City of Secrets (33 page)

Miranda tried to control her breathing, tried to think ahead. Rick told her psychiatric hospitals and homes for poor people performed most of the sterilizations in the state. Napa was one of the largest, almost completely self-sufficient, with something over two thousand acres of farm, orchards, cattle, vegetable gardens, and a bakery. Easy place to lose more than your mind.

Gracie motioned her out of the car, and she barely had a chance to look up at the fairy-tale turrets before the woman's fat claws dug into her elbow, propelling her toward an open door and through a huge kitchen and pantry, white and yellow tile, smell of vegetable peelings and disinfectant. A car door slammed and Miranda craned her neck backward to see Walter drive toward a large gray garage about fifty yards from the house.

Pale-eyed women with straggly hair and tired mouths were peeling potatoes along a long tiled counter on the left, while on the right two men in baker's hats mixed dough for the next day's bread. No one looked up at her.

Gracie pushed her, sudden and hard, through the end of the kitchen area into a dim passageway. Miranda nearly lost her balance, threw up her arm in a windmill, and whirled to face the fat woman, teeth clenched.

“I told you once—keep your goddamn hands off me.”

Gracie shrugged in her dirty smock, braids gray from the dust on the road. “Doc ain't got all night to take care of the likes of you. Move.”

Miranda's arm was on fire, breath quick and shallow. She needed a cigarette. She needed a fucking plan.

She quickly followed Gracie through the corridor, rooms on either side of the passage double-bolted, occasional droning voices, more machinelike than human, filtering through the thick painted white wood and the small barred windows at the top. A man with a thick southern drawl was reading the Bible, and a woman's raspy voice shrieked in protest from a room across the hall.

I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness …

The woman's scream choked in a rush of words, angry, incoherent. Powerless.

A burly male attendant about thirty-five and dressed in a dingy white uniform walked toward them down the passageway, face bored. Gracie nodded to him, crooked a finger. He stopped, staring at Miranda. The woman in number 114 started to sob. The reading continued, male voice and its twang sounding pleased with the reception.

And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.

The woman flung herself at the door.
Thump-thwack. Thump-thwack.
Sound of flesh on wood, no caution, no care for injury. Rhythmic, regular, like a goddamn metronome, door shuddering with each attack. No cry of pain.

Gracie was murmuring something to the attendant, both of them oblivious. Then the scratching started, audible even over the heartbeat in Miranda's ears, pounding in her chest. Fingers and nails digging gutters in wood, small, gouged channels where the blood from broken skin would flow, blood from whatever part of her body she could hurt, maim, kill. Repeated syllables, over and over. Something about the Bible, snares and nets and traps. Twisted, distorted, her own language. Recited like a litany, rosary of pain.

“Can't you do anything to help? She's hurting herself.”

The attendant shrugged, looking her up and down, mouth curled. “Like she hurt her own five-year-old daughter? Maybe you'd like to hold her hand, lady—I wouldn't.”

Gracie motioned with her head for Miranda to follow, triumphant smile stretching her fat cheeks.

Miranda stared at them both. Straightened her back and walked through the rest of the corridor, chased by the madwoman's strangled sobs and the peculiar, sadistic croak of Ecclesiastes as recited by the man in number 113.

*   *   *

Gracie gestured to a room on the third floor, and again the key turned in the lock. Said she'd be back for the money.

The room was small. Looked like the cubbyhole of a law clerk, chipped ecru-colored paint fading down to dark red wainscoting. No pictures on the small oak desk, no certificates on the wall.

Not his real office, Miranda thought. Dr. Jowls would be close by, though. Not the kind of man who liked to be inconvenienced.

The air smelled like old carbon paper. Better than the passageway, with the cotton candy odor of ether floating like a threat, no Gayway smell, no popcorn, no loud, raucous laughter, at least not the kind you hear on Treasure Island. Goddamn it, the place unnerved her, cold eyes of attendants and staff, dead to the world they controlled, more inhuman than the sick bastards they were supposed to be taking care of.

Miranda jumped off the wooden chair, lit a cigarette to take away the smell. Kept the case in her hand, stick calming her down enough to try the file cabinets.

No luck. Tried the desk. Last year's calendar, pocket Bible, blank paper. Not a goddamn thing.

Key turned in the lock outside, and the doctor stepped inside the small room, face flushed to his scalp, expression grave. Gracie scowled, small piggish eyes glaring like coals.

Something was wrong.

*   *   *

Gracie moved to flank Miranda from the right side. The doctor walked toward her slowly, sorrow drooping the jowls, deepening the dimples. Looked like Hoover after the Bonus Army march.

“Miss, uh, Korbe…”

She leaned backward against the small desk, Chesterfield between her fingers. The smoke curled up and around the dingy yellow light globe on the ceiling, forming a question mark.

“Yes, Doctor? I'm ready with the payment whenever—”

He sighed, shook his head. Gracie took a step closer, beefy arms folded across her chest.

“No need.”

The eyes that met hers were large, blue, liquid. Full of reproach.

“We've just received a call from an associate. It seems you are not the woman you claim to be.”

Fucking tennis bastard at Nance's. Recognized her from somewhere, probably some jerk-off sonofabitch she tossed out of Sally's.

She shifted her weight. Purse was under her arm, still open. Tried to hide her shaking hands.

“What bothers you the most, Doctor—that I've uncovered your little eugenics lab or that you lost a chance to sterilize another Jew?”

The fat woman made a motion toward Miranda.

“Wait, Gracie.”

She halted like a trained Doberman, midstep. He ran a puffy white hand over his sweaty forehead. Voice was matter-of-fact, sure and certain.

“You're a private investigator, Miss Corbie. And, I understand, a prostitute. Thank God you're not pregnant—you'd be an unfit mother of morons and criminals. In a moral world you would never have been born.” He shook his head. “Your kind are why this once great nation is floundering. All the strength and virility sucked out of our country by radicals. Degenerates.”

Miranda brought the cigarette to her lips, slow inhale. Stared at the yellowish whites of his eyes, the flushed cheeks. Blew a stream of smoke over his right ear.

“I'm sure you know all about what degenerates suck, Doctor.”

His skin flamed red up to the distinguished gray temples and pink, shiny scalp. Gracie interjected a squeal.

“Let me do her, Doc. I can shoot her up with somethin'—dump her over on the river wharf. Nobody round there this hour.”

He looked at Miranda thoughtfully.

“No, Gracie. Too many questions. I think it would be far better to make Miss ‘Korbe'—or Miss Corbie—disappear.”

Miranda's stomach clenched. He read the whitening of her skin, and his full lips stretched in a prim smile.

“Indeed, Miss Corbie. You'll be admitted under a Jane Doe. Simple case of nymphomania and an unsuccessful operation. I'm sure I'll find you have enlarged sex organs when I operate.”

His eyes fell to between her legs, and she felt soiled, violated beneath the light summer dress.

“You've interfered in a noble enterprise—something bigger than merely my profession or reputation.” He shook his head again. “No. I consider this a correction of nature's mistake.”

He and Grace moved in coordination, stepping toward her.

Miranda's eyes darted back and forth. Could only tackle one. He removed a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket. Three feet. Two feet. Her right hand was poised over the cigarette case in her open purse.

“Nature's mistake. Like rocket's red glare?”

Shot in the dark.

He stopped midstride, hands outstretched with the open cuffs. Consternation now, surprise and anger.

“What do you know about it?”

She shrugged, kept her elbows close, trying to control the trembling racking her legs, her body. Still clutching the cigarette.

“Enough.”

He looked back and forth between Miranda and the disappointed Grace. Barked a command to the heavy woman, handed her the cuffs.

“Lock her up and sedate her. I need to make a phone call.”

“Glad to, Doc.”

He cast one look back, warning to Gracie.

“No marks on the outside.”

The door closed softly behind him. Key in the door again. Gracie turned to face Miranda, gloating smile. Her fat fingers played with the handcuffs.

“I knew you wasn't right from the beginning. Askin' 'bout that girl.”

“The one you killed?”

The beefy woman made a face. “We ain't killed nobody. Jew bitch got more than she counted on, but we ain't the ones who killed her. You're the first, sister. A real honor.”

She took a lumbering step toward Miranda.

“I been lookin' for some fun.”

The Chesterfield was almost gone, but a quick puff lit the ember at the end. Miranda pivoted right so her left hand was over Gracie's thick, pulpy fists, and she slammed the stub into the fleshy part of the fat woman's arm. Gracie let out a yelp, face convulsed. Miranda took two steps backward, yanked out the thick gold cigarette case. Her purse hit the floor, drawing Gracie's eyes, and when the other woman lifted her head, she was staring into the muzzle of a Baby Browning.

Miranda's breath was ragged.

“Last time I used this I blew a man's brains out. Set the cuffs on the desk.”

She moved sideways around the fat woman, pushing the tiny gun against the back of Gracie's skull. The big woman let out a Donald Duck squeal between her lips. She tossed the cuffs on the small oak desk, and they landed with a loud clatter, sliding toward the other side.

“Move to the chair. Slow.”

Gracie swung her head like a pendulum, one step at a time in a half-circle around the desk. Miranda ground the Baby Browning tight enough to leave red gashes in the back of the fat woman's scalp.

“Face the door and sit in the chair.”

Miranda pushed past the filing cabinets and storage boxes, making sure no obstacles were in her way. Gracie sat down, her breathing heavy. Miranda stood behind her.

“Sit on your hands.”

Gracie complied, shifting her bulk from left to right and back again, while with her left hand, Miranda leaned over her and reached for the cuffs.

No goddamn time. She expected the sound of the key in the lock at any second.

“Now clasp your hands together on the top of your head.”

The large woman leaned forward, some bravado coming back into her voice. “Doc'll fix you up real pretty for this, lady. He'll make you feel it 'fore you go.”

Miranda twisted the barrel harder. “Shut the fuck up and put your hands on your head.”

Gracie locked her pudgy fingers together on top of her grimy braids. With her left hand, Miranda snapped one of the cuffs on the fat woman, the steel barely closing over her wrist.

“Goddamn bitch—that hurt!”

Snapped on the right cuff while Gracie complained again.

“You jus' wait—you think you're so smart, Miss Private Detective, some kind of goddamn Commie is what you are, just like your goddamn Jew friends—”

Miranda stood up straight, deep breath. Quickly cradled the Browning in the palm of her right hand and slammed it into the back of Gracie's skull with as much strength as she could muster. The large woman slumped forward, out cold on the oak surface.

Miranda checked for a pulse, found one. Reached around Gracie to the pockets of her smock. Plucked out a rack of keys. Picked up the cigarette case and purse off the floor, tucked everything under her arm. Took several gulps of air, smoothed her skirt, brushed her hair back. Kept the Browning in the palm of her hand.

Time to find the doctor.

 

Twenty-nine

She bent forward over the lock, listening for voices outside. Nothing.

Skeleton key on the set from Gracie's pocket was filed to work on more than one lock. She tried it, holding her breath at the click of the tumbler, listening again, pushing the door open a crack.

Browning was still in her right palm, damp from the sweat of her hand. She flicked the safety back on with her thumb.

Miranda slid out into the dully lit hall, keeping her back to the open door while she pulled it shut, scanning the corridor. When it clicked, she turned around and locked it again, checking from right to left down the empty passageway.

The room was at the T nexus of another corridor. She'd walked up that direction from the stairway and the labyrinth of cells off the first-floor kitchen. Too much exposure, but the doctor could be right or left or even down the passage toward the stairs. Her eyes landed left on a door marked
LAUNDRY.

Footsteps up the corridor. She hurried toward the laundry room, tried the knob. Door opened and she squeezed inside, small dark space, smell of sweat, piss, blood, and vomit hanging heavy in the still air. Left knee banged into a wood-and-metal laundry cart, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out. Froze, listening.

Voices outside with the tap-slide of footsteps on the tile floor. They were near the file room.