The family had taken good care of the mansion over the decades. Other than the Penokee House, it was probably the only building in town that fully exhibited the exuberance and extravagance of the town’s rich history. Along the side of the large porches were elaborately cut topiary. A few still had wooden crating around them that protected them in the winter from the crushing weight of the never-ending snow.
Thelma and I walked into the foyer. The young Mr. Agnelli, a few years older than Thelma, quickly appeared. “Are you here to see Mrs. Rabinowicz?” he asked with the slightest air of astonishment.
“Yes,” I replied
“Please follow me,” he said motioning us to the front parlor, a large room that may have been planned as a reception room and dining room in the blueprints of the original house. It had ten-foot ceilings and elaborate woodwork surrounding the windows and doors. The floor were beautifully maintained hardwood maple strips. Each of the windows had a frieze of stained glass along the top. In the bright sunlight, the colored panes seemed almost alive.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Mr. Agnelli motioned to the guest book that was set on an intricately carved stand. I noticed that the only signatures in the book were those of Kip Van Elkind, Stephen from the camp, and a most surprising one: Thomas Packer. Could that be the signature of my Mr. Packer? I realized I had no idea if the old man’s first name was Thomas.
Thelma and I walked into the room. The casket was on the far side of the room against a pair of double pocket doors that perhaps had originally led to another parlor or the butler’s pantry. Today these doors were nearly hidden by the banks of floral arrangements that filled the room.
“The flowers have been wired from all over the country,” Mr. Agnelli said in sibilant whisper. “Regina and her husband had so many business interests and acquaintances. She was much beloved. I have never seen so many beautiful blooms. Sylvia at the flower shop had to get a special rush order of roses and of gladiola flown in today just so she could fill all the orders. Aren’t they lovely?” He stepped backwards and out the door.
Despite there being several rows of chairs lined up for mourners, only one person was on hand to pay his last respects. Thelma and I walked past the seated Mr. Packer to look at Mrs. Rabinowicz. The Agnellis had done a nice job. Even in death, she looked lively and frisky. I said a silent prayer and then went to sit down next to Mr. Packer.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said.
“Nor I, you,” he replied. We were both silent. I didn’t know how to respond. He didn’t seem to want to talk. Thelma sat on the other side of the old man.
“I heard once,” Thelma began, “that Regina worked for the Oxford family when they lived in Chicago. That’s the family that built the Van Elkind camp. In fact, I think she worked at the camp when the Oxfords would summer here. Odd that she would end up rich and owning it.”
Mr. Packer smiled sadly. “I first met Regina in those golden days. She was such a lively and playful young woman, but only a maid at the camp. Mrs. Oxford couldn’t abide her. For Mrs. Oxford, everything had to be the most modern and the most cosmopolitan. She only vacationed at the camp because it had been in the family so long. And then later when she needed the money, the camp was impossible to sell. No one wanted or could afford such extravagant summer homes during the Depression.”
“You knew the Oxfords?” Thelma bored in.
“I’ve known many people in my life.” He stood up and walked next to the coffin. He looked down at the woman. “I always wondered why Casimir Rabinowicz bought the monstrous old camp. It had to have been Regina’s doing. She hated working for Lotta Oxford, yet I think she made Casimir buy this place because she knew Lotta needed the money. Regina was a very kind woman.”
“But how do you know her?” I pressed on. Some day I needed to really talk to this old man. He had broad knowledge and obvious intelligence. Over the course of the past year, I learned that he had traveled throughout Europe, had fought in World War I, had once taught college and apparently mingled with the mighty. Yet I usually dismissed him as a crazy old packrat.
“After the second war, there was a period in my life that was very bad and very rough. I had wanted to believe more in the possibilities of man. Somehow Regina found out about my troubles. I don’t know why she would have remembered me from the old days or even why she would have cared. But she did. She rescued me. She helped me move to Thread and begin my life again. She saved me, but she never wanted anything in return. She deserved far more out of life than she ever received. Regina was a genuine woman. She was no Van Elkind.”
Mr. Packer stood up. “I better get going, or I’ll miss the bus back to Thread.”
“But you could ride with us,” I said. He just shook his head and exited. Moments later, Henry and Rita Van Elkind walked into the parlor. I wondered if they had been outside and overheard Mr. Packer’s condemnation of their family.
“Was that the old coot who hangs out at your cafe?” Van Elkind asked.
“”His name is Mr. Packer,” I said. “And he knew your mother. Apparently from when she was a young woman and a maid for the Oxfords.”
“Really,” Rita said with disapproval. “How like Mother to have such unpleasant friends. I certainly hope he doesn’t plan to come to the memorial service.”
“We could still change our minds,” Van Elkind said, “and fly your mother’s body to Chicago. We could hold the service there and then all of Mother’s old friends would be able to attend.”
“Dear, we’ve been over this before. There’s really no reason to bother with all that. We agreed Mother would be happiest to have her ashes among her roses. Having a service in Chicago would just mean we would have to fly back here after the service, so let’s keep it simple. The service will be here. Most of her friends have long since died anyway. We’re the only ones left who care.”
Thelma sat quietly on her chair. But her back was rigid. She was primed to light into Rita Van Elkind, and I suggested that we leave. Although Thelma was more than willing, Van Elkind had a different idea. He dragged me across the hall to the tower corner room. There were windows surrounding us on three sides. Looking across the hall, I could see Rita Van Elkind sitting in the front row near her mother’s coffin, simply staring into space. Thelma had stood up and was beginning to pace. The black purse she was carrying seemed to swing more and more with each step.
“I think I better get Thelma out of here,” I said.
“Just a minute, Wally, I want to talk about American Seasons. We are going ahead with the public announcement next week. This damn inconvenience of my mother-in-law dying has made it difficult to plan a local briefing, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’m convinced there is no need for anything local.”
“But you always said you wanted the town on your side,” I pointed out. I wanted to get away before he mentioned Patrice again. But he had other things on his mind.
“And they will be. Look at the facts. Everyone is going to breathe a sigh of relief when they realize that our resort plans will stop dead in the tracks all plans for strip mining.”
I protested, “There never were any plans for strip mining.”
“Technicality,” he waved it off. “And when we start talking about the jobs that we are going to create, everyone will be happy–especially after the way Frozen Bear screwed the townsmen out of jobs at his electronics plant. There is not a person in town who won’t benefit from this development. It will mean more tourists and that will mean more money for everyone. Why waste time priming a pump that is already flowing with water?”
“I’m not sure it’s that simple,” I said.
Henry Van Elkind was smug as we walked back toward Thelma. “Trust me, it is exactly that simple.”
We left the car parked where it was on the street outside the funeral home. Van Elkind’s BMW was parked nearby and next to a fire hydrant. I was pleased to see that there was already a pink parking ticket stuck beneath his windshield wiper.
“Let’s walk over to the Penokee House for a late lunch,” I suggested to Thelma. “We can check out the competition.”
No matter how many times I saw the Penokee House, I was always entranced by its glamour and scale. It had been constructed at a time when many expected Timberton to reach a population of thirty or fifty thousand, and by a man who believed the city would be a major center of commerce. Who imagined then that a city of nearly twenty thousand could so quickly slink back to a few thousand people, that the streetcar tracks could be so easily pulled up, that the cheaply built housing on the narrow lots would be simply moved away or torn down and that the mines and forests that fueled the economic growth could play out so quickly?
But the one hundred rooms of the Penokee House were not so easily dispensed with. Built to last for centuries, insulated with asbestos for fireproofing, the four-story Penokee House was a masterpiece of frontier optimism. Through the years, it had played host to such national luminaries as President Grover Cleveland, orator William Jennings Bryan, and novelist Edna Ferber. Who knew what other famous people may have walked up the broad steps from Silver Street and promenaded along its two-hundred-foot veranda, watching the comings and goings of a once bustling town?
Today, there was little activity on the street. The hotel catered mostly to couples on a weekend getaway, who imagined in the grand old hotel a romance that may never have existed. Travel writers praised its ambience, although seldom its food. Nevertheless, and despite it being nearly three in the afternoon, Thelma and I were told we would have a fifteen-minute wait for a table.
When we were finally seated, I took a look at the menu. Boring. Only the usual items that you would expect at an overpriced tourist spot. Nothing to show imagination or a connection to the history of this town. Just steaks, deep-fried chicken and the like.
Thelma saw my look of dismay. “You’re paying for the ambience so you might as well order a martini and drink it in.”
I followed Thelma’s advice and ordered a martini, extra dry, up and with a double olive. I would indeed enjoy myself, I thought, especially since Thelma was driving. I ordered a New York strip steak, rare, to go with my cocktail. “And bring me a glass of cabernet when you serve the main course,” I told the waitress.
“Our only wine by the glass is Gallo. Will that be okay?” she asked.
I grimaced. Thelma was giving me her most severe look of disapproval, although I wasn’t sure whether it was for my reaction to the wine or the fact that I had ordered it. “Don’t give me that look,” I shot back. “This will be my lunch and dinner. Besides I have worries.”
Thelma would have none of that, and it turned out her disapproval wasn’t over the alcohol. “Months ago, I told you to watch out for people like Van Elkind. Have you figured out yet what he wants of you?”
“No,” I replied, “besides who said anything about Van Elkind. Okay, okay, it is about Van Elkind.” It was the most honest thing I had uttered in months. I had no idea why Van Elkind had ushered me into his inner circle. There was nothing I could offer. I had no land, money or political connections. Even the public relations acumen he claimed to see in me had never been to put to use. I was just a useless appendix. And I was ready to burst with anger over the whole resort plan. In a way, I was afraid that Van Elkind was right. Everyone in Thread would agree that the development was a wonderful thing. It wouldn’t be clear to them what they were tossing aside until it was too late to retrieve. The forests would be destroyed one more time, and the land would be mined in a new way leaving scars of highways, airports and condominium complexes, the pulsating sores of strip malls, cheap motels and get-rich-quick schemes.
Thelma set down the beer she had ordered. “When you were in school, did you ever notice how often really pretty girls had a very plain gal as their best friend?”
I smiled, “Rhonda Jackson and Sylvia Makinen were like that. Rhonda was gorgeous. Let’s just say Sylvia wasn’t. Yet they were always together. I always thought it was odd.”
“Why do you suppose that is?” Thelma pressed, “Sure, the ugly girl probably hopes some of the beauty rubs off? But what’s in it for the gorgeous one? Don’t you see how the pretty ones look even better in comparison? People think, ‘Isn’t she nice to hang around with such a dog.’ And the dog is always there wagging its tail in appreciation. The beauty can always look at the beast and think, ‘I’m so much better looking than her.’”
“So are you saying Hank likes to hang around me because I’m so beautiful?” I was feeling the effects of the martini. I needed another. I signaled the waitress for a new round.
“That’s not what I mean Wally. You’re more like the ugly girl. Don’t you see how Hank wants you around so he has an admiring audience? He knows you’re a big city boy who’s smart and clever. But he also knows you have no talent for the kind of business shenanigans he plays. He’s the one behind all this land buying, isn’t he? What’s he planning?
“Don’t blush on me. Who am I going to tell? Anyway, your face just gave it away. You’re like an adoring puppy. He’s got you wowed. You’d admire him even if he beat you black and blue. He wants an audience, and you’re it. You were his chosen one. Ain’t you lucky!”
“Maybe I should write a book,” I muttered.
Thelma didn’t answer. I stared down at my salad, a poor mixture of iceberg lettuce with a few strips of spinach for contrast. It was drenched in blue cheese dressing. I tasted a pinch of truth in what Thelma had just said. But would a rich and successful businessman risk so much just so he could have an intimate admirer? I thought of Amanda Manny and how she was also included in Van Elkind’s inner circle. There was no way that she was providing anything of use to the American Seasons project despite her fancy title. Everyone assumed that Van Elkind was screwing her. Was I just a variant of his whores?
I looked over to Thelma who seemed lost in thought, gazing across the room. Maybe she was just making me stew in the pot she created. I looked around the room for something to anchor my thoughts. The dining room had been carefully restored to a Victorian sensibility. The walls were covered with a large and intricate turn-of-the-century pattern. The chandeliers had the appearance of brass gas lamps converted to electricity. The room looked much like it did the 1890s photos they had hanging in the lobby. Only the long tables once set for mass seatings had been exchanged for contemporary small tables designed for individual parties.
Thelma was still staring across the room. She ignored her fried shrimp. I wondered if I had offended her somehow. I was reminded of the time we had picked raspberries in the woods, and I decided to play it safe, so I ate my steak without saying a word.
But minutes later, she was still staring across the room. I turned my head to see what so entranced her. I realized then she wasn’t upset with me . . . perhaps with herself, but not with me. Across the room in a small alcove, nearly shielded from us, sat two people engrossed with one another even as they ate. One was a woman similar in age and appearance to Thelma. The other was Gilbert Ford. He leaned over and kissed this other woman on the cheek. Even across the crowded room, we could hear her flirtatious giggle. Gilbert. Here, and with another woman.
“Maybe we should go,” I suggested.
“Yes, let’s go,” Thelma responded. As we stepped out onto the veranda and the brightness of the late afternoon, she handed me her car keys. “You’re going to have to drive,” she said.
“But I’ve been drinking,” I said.
“And I can’t see,” she replied. “Something happened to my eye.” I looked over at the wonderfully weathered face of this warm woman. Her left eye was as bloodshot as a man on a two-week bender. A blood vessel had burst in her eye.
“I think I was staring too hard,” she said. She said nothing more. No mention of Gilbert or his dinner date. It was a long and quiet ride back to Thread.
Days later and the restaurant was abuzz with the biggest news to ever hit Thread. Television crews, with massive satellite dishes on their va
ns, were packed in the square. All the state’s television stations were present, as well as national correspondents from the major networks. Even Charles Kuralt had flown in. He was going to do an update on his decade-old Eye on The Road Loon Town piece.
In Madison, the governor and senator were basking in the glow of a major coup. An overnight poll by The Milwaukee Journal and the Roper organization showed that seventy-six percent of Wisconsin residents approved of the American Seasons resort plans. On Wall Street, the stock of Haligent Holdings trading on the American Exchange was up five points. In the cafe, my breakfast business was booming. I had even met an old friend from Manhattan who had been sent out to do background research for Business Week. No one could have predicted the enthusiasm the media had for the unveiling of plans for a new mega-resort and casino in the northwoods.
“It’ll never get built,” Bromley fumed. “They don’t have any of the right clearances. There’s zoning laws in this county. And there aren’t any god darn liquor licenses left to be granted. How do they expect to get any of it done if they didn’t even ask for my help? You know the Lattigo have to be behind all of this. Never would have happened without them. Chip Frozen Bear is out to get me, I tell you. Red is my friend, and he’s known me for years. He would never have gone along with this cockamamie plan if it hadn’t been for that Indian. What does Frozen Bear have over Red?”
Josh was in a slump. “I should have known something was up when people started a bidding war over my useless swampland. I never would have sold it so cheap if Chip Frozen Bear hadn’t shown up in person to make the offer. He’s so damn cute. I’m always a sucker for a cute guy. But I could have been rich. I sure hope Dad at least can look down from up there and see how that his old swamp is going to turn into a casino. That would make his day.”
Tales From The Loon Town Cafe Page 34