The Immaculate Deception

by Sherry Silver

  I stepped off the bus at the Vienna Metro station. I bought a fare card from the vending machine and waited for an orange line train into DC. I assimilated in with the commuters and lucked into a seat. I removed my portable word processor from my bag and opened a new file. I began a stream of consciousness rambling of my family disaster, trying to make sense of things.

  Hmm…it all started with me wanting to go to the writers’ conference. But Daddy called and I was preoccupied and hit the deer. Had I gone directly to my parents’ house, Momma wouldn’t have been stashed in a mental hospital. And she wouldn’t have subsequently disappeared. I might’ve been forced to take her or Daddy into my home as a permanent houseguest. Well, in hindsight, I would only have had to endure Daddy and the emotional homicide he so frequently committed on me for a few days until his number came up.

  Had I taken in Momma, I would certainly know where she is now. She would be here to defend her heir apparent status and Tammy wouldn’t have cleaned out her house.

  Would’ve—could’ve—and yes, I should have. I should have been the family gatekeeper and taken charge. I honestly don’t know if I would have gotten on the plane to New York or gone to Little Mount Vernon.

  The train operator mumbled something about what the next stop was. Couldn’t understand his accent. The woman next to me got off, so I moved over to the window.

  What’s up with this counterfeit money? Perry must’ve gotten it from one of our collective parents. It must have meant something to him. And now Dick had it. And I certainly didn’t want to get in his way. He had killed for it once before. He must be on some kind of revenge trip against the Payne family because Chloe got his parents busted. And now he’d set the whole police force after me. I’m innocent. Honest, your honor. Perry dear. And what was up with him? He was all spacey. And what was he thanking me for? Why was he attempting to distance himself?

  All right, Tammy said he was acting funny as well and he wanted her to open up a semi-bogus bank account. Was he going to buy a paper cutter and go ahead and deposit the dubious duckets? Was he that dumb in his greediness that he didn’t understand how stupid that would be? And he was willing to sacrifice his own sister, Tammy, if things went awry? Well yeah, that part I could understand. All of this was causing the Payne family to turn on itself. Divide and conquer. Man, if Daddy were still alive, he’d enjoy these shenanigans. He probably thought it up and put the wheels in motion. Too bad he didn’t live to enjoy it.

  I crammed my keyboard back into my bag and slumped down in the seat. Orange seat. When was Metro ever gonna update their cars? I thought about Vera Blandings’ shagadelic carpet. The portrait of the pirate, Momma and her connection to him. He’d raped her, the bastard. Maybe he was the father of one of the “other children born to this mother” as documented on my birth certificate. Perhaps that was why Momma never told me about them. But who was the father of the second child then? Perhaps Momma’s first husband, that good-looking bearded guy from the hospital. What was his name? Mike Something… Bull. No. Taurus. That was it. Mike Taurus. Since he was with her at one of the births, I bet he was the dad of at least one. Perhaps the other kid was Bill’s. What happened to them? Where were they? How old were they? One must be…umm…around sixty. I had a geezer sibling somewhere in the world. Maybe two geezers. They probably had grandchildren by now. I might have been a great auntie. I didn’t even have any kids of my own. And at this rate, never would. I sighed.

  I detrained at Washington Union Station and trotted into the station. At one of the kiosks, I used Momma’s credit card to buy a train ticket on the Silver Meteor to Miami, departing at seven thirty p.m. Why Miami? Why not. It seemed to be a recurring historical dream location, so I reasoned I might as well. I couldn’t go home. One of the Fiddlers would nab me. Plus my mate had told me that Momma used to hide in Miami. Perhaps she did again. Old habits die hard.

  They announced my train.

  I dashed into the newsstand to purchase a magazine. I always read magazines on flights, might as well have something to read on the train. I stood behind a businessman at the cashier. Overhead, a TV monitor was set to the local news station. I glanced up. A photo of the shell of Little Mount Vernon was splashed on the screen with the caption Harrison Heights House Fire. I jumped back in disbelief. Brick and block didn’t burn but the roof and pillars were gone. I read the closed captioning.

  Shortly after nine a.m. this morning, District of Columbia Firefighters responded to a fire on Nixon Court in the Harrison Heights neighborhood. Flames were shooting through the roof of the two-story brick single-family dwelling. No one was home at the time. The homeowner, retired physician Nathan Payne had recently expired. His wife, retired Secret Service agent Chloe Lambert Payne, has not been seen since her release last week from Saint Christopher’s Mental Hospital. The cause of the fire is undetermined at this time. Mrs. Payne and her daughter, identified as Orpha “Donna” Payne of Reston, are being sought as persons of interest in this case.

  They thought I had burned the house down! Wait a minute. Perry called to thank me. Oh my gosh! He thought I burned the house down for the insurance money. He thought I did it, so he and Tammy would have more loot to split.

  Hey, how come Momma and I were the only suspects? What made Perry and Tammy Teflon-coated? Hmm…who had I irritated recently? The tax assessor? Nah, he was just doing his job. I was sure he took lots of mouth from greedy heirs. Hmm…the realtor. Calamari. Carla Calamari… Could she have torched the place? Mad because she didn’t get her sale? Or maybe she just seized the opportunity of the fire to step up and whisper to the cops, to get back at me… Cops. Officer Dick. He’d said he made sure I got framed for everything. Everything meaning arson? And he had mentioned heat. Sure that was some twisted reference to the fire. Man, I really walked into his trap. Nice neighborly Officer Dick. I wanted to run far, far away. There was a killer on the loose whose jolly hobby was framing me.

  I paid for the magazine and then nervously waited in line at the gate and followed the parade down to the platform. I gave the conductor my ticket and asked about upgrading. He told me to go ahead and sit in compartment 7A and he’d send the car attendant around to take care of the paperwork. I did love a conscientious employee.

  It was nice to have a private little compartment, just two blue seats facing each other. They folded into a bunk at night and an upper berth also folded down from the wall. A nice glass door kept the noise from the aisle out. I closed the scratchy blue curtains for privacy.

  The whistle tooted twice and we jerked forward. I kicked my shoes off and settled in. If the train stayed on schedule, I would arrive safely in Miami, Florida, in twenty-three hours and twenty-five minutes.

  My life was totally bizarre now. I was on the run from the law, suspected of arson and dirty cops had framed me. And here I was just sitting on the train, feeling helpless.

  I wondered if they’d be chasing me on the train. Like in the movies. I could duck into Pullman berths and pull the emergency break and climb onto the top of the train and run, dropping to my tummy just before a tunnel while Officer Dick got whacked off just like that coyote in the cartoons. Yeah. How about Tammy and Perry getting whacked as well? Oh and Cynthia, my lovely boss lady? And all those New York literary agents who rejected me. The cadence of the locomotive lulled me into closing my eyes. I heard a little tiny melody in the cadence of the pistons rocking.

  I couldn’t make out the tune. Nothing really formed. No sparkly colors, no forward irresistible force propelled me into his arms.

  It was all right I supposed. After that last dream I didn’t know if I wanted to revisit my Mr. Jones. I could still see Vera choking to death. My mate said things were going to get worse before they got better. I supposed being framed for counterfeiting and arson was worse.

  I heard a knock at my compartment door. It startled me. I meekly said, “Yes?”

  “It’s Douglas, your car attendant.”

  I peeked out the curtain. Yep. His nametag read D
ouglas. I unlatched and slid the door open.

  “Hello, ma’am. If you’ll give me your credit card, I’ll take care of the upgrade now.”

  My hand shook as I handed him Momma’s card.

  “I’ll be straight back.”

  I tried to control my breathing in the eternity it took for him to return. I was prepared to be thrown from the train. Or whatever they did to bad girls.

  He startled me. “Here you go. Just sign here. This is your meal ticket, when they call for first seating, just walk on through to the dining car and they’ll seat you. Make sure you take your ticket. Dinner and breakfast are complimentary for our sleeping car passengers. Would you like me to bring you a cup of coffee or something from the bar, Mrs. Payne?”

  I whistled out a “No”.

  “Will you be watching the movie after dinner?”

  “Um…I don’t know.”

  “When would you like me to make up your bunk?”

  Oh why did he have to ask such hard questions?

  He said, “While you are at dinner?”

  “All right.”

  “Let me know if I can do anything at all for you.”

  “Thank you.” I accepted my receipt and meal ticket. “Is it possible to buy a toothbrush and toothpaste onboard, Douglas?”

  “I’ll bring them when I make up your room. Or do you need them now?”

  “That’ll be fine. Thanks.”

  He nodded, closed the door and left.

  Well, I was leaving a paper trail. Momma’s paper trail. I wished she would leave one. I stuffed the receipt down in my bag, inside her checkbook. I took it out and thumbed through. Good grief, did she have a lot of credit cards. And magazine subscriptions. Poor Momma. Probably thought she could become a millionaire if she subscribed to enough periodicals. With their sweepstakes. Okay, I didn’t want to see this stub. To Tammy’s apartment. She was paying Tammy’s rent. Not that I was surprised. Oh and look, a four-thousand-dollar check to Perry.

  I felt my blood boiling. Well, not actually but I was angry. Did I really want to flip through the rest of the sordid stubs? Yes. Here she was paying the utility bills, fine, at least these seemed like they were for her house. Wait a minute. Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority? What the? Why would Momma be paying for a water bill in Florida? The little subject line had Make Believe Island written on it. Make Believe Island? She had said something to Sinatra about Make Believe Island in my dream. It must be a real place.

  The loud speaker interrupted, “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please? I’d like to welcome all sleeping car passengers with dinner tickets marked one to please come down to the dining car now.”

  Fine. Might as well. I shoved Momma’s checkbook back into the bag and heaved it onto my shoulder.

  ~*~

  Dinner in the diner wasn’t so bad. I had the fish and a salad. The complimentary white wine helped calm me a bit. I was seated with a woman and two toddlers. They didn’t speak English.

  I decided to check out the movie in the lounge car since it was announced to be How To Marry A Millionaire. The Marilyn Monroe flick from the early fifties. I thought Vera Blandings was in it but it turned out to be Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall instead. Really uplifting, fun movie. Maybe Ashley and I could lure some millionaires to our townhouse. Yeah, right.

  I would have enjoyed it more had I not kept remembering I had held MM’s ovary and fallopian tube. Damn you, Daddy. You had to put all kinds of screwy things into my mind. Even from the grave. I couldn’t just enjoy an old movie. One of these days when I finally found an editor to take a chance on me, I’d put my off-the-wall life experiences into a twist of fiction and entertain millions. I saw the world differently from most normal people. How could I not with the life I’d been dealt. Dysfunctional was way too weak of a word to describe the Payne family.

  I swayed with the cadence of the train and meandered back to my roomette. It had been converted for sleeping by transforming the seats into a bunk. Douglas had made good on his promise, so I picked up the toothbrush and toothpaste from the white pillow and dashed off to the restroom. No line, I did what needed to be done and swayed back down the moving corridor to my compartment. I locked the door, drew the interior drapes and flopped down on the white sheets. I left the curtains to the outside window open and watched the world streak by.

  The couple across the hall in 7B was noisy. I peeked out. The light was on in their compartment. The woman pulled her blonde ponytail off. She was nearly bald under the wig. My heart sunk. Poor woman. Must be a cancer patient. God bless her.

  I closed my eyes and tried to think about my next move. Nothing. I couldn’t get the image of the wig out of my head. Wig… Like the ones Tammy had in the round boxes in her closet. She had kept her stage makeup and wigs. Might as well, I’m sure Momma had paid good money for them. Darn her hide. Why did Tammy have to go and change jobs, making Momma pay for another school for her? Selfish little girl.

  ~*~

  Thursday evening, I detrained in Miami and took a cab across the causeway into the City of Miami Beach, arriving at the Fontainebleau Hilton Hotel before nine o’clock. As I waited in the check-in line, I heard a boisterous old bellhop. His slight British accent perked my ears. His face reminded me a little of someone I’d seen before. They must not have mandatory retirement here. The bellhop spoke to a younger co-worker. “You should go home and have your wife make you a big pot of chicken soup. Chicken breast, carrots, onions and celery. That’ll take care of the flu. And some Pedialyte. You know, the stuff for babies? You need to get your electrolytes back in balance. The house doctor that used to work here, I asked him one day, how much he charged. He said, ‘Fifty bucks a pop and I see about thirty patients a week. I give ’em pills but all they really need is Pedialyte and chicken soup. The pills just make ’em happy. Don’t really do nothing’.”

  I was next up in line after Mrs. Johnson got her room rate in order. There seemed to be a problem relating to her repeatedly making but not canceling internet reservations, which resulted in her inadvertently booking four rooms.

  “Hello.” The old bellhop was greeting me.

  I smiled back at him. “Hello.”

  “Where’re ya from?”

  “Virginia.”

  “Oh beautiful country there. I have a timeshare in Colonial Williamsburg.”

  I smiled again. “Are you the one who was talking about chicken soup?”

  “Yes. The guy came to work with the flu. I told him to go home and get the wife to make chicken soup.”

  “Best thing for it.”

  “Oh so you know about it. You must be a nurse?”

  “No, a nurse’s daughter.”

  “Have you seen the show in our Club Tropigala?”

  “No, but I’ll try to catch it.”

  “And we have a cover band, a Rat Pack tribute group in the evenings, right across the lobby. The real Rat Pack used to perform here. Back in the days when you couldn’t come through that revolving door without a coat and tie on. Yep, I was here from the first day. I had just taken an early out from the Secret Service when the hotel began hiring. I was a concierge when we opened in 1954. Took care of all the big names. Who was your favorite?”

  “Lucille Ball.”

  “Oh lovely girl. Big tipper too. Yep, she did a little show in that three-hundred-seat theater. It wasn’t called the Tropigala then. Who else do you like? We had the Beatles, Sinatra…”

  “What was he like?”

  “Not nice. I took care of his mother, his son, his daughter. Knew ’em all. Guess how many cigarettes he smoked a day?”

  I shrugged vacantly.

  “Four packs. Sammy smoked seven. Dino, three. And you know what? They’re all dead now. Don’t you go and take up smoking, young lady. It’ll kill ya.”

  “Do you know anything about the Make Believe Island?”

  The old boy’s face lit up. “Do I know it? I guarded Harry S. Truman there, during the second war. He was Vice President, h
unkered down. Me and the cutest little gal agent posed as a couple of honeymooners in paradise for our cover. We fell in love.”

  “Where is it?”

  He wiggled his finger and I followed him over to the concierge desk. He produced a map from behind the counter.

  “You have a car?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. What you do is get a cab to take you down Route One along the shoreline. You stop at this little public park,” he circled it, “then rent a boat. Sail southeastward, between Virginia Key and Key Biscayne. Oh shoot, you’ll never find it. When do you want to go?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m off tomorrow. I’ll take you. It’ll be nice for a stroll ’round memory lane.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I inquired at the front desk about shopping. Conveniently enough, I just had to take the lobby escalator downstairs to the boutiques handily located under the hotel. The shops were closing up, so I had to hurry. The fitting rooms were my friends as I discovered I was now a comfortable size ten. Loose even, in the pants. I bought a little black dress, a pair of white capris, white blouse, three pairs of cotton panties, one bra, some exercise wear and a black and yellow tankini. The small selection of shoes didn’t fit me. I was wide-footed because of my fat flat feet and the bunion.

  I toted my purchases up to the seventh floor and hung them in my room. I plopped down onto one of the queen-sized beds and picked up the phone on the nightstand. I dialed my home number and punched the appropriate keys to check my answering machine.

  The robotic voice announced, “You have three new messages.” Wow. Three.

  “Message one.”

  “Yes, this is Elizabeth Claytor of Really Good Books. I’m calling for Orpha Donna Payne regarding your manuscript, Hundred Dollar Bill. My number is two–one–two, five–five–five, thirty–four hundred.”