Million Dollar Baby

by Amy Patricia Meade

  “Because my wife and I are comfortable the way we are.”

  “Well, I’m comfortable the way I am and that includes wearing my hat,” she declared obstinately.

  “Lady, if you don’t take the hat off, I’ll take it off for you!”

  Creighton could see this escalating to the point where they might be ejected from the theater. “Just take the bloody hat off, Sharon,” he insisted.

  “Okay, okay,” she grudgingly agreed, “you don’t have to yell.”

  The man thanked Creighton and sat back as Sharon made the removal of her feathered hat a major production. “I don’t see why . . .” she grumbled to herself. “He could have just moved . . . but no . . .” She stuck the hatpins into the brim of the bonnet and balanced it, along with her purse, on her lap. Only a few seconds elapsed, however, before her ample belly pushed both objects to the floor.

  Creighton, weary of the girl’s escapades, snatched the hat from the ground and placed it on his own lap. “There.” he proclaimed in a loud whisper. “Now be quiet.”

  The newsreel had ended, and Betty Boop flitted across the screen in her latest romp, “Baby Be Good.” Sharon eased back in her chair, grinning like a mollified child.

  Creighton, like the parent of a rambunctious youngster who has finally gone off to sleep, took a deep breath and stretched his legs out as far as he could. After several minutes, he found that he had calmed down considerably and was even starting to enjoy himself. The animated short had provided him with a few chuckles, and the serial, Gene Autry in part five of The Phantom Empire, was entertaining in a far-fetched sort of way. However, the best part of all was being so close to Marjorie. For in the dark, in that kingdom where fantasy reigned, he could temporarily block out the existence of Sharon and Jameson and have Marjorie all to himself.

  But, as the serial ended and the audience was shown highlights from the next episode, he spotted something that reminded him that his was merely a fantasy. Detective Jameson, after an overstated stretch, was proceeding to slide his arm around Marjorie’s shoulders.

  Creighton grinned. The detective was a smooth operator, but he was sharper. Slowly, he drew one of the long pins from the brim of Sharon’s hat, and pricked the tip of the policeman’s finger as it appeared above Marjorie’s shoulder. Jameson flinched slightly, then carried through with his invasion.

  I must stab him harder, Creighton thought, adopting a siege mentality. Wielding the pin like a miniature spear, he plunged the weapon, harpoonlike, into the back of Jameson’s hand, and then quickly withdrew it. In reflex, the detective pulled his arm away, accidentally clobbering Marjorie in the back of the head and knocking her hat down over her eyes.

  “Ow!” she cried.

  “Sorry,” Jameson whispered apologetically.

  “Say, what did you do that for?” she asked as she pushed her hat back into place.

  “I didn’t mean to,” he explained as he surveyed the back of his hand. “I think something must have bitten me.”

  Erstwhile, Creighton had palmed the hatpin and was watching the opening credits of the feature attraction, his arms folded across his chest. When he saw the title of the film, he couldn’t resist taking a shot at his romantic nemesis. “Oh, look, Jameson,” he pointed out innocently. “It’s a movie about your insect attacker: ‘Captain Blood.’”

  _____

  “Where are you off to now?” Creighton inquired when the movie let out. “Are you getting some coffee? Or maybe a soda?”

  The foursome exited the theater lobby. “Home,” Jameson answered. “I’ve got to go to work tomorrow.”

  “I could go for a soda,” Sharon interjected.

  “No, it’s getting late,” Creighton refused. “High time I take you home.”

  “Well, then,” the detective concluded, “I guess this is goodbye.” He grabbed the other man’s hand and shook it. “‘Night, Creighton. Nice to meet you, Miss Schutt,” he added with a tip of his hat.

  Again, the pudgy girl cackled idiotically.

  “So long, Jameson. Thanks for letting us tag along.” Creighton took Marjorie’s hands in both of his, and gazed deeply into her eyes. “Goodnight, Marjorie,” he bade softly.

  She met his gaze and swiftly turned her head. “Goodnight Creighton,” she murmured, releasing her hands from his grip. “Bye, Sharon.”

  “Marjorie,” the young woman hissed.

  Creighton watched wearily as Marjorie and Jameson walked down the street, arm in arm. He had managed to waylay most of the detective’s advances toward Marjorie, but he knew that this was just one battle in a long and vigorous war. The road ahead was fraught with many perils, the most immediate of which was Jameson’s attempt at the goodnight kiss.

  “I’m cold,” Sharon snapped. “Can we go now?”

  “Hmm?” he answered distractedly. “Yes, of course.” He helped her into the passenger compartment of the Phantom and walked around to the driver’s side door. All the while, his mind pictured Marjorie and Jameson, their arms entwining each other in the moonlight. Well, it wasn’t going to happen. Not on his watch!

  He jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. As he watched Jameson’s squad car drive past him, a plan began to take shape in his head. The plan’s success, however, was dependent upon him taking Sharon home as soon as humanly possible. He pulled away from the curb and followed the police car through the crowded streets of town.

  Sharon had resumed her discourse on Hollywood celebrities, this time including the stars of the film they had just seen. “Olivia de Haviland was just beautiful, don’t you think? Mother says I look like her. Do you think I look like her?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I read somewhere that she brushes her hair five hundred strokes a night. Five hundred strokes a night! Can you imagine?”

  Creighton concentrated on the scene outside the front windshield. They were out of town now and had reached a portion of straight, open road. He shifted gears and applied steady pressure to the accelerator.

  “And that Errol Flynn,” Sharon went on. “Why, he’s just a peach. Not as peachy as you, though.”

  Creighton glanced over at his passenger, who was watching him with a twinkle in her eye, and immediately floored the gas pedal. He swerved onto the left side of the road, passed the police car and then moved back into the right lane, all the while maintaining speed.

  Sharon, for the first time all evening, was silent, her head having been thrown back against the headrest. “You’re going awfully fast,” she indicated nervously.

  Creighton wondered whether his plan might have the added benefit of frightening off the ardent Miss Schutt. “Fast? I always drive this way.”

  “You didn’t earlier.”

  “That’s because I had just eaten. Food makes me sluggish.”

  “Y-your friend might give you a ticket.”

  “Jameson? No, the most he’d do is give me a warning.” He glanced in his rearview mirror. “Look behind us. He hasn’t even given chase.”

  Sharon turned around and looked out the rear window. “I don’t see him.”

  “That’s because we’ve outrun him,” the Englishman replied as he maintained constant speed.

  Within a few minutes, they were outside the Schutt home. Creighton left the car idling and walked Sharon to the front door.

  “Good night, Sharon, pleasant dreams,” he wished her hastily.

  “Nighty night, Creighton.” She closed her eyes and puckered her mouth.

  “I’d better not,” he hedged. “I’m coming down with a cold.” He validated his statement with a fake sneeze.

  She opened her eyes. “You’ve been fine all night.”

  “It’s this night air,” he waved his hands to include the space around him. “Plays havoc with the sinuses, you know. Which is why you should get inside,” he pushed her stout frame toward the doorway. “Wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.”

  She opened the front door and stepped inside, giggling. “Oh, Creighton, you’re so thoughtful.”r />
  “Now, now, none of that,” he reprimanded. “Off to bed with you.”

  She complied, still tee-heeing, and quietly shut the door. Creighton took off like a shot down the front walk, hopped in the car and drove, hell for leather, toward Marjorie’s house.

  _____

  The writer and the detective were standing on the front stoop of the McClelland homestead, poised for their farewells. The wind had died down and the moon had poked its glowing face from beneath the clouds. Marjorie watched the orb’s reflection in Jameson’s eyes. “Thank you, Robert,” she said quietly. “I had a very nice time.”

  “I did, too. Maybe we could do it again sometime.”

  “Maybe,” she replied, determined to maintain a semblance of aloofness.

  “Soon?” he pressed.

  “I think we could work something out.”

  He tilted his head close to hers. “Goodnight, Marjorie.”

  “Goodnight, Robert.” She angled her neck upwards and shut her eyes in anticipation of his lips meeting hers.

  The next sensation she experienced, however, was not the taste of Jameson’s mouth, but the blast of a car horn. Toot-toot!

  The couple looked up to see Creighton driving past them, waving out of his car window dementedly. When he had vanished down the street, Marjorie asked, “What was that all about?”

  “He’s probably happy to have gotten rid of Miss Schutt.” He leaned his head toward Marjorie’s again, but it was too late. The moment had passed. Giving her a chaste peck on the cheek, he bid adieu and walked back to his car.

  Marjorie stood in the frame of the open front door and watched him drive away. When he had gone she slammed the door shut in furor, sending Sam scuttling from his position on the windowsill.

  “I hope you sleep well, tonight, Mr. Ashcroft,” she shouted. “Because tomorrow, boy, are you ever going to hear it from me!”

  EIGHTEEN

  Marjorie let herself into Mrs. Patterson’s back kitchen door around eleven o’clock the next morning. The elderly woman was there, leaning over the sink and scrubbing at the last of the breakfast dishes.

  “Good morning. Is Creighton around?”

  “No, he had an errand to run over at the post office, but he should be back shortly, if you want to wait.” As if on cue, the boarder appeared at the back door, his arms loaded to capacity with a multitude of boxes. “Why, here he is now.” Mrs. Patterson hastened to open the door.

  He thanked Mrs. Patterson and placed the parcels gently upon the kitchen table. “Ah, Marjorie,” he acknowledged the younger of the two women. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

  “What a coincidence. I wanted to see you, too.”

  Creighton ripped the lid from the first box and withdrew from it a pair of men’s black patent leather shoes, polished to an immaculate shine. “What did you want to see me about?”

  “Last night,” she answered coolly.

  He placed the shoes on an empty area of the table.

  “Creighton!” Mrs. Patterson shouted from the sink area. “Take those shoes off the table. Don’t you know it’s bad luck?”

  “Sorry.” He moved the offending objects to the floor beside his feet, and removed the top from another package. “Yes, I had a good time last night, too. Thanks again for letting us join you.”

  “I didn’t come here to tell you I had a good time,” she snapped impatiently. “I wanted to talk to you about what you did after the—” She stopped in mid-sentence as Creighton pulled out a silver beaded evening bag. “What is all this stuff?”

  He grabbed a shoebox-shaped package. “I had these things shipped over for tonight. You remember—Gloria’s party.”

  Picking up the evening bag, she teased, “They’re not going to let you in with this purse. It doesn’t match your shoes.”

  Mrs. Patterson giggled and came to the table for a closer look.

  “No,” he replied calmly, “but it matches yours.”

  “No it doesn’t. My shoes are black.”

  “Not anymore they aren’t.” He opened the shoebox to reveal a pair of high-heel silver pumps with a strap across the vamp fastened by a rhinestone buckle.

  The shoes were lovely, exactly what she would have chosen for herself, but there was one problem. “I can’t wear these. They don’t go with my dress. My dress is black crepe.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Creighton argued. “Your dress is silver.”

  He really was the most impossible man. “I know what color my dress is. My dress is—”

  Her voice trailed off as Creighton opened a large box to unveil a silver evening gown. “As you were saying?”

  Marjorie fell silent as she took the stunning gown in her hands and examined it. The fabric, luminous silk, was cut on the bias, with numerous pleats and tucks to flatter every curve. Designed in the halter style, the upper part of the dress was backless as well as sleeveless and held in place by a slender strap around the neck. The bodice boasted a plunging v-neck whose opening was modestly fastened together by three rhinestone-encrusted x-shaped embellishments. A fitted waist, secured with a slender belt, flowed into an angle cut skirt culminating in a flounced hem.

  “My, but it is lovely,” Mrs. Patterson exclaimed, then pulling her hand to her mouth and frowning, “but it’s awfully bare. No sleeves, and no back. Marjorie would be sure to catch her death.”

  “I had a feeling you’d say that, Mrs. Patterson.” He opened another garment size box. “That’s why I got this.” It was a matching full-length opera coat, lined and trimmed in the purest of white fur.

  “Oh, how grand!” Mrs. Patterson cried.

  Marjorie was still speechless.

  “I know it’s not the dress you were looking at,” Creighton apologized.

  “The dress I was looking at?” she asked in astonishment.

  “Yes, the one in the shop window when we went to see Miss Hadley,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I caught you admiring it, but the head of the Connecticut Women’s Literary League wouldn’t buy a dress displayed in a shop window.”

  “That’s why you bought all this? To keep up appearances?”

  “Yes,” he paused, “and so that Mrs. Patterson wouldn’t become a slave to her sewing machine.”

  “You thought my dress was inappropriate?”

  “Marjorie,” Mrs. Patterson interjected, “wearing that dress to your high school dance was one thing, but this . . . this is Gloria Van Allen.”

  Marjorie looked again at the whole ensemble. It was indeed beautiful, but it must have cost a fortune. She shook her head, “I’m sorry, but I can’t accept all of this. It’s too expensive.”

  “You’re not accepting anything,” Creighton argued. “These things aren’t gifts. They’re items necessary to the continuance of this investigation and, hence, the writing of your book. This is all strictly business, and any money I might have spent should be viewed as an ‘operating expense.’”

  “Fine,” she responded, inexplicably annoyed that Creighton had found her unworthy of a gift. “Since this is strictly business, you can’t possibly be insulted if I reimburse you.”

  Mrs. Patterson shuffled back to the sink in disgust. “I’ll never understand young people these days,” she mumbled to herself.

  “Fine,” he spat back. “If that’s the way you want it, you can pay me back out of the proceeds from the book.”

  “Fine.” she agreed, grabbing the dress from the table. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to try this on. I not going to pay for something that doesn’t fit.”

  “It fits.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “Because it was made precisely to your measurements.”

  “How did you get my measurements?”

  The elderly woman inched quietly from the sink toward the hallway door. Marjorie spotted her before she could break away. “Mrs. Patterson, you gave my measurements to a perfect stranger!”

  “No, dear, I gave them to Creighton. He gave them to a perfect st
ranger,” she replied innocently, before leaving the room.

  “Did you hear that?” Marjorie accused Creighton as one parent might accuse another. “She’s beginning to sound like you.”

  “I never claimed to be a good influence,” he commented as he packed the evening clothes back into their boxes. “Now, are you taking this stuff or not?”

  “Yes,” she responded frostily, “I’ll take it.”

  He stacked the boxes into a neat pile. “Shall I help you carry these home?”

  “No, I can manage.” She scooped the pile into her arms and strode toward the back door.

  “Oh, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Marjorie stopped, her hand on the doorknob. She turned around, slowly. “I wanted to tell you that I didn’t appreciate you honking your car horn last night.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I interrupted . . .” He raised his eyebrows. “Something.”

  “You didn’t.” She blushed. “Robert and I were having a deep philosophical discussion, that’s all.”

  Creighton cleared his throat. “Hmm. Yes, I’ve had a few of those myself. Of course most of them were during my college days and took place in a rumble seat.”

  “Are you doubting me?” she cornered him.

  “No, no, not at all. I’m sure Detective Jameson is a very good ‘philosopher.’ Anyway, I do hope you can forgive me for disrupting your discussion. I was rather giddy last night . . . what with the moonlight and all that Errol Flynn swashbuckling and sitting next to a pretty girl.”

  “A pretty girl?”

  “Why, yes. Sharon.”

  “Oh, yes, Sharon.” She turned around gloomily and opened the back door.

  “Wait,” Creighton called. “What time should I pick you up tonight?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she replied without looking at him. “You decide.”

  “The party’s at eight o’clock, so I guess I’ll meet you around five.”

  “Five o’clock sounds fine,” she agreed despondently and trudged out of the house. Had she taken the time to look over her shoulder, she would have seen Creighton watching her through the kitchen window, a complacent smile across his face.