Corpus Delectable

Eighteen

I closed the door slowly and leaned against it a moment. She had left a feeling of emptiness in the apartment, a shadowy stillness that was too conducive to unsettling thoughts.

I pushed away from the door and crossed to the telephone. I opened the book at the yellow pages. On the fourth call I made contact with a novelty shop that was open and that stocked what I was after. The place was in Ybor City, a few blocks from the apartment.

“Yes,” a man’s voice said, “we have a few pirate costumes left. What size do you need?”

“I’m a forty-two regular.”

“I believe we can fix you up. Did you want the outfit tonight?”

“Yes.”

“We were getting ready to close,” he said. I gave him my name and address. “I can come right over.”

“Why don’t I just drop it off? You’re near by. I can go ahead and close and bring the costume on my way home.”

“Fine,” I said. “The apartment is on the second floor. I’ll watch for you. One thing...”

“Yes?”

“Is there a beard with the outfit?”

“I can include one, Mr. Rivers.”

“Big, bushy, to cover most of my face.”

“Are you going to a masquerade?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“I’ll see that we come up with a suitable beard.”

I worked on a beer while I waited. He arrived with a bulky suit box under his arm, a young, neat, dark-skinned man who probably operated the small shop with the part-time assistance of his wife.

He glanced me over, remarked that the costume should be perfect in size and that I was in luck. I handed over the rental fee and deposit money in exchange for a receipt and the cardboard box.

“The beard?” I asked as we stood in the apartment doorway.

“The most luxuriant one in the house,” he said. “Very bushy. Very black. I also included a large black eye patch. Your disguise will be as effective as any at the masquerade.”

“That’s what I’m after,” I assured him. “Thanks very much.”

“No trouble, Mr. Rivers. Have fun.”

“Sure,” I said. “Always.”

My tone brought a glance. “Buenas noches.”

Alone in the apartment, I set the box on a table, flipped the tabs, and checked the contents. There were huge, baggy pantaloons of bright red to smother my bottom, and a short, skimpy jerkin to expose most of my lumpy torso to the evening breezes. Black oilcloth boots were designed to cover my shoe tops and strap under the instep. The turban was a brilliant blue, and there was a sash matching it in color. I fingered the eyepatch aside, picked up the beard and shook it out. It was a lulu.

I stripped to my shorts and climbed into the paraphernalia.

With all the junk in place, I walked into the bathroom for a final check of the mug in the medicine-cabinet mirror.

I pulled the imitation silk turban a trifle lower on my forehead. I was satisfied with the effect. Very little of the original Ed Rivers showed through the montage of turban, eyepatch, and wild beard.

I paused once more, in the bed-sitting room, and tucked the .38 under the waistband of the pantaloons Only the blue sash remained. I wrapped it about my gut to cover the butt of the gun. I didn’t knot the sash to let the ends dangle. I tucked in the ends so I could get rid of the sash in a hurry.

As I left the apartment, I thought of the purpose and meaning of Gasparilla. Festival. Fun week. And I was on my way at last to a Gasparilla party...

When I came out of the building, the sky over the Hillsborough River flashed with bursting bombs, falling stars, and sputtering pinwheels of light. No kids were on the street tonight; all were down by the river watching the firewords display.

I got in the car, which I’d left at the curb, and eased it into traffic. I didn’t fight the tangle. But when I was out to the vicinity where traffic thinned, I pushed the car.

I watched the boulevard lights swish past, slowed as I neared the turnoff. A few minutes later, the car was picking its way along the driveway, through the jungle greenery of the estate of Señora Isabella. More correctly, the showpiece of a twenty-million-dollar fortune that death had earmarked for one Elena Sigmon.

I wedged the car behind a snooty little Porsche and got out. The smell of hickory chips smoldering in the barbecue grills put a tang in the air. Beyond the vast lawn, the cozy glow of the paper lanterns beckoned romantically. The sounds of the tireless bongos and endlessly wailing saxophone drifted to me.

As I walked across the lawn toward the hacienda, I concluded that the party was spreading out. I had to detour a couple who stood holding a long kiss, unaware of any other existence. Salome’s gauzy veils swished about her as she ran teasingly across the lawn, looking over her shoulder at the lanky pirate who pursued her. She conveniently ran out of gas, laughing and gasping as he caught up with her. He scooped her up, and she stopped laughing as she put her lips against his.

I reached the end of the lawn. Nobody seemed to mind the additional pirate who wandered onto the courtyard.

I looked around the courtyard for Fred Eppling, Clavery, Natalie, and the Sigmons. I didn’t see them, and decided they must be inside.

A little blond piratess had spotted me. As I started to move on, she weaved up, thrust a drink in my hand, and made an out-of-focus sound that resembled a hiccup crossed with a giggle.

“Wups!” She put her fingers over her mouth, looked at me dizzily, and staggered slightly. She got the giggle out by itself this time. “Getting a little drunk out... Look, everybody, Blackbeard himself!”

As I started around her, she came up with another giggle and stumbled between me and the house. She caught a tuft of the brown mat on my chest that was exposed by the jerkin. She tugged lightly. “Mister Mans, you’re wired for sound!”

“Except my woofer is slightly on the blink.”

The giggle became a shrill, stupid laugh. “That’s barbed, that is.” She jerked a few shreds of chest spinach right out of the garden. “You’re the nearest thing to the real article at this blast. Do I know you?”

“I don’t think so.”

She reached up to give the beard a pull. I caught her wrist. “Naughty,” I said. “That will never do.”

“I want to know who you are,” she pouted.

“Honey, I’m old José Gaspar come back from the briny deep to see if you’re doing justice to my dedicated week.”

“We’re trying, José! We are really trying.”

“I can see that.”

“But who are you when you’re not José Gaspar?”

I flicked her tip-tilted nose with my fingertip. “Part of the fun, lovely.”

“I know what...” Her eyes became drunkenly sly. “I’ll find out. I’ll ask Keith who you are.”

Deliver me, I thought, from the urge to bust such a nice young rump.

“Good idea,” I said, wrenching a smile through the beard. “But you don’t know where he is.”

“Yes, I do, too. I do so know where Keith is!” She made a vague gesture toward the left wing of the house. “He’s in there with Natalie Clavery.”

“How about I find him for you?”

She brightened. “Okay.”

“You wait right here.”

“While I have a li’l ole drink.” She hiccuped. “But you hurry back to Hildy.”

“Sure, Hildy.”

“Don’t keep li’l Hildy waiting.”

“Don’t worry about a thing, Hildy.”

I escaped blond little Hildy by fading into the shadows at the ell of the portico. I stopped short as the sound of someone being slapped with an open palm came to me from a few yards away.

I turned, not seeing them at first. Then I made out the shadowed forms of Van and Natalie Clavery standing under the portico. She was absolutely rigid, except for the hand she was raising slowly to her stinging cheek.

Clavery’s wiry, intense body swayed under the assault of the emotion ripping through him. A strangled sound formed in his throat. His arms groped imploringly.

“Natalie...”

“No, don’t say anything, Van. Don’t make it worse by trying to apologize.”

“I struck you, Natalie...”

“So you did, Van.”

“I saw you in there with him, Natalie, with Keith Sigmon...”

“Were you spying, Van?”

“I wanted to kill him... of all men... Keith Sigmon. Then I saw Elena come in.” Clavery was so filled with feeling he was unable to speak above a thick whisper. “I saw you start out... I waited... And when you stepped onto the portico... Before I knew what was happening, my hand was raising, swinging...”

“I think I’ll go home, Van.”

“No, no! Please. I think I know why you were in there.”

“Do you, Van?”

“You think Keith and Elena have the old lady’s missing portfolio, the confession I wrote out, the promissory note. Isn’t that it? You thought it was the only way left to get the confession back. Tell me it’s true, Natalie!”

“Do you believe it’s true?” she asked him.

“Yes... With a moment to think, I know it’s true. You couldn’t have any feeling for a man like Keith Sigmon, Natalie.”

“Yes,” she said, “I have feeling. I despise him.”

“You’d despise me if I wanted, or even permitted, myself to be saved by that means,” Clavery said. “I’d rather rot in jail.”

“In any event, Van,” she said with sudden weariness, “you haven’t been saved. Elena came in before I had any chance to put my little last-stage plan in operation.”