

He fell back to the table, cheeks red. She cared about the half-Irish bastard, maybe even loved him in a way, loved him like a lost memory, a grade-school kiss. But he wanted more, always did. Always looking up to Johnny, Johnny's stories, Johnny's writing.

Johnny's girl.

Bente kept her eyes on her food. Rick said heavily: “Duggan attended some IRA meetings. That's the Irish Republican Army.”

Miranda swirled the bourbon in her glass.

“The IRA isn't known to be anti-Semitic—I mean, maybe some of them are, but that's never been part of their platform. Some of them fought with us—you remember, Bente, the Connolly Column.”

No one spoke while Jorge and the busboy returned with a silver dessert tray. Bente picked the strawberry shortcake. Rick waved the tray away.

The orchestra tried to mimic Goodman on an arrangement of “Blue Skies.”

Blue skies, smiling at me …

“Maybe the IRA explains the federal interest in Duggan, the protection. Maybe they've found common ground with the Fascists—both groups supporting Germany against England.”

Rick threw his napkin on the table, face twisted. Eyes pleading and angry.

“Goddamn it, Miranda, Duggan's probably guilty, you've said it yourself. But if you want to defend a murderer, I guess that's your business.”

Bente opened her mouth to say something and Miranda made a motion for her to keep quiet.

He stood up, shoved the fedora on his head, got his breath under control.

“You don't need me, Miranda—you're official. You work for Duggan's attorney. But for the record, two more pieces of information. I checked the files on Harold Flamm. He squealed on a bookie to get charges dropped for illegal gambling. This was three years ago. He's been clean since—or not caught.”

She raised her chin. “And the other?”

His voice rasped, mouth contorted.

“Make sure you get the autopsy record for Annie Learner. It'll be released tomorrow. She had an abortion—and was sterilized.”

He pushed his way quickly through the nightclub crowd, tall and straight from the back, one end of the belt on his soiled trench coat dragging across the gleaming floor.

*   *   *

“Holy shit. You think that's got anything to do with the murder?”

Bente knew better than to talk about Rick.

Miranda wriggled one of the long green gloves on her hand.

“No motive. Women get charged in abortion cases, too, so blackmail's out. But the sterilization … reminds me of the Ann Cooper Hewitt case a few years ago.”

“Heiress, right? Sterilized by dear mother so she could control the trust fund or something?”

“Her share passed to her mother if she didn't have children. So when Ann needed an emergency appendectomy, her mother had her sterilized without her knowledge, claiming she was feeble-minded. She sued her mother when she turned twenty-one and got an indictment, but the case was dismissed.”

Miranda pulled on the other glove, stretching her fingers into it until they touched the ends of the cloth. Bente was watching her.

“What do you want me to do, Randy?”

Half a smile. “Things just got a whole hell of a lot more complicated. I need some breaks to fall my way, get some clarity. Get some answers.” She lowered her voice. “There's a fifth column group called the Musketeers—they meet at a bar in Maiden Lane. Tonypandy.”

The redhead raised her eyebrows. “As in the Tonypandy riots? Typical example of worker exploitation—Churchill's never lived down sending in those troops.”

“So why would a Fascist organization meet in a Welsh bar with labor sympathies?”

Bente snorted, slapped her hand on the table.

“Well, now you've got my curiosity up. Unless it's a front, I don't get it. Or unless it's like what you were saying about the IRA. Maybe Left and Right want to bury the hatchet in England's back, fucking Stalin and his nonaggression pact leading the way.”

Miranda shook her head. “Who the hell knows. But now I need to concentrate on Annie Learner. Can you check on Tonypandy, see if you can catch something?”

Her friend's voice was brisk. “Count on it. I'll call you tomorrow. If I can't get you at home or the office, I'll leave a message with the service.”

“Thanks, Bente.” Miranda reached for one of her friend's hands. “And be careful, OK? I may have to take a trip out of town in a day or two—just not sure if I've got a lead yet.”

“Follow your instincts. They're usually right.”

Miranda looked at the uncharacteristically sober redhead for a few seconds, brown eyes meeting green, then picked up her handbag, tucking it under her arm. “You could use my apartment. Get away from the Oceanic. Jorge would probably appreciate it.”

Bente laughed, waved her hand.

“Him? Fucks like a mink. Doesn't care where, and doesn't much care who.” She winked. “But sister, he's damn good at it. Try him sometime.”

Miranda grinned, stood up from the table. “No thanks.”

Bente's eyes focused on her friend. “Honey, I worry about you. Sometimes all we can expect out of life is a well-cooked steak and a good fuck. That's what men are after, and it's high time women started following suit.”

She shoved the remaining piece of strawberry shortcake in her mouth, saluting Miranda with the fork.

 

Sixteen

She left the Moderne in a hurry, looking for sharp-faced men in expensive clothes. Kept in crowds, kept with strangers, the kind who weren't wearing .45s.

Taxi outside, bored man about forty-five, two-day-old beard, listening to the
Swing Quiz
on KMPC from Los Angeles. He hurtled down Sutter and then a left on Mason to Post, past Francis, saint and sinner, past Union Square and Alma Spreckels stretching her hands to the sky. Past the Mechanics' Institute, past the Hallidie Building, warm gold of streetlamps reflecting like Christmas lights in the cool curtain of solid glass.

Dropped her by Lotta's. He grunted at the tip, turned the radio back on, and sped down Market toward Van Ness.

She walked quickly between a Municipal and a Market Street car, clanging bells and racing to see who'd get to Third Street first. Crossed all four rail tracks without getting her heel caught.

The Monadnock was nearly empty except for Tascone's. Wurlitizer blared “In the Mood” while army men sat in a row at the counter, eating pie and ice cream, double or triple date. Gladys wasn't working, and the brunette at the cigarette counter didn't bother to look up from the
Photoplay,
Ann Sheridan posing coyly on the bright cover. Miranda bought a pack of Chesterfields and another roll of Pep-O-Mint Life Savers, the girl grunting a mumbled thanks while the cash register clanged.

Slow elevator, creaks and groans. Miranda wished the Monadnock still used operators. She used to enjoy conversations with the old man on the stool, wink and a smile, tell her to call him “Pops” like something out of an Andy Hardy movie.

A year ago. A year was a long time.

Off on four, heels echoing down the hallway, then deep breath and her office.

No hatchet men with smiling faces and cheap aftershave. No note under the door about her legs or even a simple, scrawled promise to kill her.

She opened the bottom drawer of the desk, uncorked the Old Taylor, swallowed a shot from the bottle. Left it on top of the desk, then back to the safe, left-right-left, got it the first time.

Grabbed Ozzie's package. Grabbed the .22 and her handbag, .38 too large and back at the apartment. Looked down at her gown. Fuck the matching green evening purse.

Poured another shot of bourbon and flung up the sill, chilled wind from the Bay stinging her awake, eyes wide. No Cordoba tan Ford chasing streetcars down Market Street, no gangly tall man standing outside the blinking light of the bar next to the De Young Building or waiting for her at Lotta's Fountain, braced against the cold bronze.

She sat in the darkness and sipped the Old Taylor, beats of reflected neon her only illumination. Wind slacked, suddenly changed, and blew elsewhere. Gray tendrils, gentle and reaching out, crept through the darkness to touch her face.

Like a mother's touch.

She shut the window with a clatter.

San Francisco was waiting.

*   *   *

The
Yerba Buena
pulled up, one minute overdue. Passengers held on to their hats in the Bay wind, men grasping the arms of their wives. Roar and embarkation, excited chattering, Ferry Building full and smiling again, purposeful. Temporary victory over the gray and orange spans choking her life away.

Miranda inched forward with the rest of the crowd, lady in an ermine coat on her left, sailor on her right, his arm around a giggling blonde. Stood on the upper deck, cheeks cold and wet, facing the Island. Dance of colors, pinks and yellows glinting off the gold phoenix, aerie on the Tower of the Sun.

Mythical bird, mythical city. Veneer of gilt as thin as the respectability cloaking Pacific Avenue and the former Barbary Coast.

Empty promises whispered by the Gold Rush town, City of Hope and City of Hopeless, full of sin, shine, survival. Beached ships sunk into sand, build a house, sell supplies, serve some liquor and girls and dancing for the men in the mines, dreams broken up on the sharp ragged rocks of El Dorado.

She dropped the cigarette stub and crushed it, brushing against two office clerks flirting with a bus driver and a milkman on his night off. Laughter high and shrill, mixed with the baritone beat of the foghorn off the Headlands, white wool blanket on the way, muffled lights, wispy ghosts, forever dancing the tarantella down Market Street.

Live through another quake, San Francisco. Climb your green hills, make your babies, build your schools. A hundred years from now you might be docile and domestic and fit for the families, magic gone, gamblers no longer welcome. You might tame your people, might be the lady you pretended to be.

But Miranda didn't think so.

*   *   *

The City, 1912.

Steamships and sailing ships, pale billows puffing on wind ripped through the gate, more green than golden. Muddy streets, horse manure. Hammer and saw, hammer and saw. Cement trucks and bricklayers, dusty, gray hands, Barbary Coast glittering, casinos and electric lights. San Francisco whores spilling into pools of blood on Market Street, cops fighting over which one gets the payoff.

Abe Ruef's city. Not for children, though plenty roamed the streets and worked in the factories, and twelve-year-old girls with bound feet leaned against the bricks of Ross Alley, two bits a throw.

I'd rock my own sweet child to rest …

Seen and not heard, especially in the corners of hotel rooms and back alleyways, men with bristling mustaches and small, sick eyes offering a bonus for virgins, young and tender. Boys learned to fight, learned to run, unhampered by the long skirts and the forced petticoats, trapped in hands too rough to escape.

Sleep, baby dear, Sleep without fear …

Not sure if it was memory. Something to hold on to when Hatchett locked her away in the dark, shuttered room or her father came home surly, boots muddy, school papers not in order, hands trembling but quick to strike, not yet numbed by rum or gin or whatever bottle was waiting for him.

I'd rock my own sweet child to rest …

She sung the words to herself, dreaming of a dark-eyed and dark-haired woman holding her close, melodic, lilting, and the woman would sing it again, in an English made sweet by the sound of her voice.

She'd sing it over and over, clutching herself and rocking, waiting for her father to fall asleep, for Hatchett to nod in front of the fireplace. Dark night, fog her friend, muffling any sounds. Creep downstairs, slip out into the night. Invisible and alone.

Sleep, baby dear, Sleep without fear …

Lotta's Fountain gave her water, smell of steak and onions and fresh-baked sourdough bread. Dodge the carriages, sometimes get a free ride on a cable car if the conductor rubbed his red nose and waved her on. One tipped his hat once, made her feel like a lady, despite the old calico dress that was too short and too thin for the thick, cold wrap of summer fog.

I'd put my own sweet child to sleep …

Head for the blazing lights of Pacific Street, Terrific Street, gin joints and gambling halls, swing of hot ragtime pouring out of Purcell's, where handsome men with black skin played music that wasn't so sweet as her lullaby but stirred her soul just the same. Sometimes one of the women in feathered hats and red dresses would call her over, feed her champagne, roast pork, and potatoes, talking about Sophie Tucker and the Pantages circuit, and how Mary Lewis was packing them in at Taits, and how Al Jolson owned the town.

She knew better, of course. San Francisco didn't belong to anybody but her.

And the memories or make-believe blended, swirled, combined. Mother's lullaby, protected and made safe, running and knowing how to run from the men with the funny eyes, knife fight behind the bar, held-out hand with the gold piece in it. She'd sing it to herself under her breath, back away, run back to the closet where they locked her up. Because she'd get out again.