The Dark Man pressed against him again.

Sam turned.

He shot straight into the Dark Man’s heart with his.32.

The man held his chest, a look of surprise on his lips, as Sam flat-handed him backward and lifted with everything he had, toppling the man over into the darkness and foam, catching a glimpse of an air pocket in his black coat, the rough, strong currents of the bay flushing him out toward midnight and the Golden Gate and into the great sea-the Pacific-and nothingness.

Sam dropped to his knees, pressing his back to the steel of the ship, shaking and gasping for breath. The front of his shirt was damp with sweat and sea mist. He closed his eyes and just thought about breathing.

A big, booming bovine horn called him home.

SHE MET HIM at the lunch counter of the Owl drugstore. It was midnight. A guy in a paper hat behind the counter cleaned out coffee mugs and shined forks with a dirty rag.

“You look like shit,” Daisy said.

“Shucks. You’re just sayin’ that.”

She smiled and asked the guy in the paper hat for more coffee. She lit a cigarette and blew it from the corner of her mouth. In the bright light, her eyes looked very silver.

“We busted up LaPeer’s stills last night,” she said. “Out toward Palo Alto, place called Logan’s Roadhouse. One of our boys, De Spain, got wind of automobiles and trucks loaded up with barrels and demijohns and the like.”

“How much?”

“Four thousand of mash, one-fifty of jackass brandy, and truckloads of his bonded stuff brought in on the Sonoma-Scotch, Old Crow, you name it. But the big thing was the stills. Two of ’em. The latest design, all electric, new, and ready to crank out thousands of gallons.”

“How’d it taste?”

“Not bad,” Daisy said. “Little rough. But, get this-when we got warrants for LaPeer and found him at the Somerton Hotel, he claimed-”

“He didn’t own the place.”

“No, better,” she said, grinning. “Said the gallons of mash were actually hair tonic and he had big plans to get the stuff in the hand of every bald man in the States.”

“A true innovator,” Sam said. “He make a fight of it?’

“Nope,” she said. “Kinda sad. I brought my twelve-gauge and dressed for the newsboys. We had boys all in the lobby of the Somerton and along the stairwell and holding the elevator. Me and De Spain knocked on his door.”

“And he just walked out with you?”

“In a robe and slippers. Meek as a kitten. He smiled for the cameras. It’s all a big laugh to him.”

“What’s gonna happen when his suppliers don’t get his dough?”

“Cry me a river,” she said. “They got most of it back. The Seamen’s Bank has it. Makes me sick. I just hope they spell my name right. It’s Simpkins. With an s. Sometimes they spell it without the s and it annoys the folks back home.”

“They still haven’t found the rest of it.”

“They will.”

“It’s long gone.”

Sam didn’t say anything for a while, catching Daisy’s profile as she tipped her head and let out some smoke. They were the only two at the counter, a dozen or so empty stools down the line.

“Was that true what you said down in Los Angeles?” he asked. “About LaPeer killing your man?”

She shrugged.

“Did I tell you LaPeer had ratted out his two partners back in September, Jack Wise and a Jap named Kukaviza?” she asked. “He went straight into Mr. F. Forrest Mitchell’s office, gave him what we needed, and then took over their turf. That’s some balls.”

“You look shook-up.”

“You need glasses.” She pulled her hand away and fiddled with another cigarette. “Why are you asking me so many questions about LaPeer’s dough? He’s in the life. He paid out a half mil, got the booze, and now lost it all. Cry me a river.”

“You said that.”

“So why do you care?”

“What would you do if you had a chance to keep his coin?”

“I’d be on a slow boat to China.”

“I’m serious.”

“Are you gonna eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I want to eat.”

“Then eat.”

“Are you going to Australia?”

“I haven’t decided,” Sam said.

“It ain’t up to you. I thought it was up to the Pinkertons.”

“I’m not a number.”

“Why so touchy?”

31

The courtroom was packed, but no one expected to hear Roscoe’s name. They all thought he’d stay silent as a sphinx, all the papers commenting about the film star sticking to his talents since the arrest. What the hell was he supposed to do after both Frank Dominguez and McNab told him to shut his goddamn mouth or he’d find himself tainting the jury pool, pissing off the court, and then getting a quick trip to see the hangman? But he was ready as McNab ushered him to the stand, finding a spot on that hard wooden chair, carrying nothing with him but a pencil, and feeling sharp as hell in a nicely cut blue suit and blue tie, crisp-laundered white shirt, and silk stockings with soft leather shoes. Everything he wore was new and fresh. Early that morning, he’d been sheared and shaved by a barber off Columbus. He felt like a million bucks.

McNab, being McNab, got right to it.

“Mr. Arbuckle, where were you on September fifth, 1921?”

“At the St. Francis Hotel. I secured rooms 1219, 1220, and 1221.”

The spectators looked genuinely mystified, the block of black-hatted Vigilants whispering to one another, wide-eyed and in shock that the beast could speak and had a voice and was not just some kind of spirit conjured up from a projector. That morning Roscoe had decided to speak slow and deliberate, McNab telling him don’t be a goddamn actor, don’t enunciate, don’t project, they smell a phony and you’re done for.

“Did you see Virginia Rappe that day?”

“Yes. She came into my room about noon.”

“Who was present when she entered?”

“Lowell Sherman, Fred Fishback, and a nightgown salesman named Fortlouis.”

“Did Miss Rappe come there at your invitation?”

Roscoe tapped the stenographer’s desk with the tip of the pencil and turned his eyes to the jury. “No. And I did not invite Miss Blake, Miss Prevon, or Mrs. Delmont and her friend Mr. Semnacher either.”

“They crashed your party, so to speak.”

“Yes.” Roscoe’s eyes lingered on the jury, running down each one, face by face, name by name, cataloging each one of them.

“And a Miss Taube. May Taube?”

“She was invited. We had an appointment at three to go motoring.”

“How were you dressed when the others arrived at your suite?”

“I wore pajamas, socks, slippers, and a bathrobe.”

No running from it, lay it all out like McNab said. When he asks a question, tell it the way it happened. Tell the truth down to the last detail, McNab said. And as Roscoe sat there running down that day, it felt good to say it just as it happened.

McNab walked over to the defense table and brought Roscoe his blue robe, letting him feel the rough, rich texture and identify it. The old man cataloged it into evidence, showing no shame at the attire, nothing scandalous about a fat man wearing a robe at lunchtime.

“Where, previously to seeing her in 1219 taken ill, did you see Miss Rappe?”

“In room 1220. And I saw her go into room 1221.”

“When did you go into 1219?”

“About three o’clock.”

“Was the door leading from room 1220 to 1219 open at that time?” Roscoe thumped the pencil on the desk. “Yes.”

“Did you know Miss Rappe was in there?”

U’Ren was on his feet, objecting, sniffing the air with his feral nose, and the judge sustained the bastard. A smile crept onto U’Ren’s lips, almost frothing to get hold of Roscoe. In a moving picture, he’d be rubbing his hands together. Roscoe would be on a silver platter, an apple in his mouth.

“Where in 1219 did you see Miss Rappe?”

“I found her in the bathroom.”

“Now,” McNab said, talking and walking. “Tell the jury, Mr. Arbuckle, just what you saw and did.”