“Who won?” I asked, unwilling to hear a blow-by-blow recitation.
“He did,” Caron said smugly. “Miss Thackery was fuming, but she wasn’t about to agree to help him herself and risk breaking a fingernail. We have to go to the dress rehearsal tonight and the performance tomorrow night, and then Mr. Valens will meet us on campus and let us try on costumes.” She sank down and leaned her back against the railing. “We are going to look utterly cool. We still have to dress as bar wenches, but Mr. Valens says there are all kinds of off-the-shoulder blouses and tight leather bodices. He even says they have special padded undergarments to make you look ...”
“Brazen?” I suggested.
“Yeah, brazen. We’re going to keep them here until the fair. Inez is convinced that if her mother sees them in advance, she’ll freak out and make Inez wear a sweater. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve always felt like Raggedy Ann instead of Barbie. This time I may catch Louis Wilderberry’s eye, especially when Rhonda’s tiptoeing around in a green leotard, tissue paper wings, and pointy ears.”
Her eyes were watery, I realized with a flicker of guilt. I could still remember the horrid Halloween school carnival when she was in first grade. Despite my better judgment, I’d allowed her to dress as a prosecuting attorney, while her friends all dressed as princesses and ballerinas. Surely she deserved to exact her revenge after ten years.
“As long as Miss Thackery doesn’t bear a grudge, you may wear whatever you like,” I said. “And without a sweater. Whatever happens between Inez and her mother is none of my business.”
Caron got up and gave me a hug. “Thanks, Mother. The rehearsal’s at six, in the town hall of some retirement village near Hasty. Mr. Valens said it’s likely to last until midnight because nobody has a clue what to do. The regular performance will be over at ten. He offered to drive us, but I’d rather take the car if you don’t mind. He’s kind of creepy.”
“Why do you think that?”
She made a face. “I don’t know how to explain it. He looks all meek and toady, but when he and Miss Thackery were arguing, I was afraid he was going to—to get violent and slap her or something. She must have seen it, too, because all of a sudden she capitulated and walked away from him. It was like he was simmering right below the skin. Inez said she didn’t get that feeling, but half the time she was staring at those biker people. There was a little kid, maybe four or five, who already has tattoos on his arms and hands. That’s child abuse. I mean, what if he’s really smart and gets all these scholarships and becomes a famous judge and is in line to be nominated for the Supreme Court—but he has a swastika tattooed on his hand? Or he’s short-listed to be president of Harvard? Somebody ought to call Social Services and have that child removed before his parents can really screw him up for life.”
“Go for it,” I said. “You’ll find the number in the telephone directory, listed under Stump County offices. They may want you to go with them to spot the child on the sidewalk. Last year the unofficial estimate was five thousand bikers, but it’s predicted that there will be more this year. It may take hours to find him.”
Caron’s lower lip shot out, which was as good as any response to a moral dilemma of this magnitude. “Well, somebody ought to call them,” she said as she went inside and slammed the door.
I stayed where I was. Caron called good-bye as she went out the kitchen door and down the steps to the garage. After a half hour or so, I went inside to watch the news. The local TV station had live coverage from Thurber Street, but to the reporter’s dismay, everybody appeared to be congenial and reasonably sober. She did her best by stressing the potential for destruction, disaster, and death should the situation deteriorate. I waited for her to suggest that viewers stock up on bottled water and batteries, but eventually coverage moved on to a goat show at the county fair ground.
I was debating which delectable gourmet dinner to nuke when the phone rang. I grabbed my drink, went into the living room, and picked up the receiver with only the mildest flutter of apprehension. “Yes?”
“Ah, Claire, I wasn’t sure I’d catch you at home,” Salvador said in a curiously flat voice, as though he’d have preferred that he hadn’t.
“I can leave if you wish. There’s rumored to be a lot of action on Thurber Street this evening. Nothing like a couple of thousand Harley-Davidson hawgs to stir things up.”
“No, I would like to talk to you—that is, if you’re not busy. I don’t want to interrupt if you have plans. I shouldn’t have called. It was a terrible idea, and I’m really sorry. We barely know each other. Why don’t I let you get back to whatever you’re doing?”
“Why do you want to talk to me, Salvador?” I said. “I am an exceptional conversationalist, I grant, but I am not a licensed therapist or an attorney. If you’re suggesting some sort of libidinous liaison, you seem to have several willing candidates.”
He took a moment to respond. “No, nothing like that. You’ve already made that clear. I just need to talk to someone who’s…well, a disinterested party. Someone who can be objective. I don’t even want advice. No, that’s not true, but I have to make the decision. Talking to you will force me to sort out the situation in my own mind. Everybody wants to slap a label on me: I’m rich, I’m a womanizer, I’m a celebrity, I’m a cynic. So maybe I am all of those things, but that’s not all I am. Right now I’m just a very confused, forty-year-old guy without a clue what I should do.”
He sounded so miserable that I felt my dislike of him beginning to waver. “And there’s no one else you can talk to except me?”
“I sent Hoshi and Dazai back to their group in Iowa. They were too hungover to protest. Gudgeon’s gone caving in Kentucky. As for the ARSE group, there are obvious complications.” He exhaled loudly. “Forget it, Claire. It might do me good to figure this out on my own. If I’m still around, I’ll see you at the Renaissance Fair next weekend.” A dial tone suggested the discussion was over.
I replaced the receiver and took a swallow of scotch. His final remark could have meant he might go out of town, or it might have been an oblique reference to his demise. His remark about “obvious complications” was less than enlightening. I was in an awkward position, which is my least favorite kind. I clearly could not call Lanya or Anderson for a chat about Salvador’s mental stability. He’d tried his best to impress me with his urbanity and wit, but that did not rule out the possibility that his ego was not invulnerable. Inside even the most pretentious twit is an inner child, although in Salvador’s case, said child was likely to have been bound and gagged at an early age.
“Drat,” I muttered as I put the epicurean delight back in the freezer. I couldn’t call Luanne, since she and some of her gay friends had decided to check out biker chic. By now they were undoubtedly sharing a pitcher of beer with men named Fat Daddy and Mongo. I looked for Salvador’s number in the phone book, but he was not listed. Caron had the car. Farberville’s only attempt at public transit was a fleet of two taxis, and they were in perpetual use by drunks needing a ride home or escort service employees making house calls.
I switched on the TV, but news had been replaced with a game show in which celebrities attempted to be adorable by exposing their ignorance. Competition was fierce. I flipped through more channels, all of them apparently showing commercials all the time. Why bother with a cast and a script, when there are SUVs to be sold, germs to be eradicated, and pills to be popped? I gave up and tried to read, but somewhere in the corner of my mind I was waiting to hear the scream of a siren as Salvador was rushed to the hospital. Of course, it was more likely that if he had done himself grievous injury, his body would lie undisturbed until Gudgeon came back with a bag of bat guano.
It wasn’t that I simply didn’t want to get involved. I really, most sincerely didn’t want to get involved. I disliked Salvador, but in a passive way. When the Renaissance Fair was done, the only person in ARSE I would ever encounter was Fiona Thackery— unless I could arrange to be in the ICU on the night of parent- teacher conferences. That would require planning. I was thinking of other potential escapes when the phone rang. My book tumbled to the floor as I leaped up and grabbed the receiver.
“Are you okay?” I demanded, perhaps more shrilly than necessary.
“Are you?” asked Peter.
I caught my breath. “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You sounded frantic.”
“I am never frantic,” I said coolly. “I may have been perturbed on occasion, but had I been frantic, my hair and clothing would have been in disarray and I would have been shrieking. That is hardly seemly behavior, is it?”
“No, I suppose not,” he said, sounding a bit bewildered for some reason. “So how are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you. Are you still at spy camp?”
“Tonight’s the final exercise. We have to crawl around in the dark and infiltrate the terrorists’ campsite. Why any terrorists would set up camp near Farberville is a little hard to imagine. They’d be much more comfortable in a motel.”
I sat down on the sofa and reached for my drink. “Then tomorrow you’re going to Rhode Island? Your mother must be excited.”
“I’m taking the shuttle to La Guardia. She’s sending the car to pick me up. It’s a three-hour drive, if we don’t get caught in construction. I’ll call you when I get there, probably around five or so.”
“Are you going to bounce around the backseat of the limo all • by yourself?” I asked, then bit my lip.
“No, I’ll sit in the front seat with Witbred, just like I did when he drove me to nursery school. My mother has always believed he’s been with us all these years out of devotion to the family. The truth is that he takes advantage of free room and board so that he can spend all his money at the racetrack. His loyalty lies with his bookies.” Peter paused, but I wasn’t about to come to his rescue. “I don’t know when Leslie’s coming out to the house. She’s in Paris right now, and my mother is uncertain when she’ll get back. It’s not a big deal, Claire.”
“Did I imply it was?”
“The jury’s out, but rumor has it they’re leaning toward a conviction on all counts. Is there anything I can do or say to reassure you that I love you and want to marry you? That Leslie’s no more than a part of my history? I don’t have to go to Rhode Island. I can be on a flight to Farberville tomorrow afternoon, and back in time for dinner.”
“No, Peter, you should go see your mother,” I said, trying not to sound like a martyr. Even though his offer had come promptly, it had lacked enthusiasm. “She’s been counting on it for a month— and if you cancel, she’ll assume that I’m manipulative and spiteful. Just make sure she intends to put you and Leslie in separate bedrooms, preferably on different floors. Better yet, why don’t you stay with Witbred in the servants’ quarters?”
“I’ll ask him if he wants a roommate,” Peter said. “So what’s happening there? When I spoke to Caron a couple of days ago, she didn’t make much sense. From what I could make of it, she’s going to work in a tavern. You’ve been out every night.”
“That sums it up fairly well. Of course Caron doesn’t know about Carlton’s illegitimate son, or the writer who may or may not be committing suicide as we speak, or the goth who doesn’t like to be asked things. Do you have any opinion about the color of the chrysanthemums in Mrs. Jorgeson’s garden? We have a choice between red and yellow. Oh, and there’s a house on the market in the historie district. I drove by it this afternoon on the way to the grocery store. It needs work, but it has bay windows and a wide front porch.”
The distraction was a success. We chatted cheerfully until he ran out of time. After a few murmurs of an intimate fashion, he rang off in order to slather on black greasepaint, suitably dark clothes, and penetrate the mock enemy encampment. In that it looked as though I would be a blushing bride within two months, I decided to treat myself to a facial. I put on the teakettle, changed into my bathrobe, twisted a towel into a makeshift turban, and did a bit of slathering of my own with green goop. I was housebound for the evening, and blessedly free of Caron’s sardonic allusions to wicked witches with pea-green complexions and warts on their chins. I still worried about Salvador, but not so much that I was willing to walk two miles in the dark to make sure he was all right.
I was in the kitchen adding a dollop of milk to my cup of tea when I smelled smoke.
I
stepped out on the small screened porch at the top of the back steps. The smell of smoke was more intense. Everything seemed peaceful in the neighborhood, with the exception of the faint sounds of music and motors from the Thurber Street festivities. The smoke lacked the pleasant redolence of meat charring on a barbecue grill, but it could have been from burning trash or dead tree limbs. I went to the bottom of the steps and, wincing as my bare feet met gravel, continued slowly out to the side street. My eyes stung as the air grew more acrid. I could hear no sirens in the distance, or see flashing lights at the bottom of the street. I started down the sidewalk. Calling 911 prematurely would not be popular, as I had discovered earlier in the summer.
I was about to give up when I saw the yellow glint of flames through the front windows of the blue and white house. Angle’s house. I ran across the street and onto the porch, and began to pound on the front door. According to Lanya, Angie had sprained her ankle, but the report might be out of date. If Angie had broken her ankle and required crutches, she might be trapped inside. The door was locked. I knew better than to break a window and send a fresh supply of oxygen to the fire.
My apartment wasn’t far, but the house next door was closer. I bounded over a bed of begonias, flapping my arms like a wounded goose. Lights were on inside, although the curtains were drawn securely. I began to beat on the door with my fist while pushing the doorbell. I was preparing to throw a potted plant through the window when the door opened a few inches and a face peered out at me.
“Get off my porch before I call the police!”
It was the woman I’d seen in the porch swing earlier in the week, and she was in an even nastier temper. “There’s a fire next door! Call 911 and make sure they get the address. I don’t know if anyone’s in there. The front door’s locked. I’m going around to the back to see if I can get in that way.”