City of Ghosts (A Miranda Corbie Mystery) (18 page)

Peg’s blue eyes grew enormous. “I just had a hunch, Miss Corbie, you know, a real hunch, that the black wig would be better for you. Oh, I do hope you let me know how it turns out! I mean, I’m sure I’ll read about it all in the papers and everything, but it sure would be swell if you let me know.”

Miranda nodded solemnly. “I’ll do my best. I’m in a bit of a hurry, Peg, so if you could ring me—”

“Oh, of course, Miss Corbie! Right away!”

Miranda glanced over at Rick and grinned. She opened her purse and plucked out a five-dollar bill and a business card. Picked up a pencil from the counter and signed her name, handing the card to Peg, who squealed with delight.

“Wait’ll Edna sees this! She’ll be pea green!” She counted the change carefully back to Miranda, chattering again.

“I just can’t believe it, a real lady private eye, just like Myrna Loy in the
Thin Man
pictures…’cept I think you’re prettier. Nancy loves Myrna Loy. Wait’ll I tell her I know the real thing!”

Change counted, wig wrapped and bagged, Miranda smiled.

“Thanks again, Peg. You’ve been a big help.”

Rick pushed the fedora off his forehead and leaned his arm across the counter.

“Young lady … can you show us the way out?”

“Sure thing, just follow me.”

They heard more about bookkeeping for Standard Oil, the quiet West Portal area her family lived, what 4-H clubs her mother ran, how her little sister was an insufferable menace, and how her older brother was working at a garage and saving up for Berkeley. Her saddle shoes skipped along the concrete floor, blue-and-white gingham dress as bouncy as her talk.

They finally reached the double glass doors after another whirlwind trip through Western history.

Rick opened the door for Miranda and she walked quickly through, turning to smile and wave at Peg.

“Bye, Miss Corbie! And thank you and Mr. Corbie for coming in!”

Rick let the door close, face crestfallen, while Miranda coughed, shoving two Butter Rum Life Savers in the side of her cheek.

Sixteen

Old Leo was snoring behind the front desk when they walked into the Drake-Hopkins. Miranda stepped toward the staircase, hand grasping the round white knob on the balustrade. Rick plucked her sleeve, nodding toward the elevator.

“What about the crate?”

“Broken.”

He shrugged, silent climb to the fourth-floor landing. Bent down and picked up the bottle of Borden milk from the recess next to the door.

“Anything to go with this?”

“Not unless you brought it with you.”

The key stuck in the lock for a few seconds and she wrestled with it, finally shoving the door open, odor of cigarettes and coffee and Vol de Nuit rushing out, hint of Pine-Sol and lemon oil wood polish rising from the parquet floor.

Miranda dropped her purse on the gold cloth armchair and pulled open the living room window, cool air blowing the curtains back. Picked up a pack of Chesterfields lying on an end table, shook one out.

Rick set the Grade A milkbottle on the dining table. Pulled a Pig n’ Whistle matchbook out of his trouser pocket and struck a match, flame licking the cigarette between her lips.

She inhaled, looking up at him, and blew a stream of smoke from the side of her mouth.

“Feel better?”

He gave her a sideways grin and flopped down on the couch. “I will once I’ve had a steak and you tell me what you’re doing with a Packard convertible and a date with the Nazi consul general.” He patted the brown-and-white checked fabric next to him. “Sit down. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

Miranda picked up the milk bottle and walked into the kitchen. “We don’t have a lot of time. It’s twenty after four.”

“And fashionable Nazis always arrive late. Just bring me a Scotch and I’ll tie my stomach up in knots.”

Rick flipped his fedora on the couch and was reading a two-day-old copy of the
Chronicle
when Miranda came back from the kitchen, carrying a tray with two highball glasses.

She set the tray on the coffee table, sank into the armchair, and crossed her legs. Tossed her hat on the couch next to Rick’s and ruffled her hair.

“I’ll go first. You remember Marion Gouchard?”

Rick swallowed the whiskey, eyebrows raised. “One of your covers, right?”

“For the Incubator Babies last year. I’m going to Weidemann’s tonight as Marion. That’s the reason for the red Packard.”

He ran a thumb along the side of his chin, murmured, “Not like you want to attract attention or anything…”

She shook her head, deep puff on the stick. “Oh, but I do. That’s the plan.”

“The plan for what? You know how dangerous this is? And you haven’t told me why the hell you of all people need to walk into the German consulate.”

Her eyes met his, stubborn blue, anxious, protective. Possessive.

“And you won’t know, Rick, because I can’t tell you. But my client suggested I enlist the help of a friend tonight, so I’m asking you. You’ll need to keep an eye on the entrance and watch for me. Follow me if I drive somewhere.”

She opened her purse, wedged beside her in the chair, and handed him a fifty-dollar bill.

“Hire a taxi—have it waiting near the entrance, somewhere where you can see who comes and goes. I’ll be in a red dress from my Mills College days, and don’t forget: hair like Louise Brooks.”

Rick held the bill with both hands and stared at it uncomprehendingly for a few seconds, lines down the sides of his mouth.

“First the car and then the wig, and now all this cash. Sounds like you’re up to something for the FBI or the Dies Committee, and that’s dangerous work. What about Gonzales? This is right up his alley—unless he’s already involved. You working for him now, Miranda? Is that where the money came from?”

Miranda ground out the Chesterfield in the ashtray. “Look—I asked you. If you can’t or won’t help me, forget about it. I gave you the rules, and that’s all I can give you. My cover’s fine. Marion Gouchard works for the French consulate—”

“Which is now part of the Third Reich. This is nuts. You can’t play a Nazi to save your life—”

“I do whatever the hell I need to do, Sanders. I’m a professional—and don’t forget it.”

He stared at the highball glass in his hands, eyes unfocused, voice stretched too taut.

“How can I? Gangsters, fifth columnists, killers … and now some hush-hush assignment for your boyfriend on the Dies Committee.”

Rick shook his head, highball glass hitting the stoneware tray with a loud clink.

“I say let Gonzales hire his own goddamn help. I may open doors and light cigarettes, Miranda, but I’m not watching you walk into the lion’s den again, especially not for the sake of that rich sonofabitch. You’ve almost gotten killed twice in the last few months—third time’s a charm. At least before I knew why, I understood, didn’t like it, but understood. Now you tell me nothing, not a goddamn thing, and what the hell—expect me to help you put yourself behind the eight ball for Gonzales’s sake?”

“Don’t be an idiot—I don’t work for Gonzales—he doesn’t have anything to do with this. I can’t tell you more than I’ve told you, and I wish I could, it’s … it’s important, Rick. There are certain people at the party I need to get close to.”

Rick drained his glass and stood in one fluid motion, face red, unsteady on his feet.

“Just how close, Miranda? How fucking close? Or is that my answer?”

White and red.

Like the bathroom walls when she blew Martini’s brains out.

Too late for Rick, too late to swallow the words, too much Scotch and not enough food, too much jealousy, too much Gonzales, too much resentment and fear.

Too much Miranda.

Pain like little razors, cutting, bleeding, cutting again, and she gasped, armor off and no scars, not with Rick, no cover, no protection, no poultice.

Her arm flew out in an open-faced slap, and it landed on his cheek as hard as she could make it.

He bent backward, stumbling, arm flung behind him, couch holding him up, other hand wiping his cheek. Pulled himself up, tears on his cheeks, blue swimming in red, red trickle from his mouth, and he put two hands on her shoulders and crushed her to his chest, head bent beneath his, bloodied lips bruising hers, savage and sorry, apology and attack, hungry, always hungry, lean body hard and on fire.

Her arms hung stiffly by her side. Unbent, unmoving. She licked her lips, tasting salt.

He held her face in his hands, desperate to find something, then cradled her head against his chest. Stroked her hair.

“Goddamn it, Miranda, I love you, I’ve always loved you, and I’m going away. I’ve been thinking about joining the army, and I will, I’ll leave this week, goddamn it, but I won’t hurt you again.”

He held her at arm’s length. Spoke softly.

“I’ll—I’ll leave now. I’m sorry.”

She looked into his eyes, the man who wanted to be John Hayes, the man who wanted John Hayes’s girl.

But he was more than that. He was Richard Sanders. His own man.

Her best friend.

Miranda drew a shuddering breath and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I’ve got to get ready. You coming tonight or not?”

He cupped her face with his left hand again, eyes searching hers, mouth still drawn impossibly tight, skin stretched and pale over the sharp edges of his cheeks.

“You—you still want my help?”

She shrugged out of his grasp, picked up the packet of Chesterfields with trembling fingers.

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t.”

His forehead knotted as he watched her light her own cigarette with a Club Moderne matchbook, watched as she inhaled in a long pull, the ash slowly devouring the stick, tiny ring of fire creeping upward.

“Miranda, I—”

“Save it, Sanders. You in or out?”

He swallowed, rubbed his mouth with his thumb. “In. I’m in, Miranda.”

“OK. Use your best judgment. No need to approach or even talk to me.”

She sat back down in the armchair, eyes expressionless, watching the smoke spiral upward.

“Now tell me why you were late. Though I can guess—did you find something out? Something about my mother?”

Rick nodded, hat in hand, staring at the floor. “I’ll give you the story, Miranda. I think—I think you’ll start to remember—and fill in the details.”

*   *   *

Once upon a time there was a little girl from Ulster who sailed on a ship. The ship landed in a sooty city with tall brick buildings, and she worked in a factory and sewed clothes, until she left on a train with several brothers and rode for days, watching prairie winds and dust storms, passing small clapboard houses with wasps’ nests tucked in corners, old men rocking in older wooden chairs.

The family arrived in another city, this one cleaner and more to her liking, and there they stayed, while the girl grew into a comely young woman and found ways of contributing to the family coffers that her parents would not have approved, but which her brothers appreciated.

She was sixteen and worked in an Irish pub on O’Farrell, serving cabbage and corned beef, pasties and porter, to men working the night shift on the printing presses. She kept the tips, saving them for a new dress, dreaming of hats and furs like the ladies wore to the theater and opera, longing for something other than the worn muslin with the small blue flowers and dark stains of beer and gravy.

She was happy, in her way, happy to help her brothers, saving money for their own pub and the cost of a train ticket for her parents in New York, happy to smile at the customers and pretend not to hear the rough language and feel the coarse hands on her legs.

April 18th, 1906, early Wednesday morning. Restless, she woke up and washed her face with the water in the basin, still in her thin cotton camisole, and then the earth opened up, roaring, angry, and God rained punishment on San Francisco.

The boarder who lived a few doors down and who would give her stony looks, Mr. Harper with the books and the neatly pressed and oiled hair, ran out in a nightshirt screaming, and together they fled down the back stairwell, passing Old Mrs. Hutchinson calling for her cat, and Mr. and Mrs. Dobbie, the landlords, knocking on all the doors. The ceiling fell in at the rear of the building, and they had to step around what remained of Mr. Shaughnessy.

Two of her brothers were married and all three were living on Guerrero Street. She didn’t want to think about them or the girls at the bar, or the fancy ladies in hats or Mr. Caruso at the Palace. Didn’t want to think about San Francisco, the city she’d come to love as her own.

She held hands with the boarder and limped through the broken streets, Mr. Harper clutching his trousers, nightcap still on his head. They passed the dying and almost dead, trembling in the middle of Van Ness when the aftershock hit, horses and carts buried together under brick, babies screaming for mothers who would never come.

Feet bleeding from broken glass and brick, thirsty and covered in yellow and red dust, black soot from the fires, they finally reached Golden Gate Park, makeshift tents and way stations already set up. He told her he was a poet and a professor, and she clung to him like ivy.

They held each other’s hands when the soldiers separated them, and she cried, not knowing if she’d see her brothers again on earth.

That night he entered her tent when the other women were out and she was surprised and glad. He called her Juliet and Roxanne and other names, and led her outside to a patch of green grass and juniper, well hidden. He held her and he was warm, and she liked the music he made with words.

A daughter was born nine months later.

The young girl, dark haired, pretty and less plump that she’d been before, was now a woman and a mother. All three of her brothers still lived, a sister-in-law dying of a heart attack in the aftermath, older brother in grief.

She guarded her baby like a lioness, not letting them own her, not letting them raise her.

Mr. Harper, poet and professor, thrust money in her hands, lifted his hat and bid her adieu, agreeing to call the child Miranda. She’d picked it from a book. He looked so surprised.

She was alone.