All But a Pleasure

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Hearing a ‘bet you can’t guess where’ implied in his tone of voice, she said, “Ivy vines circling round and round your navel?”

  It was pure irony on her part, but he stared openmouthed. “Wow! Sergeant Lestrade, you scare me sometimes.”

  The dog got up, shook itself, and came over to the gate to lick Lestrade’s hand through the wrought-iron grille.

  “It isn’t ivy,” Dave went on. “But it does circle round and round my navel. Actually, it’s a dragon spread over my chest with his tail circling around my belly button. Nobody could mistake it for ivy, so I know you didn’t sneak my shirt up and spy on me when I was napping. But…sheboy, you guess good!”

  “Maybe I just know you better than either one of us was aware, Dave.”

  Three minutes after Lestrade rang the bell, a mid-age blond woman in brown culottes and a green jacket-blouse with big pockets came strolling down the path and called out to them, “Eet ees by zee appointment onlee.”

  “We don’t need an appointment, M.,” Lestrade told her. “We’re police detectives on official business.”

  The dog looked back and forth between them, and whined a little. The blond sped up so fast her phony French accent dropped off. “Good boy, Pango. Officers?” She swung the gate open. “Whatever have we done?”

  “Police business includes soliciting expert opinions, M.—Dupont, you’d be?”

  She nodded. “Actually, it’s Hilga Strudelmeyer. ‘Fleur Dupont’ is my professional name.”

  “What about your husband?” Clayton asked. “How many names does he have?”

  “Just the one. He really is Lyman O’Toole, all the way through. I’m afraid he’s in Indianapolis today, getting supplies.”

  “We may come back,” Lestrade told her, “if we find we need to. Meanwhile…” She tossed a pointed look at the mansion among the trees. Like pretty well every residence in Vadnais Estates, that place had lots of room inside.

  “Oh!” said M. Dupont-Strudelmeyer. “May I ask you in? Offer you coffee or…or tea?”

  “Coffee will be very welcome, M.,” Clayton replied, probably hoping for a sandwich or something else it could wash down.

  Pango padded up to the house after them, probably hoping pretty much the same.

  Indoors, they sat around coffee and cookies on the table in a breakfast nook big enough for zoning and bright enough for the Fourth of July, looking into a kitchen where every square centimeter that could be stone was marble or highly polished granite, and the rest was stainless steel rubbed down to a soft gleam. Probably kept up by housecleaners coming in at least every other day. Like Clayton had said, big tridols at work here. And Lestrade guessed more of those tridols came from inheritance or shrewd investments or both than from body art, no matter how exclusive and expensive.

  Pango lay under the table obviously waiting for crumbs. Very biblical. What was that passage Christians liked to quote? Something about the dogs eating the scraps that fell beneath the table… “All right, Detective Clayton,” she said, “we might as well start with our missing person.”

  M. Dupont-Strudelmeyer gave the photos a polite scrutiny and shook her head, more in helplessness than negation. “I think I’ve seen someone who might have been him, going into one of the houses where gamers meet. Mostly rolegamers, though the Cartiers host weekly bridge parties and the Orlovskies hold a chess tournament every couple of months. This boy…looks more like one of the rolegamers. One we’ve seen from time to time during the summer. They have a big rolegaming party at M. Imani’s every Sunday, very orderly and well-behaved young people, some oldsters as well. The Langs, and the Forester-Joneses, over on the other side of Vadnais Park, also hold rolegame parties sometimes. But this boy…he just looks like so many other young men his age, doesn’t he? You say he’s missing? How long?”

  “Not long at all, M. Dupont,” said Lestrade. “Just long enough to make us ask everyone. Routine. How about clearing our lost and found item out of the way next, Detective Clayton?”

  He put the catalog down on the table. The body artist examined it and shook her head. “Not ours. Very neatly done, though. I’d guess M. Hammer’s, though it could be M. Naismith’s. I’m afraid I don’t make as thorough a study of our fellow artists’ styles as I probably should. Or it could belong to somebody from out of town.”

  “Thank you, M. Dupont.” Lestrade kept her voice carefully neutral. “Detective Clayton, our last item?”

  Again he got out the tracing, unfolded it, and slid it across the marble tabletop to M. Dupont-Strudelmeyer. She picked it up and studied it for several seconds. “My professional opinion on this, Officers?”

  “If you’d be so good, M.,” Lestrade replied.

  “Well…it’s pretty enough, but is it Art?”

  Lestrade pressed on, “Any thoughts whose style it might be?”

  “Any competent tattoo artist could… Some of them might not want to, but almost any of us could… I take it this is a— Oh, dear Lord in Heaven!” Dupont exclaimed. “This wasn’t—could this be connected to that—that horrible murder just this past wraparound?”

  Seeing Clayton open his mouth, Lestrade beat him to the punch. “We’re always investigating several cases at a time, M. Dupont. Even in a town this size. So. Can you rule out any of your fellow body artists who wouldn’t soil their hands with something like this?”

  “Well, we wouldn’t, Ly and I. Fortunately, we have enough money as it is. Unless…” Her hand trembling slightly, she laid the tracing flat on the table and studied it again. “As one element of a larger picture…or even by itself, with a few individualizing touches… Yes, it could have some possibilities, after all.”

  “Could it be a stamped tattoo?” Clayton asked.

  “Certainly. In that case, we couldn’t legally use it if we wanted to. Not unless the client already had it and asked us to incorporate it into a larger picture. All stamp designs are registered.”

  “How do you check?” Clayton said curiously.

  The body artist sighed. “With great difficulty, Officers, with great difficulty. The literature speculates that someday we may have electronic brains to file and sort through things like this automatically, but for here and now I’m afraid it’s still pretty much the old honor system. Resting mainly on what the client tells us. And since these stamps became so popular, the annual IABA directory has gotten as thick as the New York phone books.”

  Lestrade asked, “Anything to stop an individual artist from turning out two identical stamps of his or her own design?”

  Dupont-Strudelmeyer took a minute to answer that one. “Not legally, I don’t think. No, the design would be the individual artist’s, to re-use at will. It’d be more a matter of commercial ethics. You wouldn’t want to annoy any client who bought a stamp from you by selling one with the identical design to another client.”

  “Not even two officers of the same club?” asked Clayton.

  “Well…a case like that could be an exception…but I still don’t think it’d be very wise. Any kind of a club or association can break up, and then you could see rival organizations wearing the same design. No…it might work for something like a graduating class, where the membership never changes no matter what internal politics may develop. Then you might see two or three identical stamps—say, one for the class president and one for the faculty advisor. But otherwise…you’ve got to understand, Officers, you’ve caught me more or less in a blind spot here. Ly and I don’t design stamps, don’t even have the right equipment.”

  “But you do have those annual directories?” Lestrade wanted to know.

  Dupont sighed. “Yes, we’ve got the directories. IABA guide­rules. Every year adds more designs, and once they’re there, they’re there forever.”

  “How do you keep updated on the designs being made between editions?” Clayton rubbed Pango behind the ears.

  “H
onor system,” Dupont repeated.

  “You might get a ‘Friendly Dog’ sign for your gate,” Lestrade observed.

  “We have one. We decided to take it down after somebody was murdered here in Forest Green. We’ve even talked about getting a watchdog that isn’t so friendly.”

  “Let’s not panic, M. And we’d like to borrow your latest directory.” Lestrade didn’t make it a question.

  She noticed Clayton smothering a sigh, probably thinking he was going to end up checking the thing page by page. Well, maybe she’d help him out there. She didn’t have anything more important in her plans for this evening, and he was hoping to snag a quick date. Talking about this nurse he’d just met, the one who gave flu shots so smoothly a floater didn’t even feel it.

  CHAPTER 4

  Still Monday, September 18

  Julie Whitcomb lived alone in a moderately priced four-room apartment in Pankhurst Heights, one of Forest Green’s most respectable upper middle-class neighborhoods. The Pankhurst Arms—lodge-style lounge, changing rooms, and bar downstairs, four tidy apartments upstairs—was a piece of pleasantly retro-style architecture only two degrees removed from imitation Frank Lloyd Wright, set down with an artificial pond pretending to be a lake on one side and a small but rolling park on the other three. “Pankhurst Lake” really could accommodate rafting and oar-boating, though neither full-sized sailboats nor anything motorized. They even kept it stocked with pan fish. Both pond and park were free and open to the entire Pankhurst Heights subdivision: four blocks of duplexes and single-family residences on each side of the park.

  Thirty years ago, Pankhurst Heights had been both posh and somewhat less respectable than it was today, with—local legend whispered—a high-class courtesan house in the building that had been “saved,” like any other poor sinner, into a nondenominational community church with angels in stained glass windows and a real organ. Thirty years ago, Julie Whitcomb could never have afforded an apartment in the Pankhurst Arms. The big reason she could afford it now was because activities in the lodge lounge and bar just below the apartments, as well as Theater in the Park and the various school picnics, family reunions, summertime rowboat races and wintertime skating parties, Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve fireworks over the pond, and so on, while good, clean family fun, were both frequently scheduled and frequently on the raucous side. Not like the weekly wraparound activities at Sam’s house, which never disturbed the neighbors.

  Also, the management gave Julie an additional discount because, as a trained nurse, she could be on call in case of need for these races and parties and other affairs, whenever she got enough advance notice to juggle it with her hospital hours.

  Her life sometimes made it challenging to sandwich in her Life, but what was Life without a challenge?

  Anyway, someday—probably soon, seeing she was already twenty-seven—her prince would come and she’d leave all this behind, both life and even some of Life, without a second thought, move on to her next incarnation as wife and, sweet Jesus willing, mommy.

  Maybe that prince of hers had come already. Not, of course, Paul Osaka, who had the apartment catacorner to hers. He was a great floater, only he swang the other way; and, besides, Dante’s Delight Purgatorio had its guiderules, which let out Sam as well. But maybe, just maybe, the one she’d met this morning… Well, if not, she’d give that prince just six more years to reach her. If he didn’t, at the symbolic age of thirty-three she was phasing on alone if necessary: adopt an orphan or two grown to the age where they were hard to place, maybe get herself artificially inseminated, find a bigger apartment or even a nice little house…sweet Jesus knew where she’d get the money, but sweet Jesus should know, providing for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and all that!

  And then, she’d already budgeted and bought the last big expense she expected to want until age thirty-three, anyway.

  She closed her bedroom drapes, turned on her nightstand lamp, peeled off her garments down to the last stitch, and studied her naked body in the mirror. Not that it actually looked naked any longer. Not since a month and a half ago. Her fellow Purgatorians understood; Curly even approved. Not that Sam or Paul would ever see the whole thing in all its glory. That was reserved to serious candidates for her prince.

  A blue and crimson dragon, puffing out roses and daisies instead of flames, rose up across her belly to her breasts, the tip of his pointed tail just touching her pubic nest, while his wings shelled her nipples and continued around her torso to her back, where they helped disguise her scars, at least to sight. The symbol of Dante’s Delight danced with its lower half resting in an interlinked host of blue snowflakes and frostlike patterns that wove from just above her right breast, around her upper arm, and back across her shoulder blade, incorporating more of the old scars, left from before they’d gone over exclusively to rubber hoses and beading needles. And high time, too! The bodies of those earlier Purgatorians must have ended downright embarrassing after years of scourges, votive flames, and the woodcutting tool they used to use for the old scarification symbol, before they intelligently went to a stamped tattoo.

  Julie smiled. These last five had been good years, useful years, and she felt she’d done her little part in polishing the old Purgatorio and its good work. Still, she was definitely feeling the need to move on. She might not even stay with it all the way to age thirty-three, whether her prince showed up or not. But that meant they really needed someone to replace her. Four was the minimum functional membership, six the maximum—on paper. They’d never actually had six in practice. Five, once, for a while, but that had been before her time.

  When her prince showed up, she’d know. She’d know by the way he looked at her naked for the first time and saw, not a one-night stand, but a good piece of art on a body he would be proud and happy to spend the rest of his natural life with. For his eyes and hers only, from that hour on.

  She patted the still-blank hollow between her collarbone and left breast. This area, she was saving for when she had her prince to decide what should grace it. Maybe by then she’d be able to afford—or maybe he’d afford it as a wedding gift—to go to the very best, to Dupont and O’Toole, who attracted clients from all over the fifty-five states.

  Her phone chimed. She hurried over and snatched it up from the nightstand. “Hello?… Oh, yes! Oh, yes, I remember you…”

  A long exchange of smalltalk-type feelers. She was amazed, glancing at the clock, to see it had lasted almost ten minutes. Then:

  “Yes, yes, I think I can make it tonight.… Scoops and Bottles? Fine!… Yes, I know the place, it’s very versatile. Ideal for a first date.… You know, I always like to go doubles on a first date.… No, you can leave that to me. I’m sure I can line someone up on short notice.… Yes, yes, I’ve done it before. My friends know me.”

  After another several minutes of sweet talking about how she’d better get busy lining up that double date before the notice got too short, she finally signed off with him.

  “My prince?” she wondered again, cradling the phone receiver. Cautious, girl! You’ve been stung before. That’s the reason for doubling on the first date, also for leaving each potential prince on the doorstep until at least the second date. If he was the prince, he’d call for date number two. If he didn’t, he wasn’t.

  Now, who could she recruit this time? She thought Sam met with his Shriners gang on Monday evenings. Curly tended to be a little too boisterous for times like these. Paul’s apartment was just down the hall, and he never minded going with Lizette or Pearl for the sake of appearances and good conversation.

  Or… Julie exchanged a grin with herself…why not bake two cakes in one oven? She looked up the number, lifted the receiver again, and dialed.

  * * * *

  Should she get a place of her own here in her old home town…a large apartment or tidy little bungalow for one…and maybe find some kind of service job? Money
was not a problem for the Garvey-Johansens, but idleness was, at least for a person like Angela, who liked to feel both busy and of some social usefulness.

  She’d had some thought of…but now it appeared to be just as well she’d never hinted anything about that. Maybe if she’d come home to Forest Green right away after graduation, hadn’t left him all summer to get acquainted with Julie… Well… Friends, best friends—she hoped, for life. Don’t spoil it by reaching for anything else. Besides… Best friends was good. Very good. And he had been fine as Raggedy Andy. She couldn’t help chuckling when she thought about that game…

  Just then, the phone chimed.

  “Hello?” she cried, snatching up the receiver. “Angela here.… Raggedy Andy? I was just thinking about you.… Yes, it does resemble mental telepathy, doesn’t it?… Tonight?” (Too eager? Too flustered-sounding?) “…Oh, oh, I see.… Oh, yes, yes, I can stop by for you at eighteen hundred hours.… Yes, it’ll be nice to see Scoops and Bottles again. Is that place still as good as it used to be?… They’ve actually improved it? Oh, I can’t wait!… Yes, as you say, ‘copacetic.’… Well, good-by for now, I’ll see you in—oh, my, in less than an hour!… Yes, yes, I’m as good as ready now. See you soon.”

  She cradled the receiver, stood for a moment with her hand resting absently on the telephone, and heaved a great huge sigh, just as Aunt Sally came into the living room.

  “Who was that, Angie?”

  “Corwin.”

  “Oh, good. He’s a nice boy—young man, I should say.”

  “No, Aunt Sally, I think maybe we should stick with ‘boy.’ But, yes, he is nice. A little strange. But…nice.”

  “Well, they say that no males and only ten percent of all females ever really grow up. What was he calling about?”

  “He asked me to go out with him and Julie and a floater named Dave Clayton. A sort of blind date for me. I’ve never met this Dave, but Cory said he’s a police detective, so it should be very safe. Besides, Cory will be with us. And Julie Whitcomb. So I told him I’d go. We’re going to Scoops and Bottles. We’re all meeting there at eighteen hundred thirty. I’m picking Cory up at the Marquette House. “