Maggody In Manhattan

Chapter Eleven

Once I'd finished feeling sorry for myself, I considered my dilemma. The fact that I'd fled the scene of the crime was hardly worth stewing over; New York's finest would be hard-pressed to assign me a motive, and I was prepared to plead temporary insanity. I doubted it would be difficult to persuade them-or anyone else, including myself.

No, the dilemma circled around how to find Ruby Bee and Estelle in a city that stretched from the top of the Bronx to the bottom of Battery Park, less than fifteen miles but all of them a tad more congested than, say, the cow pasture out behind the Flamingo Motel.

They, along with Gaylene, Durmond and his disreputable friend, and Brenda, might come home to the hotel, wagging their tails behind them, but I wanted to talk to any and all of them before the police took charge. Somewhere in the city was a veritable parade of Krazy KoKo-Nut finalists. All I had to do was find it-and be damn quick about it.

Gaylene was the head majorette, I thought as I began to trudge toward Broadway. She could have taken off for any of a million destinations. Then again, I told my self with weary optimism, she could have gone to her apartment to practice her kabobs. It wasn't an especially brilliant theory, but it was the best I could produce, and I went into a stationery store and asked to borrow a telephone directory. After a short discussion with a woman larger than Dahlia and twice as surly, I became a bona fide customer with the purchase of a large bottle of aspirin. The directory hit the counter with a thud.

If she had a number, it was unlisted. I thought about calling Geri to ask for Gaylene's address, but decided it would not be prudent to call attention to my absence, or anyone else's. I tried for a moment, and then came up with the name of the club where Gaylene worked. The Xanadu had a telephone, along with an address only a few blocks north of where I was.

I kept my eyes averted as I walked past porn shops, peep shows, and posters extolling the talents of both bosomy women and young men who aspired to be bosomy women and were dressed accordingly. Chains and leather seemed to be the fashion, as were whips and masks and a lot of things that I was unable to identify. It was sleazier than I remembered, but it may have been my fault. On sleepless nights in Maggody (and there'd been more than a few), I'd allowed myself to romanticize the city, to think of the theaters and galleries and museums, rather than of the deteriorating infrastructure, the growing population of homeless, the pervasive crime, the expressions of those who had been victimized and those who knew it was only a matter of time.

I instinctively tightened my grip on my purse as I went past a derelict sprawled in a doorway and kept my face averted as I passed a huddle of teenaged boys. The paranoia was coming back like a recurrent case of the flu, and I picked up my pace. When I arrived at the pertinent street, I looked both ways for any sign of the Xanadu, sighed, and headed to the right because it was easier than crossing Broadway to go to the left.

Halfway down the block I found a sunbleached poster that proclaimed the Xanadu Club to be the home of THE WORLD'S SEXIEST WOMEN. The neon sign was dark, however, and the door was locked. This was not earthshattering, since the poster also proclaimed that the first show would start in roughly eight hours. No cover charge, but the tab on the two-drink minimum might startle good ol' Toledo Ted.

As I turned to retrace my path to the hotel, I noticed an alley beside the building. It was as inviting as the weedy path to Raz Buchanon's cabin, but I'd walked a long way to do nothing more than gaze at the exterior of the nocturnal habitat of the World's Sexiest Women. And I had to admit I was running low on brilliant ideas.

The alley was lined with metal garbage cans, most of them filled to overflowing. The walls on either side of me were decorated with unsavory suggestions in a rainbow of spray paint-New York's only indigenous folk art. Things rustled as I walked by, and I was unhappily aware of the sweat spreading across my back and slinking down the sides of my face. It was nearly as much fun as stalking a still on Cotter's Ridge, I thought with a grimace as I came around a corner.

The small parking area was defined by a chain-link fence and dominated by a white Cadillac. A few hardy weeds had cracked the asphalt and were flourishing as best they could in perpetual shade. Two steps led up to a blue door with a sign that discouraged trespassing, as did the descending line of locks and the bars on the window beside it.

I righteously told myself I had no desire to set foot inside the place, continued to the window, and stood on my tiptoes. Through a wire mesh and a veneer of accumulated grime, I could see a dark office crammed with standard furniture-and a three-quarter profile of Brenda Appleton, who was seated at the desk, her fingers tapping the arms of the chair and an impatient look on her face.

I sank back on my heels, but before I could get my jaw off my chest, the blue door opened. I ducked behind the front of the Cadillac, anticipating at least one bullet between my eyes, and asked myself how I could be so incredibly stupid. Nothing came to mind.

"You're such a sweetie, Mr. Lisbon," Gaylene said. "I know it's awful of me to miss even more work, but when a girl's got a free trip to Vegas, she's gotta take it." I heard a murmur; then she giggled and said, "Who knows? Maybe I'll win the ten-thousand-dollar prize, too. Wouldn't that be something!"

The door closed, and her high heels echoed down the alley. I peeked over the hood of the car, but ducked as a light came on in the office and a darkly tanned man with a crewcut appeared. His mouth was moving as he reached for a cord and closed the curtains on whatever the hell was going on in there.

I stood up slowly, ascertained my forehead was as last I'd seen it in the cracked mirror (with the exception of a heavy glaze of sweat), and eased around the Cadillac to the edge of the building. Gaylene was gone.

I arrived at the sidewalk in time to see her turn at the corner and head down Broadway. Seconds later, two figures emerged from a deli and took off after her at what I'm sure they felt was a prudent distance for amateur sleuths hot on the trail of Manhattan's version of Mata Hari.

Half a block later said sleuths yelped loudly as I clamped down on their shoulders. Ignoring the pedestrian traffic that flowed around us as if we were submerged rocks in Boone Creek, I said, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"You'd like to give me a heart attack!" Ruby Bee said, clutching her chest and blinking at me.

Estelle looked no more thrilled to see me. "I can't believe you don't know better than to sneak up on folks like that! Why, the very first thing that flashed across my mind was that that psychotic man had finally caught up with us and was aiming to murder us right here in broad daylight."

"In broad daylight on Broadway," I said agreeably. "It has a certain poetic ring to it, doesn't it? At the moment I'm the only one thinking about murdering you two, but I'm willing to hold off for a few more minutes. We can discuss your behavior here, or we can do it in this bar. God knows I could use a beer."

Ruby Bee glanced down the sidewalk, but her prey had vanished. "I could do with one myself, come to think of it. But I don't have all the time in the world to sit and chat. I'm supposed to be in the lobby at two o'clock sharp so Geri can fetch me to fix my cake for the contest."

I followed them into the bar, and we found a table near the window.

"This is right nice," Estelle commented, nodding at the wide mahogany bar and row of padded stools. "Of course it ain't at all as homey as yours, Ruby Bee, but I must say those ferns add a summery feeling."

"Ferns shed," Ruby Bee said. "I'm not about to have to sweep the floor any more than I already do, and-"

I unclenched my teeth long enough to say, "Stop it!" then subsided as a waitress approached our table and took our orders. "We are not going to debate the decor. You are going to tell me what the hell's been going on, and why you were following Gaylene just now."

"Following Gaylene? " Estelle chuckled at the very idea. "We wanted to see Times Square, so we figured we had enough time to walk over and look around. It's kinda odd how the famous theaters are stuck between those nasty shops, isn't it? It seems to me the police ought to-"

"We're not going to debate the zoning, either," I said coldly. "I came to find you because Jerome Appleton's body was discovered in a dumpster behind the hotel less than an hour ago."

Estelle gasped. "But that can't be! He's on an airplane going to South America."

"Not anymore," I said. "I recognized him."

"Then that's who was in the kitchen last night," Ruby Bee said. "I thought that might be who it was, but Brenda's such a dithery thing that I didn't want to worry her. I took a real fast look and almost fainted on account of the blood being as awful as it was…"

The waitress banged down two beers and a glass of sherry, regarded us with a frown until I'd paid the tab, and returned to the stool at the end of the bar to resume her conversation with the bartender. I suppose she'd overheard worse.

"Why did you go to the kitchen?" I demanded.

She looked at Estelle, who took a sip of sherry and said, "I already told Arly that you might have been in the mood for a glass of warm milk."

"And I already said I didn't believe one word of it." I realized I was strangling an innocent beer glass and forced myself to uncurl my fingers.

"I reckon you don't have much choice," Ruby Bee said with a mulish frown.

"May I point out that the police do have choices? The most obvious one is to drag you back to that cold, dirty cell and leave you to regale the rats with your silly lies. Then again, they might choose to interrogate you night and day until you come up with a better explanation."

Her lower lip may have quivered just a tad, but she shook her head, finished her beer, and put down the glass. "I need to get back to the hotel and study my recipe. Come on, Estelle, you can coach me on the order of the ingredients."

"There is no contest!" I said so loudly that the waitress and bartender stared. "There has been a murder, dammit! The police will be there to conduct an investigation, not to sample the entries and pick the winner! They may even want to ask you some questions-none of which will have anything to do with teaspoons and measuring cups and pinches of salt and Krazy KoKo-Nut!" I could hear myself getting more strident with each sentence, but I was unable to stop myself. "You found the goddamn body, Ruby Bee! Don't you remember?"

"How could I forget a thing like that? Do you really think they'll stop the contest? Jerome wasn't a contestant, you know." She shrank under my glare, then took a tissue from her handbag and dabbed at her nose. "Maybe you're right about the contest being canceled. It'd be hard on Brenda to fix her entry not ten feet from where they found her husband's body."

"She'd be fumblin' like a pup," Estelle added. "Of course he was supposed to have left her for a younger woman, so it's not like she planned on seeing him anytime soon."

I gestured at the waitress for another round. "I can see you're both too distressed by Jerome's murder to discuss last night. Let's talk about the night Durmond was mugged and tucked into bed in your room. Where were you before you came back to the room?"

"Shopping," they said in unison, although not with the melodious effect of the Methodist choir.

"At nine o'clock?" I took my sweet time raising my eyebrows. "I would have thought you'd be worn out from the trip, if not a tiny bit intimidated about prowling after dark in a big, bad city. Where did you go?"

"Just here and there," Ruby Bee mumbled. She stared at Estelle, who nodded nervously in agreement.

"What did you buy?" I persisted.

Estelle hesitated until the waitress had replaced our glasses with full ones, then cleared her throat and said, "I picked up some souvenirs at a shop at the end of the block. Nothing really interesting."

"A shop at the end of the block?" I said. "Do you mean the porn shop at the end of the block? What exactly did you buy-a leather bikini? Handcuffs? Edible underwear?"

She turned bright pink. "It's none of your business, missy. I just browsed for the most part."

"You didn't tell me it was that kind of place," Ruby Bee said, then realized her error and got real busy with her beer.

"And where did you go?" I growled at her.

"I decided to visit a few grocery stores, just to compare what they carry with what's at the SuperSaver back home. I went into one place that was run by these Asian people. You'd think one of them could speak American, but they were all gobbling in some language that I couldn't make heads or tails of. They sounded like a flock of turkeys the way they were carrying on."

She was turning pinker than Estelle, and her hand shook as she picked up her glass. Despite her years of intensive practice, she was not a particularly glib liar.

"I get it," I said slowly. "Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you get a package of coconut so you could use it in your cake instead of the soybean flakes? You've done some lowdown things before, but I'm amazed that you would stoop to cheating in a cooking contest, Ruby Bee." I tried not to grin, but I couldn't help it. "I'm disappointed in you, to say the least. What would Lottie and Elsie think if they heard about this?"

Ruby Bee hung her head in a fine display of penitence. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. It's not my fault that Krazy KoKo-Nut tastes so dadburned awful that it'll ruin the best recipes. I just couldn't bring myself to make my chocolate chip bundt cake and use that stuff. I have my reputation to think of." She gave me a look meant to be remorseful, but it reeked of slyness. "You won't tell anybody, will you? I don't know what Geri would do if she heard about it, but I'd as soon lick the sidewalk in front of the hotel as be thrown out of the contest and sent home in disgrace."

"I may, or I may not," I said archly. "Is that why you snuck down to the kitchen last night-to put the real coconut in your box?" She nodded warily. "Well, did you make the substitution or not?"

There was a pause that didn't just reek of slyness; it literally stank of it. "No," she said, "because of the shock of finding the body like I did. I was so discombobulated that it was all I could do to get myself out of there before I was murdered."

"Speaking of which," Estelle murmured, "maybe we ought to go back to the hotel? Geri's likely to be in a real tizzy this time, what with the police and all. She'll be sobbing louder than a passel of preachers outside the Pearly Gates."

"Yeah?" Jim Bob said into the receiver, not sounding real friendly. He held a towel around his waist, but he could feel the water dribbling onto the floor, which meant he'd catch hell unless he mopped it up hisself and that was a goddamn pain in the ass. He was on the verge of saying as much when he realized who was calling. As he listened, his hand turned numb and the towel slid down his body to form a beige puddle around his feet.

Even though it was a nice, warm day, he started shivering worse than a wet hound, and it was all he could do to keep from howling like one, too.

"So I'll just stick it in the mail," the female voice concluded, wished him a nice day, and hung up.

Jim Bob was well past worrying about some water on the hallway floor, but he made a swipe at it with the towel before returning to the bathroom and sinking down on the seat of the commode. It seemed like an appropriate place to sit, considering the deep shit he was in.

According to the cute lil' clerk, Mrs. Jim Bob had inadvertently left her credit card on the counter-when she'd decided to use the charge account. He'd gone to the trouble of drivin' all the way to Fort Smith to do his shopping, and damned if she hadn't waltzed into the exact same store. And learned all about the charge account.

She was a lot of things, but the one thing she wasn't was stupid. Naughty Nights wasn't easy to mistake for a bookstore or a drugstore (except, maybe, for the display of fruit-flavored condoms). To add to his bewilderment, the clerk had said Mrs. Jim Bob'd bought a damn armload of merchandise. Just what was she planning to do with a black peekaboo bra, fer chrissake? Wear it to Wednesday evening prayer meeting? Prance down the road to the SuperSaver and show it to the stock boys? Dance half-naked in the moonlight?

Something real peculiar must have come over her, he thought as he tossed the towel in the corner and walked to his bedroom, his pudgy white flesh glistening with a mixture of bath water and sweat. It wasn't like she would be caught dead in some sexy little nightie-not the saintly Barbara Anne Buchanon Buchanon. She was a sight too fond of reminding him of the sins of lust and fornication. She could reel off the thou-shalt-not's with out pausing for breath, even though she'd added about a dozen more of her own making, most of them involving booze, muddy boots, and bodily functions.

He tried to picture his wife in almost anything from Naughty Nights, but it was harder than picturing her snugglin' up with Raz or belching after a cold beer. Sweet Covita over in Emmet had looked right dandy in the little gift he'd given her the week before, and she'd expressed her gratitude with imagination and skill. Even Winona had been a knockout in her nightie, despite her buckteeth and fat ass and tendency to forget to shave under her arms, and she'd been generous to a fault. The padded dashboard had been the only thing saving 'em from a concussion.

He realized he was letting his mind wander from what was likely to be a fuckin' nightmare starting the minute Mrs. Jim Bob walked through the door. If he was there, that is. If he was long gone, she'd have some time to simmer down, and when he came back, she might not skin him alive.

It wasn't like he was afraid of her, he told himself as he began to stuff shirts and jeans into a suitcase. Hell, he was three inches taller and outweighed her by a good fifty pounds. Socks and jockey shorts went into the suitcase. He was the man of the house, the breadwinner, the provider and protector. A magazine from under his mattress followed the underwear. He sure as hell wasn't scared of any damn woman, and never would be. A handful of T-shirts and he was done.

He grabbed the suitcase and went out to the telephone in the hall. After a couple of fumbles that resulted in nasal admonishments that the call could not be placed, he managed to dial Larry Joe Lambertino's number.

"Listen up," he said, seeing no reason to waste time, we're gonna spend a couple of days at that fishin' camp on the county line just past Chowen. While you're throwing your crap in a bag, I'll call to get us a cabin and make sure we can use one of their boats if we're a mind to." He flinched as he heard a faint noise downstairs, then assured himself it was only the furnace kicking on. "And fer chrissake, don't go blabbing all over town about it. I got some reasons why I don't want one single person to know where we'll be. Once we get there and get started on the bourbon, I'll explain. Put your scrawny butt in gear, and be ready for me to pick you up in ten minutes."

He hung up and called the assistant manager to tell him to run the store and just this once to keep his greedy fingers out of the cash register and out of Winona's panties. The assistant manager choked out a promise (although he was lying through his teeth about one or both). The ol' boy at the fishing camp said he'd reserve the best cabin.

Jim Bob picked up his suitcase and went downstairs to the kitchen. He loaded a grocery sack with cans and what he could find in the refrigerator, including a goodsized hunk of meatloaf and half a strawberry pie, and took all of it to his car. After he'd fetched his fishing gear from the garage and stowed it in the trunk, he was feeling a sight more cheerful.

Only one last chore remained. He went to the kitchen and hunted up a pad of paper and a stumpy pencil. He laboriously wrote a note telling her he'd gone away on business for a few days and would see her when he got back. He signed it with his initials and, whistling, went out the door.

All the way across town, which wasn't even a fraction of the distance from the Bronx to the Battery, Joyce Lambertino was still frowning at the telephone. She didn't so much as look up when something crashed in the kitchen and Saralee began to screech bloody murder.

There were no police cars in front of the Chadwick, nor was there a doorman. Just inside the door, however, was a uniformed cop with a grim look. "Who're you?" he asked us.

I told him, and was told to go to the dining room and wait. Ruby Bee and Estelle were told to wait in their room, and they hurried toward the elevator without so much as a word of compassion for yours truly. I did as ordered and was sipping coffee as a middle-aged man in a brown suit came to the doorway. He had the jaw of a pitbull and the manners to match. "You Arly Hanks?" he demanded.

I wiggled my fingers and said, "I am."

"Where the hell have you been for the last hour and a half? Sightseeing? Shopping? Did it occur to you that you might have stayed around the hotel until we arrived? You may be some toad-suckin' hick from Arkansas, but surely you've seen enough cop shows on television to know you're supposed to wait for the police?"

This was not a good beginning for a deep and abiding friendship. I looked at him for a minute, then took a breath and in my twangiest voice, said, "Shit, Mr. Policeman, I dun reckon I was out there, just agawking and a-gaping 'cause I ain't never seen buildings higher than three stories. My eyeballs dun near popped out like a bullfrog's, and I was nigh onto swallowing my tongue, lemme tell you."

He harrumphed as he turned around to converse with a younger man in an equally drab suit. After papers were exchanged, he turned back and said, "I'm Lieutenant Henbit of the homicide division. If we could cut the crap, I'd like to know what you heard last night when you were skulking in the hall upstairs."

"Skulking, Lieutenant Henbit?"

"According to"-he consulted a paper-"Kyle Simmons, you told him that you overheard a conversation between the deceased and his wife, during which harsh words were exchanged."

"I reckon I might have told him that," I said, the hayseed still firmly between my teeth. "Course Bubba and Elmer are always saying I'm tetched in the head. Bubba's my uncle, and my brother, too, on account of our family tree bein' a mite short on branches. Elmer ain't related to nobody what we can figure, but he lollygags out back a-tryin' to court the prettier heifers."

"I apologize, Ms. Hanks," he said, his voice as strained as his smile. "I'm sure whatever errand you went on was justified, and I had no business making any wisecracks about your state. We are investigating a murder, and I would appreciate your full cooperation."

I related what I'd heard through the Appletons' door and described the scene earlier in the morning when Brenda had been bullied out of the bathroom. "She really did seem to think he was on his way to South America," I concluded.

"He's on his way to the morgue, " Henbit said as he fixed himself coffee and sat down across from me. "She, on the other hand, seems to have disappeared." He was trying to be affable, but his jaw trembled and his eyes were intent. "The doorman said she left before the body was discovered. Do you have any idea where she is?"

"Try the Xanadu Club," I said, giving him the address. "She was in the back room not too long ago, talking to a man with short blond hair."

He gave up on the affability business. "How do you know that, Ms. Hanks?"

"I saw them through the window. I don't know why she was there or what was being said, and I didn't actually hang around outside outside very long. The garbage cans seemed an ideal home for rats." I paused as Durmond came into the dining room. "Have you heard about Jerome?"

"Yes, indeed." He glanced at Henbit. "May I join you, or would you prefer that I wait in my room?"

Henbit shrugged. "Sit, Mr. Pilverman, and join in the fun. I was just about to ask Ms. Hanks why she was in the alley behind the Xanadu. She's quite witty. You might enjoy her response as much as I know I will."

"In the alley behind the Xanadu?" Durmond echoed. "Is this true, Arly?"

I was chewing on my tongue and trying to concoct a mildly plausible story to explain my presence without indicting my mother. "It's true," I said. "I was looking for Gaylene. I couldn't go to her apartment because her telephone's unlisted. She'd mentioned that she worked there. The front door was locked, so I went around to see about the back door." There may have been a little hole in the story, about the size of a tank, but it was the best I could do on such short notice.

"Stay here," Henbit said. He went to the door and sent his minion away to fetch Brenda Appleton.

"Why were you looking for Gaylene?" Durmond asked in a low voice.

Henbit returned to loom over me like a tombstone with an epitaph mentioning my name. "A very good question."

I wished I had a very good answer. "There's something fishy about her. She's hardly the sort to enter a cooking contest. If she owns an apron, it's liable to be made of leather." I glanced at Durmond. "I happened to see her leave the hotel late this morning. I wondered where she was going and decided to try the Xanadu."

"This is after the body was found in the dumpster?"

Henbit said. "You didn't have anything else to do, so you decided to stroll over to some nightclub to see if one of the fishier contestants happened to be there? You have fertile imaginations in the backwoods, don't you?" Sighing, he stood up and straightened his tie. "If you think of anything else, please don't hesitate to share it with me, Ms. Hanks. I would be most grateful."

I could think of a couple of little things I'd omitted, but I smiled sweetly and watched him stomp away. Once he was gone, I said, "Gaylene's not the only one I saw leave the hotel this morning, by the way. At one point, I characterized it as a damn parade."

"Did you, now?" he murmured, then gave me a look that bordered on reproachful. "Did you happen to tell the lieutenant about what Ruby Bee claimed to discover in the kitchen very early this morning?"

"Don't change the subject," I snapped.

"It's really much better if I do, Arly. The situation's a bit more complex than what you're accustomed to in Maggody. More complex, and more dangerous. It's unfortunate that you went to the Xanadu and saw Brenda, but it can't be helped now. Tell yourself she put on a nice blue dress and went to apply for a job. You'd better downplay your involvement for your mother's sake, if for no other reason, and let the lieutenant investigate in his own way."

I opened my mouth to offer a polite rebuttal when Henbit came to the door. His jaw was out as far as it could go, and his expression was noticeably less than genial. "I've had a call from the Xanadu. We don't have a positive I.D., but we're fairly certain that Craig Lisbon, who appears to be the manager, was shot and killed within the last hour. If you're not willing to be candid with us, Ms. Hanks, we'll book you as a material witness and let you cool your heels for a day or two. I'm sorry we can't offer more luxurious accommodations, but we're jammed and you'll have to share a cell with hookers, derelicts, perverts, and whatever psychotics we've invited to join us."

"Is Brenda there?" I asked, struggling not to envision his scenario.

"No, but when we pick her up, she'll be held pending charges for first-degree murder. It may take a little longer, but we'll probably get enough to book her for her husband's death, too. This is in no way going to alleviate your responsibility to tell me the whole goddamn story. Understand, Ms. Hanks?"

"Not at all," I admitted.