It Takes Two (23 page)

Bud subsequently checked with the weekend-duty operator on the county switchboard. Being no fan of the sheriff, she initially refused to gossip with one of his underlings. Once Bud sweet-talked the lady into seeing that he wasn’t setting her up, she consulted her records. The sheriff, according to rough notes she’d made Sunday morning, put in call to a number on Pine Island. He also called several residence numbers in Myers.

“Bingo,” I said when he finished. “Presume your boss has witnesses to his whereabouts after Saturday midnight?”

Bud looked worried. “Well, if he don’t, he can get some.”

“Would figure to get somebody to do his dirty work, come to that.”

Bud sucked his beer, hunched his shoulders forward and said, “Whole thing don’t stand to reason.”

“No? How’s this: Norris got his dick out of whack when my people refused to break the law and let him bring a colored girl upstairs. He must have figured—wrongly—that this place is practically printing money. So he decides to get back at us and fill his own pockets at the same time. He takes his buddy—your boss—on a tour of fancy dives and gambling dens over in Miami and Palm Beach, then explains his plans and asks Hollipaugh to look the other way for a cut of the take. For whatever reason, Hollipaugh leads him on for a while and then shifts course and turns him down. So Hillard goes to the Klan, and gets his muscle there.”

Bud shook his head. “Norris didn’t need to open no gambling hall. He was rich.”

“It’s his wife’s money. Her daddy left her the car dealership. Turnipblossom Ford paid the bills. Far as we know, Norris never made a dime on his own.”

“And got big ideas?”

“And maybe knew a little bit too much about how your boss operates?” I said.

“And the boss figured Norris couldn’t be trusted? Which would go double with the Klan at his back?”

“Yeah, and don’t you suppose the sheriff might have known about Wash? Norris must’ve bragged about his honey. Wash could’ve shot Norris in a jealous rage. He knew how to handle a weapon. Norris borrowed his wife and then offered him a pissant job to buy him off and keep him quiet,” I said.

“So we got two mad dogs and one howling bitch and one hotel room.”

“And your boss,” I said, tipping up my beer and draining it. “Or somebody around him. Somebody tipped off Wash that his wife was at the Royal Plaza Motor Lodge with Hillard. Both men wound up dead. That rids your boss and Fort Myers of an in-the-know, too-big-for-his-britches white man as well as a potential colored troublemaker.”

Bud rubbed his eyes with his hands. “You don’t really think Gene arranged all that, do you?”

“Sure does fit your boss’s movements on Sunday morning. See, there are shots at the Royal Plaza early Sunday. The neighbors call the police. Officer Hurston arrives on the scene and checks back with the switchboard. Wouldn’t a double murder bounce around the police forces pretty fast? Even on a Sunday morning? Which would make it possible for the sheriff or somebody else to then call Willene at the fishing camp?”

Bud shrugged. “Well, the next-of-kin is usually called anyway.”

“Did Hurston identify Norris when he called in? Nobody phoned Mary.”

Bud shook his head. “Don’t think so. Let me check again.”

“But you get what I mean? What you told me Sunday morning at your rooming house was that you’d been called about two dead bodies in a tourist court. That it was too much for the rookie on the scene to handle. You didn’t mention anything about a rich businessman or that his next-of-kin was being called.”

“No,” Bud admitted. “Switchboard gal didn’t say nothin’ like that.”

Carmen appeared at my side, set down two frosty Regals and whispered that Mr. and Mrs. Boldt had entered the club room. I looked around. This wasn’t Ridley Boldt’s regular poker night.

Nonetheless, he walked directly to the card table and was immediately dealt in. Mildred settled herself at the bar, ordered a drink, sipped it and then crossed the room to our table.

“You gentlemen want an old woman’s company?” she said, sitting down as soon as we rose to greet her.

She’d never met Bud, so I introduced her. But she knew who he was—that was soon made clear—and she wanted to talk to him as much as to me.

Before getting to the point, she rambled for three or four minutes about the extraordinary weather, memories of drinking with Hemingway and the art show she was organizing at the women’s club. Then she turned to the funeral.

“A sad occasion,” she remarked, glancing at Bud. “Yes. And one made infinitely more unbearable by that wretch of a colored girl, Mary.”

When Bud merely nodded respectfully, Mildred Boldt presented her case. “Willene pulled her out of an orange grove. Yes. She was just a pickaninny and Willene brought her up from nothing. Taught her how to clean house and polish silver and nurse Hillary. Gave her things. Paid her when she was sick and that buck of a husband she had was off in the war.”

Bud and I looked at each other, then back at Mrs. Boldt.

“Mary had herself a kind-hearted mistress who’d given her everything,” Mildred continued. “Who had made her part of the family. And what did that Mary do? Well, sir, she put herself right in Hillard’s way. Wore uniforms that were worse than skin-tight. And Hillard, well, a man doesn’t always have good sense about that. Certain kinds of men are like a bull with a red flag when a bad girl shakes her you-know-what at him. Don’t you think that’s so, gentlemen? Don’t you think that’s so?”

I could think of nothing to do but nod and murmur, “Yes, ma’am. You may be right.”

Bud smiled charmingly. “Man has to control himself,” he said, pitching his voice low, “against his animal urges. Most of the time.”

It looked as if Mildred Boldt might shiver seductively. Instead, she cast her eyes down and said, “It was common knowledge among our friends that Hillard had a roving eye. Mary must have started going after him a couple of years ago. I told Willene the first time she found them at it that she ought to file for divorce. And—”

Bud put his hand up, interrupting her. “First time?” he asked, letting the words hang there.

Mildred Boldt didn’t seem remotely embarrassed by the question. She’d probably cleaned up after her cousin before.

“Once he even took Mary out on his boat,” she hissed. “And ran out of gas and they had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. And one time last month Mary telephoned him at work. Only Nana—old Mrs. Turnipblossom—was there in the office. She picked up the receiver and recognized the girl’s voice.”

“Have to keep that in mind,” Bud said neutrally. “It’s a lot of aspects to it.”

Mildred wasn’t finished. “But it was still a shock for dear Willene,” she said, glancing toward the card players, “to have someone call her out at our fish camp way out on Pine Island last Sunday morning.”

Ridley Boldt was bent over his hand, choosing a discard. True or not, Willene’s alibi had been carefully crafted and was likely to stick.

“Our whole family loves getting away to Pine Island. It’s so quiet compared to Myers. My children hate it, of course. No movie theater.” She laughed. “You know, I almost feel like this is a Broadway play, with some man calling to inform Willene that Hillard is lying dead in a hotel room in Colored Town. It just didn’t, but of course it did, ring true.”

“Who answered the phone, Ma’am?” Bud asked, choosing his words carefully.

“Well, I did, of course. And the man’s voice sounded familiar, though I didn’t think much about it, not much at all, no. Not at first because when he asked for Willene I must have thought it had something to do with a broken-down Ford in a ditch someplace. And that he was just a regular family customer. So I called her, then turned over and went back to sleep. Yes.”

“And you still don’t know who it was?”

Mildred finished her cocktail and looked around. “I’ve thought and thought,” she said, putting on a sorrowful expression. “But it just won’t come. No.”

Tommy Carpenter entered the room through the service door, stopped briefly to pick up a glass of water from Carmen, then crossed to the piano. After opening the lid, he reached beneath the keyboard and flipped a switch. Suddenly the baby grand, dance floor and pianist were washed in white light.

Tommy’s flashy black suit with zebra-striped lapels wasn’t quite a tuxedo but it wasn’t informal either. The bow tie was also striped, the shoes white patent leather, the cufflinks and shirt studs cats-eye red.

The room was about half full. Cocktail hour was in full swing, and when Tommy opened with a medley of fox-trots, several couples got up to dance. Asdeck and the Louisiana party, who had been out fishing all day, drifted in two by two after showering and settled at a big table at Tommy’s right hand.

After fifteen minutes of bouncy dance music, Tommy paused, riffed a set of scales that became a fanfare, then turned to the audience and rose to his feet.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “It is with
extreme
pleasure that we introduce a little lady who is making her
debut
as a singer on this
very
occasion.” He reached down and struck a rising progression of jazz chords. “The little lady is no big name, no Dinah Shore or Jo Stafford. But we
guarantee
that you honored guests will not be disappointed. And we predict”—he struck two more chords—“that the whole
wide
world will soon be hearing about the
star
of tonight’s
tea dansante
extravaganza…in the glamorous Caloosa Club…direct from Milwaukee, Wisconsin…the fabulous…the accomplished…
Sarah Shaw!
”

Flipping the lights down and then up again, he led the applause before swinging into a lively introduction to “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.”

Asdeck looked across at me and grinned. Spreading my hands and shrugging, I gestured back that I had no idea where this Tommy-and-Sarah show had come from.

Sarah Shaw was small, round, auburn-headed and white. She wore silver glasses. A large rock weighted her left hand. The sleeves of her pale blue cocktail dress bunched along her arms when she spread them out to sing.

And she could sing. OK, she was no Judy Garland, no Jo Stafford for that matter. Nervous at first, she missed notes here and there. Toward the end of the song she got behind Tommy’s rhythm and he had to slow down to let her catch up.

But we listened. Everybody in the room stopped talking until she finished. And when, after a burst of applause and whistles at the end of the first number, she moved confidently into a slow, aching rendition of “Come Rain or Come Shine,” it was clear that she and Tommy had put together a rousing set of tunes.

She sang four more songs, gaining confidence with every note. After applause and prompting from Tommy, there was an encore—“Bill” from
Show Boat
. Then she bowed again, threw us a kiss and headed for the exit.

Moving quickly, I crossed the room, introduced myself as the hotel manager and asked her to my table for a drink. Glancing around, she looked unsure whether to agree or not, but when Carmen came over and kissed her hand, whispering “Judy, Judy,” she recovered herself and accepted.

Tommy followed her to the table but didn’t sit down. “Surprise for you, boss,” he said, standing behind the singer. “She’s good, isn’t she?”

Carmen arrived with hot tea and lemon. “We have to protect this angel’s throat,” he said. “She had a little help with her hair and makeup.”

Sarah Shaw seemed about to explode with happy energy. “My throat never felt better. If we’d rehearsed more numbers, I could’ve sung for another two hours.”

“And you will,” Tommy whispered over her shoulder. “If you want to.”

She put her hand to her mouth and didn’t say anything.

“We want her to, don’t we, boss?” Tommy asked me, withdrawing his hand without a fuss. “At least one set a night?”

“What is this?” I said. “Broadway Melodies on the Gulf Coast?”

“I’ve never had so much fun,” the singer exclaimed. “My husband’s going to kill me.”

Tommy beamed. “This lady sang in her glee club, sang during her summer abroad. Then bang, got married, had two children, show’s over.”

“My daughter takes piano lessons. Her teacher also coaches voice. We live in Milwaukee, you see. I took a few song sheets home one day, some Cole Porter,
Oklahoma!
Until a year or two ago, I only sang in church.”

“Sang solos,” Tommy put in. But now little Sarah is gonna sing before the
public
with all her might, not just the Lord.”

“Jack, that’s my husband, and I decided we could afford a winter holiday this year. But something came up in the business and Jack had to stay at home for a few more days. And my sister had already come over from Chicago to stay with the children. So I just got on the train like I planned. Jack won’t be able to join me before the end of next week.”

“And she heard me play in the lobby a couple of nights ago,” Tommy added. “So we put a few numbers together. Whatcha think, boss-man?”

“I think you two ought to be on the radio,” I said. “Meanwhile, we definitely want you to continue the gig here.”

The diamond flashed on her hand as she gestured a little bow of thanks. “If you think it would be all right, Mr. Ewing.”