by M. J. Bosse
I think of Donald Stuart, our big, blond, beautiful paranoid, bagpiping his way through a Highland fog in his next incarnation, and though I miss him here in this life, I am angry at him for the trouble he sure gave us through those damn pipes of his.
Of course, the first thing to figure out was where they all were. Right there I would have quit, but Virgil learned from our super, a crafty little drunk who would never even say hello unless you crossed his palm with a couple of bucks, that all of Don’s belongings had been packed and shipped by city authorities to the next of kin, Mrs. Halliday. So the pipes were now in her possession, and there was no time to lose, as Sherlock Holmes would say. Virgil called and she agreed to see us, though she thought she had already given the pipes away. Virgil didn’t pursue the subject, because she sounded pretty boozed-up on the phone.
So the next morning we prepared for another trip to Long Island. Martin was going to lend us his car. Before leaving, Virgil had to attend a meeting of the Black Students Council, which he is co-chairman of. I had to be ready when he returned with the car.
In order to be ready on time, I got out the Magic Coin which I mentioned earlier. This Magic Coin is actually a common, ordinary, garden-variety quarter, but because Virgil gave it to me it is special and it has, like, a special function.
Before meeting Virgil, I used to have a hangup about getting dressed. That’s not unusual for a woman, but I mean I could take a half hour deciding whether to wear one pair of faded blue jeans or another, a bra or no bra, sandals or moccasins, a long or short string of love beads. Then I could take a half hour undoing that decision. And that is where Virgil’s Magic Coin comes in. I put both pairs of blue jeans on the bed, for example. I designate one pair Heads and one pair Tails and I throw the quarter once, and the side that comes up determines the jeans I wear. Simple? Incredibly. Magical? Absolutely.
So I put a whole bunch of clothes on the bed and started flipping the Magic Coin, with the following result: a beaded Indian headband, a Confederate Army jacket, a pair of leather bell-bottom slacks, and cowboy boots. I figured Mrs. Halliday would fly for the whiskey decanter after one look at me in that getup. And to make sure I put a spell on her, I added a floppy felt hat out of the 1920s and rose-tinted granny glasses.
I was such a groovy girl that morning that I was ready far in advance of leaving time, so to entertain myself, I looked through the books that Virgil had brought home from the library. This was one of them: Die erschliessung Japans; erinnerungen des admirals Perry von der fahrt der amerikanischen flotte 1853–54. Bearb. von A. Wirth und Adolf Derr. All I got out of that, aside from the word fahrt, which looked suspiciously like German for “fart,” was Japan, Admiral Perry, and American. There were three or four others, among them Sproston’s Private Journal, published by Monumenta Nipponica Monographs in 1941 for Sophia University, Tokyo. And dig this crazy title: Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, performed in the Years 1852, 1853, and 1854, under the Command of Commodore M. C. Perry, United States Navy, by order of the Government of the United States. Compiled from the Original Notes and Journals of Commodore Perry and his Officers, at his Request and under his Supervision. Edited by Francis L. Hawks, New York, 1856.
I had just opened that tome when the doorbell rang. I kept the chain on and looked through the crack into the hallway, and there, hat in hand, was Mr. Smith.
*
His eyes met mine in the dim hall light. “Good morning, Miss Benton,” he said politely. “May I trouble you for a few minutes?”
“Mr. Jefferson isn’t home,” I told him, but he stood there, so I said, “Is there anything I can do?”
That was my mistake. Smith replied that, as a matter of fact, I could do something. So I let him in, knowing in a flash of dismay that if Mr. Smith wanted to talk to me it was because he thought he could get more information out of a girl than out of someone like Virgil. I resolved to keep my big mouth shut, and I thought I really could, seeing Smith walk in with that boyish, hesitant manner of his.
I asked him would he like coffee, and this time he accepted with a little smile. While I was heating it up and getting out cups, I noticed him staring at the books on the couch where I had been sitting. Carrying in the cups, I was relieved to find that I’d left the German book on top; probably Smith couldn’t read it. I didn’t want that man, with his baggy gray suit and white shirt and All-American face, to know anything, not even the titles of books that Virgil was reading. We sat a few minutes and, believe it or not, talked about the weather. Maybe this was Smith’s usual ploy during an investigation, because he could think of a variety of things to say about an anticipated heat wave and increasing humidity and all. And suddenly he hit me with it: “I understand Mr. Gear came to see you.”
I sat and stared, not knowing what to say. And then I simply said, “Yes?”
“We—that is, Mr. Gear and myself—had a little talk yesterday, and Mr. Gear informed me that you asked him a number of questions about the package.”
“I didn’t ask him anything.”
Mr. Smith waved away my attempt at evasion. “Very well, then, Lieutenant Jefferson did. He asked about the package.”
“What package?”
Mr. Smith sat back, slipped a cigarette case out of his coat pocket, and smiled. He was far more relaxed with me than with Virgil. And a cigarette case, silver, no less. Maybe Mr. Smith was a secret swinger. That silver case and the slim flat-shaped cigarette that came out of it should belong by rights to a real dude. “I wonder,” he said, after lighting up, “why everyone resists talking about that package.”
So Edgar Gear had at least tried to keep his mouth shut.
I assumed a noncommunicative hippie bag. “I don’t know,” I said, and I kind of slouched, looking bored.
‘But you do know that Mr. Gear brought this package from Japan for Lieutenant Stuart, don’t you?”
“Huh?”
“Have you any idea what was in the package?”
“Huh?”
“Mr. Gear thinks the package contained some papers, perhaps a diary.”
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Gear, and I agree with him, reached the conclusion that the contents of that package had something to do with Dong Nai.”
“Gear? Reach a conclusion? Any conclusion?”
“Then they do have something to do with Dong Nai.”
“What?”
“Don’t they?”
“What?”
“I said, don’t they.”
“You’re confusing me. I didn’t say what the package contained.”
“But you know it contained papers.”
“I didn’t say that.” Or had I? I found myself leaning forward, hands grasped tightly. I was blowing my cool.
“Do you and Lieutenant Jefferson have the package?”
“No.”
“Maybe Lieutenant Jefferson hasn’t told you he has it.”
“He doesn’t have it.”
“He told you so?”
“Let me alone, will you?”
Smith puffed lazily on that oddly shaped cigarette. The room was filling with a thick, pungent scent—not pot or anything, but our All-American Boy sure didn’t smoke All-American cigarettes. “I think,” he said after a long pause, “you should know, Miss Benton, that this is a dangerous situation.”
“Virgil’s already told me that,” I blurted out.
“Oh? He has?” Cigarette poised halfway to his mouth.
“Listen, you better talk to him.”
“You seem to think I’ve come to trick you into hurting him. The fact is, I’m trying to prevent his getting hurt.”
I considered that for a moment. Maybe it really was true, so I said, “Well, all I know is, Virgil thought the person who murdered Don was looking for a package.”
“I agree. And if he didn’t find it, he might very well come looking here.”
Was Smith ever right; but I said nothing.
“Between u
s, Miss Benton, I think Virgil is in danger.” It was the first time he had called Virgil Virgil, and the intimacy of it kind of moved me.
“You really think so?” I said.
“If the package contains what I think it does, someone might very well do anything to get it. Anything.”
“That’s what Virgil thinks too.”
“I’m glad he’s aware of his position.” Mr. Smith stubbed out his cigarette and gave me a glancing look. “By the way, how did Virgil learn about the package?”
“Edgar Gear told him,” I said—adding warily, not knowing where Smith was leading me, “I think.”
“Well, apparently Virgil knew about it before speaking to Mr. Gear.”
So Edgar had spilled everything. He was no match for Smith, of course, and I could not get used to the idea of such a kid being able to shoot great holes in people.
Smith and I sat awhile in a strangely awkward silence. Finally, with a little sigh, he got to his feet. “Thank you very much for the coffee,” he said, and I followed him to the door, where he turned and stared at me. We were standing close together. Actually, having had time to get accustomed to him, I could understand how Mr. Smith would be attractive to some girls, in a conventional sort of way.
“It’s an interesting question, though,” he said.
“What is?”
“How Virgil learned about the package.”
I shrugged and shifted from one foot to the other. We both looked down and then up in the way it’s done when a boy and girl stand at the front door wondering what will come next.
“That’s a fascinating outfit you’re wearing,” he said with a quick smile.
“Pretty crazy,” I mumbled, and I played nervously with the love beads hanging between my breasts.
“But you wear it—” He paused, “—with flair.”
I let him out, and he turned back with a fleeting grin and waved. I think Mr. Smith kind of dug me.
*
An hour later, driving in turnpike traffic, Virgil questioned me about Smith’s visit. I admitted losing my cool, but it didn’t seem important because, I said, “I really think Smith is on your side.”
We drove on into fiercely bright sunlight, warm air whistling in the window vents. Finally Virgil said, “Smith has one thing in mind: to find Dong Nai evidence. Individuals don’t count.”
“I dig.” And Smith’s parting grin went right out of my mind. “He sort of conned me, I think. Did I screw up by admitting that you knew about the package?”
“You only confirmed what Gear had told him and what he himself assumed.”
“Just what did he assume?”
“That I had learned about the package from Don.”
I turned that idea around. “If so, then you must be a suspect.”
“It’s a distinct possibility.”
“But if you are, why haven’t the cops been around bothering us?”
“Smith and his people don’t confide in ordinary police.”
“So it’s a whole new ball game,” I said.
“In what way?”
“Well, you began by wanting to clear up the murder so Don would have justice. And to clear him of the possibility of blackmailing his own men. And now you’re working to clear yourself.”
“Let no one ever accuse you of being a dumb blonde.”
“I may not be smart, but I’m crafty.”
We were beyond the heavy traffic and went down the highway fast. Rows of houses gave way to rows of trees, and the summer day came at us joyously, white clouds and blue sky. Murders and clues and intrigues and all get washed out by such a day; they become blah and pastel against a background of green trees. On the radio there was some mind-blowing rock, and pretty soon Virgil was moving rhythmically from side to side behind the wheel—he dances better sitting than standing—and I was really grooving with my floppy hat off and my hair all wild and flipping around my face. It was a great ride out to Southampton, and I was sorry to see the driveway that led to Mrs. Halliday’s low-set rambling beach home.
She came toward us unsteadily in a bright crimson raw-silk pants suit, tall and rangy the way her nephew had been. On second meeting I had to admit that I admired her nose, which was long and aristocratic, and her reddish-brown hair, which was streaked with gray yet decorated with a bright green ribbon. Not bad for an old girl. She did a lot with what she had left. When she held out her hand, though, it had the sinewy look of a claw and shook so much that the three or four jeweled rings on it shimmered in the patio sunlight. Her first words were, “Did you bring the huge African?” And she was obviously relieved that we hadn’t.
From then on, Mrs. Halliday directed her conversation to Virgil, who must have impressed her on our first meeting. I almost got jealous, almost said, “Look, if you dig black guys we can always bring back the huge African,” or something equally obnoxious and infantile, but I knew that I mustn’t spoil Virgil’s tactics, so I said nothing. Mrs. Halliday played it pretty straight, having only a single rum and Coke while she explained the disposition of the “little inheritance.”
When Don’s effects had arrived three days before, Mrs. Halliday, her chauffeur, and David—that was the handsome man who lisped—had gone through everything quickly. I guess what Don owned hadn’t appealed much to their tastes. All the clothes went off to the Salvation Army, the furniture to a local Goodwill Industries, the books to a local library, and the little things to the city dump. For herself, however, she kept the Japanese objects that Don had collected.
I was glad to know something had been salvaged. Don would have died twice had he known how his carefully guarded possessions had been scattered among strangers. And for myself, I couldn’t stand the idea of his first-grade speller burning on a trash heap. I couldn’t blame Mrs. Halliday, though, because she really hadn’t been close to Don; from hints, I realized that she and Don’s mother hadn’t corresponded for years. Because of my relationship with sister Laura, I could easily understand how Mrs. Halliday and her sister had become strangers.
After a little chitchat, Virgil told Mrs. Halliday that her nephew had promised him two pipes if anything ever happened. It was the promise that two pipe collectors often make to each other, he explained solemnly. So he wanted to track down Don’s collection and make his choices. I’m not sure I would have accepted that sort of jivey explanation, but Mrs. Halliday did. Maybe she was a fanatical collector of something too, or maybe she wasn’t listening at all but just looking at Virgil in the late afternoon. I was looking at him too in the waning sunlight, at his elegant features that reminded me of Benin bronzes from Nigeria I had seen in museums.
I figured that Virgil’s appearance and not a damn thing he had said was accounting for Mrs. Halliday’s sudden mood of cooperation. She apologized for not having the pipes there, but she had asked her friend David to distribute them to anyone who “used such things.” She suggested that Virgil remain in the Hamptons until the next day, because David was in Newport that day and wouldn’t return until the morning. She did remember, however, that David had given away a few pipes at a recent party. “To Paco and Vincent,” she said, counting the names off on her ringed fingers, “and Ralph.” She grimaced. “Ralph was the gentleman attacked by your huge African.”
I wanted to say, “Henry did not attack that creep,” but I kept quiet, while Virgil asked politely for the addresses of those people who had taken pipes.
With Virgil’s pen and paper Mrs. Halliday dutifully started to write, then paused. “I believe my gardener took one. Would you care to ask him? He’s out there.”
Shading my eyes, I saw a small, thin figure bending over rosebushes in the distance, at the edge of her flawless lawn. Virgil thanked Mrs. Halliday in that snake-charming voice he has, and we set out for the rosebushes. I whispered through clenched teeth, “I am being good, but it’s a hard scene. I am hurt by Mrs. Halliday. She didn’t say a word about my getup.”
Sometimes Virgil doesn’t waste words. “Quiet,” he said.
>
The gardener, when he saw us coming, stood erect and held his pruning shears at his chest. He had the wonderfully lined face of a man who stays out in all weather, and he was wiry, thorny-looking, as if the bushes themselves had somehow got into his blood. Virgil used no charm on him, but came out point-blank and asked to see his pipe.
The gardener squirted out some tobacco juice, an awful brown stream of it, and looked first at Virgil and then at me. “Missuz Halliday send you out here?” He had a twang from Maine or somewhere. There was a quaint air about him that reminded me of someone from the movies.
“She did,” Virgil said.
Holding the shears in one hand, with the other the gardener reached into his back overall pocket and came up with a Billiard. “Whatcha wanta see it for?”
“Something was left in it,” Virgil said.
The gardener looked puzzled, his head cocking to one side. That meant he had not yet looked into the shank.
“May I?” Virgil put out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation the gardener handed over the pipe. Virgil unscrewed it, carefully examined the shank’s channel, then screwed it back together again.
“Whatcha keep in there?” the gardener asked, squinting in the waning sunlight at Virgil, who merely answered, “Thank you” and returned the pipe. We started up the lawn, and I said, “When he asked what you kept in there, you should have said, ‘Dope.’”
“Judith.” And the look he gave me.
“Come on,” I said, smiling, “I like to do a little jiving of my own.”
Mrs. Halliday was waiting on the patio, a new drink in her hand. “Did he have one of those you wanted?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Virgil said.
Mrs. Halliday invited us to have a drink, but Virgil politely declined.
“I’ve been trying to recall,” Mrs. Halliday said. “I think I know someone else who might have taken a pipe that night. Ginny Vaccaro.”