“You’re going to ruin your hat.”
“Some steam is good,” Phil said. “That mud helping you breathe?”
“Like an elephant on my chest.”
There was a strange sense about lying neck-deep in the mud-you lost the sense of your body, your outline, and shape. You didn’t see yourself anymore, couldn’t find yourself. Phil seemed fine with it, though, a big smile on his face and chomping on that wet cigar, refusing to take off his big brown Stetson.
“So she knows who you are?” Sam asked.
“Sure,” Phil said. “No sense in hiding it. I think Zey kinda gets a kick out of the danger. She slips out with me at night, kinda like we’re a couple kids. She doesn’t care for Ma Murphy a bit. The old woman puts them on a schedule of when they eat, when they take their exercise, and probably when they go to the toilet.”
“How many guards?”
“Two.”
“You know ’em?”
“Couple Frisco cops. Uniform boys outta uniform. Never seen ’em.”
“Can we get the girls out?”
“Sure.”
“Arbuckle’s new attorney, Gavin McNab, wants ’em.”
“When?”
“Soon as we can.”
“The problem won’t be the cops. The problem is the girls.”
“How’s that?”
“They got the life up here. They get served a big fat breakfast and go for walks and swims. They take mud treatments and mineral baths. I mean these girls don’t have to do a thing.”
“Maybe they’re bored.”
“Can we have one more night with ’em?”
“Sure thing.”
“I don’t know if I could stand much more anyway. I’m up in the hills with my field glasses when they go for their treatments, when they dip ’em in mud and massage ’em and all that. I’m there when they come outside to the hot springs. Do you have any idea what that can do to a man?”
“It’s a rough assignment, Phil.”
“You bet it is,” Phil said. “They come out in robes, their bodies all slathered in dried mud, like they got some kinda tight brown dress on, still showing their curves and humps and all that, and then dip down into the little hot springs. All that steam and heat bubbling up from the earth, the women not even having the decency to stay covered. They get up and play on the rocks and just plain frolic.”
“It’s the frolicking that bothers you.”
“You bet. You ever seen a nude woman frolic? Let alone two? It ain’t good for your head.”
“I’m real sorry, Phil. Nude showgirls. Tough stuff.”
“You’ll see.”
A very large woman in white walked into the baths and without a word opened a large spigot over Phil’s tub, dropping in more mud, and then opening another over Sam. Sam closed his eyes and tried to breathe with the heft on his chest. He thought of being outside himself and liked that idea, hoping he could emerge from the bath with a repaired body but knowing better.
“What’s your favorite part?” Sam asked.
“Of what?”
“The girls.”
“Zey has a mole on her ass. I don’t know why, but it does something for me.”
“We should get the car gassed up tonight.”
“Will do.”
WHEN ROSCOE FIRST SAW Judge Louderback, he thought to himself, You got to be kidding. The guy looked like any other Joe walking the street, playing the market and punching the clock at some downtown firm. He was thin and young-too young, in Roscoe’s estimation, to be a judge-with neatly combed brown hair and a casual, friendly way of addressing the court. Light smile and eyes, soft voice. Roscoe thought a judge should be an old man with a weathered face and crooked fingers that wrapped around the gavel, not some young businessman type.
McNab sat by Roscoe as they waited for Louderback to finish up his docket before they started the first round of jury selection. A frail Chinese man in silks with a down-turned head and a woman translator stood small and distant before Louderback as Louderback read out a short list of charges, most of them dealing with theft. Apparently the Chinese man, Yuk Lee or something like that, had stolen five bags of rice from a grocer and then gunned down the grocer.
Louderback continued to run down the list of charges, his eyes skimming the papers before him, and then casually and with little anticipation sentenced the Chinaman to be hung. The gavel was swift and hard and final, and the Chinaman was led away, dead-eyed and emotionless, and tossed into the arms of a big fat deputy who yanked him into a back doorway and disappeared.
“For rice?” Roscoe whispered to McNab. Roscoe loosened the tie at his throat.
Louderback called the next order of business, the people of San Francisco versus Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle, charged with the manslaughter of Virginia Rappe. McNab stood and nodded to Roscoe and walked through the short swinging doors and launched his crocodile briefcase on a waiting table as if he were a dog pissing on a rock to mark his territory. Arbuckle and McNab stood before the judge with Brady and weasel-faced U’Ren beside them, shoulder to shoulder. Words were spoken, legal motions made, and with all of ’em standing there Brady said the prosecution objected to several witnesses added to the list.
“Which ones?” said Louderback.
“Where do we start?” Brady asked. “This hotel detective, Glennon. He was recently released from his position due to dereliction of duty. And these so-called character witnesses from the south who serve no other purpose than to blacken the dead girl’s character.”
Big Gavin McNab stood with his arms folded across his sizable chest. He shuffled his feet and rubbed a hand over his gray bristly head, never looking over at Judge Brady, only seeming to wait for Brady to take a damn breath so he could speak.
“Mr. Glennon has exceptional information on the girl’s condition and statements made before she died,” McNab said.
“He is a disgruntled ex-employee of the St. Francis,” Brady said.
“Since you’ve chosen not to produce Mrs. Delmont, we have no other course.”
“Where did you hear that?” Brady said, turning to the larger man. His face reddened. “Where did you hear that?”
“Well, are you?”
“Of course.”
McNab smiled. “We’re so pleased.”
“I will take this all under advisement, gentlemen,” Louderback said, shuffling papers from a large file. “Shall we start? We have a long day ahead of us.”
“There is one other matter, Judge,” McNab said. His voice, deep and weathered and melodious. “The girls.”
“Who?” Louderback asked.
“Miss Prevon-Prevost and Miss Blake,” McNab said. “The district attorney’s office has spirited the women away, giving us no chance for interviews. I understand these young women are being held against their will in some secret location. Since these girls are some of the few witnesses to the party, we should have every chance to talk to them. Or perhaps Mr. Brady is aware of a separate school of law?”
Brady’s face was crimson.
“Mr. McNab will have every opportunity to speak to the young ladies.
They are being looked after for their own protection.”
“Under armed guard,” McNab said.
“That’s simply a lie. A rotten lie.”
McNab cracked a smile. “Two guards with the San Francisco Police Department.”
Brady turned to U’Ren and U’Ren looked away. The exchange wasn’t lost on McNab, who couldn’t help but smile.
“Their changing statement of what occurred in that hotel is troubling,” McNab said. “It’s almost as if the girls were being coerced.”
“May I remind Mr. McNab I do not bow to his social position in this city and I resent his implications that I diddle with the law,” Brady said. “I am the district attorney of this county and will prosecute this case the way I see fit.”