I could have gone for the eggs benedict again, but that cost two dollars more than two poached eggs served with peppers, onions, potatoes, and some kind of tomato coulis, whatever that was. It came with chicken, which any short-order cook will tell you is not breakfast food. I ordered the poached eggs anyway. Of course, I could have bought anything I wanted, but no matter whose money I spend, where I come from, the Great Depression is still going strong, and naturally I have got built-in principles about money.
While I was waiting to be served, I wondered where Nozzle Nose was—sleeping or reading a book. We got in so late the night before, I doubt if he took the dogs to a pet hotel. Maybe the Peninsula accommodated dogs. If not, chances are he slept with Lucy and Desi in the Rolls.
I took my time eating and watched the people coming in for breakfast. They were all well-heeled, in that big-bucks class that wear FedEx watches. Most of them looked like they were on the run, but there was this one weasel-faced man come in with a swivel-hipped girl in a miniskirt, and they were in no hurry, mainly because he wasn’t up to it. One of them May and December marriages, maybe. Else he was her sugar daddy. Married or not, that bimbo kept herself busy making eyes at a businessman at the next table. To his credit, the businessman kept his nose in a newspaper and didn’t give her the time of day. A man like that don’t get where he got being stupid.
Percival didn’t show up in the lobby before I finished eating, so I signed the bill. Glancing at my watch I figured I had time to go up to that spa they have got on the two top floors.
That was something to see! The spa was all enclosed in glass and made me feel like I was up in the clouds. People were working out on exercise machines, and according to the postcard there was a lot more than that—massages, manicures, skin care, steam baths, classes in relaxation, nutrition, you name it—even refreshments.
What bowled me over was the swimming pool. It reminded me of that picture of the Taj Mahal Beatrice has hanging on the wall of their RV. The hotel pool looked just like that one in front of the Taj Mahal. In my day I could have swimmed it from one end to the other, but not anymore. From that sun deck I got a good view of what the postcard called the “Miracle Mile.” No miracle about it—just one fancy store after another, restaurants, and who knows what else. If you ask me, if you can’t get what you want in a discount, hardware, or grocery store, you don’t need it.
I glanced at my watch again and decided I better get back to see if Mrs. Winchester was awake. When I got back to the suite, the maids met me at the door. One look at their faces and I knew something was wrong. “What’s the matter?”
Mozelle pointed to the bedroom. Uh-oh, it’s her.
Mrs. Winchester was not only awake, she was almost historical. “Esmeralda, Percival called from the police station!” The phone was ringing. “Answer it—that’ll be him.”
It was Nozzle Nose, his voice pitched so high he was screeching. “Calm down, Percival,” I told him. “Now, what’s the matter?”
“It’s Desi. I took the dogs to walk in Lincoln Park, and Desi’s gone!”
“He just run away like before?”
“No! Desi saw this female dog and struck out after her.” I didn’t know a man’s voice could go that high. “That female broke away from her mistress and took off with him! I tried to give chase but couldn’t—Lucy refused to run after them and I couldn’t leave her.”
“What are you doing at the police station?”
“I’ve been assaulted. That female is an AKC Samoyed show dog worth a fortune, and her owner lost her mind, screaming and beating me over the head with her umbrella. Police came and took me to the police station to swear out a warrant for her arrest.”
“Where’s Lucy?”
“Right here with me. Please, Miss E., if that Samoyed doesn’t come back there’ll be the devil to pay! You’ll have to find her. The police won’t let me leave until they get a deposition from me and I pay a fine—a public nuisance fine.”
“A deposition?”
“Yes. To bring charges against that woman for assault and battery.”
“Percival, pay the fine, drop the charges, and take a cab back here.”
“But don’t you understand—that purebred Samoyed is a National Champion show dog! And Desi—if I don’t get him back, Philip Winchuster will fire me!”
“Calm down, Percival. Don’t Desi always come back?”
“Please, Miss E., find those dogs or that woman’s going to sue the Winchusters.”
“All right, now where is this Lincoln Park?” I asked him. He straightened up enough to tell me how to get there and exactly where he was when all this happened.
I don’t mind telling you, I was about as scared as a body can get just thinking about going out in that strange city looking for two runaway mutts in a park that was probably full of weirdoes. I told the maids what was up and that I’d have to go, but Mozelle asked me to wait a minute. I think she called security or somebody, because when she hung up she told me, “One of the bellmen is going with you. He’ll take you to Lincoln Park in one of the vans and stay with you until you find the dogs. He’ll be waiting for you right in front of the main entrance.”
What a relief!
That was one nice young man. He whipped through traffic like a pro and was obviously looking forward to this as some kind of adventure. “I do this all the time,” he told me.
“What? Look for dogs?”
“Dogs, cats, husbands—anything that gets lost, we track ’em down.”
I wasn’t so sure that was the truth, but at least it was encouraging to hear.
When we reached the right place in the park, I saw plenty of weirdoes sprawled on benches, stumbling around, going through trash cans—bag ladies, druggies, winos, loonies—and there was no question who the owner of that Samoyed was. She was so historical she was standing on a picnic table screaming, “I’ll sue! I’ll sue!” with a bunch of them homeless people gathered around watching her. Then I saw a television remote crew was driving up. I had to do something right away or the Winchester name would be on the evening news. I jumped out of the van and hurried toward the crowd.
“Coming through! Coming through!” I yelled, and seeing I was somebody important, the crowd parted. That woman was in her pajamas and was wearing a raincoat with her feet in bunny slippers, looking about as trashy as anybody in the crowd.
“What color’s your dog?” I hollered.
“White! White!” she screamed.
I turned to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen!” Since they weren’t doing much anyhow, it wasn’t hard to get their attention. “Here we got two dogs missing, and there’s a big reward for anybody finds the white one. Her name is…” I turned to the owner.
“Samantha! Her name is Samantha!” the woman screeched.
I turned back to the crowd. “There’s a fifty-dollar reward for the white one—her name’s Samantha, and when you find her, the other one will not be far behind. His name is Desi.” I didn’t have much faith that they could do anything with Desi, but knowing how much fifty dollars meant to the homeless, if Samantha could be found, they would find her. They slowly started moseying away, but one by one they must have realized what I had said, because they mustered a little more energy and commenced hollering out her name.
As it turned out, it didn’t take them long to find her. Within half an hour, here come a wino holding Samantha by the collar and practically dragging her to where we were at. The dog was so dirty she didn’t look very white, but that woman grabbed her, hugging and kissing her. I waited to see if she would think to pay the reward or if I would have to. Well, she didn’t so much as thank me, and the man was standing there with his hand out, so I dug down in my bottomless pit and took out my wallet.
“Here, hold my pocketbook,” I told the bellman, and I counted out five ten-dollar bills to the wino. He grinned from ear to ear. “Wait a minute,” I said and reached for my pocketbook. “This is from Jesus,” I told him and handed
him a Gospel of John. Then all the homeless in earshot wanted one. I guess I passed out five or six. With one Gospel left, I offered it to that rich woman. “It’s a Gospel of John,” I explained.
Well, land sakes, you’d think I had offered her a rattlesnake. “No, thank you!” she said and stormed away toward the street.
The wino was tugging at my sleeve. “Fifty for the other dog?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Here he comes now.”
Desi was wet all over and muddy from the tip of his muzzle to the tip of his tail. There was no telling where he had been or what he had been up to, but I had a pretty good idea. If I was right about that, it was good we were traveling and would be miles away when the blessed event took place.
We got Desi in the van and headed back to the hotel.
By the time we rolled up in front of the Peninsula, Percival had arrived with Lucy. He looked terrible—his nose was all swole up, and there was dried blood on his little mustache. That lady had really whacked him good! He had a lump on his head the size of my fist. One lens of his glasses was cracked, and that made him look cross-eyed. He was so bedraggled I told the bellhop to see that his clothes were sent to the cleaners and that his glasses got fixed. I also asked the bellhop to get Desi cleaned up. He said he would and got another fellow to help him with the dogs.
“Now, Percival, you go up to your room and call for an ice pack. Lie down a while and when you feel like it, give me a call.”
All that taken care of, I parted company to go up to the suite and tell Mrs. Winchester what all had happened.
13
Mrs. Winchester wanted to hear the whole story, and her mouth dropped open as I was telling her everything that had happened. Once I finished, she commenced giggling, and the more she thought about it, the funnier it got to her. I managed to get tickled too, now that it was all over.
We were still laughing when the phone rang. It was Percival, and he sounded as woebegone as a body can get, which was no wonder; he had really been put through the wringer. Even so, with good reason he was anxious to get on the road. “Ask Mrs. Winchuster, if she has no objection; I would like to leave as soon as possible.”
I repeated his message, and Mrs. Winchester agreed that we needed to get out of Dodge before we got slapped with a warrant or something. “Tell Percival we will leave in the morning.”
I told him that, and he thanked me. “Now, Percival, did you get that ice pack?” He said he had, so I told him to take care of that lump and to call me if he needed me.
“Miss E.,” he said, and I know this was hard for him to say, “I don’t know how… how to thank you for all you did today.”
“Think nothing of it,” I told him. “You just take care of yourself. And, Percival, if you’re not up to driving tomorrow, I can help you out.”
How could I know that idea would throw him into a panic—but it did. His voice shot up so high it could have broke the sound barrier! “Oh no! No, that won’t be necessary.”
Without the Rolls to take us anywhere, this meant Mrs. Winchester and I had an afternoon and evening left to ourselves.
I did ask her if she wanted to go to a cemetery or something. “We can take a cab.”
“No, I’ve been to Chicago many times, and I’ve seen all the graves I want to see. Al Capone’s is one you ought to see. He’s buried in Hillside, which is not far from here. You would understand what the epitaph on his tombstone means—‘My Jesus Mercy.’” But before I could say anything, she rattled on, “I ordered a pedicure. Would you like to have one? They’re coming to the suite.”
“No, thank you.”
“They have a lovely afternoon tea in the lobby if you’d like to enjoy that.”
That sounded okay, but I told her if I ate in the afternoon it would spoil my appetite for supper. What I really wanted to do was have time alone to read my Bible and pray. “If there’s nothing you need me for, Mrs. Winchester, I’ll just go to my room. I have a few things I need to take care of.”
It was wonderful having an afternoon free, but I hardly got settled in my room when, as you might guess, the phone rang. It was Barbara wanting to know how things were going. Since this was long distance, I gave her a short version of the excitement we’d had in the park, and she got a big charge out of that. Then she asked, “How’s Mother doing?”
“She’s fine. Right now she’s having a pedofile,” I said. “Sunday we went to a little country church.”
“To church? I can’t believe it. Did she like it?”
“She loved it.”
“Oh, Miss E., that’s great!”
“How are things at Priscilla Home?”
“Same old, same old. The new director stays in her apartment a lot, which is fine with the rest of us.”
“She’s not sick?”
“No. Rumor has it she’s nipping.”
“Now, Barbara, that’s nothing but gossip; you know how I feel about that. Try to put a lid on that before it gets out of hand.”
“Okay.”
“How are the Ringstaffs?”
“Oh, they’re great. Mr. Ringstaff still comes every day. We’re studying Ephesians, and it’s just wonderful. Lenora brought us a new hair dryer and gave us a concert the other night.”
Barbara was pretty bubbly, which gave me a good idea that Nancy was keeping up morale. But it worried me that the girls didn’t like the new director. I wanted to ask how the money was coming in, but Barbara wasn’t the person to ask.
Hearing about Priscilla Home made me blue, and the feeling stayed with me all afternoon until it was time to change and get ready for happy hour.
As it turned out, Mrs. Winchester didn’t stay in the bar as long as usual. Since we were leaving early the next morning, I figured maybe she had the good sense to hold down on her drinking so she wouldn’t be hungover and too bent out of shape to travel. We went to the Avenues, a restaurant next to the lobby that overlooks a park. “It’s the Water Tower Park,” she told me.
If I was to say what I thought of the decorating in the restaurant, I’d say it was done in very high-class Chinese art, and even though I had been turned off of everything Chinese by them Charlie Chan movies Beatrice and I used to watch, I liked what they done in the Avenues. In addition to the pretty panels and stuff, there was this out-of-this-world kitchen open to the public where you could keep an eye on the chef and everything that was going on in there. That I liked.
Even so, foreigners eat stuff we Americans don’t, so I wasn’t going to take a chance on ordering something foreign that would make me break out in a rash and itch for the rest of the trip. Why they don’t write menus in plain English is beyond me. I spotted the word salmon and decided to order that. I could eat the salmon and leave off anything they served with it that I didn’t recognize.
Since we had to get up early the next day, I felt it my duty to get Mrs. Winchester to eat food along with what she was drinking, because that would help keep her from getting soused. So as I studied the menu, I acted like my mouth was watering over everything on it. She fell for it and ordered everything from a sushi appetizer, which is one thing I would not put in my mouth, to a full-course dinner of Oriental seafood and some kind of red wine.
“I always stay in the Peninsula when I’m in Hong Kong or Singapore,” she was saying.
“You been to China?”
She nodded, but she must have not got much out of it because when I asked her how she liked it, she said it was depressing.
Her sushi was arranged to look like a flower on the plate, and she dived right in to gobble it down. Expecting her to gag or strangle or keel over dead, I could hardly keep my mind on what she was telling me. “I read in the newspaper that Philip tried to buy into these Peninsula hotels, but they wouldn’t let him.”
As for the wine, she polished that off in no time flat, and the waiter swooped down on her like a vulture to pour her some more. I gave him a look that would wilt a dandelion, and he got my drift. She finished eating the sushi, b
ut she didn’t keel over or nothing.
“The Japanese must not allow foreign investors,” she said.
“Japanese? I thought this place was Chinese.” So, the Japanese won’t let that money-grubbing Philip buy into their business. They’re smart, those Japanese.
Well, we got through the meal okay. Mrs. Winchester ate everything on that platter and didn’t fall out from it. After I finished my salmon, I studied the dessert menu, but, like I say, it was not wrote in English. So I waited until she made her choice, banana crème brûlée with milk chocolate ice cream. That sounded okay, so I ordered that too, with coffee. Mrs. Winchester wanted Irish whiskey in her coffee. So far she seemed to be holding her liquor okay, but I never knew when another drink would tip the balance.
Even when we were back in the suite she seemed okay, but by the time we were ready for bed, she started carrying on like she did before. Only this time, she seemed to forget that business of having had a wonderful childhood. “You know, Miss E.,” she said, “nobody has ever loved me… but that hasn’t affected me in the least. I’m a well-rounded person, don’t you think?”
Well, I sure couldn’t agree with her about being well-rounded; that is, unless she meant her figure. She was plenty well-rounded in that department. But I know she meant her personality was not affected by not being loved. Nothing could be further from the truth, but, land sakes, I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong.
“Well, Mrs. Winchester, my mother always told me that love begets love. You love somebody else, and they will love you back. If nobody ever loved you, maybe it’s because you never loved anybody else.” I realized too late that sounded blunt, but it had just popped in my head to say it.
Mrs. Winchester stared at me and didn’t say anything for a long time. I was afraid I had hurt her feelings.
As it turned out, I hadn’t. I think she was debating whether or not to tell me what she finally whispered. “I love Philip.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather! How could she ever have loved a man like Philip Winchester, knowing he only married her for money? I couldn’t say a word.
Land Sakes Page 9
