by Leah Weiss
“How little you love yourself. You are a treasure but you don’t know that yet. Last night, you treated yourself like a cheap trick. In turn, that man treated you like a cheap trick.”
Bert is crying, and I’m crying for her. There’s a knock. Daddy says through the door, “Minnie, can you come out?”
Mama steps to the door. I hug Bert, who looks so dismal.
Mama says, “Get dressed, Bert. Sheriff wants to see you.”
Sheriff Cecil stands when we come in, his hat in his hand, his jaw set hard, his eyes weary. He holds a skinny notebook and a stubby pencil. He doesn’t talk right away. He simply writes F and T on the paper and presses on the letters.
FT. Where have I seen that before? Then I gasp. Weegee gave us those initials on Bert’s birthday. When she asked about her first love. Those letters stumped us that day. My mouth is dry knowing now what I know.
Sheriff doesn’t keep us in suspense. “Bert, you were the last person to see Frankie Tender last night. He never made it back to the warehouse, and the Top Hats haven’t seen him since. You need to tell me everything that happened.”
The room gets smaller and the oxygen thinner.
Ten minutes later, the sheriff puts the notebook in his shirt pocket, and Daddy walks him out to his car. I grab Bert’s hand and pull her up the stairs to our room and shut the door, trembling. She’s crying, but I don’t have time to give her sympathy. I shake her shoulders and say, “Weegee was right.”
“What?”
“The initials of your first love. FT, remember? Frankie Tender,” I whisper.
“He won’t my first love…”
“But I bet you thought he was for a little while last night.”
“Maybe. But not now. And he’s missing, and I couldn’t help the sheriff one bit.”
“If Weegee knew his initials, maybe she knows where he is, and we won’t need the sheriff or the military police. Let them check the crime scene, but when we get a chance, we’re hightailing it to Aunt Fanniebelle’s walnut secretary.”
We make up the bed together and fluff the pillows, and I say, “The Double Case of the Missing Men is official. Nancy would approve.”
Chapter 32
Bert: No Clue
We get on our bikes and ride. I wear Grady’s old hat with my hair bunched under. After we cross the bridge, we cut to the back roads and don’t ride down Main Street full of the Saturday crowd. We get to the Hollingston mansion, and the Chrysler ain’t there. We knock at the side door, and the housekeeper lets us in. Lu says matter-of-factly, “We left something in the parlor. We don’t need help. We’ll find it and be out of here in two minutes.”
We rush to the front room and pull out the box Weegee lives in, set the board on top of the black piano, stand across from each other, wipe our hands on our pants, and put our fingertips on the pointer. Lu stares at me, us breathing hard from riding bikes and seeing Weegee again. She says right off, “Where is Frankie Tender?”
There ain’t no storm today whirling outside to mess her up, but she still starts slow like she was asleep, then she moves to four letters.
H O M E
Lu don’t look happy. “What the heck does that mean? Does she mean Frankie’s gone to his house or his army barracks? And if he did, wouldn’t the sheriff check there first? Did Weegee get mixed up and think I said Larry Crumbie instead of Frankie Tender? Let’s try again.”
But the same word happens, and we ain’t got no choice but to put Weegee back in the box and slip out the side door, buffaloed. Lu says, “I bet the sheriff’s finished at the crime scene. Let’s go look. Maybe you’ll remember more being there.”
We ride and when we get there, everybody’s gone. In daylight, the place of shame don’t hold a speck a passion. It’s a place where a grown man can hide a wrongdoing. One that Frankie Tender found before he found me to go with him. You can tell somebody’s walked on the pine needles, and I see two places where my hands might’ve landed when I fell. We follow drag marks outta the pines to a path, to a dumping spot for rusty tin cans and wore out tires.
“Remember to look with fresh eyes,” Lu says then points. “See those tire tracks? Think they’re from a bicycle?”
“There’s lots a bicycle tracks. Boys must ride down here all the time to do boy things.”
“But look at this one. It’s deeper in the dirt than the others,” Lu says. “It doesn’t carry a boy’s light weight. It carries someone heavier. Let’s see if we can figure where it went.”
I think the track is wide cause the tires are mostly flat, but I do like Lu says, and we walk away from the dump, down a path to railroad tracks. That deep rut don’t cross over tracks, so Lu looks one way then the other. “Let’s go away from town. It doesn’t make sense for the attacker to head into town and chance being seen with an extra body on his bike. You walk on one side, and I’ll walk the other.”
We walk and look and swat at buzzing flies and sweat bees because the April day has turned hot, and we pass a shanty shack with three children in the yard in cutoff britches. They bat a tin can with sticks. “Hey, Miz Lucy. Hey, Miz Bert,” they call out and run to us, children who sometimes come for story night and who go by the names Peanut, Popsicle, and Patches.
“Whatcha doing?” the tallest one asks.
“Looking for clues,” Lu says.
“Like a mystery clue?” another one wants to know.
“We think a bicycle came down this track late last night carrying two men. It was after the dance at the warehouse. Do you remember seeing or hearing something odd?”
They look back and forth and shake their heads. “If it was night, we was sleeping.”
“You can do me a big favor. Keep your eyes peeled on this section of track. If you see anything strange or out of the ordinary, you remember it and tell me. Would you do that?” The children start looking right away, heads bent, feet scuffing up the ground.
We walk a little further down the track, but nothing looks like a clue anymore. Lu says, “You want to give up for today, or do you have other ideas?”
I say hopefully, “Maybe Daddy already got answers. Maybe Frankie Tender is with his band.”
“That would be real nice.”
Me and Lu are on the side of town that leads to Aunt Violet’s empty place. I see it in the distance but don’t have need to go. Instead, we go home, and we’re almost at our driveway when a truck full of boys in the back drives by. One whistles, and another yells, “Bert Tucker, I love you,” and another stands and makes a nasty gesture. The dust from the truck chokes us and burns our eyes. When we get to the porch, I’m madder and sadder than I recollect ever being. Daddy says Frankie Tender don’t show up at the next town. Nobody’s seen him since he went off with me.
Chapter 33
Lucy: Balls
How can a grown man in a white uniform up and disappear? Where is a hiding place for a singing sensation known in every town in the state? Did the shadow man Bert saw hurt him? Did Frankie Tender disgrace another girl in another town that led to his disappearance? And why in heaven’s name did Weegee give us the same answer for both Frankie’s and Larry’s whereabouts?
For days after the dance, military police and Sheriff Cecil comb Mercer County’s streets and back roads and the reeds along the riverbanks. They talk to folks who went to the dance and folks who didn’t. Bert Tucker’s name is tied to the missing Frankie Tender, and she suffers. After our single day of sleuthing and the nasty catcalls from the truck boys, she stays in her room. She wears big overalls. She cut random chunks out of her thick hair to set her beauty off-balance. She takes to her bed because her pain is profound.
My best friend is in a dark and lonely place.
On Wednesday, day five after Bert was maligned and we could find no clues to help, two visitors come calling. Mama sends me upstairs to fetch her. Bert’s lying on our bed with her arms by he
r sides, staring at the ceiling, looking like a used-up body waiting on a coffin.
“Got company.”
She doesn’t move.
“Mama said for you to come down.” She still doesn’t move, so I declare, “You won’t believe who’s here to see you.”
She says, “Who?” like I hoped she would.
“Trula Freed and Aunt Fanniebelle. They’re sitting side by side on our porch.”
“What do they want?”
“To see you.”
“Did Mama make em come?”
“I don’t know, but ask em yourself.”
“Don’t wanna talk.”
“Then let them talk.”
Bert keeps lying there, so I say, “You gonna make those old ladies climb the stairs with their rickety knees? You know they won’t leave without talking to you.”
Finally, she relents and drags her pitiful self down the stairs.
Trula Freed is on our porch sitting next to Aunt Fanniebelle. They rock in unison and the runners creak. Today my aunt wears a navy dress with a lace collar, but Trula looks like a priestess from a faraway land sitting in our plain place. Today, she’s got on an electric turquoise robe cinched with a gold belt around her narrow waist. The fabric flows over fancy slippers too delicate for farm life. She arrived in the back seat of Uncle Nigel’s cream-colored Chrysler.
Without getting up from their rockers, the two women raise their thin arms to hug Bert. Mama leaves, taking Lydia and Cora inside to the kitchen and tells me to come, too.
Aunt Fanniebelle says, “Let Lucy stay, Minnie. This visit is for her, too. Let’s pull our rocking chairs in a circle so we can hear better.”
We scoot our chairs around, then Bert pulls her legs up and wraps her arms around them to make herself small. With chopped hair and castoffs the color of dirt, she has successfully camouflaged her splendor and lost sight of her bright future.
Aunt Fanniebelle starts. “Y’all are old enough to know some important facts Trula and I come to impart.”
Bert says cynically, “This isn’t about the birds and bees, is it? Cause if it is, it’s a waste of time.”
“No, dear.” Aunt Fanniebelle snaps open her iridescent fan and looks at Bert, then at me. “Y’all aren’t babies. This is different. It’s a story about Uncle Val. Valentine Pugh.”
I don’t recollect hearing that name. I would have remembered the name Valentine Pugh.
Aunt Fanniebelle says, “Well, honey, Uncle Valentine was a slimy bastard who was slow to die.”
Bert and I snap to attention. I’ve rarely heard so much as an insinuated cuss word come out of my aunt’s lips, what with her lace collars, powdered nose, monogrammed handkerchiefs, and proper etiquette. Today her face stays as calm as a pond.
“Uncle Val died in 1913, a month before he woulda turned forty. It was his pecker that got him dead and buried cause he had syllabus.”
“Syllabus?” I’m confused. “What does a syllabus have to do with dying?” I say, thinking I know the meaning of the word, but maybe it has another one.
“That’s what killed him. Syllabus. It’s a venerable disease that comes from putting your pecker where it doesn’t belong.”
My aunt’s candid nature can run rampant. It’s one of the things I love about her. Bert slides her feet to the floor and sits up straighter. Aunt Fanniebelle may be misspeaking, but she has our full attention.
At that moment, Mama comes out with a tray of hot German tea and china cups, remnants of Oma, who had a cuppa tea every day. How much did Mama hear? Bastard? Syllabus? Maybe she already knows this story. Maybe she’s happy to see Bert rejoining the living. Mama leaves, and we sip our tea and wait to hear more about peckers.
“As I was saying, syllabus destroyed Val’s body. It ate his brain. It made a mess of that noble nose on his face. Then lumps appeared on his skinny legs. It was a slow, ugly death that gave him a lotta thinking time.” My aunt’s lips have curled in distaste. “His death was a serving of justice.”
I blurt out, “What’d he do to deserve that awful fate?”
“It was his penis that got him in trouble. He was a handsome, golden-haired man, practiced and smooth, but he set his sights on little girls. The summer I was six, Val shined his light on me. He was seventeen, and I was flattered to bask in his teasing but a fool all the same. How could I not be? I was six years old and trusting.
“Uncle Val picked easy targets. When I was older, I found out he’d been up to no good with my other girl cousins: Debby and Marcella, Bonnie and Mary… It was a long list of names that changed depending on who you talked to.
“Well that summer I was six, he set his sights on me. On the sly, he brought me pieces of candy wrapped in gold paper, a new dress for my doll, butterfly wings pinned on a piece of board. He was as slippery as an eel till there came the day he almost had his way with me. It was my sixteen-year-old brother, Augustus, who saved me from shame. We adored each other.
“Later, Augustus told me he had heard despicable things about Uncle Val and little girls, but he didn’t have proof. On the day Uncle Val planned to do dastardly things in the hayloft, he told me he’d found a litter of kittens. Precious little newborns with barely their eyes open, nesting in a dark corner of that hayloft. It was a ploy no child could resist.
“Augustus saw Val and me walk hand in hand down the lane to the barn, and he followed us up to the loft, where Uncle Val had dropped his britches and already lifted my blue gingham dress over my head. I was crying and wanted to see the kittens, but Uncle Val covered my mouth with one hand and tore at my undies with the other. Augustus pulled him back, hit him in the face, and tied him to a barn post with his britches still around his ankles. He was going to cut off Uncle Val’s privates and he took out his pocketknife, and I knew he was gonna do it. Augustus told me to go on back to the house to spare me the gore, but I didn’t leave. Instead, I begged my brother to spare Uncle Val, a half-naked man crying with a big worm flopping between his legs.”
Aunt Fanniebelle stops rocking. She looks off toward our barn and waits so long we think she forgot where she is, till she starts talking again.
“I knew if Augustus cut off Val’s balls, everybody would talk and nobody’d be happy one bit. I felt sorry for the half-naked man begging for my brother’s mercy. I promised him I’d never be alone with Uncle Val again.”
Her eyes glide over to Bert. “I was ashamed that day and didn’t know why. Do you hear what I’m saying, Bert?”
My friend is crying, nose running, eyes puffy, and she nods.
“What am I saying?”
“Frankie Tender is like your Uncle Val,” Bert whispers right off.
“Those kinds of devils are everywhere. When something like this happens, we girls got two choices: we can take the damage they do and let it turn us weak or we can forge it into steel. Cowardly men like Uncle Val and Frankie Tender do more damage on a girl’s delicate sicko than can be seen on the outside.”
Did she mean psyche?
“Over the years, I thought that my plea to save Uncle Val’s testicles was why he died that awful death caused by syllabus. If he’d lost his balls early on, he wouldn’t have gotten into more trouble. Losing his balls might have tamed him down and let him grow old.”
Aunt Fanniebelle sits back and sips tea that has grown cold. It’s hard picturing her as a little girl in danger. An oil painting of her by a New York artist hangs in their parlor over the fireplace. She was sixteen. Next time I go visit, I’ll look for the steel beneath the privilege.
“So you see,” Aunt Fanniebelle ends, “your story is as old as dirt. As common as weeds. You’re different now because of your close call, but you will rise again. You will rise up, beautiful Bert.”
“What if they don’t find Frankie Tender? Weegee told us he was home.”
“Not your problem, honey,” she says, pin
ching her skinny lips tight and ignoring Weegee’s clue.
“But if he stays missing, people are gonna talk.”
“Not your problem, honey,” Aunt Fanniebelle says again, but this time, she grins. “You can hold on to the hurt or let it go. It’s that simple, but gossip will fade. You’ll find out people got more troubles on their minds than you and Frankie Tender.”
The whole time Aunt Fanniebelle has been telling her syllabus story, Trula Freed has rocked steady. Now her chair stops, and with Bert’s help, she slides the side table between them, reaches into the pocket of her silk robe, and pulls out a scarf of delicate black lace. It’s wrapped around a deck of thick cards that she shuffles adroitly.
They’re tarot cards.
She fans the shuffled deck out on the table, facedown. The cards are worn around the paper edges. I wonder how many cards are in the deck?
“Seventy-eight cards in deck,” Trula says, and I gulp at her reading my mind.
Pointing to the deck, she says, “Today, only choose one card.”
Bert’s fingers tremble as they pass over the cards, hoping to pick a good one. She pulls the one from the middle like I would, and Trula Freed turns it over and sets it faceup on the table. The unpicked cards are restacked and put on top of the folded lace. The mystic studies a far-off place.
“The Wheel of Fortune. A powerful card, your card,” she begins, and Bert remembers to breathe. “One to signal change, this Wheel of Fortune. Transformation has come and altered you.” She strokes the card with her finger, “And here…”
Bert and I lean forward.
“The devil—cunning as a fox with his smiling face of deceit. He is the sly Frankie Tender, stretched out under your wheel. He can do no more harm, but other sly devils may appear.”