Maggody In Manhattan

Chapter Six

For those who are a mite confused by all the comings and goings of people in the oddly parallel universes of Manhattan, Maggody, and Tennessee (or maybe Kentucky by now), rest assured that everyone was pretty much in place for the duration.

The fifth and final contestant, Gaylene Feather, had arrived and was in her room unpacking while she listened to a talk show that concerned the secret lives of transvestite Episcopalian priests. Down the hall from her, Durmond was wincing as he dressed. Brenda and Jerome were in their room; he was dealing with work he'd brought and she was fretting about the time zones and her daughter's lackadaisical attitude about picking up the telephone.

Farther afield, in a charmingly swank salon, Catherine was having makeup done under hawk-eyed maternal supervision. Ruby Bee and Estelle were heading down a flight of stairs to the vast labyrinth of dark, odoriferous tunnels and graffiti-riddled trains, both so determinedly fierce that they were unnerving the regular psychotics who inhabited the station. Neither realized they were being followed, but they would before too long.

Geri was on the telephone in the hotel office, desperately pleading with a receptionist. The desk was littered with lists, most of them scratched to the point of illegibility and splattered with a saline solution of perspiration and tears. Kyle was cleaning countertops in the kitchen. Rick was on the third floor with two men sporting the insignia of an electrical contracting business. Mr. Cambria smiled benignly at pedestrians from his post outside the door of the Chadwick Hotel.

Back in Maggody, the newly elected president of the Committee Committee Against Whiskey was sitting at the dinette on the sun porch, drinking tea and making notes as she plotted an appropriate course of action to save the youth of Maggody (and some others who could use a righteous shove) from demon whiskey. It was a nice day, what with the sun shining and the foliage aglow with autumn colors, but the newly elected president wasn't admiring nature. She was pursing her lips and wondering where Brother Verber had been the night before-and that smart-mouthed Arly Hanks, who, from all accounts, had torn out of town without so much as a word of explanation to anyone and thus far had not returned. The newly elected president finally put down her pen and went to make some calls to see if anybody knew what was going on.

The husband of the above was out back picking up garbage scattered on the lawn. It looked as if dogs had gotten in the cans, or maybe a coon. Odd thing was, dogs and coons hardly ever left behind a Bible under a limp lettuce leaf. Jim Bob started to toss the Bible into the garbage can, then stopped and opened it on the off chance there was a name written within the inside cover. There was. Frowning, he set it aside and resumed his chore.

Brother Verber lay on the couch inside the silver trailer that served as the rectory for the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. Like the newly elected president, he was oblivious to the day unfolding outside, since he was keenly and painfully preoccupied with his pounding head, moldy tongue, bleary red eyes, tumultuous stomach, and general feeling of being trampled by an endless herd of bison. Which, for all he could recollect of his previous evening's adventures, might well have happened. Whatever lust he might have been harboring had been replaced with righteous heartburn.

Raz Buchanon was on Cotter's Ridge, as was Marjorie. She was snuffling contentedly for acorns, but he was up to no good.

Eilene Buchanon was well on her way to losing her mind, having spent the night alternately pacing the floor and sitting by the telephone, willing it to ring. Well after midnight, her husband had gone on to bed with a few grumpy remarks, and earlier in the morning had gone on to work with a few more, even grumpier, since Eilene had not been of a mind to fix him breakfast.

Joyce Lambertino was vacuuming the front room and trying to remember if she had enough sugar in the cannister to make peach cobbler for her in-laws, who were coming for supper. Shortly afterward, she discovered there would have been enough had the kids not made Kool-Aid and left snowy white hills all over the counter and the floor. No use crying over spilt sugar, she wearily told herself as she went for the broom and dustpan.

Somewhere in Tennessee (or maybe Kentucky by now), Marvel was cruising along in the passenger's seat, his feet on the dashboard and the warm breeze buffeting his face, gazing at the bucolic panorama and humming along with the whiny country music from the radio. The road to Cleveland had turned out to be damn empty thus far, and they'd been obliged to sleep in the car. He was in the mood for food.

"When we gonna eat, man?" he asked Kevin.

"As soon as we find a place," Kevin said, glancing in the rearview rearview mirror. "Doesn't that sound like a good idea, my sweetums? Eggs and sausage and grits? Biscuits and gravy? You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Dahlia was still in the only position that gave her relief from the insidious itching. She grunted and said, "All I'd like is to see you being dragged behind the car in a gunny sack. I must have told you twenty times that this is the wrong road, but you just kept driving and now we're so lost that the cows probably speak a foreign language. It's all your fault."

Marvel turned around and smiled at her. "Hey, Big Mama, you got to trust me on this. We're not lost. I know exactly where we are. Why, if you were to blindfold me and spin me around three times, I'd still know where we are."

"Yeah," Kevin said, bobbing his head like a dashboard figurine. "Marvel knows where we are."

"So where are we?" she demanded.

Kevin stared pleadingly at Marvel, who was a little bit uneasy about the direction of the conversation (and of their desired destination). The latter finally cleared his throat and said, "On the road to Cleveland. Your man Marvel ain't gonna steer you wrong. I been to Cleveland so many times I could find it in the dark. You just relax and leave the navigating to me, Big Mama."

Kevin accurately interpreted the noise from the backseat as a mixture of disbelief and of displeasure with the increasingly frequent use of the phrase "Big Mama." He wanted to believe Marvel more than anything (except the consummation of the marriage), and he was aware that he didn't have a passel of options at the moment. "Look up there," he said, struggling to sound like a hearty trailblazer. "We're coming to a town, and if that's not a cozy café, then I don't know what it is. It doesn't look busy, so we can be settled in for a nice big breakfast afore you can count to ten.

He parked right as Dahlia reached eight, hurried out of the car and opened her door, and with some exertion, managed to slide her out of the car and get her steadied on her feet.

"Not much of a town," she said, squinting at the few buildings, ramshackle house, and rusted mobile homes on cinder blocks. "It's uglier than Maggody."

Marvel was equally unimpressed. "Or East St. Louis long about January, when the snow turns to slushy mud."

"This looks like a mighty fine café," Kevin said with enough enthusiasm for all three of them. With Marvel trailing behind, he herded his beloved across the rocky parking lot, through the doorway, between the tables, and to a booth where he gestured for her to tuck herself in.

"Ain't this nice?" he said hopefully.

Dahlia looked real hard at the interior and then at him. "I wouldn't let my dog eat here." Nevertheless, she managed to slide into the booth, pick up a menu, and begin to read, saliva gathering in the corners of her mouth as she savored the promise of carbohydrate heaven.

"It's cool, Big Mama," Marvel said as he slid in across from her. "We gonna have ourselves some food and drink. Sure we are." He grinned at the two elderly men sitting at the counter and at the waitress in the kitchen doorway. Something about the way she was eyeing him made him uneasy, but he figured his main man and Big Mama weren't going to drive another mile until they ate. His instincts were very good.

There were people I could call and announce my presence, if not my triumphant return through the gates of the city. There were women with whom I'd done lunch, men with whom I'd worked in the security agency. Lining the gray gullies of the city were stores and shops I'd patronized. Museums, galleries, bars, restaurants, delis-the whole gamut: the sidewalk where I'd first been mugged, the corner from which my car had last been towed, the apartment building where I'd bathed and slept and cooked and told my ex that I was unwilling to continue to feign ignorance of his philandering (I'd called it something else at the time; what we'd called each other afterward was too unimaginative to repeat).

Yeah, I could make a few calls and sally forth, serene in the notion I had neatly severed all emotional entanglements with the people and the place. Or I could hang out in the lobby, waiting to hear that Ruby Bee and Estelle had been murdered in a subway station. Mr. Cambria would protect me from the intrusion of the ghosts (of yuppies past), as well as muggers and others less desirable.

I turned away from the window and determined that I had the place to myself. On my left were double doors that led to a dimly lit dining room, the site of future antics. The registration counter was directly in front of me, with the elevator and stairs on the right. On the left, between it and the dining room, was a hallway which led to an office and ultimately the kitchen, where the cartons of Krazy KoKo-Nut were safely stored.

For lack of much else to do, I went quietly down the hallway, pausing by a closed door long enough to overhear Geri snarl, "Mother will be terribly disappointed, Tina," then continued to a scarred metal door at the end.

The key was in the lock and I was curious, or perhaps merely bored. I eased the door open. The overhead fluorescent lights were on, and water was gushing and splattering in a double sink. As I hesitated, Kyle stood up from behind the stainless steel island, his arms laden with bowls and utensils, and dumped them into the sink. The ensuing foamy splash was accompanied by an expletive more often heard in the alley behind the pool hall in Maggody.

"Doing the dishes?" I inquired politely.

"What do you think? " he said, then bent down and began to withdraw more paraphernalia from within a cabinet, "Geri decides she doesn't need a cleaning crew-not with good ol' Kyle handy. Doesn't need someone to inventory the cabinets-not with good ol' Kyle handy." He appeared with yet another armload and disposed of them as before. "She doesn't even need someone to run out to some damn kitchenware store and buy whatever's missing-not with good ol' Kyle handy. I was on the CEO track not that long ago, not the handy-dandy gofer track."

"CEO of Krazy KoKo-Nut?" I said, trying not to smile in a situation in which there were cleavers within reach.

"My father sold a couple of blocks of stock to an investment firm in Miami, enough to give them the majority position, but they've assured him he can remain president until he retires. I'm the logical successor. There aren't too many MBA's who are frantic to assume the helm of a company that makes soybean flakes, plain and tinted."

"Tinted?"

"We market it as Krazy KoKo-Nut Konfetti. It still tastes like the contents of Ollie North's wastebasket, but it's exceedingly low in fat and cholesterol."

I glanced at the four offending cartons stacked along the opposite wall. "Do they contain…tinted things?"

"I really don't care," he said as he plunged his hand into the water and dislodged the drain stopper. He waited until the water obediently gurgled away, then grabbed various items and placed them on the counter of the island. To his credit, it was sparkly clean. Once he'd transported the last measuring cup, he took a paper from his pocket and scanned it, his lips curling downward as if he were reading the hymns to be played at his funeral. "I don't suppose you might want to help me with this?" he said, glancing up with a nervous smile.

I felt a pang of pity for him. His father had thrown him to the wolves, in this case, Geri, and she'd wasted no time letting him know her opinion of him. He reminded me of Kevin Buchanon, who was forever cringing and simpering under Dahlia's beady disdain, fearfully begging for a pat on the head like a mistreated puppy. Kyle was trying not to appear that way, to maintain an edge and a slim measure of control over a situation in which he had none, but he was fooling none of us.

"Sure," I said, going into the kitchen. "It's not like I've got anything else to do."

Veritable castaways that we were, we spent an amiable hour at the island. He read out the utensils, bowls, and so on for each recipe, and I located what I could and put them in marked boxes. Skewers for Gaylene, a bundt pan for Ruby Bee, an oblong cake pan for Catherine. I felt as if I were a genial Ms. Santa stuffing stockings for the little tykes.

When we were finished, he bent down over the page and counted those items not checked off. "I'd better get on this now," he said unhappily. "We need at least two large sacks of things, and if I don't have them tucked away before the reception at four, she will have a fit."

He didn't quite manage to capitalize the "she," but he came close. "Kyle," I said, feeling like a gray-haired granny down from the hills, "she can't be any older or more experienced than you. Okay, so she majored in marketing and knows the field better, but you"-I had a small problem here-"have a head start on the product. Think of all those years of growing up in a Krazy KoKo-Nut environment. She's clearly incapable of expressing genuine enthusiasm enthusiasm, so it's up to you to convey it to the media and the world. This isn't her contest-it's yours! She can't make it happen without you."

He brightened at this final bit of banality. "She really can't, can she? I suppose I'd better follow through with this list. If my father were here, he'd pass it to a minion in the office. What the hell-it'd probably be me, anyway."

He switched off the lights, and we walked toward the lobby. As we passed the closed door, we both heard Geri say, "But Buffy, we were roommates for two years! If you recall, I was the one who took you to the clinic and never said a word to anyone afterward. All I'm asking for is an itty-bitty photograph and a paragraph in the 'What's Cooking?' column."

Durmond was sitting in the lobby, flipping through a guidebook. His jacket hung more normally without the sling, but he winced each time he moved his arm. "Good morning," he said as we appeared. "Have you any idea if there's coffee available on the premises?"

Kyle snorted. "I wouldn't count on it. I'd better get to work on the shopping list. See you at the press reception." He went out the door, nodded to Cambria, and disappeared down the street.

"I haven't seen any sign of coffee," I said to Durmond. "There's probably a place nearby, though." I felt myself flush as he regarded me with an expectant smile, and had it been anatomically possible, would have given myself a quick kick to the fanny. "How about the automat? I used to inhale the danishes."

"It closed a couple of years ago, I'm sorry to say."

Feeling as if I'd learned of the death of a beloved pet, I managed a small smile and said, "Well, someplace else."

"A lovely idea," he said as he put the guidebook in his pocket and stood up. "Then, if you're not busy, perhaps you might like to accompany me to the Museum of Modern Art? We could eat lunch there, or farther afield if you have any suggestions, and be back here for whatever it is Geri has in store for us."

"I don't know," I said, now suspecting that my face was beet red and liable to ignite. "Ruby Bee and Estelle took off for the subway station, planning to do the entire city, and I'm afraid that-well, maybe I ought to be here in case something happens. I mean, they really have no idea-"

"I understand perfectly," he said, sounding exactly as if he did-to my regret. "At least let's have coffee at a nearby shop. Your mother and her friend won't be able to bring the entire underground transportation system to its knees that quickly."

"Probably not, and I certainly could use a cup of coffee." We headed for the door. "Is your shoulder any better today?" I asked as he held open the door for me.

"It hurts, but not so much that I need the pain medication the hospital gave me. Certainly not so much that I can't compete in the contest."

"Good morning, good morning," Cambria said, twinkling at each of us as if we'd done something remarkable by maneuvering through the door. "And where are we off to this lovely day? The park for a carriage ride, a cozy restaurant for brunch?"

"Merely a coffee shop," Durmond said, sighing. "The young lady professes to have other plans for the day. I shall find a park bench and sit among the old men, watching the children play and flicking popcorn to the pigeons."

Cambria gave me a stern look. "Is this true?"

Durmond was biting his lip to maintain his sorrowful expression, but his chin was trembling and his eyes patently guileless. "I fear it is."

"We're going for coffee," I said to Cambria. "Is there a place nearby?"

He pointed out a restaurant on the corner and wished us a pleasant day. As we walked down the sidewalk, I heard a slightly suspicious noise from my companion, but refused to so much as glance at him until we were seated in a booth.

Once we'd ordered coffee, along with bagels and cream cheese, I gave him a level look and said, "So why did you enter the Krazy KoKo-Nut thing? The other contestants are…shall we say, more suitable for this kind of lunacy?"

"And I'm not?"

"Not from what I've seen thus far," I said, then paused while the waitress from the Rambo School of Table Service banged down our order and challenged us to ask for anything else. Neither of us dared. I took a sip of coffee and resumed my oh-so-delicate inquisition. "Have you always enjoyed cooking?"

"Since my wife died, I've found it an amusing occupation." I waited, and after a moment, he said, "Inoperable cancer. Grueling, but brief. I took off for the remainder of the semester, sat in my boat and stared at the gulls, and pulled myself together in time to start the spring semester."

"What do you teach, and where?"

"Connecticut, a small liberal arts college. You wouldn't have heard of it. I teach obscure things." He slathered a piece of bagel with cream cheese and carefully took a bite, all the while feigning preoccupation with the process instead of the postulator.

"How obscure?" I persisted.

"Very, very, obscure. Now how about you? You're a cop, you mentioned last night. In this little town your mother mentioned?"

I was searching for a way to explain Maggody when two figures dashed by the window, faces contorted, bags thudding wildly, a guidebook loosing a stream of papers, and one red beehive at a perilous tilt.

"That was…" I said, stunned, then put down my cup and struggled out of the booth. "I'll catch up on the bill," I said as I rushed past the waitress and out the door (in retrospect, I admitted this wasn't wise; customers are shot for much less than skipping out). I caught up with Ruby Bee and Estelle as they reached the door of the Chadwick.

"Oh my lord," Ruby Bee said, grabbing my arm and gaping over my shoulder, her eyes as round as I'd ever seen them. "There's a maniac after us! We got to call the police before he gets here and kills us on the spot!"

"Ladies, ladies, calm down." Cambria put arms around both of them. "You are safe now. I personally will see that this maniac does no harm to you."

"He's been aiming to kill us ever since we set foot in this place!" Estelle shrieked. Like Ruby Bee, she seemed to be anticipating an assault from the direction they'd come. "Get out your gun, Arly! I plan to die in my own bed, not in this dirty filthy place!"

I looked down the sidewalk. There were hordes of people, of course, but all of them appeared to be preoccupied with missions more mundane than murder. A few of them may have noticed the excitement in front of the hotel, but they maintained the introspective expressions of big-city pedestrians and continued around us.

"Who's trying to kill you?" I asked.

"That maniac," Estelle said in a slightly calmer voice. "Doncha remember? I told you about him when I called."

"How silly of me," I said as Durmond joined us. "So what happened a few minutes ago?"

Ruby Bee clutched her bosom, one of her more elegant and well-rehearsed gestures. "Well, first off, we went down the stairs and followed signs to where there was a nice lady in a booth. She sold us tokens, but she wasn't real clear on which way to go to get to the place you take the boats out to visit the Statue of Liberty."

"I had already said a number of times which train we needed," Estelle cut in with a sniff. "I studied the map this morning while others of us dallied in the bathroom for a good hour."

The accused bristled. "You said one time that we needed the downtown train."

The accuser bristled back. "And I suppose one ain't a number anymore?"

I barely restrained myself from assaulting them. Both Durmond and Cambria sagely had decided to refrain from asking questions, and they'd also shown enough sense to back away from the twosome. "One is a very good number," I said irritably, "and I would like one of you to tell us what happened. Did this person actually approach you and make threats?"

After an exchange of dark looks, Ruby Bee shrugged and said, "Estelle decided to consult this big dirty map on the wall, and some old geezer started trying to explain how we had to change trains somewhere down where the map was so smudgy it was a disgrace. That's when I saw him. I told Estelle to stop yammering and come through the little gate so we could get on a train. She couldn't find her token, and by the time she remembered it was in her pocket, why-the maniac was not ten feet away."

"How did you know he was a maniac?" Durmond asked.

"I did not get off the watermelon truck yesterday," Ruby Bee retorted. "Anyway, we got by the track, kinda down toward the end where he couldn't see us, and then, just as the train pulls up, there he is coming at us like a rabid skunk."

"Then," Estelle said, "the train doors open and all these people come spewing out like ants out of a flooded hill, and people from behind are shoving us and nearly knocking us down, and we finally get on, but there he is in the same car, grinning and licking his lips, so I scream at Ruby Bee to get off-"

"And we did," she interrupted smoothly (they'd perfected the routine over the last thirty years). "But so did he, and we didn't know where the exit was, so we had to climb over the little gates. The lady in the booth starts yelling at us, and Estelle has to go and spill her purse, and by the time she's gathered up everything, this policeman shows up."

Estelle tightened her grip on her purse. "The strap got caught, which was hardly my fault. The policeman was right friendly about it, but the maniac, who was no dummy, had disappeared."

"I don't think he believed us," Ruby Bee said, winding down. "But I'd like to know something-how come you can't ever find a policeman when you need one?"

We all mulled that one over for a minute. Durmond sighed and said, "I'm sure it's my fault, but I don't understand why you were so sure this…man was following you, determined to harm you? Did he say or do anything?"

"He's been following us since we got here," said Estelle, making it clear she didn't appreciate being doubted for one teensy second, "I saw him leaning against the wall over there when we got out of the taxi, and yesterday morning when I went to call Arly from a pay phone on the corner up there, guess who turned up like a bad penny not five minutes later? This is the third time, and he probably thought it'd be the charm. He just didn't realize who he was tangling with!" Cambria lifted his bushy white eyebrows. "Isn't it possible he simply lives in the neighborhood? That would explain his presence on the street and in the subway station. And why shouldn't he have noticed two attractive ladies like yourselves, noticed and admired?"

Patting her hair, Estelle said, "That's right kind of you to say so. He did sorta smile, so maybe he thought he was being friendly." She and Ruby Bee moved away from us to evaluate this newest theory.

I glanced down the sidewalk, then nudged Durmond in the opposite direction and in a low voice said, "I'm not comfortable with the explanation. It's possible they've attracted the attention of someone with less pure motives than Cambria assigns him. I'm not suggesting this man is a serial killer out to get them, but there are a lot of screwy people on the streets. However, if I try to warn them, especially now that they've decided the city is thick with secret admirers, I'm afraid they won't take my advice." I made a face at the hissing pair. "Not that they ever do."

"Then we have no choice," Durmond murmured. "it would be irresponsible of us to allow them to resume their day's plans on their own. While we keep an eye out for the maniac, you and I must escort them-for their own safety, naturally."

"Naturally," I echoed unenthusiastically, recalling my uneasiness about venturing outside the hotel.

Durmond squeezed my arm briefly. "Then it's settled. Come along, ladies. Let's see if they're serving breakfast at Tiffany's."

Ruby Bee and Estelle were still debating the name of the cat as we slammed shut the taxi doors and took off into the slate gray maze of Manhattan. I'd long since given up trying to convince them it didn't have one.