High Spirits [Spirits 03] (12 page)

      
I pushed it over to Flossie. “Dump those powders in here and stir it up, Flossie. I know it’ll taste bad, but maybe it’ll help make you not feel so bad.”

      
Obediently, she withdrew the powder packet from her handbag, tore it open, dumped the contents in the water glass, and stirred. When she drank it down, she grimaced but didn’t say a word. Her silence was beginning to worry me a little.

      
“Do you want to eat something else for lunch, Flossie?” I asked softly. “You don’t have to have the special. Maybe the tomato aspic will hurt your lip.” Another thing I ought to have thought of before ordering for the both of us. What was the matter with me, anyhow?

      
Flossie gave a quick shake of her head. A teardrop landed with a tiny splashlet on the back of her hand. “No. It’s fine.” Lifting her head, she leaned over the table, looked at me in what I can only describe as mortification, and whispered, “I don’t belong here, Mrs. Majesty. This place ain’t no joint.”

      
It ain’t no joint?
Whatever in the world did that mean? I glanced around, observing our surroundings, trying to figure out Flossie’s enigmatic comment.

      
She was right. It wasn’t a joint. It was a trim, tasteful luncheon room operated by a couple of gentlewomen who’d lost their spouses and were trying to make a living for themselves.

      
I decided to clue Flossie in. “It’s only a lunchroom, Flossie. I know the two ladies who run it. They’ve both lost their husbands and are trying to make ends meet the best way they know how. Kind of like us,” I added in an effort to make a connection somehow.

      
And then understanding struck me like a slap upside the head, which is what I deserved. Flossie didn’t think she was good enough to eat at the Tea Cup Inn. The Tea Cup Inn, for Pete’s sake!

      
I sat up straight. “Sweet Lord have mercy, Flossie Mosser! If you’re going to tell me the Tea Cup
Inn
is too good for you, I might just have to speak to you by hand!” My father used say that to my siblings and me when we were acting up. I thought it was cute, and hoped it might make Flossie smile.

      
Fat chance. She blinked her purple, swollen eyelids at me and said, “Huh?”

      
Leaning over the table in my turn, I reached for her hand, whispering hard. “Listen, Flossie, you’ve got to get over this belief that you don’t deserve the decent things in life. This place is just a little tearoom. You’re as welcome in it as I am. You deserve for people to be polite to you, to treat you well. Heck, Mrs. McKenna and Mrs. Fincher only—”

      
“Who?”

      
“The two ladies who own the Tea Cup Inn. They only want to take your money in return for the food they prepare. Believe me, they don’t care who you are. I’m sure that if they knew how awful Jinx was to you, they’d recommend you kick the bum out, but they aren’t going to pass judgment on you or anything. They don’t even know you!” I didn’t, either, for that matter, but I didn’t say so. I’d also fibbed. If the two Tea Cup ladies knew about Flossie’s relationship with Jinx, they’d have been so shocked and outraged, they’d never have allowed her to pass through their portals again. But that was only because of the illicit nature of Flossie and Jinx’s relationship.

      
Which brings up another point. That sort of thing has never made sense to me. Sure, I know that if Flossie’s character had been stronger, she’d never have become involved with the lousy Jinx Jenkins in the first place, but I didn’t think the world should hold her accountable forever for one piece of bad judgment. Providing, of course, that she straightened up and eschewed her unsavory associates from now on. Whether she had the strength of character to do that remained to be seen.

      
Anyhow, Flossie must have been pretty unhappy in the first place to take up with a guy like Jinx. Heck, I’d never have met a gangster, ever, if not for Stacy Kincaid and her deplorable tendencies. The fact that Flossie had found Jinx even without an intermediary like Mrs. Kincaid or Stacy must mean that her life had been far rougher than mine from the beginning. At least that’s my theory.

      
Nevertheless, my words seemed to make an impression on her. She stared at me as if I’d just told her I was the queen of the world and was going to turn her into a fairy princess. After several moments of stunned silence, she said, “You think?”

      
“Yes. I do.”

      
“Gee.”

      
Mrs. McKenna brought a tray laden with china teacups, a pot of tea, and cream and sugar. I knew, because the Tea Cup Inn ladies and my family were friendly, that they bought their pretty flowered teacups and pots at estate sales and the Salvation Army Thrift Store on Green Street, but nobody else knew it. Mrs. McKenna and Mrs. Fincher put on a great show of refinement and gentility, and the ladies of Pasadena loved it. The two women figured—and I agreed with them—that nobody had to know they were only trying to make a living, even though that should have been obvious to the thickest-headed of Pasadena’s elite. I mean, what did they think? That people operated teashops for their health?

      
Which made me think of a brilliant suggestion. I hoped it was brilliant, anyhow. “Say, Flossie, have you ever thought about acting?”

      
“Acting?” If she hadn’t been wearing a veil, I’m sure I would have seen her eyes grow large.

      
“Yeah. I think it might be a good idea for you to act like you’re worth something for a change and see if the behavior won’t stick. Jinx is going to kill you one of these days if you don’t skedaddle out of that situation.”

      
She lifted her crumpled hankie to her nose, and I saw her shudder. “He’s threatened to kill me if I ever leave him.”

      
It was time for my own eyes to bug out. “He
what?”

      
She nodded unhappily. “I love him, see, but he’s so mean to me, and I’d like to get away from him, but he said he’d kill me if I did.”

      
Good Lord. My mind boggled again. Why in the name of all that’s holy would a woman remain in the clutches of a man who not only beat her when she was there, but threatened to kill her if she went away? And how could Flossie stand living the way she did? I didn’t understand, which didn’t make it the first time an aspect of life had baffled me.

      
Our lunches arrived and I dug in, not merely because I was hungry, but because I needed to think. I wished there was something I could do for Flossie, but I didn’t know what it could be. It was true Flossie might be of help to me in the task Sam had set for me—curse the man—but I judged that relying on her might be perilous. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t trust her, but she seemed an awfully leaky vessel in which to place my trust. Shoot, if Jinx had threatened to kill
her
, a woman who, one supposed, meant something to him, he’d smash me like a pesky fly if I interfered with him.

      
I noticed that Flossie wasn’t eating. I swallowed some tomato aspic and questioned her. “What’s the matter? Does your mouth hurt?”

      
She shook her head. “Not much.” She stuck her spoon into the soup and took a small sip, then bit off a tiny point of her crustless sandwich. After she downed it, she put her spoon down and gazed pleadingly at me.

      
“Mrs. Majesty?”

      
My insides sank like a rock in the ocean. “Please,” I said, “call me Daisy.”

      
She cocked her head to one side. “I thought you was Desdemona.”

      
“Daisy’s short for Desdemona,” I lied.

      
“Oh.” Pause. “Well ... um ... I wondered ...”

      
Uh-oh. I sensed trouble brewing. More trouble, I mean. What I wanted to do was run away and hide, but that option was out. “Yes?” My voice was small. I berated myself as a coward.

      
“Well ...” She swallowed hard. “Oh, never mind.”

      
Oh, brother. Attempting a bracing tone, I said, “Nonsense. Something’s bothering you. Please tell me what it is. Maybe I can help.”

      
Idiot, idiot, idiot! What I really didn’t need at that point in time was to shoulder Flossie’s burdens. But I couldn’t help myself. I felt
so
sorry for the poor woman, and I knew she needed at least one friend of the female persuasion. Clearly she wasn’t getting anything but grief from her beloved.

      
“Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Flossie assured me. Famous last words. “But ... well ...”

      
I hope I suppressed my sigh.

      
“Well, maybe could you help me look more like you?”

      
I stared at her over a spoonful of mushroom soup. “Look more like me?”

      
Now here’s the thing. I’m not bad looking. In fact, sometimes when I’m in full spiritualist regalia, with a little help from dark clothing and extremely light powder, I look pretty darned good in an ethereal, wafting-around-like-a-ghost sort of way. But I couldn’t imagine Flossie, whose vividness of dress and makeup were at the opposite spectrum from my demure demeanor, wanting to look like me.

      
I said, “Um ...” And my imagination dried up.

      
She reached across the table, touched my wrist, which had helped the attached hand lay the spoon back on the plate, and instantly withdrew it. The gesture was so spontaneous and so immediately regretted, that my heart twanged. Again. Blast my sensitive innards, anyhow.

      
“You see, I look like what I am,” said Flossie, “and that’s no good.”

      
I felt like a priest in a confessional. Not that I’ve ever been in a confessional, mind you, since I’m an upstanding Methodist, but that’s what I felt like anyway. “Oh, Flossie, you don’t ...” But the lie wouldn’t come. She
did
look like what she was: a gangster’s moll. Oh, dear.

      
She was shaking her head. “Yes, I do. You know it. I wear these clothes ...” She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. “And I wear too much makeup, and ... well, I wish I looked more like you.” She sucked in a deep breath and finished lamely, “But I don’t know how.”

      
It seemed to me that it would be a simple thing for a lady to wear less makeup and more sober clothing, but perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps, if one were accustomed to putting one face on for the world, it took some courage to change that face.

      
“Um,” I said again. Big help. Taking myself firmly in hand and telling myself I was doing a good deed, not unlike Pudge Wilson, I tried once more. “I’ll be happy to help you, Flossie.” My head did an instant nose-dive into my shoes. I would.

      
“Would you?” I could see that she beamed under that silly veil. “Thanks so much.” She dipped her spoon into her bowl and took a careful sip of soup.

      
She seemed so happy, I hated to burst her hopeful bubble, but a salient point had just reared its big, ugly, and probably lethal, head. “You’re welcome. But ... well ... um, what will Jinx think of it if you started dressing differently and wearing ... um, more discreet makeup?”

      
Her head snapped up. “Jinx? Oh, he’ll love it. He’s always telling me I look like a—”

      
She stopped speaking so abruptly that I jerked as if I’d bumped into a brick wall. “Like a what?” I had a sinking feeling that old Jinx was going to spur me on to great heights of helpfulness, blast him.

      
Bowing her head, Flossie whispered, “He always says I look like a ... whore.”

      
I barely heard the final word, but it was enough. “Well, he’s wrong,” I said stoutly. “And I’ll help you as much as I can.”

      
Another salient point whacked me between the eyes. “Say, Flossie, do you have a place to stay?” If I had to take her home, I’d bite the bullet and do it, but God alone knew what that would do to my already-tarnished (in my husband’s eye) reputation.

      
She looked up from the sandwich she was about to nibble. “Oh, I gotta go back to Jinx. He’ll kill me if I don’t.”

      
Mental images of ribbons of machine-gun holes marring the tidy exterior of our home on Marengo Avenue barged into my brain and wouldn’t go away. “But ...”

      
Again she shook her head. “No. I got to. Honest, it’ll be okay. He won’t hurt me no more for a while.”

      
He won’t hurt me no more for a while
? My resolve to help the woman strengthened. I did ask a question of her. I couldn’t help myself. “Why did you take up with him in the first place, Flossie? He’s obviously a very bad man.”

      
She shrugged. “I didn’t have no choice. My old man kicked me out after my ma died. He was on the booze anyways, and life was pretty ugly at home.”

      
Good Lord. I endeavored to keep my mouth from dropping open. “Um ... where did you grow up?”

      
“New York.”

      
Aha. Same as Sam Rotondo. I’d always read that New York was a slightly unsavory place—unless, of course, you were rich. But that could be said of everywhere, I guess.

      
“Hell’s Kitchen,” she elaborated, then said confidingly, “I don’t just call it that. It’s what everybody calls it.” She hesitated for a moment. “And they’re all right. It’s hell. At least the part I lived in.”

      
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

      
“Yeah, well, Jinx, he took me outta that place, and it’s prettier here. But he’s still him.”