She Walks in Beauty (22 page)

“Furthermore, I can’t believe we’re doing this in broad daylight.”

“You’d rather do it in the dark? Don’t be silly. I told you. People never see the obvious. Here we go now.
Maintenance. Accounting. Security Operations
.”

Junior groaned as Rashad tapped on the door.

“Oh, man,” Rashad said loudly, for show, though there was nobody to hear except Junior. Wayne had stepped out for just a minute. They’d waited till they saw him go through the door marked Gents, then locked the door from the outside with the master key, trapping Wayne inside. “I hate it when you tell them you’re gonna be here, nobody’s home. Can’t rely on
nobody
these days. I guess we’re gonna have to let ourselves in.”

Rashad slipped the master key into the equipment room lock and turned it. They didn’t have long. Wayne would be hollering.

The room was dim and cold. Racks and rows of state-of-the-art show-and-tell equipment glowed and hummed and whirred.

“Come to daddy, babies,” Rashad purred.

17

Harpo bounded out of the bedroom. The little dog wouldn’t stop bouncing around until Sam picked him up and gave him kisses. Then he made the whimpering sound that broke her heart, as if no one had paid any attention to him all day. As if he hadn’t had turkey for breakfast, doggie pâté for dinner, and hadn’t been walked by herself, by Harry, and certainly at least once by Big Gloria. But still he trotted out his Poor Pitiful Pearl routine. Forget Jewish mothers. There was nothing in the world that could instill guilt in you like a Shih Tzu.

“Okay, little dog. Calm down.” She looked over his head while he nuzzled her neck. “Where’s Harry? Where’s our boyfriend? Is he hiding in a bubble bath?”

Harry never took bubble baths. That was one of
her
favorite pastimes. But Harpo didn’t know that. Or did he? Who knew what little dogs knew? He’d know everything if he listened to Sam, who talked to him constantly.

Just yesterday a man on the Boardwalk who thought himself quite a card watched her ask the dog which way he wanted to go. Did the dog speak English? he wondered.

“Nope. He’s Chinese. I’m teaching him English as a second language.”

“Harry? Harry?” she called now.

He didn’t answer. He had to be there. They were meeting Lavert and his mobster friend for dinner in less than an hour.

Then she noticed the message light blinking.

“Oh, no,” she said to Harpo.

Oh, yes. Harry said he was already dressed and had met Lavert for a drink. They had to compare notes on the Great Kurt Roberts Scavenger Hunt, and they were closing in on the prize. Would she mind too terribly if they met her at the club for dinner? He’d arranged to have a car pick her up.

“Yes, I would mind very much,” she said to Harpo, who gave her his worried look. “He knows how much I hate going places alone.”

Now, was that true? If it were, then why didn’t she move over to New Orleans and keep Harry permanent company? She didn’t mind squiring herself solo all over Atlanta.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said to Harpo. “When we
are
in the same town, I want him to escort me. Know what I mean, little dog?”

Harpo jumped up into a comfy chair and watched her undress before she stepped into the shower. No time for a bubble bath. She’d been longer than she’d meant to with Rae Ann, who just couldn’t stop burbling about how happy she was, winning talent last night, then Fruit of the Loom today: God had surely heard her prayers. Sam wasn’t so sure that God cared who won Miss America, but then, how did she know? Maybe beauty pageants
were
what was on His mind when He got overloaded with crack babies, wars, revolutions, AIDS.

Harpo gave her his fishy look. “Okay, okay,” she said, toweling off. “That was uncalled for. I know what a pious little dog you are.” She reached over and gave him a nuzzle. “And incredibly loyal. I don’t see you hanging out with another guy, passing up the opportunity to watch me get dressed.” She did a little hootchy-kooch for Harpo, who looked away. “Well,
excuse me
.”
She threw on her gold silk dressing gown and continued muttering. “Don’t see you passing up the chance to listen to my day.

“Now, let me tell you about my incredibly illuminating interview with Cindy Lou. Boy, talk about your waste of time.” She threw open the closet and ran her fingers across her choices. “Help me pick something out here, Harpo. I’ve got to save the turquoise-blue silk I wore to Carnival for Saturday night. Let’s see, no bugle beads, but what do you think about the black velvet evening pants?” She held them up for Harpo’s inspection. “That and the red satin smoking jacket, show a hint of black lace camisole under it? You like it? No comment? Well, Harry’ll like it. That crud. Do you really think he’s found Roberts alive and well?”

She slipped into her clothes, then sat at the dressing table. Her damp curls could dry by themselves with a little fluffing. Now, what jewelry? Maybe her pearls and diamond studs. She picked up the earrings and considered them. They reminded her of June, the woman who’d shown her backstage.

“I must remember to tell Harry about the dressing room and Sleepy Hollow,” she said to Harpo, who jolted awake from his nap. She paused while she applied her mascara. She never could talk and do her eye makeup at the same time. “Can you believe that Cindy Lou? A voice in her room telling her which girl has to win? A voice! Girl needs to get herself into the program, pronto. Poor thing. I’d love to help her—but you know the drill. Got to come to it yourself. Got to bottom out. Isn’t that right, Harpo?”

At the mention of his name, the little dog, who’d dozed off again, jumped up and fell off his chair.

Later that evening in Action Central, Wayne Ward would do the same thing when he heard the tape of her conversation with Harpo.

18

See, Gloria, said the voice of her conscience, that’s what happens when you start with the gray areas, like you didn’t know there was black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. In no time at all it starts to back up on you.

Hush up, she said. I’m trying to watch my game show. Bill Carroll and “The Big One.” Though Bill Carroll’s not on. Who’s that?

You’re just hiding, Gloria. Don’t want to face the truth. Isn’t that what you always tell Junior? Boy, God knows what you been doing. No peeping and hiding with Jesus.

It was true. What kind of role model was she for her son, stealing that Kurt Roberts’s racehorse money? Taking from a dead man. Just like stealing the silver coins off his eyes.

Now, wait a minute, said her conscience. Even
I
don’t know the dude’s dead.

Yeah, and we’re not gonna know, are we? I sent Clothilde out of that room, cleaned it myself. Removed every trace of him. Every fingerprint. Now there it sits. Empty as a tomb. I opened the door about 200 times today, hoping the man’s back in it. And is he? No.

Did you ask Junior what he’d been up to, since that’s what you’re so afraid of, Junior did a number on that sucker?

Sure, I asked him. He said he was on the Boardwalk with that little white girl named Rachel Rose. You think I believe that?

Why not? Why don’t you go ask her?

Yeah, I’m sure she’s gonna tell me the truth.

Well, I think it’s come to a sorry pass, you don’t believe your own flesh and blood.

I want to. I do want to. And then—

Then?

Then—oh, Lord, I’ve just about convinced myself everything’s cool, Junior did tell me the truth, didn’t have the slightest thing to do with that Mr. Roberts,
I’m
the only evildoer in this story, when here comes that Harry—with that huge brother from back home named Lavert. Asking about Kurt Roberts. Asking
me,
seeing as how I’m the head of housekeeping, had there been anything weird happening in his room?

Uh-oh.

That’s what I said. That and more. Though I said it to myself, of course. What I said to them—well, I feel just awful. More lies and deception. Exactly like they teach you at Community Baptist, at every church I’ve ever been to: you start on those lies and deception, they’re just gonna keep right on tripping you. And they do. Even with the likes of that Harry who’s been so kind to me.
Saved
Junior, and didn’t I vow to pay him back? And he keeps giving
me
money like it’s Christmas and he’s Santa, my ticket to get back home. Get Junior out of this hellhole.

Get
me
out of here, too. Flames about to burn me up. Flames of lying and cheating and creeping and peeping, flames of deception, that’s what.

On the TV a skinny blond girl with not enough clothes on, was once a Miss Nevada—is now the one who jumps around like she’s got ants in her pants and goes and gets the prizes for the winners on “The Big One”—she’s giving some fat redheaded man a video camera.

Oh, my God, he says, over and over. Oh, my God.

Which isn’t how you’re supposed to talk on the TV.

And then Big Gloria says it herself, Oh, my God.

Because looking at that fat redheaded man cradling that prize, she suddenly sees those security cameras at the Monopoly—clear as day in her mind.

Not just the ones in the hallways, though those too could be incriminating, recording her and Clothilde outside 1803, Clothilde with that long face telling her there’s a hellacious mess inside.

Then there’s those secret cameras on top of that. That Wayne doesn’t know she knows, but what does he think she is, a stupid fool? Those are
her
rooms. And she’s not just some dumb cluck can’t tell a dust mop from a head cold. She knows about construction. She knows about sawdust. She knows what Wayne’s been doing with those tools.

And that means that Wayne knows what happened in Kurt Roberts’s room. Wayne knows about Junior. Or not.

Now the former Miss Nevada is saying to stay tuned for a special announcement about Bill Carroll!

As if Big Gloria cared. What Big Gloria cares about is figuring out what she’s going to do. About Wayne. About Junior. About getting herself back on the right side of God—and Harry Zack.

19

Va Bene was a throwback—a social club in a yellow-brick and brownstone mansion that had once belonged to a mayor of Atlantic City. That was back in the days before a goodly number of the city’s elected officials routinely ended up in the slammer.

Harry and Lavert were waiting for Sam on the marble steps when her car arrived, looking, in their evening clothes, like an ad for some $100-a-whiff perfume. Well, they were a dashing pair, she’d give them that.

“Miz Adams,” said Lavert with a deep bow.

“Wow!” Harry beamed. “Double wow!”

“I’m pissed at you both.”

“See what I told you,” Harry said to Lavert. “You can always count on my Sammy. I know”—and he gave her a big kiss before she could say another word—“you’re going to tell me to hush up. But before I do, I want to tell you we’re closing in on Mr. Roberts—and your dough.”

They probably were—while she’d been wasting her time with that crazy Cindy Lou. Well, she didn’t have to be nice about it. She gave Harry a cool profile as they ankled through a lobby deep in whorled black and red carpet. On the second-floor landing a maître d’ in a tuxedo said, “So pleased to see you this evening,” and led them into a high-ceilinged room of blinding white linen and dark-suited gents bent over pasta, roasted peppers, mushrooms, and large stogies.

“This way, please. Mr. Amato is expecting you.” He slid open a door hidden in the cherry wood paneling.

Sam gave Lavert and Harry the Groucho eyebrows. This wasn’t the mob, huh? Secret doorways? Inner sanctum? Was there a story here?

Michelangelo Amato stood up from the sole table in the handsome, green-papered octagonal room. He was almost as tall as Lavert.

Sam had pictured a short, dark gangster with a potbelly, heavy gold chains, shiny gray silk suit. Not this suave movie star type with serious tailoring and a headful of silver curls.

“How very kind of you to come, Miss Adams.” He bowed over Sam’s hand, then kissed it.

Puhleeze.
But you had to admit it was a charming gesture. Maybe she was going to enjoy this evening, after all. Maybe she’d chat up this ever-so-handsome mobster and see how that sat with her smarty-pants boyfriend and his sidekick.

“I told our friend Mr. Washington here that I always love meeting members of the press. Especially such lovely members.” Then he nodded at Harry, paying
him
the compliment. “Shall we be seated?”

The mob welcoming the press, uh-huh. But Sam fluttered her eyelashes.

The small round table was set with creamy china and Baccarat crystal for five. The heavy silver was Italianate. Camellias floated in a Lalique bowl the color of pomegranates. On each plate sat a tiny edible sculpture Cellini would have been proud to claim. Sam took mental notes.

Michelangelo Amato seated Sam on his right. The spot on his left was empty. Sam snuggled close.

Ma smiled. “My other guest will join us shortly.”