“That’s Yolande Betbeze.” The Inquirer was pointing at a short brunette with a wide sensuous mouth, deep into her fifties. In a white blouse and navy slacks, she was the only former Miss A who wasn’t dressed for a cocktail party. She was the one Malachy had talked about, his favorite from Alabama who’d told the pageant to take a hike because they didn’t like her liberal politics. Sam dug for Malachy’s autograph book.
She’d almost reached Yolande when she ran smack into Dr. Mary Frances DeLaughter and her tape recorder.
Mary Frances’s color was high, her red halo atremble. “Isn’t this exciting, all these artifacts in one room?”
“I don’t think I’d say that aloud, Mary Frances.”
“Well, they are! You just hardly ever see so many American icons simultaneously! I don’t know where to begin.”
Sam backed off, not wanting to be anywhere close to Mary Frances when she did.
“And by the way”—Mary Frances whirled just before Sam escaped—“last night I checked a bibliography, and you’re right, you didn’t write that book I was thinking of.”
“Gee, Mary Frances. You know, I didn’t think I did.”
“But I did find that series you did on the serial murderers in San Francisco. The one you won a prize for.”
“Yes?”
“I read it all and didn’t like it one bit.”
“Hey, thanks, Mary Frances. Thanks a whole bunch.”
But Mary Frances was gone, hot on the trail of Marian Bergeron, Miss A 1933. Marian was the one who at 16 had almost punched out the backstage director who had tried to remove her swimsuit in his rush to get her into an evening gown. Maybe she’d punch out Mary Frances.
“Is Dr. DeLaughter your new best friend?” The Inquirer laughed.
“My latest candidate for burning at the stake. Except she’d love it. I’m sure the woman’s into pain.”
“Come on over here.” The Inquirer grabbed Sam’s arm. “You don’t want to miss the Cheryl Prewitt Salem Show.”
She certainly didn’t. She’d been hoping for a peek at Miss America 1980 and Rae Ann’s idol. And there she was, holding court at a table against the wall. Four reporters were already hunkered in, bug-eyed.
It was easy to see why. For starters, there were the diamonds. Rocks sparkled at her ears, her neck, her shoulder, her wrists, and, most of all, her fingers. Sam looked over the shoulder of one young blonde reporter who wore jeans and not a smidge of makeup to see that she had sketched into her notes the had-to-be-10-carat marquise-cut hunk of ice on Cheryl’s left hand, surrounded by smaller diamond paving stones.
Cheryl was explaining about her work with the Oral Roberts ministry. She’d always sung for the Lord, ever since she was a little girl. She was already doing that when she was in the car wreck, she and some neighbor kids, that threw her right through the windshield and cut up her left leg so bad it was two inches shorter than the right.
A girl with a limp, she kept right on singing and witnessing for the Lord. Then when she was a teenager and decided she wanted to enter beauty contests back home in Mississippi, it occurred to her one evening to ask the Lord, in a prayer meeting, to heal her leg.
And He did. Cheryl can prove it, can show you the medical reports, because she had just been for a checkup a little while before the healing. The reports show that left leg, two inches shy of the right.
But even with both feet firmly on the ground, the way had not been easy for Cheryl. No, sir, she’d started out trying to win Miss Choctaw County, and try as hard as she might, she never did. But she kept on and eventually won Miss Starkville. Then there was no stopping her. Miss Starkville streaked right on through to Miss Mississippi and the Atlantic City crown.
Sam could see why Cheryl was Rae Ann’s heroine. They had a lot in common.
Except whereas Rae Ann had decided that she wanted to repay the pageant system, which had done so much for her, by designing evening gowns for other pageant girls, with Cheryl it was swimsuits.
This very minute Cheryl was explaining the suit designed by Ada Duckett, which was worn by four swimsuit winners in a row at Miss America—and two of them, Debbie Maffett and Cheryl herself, actually won the crown. The Supersuit, they called it.
And when Cheryl went into the swimsuit business herself, not only did Ada Duckett (who offered a two-hour seminar on how to put on a suit) come to work for her, but she gave Cheryl the Supersuit—now one of her very proudest possessions.
Did Cheryl do anything else with her time? Other than take care of her two children, her husband—who was also with the Oral Roberts Ministry—write inspirational books, make inspirational tapes, cut inspirational recordings in Nashville? Why, yes, she did. She also produced a line of pageant shoes—the clear acrylic ones girls wear with swimsuits. There’s a pump, a sandal, and a sandal with rhinestones.
Cheryl said to come on by the trade show, if you wanted to see them. “If they give you any trouble at the door, you just mention my name.”
Sam vowed she’d do that very thing, tomorrow maybe. But right then, though she doubted that any of them could be as much fun as Cheryl, she scanned the room for other favorites, like Bess Myerson.
Now, there was a woman with a swimsuit story. The one and only Jewish Miss America, and a tall, leggy one at that, had been too long for the suit the pageant gave her. It rode up. Bare cheeks were not the fashion in 1945, and Firm-Grip hadn’t been invented yet. So Bess and her sister stretched and stretched the thing, and ended up sleeping in it.
But poor Bess, her life had become a nightmare involving a younger lover and her reputed attempt to lower his alimony by bribing a judge with a job for the judge’s wacko daughter, who then testified against her mother, the judge. Bess wasn’t going out much these days.
But here was another opportunity, little Barbara Stein, plowing through the mob full steam ahead. Sam stepped into her path. “Barb, I was wondering if you could tell me who took Kurt Roberts’s message when he called to say he had to leave town?”
To Barb, Kurt Roberts was day-before-yesterday’s catastrophe. Today she was worried about Dexter Dunwoodie and his Shame Girls, who were still picketing outside. They were threatening to block the Boardwalk Saturday night, in an effort to gain national TV coverage. “What’s Roberts to you?” she said, probably more sharply than she meant to.
“I’m doing a story on judges, and I can’t believe someone would forfeit this opportunity.”
The little redhead’s mouth twitched for a moment, then she spit, “Lois Eberhardt. She’s never gotten a message wrong in fifteen years. Call her in my office. Tell her I said peanut butter.”
“Peanut butter?”
“Today’s code. It’ll clear you. But don’t try it tomorrow.” She marched off, a little general scanning the horizon for gunfire.
Peanut butter. Sam hadn’t heard one she liked as much as that since Richard Nixon’s plumbers.
Then she spotted another familiar face. It was Kay Lani Rae Rafko, the nurse/Miss A who’d been interviewed in the movie Roger and Me. Sam was dying to ask her how she really felt about the autoworkers in Michigan, but before she could make her way through the crush, Cindy Lou loomed over her.
The former Miss Ohio looked like something the cats drug in. Cindy’s chrome-yellow silk jumpsuit played hell with her complexion, though it probably matched the bruises behind those shades she was still wearing.
Cindy Lou stood right in her face. Hands on her hips. Feet wide. Sam stepped back.
“Keep them away from me,” Cindy Lou spit.
“Whoa! Keep who? What are we talking about?”
“Keep your boyfriend and that huge friend of his away from me, or I’m going to have the whole bunch of you charged with harassment.”
Uh-oh. What were Harry and Lavert up to now?
“And don’t give me those big innocent eyes. I know what you’re doing. I know the rumors you’re spreading around. I know you’re telling people I had something to do with Kurt’s leaving town,
and now everybody’s looking at me funny, when the truth is, I don’t have a clue where Kurt is. And I don’t care either. But I know what my rights are, and I know that your editor is going to be very interested to know that you’re making up stories when you can’t find one, spreading rumors and lies. I hope your paper has good insurance, honey!”
“Well, does it?” asked the Inquirer from behind Sam as Cindy Lou stomped off.
“It has Hoke Tolliver,” Sam grinned. “My managing editor would love to get his hands on old Cindy Lou. Literally. Which reminds me, I ought to give him a call and his daily report on his honey Rae Ann.”
But inside, Sam wasn’t so flip. For just a hunch (and a bet), she and the guys were nosing around pretty hard. It wasn’t as if Cindy Lou didn’t have her own problems. They ought to call off the game, kick back, chill out and forget about Kurt Roberts. Everybody else had. She’d file her silly stories. They’d all have a good time.
That was her plan. Right after the peanut butter.
29
Okay, the way Wayne saw it, things had gone to hell in a handbasket. He had to consult with Mr. F, and quick.
Here it was. Cindy Lou, the tall drunk in Roberts’s room, was onto the subliminals in her room, ratting out to the woman reporter in 1801 about ’em. Big Gloria was sniffing around his bod, which was good, but jawing all the while about cameras, which wasn’t. There was the missing equipment—plus that tape of Mr. F’s favorite girl waltzing down the runway. That was the biggie. Plus that other special tape he’d made for Mr. F’s own personal viewing pleasure. And Little Dougie was busting his chops, never easing up, giving him no breathing room. Pushing pushing pushing like those little dudes always—no, he couldn’t say that, Mr. F wasn’t so tall himself. And now, now, this was the last straw, that reporter woman’s boyfriend and this gigantico jigaboo come sniffing around about Kurt Roberts. Leaning on him real heavy, like they really knew something.
They’d snuck up on him in Action Central, tapping on the door politely, pretending they were cops.
*
“Detective Leonard, Major Crime Squad, Northfield Barracks,” the big jig said, flashing a badge that looked like he’d bought it in a FrankFair toy department.
Wayne was close. Actually, the badge was part of one of Lavert’s Carnival costumes, the one where he dressed up as Black Bart who used to recite poetry while he was robbing stagecoaches out West. Bart wasn’t really black, but nobody in New Orleans knew that. Or cared.
“Detective Dutch.” That was the curly-headed reporter’s boyfriend, saying that was his name. Which it wasn’t.
Wayne called him on it. He said, “You think I don’t know who you are? You’re staying in 1801, asshole.”
“Which means?” The boyfriend bit down on his words real hard and narrowed his eyes like smoke was curling into them. Like Robert Mitchum in that detective movie Wayne had rented a couple of months ago. Like he thought he was cool.
“Which means you ain’t no cop.”
“Why does the fact that I am staying in this hotel mean I’m not a cop?”
Well, Wayne wasn’t exactly sure. But it didn’t seem like a cop would be staying in a suite with a reporter.
“We have reason to believe that you have some information about the disappearance of one Kurt Roberts,” the big jig said, holding out a notebook.
In it, Lavert had started scribbling possible menus for the lunch he was going to cook for Michelangelo et al on Sunday. He was thinking about quail and polenta. He was thinking about a veal stew. He was also thinking about surprising Ma completely and doing an old-fashioned red sauce Italian that would beat the socks off Ma’s mom’s cooking, and he’d heard Angelina Amato was no slouch in that department.
“Yeah?” said Wayne. “I don’t even know no Kurt Roberts.”
“The gentleman staying in 1803? I myself saw you coming out of his room Tuesday afternoon.” That was the boyfriend—who either was or wasn’t a cop. Who was choosing not to mention that was also the afternoon Wayne had laid into him pretty good.
Wayne said, “Yeah? Well, you know, security’s my job.”
“Indeed,” said the jig. “Could you explain to us exactly what it was you were doing, securitywise that is, in Mr. Roberts’s room?”
“Securitywise, I was checking on the locks.”
“Really? That’s part of your duties, here in operations, to check on guests’ locks?” The jig looked like he didn’t believe him.
“Yeah. He said he was having trouble with ’em.”
“And you fixed the problem,” said the boyfriend.
“Yeah.”
“Did you notice anything unusual at the time?”
“What do you mean, unusual?”
“Oh, you know—” said the boyfriend.
And then the jig finished for him. “Puddles of blood where you did him when he surprised you lifting his room.”
“Fuck you, Jack.”
Lavert didn’t even think about it. He just pulled back his right fist, then laid it across Wayne’s jaw. That was roughly the equivalent of getting smacked by one of the cinder blocks that held up the boards that supported Lavert’s considerable library back home in the French Quarter.
If Lavert had thought about it, he would have broken Wayne’s jaw. As it was, Wayne was sprawled on the floor, out cold.
“That one’s for you, bro,” he said to Harry as they let themselves out.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“No, I mean, I wanted to do it myself.”
At that, Lavert stopped dead in the hall. “We can go back. You can stomp on his ribs for a while.”
“Nawh. I’ll take a rain check.”
*
Wayne didn’t know any of that last part, of course. He didn’t know anything past when he said Jack.
What he did know, now, was that ice helped the pain. He was using equal parts on his jaw and in his Scotch.
And what he thought was that this business was getting to him—even if they weren’t cops. Making him think he ought to ask Mr. F if it wouldn’t be the best thing if maybe he walked away, which he’d always been so good at doing, till this thing was over, till after Sunday anyway. Then they’d all be pulling out faster than the Miss America Special, and things would quiet down again. He could just go back to maintaining surveillance on the high rollers in their rooms. Wayne knocked back the last of the Scotch.
Yep, he was going to tell Mr. F everything, Take it to the Lord in prayer, as his friend Thelma Thirty used to say when she had a snootful. Lay out to Mr. F his failings and transgressions and fears, the ones that woke Wayne up, night sweats in the small hours, ask for his forgiveness and his advice. Hoping he’d say something in that way he had, like, Look on the bright side. Everything’s coming up roses. No use crying in your beer. Mr. F had the most original way of talking. It gave you a whole new perspective on life.
If only he could get past Mr. F’s assistant—and he didn’t mean Dougie this time.
There was this new girl who’d popped up at the executive reception desk. Young and juicy but prissy, too—kind of like one of those Miss America girls. Like I’m the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen and I’ve got tatas out to East Jesus, but if you touch me I’ll scream and sic the cops on you.
Her name was Crystal.
Wayne had walked over to Mr. F’s office while he worked all this out, and now there was Crystal sitting at reception. With hair so black it looked like it’d leave a mark on your hand if you touched it. Hair twisted up on top of her head. She was wearing a black dress with a collar that came up to the very tippy-tip of her chin, but the bottom of the dress, well, if it was any shorter, you’d see France.
“Mr. Franken’s in a meeting,” she said.
“So, tell him I’m here and it’s an emergency.” It really hurt his mouth to talk.
“Your name?”
Like he hadn’t told her at least a dozen times. Was she stupid, or had
she been taking lessons from Dougie? Maybe she was Dougie’s girlfriend. She was about the right size, and she’d popped in right after he did.
So he asked her. He said, You Dougie’s squeeze?
She looked at him like he’d asked her if she picked her nose or chewed her toenails. But she didn’t answer his question. Instead, she said, “Mr. Franken is not to be disturbed.”
“Says who?”
“Says he. And I say I can smell booze on you, and you know that is strictly against the rules—drinking on duty. The Gambling Commission is very strict about these matters.”
What he’d like to do right now was pop her one across the mouth. Instead he said, “And I guess you’re going to narc on me to Mr. F.”
“I didn’t say that. Excuse me.” She turned to a buzzer that she seemed to think was calling her name. Ummm-humh. Ummmm-humh. Then she said to Wayne, “Mr. Franken is going to be busy for the rest of the day. Top-level meeting. You can wait if you want to, but you’ll be wasting your time.”
Oh.
So there Wayne was now, stomping around out on the sidewalk that ran back from the Boardwalk between the Monopoly and the Convention Hall. Some fresh air might help him figure out his next move. Maybe he ought to just walk anyway, call Mr. F from a Motel 6 somewhere, tell him things were too weird—
“Hey, Wayne. Man, you know, that number we did? Funny thing, I got another guy’s interested in it, too.”
What? It was Dean, the guy from the equipment van. The one who’d tapped into the Miss America show for Mr. F. But he wasn’t supposed to tell anybody else about it. Wasn’t that why Wayne gave him the $300?
He said that to Dean, but Dean said, Hey, it was cool. This other guy was connected. Didn’t talk to nobody. Dean gave Wayne a big wink.
Connected to what, Wayne asked.
Like, connected, man. Hey, what happened to your face? Somebody pop you?
Wayne looked all around, then said the words out of the corner of his mouth, what he thought Dean meant. Connected to the—you know?
Shhhhhhh. Never say that aloud.
She Walks in Beauty Page 22
