Grave Phantoms
Page 30

“Looking for someone. Thought you were working at Izzy Gomez’s speakeasy?”
“Still there. This is just a part-time job. Getting paid well to stand in the rain for five hours and tell reporters to hit the road. You here about the boat that was lost at sea? Heard it crashed into your pier.”
“That it did. The owner of the boat, Mrs. Cushing—she employ the two of you?”
“Supposedly, but we’ve never met her. Fella by the name of Dan hired all of us. Her houseboy, from the looks of him. He tells us where to show up, pays us under the table.”
“Ever see a man around here named Max?” Bo asked.
“Is that one of them boat survivors?”
Bo described Max, and the guard’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yeah, that could be one of them, but his name isn’t Max—it’s Kit Manson. Deadbeat gambler who used to stir up trouble at Izzy Gomez’s. Had a dope habit. Heroin, I think. Last time I saw him was more than a year ago, but when they brought the survivors in here, I could’ve sworn it was him. Tried to say something to him, but he didn’t remember me. Either it’s his twin brother, or whatever happened to them at sea really messed up his mind.”
“You don’t say,” Bo muttered. “Been a year since you seen this Kit Manson fellow . . . You remember where he lived?”
“He didn’t have a permanent place. Whatever boardinghouse or room for rent he could find that would take him until he stopped paying. Last time I saw him, he said he got an invitation to a secret club in Jackson Square. Said it was going to change his life, make him rich.”
“Jackson Square?” That part of town used to be the red-light district—the infamous Barbary Coast. Gambling, whoring, drinking, dancing. Whatever your vice, the Barbary Coast had it for sale, once upon a time. “That whole area has been a ghost town since Prohibition started and the police cracked down on it.”
“That’s why I didn’t pay much attention to Kit when he said it. He was a dope fiend. He could’ve dreamed it all up. When he disappeared, we thought he’d finally overdosed, if you want to know the truth.”
“Did he say anything else about it? Where this secret club was?”
“Not really. Oh! He said the club was called Pieces of Eight, or some fool thing like that. Never could tell with Kit. He wasn’t always present up here,” the big man said, tapping his temple.
Pieces of Eight? Bo didn’t know what any of this meant, but it reminded him of a book he owned, sitting on the top shelf in his room: Treasure Island. Pirates and cursed Aztec gold. Astrid’s Aztec turquoise idol had golden eyes. And if it really was that Max fellow hanging around there, Bo wondered if this was the connection they hadn’t been able to fit together—rich widow, strange occult rituals, missing people . . .
He couldn’t wait to tell Astrid.
Do not think of her hand on yours. Focus.
Bo tried to pry more information out of the guard, but that was everything the man knew, so he finally asked, “So you never see any of the other boat survivors around here, either hanging around the house or coming and going?”
Little Mike tilted his head toward the other guard. “Jack says he heard from another hired man that they all left last night after dark.”
That surprised Bo. “Where did they go?”
“No idea. Dan might. Whether he’ll tell you is another story. He’s pretty tight-lipped. We aren’t allowed in the house, but I can knock on the servants’ entrance, ask if he’ll come out and talk.”
That sounded like a terrible idea. He didn’t want Mrs. Cushing to know he’d been snooping around, so he politely declined Little Mike’s offer. “I’d rather you never mention I was here. If anyone asks, I was just some hayseed who got turned around, looking for directions into the Presidio, yeah?”
“You got it, Bo.” The big man tipped his cap and gave him a smile. “You say jump, half the city asks how high.”
—
The next day, Bo left early to have a look around Jackson Square. Not much to see but several closed-up old dance halls and a few beggars. Two of the dance halls still operated, the Hippodrome and Babel’s Tower, but they were dives, constantly being raided. Not playlands for the wealthy. He wasn’t sure what he was even looking for—something that looked amiss, maybe. Or a place that didn’t look like it was ten years past its prime. But nothing caught his eye, and after he sat in his car, observing the half-flooded streets from afar for a couple of hours, he gave up and went back home to Pacific Heights.
He had plans.
After searching the Queen Anne, he found Astrid in the top of the turret, curled up on the cushioned window seat that housed their secret hiding place, reading a local fashion magazine. And though he knew she must hear him approaching—no one ever came up here except the two of them and the occasional maid—she turned the magazine’s pages faster and faster, preening the soft blond waves that were molded against her head and styled back behind her ears, until she could pretend no longer and blinked up at him with those almond-shaped blue eyes of hers.
“Oh, hello,” she said.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt your literary time.”
Her expression shifted to comically feigned reproach as she snapped the magazine shut. “I looked for you this morning at breakfast, but Greta said you took off at dawn. Thought maybe you regretted what you said yesterday.”