She Walks in Beauty (31 page)

Cheryl said to come on by the trade show, if you wanted to see them. “If they give you any trouble at the door, you just mention my name.”

Sam vowed she’d do that very thing, tomorrow maybe. But right then, though she doubted that any of them could be as much fun as Cheryl, she scanned the room for other favorites, like Bess Myerson.

Now, there was a woman with a swimsuit story. The one and only Jewish Miss America, and a tall, leggy one at that, had been too long for the suit the pageant gave her. It rode up. Bare cheeks were not the fashion in 1945, and Firm-Grip hadn’t been invented yet. So Bess and her sister stretched and stretched the thing, and ended up sleeping in it.

But poor Bess, her life had become a nightmare involving a younger lover and her reputed attempt to lower his alimony by bribing a judge with a job for the judge’s wacko daughter, who then testified against her mother, the judge. Bess wasn’t going out much these days.

But here was another opportunity, little Barbara Stein, plowing through the mob full steam ahead. Sam stepped into her path. “Barb, I was wondering if you could tell me who took Kurt Roberts’s message when he called to say he had to leave town?”

To Barb, Kurt Roberts was day-before-yesterday’s catastrophe. Today she was worried about Dexter Dunwoodie and his Shame Girls, who were still picketing outside. They were threatening to block the Boardwalk Saturday night, in an effort to gain national TV coverage. “What’s Roberts to you?” she said, probably more sharply than she meant to.

“I’m doing a story on judges, and I can’t believe someone would forfeit this opportunity.”

The little redhead’s mouth twitched for a moment, then she spit, “Lois Eberhardt. She’s never gotten a message wrong in fifteen years. Call her in my office. Tell her I said peanut butter.”

“Peanut butter?”

“Today’s code. It’ll clear you. But don’t try it tomorrow.” She marched off, a little general scanning the horizon for gunfire.

Peanut butter. Sam hadn’t heard one she liked as much as that since Richard Nixon’s plumbers.

Then she spotted another familiar face. It was Kay Lani Rae Rafko, the nurse/Miss A who’d been interviewed in the movie
Roger and Me.
Sam was dying to ask her how she
really
felt about the autoworkers in Michigan, but before she could make her way through the crush, Cindy Lou loomed over her.

The former Miss Ohio looked like something the cats drug in. Cindy’s chrome-yellow silk jumpsuit played hell with her complexion, though it probably matched the bruises behind those shades she was still wearing.

Cindy Lou stood right in her face. Hands on her hips. Feet wide. Sam stepped back.

“Keep them away from me,” Cindy Lou spit.

“Whoa! Keep who? What are we talking about?”

“Keep your boyfriend and that huge friend of his away from me, or I’m going to have the whole bunch of you charged with harassment.”

Uh-oh. What were Harry and Lavert up to now?

“And don’t give me those big innocent eyes. I
know
what you’re doing. I
know
the rumors you’re spreading around. I
know
you’re telling people I had something to do with Kurt’s leaving town, and now everybody’s looking at me funny, when the truth is, I don’t have a clue where Kurt is. And I don’t
care
either. But I know what my rights are, and I know that your editor is going to be very interested to know that you’re making up stories when you can’t find one, spreading rumors and lies. I hope your paper has good insurance, honey!”

“Well, does it?” asked the
Inquirer
from behind Sam as Cindy Lou stomped off.

“It has Hoke Tolliver,” Sam grinned. “My managing editor would love to get his hands on old Cindy Lou. Literally. Which reminds me, I ought to give him a call and his daily report on his honey Rae Ann.”

But inside, Sam wasn’t so flip. For just a hunch (and a bet), she and the guys were nosing around pretty hard. It wasn’t as if Cindy Lou didn’t have her own problems. They ought to call off the game, kick back, chill out and forget about Kurt Roberts. Everybody else had. She’d file her silly stories. They’d all have a good time.

That was her plan. Right after the peanut butter.

29

Okay, the way Wayne saw it, things had gone to hell in a handbasket. He had to consult with Mr. F, and quick.

Here it was. Cindy Lou, the tall drunk in Roberts’s room, was onto the subliminals in her room, ratting out to the woman reporter in 1801 about ’em. Big Gloria was sniffing around his bod, which was good, but jawing all the while about cameras, which wasn’t. There was the missing equipment—plus that tape of Mr. F’s favorite girl waltzing down the runway.
That
was the biggie. Plus that other special tape he’d made for Mr. F’s own personal viewing pleasure. And Little Dougie was busting his chops, never easing up, giving him no breathing room. Pushing pushing pushing like those little dudes always—no, he couldn’t say that, Mr. F wasn’t so tall himself. And now, now, this was the last straw, that reporter woman’s boyfriend and this gigantico jigaboo come sniffing around about Kurt Roberts. Leaning on him
real
heavy, like they really knew something.

They’d snuck up on him in Action Central, tapping on the door politely, pretending they were cops.

*

“Detective Leonard, Major Crime Squad, Northfield Barracks,” the big jig said, flashing a badge that looked like he’d bought it in a FrankFair toy department.

Wayne was close. Actually, the badge was part of one of Lavert’s Carnival costumes, the one where he dressed up as Black Bart who used to recite poetry while he was robbing stagecoaches out West. Bart wasn’t really black, but nobody in New Orleans knew that. Or cared.

“Detective Dutch.” That was the curly-headed reporter’s boyfriend, saying that was his name. Which it wasn’t.

Wayne called him on it. He said, “You think I don’t know who you are? You’re staying in 1801, asshole.”

“Which means?” The boyfriend bit down on his words real hard and narrowed his eyes like smoke was curling into them. Like Robert Mitchum in that detective movie Wayne had rented a couple of months ago. Like he thought he was cool.

“Which means you ain’t no cop.”

“Why does the fact that I am staying in this hotel mean I’m not a cop?”

Well, Wayne wasn’t exactly sure. But it didn’t
seem
like a cop would be staying in a suite with a reporter.

“We have reason to believe that you have some information about the disappearance of one Kurt Roberts,” the big jig said, holding out a notebook.

In it, Lavert had started scribbling possible menus for the lunch he was going to cook for Michelangelo et al on Sunday. He was thinking about quail and polenta. He was thinking about a veal stew. He was also thinking about surprising Ma completely and doing an old-fashioned red sauce Italian that would beat the socks off Ma’s mom’s cooking, and he’d heard Angelina Amato was no slouch in that department.

“Yeah?” said Wayne. “I don’t even know no Kurt Roberts.”

“The gentleman staying in 1803? I myself saw you coming out of his room Tuesday afternoon.” That was the boyfriend—who either was or wasn’t a cop. Who was choosing not to mention that was also the afternoon Wayne had laid into him pretty good.

Wayne said, “Yeah? Well, you know, security’s my job.”

“Indeed,” said the jig. “Could you explain to us exactly what it was you were doing, securitywise that is, in Mr. Roberts’s room?”

“Securitywise, I was checking on the locks.”

“Really? That’s part of your duties, here in operations, to check on guests’ locks?” The jig looked like he didn’t believe him.

“Yeah. He said he was having trouble with ’em.”

“And you fixed the problem,” said the boyfriend.

“Yeah.”

“Did you notice anything
unusual
at the time?”

“What do you mean, unusual?”

“Oh, you know—” said the boyfriend.

And then the jig finished for him. “Puddles of blood where you did him when he surprised you lifting his room.”

“Fuck you, Jack.”

Lavert didn’t even think about it. He just pulled back his right fist, then laid it across Wayne’s jaw. That was roughly the equivalent
of getting smacked by one of the cinder blocks that held up the boards that supported Lavert’s considerable library back home in the French Quarter.

If Lavert had thought about it, he would have
broken
Wayne’s jaw. As it was, Wayne was sprawled on the floor, out cold.

“That one’s for you, bro,” he said to Harry as they let themselves out.

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“No, I mean, I wanted to do it myself.”

At that, Lavert stopped dead in the hall. “We can go back. You can stomp on his ribs for a while.”

“Nawh. I’ll take a rain check.”

*

Wayne didn’t know any of that last part, of course. He didn’t know anything past when he said
Jack.

What he did know, now, was that ice helped the pain. He was using equal parts on his jaw and in his Scotch.

And what he thought was that this business was getting to him—even if they
weren’t
cops. Making him think he ought to ask Mr. F if it wouldn’t be the best thing if maybe he walked away, which he’d always been so good at doing, till this thing was over, till after Sunday anyway. Then they’d all be pulling out faster than the Miss America Special, and things would quiet down again. He could just go back to maintaining surveillance on the high rollers in their rooms. Wayne knocked back the last of the Scotch.

Yep, he was going to tell Mr. F everything, Take it to the Lord in prayer, as his friend Thelma Thirty used to say when she had a snootful. Lay out to Mr. F his failings and transgressions and fears, the ones that woke Wayne up, night sweats in the small hours, ask for his forgiveness and his advice. Hoping he’d say something in that way he had, like, Look on the bright side. Everything’s coming up roses. No use crying in your beer. Mr. F had the most original way of talking. It gave you a whole new perspective on life.

If only he could get past Mr. F’s assistant—and he didn’t mean Dougie this time.

There was this new girl who’d popped up at the executive reception desk. Young and juicy but prissy, too—kind of like one of those Miss America girls. Like I’m the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen and I’ve got tatas out to East Jesus, but if you touch me I’ll scream and sic the cops on you.

Her name was Crystal.

Wayne had walked over to Mr. F’s office while he worked all this out, and now there was Crystal sitting at reception. With hair so black it looked like it’d leave a mark on your hand if you touched it. Hair twisted up on top of her head. She was wearing a black dress with a collar that came up to the very tippy-tip of her chin, but the bottom of the dress, well, if it was any shorter, you’d see France.

“Mr. Franken’s in a meeting,” she said.

“So, tell him I’m here and it’s an emergency.” It really hurt his mouth to talk.

“Your name?”

Like he hadn’t told her at least a dozen times. Was she stupid, or had she been taking lessons from Dougie? Maybe she was Dougie’s girlfriend. She was about the right size, and she’d popped in right after he did.

So he asked her. He said, You Dougie’s squeeze?

She looked at him like he’d asked her if she picked her nose or chewed her toenails. But she didn’t answer his question. Instead, she said, “Mr. Franken is not to be disturbed.”

“Says who?”

“Says he. And I say I can smell booze on you, and you know that is strictly against the rules—drinking on duty. The Gambling Commission is very strict about these matters.”

What he’d like to do right now was pop her one across the mouth. Instead he said, “And I guess you’re going to narc on me to Mr. F.”

“I didn’t say that. Excuse me.” She turned to a buzzer that she seemed to think was calling her name. Ummm-humh. Ummmm-humh. Then she said to Wayne, “Mr. Franken is going to be busy for the rest of the day. Top-level meeting. You can wait if you want to, but you’ll be wasting your time.”

Oh.

So there Wayne was now, stomping around out on the sidewalk that ran back from the Boardwalk between the Monopoly and the Convention Hall. Some fresh air might help him figure out his next move. Maybe he ought to just walk anyway, call Mr. F from a Motel 6 somewhere, tell him things were
too
weird—

“Hey, Wayne. Man, you know, that number we did? Funny thing, I got another guy’s interested in it, too.”

What? It was Dean, the guy from the equipment van. The one who’d tapped into the Miss America show for Mr. F. But he wasn’t supposed to
tell
anybody else about it. Wasn’t that why Wayne gave him the $300?

He said that to Dean, but Dean said, Hey, it was cool. This other guy was
connected.
Didn’t talk to nobody. Dean gave Wayne a big wink.