Dally amplified. “In the words of the immortal Otis Redding.”
I nodded. “So, thank you for your generous offer, and perhaps we could work together in the future sometime, but I regret that, for the moment, I must take a pass on your current offer of employment.”
Mrs. Habersham sank. “You won’t help us?”
Mr. Habersham steeled. “He’s just bargaining. He wants money.”
I had to disagree. “I’ve got everything I could ever want. It’s not the money. Mr. Turner over in Beautiful seems like a great guy, and I want to help. Anyway” — I looked at Dally — “I only take work if Ms. Oglethorpe asks me to.”
He snapped his eyes on Dally. “So you’re the business manager.”
She was growing impatient. It seemed to be a theme. “Look, I’ve got a list of people I’m keepin’ informed about Mr. Tucker’s progress in this matter. You want to be on the list, it won’t cost a dime — unless it’s a long-distance call, then I’ll reverse the charges. Otherwise I’ll let you know just like everybody else. It’s a courtesy. Mr. Tucker is very big on courtesy — aren’t you, Flap.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I smiled.
This only seemed to make Mr. Habersham madder. “You look here —”
I interrupted. “You’re worried about your little girl. If it’s any consolation, everybody I’ve met so far seems to feel the same way. Can you see that Mr. Turner is worried about his sons the same way? Not to mention Tommy the policeman, who’s worried about his cousin that got dead. Everybody’s worried about family — everybody but me. I don’t really think about my family all that much — with the possible exception of a bizarre array of unfortunates who inhabit Ms. Oglethorpe’s joint in Atlanta. So excuse me if I don’t quite get the family thing. All I’m out to do is find two boys. If, in the course of human events, I find your daughter by and by, I’ll let her know you’re worried. How about that? Then, if she feels like it, Ms. Oglethorpe will be in touch. That’s as good as it’s going to get.” I stood, mostly for punctuation.
He couldn’t decide whether to keep his mad on or go with the situation. His wife helped. She was very quiet. “Thank you, Mr. Tucker. We’d appreciate that.”
Manners do count for something. Mr. Habersham looked down. “Mr. Tucker, we’ve not always been the perfect parents. We’re not currently the perfect parents.” He picked up his drink again. I’d decided it was scotch. “We’ll never be the perfect parents. Not for her. Lydia is a very strange girl.”
The Missus was worried about it, too, but she tried to make light. “We often imagine she was exchanged at birth for a human child.”
No one took it as the joke she’d meant it to be.
Dally couldn’t resist. “She’s a creature of the sea.”
Mr. Habersham resumed. “As a child in Charleston she was always at the beach. She didn’t care about school or boys or clubs or anything important. She couldn’t do anything right. When she was old enough, she was always out on the ocean. She never wanted our help. She always earned her own way. After she took up that job, we hardly saw her.” Sip. He’d said job like it was a communicable disease. “We shouldn’t have let her marry.”
The mother picked up. “She met that Lowe Acree and he was the first man who went out of his way to be nice to her, and it turned her head — turned our heads, too, I suppose. She married him in one big whirl.”
Dally couldn’t resist. “Marry in haste, repent in leisure.”
The Mister ignored it. “She’s not like other people. She’s like a little fragile doll.” He took a sip and looked at the impatiens. “And she didn’t kill anyone, by the way. She’s not capable.”
In a lot of fathers that assessment would have come off like a compliment to their little girls. This one sounded like an indictment. Like it was just one more thing his kid couldn’t do right.
Mrs. Habersham wound things up for us. “So — thank you again for your offer. We’d like very much to be kept informed.”
Informed seemed to me a cold word for the situation. But I guess this is the Information Age.
Dally shot out her hand to the man. “Then you’ll be hearing from me soon.”
And that was it. Our little visit to Tara was finished. Mr. Habersham showed us to the door. He didn’t say good-bye.
As we were pulling out the gate, I looked back over my shoulder at the huge house. “They don’t seem all that much like parents, do they?”
“How would you know?”
“They didn’t seem odd to you?”
“A little, but how do you mean?”
“More like ... keepers than parents.”
She shrugged. “Lots of parents seem like jailers, especially to their children — don’t they?”
I turned back forward again; shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. How would I know what lots of parents are supposed to seem like?”
I was thinking about my grandmother filling up a shopping cart with forty-three boxes of Bon Ami.
17 - Frim Fram Sauce
We were back on Tybee and, well within the hour, walking down the beach toward our dinner. We were practically alone on the beach, except for a fat tourist in a white tank top and black shorts wading in the waves behind us.
Dally was examining my intuitions. “So what’s your hunch here, pal?”
I was happy to supply. “For no good reason, I got the idea there’s some one thing that makes all this go around. Could it have something to do with drugs?”
“What?” She stopped walking. “You think all this has something to do with drugs?”
“I know it’s a cliché.”
“Worse. It’s a mundane cliché.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve had this hunch since I left Atlanta.”
“How come?”
“I had a brief talk with our local pharmaceutical distributor.”
“The guy that interrupted my swordfish?”
I nodded. “That’s the guy.”
She was skeptical. “There’s got to be more to your hunch than that.”
I kept right on. “Well, there were the jumpy kids that popped me on the highway.”
“The bold, hick highwaymen.”
“Uh-huh, and one of them seemed very hopped up on bennies.”
She had to laugh. “Hopped up on bennies? In what decade?”
I ignored. “Then there was the dead banker who wanted Turner land for a chemical dump —”
“Hold it. What?”
“Did I forget to mention that?”
She looked away. “Chemical dump.”
I went on. “Then, Lydia was missing for days and nobody knew why, and one of the theories floating around town about that was some sort of Cuban drug connection.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“From June, your turncoat friend.”
“She’s not a turncoat, she’s got dual citizenship.”
“What?”
“She’s loyal to more than one flag at a time. She’s my pal, but she obviously has some feeling for Lydia.”
“At least.”
“So what’s the drug deal?”
“I don’t know. But Horace, that’s the guy with the curbside drugstore outside my window, he told me about the new thrill.”
“Which is?”
“A little concoction known as Homicide: skag, coke, and, get this, some kind of seasickness medication.”
She squinted. “I think I heard something about it on the news. S’posed to make you really nuts; violent.”
“There you are.”
“So you’re implying that Lowe Acree ...”
“... and, you know, maybe even his cousin Tommy ...”
She stopped again. “... the cop?”
“Right.”
“You’re saying they wanted the Turner land in order to dump those chemicals?”
I shook my head. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe they don’t want to dump anything. Maybe they just wanted privacy for whatever it is they were doing. Wh
en you mention the phrase chemical dump, most people are going to stay far away. I get the impression that the land’s pretty secluded anyway — so whatever goes on out there can stay a secret as long as it wants to.”
“And how exactly is Lydia involved in this bizarre scenario you’ve invented?”
“I didn’t invent it — I intuited it.” But my shoulders sagged. “Though it doesn’t really seem all that likely, does it?”
“Not really.”
“Not really.”
She thought on. “Could it have something to do with the bank connections? I don’t know ... money laundering?” She looked out to sea again. “Or what if it’s something else — something really weird? Like this Lydia really is something out of this world.”
I shrugged. “You can get that feeling, but it’s just that everybody tries to keep this odd envelope of protection around her. She’s the connection between all the players, that’s the truth. So maybe she is that one thing that I’m looking for.”
Dally nodded. “You’re always telling me that the simplest answer is the best.”
I nodded slowly. “Most of the time.”
“So maybe it’s just as simple as this: She did kill her husband, she’s nuts, and everybody’s just watching out for her because she can’t do it herself. You’re so paranoid sometimes, you think there’s some sort of bigger conspiracy behind everything. Maybe this is just a small-town murder and a perfectly acceptable brand of Southern madness.”
It was all sand castles. When you dope out a situation like this, pardon the expression, you have to be prone to wild speculation for a while. It helps to define the parameters. In point of fact we had no idea what we were talking about. So we walked a little way then without gabbing.
The old paranoia nerve was acting up on me, though — maybe because Dally’d brought it up. The guy in black trunks and a white tank top had been walking with us a little too long for coincidence, in my book. By the time we were at the other end of the island, I started to turn around and ask him a few choice questions, but then he just walked on by us like we weren’t even there.
I relaxed, and then my stomach started asking all kinds of questions about dinner.
I was peering into the clump of buildings. “Which one is the restaurant?”
Dally just headed in. “Smell.”
I did, but once you’re at the ocean, it all smells like that to me.
She followed her nose, and before I could object, we were at the door of The Hut.
I guess we were a little early for dinner. The place was nearly empty. A sandy-headed kid took us right to a booth that looked out at the ocean.
I didn’t sit. “We have to be in Tina’s station.”
The kid smiled. “I know. June called. Made a reservation in y’all’s name. Tucker, right?”
Dally nodded. “How’d you know it was us?”
She eyeballed me. “She said watch out for a man to come up from the beach in a suit an’ tie. I took a shot.”
We sat. The booth was cozy. Before we could even take in the view, Tina was at our side.
“Hey. Momma said ya’ll’d be here ’bout now. Already got you some scallops cookin’. How ’bout a salad or an appetizer?”
Dally sighed. “I’d better get some cold shrimp.”
She agreed. “I think you better.”
I was more trouble. “What are the appetizers?”
She was easy. “Got just whatcha want. It’s some little fillets of shark wrapped around some smoked mussels; lightly sautéed in a basil champagne. Five or six on the plate. It’ll kill you.”
I smiled. “I may never get another chance to be killed by a shark. I’m not much of a swimmer.”
She nodded, humoring me. “Well, then.” And she was gone like a shot.
Then, before I could even worry about what to drink, Tina was back with two glasses of red wine. She set them on the table like they were the crown jewels.
“I know you said you didn’t want nobody else drinkin’ this stuff, but Momma figured you wouldn’t mind sharin’ with Ms. Oglethorpe.”
I couldn’t believe it. “This is my Simard?”
“Uh, it’s your red wine, yes, sir. Momma sent it over. Is that all right?”
I took a sip. It was indeed my stuff. “This may be the best service I’ve ever had at a seafood joint anywhere in the world.”
She smiled. “I thought it was white wine was for fish.”
I set her straight. “Wine is only red ... and French. Everything else is just deluding itself.”
“Okay.” She winked. Some waitresses can pull it off. She was one. “I’ll check on your appetizers.” And she was gone.
Dally appreciated the wine. “Is this the ’83?”
“Your palate’s getting better.”
“The ’86 is good, but it’s not this ...”
“... polished ...”
“... or somethin’.”
I sat back. “I’m happy.”
She set her glass down and looked out the window. “So, let me get right to the point: Do you just think the boys are here because that’s what some people are telling us, or did you do your thing?”
She never liked to talk about it, even though it was the basis for the work she got me. I have a gift. I got it when I was a kid. Some kids can sing, and some can play ball; some turn to petty crime or drugs if they have a talent for that sort of thing. Me, I’ve got a trick. It’s one of the reasons I’m so good at what I do. In short here’s the deal: You sit quiet enough for long enough and breathe the right way and don’t disturb the images that come to you — a little like trying to catch a big bass in a small pond — and then you can see everything. I mean everything in the universe that you want to know. First you see a kind of golden curtain, and sometimes the images play in front of it, like a performance, like the play in God’s mind. If you can leave them alone, they tell you everything. Maybe I’m not explaining it well. I see the whole of the thing, like pieces of a puzzle, and the puzzle drops into place; I know where the missing thing is, and I can find it. I did it first when I was just a kid, looking for something important to Dally. She lost a ring that meant something to her, and I found it. After that I knew I could do it every time. It’s not a substitute for getting out in the great wide world and asking the right questions and seeing the wrong people. It’s in the middle of everything else. That doesn’t really explain anything, I know. If I could say it in any better words, it still wouldn’t be the real thing anyway. You can’t communicate this kind of thing in words.
I think that’s what shakes Dally up the most about it. She really loves to talk, and I don’t talk about it all that much. It makes most people nervous. Even makes some want to shove me in the nuthouse. But I’m not nuts. Ask anybody. All I am is quirky.
So I kept my answer short. “Nope. Haven’t yet.”
We were rescued from further exploration of the subject by the swift and certain delivery of our appetizers.
Tina was very proud. “Best seafood on the East Coast, right here.” And she slid the plates in front of us.
Mine was like a little work of modern art: the tight cuts of rolled fillet arranged around the parsley and mussels in the middle, festive chives everywhere. Dally had a glass cup of mammoth cold shrimp still in their shells and another champagne glass filled with red sauce.
Tina beamed. “I’ll just get you all some bread.”
Dally piped up. “Maybe a bottle of spring water?”
“Quebelle?”
“Fine.”
She shot away.
Dally popped open one of her prizes and dipped it up to her fingers in the sauce. I tried to keep up with her, and swirled one of my little morsels in the sauce on the plate and popped it into my mouth.
She reacted. “Jeez. This sauce is hot. Must be the horseradish. But man, these shrimps are fresh. How’s yours?”
“Great. A little sweeter than I thought it would be. I guess it’s the champagne sauce. Frim fram sauc
e.”
She squinted, like she couldn’t concentrate. “What?”
I was a little vague too. “ ‘Frim Fram Sauce’ — it was the song on the B-side of Nat ‘King’ Cole’s single of ‘Route 66.’ Makes the shark more like a kind of coquilles Saint Jacques kind of thing. The sauce is really ... strong.”
I took one more bite; Dally scooped up another dollop of hot sauce with a shrimp — and we were both unconscious in the next split second, like a ton of bricks, like babies falling asleep. Out like lights. Blink. The old seafood mickey. And that’s when the real strangeness began.
18 - A Wide, Wide Sea
When I woke up, I felt like I’d been run over by a team of Clydesdales — and the beer wagon they’d been dragging behind them. There was the sensation that somebody was jabbing a golden spear into my eyes, but it turned out to be the sun through the blinds. I was in a little room smaller than my galley kitchen back home, on a cot that folded down from the wall. It took me a minute to realize it wasn’t me that was dizzy, it was the room.
The room was pitching up and down. I only had to concentrate another five minutes or so to realize this had something to do with the fact that I was on a boat.
I tried to get my bearings. I shook my head. On the little table beside me there was an old book, Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare — I used to have one just like it when I was a kid. I started to pick it up. Then there was a rumble of thunder outside, or maybe it was in my head. This was some unbelievable drug hangover.
Just as I was trying to get up off the bunk, somebody came into the room.
“Hey. You ’wake?”
I wasn’t sure. “Maybe.”
“How you feel?”
“How long have I been out?”
“All night.”
“What time is it?”
“After noon.”
My eyes focused. On the cot across from me was a big boy in his late twenties. He was plain and smiling; seemed familiar.
He patted my leg. “You’ll be okay.”
I withheld my judgment. “What happened?”
“Whatcha mean?”
“I mean how come I’m on a boat with you instead of at dinner with ... where’s Dally?”
Too Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 2) Page 8
