Fadeaway Girl (22 page)

I stood on the pavement outside the Woodruff house after Morris Slade had driven off in his red sports car, and I sort of seized up, the way an engine does, the way the engine of Dwayne's truck did once. Or it was like getting a muscle cramp. I could not seem to get to the next thought. Maybe this was really writer's block, even though I wasn't writing.

I just stood there staring into the gray light. Everything looked rinsed by rain, not clearer and brighter, but sadder. When a thought did come, it was of the Waitresses. It was strange to me I could not remember how many there were. Usually I saw three of them. But it could have been four or five. They probably did not all come at the same time, yet I always saw them together, a flock of bright birds, flying into my small life and then flying away.

I had to get my feet moving toward the hotel. When my feet did move, it was with an old person's shuffle. I just didn't want to go much of anyplace. I wanted to lie down in the grass or lean against the fence and do nothing, except think over what Morris Slade had said. Or not said.

“That's pretty terrible, Emma. When did all of this happen? And to whom? The little Devereau girl was drowned, you said. Ben Queen's daughter. And Rose.” He looked away at that, his cigarette busy with an ashtray that stood on a tall brass pillar. “An attempted murder? Whom did that happen to?”

“Me.”

I told him the story, in every bit of detail I could think of. I must, he said, have been terrified, and yet I'd been almost unbelievably self-possessed.

I agreed.

“And Ben Queen saved you?” Yes. He thought for a long time. “Ben Queen is a good man. I never did think he killed Rose. He loved her too much.”

When I say he fell silent, falling is a lot like what it was, as if he had been up here in the half-light and then suddenly dropped into something murkier and far more troubling.

“That's what I thought too,” I said, and then found myself in the same troubled waters. I felt things were hard for him, and couldn't bring myself to mention the Belle Ruin again.

But he did: “The Belle Ruin. Is that part of your story?”

My mind quickened, and I said “Yes” before he could change his. “A big part. It's the most mysterious thing that's ever happened around here.”

He smoked and looked at me for a while. “You've got a theory, haven't you?”

“Well . . .” I looked off through one of the long windows where I made out the thin silver threads of a spider's web. Where were my roundabout ways? Why weren't they helping me now? A tiny spider dangled from the end of a thread. My vision seemed to have increased by about a thousand percent.

He said, “There were a lot of theories. One was certainly that the kidnapping never happened.” For the first time he picked up his glass and drank.

All that came to mind was that Lola Davidow would never have let a martini sit idly by that way. “I know; I heard that too. And that Mr. Woodruff paid off the police not to investigate.”

He just looked at me. Then he said, “It really did happen, though.”

“There was never any ransom demand?”

“No.”

 

We sat for a little bit in silence and then he glanced at his watch and apologized and said he had to go; he had an appointment.

I realized, after the car drove off, that I had missed my golden opportunity. Why hadn't I asked him why he was back in La Porte? What had brought him here? Oh, he said he'd be glad to talk to me again, that, very briefly, he and his wife had never found out what happened to their child and it had been awful, the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

So I plodded along, irritated with myself.

But then I thought, Morris Slade hadn't really wanted to talk about the kidnapping or about Baby Fay.

You can't hang around in Tragedy Town for long or you might never leave.

I
next tried out the idea of “Tragedy Town” on Miss Flyte and Miss Flagler.

Miss Bertha and Mrs. Fulbright were the only guests for dinner that night, and they were done by six-thirty. I phoned for a cab ahead of time and was climbing into it before seven.

I had told my mother I wanted to see the movie at the Orion. What movie? she asked, trying to keep a grip on my movie education.

“Public Enemy,”
I said, “with James Cagney.”

“That's an old movie, isn't it? It's much too violent.”

You'd think she'd never spent a day at the Hotel Paradise. Ten minutes up in the Big Garage would make James Cagney look like her best pal.

“I guess it is,” I agreed, and went into town anyway.

 

I told Delbert to drop me off at the Orion Theater. Delbert (as always) wanted to know what I was doing going into town in the evening.

“If I want you to drop me at the Orion, what do you think?”

“You gonna see that James Cagney movie? That's what I want to see. I like them gangster shows.”

“I like men with guns.” I said this despite my vow never to give Delbert any informatin to chew over. My world had altered; things were just popping out. I'd have to watch myself.

Delbert liked the “men with guns” comment; he hee-hawed and slapped the steering wheel as if I'd just said the funniest thing.

I don't know why I'd said it, unless men with guns seemed an obvious part of my sadder worldview.

When I piled out of the cab in front of the Orion, Delbert asked me what I was going to do until the movie started, which wouldn't be for another half hour.

“Shoot up the place,” I said, and slammed the door.

 

As well as their morning coffee break, Miss Flyte and Miss Flagler often had dinner together in Miss Flagler's kitchen after their work-day was done. Their shops were dark in front, their living quarters lighted behind.

However, Miss Flyte's plate-glass storefront window was never completely dark. She owned the Candlewick, and there were always candles burning in it after dark. Not real ones, of course, but electrified ones; still, their small lights gave the impression of flickering flames.

The two of them were always glad to see me. I guess I did have a kind of entertainment value, what with all the murders and near murders, and
Medea, the Musical
updates, and reports of the people who'd come to town. Which was what we were talking about now as I blew on my cocoa and they blew on their coffee.

“Morris Slade! I can't believe it,” said Miss Flagler.

Miss Flyte said, “Now, why do you suppose he's back? And in the Woodruff house?”

They both looked at me, thinking I had the answer. “I guess because it's their house,” I said. “Did you know him well?”

“Yes. Back as far as when he was a boy and later when he was a teenager and pretty wild.”

“Isn't it hard to be wild around here?”

Miss Flyte laughed. “There were girls around here, after all. And he went away several times; he went to work in Philadelphia, didn't he?”

I knew all of this.

Miss Flagler nodded. “He worked in a bank. Something happened there, but it was never clear what. To do with bank money, I think.”

“Embezzlement,” said Miss Flyte, “is what I understood.”

“It was never proven,” I said. When they both looked surprised, I said, “It's just that I was doing research for my story and I came across an old newspaper.” I took a drink of my marshmallowy cocoa.

Miss Flagler said, “Then there was that scandal with the girl.”

I stopped chewing my marshmallow. “What scandal?”

“Well, while Morris was engaged to Imogen Woodruff, they discovered that Morris had another girlfriend.” They glanced at each other and both dropped their eyes.

They were afraid of talking about sex, I guess. I would have been more curious but I didn't have time. I had too many things on my mind. Breezily, I said, “Don't worry, I know all about that. What girl?”

Miss Flagler had retrieved the coffeepot from the stove and now filled the cups. She picked up the enamel pan of cocoa and poured me some more. “All we know is that Imogen's father paid someone”—here her eyebrows danced wickedly for Miss Flagler—“to break it up.”

I was all over this bit of news. “Paid Morris, you mean?”

“Or the girl.”

I don't know how he had any money left, Mr. Woodruff was so busy paying off people. I wondered why I hadn't heard about this other girl and said so.

“She wasn't a local girl. It happened in Philadelphia, I think, where she was from. The only reason we know about it is Betty Sue Crouch—you know, she lives over on Red Bird Road—”

I didn't but I nodded, so as not to get off the track with Betty Sue Crouch.

“Well, Imogen asked Betty Sue to take some wedding presents to Morris's apartment in Philadelphia—Betty Sue was going there to do some shopping. She did it, showed up at the apartment, and there was Morris with this girl.”

“In his apartment?”

“Most definitely in his apartment.”

Another swift sex-glance was exchanged. But I didn't care about the details, only about him having this other girlfriend. “So they broke up?”

Miss Flagler nodded hard.

“And Imogen stood for this?”

“I think she just had to have Morris Slade. He was quite a catch: the looks, the charm, the talk.” She sighed. “I think Morris could talk his way into or out of anything. He was never a faithful boy, Morris.”

Sadly Miss Flyte said this, as if Morris Slade had broken faith with her too. “Morris could really draw one in. I think it was the way he seemed so
interested
. That's a rare quality.”

I knew what she meant, but I didn't like thinking he hadn't really meant his interest.

I went to scratch my head, but the cat Albertine did it for me. She was up there lounging on the shelf. “I think he's here because of his kidnapped baby, really.”

As I had done with Dr. McComb, I told them the theory involving Imogen and her father.

“I just don't see how that's
possible,
Emma! To put your own child through all of that? But that's—depraved.” Miss Flagler shook her head.

As did Miss Flyte, generally better able to accept unpleasant news, but I guess not in this case. Then I told them my idea for my newspaper piece.

“‘Tragedy Town'? La Porte?” Miss Flagler nervously spooned extra sugar into her coffee and stirred.

Miss Flyte had her cup raised and smiled at me over it. “Not a nice sobriquet, I think.”

Whatever that meant, she didn't mean the smile. I said, “I didn't mean it to be nice.” I looked from the one to the other, wondering why this upset them, and could only think that I was ruffling waters they were used to seeing as smooth, even glassy.

“But, look, it's not La Porte only,” I added. “There's Spirit Lake and Cold Flat Junction and Lake Noir and Soldiers Park, where the Belle Ruin was. See, it's all of those places together.” I grew excited by this as I spoke and spooned what was left of a marshmallow out of my cup. “It's like all of those places are one place—no, all of those places are . . . what's the word?” Was there a word? “You know, the way you make moonshine liquor.”

“In a still, you mean? Oh, you mean
distilled
.”

I nodded. “All distilled into one place. One town.”

“It's just so unpleasant.” Miss Flagler shivered a little.

More unpleasant than what happened to Mary-Evelyn Devereau? “It's just a theory.”

“The thing is, Emma, when you work with things like wax”—for Miss Flyte not only sold candles, but also made them—“that is, when you get creative and start, well,
re-
inventing something, the wax sticks to you, gets under your fingers, you know.”

What was she saying? What were
they
saying? It was almost as if they thought I was some kind of danger to them.

Me. Emma Graham. Age twelve and dangerous.

 

It was seven-forty-five when I left Miss Flagler's, so the movie had already started, but I didn't mind that. You could always lose the first fifteen minutes of any movie and still understand what was going on.

Even though I was missing the movie's beginning, I stood before the poster of James Cagney looking squint-eyed and grim, as he always did with a machine gun in his hands; it was like a wild thing he couldn't control. I wondered if the movie would make things more dangerous for me or less. Would James Cagney's snarl wear off on me? I could see why Dillinger was dangerous, but why was I?

I must have taken on some of James Cagney's grimness as I stepped into the lobby, for Mr. McComas, who owned the theater and often sold tickets from a big roll, looked concerned.

“You okay, Emma?” he asked as he tore off a ticket.

I guess I unclenched my teeth satisfactorily, for he smiled. “I'm fine. I just need some popcorn.” I handed him a dollar, or tried to.

“You missed over fifteen minutes of the feature. Be my guest.”

He was a very nice man; he and Mr. Gumbrel were good friends, and I could see why.

Popcorn was overflowing its metal kettle, and Cora Rooney caught it in a red and white box. I insisted on paying for that, and Cora gave me back change. I could hear loud and brittle rat-tat-tatting machine-gun fire and the whipcrack of bullets from hand-guns. Then a scream, a call, more gunfire. Heard from out in the lobby, it was quite a symphony.

I took my popcorn through the swing doors and stood for a moment in the weighty dark that felt like a hand against my chest, holding me back. Everything was silver up there on the screen, from the gun barrels, to the slick dresses on the actresses, to their hair and jewelry. No wonder they called it the silver screen.