Carter Beats the Devil (47 page)

“You’ve probably seen this,” Miss White whispered. Under the thirty-six-point headline was the final photograph of a waxy-looking Harding, propped up in his hotel bed in his dressing gown and pajamas. He wore a shadow of his famous smile and waved as if his arm were made of stone blocks. The Duchess sat in a chair next to him, looking either concerned or sour. The caption: “Though he knows it not, Warren Harding here bids us farewell.”

Griffin nodded. “I’ve seen this.”

“But you haven’t seen these.” She opened a large yellow folder and shook out a score of photographs. “The
Examiner
sends us the negatives and rejected photos of all major events in the city. This leads to problems that you wouldn’t believe—when the photographers found that the newspaper morgue was run by a woman—” Miss White shut her eyes and shook her head. “Those men have a scandalous sense of what photos to send.”

But Griffin wasn’t listening. Instead, he began sorting though the photographs. Twenty of them, numbered from the negatives. None
missing. He arranged them in order; the third and the eighteenth photograph both showed the clock in the corner. The photographs were all taken between 11:35 and 11:42 in the evening of August second.

The resolution of the
Examiner
’s printed image was terrible—the original photo had excellent depth of field so that the room was alive with details: in the foreground, Griffin could see the vials of medication, and on the bureau, the playing cards. There, on the dresser, a note, from the size of the letterhead, probably from Hearst, the one about the funny papers.

“Did you say something about Hearst, Agent Griffin?”

“What?” He didn’t know he’d been talking aloud. “I know this room pretty well. I’m just looking for . . .”

When he hadn’t spoken for fifteen seconds, Miss White gently asked him what he saw.

“Nothing, Miss White.”

“Olive.” She hummed to herself, adding, “I see you’re looking at the very, very photo I found so interesting.” The photo printed under the headline was the same as the photo he held, but the edges had been cropped. “It’s hard to think of poor President Harding being so ill without wondering why he died. I heard he’d eaten bad fish. But look, here’s his last meal, only they cropped it: not fish, but
chocolate cake
.”

“Is that why you called me?”

“Any irregularity like that suggests foul play, don’t you think?” Her eyes sparkled. The idea was like a mink wrap.

“The President had fish early, around five thirty.”

“Oh.” Until now, she’d been smiling every second he’d known her. “I had so hoped I was being helpful.”

“That’s okay . . . Olive. You’re being helpful.”

“Why did you stop at that photo yourself?”

“This’ll be a good photo for the archives.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “I think you’re fibbing to a civilian. What is it that you see?” Griffin should have confiscated the photo then and there, but he also was trying to remember the last time a woman had enjoyed his company, and he moved too slowly. Her hand came out to hold his wrist in place. “Something odd, I’ll bet you.”

“I should really take this,” he said weakly.

She gasped. “Oh, Mr. Griffin. Mr. Griffin.” Her eyes were watering. “Look at my skin!” She showed off goose bumps. “Ever since I read Keats, I’ve waited for a moment of wild surmise; isn’t that exactly what you’d call this?”

“I dunno.” He tugged at the photo. “I should go.”

“
Wild surmise
,” she whispered. “The wine bottle means something to you, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think there’s a wine bottle in this photograph.”

She pointed at other photos. “Oh, it’s here. And here.”

While he gathered the twenty photographs back into their envelope, Miss White bit the end of her fingernail.

“What is it about a wine bottle? Aha! Poisoned wine!”

“Hey, quiet down a little.” He glared at her. Immediately, she obeyed. And if before she had seemed fascinated, now she radiated something Griffin had never seen in his whole life: complete infatuation. Not with the job, but with
him
. It almost made him drop the envelope. “Listen,” he whispered, “I’m glad you found this. Is there anything else?”

“Oh, no. This is everything.”

“Have you told anyone about this?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Griffin.”

“Have any other agents asked?”

“Is there a cabal formed against you? There is,” she gasped. “The fight you were in!”

“No.”

“Does this have something to do with Charles Carter?”

“I don’t know. I’m leaving now.” Griffin moved toward the door. Their eyes met.

“Agent Griffin? I have to warn you,” she said carefully, “that I’m falling under your spell.”

“Okay,” he nodded. He reached to tip his hat, and was surprised to feel his hardhat’s cold ridges. “I’ll come back around, when, y’know.” His legs felt like breadsticks.

He kept walking, did it successfully, one foot in front of the other. Halfway across the room, he scratched an itch on the back of his neck with the envelope. He had a favor to ask Miss White, but he wasn’t sure if he needed it or if it was an excuse to speak to her again.

While he was making up his mind, he saw her coming out of her office. She looked hypnotized with fondness.

“Olive, how long would it take you to find the five, maybe the ten rabbis closest to the Palace Hotel? The ones with big, I mean, you know, really big congregations?”

“Rabbis?” she asked, putting her large thumb to her lower lip. He watched her for signs of puzzlement. She seemed like she led a sheltered life, and he didn’t want to bring her into the world of the gutter, so he didn’t explain further. Finally, her eyes twinkled. “You are such a
delight. Rabbis,” she shook her head, “of course. Wait right here.” She disappeared into her office, laughing “rabbis” to herself, and Griffin tugged at his collar, for she’d succeeded in making him uncomfortably warm.

CHAPTER 18

When Carter left Borax’s, his plan was to go home and telephone James, but as the trees flashed past him, he realized all he had to report was that he’d spent $750 and Farnsworth was nowhere to be found, neither of which he looked forward to discussing. Further, James would tease him about Phoebe Kyle.

As Carter approached the Industrial Home for the Adult Blind, his mind’s eye replayed that smug look on James’s face—the “Have fun!” as if he were urging Ledocq to go and try the shellfish for once. So Carter resolved that today he would launch on a lighthearted affair with a pretty girl. They would share banter and kisses and revel in mutual entertainment.

However, since that approach suited him about as well as bib overalls, his plans were in a shambles before he even turned into the well-manicured circular drive on Telegraph. Dismounting, slapping the dust off his thighs, he approached the Home with an awkward smile and several tactful remarks he would employ in case she turned him away, for Carter carried with him the same thought as many decent men: that it was unlikely a woman he liked could actually like him back.

The main house, set back at the end of the drive, looked like it had once been a private home. It had high gables, arched windows, and several irregularly spaced cupolas on the second floor, and a wide, airy porch running all around the sides as far as one could see. It looked like a place where band concerts had been held long ago. Flanking it were two hulking, utilitarian-looking dormitories, separated by a brick wall.

There were people walking slowly, mostly in pairs, about the grounds. Carter nodded to them all, unsure of which, if any, were blind. He wondered where she was or if she was expecting him. He had several things he wanted to say, and all of them sounded idiotic, but at least he had stolen a rose from Borax’s, and secreted it in a pocket. As Borax had served him some repellent liverwurst, he popped open his PEZ tin and dropped two of them into his mouth.

The front door to the Home flew open with a bang, and three women ran out. They held Bibles. One of them was crying, and the other two comforted her.

“That was terrible!” cried the most visibly upset woman, who dabbed tears off her chin.

“I’m sorry,” Carter said, but at the same time, on the porch, a woman in a white uniform cupped her hands around her mouth to yell, “I’m very sorry,” which drowned him out.

“That was terrible!” the woman repeated. Then she burst into tears again, her two friends holding her upright as they shuffled toward a small bus parked nearby. Carter looked from them to the nurse, who was shaking her head.

“Good afternoon,” he said, puzzled.

“Excuse me.” She put her hand up, which stopped him, and then yelled back into the house, her voice broken with fatigue, for it had obviously been used in exactly this tone a thousand times before, “Phoebe!” And then, to Carter, “May I help you?”

“I’m—actually I’m here to see Miss Kyle.”

“Lord, what has she done now?” she asked.

“Nothing. Honestly.”

Her head tilted back as if to see better down her nose. He remembered his mother at the butcher’s, picking and choosing among game hens. Carter joined her on the porch nonetheless, and glanced into the house and down the main hall from where he stood. There was a braided cord on the wall, a handhold, at about hip level.

“Are you Carter?” the nurse finally asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So you actually exist.”

The way she said it, he was unsure whether she approved, so Carter simply tipped his hat.

“You know she tells lies,” she continued.

“I was unaware.”

“I love her to bits and pieces, but she tells lies.”

“All right,” he replied, because she seemed grave. “I’ll be careful.”

“No you won’t.”

“I—”

“Phoebe,” she said again, this time quietly, as Phoebe had appeared at the door, one hand on the braided cord. She wore her gingham frock. Her black hair was tousled like she’d just fallen out of bed.

“Mr. Carter,” she said. “How nice of you to come. Have you met
Jan?” Phoebe patted Jan on the shoulder, found the crook of her elbow, and linked her arms around it. “I’ve disappointed her.”

“You have to apologize, Phoebe.”

“I know, I feel terrible,” she said pleasantly. “Mr. Carter, thank you. Thank you so much, isn’t he nice?” She extended her arms, palms up, which mystified Carter. It looked like she was ready to receive a gift.

“Oh!” The rose in his jacket. So much for hiding it. Why hadn’t it dawned on him that sleight-of-hand, which he had used for small flirtations, would be utterly useless? He felt naked. Gently, he slipped the rose into her hands, which she brought to her nose. She touched her fingertips to the rose’s petals, tracing out tiny veins Carter hadn’t noticed. “I love this,” she whispered, brushing it against her white cheek, as if she could take the afternoon to fully appreciate it.

“I was hoping to see you,” he said with such an attempt at gaiety he sounded demented.

“You’ll have to wait your turn,” Jan said. “Phoebe—”

“Oh, all right. Where are they?” She put the rose over her ear and secured it with a small clip. She held her hand out to be escorted. Carter surprised Jan by taking it before she could.

When she touched him, he smelled a hint of a familiar scent—D’Orsay’s La Renommee, all vanilla and almonds, something several of the women in his troupe wore, but never so memorably.

Carefully, they descended the stairs and walked toward the parking lot. He put her gloves into her free hand. She cleared her throat. “Transparent of me, I guess.”

“I understand you tell lies,” he said.

“I used to tell lies, when I was still drinking.”

“Drinking.”

“Pickled like a herring.” She clutched at his forearm twice, quickly, as if it were Morse code. “Do you promise not to eavesdrop right now?”

“No, not really.”

The women were already inside their bus, and their driver had started the engine. He had to turn it off to hear Phoebe, who stood nearby and rather tonelessly began her apology. Apparently, the women were Christian Scientists. They came twice a month, and this time had lectured that blindness was all in the mind, that if the inmates’ faith was strong enough, they would certainly see immediately. Two of the men who’d had horrible industrial accidents stood, declared they could see, and started walking into furniture and walls, causing a great commotion. Finally, they threw off their glasses and brought the pits of their eye sockets close to
the women’s faces, and asked to be told if faith had brought their missing eyes back.

This had led to tremendous, chaotic laughter among the blind, and shouts of congratulations to Phoebe, who had orchestrated it. Standing by the bus, listening to her detail all the reasons she’d been so bad, Carter wished desperately he’d arrived ten minutes earlier to witness it.

She was concluding, “. . . really, honestly, terribly sorry. Truly.” She smiled.

“Start the bus,” the eldest ordered. And to Phoebe, she said, “We’ll come back.”

“Please do.”

After the bus pulled away, and they’d been alone for several seconds, Phoebe said, “Mr. Carter, do you know Helen Keller?” Her tone was brisk, as if she hadn’t been enjoying herself a moment ago.

“She and her caretaker—”

“Anne Sullivan,” she said.

“Yes. They came to a show once. Afterward, Helen came backstage to tell me how much she enjoyed it. She was quite inspirational.” As he spoke, he was thinking of taking Phoebe to the motorcycle now, for it seemed like a rebellious thing she might enjoy, but she seemed rooted to this patch of gravel.

“Helen is so
cheerful
,” Phoebe said, with exactly the same tone she’d used when describing the Chong girls. “She makes a girl who’s only blind feel so inadequate.”

“May I show you something?”

“Please tell me it’s scotch.”

He took her hand. “I thought you no longer drank.”

“I want it,” she said grimly. “I want it every day.”

They walked toward the motorcycle, feet crunching across the ground. “Here. Feel this.”

The moment her hands touched the handlebars, she lit up, head to toe, seeming to burn off whatever blue clouds had been gathering. “Well, this is a fine beast.” Hands running down the tank, finding the two separate seats.