City of Secrets (35 page)

Walked about twenty feet through the back door before she weakened, gasping for air, evening cold and clear. Moon not out yet, stars and the Milky Way bright enough to make out the garage. Where the kid parked the car, if he hadn't left with it.

Miranda crept to the back of the building, found a side door. Tried Gracie's passkey, wriggled it around in the lock until the tumblers fell away. Pushed open the door, peeling paint sticking to her damp palms.

A bus, three farm trucks, two cars. Shit. No rickety Plymouth from Aalder's.

She sighed, set down the gun, purse, and folders on top of an old black Ford farm truck. Threw off the white smock. Too goddamn easy to see in the dark.

Ran in between each of the cars, checked for keys. Nothing.

Slid the folders inside her dress and under her slip, paper cold and sharp against her bra and skin. Picked up the purse, thumbed the safety on the Browning.

Footsteps outside, flashlights.

She waited until the beam passed through and over the high window spanning the length of the garage. Voices carried on the still night air, floating from the front of the house.

Miranda slid through the back door. Headed for the dense shadows of a grove of oak and eucalyptus flanking the front of the castle, like the grounds of an English estate. More voices, more lights from the front of the house, and now they were circling toward the back entrance again.

Must have found Gosney.

She started to run. Only one goddamn chance, or they'd fucking lock her up, his word against hers, and she'd use the Browning on herself before she'd let that happen. No lobotomy for Miranda Corbie, life wasn't worth much but it was fucking worth more than that.

Made some distance. Out of breath. She stopped, panting, dropped the purse on the dark ground, rustle of dry leaves. Cattle lowed somewhere nearby. Two thousand fucking acres, and she hoped the forest would keep her near the road.

Coyotes were yipping, maybe heard the cows.

Fuck.

Miranda picked up her purse, ran again, pushing herself, fell, goddamn fucking ankle on a goddamn fucking rock. Pulled herself up, limping, knees skinned and bruised, sharp stone dug into her cheek. Groped for the purse in the dark, grateful she'd slid the safety on the pistol.

Not coyotes.

Dogs.

Left ankle still wasn't right, not after February. She limped as fast as she could, desperate for a glimpse of light other than the fucking starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, for a fucking car and no fucking hunting dogs howling and ripping my throat out …

Gee whiz, Mother, look at that woman in the cage, regular freak, can't talk, can't speak, can't move, just like the picture show, gave me nightmares, it did, and they said she used to be pretty once …

Breath was shallow, coming faster. Barking was getting closer.

Mother. That's a fucking laugh, isn't it, Miranda? Thought she was dead, and hell, maybe she is, maybe that's a phony postcard, but you'll never know, because you'll have to blow your own brains out or wind up at Ripley's or in one of the little rooms with bars, where they can all stare at you, use you if they get bored enough, brain's dead, not what's between her legs …

She gripped the Browning tighter, dragged her left foot behind her, trail of dirt and eucalyptus bark. Clearing up ahead, too goddamn fucking scared to care, just find the goddamn road …

She limped out into a lawn. Tall stone arch raised itself to heaven, praying to a God whose name she'd never know. Miranda took a gasping breath, ran across the grass and onto the main road.

Bright white light struck at her like cannon fire, and she froze, moth in flame, burning, dying, dead.

A voice said: “Thank God—get in the car.”

Rick.

 

Part Five

Revelations

Perishing things and strange ghosts—soon to die

To other ghosts—this one, or that, or I.

—Rupert Brooke, 1887–1915

 

Thirty

Miranda fell into the DeSoto, Rick running around to the passenger side, slamming the door shut. Sirens were starting to sound from the Napa State Hospital.

Smeared white face from the bright car lamps, slits for eyes, mouth a gash, and he clashed the gears together and spun out into the paved road of State Route 37.

“Jesus Christ, Miranda—should get you to a doctor—”

She clutched the Baby Browning in her hand, holding her purse on her lap, ankle sending sharp, wrenching pain through her leg and back, arm numb, hot and searing. Leaned against the seat. Started to laugh, rasping bark, like the dogs through the trees, like the cough of dying women in white hospital wards.

Croak of carrion crows, cawing out truth, truth, truth, don't you know that's what Corbie means? Carrion crow, picking at the dead, trying to put them back together again …

Salt ran in streams down her cheek, stinging the gash where the rock cut her cheekbone, and she held her Baby and held her purse, rocking back and forth, until the laughter went away, Mama, oh yes, the laughter not the pain, and she rocked and she rocked and she rocked herself to sleep.

Rock-a-bye, baby. Rock-a-bye.

*   *   *

Moon was finally dangling in the sky, inky black, white spots, made of Spanish Manchego, taste like tangy sheep's milk, bottle of Cava empty, rolling, rolling, rolling down the clumps of earth next to the crater.

“Miranda?”

“Hmm.”

“Wake up. We need to figure out what to do.”

She blinked. Opened her eyes. Rick's face, worried, creased, upside-down clown.

“Where are we?”

“Outside Geyserville. Figured we'd be tailed—headed north to throw 'em off. Been traveling back roads for a couple of hours. You've been out cold.”

She tried to sit up straight, winced. “Goddamn ankle.”

She plucked a Chesterfield out of the Browning case with shaking fingers. Rick shifted to the right, dug out a matchbook from his left pocket. Struck it on his thumb. Held his hand with both of hers while she gulped at the stick, his skin hot and dry against the cold clamminess of her palms.

“Need to get to a phone.”

“There's a bar on the south side of town.”

“All right.”

He started the car and pulled out of the dirt road and out from under the embrace of an old eucalyptus tree, sharp, clean odor of the leaves reviving her.

She groped in the dark for his hand. “Thanks, Rick.”

He squeezed back, didn't say anything. Pulled the DeSoto into a graveled lot next to a yellow neon sign advertising
CARLO'S PLACE.
Piano blues, Kansas City style, banging through the open door, moths and mosquitoes dancing a jitterbug in front of the cold yellow light, hum of electricity audible whenever the piano paused for breath.

Rick turned to face her. “You don't look good. Better let me go inside and call—don't want any questions.”

“Fisher first. Tell him the Musketeers are planning to blow up the Federal Building on Treasure Island. Already laid in the dynamite or whatever they're using. Supposed to go off tomorrow—today—Memorial Day.”

He opened his mouth to say something—changed his mind, jaw clenched. Nodded.

“What else?”

“Meyer. I got the files on Pandora and Annie. Dr. Gosney—he's a Musketeer, friend of Parkinson—abortions, sterilizations. I'll know more soon as I read these.”

She reached under her jacket and inside her dress, drawing out the bent and crumpled manila file folders. Rick twisted his mouth into a smile.

“You always get the goods, Randy. Be back in a minute.”

*   *   *

She was reading the report on Pandora by the light of her Ronson Majorette when he climbed back in the DeSoto.

“That's done. Fisher's going over personally. Said O'Meara won't like it.”

“Fuck O'Meara.”

Miranda looked up at him, mouth grim and exhausted.

“Gosney claimed Pandora was a nymphomaniac. Targeted because she talked about what she did for a living, proud of it, proud to be an artist's model. Adding ‘Jew' on her form clinched it. You can read it all here … how they offered her corrective therapy, how her ‘sex organs' were ‘abnormally large.' ‘Steps taken to prevent further manifestation of obvious nymphomania.'”

Took a deep inhale on the stick, eyes not seeing the papers anymore.

“Woman looking to abort is already a criminal. He can do whatever he wants, she can't tell the cops. Woman who undresses in public, automatically sick, wrong, diseased. No voice for either of them. No way to speak out.”

Miranda shut off the lighter with a click and shoved the records back inside the manila folder, Shell sign and Carlo's the only lights in Geyserville, her face half-bathed in reflected neon. She stared into the dark, surrounding vineyards and prune orchards, quiet and cool.

“That's what he was going to do to me. My record would speak for itself, and I'd die on the operating table.”

“He can't touch you, Randy. You know too many people. Me, for one.”

She glanced at Rick, sadness in the smile. Her hands were shaking again. She pinched out the end of the Chesterfield.

“Didn't think I'd see you again. What happened?”

Rick pushed the hat off his forehead, scratched his ear. “Got a Mickey Finn.”

“Your blonde?”

He nodded sheepishly. “Thought I was smoother than that.”

“Don't blame yourself. I played tennis with a girl—think her boyfriend recognized me, probably from Sally's. Mary must've been suspicious and didn't get a chance to tell Gracie until they phoned from the hospital. How the hell did you figure out I was at Napa?”

“Asked Scott who Parkinson liked to hang around with locally—he's a big shot in the City, you know, friends with a couple of supervisors. Turns out he's real chummy with a gynecological surgeon at Napa. I figured everything fit.”

“Lucky for me.”

“I was waiting until midnight. I wouldn't let them hurt you, Miranda.”

She looked into his blue eyes, lit green by the yellow neon, worry lines deep around his mouth. Lifted a hand to caress his cheek, brown stubble pricking her palm.

“Thank you, Rick.”

He looked at her until she broke it off. “We'd better get back to San Francisco. Straight to the Hall of Justice, and try to take any road around Petaluma you can. Cops down there are in Parkinson's pocket.”

He nodded, started the car. “You sure you're all right?”

“I'm OK. Better shape than Gosney.”

“Why? What happened?”

She rolled down the window, inhaling the cool, fruitful air of the Alexander Valley. There was rain in the night, rain to dampen the dynamite on Treasure Island, rain to help wash the blood on her cheek. A gentle rain from heaven. Like the rain in Flanders Fields, like Shakespeare's mercy, the mercy no one bothered to show Shylock or the woman in number 114.

Piano music started up again, “St. Louis Blues.” Her voice was even.

“I shot the Nazi bastard in the stomach.”

*   *   *

She convinced Rick to drop her off at Portsmouth and go home, phone the paper, hint of dawn rising behind Twin Peaks, rain falling like tears on the green grass, the tenements of Chinatown.

The smell of
jool
and pork buns wafted from iron stoves in cramped backroom bakeries, red banners waving across Grant in the Bay wind. Fishermen trudging toward the Van Ness pier with long poles and tackle boxes, others toward shrimp boats on the wharf, looking for tonight's dinner, for next week's rent, faces battered by sheets of water, one with sky and sea.

Metal doors screamed open as men and women swept the fronts of produce markets and flower shops, eddies of rainwater swirling incense sticks down the gutter, while downstairs, tiny, fine-boned women hunched over ancient sewing machines, patiently threading beads on an elaborate evening gown, rain hammering like gunfire on the cheap tin roof.

Early morning Chinatown. Miranda limped into the Hall of Justice.

Mostly quiet before dawn, except for a raid on Pickles O'Dell and her girls from the International Settlement. Pick your hair color, mister, all types except gray, and no coiffure was by Marcel.

Some worked as B-girls in the Conga Club, shaking hips on the dance floor to bop-bop-bop-bop-BA-bop, Guatemala Marimba Band posing in puffy orange sleeves and coconuts, maracas out of tune.

No complaints from the pros, just saved their throats for better pay, lit up a cigarette and watched the cops, taking bets on which one would be knocking on the door at Pacific Street next week. Tears from the young, girls in a literal sense. Fifteen and big eyes, runaways from Utah or Oregon, bruised by the big city, count to ten and out. Most wouldn't get back up again.

Pickles was slipping, dealing in underage meat. She usually left veal to the big boys, the ones Miranda tried to take out of business in February.

Meyer met her, took her by the hand, helped her to a hard wooden chair that kept her awake, along with the chatter from the B-girls, one on top of a nearby desk, fat legs kicking back and forth in fishnet stockings.

Miranda swayed and teetered, ankle swollen to the size of a grapefruit, cheek bruised and gashed, and her attorney-cum-client was dressed hurriedly and without suspenders or vest, like a john rousted by the blue boys' call on the International Settlement.

Numb, exhausted, smoked all the goddamn Chesterfields on the way down 101, bummed a Camel off a cop.

Lawyer kept asking her if she was all right. Right as rain, Meyer, I gut-shot a fucking doctor at a crazy house, had to do it, had to get away. They were going to kill me, and that was if I was lucky, they ice-pick people in the brain there, that's what they do, set 'em up real nice in these little cells where they gouge out their own fucking eyeballs. Yeah, mental hygiene, they call it, fucking mental hygiene, and he sterilizes Jews and loose women, and you get a bonus off the fucking pinball game if you're both.