I was off my stool before I even thought about it. I moved to the doorway in ten steps and filled the frame.
The guy had his back to me. He was gripping the edge of the desk. There was a chair shoved over out of place. Dally’s face was white as Ivory soap, and she had an antique brass letter opener in her upraised hand.
“Hi, kids,” I called out.
Very slowly the man turned his bulk toward me. I could see he was the food critic from the previous day, the patron who had taken exception to Marcia’s cassoulet. He seemed embarrassed to see me.
“Still complaining about the cuisine?” I did not smile. “Maybe you should try Le Giverny. It’s very cozy and they have a fine pork dish.”
“Mr. Tucker.” His voice was calm. He lowered his head. “This makes two days in a row I’ve disturbed your peace and quiet.” He flashed me the smile that had surely won some kind of award somewhere in the upper-class circles of lower middle Georgia. “I apologize.” Still smiling, he folded his arms in a Yul Brynner. “My business with Dal is private, however. Would you excuse us?”
“Love to,” I explained to him, “if it’s okay by Ms. Oglethorpe.”
Dalliance finally spoke, and a little color returned to her face. “I’m okay.” It didn’t even sound like her voice.
“That’s it?” I began again. “No introduction? No explanation?”
“Flap.” That’s all she said, but it was the way she said it.
I stood another moment, and so did he, frozen. Then I tried his method: I smiled. “You should give the chili another try. I’m eating it, and it’s just about the best …”
“… you know, I believe I’ll do that,” he told me, eyes still lively, jaw a little tense. “Did you happen to mention my apology to your ‘wife’?”
Even in her odd state, Dally grinned. “Wife?” She absently laid down the letter opener.
The guy tilted his head Dally’s way, talking to her out of the side of his mouth. “I thought that was amusing. He tried to tell me that the cook here was his wife.”
She relaxed more, grinning bigger. “What’d you do that for, Flap?”
I didn’t like it. Seemed like the two of them were sharing some kind of a private moment at my expense. “You know how I’ve always felt about Marcia.”
“And her chili,” he added.
“Chili is far too plebeian a word for what we’ve got out there today.” I glanced over my shoulder, to my place at the bar. “I’m saying it’s Aigo Buido d’ Dieu.”
“What’s that?” He really seemed to be interested.
“I think it means ‘God’s boiled water’ — but the translation certainly doesn’t do it justice.”
“You are a charmer.” Dally shook her head, then took in a breath. “Would you excuse us, Flap? Please?”
I took one more drink of the whole scene, then took off.
Back on the barstool, sipping my wine: “Hal?”
“Yes?”
“Who is that man?”
He turned toward the office. “Bad news?”
“I can’t recall ever seeing Ms. Oglethorpe like that.”
“Me neither, but Flap?”
“Yes, Hal?”
“It’s really none of our business.” And he was back to work.
“None of our business? When has that ever stopped me? Where she’s concerned?”
But he was taking someone’s order, and Dally had closed her door. The noise of the bar was like an ocean wave, rolling over me — and washing me away.
9. Meet The Queen
No doubt about it, I had to find out more about Mr. Wonderful. After I finished my chili, I sat around the bar as things cleared out and waited for the boy to emerge. An hour after the heavy business had subsided, I was still waiting, and the Puy Blanquet was gone.
“Hal?” I called out in a more philosophical tone, “what do you make of a meeting that long with a temper that short?”
He came and leaned against the bar in front of me, toothpick in his mouth. “When somebody’s that sorry, I generally don’t see putting up with them — unless they’re a relative. Or they owe me money.”
“Two good guesses. I always thought I knew most of Dally’s kin. Didn’t you say the guy was asking money questions about Easy?”
“That’s right. Maybe he’s trying to weasel out of paying Dally some money, and maybe she needs it for something.”
“Maybe she owes him money and can’t pay it back. Although if this lunch crowd today is any indication, I think maybe Dally could retire to Barbados if she wanted to.”
“I don’t believe she’s hurting,” Hal said plainly.
“So rule out money. Let’s say he knows something about her that no one else does.”
Hal let out a single coughing laugh. “Flap, between you and me and maybe one or two others, you think Dally’s got a secret left?”
“Not likely.” I lifted my eyes from the bar to his face. “But you could be hiding something from me.”
“I could.” That’s all he said. But that was Hal, he was just being nice. He didn’t like to disagree. Especially with someone who tipped the way I did.
“So you’re not keeping some dark secret about our girl?”
“Not that I know of. You already know how she got the money to open this joint in the first place, right? That’s good gossip.”
“Because she can squeeze a penny until all the copper’s gone?”
“That’s just how she keeps it,” he responded, shaking his head. “How she got it in the first place has something to do with blue blood and the Piedmont Driving Club — old money — which I know you know is not her heritage.”
“Not even close. How many stories have I told you about Invisible, Georgia — our hometown?”
“Way too many.”
“So you know that kudzu’s the main crop, and downtown’s a single filling station with a three-hundred-year-old proprietor name of Sonny.”
“So what about that blue-blood money, you reckon?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard all that gossip before,” I told him, shaking my head, “but I never put much stock in it. People assume that a woman’s got to be given money to start a business, where they always think that a man in the same position probably earned the cash and managed it wisely. Dally earned some money while she was still in college, that was when I was away in the service of my country. She did the right thing with it — investments I guess — and then she had more. When I got back, she made this place. That’s the whole story as I see it.”
“Okay” — he was willing to go along — “so rule out money. What’s left?”
“I don’t rule out money, but it’s turned around the other way: This chump wants money from Dally. It’s somebody she knew in the old days, or somebody she met in business, who thinks he can muscle her around. It’s my guess he’s the one that’s been leaving her those scary notes.”
“She told me about the one with the hand.” Hal betrayed no assessment of such a package, just that he knew about it.
“She told you about that?” I looked back at the door. “She’s worried.”
“She told me all about it. So why doesn’t she want you or me to help?” Hal was staring at the closed office door, too.
“Right.” I took in a breath. “It’s got to be somebody from the old days. And let’s say he knows something about her.”
“Something that she doesn’t want us to know.” Hal’s voice was softer.
“Although what that would be, I have no idea.” I turned to him. “What could be worse than having me as a best friend, for example?”
“Having you as a boyfriend.” Marcia’s voice sailed out from the kitchen.
“Quiet in there.” I smiled. “What would you know about it, anyway? I’ve never heard a complaining word from any of my girlfriends.”
“Most of them don’t have the vocabulary to ask for directions,” the ghostly voice shot back, “let alone complain about you. They just can’t think of the rig
ht words.”
“You can’t win,” Hal informed me.
Marcia appeared. “And when was the last time you had a so-called girlfriend?”
“The Crimean War springs to mind,” I told her.
“If that’s a long time ago” — she nodded — “then you’re right on the money.”
Just as I was about to reply, Dally’s office door burst open and her visitor moved through the archway.
“You won’t like it.” He was warm, chipper, smiling — all of which worked to belie the threat of what he was saying. “I can tell you that.”
She did not appear behind him, and made no reply from within.
I stood.
“Hey, get everything all settled?”
“Tucker,” he said smoothly, “I’m in something of a hurry …”
“… I prefer Mr. Tucker from people I don’t know.”
He stopped dead in his tracks.
“And,” I went on, “you seem to have the advantage of me, as they used to say. I don’t believe I caught your name.”
He pinned me back with a stare so filled with Old South gentility that I almost forgot for a second where I was.
I took a step for him. I had no idea why I was so cranked. I wasn’t looking for a fight.
“Do you really want to have this conversation?” His smile grew.
“I do.” I kept coming.
“Boys, boys, boys,” Hal said calmly from behind the bar, “don’t make me come over there.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw he was wielding his big cricket bat. It was a present from one of the old regulars. In times of trouble, mostly late at night, Hal used to hold up a baseball bat — one that had been signed by all the Atlanta Braves. One night he was threatening some guy with it — the regular in question, who was completely drunk and disorderly. Quite a show. Hal was the eternal gentleman — only with a big hard piece of wood in his hand. The drunk started to make more trouble, but then he was utterly distracted by his fascination with the autographed bat. Hal ended up having to sell the guy his “bouncer tool” just to get the guy to go home. The next day the same regular brought in the very cricket bat Hal was holding up. Said it was twice as hard and half as valuable. It had been autographed by Queen Elizabeth. You could see the royal lettering clearly as Hal held the rail up over his head and smiled at me and Mr. Wonderful. “So settle down and let’s be friends.” That was his usual line.
“There’s no need for that, Hal. I was just looking for an introduction, that’s all.”
“When Dalliance wants to tell you about me,” he said softly, “she will.” He turned for the door then. “A gentleman doesn’t bandy his name about in a bar, now does he — Mr. Tucker?”
He brushed past me just as if I were invisible.
Hal watched him go.
I stood in the middle of the room. “That makes twice today,” I said to no one in particular, trying to keep my voice calm, “that I’ve felt cast off. I’m having a strange feeling I’d like to teach that guy a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.”
“Maybe you need a vacation,” Hal told me as he put up his weapon.
I turned to him. “A vacation?”
10. Vacation Bible School
“So while I’m gone,” I was saying to Dalliance, standing in her office doorway a few moments later, “I was hoping you’d monitor my calls. I’ve got some work to do, and instead of trying to compete with my competition, I’ve taken him into my confidence …”
“… I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she interrupted me.
“I’m taking a little time off. In my absence I’ve asked your friend Jakes to help me out.”
“Jakes?”
“Don’t even start with me, I know he’s the one who’s helping you out. And so I thought since you’ll be seeing him, as you’ve hired him to do a little work for you, you might just take care …”
“… if you’re saying all this, or doing all this just to let me know how much you hate the fact that someone else is helping me for once with a problem …”
“… I’m only asking you to relay any messages …”
“… where are you off to, anyway?” Her voice was edged in nervous frustration, the kind you get when you haven’t slept and your best friend is irritating you.
“If you’ll let me finish a sentence …”
“… and why get Jersey to help? You’re just trying to keep tabs …”
“… I don’t need his help keeping tabs …”
“… Flap, I swear to God …”
“… I’m going home.”
That put a stop to elliptical conversation.
“Home?” Her voice was small.
“Yeah. I miss it.”
“Remind me to laugh at that when I’m in a better mood. What is it really?”
“Well, I’ll tell you.” I paused — and in that second, I didn’t know what I was going to say next. Ever have one of those moments when you debate the relative merits of the Truth — with a capital T — in a conversation, before you go on talking? Ever look back on those moments and wish you’d done better? “I’m working on an angle, see? There’s this kid at the Clairmont …”
“… I’m guessing Lucrezia.”
“Very good,” I told her, impressed. “How would you know that? You know her?”
A single nod. “She’s the type who’d find you.” Her voice sounded strange.
“I see,” I said, leaning against the doorframe, “you’ve been talking to Mr. Jakes, then. Keeping tabs on me?”
“Jersey reports everything.” She leaned forward at her desk. “It’s actually kind of annoying.”
Her eyes were red at the rims, as if she’d been crying, or maybe she was just tired. Her hair was more disheveled than usual, which was saying something, and her voice was strained.
“I’m just going home for a little vacation, mostly,” I told her. “But while I’m there, I hope to get a better perspective on this thing with you, which is vexing me to no end.”
“I get it. You’ll go home,” she began, “you’ll do your little cogitation trick. It’s like a religious retreat or something. But where will you stay? No monasteries down there.”
Neither she nor I had any kin left in Invisible. There was barely anybody left there at all. Sonny was still around, at the filling station/grocery mart. And some of the old farms were in the hands of the children of the people who had worked them when Dally and I were kids. But for the most part, it was a place populated with memories and ghosts — summer echoes of schoolkids who had long since moved away, running on hot roads that were gone to kudzu and briars.
“I’ll stay in Tifton, I guess. Plenty of motels there, and it’s not too far.” I smiled at her. “I figure there’s a Bible in the motel room — so it’s kind of like a monastery room — only less comfortable.”
“Why are you doing this, Flap?” She finally looked up at me.
“Doing what?”
“Why are you leaving town now?” Softer: “This is what you always used to do. Leave.” But she couldn’t quite go on with the rest of her thought.
It was funny how we both felt a barrier of unspoken thoughts. We usually told each other everything, and now there seemed to be more and more things we weren’t saying, and the gulf was wide.
“I’ll be back in a day or two.” I thought I managed a devil-may-care smile. “You won’t even know I’m gone.” I’d meant that sentence to be casual and light. It just sounded hurt, even to me.
I turned and walked out.
The afternoon sun was hot on the parking-lot pavement, and the usual contingent of strays and drunks was not in evidence. I alone was out and about in the hottest part of the day.
I figured Lucy might be up by now, so I made it across Ponce to the pay phones at the side of Green’s and called the number she’d given me. I got her machine.
“This is L.L. — I’m here with a gun and a mean-ass dog, I just don’t feel like answering the phone, okay?
You still feel like leaving a message?” Then the machine beeped.
“Hey,” I said quickly, “I’m leaving town for a few days. I’ll catch you at work when I get back. Keep your eyes open.”
Then, just as I was hanging up, something shot up to the surface. Sometimes it takes all day sitting quietly and clearing my mind for things to bob up. And sometimes it just takes the heat of the midday sun.
I realized that the gentleman who had been bothering Dally, and complaining about Marcia’s food — the one who was probably the actual author of the threatening notes that were in Dally’s office — had walked out of my favorite bar in a pair of black-and-tan two-toned shoes.
11. Sailing Shoes
I hate coincidence. It makes me think that I’m putting two and two together incorrectly because I’m confused about the very nature of the number four.
Just because Dally’s nemesis wore two-toned shoes, that didn’t have to mean he was the same guy that had threatened Lucy. In fact, it would be what we often call in the detective game “too much.” You can’t have one bad guy do all the wrong stuff. Evil has to be spread out.
So, as I was making up arguments about how wrong I was to even be thinking such a thing, I was moving just as quickly as I could up the sidewalk toward the Clairmont Hotel. I thought maybe Jakes would still be in his room.
The concierge was snoring when I came into the lobby. I moved silently across the floor and up the stairs.
Room 212 was down the hall on the right, and I stood to the side of the door when I knocked. Old habit. If someone wants to shoot, they generally shoot at the door first.
“Tucker?” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“How’d you know?” I tried to match his sotto voce.
“I could tell,” he explained as the door swung open, “by the footsteps. You got a distinctive-sounding walk. Like dancing.”
“I do?” I stepped into his room. “That’s funny, because I can’t dance to save my life.”
“Maybe it’s the shoes.” He moved away from me and stood by the bed. He was in striped boxers and a white string tee shirt.
Dead Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 5) Page 5