Lost Lake House (6 page)

She found she was trembling. The strange
feeling was still in her mouth, and remnants of the bitter taste,
but she knew it was less the effects of the gin than the mixture of
guilt and fright and anger that had driven her forth. If her father
could see her now…he would think…no, he wouldn’t even be able to
think. She would be a stranger to him—they were strangers and
always had been, and the only thing that would make it easier would
be for him to be a stranger in truth, so she would not even have to
suffer wishing it was otherwise.

The noises of the Lost Lake House dropped
behind, already muffled by the distance down the spiral staircase;
the corridor she ran down was empty. The ticking of her running
feet on the polished floor was an almost ghostly sound in the
silence. She rounded a turn and twenty incarnations of her own
tense white face flashed upon her view. It was a long, curving
hall, dropping down one step at intervals toward the nether regions
of the house, perhaps the kitchens—but even here the décor was
grand; the walls were lined with gold-framed mirrors, hung in a
long row like ancestral portraits, but empty until filled by the
reflection of whoever stepped into the hall. Dorothy stumbled to
the nearer wall and steadied herself against it, clutching the
carved gold corner of one of the mirrors, blessedly solid under her
fingers. She leaned there for a moment, breathing slowly, till her
heart hammering from running had gone back to something like
normal.

Footsteps sounded from the upper end of the
polished hall, echoing footsteps, and twenty Sloop Jacksons
appeared, narrowed and focused in the mirrors. Dorothy took a
breath and leaned away from the wall, turning so as to face the
approach of only one. Still a half-dozen small reflected versions
of himself accompanied him along the hall, all wearing the same
attentive, half-amused expression. Dorothy leaned back so the
knobbly corner of the frame pressed between her shoulder-blades,
feeling somehow smaller than usual as he came up and stopped
looking down at her.

“What’s the matter, Dolly?” he said. “You
didn’t have to bolt like you thought you were poisoned. One little
sip of gin won’t even give you a headache.”

“You wanted me to try it on purpose,” said
Dorothy, her cheeks heated with resentment. “You and those
girls—you were laughing at me. You knew I wouldn’t like it.”

Jackson laughed. “Nobody likes it on their
first try. Lighten up, Dolly; you should’ve known we were only
having a little fun. Why not laugh yourself?”

“Fun!” cried Dorothy. “I suppose you’d think
pinching babies to make them cry was a riot of fun, too!”

He chuckled again, a little differently, but
still with some great private amusement. “It’s sure entertaining
enough seeing
you
get mad. But I’d still rather see you
enjoying yourself.”

His hand was on her shoulder, without her
knowing how it got there, at once heavy and caressing. He moved a
little closer. Dorothy put up her arm, pushing the heel of her hand
against his waistcoat to try and keep him from coming any nearer,
feeling suddenly at a disadvantage in having to look up at him. His
black-clad shoulders seemed to block out her view of anything
else.

“I don’t think you’re a baby, Dorothy…or a
child…I think you’re a peach of a girl. Remember what I said about
those eyes of yours? I could show you a lot more things to make
them open up wide. Wouldn’t you like to see a lot more of the
world, Dorothy?”

“I—I don’t know,” gasped Dorothy, who had a
sense that he was talking in riddles, and a sudden firm conviction
that she was too much of a child to divine the answers.

His other hand brushed her cheek; he loomed
over her in spite of her efforts to keep back. His black hair
gleamed under the light; his eyes were fixed on her face with a
kind of easy insistence…he was smiling a little. Dorothy’s heart
was pounding. One corner of her mind told her to be thrilled, but
instinct made her recoil. She tried to pull free, but his arm had
already gone round her, pulling her up close to him.

He said, “Not every first time’s as bad as
Vernon’s gin, Dolly…”

A door slammed suddenly and loudly in the
lower end of the hall, just around the next turn. They both started
and Jackson released her, and Dorothy pulled quickly back three
steps away from him. Both half expected someone to appear round the
bend of the hall…but the reverberation of the slammed door only
died away to silence.

They stared at each other for a second—Sloop
Jackson’s mouth quirked in a smile again, a smile of invitation.
But Dorothy did not even speak to him. She circled out around him
and started up the hall, running half on tiptoe, breaking to a
quicker pace every few steps, her reflection dogging her on both
sides as she ran.

Laughter caught up with her at the end of
the corridor, and burned her ears. The hot shame blotted out her
judgment and she turned at bay, glaring furiously back at Jackson.
He had followed her, strolling leisurely as if he knew the laugh
alone would halt her. The recognition that he could manipulate her
so easily maddened Dorothy even more. “You
beast!
” she said
passionately. “I can’t stand the sight of you. I’m
never
coming back here again!”

“Oh, no?” said Sloop Jackson, still
chuckling as if this was the funniest thing he had seen in a long
time. “Be kind of hard to explain, won’t it? I mean—the kids will
think you’re pretty silly, running all the way home at your first
taste of gin. Or should I tell them the real reason?”

Dorothy started to say, “You wouldn’t”—but
stopped, because she suddenly saw very clearly that Sloop Jackson
would. He was like that.

He was still smiling in satisfaction. He
knew that
she
knew it. If she didn’t come back, he would
tell everyone about what had happened in the hall, and they would
all have a good laugh over how scared and childish she had been.
The thought was unbearable. The hot feeling wrapped round her
throat and her fingertips tingled.

Sloop Jackson’s voice said, amused and
silk-smooth, “It’s hardly worth it, now, is it?”

For a few seconds she stared at him—and then
with a tremulous, angry exclamation that was half a sob she rushed
out of the corridor and fled up the spiral staircase toward the
ballroom.

The ferry bumped ashore in the sunlight, a
thin sunlight such as comes with the end of summer when the
mornings are cool but the woods still hold their green. Half a
dozen men disembarked under the flickering pattern of leaf-shadows
from the big trees, and started up the path toward the Lake House.
They were the part of the House staff not shown to patrons—looking
more like the workers discharged by a factory whistle, in drab
overcoats and sweaters, caps and felt hats. Most of them were
smoking cigarettes and talking about a prize-fight that had come
off the night before. Marshall Kendrick listened to their talk, a
little off to one side of the group as they walked. There was
something plain and objective about the technique of a right hook,
as opposed to some of the more troubling questions of life, which
made it a relief to think about on occasion.

Bill Harolday was standing at the top of the
path when they reached it. He would have looked at home in a
middle-weight prize ring himself, with his thick winged moustache
and a dark face whose aspect was toughened by a slightly crooked
nose. He was the money genius who managed the Lake House proper,
but was also personally involved in the tougher underside of the
operation that doubled its profits.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth and
pointed it over his shoulder toward the doors. “The boss is here,”
he said. “He wants to see all of us together out back before
anybody gets started.”

He turned and fell in ahead of them as they
crossed under the dead-looking wires of the electric-light arches
and walked across to the open main doors. They went inside and
followed Bill Harolday through the echoing halls. The rooms all had
that empty, littered look that any place has the day after a party,
only with the Lost Lake House this was its condition every morning.
The men’s boots clumped on the polished marble floor without the
least consideration of its expensiveness; one man pinched out the
stub of his cigarette and tossed it in a corner.

They passed along a row of French windows,
out a back door onto the smooth green lawn of the gardens, and then
took a narrow footpath which also was not the province of patrons
down through the bushes to the boathouse. Maurice Vernon was here
with three or four other men gathered around him—standing with his
well-shod feet apart and looking, as always, ready to figure
prominently in a newspaper photograph. As the newcomers joined them
he took his unlit cigar out of his mouth and, looking around,
addressed the group at large.

“All right, listen up,” he said. “I’ve got a
tip that the police are likely going to raid us again sometime this
week. It’ll be the same old routine for us, hear? I want you all
here at night, all this week. You’ll be paid for it. You all know
what you’re responsible for—end of the tunnel, main cellar
entrance, furnace outlets”—he pointed the cigar at a different man
as he named each location. “Before dark see that they’re locked and
camouflaged, then just stick around. At the first sign of trouble,
double-check your area and stand by—you’ve all been through it
before.”

Marshall had hung back a few steps outside
the group, listening without really being a part of it. It was not
so easy to pretend to himself that he wasn’t a part of it, given
that he was freely allowed to hear these conferences. But at least
he had no part in taking precautions against a raid. He’d never yet
had to lie to a police officer, or help conceal contraband in the
face of a search warrant…it was the last and only thing he could
take some small comfort from.

Bill Harolday and Vernon were in the midst
of a debate. “Yeah, but what kind of a tip have they got?” said
Harolday. “They can’t have anything on any of those outlets, but
suppose somebody’s tipped ’em on the speakeasy chimney? They could
shut us down—and you know the only reason we’ve been able to keep
the operation going so smooth is because of the nightclub racket on
top—all those people coming and going for cover.”

Maurice Vernon shook his head. “I’m not
worried about that,” he said. “A tip on the speakeasy could only
come from a guest. Sid’s been almighty careful about who he issues
cards to, and anybody who holds one knows better than to bring in
anyone they can’t trust.” He laughed. “The ‘vow of secrecy’ gag has
double-stitched it too. That was a brilliant idea, running that for
all it’s worth. It’s the way this crowd’s minds work. If we told
’em our lives depended on it they wouldn’t pay any attention, but
make it a gag and they eat it up.”

“The city’s gunning for us,” said Bill
Harolday grimly, little reassured, and looking more like a
prize-fighter than ever. “They know by now the stuff can’t be
coming from anywhere outside the city limits.”

“We’ve got the cards,” said Maurice Vernon.
“For now we stand pat. Time enough to decide whether to switch up
the timing of our runs after this next raid. I’ll know more then.
For myself, I’m not worried. Our set-up here is foolproof so long
as everyone does his job right. You’re all clear on it?”

There was a series of nods and affirmations
from the assembled men. Vernon nodded. “All right. You can get to
work now.”

The men dispersed, heading for their tasks
on different parts of the island. Marshall turned to go too, but
before he had taken more than a few steps Maurice Vernon’s voice
called him back. “Wait a minute, Marsh, I want to talk to you.”

Marshall circled around and came back,
wondering whether his reluctance was marked enough to be
noticeable. Maurice Vernon at any rate did not seem to notice. He
gave a brisk flip of the cigar in his fingers. “Going to need you
to help out back here this week,” he said. “I want Jones out by the
ferry this time, so you can take over the boathouse.” He took some
keys from his vest pocket and turned them over with a
well-manicured thumb, looking for the one he wanted. He found it,
jingled the others back into his palm and held the key out to
Marshall. “Jones will show you the ropes—I’ve already told him. You
probably know most of it anyhow. Fix the trapdoor so it’s covered
but doesn’t look suspicious, only unlock the boathouse if a cop
shows you a warrant, and don’t act like you’ve got anything to
hide. Routine stuff.”

Marshall half opened his mouth, and then
stopped. He realized he had no reasonable excuse.
Willing to do
most any kind of work
, he had said.

“I—don’t know,” he said. He shook his head,
trying to seem uncertain. “I’ve never had charge of anything like
that before. I might mess it up.”