She Walks in Beauty

by Sarah Shankman

  “Mrs. Roberts? I—”

  “I’m not Mrs. Roberts, darling. The Mr. Roberts who was Kurt’s father—that was a very long time ago. Call me Glenda. Now where were we? Black-eyed Susans? I don’t know. What do you think, I’m sorry, what’s your name, darling?”

  “Sam Adams, and I don’t mean to alarm you, but no one seems to know where your son’s gotten off to. He’s supposed to be down here in Atlantic City judging the Miss America Pageant—”

  “Atlantic City? Did you say you’re calling from Atlantic City? Isn’t that the most dreadfully boring place? I’ve never been, of course. But people I know have, and they say, well, that Trump man, what do you expect? And that German wife—”

  “I think she was Czech, Mrs.—Glenda. But anyway, your son seems to have called a day or so ago and said he was going back to New York on business and he—”

  “If that’s what he said he was doing, I’m sure that’s what he did. Now, you’ll excuse me, I’m sorry. The housekeeper is standing here with the table linens and I have to choose—”

  Okay. So Kurt Roberts had a rotten childhood. Sam gave people until 30 to get over being rich, privileged, and under-loved. After that, they had to find a better excuse.

  *

  “What I think we ought to do is sic Magic on him,” said Lavert. He was working on his third cup of McDonald’s coffee. “Man, isn’t this a shame?” He held out the cardboard cup. He and Harry were sitting on a bench on the Boardwalk. “Sucking down fast food java. For sure, I’m having my stomach pumped the second I get back to New Orleans. Though that sausage biscuit—now, that wasn’t too bad…”

  “What good would that do us, siccing Magic on Roberts?”

  “She’s got the same head as G.T., Zack. You didn’t know that?”

  “She do the voudou?”

  “Um-hum. Which is why she’s gonna conjure herself up that Miss America title. If she really wants it.”

  “Then, hey, man, call her up. Did she bring a crystal ball along with her, or can she just use that silver one we saw her with last night?”

  “Making fun, man.”

  “Now, wait—you tell me this—”

  “Mr. Zack, what a fortunate coincidence!”

  Harry nudged Lavert. “Kid’s named Rashad. Check this out.”

  Rashad was pushing his wicker rolling chair and wearing his white tie and tails, just like the previous morning. “Have you considered,” the young man asked, “what must have been going through the minds of the august fathers of the city of Atlantic City when they placed the very bench upon which you are reposing facing in toward the casinos rather than out toward the ocean? Does that tell you something about the conflict between nature and commerce in this seaside resort? Let’s face it, the ocean was here, along with the Native Americans, long before the likes of Mr. Trump, Mr. Scarfo, the Reverend Dunwoodie and the various other dignitaries who—”

  “He was talking about bivalve professionals yesterday,” said Harry. “Bivalve professionals in New Orleans.”

  “Shuck and jive?”

  Harry threw Lavert a high five.

  Rashad didn’t miss a beat. “—who have shucked and jived their way into controlling the interests of this city in their best interests but hardly in the interest of its true inhabitants. Now, in the film about AC and the pageant my cohorts and I are editing even as we speak, or perhaps that’s an overstatement, shooting and editing, I should say, but we’ll be finished before you leave, Mr. Zack, you can rest assured—”

  “When does he breathe? I’ve seen lots of young brothers with fancy educations who can do all kinds of numbers—brokering stocks and breaking banks—but they all have to breathe,” said Lavert.

  “—that the Atlantic City extravaganza courtesy of Rashad/Sturdivant Productions will be ready for your viewing—”

  “Sturdivant? Is Junior Sturdivant your sidekick, Big Gloria’s son?” Harry asked.

  “He is indeed. He is my co-director, main man, gaffer. Our star, playing an old Miss A, is a young lady named Rachel Rose.”

  “We got it, Rashad. Listen, did Junior tell you about a man who pushed him in a swimming pool?”

  “He did. An unfortunate occurrence. Though I do not think there were any racial—”

  “I hadn’t thought of this before,” Harry said to Lavert. “So you think Junior might have seen the man since?”

  “I think Junior would have given the perpetrator of his watery discomfort a wide berth. Junior, like many of our race—”

  “Can’t swim,” Lavert interrupted. “Am I right?”

  “He cannot. Now there are many Caucasians who think that that is a genetic defect, but the real—”

  “We know the real reason, Rashad. There were no pools for black kids when the likes of me was growing up,” said Lavert. “But you guys got pools and the ocean—right here. What’s your excuse?”

  “I swim, sir. It’s my friend Junior who seems to have a natural aversion to the briny deep. He says when he jumps in, it feels like somebody smacked him in the face.”

  “Rashad!” Harry jumped up and did a little victory boogie on the Boardwalk as if he’d made big yardage, scored a touchdown. “You’re a genius!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Zack. But there’s no reason to—”

  “Smacked me in the face, that son of a gun did, coming out of Roberts’s room. My mind’s been hovering somewhere off the coast, Lavert. This could be it!”

  “It’s how white people talk,” Lavert said to Rashad. “He’ll spit it out in a minute when he filters it through his college education and comes up with the exact wording.”

  Rashad grinned at Lavert as if he might have found himself a new hero.

  “That bubba with the stupid hat who popped me in the mouth on Tuesday was coming out of Roberts’s room.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that lip, but I thought you’d come to it in your own good time. I see now that you have,” said Lavert, finding it nearly impossible to avoid imitating Rashad’s speech. “What was he doing in Roberts’s room? Don’t you think we ought to go ask him?” said Harry.

  “What did the bubba’s hat look like?” asked Rashad, who was beginning to have a sneaking feeling he didn’t want to know the answer. His Miss A spectacular might be hanging in the balance.

  “It was black, kind of like a baseball cap. Said Monopoly Special Services on the front. And Wayne Delivers on the back.”

  Uh-oh, thought Rashad, who would just as soon have the man whose wonderful video equipment he had lifted left undisturbed.

  “Let’s go find that sucker and throw the fear of Lavert into him,” said the big man.

  What a distressing development. Unless, of course, they took him completely out of the picture, in which case Rashad would have undisputed title to the camcorder and the editing controller and the…

  *

  The unfortunate young model who held the title of Kurt Roberts’s current girlfriend sounded like a rerun of Cindy Lou Jacklin, only younger. No, she hadn’t heard from Kurt. No, she didn’t know where he was. But if Sam found him, would she let her know? She really missed him and it had been ages…

  Neither was Louis, Sam’s favorite bellman, the one who had directed her toward Cindy Lou in Rich Uncle Pennybags Lounge, any help when it came to Roberts. He pocketed her $10, which matched the one Harry had given him, though he didn’t tell her that. He did tell her the same thing he’d told Harry. No one had seen Roberts since Tuesday afternoon. And yes, he was still registered as a guest.…

  It was time, thought Sam, to try Charlie in Atlanta.

  “You what?” he screeched when Sam reached him.

  “Want to find this judge who’s disappeared.”

  “Believe me, if a judge’s disappeared, they’ve got more than the Atlantic City PD on it. That’s federal, honey.”

  “A Miss America judge, Charlie.”

  “Oh.” She could hear him chewing on a pencil. “That’s different. So, why do you want to find hi
m?”

  “Because he’s missing.”

  “You wanta tell me about this from the top?”

  So she did.

  “And the real reason you want to find him is to win a $1500 bet. Am I right on this?”

  “No. I want to find him because I think something awful has happened to him, and no one can find him, and no one seems to care.”

  “Sammy, listen, do me a favor. If you call the Atlantic City PD, don’t use my name. I have friends there—Captain Kelly, in particular. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Charlie—”

  “You’ve lost it this time, doll. Go work on your suntan, eat some saltwater taffy, fight with your boyfriend.”

  “He’s the one who thinks Roberts is fine.”

  *

  The tapes and the equipment were nowhere to be found. They were gone for good. Wayne sat in his black calf chair exactly like Mr. F’s and tried to think like Mr. F. Now what should he consider here? Who would want to trip him up? Who would want to make a fool of him? Who had been sniffing around?

  Well, there was Big Gloria. She’d been sniffing, but that was probably because she wanted his body. She was just acting interested in his various activities because that’s what women did to show you they had the hots. They didn’t like to just come right out and say it. Well, he could solve that little problem.

  And who else?

  Well, now, Wayne, that was obvious, wasn’t it?

  The only question was, should he torture the info out of him first, make him give back the tapes and the equipment so Mr. F wouldn’t be mad at him, or could he just off him?

  No contest, but sometimes it paid to use a little of what Mr. F called discretion.

  How discreet did he have to be, though, before he erased Dougie?

  *

  “Wait a minute,” said Lavert, as he and Harry strode down the long green carpet back to Wayne’s office like gunslingers.

  “We don’t get back there, the man’s going to be gone for lunch.”

  “Have you thought this thing through? If this Wayne dude, the one who poked you, was sneaking out of Roberts’s room, it is highly likely that any info he might give us might be negative rather than positive.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, Zack, that it might lead us toward a conclusion that would result in our losing our wager.”

  “You mean, we might find out he did something to harm one Kurt Roberts?”

  “Exactly.”

  “In which case, we would lose the $1500.”

  “My point.”

  “So what are you suggesting?” asked Harry.

  “Only that we realize that if we extract some knowledge—”

  “You’re still talking like Rashad, my friend.”

  “—that might lead us to a conclusion that would make us unhappy, we ignore it.”

  “Don’t tell Sammy.”

  “Don’t tell no one.”

  “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “Dead men doze. Especially unpleasant dead men that don’t nobody else in the whole wide world except us give a rat’s ass about.” Lavert looked downright professorial when he raised his eyebrows and tucked his chin.

  “Don’t go borrowing trouble.”

  “Sticking your nose in.”

  “Gimme five.”

  Lavert lowered his tall frame, and the old friends bumped knees, hips, elbows. Wearing big smiles.

  27

  “She’s the kind of girl who would wear red high heels to a funeral,” Lana said to Rae Ann, pointing at Connors McCoy across the dressing room. The girls had just finished rehearsal and were changing back into street clothes.

  Rae Ann thought the red heels sounded like more like Lana herself. “Honey, why don’t you like Connors?”

  “Because she’s a snot.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “I do. After she won swimsuit Tuesday night, I went up and congratulated her. Now, did she do the same when I took it last night? Unh-uh. No sirree. She’s too busy hugging that colored girl.”

  When Lana had told Sam that not all the girls were sweet, these were the two she was talking about. They’d rubbed her the wrong way from the first night.

  “But, Lana, Magic won talent, and she’s Connor’s best friend. She probably just got carried away.”

  “All I know is, she better not get it in her head she’s gonna win just because she took swimsuit. I took it, too. Besides—” Lana brushed at her platinum curls, watching herself in the mirror. “—redheads never win. Of course, the coloreds have been winning the past few years.”

  Rae Ann wondered if Lana had forgotten that she was a blonde, and a contestant too. And she’d won talent, plus Fruit of the Loom. She wasn’t happy with the way Lana talked about Magic, either. Yankees made that mistake a lot, assuming that all white Southerners were naturally racist.

  “Oh, I just wish the Jersey Devil would drag them both off. It’d serve them right,” said Lana.

  “What Jersey Devil?”

  Lana turned on her stool. “Right up the road, headed toward Philly,” she pointed with her brush out to sea, the wrong direction, but she didn’t know that, “there’s this huge forest where crazy people live. Pineys, we call them, ’cause the woods are the Pine Barrens.”

  “What do you mean, crazy?”

  “They’re like retarded country people living out in the woods.”

  Rae Ann knew lots of people who’d lived in the country back home in South Georgia—like her family. She wouldn’t call them crazy or retarded.

  “Nobody in his right mind would drive out there at night,” Lana insisted. “It’s bad enough in the daytime, all those little roads, you can get so lost. But at night, that’s when the Jersey Devil makes his move.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No, really! There was an article in the paper not too long ago, the state police found its footprints. Huge ones. It carried off a bunch of animals. All that was left were little bits and pieces of them. Dogs and cats and ducks.”

  Rae Ann wasn’t very impressed. Wild dogs did that back home all the time.

  “And little children.”

  “Children? Come on, Lana. You don’t believe that, do you?”

  “I most certainly do. I read about it in the paper. There was this woman a long time ago named Mrs. Leeds who lived in the Pines. Anyway, she had twelve children, and she didn’t want any more, and she said if she had another one, she hoped it was the devil. And she had another one, and it was. When it grew up, it flew away on its wings. And it can jump like a kangaroo. Chews up anything living. People in the Pines hang a light to scare it off. At my house, up in Sea Girt, we leave the porch light on every night.”

  “Sounds like the loup-garou to me.” That was Magic, who, along with Connors, was on her way to get some lunch. “People out in the bayou hang a sieve on their back porch because the loup-garou will have to stop and count every one of those holes, and in that time, you can sling salt on them and that sets them on fire.”

  “Hi!” smiled Rae Ann. “Why don’t y’all sit down for a minute?”

  Lana didn’t even look up; she just kept brushing her hair.

  Magic didn’t take it personally. She was getting used to Northerners’ strange ways, their mamas didn’t teach them any better. She went on with what she was saying. “In Louisiana they warn little kids: You better be good or the loup-garou’ll get you.”

  “Like the bogeyman,” nodded Rae Ann.

  “Yeah, except he’s worse than that. He’s half-wolf, half-monster. Actually, he’s a werewolf who haunts the bayous.”

  Lana sniffed. Bayous. Loup-garou. Colored girl would use some fancy words nobody’d ever heard of.

  “So do you become a loup-garou if one bites you?” Rae Ann was up on her werewolves.

  “That’s one way. The other is sometimes people just make themselves into a loup-garou because they want to do evil.”

  Lana turned from the mirror and gave Magic a look:
Who was she talking about?

  Magic caught that one and thought, Shoe fits, chile, you wear it.

  Rae Ann wanted to know how you turned yourself into a werewolf.

  “They rub themselves with voudou grease.” Magic laughed. “And they are bad looking. Hairy with big ears and sharp nails and bright red eyes. Like that.” Magic pointed at Connors’s scarlet cowboy boots.

  Lana looked at Rae Ann. See? Those red high heels she was talking about?

  “They are hell to get rid of. Bullets’ll go right through them,” said Magic. “And they have bats big as helicopters to carry them around. One of their favorite tricks is to drop down your chimney and stand by your bed and yell, Gotcha! Scare you to death, if nothing else. They’re thrifty devils, too. Sometimes they turn themselves into mules and work their own land.”

  “So how do you get rid of them?” asked Connors.

  “Well, there’s the sieve trick, with the salt. The other way is to get yourself a nice frog and throw it at ’em. They’ll run off howling.”

  Lana snorted. “I never heard such a bunch of crap.”

  “Well, you can say what you want to. But I’m telling you, you think your Jersey Devil’s something, you ought to listen up about the loup-garou. Those who don’t are sorry.”

  Was Magic threatening her? Lana narrowed her eyes. You go threatening a DeLucca, you’ll eat your words.

  “Listen. I’ll tell you a true story, about a loup-garou and a beauty queen.” Magic’s smile was something to behold.

  Connors and Rae Ann made themselves comfortable. Lana picked up her mascara.

  “Over in Cajun country west of New Orleans, which is where lots of loup-garoux live, there was, not so long ago, a beautiful girl named Danielle. She had milk-white skin, a heart-shaped mouth, big brown eyes, and black curls that fell halfway to the ground.”

  “And she was pure as the driven snow,” said Connors.