Brewing Up a Storm

by Deaver Brown

  The report on Madeleine Underwood’s murder had prompted only a few regrets that the entire congressional panel had not been targeted instead. A rehash of the Rugby riot, however, produced more variegated reactions.

  “Can’t blame the guy,” said someone when Sal Piemonte’s complaints were aired.

  Without taking his eyes off the screen, one of the construction workers at the far end of the bar remarked, “I worked for the SOB over in Brooklyn last year.”

  The bride’s plight conjured up personal testimony of another sort.

  “Listen, when the hospital sent me home in a body cast, it took Marge and me about fifteen minutes to figure out how to . . .”

  Those undistracted by conditions in the building trades or possibilities in the wedding bed were rewarded by Theresa Dominguez.

  A mere slip of a girl, looking too fragile to support the cumbersome brace around her neck, she brought tears to many a boozy eye. By now she was trying to smile gallantly and all the world knew that she was a straight-A student, she worked twenty hours a week and helped at home with the younger children.

  “Can you figure it? Taking a two-by-four to a little thing like that!”

  “She gives her paycheck to her mother,” repeated the astonished father of teenagers.

  “Jeez, no wonder someone brained that Underwood broad. She deserved it.”

  But with Theresa, the crowd began to thin. Left behind were the philosophers of Paddy’s Pub, the men who relished food for thought with their tipple. Lacking an umpire’s decision to critique, they at first fell back on their staples. City Hall and Bedford-Stuyvesant came in for their usual knocks, but before the evening could end with bad jokes, a laggard spoke up.

  “You know one thing I don’t understand?”

  “What’s that, Joe?”

  “That woman, that bunch smashing windows. Why are they doing it?”

  It was too much of a leap backward. Confusion ensued and Joe was in no shape to dispel it. Paddy was forced to lend a hand. “He’s talking about Underwood, the one they showed outside the courthouse, mouthing off about how this here Quax tastes just like Kix, only without the kick.”

  Somewhere between Sal Piemonte and Theresa Dominguez, Joe and his companions had gotten lost.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “So help me God,” said Paddy with simple barkeeper authority.

  “I had it once by mistake,” recalled someone morosely. “Tasted like piss.”

  In this forum Kix without the kick did not commend itself. In fact, it led to other worries.

  “I suppose they’ll start messing with Kix next,” said one of the group, scowling protectively at his familiar brown bottle.

  “Just let them try,” said Joe. “Hell, I remember how they advertised Kix twenty years ago . . .”

  Nostalgia for the past, for the slogans and singing commercials of their youth engulfed him and his cronies. Both words and music eluded them but they tried an uncertain chorus anyway.

  “Will you guys pipe down?” barked Paddy, rephrasing a house rule.

  For a moment there was silence, then Joe began again. “Why the hell do they have to keep changing things? First it was all this crap from Germany. Then this mini-brewery garbage with beer made out of strawberries. Now they’re making American beer without alcohol, for Chrissake.”

  “So you would have been on Underwood’s side.”

  Joe drew himself up. “Like hell!”

  “Well, if you’re against Quax, you’re for this NOBBY,” said Paddy.

  “But why take the alcohol out of Kix in the first place?” demanded Joe, turning plaintive.

  After a certain hour conversations tended to go in circles at Paddy’s Pub, but there was always someone with information to contribute.

  “They’re not making it for you or me, Joe. They’re making it for kids. Or alcoholics or designated drivers.”

  “Oh, them!” chorused everybody with impartial dislike.

  Joe, on the other hand, was inspired to sum up, reversing course as he did so.

  “You know what? People are going crazy. Wars are going on, bums are sleeping on the streets. Kids shoot kids, and nobody knows how to cure cancer or AIDS. So what do these people start raising hell about? Selling non-alcoholic beer. Does that make sense?”

  “Money,” said someone wisely. “Somehow, somebody’s making big bucks out of all this.”

  “The smart boys . . .”

  “. . . little guys never stand a chance.”

  Here too, the day ended on a strong, if slightly unfocused, note of general hostility.

  In Chicago, Audrey Morin represented a constant factor in all electorates. Her tub was deliciously scented by Nuit d’Amour and she had just stepped in when the phone rang.

  “Damn,” she muttered, grabbing her terry robe. Padding hopefully into the hall, she snatched up the receiver. But this was not the call that would transform her life.

  “Ms. Audrey Morin?”

  “Ye-es?”

  “Ms. Morin, I represent Midwest Policy Conference. We’re conducting a poll and I have a few questions.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Now, can you tell me what channel you were watching when I called?”

  “I was taking a bath,” said Audrey crossly.

  “I see.” Pause for making a note. Then, moving down the checklist: “Now, how did you feel when you saw that the instigator of yesterday’s riot at Rugby’s in Manhattan had been murdered?”

  “I’ve been at work,” said Audrey. “We don’t have TV sets in the lab.”

  “Then you caught it on the evening news?”

  Audrey’s chin went up. “I stopped by Field’s.”

  “Oh,” said the pollster, apparently disappointed by any activity not centered on a television screen. “But you did learn what happened from another source, like radio or a newspaper?”

  Audrey did not read newspapers except on Sunday morning but she had her pride.

  “Radio,” she snapped. “But listen, if you don’t mind—”

  “Just a few minutes more on another subject. Which best describes your attitude to Quax—approve, disapprove or indifferent?”

  “Indifferent, I guess,” said Audrey, who had never heard the name.

  Further silence at the end, presumably for more data recording. Then: “How about Rugby’s?”

  “Their chili’s terrific!”

  “I’ll put you down as approving on Rugby’s. Thank you very much, Ms. Morin. You’ve been a big help.”

  Approbation gave Audrey a warm glow that faded fast. The tub was now ice-cold.

  In Texas, of course, it was no contest. There the Rugby chain had been part of daily life for over ten years and Elmer himself was a local boy who had made good. Nowhere was this more apparent than at his restaurant in downtown San Antonio when the movie next door ended. The long lines at the counter were composed of people who had relatives, friends and neighbors working at Rugby headquarters.

  “Who are these NOBBY people? And what gave them the idea they could tell us what to eat and drink?” demanded a customer too far back to have any immediate hope of giving his order.

  “They’re a bunch of wackos in New York,” said an unseen voice dismissively. “We all know what they’re like.”

  “Well, if they’d pulled that riot here, they wouldn’t have gotten off with whole skins,” declared a large man in a muscle shirt.

  “I don’t know what you mean by whole skins. Somebody knocked off the woman in charge,” his companion pointed out more in a spirit of accuracy than disapproval.

  Nobody in Texas had much sympathy to spare for Madeleine Underwood.

  “A crazy broad like that,” exclaimed the original speaker. “She was just asking for it.”

  • • •

  But the most significant response of all came in California long after Paddy’s customers had gone home. The regional distributor for Kichsel’s had watched the late late “News” propped up in
bed. After clicking off the TV he began scrabbling in his bedside table for pad and pencil. The sounds were familiar to his wife.

  “Have to remind yourself of something?” she mumbled from behind closed eyes.

  “I’ll only be a sec, honey. It’s just to jack up our inventory on Quax. The orders will start pouring in tomorrow.”

  And from the other side of the king-size mattress, muffled by sleepiness and a hypoallergenic pillow, came the genuine voice of the American public.

  “If there’s going to be all this fuss about the stuff, I suppose I’d better try it.”

  Chapter 14.

  On Ice

  The next day found secondary witnesses being swept into the police net. Like many others, John Thatcher was obliged to describe Madeleine Underwood’s confrontation with Alec Moore and Claudia Fentiman. Fortunately there was one area in which he could honestly plead ignorance.

  “No, I didn’t hear Rugby say she should be strangled. The only threat he made in my presence was his promise to sue NOBBY for every penny it has.”

  Elmer himself was less cautious.

  “I said a lot of things,” he agreed gruffly. “I don’t remember them all now, but I know what I intended to do. Ask my lawyers.”

  Peggy Roche, who turned out during business hours to be Margaret Roche, Commercial Interiors, made no bones about the plans of NOBBY’s governors.

  “When we get calls about making bail for our members, the executive director is on her way out,” she said tartly before turning to more pressing problems. “Now, how in the world am I supposed to produce a eulogy for that woman?”

  There were inquiries farther afield as well. In Washington the clerical staff of the committee retailed every exorbitant demand made by Madeleine Underwood. In Philadelphia a call-in host remembered her vividly.

  “I had to cut her off. She was making every mistake in the book.”

  And a hotel chambermaid confirmed Harry Hull’s earlier suspicions.

  “Mrs. Underwood was hiding around the corner until the congressman’s visitor left. Then she popped over to his door, but he wasn’t having any of it. He let her in to get her stuff, then, when she went on acting like little Miss Sunshine, marched her straight to the elevator.”

  A large law firm was able to tell the police where Madeleine Underwood had been headed when she so insouciantly taxied away from a burgeoning riot.

  “She spent the afternoon here at our strategy session,” Arthur Cleve explained. “The lawsuit had blown up in our faces, thanks to her.”

  “Then she must have been pretty upset?”

  “Not half as much as we were. Her only reaction to the Ludlums was some silly remark about how people in her position had to expect to be stabbed in the back.”

  “Trying to weasel out from under?”

  “It was more irritating than that, it was more as if she’d lost interest in the lawsuit. There she sat, all eager and excited about something else. But then,” Cleve continued bitterly, “I didn’t know she’d just started a riot downtown. The calls from people trying to locate her didn’t start coming in until after she left.”

  But Roger Vandermeer took pride of place. He not only confirmed SDI contributions to NOBBY, he admitted being one of the dissatisfied supporters.

  “Sure, I spoke to Cushing twice. First thing Tuesday morning I called him and said they could forget about our funding if they didn’t bounce Underwood. Yesterday at the hearing I told him it didn’t matter what they did. NOBBY was just a bad smell by that time.”

  The suggestion that SDI donations had been shrouded in secrecy elicited a snort. “Fat chance of any secrecy when it’s all laid out in our books! Besides, why should there be? It’s perfectly legal for SDI to support a non-profit organization whose aims they approve of.”

  Further questioning, however, dissipated his impatience.

  “So that’s the way the wind blows,” he said shrewdly. “No, I don’t have any idea how the money was handled over at NOBBY. Jesus Christ, I thought we were through with that bunch. All we need is to get dragged into some scandal of theirs.”

  But any tidbit of information was valuable in Roger Vandermeer’s operation and passing it on was a recognized form of conferring favors.

  “Say, Harry,” he began as soon as the switchboard had tracked down the congressman. “I just had the police here. They think someone at NOBBY had his hand in the cookie jar.”

  There was a brief silence, followed by an appreciative whistle. “That would explain the murder all right. And I suppose embezzlement would have been easy. There was a lot of money floating around that place and Madeleine Underwood wasn’t the woman to stay on top of it. But the cops didn’t say anything about that to me.”

  “They didn’t say it outright to me, either. They just had a lot of questions about our contributions to NOBBY and it wasn’t hard to figure out what they had in mind.”

  “I didn’t know you were supporting NOBBY.”

  “Why not?” Vandermeer asked largely. “At the time it seemed like a good idea. Now I could kick myself. But what did the police want from you?”

  “It was mostly about that appointment I had with Mrs. Underwood. Naturally they wanted to know who knew about it. All I could tell them was that we talked in the middle of the room with a crowd milling around us.”

  “I heard you myself.”

  “The way she was screeching, you and everybody else,” Hull replied. “At first I felt guilty I wasn’t on time at the office because it might have saved her. Now I’m glad I never got to see her. I was boiling mad about that stupid riot and I could have ended up having a public row with her just before she got brained.”

  “Yeah, things really worked out for the best. You didn’t get a chance to fight with her, but”—Vandermeer recalled happily—“the Kichsel people were doing it all over the place.”

  But Madeleine Underwood’s argumentativeness had extended farther than Roger Vandermeer realized. Testimony from committee typists had included the description of a hot and heavy exchange in the ladies’ room.

  When the police appeared at the front door of Iona Perez’s home in Rye, she took one look and said placidly, “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Shifting the large laundry basket braced on her hip, she ushered them into the living room, then said, “just let me dump this into the machine and we can talk.”

  Nothing, it appeared, was going to disrupt the domestic schedule of the Perez household.

  “I suppose you know that I was one of the demonstrators arrested at Rugby’s,” she began once she was settled on the sofa. “Actually I was trying to calm people down, but you don’t care about that. The important thing is that I was furious at Madeleine’s irresponsibility.”

  “You didn’t approve of her tactics that day?”

  “I didn’t approve of a lot of things. It began with her failure to investigate the plaintiffs she had chosen for our first lawsuit. But that was nothing compared to her performance on Tuesday. NOBBY has mounted protests before and we’ve always been careful to keep them peaceful and genuinely informative. There was never the remotest suggestion of physical force. Madeleine, without a word to anyone, changed all that. Then, after whipping the volunteers into a frenzy, she calmly took off, leaving them to face the consequences. And finally she didn’t bother to tell the office she’d disappeared into a hotel that night, so nobody was able to find her. I decided enough was enough.”

  Listening to this dispassionate indictment and watching the self-contained woman on the sofa, the detective found it hard to believe she had engaged in the heated altercation several witnesses had described.

  “So you told Mrs. Underwood all this. What did she say?”

  Iona’s mouth twisted into a grimace.

  “Oh, according to her, the court case was a fiasco because the Kichsel Brewery had laid a trap for her.” Here there was a ladylike snort. “As if everybody couldn’t see that the Ludlums were simply out to line their pockets. And when
she messed up her testimony at the hearing, it was because dark forces were conspiring to take over NOBBY. But worst of all was the riot. If anything, she was triumphant over the publicity. She’d shown the world that she could cause trouble whenever she wanted.”

  “I don’t suppose that attitude made you feel any better.”

  “I’ll admit I was surprised. I thought she’d try to justify herself, claim that she hadn’t told the protesters to start swinging. But I didn’t even get that. Madeleine was different than I’d ever seen her before. All right, she was always a little flaky, but she’d turned into a real loose cannon. Not that her reaction made much difference to me. The reason I’d chased her down at the hearing was to tell her how I felt and warn her what I was going to do.”

  “You were going to quit?”

  Iona drew herself up into a rigid, unyielding column.

  “Certainly not. For over a year, I’ve given every spare minute I could dredge up to NOBBY. Madeleine was the one who was going to be leaving. I told her I would be asking the board of governors to remove her. That’s when she went ape.”

  And she wasn’t the only one, reflected the detective. “They tell me you were going at it pretty good yourself.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Iona admitted with a small sigh for human frailty. “There’s something very frustrating about not being able to make a dent. Madeleine, it turned out, didn’t know the first thing about our charter and by-laws. To her, NOBBY was a personal possession, and it was impossible that anybody should be able to take it away from her. She told me that and then announced I was no longer working for her.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing. I was only there because I didn’t want to go behind her back. Once I’d explained what I was going to do and given her my reasons, I was through. If she was too dumb to understand, that was her problem.”