City of Secrets (29 page)

His eyes crinkled at the corners. A soft lilt came back to his voice. “Blondes aren't my type.”

Miranda stood up and pushed him toward the door. “They are tonight, Romeo. See you in a few hours. And Rick … thank you.”

He flashed his crooked grin at her before disappearing behind the cottage door.

*   *   *

Miranda barely had time to unpack her bathing suit and nightgown when a loud rap struck the door hard enough to make it shake. She hurriedly threw a dress over the .38 in the suitcase and opened the door.

Gracie was a lumbering woman with brown-and-gray hair bound in rolled braids on either side of her head. Taller than Miranda, maybe five eight. Could stop Red Grange from getting a touchdown and cracked her knuckles as a hobby. Somewhere between forty and forty-five, with an unexpectedly high-pitched voice and a sly, narrow-eyed smile. Her teeth were caked in tartar and her canines chipped, but she could choke you to death long before biting you. Miranda tried to smile.

“You must be Gracie.”

The woman nodded, looked her over. “Mary said you got some questions.”

Miranda bit her lip, lowered her voice to a whisper. “Would you mind coming in for a moment?”

Gracie shrugged, showed her teeth again. “Whatever you say, lady. But you ain't got much time left tonight for the plunge.” She pushed past Miranda, filling the door frame and the little room, then settled herself in the chair, eyes curious.

Miranda sat gingerly on the bed facing her, suitcase within arm's reach. She summoned up a blush, glued her eyes to the floor.

“I—I've got a—a—problem.”

The large woman's voice was bored. She studied her fingers and cracked one knuckle.

“We all got problems, sister. Mud and a massage can fix your back, not much else. We got water to drink for gland problems, water to clean you out if you're irregular, water to soak in for any female troubles. An' that's about it. Anything else, you best see a doctor.”

Miranda didn't say anything but reached for her purse, which piqued Gracie's interest. She pulled a ten-dollar bill out of her wallet and held it between her first two fingers like a cigarette. Still kept her eyes on the floor, away from Gracie. Took a deep breath.

“I need your help, Gracie. I'm—I'm in trouble. Someone told me once that Nance … that I could come here for help.”

“Who told you that?” Squeak of a voice was sharp around the edges. Miranda looked up this time, met her eyes.

“Girl I met a few months back. Annie Learner.”

Gracie exhaled, long and slow, and her dull brown eyes flickered, catching some green from the Hamilton dancing between Miranda's fingers.

“She tell you to see me?”

Miranda shook her head. “No. Only that I could find someone to help me at Nance's.”

“You talk to her when?”

“About a month ago. I've been … well, I've been out of town. Just got back in this weekend.”

The woman exhaled, satisfied, look of alarm replaced by desire and greed. Her eyes were trying to add up how much Miranda might be worth. Held out a paw for the ten-dollar bill.

“You're lucky I'm workin' tonight, lady. Cora's normally here on Tuesdays, and she couldn't help nobody with nothin'.”

Miranda dropped the money in the woman's outstretched hand, which closed into a meaty red fist around the sawbuck. For the first time, a smile creased Gracie's heavy features. She ran an expert eye over Miranda.

“You sure ain't showin' yet. How long?”

“Two—two months.”

The heavy woman grunted again. “All right. You need to meet the doctor. He ain't here—an' he don't work outta here. But you make it worth my time—an' I don't mean nickels and dimes, lady—an' I'll set you up an appointment with him tomorrow. He's a busy man, so you better come across.”

Miranda gave her voice a quaver. “What if—what if I don't want to go through with it after all? What if I change my mind?”

Gracie raised her thick eyebrows. “That's 'tween you and the doctor, sister. Alls I do is get you to him. But he ain't cheap—leastwise, not normally—so better come across, like I say.”

“You say he's not here—do I have to go to another sanitarium? Can't I stay here?”

The woman's short, high-pitched laugh made Miranda shudder inside. “Sure, you stay here, get a mud bath tomorrow morning, the works. He can't get up here till later, 'long about six or so. I'll take you to him when he's ready.”

She pushed her large body out of the chair, smoothing the braids down on the right side of her head.

“An' that's another thing. Doc likes to know somethin' about the women he helps out of a jam. I'll bring you along a little form, save you some time fillin' it out before you see him.” Gracie turned to leave, added over her shoulder, “Tomorrow I expect the rest of the fifty you owe me, lady.”

Miranda murmured, “Of course. Thank you, Gracie.”

She shut the door and chained it, bracing it against her back. Took a long, deep breath.

Annie was a shot in the dark, but she'd struck home.

You could get a hell of a lot more than a mud bath at Nance's Sanitarium.

 

Twenty-five

She checked the lock on the suitcase. Heat made her feel trapped, goddamn pacing lion, like the ones Henry Kaiser chained and whipped.

Stuck the stick between her lips and shrugged into a summer coat with big pockets. Needed a coat to hide the Spanish pistol, even if it was fucking ninety degrees outside. Gracie would search the room as soon as she left it, and a loaded .38 in the suitcase of a pregnant woman might look a little out of place. The thin black twill of her right pocket sagged, but no one would notice in the dark.

Miranda looked behind her one more time. Made a show of shutting the door, for anyone out by the pool or the mud baths or lurking by the utility shed, waiting for her. She headed toward the still lit swimming pool.

Blue green water lapped against cracked and broken Spanish tile, mineral smell. An old lady lay back in a wooden pool chair, lap covered in a cheap cotton towel. Yellow light of a heat lamp make her flabby skin look jaundiced, and the lamp made a sizzling sound, old wires and the suicide flights of insects. The old lady snored, oblivious.

A younger woman sat next to her, gazing at the blue water. Frowsy thirty-five, probably younger than she looked.

Miranda looked around brightly, trying to make conversation. “Good evening. Nice out, isn't it?”

The woman nodded, hair as colorless as her personality. She sat tensed and hunched forward, as if waiting for the old lady to wake up and unsure of what to do until she did. Miranda tried again.

“I just drove up from San Francisco. Much warmer here.”

Snort and a gurgle, and the old lady opened her eyes, sitting bolt straight. Wrinkles crashed back into gullies and crevices, deep enough to hide any sign of kindness. She blinked round eyes at Miranda, mouth pinched. The younger woman's hands fluttered around her like the wings of a wounded bird.

“You lookin' for somebody?” Voice as gruff and bearded as her face.

Miranda inhaled the rest of the Chesterfield, then dropped it on the cement and crushed it with the toe of her navy pump. The old lady watched silently, disapproval and sweat oozing from yellowed pores.

“No. I'm staying here, thought I'd see what the pool is like.”

The noise was a dismissive harrumph. She turned to the younger woman.

“Quit flappin' your hands, Jane. Why didn't you wake me? I told you I wanted some hot cocoa … I declare, you can tell your mother I'd just as soon leave my money to the church. Family is as family does, and you've shown me no 'ppreciation 'tall for bringing you along. Why, if it weren't for me, your ma woulda put you in the Sonoma Home for Feeble-Minded Children.…”

Her harsh voice dwindled with her crouched and shrunken form, helped along the dim path to another cabin by the woman she was berating.

Miranda checked her wristwatch: 9:10. Her stomach growled, and she headed southwest on Lincoln Avenue, toward the pink and yellow neon lights of central Calistoga.

*   *   *

Commerce in Calistoga revolved around the health resorts, but a small strip of businesses catered to both locals and tourists, offering more than odd-tasting water to take your mind off your troubles. Bars glowed in yellow neon, the Johnny's sign at the bottom of the Mount View Hotel blinking on and off, sounds of laughter and a piano wafting out through the open doors.

Miranda walked past the old railroad depot, past a late night pharmacy, two teenagers sitting at the counter, sharing a vanilla malt. Jukebox inside sang out with “In the Mood,” and the kids tapped their feet on the chromium bar, soda jerk in a little white hat smiling like Cupid.

She turned the corner and walked down Washington. Passed an Italian restaurant despite her empty stomach, heading for bright lights and loud singing from a big complex off Franklin Street. A lit sign proclaimed
DR. AALDER'S SANITARIUM, NATURAL SULPHUR AND MUD BATHS.

Aalder's was larger than Nance's, with a whole series of cabins radiating from a center pool. More privacy for the cabins probably meant they rented by the hour, judging from the peroxide blonde and the drunk she was reeling in. He stumbled up the two steps into the cabin, trying to finish a chorus of “I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You.”

Miranda turned back to the café. Ordered some ravioli and a bottle of homemade red wine, made mostly, according to the attentive young waiter, from a grape called Sangiovese, “Blood of Jove.”

She smiled at him but refused to tell him her name, and he finally gave up, though she could still feel his eyes on her while she sipped the garnet-colored wine. Food was delicious, the ravioli light, filled with cheese and mushrooms and fennel-flavored sausage.

She declined the free homemade cheesecake and a suggestion that she try Dr. Aalder's sulfuric baths or meet the slick-haired waiter for a treatment of any kind. Walked back down Lincoln, past the now closed and shuttered drugstore, fingers in her right pocket lightly touching the Spanish pistol.

Johnny's was still open. She stopped and lit a cigarette, staring at the sign. Hoped Rick was inside with Mary, the hard-mouthed blonde. Tried not to wonder why every goddamn hole in the wall of a town had to have a bar named Johnny's.

Kicked at the gravel on her way to the cabin, trying to make noise. Gracie should be long finished with the search. Miranda pushed open the door with her left hand, right still in her pocket.

Her suitcase was moved about a foot from where she'd left it near the pillow. Third drawer of the dresser hung open half an inch.

On the floor, as if it had been slid under the door … a typewritten piece of onionskin.

*   *   *

She found a pencil in the drawer of the nightstand, next to a tattered, leather-covered version of the Doré Bible. Crushed the cigarette stub in a chipped glass ashtray by the radio; ran an eye over the typed list of questions.

Any disease in your family? Which sides? How far back in generations? Any mental disease? What was your father's profession? Your grandfather's? How long has your family lived in America? Were you born in the United States?

Hell of a lot of information for an illegal operation that could land both doctor and patient in jail.

Handy multiple-choice list right after name, age, profession, and level of education. Check one: “I am employed, unemployed, married.” Check one: “I am Catholic, Protestant, Communist.” Check one: “I am an American, a Negro, a Jew.”

Miranda wiped her forehead. Started to fill out the form.

*   *   *

She was dreaming of men in white coats and stethoscopes, holding her arms down and smiling, one stuffing a pillow over her mouth. Her mother was beside her, faceless except for long black hair and a smile, murmuring her name over and over.

“Miranda, my child.… Miranda … Miranda…”

She sat upright in bed, gasping. Scritching sound at the door.

Glanced at her watch: 1:20
A.M.
Blinked, turned on the lamp by the bed, padded to the door in her bare feet.

“Rick?”

“Let me in—it's cold out here.”

She opened it a crack and Rick pushed inside, flinging himself in the chair next to the bed.

“Jesus, I'm bushed.”

Her mouth curved upward. “Blonde beat you up?”

He grimaced, tossed his fedora on the bed. “Only on the dance floor. And on the way up to my room. Had to tell her it was all too soon, I still wasn't over you yet, and besides, you weren't feeling well. But hell, I'll pass her along to some of the boys in the newsroom, for them she'd be worth the trip.” He hitched up his pants and tightened his belt, shaking his head. “Not exactly the hard-to-get type.”

Miranda sat on the bed facing him. “I hope she was as easy with the information.”

Rick fished out a Lucky Strike from his pocket, lit it, and waved the match out. Inhaled, nodded. “Saw the register for April '39. She opened a safe and took it out for me. Told her it was for a bet, and I wound up having to kiss her for it. I never kissed a woman that tasted so much like fucking cod liver oil. Anyway, Annie was here on the twenty-first, Pandora on Saturday the twenty-second. Interesting thing, though—neither one checked out.”

Miranda leaned forward. “No date at all? Any notation?”

“Just one word in both cases—‘Aalder's.' Mean something to you?”

Her eyes opened wide. “There's a Dr. Aalder's Sanitarium just about a hundred yards from here. Looks like they rent rooms—or at least mattresses—by the hour.”

Rick rubbed the shadow of beard on his chin. “You think Annie and Pandora moved there?”

“Nance's is a small-time outfit—not many places to hide. Maybe Aalder's is where this doctor works. Maybe it's Aalder himself who performs the operations.”