House of the Rising Sun: A Novel (55 page)

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Willard said. “I think you ought to be locked up in an asylum.”

A second motorcar pulled off the road. Ruby Dansen and Beatrice DeMolay got out, the headlamps flooding the yard, burning away the shadows, creating a white radiance on the faces of Darl Pickins and Hackberry and Andre and Willard and Ishmael and Beatrice and Ruby, as though indeed they were children of light and not merely a human extension of an ancient metaphor.

S
IX MONTHS LATER,
on a fine spring day in Pacific Palisades, California, a woman wearing a lavender and silver dress and red velvet boots and a wide, stiff-brimmed black hat with a veil stepped off a passenger train onto the station platform and waited for the baggage handlers or porters or jitney drivers to approach her, as though their collective attention were her obvious due.

Her elegance, her posture, and her regal bearing made onlookers assume that she was another member of the motion picture studio and burgeoning actors’ community not far away.

Later, police investigators would discover that nobody in the film community knew who she was or where she came from. The driver of the cab she hired thought it strange that her first destination was a hardware and building-supply store. Her second destination, as everyone learned, was the home of the millionaire Arnold Beckman. It was only natural that a man like Mr. Beckman, an international soldier of fortune who had been at Flanders fields and Gallipoli, would have a guest like the mysterious lady swathed in a veil.

His home was created in the style of a Roman villa, on a hilltop overlooking the ocean, with fluted pillars and airy terraces and colonnades above the walkways and reflecting pools dotted with floating flowers and bougainvillea and orange trumpet vine dangling from the latticework. The cabdriver was particularly struck by the woman’s gentility. When he told her in his embarrassment that he didn’t have enough change to break the fifty-dollar bill she gave him, she closed his hand on the bill and told him to keep it all. He also said she winked at him before she walked away.

A
RNOLD BECKMAN WAS
obviously overjoyed when he opened the door. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,” he said, spreading his arms wide, ushering her in, speaking so rapidly that his bottom lip was flecked with spittle. He was witty and gracious, humble and without bitterness, even about his legal troubles in Texas. “If I had it to do over, I suppose I would handle a few things differently,” he said as he gave her a tour of the grounds. “On balance, things have worked out exceptionally well. Americans love public contrition. No matter how many times a real bastard sticks it to them, they welcome the sod back home. Attorneys are also a marvelous invention. I send a check, fix a drink, and watch the sun set on the Pacific Ocean.”

He was standing on a precipice at the edge of his property, sand and black rocks and pounding surf far below. He lifted a hand as though indicating all the potential of the future, perhaps an empire that lay beyond the horizon. “What do you think of my digs?”

“Can you find a place for me out here?” she asked.

“I’ll make you a partner. You’ll be popping the whip over the whole studio. I’m so happy you’ve put our little tiffs behind us. You have, haven’t you?” Before she could reply, he caught the attention of his manservant. “Fix brunch for us, Walter. Also sweep the leaves off the patio and lower the sunscreens for Miss Bassett. We’ll be eating on the glass table.”

“How many places shall I set, sir?”

“How many people do you see here, Walter?” Beckman said. He turned his attention back to her. “Remember what I said about Venus rising? I’d love to see you in the surf at eveningtide, with the sun behind you like an enormous, succulent orange.”

“I’m a bit tired, Arnold. Do you mind if I take a hot bath and a little nap afterward?”

“You don’t have to convince me about the restorative value of a good soak. Gad, I’m glad you’re here. Tell me, do you see your former husband?”

“I think he’s had quite enough of me.”

“How about the war hero?”

“Ishmael is reading for the law,” she said. “I think you already know these things.”

“Just checking up,” he said.

Checking up on whom?
she thought.

His eyes roved over her person. “I turn to water when I look at you.”

“You’ve always been a dear,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down now. It’s beautiful here on the promontory, but I really need a bath.”

“After we eat.”

“I had a bite on the train. I just want a bath.”

“You need to keep up your strength. I know what’s best for my girl.”

S
HE SLEPT THE
entire afternoon and woke refreshed and happy, combing back her hair with her fingers, stretching in front of a window that gave on to palm trees and an ocean aglitter with the sunset. What had Arnold said of her? She was Venus rising from the surf? Was he mocking her again, as he had in San Antonio? Fannie Porter had advised the girls that the key to success in business lay in a short memory and shallow feelings.
What dreck,
Maggie had thought at the time. Upon reflection, she’d revised her opinion of Miss Porter’s admonition to:
It’s not just dreck. Anyone who makes a statement like that is either lying or a sap and deserves to get reamed with a telephone pole.

After a candlelight supper on the terrace, she drank coffee while Arnold drank brandy, and kept him up as late as possible. Then they played gin rummy and walked on the beach and ended up at the amusement pier, where she made him take her on the rides until it closed for the night.

“You’re inexhaustible,” he said. “I can’t keep up with you. I must go to sleep.”

“Let’s walk out on the rocks,” she replied. “Please. Look at the breakers. I love California.”

“Would that you were mine, Maggie.”

“Maybe I will be. Someday.”

“Ah, the caveat,” he said. “But if there were no caveat, you wouldn’t be Maggie.”

At eight-thirty the next morning, she went into his bedroom and shook him awake.

“My God, woman, have you lost your mind? What time is it?” he said.

“I fixed you a fine breakfast.”

“That’s what I have a cook for.”

“Not today.”

“What?”

“I sent him home. The other servants as well.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’d like us to be together. I’d like to talk about some motion picture ideas I have. Sundance and Butch didn’t die in South America.”

“Oh, this will shake the foundations of modern history.”

“I think it’s an important story,” she said.

“Nobody is going to see a film about a couple of ignorant Wyoming hayseeds.”

“All right, the truth is, I want to be alone with you.” She let her gaze drift out the window to the ocean.

He looked sideways. “Be alone with me for what reason?”

“Use your imagination.”

“You’re serious?”

“Do I have to write it on the wall?”

He propped himself up and pulled back the covers, patting the mattress.

“No, I’m going to put breakfast on the table while you take a bath,” she said.

“I bathed last night.”

“You could use another one. A shave as well.”

He rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Whatever makes you happy.”

She went into the kitchen and scraped pots and skillets on the stove until she heard the water running in the master bathroom. Then she called the hardware and building-supply store. “This is Mrs. Levy. I have an order on hold. I’d like you to deliver it now. Do you know where Mr. Arnold Beckman’s residence is? Would you set it on the back steps, please? You’re so kind.”

She set the table, making noise with the plates and knives and forks and crystal glasses, then brought coffee on a silver service to Arnold’s bathroom. He had just finished shaving and was seated in the tub, hot water pouring out of the gold-plated faucet, a bottle of bubble bath resting sideways in the soap dish.

“I fixed you café au lait, the way they do it in New Orleans,” she said.

“How much did I drink last night?” he said, taking the cup from the tray.

“You were a bit on the grog. It wasn’t a problem.” She glanced at the surface of the bathwater. “You’re showing. Let’s put a little more bubbly in.”

“Why should one be ashamed of his or her endowment? Hop in. The water is fine.”

When she didn’t answer, he drank his cup empty and held it out for a refill. “You wouldn’t try to put one over on me, would you, Maggie?”

“If that’s what you think, I’ll go.”

“You’re a practical woman. You have to look out for yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I need a job. There are a lot of things I do well. Your strongest attributes are your confidence and your personal strength, Arnold. That’s what every woman wants in a man, even though she may not admit it. No man should ever underestimate a woman’s secret need.”

“Are you broke?”

“No. Do I want more money than I have? Guess.”

He smiled and scratched the corner of his eye. His skin was bronze and running with sweat, his knife scars as slick as snakes. “Wash my stomach?”

“Wash it yourself. And stop acting like an adolescent.”

“That’s my girl.”

She rolled a towel into a pad and placed it on the back rim of the tub. “Lean back and close your eyes.”

“What did I drink at the amusement pier?”

“A champagne cocktail or two. Or maybe three.”

“I must have had ten,” he said. “My head is hammering.”

She soaked a washcloth in hot water and squeezed it dry, then placed it over his eyes. Through the window curtains, she saw a delivery vehicle pull to a stop behind the house. The surface of the bathwater was covered with foam and iridescent bubbles. “There’s a telephone repair vehicle outside. I’ll be right back. Take a nap. Just don’t slip under the water.”

“Hurry up. I’m developing a male problem that could use some attention.”

“Make a wish list while I’m gone,” she replied.

She retrieved the delivery from the back steps and went into the kitchen and began pouring the devil’s brew into two large buckets. She picked up each bucket by the bail and carried them into the bathroom, setting them down heavily, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. “Close your eyes tight. I’m going to rinse you off.”

She poured the buckets over him, his silvery-blond hair pasting to his skin.

“You’re always full of mystery,” he said. “Did you read mysteries as a child, Sherlock Holmes and that kind of thing?”

“I read Shakespeare. My favorite character was Lady Macbeth.”

“As a role model?”

“If you only knew, darling Arnold. How do you feel?”

“Not too well. My eyes are burning.”

“Move your hands.”

He stared at the froth on the surface of the water. She saw both fear and a terrible sense of realization climb into his face.

“Try your legs,” she said.

“What’s happening to me? What did you do?”

“It’s a concoction used by the Indians in South America. Guess the name of the Wyoming hayseed who originally told me about it.”

“What did you pour on me?”

“If you had a sense of smell, you would detect the odor of naphtha, coal oil, paint thinner, and a pound of wax crystals.”

“Wax?”

“For adhesive purposes.”

She couldn’t tell if the collapse of his facial muscles was caused by his stupefaction or the toxic mix of depressants she had been feeding him since the previous night.

“You win,” he said. “Call a physician. I’ll give you half of everything I have.”

“That’s not necessary. During the night I took your ledger books from your desk, your bank account numbers in Switzerland, your jewelry, and a stack of bearer bonds. Did you know you left your safe open? I haven’t had time to count the cash, but I think it’s quite a bit.”

She picked up one of the buckets and began pouring a trail out the door. He had slipped lower in the bathwater and was cursing her incoherently, his head bobbing like a coconut on a frothy sea.

She looked up and silently mouthed, “Ta-ta,” then continued backward with the bucket into the kitchen. She lit a solitary candle on the breakfast table, blew out the match, opened the oven door, and turned on the gas.

With a big carpet bag hitched over her shoulder, she shut the front door behind her and walked down the hill toward the ocean.

Fifteen minutes later, an explosion blew glass and flame out of the windows, but a secondary explosion, far more powerful, leveled the building and caused the reflecting pools to boil. Some said Beckman had stored ordnance for his motion pictures in the basement. Others said a gas line had exploded under the house. The fact that his body parts rained down all over the neighborhood was a subject of jokes for perhaps a week. Otherwise, his passing seemed to be noted only by the seagulls perched on the debris in the lawn, and looters who carried off souvenirs. His memorial service, arranged by a business agent, was unattended, even by the business agent.

I
N THE SAME
month, a related event took place deep down in rural Mexico, although it commanded no newspaper space or study by historians. An ornate open touring car with two people in it and an engine that sounded like a dollar watch ticking out of control wended its way through round-topped hills that resembled ant mounds and outcroppings of volcanic slag and dry washes surrounded by the carcasses of dead animals. When the touring car reached a riverbed that had shrunk from its banks into a thin red stream that glistened as brightly as blood in the sunrise, Hackberry and Mrs. Ruby Holland got out and crossed a wooden bridge lashed together with rope and leather thongs.