She Walks in Beauty (27 page)

“The pageant? Well, let’s see. What do we know? So far Rae Ann and Magic have taken talent—which counts a lot. Texas and New Jersey have swimsuit—not as big a percentage, but we know swimsuit winners
win.
We know zip about evening gown.”

“I think those four. California looks good. She’s smart and she’s Asian-American. That’s got to count for something.”

“Maybe. How about Florida?”

“Florida’s strong.”

“So that’s six. We need ten finalists.”

“And your pick for Miss A?”

“Now? Without seeing tomorrow night?”

“You must have an inkling. Sometimes they know from the minute the girls hit town.”

“Who’s this they?”

“Everybody. The girls—like Debbye Turner, 1990, they say she had it from the get-go.”

“Who have
you
been talking to?”

“Guys in the Louisiana delegation.”

“Gamblers, more likely. Your friends down in the casino.”

“Right, Sammy.”

“So
some
people probably racked up some bucks with Debbye Turner, huh? Depending on the odds.”

“You’re not giving up on Michelangelo making book on the pageant, are you? It wouldn’t make sense, Sammy. Nothing to base the odds on.” But he did think Lana was going to win. “I
like
Texas. I
love
Magic, but she won’t take it, though she’ll make the top five. But it’s definitely Jersey’s show. What do you think?”

“No way. Rae Ann. Definitely Rae Ann.”

“Oh, Sammy. You’re just saying that ’cause Lana’s a twit and you’re covering Rae Ann.”

“Give it up. Lana is
not
taking it. Look, Rae Ann’s blond, she’s Southern, she took talent
and
Fruit of the Loom. The gimp factor that won her Fruit probably gave her mega-points in interview, which carry over, forty percent. A bundle.”

“What do you want to bet?”

Sam threw up her hands. She appealed to Harpo. “I ask you—has the man lost his mind?” Then to Harry, “You want to bet on how long it’s going to take room service to get here with our hot chocolate?”

“Sucker bet. We know forty-five minutes is the fastest they could deliver a newspaper—and they don’t even have to heat that. You want to bet the same grand on Miss A? Then if you lose the Roberts thing and win this, it’ll be a wash.”

“I’m not losing the Roberts thing, Harry. I’m closing in.” She was bluffing, of course.

“No way.
I’m
closing in.” Or he might be, if he could get to Big Gloria, who he knew was holding out on him.

*

Big Gloria, on the other hand, didn’t give a hoot about the pageant. What she cared about was her son.

She’d tucked him in, kissed him good night, just like she did when he was a little tyke. And now she stood in the doorway of his room. It was way after midnight, and his bed was empty again. “Junior,” she cried and wrung her hands. “Junior, Junior, Junior, what are you up to? What can I do? I tried sucking up to that crazy Wayne, and that got me nowhere.”

Then she fell to her knees. “Oh, Lord, just bring back that Kurt Roberts and I’ll give him his $5,000—with interest. I promise, dear Lord. Seven-and-a-half percent. No, make it 10. Okay, 12, that’s prime, and my last offer.

25

Thursday morning, Wayne awakened slowly. He lay in his narrow cot and floated in and out of a dream filled with the thrum of motors idling. Heavy engines chewing gas, belching smoke among empty buildings, broken glass, starving cats. Baghdad.

He sat straight up with a jolt, grabbed his glasses, and looked about wildly. Then he laughed.

It wasn’t Baghdad. It was home—out at the end of the inlet, among the bombed-out, burned-down, dug-up houses across the street from the old Captain Starn’s seafood restaurant. Part of it was a boat, empty and peeling now. Its crumbling parking lot was used by the motorcoaches after they’d dropped off the day’s codgers at the casinos. Bus drivers gathered inside the abandoned building drinking coffee they’d brought in thermoses, eating bagels and Danish, swapping lies.

Beside Wayne on the floor of his third-floor bedroom in the turret of the abandoned Victorian he’d homesteaded sat the treat Big Gloria had brought him last night—or what was left of it.

A chocolate cake with a frosting of chocolate cream and Cracker Jacks. The prize on top had been a little red plastic camera.

In honor, Big Gloria had said, of his God-given talent for taking pictures.

God-given talent. Innate worth. She sounded a lot like his hero Mr. F.

But she wanted something. He wasn’t exactly sure what, but it made him nervous. She kept talking about cameras and pictures, and he realized she knew about the taping in the high-roller suites.

Which he didn’t want to think about. Not since he’d realized that the One Very Important Thing Mr. F had asked him to do, the thing he was going to use to Show Up Dougie, was screwed.

Cameras and decks could be replaced, but somehow he had to get his tapes back. Especially the one of Mr. F’s girl winning her state, the one he was going to plug into the heads of the final judges. He had to get it back or reproduce it before tomorrow, and he didn’t know how he was going to do that because the original tape of that pageant was missing, too. Plus the one he didn’t want to think about, the one he hadn’t shown Mr. F yet, though it was for Mr. F’s eyes only, as James Bond would say. Wayne loved James Bond movies—the glamour, the fireworks, and the hardware were right up his alley.

But James Bond never had somebody like Big Gloria around reminding him of when he’d screwed up. Now what he had to do today was make everything right, or he was going to be in Very Big Trouble. Even worse, Dougie would laugh. Wayne reached down and grabbed a big handful of his chocolate Cracker Jack cake. The sweet crunch made him feel a little better, but not enough.

He closed his eyes and pictured Dougie. With that, he knew what would.

26

Sam had thrown Harry out of their room along with the morning room-service cart. Fine with him, he’d said. He had a little business to tend to, as did Sam

Someone else from Atlantic City had called about Mr. Roberts. That’s what the receptionist in his New York office said to Sam on the phone. And she’d told Mr. Zick that Mr. Roberts was there, at the pageant.

But he wasn’t, Sam explained. He’d said he’d returned to this very office on business.

Oh, said the receptionist, popping her gum. Well, she wouldn’t know about that.
She
hadn’t seen him.

Well, gee. What do you think that means? Aren’t you worried?

Well, I’m not exactly his mother. Or his girlfriend.

She was wearing black, Sam was sure of it. A short black skirt, black pullover, black tights, those huge black shoes with steel toes,
tractor-tread soles, and big black grosgrain ribbon ties. Only her hair was a different color—like purple.

Then who is, Sam asked. Who are?

Who are what?

His mother and his girlfriend?

Oh, I couldn’t tell you that.

Well, could you have them call me before I file a missing persons report on Mr. Roberts?

With the cops? The girl was incredulous.

That’s the usual procedure.

Mr. Roberts wouldn’t like that. Her gum popped twice.

Have them call me, okay?

Okay. But I think you’re overreacting. He treats
all
his women this way, you know. And
they
don’t call the cops. Have you thought about taking a Valium?

I’m not one of his women, I don’t take drugs, and I’m definitely calling the cops.

That’s pretty radical. Why don’t you just hold on? I’ll try to reach his mom. Now, if I can figure out how to do this transfer thing—hold on.

*

“So I went back over there to the Monopoly and did some asking around,” said Angelo.

Uh-huh, Willie answered, paying more attention to the cheese Danish in his hand than to Ange. He’d dropped Ma off at the coffee shop where he always had breakfast, and now Willie wanted to enjoy his own.

“Nobody’s seen Roberts. Busboys, maids, nobody at the desk. He’s still registered, though, ain’t that strange?”

Strange, Willie nodded.

“
Then
I found out he wuzzn’t at the show last night. At least that’s what a guy told me, Security over at the hall. Said he wuzzn’t. Whaddya think it means, Willie?”

Willie didn’t know.

“I think it means I’ll go over there myself this evening, see that show. I can’t find that Roberts, maybe something else’ll occur to me. Some other way of helping out Big John’s niece, Big John, Ma. Myself and Angelina. Whaddya think?”

What Willie thought was that if Angelo didn’t stop saying Ma’s mother’s name like that, he better get himself over to Sicily, dig a
hole and pull it in on top of himself, forget the old broad. He didn’t say that, though.

*

“So, Wayne. What’s that on the back of your hat? Let me see.”

Wayne just shrugged, kept walking. The last person he wanted to talk to this morning was Dougie. His plan was, he was going to go back into Action Central, now that he’d calmed down, slept on it, and search the whole place
very
carefully. Things had been misfiled before.

“
Wayne delivers.
Hey, that’s neat. So, you got yourself another business.”

Wayne stopped. “What do you mean another business?”

“Looks like you’re into pizzas.
Wayne delivers.
You know what I mean?”

“I am an electronics surveillance, augmentation, and intervention expert. Nothing to do with pizza.”

“Sure, sure. But you know what they say, Wayne.” Dougie rolled his little shoulders in his little navy blue blazer, double-breasted, with gold buttons. He looked like one of those airline steward fruits. “Clothes make the man. You don’t want to give people the wrong sartorial impression.”

Sartorial impression. He was gonna sartorially impress Dougie, all right. One more crack like that, just one more.

*

“Yesssss?” said the throaty voice on the phone. For one delicious moment Sam thought it was Lauren Bacall. “Hold on a minute, darling, my chef just walked in.”

Sam was darling, and this was Kurt Roberts’s mom.

“Yes, Evan. We’re going to make it
very
American. I want barbecued ribs and potato salad and those darling cornbread sticks you did when we had the ambassador. Our guest of honor’s French, and you know how they
love
everything American—except us of course. Now, darling, what can I do for you? That hideous girl in Kurt’s office said something about you couldn’t find Kurt. I don’t know why she’d call
me
—but, hold on, darling. It’s the man about the flowers. They’re atwitter, all the service people out here in Southampton, so happy to have those dreary
summer
people gone, but afraid they’re won’t make another penny until June. It quite throws them off their stride. Now what kind of
American
flowers can we do for this dinner, Lee?”

“Mrs. Roberts? I—”

“I’m not Mrs. Roberts, darling. The Mr. Roberts who was Kurt’s father—that was a
very
long time ago. Call me Glenda. Now where were we? Black-eyed Susans? I don’t know. What do
you
think, I’m sorry, what’s your name, darling?”

“Sam Adams, and I don’t mean to alarm you, but no one seems to know where your son’s gotten off to. He’s supposed to be down here in Atlantic City judging the Miss America Pageant—”

“Atlantic City? Did you say you’re calling from Atlantic City? Isn’t that the most
dreadfully
boring place?
I’ve
never been, of course. But people I know have, and they say, well, that Trump man, what do you expect? And that German wife—”

“I think she was Czech, Mrs.—Glenda. But anyway, your son seems to have called a day or so ago and said he was going back to New York on business and he—”

“If that’s what he said he was doing, I’m sure that’s what he did. Now, you’ll excuse me, I’m sorry. The housekeeper is standing here with the table linens and I have to choose—”

Okay. So Kurt Roberts had a rotten childhood. Sam gave people until 30 to get over being rich, privileged, and under-loved. After that, they had to find a better excuse.

*

“What I think we ought to do is sic Magic on him,” said Lavert. He was working on his third cup of McDonald’s coffee. “Man, isn’t this a shame?” He held out the cardboard cup. He and Harry were sitting on a bench on the Boardwalk. “Sucking down fast food java. For sure, I’m having my stomach pumped the second I get back to New Orleans. Though that sausage biscuit—now, that wasn’t too bad…”