Mother Finds a Body

by Craig Rice

  Then I saw that Corny wasn’t alone. A man was getting out of the driver’s seat of the car. He was the biggest man I’d ever seen. Not that he was taller than Biff; it was a different kind of bigness. He had big hands, a big head with lots of curly, almost gray hair on it. His eyebrows were bushy and his ears were big, too. When he walked into the sunlight I could see that he needed a shave.

  Biff poured him a drink. The man had that kind of face. You wanted to drink with him even before you knew him.

  “Kinda early for actors to be up, ain’t it?”

  His voice was exactly what I’d expected. It was big and boomy. He looked and sounded like a perfect ad for Texas. He pulled up a camp chair and sat facing Biff. “This is the most excitement Ysleta’s had since I been sheriff. A fire and actors all at once. We don’t get many stage actors around here. Last one we had was away back—some cowboy with false teeth.”

  The sheriff took the drink from Biff and downed it in one gulp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Do you want a chaser?” I asked.

  Biff didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Chaser, hell,” he said, digging up a gag from the bottom of the trunk. “Nothing can catch that last one.”

  I was glad the sheriff ignored the dialogue. He was still thinking about his cowboy with the store-bought china.

  “No, sir,” the sheriff said, slapping his thigh. “That cowboy didn’t know one end of a horse from the other.”

  That was his contribution to the floor show and he laughed heartily.

  I tried to laugh with him, but it was an effort. If I hadn’t known he was the sheriff it would have been a cinch, but between the thought of our corpse half buried in the woods and Corny’s sly looks, I just couldn’t get with it.

  Suddenly the sheriff stood up. He sauntered over to the trailer and peered through the screen door.

  “All them folks in there actors?” as asked, as though such a thing were impossible. Then he wrinkled up his nose. “Boy, they sure do stink!”

  Biff hurried over and tried to explain the odor. “Oh, that’s Evangie’s asthma powder. That’s my mother-in-law and she’s got …”

  “Whatever she’s got,” the sheriff interrupted, “we bury ’em in Texas when they smell better’n that.”

  Biff raised one eyebrow. “That’s my gag,” he said. “I broke it at the Gaiety. You must get around, brother.”

  The sheriff smiled. He walked back to me and scribbled a name and number on a piece of paper.

  “That’s Dr. Gonzales’ number. He’s got some kind of injections for asthma. Allergies, I think he calls ’em. Tell him you’re friends of mine.”

  Before I had time to read the number, the sheriff took the paper away from me. “Here,” he said. “I’ll put my number down, too, just in case you need mé.”

  I glanced at the paper without seeing the names or the numbers. Why, I thought, would the sheriff think we needed him?

  He was having another drink with Biff. “Up the river,” they said in chorus. The sheriff had another drink. Then he turned to leave. He refused Biff’s offer of a lift into town.

  “Nope. Like to walk when I get the chance. Speaking of driving, though, better not let this friend of yours at the wheel any more. He busted hell outa the rear end of your car.” The sheriff looked Corny over from head to foot. It wasn’t a love look. “He’s a little too mouthy for the size of him, anyway.”

  Biff and I waited until the sheriff was out of sight before we examined the car. The sheriff was right. Not only was the rear end smashed, but the trailer hitch was snapped off clean.

  “Some drunk backed inta me,” Corny said insolently.

  I knew he was lying. I only hoped Biff realized it.

  “What did that guy mean about your big mouth?” Biff asked.

  Corny didn’t answer right away. He looked at me and grinned. “Ask her,” he said, tossing a thumb in my direction.

  “I ain’t asking anybody but you.” Biff was calm, but his eyes were getting blacker every second. “What’s more, I don’t like your attitude. Pack your toothbrush, funny boy. You and me have come to the end of a beautiful friendship.”

  My first feeling was that it was almost worth while. If it took a corpse and a brush fire to get rid of that sponger, I’d sit still for both. My second feeling wasn’t as easy. Corny’s lips had turned up in a smile. He rocked back and forth on his unsteady legs.

  “You mean you want me to leave this happy little group?” he asked. “Well, brother, you are asking the wrong guy. From a few hours ago I am already the star boarder.” He turned to go into the trailer and, as an afterthought, he patted me one on the back. “Ask your dear little mother what she was doing during the fire,” he said.

  Biff grabbed him by the seat of his pajamas before Corny knew what had happened to him. He pulled him off the step and shook him around.

  “Apologize to my wife!” Biff said.

  I’ve always dreamed of a moment like that. The dialogue was usually, “Unhand that woman!” In my dreams I had rehearsed myself to go into a womanly act, but when I came face to face with the scene, I didn’t like it at all. It made me feel foolish. I didn’t know whether to frown with great dignity or smile with great generosity. I took the middle road.

  “You’re both nuts,” I said and walked away. I stumbled over the guy ropes that held the lean-to, but I didn’t care. My mind wasn’t on big exits.

  Of all the people in the world, Cliff Corny Cobb would be the one to see mother bury the body. When I got behind the trailer, I said, “Dammit!” It made me feel better, so I said it again. “Dammit.”

  “Maybe he didn’t, though,” I said aloud. “After all, he was walking in the other direction, or he wouldn’t have found the car. He did go into the village, or he wouldn’t have met the sheriff.”

  I felt in my pocket for the scrap of paper with the sheriff’s name and address on it, then continued arguing with myself. “I think we’d better talk this over with him right now.”

  Biff interrupted me. “What’s with the solo back here?”

  “I was talking to myself,” I said. “Look, honey, let’s go into town right now and get the car fixed. I’d like to get out of this town, and quick.”

  Biff put his arm around me, and we walked toward the car.

  “What did that guy mean when he said ask you what your mother was doing during the fire?”

  Biff’s voice sounded casual. I tried to keep mine that way, too.

  “I’ll tell you later. After we get the car fixed.”

  “With what I expect from the local garage setup,” Biff said, “I will be wearing a long gray beard and listening through an ear trumpet.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The garage man was on his back under the car. “Well, it’ll take three or four days. Gotta be welded, you know,” he said. “We don’t get many repair jobs like this and we may have to make a new part.”

  Biff and I started to speak at the same time. Because I’m the female side of the house, he let me go first.

  “Does it look like it was done purposely?” I asked.

  The garage man moved back and forth on his roller machine. I let him play for a minute. Then I told him to stop clowning and get up and look where I was looking. I pointed out the clean break in the hitch. “There,” I said. “Does that look like it’s been sawed or something?”

  The mechanic scratched his head. “Maybe, but who’d want to do a thing like that?”

  I didn’t bother telling him about my husband’s very good friend. It was just as well, too, because, after thinking it over, I decided that even if Corny had seen Mother bury the body, there would be no point in smashing up the car. Unless he wanted us to stay in Ysleta, and that didn’t seem to make sense.

  “That’s cast iron,” the mechanic was saying to Biff. “You know how that snaps? Almost always clean …”

  Biff waited patiently while the man explained all about metals, semiprecious and otherwise. Then he as
ked him if there was a bar in town.

  The mechanic pointed a greasy hand to the side street. My eyes followed the hand.

  A bar? There were nothing but bars: The Blinking Pup, The Red Mill, The Last Hole. As far as I could see the signs read BAR and BEER.

  “Have you any other industries here in Ysleta?” Biff asked.

  The mechanic finally got the joke. “Hah!” he said. “It’s because we’re so close to the border. Lots of tourists want a nightcap when the bridge to Mexico closes. Closed up tighter than a drum over there, but we’re wide open.”

  Biff cast an eye over the street. “No kidding?”

  We picked out one of the livelier-looking bars, The Happy Hour, and stopped in for a beer. Biff picked up a bottle of Wilson’s, and we were ready to leave. A clock over the door indicated that it was ten after one.

  “Better bring home a couple containers of beer,” I suggested. “Our family’ll be getting up, and when they know we’re stuck here for a few day’s they’ll want a bracer. Better make it another bottle of rye,” I added after a second’s consideration. “Beer won’t handle it.”

  While we waited for the bartender to stop picking his teeth, four musicians straggled wearily to the small stage in back of the saloon. They played two choruses of Amapola and suddenly, from out of nowhere, six chorus girls came galloping out onto the floor.

  They were the tiredest-looking chorus girls I’ve ever seen, and, being in burlesque for years, I’ve seen them tired. These wore abbreviated lavender rayon panties and net brassières. They carried stringy white fans and waved them around listlessly.

  Biff looked at the clock again. Then we looked around the saloon. There wasn’t a customer in the place unless you could count us and one very dark little man who sat alone in a booth near the stage. He had a split of champagne in front of him and not once during the girl’s routine did he look up.

  “Is this the beginning of a new day,” Biff asked the bartender, “or is it a leftover from last night?”

  The bartender shrugged his shoulders. “Guess it’s a rehearsal. I’m a stranger here myself.”

  I looked back to the floor show. The girls were making a rose with their fans. The only way I recognized it as a rose is that in burlesque we did the same routine. The rose was at the bud stage when a piece of pink cheesecloth emerged from the side of the stage.

  There was something under it, of course, and when the rose became full-blown, we not only got a glimpse of what the something was but it was enough to make me grab the bottle from the bartender’s hands and start a mad dash for the door.

  Biff had always been considered the Casanova of burlesque. I took that into consideration when I married him, and we were usually running into his ex-flames. But I never expected to find one under a piece of cheesecloth in Ysleta, Texas!

  Biff stared at the dancer with his mouth half open. Then he grinned at her, finally at me. “It’s a small world, ain’t it?” he asked when she tossed her brassière on the piano.

  I waited until she threw her G string into the tuba to answer. “Indeed it is,” I replied.

  We had been too busy watching the show to see the little dark man get up from the booth. He stood next to Biff with a cigar in his mouth. The cigar was unlit, and the little man rocked back and forth on his heels.

  “You likea the show?” he asked.

  Biff jumped a foot in the air. He had to look down around his elbow to find where the voice came from.

  The little man didn’t seem to be too pleased. Maybe it was because Biff gave him a double take. I was afraid Biff was warming up for a crack like “Get out of the hole,” or “Get off your knees.” He was too surprised to be a comic, though.

  He watched the man pull a card case from his yellow vest and he stared at the man’s hands. I didn’t blame him for that. They were brown hands, and black hairs grew in little mountains on each knuckle. The fingernails were bright pink, very shiny, with black tips.

  “I owna thees place,” the man said while Biff read the card.

  I looked over Biff’s shoulder. FRANCISCO CULLUCIO, the card read, DEALER IN FINE PERFUMES, LINENS, LIQUORS.

  “I gotta getta me some new cards,” the man explained, “now that I’ma in the show business.”

  Biff and I grinned at him broadly.

  He didn’t smile back. He had stopped rocking on his heels but he had gone into another annoying little piece of business. He snapped a cigar cutter. He still hadn’t looked toward the stage, and the woman dancing around in nothing but a three-inch piece of adhesive plaster was getting annoyed.

  With a corny toss of her head she finished her number and threw her hands above her head, the same way she used to finish when she was in burlesque.

  The new impresario watched me smile woodenly at my naked friend.

  “She’sa good, eh?”

  “If you like that sort of thing,” I replied coldly.

  “I puta her to work. Womans costa too much money. All the time she’s askin’ me for money, so I say sure, I give you twenty fi’ a week, only you work for it.”

  He snapped his cigar cutter a few times. I think I was supposed to be impressed with the salary. I gave him a dead pan, so he went on.

  “Course, she geta more than twenty fi’ a week. She geta fi’ cents every drink.”

  Well, I thought to myself, that runs into a tidy sum, considering the way she guzzles. Then something slowly dawned on me.

  “You mean she gets five cents for every drink she drinks with a customer?”

  Cullucio didn’t answer me. He was too busy watching Biff.

  One glimpse of my husband-of-a-week and I began to wonder if it wouldn’t have been smarter to point the trailer toward Reno. He was almost a part of the floor show, waving his arms like a windmill and pointing to the empty stool next to us.

  “You can send a card backstage, ya know,” I said.

  There was no response, just a more vigorous waving of arms.

  “Why don’t you go over and talk to the lady?” I asked.

  My voice must have been a little louder than I thought, because the dancer looked at me and smiled. I remember that smile; it was a cross between a hypophrenic and a brooding cobra.

  “She’s coming out for a drink,” Biff said after she made her exit.

  I gave him my long, slow look and mumbled, “I can’t wait.”

  For the next half-hour my job was to keep Cullucio from pinning Biff’s ears back. He couldn’t have handled it himself, but, between his bartender and the beefy man at the door, Biff was a dead pigeon.

  It isn’t that Biff is mentally deficient or anything; he’s just too trusting. From the moment that Joyce Janice sat on the bar stool next to us I knew the score. She and the little dark man were splitting their room rent. To me it’s in black and white, but Biff doesn’t catch. He listens intently to her life story and keeps pouring drinks down her throat.

  At a nickel each, she was building up a nice little nest egg for herself, I thought. Not that she was going to be able to keep it. The heavy breathing of my friend with the pink fingernails told me that the money would go for hospital bills.

  “Come on out to the house for dinner,” Biff said for the fourteenth time.

  Joyce said no again. “We never know when a live one might drop in, then we gotta do another show.”

  “I thought this was a rehearsal,” Biff said. “The bartender—”

  “He’s nuts,” Joyce said. “This is our tea dance. We do ’em twice a week.”

  She was wearing a blue-satin evening gown, and every time she leaned over it was show enough—hardly the costume for a tea dance, but Biff had been in burlesque too long to notice it. The bartender, though, was having himself a time.

  I tried to tell myself that Biff was just being sociable, that he felt rather sorry for Joyce. It wasn’t too hard to feel sorry for her. If I hadn’t known her so well, even I could have shed a tear for her. Her silver shoes were worn down at the heels, perspiration had stai
ned her gown almost to her hips, and she had a black-and-blue mark the size of a Mexican peso on her flabby arm.

  She didn’t seem to feel uncomfortable, though. She knew Cullucio was burning and she liked being the center of attention. She kept track of the drinks by scratching a mark with her fingernail on the top of the bar.

  On the tenth scratch I got to my feet. I tapped Biff on the shoulder. “End of joke,” I said sweetly. “Unless you’d like to stay here alone.” On the alone line I stared straight at Joyce.

  The same clock said three-five when Biff tore himself away from the The Happy Hour. We didn’t speak while he settled the check. We didn’t speak while we bought the groceries. The walk to the trailer camp was silent, too.

  It wasn’t that I was jealous or—oh, well, I may as well admit it. I was jealous, and annoyed, and my feet hurt and my head ached. It certainly wasn’t the time to tell Biff about Mother, but I did. He looked too complacent. Why should I be the only one to worry, I thought.

  “Oh, by the way,” I said casually. “Mother wants you to dig a deeper hole. She buried the body last night.”

  We walked on a few feet. Biff had a complacent gleam in his eye.

  “She set fire to the woods. I think that’s what Corny meant when he said …”

  We walked on a few feet more, and suddenly Biff stopped. He stopped so suddenly that he almost lost his balance. I grabbed the box of eggs from him just in time.

  “She what?”

  I couldn’t have been more casual if I’d said she took out the furniture so she could sweep under the beds. I walked on toward the trailer. If I could whistle I would have whistled.

  I said, “She set fire to the woods so she could get the body out of the trailer.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Gee Gee and Mandy were playing cards when we got home. I put the food in the icebox, and Biff, with a dazed look in his eye, began fixing the drinks.

  Dimples heard the clink of glasses and came out of the trailer. She was still wearing her kimono, a faded-pink affair with a marabou trimming. Her head was covered with a Turkish towel, and little flakes of white henna were on her forehead.