Hugger Mugger

FIFTY-FOUR

I SAT WITH Tedy Sapp and the Clive outcasts around a big table eating pizza in the corner of the Bath House Bar and Grill. Sapp was drinking coffee. Everyone else had iced tea, except me. I didn't like iced tea. Sapp was beside me to my right. Cord Wyatt was on the other side. Beyond him was Stonie, then SueSue, then Pud. All of the Clive exiles were looking better than they had. Pud's eyes were clear and his face had lost a lot of the ruddy mottle that he used to sport. Cord seemed more at ease in these surroundings. The two women had brushed their short hair as best they could and put on makeup. They were dressed normally. Life had returned to their eyes. And their bearing was no longer feral.

Since she had once called me a hunk, I figured SueSue was the one I should talk to.

"Tell me what happened to you," I said.

Sitting beside SueSue, Pud put his open hand on her back and patted a little. SueSue looked at Stonie. She took a deep breath through her nose.

"After Daddy… died, Penny sat down with us. She said that it was terrible that Daddy had died. But that we shouldn't worry, that she could run things, in fact she had run things for a while, and Three Fillies would go on as if Daddy were alive."

She stopped and looked at Stonie again.

"Go ahead," Stonie said. "Tell everything. We've been pretending much too long. Let's get everything out."

SueSue took in more air.

"Okay. Penny also said that both Stonie and I had to make some changes. She said Pud was a drunk and was sucking money out of the business and bringing nothing back."

"She got that right," Pud said.

He still had his open hand resting on her back.

"She said Cord…"

SueSue looked at Cord.

"She said Cord was a queer," Cord finished for her.

Stonie and Cord didn't touch, but they seemed comfortable beside each other. SueSue nodded.

"And she said we had to get rid of them," SueSue said. "They had to be purged from our family the way stuff sometimes has to be purged from a body."

"Poisonous," Cord said.

"Then she said we had to purge ourselves. She said the family was disgraced by us, drunks and whores, she said. She said that we were required to stop smoking and drinking and whoring. She said no more makeup, no fancy clothes, nothing. She said until we were clean we would need to sequester ourselves, like nuns or something-she had a fancy phrase, but I can't remember it exactly. We were not to leave the house."

"Did you object?" I said, just to keep her going.

"Sure, but Jon Delroy was there and his men were all around. Daddy was dead. I was afraid of her, afraid of them."

"You too?" I said to Stonie.

"Cord and I had been unhappy for a very long time," Stonie said. "It deadens you."

Cord patted her hand. She smiled at him.

"Not much fun for you either, was it?" she said.

Cord shook his head.

"So," SueSue said, "she had our hair cut short, like you see, and she took our clothes and had the windows closed up and we had to take some pills."

"Sedatives?" I said.

"I guess so. Things are a little foggy."

"They were full of something when they came here," Sapp said. "Took some time to get them back."

"You do that?"

"I had some help."

"I owe you," I said.

"You bet you do," Sapp said.

SueSue was impatient. She had a story to tell, and everyone was listening. She liked having everyone listening.

"No television, no radio, nothing to read," she said. "Like we had to clear our minds."

"How do you get on with your mother?" I said.

SueSue and Stonie looked at each other.

"My mother?" SueSue said.

"Sherry Lark?" Stonie said. There was a lot of distaste in the way she said "Lark."

"My mother's a dipshit," SueSue said.

"How did she get along with Penny?"

"Penny hated her."

"How'd Penny get along with your father?"

"She loved Daddy," SueSue said.

"We all loved Daddy," Stonie said.

"Do you mean more than you're saying?"

"Well." Stonie had a lot less effect than SueSue. "We did love Daddy, all three of us. But maybe we didn't love him the right way, and maybe we'd have been better if we'd loved him some other way."

"What the hell does that mean?" SueSue said.

"I don't know exactly how to say what I'm trying to say. But we all loved Daddy, and look at us."

"It's not Daddy's fault," SueSue said.

"What do you think about Jason Hartman?" I said.

It diverted them.

"Jason?" SueSue said. "What about Jason?"

"My question exactly."

"He's cute," SueSue said.

Stonie nodded.

"He's sort of like a relative," she said. "Being Dolly's son and all."

"Know anything unusual about him?"

"No," Stonie said. "Except he doesn't seem to do much. Doesn't work. Lives with his mother."

"Maybe he's in your program, Cord," Pud said.

"He is very cute," Cord said.

Stonie patted Cord's hand.

"Shhh," she said.

They both smiled.

"Why do you ask?" SueSue said.

It would have been great theater to say, Because he's your brother, but it didn't seem to get me anywhere.

"Do you know the terms of your father's will?" I said.

"We inherit everything, the three of us," SueSue said.

"But Penny runs things," Stonie said. "Neither one of us knows anything about business."

"She sharing equally?" I said.

"The estate hasn't been settled yet, but Penny gives us both money."

"How are you feeling about Penny?"

"I don't know," SueSue said. "I mean, she's our sister and she's taking care of us."

"And she locked us up and broke up our marriages," Stonie said.

"Our marriages were already broken," SueSue said. "Penny's always been bossy."

Sapp looked at me. I nodded.

"Now I know why the caged bird sings," I said.

"What the hell does that mean?" SueSue said.

"I don't know," I said. "It's too hard for me."