A little after nine, Sam thought about walking over to Sunset and Irving and trying out a little diner he’d seen that advertised a plate of eggs and bacon with coffee for fifteen cents. He checked his watch again and noted the time.
Slipping out the back door, he rounded his way to the front lawn and sidewalk just about the time three police cars slowed to a stop and a half dozen men in uniform climbed out. A plainclothes man that Sam didn’t know walked up to the house and knocked on the door.
Sam stood from across the street and watched.
A half minute or so passed and the fella in plainclothes stepped back and nodded to a couple red-cheeked Irishmen in blue. One of the cops held an ax.
They knocked again, and then, seconds later, the big cop tore into the front door of the narrow home, breaking apart the wood and lock. He kicked inside, followed by his uniformed brothers.
Sam lit a cigarette.
The men soon pushed Alice Blake, screaming, hands behind her back, wearing nothing but a nightie and one stocking, out onto the street. She craned her neck and caught Sam’s eye, giving him a hateful glance and spitting in his direction. She screamed and yelled that the men hadn’t got any right, but all that stopped when they pushed her in the back of a car.
Sam noted the time.
He wrote it into the book.
MINTA PICKED OUT a blue suit for Roscoe, a new one Dominguez had brought from Los Angeles, and a crisp white shirt with a red-and-blue-striped tie. He was clean-shaven, his shoes spotless thanks to Ma, and he smelled of Bay Rum and powder, walking between two guards down the jailhouse steps and around a cove toward the Hall of Justice police court. He had a smile on his face, chewing gum, waiting for this big mess to blow over. But when he entered the second-floor hallway, the guards had to stop and cut a path through a room choked with women. They sat on stairways, on benches, leaned against walls, and blocked doors. Hundreds of them. Some were young with skirts almost to their knees, but most were gray-headed, with thick brooches, fur hats, and long black dresses. The room smelled of perfumed sweat and stale breath, the big courthouse windows not helping with the September heat wave.
According to the papers, the temperature was a record setter.
All heads turned to Roscoe and he didn’t meet an eye, following the guards, Minta and Ma already waiting for him inside, as the tall doors parted. Roscoe walked an endless path lined with more women dressed in black, the sweetness covering up a mass body odor so strong he placed a silk handkerchief over his mouth, everyone silent, wooden benches creaking as the women strained to get a good look at Roscoe C. Arbuckle.
He felt a trickle of wetness on his neck and at first thought he was sweating, but then he felt more pock on his cheek and suit coat, like the first drops from a rainstorm, and he craned his neck away from the path and looked up into the sea of faces up in the court balcony and the old women with eyeglasses and fur hats and prune faces who looked sour and distant. A few more bits on his face. The old women spat on him and whispered, murmured, sounding like the summer buzzing of insects high in the trees.
The policemen called out for them to stop.
The judge, Sylvain Lazarus, entered the room in his long black robe and quickly took control, and hit the gavel over and over until the women stopped the noise and took their seats, and he launched into a big speech about how the women were in a court of law, not a Broadway spectacle, and if they came for entertainment or to make comment they might quickly find themselves tossed out on their ear.
“Are we understood?” asked the judge.
Roscoe took a seat beside Frank Dominguez and his young attorneys, Brennan and Cohen. Minta and Ma at the table. Minty sat beside Roscoe and reached under the heavy wooden table and squeezed his fingers.
Roscoe took a breath. It felt like the first breath in a while, as he used the silk hankie to remove sweat from his brow and spit from his cheeks and lapel. Judge Lazarus said something about the court not trying the film star but in a larger sense the community was trying itself.
Roscoe wanted a drink.
His heart would not stop jackhammering in his chest and he was afraid to turn around and look back at all the hate-filled faces staring at him. He felt the stares, their eyes on his back, the heat of it all burning so badly that he shifted in the chair. Minty’s hand squeezed his even tighter.
The court called Al Semnacher.
The big doors parted and the man passed Roscoe, taking the stand beside the bench. He was sworn in and faced Milton U’Ren from the district attorney’s office, and Roscoe tried to remember where he’d met Semnacher before the party but failed.
Roscoe wanted a smoke.
He looked down at the nicotine-stained fingers of his free hand.
Semnacher was a small-eyed man, even in those big horn-rimmed glasses, with a thick head of graying black hair and thick, furry eyebrows.
Roscoe looked to Dominguez and Dominguez gave a polite nod, a confident smile, and soon got to his feet, replacing U’Ren before the bench.
“Did you see Mr. Arbuckle under the influence of liquor there at any time?” Dominguez asked.
“No, not under the influence of liquor.”
“His conduct was perfectly proper the whole time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that of a gentleman?”
“Absolutely.”
“Did he show any marked difference in his treatment of any one of the ladies there at all?”
“No, sir. He was the entertainer of the party.”
“In other words, he treated all the ladies who were present the same way he did Miss Rappe, isn’t that true?”
“Yes, sir.”
U’Ren was on his feet spitting out objections, his weaseled face red and pinched and sweating. Words were exchanged, and he returned to his chair, only to return minutes later before Semnacher. Roscoe watched but didn’t whisper over to Dominguez or shake his head or show any bit of emotion. He’d just let it all play out, let the fellas tussle on their own.
“Did Mr. Arbuckle say he had mistreated Miss Rappe?” U’Ren asked.
“No, sir.”
U’Ren gave a little laugh. A crooked little smile.
“He didn’t make the remark that he’d placed a piece of ice in Miss Rappe’s person?”
Roscoe held his breath, watching the smile on the lips of that bastard, knowing where it was all headed. He clenched his jaw, his right hand trembling.
“I don’t recall.”
“You don’t recall if he made the statement or where he placed the ice?” U’Ren asked.
“I never said ‘in.’ ”
“What did you tell the detectives, sir? I remind you that you are under oath.”
“On.”
“Where was the ice placed?”
Semnacher looked right at Dominguez, only catching Roscoe’s eye, and then back at U’Ren, shifting in his seat, uncrossing his right leg and then crossing it again. Come on, you bastard.
“On her vagina.”
Roscoe let out all his breath.
“Would you please repeat the exact word told to you by Mr. Arbuckle? Or would you prefer me reading your statement to Detective Reagan?”
“It’s not proper.”
“Sir?”
“I said it’s not proper.”
“It’s completely proper in the context of the proceedings.”
Semnacher glanced over at Judge Lazarus, who nodded with his chin.
“He said he placed it on her snatch.”
Women gasped. One squealed with horror. Roscoe turned in his chair to see the words repeated into an old woman’s tin horn. The old woman’s eyes grew large and she began to choke.
“But you don’t consider the placement of a piece of ice on a nude young woman improper?” U’Ren asked.