Solomon's Vineyard (5 page)

It was still and hot outside, and the sun was high in a clear sky.
Sprinklers worked over beds of yellow flowers. I walked not too fast to
the Chevy, passing several men in white blouses. The men paid no
attention to me. I wondered what would happen to me if they got me
before I left the grounds. A bunch of religious nuts like those might
do anything. I climbed in the sedan and eased her along the gravel
road. By the time I reached the street-car tracks outside the big gate,
brother, I had sweated plenty, just thinking about being caught.

I WENT up to my room at the Arkady and took off my clothes. I lay on
the bed in a pair of shorts and poured myself a glass of bourbon. I
drank the bourbon slowly, letting it coat my throat. I wondered if I'd
been wrong in telling the girl about Oke's death. I didn't think so. I
had to shock her; start her thinking. It was a thing the people at the
Vineyard didn't want her to do. They were trying their best to stop her
from it. I didn't know if they were doing it with drugs, or by
hypnotism, or in some other way, but they were doing it. It was the way
some of those places worked. Her uncle had said she was emotionally
unbalanced. Those were the kind they liked to get hold of, especially
when there was a pile of money too.

I decided I'd done the right thing, even though it meant I was going
to have to play it the hard way. Now I was out in the open. No sulking
around like Oke Johnson. I took another drink and telephoned down for
the Negro. I was kind of glad to be playing it the way I was.

It all came back to something I'd figured out once about the
detective business. There were two ways to go along: underground or on
top. I never found out which was best. Underground you had the element
of surprise on your side, but it was harder to move around. On top you
went everywhere, taking cracks at everybody, and everybody taking
cracks at you. You had to be tough to play it that way. Well, I was
tough.

When the Negro came, I told him I wanted him to deliver a message for
me.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“To that doll, Ginger.”

The Negro looked scared.

“Ask her if she'll cat with me tonight. I'll be in the bar at seven.”

The Negro got pop-eyed: “Mister,” he began.

I gave him five dollars. He shut up and left. I looked in the phone
book. There was a Thomas McGee, lawyer, at 980 Main Street. The number
was White 2368. The pixie clerk answered the phone and I gave him the
number.

“I know that number,” he giggled. “McGee, the lawyer.”

“Jesus,” I said. “I thought it was the morgue.”

A woman answered the phone. I told her my name was Karl Craven. I
said I'd like to see McGee after lunch.

“I'll see if Mr. McGee will be free,” she said. Then, after a pause:
“Mr. McGee will see you at one-thirty, Mr. Craven.”

That was an hour away. I took a drink of bourbon and put on my green
gabardine and went down to the coffee shop. I had the lunch with pork
chops and mashed potatoes. I was about through when a young punk with a
thin, pale face sat on the stool next to me. He ordered a ham sandwich
and a cup of coffee. He glanced at me, but when I looked at him he
turned away. I wondered if he was tailing me. I'd see when I went out.

I finished lunch and gave the girl a tip. The punk leaned towards me.

“A lady wants to see you,” he said.

“Huh?”

He looked frightened. “This afternoon. She s at 569 Green. Carmel
Todd.”

“I don't know any Carmel Todd,” I said. He slid off the stool and put
a fifty-cent piece on the counter and went out. He didn't look at me. I
saw he hadn't eaten his sandwich. What the hell! I thought. I went out
to the street, but he was gone. I went back and paid my bill and got a
cab and went to McGee's office. It was on the fifth floor of a brick
building. A girl sat at a desk in the reception-room. She had moist
lips and watery brown eyes. I gave her my name. She simpered at me and
went in an inner office.

From the looks of the reception-room I decided McGee wasn't so
prosperous. The furniture consisted of three wicker chairs and a wicker
table with tattered copies of the
Rotarian
on it. Near the
entrance was the girl's table with a telephone and a typewriter. There
was one picture on- the brown wall: a sailing ship on a very blue
ocean. On the floor was a grass rug. I sat in one of the chairs and
looked at a
Rotarian
for January. After a while the girl came
back and said Mr. McGee would see me.

The inner office was dark. Heavy curtains kept out the light. I could
just see McGee standing behind his desk. He was a tall man with stooped
shoulders, and his eyes were set deep in small triangles of flesh. A
shabby black suit made him look like a minister. He shook my hand for a
long time.

“Please sit down, Mr. Cah—” he said.

“Craven,” I said. “Karl Craven.”

“Yes. Of course. Craven.” He sank down behind the desk and began to
make washing motions with his hands. “What can I do for you, Mr.
Craven?”

“Mr. Grayson sent me.”

“Ah, Mr. Grayson!” His eyes gleamed. “What does he want?”

He knew damn well what Mr. Grayson wanted, but he wasn't giving
anything away. I liked his being smart. I might need help from him.

“I'm supposed to
persuade”
—I let my month hand over the
word—“Miss Grayson to leave the Vineyard.”

He got a package of cigarettes and some matches out of a desk drawer.
He gave me a cigarette. “I don't smoke myself,” he said. The cigarette
was of the ten-cent-a-package variety. I lit it and threw the match in
his waste-basket. I took a deep drag of smoke and blew it out my nose.

“I'm afraid,” he said, “Miss Grayson will be difficult to persuade.”

“I found that out,” I said. “You've seen her?”

“This morning.”

His eyes were narrow. “She told you,” he said, “that she was very
happy.”

I nodded. He laughed. It was a queer laugh, a sort of high-pitched
giggle. It wasn't what you'd expect to see come out of a guy who looked
like a minister.

“You can sec, Mr. Craven,” he said; “that I've been talking with Miss
Grayson, too.”

He wasn't giggling any more. If you ever look at a rattlesnake's
eyes, you'll see the same triangles. Hi- was thinking. The small eyes
were bright with thinking. He watched me for a moment.

“What are you?” he asked suddenly. “A private investigator.”

“What firm?”

“My own.” I grinned at him. “You think a respectable firm would
handle a job like this?”

He leaned over the table. “You arc going to kidnap her, then?”

“I don't like the climate in Leavenworth.”

“Quite so.” He sank back in the chair and made the washing motions
with his hands again. “Quite so. What
do
you propose to do?”

“If I knew,” I said, “I wouldn't be here.”

“True, Mr. Craven,” he said, giggling. It was weird hearing him.

“You know how badly Mr. Grayson wants her out, I said. “You worked
for him.”

He nodded. “Unfortunately,” he said, “the local court refused to
grant an injunction against the Vineyard.”

“That's why he sent for me,” I said.

“Mr. Grayson is a very determined man.”

“And a very rich man.”

He rubbed his hands together. I felt we understood each other, but to
clinch it I said: “Naturally, you'll get paid for the work you do.”

“I've already received a small fee.”

“Five thousand,” I said. “Not so small.”

“Just a manner of speaking.”

“But,” I went on, “not so big compared with what he might pay.”

“If we can get her out, Mr. Craven.”

We discussed it. He let his hair down a little and told me he hated
the Vineyard. I didn't know as I blamed him: from the way he talked it
sounded like a hell of a place. He said he'd been trying to shut it up
for twenty years, but every time he'd had Solomon and the Brothers in
court they'd gotten the decision. When he was the district attorney,
back in 1929, the charge was bootlegging. He knew the Vineyard was
supplying the whole county with spiked wine, but the defence proved it
had been spiked after it left the Vineyard. Later he got some of the
Brothers indicted on a narcotic violation, but the dope he'd
confiscated disappeared from the chief of police's office.

“The closest I ever came,” he said, his eyes peeping out angrily from
the triangles of flesh, “was on a Mann Act violation.”

He'd proven two girls had their railroad fares paid from California
by the Vineyard. Privately he had forced the girls to admit they'd been
used sexually by the Brothers in their ceremonies. But when the case
came to trial, both girls denied all immorality. That was two years
ago. Since then the only thing he'd tried was to get the injunction for
Grayson.

“The Vineyard sounds like a fine place to live,” I said. “Liquor and
dope and immorality.”

McGee ignored this. He said: “When Solomon died I thought I might get
'em. I thought he was the brains. But they're still smart.”

“How long has Solomon been dead P”

“Five years.” McGee's eyes darted from me to the window. “Five years
Sunday.” The eyes came back to me and then went to the waste-basket.
“On Sunday his body will be on view.”

“Five years and they still look at him?”

“It's quite a sight, if you don't mind the odour.” I asked some more
questions about the Vineyard. The colony had been founded in 1868 by
the first Solomon, a carpenter from Ithaca, New York, who had a
revelation one Sunday afternoon. He convinced his family and some of
the neighbours that God wanted them to go into a new land. They'd
finally settled in Paulton, then a village in the range country, and
planted grapes they'd brought from New York. From the first the
settlement had been called Solomon's Vineyard.

The men lived in one building, McGee said, and the women in another.
All the property belonged to the colony. The children were kept in a
third building. The Brothers became prosperous, selling vegetables,
dairy products and wine. People came from all over the country to join
them, giving up their personal wealth to the Vineyard when they took
the vows.

“Not a bad racket,” I said.

The original Solomon died in 1889 after he had picked a five-year-old
boy to succeed him, McGee said. When the boy was sixteen, he became
head of the colony. He was called Solomon, too, because he was supposed
to have been inhabited by the spirit of old Solomon. Under this Solomon
the colony became rich and large. He was the one who'd died five years
ago.

“Why haven't they picked a third Solomon?” I asked. McGee wasn't
sure. He thought possibly it was because Solomon had announced he was
going to return. “The Day of Judgment?”

“I think so,” McGee said, “but I'm not sure, Mr. Craven. It's
something they don't talk about.”

“Where does the Princess fit in?” I asked. McGee's eyes leaped from
the floor to me. “What do you know about her?”

“She was on my train.”

McGee said: “Solomon used to take trips incognito. One time he came
back with her. He put her in charge of the women and called her
Princess. I don't know where he found her.”

“Well, she ain't hay,” I said.

We talked for a long time about getting the Grayson girl out, but
neither of us had any good ideas. I figured it wasn't much good trying
again by the way of the courts, and kidnapping was out. I asked McGee
if we couldn't show her the colony was phony. That would make her want
to get out, and then everything would be Jake.

“Yes,” McGee agreed, “but where are we going to find something to
show her?”

“What about those two California dolls?”

“Dead.”

“The hell they are!”

McGee fondled his hands. “A most singular coincidence, Mr. Craven.
One died soon after the case collapsed. And a month later the other
passed away giving birth to a child in the Vineyard hospital.”

“They don't fool out there, do they?” I said. McGee put his hands
palm up on his desk and raised his shoulders in a shrug.

“Isn't there somebody who'll talk?” I asked. “Give me a day,” McGee
said. “I'll try to think.”

IN THE street sunlight stabbed my eyes. The air felt like it had been
blown out of one of those driers they use in barber shops. I got a cab
and told the driver to take me to 569 Green Street. Carmel Todd. I
wondered what she wanted with me.

It was a big, two-story brick house set among elms on a lot that must
have been a half-acre. I went up on the porch and pushed the bell. I
could hear chimes in the back of the house. Near the top of the door
was a funny eight-sided window with eight panes of different coloured
glass. It looked like a picture I once saw of an enlarged snowflake. A
cute Negro maid opened the door a crack.

“Carmel Todd.”

“Carmel don' feel good today.”

“She sent for me.”

“Oh.” The door came open further. “Then she must feel better.”

“Yeah, she must.”

The maid stepped back with the door. She had on a black silk uniform
with white culls and collar. She had dust-coloured skin and rouge on
her cheeks.

“You know her room, mister?”

“I forget.”

“Upstairs and the last one down the hall to the left.”

There were oak stairs at the end of the hall. I peered at the
living-room as I went by. I saw an Oriental rug on the floor and a
combination radio-phonograph and expensive-looking furniture and sonic
lamps with tassels. I went up the stairs and down a hall and knocked at
the last door on the left.

“Who's there?”

“Carmel Todd?” I asked.

“Just a minute.”

A blonde in a green kimono opened the door. Her hair had been
peroxided the shade of sawdust and on her face was rouge, lipstick and
mascara. “Goodbye, honey,” she said over her shoulder.