Philly Stakes (21 page)

“To each her weakness.”

She leaned forward. “Confidentially, live bodies are more fun.”

“Thanks.”

“Not that you’d know that with No-Name the Narc.”

Laura walked down, her belongings now stowed in my rackety dresser. Or perhaps she simply needed company. I made the introductions.

“I’m really sorry about your dad,” Sasha said. “And for you and your mom and everything you must be going through. That’s awful.” When Laura remained silent, she didn’t press or force a response. Instead, she became very professional, lifting a picture of hands clutched around a water glass, and scowling. “I controlled the urge to trash some of the stinkers until after you give a look-see. I assume aesthetics are not your prime concern.”

I always imagine Sasha in a turban, although she avoids all the clichés she’s aware of. She nonetheless carried an imaginary crystal ball, or a parrot on her shoulder. She vibrated in a purple, orange and pink sweep of silk blouse over tight black leather pants and high Robin Hood boots. She’s a big woman—nearly six feet tall and voluptuous, so the effect was rather overwhelming. Laura sat nearby, more than ever a sparrow by contrast.

“This is a major favor,” Sasha said. “Without your S.O.S., I’d be in Key West with him. I missed the flight he booked so I could work on these, and when I asked about a flight later today or tomorrow, the woman behind the counter fell off her little stool laughing. There are waiting lists up the ying-yang for anyplace with sun and heat. Don’t feel guilty, but this act of friendship has destroyed the entire remainder of my love life. He’s exceptional, Mandy.” Long scarlet nails punctuated her words. “A swashbuckler. A pirate, an adventurer.”

This could translate into his being a gambler and general wastrel. Or, equally probably, a television repairman, computer programmer or insurance broker. Sasha saw through the veneer of reality into the hypothetical and desirable. She had invented herself, transforming nice old Susan Berg into Sasha the Terrible, and she saw no reason not to change whatever she liked about whomever she liked. And she liked great quantities of whomevers.

Sasha had been interested in the eating of food, not the eaters, so there were lots of photos that were useless to me. A tilted coffee cup at an unidentified mouth, gnarled hands cradling pillowy rolls, the back of a student holding piled plates, close-ups of hors d’oeuvres, even the punch bowl, orange slices floating on remembered pink soup.

But there were faces in other pictures. There was Gladys, eating meditatively. You could almost see her preserving the moment, the linens and silver and elegance, and digesting it along with her chicken breast. And the man from ’Nam, his cheek bulging, a half-eaten quiche in his fingertips, his eyes angled sharply to the side, as if wary of a sniper.

And there was Jacob Marley. He sat, his plate full and untouched in front of him, his hands on his lap, his expression intense and concentrated, eyes watching the distance.

I stood up. “Sasha Berg? Look behind the curtain! Aside from your caustic remarks, you have been incredibly helpful. So just like in the fairy tales, you are going to be magically rewarded for being such
a
good girl. I happen to have
a
round-trip ticket to Florida in my possession. It’s yours. No down payment. Replace it when I finally go south, okay? It’s probably illegal to do this, so are you willing to break some idiot law to be with the buccaneer?”

“Are you kidding?”

“If he lasts into the New Year, then I want a detailed, in-depth description, okay?”

She turned her eyes on Laura. “Not a word of this to that Royal Canadian Mountie she dates.”

“Who?” Laura asked.

“Is your mother wildly upset by your change of plans?” Sasha asked. “Should I visit her? I could bring Errol Flynn, which is something you couldn’t do.”

It needed no comment. Sasha, even while she was still Susan, had been both my best friend and the “bad influence” my mother and teachers had warned me about.

Remembering, I try to be extra tolerant of the oddball combinations I see in my classrooms. Probably, if my old teachers could see me now, working in a school where “originality” is available at a bulk discount, they’d say it was Sasha’s fault.

“The return ticket’s not till January first,” I said. “Make this one of your longer relationships.”

“Yegads. Six days!”

“Long enough to have a war.”

“Longer, I believe, than one of my marriages. And thank you for asking, but although I am starving from my labors on your behalf, I will not have a late lunch with you guys, even though I need local stoking before I hit culinary wasteland.”

As soon as I’d been notified that it was past feeding time, my stomach growled.

“Laura’s too pale, too skinny. Must eat junk like sunflower seeds, or sprouts. The remedy is great take-out. Steak sandwiches. With cheese. And fried onions. Can you not smell it? Feel the oil drip down your arms as you lift it to your mouth? Fries, too. My treat.”

Sasha was so gleeful, so charged with energy, it was obvious that her assignment, her pirate, had lots of potential.

“Hey, Laura?” she said. “You ever been on South Street?”

Laura shook her head.

“Come along, deprived suburban child. It’s a necessary part of being young in this city. Let me introduce you to city living and walking. And on the way, I’ll show you an historical site, the Todd House, where Dolley Todd—later Madison—grew dope.”

“Really?” Laura asked as she pulled a woolly cap over her ears.

“She said it was to keep the pigs away from her vegetables, but do you think she would have had to go invent ice cream if it weren’t for the munchies?” And they were gone, the Pied Piper and Laura.

* * *

I called Mackenzie and distilled the results of my fact-finding mission. He sounded bored. Nonetheless, I kept on going through the list of oddities, through Minna’s story and its possible meanings, through Laura’s half-revelations, and finally, to the man in the toolshed. I even threw in a word or two about Dolley Madison’s dope growing in an attempt to spark interest.

“They know what happened,” he said, quietly interrupting me. “A blow to the base of the skull, top of the spine. Brain-stem damage. Didn’t even break the skin, and his hair covered it, so you wouldn’t have seen an abrasion anyway. There are other bruises, however, like he was knocked around first.”

I was hit by a sudden wave of nausea. I wanted to cry, or shout at somebody. Who was he and why was he killed? Until I knew, it felt as if anybody and anything could be killer or victim.

“Mandy? You were sayin’…? About the old man, Jacob?”

I cleared my throat. “Jacobs, maybe.” I cleared my throat again. The nausea receded. I would figure this out, and it would be over, and everybody I cared about would be safe and we’d all live happily ever after, wasn’t that so?

“Mandy?”

“He must have lived at Silverwood. Or nearby. Told Minna he went to all the parties there. He visited her right before Clausen’s party. Except he never said his name. She’s blind, but Sasha took his picture at the party, and I have it, so Minna’s friends and his neighbors can surely identify him.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? No more than that? A little praise, a little thanks for my help wouldn’t be out of line.”

“It was real good work you did, too. Not work you should be doin’…” he sighed. “…but you will go on doin’ it anyway, won’t you, so yes, it was fine. You’re very bright.”

“There’s an ‘only,’ isn’t there? So say it, Mackenzie.”

“Only.”

“Only what?”

“Only…we knew already.”

“About Silverwood? How?”

“Remember how you noticed somebody arrived in a taxi? It’s finally been traced. It was one of those special reduced senior rate deals, the kind you have to book two days ahead. The call was put in from Silverwood.”

“But you didn’t know that that specific man with the cane was the one who rode in the cab.” I stopped because I sounded as petulant as a miffed second grader. I wanted to—absolutely needed to—feel I’d done something that made a difference.

“Correct. Except by elimination, we would have known soon. The charters are getting lists of their pickups together. Everything’s been slow, because—”

“—it’s the holidays. I know. I know.”

“And because he wasn’t on any of them, it stands to reason that the person in the taxi was in some way different, self-selected. Uninvited. Anyway, we owe all that to you, Mandy. You’re the one remembered the names of the carriers. You’re the one remembered the taxi. So. You’ve done a lot, been real busy today. Did you have time to get the sun block and board Macavity, too?”

“Didn’t need to. I’m not going. Laura’s with me, which is a whole other thing we need to discuss. I want to keep it that way, even though I’m not a relative, until her aunt comes back home, and then she can decide. I don’t want her in foster care. Please, will you do whatever about it?”

“Will I—I’m leavin’ tonight an’—Laura’s with you? Servino said something about her mother wigging out, but I didn’t think it through. The aunt’s gone, is that it? So you’re stayin’ home?”

“What would you do?”

He was silent, which I interpreted as agreement. “A shame,” he said.

“I never wanted to go. And Sasha is using my ticket, so I won’t even lose money.”

He was silent again. Mackenzie was about as excited to hear about Sasha as she was to hear about him. Once again, it amazed me that I could like them both so much and they could like each other so little. It surprised me, too, because men who aren’t frightened away by Sasha’s outsized body and personality usually fall in love with her. Mackenzie said he found her boring.

He was silent, and yet it wasn’t a contented “I’m finished” sort of silence, so finally I asked him what the problem was.

“I feel real bad about leaving now you’re stuck up here. Damn,” he muttered. Beautiful words. “I can’t even change flights,” he said. “They’ve been booked forever. I was lucky to get this one. Or so I thought.”

His words made me feel positively benign, able to live with the fruits of our noncommunication. “Listen,” I said. “You’re going to have a great time. Go crazy with Cajun or chitlins or creole or whatever it is you guys eat. Reminisce with every brother and sister and aunt and cousin three times removed, then hurry back on the first. I’ll be waiting.”

“Right,” he said with no enthusiasm.

I thoroughly enjoyed the turnabout, but in the spirit of the season, I cut gloating to the minimum and returned to practical matters. “Can you help me about Laura?” I asked again. “Tell them I’ll follow whatever rules apply.”

“You think they’ll believe that kind of talk any more than I do?”

“Mackenzie! It’s important!”

“I know. And I’ll do it. But I’m really not all that comfortable with it. I wish I weren’t going off just now.”

“That’s nice, and I wish you weren’t either, but what does that have to do with this?”

“Oh,” Mackenzie said. “I don’t know…” He sounded weary and wary, and softened his words into a soggy vowel mass, a long, soft Southern mantra. “Be careful,” he slurred out. “I just don’t know if you’re helping a kid in trouble, or getting eyebrow-deep in trouble yourself.”

I didn’t know either, but it was too late to ponder the question, because what were my alternatives, anyway?

Thirteen

WHILE I REHEARSED, ONCE AGAIN, HOW BEST TO EXPLAIN MY CHANGE OF PLANS to my mother, the phone rang. For once, I hoped it was she, because with Laura out of the house I could speak freely.

But it was the wrong rime of day, the wrong phone rates and the wrong voice. “Hello dear,” a thin, uncertain voice said. “Rose was kind enough to dial your number for me. I didn’t want to wait any longer. I enjoyed your visit, dear.”

“Thank you.” What had I wrought? I had not intended my visit to be the first step in an intimate, nonstop tête-à-tête.

“A very special day for me,” she continued. “Your visit, of course, so special, and, of all surprises, Junior called, too.”

I found her relationship with “Junior” nauseating, and I pictured him wearing a Hell’s Angels’ jacket and a diaper. I was sure somebody would try to fix me up with him.

“Red letter,” she said. “All the way.” She cleared her throat. “But of course. I didn’t call about that.” Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “I called about the cannoli.”

“How…prompt! You’ve picked your favorite flavor, then?” I had not understood it to be an emergency decision. Macavity rubbed my ankle. The joy of not being boarded had begun to pale, and he was back to his mealtime seduction, neck arching against my leg. This cat enjoyed gustatory foreplay.

“Oh, no,” Minna White said. “I will, I’m sure—but I didn’t eat them all yet. I’d get sick!”

“You just said—”

Her voice was muffled, as if she were covering her mouth for privacy. “The cannoli are our cover; didn’t you guess?”

I hadn’t, and I still couldn’t.

“Coast is clear.” She became more distinct. “Rose is watching TV now.”

“That’s…very…well, now!”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“That child—that Clausen girl isn’t nearby? She can’t hear?”

“She’s out of the house.”

“She couldn’t have come back in and be listening on an extension, could she?”

“For heaven’s—” I took a deep breath. “No, she couldn’t. But could you tell me what this is about, Mrs. White?” I tried to be patient, un-Scroogey, to remember she was old and crippled and blind and deserved extra consideration.

“What’s it about? It’s about how I almost had a heart attack when you said her name. My blood curdled.”

I pictured curdle-filled veins. Curdles and why, my brain chanted. Curdles and why. “Why?” I finally asked out loud.

“Because of the story—my story. Didn’t I tell you I changed all the names except Etienne’s, made it a fairy tale to protect the innocent? Well, I’m the innocent! Me! I didn’t want to get sued, or worse. I didn’t want anybody to know what I really meant. That’s why the teacher said make it a fairy tale. Otherwise, I would never have written it. I kept it a secret for seventeen years. Never breathed a word to a living soul, not even my own child.”