She Walks in Beauty

by Sarah Shankman

  Understand? Understand what?

  Mr. F was around the desk now, handing him an envelope and shaking his hand. Which was always kind of awkward, because you had to remember to give him your left.

  “We’re going to miss you, Wayne. You’ve been a real integral part of FrankFair Enterprises, and believe it or not, this hurts me a lot more than it hurts you.”

  That’s exactly what his mama used to say when she beat him bloody with a belt, the one she said had belonged to his daddy. Exactly.

  40

  So, Scoop, Sam said to herself staring out the windows of her hotel room at the surf. What are you going to write today for the folks back home about The Miss America Pageant: A Scholarship Program?

  Tuesday Rae Ann had won talent. Wednesday she became Miss Fruit of the Loom. Last night’s story Sam had recapped, interviewing all the preliminary winners: Rae Ann again, Magic, Connors and Lana, Florida and California. She’d re-explained the judging system. She’d done a sidebar on Cheryl Prewitt Salem, the gospel-singing Miss America 1980, swimsuit manufacturer, and Rae Ann’s favorite role model.

  Rae Ann had held forth about how serious she felt about being a role model herself. How she had to be on her toes all the time. She couldn’t ever curse, not that she ever did anyway, but you could never tell when the devil might put a bad word in your mouth. You had to have good values and handle yourself well. You had to be an angel.

  Sam had debated whether or not to quote her. But what was the alternative? She could leave it out, but she couldn’t make it up.

  What the hell? So Rae Ann wasn’t a brain surgeon. Neither were most of the Constitution’s readers.

  But today was the tough one. There was no competition, only the parade at five. She could cover the trade show. Michelangelo had convinced her there was no book on Miss A. How about the psychology of losing? Each year 250,000 girls participating in feeder pageants, aiming at the Big Tiara, all of them losing except one.

  Then, there was the phone. It was Harry, probably, checking in from his morning adventures with Lavert. Twisting her tail about Kurt Roberts. Or maybe Michelangelo calling to say, Yes, Ange found Roberts, and he killed him and now you can go collect the $1500 from your cute boyfriend and his big buddy. Harpo stood at her feet, indignation curling his little black lips. He hated loud noises.

  “Hello?”

  Son of a gun, it was Cindy Lou Jacklin.

  “Listen,” Cindy Lou said, “I wanted to apologize for being so rude to you yesterday. I was having a bad—”

  “Hey, that’s okay.”

  “—day and I was so worried about Kurt, and I thought that you thought that I had done something to him. And I feel so silly, telling you that stupid story about voices. I think it must have been a bad dream, but that’s all okay now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel so much better now that Kurt called. You know, it had been over two days, and—”

  “He what?”

  “He called. You know, he can be so sweet, and he said he was so sorry he—”

  “Where is he?”

  “I’m trying to tell you!”

  “I’m sorry. Is he okay?”

  “Of course he is. He said he had no idea anybody would be worried about him. But then, nobody was, really, except me. And you.”

  “Where is he, Cindy Lou?”

  “In the Bahamas. He got a last-minute call that a story he had done down there, well, all the film got destroyed in some kind of accident at Vogue, and it was for a cover story on deadline. So he had to get everybody together again and go down and redo it.”

  So. So why wasn’t she thrilled? Because she hated to admit she was wrong? Boy, did that suck.

  “I’m flying down Sunday morning to join him. Isn’t that great?”

  “Sure is.”

  Way to go, Cindy Lou. Fly right down into the arms of that sucker, see if he’ll break one of yours.

  I’m a dreadful loser, Harpo, she said to the little dog after Cindy Lou hung up. A spoilsport who cannot stand to be wrong. And Harry’s never, ever going to let me forget this one.

  Harpo pounced on his squeeze toy, a rubber hamburger. He dropped it on her foot and barked.

  Good idea, she said, tossing the toy across the room for the little dog, who rarely spoke. You tell Harry. I’m not.

  41

  “This is crazy, you know that?” said Angelina Amato, strolling down the Boardwalk. “In broad daylight.”

  “You love it,” said her lover.

  “Love it? I’m scared to death. I wish we could just stay home. If only Mikey didn’t have the house watched.”

  “What are you scared of, honey?”

  “Him, Mikey.”

  “Afraid of your son? I don’t believe that.”

  “Not for me. It’s what he’s going to do to you I’m worried about.”

  Angelo Carlo smiled. Ma wasn’t going to do nothing to him—except reward him when Ange delivered the Miss America crown to his girl, Miss New Jersey, compliments of Billy Carroll. He reached over and took Angelina’s hand. “That’s why we play our little games, so he won’t catch us. Besides, they’re fun. Didn’t you love the one when we put me in the wheelchair with the dark glasses and cane, you in the nurse’s uniform? I think it really turned you on.”

  “Ange!” she warned.

  “Relax, hon. Why are you so nervous today?”

  “This is sacrilege. Besides, we can’t walk hand-in-hand. People are staring.”

  She had a point. He let her hand go.

  They were almost there anyway, the Centurion, a casino hotel way down past Convention Hall toward Ventnor. It was an older place that was licensed in the name of someone named Phillips with the New Jersey Gambling Commission but was owned by a close personal friend of Angelo’s.

  “I can’t wait.” He gave her a big wink.

  “Don’t start, you.”

  “I already have.” He brushed himself against her as they made their way through the crowds. The Convention-Hall drones were already setting up the bleachers for the parade. The Boardwalk was jammed. And Angelo was half-hard.

  “You’re a dirty old man,” she snapped. But he saw the twinkle in her eye.

  “Not bad, huh, for a guy of seventy-one.”

  Beside him, Angelina came to a dead stop. Alarmed, Angelo turned. “You okay, hon? Did you trip? I know, that thing’s too long. I’m sorry, it was the best I could do—”

  “You’re Seventy-two,” she said.

  “What? Angelina, I know how old I am. I’m seventy-one this past Fourth of July.”

  “Seventy-two.”

  “You’re right. I’m seventy-two.” Angelo was exasperated. Here he was feeling like a colt, like a sixteen-year-old walking down the Boardwalk with his girl, sea breeze on his boner up under the black robe, and she’d made him lose it. “Jesus Christ!”

  A passing couple stared at Angelo, shocked.

  “Forgive me,” he mumbled. They were right. He shouldn’t be taking the Lord’s name in vain. Not in this getup.

  “You’re right,” Angelina was saying now. “Seventy-one.”

  “What difference does it make, hon? Seventy-one, seventy-two? We ought to be glad we’re still around. And have each other.” And I can get it up, he added to himself, wondering if he could again when they got upstairs.

  A black kid dressed in evening clothes pushing a rolling chair gave them the high sign. “Beautiful day, beautiful day.” Then a gaggle of old ladies stopped. “Hello, hello. Great day for a stroll.” He turned to Angelina. “This is fun. Let’s do it again tomorrow.”

  “No way. You come up with something else.”

  “Oh, hell. I love this robe. Gives me a lot of room. You know what I mean?” He did a little bump and grind.

  “Fifty Hail Marys, Ange. I’m going to do fifty, at least.”

  “Honey, you do fifty every time we kiss. Don’t you think this number is gonna be a little more expensive? Especially when I get you
in that Sinatra suite, the one they decorated special with the mirrors on the ceiling?” Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear. Or as close as he could get to it with the wimple.

  “Angelo, stop it!” But she couldn’t help blushing.

  “I told Ricky to put the full spread on for this friend of mine who was coming. I already picked up the key.” He pulled it out and showed her. “We’ve got the champagne, the fruit, the canapés, the hot-and-cold dancing girls.”

  Angelina gave him a look.

  Just teasing. The tub for two, bubble bath. Nothing but Sinatra on the stereo.”

  “Nothing but me and you,” Angelina said, getting in the mood.

  “Nothing between us.”

  “Nothing now except this outfit,” she said, running her fingers lightly across the black gabardine that draped down her full bosom. “Not a stitch under this.” Then she smiled demurely as Sister Mary Catherine at St. Anthony’s.

  “Oh, Angelina,” he breathed.

  Thank God, they were finally there. Naked statues struck poses all around the entryway. Angelo couldn’t wait to get like that. Not that he had the body he once had, but—

  “Father, Sister,” the doorman threw the doors wide. “Welcome to the Centurion.”

  “Bless you, my son,” Angelo said. “Bless you.”

  “You’re laying it on pretty thick,” Angelina said as they crossed the wide lobby.

  “So I’ll do a thousand Hail Marys. Two thousand. It’s gonna be worth every one of them.” And then he patted her rear as they turned face-front in the elevator behind the operator. “Penthouse, please.”

  “Certainly, Father.”

  “And, Angie,” he leaned into her wimple again, “I always knew you took a couple years off your age. But it’s okay. Older broads turn me on.”

  42

  “Hey, man, I was just gonna call you.”

  Why didn’t Wayne believe that? Dean, the equipment van man, was standing outside the loading dock with a bunch of other guys. Now he was looking around, kind of nervous like. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to talk to civilians on his lunch break, but Wayne was still wearing his Monopoly Special Services cap, which ought to count for something. Besides, even the uptight Convention Hall Center geeks weren’t that security crazy, were they?

  “Hey, man, let’s take a walk.” Dean took Wayne by the arm, pulling him past a bunch of grunts setting up parade bleachers on the Boardwalk. Dean was holding a pepperoni sub in the hand that was free.

  “What’s the matter?” Wayne asked.

  “You know, we’re going to talk business, I don’t want any of those other guys listening in.”

  Hey, hey. That must mean he had something good. He knew who else was willing to cough up some bucks for the Miss A signal. Maybe even why.

  “So what’s the word?” Wayne asked trying to imitate Dean’s low-slung walk. The dude strolled like he was sitting in a Maserati, which Wayne thought was supercool.

  “Word is”—if Dean lowered his voice any more, Wayne was going to have to borrow a hearing aid from one of the geezers passing by—“listen, man, I could get in a lot of trouble telling you this.”

  Wayne knew what that meant. He palmed Dean a hundred like Dean was the maître d’ in Park Place, the Monopoly’s exclusive high-roller club.

  Dean’s eyebrows wiggled, but his mouth didn’t move.

  Well, Wayne had another one where that came from. The petty cash fund for Action Central was pretty big, and then there was all the equipment he’d bought at Ace Electronics—he had a deal with the guy—that had never found its way to the Monopoly’s back door. That was cash in his pocket.

  Plus, of course, just for the hell of it, on his way out, he’d grabbed Crystal, Mr. F’s little bitch of a receptionist, knocked her out, dragged her into a maid’s room where he’d dumped her into a laundry cart and wheeled her up in the service elevator to 1803. Nobody was going to be using that room for a while.

  He’d tied her spread-eagled to the bed and said, “Honey, don’t you worry. You’re not going to be lonely for long. Those busboys and porters love a bargain, and at $10 a pop, you’re gonna get lots of takers. I posted a sign, CHEAP TWAT, in the men’s room of the employees cafeteria.”

  He hadn’t, but he was thinking about it. If he made it $25—figure she could handle maybe four, five an hour—count it up.

  Dean was staring at the $300 in his hand like he was trying to figure if that was as high as he could push it. The answer must have been yes. “Okay,” he said, twisting his head around to see if anybody was watching. If Wayne was a cop, he’d have arrested him on the spot and figured out the beef later. “It’s Michelangelo Amato, and it’s Miss New Jersey.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “We gonna stand around arguing about it all day, or what?” Then Dean strolled off.

  He did have a point there. And Wayne had to get moving. Now that he knew who to approach, he had to figure out a plan and execute it, and he didn’t have much time. How much? He checked his Rolex, exactly like Mr. F’s. Then he stopped dead in the middle of the Boardwalk.

  “Yo! Dude!” he yelled at Dean’s back, but Dean just waved him off. Okay. So he didn’t want a solid gold Rolex that left a bad taste in Wayne’s mouth now that Mr. F had disowned him. Thrown him out like garbage. All that trouble, didn’t even care any more about the Miss America thing. Who could figure? But he bet this black kid knew which way was up, rolling down the Boardwalk here with his wicker chair.

  Wayne was right.

  Rashad took the watch and said, “Thank you for your munificence, oh kindly gentleman.”

  Which Wayne thought was bullshit.

  Rashad knew it for what it was, shuck and jive.

  But he also knew who Wayne was, the electronics bubba he and Junior had ripped off. The man finding him and making him a gift, now that had to be a sign of good things to come.

  43

  It hadn’t taken Lavert long to sweet-talk the security guard named Tiffany at the door of Atlantic City High School down at the traffic circle where Atlantic met Albany. He told her she looked a lot like the statue of the pretty woman in the monument outside, Liberty in Distress was her name, a memorial to WW I. He told her if she was ever in distress, he’d be happy to help her out. Tiffany giggled and sent a runner to the office to look up Junior Sturdivant’s schedule and deliver him down here, pronto.

  Who’s this? Junior had said, walking the cool dude stroll. But there was fear in his heart. He knew it was all going to catch up to him. The shoplifting, the wallet-snatching, the video equipment. He figured he was looking at hard time in Wharton Correctional up in the Pine Barrens. He’d be 18, a Piney for sure, and God knew what else by the time he got out. He knew who this huge brother was. He was the law. He was justice. He was dues.

  So he wasn’t surprised when the huge brother took him outside and threw him up against a wall with the flick of one hand like he was nothing and said, “Junior, I know you think you’re bad.”

  He was surprised to see the white guy who’d saved his butt from the swimming pool, though. Guy looked like he hadn’t shaved in three or four days. He came ambling up with a little smile and stuck out his hand. “Harry Zack. I think we’ve met.”

  Uh-oh. Junior knew this routine. The big black dude was playing the bad cop. The white one, the good. Junior hadn’t grown up watching “Hill Street Blues” for nothing.

  “So, Junior,” Harry said. “We think you’ve got a few things you’d like to tell us.”

  “Unh-uh.” Junior drew a circle on the sidewalk with one of his high tops.

  The big brother slapped him up against the head. “That’s no way to talk, son. Stand up straight and speak English.”

  “No, sir, there’s nothing I have to tell you, sir.” Junior slid an eye over toward Lavert. The pretty talk seemed to satisfy him for the moment. Which was good, because his brain felt like scrambled eggs inside his skull.

&nbs
p; “What did your mama tell you last night when you got in?” the brother snapped.

  What? Mama had sicced the cops on him?

  “Speak up, son,” Harry said.

  “She—uh, she said that I had better watch my butt, stay home. That I was in big trouble and that people knew it.”

  “Do you know what she’s talking about?” That was Harry.

  “No, sir.”

  “Sheee-it.” That was the brother. “We gonna have to jack you up, son?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What’d you do to that white dude that tossed you in the pool? You track him back to his room, let yourself in with your mama’s key, beat him up pretty good, didn’t you, Junior?”

  Holy shit. That’s what they thought?

  “No, sir. Absolutely not, sir. I never did.”

  “So what did you do to him?”

  “Nothing! I’ve never seen the dude again.”

  “You’re sure?” The big brother had his face down right in Junior’s. It was a fearsome sight. Junior was afraid for a minute the brother was going to lean right over and bite off his nose.

  “I’m sure. Sure as shooting. Scout’s honor. Sir.” Junior held up two fingers. Then three. Then four. He never could remember how that one went.

  “We understand you’re in the filmmaking business,” said Harry quick like, like he was trying to confuse him.

  Oh, God. They knew that too, the video equipment.

  “I help a friend out when I can. He’s the one who knows the business.” Oh, shit! He’d just pointed the finger at Rashad. Now he was a rat, on top of everything else.

  “It seems to me that that’s the kind of thing a young dude like you ought to be pursuing, instead of shoplifting, hitting little old ladies upside the head,” said the brother.

  Lavert knew about the shoplifting from Gloria, but the other part, he got lucky, making it up as he went along. But Magic said money, it made sense.

  Junior thought, would he say that, about the filmmaking, if he knew they’d lifted the equipment? Who knew? But he feinted in the other direction. “No, sir. I never. I never hit any little old lady—”