Thorazine Beach (8 page)

“No.”

“How much do you know?” I asked.

“Truly, Jack, next to nothing. I asked, but you know Barbara Jean—she did all the talking.”

I nodded. “Way less informative than it was long.”

“She came in at four that day,” Eileen said. “And we weren’t out till seven.”

“And she said…?”

“Like I say, next to nothing. There was something she wanted you to ‘look into’.” A big pair of air-quotes. “Said she wanted a real…”

“Real what?”

Her mouth made a tiny smile. “‘Gumshoe,’ is what she said, Jack.”

“That the actual word?” I felt my eyes roll.

“As God is my witness, Jack.”

“Those only exist in fiction,” I said. “As well you know.”

“Not in
her
mind.”

“I need a trench coat for this?”

“And a fedora hat as well, I expect, Jack.”

“Jesus.”

“You might need him, too.” Her face was dead serious.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t,” Eileen replied, “
mean
…anything. I just have this… feeling.”

So did I.

I stopped for ice cream on the way back to the Benbow. Breyers. Vanilla bean. “Got to be the vanilla bean,” Nikki had once told me. “No bean, it’s just, well…vanilla.” That and chocolate sauce. That’d perk the girl up, I thought. I’d noticed that morning the swelling had already gone down considerably. Her face was still, half of it anyway, one giant bruise, and it had worn pain, even in her sleep.

I unlocked the door as quietly as I could, thinking she might still be sleeping. I felt for the overhead light switch, thought better of it, turned on the little desk lamp I’d bought.

No Nikki. Just a note.
Thank you, Jack, for everything. Just a little cozy in here, is all. Don’t worry—I’ve got somebody
…
Love, Nikki
.

“Somebody.” I had my own idea who.

I thought about tucking the ice cream—a gallon’s worth—in the fridge. Then I thought better of that, too, hoofed it over to the office, found LaKenya, plucked a smile from somewhere, and passed it off as a gift I’d dreamed up just for her.

My consolation: ramen noodles in the microwave.

“Jack.” It sounded like:
Hey, you
.

“Nikki?”

“Yeah. Listen, Jack—”

“How’d you get my number?”

“Phht,” she said. “I’ve had it for years.” Swelling must be down, I thought—the muffle was gone from her voice.

“You never gave me yours.”

“Oh, I’d never give
that
out. Not to just anyone.”

Sigh. “So…”

“Anyway, she’s here.”

“Where?”

“At the counter, idiot.”

“Who?”

“
You
know.”

“No. Who?”

“Too classy for you, buster.”

Some kind of titter in the background.

“Name?” I asked.

“Some uppity Collierville chick. Kind of a babe.”

“This uppity Collierville chick have a handle?”

“Some triple-barreled, three-ring circus kind of a thing. Southern as pecan pie.”

“Wouldn’t be Barbara Jean McCorkle, by any chance?”

“Bingo.”

“She want to talk to me?”

“No, Jack. She drove all the way in from Hooterville for burnt coffee and stale cheesecake.”

“Well, put her on, then, please.”

“Hell, no. I’m not burning my cell minutes on
you
, bozo. Thing is, Babs, here, wants to
see
you—not listen to your dulcet tones through the crackle of AT&T.”

“Was she
expecting
me?”

“She is now.”

“Well, she didn’t have an appointment.”

“She got one now.”

“How?”

“Told her I’d make one.”

“What are you—my private secretary?”

“You wish. But I’m not wearing that French maid’s outfit.”

“What a relief,” I said. “The butler will appreciate that. When’s the appointment?”

“Now, fool. You’re late. Get your ass in here.”

Click.

My ass got.

Barbara Jean McCorkle, all five-ten of her, rose to greet me. Six-two or three, if you counted the heels. And they did get my attention—she’d been a flat-soled, long-sleeved, buttoned-to-the-neck church lady, last I’d seen her. I knew she was just shy of me, in age, and you have to be something to carry off a leather mini if you’re that vintage. And she was
something
, I had to admit. Different look, for sure. Fine vintage.

She’d saved the two soft seats in the corner, and motioned me into one as she sat in the other, a little round table between us. Her blouse gapped, and I started thinking: boob job.

“So…” She leaned in. “Jack.” She smiled. “Lovely to see you.” She did something throaty and wonderful and nineteen-thirties with the ‘o’ in
lovely
.

“You too,” I said lamely, sure I couldn’t invest my own
lovely
with what she’d given hers.

“Um…your voice is different, Barbara Jean.”

Smile. “Speech. Elocutions lessons,” she said with obnoxiously immaculate articulation.
Private
lessons, she told me, with more than a touch of pride on private. A Miss Mary Hail-sham, she told me. Old school. “England, you know,” she said in a want-to-be-British way.

Nikki wanted
in
on this, it was apparent. Last time she’d indulged anyone with table service was Mac’s cup of tea a few days back. And before that, months ago, a guy in a wheelchair—and even he got a sigh and a roll of Nikki’s eyes. Quite the conversation they’d had, Nikki and Barbara Jean, apparently. “Another latte for you, BJ,” Nikki said, setting it down. “On the house. And you, Jack? My treat.”

“Oh, my,” I said. “Your discretion, Nikki. Thank you.”

Nikki banged off something resembling a curtsy—for my benefit, I recognized, a kind of pantomimed sarcasm.

“‘Bee-Jay,’ “Barbara quoted. “Charming, isn’t she? I haven’t been called that in years. Never used to like that, till now—it always felt so…”

“Unseemly?” I filled in.

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said.

Was that a faint blush on those cheeks?

“But I like it from
her
,” she said.

I smiled blankly.

“Lovely girl.”

I held that smile.

“I love young ladies like that,” she said. “It’s the spunk, I think. Have you known her long, Jack?”

“Been spunked for several years, now. Since about the time—”

“Oh, yes, since…well,” she said in a let’s-not-talk-about-it way.

“Right.”

“So…”

“Yes.”

“Jack, it’s been a very—”

“Long time, indeed,” I said, nodding. I wanted to ask something in the what-the-hell’s-the-point-of-this vein, but nothing I was composing in my head matched the woman before me, even less the one I’d remembered. I’ve got rude, somehow, in my old age.

“Well, Jack, I suppose you’ve been wondering why…”

Thank you, Jesus
. “I had been.”

“Well,” she said. “I did want to say hello, did want to bring you a casserole”—she laughed at that, turned serious. “And talk to you about…something.”

Portentous. High control needs, my old shrink would have said. It was meant to make me ask. “And what is that something, Barbara Jean? Exactly.”

“Blackmail,” she said with surprising directness, looked me square in the eye.

I looked back, eye to eye. “Details?” I said.

“That’s the gumshoe in you,” she said, smiling again. “I’d have thought you’d say, ‘Oh, Barbara Jean, I’m
so
sorry’—something like that.”

There she was, the Barbara Jean of old—always needing to correct you on
something
.

“I do, of course, feel that way. Must be a terrible—”

“It is!”

I leaned in, the way she had, nodding to Nikki’s bringing my coffee. A tall Americano, I noted, recalling that ‘tall,’ in Buck-Speak, means ‘short’. Uselessly small, criminally unflavourful. No cream, no sugar, and not a thing I’d ever drink voluntarily. Nikki avoided my look.

“Barbara Jean, you’re clearly here to ask my help, my advice, something. In order to help, it’s details I need. Not meaning to be rude or presumptuous, but that’s where we need to go.”

“Shall I begin at the beginning?” She looked like she was about to start back in high school.

“Start in the middle,” I said. Then, remembering Eileen’s description of their talk, I decided I’d better manage this more closely. “What—exactly—are they blackmailing you
for
? Paint me a real tight picture.”

My control-tactic registered on her face unpleasantly. “All right,” she said, a little coldness creeping in. “You want pictures…” She reached into a slim leather case set on the floor, pulled out a file folder. “Here.” She slapped them down on table. “You’ll want to make sure we’re not seen or heard,” she said.

I looked. Listened. No one else inside the place but Nikki. I asked her to switch the PA to jazz and turn it up some.

Opened the folder. First picture: The girl couldn’t have been more than eleven, even allowing for the smaller sizes you see in Latinas. Couldn’t tell whether she was pretty or not, in any sense a guy like me could relate to. First, I’m attracted to women, not girls, usually somewhere between the wrong side of forty and Barbara Jean’s age. Second: This poor wee thing was painted up like an aging transvestite in an Amsterdam red-light window.

I looked at Barbara Jean, trying to appear expressionless. “Go on,” she said, motioning.

Two: Thai, Malaysian, something. Seventeen, maybe. Poured into a blue lycra tube dress with a red-lips kisses motif, and—I didn’t
get
this part—clutching what looked like a toilet brush. Bad lighting. Amateur shot. And a facial expression that rolled resentment and embarrassment and perplexity all into one.

Three: Filipina, looked like. Mid-teens. Pretty, this one—but in a sweet, baby-sister kind of way. She was squeezed into something that looked like a prom dress for the gal voted Most Likely to Be Busted for Soliciting. She looked, nonetheless, still innocent. Smiling, wide-eyed. As if all she knew were that the dress was the prettiest thing she’d seen in her life, she was grateful to be given it, and she felt like
somebody
wearing it.

Eighteen, twenty pictures in all. Every one an eight-by-ten glossy. Interestingly, some colour, some black and white. Some digital, and some, it was clear, good old fashioned film enlargements. Every one a girl or young woman—almost all something other than Caucasian—dressed to, as it were, impress. Impress in one particular way, to one very particular kind of audience.

You be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy
…
and they’ll be nice to you
.

“You’ve called the police, of course.”

“Oh. No. Certainly not,” she said in the most matter-of-fact tone. “You see, they’re in on it.”

One last picture. A guy. Balding. Middle-aged and a bit beyond. An odd cross between a man with money, confidence, and the kind of guy who sells aluminum siding. I looked at her.

“My husband,” she said. “Clayton.” A faint smile that came a little late.

I smiled back, equally faint, hoping my smile didn’t convey what had just occurred to me: He was the guy I’d seen with His Eminence, at the New Nam King.

“So…blackmail,” I said.

She nodded.

“Blackmail of…?”

“I’m…not sure.”

“Blackmail
for
…?”

“Well, money, of course,” she said in a silly-question way.

“How much?”

“They haven’t asked.”

“Who’s ‘they,’ Barbara Jean?”

“They…haven’t said.”

“No calls, no note?”

“Um…not…not as yet.”

“And I am investigating…
what
? Exactly.”

“It’s a bit…” I was beginning to hate the way she paused as if searching for words, and the way I’d caught myself doing it, too. “Delicate,” she said.

“Always is. So…”

She hesitated.

“Look,” I said, sharply enough to regret it. I re-set my tone. “What I mean, Barbara Jean, is, I need to know where I’m looking, who I’m looking at, and what I’m looking for.”

She nodded, gathered herself. “The where is determined by the whom, and the whom is…”

I ventured a little, to fill it in. “Clayton,” I said. She looked back at me, expressionless, and I knew I was right. “And what am I looking at the whom
for
?”

Kleenex. Face turned away. Incipient tear. I half-thought it was contrived. But only half. “I think he may be, how can I put this…implicated…in something.”

Christ, we’re all
implicated
. I breathed. “Barbara Jean,” I said. “I need to know whatever it is you know, if I’m going to do anything.”

She sighed. “There’s been a good deal of money about the house, lately.”

“What does your husband do?”

“He’s in real estate development,” she said. “Federman Properties. He owns it now” I knew the company. A few strip mall units—you’d see their signs here and there. Some properties they owned, some they just brokered. Big enough business for a guy to make a hell of a good living. But not
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
.

“And what—I presume there’s
something
you haven’t told me yet—is this thing he’s ‘implicated’ in.”

“As I said, Jack, there’s been a good deal of money about the house.”

“By which you mean…”

“Cash,” she said behind a sip from her cup.

“And by ‘cash’ you mean…?”

Straight out, without a blink: “Briefcases full.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Like, enough to get you to Barbados and back?”

“Enough to get you to the moon and back.”

“Does he know you know?”

She shrugged. “Things haven’t been…” A bit of the old Barbara Jean came back, the Southern woman ever in search of a discreet way to put things. “There are inevitable strains in a marriage.” A deliberated pause. “You understand, Jack, I think, hmm?”

Jab. “Yeah, I do.”

“I’m sorry, Jack. Forgive me, but…whatever did happen between you and … Lynette?”

I wasn’t willing to play. “Inevitable strains,” I said. “Now, the million-dollar question. What’s with the girls?”