“No one saw me besides your driver.”
“That’s George. He’s not my driver.”
“Quite a spread.”
“It belongs to a quite talented and beautiful lady.”
“Your mistress.”
Hearst stopped walking. The surf came up high above his ankles as he stared at the man. “I was told you’re good at your job.”
“That’s true.”
“Then please do not speak unless spoken to. Do not arrive anywhere unannounced. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Hearst.”
“I note a tone of sarcasm.”
“No, sir.”
“I suppose here is as good as anywhere.”
“You wanna know if Fatty killed her?”
“Well, did he?”
The Dark Man shrugged. He still had on his dress shoes but had removed his hat and his black hair whipped down across the ragged half ear. His wool suit and jacket were too warm for the climate, but the man didn’t seem to notice or to perspire.
“That’s a question I can’t answer,” the Dark Man said. “It seems Miss Rappe and Mr. Arbuckle are the only two who know. The door was closed.”
“What about your man?” Hearst said. “The one who arranged the party?”
“What about him?”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“This whole affair has been quite troubling,” Hearst said, picking up the little brown dachshund and rubbing the dog’s ears. He smelled the dog’s fur and the scent reminded him of Bavaria and the wonderful food and people. How he loved Germany.
“I didn’t come for money,” the Dark Man said.
“I would hope not.”
“The police know about Mrs. Delmont,” he said. “They know about the cons. They probably know about her string of husbands, too. I don’t expect the district attorney in San Francisco to keep the same level of interest.”
Hearst nodded and looked down at the much shorter man. He kissed the little brown dog on her head and smelled the sweet scent. He just simply smiled at the dark, very troubling man. The man was compact and muscular, giving the impression of a loaded spring about to snap.
“The case may fall apart,” said the Dark Man, adding, “Mr. Hearst.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“How’s that?”
“Mr. Arbuckle’s trial is already over.”
Hearst whistled for the dog and walked briskly away from the man, leaving him to chew on the idea.
“HOW ’BOUT A RIDE?”
“No thanks,” Sam said.
“It’s me, Daisy. Remember the Old Poodle Dog? I was the girl with the shotgun.”
“I remember.”
The Hupmobile trailed Sam along Aliso Street, the engine clicking and whirring, some faceless dry agent at the wheel. The girl rested her head across her forearm on the open window, trying to play it blue and lonesome. Sam kept walking and checking his watch.
“Where you headed?” she asked.
“I’m gonna hop a streetcar over to Echo Park.”
“What’s in Echo Park?”
“Mabel Normand.”
“Mabel and Fatty,” she said. “What a team.”
“You’ve been following me since I stepped off the Owl.”
“You bet.”
“Why?”
“Looking for a bootlegger.”
“I’m not.”
“Does the name Hibbard mean anything to you?” she asked.
The Hupmobile drifted on at about five miles per hour. A machine behind them honked its horn twice before speeding by.
“What about Jack Lawrence?”
“Nope.”
“You without a machine and us without a lead,” she said.
“What’s in it for me?”
“A rest for your feet.”
“I like your hat,” Sam said.
Still resting her head across her forearm, she rolled her eyes upward at the little velvet hat cocked just so.
“Nice angle.”
“Yeah? I thought so, too.”
Sam stopped walking. He checked the time. He steadied his breath. “Get in,” said Daisy Simpkins, famous female dry agent.
THEY DROVE BACK into the downtown, to a building called the Bradbury, a big, old hulking brick structure built before the turn of the century. The roof was made of glass and the inside had been designed like the exposed guts of a machine. Scrolled iron balconies boxed the open atrium, with two caged elevators zipping up and down, large iron wheels turning whirring cables. The light inside seemed almost to be magnified, more real than it was on the street, and Sam followed the girl and the other agent across the big, wide lobby and to a staircase they mounted and followed, and Sam looked at the elevators zipping up and down and stopped to rest on the second floor, his hand on an iron banister as he caught his breath.
“You okay?” Daisy asked.
“Dandy.”
They followed the balcony ledge on the third floor to an office advertising U.S. GOVERNMENT on the frosted glass. Inside, it bustled with the activity of a dozen or so men working in their shirtsleeves and ties, talking into telephones and typing out reports. One woman waited at a front desk and led them to a back office, where Sam was introduced to a delicate young man named Earl Lynn and a toadlike older man who didn’t get out of his chair to shake hands.
He grunted at Daisy.
He was Lynn’s father.
Earl Lynn was in his early twenties and handsome in a girlish way, with perfect slick hair, a flawless shave, and long thick eyelashes that seemed to flutter nervously. He took a seat by an open window and crossed his legs at the knee. He wore silk socks with small gold designs and a vest that matched his pin-striped suit. He had a rose on his lapel and smelled of flowers.
The flower smell was soon covered by the scent of Old Dad’s wet stogie that he relit with fat-thumbed flourish. His son tried to get a cigarette in an ivory holder going but failed at least three times.
“Mr. Lynn is an actor,” Daisy said. “He contacted us yesterday about the Arbuckle party.”
“You were there?”
“My God, no,” Earl Lynn said. He pulled the cigarette from the holder and broke it in two as if somehow it was the cigarette’s fault for failing to catch fire.
“Mr. Lynn had a run-in with one of the party guests,” Daisy said. She found a spot on the end of the desk, sat down, and crossed her thin arms across her bosom. They were nice bosoms, high and tight, and Sam had to redirect his attention back to the young man.
“Maude Delmont claimed she got the high hard one from my son and carried his seed,” said the father.
“Father,” Earl Lynn said.
“Six months ago, I paid that woman five thousand dollars to peddle that story somewhere else.”
“You and Maude?” Sam asked.
Earl Lynn tucked his tongue into a cheek and rolled his eyes. “No. Absolutely not.”
“But you did know her?” Sam asked.
“We went to the same parties. Knew the same people.”
“What people?”
Lynn named some and they meant nothing to Sam, Hollywood people, but he wrote them down anyway.
“But you two weren’t…?”
“My Lord, she’s an older woman!”
“So you got roped.”
He nodded.
“Why’d your old man pay if the baby wasn’t yours?”
“There was no baby,” Lynn said. “But I have an image, characters known to women in the world, and to think that I had impregnated a married woman… Well, it’s that simple.”
Sam took a seat beside Daisy. Even from the back office, you could hear the giant iron wheels turning and moving and groaning and stopping the elevators. An elevator stopped near the floor and he could hear the gate slide open and then slam shut, the wheels turning again. Sam felt like he was on the inside of a clock.
“What do you do, Mr. Lynn?”
“Me?” the old man grunted. His head looked to be the size of a melon, with a nice slab of fat hanging from his insignificant chin. He resembled a contented hog.
“Oil.”
Sam nodded.
“Why’d you call the dry agents?”
Earl Lynn tried with a second cigarette in the ivory holder and finally got the smoke going and watched it trail up to the ceiling and then stared back at Daisy and Sam. “I thought the government should know what kind of people were at this party. Mrs. Delmont surely had something to do with that liquor. She’s a lush. A hophead, too.”