The Saint Louisans (8 page)

Saul sipped his wine. “It's probably Lucas. That suicide tore her up.”

“I tried to broach it.”

“Maybe you need to back off.”

“Look, I'm not her therapist. I'm there to help her die. But she's obsessing over me. I'm telling her my life's story … the interesting parts, at least, and she just sits there watching me. It's so sad. Like she's lost something.”

Saul offered one of his wise nods of a king in judgment, then spoke.

“The battle over the mansion bothers her more than she lets on. The kids—if you can call a couple of middle-aged twits who are determined to get rid of the mansion—are a great disappointment. To them it's like the House of Usher, or some kind of Charles Addams spook house. They want it leveled.”

“Such a waste. The house is a work of art. I'll try to talk to Pierre and Terri. From what I know, she's still in Palm Beach—”

“Yeah, running up her bar tab,” Saul said with a smirk.

“And Pierre is … isn't he into Buddhism or something?” I kept up on whatever gossip was reported in the
Post-Dispatch
.

“He was in Japan, but it got vulgar. He's traded in the far east for the Cascades. Searching for Nirvana and Bigfoot, I guess. Lee, her children are not going to cooperate.” Saul took a spoonful of my soup. “This stuff's pretty good.”

“It's the wild mushroom,” I smiled.

“Yeah, if you want tame ones, I guess you go to Schnucks.” He put down the spoon. “The kids aren't tame either, and I think I know the reason. I've hired a detective.” His pause lingered.

“Why would you hire a detective?”

“Just a feeling I've got. Margo keeps hinting at something, and it's gotten under my skin.”

“Go on,” I said.

“Barrett. He's an ex-copper who helped track that gang ripping off marble fireplaces. He's monitoring the snooping Margot and the kids are doing on each other. It turns out, there's a missing Desouche.”

“It sounds like a variation on the False Dimitry. What do you mean, ‘missing?'”

Saul's features darkened, like when he was ready to deliver a paper on a lost urban masterpiece, or, more subtly, when he talked about his divorce and the unmitigated hell his marriage had been.

“In 1951, Margot spent ten months in New Orleans.”

“So have I and millions of others. Jazz and Cajun are universal. And delicious.”

“She was in a hospital. Not because she was sick. Barrett cracked their files.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Which means he bribed someone to peek into her medical records. Illegal but not impossible. And?”

“Margot Desouche had a child before she married.”

I ignored the soup. “Before Lucas?”

Saul nodded. “Two years.”

“An out of wedlock child. Name? Sex? Whereabouts?”

“Nothing so far. Of course Margot has never mentioned this to me, but the kids are interested.” He gulped his wine. “Very interested, because a third heir means the estate could be a real clusterfuck. So far no one knows who or where the child is.”

“Oh, God,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “You know me. I'm not a big believer in adoptee's rights. Margot and women like her have a right to privacy. The last thing she needs is some middle-aged whatsit bursting in and crying ‘Mommy.'”

“And demanding a cut of the estate.”

I shook my head. This was getting complicated, and my first priority had to be the welfare of my patient. “I know the mansion means a lot to you, but you're really projecting yourself into this. My concern must be Margot's peace of mind.”

“Pierre and Terri will be ruthless.”

“Terri I could see. She had a rep for nasty, but Pierre? I hardly think we'll have trouble with the Buddhist Mafia.”

“It's a lot of money, and if you think it complicated now, just think what it will be like as the end draws near. Lee, it seems like she's really growing fond of you. Do you think you could ask her about the child? If she has any idea …”

Saul's majesty impressed me, as it always did. He wears decency and social concern like Lady Gaga wears the outrageous. A cloud of doubt was ready to rain on my acceptance. “I can't intrude upon that. If she talks about the child, and she might, then I'll ask, but only to help her cope. Margot needs to die in peace and at one with her children. I'm not doing this to save the mansion.”

His brow furrowed, but I continued.

“It is a beautiful place. Divine, a real jewel. Yes, we want to save it, but my job is to help her find peace.”

“I'm not using you to get to her to save the mansion.”

I took his hand. “Sure, love. You almost sound like the mansion is a character, not a prop.” I smiled. “Needs and wants. Two different things.”

“I know,” he said and squeezed my hand. We paid the bill and walked down Euclid before we parted. I to my apartment and Saul to Metrolink. Passing another pole with JUNETEENETH TOWNE! plastered on it made him grunt, then he thrust his hands in his coat, chin raised.

“You know,” he said, “we should talk about us.”

“We do. All the time.”

“Not us. ‘Us.' Don't be afraid of that word. It's only two little letters.”

“I know I'm hedging, but after two divorces, marriage is still an eight-letter, four-letter word.”

“Sure. Abby was no piece of cake, especially during the separation. What do they say? ‘A wise man marries his second wife first.' I know I'm a jerk.”

“The hell you are. You're a king.”

Saul stopped. “I get angry. About life not being right. Not being listened to by the pols. But I need you, Lee. When I saw your portrait—”

“Yeah. A blonde surrounded by a room full of warped people. It's kind of true to life.”

Saul took my arm. “Is it because I'm four years younger than you?”

“No. No, of course not.”

His eyes probed. “I mean, we're both in our fifties.” We approached the corner and our parting. Saul looked ahead. “Is it Doc? You still have a thing for him?”

“Absolutely not. Really. No. I've only got one thing.” I took him by his coat lapels and kissed him. “Promise.”

“Okay.” He smiled down at me. “Let's think about it. Please. One of these days I'm going to get tired of asking.”

“One of these days, I'm going to get tired of saying no.” I kissed him again.

“Remember tomorrow night at the museum. We're seeing all the muckeymucks.”

“I'll wear blue. Blue goes well with muckey-mucks. You going to wear the necklace?”

“Hell, no. I'd be terrified if I lost it. The insurance is probably astronomical.”

Saul gave me that leading man smile of his that I get all soft about, then we broke apart.

I entered my apartment as Kenyatta Holmes, my bumptious across-the-hall neighbor, tootled away on his sax. As always when I opened the door, Yul, my Siamese, yowled and charged out, making me scoop him up and shut the door behind me. Checking my email, I was pleased at Pierce's latest
message; a video of him and Antje, my daughter-in-law, happily showing her watermelon belly wherein lies my future grandchild. Life is good.

Then, defrosting a multicultural dinner from Straub's with all the fixings from Mexico to India, I considered Margot's first child. Margot might be projecting her sadness from that experience, of the opportunities missed for a good child; the unknown kid that must be far better than her two surviving offspring, and of course the tragedy of losing her eldest son to a drug OD/ suicide. I sensed she would talk about it, eventually. Cancer makes one open up, to clean up unfinished business.

Later, as I finished my email, I thought about Saul. I had been stalling, and was reluctant to marry again. First Len, then Sky, and now. I liked being independent. After telling myself that several times, I pulled one of my photo albums off the bookshelf, and opened it to Doc. Richard Pickwick, MD. Doc was South African, and his lilting voice, light chocolate eyes and firm jaw reminded me of Richard Burton without the baleful effects of Liz or booze. His voice was mocha latte to my ears, and we met when I was head nurse and still sexy in jeans. I'd introduced him to Tower Grove on a beautiful day when the shade under the trees was like a dark carpet, and the July sun was white and relentless. Doc had forgotten his sunglasses and had to squint to watch as the wedding party at the grotto lined up for photos, the third one that day. He wore a rumpled khaki shirt like an explorer, which he was in a sense, making his way through the wilds of South St. Louis.

“They seem a happy lot,” Doc volunteered.

I smirked as only a divorcée can. “Little do they know.
Bwah-ha-ha
.”

“So, you took a turn over there, did you?”

I sat next to him in the grass, taking a semi-lotus position, my hair a tangled pony straying into Medusa. “Sky and I had to. Ye olde mother-in-law insisted.”

Doc's grin made his wrinkles benevolent. “I got married by the sea. Myrtle and I. Boulder Beach. Near Cape Town. Great for swimming, and the boulders make for natural coves. We posed against the sea in our wedding togs, barefoot. Penguins scuttled by, rather like third cousins. They flanked us in the snaps.”

“Did they get cake?”

“They did not. But we cracked open tins of sardines. They were grateful. More so than the third cousins.” He fished for conversation. “I sailed, you know. Especially Table Bay.”

“Ah,” I smiled, “a trait of surgeons.”

The party took different poses. Doc nodded.

“There we go. Happy snaps.” He frowned. “Surgeons?”

“Surgeons are establishment. They even rebel in socially acceptable ways.”

“We do?”

“Barefoot on the beach in wedding togs.” I leaned back. “They reek of power. Irritating beyond belief.”

Doc raised his eyes. “Dear me. As bad as that, are we?”

“I'm merely telling it like it is.”

“It has a real
J'accuse
sound to it. But I am divorced. That has to be a tad rebellious.”

So he was single. I filed that away. “I've been married twice.”

Doc digested that. “I've heard stories about ‘Nurse Lee'.”

“From surgeons?”

“Actually, from Anesthesiology. Where no secrets are kept. Rumor has it you're a bit randy.”

I laughed and undid my pony tail. Hunched my shoulders. “I'll put it to you this way. I'm not an insatiable nymphomaniac, but I do have a hair trigger.”

Doc's head went back as he laughed. Less conservatively. I joined him, and we connected. When you laugh with a man, it starts. He patted my leg. “Let's get some dinner. Somewhere
al fresco
. I'm fond of sunsets and dining. We'll watch the sun go down and do dirty on our exes.”

“She took you to the cleaners?”

“The yacht, the house … even the penguins. She had a better lawyer. And more sardines.”

I closed the photo album and heard him speak as if he were in the room. Nellie Forbush sang that you can wash a man right outta your hair, but you can't delete a voice, at least not Doc's. He was a man of the world, especially to me, since I was of that generation raised on James Bond. It was Doc who suggested we picnic at Cahokia Mounds, and on a clear autumn afternoon, one where crickets stuck to your trousers as Indian summer was in high rally,
we climbed Monk's Mound and stood on its summit, talking shop. Tourists walked by.

“So,” I continued, “the patient was a pain in the rump to all of us on the floor. He had a CA, and PVC's four days prior, and kept threatening to sign himself out. Our brave young intern coddled the old dung and wouldn't heed our warnings. After the CA, we dumped him back on the intern.” I smirked. “We call that medicinal yo-yo.”

It was easy talking to Doc, not having to explain the medicspeak.

He studied the Mississippi. “Brave young intern should have read the tea leaves. I got two warnings for a young lad: ‘Wear your galoshes when it rains, and ‘Heed thy nurses'.” Our hands locked. “This was a city, you say?”

“They say more than I do, but yes. Thousands of people.” Before us was the meadow of what had been a vast plaza, its center cleaved by Collinsville Road.

“Over there are the twin mounds. All of this grass was shaved clean. On it, the Cahokians played chunkey, a kind of cutthroat imperialist rugby.” I explained the mound was more strictly shaped and occupied, not like it is now, a kind of wedding cake in slow melt. I kept talking, feeling silly doing the guide bit. I'd slept with Doc the night before. “Look, I'm boring you.”

“Not at all,” smiled Doc. “Now what was St. Louis, then? A mere gleam in the eye?”

“There were mounds there, too. It was more a burial site than a real city. Current scholarship, you understand, and a rap session a week ago with Bugliosi on night shift. She was majoring in archaeology until the jobs dried up, then she switched to Pathology.”

“A city of the dead. Like in Egypt.”

“Yes.” I savored his wise gaze. “You've been to Egypt?”

“Oh, yes. Lots of mystical moments, lost glory and isolation. At least there's no sand here. Or
fellahin
doing a palms out for
baksheesh
. Nor camel rides. Has anyone thought of that here? The camels might like it. They'd take to the grass. They might think it a kindness.”

His hand moved around my waist and I sunk into him. He sighed. “I like the river. ‘Old Man River,' they say?”

“They do, but they're wrong. It's a woman's river.”

Another gentle smile from Doc. “Tell me, Lee. How so?”

I paused and enjoyed seeing the Mississippi's brown flow. “Compare it to Chicago. Lake Michigan is a very penile body of water. All of that male thrusting to the Windy City. The Mississippi is an umbilical cord that weaves to the Gulf. That's why St. Louis is a woman's city. Why it lost to Chicago, but it goes with the flow.”