High Spirits

by Alice Duncan

  Ma shook her head. “He and Paul used to be such cut-ups. It’s such a shame about Paul. I don’t think your aunt Vi will ever fully recover from that blow.”

  “I can’t imagine how anyone could recover from losing a child,” I said, beginning to feel a trifle melancholy, what with Billy scowling at me from behind and Ma sagging wearily in front of me. Giving myself an internal smack and a short lecture, I forged onward. “Say, Ma, Johnny asked if we’d mind going to the Salvation Army church this coming Sunday. They’re dedicating a new chapel—at least I think it’s a new chapel—and he asked us especially.”

  “He asked us?” Ma looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face. My mother isn’t awfully imaginative, which can be good and can be bad. On the one hand, she can’t think of a lot of alternatives to various problems and situations. On the other hand, she’s easily led by someone who does have a good imagination.

  I had one, and it struck then. “Yes. I think he misses Paul, too, and would like Paul’s family to be there at the dedication. You know, I really think Johnny considers the Salvation Army as the organization that saved his sanity, if not his life.”

  That might have been laying it on pretty thick, but Ma’s wasn’t a suspicious nature.

  Billy’s, however, was. I heard him snort softly and prayed he wouldn’t start a nasty row in front of my mother. I should have known better. Billy loved my family almost as much as he’d loved his own until they all died.

  Lordy, that sounds terrible, even though it’s true. His folks were both done in by the huge influenza epidemic that ravaged the country—I guess it ravaged the entire world—a few years earlier. At any rate, he’d never do anything on purpose to distress my mother or father. Therefore, that soft snort was the only indication of his less-than-rapturous approval of the Salvation Army idea.

  “Oh, my,” said Ma. “If that isn’t the sweetest thing. He truly is a special young man, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, indeedy,” I said, bracing myself for Billy’s next sardonic snort. Again, I underestimated my husband. He said nothing at all.

  “I’m sure Vi will be pleased.” Ma struggled to rise.

  Naturally, I felt guilty. Those days, I always felt guilty, even when I had no real reason to, which I didn’t then. Shoot, my main purpose in herding all of us to the Salvation Army was to save the skin, if not the soul, of a poor, abused woman named Florence Mosser. I didn’t see how even Billy could object to that, especially since he’d suggested it in the first place.

  I found out how he could object when we both retired to our room to get ready for supper.

  “It’s Johnny, isn’t it?”

  I’d removed my suit and was hanging it in the wardrobe. Looking over my shoulder, I discovered Billy sitting in his chair, looking unhappy. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s Johnny, isn’t it?”

  His repeating the question didn’t enlighten me any more the second time. Grabbing my good old once-green housedress and sliding it over my head, I said, “What’s Johnny?”

  “You’re seeing Johnny Buckingham, aren’t you?”

  “I saw him today. I introduced him to Flossie. Is that what you—” My mouth dropped open and the words fell out of it, unspoken. If words had weight, they’d have clanked on the floor. “Wait a minute. Billy Majesty, are you accusing me of stepping out with Johnny Buckingham? Johnny Buckingham?” I couldn’t believe he meant that. I stared at him, and incredulous doesn’t begin to describe what I was feeling.

  Billy had rolled his chair over to the window and was looking out into our backyard. The orange trees were bare, and the grass was brown, and the scene was as wintry as my soul at that moment. “I can’t blame you, Daisy. You know I think you deserve a whole man.”

  Suddenly I felt almost too exhausted to support my weight—which wasn’t a whole lot, in spite of Aunt Vi’s delicious meals. Suppressing a mad urge to climb into bed and burrow under the covers and hide there for the rest of my life, I instead sat on the bed and stared at my husband. The husband I loved. The husband who frustrated me more than any human being ought to frustrate another human being, but whom I couldn’t fault because of his own tremendous sufferings.

  “Billy Majesty, are you crazy?”

  He turned and gave me a sad smile. It was all I could do not to burst into tears. “I don’t blame you, Daisy. I’m only kind of surprised at Johnny.”

  “You’re surprised at Johnny?” I whispered.

  “Yeah. Kind of.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Although I can’t really blame the guy. You’re real pretty, Daisy.”

  “What about me?”

  He lifted another eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re telling me that you find it difficult to believe that Johnny Buckingham might have an affair with a married lady. But you wouldn’t find it hard to believe that I might have an affair with another man?”

  Billy shook his head, looking about as miserable as I felt. “I didn’t mean that, Daisy.”

  I stood again and, hands on hips, I stared at my poor husband, whom I pitied and loved and resented all at the same time. “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  Another weary head shake. “Let’s just skip it.”

  “Skip it? After you accuse me of running around with another man?”

  “Aw, hell, Daisy.”

  “Don’t you ‘Aw, hell, Daisy’ me, Billy Majesty. For your information, you’re the only man I’ve ever loved. You’re the only man I ever will love. And I’d never, ever cheat on you.”

  “I guess I know that.”

  “You guess?”

  “I mean ... oh, hell, I don’t know what I mean. I mean you deserve a whole man, dammit, and I’m not one.”

  I kneeled at his side. The blasted wheelchair prevented me from taking him in my arms. “Billy, when we got married, we promised each other it would be for better or for worse. I meant it.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I also know you didn’t know that the worse part would be this bad.”

  “Oh, Billy.”

  When I finally crawled into bed that night, I had a vicious headache, a melancholy that weighed a ton and a half, and the no-doubt mad wish that I’d just die in the night and not have to face another day.

  Chapter Nine

  Naturally, such a benevolent fate was not to be mine. Billy and I hadn’t even finished breakfast before Mrs. Kincaid called. She was, of course, in a tizzy.

  “Oh, Daisy!” she wailed after I’d shooed Mrs. Barrow off the party line. “Stacy keeps talking about that Jinx creature, and she won’t stop seeing him!”

  The more fool she, thought I. I didn’t say it. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kincaid.” Which was the truth. If Stacy would only straighten up and be a decent human being, my own life would be much brighter because I wouldn’t have to accept these constant, irritating telephone calls from Stacy’s mother. Not to mention having to consort with vicious, murdering bootleggers.

  Looking at Billy and rolling my eyes, I mouthed, Stacy Kincaid. He grinned sympathetically, which was a whole lot better than accusing me of having an affair with Johnny Buckingham.

  After consoling Mrs. Kincaid as best I could and promising to visit her that morning with my tarot deck—and don’t ask me why she kept asking me to do that. I mean, if you’re future’s your future, it isn’t going to change on a daily basis, is it, no matter what a deck of cards, however special, told you?—I hadn’t even sat down to finish my toast when Spike forsook his place at our feet in his constant pursuit of crumbs and darted to the front door, barking his silly head off.

  The headache I’d had the night before still lingered around the edges of my brain, although I’d taken a powder for it the night before and another one that morning, and I dashed after him, hoping to pick him up and clamp my hand over his muzzle. He had a deep, not unmanly bark, but it was too darned early in the day for that much racket with the remnants of a headache waiting to be jolted to life.

  With said hand in said place, I opened
the door with my other hand and suffered my next great blow of the day. Sam Rotondo.

  He didn’t even ask if he could come in, but barged right on in past me. I didn’t slam the door, although I wanted to. “And good morning to you, too, Detective Rotondo.”

  He turned on me and frowned. He frowned at me, for crumb’s sake! I glared back, wanting him to know how much I didn’t want him there.

  I got the feeling he knew. “I have news for you.”

  “What is it?”

  Not a word of hello or a “how are you today?” or anything like that. All business, Sam and me that morning.

  “Maggiori’s place is going to open next Monday.”

  Instantly, I got a stomachache to go along with my headache. I stared at Sam over Spike’s wriggling body.

  “Have you set up another séance?”

  I set Spike down and hoped he’d piddle on Sam’s shoe again. He didn’t. Rather, the indiscriminate hound jumped up onto Sam’s leg, wagging his tail and yipping merrily, happy as a lark to see a friend. Huh. Some friend. Sam bent and petted him. And he hadn’t even said good day to me.

  “How can I set up another séance, curse you?” I spat at him. “And lower your voice. Billy doesn’t know about this, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. But you’ve got to get into the place. We have to find out where the leak is.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Defeated—and it wasn’t even eight o’clock in the morning yet—I slumped back to the kitchen, Sam at my feet, Spike bounding rapturously after Sam.

  Billy looked up from the Star News and smiled at Sam. “’Morning, Sam. What brings you here so early?”

  “I’m headed up to Altadena to the sheriff’s station. We’re trying to get a line on some bootleggers operating in the area, and I thought I’d drop by and see if you wanted to play rummy tonight.”

  “Sounds great. And Joe’s always up for a game.”

  “Where is Joe?” Sam looked around as if he expected to see my father hiding in a kitchen cupboard or under the sink.

  “He always takes a walk after breakfast,” I said. “Generally he takes Spike, but we were eating breakfast when Pa left, and Spike wanted to see if he could cadge some crumbs. He’d rather eat than walk.”

  “Can’t say as I blame him.”

  “Have you had breakfast, Sam? I’m sure Daisy can fix you some toast or something.” Billy glanced doubtfully at me.

  I didn’t appreciate that glance. True, I wasn’t the world’s best cook. And true, too, that I’d been known to burn the occasional piece of toast. But that was before we got our new electric toaster—with money I’d earned, mind you—and it was harder to burn toast in that than when you held the bread over the fire on a fork.

  After a glance at the stove and another at me, Sam said, “No, thanks. I already ate.”

  As his stomach rumbled at that moment, I do believe he’d just lied to us. I didn’t care, even if his lie was provoked by mistrust of my ability to fix toast. I didn’t want to feed him anything except maybe my fist. Well, I didn’t want to feed him my fist. I wanted some big bruiser to punch him.

  Alas, such was not to be. Sam left a couple of minutes later, gesturing surreptitiously for me to accompany him to the door. I went, but I didn’t want to.

  “Listen, Daisy, somehow or other, you have to set up another séance with those people.”

  I rolled my eyes so far back in my head, I’m surprised they didn’t get stuck there. “How in the name of sweet mercy can I do that? I don’t know where those miserable maggots live. I don’t have any contacts with them at all, except through Stacy Kincaid.”

  As soon as that pernicious name left my lips, I knew I’d erred. Sam brightened instantly. “Say, that’s right. The Kincaid kid will probably be able to get you access to Maggiori and his crew.”

  “Stacy and I don’t speak,” I muttered unhappily, thanking my lucky stars I hadn’t mentioned Flossie Mosser. “I work for her mother. That’s it. Stacy hates me, and I hate Stacy.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Do it anyway.”

  And he slapped his hat on his head and departed, stumping out of the house as if it were my fault I wasn’t intimately acquainted with Vicenzo Maggiori and his company of criminals and cutthroats. Nuts.

  * * * * *

  I left for Mrs. Kincaid’s house as soon as I’d cleaned up the kitchen and taken a leisurely bath. I don’t generally take leisurely baths, but that morning I needed one. What’s more, I put bubbles in the tub. If I hadn’t started feeling really guilty, I might still be there, my body long since turned to prune. In truth, if I’d been asked which I’d rather do, conduct another séance for a bunch of hoodlums or beard Mrs. Kincaid in her den, I honestly don’t know which I’d choose as the lesser of two evils.

  Since I had no choice, I eventually dragged myself out of the tub and put on my most severely tailored and comfortable spiritualist outfit, a black suit with an unfitted jacket with a long waist, completely free from adornment. I wore it with a black cloche hat and handbag and black pumps with black hose.

  “You look like you’re going to a funeral,” Billy commented as I made to leave the house. He’d rolled his chair into the living room and was sitting in the fireplace inglenook, glancing through the latest issue of National Geographic. He loved that magazine, probably because it took him to all sorts of far-away places he’d never get to visit. Even if a bucket of money descended upon us from heaven, his health wouldn’t permit him to travel.

  “I feel like it,” I said, adjusting my hat in the mirror. “I’m not looking forward to this meeting with Mrs. Kincaid. She was in full wail when she called.”

  Shaking his head, Billy said, “I don’t know how you do it.”

  At least he hadn’t asked why I did it for once. I think he still felt a little ashamed of himself for accusing me of having an affair with Johnny Buckingham. Besides, he knew good and well why I did it, no matter that he kept asking the question. I did it because I had to. There was no way on God’s green earth that we’d be able to afford our comfortable little bungalow on Marengo Avenue in Pasadena, California, if I didn’t make more money as a spiritualist medium than I could at an ordinary job. That fact of life generally didn’t dissuade him from carping at me, but, as I said, I think he was feeling a trifle abashed that morning.

  “Sometimes I don’t, either,” I said gloomily as I exited the house via the side entrance, where our new Chevrolet stood waiting for me, bless it. The Chevrolet never scolded me or asked me why I did things. I loved that car. It was ever so much easier to drive than the old 1909 Model T that had to be cranked to life every morning, even on mornings when I felt about as much like cranking as I did like flying to the moon. Or visiting a distressed Mrs. Kincaid.

  Oh, well. A woman’s got to do what a woman has to do.

  Jackson opened the gate for me, a big smile on his face. It still bothered me that his son played in a band for a crook like Maggiori, but I had enough problems of my own. Jackson’s family was his own lookout.

  I parked the Chevrolet on the big turnaround in front of the massive porch and slumped to the marble stairs. I glared back at the two plaster lions staring at me and plopped the brass knocker without enthusiasm. As if he’d been awaiting my knock, Featherstone whipped the door open and bowed his head at me.

  Stepping into the elaborate hall, I mumbled, “’Lo, Featherstone.”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Majesty.”

  “Is it? I have my doubts.”

  Featherstone never responded to my little comments, whether I spoke in jest, as I sometimes did, or when I spoke out of misery, as I did that day. What a guy. If he were any more professional, I expect he’d be working for a queen somewhere.

  I followed Featherstone down the hallway to the living room—I beg your pardon. The drawing room—where Mrs. Kincaid must have been sitting on the edge of her seat, waiting for me to arrive. She leaped forward and ran at me like a rather pudgy, but small, Pamplona bull. I almost flinched
and stepped aside, but my sense of survival took over at the last minute, and I braced myself instead. “There, there,” I said as I held the silly woman in my arms. “There, there.”

  “Oh, Daisy!” she cried, wailing like a banshee at a Scottish moor. Or are banshees Irish? Oh, who cares? “Stacy hasn’t been home all night long! I don’t know what to do!”

  My suggestion would have been to lock the door so she couldn’t get back in, except that saying so might jeopardize my career. However, I couldn’t bring myself to say nothing at all about Stacy’s bad behavior. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Kincaid. But the cards did say that something might happen, you know.”

  She let out a wail that topped any other wail I’d ever heard from her. “Oh, Daisy! I know! I know!”

  “There, there,” I repeated helplessly, praying Aunt Vi hadn’t heard that screech in the kitchen. “Would you like me to get you a posset?” I think I had a death wish that morning or something. After the last time I had to get the woman a posset, I never wanted to face Aunt Vi with such a request again.

  Thank God Mrs. Kincaid had other plans for me. She stepped back, wiped her streaming eyes with an already-sodden handkerchief, and said, “No, no. I must have you read the cards, Daisy. I must know what’s going to happen!”

  Oh, brother. For the sake of common sense, I said meekly, “I doubt they’ll say anything they haven’t said before.”

  Fortunately, her wail wasn’t so loud this time. “Oh, Daisy, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  People continually amaze me. I guess plain old poor folks like me would be just as nutty as Mrs. Kincaid if we had money to burn, but I’m not so sure. I guess if you’re born with it and have never had to think or scrape or do anything but wake up in the morning in order to live in the lap of luxury, this dependence on tarot cards and Ouija boards might make a little bit of sense. But not much. Those of us who have to work for a living know what’s what. You work, you get paid. You don’t work, you starve. At least that’s my theory.