by Steven Clark
“Maybe Vess is on the short list for hobnobbers. She knows a hell of a lot about Corn Mother, and it—her, I guess—being some kind of goddess in the city, or what would become the city.” Saul heaved a rasp of annoyance in the receiver. “Did you ever hear about this ‘Corn Mother’?”
“I heard something years ago, but it’s only for dig groupies.”
“Dig what?”
“You know. Hard core archeologists. It’s a kind of urban legend among that kind. But Sonia doesn’t go after legend. She’s only spieling Corn Mother if there’s a chance of a dig.”
“Okay, so I accomplished something?”
“Of course.”
I hung up as I drove through the usual cityscape: graffitied walls, one-story shoebox-like factories and storage centers, all girded by rusting chain-link fences. Brick flats where the summer’s weeds bloom tall as plumes.
The only break to monotony was a billboard of that omnivorous Veiled Prophet of realty, Dan Smatters. A McMansion was wrapped in a cloud, with Dan’s face gleefully offering, Wizard of Oz-like, an emerald city of the mind: Your Home Matters to Dan Smatters.
When I arrived home, I parked the car and walked up the street for a few groceries at the Organic Market, a place with esoteric veggies and fragrant spices. The exotic cheese section was tempting. As I shopped, a familiar voice spoke up behind me.
“Lee Bridger, right?”
I turned to face Dan Smatters in all his glory. A 3-D billboard. I frowned. “I live in an apartment and I don’t want a house.”
Dan flashed his affluent bridgework. “Lee, you and Saul got it all wrong. I never sell people homes. I sell ’em dreams.”
In realty speak, houses are never mentioned, only homes, but Dan ups the ante, and I envisioned the Wizard of Oz ready to sell me a cozy split level in Munchkin Land. He continued in his pure, unadulterated St. Louis accent. “The fact is, Lee, you got a home. The Desouche mansion.”
My, how word gets around, I thought.
He eyed me and said, “Let’s talk about it.” Les’ tawk aboudit.
“Okay, what are you doing in a place like this?”
“I was in the neighborhood, saw you, and decided to say hi.”
“You were in the mood for cured Turkish goat cheese and Alpaca tofu? I don’t think so.”
“Look, Lee. Terri’s got plans. Good plans. For the mansion.”
I put my canvas tote bag on the check-out counter. The sales girl stood behind it, nose jewelry and legs in brown spandex as she scanned my groceries.
“Tearing it down isn’t a good thing.”
“Who said anything about tearing the place down?”
“Your reputation.” I gave the girl a twenty. “Were you tailing me?”
Dan picked up my can of Armenian lentil soup and dropped it in the tote. “Come on. Just a coincidence.” He ignored my frown and smiled. “It’s valuable property. Sell it, and you can make a bundle.”
“Not interested. You must have been tailing me.”
“Terri and Pierre see you as a gold digger.”
I shouldered the tote, Dan walking beside me. “Did Terri put you up to this?”
Dan only smiled. “You’re a nice lady, Lee. They want you to settle things. You, the kids get what’s theirs, and everybody walks away with something.” Everbawdy walks away wit sumpin’.
“I don’t think so. I’ve no more to say.”
Dan’s smile remained as we walked down the street. “A lot of people in this town think that property’s important.”
“Like Vess Moot?”
“Sure. Vess and I could see eye to eye on Juneteenth.”
A little burglar alarm ran off inside my head. “You and Vess working together?”
“For a common good. Making this city a better place.”
I scoffed at that Chamber of Commerce delivery. Dan’s smile was still its bright, man-in-the-moon mode, ready to sell asteroids to Earth.
“Despite what you think. What Saul might tell you, because, you know, he gets excited in that college guy way of his … I’m not a bad guy. I’m a real prince.”
“Sorry, Dan. The answer’s no, and now here’s where you say, ‘thank you, and here’s my address.’”
Not unhappy, Dan whipped out a card and dropped it into my tote.
“We’re gonna talk again, Lee. This is St. Louis, and in this town, you got to make a deal.” He nodded and walked off, cellphone now in his hand, no doubt closing another deal somewhere.
Dis is sanlewis, and in dis town ya gotta make a deal.
In a pleasant, back slapping Midwestern way, I had been warned.
12
Inna San Lewis Accent
His pure, unadulterated St. Louis accent sounded like vinyl siding looks. At times guttural and nasal, it was an accent made of the south and north melding, as if the Missouri and Mississippi mud slurred words instead of water:
Yeah, dem kids goin’ all ober da place; can’ tell ’em nuttin’. Sure, ya drive down route Farty-far, then take a left an’ hang a right, den keep goin’ straight. Hey, whatcha do wit my fark? Ya drop it or sumpin’?
It’s workaday-world patter. In St. Louis, it’s one step above Hoosier, and the lexicon is greasy as hamburger sizzling on the grill and demands sentences end with unnecessary prepositions as if they were extra ketchup on the order: whur’s my car at?
I hear it less the older I get as the international blanding of life goes on. The accent’s hardiest bastions are in south county and anywhere pickups outnumber sedans. It is especially resilient north of St. Louis in Florissant … excuse me … up dere in Flawrasunt.
Its greatest practitioners are policemen, waitresses and tradesmen, and Dan Smatters. Especially Dan Smatters.
Margot raised her head and laughed.
“How terribly droll, Lee. How do I sound?”
I leaned back. “The usual voice of old money. Soft and stately.” I looked around, thinking how her voice’s delicacy matched the fluting on the ceiling, the gild trim of the picture frames. Margot had become her house.
“You’re very aware of things. So loquacious.”
“Or chatty. My enemies are not so generous.”
“Of which you have two more.” The sun was clouded through the windows, and drapes turned dove gray. “Terri and Pierre won’t stop. They’ll drag you through the courts.”
I nodded and looked out to the bare trees. Leaves rustled. Nuts dropped. That mid-afternoon silence again, where the ear drinks in every sound more vividly. I looked out the window to see a jet’s silver needle approaching from the East. The silent, frightening skies.
“Lee, you’ve become so quiet.”
I gestured. “That jet reminds me of 9/11, when they grounded all flights. Remember how eerie the sky was?”
“Yes,” she said. “Philip was alive then. We were stunned. My God, everyone was. You’re right. It was so silent. Like out in the middle of the ocean.”
“There was nothing in St. Louis’s airspace except a pair of F-16s growling and circling the city. Like nervous hawks guarding the nest.”
A thoughtful nod came from Margot as she rested a leg on the couch. “We all seemed … violated.”
Margot ran her withered hand over the couch. “I remember when clothes made noise. The rustling of gowns, especially the night I was made Veiled Prophet Queen.” She leaned back and smiled. “Oh, the noises that night. All of us girls readjusting stockings, gowns, silk and taffeta bristling. My heart beat like a toy drum in an attic. The trumpet playing as we were presented, and all that fusty, stilted talk of the Veiled Prophet’s court.” Margot waved her hand and mimed the royalspeak. “‘And now, the court of His Mysterious Majesty …’ it was all so silly, but beautiful.” She looked at me with those light, sad eyes. “I wish you could have been presented, Lee. To so many girls … like Terri … it’s just silly, bourgeois nonsense. But you would have loved it.”
I smiled at our cross purposes: my interior rumblings versus Margot’s deter
mination to glow the past as if it were a hot air balloon at twilight. It’s pleasant to hear the Veiled Prophet discussed in such happy terms. For years, the entire ball was openly and bitterly attacked as a den of white privilege. Certainly, the night of December 22, 1972, was the high point of shaking pitchforks against His Mysterious Majesty and said court of love and beauty. Many careers in the St. Louis radical community made their chops protesting it in the sixties, Vess Moot especially. But it was time to go past the marzipan pleasures of Desouche life to its shadows. I spoke.
“Dad’s voice was very comforting. He was never angry. It commanded gently.”
“Yes,” smiled Margot. “When Ike talked of things—jets, the sky, his childhood—I just let him go on and on.” Her fingers stroked her cheek. “My God. To be in love.” She made a sad frown. “Do you hate me? For abandoning you?”
“No.” And I didn’t. “I hated losing Dad, and I was scared when Mom …” I sighed. “Lena … left me to the Seven Dwarfs, but I had Aunt Mary. They gave me love and stability.”
Margot rubbed her eyes. “I cried … so many times. Losing you …” She took a deep breath. “I married Philip. He was passionate, and a year after we married, we had Lucas. It was easy to lose myself in him. He was such a beautiful boy.”
Margot evened her smile and squinted, as if Lucas, that wonderful child, was some far-off island on the horizon instead of the sad, dead son that he was. Rainer’s eyes drilled in as he sensed her pained nostalgia. I had to get her back to the present, and spoke.
“What did Lucas sound like?”
Margot blinked. “Gentle. When he was a child, he had a stammer. An elocutionist cured him. It was a voice that sounded like hands rubbing.”
I waited for more. The growing sharpness in her eyes told me page two was coming.
Her hand stroked the cane. “Lucas was well brought up. I blame them, Lee. Terri and Pierre. For what they did. Should I blame myself? Philip? Was the loss of my son some kind of horrible vengeance for having you out of wedlock with Ike? No. I could never accept that, because you were a child of love, the daughter of a good, brave man.”
It was thin ice, and she was making long cracks on the surface.
“Lucas’s suicide wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s. I’ve always believed suicide is the ultimate dirty trick played on the living.” I took her hand. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
She seemed to wither away for a moment, lost in an inner pain. Her world of the portrait, even our first meeting a couple of months ago, was ages ago.
“Lucas,” Margot said carefully, “had exhausted the love Philip and I had. All the drugs. Lying, taking money, failed treatments, from Arizona to Switzerland. One night, we finally said no. A month before his death. He was shaking, wasted, furious. ‘You failed me,’ Lucas said, standing there, by the Watteau. ‘You’ve stopped giving, and it’s hateful. You don’t love me at all.’”
Margot stared off, her frown hardening her wrinkles. “At that moment, I thought I’d had enough of him. Of this. So did Philip. If he dies, I thought, I don’t care. That’s a cold thing to live with. I don’t have Terri’s sensuality and spending, nor Pierre’s Gesshoji and spiritualism. I do have my faith in God, and his love, but I also have that last night. The last words my son said as he stormed out.” Her eyes hardened. “The last time I saw him alive.”
I took her hand. “I’m so very sorry.”
“If you had been here,” Margot’s softened tone was another web of weakening ice, “been one of the family. You could have saved him. You have such a good head on your shoulders. Every time you speak, I hear Ike. You are my daughter, and his child. Strong, and knowing what you want.”
My pause was brief. “I want you to make up with your children.”
She shook her head. “They’re so ugly, now. They want money. They want to destroy.”
Margot fingered her necklace as if it was a talisman against evil offspring. “You have two children. And a daughter-in-law.” Margot smiled, forcing us, the drawing room, to be pleasant. “Rainer, Lee has a daughter-in-law named Antje. She’s German.”
Rainer sighed and looked ahead with a butler’s sternness. “That is not enough. What kind of German is she?”
This made Margot force a quick smile at his aloofness. “You see why I keep Rainer. He’s unflappable, and so helpful. Many times in the past, especially with Lucas.”
I caught Rainer’s stare, ready to tune us out. Margot looked to him. “Rainer.”
He turned. “Madam, I have to do the bills.”
“Yes,” Margot said, “but first, bring it.”
Rainer exited, then immediately returned with an envelope. Margot indicated I take the envelope and open it. I did so as Rainer glared and her smile widened.
The letter was bordered in a rich silver gilt with ornate engraving and regal calligraphy. Had I been blind, my fingers could have traced its swirls.
“An invitation,” I said, “to the Veiled Prophet Ball.”
Margot leaned close and squeezed my hand. “You’re going with me. I want to show you off. It’s my way to expunge all of this sadness. It’s my last ball. I know this, but it will be the finest since I was crowned Queen.”
Rainer looked off as if to mute his disapproval. Margot’s pleasure rose as shadows lengthened in the room.
The Chase Park Plaza hotel is a cornerstone of St. Louis glitz, strategically boxed at Lindell and Kingshighway. Forest Park and the gated isle of Portland Place on the one side, all of it nestled in the Central West End. Once a crash pad for visiting celebrities, now the Chase is more of a retirement center for the aged affluent. It still maintains spice in its bars, restaurants, and ballrooms lining its marble corridor.
The Veiled Prophet Ball, after being bounced from Kiel Auditorium by the Civil Rights crowd, was held here. Years ago, while a nurse, I walked with Pierce and a squalling Jama past streets choked with late-model sedans. Extra cops patrolled the chariots of old money.
I waited for Terri to enter the lobby. Its marble interior clattered with a gaggle of conventioneers, then an elevator chimed. Following Saul’s telling me of Terri’s schedule, I was rewarded with her marching across the lobby, a cheerful Lab leashed, its tongue panting for walkies. Her russet and chestnut slacks and cable sweater complemented both Lab and leaves. I followed her outside to the corner.
“Terri!” I called out.
Her frown could have slashed my face. She bounded down to the corner of Euclid, I after her.
The Lab turned and barked, its tone more exuberant than protective. A flash of sun from slits of brick blazed his coat. She made it to the corner and its black pompous street lamps that looked as if they were heisted from the World’s Fair.
The Lab had to make a pit stop. I closed in on a rigid, wary Terri. “Thanks for not turning the dog loose on me,” I said, catching my breath.
Terri clicked like a revolver. “I’m not supposed to talk to you. My attorney’s advice.” The lab sniffed my shoes, then wagged his tail.
I bent to pet him, but as I did, Terri jerked him away and trooped down Euclid. I did a tally ho and caught up while Terri fumed.
“That was so well planned, ‘Nurse Lee.’ Just walking into the dinner and becoming the lost princess.”
“You saw my expression. I was just as shocked as you.”
“I’m sure you do drama queen as much as empty bedpans.”
“I’m not an enemy.” Another uneasy pause. “Margot is dying. She needs you.”
“Tell it to my attorney. Now go away.”
She pulled the Lab around and almost rammed me on her way back to the Chase. “Pierre mentioned your little meeting. I suppose you’ve formed a nice picture of the family. Mom the doting, cultured materfamilias. Pierre the sensitive, esoteric son. Lucas, of course, the fallen angel, and you’re the precious little Mary Poppins, come in to clean up our fuck-ups. And me,” Terri lowered her voice, “I’m the wicked stepsister. Oh, I forgot. I’m the real
sister. You’re the step one.”
I sighed, glad the monologue was done. “Let’s not be enemies.”
“Can the friendly advice, nurse. Cutting me and Pierre out is a game she’s wanted to play for a long time. Another way of showing her disapproval of the way I’ve lived my life. My three marriages. Did you tell her about your two?”
I raised an eyebrow. “My dossier must be good bedtime reading, especially my second ex. Sky’s a real hoot. Of course, after your first is a schitzo and hangs himself, it only gets better. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not here for the inheritance.”
“Bullshit. Get out of our lives.”
I decided to play along, anything to keep her talking, or at least slow down as we closed in on the entrance to the Chase. “She told me about Lucas. How he left. It broke her heart.”
“Yeah, heartbreaking was his specialty. What else is new? That’s her problem. Dad and she had this Iron Curtain between them and me and Pierre, blaming us, as if we could do anything.” Terri’s eyes darkened. “She probably said if you’d been there, you would have saved big brother, right?”
I sighed. “Okay. What do you want?”
“Repudiate any will she makes. Completely. In writing. After Mom’s—” she paused, then stared. “After it’s over, we’ll give you a reward. Pierre and I. See my lawyer, sign the agreement—”
“Pierre—”
“Don’t let his gentle nature fool you. He’ll fight dirty.”
We approached the entrance to the cinema in the Chase. A crowd was already trickling in for the rush-hour show.
“Terri, do you want to destroy the mansion?”
“Every single brick.”
A sudden thought came to me. “Dan Smatters approached me. About making a deal. Are you with him on gutting it?”
She stopped and stared. “You think it’s a palace, don’t you? You and that Jew boyfriend of yours? It’s a piece of pretentious crap. We want it to go. Remember, ‘Sis’; Pierre and I will drag you through the courts a dozen years if we have to. It’s our estate. You’ll never see a penny.”
She gave her dog a pat, then glared at me. “From now on, talk to my lawyer.” I sighed as heiress and pooch sailed past the smiling doorman.