I stood to the side, next to a popcorn machine, and surveyed the crowd, looking for an opening wedge. The atmosphere was friendly, the wealthy at ease among their familiars. My father, who teaches at Berkeley, would have described the group as Establishment. Even worse, Republican.
I don’t know why I was even thinking about my father. Actually, I do know. I say the same little prayer of gratitude every time I am in an opulent environment and I do not find my father. It’s a knee-jerk sort of thing.
When I was immediately postpubescent, my mother enrolled me in a cotillion at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. All the better sort from our area sent their little future ambassadors to learn to dance, bow, and curtsy so that they wouldn’t disgrace their families should they be invited to dine at the White House. The boys had been okay, and the dancing instruction wasn’t so bad. It was my father’s presence that caused me pain.
My father, who has never missed a meal without intending to, or lived in a house with fewer than five bedrooms, carries a tremendous load of guilt for the comfortable circumstances of his birth and upbringing. So, while I box-stepped and cha-cha-chaed, he sat in the parents’ gallery, double bourbon in hand, and did his best to convert the local matronage to the virtues of socialism. Some of the mothers instructed their sons not to ask me to dance, lest I taint them. I heard enough pinko jokes that I will never wear pink again as long as I live.
As much as I love Comrade Dad, I made a quick sweep of the yacht-club bar to make sure he wasn’t there before I made my move. One can never be too cautious.
A pair of elderly matrons with tight butts and champagne-colored hair brushed past in an aureole of perfumed air. The smaller of them smiled at me.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “Beautiful day.”
“Lovely,” I said, and fell in behind her. They walked out to a table on the terrace. I found a vacant stool at the bar and sat down.
The bartender in a private club is almost always the keeper of the real scoop. For the price of a drink, maybe a flash of cleavage, chances were he could be mine. As a source of information.
The bartender was at the far end of the bar from me, in the middle of what appeared to be a good joke. There was no hustle in him. I was in no hurry. I didn’t mind having a little time to figure out my opening gambit. The first problem was that drinks were being signed off to club accounts rather than paid for. I had no account. I could always ask for water.
The stool behind me changed ownership. I swiveled around and found myself eye to eye with a middle-aged man with a good tan and smooth hands, doctor hands. He was spare in his frame, in his movements, and in the smile he gave me. He pushed his sweat-stained yachting cap back on his blond head and leaned toward me.
“Nice nose,” he said. “Good workmanship.”
“Thank you,” I laughed. “I paid a lot for it.”
“Chicago, late 1970s.”
“Dallas, 1981.”
He took my chin in his hand and turned my face so he could inspect my nose from the side. “Maybe the work was done in Dallas, but the surgeon trained in Chicago.”
“Could be. Even a snake from Chicago can buy lizard-skin boots in Dallas.” I refrained from touching the itch at the bridge of my nose where once there had been a hump. A hump like my father’s. “Are nose jobs some kind of hobby for you?”
“Noses make the payments on that Bayliner tied up in slip fifty-two.” He offered his hand. “Greg Szal. I don’t remember seeing your nose around here before. Or any of the rest of you, for that matter.”
“I’ve been up in the Bay Area,” I improvised.
“What are you drinking?”
“Diet Coke,” I said.
He caught the bartender’s attention. “Dos Cocas, Sammy, por favor. Tall skinny ones.”
I filed the bartender’s name for possible future use.
Greg Szal sat forward so that his shoulder almost touched mine. At five-seven I am no giant. His eyes were just about level with mine.
“How come you aren’t out there racing with the big girls?” he asked. “Isn’t this the last day of qualifying?”
“Racing isn’t my thing.”
“I know what you mean. Sabots are kid boats.”
He brushed my hand with his as he reached for one of the glasses Sammy the bartender set in front of us. I couldn’t tell whether Szal was coming on to me or just being friendly. Not that it mattered. What I wanted from him was conversation, and he seemed to be a willing donor. I could worry about his intentions later.
I took a sip from my glass and smiled at him.
“I’ve only been back in town since yesterday,” I said, trying to sort out the essentials of the information Dennis the jeweler had given to Mike and me. “I haven’t connected with the Rams-dales yet. Have you seen them lately?”
“Which Ramsdale, him or her?”
“Either of them. Or Hilly. Hilly is the same age as my daughter.”
He frowned. “Your daughter goes to Rogers?”
“No,” I said, thinking fast. “As I said, we’ve been up in the Bay Area for a while. You know Hilly?”
“Sure. My son is on the club swim team with her.”
“When did you see her last?”
He was looking at me sideways, thinking about something hard enough to put a crease between his nearly white brows. I took another sip of Coke for something to do.
“How long did you say you’ve been gone?” he asked. “Quite a while.”
“And no one told you about the Ramsdales?”
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up. Has something happened to Randy?”
“Something’s always happening to Randy,” he chuckled. “You know how he is. Old Ramsdale can be a royal pain in the ass, but to tell you the truth, I kind of miss him. He’s a pushy son of a bitch, but he has a good heart.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He and Elizabeth split up. It seems to me one day he was here, the next he was gone. If you really want to know the gory details, why don’t you check with information central?”
“Where?”
“Come with me.” He slid off his bar stool and waited for me to follow him.
He took me to a cluster of low sofas arranged around a massive stone fireplace. Two women about my age lounged there, feet up on a free-form granite cocktail table. They were an attractive pair, unaffected, casually dressed, obviously loaded — between them they wore enough rocks to ransom Aladdin. The taller woman, an aristocratic blonde, held a swimsuit-clad toddler sprawled across her lap. The child slept with his mouth open, dried Popsicle streaks staining his chin.
The second woman was her opposite, a small, voluptuous brunette. She was pretty in a romantic mold, dark curls, long lashes, pouty valentine-shaped lips. When she raised her manicured hand to brush a stray strand of hair from her face, I saw flecks of green fire in her brown eyes.
The pair were whispering back and forth as Greg Szal and I approached, sharing a few private nudges; curious rather than catty.
The brunette looked up at Szal through her lashes, and I saw a tremor pass through him. She saw it, too, and milked it a little.
“Greg?” she cooed.
He took a gulp of air and turned to me. “You remember my wife, Regina.”
There was something about the way she looked at me, a wry, smart-aleck appraisal, that made me like Regina Szal immediately. More steel town than steel magnolia. I offered her my hand.
“Maggie MacGowen,” I said.
“Maggie MacGowen,” Regina repeated for the benefit of her friend.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “That isn’t it.”
“Isn’t what?” I asked the blonde.
“Your name. Actually, I suppose, it is your name if you say so. But that isn’t who we decided you are.”
Regina smiled. “We were just trying to remember where we met you. I know it wasn’t PTA. Cynthia suggested John Tracy Clinic volunteers.”
I felt my face grow hot, and I knew I was blushing. There was a time everyone in town — whatever town I might have been working in — knew my face. I left network broadcasting in the mid-eighties, and being recognized on the street is getter more and more rare. Almost the only on-camera work I do anymore is promos for PBS. Even with my expensively edited nose, I feel more comfortable on the back end of the camera. I always have. Still, I am around enough so that now and then people who watch public television recognize me on some level.
I had had this who-are-you conversation and variations on it dozens of times. I did what I always do: I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled innocently.
“I was asking Greg about the Ramsdales,” I said. “He thought you might be able to help me.”
“What about them?” Regina asked.
“For starters, where are they?”
“Why?” Regina seemed skeptical. And smart.
“I want to talk to them about Hillary.”
“Is she in some sort of trouble?”
I nodded. “Big-time trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“She ran away from home,” I said. “I want to know why.”
“Are you a social worker?”
“No,” I said. “I’m a mother.”
“Well, then.” Regina looked up at her husband and batted her eyes again. “Greg, on your way out, please tell Sammy to send over another bottle of Moet. And keep them coming. We have some serious talking to do. I want to hear all about Hilly. But I have a feeling I need to be about half blind first.”
“On my way out?” Greg asked, gazing at her with a hangdog longing. “I just got here.”
She pressed his arm. “I said, this is serious.”
As he sloped away, dejected, I had a feeling Regina had already been served a few by Sammy. She was certainly willing to talk.
I turned my smile on her. “It’s wicked what you do to that man.”
“I know,” she purred. “And after all these years. It’s the ultimate power, you know, to hold a man’s balls in the palm of your hand that way.”
The blonde snorted. I guffawed.
Regina grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me down beside her. “Maggie, meet Cynthia.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Nice to meet you.” Cynthia sounded as highbrow as she looked, very long vowels, very Vassar. The grubby child on her lap didn’t quite suit the stereotype. But he suited her. “What nature of trouble is Hillary in?”
I took out the stills of Pisces again, and silently asking the girl for forgiveness, handed them to Regina. This wasn’t the same as showing them to Leslie Metrano. Hillary would have been mortified if either of these women had seen her on the street.
Regina held the prints so that Cynthia could look on and leafed through them twice.
“Do you know this girl?” I asked.
“It’s Hillary Ramsdale.” Regina grimaced. “Do they dress this badly on the Continent, or were these taken on Halloween? She looks like a little whore.”
“That was her intention,” I said. “I filmed her in Los Angeles just a few days ago.”
“Ah-ha.” Cynthia raised a slender hand. “Now I have it. Maggie MacGowen. Aged and Alone. We showed your film at a Junior League seminar about the sandwich generation. You know, adults raising children and caring for elderly parents at the same time. You remember, Regina.”
Regina still seemed confused. She held up one of the pictures. “Hilly was in makeup for a film?”
“No,” I said. “That’s how I found her. Hillary was a working girl.”
The frozen horror on Regina’s face melted to mortified tears as she leafed again through the stills. She turned the stack facedown on the table before she wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweater. The valentine poutiness was gone from the gaze she turned on me.
“You said ‘was,’ ” she said.
“Hillary is dead.”
“An accident?”
“No. She was murdered.”
“No.” Cynthia drew the sleeping toddler tight and buried her face against him. Regina reached out and grasped the child’s hand. The gesture was very tender, but the green in her eyes sparked with her wrath. It was the right reaction. It showed genuine concern. I liked her even more. Why hadn’t Hillary turned to people like these when she was in trouble?
Sammy came over with champagne and tall flutes and began pouring. Glasses were passed from hand to hand in just the way Kool-Aid was being passed among a group of youngsters down at the pool. As long as Sammy was present, no one said a word.
Sammy draped a white towel around the neck of the half-full bottle and went away.
“To all the bastards.” Regina tipped her glass toward mine.
“Hear, hear,” Cynthia intoned. She arched her long neck back and took a hefty slug from her glass. The price of Moet being what it is, I figured her intake to be about a dollar-fifty per swallow.
“Where is Hillary now?” Regina asked.
“County morgue,” I said.
“All alone?” Regina seethed. She reached for the bottle. “That goddam fucking son of a bitch Randy.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“All his brains are in his prick. He all but abandoned Hilly. When Elizabeth caught him screwing his latest bimbo, she tossed him out. Literally. Dumped all his shit into the canal. The neighbors watched her do it. Then he took right off, left the country, and left Hilly behind.”
“Left her with her mother,” I said.
Cynthia sneered. “Elizabeth is not her mother. By my count, she’s wife number three.”
“Then where is her mother?”
“She died.” Regina turned to Cynthia. “Was it five or six years ago?”
Cynthia shrugged. “I’m not sure. Five or six years and two wives ago, anyway. It was a terrible shame. Hilly’s mother was such a lovely person. You can see her influence in Hilly.”
“Hold the phone,” Regina snapped, draining the bottle into her glass. “Hilly ended up a streetwalker. How lovely is that?”
Cynthia looked down her narrow nose. “You know what I mean. Mother and daughter were both gracious and well-spoken. They kept a bit to themselves, but they were very charming. If Hilly ended up on the streets I would look to Elizabeth before I placed blame on Hanna.”
“Why?” I asked.
Regina summoned me closer so she could whisper. “Because Elizabeth is a tramp. Any idiot could see right from the beginning what she wanted from Randy. Everyone except Randy.”
“And what did she want?”
“This.” Regina’s gesture swept the room. “And the Virginia Country Club membership, a house in Naples. For a little waitress who grew up in Northtown, she did all right for herself.”
“Nasty Reggie,” Cynthia reproved.
“But it’s true.” She sat back. “Randy must have a thing for waitresses. Look at his latest conquest. What’s her name? Lacy? Apparently he likes them young and deft at juggling hot dishes.”
“Richard likes Lacy.” Cynthia was beginning to slur her words. “He says Lacy’s awfully intelligent. More like Randy’s first wife than Elizabeth. She’s working on a teaching credential at State. And she’s good with Hilly. He thinks maybe Randy is beginning to pull himself back together.”
“Who is Richard?” I asked her.
“My husband,” Cynthia said as if any idiot should have known.
Listening to them, I was beginning to feel like a spectator at a tennis match. The wine and bouncing back and forth between them was making my head buzz.
“Wait a minute,” I said, holding up my hands. “Where can I find Elizabeth?”
“Haven’t seen her for a while. Have you, Cynthia?”
“No.”
“She still has the Naples house,” Regina said.
“I’d like the address,” I said. More than that, I wanted an introduction. I hoped Regina was up for a Sunday-afternoon social call. “I’m sure the police have al
ready contacted Elizabeth. But I want to talk to her.”
“Why?” Cynthia challenged. “Seems ghoulish.”
“Research,” I said, perhaps defensively. Maybe she was right.
Regina had an impish smirk on her face. “You want to do the Nancy Drew thing. Snoop around. Get into some trouble.”
I laughed. “Exactly. Want to come with me?”
“Seriously?”
“Elizabeth will be more receptive to a chat if I’m introduced to her by someone she knows. Like you.”
“True.” Regina got to her feet. “Besides, she lives right on a canal. It’s a tricky place to find. Be easier if I just drove you. Cynthia, are you coming?”
“I pass.” Cynthia’s sleeping child was beginning to stir. “David needs lunch.”
Regina gave little David’s leg a pat. “Keep an eye out for my boys. I’ll call you later.”
“My car’s out front,” I said.
But she shook her head. “We’ll get there faster by water.”
On the way past the bar, Regina scooped up a second bottle of Moet and tucked it under her arm. At double-time march, she led me downstairs and out the back way to the ranks of moored boats.
When Greg Szal mentioned his Bayliner, I had assumed big. It wasn’t. It was a behemoth. There was enough gear on the fishing tower to go into the tuna business if his nose-job practice failed.
A craft that size would tear up the open water, but in narrow passages like the boat channel or the canals of Naples it would be a nuisance, a shark in a goldfish bowl. I was thinking it might be faster to swim to the Ramsdales’ than go through the bother of bringing the beast out when Regina ripped a tarp off a four-man Zodiak raft that was tied alongside.
“Give me a hand,” she said. We untied the raft and pushed it through the slip until we had cleared the Bayliner’s stern. Regina jumped in, heedless of her white linen slacks, and I followed, gracelessly, bouncing on the rubber bottom. I had just managed to get to my knees when she fired up the powerful outboard motor and blasted out into the channel, knocking me flat.
The bottle of Moet rolled against my leg. I grabbed it and slid into the bow. With my legs stretched out front, my back against the inflated side, I was thoroughly comfortable. Wind snapped through my hair, a fine sea spray chilled my face. I popped open the wine, let the foam spew over the side, then took a big swallow.
Midnight Baby Page 10