The Pink Flamingo Murders (3 page)

Tall, thin Patricia slipped between the furious women and bravely tried to give Margie’s incendiary facts another interpretation.

“Caroline’s done a lot for the neighborhood,” she said, defending Caroline with the same thing everyone said. Patricia’s sticklike form vibrated with anxiety. “Mrs. Grumbacher was old but tightfisted. She could afford to do a little repair work. It improved the appearance of the street so much.”

Patricia’s courageous move didn’t work. Margie continued talking as if Patricia were invisible. “After that,” Margie rasped, “when
Caroline
made a suggestion, the neighbors did it, because no matter how expensive it seemed up front, it was cheaper than what a city inspector would do to you.”

But Caroline had quit paying attention to Margie. She was peering into the purple dusk at a house two doors down from Kathy’s. Suddenly she screamed, “Otto, what are you doing!?” and ran toward the house, her stocky body shaking with anger.

“Something awful, I’m sure,” Margie murmured. “Do you know him?”

I shook my head no.

“Otto Bumbaw is the only person on North Dakota Place who stands up to Caroline,” Margie explained. “He’s a City Hall worker who lives in a big old house that used to belong to his mother. She’s been dead for years. Otto lives alone with his yappy little dog, Hansie,
a miserable animal that’s part Schnauzer and part Scottie.”

“And ugly all over,” interrupted Dina, but with the cats frolicking on her chest, I knew this was a biased opinion.

“With a piercing bark,” Margie confirmed. “Otto let his house repairs slide. Caroline’s threats to complain to City Hall didn’t bother him. He’s worked there for more than thirty years. I don’t know exactly what he does for a living, but he seems to know all the city inspectors. City Hall would never touch him.”

“But even Otto had to recognize that his place was falling down,” Dina said. “If he didn’t do something soon, he’d live in a leaky house.”

“Caroline keeps up a constant campaign of harassment,” Margie said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it harassment exactly,” Patricia said, mildly.

“I would,” Margie said. “Otto can’t step outside without running into the woman. Look how she acted now. Maybe she can’t complain to the city and get anywhere, but she can complain to Otto. And she did. The man can’t leave the house without Caroline stopping him. If he sits in a lawn chair in his yard, she’ll march right up to the fence and say ‘Otto, this house is a disgrace. What would your mother say?’

“‘Nothing. She’s dead,’ Otto always growls, and chomps on his big smelly cigar. Hansie, that nasty little dog, yaps nonstop but Caroline talks right over it. Not that Otto ever listens.”

“Yesterday she finally made some headway,” Patricia said proudly.

“Well, I’ll give her that much. She did seem to get through to him with that last lecture,” Margie said.

“What did she say?” Dina asked, as curious as any cat.

“I happened to be walking down the street . . .” Margie said.

Dina snorted in disbelief. “Come on, ’fess up, you were lurking around listening.”

“Whatever,” Margie said. “I heard it. ‘Your mother was house proud,’ Caroline said to him, appealing to the memory of the one woman Otto respected. ‘When she was alive her home never looked like this. You need to have the bricks tuckpointed, Otto. The paint is peeling off your windowsills. Your gutters and porch trim should be painted, too. And you still have your Christmas lights up. In June. Otto, how could you?’

“Otto hung his head. For once, one of Caroline’s lectures seemed to have hit home, if you’ll pardon the pun. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said to her. I’ll paint the damn thing. But you gotta promise, if I paint it, you’ll shut your nagging and let me enjoy my yard in peace.’

“It’s a deal, Otto,’ she said, and stuck out her hand. He shook it solemnly. I saw it with my own eyes. That was yesterday. This morning Otto came back with his old beige Plymouth loaded up with paint cans, brushes, rollers, drop cloths, and other supplies, which he unloaded and left in the yard. The whole street waited for him to begin painting. I spent the day sneaking peeks through my miniblinds. Nothing—until Caroline came out for her evening Pretty-up Patrol. He must want her to see him doing his historic paint job.”

“Caroline is patient but persuasive,” Patricia said admiringly.

“She wears you down like water on a stone,” Margie said.

“I think she’s come up against that rockhead Otto now,” Dina said. “Listen to the two of them fighting.”

The shouts and angry screams all seemed to be coming from Caroline. We walked over for a closer look, not bothering to hide our curiosity. Caroline and
Otto weren’t punching each other out, but they were squared off like a couple of prizefighters. Caroline looked ready to hit Otto at any time. He looked like he was enjoying himself. He was sloppy fat, with a Friar Tuck fringe of black-gray hair, baggy pants, and a beer gut. He’d set up two tall aluminum ladders on the side of his house, then spread paint cans, rollers, and brushes all over the ground.

Otto was painting—not the trim but the brick itself. This was a cheapskate solution some city people used to avoid expensive tuckpointing. But they usually painted the brick either brick red, a tasteful white, or soft gray. Otto was painting the bricks with huge swipes of color, and it was the most godawful shade of purple you’d ever see. Heliotrope, I guess it was. He was turning the gently timeworn house into a three-story heliotrope heap. It would knock the heck out of any plans to sell North Dakota Place as a street for the elite. No matter how many flowers and angel fountains it had, the street would have that huge pulsating purple eyesore. It would be a local laughingstock, and Caroline’s dreams would be dead. He’d painted only a few feet of brick when Caroline came roaring over. Now her dark hair was flapping like wings and her face was a dangerous red.

“Otto!”
she screamed.
“What are you doing!!!!”

“Painting my house, the way you wanted me to,” he said sweetly.

“Not that color!” she wailed.

“You never told me what color to paint,” Otto said, and shrugged. “And we agreed, if I painted the house, you’d shut up. Well, I’m painting, so shut up.”

Caroline’s mouth gaped open, like a beached fish, but no sound came out.

“But you’ll probably want to know my plans,” he said. “I can’t get much of a start on the bricks tonight, but I wanted you to see what it would look like. Next
I’ll start the trim and gutter work. I’m going to make the gutters turquoise. I think they’ll look real nice with my turquoise Christmas lights. Set them off. Should look real pretty for your real estate ladies.”

Otto had perfectly calculated which parts of the house would be seen first when the West County real estate agents rolled down the street/They’d get an eyeful of purple and turquoise, ugly as a bruise.

Caroline said nothing. She turned on her heel and walked back toward her house.

“Probably going to call her lawyer,” Margie said. “He does all her dirty work for her.”

“Too bad Otto’s paint job will ruin my property values, too,” Dina said. “Otherwise, I’d be in favor of it. Caroline needs to be taken down a notch.”

“She’s done a lot for the neighborhood,” said Patricia, who believed in recycling the local mantra.

“But she doesn’t own it,” Margie said, with more bitterness than I expected.

My evening, which began in such good humor, was ending in an ugly mood. It was time to leave. I thanked Margie for the story and started to walk back home. I checked my watch. It was a little after nine. I’d canceled dinner with Lyle earlier. Now I wished I hadn’t. I felt so lonely. Maybe it wasn’t too late to see him tonight. I dropped my things at home and called him. Lyle wasn’t at the university or at his house. He’d found a way to spend the evening without me. I was too tired to fix dinner and too restless to stay home. I wandered over to my favorite Thai restaurant, the King and I, on South Grand. I loved the rich colors of the booths and walls, and the little golden shrine to Buddha on the wall. I had pad Thai noodles with pork. Delicious. I had a table by the window, and I watched the people going by. There was an Asian woman in black pajamas, a gay couple with their hands almost touching, and a pot-bellied man walking an equally
pot-bellied pig. They proceeded at a stately pace, bellies swaying together. Lord, I loved this neighborhood. I wasn’t sure what my German grandparents would make of the newcomers . . . yes, I did. They’d treat them the same way as the other older Germans. As long as you cut your grass and kept up your property, they’d tolerate you. That’s why we had so many gays here. The toleration stopped where the paint and the weeds started.

My good mood was restored. I started walking home, taking the shortcut down the alley. Some would say that was stupid, but the alley was brightly lit, especially since the building next door had been torn down and made into that St. Louis architectural specialty, the parking lot. The old Ritz theater used to be there, and I missed it. I’d seen my favorite movie there,
The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
.

The parking lot didn’t have the entertainment value of the old movie theater, but it added several rows of much-needed metered spaces. Even late at night there were still cars in the lot, and one blue minivan, almost out of sight, near the Dumpster by the alley exit. Hmm. What was that odd movement? It looked like the van was bouncing up and down. Was there a small earthquake or something? I walked over in that direction. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce-bounce-bounce. Omigod. I was slow, but I finally figured out what had the springs rocking in the minivan. I should back away and give the lovers a little privacy. Must be an extracurricular married couple. The minivan was a little middle aged for courting kids to use. There was no way to tell whose it was. Blue minivans were as common as dirt. There must be half a dozen driven by staff members at work alone. Even Charlie, the
Gazettes
managing editor, drove his wife’s to work sometimes, when his car was in the shop. Wait. Didn’t this
one have the orange Gazette parking-lot sticker on the bumper?

I moved in for a closer look. It did. It was someone from the
Gazette
, taking a late-night quickie in my neighborhood. But who could it be? The
Gazette
crowd stayed in the richer, older suburbs of Kirkwood and Webster Groves, or behind the gilded gates of the moneyed Central West End. They didn’t bother with low-rent South St. Louis. That’s why I lived there.

The van had stopped bouncing some time ago. I backed up behind the Dumpster and tried not to breathe in the rotting garbage aroma. I had to see who was stepping out. At that moment the side door slid open and out stepped Charlie, our managing editor, like a weasel popping out of a burrow. The little weasel was buckling his belt and straightening his tie. I should have known. That man changed girlfriends the way you changed socks. I wondered how his wife felt about his unfaithfulness. After sizing up Charlie’s ever-expanding beer gut and bald spot, I decided she must be grateful. Most of his conquests were ambitious young reporters, who lowered themselves to sleep with Charlie, then rose to new heights at the
Gazette
. The affairs never lasted long, but they always gave the young reporter a leg up at the paper. Oh, dear, that didn’t sound right. But before I could find a better phrase, Charlie put out his hand to help his inamorata out of the minivan.

“Here, Cupcake,” he said, his voice as mushy as the Dumpster contents.

Cupcake? Charlie never used terms of endearment for the women he bedded. He’d called them “sleeping bags” in my hearing. Lord knows what he said about them when he was drinking with the guys at the Last Word, the newspaper bar. But now he sounded almost reverent and grateful. The arrogant Charlie grateful?
To a mere woman? Who was this temptress? Now I had to see her.

The streetlights revealed that she was short, no more than five feet, with a wide bottom, a flat chest, and narrow, sloping shoulders. She ran her fingers through her soft, shoulder-length curly hair, and fear clutched my heart. Was it red hair? Please, please say it wasn’t. The parking lot’s mercury vapor lights bleached the color out of everything. Then her small white hands began tying a pussycat bow under her chin. There was only one person at the
Gazette
who still wore that old yuppie emblem. Dear God, it was her. Charlie was having a fling with Nadia “Nails” Noonin! She earned her nickname because she was “hard as,” not for her fingernails, which were bitten to the quick. “Give me just a sec, Dimpletoes,” she said.

Dimpletoes? She called Charlie Dimpletoes? I could see Charlie puff out his chest. Uh-oh. After two decades of mindless skirt-chasing, Charlie sounded seriously smitten. I almost felt sorry for the lovers, trysting in such a tawdry spot. But what choice did Charlie have? He was married. He couldn’t take her to his house. Motel bills would show up on his credit cards. Large amounts of cash would have to be explained at home. Three staffers lived near Nadia, which meant Charlie would be spotted there. Charlie couldn’t keep a love nest in my neighborhood, either. The neighbors watched everyone and everything. They’d recognize him in a minute.

Nails didn’t seem to mind. She stepped out of the minivan like a star emerging from her private trailer. In a strange way, the match made sense. It was as if you’d fixed up Jack the Ripper with Lucretia Borgia on a blind date. I was tempted to congratulate them, but the last thing I needed was for Charlie and Nails to know I’d witnessed their duet as Cupcake and Dimpletoes. I stepped farther back into the smelly shadows
of the Dumpster and kicked a soda can. It sounded like I’d overturned the Pepsi plant. They looked up, a pair of startled predators. And saw me. “Hi, Charlie,” I said politely. “Hi, Na—Nadia.” I’d almost said Nails. Well, better she should think I stuttered.

“In the trash as usual,” Nails sneered. “Looking for column material? Or yesterday’s column?”

I was trying to think of an appropriately snide retort when Charlie stepped in smoothly with “I was just taking Nadia for a little ride around the neighborhood. To show her some things she’s never seen before.”