Mother Finds a Body (13 page)

Cullucio lost his you-sell-me attitude.

“Sure I talk to 'em,” he said eagerly.

Biff nearly upset the table in his rush to grab Mandy and Cliff while they still could talk. He brought them back with him to our table and introduced them to the saloon-keeping impresario.

Cullucio wasn't quite as eager after getting a good look at the pride of the Steel Pier.

“I'll see them in my office tomorrow,” he said. He tossed his thumb toward the direction of the door with
OFFICE
printed above it. Under the
OFFICE
sign I saw another,
OFFICIO
. Cullucio wasn't taking any chances on having his sanctum mistaken for the men's room.

The two comics left to join the girls at the bar. Biff asked Mamie if she'd like to dance. When she said yes, he was sorry he had mentioned it, but he helped her to her feet as though she were the queen of the ball. Joyce left us to sit with her friends from St. Louis, and the sheriff danced with Mother. I was alone with Francisco Cullucio again.

“Maybe you like to work here, too,” he said, after the surly waiter put two drinks on the table.

I took a good look at Cullucio and another at the waiter. No, I certainly didn't want to work at The Happy Hour. I didn't tell him that, though. I knew Biff had something up his sleeve or he wouldn't have acted as agent for Cliff and Mandy. I had seen Biff in action before. When he felt good and ready, he'd tell me his plans. Until then I was expected to follow through if it killed me.

“I'd love it,” I said, “but I have a clause in my contract. No doubling. I mean I'm not allowed to hold down two jobs at once,” I added hastily as I saw the bewildered expression on his face. “If you're looking for a stripper, though, I know someone who'd fill the bill.”

I glanced over at Dimples and Gee Gee. I couldn't make up my mind which one to throw to the wolf. At a second glance I wondered if the wolf would sit still for either of them. Gee Gee's multicolored hair was scraggling over her freckled forehead. Her nose was shiny. She needed lipstick, I concentrated on Dimples. She looked worse, but Cullucio struck me as the type who went in for lushness, and Dimples certainly fit that description. The nickel a drink would net her a nice income, too, I thought.

“Her name is Dimples Darling,” I said. “She's billed as the Queen of Quiver.”

Cullucio's knee was pressing against mine again.

“If she's a friend of yours, I put her to work,” he said meaningfully.

If the freighted glance and the pressed knee counted, it looked as though I was the one who was going to do the work. I only hoped that whatever Biff was doing was important enough to make up for what I was going through.

“Maybe we can make a deal with that contract of yours,” Cullucio said. “I want you to be happy here.”

“I know I would, Mr. Cullucio.”

“Call me Frank.”

“Frank,” I gulped.

Mother and the sheriff returned to the table. The orchestra had gone into a conga, and they were both a little out of breath from dancing.

“Tomorrow, then, Evangie?” the sheriff whispered as he helped Mother into her chair.

“Tomorrow, Hank,” Mother said.

The air was certainly full of June.

Hank took his hat from the chair and held it in his hands. “So long, folks,” he said.

“See you tomorrow,” Biff said from the dance floor. He hadn't heard Mother and the sheriff make their little date, so he didn't understand the sheriff's blush.

Mother picked up her purse and fumbled around for her asthma cigarettes. The conga had been too much for her, I knew. The instant she put it to her lips, Cullucio was on hand with a cigarette lighter. The lighter matched the pen, only it was even heavier and more ornate. Mother inhaled the pungent smoke. As she exhaled, her breathing became easier.

Cullucio leaned over the table and watched her intently. The overhead lights, reds and blues, made his hair shine like a rhododendron leaf that's just been sprayed with miscible oil. His face seemed darker, his teeth whiter. He dipped the end of his cigar in his liquor before he put it to his mouth, but he didn't light it. Instead, he suddenly got to his feet, turned on his heel, and left.

I watched the padded white shoulders as they traveled through the crowd. When they arrived at the door with
OFFICE-OFFICIO
written above it I lost sight of them.

“Well,” Mother said, “if he isn't rude. You'd think he'd have said goodnight or something.”

I was thinking too hard to answer her. I wondered what I had said to anger him. After all Biff's trouble trying to sell Cliff and Mandy, after my hours of playing knees, and after drinking that terrible liquor, I had to say something to spoil things! But what had I said? I couldn't for the life of me remember.

Biff and Mamie danced by the table. The rose on Mamie's hat was hanging down over her thin shoulder. As she bounced around with her own version of the conga, her dress flopped around grotesquely, but she looked as though she were having herself a time.

Mother's cubeb smoke was getting heavier. It was a sticky, sweet-smelling smoke like . . .

“Like Benny, the trumpet player,” I said aloud.

“Who?” Mother asked politely.

“Nobody,” I said. “Nobody at all.”

The noise of the saloon was reaching a crescendo. The conga line raced madly around the small dance floor. I was dizzy from watching them, dizzy from remembering.

Without realizing what I was doing, I took the cubeb from Mother's fingers and ground it out in the ashtray. Mother looked at me as though I had gone mad.

“What in the world's the matter now?” she asked.

I couldn't tell her about Gee Gee and the marijuana. I couldn't tell her that her cubeb smelled exactly like a reefer. Suddenly I knew why Cullucio had been so rude. He thought Mother was smoking a marijuana!

“No wonder he was upset,” I said. “He thought you were smoking a marijuana.”

“A marinello?” Mother gasped. “Have you lost your sense?”

I shook my head. “No, Mother, I just had a flash. I think I know why Biff wants Cliff and Mandy to play The Happy Hour saloon. He wants an excuse to hang around.”

“Biff doesn't need an excuse,” Mother said haughtily, “not when there's a bar in the place.” Mother put another cubeb to her lips and lit it. “I don't like this club at all,” she said between puffs. “I don't like the manager, either. Trying to tell me I didn't know those two men.”

“He didn't say that exactly,” I said. “He just said they didn't go into his office.”

“Whatever he said, I didn't like his attitude when he said it.”

“Well,” I said. “He isn't a beauty boy, but maybe he means well. If he puts Cliff and Mandy to work I'll be grateful to him, attitude or no attitude.”

11
WE WERE AT THE DOOR MARKED OFFICE-
officio at eleven-thirty the next morning. Corny, bleary eyed but determined, knocked. Dimples set her mouth in a big personality smile, and I braced myself for the meeting with Francisco Cullucio.

There was no answer.

A heavy odor of stale liquor and cigar smoke filled the dimly
lit room. It hadn't been a pleasant odor the night before. In the morning it was worse. A strip of white sunlight from the open door splashed across the littered floor. The chairs were piled on the tables. The red-and-white tablecloths were stained and dirty.

“What d'ya want,” an unfriendly voice asked from the back of the saloon.

“We had an appointment with Mr. Cullucio,” Biff replied.

“He ain't here.”

That was obvious, but Biff, being in a jovial mood, didn't mention it. Instead he opened the door wider.

The pockmarked waiter emerged from the shadows. He held a broom in his hand.

“Hey, close that door,” he shouted. “Want the place full of customers before we can serve 'em?”

Biff closed the door. “Perhaps you know where . . .”

“He's at the store. Can't miss it. Name's The Emporium. Two blocks down the street.” The waiter stood leaning on his broom. If Biff had been intending to question him further, the man's attitude discouraged it.

“Thanks,” we said, almost in unison.

The waiter was right when he said we couldn't miss the Emporium. We could see the sign from the saloon:
FRANCISCO CULLUCIO
in letters a foot high,
THE EMPORIUM
in letters a bit smaller. A canvas banner stretched across the street. On it was written:
PERFUMES. LINENS. FINE LIQUORS. CUT PRICES
. A large, painted red hand pointed to the store.

Before entering we looked in the windows. Cullucio dealt in more than just linens, perfumes, and liquors, judging by the variety of articles displayed. Men's riding boots were shown beside English electric razors and German cameras. Chinese kimonos were folded with the golden dragons showing. Beside them were Japanese lacquer boxes. In the back were Hudson Bay blankets, bath towels, tablecloths.

Cullucio sat at a teakwood desk in the back of the store. He still wore the white suit, but he had changed his shirt to a bright-yellow silk. It made his face almost saffron. He scowled over a piece of paper he held in his hand.

Dimples and I stopped at a counter of Mexican novelties while Biff and the two comics walked over to the desk.

“Well, here we are, bright and early,” Biff said.

Cullucio glanced at him, then went back to reading the letter.

“Sorry we had to leave before we got a chance to say good night,” Biff went on, as though he had the man's complete attention. “It was because Evangie, that's Gyp's mother, got an asthma attack. We had to fill her full of that stinking medicine she smokes and it was makin' her sicker than the asthma.”

I peeked at Cullucio from over a small fan with
NOGALES
printed on it. He had stopped reading. His eyes were still on the paper but they didn't move. I crossed my fingers for luck. Biff and I had sat up until daybreak trying to figure out a story that would clear us with Cullucio. When I told Biff about the cubeb, he nodded as though he knew all about it.

“Why do you think I was trying to get the guys a job?” he asked me.

I told him about Cullucio offering me a job too. Biff said later that it didn't sound like a job for him; it sounded like a position.

Now he went on talking to Cullucio. “She's had asthma since she was a kid. Suffers awful from it. Asked me to tell you she was sorry she had to break up the party.”

Cullucio put the paper in a little wire basket on his desk. He smiled at Biff.

“Hello, hello. Sit down.” He indicated a leather chair near him. Then he picked up a corner of the letter. “People all the time trying to sell me something.”

Biff nodded to Corny and Mandy. After the handshaking was over they settled down to business. Biff got Cullucio to up the money from thirty to forty a week each. Then he called to Dimples and me.

Dimples settled for forty, too, with tips. Biff bought a pair of Chinese slippers for Mother. Cullucio gave him a discount, and we left.

Once outside, we all sighed deeply. Biff and I for relief, the others because forty a week is forty a week.

“Let's get one beer before we go home,” Dimples said.

Three hours later we arrived at the trailer.

I was feeling my beers. Rye makes me happy and wide awake; beer puts me to sleep. So does champagne, but that's beside the point. While Dimples went through the steamer trunk for her music and wardrobe, I stretched out on the bed in the bedroom. I felt as though Biff and I had accomplished something. The sheriff, thanks to Mother, was on our side. Cullucio was unsuspecting. Our friends were working, it looked as though things were going along nicely.

“Now that Corny has a job he can move to the hotel,” I said. It had been in the back of my head all the time. Saying it aloud gave me assurance.

“Uh-huh,” Dimples replied. She had a stack of music and photographs on the floor and was going through them slowly.

“Do you think I oughta open with “Blue Prelude” or my cigarette number?” she asked.

“Both,” I said.

She put the scores to both numbers aside. Then she started rummaging through the trunk for her costumes: chiffons, crumpled and faded, shiny velvets, feathers, and rhinestones. She piled them in a heap next to the music. She selected three or four G-strings, several net brassieres and placed them with the wardrobe. Frayed satin shoes and a garter belt with limp lace were the end of the collection. Dimples never went in for an extensive wardrobe. She figured that no one was interested in what she had on. It was what she took off that counted.

After she rolled the things in a suitcase and left the trailer I dozed off. It was dark when I awakened. I must have slept for hours, but instead of jumping I lay still and quiet.

Something had startled me. I thought it was Rufus, the monkey. Then I heard him snoring. The dogs were with Mother, I knew. They were visiting. Dimples should be rehearsing; she was called at five. But there was someone in the trailer with me, someone in the front room.