Devil's Garden
Authors: Ace Atkins
Devil's Garden
Ace Atkins
Putnam Adult (2009)
Tags: Private Investigators, Mystery Detective, Fiction, Suspense, Historical, General, Fiction - Espionage, Thriller, Thrillers, American Mystery Suspense Fiction, Mystery Detective - Historical, American Historical Fiction, Espionage, Biographical Fiction, California, Trials (Murder), Intrigue, Virginia, Noir Fiction, Motion Picture Actors and Actresses, Trials (Murder) - California, Hammett, Dashiell, Arbuckle, Roscoe, Children's 12-Up - Fiction - Espionage, Rappe
Private Investigatorsttt Mystery Detectivettt Fictionttt Suspensettt Historicalttt Generalttt Fiction - Espionagettt Thrillerttt Thrillersttt American Mystery Suspense Fictionttt Mystery Detective - Historicalttt American Historical Fictionttt Espionagettt Biographical Fictionttt Californiattt Trials (Murder)ttt Intriguettt Virginiattt Noir Fictionttt Motion Picture Actors and Actressesttt Trials (Murder) - Californiattt Hammettttt Dashiellttt Arbucklettt Roscoettt Children's 12-Up - Fiction - Espionagettt Rappettt
EDITORIAL REVIEW: **From the critically acclaimed, award-nominated author comes a new noir crime classic about one of the most notorious trials in American history.** Critics called Ace Atkins’s *Wicked City* “gripping, superb” (*Library Journal*), “stunning” (*The Tampa Tribune*), “terrific” (Associated Press), “riveting” (*Kirkus Reviews*), “wicked good” (*Fort Worth Star-Telegram*), and “Atkins’ best novel” (*The Washington Post*). But *Devil’s Garden* is something else again. San Francisco, September 1921: Silent-screen comedy star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel: girls, jazz, bootleg hooch . . . and a dead actress named Virginia Rappe. The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed her—crushing her under his weight—and brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict. But what really happened? Why do so many people at the party seem to have stories that conflict? Why is the prosecution hiding witnesses? Why are there body parts missing from the autopsied corpse? Why is Hearst so determined to see Fatty Arbuckle convicted? In desperation, Arbuckle’s defense team hires a Pinkerton agent to do an investigation of his own and, they hope, discover the truth. The agent’s name is Dashiell Hammett, and he’s the book’s narrator. What he discovers will change American legal history—and his own life—forever. “The historical accuracy isn’t what elevates Atkins’ prose to greatness,” said *The Tampa Tribune*. “It’s his ability to let these characters breathe in a way that few authors could ever imagine. He doesn’t so much write them as unleash them upon the page.” You will not soon forget the extraordinary characters and events in *Devil’s Garden*.
Table of Contents
ALSO BY ACE ATKINS
Wicked City
White Shadow
Dirty South
Dark End of the Street
Leavin’ Trunk Blues
Crossroad Blues
G . P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2009 by Ace Atkins
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Atkins, Ace.
Devil’s garden / Ace Atkins. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-02198-9
1. Arbuckle, Roscoe, 1887-1933—Fiction. 2. Rappe, Virginia, 1895-1921—Fiction. 3. Hammett, Dashiell, 1894-1961—Fiction. 4. Motion picture actors and actresses—Fiction. 5. Private investigators—Fiction. 6. Trials (Murder)—California—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3551.T49D’.54—dc22
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Angel
The American public is ardent in its hero worship and quite as ruthless in destroying its idols in any walk of life. It elevates a man more quickly than any nation in the world, and casts him down more quickly—quite often on surmise or a mere hunch.
—ROSCOE ARBUCKLE, 1922
The Arbuckle case was the funniest case I ever worked on. In trying to convict him, everyone framed everybody else.
—DASHIELL HAMMETT, New York Herald Tribune, 1933
July 31, 1917
Anaconda, Montana
H
e’d shadowed Frank Little for weeks, from El Paso to Butte to Bisbee, and for days now along the wooden sidewalks of the old mining town, built at
the base of bleak hills where dusty workers made their way up a crooked path to the foundry and deep down into the earth. They’d started work on the furnace then, and half of the brick phallus rose from the city, towering above the buildings and hills, and would soon smelt the copper they’d sell for twenty-six cents a pound to make pots and newspaper presses.
The town smelled of acrid metal and burnt meat.
Anaconda was open all night. There were saloons and whorehouses and one good hotel and dozens of bad ones, rooming houses where Sam had taken a bed. In the off-hours, when Little would wobble up the staircase and get an hour or two of sleep, Sam would lay on the narrow bed and read the Butte newspapers about a possible war with Germany and a ragged copy of
Dangerous Ground
, a novel about a Pinkerton he’d had since he was a boy.
It used to be an adventure. Now it was just a reminder.
He’d asked for the room two doors down from Little, where he’d loosened a plank by the stairs so he’d hear a squeak when the union leader went on his rounds. Sam had heard most of the speeches before, Little talking mainly about the country only having two classes, one exploiting the other, and how International Workers of the World wanted to make the fat cats pay for strong backs.
Little said he’d once been arrested for reading the Declaration of Independence on a street corner.
He talked about that mining disaster in Butte in June and how the boys in Anaconda worked under even worse conditions. He called the furnace chimney another ivory tower where the wealthy burned up the common man.
The Pinkerton’s client was supposed to be kept under wraps, but Sam knew it was the Hearst outfit, which owned a piece of pretty much every mine in the country. He was told to tail Little, make notes on the speeches, type out a neat report, and send it back to Baltimore. It was a basic assignment that didn’t need much thought.
The food wasn’t bad. Now and then he could sneak a whiskey at the bars. And two nights ago he’d found a fine, full redheaded whore named Sally who worked overtime off the clock.
Sam heard a creak, put down the copy of
Dangerous Ground
, noting the Pinkerton standing on the hill shining a beacon of light down on a hooved red devil leading a virtuous woman away, and he followed Little down the stairs through the narrow lobby and out onto Main Street. There were horses and wagons and an automobile or two, the gas lamps burning all the way past the Montana Hotel, down to City Hall and to the dead end of mountain and mine.
Little was up on some wooden crates, talking again, waving his hands wildly to men in overalls and women holding up hand-painted signs. The women looked determined; the men looked scared.
The light was just going down in Anaconda, the shadows on the hills showing purple and black with bright yellow patches. As Sam jotted down some of what Little said, really just repeating a speech he’d heard two weeks ago in Bisbee about those miners shipped off to die in boxcars, he felt a soft hand on his shoulder and turned to see a man dressed in a three-piece black suit holding a gold timepiece in his hand.