High Spirits [Spirits 03] (20 page)

      
“It’s nothin’,” he said. I think he meant it.

      
He waited until I’d opened the door, eluded Spike, and stepped inside before he turned and retreated to Maggiori’s motor.

      
I bent down to pet Spike and tell him what a good doggy he was to announce all visitors in so forthright and audible a manner. When I stood up again, it looked as if the entire masculine contingent of my family was ranged against me. Plus Sam. I think I staggered back a step. I know I gasped.

      
Billy and Pa were frowning at me. Sam was looking neutral, but he was so big and so ... oh, I don’t know ... there, that he might have been a monster out of a fairy tale come to strike me dead.

      
“What?” I asked nervously. “Why are you all staring at me like that?”

      
Billy spoke first. “Who the devil was that?”

      
“Um ... you mean that guy at the door?”

      
Stupid question. I shot a frantic glance at Sam, who appeared at that moment to have turned into some kind of immovable object. A block of granite, for instance.

      
“Daisy,” Pa said softly, in his most reasonable voice—instantly, my eyes teared up. “Do you think it’s wise to get into automobiles with other men at night? It doesn’t look good, you know. It looks as if you’re not respecting your marriage vows.”

      
Billy stared at me, as grim-faced as ever I’d seen him.

      
Tears spilled over and ran down my face. Turning again to Sam, I cried, “
Curse
you, Sam Rotondo! This is all your fault!”

      
“Daisy!” Pa was shocked.

      
Billy’s eyebrows lowered into a fierce V, and he looked first at me and then at Sam. “What’s Sam got to do with it?”

      
Furious, ashamed, bitter, and miserable, I said the first thing that popped into my addled brain. “Oh, Lord, Billy, you’re not going to accuse me of having an affair with
Sam
now, are you?” I could have shot myself as soon as the words hit the air. Unfortunately, all of the guns and ammunition Billy had brought back from the so-called Great War were locked up.

      
“Daisy!” Pa was even
more
shocked.

      
“Darn it!” I wailed. “This isn’t fair!”

      
At last, after far too many minutes during which he stood still and did nothing, Sam stepped forward. “Calm down, Billy and Joe. I think I can explain this. But you have to promise not to say a word to anyone. This is top-secret business.”

      
I turned on Sam like a cyclone. “You’re going to
tell
them? Why couldn’t
I
have told them days ago and saved myself all this agony, Sam Rotondo? You miserable ...” I couldn’t think of a word bad enough to describe him.

      
“It wasn’t a good idea. It’s still not,” said the stoic Sam. “But we’re going to have to let the cat out of the bag now, or your husband and your father will never trust you again.”

      
With a wretched, “
Ohhhhhh!”
I flung myself down on the couch.
Damn
Sam Rotondo, whose words were worth less than the breath it took to say them. He was going to tell them everything, and then both Billy and Pa would forever afterwards look at me as if I were evil personified. And I’d only tried to do a good deed for Mrs. Kincaid! Life was
so
unfair, although this was, I suppose, merely a drop of goo compared to the avalanche of mud life’s unfairness had mired me in so far.

      
Thank God Spike jumped up on the sofa. I grabbed him, hauled him onto my lap, and sobbed into his shiny black coat. At least dogs were fair and reasonable people.

      
“You see, it’s like this. We’ve got a new, but serious, problem with bootleggers in the city.”

      
Pa and Billy grunted. They read the newspapers; they knew that already. I braced myself, thinking
here it comes
.

      
“And Daisy has an in with a lot of folks that we on the force can’t get to.”

      
“Like who?” asked Billy. His voice was hard, as if he wasn’t buying anything yet.

      
“Like Stacy Kincaid and her mother,” said Sam, sounding quite matter-of-fact. “The Kincaid girl has got herself mixed up with a bunch of thugs, one of whom, Vicenzo Maggiori, runs a mobile speakeasy. What’s more, there’s a rat in the works who warns Maggiori whenever we plan a raid.”

      
“What’s all that got to do with my daughter?” asked Pa reasonably.

      
“Daisy knows the Kincaid brat. And she’s good friends with Stacy’s brother. I asked her if she could help the police shut down Maggiori’s outfit. She agreed.”

      
I lifted my head from where it had been buried in Spike’s fur and gaped at Sam. I couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t ratted me out. Yet. Wiping my eyes, I listened.

      
“Yeah?” Billy said. He pursed his mouth as if he were considering this bit of information but still withholding judgment. “But why Daisy? Couldn’t you get somebody else to help you?”

      
Sam shook his head. “Not nearly as well as Daisy can. Maggiori’s got a bee in his head about wanting to communicate with his dead godfather, a gangster who was gunned down in New York City a year or so ago. Daisy’s the only person I know of who does séances.”

      
Comprehension dawned on Pa and Billy’s faces.

      
Pa said, “Ah.”

      
Billy said, “I see,” as if it almost made sense to him now.

      
“So,” Sam said, “I approached her about doing a séance for Maggiori. She didn’t want to do it.”

      
I finally spoke, although my voice was thick with tears. “
That’s
the truth!”

      
“But she finally agreed to help us. I had to warn her not to tell anybody, though, because the more people there are who know about it, the more apt word is to get back to Maggiori. That wouldn’t be safe for Daisy.”

      
I nodded vigorously, thinking it was about time Sam agreed this was a dangerous assignment he’d given me. Not that I’d had any choice about accepting the deal at the time it was thrust upon me.

      
Billy was frowning again. “I don’t know, Sam. It sounds as if Daisy might be in a world of trouble if any of those hoodlums figure out she’s working with you.”

      
I
knew
there was a reason I loved my husband!

      
“They can’t find out. How can they?”

      
“I don’t know, but it sounds dangerous to me.”

      
“Me, too,” I said, sniffling.

      
“Nuts. All she has to do is try to find out the name of the leak. There’s no way in the world Maggiori or any of his men will ever know who passed the information along.”

      
“Was that guy one of Maggiori’s goons?” Billy asked, hooking his thumb toward the front door.

      
I answered him. “Yes! Yes, he was, and I was scared to death the whole time I was with them. They’re terrible men! They’re murderers! They beat their women! They’re ... they’re ...” I ran out of words, dumped Spike on the sofa, and rushed over to Billy, where I fell on my knees, threw my arms around him and cried on his lap.

      
Poor guy. But Billy was good about it. He only stroked my head and said, “I’m sorry, Daisy. You should have told me.”

      
“I c-c-couldn’t,” I said through my tears. “S-Sam wouldn’t let me.”

      
“It’s true, Billy. We need to have a cloak of secrecy around this operation. Those guys aren’t dumb.” If anyone had told me that Sam Rotondo would come to my rescue like a knight in shining armor, I’d have laughed myself silly. But he did it that night. Even if it was his fault I was in this fix in the first place.

      
Oh, very well, it wasn’t
all
Sam’s fault. I guess I could have stood my ground and not bowed to Mrs. Kincaid’s wishes that I perform the first stupid séance.

      
“Anyhow,” said Sam, who was beginning to sound as if he wanted to go away, “Daisy is performing a good deed for the citizens of Pasadena, and she’s been of great help to the department. There might even be a commendation from the mayor in it for her.”

      
If I survived. Anyhow, what did I care about stupid commendations?

      
“That’s my girl,” said Pa, smiling at last.

      
“Yeah,” said Billy. I could hear the smile in his voice.

      
I still wanted to die.

Chapter Eleven
 

Before Sam left that night, I told him I had some information for him, but I wasn’t going to impart it to him then. I’d developed a massive headache, was totally exhausted, and only wanted to go to sleep.

      
“Meet me at the library tomorrow morning,” I said, sounding much more authoritative than usual. I guess that’s what being dog-tired and scared to death, not to mention, worried almost beyond endurance does to a person.

      
“What time?”

      
No argument. No counter-offer. Nothing. I stared at Sam through puffy eyelids, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t. Good heavens, perhaps he actually
did
appreciate my help in this matter.

      
“How about ten-thirty? I don’t think I’ll be up to much before then. Anyhow, I have to meet Flossie for lunch at noon.”

      
“Flossie? Flossie Mosser? Good God, now you’re friends with
Flossie
?”

      
“Don’t you say another single word, Sam Rotondo. Florence Mosser is a nice girl who fell for the wrong man.”

      
“I’ll say.”

      
“I said stop talking! I’m trying to help her. Anyhow, if it weren’t for
you
, I’d never have met her in the first place.”

      
He rolled his eyes, but he took my advice and didn’t say another word, thank God.

      
I very nearly yielded to my headache, melancholy, and fatigue that night and swiped some of Billy’s morphine syrup, but I got hold of myself before I could succumb to the urge. I only took a powder and crawled between the sheets. Once more I wished I’d die before I awoke, but the old prayer didn’t work that night any more than it had the night before or the night before that. Figures. I don’t have any luck at all, unless you count the bad variety.

      
At any rate, I felt as if I’d been left to soak overnight in a bucket full of lye soap, rinsed roughly, and then thrown over a rusty clothesline to dry when I awoke the next morning. My eyelids were swollen, my eyes felt as if somebody had thrown sand in them, my headache still hovered, and if I’d felt any more sluggish, I could have gone out into the garden and joined the snails. In short, I felt like heck.

      
Too bad, Daisy Majesty
, I said to myself.
You got yourself into this fix, and now you have to see it through.
Every now and then, I wished my mother and father hadn’t instilled such strict Methodist principles into me when I was young.

      
My lousy mood wasn’t improved any when I caught sight of Billy stuffing a bottle into his bedside stand. And here I hadn’t even thought to look
there
. Which was silly. I knew darned well that the poor guy took more morphine than I thought was good for him.

      
Before my mind could start rushing around in unending circles of what was better for Billy, addiction or pain, I put a firm clamp on my thoughts.

      
Except for my meeting with Sam at the library and Flossie on the corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado at noonish, I didn’t have a single other thing to do that day. I could almost relax for once in a blue moon. Well, except for trying to talk my family into attending the Salvation Army church the next day.

      
And then, all of a sudden, as if a bolt of lightning had struck me, it occurred to me that my entire family
didn’t
have to go to church with me! I could jolly well tell them that I was going to meet Flossie Mosser at the Salvation Army church, and they could all go to the Methodist church as usual if they wanted to. I’m not that independent as a rule, but even
I’m
entitled to a day off every once in a while.

      
I think my chin must have had a defiant lift to it that morning because when I more or less staggered into the kitchen, Pa said, “What’s the matter, Daisy?”

      
“Just tired,” I said, not fibbing. I really was tired. Worn to a nub was more like it.

      
Fortunately for me, Pa dropped the subject. “Your aunt Vi left something she called a breakfast casserole on the warming plate for you and Billy.”

      
God bless my aunt. “Great. I’ve gotta go check the bathroom mirror first, though. I think I need help.”

      
When I got a good look at my frazzled features, I realized how true those words were. I’d already realized my eyes were puffy. That always happened after I’d been crying. But I hadn’t realized how bloodshot they were, or how haggard I looked. Oh, boy.

      
Fortunately, my blessed mother always had a supply of boric acid on hand, and a little eyecup. After I’d rinsed my poor, abused eyes, they didn’t look quite so bad. They’d look better if I could lie down with a couple of cucumber slices covering my closed lids, but I’d do that after breakfast.