“Perhaps we should look to the first of the year,” Louderback said, lean and well-oiled in a blue suit. “We would hate to spoil anyone’s Christmas holiday.”
Roscoe shook his head. He turned back to Minta and Minta grabbed his hand and held it very tightly, and then she did something that Roscoe would always remember. She winked at him, holding on tight, and he had such pride that he almost felt like walking right over to Mrs. Hubbard and spitting in her eye.
The gavel sounded.
There was talking and murmuring in the courtroom, like any Sunday service being broken up, and newspapermen and photographers surged forth. McNab caught them all and gruffly said that he would let the facts speak for themselves and he looked forward to getting another jury in there devoid of any prejudices against his client.
Roscoe walked out with Minta and Ma, the dogs trailing him, shouting questions, flashbulbs popping and exploding. Head held high, he walked, Minta’s arm in his, Ma alongside. The great doors to the Hall were open and he followed the stairs down onto the street, looking out to the greenery of Portsmouth Square.
More questions. More of the same.
“I’m very grateful to those who recognized the truth,” Roscoe said. “I’ve only tried to bring joy and laughter to millions and only the Lord himself knows why this has befallen me. I only tried to help that poor woman. That, my friends, is my only sin.”
A little girl toddled over to Roscoe and, in the click and whir of cameras, handed Roscoe a tin cup. She smiled and curtsied and said, “Better luck next time.”
The newsboys roared with laughter, and he saw one of them jangle out some coin into the little girl’s hand. Roscoe lit a smoke and stood there. Most of the newsmen scattered to catch Mrs. Hubbard on the steps, as she was saying that a jury was absolutely no place for a woman and that at one point the men complained of the amount of food she had consumed.
Roscoe watched the large woman brushing away the men with tablets and cameras who followed her down the street. The black-hat Vigilants soon swallowed her in their mass and walked off with her in a dark swarm toward the park.
Roscoe met McNab’s eye and the big man gritted his teeth and nodded, seeing the chorus, before finding Roscoe’s elbow and steering him toward the machine.
The Pierce-Arrow was kept back at the Palace.
They piled into McNab’s touring car. Roscoe doffed his hat for the crowd and they moved away, down the hills and back to the hotel. There was a deep silence in the car, the silence creating some kind of shame in him. Roscoe rested his head on his knuckles, watching the city pass, thinking back to a year ago when he’d stepped off a train in Paris and received nothing short of a hero’s welcome.
He wondered where they’d all gone.
SAM FOUND His STATEROOM, steamer trunk arriving soon after, a negro porter unloading it from his back. Sam tipped the man and sat on the small bunk, wishing for a pint of Scotch but settling for a glass of water, watching the clock on the wall, knowing the ship would sail at midnight, hearing the lot of people coming and going, screaming and yelling, excited for the big send-off.
At seven, he called the porter and ordered a bottle.
He had three stiff drinks and found himself walking the deck, crowds gathering on the railing facing the dock, waving to their families. There was champagne being chilled by barmen, ready to uncork at sea, cigarettes being smoked by women in long dresses and men in tuxedos. Chinese women handed everyone stingers and confetti, gold dust to toss into the air at send-off.
Sam checked his watch. He watched a man light another man’s cigar with the crisp burning end of some currency. They laughed and blew smoke into the air.
The wind was brisk, deafening Sam’s ears as he stared in disbelief.
He returned down below for a drink.
He had three more.
He walked back to the deck and searched for Daisy, checking a half dozen times with members of the crew. He found a spot on the railing and smoked several cigarettes until the pack was empty. He noted the time again, watching the length of Pier 35 until it came upon half past eleven, the gangplanks gone empty, men in overalls ready by the taut lines stretching down to the dock.
Sam returned below, the ship’s horns blaring, porters roaming the halls calling for all those going ashore. He checked his timepiece, feeling a gentle hum vibrating the steel of the big ship. He drank down the last of the bottle, not even bothering with the glass.
Sam reached into the pocket of his tweeds, finding not a handkerchief but a rough card. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and stared down into his palm at the small, insignificant card with numbers hammered into the type and the ink prints of two small feet.
He staggered to his feet, searching for the hall, instead finding a dressing mirror. “Goddamn son of a bitch.”
When he opened the door, people were running crazy down the halls, throwing streamers and confetti, and champagne had already been uncorked while they were still moored. Sam staggered the hallways, using the walls for balance, getting lost, running into people, women kissing him full on the lips, until he finally found the porter and gave him a silver dollar and begged him to please unload his trunk before they sailed.
“Just set it on the pier,” Sam said. “I’ll find it. It’s been with me for some time.”
The man looked confused, black face wise and weathered, but pocketed the money. Sam wavered on his feet.
He followed the hall and then another and twisted down into the guts of the ship and down a staircase into the clanging engine room. Men in white coveralls shoveled coal into the red-hot furnace, stoking the fire, wiping their brows, getting the steamer prepped for the journey.
Sam could not breathe, the heat and grit of the place wrenching his lungs. Two crewmen passed, not giving him a second glance, and Sam rounded the short staircase up to the steel deck overlooking the workers. With his pocketknife, he again unscrewed the vent and pulled away the grille, reaching his arm far into the air duct, fingers fanning as far as they could for the hidden fire hose but only feeling the heat in the shaft and an endless void. He stretched in with all of his shoulder, finding the short curve where he pushed the nozzle, spreading out the length of his fingers, but he knew the gold was gone.
He pulled out his hand, wiping the coal dust on his pants, replaced the grille, and screwed the vent back in place.
Sam felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned into the face of the first officer, the same man he’d met the first day on the ship. McManus. Sam gave him his best sober stare, his legs feeling unsteady.
“Already working?” the first officer asked.
“You?” Sam asked.
The first officer shook his head. “You’re the second person givin’ the engine room a good thorough look today.”
“And the other was a nice-looking gal with silver eyes.”
“How’d you know?”
Sam shrugged in the sloppy manner of a drunk.
“One last thing,” Sam asked. “Which way is up?”
FOR THE NEW YEAR’S PARTY, Hearst had a carousel delivered to the great dock at San Simeon. The guests had arrived by boat and stayed in tents all along the beach and were given rides up to the top of the hill where the castle was just beginning to take shape. Nearing midnight, Hearst finally gained his favorite carousel horse, a violent black mare with a fearsome carved face and golden saddle, and he delighted in his whirl around the sights, the dock, the tents, the vast hills. He laughed at it all, clowning for a little crowd waiting for their turn. Hearst made a big show of riding with no hands and, on another pass, sidesaddle, but what really got them was when he rode backward, waving to them all and laughing. Marion was alongside him and then behind him and then on the opposite side of the carousel, and after a few rotations, the night filled with the gay-piped calliope music, he walked in the opposite direction, the very axis tilting under him, until he made it nearly around and saw her sitting astride the giant white filly with the pink hair and the gay mouth, and she was laughing uproariously, holding a batch of cotton candy. And Hearst just stood there, seeing the enjoyment, taking pleasure in bringing it to her, very self-satisfied. He took another step forward with his giant black boots and removed his plantation hat, a stupid grin on his face, and then saw the Englishman there, holding the reigns of the false horse in his hands and performing dog tricks for his girl, pantomiming and laughing, jumping from one horse to the next.