Queen of the Underworld (38 page)

Twentieth Century Authors
and
The Columbia Encyclopedia
added a bit to Alex’s résumé of Don Waldo from the other night in La Bodega: Fernando Waldo Navarro y Cabrera, born in Madrid in 1882; studied at the University of Salamanca; professor of literature at the University of Madrid; married Maria Teresa Bombal, one son, Jorge; exiled from Spain with family in 1924 for criticizing the dictator Primo de Rivera; professor of rhetoric and literature at the University of Havana; fled Cuba with family when General Machado closed the colleges in 1931; taught at Fordham and Columbia; death of wife in New York; returned in 1933 to Cuba after the installation of President Grau. Followed by a list of works in Spanish and a much shorter list in English translation.

After I had laboriously copied it all out, including the complete list of works, I peeked under the diamond-studded dome of my foolish graduation watch and discovered it was past my quitting time.

T
HE NEW
man behind the front desk was superfluent in English and slicked out like a professional ballroom dancer. He greeted me by name and, introducing himself as Salvador Barca, kept up a sociable stream of patter as I quickly sorted through the mail he handed over. Besides letters from Loney—hers and mine must have crossed—and my former roommate at Chapel Hill, there were two pink slips with phone messages, one from Tess (“Can you manage an early supper with us on board tomorrow? Call me at the office, I’m working late tonight!”) and the other from Alex, asking me to phone his room as soon as I got in.

I was so eager to be in my room, I considered running up the four flights of stairs. But one had to keep up appearances for the desk clerks of the world, as well as for
two
tables of dominoes players, who were being served coffee by a waiter. Assuring Mr. Barca I had everything I needed (room service was now available, he’d informed me, if I would like refreshments sent up), I wished him
buenas tardes,
Bev-walked to the elevator in my new I. Miller pumps, and stood coolly enduring its maddeningly slow descent.

“Us”
had
to mean Tess and Ginevra—what else could it mean? Tomorrow! So she had done it, old Tess, as she said she would. I absolved her for learning to fly without telling me, I even forgave her for chauffeuring the newlyweds Paul and Ginevra in my recent nightmare.

“T
ESS?
”

“Emma, love! You got my message? You’re free, I hope? Tomorrow’s good for her because he has some shrink seminar over at the Americana.”

“Oh, Tess, how did you do it?”

“Emma, sweet, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow when I pick you up at the Julia Tuttle. Is six okay? I’m afraid I can’t talk now. Doctor and I are up to our ears in work, we’ve overscheduled ourselves. So much going on! So many people with emergencies!”

“A
LEX?
”

“Oh, Emma, oh, good, you’re back. I mean, you
are
back, aren’t you?” He sounded flustered and excited.

“I’m in my room. Which has been done up royally, I must say. Even the end of the toilet paper roll has been folded like a table napkin.”

“Yes, we have four new maids and a housekeeper. All overqualified for their jobs, but happy to have somewhere to wait it out. The housekeeper was head of millinery at El Encanto, the great department store, and the outgoing man on the desk,
señor
Barca, was maître d’ at the Havana Hilton.”

“Good Lord. Is this all from your mother’s churchgoing roundup yesterday?”

“Yes. She has been very busy. Lídia is truly in her element.” His voice had that same edge as when he’d addressed her as “Doña Lídia” on Friday night.

How could so much have happened in so short a time? It just now struck me that I hadn’t seen Alex since he brought back his half brother from the Fort Lauderdale airfield.

“How is your brother Nestor?”

“Nestor is resting. We also have been busy. Emma, I must talk to you. Would you mind coming down to my room?”

“You mean right now?”

“
Por favor.
Second floor. Room two twenty-seven. And listen, Emma, would you mind very much taking the stairs? I’ll explain when I see you.”

H
E HAD
the door on the latch and must have been waiting right behind it for the sound of my steps.

He whisked me in and bolted the door.

“Ah, Emma, was anyone—did anyone see you?”

“Not a creature was stirring, not even a maid.”

I don’t know what I expected. I hadn’t really spent much time imagining Alex’s room beyond the books I knew it must contain and the goose liver pâté and water biscuits he’d offered me that night I caught him polishing shoes.

It was a much larger and longer room than mine, with a view of the bay and ocean, and what struck me first was how comfortable he had made it, with bookshelves, lots of them, containing real books, many of them leather-bound, not just tattered student paperbacks left over from college. There were upholstered club chairs, a sofa, a coffee table with magazines and more books on it, a writing desk with a leather top, a hi-fi system with speakers placed high on the walls, and even a knee-high wood-paneled refrigerator, where the pâté must live. Had I visited this room earlier, I would have been in an agony of envy. It was exactly the room I would have liked for myself at this point in my life.

Now, however, there were boxes all over the place, a tray piled with dirty dishes and coffee cups on the elegant writing desk, and a jumble of male clothing strewn across the bed and the sofa. A pair of lace-up work boots that looked brand-new stood guard rather incongruously beside a stack of
Saturday Review
s on the coffee table.

“What’s
up,
Alex?”

“Shhh, we have to keep our voices low. Nestor’s asleep in the next room.” He indicated a closed door. “This was meant to be a suite and will be again shortly. Listen, Emma, I need your help tonight. There is no one else I can trust. This is all very, very secret. If Lídia finds out, she’ll ruin everything. But first I must ask, can you drive a car?”

“Well, of course.” To give credit where credit was due, Earl had taught me. With plenty of cursing and faultfinding, of course.

“My old Mercedes has a stick shift.”

“It was a while ago, but that’s what I learned on.”

“Fantastic!” He strode about the room, in a kind of high-tension resoluteness that suited him. “Now, listen very carefully, and if you have second thoughts about any of this, you must refuse.”

“But you said you have no one else you can trust.”

“That is true. We’d have to do it on our own, then, which would be somewhat riskier and much more inconvenient for my mother. But we could still manage it, and we will do so, if you have the least hesitation.”

I concentrated so intensely as he outlined the plan that I missed crucial chunks and had to ask him to repeat. I thought I heard Nestor snoring in the next room.

“What should I wear?” I asked, after Alex had gone through everything again.

Z
ERO HOUR
was set for nine and now it was just past six. There were letters to open and read, thoughts to think, good old bathing and grooming to get through, and, of course, my next meal to be eaten.

Under ordinary circumstances, marking time until a date or an appointment would have been a simple matter of organization. But now there was this added element of secrecy to be observed.

I was not exactly a novice at subterfuge—hadn’t I kept Paul a secret from everyone I knew for an entire year? But putting something over on a predator like Lídia Prieto Maldonado de Costa, etc., etc., etc., was a far riskier exercise than keeping something they would rather not know anyway from my family and from Paul’s wife.

“When I am in my mother’s presence,” Alex had said at La Bodega, “I stop thinking of myself as the main person in my own life. It is Lídia who is the author
and
the central character. I am there to carry out her wishes, to facilitate the things she has decided must happen next.”

When someone has that power over you and you need to keep a secret from them, the smart thing to do would be to stay
out
of their presence.

That, however, Alex could not do. To make tonight’s plan go forward, he had to take part in Lídia’s evening fanfare, which she and her newly recruited minions were setting up right now beside the pool. “Her” stepson Nestor was to be given a hero’s send-off by the exile community before Alex drove him to the Fort Lauderdale airfield, from whence he would pilot himself into counterrevolutionary territory.

I, however, pleading more work to do, was to make a brief and gracious early appearance, wish Lídia
buena suerte
on behalf of her stepson—since Nestor and Alex wouldn’t be down yet—and head back to the
Star.

While still in Alex’s room, I had concocted the perfect alibi for myself simply by moving up a day the homemaking editor’s knee surgery Marge said was scheduled for Wednesday. (“Of course I have my city desk duties during the daytime,” I would tell the partygoers, “but the women’s editor is so shorthanded I offered to write a few features for her this evening.”)

This was all very well until I realized, once back in my room, that I had been caught up in the fantasy I had fashioned for Alex’s purposes. Marge did not expect me tonight, as I had
not
offered to take up the slack on her team; she might not even come back to the office herself. And it was not in my best interest, while Lucifer as deputy managing editor might still be gliding to and fro in the newsroom, to be seen taking up space with no clear purpose.

So here’s what I would do: present myself early at Lídia’s party, maybe set up an interview time with Don Waldo for my feature on him, then make my excuses and head off as though walking to work, detour over to Howard Johnson’s for a frankfurter with baked beans and cole slaw on the side, and vanish into one of the movie theaters on Flagler Street until just before nine, when I would station myself at the
Star
entrance and wait for Alex and Nestor to pick me up.

I checked the
Star’s
movie listing, “Let’s See a Movie Tonight!” with its separate categories for “Theaters,” “Drive-ins,” and “Negro Theaters.”

My Flagler Street choices were
Say One for Me,
with Bing Crosby and Debbie Reynolds, and
El Dolor de las Hijas
and
El Enmascarado de la Muerte,
running as a double feature; both Spanish-language movies sounded promising in their different ways and would improve my Spanish comprehension, regardless of their quality.

Bell, Book, and Candle,
with Kim Novak, playing at the Negro theater, would have been my definite first choice, but I didn’t have the courage for that. What if they refused me admission at the box office? In Mountain City, theaters simply reserved their balconies for Negro moviegoers and everybody watched the same show the same week.

“
B
IENVENIDA
,
E
MMA!
Don’t you look adorable in those capri pants and flats! So casual and
désinvolte.
May I pin a
clavel
on your blouse? Everyone is receiving a white carnation tonight. A sort of party favor.”

Up close Lídia smelled of what must be the scent Aunt Stella had identified, the very special soap imported from Spain because Lídia was such an “original” she eschewed
parfums,
even custom ones. She was wearing the red flamenco outfit with a burst of white carnations pinned to the waist.

“But you are very early,
chica.
The hot tapas are not out yet. Hardly anyone has arrived, except Hector, who has to leave promptly at seven and return to his office.”

“I’m afraid I have to leave before that. I promised the women’s editor at the
Star
I’d write some features for her tonight. She’s very short-staffed with one of her editors going in for knee surgery tomorrow and her star writer away on her honeymoon.”

“Such enterprise, Emma. You are turning into a real
carrerista.
But you must at least stay and shake hands with Nestor, who was always my favorite stepson. Here he is flying off into danger and you haven’t even met.”

“But I saw him yesterday, when you brought him out to the pool to meet Don Waldo. I hope Don Waldo will come out soon, I need to ask him something important.”

“That will be difficult,
hija.
Don Waldo and his wife left for Princeton this morning.” Lídia divulged this, I thought, with a certain amount of sweet revenge. “He is to deliver his Jane Austen lecture, you remember.”

“When do you expect them back?”

“Oh, it is a
little
up in the air. There is some research he needs for his
memorias,
and, as you know, this is also their honeymoon. But Altagracia told me confidentially she hopes they will return by the end of the month; she is so eager to help with all our projects. By the way, congratulations on your adorable story about the little
parfumeur
on the Beach. Your friend Mr. Nightingale must have been extremely pleased with you.”

“Oh, I think both he and his wife, Bev, were very—”

“Here is Hector, whom you’ve met. Have you seen your lovely aunt recently?”

“We’re going to have dinner tomorrow, she—”

“Hector! Come and say hello to our ambitious
periodista
who, like you, says she must leave early, such a shame. I was just telling Emma that Nestor was always my favorite stepson, so much more
confiable
than his brother Carlo. God knows I don’t wish anyone in prison, but if one family member was to escape it is lucky for the de Costas that it was the dependable son.”

“S
O HOW
is the newspaper business,
señorita
Gant?”

“A bit hectic. That’s why I have to go back to work. Tess tells me you have been pretty hectic yourself. Lots of emergencies.”

“Emergencies, yes,” repeated the debonair dental surgeon rather dreamily, cradling my hand in both of his and giving me the male-female once-over. The white carnation was pinned high on the chest of his guayabera. “There is much going on at the moment, yes.” He seemed bemused by the activity of all Lídia’s minions rushing around. “All these new Cubans,” he said.