City of Secrets (27 page)

You OK, Miss Corbie? Wanna sit down, Miss Corbie? Miss Corbie?

Miranda blinked. Card still in her hand. Her fingers closed around it, and she pulled her eyes up to the nervous kid in front of her, his cheeks alternating in splotches of white and red.

“Thank you.”

She turned away, hobbled like an old woman, blind, feeling her way on one good arm and two strong legs and not much else. Her hat was crooked again, and she could see Gladys waving at her, smiling. She headed for Gladys, whose smile faltered when she got a look at Miranda's face.

“Sugar—what's wrong with you? Look like you've seen a ghost.”

Concern poured from her friend, concern for her, Miranda Corbie. If Miranda Corbie was who she was.

Miranda Corbie, who took her mother's name, who never knew her mother, who tried to find her mother, who figured her mother was dead.

Gladys put two arms out, held Miranda up by the shoulders. Shooting pain through the left one, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

Nothing.

Mattered.

The blonde propped Miranda up on the counter, staring at her, then stretched to reach her coat, draped on a stool behind the cash register. A dyspeptic old woman with a nose that nearly touched her chin was tapping a roll of Tums on the counter, and Gladys waved her away, the woman stalking off and angrily denouncing labor unions. Gladys pulled out a flask. Miranda wrapped her fingers around it.

“Drink it, sugar,” the voice said, urgency behind it, like the women from the bar who used to make her eat. She obeyed.

The liquid felt like silk in her throat until it started to burn. She swallowed, feeling it course through her body.

Gladys was urging her to drink again. She tilted back the silver metal with the engraved initials, finished whatever was inside.

Good girl, Miranda. You're a good girl. Good girl, Randy. You're a good girl.…

Her arm started to hurt.

And she remembered.

Girls stabbed to death, bodies mocked. Japanese boy dying in her arms, gangster, smooth and hot as the liquor in the bottle, using women, abusing women. Killing women. Trying to kill her, red and white, red and white, brains splattered on a bathroom wall. Dead friend, dead escort, left to rot like garbage. Vicious cop, still capable of love.

Red-haired friend, kind heart and fierce politics, bald detective escorting her to the Pickwick and the Rusty Nail, equal in his eyes, respect. Newspaper reporter, always there, always there for her, wishing she could love him, and a Mexican cop with eyes like fire and a mouth that tasted like Spain.…

And Johnny, how she missed him, how she wanted him, how she wanted to be nothing else, do nothing else but belong to him, swallowed up in all he was, but she was her own woman, and he helped make her who she was, who she'd been all along.

Opened her eyes and looked at Gladys. Tears streamed down her face.

Her left hand still clutched the postcard.

She whispered: “Thank you, Gladdy. I've got to go.”

She ran out of the Monadnock, her friend calling her name.

*   *   *

Roy stuttered out a greeting when she walked through the door of the Drake Hopkins, and she waved, grateful to see the automatic elevator working for once. Doors sprang open with a clang, and she stepped inside.

She closed her eyes for a moment and the elevator obligingly chimed again, reminding her to step out at the fourth floor, and she thought of Abe, the old colored man with bright white false teeth always stretched in a smile, and how he used to greet her in the mornings when she left for work.

Miranda opened her apartment door, not really giving a damn if Benedetti or his men were waiting inside. No time to worry about it. No time.

Looked around, deep gulps of air. Yanked open the side closet by the foyer and took out a small tan suitcase. Toted it into the bedroom, weight on her right arm. Unlocked the hinged halves.

Her hands were shaking like her father's when he couldn't find the bottle of gin.

She flung open the drawer of her nightstand, pulling out a pack of Chesterfields, shoved one in her mouth. Lit it with a Moderne matchbook from the drawer. Inhaled until the trembling stopped.

Picked up the .38, Spanish gun, and laid it in the suitcase. Let her fingers caress the leather.

Found two dresses that would work for hot weather, another for nighttime, working clothes for the Club Moderne. Opened a highboy drawer too fast and the wood squeaked in protest, and Miranda grabbed underwear, slip, bra, nightgown, cotton socks, and silk stockings, down to two clean pair, and when the hell are you going to do any laundry, Miranda, can't run around San Francisco in dirty clothes, go back home to your da, little girl, you ain't gonna get nothing here for 'im. Don't sell no liquor on credit.

She shook her head, took another puff on the Chesterfield.

Shoe tree in the closet. Picked sensible black walking shoes, one pair of high-heeled open toes for dancing, and some rubber soles for tennis, or at least to look like tennis.

Shit, tennis. Stooped down to the bottom drawer of the highboy, pulled out a folded-up tennis outfit of shorts and short-sleeved shirt and underneath it a one-piece bathing suit.

Laid everything in the suitcase. Wrapped the pistol up in her nightgown, stuck it in the middle.

She was in the hall closet again, digging for the small makeup case, when her phone rang. She swore, fingers touching the handle, and she yanked it out, covered in dust and cobwebs. Set it on the floor and ran to the bedroom.

“Hello?”

“You were right, my dear.”

She was out of breath and sank on the bed. Brought the cigarette to her lips, body shaking again.

“Pandora had an abortion?”

“Fortescue didn't think so. He was predictably irritable on the subject. Of the opinion that since the girl was no better than she should be, any information related to her sexual activity was unnecessary.”

“Fucking puritan.” Miranda's voice was steady. “What happened to Pandora?”

Meyer spoke in a whisper. “I'm still at the Hall. Tried to call you at the office, but you'd already left. The young woman had a tubal ligation, possibly as long as two years ago and as recently as eight months ago.”

“She was sterilized.”

“Yes.”

Silence on Meyer's end while she finished the cigarette. Miranda said: “I'm packing for Calistoga now. I'll call you if I find anything.”

“Miranda … please take care of yourself.”

“There's a homicide cop who came to see me—Inspector Fisher. You might want to arrange a meeting. Seems I'm the new fair-haired girl for some of the blue boys.”

His voice was delighted. “But my dear, that's wonderful!”

“Don't get too excited. I'm still target practice for most of them, especially the ones at the top. Dullea wants to trip me up on that body they found out by the Treasure Island parking lot. Turned out to be a member of the Angelo Benedetti gang, and Benedetti is Sammy Martini's cousin. Figure he wants me dead. Listen—I've got to go. I'll fill the rest in for you later.”

Her attorney was sputtering. “Miranda—if someone is trying to kill you or frame you, don't you think you should tell me? I'm your attorney!”

She smiled at his outrage. “You're also my client. Bye, Meyer.”

She hung up the phone.

*   *   *

She stood in front of the mirror, studying the wound on her upper arm, stained red from iodine and blood that oozed out from underneath the wrapping.

Miranda poured on more iodine, directly from the bottle. Just the way you like to drink it, right, mister? Oh, 'scuse me, it's “Doctor,” ain't it … sure can't fix the pain in my leg, though, can ya, mister? Y'can talk pretty. Talk real pretty, kinda like singin'.

She bit her lip and waited for the wave of pain to pass. She was used to pain. Miranda couldn't remember when she'd ever been without it, her only companion, fuck the Echo and the Shadow. Pain kept her company, one kind or another, either the bruises on her face or the growling in her stomach or the knowledge that she'd never be one of those fine ladies in a bustle and carriage, never be anybody but that poor bastard girl of the professor's, scrounging for nickels so her pop can get his gin.

She picked up one of the pieces of tape she cut, anchored the fresh bandage in place. Made a neat, perfect square around the wound, like a goddamn yard around a goddamn house, with a mother and a father and a white picket fence, fucking Andy Hardy and the perfect goddamn family, only pain you had to worry about was solved in seventy-five minutes and summed up in a moral at the end of the story.

Outlasted everyone, pain did, and they were on intimate terms, and she was jealous with it, not willing to share it with other people. Suffer alone, guard it well, it's your life, sum and total, all your goddamn days.

Miranda looked into the mirror.

*   *   *

Roy dragged her suitcase and cosmetic case downstairs and called her a taxi. She left him a dollar and told him not to let anyone at all up to her room for any reason and gave him Meyer's telephone number.

Taxi got her to the Monadnock without conversation and within five minutes. She tipped him fifty cents. He smiled shyly behind the heavy beard, drove off in the direction of the Ferry Building.

Three thirty. Church bells behind Market.
Ding dong. Ding dong.
Then the jukebox started up again, sermon over, sin back on the spinner, Bea Wain warbling “Deep Purple” for Larry Clinton and His Orchestra.

Gladys was waiting on another customer when she saw Miranda. She flung change and a
Liberty
magazine at a lady in black crepe and rushed out behind the counter.

“Honey—what happened? I thought you were going to faint, and that's not like you. You looked really bad. And you were crying. You all right?”

“Thanks for taking care of me, Gladdy. I'll tell you all about it later, OK?”

Her friend stared into her eyes as though she expected to find signs of a concussion. Made a dissatisfied noise, walked back behind her station. Miranda picked out five rolls of Life Savers: variety pack, Pep-O-Mint, and Butter Rum.

Gladys rang up the sale without a word. Miranda pulled out two dollars, and when the blonde tried to protest, she said, “Gladdy—that was a whole flask of rye down my throat. Please—keep the change, sugar. I really appreciate it.”

Gladys's eyes welled with emotion. “OK, Miri. But you've got me awful worried. And that nice Inspector Gonzales isn't here to help you out of a jam.”

Miranda squeezed her friend's hand. “I'll be all right. I'm going up to Calistoga for a couple of days.”

Gladys's face lit up like Independence Day. “Sugar, that's the best news I've had all week! It's about time you got away from this nuthouse and had a real vacation.”

Miranda smiled. “It's a working vacation. But don't worry.” She hugged the blonde and promised to write if she stayed longer than a couple of days.

Her watch read 3:45. Fifteen minutes.

She got in line for the elevator behind an arguing family of six, rode up hugging the left wall, and walked straight to her office.

Opened the door. Still smelled like Fisher's Old Golds.

Locked the window, unlocked the safe. Counted out one hundred and eighty dollars from the money left out of Meyer's retainer. Reached in the back and pulled out the Baby Browning.

Miranda sank into the padded leather of her desk chair. Checked the magazine and firing mechanism, the hinges and clasp on the slightly oversize gold cigarette case she concealed it in.

Four inches long, about twelve ounces. Saved her life in February. A .25-caliber can kill just as easily as a .44, especially up close. She owed Gonzales for bringing it back to her.

Miranda ran a finger along the silver metal, tracing the
FN
intertwined on the handle, the
Fabriques Nationale d'Armes de Guerre Herstal Belgique
on the barrel.

Not the first pistol she'd killed a man with. Not the first time.

Miranda straightened her shoulders. Loaded the Browning, six bullets, and cradled it in her palm, thankful for the large Scots-Irish hands, the peasant hands she'd been taught to be ashamed of.

Her mother's hands.

No time to think about it, she told herself. No time.

Miranda closed the gun in the case and slipped it into her purse. Took out the .22, along with the postcard of Westminster Abbey.

Would like to meet you. Your loving mother.

Stared at the writing, at the postmark from London.

What else do you fucking say after thirty years?

Miranda shoved the .22 in the safe, set the card on the top shelf.

Looked up at the wall clock. Five minutes. She should leave now. The call to her father would have to wait.

Instead, she sat down and closed her eyes, head cradled against the back of the chair. Her breathing was ragged, halting, and she let it wash over her, let it drown her, Pandora's blood and Annie's blood, and the blood in Spain, Johnny's, red earth wet from shattered bodies and all the blood, God, all the pain, pain of childbirth and children, never knowing that pain, that joy, that sharing. Only pain leading on to pain, never birth. Only death.

She laid her head in her arms. There was a knock at the door.

Miranda looked up and answered, “Come in.”

Rick stood in the doorway, battered fedora in his hands. His voice was rough.

“Your car's waiting downstairs. Let's go to Calistoga.”

 

Part Four

Sin

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit for continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting Fallopian tubes.… Three generations of imbeciles are enough.