by M. E. Kerr
“I thought your name was Celeste.”
“My old name was. I’m Plumsie now.”
“How do you do?”
“Get me out of this drag, will you?”
Lenny’s fingers typed some more and the figure put its hands on its hips and looked back at Lenny and rolled its eyes.
“Wipe off my lipstick, would you, Big Guy? And lend me a snappy necktie.”
That night Lenny threw the red wig down the incinerator in the hall of the apartment building.
He’d get him a new wig when the weekend was over. It was Lenny’s idea to rig Plumsie up so that even Nels would be fooled when he saw him.
chapter 14
Back in Brooklyn, home sweet home.
“You must promise me never to do that again.”
“I was only downstairs,” said Jazzy. “Make Mom give Georgette back to me.”
“Mom’s trying to teach you something. You know how upset you feel now without your doll? That’s how she felt.”
“She didn’t even know I was gone for a long time. She was down the hall at Bernard’s.”
“Mr. Lopez to you. Not Bernard,” I said.
“Mr. Stinkmouth to me! I want my doll back and I want him dead!”
“I’ll get Georgette for you, but don’t run away anymore. Not even down to the laundry room. Okay?”
“You run away, Johnny. You’ve done it twice times. From school once, and once from the restaurant.”
“Two times, not twice times. I’m not going to run away anymore,” I said. “Neither are you, kiddo!”
I went down the hall and knocked on Mom’s door. It was half open. The light from the television was still on.
‘Are you awake, Mom?”
“She can’t have Georgette. Not until tomorrow.”
“Mom, it’s already tomorrow. It’s three A.M. She can’t sleep without Georgette.”
“Tough, Johnny! Do you know what it’s been like around here tonight? No, of course you don’t. You were off in The Hamptons with your rich girlfriend.”
“May I come in a second?”
“Don’t talk. This is almost the end.”
How many times had she seen Ingrid Bergman walk away from Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca?
I sat on the edge of her bed.
It was my second or third time. It was one of the few movies my dad had liked watching on TV. We used to tease him that it was only because he bore a slight resemblance to Claude Raines, the actor who played the dapper police chief.
I spotted Georgette leaning against a Kleenex box on the shelf behind Mom.
Jazzy used to dress her as a ragged, poor person, then change her into fancy costumes: ball gowns, silk dresses with sequins, queen’s robes.
I waited until the music’s swell and the credits. Then I picked up Georgette. She had on jodhpurs and a riding jacket.
“My kingdom for a horse,” I said.
Mom sighed. “All right, take it to her.”
“He’s the one upsetting her,” I said. “Bernard.”
“Would you kids be happy if I’d set fire to myself the way widows used to do in India?”
“You know how Jazzy felt about Daddy…. If there was ever a daddy’s girl — ”
“Talk to her, Johnny.”
“I did. I will some more.”
“I shouldn’t pass this information on to you, since you think Mr. Lopez is only fit to darn and stitch, but we were talking after Jazzy got home and we could think straight again. Mr. Lopez happens to be fascinated by the Bermuda Triangle. He knows all about your Nels Plummer.”
“How does Mr. Lopez think Nels Plummer got anywhere near the Bermuda Triangle?” I said in the same tone Eaton had used on me.
“Never mind. You’re too superior to talk to, I can see that.”
“Mom, the Seastar wasn’t anywhere near that part of the Atlantic where all the planes and ships disappeared!”
“Bernard knows that. But Nelson Plummer disappeared in 1963, and in 1963 a tanker with its entire crew disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, and so did two Air Force tankers. Bernard buys anything to do with it, and he has a book across the hall about missing people. Your Nels Plummer is in it.”
I said, “Thanks, Mom.”
“Bernard’s not your dad, but he’s not what you’re making him out to be.”
“I know. But Jazzy and I think even Mr. Rogers wouldn’t be good enough for you.”
“You’re right about that.”
• • •
When I dropped Georgette on Jazzy’s bed, she said, “Have you got a doll, Johnny? Where’d you get all the neat clothes?”
“I told you,” I said. “They belong to a ventriloquist’s dummy.”
“I wasn’t listening to all that stuff about ventrilquims. I was missing Georgette.”
She was hugging the doll, settling down under the covers. I put a sweater of Plumsie’s back inside next to the journal.
Then I changed my mind and picked the journal up to take out to the Hide-a-Bed where I sleep in the living room. There was a lot I hadn’t read, and a lot I never would. But if I could make out the handwriting, I was game for one last read … the few pages at the very end.
“Do you promise to hang around from now on?” I asked Jazzy.
“Do you?”
“I’ll be around until I go back to school,” I said.
“Okay, me too,” she said.
THE MOUTH
And now, of course, it’s time for me.
I’m not really a writer, you know, even though more and more I have had to rescue the act with my own material.
Sample:
If Leonard feels a little wheezy,
(Asthma does that) … well, it’s easy,
For then the act becomes old Plum’s,
And in the darkness someone comes,
Someone wet and someone hissing,
“Would you leave me down there?
Missing?
Oh, it would get him very, very crabby, that would.
“Leave Nels out of it! … You’re no writer, Plum!”
I never reminded him that it’s me writing this thing so it looks like a story — and why? So Tra La De Da doesn’t have to face that it’s his very own autobiography.
He likes to distance himself from himself, you see. From himself, from everybody. That began way back when he said toodle-oo to Laura. He gave her up, or she gave him up. We’ll never know, since he didn’t call her again. I take a little credit for that — Old Plum is on the selfish side, doesn’t like to share … doesn’t even like the word unless you’re talking about a piece of cake.
Maybe I’m not a writer, but who cares? I don’t even read writers. I read nothing.
I’m a boob-tube geek.
Ask Tra La. When he’s out drinking and gambling away our hard-earned money, I sit and watch the big picture.
When he drags his behind home, broke, he sits beside me watching, too, and he says, “What a pair we are, old buddy.”
I know how to get him.
Say I, “Who do you mean, you and Nels?”
Once he cried.
He said, “When are you going to leave Nels out of it?”
“What if he comes back and he finds out we left him out of it? He won’t like that one bit, will he?”
• • •
But back to me.
I like what’s hot!
Writing in this journal is not hot, so I told him ce soir (that’s Spanish, dear hearts. It means this evening) — I told him no more scribble scribble, Leonard.
Your life history is over, say I.
Finito … (that’s French for finished).
Do you get it YET, amicos and amicas? (That’s Russian for friends.) Hal Hal Get the picture? … I lie for enjoyment. Others golf, shoot pool, jog, and you know what, but I like prevaricating…. Doesn’t that sound filthy?
Say I, “No more scribble scribble, Tra La.”
Say I, “What your future holds
now can never be recorded, and you know it, Tra La. Nothing about this can be put down in writing.”
(There were times when he’d cry out, “Don’t call me Tra La!” but he doesn’t fight me anymore.)
Say I, “Lovely to be back in Cottersville, is it not?”
Says he, “It’s not.”
Say I, “You’re at Sevens House again, eh? And you’re on another of your little trips down Memory Lane, hmmm?”
Pause.
Say I, “You may answer, Tra La.” “Knock it off, Plum. This is different. I’ve never killed anyone.”
“That you remember, Tra La. Your mind is shot. I doubt sincerely (don’t you love me using that word?) that you’ll remember anything about this visit to your old alma mater either … but it will get us out of debt, Tra La.”
He has no reaction. Sits there like a lump.
Say I, “They couldn’t have made it any easier for you, and what a cute little gun they got you, Tra La.”
Say I, “Revenge is sweet, too, isn’t it? Particularly when Sevens set it up…. Answer me, Tra La De Da.”
Says he, “There’s no such thing as The Sevens Revenge.”
Because, you know, he was taught to say that. They teach them all to deny there’s any such thing.
Say I, “At least they knew who’d welcome any kind of work, even dirty work.”
Says he (speaking without permission — tsk! Tsk!), “I didn’t need to buy a rat for the job, either, since I have you.”
Which is why, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Fans and Foes, I refuse to leave this lovely old white Cadillac, even to go inside Sevens House for a minute.
Leave me out of it is my new motto, and I told Tra La I was parking my carcass in the car. Where I will wait … and wait. Old Plum is good at waiting. And I like old cars.
Lately I have longings for old things … things like Snickers bars, which Tra La brings me.
Say I, “Thank you, Big Guy.”
Makes him wheeze to hear me call him that.
Wheeze wheeze, Louise: His asthma is worse than ever now.
It’s why I took over the act in the first place, you know.
Nobody wants to pay to hear someone gasping for air in the middle of a joke. Toodle-oo to boo-hoo-hoo. Lately I have longings for old things.
Said I that?
Easter is in the air, that’s why — Easter vacation.
Easter always reminds me of when I was Celeste.
I was known for my Easter hats.
Is that a song I feel coming on? … Oh, In my Eas-ter bon-net … with blah blah blah upon it … Who wrote that, pet, do you know? … A box of Snickers to the lady in the front row who answered Ozzy Osbourne.
We always have to credit the author, don’t we?
Pictured here is Nels Plummer, 18, of New York City, scion of a wealthy food family, who vanished on board the luxury liner Seastar in 1963.
He was last seen in his cabin by the Captain at 3 P.M. on the afternoon Kennedy was shot in Dallas. The ship was nine hours north of New York.
Annette Plummer, the sister of the missing man, rules out suicide. The skipper of the 16,507-ton vessel states that the heir to a fortune could not have accidentally fallen from the ship, which was constantly in serene waters. “Those railings are four feet high, even on the private outdoor verandas. I defy anyone to fall off my ship, unless a person climbs up on a railing and jumps.”
Investigators declare that leaves only one conclusion: murder.
— from Still Missing by George Tobias.
chapter 15
I had the feeling that Bernard Lopez had bought the Tobias book only to get me over to his apartment.
The book was so new, some of the pages were still stuck together. I think his interest in the Bermuda Triangle was zilch, too. He had nothing to say about it when I asked him.
This is what he wanted to say.
“Johnny, I’m no brain, but any problem you might have taken to your dad, feel free to come to me about. I’ll do my humble best.”
I felt like telling him to shove it, felt like saying I’ll look you up when I want to know what’s the best thread to use on a coat hem, or how to fit a hammer foot attachment to a sewing machine.
But I felt sorry for the guy. Did he really think my mother’d get serious with him? Or that he’d turn out to be just like a father to me and Jazzy?
He kept rubbing his long, skinny fingers together and whining that he hadn’t had time to “pick up” because Jazzy’d run off.
His apartment looked like the back room of a tailor shop, one of those places where the guy watches TV while he works. He was watching a Sunday-morning news program, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges and sipping something he called coffee/I called rotgut.
I was glad to get out of there, even though it meant getting on a subway next. It was shaking from side to side, stinking of garbage and don’t-say-it, rushing me under the East River and into Manhattan: God’s country, next to Brooklyn … or was it anymore?
Now New York looked like some ex-lover whose beauty was still showing, even though she was homeless, and standing in the gutter with a needle in her arm. You wondered if it was too late for her to go back to what she used to be.
I’d called Annette Plummer, so she was expecting me.
chapter 16
I could hear the church bells ringing down the street at St. Patrick’s, and over on Park at St. Bartholomew’s.
Lark must have been sneaking up on eighty, a wizened, white-haired old man in a navy suit that had seen better days, too. Going up to the third floor, Lark told me that he operated the elevator for the Plummers himself now that the building had gone self-service.
He said Captain Stirman was at church, but Miss Plummer only went on holidays, or when her son was home.
“I didn’t know she had a child.” “She adopted this little boy, Fen, from Vietnam, right after her brother disappeared. You know about the brother?”
“Yes.”
“Is this about him?”
“No. Not really.”
“But Nels has something to do with why you’re here?”
I nodded.
I was tempted to ask him if he’d ever received his $1000 from the ransom money for Celeste, but he looked so frail I couldn’t.
He said, “There’s a writer name of Tobias comes here every so often. Lark, he says, anything new? … What could be new after all these years, am I right?”
He was fishing.
“You’re right,” I said. “What could be new?”
As he let me into the apartment, he said, “She likes to talk about Mr. Nels, though, so don’t worry about bringing up the subject…. And she’s very happy this morning. Very, very happy. Fen found something for her we all thought was gone forever.”
She looked very happy. All smiles as I came off the elevator directly into her apartment foyer.
“Come in,” she said. “I just spoke with Fen.”
“And he said he didn’t want the clothes.”
“No, we want them.” She led me down a marble hall, carrying a cigarette in a long gold holder, continuing, “Fen said maybe our dressmaker can do something with those tiny suits and sweaters and shirts. Put lace on the cuffs or change the buttons to pretty little pearl ones…. Of course Celeste is such a snob she won’t agree to wearing hand-me-downs, but the other one will.”
She laughed. It was a strangely thin and lilting laugh for one so enormous. Her hair may have been as white as Lark’s behind the Clairol, but it was raven black, slicked back in a wet look, her eyes a vivid green, the sort that watched yours to see what she could learn about you.
And she did like to talk about “Mr. Nels,” particularly after I told her I was attending Gardner, and I was in Sevens. She said “Nelly” was crazy about that club.
She was drinking black coffee, letting me refill her cup from a silver pot. I was having orange juice, served by Lark in a long-stemmed glass.
On the coffee table was the phot
ograph she’d hunted down to show me when I told her that the night before, I’d watched Fen work with Celeste on one arm and Star on the other.
In the photograph there was a curly-haired young boy in one of those old-fashioned-looking sailor suits with short pants and knee socks, and a big bow tie in the front.
While I studied the picture, she talked.
“Celeste won’t tolerate Star in the act for long. She’s always been the whole show, except for when she was younger. Then I’d make her share with Nelly. See him there on the right?”
He was sitting on one of her knees, and the dummy was on the other. Celeste had on a matching sailor suit, except hers had a skirt instead of pants.
Annette Plummer grinned down at the photo. “Those were happy days. Little Nelly’d pretend he was like Celeste. I taught him a whole routine to go with hers. He got it in his little head it was better to be made of wood than flesh and blood…. He wanted a room like Celeste’s, too, with everything scaled down to size, but Daddy said no. Daddy said, He’s going to grow up thinking he needs you to talk or smile or walk or think!”
In the picture, little Nels was leaning forward to get a look past Annette to Celeste.
The two females were both smiling at the camera, but Nelly was staring at the dummy, as though he was checking to see what she was up to.
“Was Fen good?” Annette Plummer asked me.
“Very!”
“I taught him everything I know, and of course Celeste is everything I know…. Even when I thought I’d never see her again, I taught Fen her routines. From the time he was just a little tyke…. He was five when I adopted him. I was keeping a promise to my father to adopt a child.”
“You and the Captain?”
“No. Fen is mine alone. The Captain and I aren’t married. One day he’ll talk me into it, I suppose, but for now we just live together.”
She smiled at me, lighting a cigarette for herself. She seemed in a mood to talk: not really lonely, but not sorry that I’d dropped by, either.
“This is a big place,” she said. “Room enough for everyone.” She waved her hand toward the large room with all its antique furnishings and works of art. Thick rugs. Old vases. Flowers everywhere. Through the long windows, I could see the treetops across the street at the Central Park Zoo.