“Good choice. Probably the most idiotic guidebook ever written.”
Well, Melrose didn’t know about that. He felt like defending the Bessie sisters, having spent so much time with their little family. God only knew, had it not been for Lizzie and Lucie Bessie, he’d have been stuck with Hughie’s version of everything. “Friend of mine bought me one.” He held up his own copy.
Alan Loser laughed. “You’re the person? Ellen was in here just a few days ago.” They had moved to the counter, and Loser was getting out some ribbon and paper. “How do you know Ellen?”
“I met her in England a couple of years ago. She was careening across the North York moors on a BMW.”
“Sounds like her.”
Melrose watched as Loser deftly wound the ribbon round the package. “She was researching a book, but I don’t think she ever wrote it. I mean, not that particular one. Have you read Windows?”
Loser nodded. “Couldn’t make head nor tail out of it.” He added, “Of course, I’m no critic.”
But Melrose thought the tacked-on comment was unapologetic.
“She seems to be having trouble with the new one. You know, a student of hers was murdered, she told me. Horrible. Well, I expect murder put her off writing.” This was so far from the truth he very nearly blushed.
“You mean Beverly Brown.” Loser snipped the end of the ribbon.
“I think that was the name. Did you know her, then?”
“Oh, yes. She worked here several afternoons a week. A graduate student. Cops were all over the place. Not only that, but a couple of your own countrymen were here. CID men.” He placed the wrapped parcel on the counter. “Yes, Beverly created quite a stir, you know. Supposedly turned up a manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe. But I suppose Ellen told you.”
“Yes. Extraordinary. Do you suppose it’s genuine?”
Loser shrugged. “How could anyone have faked something so elaborate? And since it was unfinished, that removes the problem of having to have the imagination of a Poe, doesn’t it?” He laughed.
Melrose had moved over to the dining room table and the Helmsley Palace place settings. He fingered one of the napkins; he smiled. They had decided last night, sitting there in the Horse that Ellen had been right; Beverly Brown had left her mental fingerprints on the story she’d manufactured.
“It’s like the candy box,” Ellen had said. “She must have seen that table setting every time she went to Nouveau Pauvre.”
“But why,” Wiggins had asked, “would she leave something in the story that could prove it’s a fraud?” Wiggins had not been at all happy about the conclusion they’d reached as to the story’s authenticity.
Alan Loser’s voice broke into Melrose’s memory of last night’s conversation. “You know about Leona Helmsley over there? The Queen of Mean?”
“Helmsley? Yes, I’ve heard of her.” Melrose fingered a napkin. “Could I buy one of these?”
“Frankly, I’d rather sell the entire set of them.”
“All right. I’ll take the lot, then.”
“All twelve of the damned things?” Loser uttered a short, aborted laugh.
When Melrose nodded, he shrugged and started collecting them from the table. They moved over to the counter again and he started searching for a box.
“Everyone else has his theory. Why do you suppose she was murdered?”
“Beverly made enemies fairly easily. I don’t imagine Professor Vlasic was too happy with her ‘find.’ Since he thinks himself an expert on Poe, I’d guess it’d be galling to have one of his own students acquire something as valuable as an original manuscript and then proceed to overshadow him by writing a thesis on it. Knowing Beverly, that could even be the reason to choose him as advisor. Make him eat some crow. Vlasic is the only professor who ever gave Beverly less than an A. I thought she’d kill him.” Loser found a shoe box and started folding the napkins into it. “And then there’s the professor she worked for as grad assistant. She got into his computer system—the guy’s a genealogist—and messed up his records. She was quite a joker.”
“Is it likely, anyway, that a person would have seen the connection between those napkins and this handkerchief?” Ellen had gone on to say. “And, anyway, she probably didn’t do it on purpose.”
Jury: “She probably did. I’m sorry I didn’t meet Beverly Brown.”
Melrose was too, as he looked up at a little mobile hanging from a wire: a shark chasing after a school of little fish. He touched it with his fingertip and sent them all swimming about. He wanted to work round to the subject of John-Joy and decided it would hardly be giving anything away to be direct.
“Your city isn’t short on murders, is it? Ellen said there was a man killed in an alley who knew that chap I saw outside. Milos? Is that his name?”
“That’s it, yes. Actually, Milos knew the man. They were by way of being friends, I’ve gathered. He used to come around here. Can’t picture the two of them having much of a conversation, though.” Loser laughed again. Misfortune appeared to have that effect on him. “Actually, I pay him. He’s by way of being an employee. I think he strikes the right note, don’t you?”
If one likes that sort of note, thought Melrose, thinking of Wes and Jerry. Listening to Alan Loser, Melrose was reminded of Theo Wrenn Browne. Except that Theo was totally devoid of charm, and Alan Loser had a good bit of it, their appreciation of other people’s hard luck made them unlikely bedfellows.
“Milos claims he found the body in Cider Alley. That he reported it to the police.”
“Did he?” asked Melrose.
Alan shrugged. “Communicating with Milos isn’t the easiest thing in the world.”
• • •
It was easy, though, for some people.
Milos and the dog were sitting on a blanket while Milos opened a flat white box.
Pulling away from a parking space that Hughie was now pulling into was a car with a blue and white cube on its roof: DOMINO’S PIZZA—WE DELIVER.
30
I
“You got time for the Aquarium now?”
“No. Back to Fells Point.”
Hughie slumped in his seat, disappointed. They drove in silence down Howard Street, and Hughie asked, “You going out west while you’re here? See the Grand Canyon and all?”
“Unfortunately not. We’re only here for a few days.”
“Too bad. Me, I travel whenever I can. Since the wife died, you know. It’s like a hobby with me.” He turned to look at Melrose. “Tell you a secret. You know the best way to see a place, to see part of the country you never been to?”
“Catch a cab?”
“Nah. Not all cabbies are like me. Most of them don’t know the points of interest like I do. No, what you do is, you get yourself a real estate agent. No one knows an area like your real estate agents do. You drive around with one of them, you know everything about a place in no time.”
“But you’d have to look at property.”
“Well, sure. You don’t like houses? I do. I like seeing how folks live. And you can pick your life-style, too. You like Boca Raton, you cruise around there.”
“Where’s Boca Raton?”
“Florida. I was there just last year. Did I hire a car? Hell, no. Why pay an arm and a leg? I got me a real estate agent.”
“But what if you’d rather lie in the sun than view properties?”
“Well, you don’t go around with the guy all day. Couple hours—three, maybe. They do all the driving, the points-of-interest patter, you just sit and rubberneck. Listen, I got this down pat. I read up on where I’m going, call up some agent in Baltimore and say I’m relocating and to get me an agent in wherever. They’re nice to travel around with, these agents. They’re chatty, enthusiastic. I think real estate agents really like their jobs. And if you wanted, you could even get a free lunch out of it. But I don’t do that; I don’t take advantage. A lot of the time I take them to lunch. And if you get out in the wide open—Wyoming, like, or Montana or Colo
rado, someplace really scenic—it’s great. You drive around and around, check out a house, drive around some more. I saw Aspen, Colorado, and Jackson Hole that way. Something else, let me tell you.”
Melrose looked out of the window as they passed Lexington Market and felt oddly sad, thinking about Hughie spending his holidays in Boca Raton and Colorado, driving around with estate agents, looking into homes from which the owners had fled; Hughie poking around in kitchens and cupboards, flower borders, and white sand beaches, catching glimpses of other people’s lives.
He thought about all of this as they were passing the glittering buildings of Harborplace, and he said, “I’ve changed my mind, Hughie. Let’s go to the Aquarium.”
II
Hughie’s milieu was definitely the deep blue sea.
“Right inside’s the sting rays,” he said, as they entered a shimmering environment of lights and shadows, green water and blue neon.
Both of them peered down over the concrete abutment at the rays slipping through the water like huge pale fans.
“Man, I wouldn’t want to meet up with one of these babies! Look at that sucker, would you? That’s a roughnose.”
The roughnose made directly for Hughie.
“You got any fish?” asked Hughie.
“Fish? No.”
“I was thinking of getting a couple. You know, have a tank, couple of tropical fish in it.”
Now the ray was sliding soundlessly away, perhaps fearing a change of venue to Hughie’s tank.
They moved up the ramp towards the enormous circular structure that housed the sharks and to the second level, where they were treated to the recorded grunts and snorts of jungle cries and the calls of hippos, seals, and penguins. Whole little worlds had been cleverly devised by whatever resident zoologists and ornithologists the Aquarium depended upon. They were standing before one now called “Allegheny Pond,” and Hughie was rattling on about acid rain. “You want to see a beautiful place, you should go to western Maryland. Allegheny or Garrett County.” He nodded towards the glass, behind which small fish swam, a turtle inched along, and a bullfrog sat on a flat rock. This was a pond made by an artificial waterfall breaking over rocks. “Acid rain. See?” Hughie pointed to the sign. “It’s getting half the streams up there. You got that problem in England?” he asked as they moved to the Chesapeake Bay, next door.
“I expect there’s acid rain everywhere these days.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
They stood there ruminating over the Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem. “I got a sister lives in Delaware. She says the water there’s really bad. The beaches, you know. I don’t go much to Delaware—hey, did I tell you that story about the Delawares?”
“You did indeed.” Melrose wanted to forestall a repetition of Kind Hearts and Coronets.
Hughie went on: “So if the Queen tosses in the towel, Prince Charles would take over, right?”
“Right. Only now it appears that Charles might not want to.”
“No kidding?” Hughie pursed his lips and seemed to be thinking this over. He put his face closer to the glass. “You got your blue crabs, your terrapins in Chesapeake Bay.” He nodded towards the marshy enclosure.
They walked on.
“So then who takes over?”
“William.”
“Who’s he?”
“Charles’s son.”
Hughie frowned. “Then who’s Prince Andrew?”
“That’s Charles’s brother.”
“You mean the brother don’t come first? You mean the kid inherits? My God.” He clucked his tongue, seeing the inherent injustice of this lineup for Great Britain’s crown. “No wonder that Delaware kid bumped off his uncle.”
Melrose looked at him, shook his head, looked away. “That’s not exactly the same thing. The rules of primogeniture are very strict. Only if Charles, his son William, and his other son, Harry, die or abdicate, only then does Andrew come into the picture. And after Andrew, then his two sons, in order of age.”
They were standing now in a darkened area, watching the shadowy little shapes of the flashlight fish blink on and off like fireflies.
Up the next escalator was the rain forest; they entered into an enclosure of huge palms, dense fog, warmth, cawing sounds, chirpings. It was really quite a remarkable simulation, thought Melrose.
“Hey, check out the flamingos! I don’t remember they had flamingos.”
“Those aren’t flamingos,” said Melrose, annoyed.
“Sure they are. Look at that bright pink and those real skinny legs.”
“They’re too small for flamingos.”
“So what do you say they are?” Hughie challenged him.
“I don’t know.”
Hughie was silent for a while, looking at the pink birds. “So what about Princess Anne? Doesn’t she get a shot at the crown?”
“Way down the line. Anne is at the very end. The brothers and male heirs would all have to be wiped out first.”
“All those kids? Before the women? What a bunch of chauvinists.”
“You could say that. But not so much as the lines where only males can inherit a title. When the last male dies, that’s it.”
“Like the Delawares?”
“Yes, I expect so.”
“You got any brothers and sisters?”
“Nary a one.” They had walked halfway round the enclosure, and Melrose was bending over one of the small white signs that informed the visitor about the local inhabitants. “Scarlet ibis. That’s what they are, the pink birds.”
“Look there,” said Hughie, pointing to a mottled brown, thin-legged bird that had the stealthy walk of a criminal. “Pheasant.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Sure it is. I do a lot of hunting. Pheasant.”
Melrose looked around for a descriptive text, annoyed by Hughie’s insistence that this fowl was a pheasant. “Why would they put a pheasant in a rain forest?”
“Go figure.”
The warmth, the mist were making Melrose drowsy. “Probably the female ibis.” But Hughie had walked away. Melrose searched the undergrowth for the exotic and equatorial life that one sign said he would find hidden there in the rush grasses and plant life if he looked carefully. But all he saw was that damned bird, stalking.
Hughie waved him over to look at a tarantula, and Melrose passed beneath a couple of cawing yellow parrots that made him think of Aliceanna Street, and he was sorry he hadn’t brought Jip along, but she was probably at school. She couldn’t have too many bright spots in her life, living over that shop.
He stood looking at a blue poison arrow frog, one of many tiny frogs, frogs no bigger than his thumbnail, encased in the green shades of their mock savannah.
Downward, Hughie and he walked, around the shark tanks. Hughie was still talking about titles. “So let me get this straight: your name’s not Caverness, right?”
“My name’s Plant. Caverness is a place. Like Devon. Prince Andrew is the Duke of York. His name’s actually Windsor.”
“So how do you go about claiming a title?”
Melrose was watching a school of angelfish, swimming from nowhere to nowhere. Soon they were back again. Well, they looked like the same ones. “You’d have to get in touch with the Crown Office and produce your proof for the consideration of the Clerk of the Crown.”
“Man, I’m glad I don’t have to keep all that shit straight. I’m glad all I gotta think about is Bill Clinton. As long as I don’t have to think about him too long.”
“Titles are complicated.” Melrose only wished Hughie would shut up about titles, for it simply reminded him of his own, and his father. He felt sad; he felt sadder, though, about his mother.
He tried not to think about it, but he couldn’t help it. He remembered talking years ago to Jury about that lad, Tommy Whittaker, a marquess. Tommy wasn’t, Melrose had said, “the real thing.” He picked it up again, this old debate with himself—no longer a debate, he supposed. He had found it difficult
at first to forgive his mother, and then remarkably easy.
A sinister-looking hammerhead shark moved its bulk on past them as Hughie was talking again about the Delaware family.
They were leaving now, passing the sting rays and Atlantic rays again. As they walked past the glass cages to the exit, Hughie said, “Not bad, not bad. I mean the life here. Protected environment—no danger, get your bed and your three squares and don’t have to look over your shoulder.”
“I don’t know. There’s no tension, either, though. Don’t you think there has to be tension in life to keep it from crumbling?” Well, that had the ring of proper British pomposity to it.
Hughie obviously thought so too. “Tension? Oh, boy, I bet all the bums—excuse me, all the homeless—get a real kick out of being all tensed up.”
Melrose thought of Cloudcover and its absurdly ironic name. The faces of Wes and Jerry came into his mind. Cider Alley; Milos. Milos standing there with that cigar, trying to plunge it into the pocket of his jacket.
The jacket.
Oh, for God’s sake, thought Melrose, as he suddenly remembered those trousers he’d found in John-Joy’s cart. “Hughie, let’s go.”
“What the hell? Where we going?”
“Back to Nouveau Pauvre.”
III
“Goat? I don’t have a goat? What in the hell are you talking about?”
This time, Melrose was determined. After two more attempts at palm writing and a wad of bills that would have bought Milos a whole flock of goats, Melrose finally got across the words “coat” and “jacket.” When Milos still hadn’t seemed ready to give up his suit coat, yelling it was too damned cold, Melrose had traced in his palm
“S W A P.”
He hated giving up his one remaining decent piece of clothing—his double-breasted blue blazer—but there was nothing for it. They swapped.
The blazer was a bit snug on Milos, but Milos didn’t care. He had carefully run his hands over it, apparently felt its unmistakable quality, and had agreed to give up his pin-striped jacket for it. No, he wouldn’t sell his jacket. Where would he ever get another so fine, if not Melrose’s own? He’d been after John-Joy for a long time about that jacket and John-Joy said it was to be his when he died.
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