Authors: Lynda La Plante
Lorraine was walking very unsteadily by the time she got back to Frangois, but she had another drink on the way back to the hotel, telling herself she’d sleep it offonce she got some black coffee inside her she’d be fine. She was feeling pretty laid-back now, smiling, but as they got closer to the hotel her mood began to plummet, and she hurled the Coke can out the window, swearing and muttering under her breath. Francois saw it all in the rearview mirror, saw her run her hands through her hair and lurch from one side of the seat to the other as he took the corners, not even at speed.
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink no more, Mrs. Page.”
She leaned forward, her face contorting with anger.
“Fuck off, who the fuck you think you are, tellin’ me what to do? Just drive the fucking car, that’s what you’re paid for, you son of a bitch.”
“Sure, lady, we’re almost there.”
He saw her stumble as she walked toward the hotel, saw her stop, smooth down her skirt and put on dark shades. She looked as if she was taking deep breaths before, straight-backed and head held high, she walked into the courtyard and disappeared behind the palms.
Lorraine found Rosie and Rooney sitting under the palms in the hotel courtyard.
“Where the hell were you two?”
she snapped.
“We could ask the same of you,”
Rosie replied angrily.
Lorraine sat down, kicking off her shoes.
“Working, that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“Well, maybe we have too,”
Rosie said, prodding Rooney under the table for him to say something.
Lorraine leaned her head in her hands and told them briefly what she had been doing, then stretched her arms above her head, yawning.
“Fryer’s right, we got to find out who made that doll.”
She signaled to the waitress.
“You want another beer, Bill, or are you drunk enough already?”
Rooney looked away, pissed off by Lorraine, but by no means drunk. Rosie watched Lorraine carefully; she hadn’t been sure at first, but now she was, she could smell the drink. Lorraine scanned the terrace from behind her dark glasses, her voice just a little too loud.
“Ruby Corbello is first on my list tomorrow. She was sacked from the Browns’ same day as Anna Louise arrived in New Orleans. Maybe, just maybe, she got the diary out of the polar bear, and that diary is very im-
LYNDA LA P L A IM T E 3D1
portant. It might be all we’ve got, it might also give us a clue as to who gave her that doll. And we have to find out when she got it. Did you check out that newspaper’date, Bill?”
The waitress appeared and Rooney was thankful; he hadn’t checked it out, and judging by Lorraine’s mood there would have been trouble. She ordered black coffee and a sandwich.
“So, Rosie, you get the Corbello address?”
Lorraine listened and lit a cigarette, her foot tapping on the table leg in mounting anger as Rosie told her what they had done.
“I don’t recall telling you to fucking go and see Edith Corbello, or make up some stupid story about wanting a doll made. Jesus Christ, I’ve never heard anything so dumb! Gonna make it tough for me going there now. Why? What made you do it, Bill? I’d have thought you, of all people, would have known better. You’re supposed to be the professional, for Chrissakes.”
“You mean like you?”
Rosie said quietly.
“What?”
“I can smell it, Lorraine.”
Rooney frowned, looking first at Rosie, then at Lorraine.
“I had some liqueur chocolates.”
Lorraine laughed humorlessly, too loud. She peered over her shades.
“You fouled up, Bill.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged.
“It’s not good enough!”
Lorraine snapped.
Rosie was getting really uptight.
“We waited here for you, and when you didn’t show, as we had agreed, and we foJp out you’d left the Caleys’ house, we didn’t know what to think. So don’tyou get uptight with us, it’s you that should have come to the hotel and told us what you were doing.”
“Piss off, Rosie, go on, just fuck off, will you? You’re getting on my nerves.”
Rosie pushed back her chair.
“I’ll do just that, and maybe when you’ve sobered up we can have a proper conversation, like professionals.”
She marched off. Rooney looked after her, then back at Lorraine.
“She’s talking bullshit, so come on, what’s the matter, Bill? Lost your tongue as well as your touch?”
Lorraine asked sarcastically.
Rosie was still within earshot and spun around.
“Leave him alone,”
she snapped.
“Oh, you talking for Bill now, are you? Well, tell me, Rosie, did he find out about the newspaper the doll was wrapped in?”
“Shit, I knew there was something,”
Rooney said uncomfortably, noticing that people at other tables were beginning to look at them.
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Lorraine stared at him.
“You search Nick’s room for the grisgris?”
Rosie looked at him and then at Lorraine.
“We should get her back to her room, Bill”
“I asked him a fucking question,”
Lorraine cut in.
“Well, did you find it or didn’t you?”
“No, no, I didn’t.”
Lorraine slapped the table.
“Why don’t you go up there right now and search? They’ll be renting it out any day, they might already have, so ask reception if they found anything.”
Rooney pushed his chair back.
“Right, whatever you say, but keep your voice down. Everybody’s looking at us.”
Rosie stepped closer to him.
“Don’t take this crap from her, Bill, she’s drunk. Can’t you smell it? Look at her!”
Lorraine had now got to her feet, knocking over her chair as she pointed at Rooney.
“It is what I say, Billy, and I wish the two of you would stop fucking it up. From now on, pleas’e just do what I tell you to.”
Rooney walked away from the table. He seemed depressed and heavy, and Lorraine knew it, but let him go. She hadn’t finished, and she couldn’t find her shoes. Now she turned on Rosie.
“You know, you got to stop playacting at this investigation business. It isn’t a game, it’s serious!”
“Oh, is it? That why you fucked Robert Caley? That was very professional! Now get yourself together and get up to your room.”
“At least I got developments, which is more than I can say for you two, bumbling around like amateurs. You’ve both just tipped off Edith Corbello.”
“But you said Fryer Jones
“
Lorraine slapped the table again, this time with the heel of her shoe.
“Rosie, I don’t take everything he said as gospel. He’s a stoned old bastard I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him. What I do take very seriously is that Rooney, as my backup, just blew it.”
Rosie pursed her lips. Sometimes she really loathed Lorraine, but before she could say anything, the waitress brought the coffee.
“He fucked you yet?”
Rosie blushed.
“Oh, come on, what’s all this? Being coy doesn’t suit you, Rosie, and the sneaky little glances that pass between you both, plus the pats and the sniggers, get on my nerves.”
“Maybe you’re jealous,”
Rosie snapped, meeting the curious glances of their fellow guests as Lorraine sat down again and reached for the coffeepot.
“Where’s my sandwich? I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich.”
The waitress tightened her lips and said it would be right there. Lorraine slurped at her coffee. “I’m jealous, jealous? Got to be kiddin’, Rosie. But you didn’t answer my question. Has he? Can he?”
She laughed, adding sugar to her coffee and spilling it down the front of her shirt. Rosie leaned close.
“That is my business, not yours, and you should apologize to him for speaking to him the way you did. In fact, you should take a good hard look at yourself, Lorraine, because what you are is a hard-nosed, drunken bitch.”
The slap came so fast it made Rosie stumble back. She clenched her fist to give one back but controlled herself. She could hear people murmuring all around her: everyone was staring at them.
“Now you’d better apologize to me, because we don’t need you.”
“No, just the cut of the million bonus that I’m doing all the work for. Don’t worry, Rosie, we’ll split it three ways, as agreed. That’s if we get it.”
Rosie couldn’t stop herself: she punched Lorraine in the shoulder, having meant to hit her face but missing. Lorraine took the punch and then slowly fell off her chair to the floor. Rosie made no effort to help her get to her feet.
“Yes, if. Anyone blowing our chances was you falling for Robert Caley.”
Lorraine took hold of the table to help herself up; she was beginning to feel sick.
“But even if we don’t get the money, it won’t matter to us, because we’ve got something else going for us, and it’s something I doubt you will ever have. We’re getting married, Lorraine.”
Rosie walked away, leaving Lorraine hoBhg on to the edge of the table. Everything was spinning, blurred and Ifnfocused, and as the waitress returned with her sandwich Lorraine passed out.
Rooney saw Rosie standing by reception and walked over to join her.
“I carried her up to her roomwell, me and the bellboy. She’s out cold,”
he told her.
Rosie nodded and passed him a computer printout of their account.
“She’s been putting it on the bill, look at it. Vodka, bottles of it.”
“Shit,”
Rooney mumbled.
“We’re going to have to dry her out, maybe try and find a meeting,”
Rosie said impatiently, taking her anger toward Lorraine out on Bill.
“Why did you let her talk to you that way?”
“Well, in some ways she was right, and, I mean, I knew something was wrong with her.”
“I could smell it as soon as she sat down,”
Rosie fumed.
3O4 “Well, I guess we just let her sleep it off and talk to her when she’s gotten herself together.”
“What if she doesn’t get herself together?”
Rosie snapped.
Now it was Bill’s turn to turn on Rosie.
“Then I take over and I mean take over, because I’ve had just about enough of her crap. I’m not prepared to lose my cut of the one million, even if she is.”
Before Rosie could apologize, Rooney had walked out, letting the swinging doors into the lobby bang behind him.
Lorraine had been violently sick and now had a headache to end them all. She had soaked a towel and packed it with ice, and was lying flat out on the bed, hardly able to raise her head from the pillow. She sighed, not knowing why she’d been so hurtful, so cruel. She’d make it up to Bill and Rosie tomorrow. Tonight she was too tired.
She tried, too, to digest all that she’d been working on that day: she must find out who made the doll. Find that out, and she’d know who gave it to Tilda Brown. She winced at the noise as the door opened suddenly and Rosie barged in and banged down a tray of sandwiches and a pot of black coffee.
“You are going to sober up,”
she said, pouring out a cup.
“You are going to get in that shower, drink all of this coffee, eat these sandwiches, and you are then going to accompany me to a meeting. I got an address and there’s one in an hour’s time.”
Lorraine began to cry, sniffing and wiping her face.
“Leave me alone, I’m not feeling well, it’s just something I ate.”
“Yeah, liqueur chocolates, you said. Lies won’t work, Lorraine, I know you were as drunk as a skunkin fact, the whole hotel knows. I’m surprised they didn’t ask us to leave. Now, sit up.”
“No.”
Rosie hauled Lorraine to her feet and shoved her fully clothed into the shower. Lorraine howled as the jets of ice-cold water hit her, yelling that she would kill Rosie, knife Bill Rooney, twist his testicles off. Her threats became more and more ludicrous, but eventually she stopped trying to fight Rosie off.
Afterward, Rosie helped her into a nightdress and forced her to finish the coffee and sandwiches, refusing to allow Lorraine to go to sleep until she had promised that she would attend a meeting the next day and sworn on the hotel Bible that she would not touch another drop of alcohol and that she would call Bill or Rosie if the thought even entered her head. Lorraine was apologetic now, weeping like a chastised child.
“I didn’t mean to do it, Rosie, I swear before God I didn’t. It was just Fryer offered me something at his place, I thought it was Coke. I give you my word I won’t touch another drink, all I need is sleep, please.”
Rosie sighed, cleared up the mess in the room and checked that there were no more liquor bottles. By the time she was through, Lorraine was drowsy, and Rosie sat beside her on the bed for a moment.
“You also got to apologize to Bill, you hear me? He really liked Nick and he took his death very hard. So first thing tomorrow you make up with himme, I’m used to it, but he isn’t. You were downright rude.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lorraine’s voice was like a child’s.
‘Yeah, you should be, with all we got at stake.”
Rosie stood up, and Lorraine held out her arms.
“Give me a hug, Rosie, please, I feel so bad about this.”
Rosie hugged her, then gave her a warm smile as she fluffed up her pillows.
“You sure test your friends, Lorraine Page.”
“But I’m a lucky lady to have them,”
Lorraine answered softly.
Rosie left her, thinking she was sleeping, but sleep wouldn’t come. Eventually Lorraine got up and looked at her messagesseveral of them were from Robert Caley. Part of her wanted to call him because if he asked her to she would go. It wasn’t enough to be hugged by Rosie, by a friend; she wanted to be really loved by someoneby Robert Caley. Why could Rosie and Rooney find comfort with each other whep she could find none? But she kept on making lame excuses why she shouldn’t call Robert Caley.
She opened her briefcase, taking out the Aled towel and opening it to stare at the grotesque doll. Someone had stlck the photograph of Tilda Brown’s face over the plastic doll’s head. Someone had glued blond hair to the cloth body, covered it in excrement and urine, and then that someone had taken a long thin pin and pierced it right through Tilda Brown’s face. That someone had to have access to a photograph. That someone had to know the curse would terrify anyone who believed in spiritual evil and its powers. Lorraine wondered if that person might be Elizabeth Caley, or even her missing daughter, Anna Louise. It might perhaps be Juda Salina or Edith or Ruby Corbello, or even, and she didn’t want to accept the possibility, Robert Caley.