She Walks in Beauty (41 page)

The New Jersey Air National Guard, all spit and polish, marched close behind the motorcycles. Then the 389th Army Band from Fort Monmouth just up the shore played “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Half the crowd waved little flags.

Phyllis George and Billy Carroll rolled by in a vintage Cadillac convertible with superlative tail fins. Phyllis was in a red velvet suit with matching hat. Billy Carroll looked like a candy cane in red and white stripes.

“They all wear stupid clothes for the parade,” said the
Inquirer.
“Next to the Old South Ball tomorrow night, it’s the best chance for major dress-up.”

The whole flock of former Miss A’s was next, each in her own convertible, each more gaudily dressed in feather boas and ruffles and flowers than the one before.

“No limits on
their
Frederick’s of Hollywood charge cards,” cracked
USA Today.

“Wouldn’t those rad-fems from Santa Cruz die? Too bad
they
weren’t invited to this parade.” The
Inquirer
explained. “When the Miss California Pageant used to be held there at the beach, the local feminists protested by marching bare-breasted. They’d kind of lost track of the real world, and were
outraged
when guys lined up with the whistles and the lewd comments.”

Sometimes Sam sorely missed California.

But here at hand were more marching bands, the mayor of Atlantic City, more spit-and-polish police, then the outgoing Miss A in what looked like a Carmen Miranda outfit. Another band, Atlantic City’s first fire engine, and then the Girls.

Miss Alabama was sitting atop a cotton bale in a ball gown of metallic red-and-white gingham. Her hair was in braids.

Miss Alaska was swathed head-to-toe in white furs, surrounded by a pack of huskies.

Miss Arizona wore a green gown with a pink-flowered headdress. Perched in a tan convertible, she resembled a human saguaro cactus.

Rae Ann was Scarlett O’Hara robed in peach satin complete with hoops and pantaloons. Magic was done up as a member of the Tchopitoulas Indians, one of the black Carnival organizations who marched in Mardi Gras parades in elaborate headdresses, war paint, and spangles. She threw a doubloon at Sam, who tossed her a big kiss in return, and it was just then that all hell broke loose.

The Reverend Dexter Dunwoodie and his Shame Girls had been released on bail after their arrest for obstructing traffic. They’d met with the mayor and the city council that had agreed to consider their grievances in return for the Reverend’s promise to behave.

Obviously the Rev didn’t think that meant they had to stay away from the parade, because there he was, sitting right across the Boardwalk from Sam.

He stood, his white robe streaked with scarlet. Ketchup, thought Sam. His girls were in their usual burlap robes with the aluminum foil crosses, carrying their tambourines. A pitiful band, thought Sam. A spa afternoon would do them a world of good.

Then suddenly the girls stood too, shaking their tambourines at Magic. “Shame!” they shouted. “Whore! Woman of Babylon! Traitor to your race! Oreo!”

But these were
white
girls.

Magic shot them a look, and when that didn’t work, she yelled, “Shut up, fools!”

With that the Rev and his grim-faced girls unfurled a banner that read MISS AMERICA IS THE WHITE MAN’S PLAYTHING. MISS LOUISIANA, GO HOME.

Magic leaned over and said something to her driver who shook his head, No. With that, she reached down and yanked his emergency brake.

Behind them tires screeched for a mile and a half. But no rear-enders. Barbara Stein had threatened the drivers: “
One
of my girls has even a suspicion of a whiplash, you can just deliver up your firstborn to be drawn and quartered on national TV.”

Magic looked down on the Reverend Dexter Dunwoodie from her perch atop the convertible with cold fire in her eyes. The crowd grew still. “You have embarrassed me,” she said in a voice of steel. “You have
shamed
me for your own self-interest.”

“
You
have brought the shame on yourself!” the Reverend bellowed with his best fire-and-brimstone voice. “You have ignored the voice of the Lord. You have sought to glorify yourself at the expense of our children. You don’t
caaaaaaaare,
” and he dragged that word out so long you could almost see it, “about the poor underprivileged black children of Atlantic City.”

“And I guess you think that your acting the horse’s ass proves that you do!”

With that, Magic’s arms slowly rose toward the Reverend. Light from the late afternoon sun danced off her red-and-silver sequins blinding those nearby.

But others could see the Reverend’s eyes focus on the huge imitation diamond in the middle of Magic’s bosom. “Watch the diamond, Rev,” she said softly. “Let everything else float on by.”

The Reverend resisted only a moment. Then his head began to loll. His eyelids fluttered.

“Just let all your worries go. Put ’em down. Set ’em aside. Relax. Relax. Relax.”

Above his scuffed Johnston and Murphy’s the Rev’s ankles went rubbery. His head lolled. “No, no,” he gibbered.

“Let it slide.”

“Shame, shame, shame,” the girls chanted.

“
Chain, chain, chain
,” echoed Harry and Lavert sitting in the bleachers.

“Now come walk with me,” Magic beckoned to the Rev. “Talk with me. Let’s fly out into this cool evening light.”

The Rev’s ketchup-streaked robe flowed about him as he followed the trajectory of her hand. He climbed up to the top of the bleachers through the parting crowd, some of
them
hypnotized, too. He was high above the Boardwalk—and right at its very edge, overlooking the broad beach below.

Magic waved her hands and the Rev did the Boardwalk Boogie on the narrow bleacher seat. She snapped her fingers, and his body wriggled.

Yes,
the crowd said. They nodded their heads.
Yes, yes. Do it, Sister Magic, do it to it. Yesssssss.

Then Magic brought her hands together until her fingertips touched. Some later swore they saw blue lightning flash. She flung her hands
open
and
out
and
up
until her arms rose above her head in celebration, jubilation.
Yes!
the crowd roared.
Yes, yes, yes.

And the Reverend Dexter Dunwoodie—who never in his shucking and jiving life had ever witnessed magic, much less a miracle—jumped high
up up up
off the top step of the bleachers, over the edge, and flew
out out out
, landing on the wide sandy beach. He rolled like a ball. Magic waved her hands once more, and he jumped up and ran, his Johnston and Murphy’s barely touching the sand. With his eyes closed, he ran straight into the Atlantic. There were those who thought he’d walk right on.

But a tall breaking wave with his name on it caught him in its arms and carried him out. In seconds he was beyond where the land dropped off, and the deep dark water began.

Then Magic dropped her arms to her sides.

The Rev sank like a rock.

He didn’t even fight. He just bobbed up a couple of times. One, two, three, actually. And then he disappeared.

“Now
that
,”
Lavert had said to Harry, “is a loud nigga who can’t swim.”

*

“It’s a crying shame the shore patrol was so Johnny-on-the-spot, don’t you think?” said Harry after he climbed out of bed to open the door for room service.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sam was always much more generous when she was within reach of a cup of French roast. She’d bribed the kitchen with $10 and a bag of the good stuff, so they didn’t have to drink the hotel’s usual swill. “I don’t think Magic wanted to kill him. She just wanted to show him.”

“Well, she did that all right.” Harry paused and stared at Sam
over the top of his coffee cup. “What
did
she do, anyhoo? Was that just hypnosis?”

“Magic.”

“No, no. What did Magic do?”

“I just told you.
Your
folks, Harry. Big Easy voudou.”

“What do you mean, my folks? Magic’s black, did you notice?”

Sammy whistled the opening bars to “Old Black Magic” before Harry tackled her and wrestled her down to the bed.

“You’re awfully chipper this morning,” he said. “What does this mean?”

“Happy. Means I’m happy.”

“Hey! Me, too! You want to come back home and be my lady?”

“Maybe.”

“Really? Really!”

“Well, you know, I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d love to—except.” She made a long face.

“Except what?”

“Except I can’t afford it.”

Harry’s steel-gray eyes narrowed, the left one, which drooped just a tad, having less far to go. He smelled chicanery in the air. “You, Ms. Got Rocks?”

“Well,” Sam drawled, “since I have to pay you and Lavert that damned grand and a half—”

With that, Harry stood and jumped up and down on the bed, his arms raised above his curly head like a champ. “We won! We won!”

“You look really stupid.” Actually he looked like a little kid in his blue-and-white striped pajama bottoms.

“We won! Oh, I can’t wait to tell the big man.” Then he flopped down full-length, his face in hers. “I want every delicious little detail.”

Sam jumped out of bed, marched into the bathroom, slammed the door, and turned on the tub. She yelled, “No way. Not a damned word. You get the money, but that’s it.”

Harry threw open the door. To the blue-and-white stripes he had added one of her long black stockings tied around his head pirate-fashion. Between his teeth he clenched the single red rose from their breakfast cart. “Zee lady is vairy pretty and pink in her bubble bath.”

“Zee lady insists on being left alone with her sorrows. Out!” Bubbles dripped off her arm onto the bath mat.

“Zee lady is in zee company of her beloved who has nothing to do and nowhaire to go zeez morning now zat zee mystery eez solved and he eez a rich man.”

He dropped the rose onto her bubble-covered breast. His kiss followed the rose.

48

Wayne was bouncing up and down on the soles of his old Reeboks. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of coming back to the Monopoly since he’d had to give up his security badge. A hard case in a rent-a-cop suit could go to grab hold of him, and then who knew?

The doors opened on 15. Wayne looked both ways. Nobody in the hallway. Good. He headed down toward 1505.

KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. That was one of the mottos he learned from You Know Who, Mr. Big Deal Tru Franken.

Here it was, Wayne’s Plan to win the friendship and influence of Michelangelo Amato. He had his palm-sized top-of-the-line Jap digital camcorder with hi-fi stereo 10x power zoom with macro and a flying erase head in the canvas bag thrown over his shoulder. He’d tell Miss New Jersey, Michelangelo’s favorite girl, that what they had to do was make a tape of her walking down a runway in her gown with a crown. They could fake the runway on the Boardwalk down toward Ventnor.

In his bag he had a crown with only a few rhinestones missing he’d picked up at a pawn shop. He’d dazzle New Jersey’s chaperone with his phony NBC badge and explain that the tape was for a promo for Japanese TV. It’d be beamed by satellite. It was your international beauty coverage. The Japanese were crazy for blondes; it could change New Jersey’s life.

Did that sound good? Wayne liked it. Besides, these girls were all tits and no brains, so she’d believe anything. All you had to do was wind ’em up and point ’em in a direction and they’d smile and pose and walk and wave and smile.

Then, once he had the tape, he’d take it over to Michelangelo at his club. He’d paid Dean another hundred to find out where The Man hung. He’d show him the tape, explain about how he could plant the picture in the judges’ brains. The Final Judges. Then Michelangelo would take him on.

Miss New Jersey would win. Wayne would be Michelangelo’s right-hand man. And that would be that. Actually, Wayne could help Michelangelo in lots of ways. He’d realized, after talking with Dean, he knew a lot about The Man’s business.

He’d thought, last night, about whether he really wanted that, after he came back in from the Pines, and he’d decided, why not go for it? If it didn’t work out, well, the Pines were still there. But one more shot at the bright lights and the big time. Why not?

Wayne was rehearsing his speech in his head.

“Hi, I’m Wayne Ward from NBC, and I’m here this morning to—”

Christ! What was that?

Up ahead, the fire door had opened, nobody was supposed to be using that. And this tall, tall as him, skinny redheaded woman was creeping down the hall in her flats, not looking behind her. Not seeing Wayne.

She had a tape recorder in her hand! She was from some radio station probably, about to horn in on Wayne’s show. He didn’t have time for this. He had a lot to do today.