Magoddy in Manhattan

by Joan Hess

  “Catherine and Frannie,” I said humbly. “Who else?”

  “Well, there’s nice Mr. Pilverman, who was naked in Ruby Bee’s bed. He’s a mannersome sort, a widower, and you can tell from looking at him that he’s not keeping company, not by a long shot. No woman in her right mind would let him wear that shoddy old raincoat out in public.” She paused, her good eye sweeping over me like a liposuction tube. “Not that old, either. Nothing to write home about, but kind of attractive and real polite. You might take to him.”

  “Then he’s not dead?”

  “Of course he ain’t,” she said with a snort. “They finally got the telephones fixed a while back, and Geri called to say that he’s gonna be just fine. In fact, as soon as they get him patched up, he’s coming back here so we can get on with the contest.”

  I looked up at her. “And Ruby Bee?”

  “Geri couldn’t find out anything. She said she and Kyle were gonna go down to the police station to see if they could fetch Ruby Bee, but she didn’t sound real optimistic.”

  “Kyle,” I said, zooming in on the next name. If we continued at this rate, we might be ice skating at Rockefeller Center if and when Ruby Bee was released. “Who’s Kyle?”

  “Kyle is the son of the KoKo-Nut company president. He’s a scrawny thing with oily hair and ferrety face, sorta like that cousin of Kevin’s who was in prison. That sure was a lovely ceremony, wasn’t it? I heard Mrs. Jim Bob was all hissy about Dahlia wearing white like she was a virgin, and there ain’t nobody gonna argue she was, not after—”

  “Do you mind?” I said in an admirably controlled voice. “The contest is being run by a couple of kids, and in a hotel managed by a third. The contestants are Pilverman, who’s been shot, Ruby Bee, who shot him, and a sulky kid, who can’t tolerate monosodium glutamate. You and the girl’s mother are along for the fun. Is that everyone?”

  Estelle put her finger on her lips, tiptoed to the door, and eased it open. After a peek, she closed it and tiptoed back to the bed, although we’d been conversing in normal voices all this time (and she’d squawked more than once).

  “There’s one more,” she whispered. “Her name’s Brenda Appleton, and she’s with her husband, Jerome. They’re next door in 221. She’s kind of a featherbrain, always blithering about her girls in California and her house on Long Island and how she volunteers at the library and plays bridge on Wednesday afternoons. It ain’t hard to figure out why her daughters moved all the way across the country. She’s lucky they stopped when they came to the ocean, instead of renting row-boats and heading for China.”

  “And her husband?”

  “He doesn’t say much. He’s short and tubby, and his hair looks like freshly vacuumed shag carpet. He wears thick bifocals that make him look like a toad, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his tongue was long enough to snag a fly. I can’t quite put my finger on him, but he sort of reminds me of the oldest Nookim boy. You know, shifty-eyed and most likely thinking awful things about people. Not saying ’em, mind you—but thinking them all the same.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “And he was sneaking peeks at Geri whenever his wife wasn’t watching him. He didn’t have to say what he was thinking then. No, it was smeared all over his face like cupcake icing.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, “I think I’ve got everyone sorted out for the moment. Now, what exactly happened last night? Where were you?”

  “Well, we all gathered in the lobby and ate off paper plates. Not everybody, now that I think about it. Brenda’s husband said he had work to do and went up to their room. Catherine said she was feeling poorly on account of the sawdust, and she left in the elevator with Jerome. Oh, and one of the contestants hasn’t arrived. I disremember the name, but a female. So on one side of the lobby was Ruby Bee and me, Brenda, Geri, and Kyle. Durmond Pilverman was sitting on a sofa next to Frannie Vervain, who was so busy trying to cozy up with him that she tumped chop suey in her lap.”

  “And …?” I said.

  Estelle stepped over my bag, navigated through their impressive quantity of suitcases and canvas bags, and stopped in front of the cracked mirror over the dresser. Once she’d made sure her hair was intact, she began to apply lipstick with a heavy hand. “And Geri said that the kitchen would be cleaned so the contestants could take turns trying out the oven and making sure they had all their pots and bowls. That was supposed to happen this afternoon, but Geri didn’t plan on Ruby Bee shooting anybody and that awful mess with the police all night long.”

  “If you don’t stick to the story, I’m going to take that lipstick tube from your hand and use it as a weapon,” I said sharply—and sincerely. “Most of the group were in the lobby. At some point, Geri mentioned a rehearsal scheduled for this afternoon. Presumably, everyone came upstairs for the night.”

  “You can presume anything you want,” Estelle retorted archly, then stopped and cocked her head. “Do you reckon that’s the elevator?”

  “I don’t care if it’s a newly installed escalator to heaven. What about last night?”

  She opened the door, popped her head out, and with a squeal, vanished into the hall, leaving me to ponder how much damage I could do with a tube of Strawberry Soda Gloss.

  “Will the meeting come to order!” Mrs. Jim Bob said, tapping on the desk with a pencil. “Elsie, just pass the cookies along and stop picking at them. Eula, I thought you agreed to take minutes? You’ll have to find something to write with, won’t you?” She turned next to Joyce Lambertino. “We’ll need another pot of coffee.”

  Joyce obediently went to the back room of the PD. She was there only because Jim Bob had bullied her husband, Larry Joe, into promising that she—not he—would come. That meant Larry Joe was obliged to babysit the kids, so it wasn’t the worst thing ever happened to her. She wasn’t real comfortable, since the others looked ready for church and she was wearing jeans and a faded sweatshirt, her hair back in a ponytail. “How many cups shall I fix?” she called.

  Mrs. Jim Bob rolled her eyes for the others’ amusement. “The whole pot, Joyce. Arly should be showing up any minute, and Brother Verber assured me this very afternoon that wild horses couldn’t stop him from coming to our meeting. He was so inspired by the opportunity to go to war against Satan that he went by Raz’s shack to size him up. I expect him any second with a report so we’ll know who and what we’re up against.”

  “Raz Buchanon is who we’re up against,” Elsie said, peering more closely at the plate of cookies. The lemon ones were out; the tiny candy sprinkles always caught under her dentures. But chocolate gave her heartburn, and the sugar cookies looked stale. She poked one. It was harder than a lump of salt, just as she’d suspected.

  “I know that,” snapped Mrs. Jim Bob. She was irritated with the poor turnout for the first meeting of her committee, which she intended to call Christians Against Whiskey, as soon as everybody voted for it. Jim Bob had made up a flimsy story about having to be at the supermarket, although she’d seen right through that and let him know she’d stop by to make sure he was there. Eilene Buchanon had refused flat out, saying she had to stay home to wait for a call. Millicent and her husband were more interested in television than the mortal souls of the youth of Maggody. She’d gone so far as to invite the mothers of the three boys who’d been so disgustingly drunk, so they’d find out what the good citizens of Maggody thought of the way the boys had been reared without regard to solid Christian values. They’d declined—every last one of them, and in outright offended voices.

  While Mrs. Jim Bob waited, she began a mental list of those who’d made it clear which side of the devil’s fence they were on. It never hurt to keep a tally.

  In the back room, Joyce got the coffeepot to gurgling, then, in a spurt of daring, slipped out the back door. It was so quiet and calm that she felt like she was in a cathedral. She wouldn’t have been surprised if a monk stepped out from behind the lilac bush and started chanting away in a low, singsong voice. For a few minutes, she was a million miles away from her
never-ending housework, screaming kids, whiny husband, leaky washing machine, blaring television set, not to mention Mrs. Jim Bob and the other self-righteous committee members busily telling each other how sinful everybody else was and how nigh unto saints they were. Joyce figured she was the one who deserved a halo for putting up with them.

  Way up on the slumbering blackness of Cotter’s Ridge, an owl hooted. It wasn’t a monk, but it was the best Maggody could do on short notice.

  “Jesus!” Marvel said as he kicked the side of the station wagon. “What kinda cars are they makin’ in Detroit these days? No wonder the Japanese are running us off the road. Jesus!”

  He took a knapsack and a carton of milk from the car, kicked it once more, and took off down the road, asking himself why he even bothered to steal American cars. There wasn’t anything patriotic about having to walk on his own two feet like an army recruit.

  He drained the milk, crumpled the carton, and hurled it at a squirrel at the base of a tree. “Have yourself a feast of cardboard, my fuzzy little man.”

  The squirrel, having chanced into a scattering of cracker crumbs, failed to acknowledge the missile as it sailed over him and landed in a mass of poison ivy.

  Marvel continued to hike along the rocky road, determined to have a fine time and not to think about what his mama would do when he got home. He still couldn’t believe that Dwayne and Terence had fingered him for the holdup at the liquor store—and that not one of the lily-white, myopic librarians could back up his story. All he’d gotten in return for three hours of reading up on dead presidents was a warrant for his arrest—and a sudden desire to visit Monticello. Maybe Tommy Jefferson might have some suggestions how to go about keeping his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

  “Could we get back to the story?” I said, amazed that I could speak so clearly through clenched teeth. “What happened last night?”

  Ruby Bee lay on the bed, fanning herself with a church bulletin from her handbag. I almost felt sorry for her. Her dress was stained and wrinkled, and her hose looked as though she’d staggered through brambles. Her face was pale, her hair chaotic, her eyes pink and vague. “It was terrible, just terrible,” she said wearily. “The only thing that might help is a cold can of soda from that machine by the elevator.”

  Estelle sat down on the edge of the bed and patted Ruby Bee’s arm. “Arly’s on her way lickety-split to fetch you one. You just lie still and rest. Nobody’s gonna pester you to talk when anyone with an ounce of decency can see you’re smack out of spit.”

  As I said, almost sorry for her. I grabbed some change from the dresser and marched down the hall to buy the damn soda. Okay, so she was entitled to play the martyr, but so was I and nobody appreciated it. The airline ticket had cost me all of my savings and most of next month’s salary—if I got it. I’d stuffed clothes in a carry-on and driven like a charioteer to the airport to catch a plane with ten seconds to spare. I’d endured a cramped commuter flight, only to race to the opposite end of the terminal to catch a larger plane and be smothered for nearly three hours by Toledo Ted. I was in the middle of the one place I didn’t want to be, and there was no way to ignore its omnipresence outside the hotel.

  I jammed coins into the slot, pushed a button, and bent down to get the damn can out of the tray. No damn can rolled into reach. I banged the plastic facade, which in no way resembled my ex-husband’s face. “You sorry son of a bitch,” I growled, pulling back my foot to kick it like it’d never been kicked before.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said a morose voice from behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder at the man in the doorway. Despite his shabby bathrobe and bare, hairy ankles above slippers, he was intriguing enough to stop me from breaking a toe or two. The bathrobe hung oddly, and after a moment, I realized it was draped over a sling supporting his arm.

  “Are you Durmond Pilverman?” I asked.

  He nodded, smiling just a bit. “I’m sorry to say I am. Were I an employee of this hotel, I would take it upon myself to kick that machine for you. However, I am merely a guest, and all I can do is suggest you try the machine in the lounge below. The light was flashing, which may indicate it works.” He sighed. “But very little works in this city.”

  “I’m Arly Hanks, daughter of your … assailant,” I murmured, confused by his gallant little speech, and less than pleased to be caught in the act of attacking a mindless machine. I was even less pleased that I was doing so in a grimy outfit that had looked much better seven hours and two thousand miles ago. “I’m … uh, glad you’re okay, Mr. Pilverman. I still have no idea what’s going on, but it’s encouraging to know Ruby Bee didn’t …”

  “Please, call me Durmond. A silly name, I know, but my mother had a brother with such a name who was killed in a car wreck, and she was a very determined woman. I should have half her determination.”

  I liked his chuckle, his quirky smile, his eyes that were as placid as pond water. Hell, I even liked his hairy ankles. “I guess I’ll go down to the lobby and try the machine,” I said. “Can I bring you one?”

  “If you were to do that, I might spend the time searching for a functional ice machine. When you returned, I might invite you in for a drink and offer some enlightenment as to what took place last night.”

  “I might accept,” I said, reminding myself he was my mother’s victim, not a potential date.

  The machine in the lobby functioned nicely. Cradling four cold cans in my arm, I returned to the second floor and went down the corridor to 219. As I lifted my hand to knock, I heard Ruby Bee say, “I’m not altogether certain, but there’s something downright fishy about him.” She lowered her voice to a level inaudible to eavesdroppers and continued.

  Estelle gasped. “Are you saying he’s a—”

  The final word was drowned out by a sudden spurt of hammering from the floor above me. At least I hoped it was hammering, since it very well could have been a local version of Particular Buchanon engaged in a bit of de-Nazification. I waited for a moment, but the racket did not abate and I was beginning to imagine what it might feel like if the ceiling crashed down on my head.

  I knocked on the door and yelled, “It’s me!”

  The door opened. A hand plucked one of the soda cans from my arm. The door closed and the lock clicked sternly.

  “You’re goddamn welcome!” I went back to Durmond’s room and knocked once again. My reception was a good deal more cordial in 202, I must say. Durmond thanked me gravely, gestured to glasses, an ice bucket, and a bottle of bourbon on the desk, and shortly thereafter we were knee-to-knee on the twin beds.

  “Would you please tell me what’s going on?” I said, trying not to stare at the visible sliver of the sling, nor to be overly aware of his knee brushing against mine. As distasteful as it was to admit, Estelle had been right about Durmond Pilverman, although I’d read bedtime stories to Raz’s pedigreed sow before I ever told her as much. “Ruby Bee’s back, but she has yet to find a moment to tell me why she shot you.”

  “She didn’t shoot me. She did fire a shot through the door, but I doubt the police will do anything about that.”

  “Who shot you—and why were you in Ruby Bee’s … room?” I couldn’t quite bring myself to mention the most interesting element of the story.

  He studied me as he took a drink. “After dinner last night, I took a stroll around the block. When I returned, the elevator balked and I decided to use the stairs. It was a poor decision, I fear. It was very dark, and a punk was lurking in the stairwell. He requested my wallet, I declined, and he reiterated his request while waving a gun at me. I stupidly tried to knock it out of his hand, and it discharged, striking me in the upper arm and causing me to lose my balance and fall backward. At that point I lost consciousness. That’s all I remember of the incident.”

  “You were mugged in the stairwell?”

  “That’s an accurate synopsis,” he said gloomily. “There’s no security in the hotel, and the mugger must have slipped in while ou
r manager was away from the desk. I should have known better than to attempt to disarm the punk.”

  “But that doesn’t explain why you were”—I struggled not to allow anything to creep into my voice—“found in Ruby Bee’s bed without any clothes.”

  “No, it doesn’t, but for that I have no explanation. I cannot imagine why the mugger wasted the time required to drag me in there, disrobe me, and then drop his weapon on the floor before fleeing. Miss Gebhearn, who was kind enough to escort me back here from the hospital, related what Ruby Bee told the police. It seems she’d just come into the room and switched on the light when she saw me. Before she could stop gasping, footsteps thundered down the hall and fists pounded on the door. Without thinking, she picked up the weapon off the floor, and as much to her surprise as that of the officers in the hall, it went off.”

  “It went off,” I echoed numbly.

  “It was unintentional, I’m sure, and the officers finally came to accept her version earlier this afternoon, after I’d told them my story concerning the mugger. They traced the weapon to a pawnshop in Harlem. There was no way she could have obtained the weapon, should she have desired to do so, and it was of very poor quality.” He shook his head, as if depressed at the idea of being shot by a cheap gun. “Plastic, and with a loose trigger. What used to be called a Saturday Night Special, when in vogue. Now the children prefer more sophisticated weapons.”

  “Do the police have any theories how you ended up in Ruby Bee’s room? Did you get a good enough look at this mugger to assist the police artist? Did you go through the mug shots? Were there any witnesses in the lobby when he ran out the door?”