High Spirits [Spirits 03] (6 page)

The door closed with a click, and I was alone with Sam. Abandoned. Bereft. Scared out of my wits. Although I was pretty sure he didn’t have one, I attempted an appeal to Sam’s softer side.

      
“Do you have to tell Billy about this, Sam?” I sounded pathetic. I
felt
pathetic.

      
My pathos didn’t phase him one little bit, exactly as I’d expected. “I’ll be hanged if I’ll aid and abet you in deceiving your husband, Daisy Majesty. Billy’s my best friend, and he deserves better.”

      
Better than me is what he meant. Fearing I’d cry again, I didn’t answer him or try to defend myself. I was well and truly up the creek now. Not only would Billy doubt me forevermore, but I was going to have a criminal record, and my career as a spiritualist to wealthy Pasadena matrons would be ruined. Since I was the chief breadwinner in the family, this was a true catastrophe. What’s even worse was that it was all my own fault, and I couldn’t blame it on a single soul but myself.

      
And my only hope of escape from vilification, condemnation, and poverty was Sam Rotondo, a man who considered me only slightly less noxious than cholera. I was done for.

      
Silence filled the room like an evil emanation. Unless that was my guilty conscience. While I continued to cower in my hard wooden chair, Sam stood on the other side of the room, his arms folded across his chest, his bushy black eyebrows almost meeting over his dark, angry eyes, which were, naturally, fixed upon yours truly.

      
He stood there like a rock, immobile, furious, glowering, until I finally got too antsy to take it any longer. I straightened slightly—my energy level had slumped like a deflated balloon, probably due to my mood of total despair. “What? Why are you staring at me like that?”

      
Silence.

      
My perturbation finally burst out into words. “Darn it, Sam,
what?
Stop staring at me! If you’re going to lock me up, just go ahead and do it! I’m sick of this room and of being glared at by you! I feel bad enough without that!”

      
He moved so quickly, I cringed back in my chair, thereby loathing myself as a coward and a craven. Grabbing another hard-backed chair, Sam plunked it down right in front of me with its back facing me. Then he straddled the chair, sticking his face close to mine. This time, with reason, as opposed to the first time when I was merely being cowardly, I recoiled as if he were a bulldog about to attack. “Don’t
do
that! You startled me!”

      
“Listen, Daisy, maybe there’s a way out of this for you—without your having to go to jail. And without ruining Billy’s life.”

      
What about my life?
I wanted to ask but didn’t, knowing Sam didn’t give a fig about that. Instead, I muttered, “I’d never ruin Billy’s life,” still sounding pitiful. I was also afraid I was lying, so I added, “On purpose.”

      
“Huh. Maybe not on purpose. But the way you persist in doing stupid things isn’t geared to help him any.”

      
“I’m not stupid!” I cried, stung.

      
He said “Huh,” again. Clearly he didn’t believe me. I didn’t either, for that matter. Not after this evening’s debacle.

      
I knew I wouldn’t win a verbal battle with Sam, so I said resentfully, “Well? What can I do?”

      
“You can help the Pasadena Police Department shut down Vicenzo Maggiori and his outfit.”

      
I know I blinked at him. Probably my mouth dropped open, too, although I don’t remember that part. I do know I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

      
“Well?” he asked. He did it snappishly, too, as if I was supposed to know what he was talking about, which wasn’t fair.

      
I cleared my throat. “Um ... how?” I had a mental image of me strapped with those crisscrossing bandolier things and shooting it out with Jinx and the monster. Machine guns at thirty paces. I couldn’t think of another way I could help. Giving me a gun wouldn’t help, either, of course, unless I used it on Stacy Kincaid, and I was pretty sure Sam didn’t mean that.

      
He waved a hand in my face, as if to shut me up, which I thought was rude although I didn’t point it out to him, thereby showing good sense for perhaps the first time all day. He was in a bad enough mood already. “I’m thinking.”

      
All sorts of testy retorts sprang to my mind. I didn’t utter
them
, either. I did murmur, “Let me know when you’re through.”
If your brain doesn’t explode.

      
He shot me another frown, which I didn’t think I deserved. Much.

      
I’m not sure how long we sat there, me quivering with dread inside and Sam thinking so hard I expected to see smoke plume out from his ears, but it seemed like forever. After the end of time or maybe a little longer, he sat back, pressed his lips tight, and took to glaring at me once more. I endured this as long as I could, but I finally blew up.

      
“Doggone it, stop staring at me! I’m not a fiend, Sam Rotondo, and you know it! I’m only trying to earn a living. And I don’t know what you think
I
can do to stop those lousy bootleggers!”

      
“I do.”

      
I blinked again. “You do?”

      
“Yes. Now shut up while I think it through.” He gave me an especially hot scowl. “It’ll do you good to stew for a while longer. Think about Billy and what you’re doing to him while you’re out consorting with criminals.”

      
“I wasn’t consorting,” I keened, crushed.

      
“Like hell. Shut up.”

      
Although I didn’t appreciate being told to shut up, and I
really
hated that he thought I was a bad wife, even though I thought it, too. I shut up, understanding that discretion was, under the circumstances, the better part of common sense. I did huff once or twice. Couldn’t help myself. Sam didn’t seem to notice, which was probably just as well.

      
After another eternity or two, he looked me in the eye and said, “All right, here’s what I want you to do.”

      
I swallowed hard and didn’t speak. Every once in a while reason will overtake my innate Gumm passion for expressing myself.

      
“You need to hang out with Maggiori as much as you can for as long as you can.”

      
My eyes popped wide open, and I regret to say I screeched at him. “
What?
I can’t do that! I hate that man and never want to see him again! You just accused me of being a criminal and a bad wife because I did exactly that!”

      
He flapped his hand in my face again. This time I swatted it away without giving a thought to discretion. “Stop doing that!”

      
“I’m not through explaining my plan to you yet,” he growled.

      
It was my turn to “Huh,” so I did.

      
“What I want you to do is gain the confidence of Maggiori and Jenkins and their hoodlum cronies and tell me everything—and I mean
everything
—you learn while in their company.”

      
I sucked in approximately ten gallons of stuffy police-department air and let it out in a whoosh. “You’re crazy.”

      
His grin made my stomach ache. “It’s the only way you’re going to get out of this without a criminal record, Daisy. You don’t want Billy to think you’re more of an idiot than he already does, do you?”

      
I gasped. “Stop it! Billy doesn’t either think I’m an idiot.”

      
“He certainly doesn’t approve of the way you work.”

      
“The
way
I work is totally aboveboard and always has been, darn it. I’m good at what I do.”

      
Sam looked at me with such a sour expression on his face, I’d have sworn he’d been drinking vinegar. “You’re quibbling, and you know it. Billy disapproves of what you do to earn money.”

      
My gaze dropped. “I know it.” What’s more, up until that evening, I’d thought Billy was being too hard on me. After what I’d done that night, I wasn’t so sure any longer.

      
“Then you can think of this as a way to redeem yourself.”

      
“Redeem myself?” I tried to give Sam a cynical grimace, but it didn’t work the way I wanted it to. “I’ll probably end up dead.”

      
“Nonsense. I’ll be working closely with you, and I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you.”

      
Right. The man who hated me more than he hated Vicenzo Maggiori, Al Capone, Jack the Ripper, and the Kaiser combined. “Billy won’t like it if my helping you gets me injured or killed,” I pointed out.

      
“You won’t get injured or killed.” He sounded disgusted.

      
“No? I thought that’s what those guys did: kill people.”

      
“That’s not their primary business. Their main reason for operating illegal drinking joints is to make money.”

      
Made sense to me. I didn’t say so.

      
“And we haven’t been able to put them out of business because somehow or other, they’ve been able to anticipate every single one of our raids. Maggiori, Jenkins, and the rest of the leaders of the gang always manage to get out of the joints before we come in.”

      
“Poor planning on somebody’s part.” Okay, I know it was snide. It was the meanest thing I could think of to say, and I admit I shouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t in any position to make sarcasm advisable.

      
“Good planning, is more like it, on their part,” he said, giving me another hideous scowl. “They’re getting inside information somehow, and you’re going to find out how they’re getting it and from whom, and you’re going to tell me all about it.”

      
I pointed at my chest. “I am?”

      
“You are.”

      
I gulped. “How?”

      
“By sticking close to those guys and keeping your ears open. And
telling
me what you learn.”

      
“That’s nuts, Sam! If they don’t kill me, Billy will. I thought you were such pals with him.”

      
“I am, damn it! I’ll take care of Billy for you.
You
take care of gathering information for me.”

      
I wailed, “But I don’t want to!” I guess I’d learned well from Mrs. Kincaid because it was a super wail.

      
“Would you rather have a criminal record?”

      
My head drooped so low, my chin darned near bumped against my chest. He had me. I was a dead duck. I felt as I had that day when I’d caved in to Mrs. Kincaid’s request that I conduct a séance in a speakeasy, only worse. I couldn’t see any way out of the mess I’d made for myself except for the one extremely frightening—and, I’d swear, dangerous—way Sam was giving me. He was probably only doing it because he knew I’d be offed by the bad guys and then Billy wouldn’t have to put up with me any longer. It was all a big plot, and I’d stepped right smack into the middle of it like the sucker I was.

      
Knowing I was licked didn’t mean I had to give in without consequences to Sam Rotondo, darn him. Retrieving my self-possession, which had sunk into my once-lovely and now-scuffed black shoes, I lifted my chin and stared back at Sam with almost as much heat as he’d flung at me. “If I do this for you, you’ve got to do something for me.”

      
He lifted an eyebrow, which made him look even more derisive than he had before. “I should think keeping you out of the clink would be enough.”

      
My chin jutted out farther. “It’s not.”

      
His other eyebrow went up to join the first one. “Oh?”

      
“You have to let Harold and Flossie go. They didn’t do anything wrong. Harold only accompanied me to the speakeasy because I was afraid to go alone. And Flossie’s just a sweet kid who hangs out with the wrong kind of people. She’s really nice, Sam.” In truth, I didn’t know that for a fact, but I sensed a certain goodness about Flossie. Even as I begged for her life (so to speak) I figured I was wrong about that, too. My judgment had been really, really bad of late.

      
He pinched his lower lip between a thick finger and a meaty thumb. “Hmmm.”

      
“Please, Sam. They shouldn’t suffer because I did Harold’s mother a favor. It’s not their fault I’m a fool.” Boy, I hated saying that—the fool part—mainly because I knew Sam agreed with me.

      
Sam frowned. Since the frown wasn’t directed at me, I didn’t take it personally for once. “I don’t know. I’m not all that fond of floozies and faggots.”

      
I
hated
it when he called Harold a faggot. Since I wasn’t in a position to chide him, I held my tongue. “They’re less guilty than I am,” I pointed out.

      
“Stupidity and gullibility aren’t very good excuses for wrongdoing,” he pointed out back at me.

      
“They’re not stupid.” I didn’t say it with much fervor since I wasn’t sure about Flossie. And she
was
gullible, or she’d never have become involved with Jinx and Maggiori and their crew. Kind of like me.

      
“Well ...” He eyed me, squinting. “What about Miss Kincaid?”

      
“Who? Oh, Stacy. Shoot, I’d forgot all about her.” I shook my head, trying to clear it of irrelevancies. Since visions of prison, my bullet-riddled body, and an outraged Billy kept swirling in my head, shaking didn’t help a whole lot. I didn’t like Stacy. In fact, I disliked her and figured she was the ultimate reason for the mess I was in—and deserved to be locked up behind bars—unlike me. After all, she’d gone to the speakeasy because she’d wanted to. I’d only gone there because I was foolish and weak-willed. Still ...