They talked about the things people talk about when they first meet: where they grew up, went to school, families. They also talked about their kids. Darleen explained about her decorating business. Michelangelo talked about pizza parlors. They both liked Italian food, hot jazz, great hotels, remote islands with nothing to do but lie in the sun and order silly drinks.
Then Michelangelo asked, “What were you doing when Angelo grabbed you?”
“I was going back to my room to find some shoes. I threw mine off when I started chasing Lana down fifteen flights of stairs.”
“Uh-huh. You mind if I light this cigar?”
“No, go ahead. You want to know why I was chasing her? I’ll tell you. Because I wanted to apologize for stealing her dress and planting razor blades in her hairbrush.”
Michelangelo was impressed. Acts of vengeance. Then he laughed. Lana, that silly twit.
“I was mad at her because I thought she was fooling around with Billy. Then it dawned on me he was the one I ought to be after.”
“Your vendetta was aimed at the wrong person.”
“Something like that.”
They walked for a while in silence. They were long past the glitz of the hotels, down toward the end of the seven miles of wooden strand, when toward them strolled, arm in arm, a couple of little clowns. One of them was dressed as a hobo, the other was in a polka-dot clown suit. Both of them wore whiteface. The hobo waved his cane as they passed. The other one croaked Good evening.
“Atlantic City.” Darleen smiled. “It’s not all bad.”
Michelangelo turned and stared at the clowns’ backs. There was something awfully familiar about that voice, that walk. But it couldn’t be. Nawh. He patted Darleen’s hand. “So what are you going to do if Billy does the right thing?”
“There is no right thing for Billy any more. It’s too late.”
*
Just like it was too late for Kurt Roberts and Dougie Franken. Kurt had been in the cedar-dark river longer, but both of them had slammed into logs and rocks, been cut by shells deposited by the ocean eons ago in the sandy soil, nibbled on by fish. Kurt had lost his nose. Dougie, his ears. Neither of them was very pretty.
It would be into October, a month after Miss America was crowned and all the beauties had gone home, before a two-day rain would wash the cedar water clear. Then a young man named Fordy, rowing his canoe, would sight first Kurt and then Dougie, far, far downriver from where they’d been dumped. The crystalline-pure water would reveal every blade of grass on the river bottom, every strand of Kurt’s hair, styled once upon a time on Madison Avenue, the insignia on Dougie’s gold ring from the Wharton School. But Fordy, whose family had been Pineys for four generations, knew that soon the water would flow cedar-dark again, and just because these outsiders had found their watery grave in the Pines, that was no reason to bring in more.
*
Up on the big stage, the 10 girls had gone through all their paces, and Miss America had paraded one last time to the strains of “There She Is” and waved farewell. Then she handed Billy and Phyllis the envelope that the man from Price Waterhouse had handed her. There was no delaying the moment of truth any longer. Billy Carroll had to make some hard decisions. Now.
Five names were printed on the card in big, black capital letters. The first was the fourth runner-up. The next two were third and second runners-up. Then he would read the last two names. The first was almost-won, first runner-up, who would become Miss America if anything, God forbid, happened to the young lady whose name was fifth on the card. She, number five, was the one who would take the long tearful stroll, an orchid-bedecked scepter in her hand, a rhinestone crown atop her curls, while Billy sang “There She Is.”
Now, if that was Miss New Jersey, Billy would be safe from Angelo. His kneecaps would be rescued as well as his wife.
However, that wasn’t what the card said. Miss New Jersey was not the fifth name.
But Billy was the one holding the card. He was the only one who knew what it said. Not even the judges, who’d turned in their scores to the men from Price Waterhouse, knew the final tabulations. Only the Price Waterhouse guys knew, and the way the show worked, quickly cranking toward midnight, the director right there giving him the “hurry up” roll of the finger, he’d call the first four names, they’d each pretend they were thrilled to death to come in also-rans, then the new Miss America would burst into tears, kneel to receive her crown, do the parade number, and the credits would roll. In the closing shot, if they had the time, she’d be on the stage surrounded by her joyous court of 49 losers. There simply wouldn’t be time for the Price Waterhouse guys to figure it out, come from upstairs, from out of the little room where they did the tabulations, and say, “Wait just a damned minute here.”
Of course, they would afterward, and Billy’s career would be blown to smithereens. He’d be known forever as the fool who’d tried to fix the pageant.
If he didn’t do it, Angelo would kill Darleen—and he’d inherit her money.
Goddamnit to hell! Why couldn’t the Jersey bitch have just won?
*
Out on the Boardwalk, Michelangelo checked his watch. Midnight was five minutes away.
Darleen smiled. “Does that mean one of us is going to turn into a pumpkin?”
“I hope not.” He turned her face toward his for their first kiss, nervous as a schoolboy.
*
“I can’t stand it another minute,” Sam cried, her fingers crossed. “I really do hope Rae Ann wins.”
“A hundred on Texas,” said the Inquirer.
“Oh, shut up!” But Sam shook on it.
“The fourth runner-up, and the winner of an eight-thousand-dollar scholarship, is Holly Shannon MacNeill, Miss California!”
Thank you, thank you, Ms. MacNeill mouthed to the judges as she crossed the stage and hugged Lynn Anderson, but Sam didn’t think she looked very grateful.
“The third runner-up, and the winner of an $11,000 scholarship, is Rae Ann Bridges, Miss Georgia!”
Well, so much for the lucky rabbit’s foot and Rae Ann, but she truly did look thrilled. Hoke would be crushed.
“The second runner-up, and the winner of a $14,000 scholarship is Lucinda Washington, Miss Louisiana!”
Magic would get her wish. Her performance tonight had been the most wonderful yet. The crowd had gone nuts. Magic was on her way to the big time.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, that leaves seven finalists,” Billy Carroll announced, and the camera panned the seven, holding hands, all smiling as if their lives depended on it.
Sam inspected the field. It wasn’t a tough choice. She’d be happy to pay the Inquirer a hundred bucks for Miss Texas to win. Go, Connors, go.
*
Wayne Ward might have felt the same way—if he’d been feeling anything, which he wasn’t. At least he’d have been torn between Connors and Lana. For it was Miss Texas, a homegirl from Tru Franken’s native state, whom Franken had met a few months earlier when she was breaking a bottle of champagne over the front door of a FrankFair down in South Texas. It had been obsession at first sight that had led to that fiddling and fixing, those tapes and cameras, the subliminal implants. Connors McCoy was Tru Franken’s favorite girl, or she had been before he’d gotten back on track with interest rates, falling attendance in the casino, loans due, long-range losses, shortfall. His FrankFairs weren’t doing so hot either in the recession. And money was his Big Mama. His main mistress.
Wayne had done all he could to make sure Miss Texas won, before he’d switched his allegiance to Miss New Jersey at the last minute. Not that it really mattered now. For with a little assistance, he’d driven his red Mustang off the old wooden pier down below the Albany Avenue Bridge into the Inside Thorofare, the deep channel that was dredged once a year—and that dredging had been last week.
By the time the cops would find him 51 weeks from now it would be impossible for the coroner to tell if Wayne had been unconscious when the red Mus
tang took the long roll off the short pier—or anything much at all.
Captain Win Kelly would tell the Atlantic City Press that it was a cold trail and a frustrating case. There’d be some muttering in a three-paragraph story in the Press, some young reporter remembering a connection between Wayne and the disappearances of Douglas Franken and Kurt Roberts, whose bodies had never been found and whom nobody really missed, except a few ladies with a taste for short men and/or abuse. By that time, Win Kelly would have figured it all out. He’d even give Sam a jingle late one night to run what-ifs by her. But the proof—that was an entirely more elusive matter.
*
Billy Carroll took a deep breath. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to read two names. The first will be the name of the first runner-up, who will receive a $20,000 scholarship. And that is—” Billy paused. His future, his fortune, his wife, and her life hung in the balance. And then he read exactly what it said on the paper. “—Lana DeLucca, Miss New Jersey!”
Lana shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t won. She’d come in second! What the hell!
“And now, the winner, the new holder of the title American women have aspired to for over 70 years, Miss America, Connors McCoy, Miss Texas, come and greet your subjects!”
There. It was done. Billy braced himself for the submachine-gun fire from the audience, but it didn’t come.
Instead, while the crowd roared, Connors McCoy, the new Miss America, turned toward Billy. She was supposed to walk over to Lynn Anderson to be crowned, but she didn’t. She took the microphone from Billy’s hand while he stared at her with his mouth open.
“Ladies and gentlemen, judges, Miss America Pageant, I’m so sorry,” Connors said. “I never thought in a million years it would come to this, but I can’t accept the crown.”
Over in the booth, the director was going crazy. Billy and Phyllis stood with their mouths agape. The orchestra was waiting to play “There She Is.” Television time, which cost hundreds of thousands per second, was running out.
“You see, I just thought it would be a wonderful experience—”
You most certainly did not, Sam said aloud. You started the whole beauty queen business as a joke on your mother and you know it.
“—but I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d win, so it wouldn’t matter. But you see, the Miss America Pageant has very strict rules.” The Convention Hall audience rubbed its hands, licked its lips, and sucked in its collective breath. Here came the dirt. Another Vanessa Williams scandal. “The rules say that Miss America can never have been married or convicted of even the tiniest misdemeanor—and, well, I’ve been both.”
The Inquirer had already reached for her phone. She was talking to an editor in Philadelphia and listening at the same time.
“When I was eighteen I ran off and was married for two days till my daddy had it annulled. And I was arrested for smoking marijuana at a Texas Aggies-LSU game.”
What the hell? Who hadn’t been? Awwwwwwh. No dirty pictures? No real smut?
“So”—Connors smiled her big smile, lifting that little beauty mark on her top lip that Kurt Roberts hadn’t liked—“I’m afraid, as much as I’d love to wear this crown, I’m not going to tarnish it with my transgressions.”
She bit down on that last phrase just a little too hard for you not to get the sarcasm if you had half a brain. Sam shook her head. Too much! The Inquirer was shouting into the phone over the roar.
Connors turned and grabbed the crown away from Lynn Anderson, then held it out to the Marilyn look-alike. “Lana DeLucca, Miss New Jersey! Girl, you’re Miss America! Come get this baby!”
The crowd, half of whom were from New Jersey, was standing on chairs, screaming, throwing programs and soft drink cups. This was as good as the Giants taking the Super Bowl in the last minutes with a field goal! This was excellent! This was stupendous! This was Jersey justice!
Billy Carroll fell headfirst to the stage in a dead faint.
Lana bent her knees and dipped down while Connors crowned her. Now that was more like it! And the faceless NBC announcer who’d begun the evening with Something fabulous is happening here tonight! got his big chance, Billy being unconscious. He belted “There She Is” so loudly his mama, out there in TV land, almost had a stroke while Lana DeLucca wiggled down the runway, her bosoms bouncing in her flesh-colored gown—Miss America, by God, and don’t you forget it!
Harry fought his way through the crowd. He swooped Sam up in a big hug, then laid a long, slow kiss on her. “It’s over. I love you, pretty lady. Now, you ready to go home?”
“And give Malachy Champion his autograph book? You bet. Right after Lavert’s lunch tomorrow, you put me on that plane, Music Man.”
“To New Orleans.”
“Unh-uh. Atlanta. I love you, too, Harry, but I’ve got to go home.” Oh, he looked so sad. “At least long enough to give Hoke my resignation.” On second thought…
Harry leaped three feet. “And then New Orleans?”
“We’ll talk about it later. But right now, sweet Harry, I’ve got to get to a phone.”
She almost got away, but Lavert leaped over the top of a row of chairs to join them. “You believe that jive? You believe that Connors? Girl cost me a bundle.”
“Who’d you bet on?” Sam laughed.
“Connors. Who you think? Magic said she was going to win.”
Maybe she did, said Sam. Maybe she got what she wanted.
Lavert shook his head. Women. Next time, he’d get it in writing. Spell it out. He punched Harry in the arm. “And you? What’d you lose, that mini-Marilyn won it with her hootchy-kooch?”
“The farm. Lost the farm. I bet on Connors, too.”
“But, guys! She won,” said Sam. “Connors really won.”
“I don’t know if that’s what the man’s gonna say, comes to pay-up day.”
“What man?” Sam gave Harry her fishy look.
“Man who wrote the book.”
“Book? Book? Who’d you bet with, Harry?”
“I bet with my man here, Lavert.”
“Lavert didn’t write any book. And he just said he bet on Connors, too. So how could he have bet with you?”
“Cookbook. I’m writing a cookbook, sugar.” Lavert gave her the big grin.
“I hate you both. I hate you when you do me like this.”
“Do you like what?” Harry reached over, but she slipped away. She really did have to file her story and talk to Hoke.
Harry turned to Lavert, both of them following her to the phones. “Man, what do you think? How does that work? Could we have still won the bet with the pizza man?”
“Unh-uh. It’s like a replay. We lost. New Jersey won.”
“New Jersey. The lovely Miss DeLucca.” Harry whistled a couple of bars of “I Want to Be Loved by You,” her song, and did a passable soft-shoe. But nobody could do Lana’s wiggle.
Lavert was thinking about it. “Naw, Texas, man. Texas really won. The girl folded, but she was Miss America, man. She was perfect.”
“Hey!” Sam yelled from the phone. “Give it up. Nobody’s perfect.” Then she smiled a Miss America smile, warm and winning, into the receiver, just like the magazine said she should. “Hoke, I’ve got some bad news and some worse news. Which do you want first?”
She Walks in Beauty Page 33
