Mother Finds a Body (10 page)

My first reaction was of resentment. I didn't like having a stranger doing my laundry. Then I felt ashamed and grateful. I hate doing laundry myself.

Dimples's voice rose petulantly from the other trailer. She couldn't find her eyebrow tweezers. “They were right here on the stove,” she said.

“You pull out one more hair,” Gee Gee said, “and you'll be balder'n a bat.”

Mamie rushed into the trailer. She closed the screen door carefully.

I put all the makeup things in this drawer,” she said. “It'll take me a little while to learn what belongs to who, but . . .”

As her voice trailed off I felt Biff look at me.

“Did I call her an ingénue?” he said softly. “I shoulda called her the leading lady.”

He was right. Instead of worrying how crowded we were, I was thinking how nice that our family was larger by one.

Biff ate the last biscuit carefully.

“This is what I call eating high off the hog,” he said as he swallowed it in two bites.

Mother sipped her tea. She lit a cubeb and blew out the smoke in tight little gasps.

“You know,” she said slowly, “I was just thinking.” She took another puff from her asthma cigarette and let us worry for a moment. Mother's thinking could be troublesome at times.

“I didn't want to tell the sheriff until I spoke with you.” The last was directed at Biff: “The way you keep getting things mixed up all the time. I don't feel that I should, well, trust you.”

I knew then that whatever Mother had been thinking, it
wasn't good. I prepared myself for the worst, but her next words stunned me.

“I think that handkerchief the sheriff had in the hat was Cliff's.”

Biff gulped.

“I saw the laundry mark,” Mother said. “I remember it from when we sent out that bundle in San Diego. Remember how I happened to send it out marked Lee by mistake?”

Hardly by mistake. I thought. Mother had just been protecting my billing. Even on the laundry lists I had to headline. At the time we thought it was amusing when the dry cleaning and the laundry were all marked Mr. G. R. Lee. When the neighbors began calling Biff Mr. Lee, we stopped laughing.

“There was something else, too,” Mother said.

Biff leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. I tried to brace myself, too, but that old feeling tightened across my chest.

“But,” Mother added mysteriously, “because of your big mouth I'm not going to tell you what it is.” She leaned over her teacup and stared at the matted leaves.

“Gypsy,” she said.

I knew that was coming. When Mother called me Gypsy she either wanted me to lay out the cards or read the tea leaves. I was in no mood for making like a fortune-teller. I set my jaw firmly. I had every intention of saying no.

Mother poked around in her teacup with a pinky. “I think I see something interesting,” she said.

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair.

“Of course, I can't read it,” Mother said, “but it certainly looks like a gun to me.”

In spite of my intentions I was dying to get at the cup. Ever since I had predicted the death of Lolita La Verne at the Old Opera Theater I was convinced I was the white-haired girl of the oracle racket.

“Well, if that isn't funny!” Mother chuckled her tongue against her teeth. “Just as plain as day I see the sheriff's hat, the
way it goes up high in back and comes to a point, and everything. It's uncanny, that's what it is, uncanny.”

“Like the hotel without any bathrooms,” Biff mumbled.

I shot him a quick glance, and he went back to his tea.

Mother turned her cup upside down on the saucer. She spun the cup three times to the right, then three times to the left.

“Did you make a wish?” I asked.

Mother nodded. She was very serious as she handed me the cup.

I didn't see the sheriff's hat. I did see something that could be interpreted as a gun. That is, if they make a gun without a handle. The only guns I was acquainted with were the kind used in sharpshooter acts. The gun in the cup was quite different.

“I see a journey,” I said. With my fortune-telling I usually start off with a journey. In show business you can't go wrong seeing a journey.

“There's a letter or a legal document, a tall man, and a—a marriage.”

I looked up in the cup again. It was the first time I had seen a marriage in the tea leaves. Two straight lines side by side. I turned the cup around and looked again. No matter which way I read it, there was marriage in my mother's cup.

“A marriage?” Mother looked more serious than ever. “See if you can find any initials.”

There was one letter near the edge. It was a large D. I didn't associate it with the marriage. It was too far from the two straight lines. I had an uncomfortable feeling that the letter D meant danger. I handed the cup back to mother and went into the trailer.

It took me a moment to get used to the gloom after the late-afternoon sunlight. The living room was empty. Mamie and Dimples were talking to Gee Gee in the bedroom. She sat on the foot of the bed, a Turkish towel around her shoulders. Her red hair was combed flat against her head.

“We're trying to tell her how good she'd look as a blonde,” Mamie said. She stood, with the toothbrush in hand, ready for
the first application of white henna. It was in a saucepan on the bed table.

“I done it plenty of times,” Mamie said. “All my customers were pleased, too.”

Gee Gee hesitated. ‘I'd hurt my billings is all,” she said thoughtfully. “Of course, we could change ‘The Red-Haired Dynamo' to ‘The Blonde Dynamo.' Or what ya think of ‘The Blonde Bombshell'?”

Dimples sprawled out at the back of the bed, flicked her ashes indolently on the floor. “It's been done to death,” she said.

Mamie listened with a happy grin on her face. She stirred the white henna and added soap flakes until it looked like a snowdrift.

“My, how I would love to see you girls act on stage,” she said. “When I think you're all actors and actresses I get so excited. I don't know what I'm doing. Me, Mamie Smith, traveling with a show troupe! No one in Watova would ever believe it.”

“Watova?” Dimples stared at her. “Where the hell is that? Europe?”

“Watova is where I was born,” Mamie said with pride. “My dear husband, Mr. Smith, had a six-hundred-acre farm there. It's eight miles south of Oologah.”

Dimples relaxed. “Now I know,” she said.

“If I ever told them in Watova that I was traveling with a show troupe they'd never believe me.”

“You said that once.” Dimples was bored with Watova. She yawned loudly.

Mrs. Smith beamed on her. Yawn or no yawn, Dimples was an actress, and that was enough.

“I'll bet you're a big hit on the stage,” Mamie said. “You must be beautiful when you're dressed up.”

Dimples narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to kid somebody?” she asked.

Mamie went on gaily. “Don't you ever get embarrassed taking off your clothes with all those men looking at you?”

“Say.” Dimples put her hands on her fat hips. “Where do you
get that embarrassed business? Why should I get embarrassed? I got a dark blue spot on me all the time ain't I?”

Mamie realized she had touched a sore spot with the Queen of Quiver. She tried to cover it up quickly. “I only mean, what do you think about when you're out there—taking off your dress like?”

“I ain't thinking anything,” Dimples replied. “I got a job to do. I let the jerks do the thinking. That's what they paid their dough for. I'd look cute out there, thinking.” She laughed briefly. “Boy, that's rich! Me, with a rhinestone in my navel, thinking!”

Gee Gee had enough of Dimples on the subject of Dimples.

“Hey,” she said. “We were talking about me. Should I dye or shouldn't I dye?”

I had completely forgotten the corpse and the handkerchief and the package. At that moment Gee Gee's decision seemed more important. She had built up a reputation as “The Red-Haired Dynamo.” To change it at this late date was something that needed consideration.

Dimples snatched the toothbrush from Mamie's hand and in one quick motion dipped it into the white henna and spread in on Gee Gee's head.

“When in doubt, act,” she said. It was the motto Dimples lived by.

Mamie left the henna pack on a little too long. Gee Gee emerged as a platinum blonde. Platinum with touches of pink here and there to relieve the monotony.

Mamie was delighted with her handiwork, but I was glad that Gee Gee didn't plan on working for a few weeks. Even with her new title, “Platinum Panic,” she'd have a hard time convincing the audience. I didn't have the heart to suggest that we dye her back to a redhead. I thought it could wait a few days. I did suggest that we needed a nip.

The boys were only too glad to join us. Corny got the glasses. That was the one job we could depend on him for. If someone paid for the bottle, he would always get the glasses. Mandy got
the water chasers. He wasn't very cheerful. Neither was Biff. They had their my-horse-didn't-come-in look.

Biff eyeing Gee Gee's hair, was generous. “I could go for you myself,” he said.

“Don't do me no favors,” Gee Gee replied. “So far I'm the only dame in burlesque that isn't a sister-in-law of Gyp's. Let's keep it clean.”

Biff, to change the subject, offered Mamie a drink. I was surprised when she took it. She polished it off like a seasoned trooper.

“Mmm, tasty,” she said. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Not as sweet as my rhubarb wine, but tasty.”

Biff urged her to have another. He didn't have to do much urging. Watova raised a breed of double-fisted drinkers, that was certain.

Mandy had gone into his specialty; imitations of birds and beasts of the forest. Mamie choked with laughter on her third drink as he did his version of a lonesome cow. The fact that a cow is hardly a beast of the forest didn't enter into the thing.

By the time Gee Gee went into her guitar solo, we had a pretty fair-sized audience. The neighbor trailerites kept a safe distance, but they were all there. Biff and Corny almost stopped the show with their scene, “Fluegal Street,” and before we could stop her, Dimples went into her strip. The neighbors didn't know whether to applaud or to call the cops. One lone voice rang out, “Take it off!”

That was all Dimples needed. Biff had the courage to stop her. He grabbed Corny's blanket and put an end to the show. It was a fine party. We forgot to eat dinner. That is always a good way to tell.

Johnny's father let us borrow his car and in high spirits we left for the village.

“This will be one night we don't forget for a long time,” Biff said as he helped Mother into the back seat. For once in his life, Biff was right.

9
WE MADE THE HAPPY HOUR OUR FIRST STOP. BIFF
was driving, so that may have accounted for it. While he parked the car, Mother and I looked up and down the street.

It was very gay and colorful. The neon signs and the blinking lights reminded me of the Mulberry Street Festival. Most of the saloons had entrances that were more inviting than Fransisco Cullucio's, but, from the crowds hanging around the entrance, it was evident that he did the biggest business. The faded awning was half-raised. On it hung pennants with
NOGALES
printed on them and pillowcases with poetry addressed to
MY SWEETHEART
stamped on the rayon satin.

I was surprised to see the number of wine parties in the saloon. The Happy Hour didn't have a beer crowd, even if they did look it. Most of the men were in their shirt sleeves. Many of them wore souvenir hats, Mexican sombreros with little balls hanging from the brims. All the women wore evening gowns.

Joyce Janice sat with four men at a table near the door. She still wore her sweat-stained blue satin. Cullucio stood within five feet of her. When we came in he nodded to us over his unlit cigar. He seemed rather surprised to see us.

We must have looked like a wine party to the headwaiter, because he cleared a table for us immediately. The table was too close to Joyce Janice to please me, but it was near the stage and Mother liked it. Mother never wants to miss anything.

“My Gawd!” Dimples squealed. She threw her arms around Joyce and began kissing her. “It's just like old home week. I just seen Milly and Clarissima at the bar. Bob Reed was there, too. This is wonderful.”

From where I stood they looked like long-lost relatives. Shows what four men buying wine in a saloon can do. I think Dimples would throw her arms around a Gila monster if she thought she could get a bottle of wine from it.

Gee Gee was more restrained but just as anxious. With very little persuasion they both joined Joyce and her party of spenders. All four of the men were named Joe if Joyce's introduction
counts. They were all from St. Louis and they were all out to have a good time.