The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star (26 page)

“A little late, ain’cha, Charlie?” Mr. Stevens had bushy white chin whiskers and wore sleeve garters and suspenders and a green eyeshade. “Y’ missed the morning mail run. Guess you stayed up too late last night with your out-of-town ladyfriend, huh?” He snickered. “I seen you and her, comin’ out of the picture show.”

Charlie bit his tongue. It didn’t pay to talk back to Mr. Stevens. “I’m a little late,” he acknowledged stiffly. “But no matter, so long as the papers go out tomorrow.”

“Oh, they’ll go out all right,” Mr. Stevens said. “But it may not be tomorrow. Tom Wheeler’s old car broke down halfway through his deliveries this mornin’ and had to be towed. May be next week before he gets it fixed. In the meantime, he’s puttin’ Old Fred to work.” Old Fred was Tom Wheeler’s horse, which he hitched to his buggy when his car wasn’t running. “The post office ain’t made of money, you know,” he added sternly. “The best we can do is the best we can do. And the best we got right now is Old Fred.”

Charlie nodded. There was never any point in arguing with Mr. Stevens. He had, once, and regretted it, when he learned that after their argument only half of the press run had reached his subscribers. Not that Mr. Stevens was nasty. He was just inclined to be irritable, and it was better to stay on his good side if you could, so he wouldn’t misplace your mailings—temporarily, of course. The missing papers had arrived two weeks late. The post office always delivers, Mr. Stevens had told him knowingly.

The newspapers taken care of (and their final delivery date resting on the weary shoulders of old, slow Fred), Charlie thought once again about lunch, but felt that he would rather accomplish his second objective without any further delay. He went out onto Rosemont, crossed Franklin, and walked past the Darling Savings and Trust to the second building on the block, Fannie Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux.

As he walked, Charlie’s heart grew lighter and his steps swifter, for he planned to correct the regrettable impression about his character that he had left with Fannie on Wednesday night. He wasn’t quite sure how he was going to do this—that is, exactly what he was going to say. But he was confident that the right words would come when he saw Fannie’s sweet, tremulous smile and felt the encouraging touch of her hand.

Now feeling a sudden rush of surprised eagerness and the unexpected warmth of actually
wanting
something, he took the wooden steps two at a time and grasped the brass handle to push open the front door.

But the door was locked. And in the window, there was a hand-lettered sign:

Miss Champaign Is Out of Town
Closed Until Further Notice

When the airplane topped with a half-naked Angel had disappeared back in the direction of the airstrip, Lizzy and Verna climbed into Verna’s LaSalle and headed for the Kilgores’ house.

Lizzy wasn’t very enthusiastic about the plan Verna had suggested. For one thing, they might be barking up the entirely wrong tree. After all, the main thing they had to go on was Raylene’s intuition, although it had already proved fairly powerful and was supported by a fact or two, such as the death of Mabel’s sister, Bess. But basically, they were operating on Raylene’s say-so, which might or might not be accurate.

Still, as Lizzy and Verna both knew, they didn’t have a whole lot of choices, so they agreed they should give it a try. And since Mildred Kilgore had the documents that were the key to the plan’s success, they would begin with her.

When they arrived, Lizzy was startled to see that Mildred’s eye looked a lot worse. It was turning purple, with green streaks and shadows, and was almost swelled shut. But neither she nor Verna were so impolite as to call attention to it.

Mildred was overseeing the boys who were setting up the tables in the garden and the girls who were working in the kitchen, but she was ready to take a few moments out to talk. They took glasses of iced tea to the back veranda, where Mildred could keep an eye on the boys. When they were settled at a table, Verna said, “We’ve got news, Mildred,” and told her about finding Lily Dare in Raylene Riggs cottage at the Marigold Motor Court.

Mildred shook her head as she listened, then gave a disgusted little
hmph.
“I’ll have somebody take her things over there,” she said. She stiffened her shoulders and raised her chin. “I may have to be civil to that woman tonight,” she said thinly, “but she’s not going to be sleeping here.”

“We can take her things,” Verna offered. “We’re driving past the Marigold on our way out to the airstrip. That way, you won’t have to bother.”

“Thank you,” Mildred said, slightly mollified. “I’ll be glad to have them gone.”

Then Lizzy told Mildred about the conversation she and Verna had had with Raylene at the diner that morning—most importantly, Raylene’s surprising story about Bess and Mabel Hopkins (aka Angel Flame), and Raylene’s hunch. And then Verna told her about their plan.

“We don’t know if it’ll work,” Lizzy said when Verna was finished. “But we think it’s worth a try. Of course, we’ll have to apologize if it turns out that we’re wrong. But that’s a small price to pay for the possibility of getting to the bottom of that nasty business of the letters and the checks. Don’t you agree, Mildred?”

Mildred wore a doubtful look at first, but she listened with a growing interest and when Verna and Lizzy had finished, she agreed that it was worth a chance. She went indoors, got the items they asked for, and came back down.

“I hope you won’t show these to anybody else,” she said, handing them over. “I’d hate for them to fall into the wrong hands. Darling is such a horrible place for gossip. Everybody would be talking about it.” She sighed and touched her eye. “As it is, I don’t see how I can face people tonight. What will I tell them?”

“If you want to tell them that you walked into a door,” Lizzy said sympathetically, “we’ll be glad to back you up.”

“Roger’s got a black eye, too,” Mildred said.

“And so does Lily Dare,” Verna put in.

Lizzy tried to think of something snappy, but all she could come up with was “I don’t think anybody will believe
three
doors.”

“I don’t think so either,” Mildred replied gloomily. She looked from one to the other of them, pushing her mouth in and out. “But I wonder,” she said. “What if each of you had a black eye? That way, none of us would stand out.”

Verna blinked. “You want
us
to whap one another in the eye just to—”

“No,” Lizzy said firmly. “We’ll do what we can to help, but that is
not
a good idea, Mildred.”

Mildred threw up her hands. “Well, it’s the only idea I have.” She stood. “I need to get back to work now. Black eyes or not, I have a reputation to uphold.” She sighed. “And from the looks of the bank account, this will be the last big party I’ll give.”

Back again in the LaSalle, Verna drove first to Lizzy’s house, where Lizzy went inside and got one of the fliers they’d printed up to publicize the air show and the Watermelon Festival. They made another stop in town, where they talked for a few moments to Buddy Norris, letting him know what they were up to and why—without spilling more of the private details than they could help. And then they drove out to the Marigold Motor Court and dropped off Lily Dare’s bag.

By this time, it was nearly noon, and the morning had turned into one of those glorious days that sometimes bloom in the middle of a hot summer. The air was cool (well, cooler than it had been, anyway), the sun was cheerful but not overbearing, and the trees and grass were the color of polished emeralds. A pattern of birds wheeled overhead, their wings flashing silver against the serene blue sky.

“Perfect weather for the Watermelon Festival,” Lizzy said happily. As they drove past the fairgrounds, she was glad to see that the ticket booth was in operation and decorated with a flock of tethered red, white, and blue balloons left over from Darling’s Fourth of July parade. The tents were all erected and the carnival rides were up. The merry-go-round was playing a cheerful hurdy-gurdy tune, the Ferris wheel was turning, and threaded through the hubbub Lizzy could hear the shouts of the carnies going about their work. The odor of fresh hot buttered popcorn filled the open car.

“I love the smell of popcorn,” Lizzy said. “Before we go back to Darling, let’s stop at the fairgrounds so I can have a look around. I want to be sure that the tent where Aunt Hetty will put our Dahlias’ garden stuff is set up and ready to go.”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Verna said grimly. “But we need to get this other business settled before we do anything else.”

She was staring straight ahead and driving more carefully than usual. Clearly, she was already concentrating on what they were planning to do. In Lizzy’s estimation, though, their scheme depended way too much on luck. It was a gamble, and Lizzy wasn’t optimistic. Raylene’s hunch could be completely wrong, and then what?

When they got to the airstrip, they saw that the airplane with its advertising banner had done its job, and then some. There was already a sizeable crowd, with cars, wagons, and bicycles parked along both sides of the grassy landing area and more arriving all the time. Dozens of onlookers—mostly men and boys, in farm overalls, work clothes, and battered old hats—were wandering across the grass or sitting on the hoods of their vehicles, the men smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and occasionally pulling a surreptitious flask out of a back pocket.

Rex Hart’s yellow Stearman, with a passenger, was already taxiing out to the end of the grassy runway, like an eager bird maneuvering to get airborne. Lily Dare was seated in the cockpit of the Jenny, and a young man wearing the team’s distinctive red shirt was helping Jed Snow climb into the plane for a ride. When Jed was securely buckled in, the young man ran around the front of the plane and pulled the propeller, then pulled it again. The engine caught, the propeller began to spin, and as the watching crowd cheered, Lily revved the motor and turned the plane to taxi for a takeoff, scattering onlookers from the field. A third plane, blue, with an American flag painted on its nose, waited on the grass to take on the next passenger.

Angel Flame had abandoned her red bathing suit and was dressed in tight-fitting white pants, the team’s red shirt, a blue spangled scarf, and lightweight canvas shoes—her aerialist outfit, Lizzy guessed. She was standing just inside the big sliding doors to the shed, next to a scale with a big sign on it.
Ride High for Only a Penny a Pound!
Angel weighed each passenger, noted his weight, took his money, wrote his name on a list, and handed him a ticket. From the length of the line, Lizzy guessed that people would be waiting their turns for airplane rides for the rest of the day—a good thing, as far as the Dare Devils were concerned. With three planes in the air, they ought to turn that profit Lily was hoping for.

Lizzy did a quick mental calculation. If the flights lasted twenty minutes, a plane could do maybe three flights in a little over an hour, if they turned the passengers around very fast. If there were three planes in the air, that would be nine flights an hour times—what? An average of a dollar fifty or sixty per flight? That would be thirteen, fourteen dollars an hour. If they could keep it up for six or seven hours, they could maybe earn a hundred dollars for a day’s flying. And if a hundred automobiles showed up tomorrow, that would be another hundred. Two hundred dollars.

She frowned. It sounded like a lot of money. But was it enough to buy fuel and parts and repairs—not to mention food for the flying team and ground crew and beds for the night, and for all the nights until the next air show? She thought of her comfortable little house, with her garden in the back, Daffy on the front porch, and plenty of food in her big G.E. Monitor refrigerator, and she shook her head. She had imagined that Lily Dare—the fastest woman in the world, a stunt pilot for Hollywood films—led a glamorous life. Now, she knew that wasn’t true. Once, she had envied the Texas Star. Now, no more.

Verna parked her LaSalle in the shade of a large oak tree behind the shed and waited beside the car. They had already decided what they were going to do, so when the line of eager airplane passengers had dwindled to a few, Lizzy went up to Angel, who was tucking a wad of dollar bills and a handful of coins into a purse that was fastened to a belt around her waist.

“Hey, Angel,” she said with a cheerful smile. “How about taking a break for a few minutes? I’d like to introduce you to somebody.” It was their good luck, Lizzy thought, that Verna had stayed in their room the previous night and left that morning before Angel got up, so Angel hadn’t met her yet. “She has a request for you, from one of your fans.”

Angel started to reply but was interrupted by the metallic roar of Rex Hart’s plane, coming in for a landing. A young man in a red shirt came up to her and yelled something into her ear. She pointed to a name on a list and the young man hurried off, in search of the next passenger.

“From a fan?” Angel asked in pleased surprise, when she could make herself heard. “Well, sure, Liz, I’d be glad do that. Let me just finish up these last few guys in line, and I’ll be right with you.”

Lizzy went back to join Verna under the tree. Overhead, they could hear the drone of Lily’s airplane. At the fairgrounds behind them, the music of the Ferris wheel joined the hurdy-gurdy of the merry-go-round in a pleasant circusy cacophony. “Do you think it will work?” she asked uncertainly.

“No way to tell until we try,” Verna answered, leaning against the car. “Anyway, we have nothing to lose.”

A few moments later, Angel sauntered toward them. Her bobbed brown hair was wind-tossed, and her tight white pants emphasized her lithe, athletic figure. She was no doubt quite athletic and brave, Lizzy thought. Very brave—or very foolhardy. She’d have to be, to perform on the wing of an airplane or on a trapeze slung underneath, hundreds of feet above the unforgiving ground, especially after she had seen her sister die in a fatal fall from Lily Dare’s airplane.

Lizzy introduced the two women. “I’m glad to meet you,” Verna said easily. “I’ve heard a lot about you from my cousin, Annie. She’s a real fan.” Verna, Lizzy knew, had no cousins named Annie.

“That’s nice,” Angel said with a chipper smile. “Is she the one Liz told me about?”

“She sure is,” Verna replied. She reached into the car and picked up Lizzy’s flier from the seat. “Annie lives in Florida. She’s watched you do your aerial stunts and would dearly love to have your autograph.” Verna held out the paper. “This is one of the fliers we had put up around town to publicize the air show. Maybe you could sign it for her?”

The flier in Verna’s hand featured photos of Lily Dare and Rex Hart and a blurred photograph of Angel, doing a handstand on the wing of Hart’s airplane, just as she had done earlier that day, in the air above the courthouse square. Verna added, “Could you sign it ‘To Annie, with all best wishes from your friend, Angel’? I know she’d love that.” She made a little face. “It’s a lot to write. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh, golly, no,” Angel said gallantly. “People are always begging Lily and Rex for their autographs. It’s swell whenever somebody asks for mine. And just in case, I always bring my favorite pen.”

She fished in the purse on her belt and pulled out a silver fountain pen. Seeing it, Lizzy’s eyes widened and she held her breath. Could it possibly be? If it was, it was certainly lucky—more than they’d had any right to hope for!

Angel uncapped the pen and scribbled swiftly across the flier,
To Annie, with all best wishes from your friend, Angel Flame.

Lizzy let out her breath in a long puff. “Oh, my,” she said, admiring the inscription—and blessing Angel Flame’s desire to show off. “Purple ink!”

“Yeah, I like to use it for letters and stuff,” Angel said carelessly. “I have some pink paper, too, which I use for letters sometimes.” She handed the flier back to Verna. “Kinda gives it a personal touch, you know?” she added. “A little bit of individual flair. Not too many people use purple ink and pink paper.”