The Books of Fell (30 page)

Lenny was renting a tux for himself and buying a white-orchid corsage for Laura.

Already his expenses were close to $500.

When he had told Nels that, Nels had answered, “Chicken feed for someone like Laura, Tra La.”

Any chance he got, Nels had begun reminding Lenny how much $50,000 could change his life. And hers, too. Mostly hers, he’d admitted. Laura had more dreams.

“Besides,” he’d added, “the best schools are in the East. I’d have my two best buddies close by. That way I don’t have to go to college myself. I’ll get my education through you guys, vicariously.”

The three of them unwrapped the packages.

Inside each was a white cap and a white sweatshirt.

Written across them in red:
THE TRIP TO NOWHERE.

There were tickets inside the caps, and announcements of the sailing, on the
Seastar,
five months away.

“It’s something to really look forward to!” Laura said. “Now I don’t feel so badly about going away with Daddy this summer!”

In July she was bound for Africa, part of a missionary conference her father’d arranged for her to attend.

Reverend Delacourt had his eye on Lenny. He was on his knees nightly praying against him, and in his study a good part of every day plotting for ways to get Laura out of reach.

“We’ll have one bang-up reunion!” said Nels. He glanced back at Lenny and gave him a wink. “And you’ll get to meet Celeste, at last! … Celeste, my sister, and Captain Stir-Crazy. Of course we’ll be in deluxe staterooms. Tra La and me in one and you in the other, Laura:
muy
proper.”

After Lenny’d put Laura on the bus back to Philadelphia, he went to Nels’s suite in Sevens House.

“I don’t know if I can do this to your sister,” he said.

“You don’t have to do very much at all, Tra La.”

“But it’s major
tsuris
for her,” he said, suddenly remembering his mother’s Yiddish for woe. The Yiddish always came back when anything troubled Lenny deeply. “Why should I do it to her?”

“I’m
doing it to her. I’m doing it for her…. Tra La, she’s playing some tacky lounge on a ship with all these guys tossing back drinks, you can imagine the crapola she takes!”

He was packing.

He was piling his Brooks Brothers suits on the bed, and his Turnbull & Asser shirts on the dresser.

Two large steamer trunks were open on the floor, waiting to receive his wardrobe.

Lenny sat down in the big, soft leather Eames chair Nels had ordered for himself and was now leaving behind for the next occupant of his suite in Sevens.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted, Lenny.”

“I trust you, too. But this is different.”

“Yes. It’s different. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Tra La … and it’ll be the easiest fifty thousand dollars you’ll make.”

“If we can pull it off.”

“Oh, we will.”

“Not many kidnappers get away with it.”

“But we’re dummynapping, Tra La,” said Nels. “And our little victim can’t tell on us or die. She’ll just disappear into the deep blue sea. Deep-sixed.”

Lenny stretched his long legs out in front of him and stared at his old, scuffed Thom McAn loafers.

He shook a Kent out of a pack and lit it. He’d been smoking cigarettes ever since January, when Nels had finally convinced him he was serious about this thing.

“Your sister must like being on the
Seastar,
though. Maybe she doesn’t think she takes crapola.”

“I purposely never introduced you to Annette,” said Nels. “I didn’t want you to get fond of her, or you’d never want to do this…. So put her out of your mind. My sister is too complicated. Our relationship is too unusual to explain.”

Lenny grinned finally. “You’ll have to shell out for your own analysis after it’s done, Nels.”

“No. Because then I won’t need it. Celeste has always been my only problem.”

I made Keats go back and start the journal from the beginning. I’d long since finished the corn, and I was sitting opposite her on a stool, fascinated.

When the front-door chimes rang, I wished we could just ignore them so she could keep reading. But Gras flew off the chaise outside and came running in, barking nonstop, dachshund style.

“Whoever that is, tell him we don’t want any,” said Keats.

I headed down the long hall as Gras raced ahead of me.

Fen spoke first, introducing himself, starting to say something about wanting to see where he’d be working that night.

“I like to check the acoustics, the space, and — ”

Then Plum spoke up. “Oh, shut up! Just zip it!” and perched on Fen’s arm like a big bird, he turned to face me. “And who are you?”

“John Fell,” I said. “I brought your clothes with me from Pennsylvania.”

“You can take those clothes and shove — ”

“Plum! Is that any way to talk to someone who did you a favor?”

“Then tell him Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

“Finders keepers,” said Fen. “We don’t want anything from Plum’s past. You’ll see why tonight.”

Tick tock tickers! Where’s my Snickers? Tick tock tickers! Where’s my Snickers?”

Celeste’s voice was drowned out by the shriek of the Seastar’s whistle, and the moan from its horn.

Midnight. Time to sail off into the dark, friends.

“Tick tock tickers! Where’s my Snickers?” A white gardenia was pinned to her red wig.

Annette smiled at Lenny and Laura. “No matter how many times we’ve sailed, it still makes Celeste a little nervous to leave land, and she needs her Snickers.”

“At your service,” said Nels, putting one of the candy bars into the dummy’s coat pocket.

“No, no, Big Guy. Put it in my evening purse!”

Annette said, “Put it in my evening purse,
please!”

“He knows where he can put it!”

“Celeste!” Annette said.

She looked embarrassed for the dummy and she said to the others, “I have to apologize for Celeste.

Don’t judge her by this performance.”

“No, please don’t,” the dummy agreed. “This performance is a little wooden, wouldn’t you say?”

The five of them were on deck. Behind them an oompah band had just finished playing “76 Trombones.”

There was a full moon. The big ship pulled out while visitors from bon-voyage parties waved and blew kisses.

Laura spotted her brother, Carl, in the crowd and called out to him, “Don’t tell Daddy!”

Lenny tried not to stare at Celeste. Nels had told him not to show any interest in ventriloquism, so he would not be suspect when the dummy was taken.

Lenny tried hard not to stare at Annette, too. She was not at all what he’d expected. Lenny wouldn’t describe her as “fat.” Big, yes, nearly six foot. Overweight and quite handsome, dark eyed, swarthy, short black hair she slicked back. She was clearly no relation to Nels. With her Amazon build, she looked like Wonder Woman in a Dior gown and high-heeled slippers.

Around her neck was a purple silk scarf, and a small nosegay of violets was pinned to her ankle-length mink coat.

The flowers were from Captain Stirman, she’d explained. She’d bought herself the mink. She’d bought one for Celeste, too. Of course. What did you think?

Lenny was racking his brain for an excuse for what he was going to help Nels do to her. The minks would do it! He’d never liked women who wore furs. What kind of a person lets little animals be killed so she can parade around in their skins? His mother’d taught him to think about that. She could always turn their inability to afford luxuries into something noble.

A ventriloquist’s dummy in mink! Oy! His mother would have held her head in pain. Oy
vay iz mir!

Annette and Celeste were having late supper in Captain Stirman’s cabin shortly. Lenny had met the Captain only briefly, but he had recognized the possessive gestures: the hand at her elbow, on her back, up on her shoulder … the eyes waiting for hers, the mouth soft, the face besotted.

• • •

The next morning Lenny put his greatcoat over his pajamas and stepped out on the private veranda.

It was nine thirty. In four hours he would be in the service room behind the dining hall. After lunch Annette performed. At the finish she came behind the curtains to set Celeste down in a chair.

Then, as Annette took a bow alone, received a bouquet from the Captain, and spoke briefly to her fans, Lenny would pounce.

He would grab Celeste, put her into a garment bag, and go into the ship’s health spa, a door away.

Through the spa to the other entrance, out the door, and up a flight of stairs to this cabin.

The garment bag would be hung in the closet until nightfall.

Then bricks would be added to its bottom, and Lenny would step out on the veranda again. So long, Celeste.

• • •

There were contingency plans, of course. But that was the main one. Quick and simple.

• • •

Lenny went back inside the cabin, his cheeks wet with sea spray.

Nels said, “You want to hear the ransom note?”

He was sitting on his bed in white silk pajamas, shivering from the blast of cold air Lenny’d just sent his way. He was sipping coffee and finishing toast.

Lenny said, “I ought to check on Laura.”

“Don’t you know by now she likes to sleep in?”

Lenny felt like punching him.

It was nerves, not Nels, he reasoned with himself. Nels was always telling him what Laura liked, what Laura was like. Lenny and Laura had even joked about it together, calling Nels “The Big L.A.” secretly. The Big Laura Authority.

“Listen, Tra La!” Nels said.

The note read as follows:

“I hope we can trust Lark,” said Lenny.

“Lark loves me like a son,” Nels said, “and he doesn’t have to do very much. Annette will call our lawyer and the cash will be sent over to Lark. He keeps a thousand for himself — that makes him more than an accessory — and then he claims he lowered the rest from the window…. He says he waited for the call saying where Celeste was and it never came.”

“Won’t they want to know where Celeste is before they hand over the fifty thousand dollars?”

“If it was a kid, they might. But they’ll figure no one would gain anything by destroying a dummy … and a dummy can’t tell on the dummynapper. They’ll go along with it. After you hang Celeste up and leave here, you slip the ransom note under Annette’s door, right?”

“Right. Then I come looking for you.”

“And Lenny, if you’re going to miss lunch because you feel slightly seasick, start acting sick.”

“I plan to.”

“But before you do …” Nels reached under the pillow on his bed and took out a small blue box. He was grinning.

“This isn’t for you, Tra La. It’s for Laura. It’s a premature wedding gift.”

“I haven’t even proposed to her.”

“You’re going to tell her your aunt died, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tonight. Right?”

“Shouldn’t we wait until we have the cash in hand?”

“Tonight is the time,” said Nels. “And this is from Uncle Nels.”

He handed the box to Lenny.

“Remember I said she should have diamonds
and
a ruby?”

Inside the Tiffany box was a small Seven of Diamonds.

Where the horizontal bar joined the vertical, there was a ruby instead of another diamond.

“The ruby’s for her birthstone, remember?” Nels said. “I can’t wait to see her face!”

He gestured for Lenny to return it, and while Lenny was saying whatever it was he said at that point (Lenny could never remember), Nels put it in the inside pocket of his tweed sports coat, next to him on the bed.

“For now it stays with me,” said Nels. “I’m keeping it with me until we surprise her with it! I figure a good time is after dinner, when the dancing’s started. That’s the time to pop the question.”

Lenny did remember he asked Nels, “Do you want to do it for me?”

But Nels only laughed.

Nels didn’t notice the anger in Lenny’s tone.

As soon as she saw Fen, Keats decided she’d be the one to show him where he was performing that night.

I thought she’d let out a squeal or a holler when he introduced Plum to her, but she behaved as though nothing could faze her.

When she finally got around to seeing how I was coming in the kitchen, she could hardly talk.

“What’s the matter?” I asked her.

She leaned against the counter, holding her head with one hand, breathing in deeply, then letting it out.

“Are you all right, Keats?”

“I will be.”

“Where’s Fen?”

“I made him put the dummy in the car. Plum’s so mean, Fell. Was he mean to you?”

“Plum is a stick of wood.
Fen
told me to take the suitcase full of clothes and shove it.”

“That’s not Fen at all. Fen would never say that. That’s Plum.”

“Never mind.”

“Fen says Plum won’t need his old things at all.” “Did you tell him about the journal?”

“No.”

“Don’t.”

“Is he out in the garden? Can you see him?”

I could. Gras at his heels, Gras’s tail wagging acceptance as they strolled down a stone walk near the rosebeds.

“He’s there…. Did you ask him why he wanted to buy Plum so badly?”

“I didn’t ask him anything about the dummy. I hardly said anything…. Fell, my heart is coming through my blouse.”

“Why?”

“Because of him.”

“Him?” I
looked again. He was very tall and very skinny. Silky, straight black hair like Gras’s, and the mustache … “What’s so great about him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean he’s probably a nice guy, but — ” “Never mind, Fell. Something’s already started.”

“Well, before something is almost over, try to find out how he heard about Plum, and why he wanted to own him.”

“I think he’s Japanese. He looks rich, doesn’t he? And he’s driving a new Porsche.”

“He’s Vietnamese,” I said.

“That’s right. Mummy said he was Vietnamese. Oh Gawd, Fell, I don’t know anything about Vietnam, even where it is exactly.” She grabbed her head then. “And my hair!”

“It’s fine.”

“I’ve got to fix it! I’ve got to put on some lipstick…. Fell? I have another surprise besides the journal. It’s upstairs in the VCR in the guest room.”

“I Love Las Vegas?”

“Right.”

“Thanks, Keats.” But she was gone.

• • •

Later, I watched them walk along together. Keats had changed to white shorts and a purple T-shirt. I could remember when she’d teased me about having purple eyes, and how one whiff of Obsession (which the downstairs reeked of suddenly) could make me go weak.

They stood down by the fountain in the rose garden for a while. He was all in white, except for a light-blue shirt and a dark blue-and-white-polka-dot tie.

Everything he had on fit him so well, he had to have a Mr. Lopez in his life.

I started fixing the peaches, glancing out at them from time to time.

Their eyes never left each other’s face, and every time I looked, they were grinning together or laughing aloud.

I began to feel tired … not just of what I was doing, but of what I wasn’t doing, feeling, having in my life.

I cleaned up after myself, took the journal with me, and headed up the back stairs to the guest room.

I remembered the times I used to sneak down those stairs, nights I wasn’t supposed to see Keats, on orders from her old man.

I flopped down on the bed and it gurgled. I turned on the VCR, and I
Love Las Vegas
began with that old early-sixties music sound when Tina Turner was still with Ike, and my mom was in high school learning all the dance steps from the Mashed Potato to the Watusi.

She could still remember most of them.

All you’d have to say is Mom? Do the Funky Chicken.

Mom? Do the Hully Gully.

• • •

The windows in the guest room were very tall and wide, so you could lie on the bed and look out at the ocean. Its color was early-evening green; the sky was still pale blue.

I kept thinking about Jazzy, for some reason … about maybe taking her someplace for fun … so she could get away, say she’d been someplace that summer when she got back to school.

I didn’t feel like fast-forwarding to Celeste. I just let the movie play, and I picked up the journal.

Elvis was singing “She Thinks I Still Care.”

The handwriting was tiny and not easy to read, but I finally found the place where Keats had stopped.

If
you’re ever curious to see Annette and Celeste in action, catch the movie I
Love Las Vegas.

If you’re ever curious to see Annette and Celeste in action, catch the movie I Love
Las Vegas.

Elvis is in it, so it’s still around, mostly on late-night TV.

It’s all there:

Dr. Fraudulent telling Annette that psychoanalysis is just the care of the id by the odd.

Annette asking Celeste if she’d like to join her secret sorority and Celeste saying she hoped it wouldn’t interfere with her membership in the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Celeste announcing that Annette was on a seafood diet. She sees food and eats it.

And of course, her trademark:

CELESTE:
For sunburn or windburn, I turn to my Swinburne.

ANNETTE:
Oh, no, Celeste.

CELESTE:
Mr. Swinburne, you know me so.

ANNETTE:
Honey, we don’t want to hear those gloomy poems again. We want to be cheerful. There are young lovers in the audience.

CELESTE:
Hello, young lovers! … “I wish we were dead together today/Lost sight of — ”

On and on. (You’d think Nels’d never had an original thought!)

Ending with … the old song Annette used to sing to Nels when he was little.

“Seeing Nelly Home.”

And Celeste would interrupt and say …

“Who wants him home? He is a horse’s
derriere!”

The audience aboard the
Seastar
loved it.

Some of them who’d seen the act before had Snickers bars with them for Celeste.

Laura had to laugh despite herself. She whispered to Nels, “Does it make you furious when Celeste says that?”

“I could kill her,” Nels smiled back.

• • •

It was one twenty-six, close to her finale. Lenny was ready.

He was trying not to think about Nels or Laura while he waited for Celeste to be placed in the chair.

He was trying not to think about marriage, too.

When it had been a kind of faraway dream, it had seemed idyllic, but now that Nels was forcing it to happen way ahead of time, Lenny had cold feet.

He imagined all the
tsuris
he’d get from his mother because Laura wasn’t Jewish.

And he’d have to face Reverend Delacourt’s threats of vengeance, if not in this life then in the next.

Nels loved to orchestrate other people’s lives, didn’t he? Not other people’s, either … just theirs: Laura’s and Lenny’s. He’d probably arrange to be along on their honeymoon.

And if Nels had his way, and Lenny did propose right away, what would Laura remember about the night?

Six diamonds and a ruby.

Still … $50,000 was such an unbelievable amount to come Lenny’s way when he was only eighteen.

If he’d never met Nels, he’d probably be in some chorus line, or waiting tables as he’d been doing for months, hoping for a break … even a walk-on in an off-Broadway play.

Laura would probably have drifted away from him.

• • •

Suddenly Lenny heard the
Seastar
audience singing:

I was see-ing Nel-ly ho-oh-ome … I was see-ing Nel-ly —

The next thing Lenny knew, the dummy was in the chair.

• • •

Everything went without a hitch.

Lenny hung up the garment bag with Celeste inside and shut the closet door. He sat on the bed and lit a Kent.

He wouldn’t have minded taking the dummy out to look at her closely, but he’d promised Nels he would not do one thing that was not in their game plan.

Maybe later, before she was deep-sixed, he could admire the handiwork that had gone into creating her.

He sat there smoking, just beginning to feel the thrill of what was going to be possible now.

He put out the cigarette, walked across to the mirror, and watched his reflection give him a smile and a wink.

He’d pulled it off. No small thanks to Nels, and to the anger he’d felt toward Nels when he was back in the service room waiting to grab Celeste. That had helped defuse the fear.

His face glowed. He could have everything now. Let Nels give her the stupid Seven of Diamonds!

He gave his hair a swipe with the comb, then had second thoughts: mussed it, stopped smiling, made his eyes seem sad. After all, when he caught up with Laura and Nels, he was supposed to be still a little seasick.

Lenny squared his shoulders and set off for the next step: the ransom note he’d leave under Annette’s stateroom door.

She lived one deck above, near the Captain’s quarters.

Lenny went up there and in one quick motion bent down and gave the envelope a push.

When he stood up straight and started toward the stairs, he saw the Captain.

The Captain wasn’t supposed to be there. Nels said the Captain never missed one of Annette’s performances.

The Captain was coming out of his door with another
Seastar
officer.

From the looks on their faces, there was something wrong.

Part of the contingency plan was for Lenny to ask a silly question if he was seen someplace where he seemed out of place.

Make a point of it. If you were guilty of anything, you wouldn’t.

So Lenny said, “Oh, Captain, is the Jacuzzi nearby?”

The Captain looked at him.

There was something very, very wrong.

“What?” Lenny asked, because he had never seen a man just let tears roll down his cheeks.

“President Kennedy’s been shot in Dallas,” he said.

The other officer said, “He’s dead.”