The Persian Pickle Club (10 page)

I wasn’t sure drinking in a public place was the right thing to do after a funeral. I felt self-conscious walking from the church to the Hollywood, past the Flint Hills Home & Feed, where all those farmers were gathered. Most of them stood with their backsides against the front of the store, each with one cracked high-top shoe against the wall, as if they were holding it up. Those who couldn’t find room to lean against the store sat on the edge of the wooden sidewalk, whittling and taking sneaky glances at ladies’ ankles. There was a lot of shifting around when Rita walked past.

“How do,” Butch Izzo said, touching the brim of his cap. He wasn’t any too nice-looking, with the hair growing half an inch out of his ears and the arms of his union suit hanging beneath his shirtsleeves. Rita wrinkled her nose and ignored him, but I’d known Butch all my life. So I took a licorice button from the paper sack he held out and told him I was sorry about his cow Bessie, who had gotten cut up in barbed wire and had to be shot.

“One of the family. It’d like to kill me when I done it. One of the family,” he said.

“Is he talking about Mr. Crook or his cow?” Rita asked when we’d gone on past. She giggled, then put her hand through Tom’s arm and said, “Come on, ace.” I wished I could do that with Grover, but he’d cut off his arm before he’d hold hands with me in front of the Home & Feed crowd.

Not all the loungers were in front of the feed store. Some were in the Hollywood. It had been a saloon way back, then became a candy store and restaurant when Prohibition was passed. Of course, everybody knew that was just a front for selling illegal whiskey. In those days, you’d have taken your life in your hands to order food in the Hollywood. The fib about it being a cafe was just so the sheriff would have an excuse not to raid the place. He never did, except every once in a while when he had to to keep up appearances. Mostly, he liked having all the drunks in one place, where he could keep an eye on them.

Now that Prohibition was over, the Hollywood was a tavern again and had been brought up-to-date. In addition to the long walnut bar and the varnished wooden booths behind the door, where people sat when they didn’t want to be seen, there were cocktail tables and a jukebox. Rita seemed right at home as she sat down at a silvery table in the middle of the room and told Tom, “Order me a Manhattan, will you, honey?”

She took a package of Chesterfields out of her purse. Tom struck a match for Rita, and she stretched her neck, lit her cigarette, and blew out a cloud of smoke. Tom lit his cigarette, then held the match out for Grover, who had rolled one of his own. “Three on a match,” Rita said, shaking her head. I guess I looked stupid, because she explained, “It’s bad luck.”

The men at the bar turned to get a glimpse of Rita in her maroon silk dress and matching lipstick. One muttered, “Hey, kiddo!”

“If those mashers don’t stop eyeing you, I’m going to give somebody a punch,” Grover said to me, and I squeezed his hand under the table. He knew as well as I did that they weren’t staring at me in my crepe funeral dress and my mother’s felt hat with the cherries on it. They made me look like a dumpy black salamander.

I didn’t know what a Manhattan was, but I wish I’d taken a chance and ordered one instead of a root beer, because it was so pretty. Hanging over the edge of the glass was a bright red cherry like none I ever saw growing on a tree. Rita took it out and bit off the fruit, which she rolled around inside her mouth before swallowing it. Then she wound the stem around her little finger. “This is the life,” she said, and Tom grinned at her.

“Almost as good as a bottle behind the corncrib,” Grover said, and we all laughed, although I knew Grover would rather sit next to a corncrib any day than in the Hollywood. He hated being inside almost as much as he hated dressing up. He’d left his suit coat in the car. Now he rolled up his shirtsleeves and loosened his tie.

When I looked at Tom, I remembered what Grover had said about him not being a farmer anymore. He wore a dark blue suit that hadn’t come out of the Spiegel catalog and a hat tipped back on his head like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “Remember when we used to sneak in here and buy a pint?” he asked Grover. “It’s a good thing we were always too short on money to buy any more. A quart of that stuff and we’d have died a wicked death.”

“Queenie always liked it,” Grover said.

“I did not!”

“Just about as much as rhubarb pie,” Tom said, nudging me in the side with his elbow and laughing.

Grover didn’t laugh, however. He put his elbows on the table, which wobbled, so he fished some wooden matches out of his pocket and stuck them under the short leg.

“This is a swell place,” Rita said. “It’s like the cocktail lounge where I worked.”

“I thought you were a waitress in a cafe, the Koffee Kup Kafe,” I said. “With
K
’s.”

“Oops,” Rita said, giving me a naughty glance. “You caught me. I was a cocktail waitress at the Pair-a-Dice in Lawrence. Tom’s folks would have had a fit if they’d known, so I had to make up a story.” Rita used the tip of her maroon fingernail to get a piece of tobacco off her tongue. Then she finished her drink and said, “That hit the spot. Order me another, would you, Tom? Funerals are so damn depressing.”

Tom called to the waitress and made a circle in the air over our table.

“I would have found a reason to stay home if the
Enterprise
hadn’t asked me to do a story on the murder,” Rita continued.

“You already did a story when they found the body. Why would anybody in Topeka care about what happened to Ben Crook?” Grover asked.

“Because it was murder. This is what’s called a follow-up story. Murder in a wheat field is big news.”

“Cornfield,” I corrected her. “Ben was buried in a cornfield.”

“I don’t think that’s an important detail.” Rita kicked off her patent-leather slippers and stretched out her legs, resting her feet on the chair across from her. Tom slid his arm around her shoulder. I wondered if she was getting drunk, but I wasn’t sure, because women I knew didn’t get drunk, not even on New Year’s Eve.

“Rita thinks this could be a major story, right?” Tom said.

“Right. My big break. It’s called a scoop,” Rita said, pausing while the waitress set down another Manhattan and a root beer. Rita bit off the cherry again, then tied the stem into a little knot and held it up to inspect it. “Who would have guessed when I started writing those dinky stories for the paper that I could become a star reporter?”

“Why would you want to stir things up?” Grover asked her.

“Because it’s news. People have a right to know. Besides, he was a nice man. Everybody says so.”

“Ben Crook?” Grover asked.

“Righto. Dandy-nice old Ben.” I was pretty sure Rita was drunk.

“He thought the sun rose and set on Ella. Best husband in the world,” I said.

“Ben Crook?” Tom asked. “You mean the Ben Crook they just buried?”

“He loved Ella,” I said.

“For Christ’s sakes, Queenie, Ben Crook was a son of a bitch,” Grover said. “Ask anybody in this room. Ask Eli Broom over there. Don’t you remember him telling us how he’d worked a month for Ben and then Ben wouldn’t pay him his wages? Ben was so cheap, if suits were selling for a dime, he wouldn’t buy the armhole of a vest.”

“If anybody deserved to get his head bashed in, I’d put my money on nice old Ben Crook,” Tom added. “He was the meanest bastard in Harveyville.”

“Ella loved him,” I insisted.

“You keep saying that,” Rita said. The waitress came over with more beers for Tom and Grover. I took the menu that was stuck between the salt and pepper shakers in the center of the table and opened it, reading the short-order list for hamburg steak and ham and eggs.

“You want something, honey?” Grover asked, but I didn’t. I just wanted to change the subject, but there was no stopping Rita.

She took a sip of her drink and turned to Tom. “Tell me about old Ben.”

Tom snuffed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray that had
SMOKE OLD GOLDS
on it before he replied. “There’s not much to tell. He was one of three—no, I guess it was four brothers, and not a single one of them was worth a pinch of manure. Let’s see. Wilton got killed by a runaway team. Dimick passed out drunk one night and froze to death. John got into a fight with Ben and took off, and nobody ever heard from him again.”

Tom paused to shake a Chesterfield out of the pack. “Hell, if Ben was still around, I’d put my money on John being buried out there. It wasn’t beyond Ben to kill his own brother. They were all mean and big and dirty. They scared the hell out of me when I was a kid, and I wouldn’t care to run into any of them on a dark road, even now.”

Tom lit his cigarette and shook out the match. Then he removed his hat and set it on the table, brushing a piece of dirt off the brim. “I remember Mom saying once that everybody told Ella she was nuts to marry Ben, but I guess she was crazy for him. You never can tell what a woman sees in a man.” Rita cocked her head and caught Tom’s eyes, and he put his cigarette into his mouth so he could put his arm around her again. “Maybe they did love each other like Queenie says. All I know is, he was as ornery a man as I ever met, and cheap, too. Grover’s right about that. Why, I guess he’d skin a louse for hide and tallow.”

“Remember that cow he sold Prosper Judd?” Grover put in. “Ben Crook sure lived up to his name that time. The cow died before Prosper got her home, but Ben wouldn’t give him his money back. He said it served Prosper right for being the dumbest farmer he ever met. Prosper was mad enough to kill him.” Grover stopped and thought about what he’d said. “I don’t mean that literally. Prosper wouldn’t kill anybody. He was just mad, that’s all. I think the two of them made up eventually, probably for Ella’s sake.”

Rita tied and untied the cherry stem until it broke in half, and she dropped the pieces onto the floor. “I’ll ask the sheriff about Prosper when I interview him. I’m going to do a bang-up job with this piece. Maybe I’ll even solve the murder and get a job in Topeka as a reward. It surely would not make me cry to leave Harveyville. How about that, ace?”

“I think we better get home, because if Dad finds out we’ve been boozing it up in here, he’ll get madder than Ben Crook ever thought of being,” Tom replied.

“Well, I like that! Around here, we can’t do anything unless we get Tom’s father’s permission,” Rita said. “I made the mistake of telling him I liked beer, and now he thinks I’m wicked. That’s what he told Tom, anyway.”

Rita wasn’t finished, but Tom said, “Aw, honey.” Rita stopped talking and pouted instead.

The waitress returned and asked if we wanted more drinks, but Tom told her no and pulled his billfold out of his back pocket. Grover put out his hand and said, “Your money’s no good here. It’s my treat. You save that fifty cents for a vacation.”

As we got up to go, Eli Broom waved at us. “Did you folks come from Ben Crook’s funeral?” he asked. Grover nodded, and Eli said, “That Ben was a dead ringer for the devil. I’d like to shake the hand of the fellow that killed him and buy him a Pepsi-Cola.”

“That so? Well, don’t look at me,” Grover said.

“I sure wish I knew who done it. Hell, I’d buy him a whole damn cardboard carton of Pepsi-Cola.”

“If you’ve got any ideas, you tell my wife here,” Tom said. “She’s going to solve the murder. She’ll bring in Public Enemy Number One.” He let out a big laugh, and so did Grover.

Rita took her reporting seriously. So I thought their joking about it would hurt her feelings, but it didn’t because Rita took my arm to steady herself, winked at me, and said, “Men, huh?”

She stumbled and said, “Hell, damn!” in a voice so loud that a woman sitting in the last booth, the one behind the door, looked up at us. The booths were high, and she’d had to raise her head to see over the top. When she spotted me, she scrunched down, and all Rita saw was the top of her hat. “That looks like a member of the Persian Pickle Club over there,” she said, slurring her words. “She’s with a member of the traveling salesman profession, no doubt.”

We all laughed at the idea of Mrs. Judd or Opalina Dux sneaking into the Hollywood Cafe to make time with a drummer, although, to me, the joke wasn’t funny. That’s because the woman in the booth was indeed a member of the Persian Pickle Club. She was Velma Burgett.

I
was seated at the kitchen table, watching Sonny eat cold pancakes, when I looked out the window and saw Velma far off down the road. I knew as sure as Monday was wash day that she’d be my second visitor that morning.

Every day just after breakfast, Sonny showed up with the cream can and an appetite for anything we had left over. I’d gotten into the habit of making extra just so there’d be plenty for him. This morning, it was buttermilk hotcakes with syrup.

“Did you see the dead man?” Sonny asked me. He poured syrup out of the can, which was shaped like the hired man’s shack, into a spoon and let it run off the spoon onto the pancakes. He licked the spoon, then licked his hand where the syrup had dripped on it.

I shook my head and wondered how Sonny knew about Ben Crook. But I suppose everybody in Harveyville had heard about Hiawatha finding the body, so it wasn’t a surprise that the Massies knew, too. “Did a turkey buzzard fly over your head? Is that how come you know about the dead man?” I teased.

“No’m. When the turkey buzzard flies over, it means you’re going to find you a dead snake.” Sonny looked at me as if I was feeble. “I heard Pa talking. That’s how come I know. The preacher lady told him.”

I’d begun clearing the dishes off the table, but I stopped at that and turned around. “Who?”

“The one with them spectacles that pinch her nose. She come to the house ‘cause she heard about Ma’s quilts and was wanting to buy one. She offered Ma a five-dollar bill for her Road to Californy, but Ma told her it weren’t for sale. Then she says to Pa, ‘I bet you’d sell it if’n I was to give you seven dollars.’“

The Massies needed every penny they could get. Still, I thought it was hateful of Lizzy Olive to tempt them to sell Zepha’s most prized possession. “Did your pa do it?”

“Sure is hot,” Sonny said. He went over to the icebox and took out an ice cube and rubbed it over his arms. Sonny liked ice cubes better than almost anything. He put the ice on the oilcloth and took another bite of his breakfast while I waited. I wouldn’t have to repeat my question, since nothing ever got by Sonny, but he wouldn’t reply until he was good and ready. “Pa said, ‘She told you once, and I tell you again, that quilt ain’t for sale.’“

I smiled at Sonny. “What did Lizzy Olive say to that?”

“She called Pa an old sinner and said it was a shame Jesus died for people like him. Pa got her back. Pa says, “Died? I never knowed He was feeling poorly.” Sonny laughed, and I had to smile.

“Then she put her nose up high in the air and told Pa he’d end up like the dead man that nigger found. Pa never did like preachers much. Me, neither.” Sonny didn’t volunteer the reason why. Instead, he put his face close to the platter and shoveled another pancake directly into his mouth, then licked the syrup off his arm. He looked up when he heard footsteps on the porch, expecting to see Grover, I suppose, and when he spotted Velma, he rolled up the last pancake, shoved it into his shirt pocket, picked up the ice cube, and shot out the door so fast, he made Velma blink.

“Is that the squatter boy?” Velma asked, squinting at Sonny. He’d made it as far as the grindstone and was perched on the iron seat behind it, peddling, making the stone turn to beat the band. He stretched his neck like a goose so he could see us.

“That is our neighbor,” I corrected her, then wondered if Velma would think I was on my high horse. Velma couldn’t help it if she was as nosy as Nettie and Tyrone. She was their daughter, after all. Even if she had come to tell me some made-up story explaining why she was at the Hollywood Cafe with a married man, she was my guest. I had no right to treat her as anything but company.

Since I’d decided to be polite, I set down Sonny’s dirty dishes in the sink and fluffed up my hair. “I’m glad to see you, too, Velma. I’ve been looking for an excuse to make another pot of coffee. If I’d known you were stopping by, I’d have made a coffee cake.” I filled the kettle and turned on the gas.

Velma narrowed her eyes, considering whether I meant what I’d said or was being sarcastic. She didn’t reply, but looked around the kitchen instead and said, “You’ve got it real nice here.”

She was right about that. My kitchen was a great deal nicer than Nettie’s, which had a smoky old cookstove and no water inside. She had to carry water from the pump in the yard. Club members didn’t rub it in when they were better off, however, so I said, “It’ll do,” and measured out the coffee. “Of course, the dust gets into everything, even the inside of the refrigerator. Last week, when I churned the butter, it looked like I’d peppered it. Grover calls this the ‘dirty thirties.’“

Velma didn’t reply, so I stopped trying to make conversation while she wandered around the room, picking up things and looking at the bottoms as if she was hunting for price stickers. She turned over the salt cellar, spilling the salt on the floor, and said, “Oops,” but she didn’t apologize. I wiped up the salt to keep it from pitting the linoleum. This wasn’t going to be the best visit of my life.

When the coffee was ready, I got out two mugs, then reconsidered and took down the good cups and saucers that I used at Persian Pickle. “Rita calls coffee ‘Java,’ “ I said, sitting at Graver’s place at the table. Velma was already sitting in mine.

Velma didn’t reply.

“Have you met her?” I asked.

“She’s kind of stuck on herself, if you ask me.”

“Why, she’s no such thing. She’s nice. She’s my best friend.”

“Lucky you,” Velma said.

I shut my mouth and pushed the sugar bowl toward her.

“I guess you know why I’m here,” Velma said.

“I suppose so.” I looked Velma in the eye, because I wasn’t going to let her wiggle out of this. Velma took a spoon from the spooner on the table and helped herself to the sugar bowl. When she leaned over, I noticed there was an inch of dark brown on either side of the part in her hair, before the bleached yellow started. Velma took a sip of coffee, and because I can’t abide a silence, I said, “I don’t carry tales, if you’re worried about it.” That wasn’t exactly true. I gossiped as much as anybody else, but I made a point not to
start
the gossip.

Velma studied me over the rim of her cup. “You got it real nice,” she said again, and this time, I knew she wasn’t talking about my kitchen.

All of a sudden, I felt sorry for her. “I wish you’d come to Persian Pickle,” I blurted out, meaning it. “We have an awfully good time. I think you’d like it fine if you tried it.”

“Maybe if I was an old married lady living way out in the country like you, I would,” she said.

“Why, we’re not all so old. I’m twenty-four now, same as Rita. You must be almost twenty-one.” It surprised me to realize that Velma was so close to my age.

“I’m not married and settled down. What’s there for me to talk about at that dumb club?”

“I bet you will be before long. Married, I mean.”

“Fat chance. He’s already got a wife—the man I was with. He’s not a four-flusher. He told me about her right off. I expect you know about him being married.”

I nodded.

“Did Aunt Forest Ann tell you?”

“Married men have a look to them,” I lied, since I hadn’t seen any more of him than the back of his head. I didn’t want Velma to know Forest Ann had told on her. “I forgot to offer you the cream. Grover and I don’t take it in our coffee.” I rose, but Velma put out her hand.

“Dad don’t know about him,” she said. “I hope you aren’t going to tattle.”

“I won’t. Tyrone would blame Nettie, and I wouldn’t hurt your mom for the world,” I said, which was true. Except for Ella, Nettie had it the hardest of any of the members of the Persian Pickle. Tyrone wasn’t mean, exactly, but he was dumb and shiftless and self-righteous.

Velma nodded, and I got up to get the coffeepot, studying Velma as I poured hers. She was hard around the eyes, but she was a good-looking girl, and I said, “Velma, with looks like yours, you don’t have to take up with a married man. There are plenty of boys right here in Harveyville who would be crazy for you if you gave them half a chance.”

“Name one.”

I opened my mouth to do just that, but I couldn’t think of a boy her age still living in Harveyville who wasn’t married or a hired man. Finally, I remembered one. “If you can overlook him being a cripple, there’s Doyle Tatum,” I said. “He’s real nice.”

“I wouldn’t marry no ugly man.” Velma laughed, and her face grew soft for a minute. “You see what I mean? I had real hopes for Tom Ritter, but then he went off and married that Rita person.”

I tightened my grip on the coffeepot and wondered just what Velma meant about having hopes for Tom, but I wouldn’t ask about a thing like that. “Oh,” I said.

“We were having a real good time last summer, and I thought…” Velma hunched over her coffee. “I don’t suppose you knew about it. We didn’t exactly go out to the Hollywood or even to the picture show, ‘cause Tom didn’t have any money. Maybe he didn’t want his dad to know he was seeing me, on account of my reputation. We just talked and stuff down by the creek.”

Velma waited for me to say something, but I was wondering why Tom hadn’t told us about Velma. I was also trying to figure out what she meant by “stuff.” Maybe she was making the whole thing up.

When I didn’t reply, Velma added, “Well, I don’t have much use for a man that doesn’t even write me that he got married. I let Tom know that, too, the last time I had a word with him. At least Charley—that’s the man I was with at the Hollywood— told me right off he had a wife, even if she is so crazy jealous that she’d kill him if he asked for a divorce. That’s why I respect him. He’s honest. He’s going to get me a job in Coffeyville.”

Velma was as dumb as Tyrone if she believed all that, but I knew I couldn’t talk any sense into her, so I said, “It’s none of my business.” Then I changed the subject. “Your mom sure did make a good pineapple upside-down cake for Ben Crook’s funeral. I’d like to have the recipe.”

Velma opened her mouth to say something. I think she wanted to ask me to promise to keep my mouth shut about Charley. But she thought better of it and said, “Why do you think whoever killed Mr. Crook buried him out there next to the road?”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. What would I know about the way murderers think?”

“Charley knew him. He told me Ben Crook cheated him out of fifty dollars once, and the first chance he got, Charley was—” Velma stopped and stood up. “I’m obliged to you for not saying anything.” Then she paused to gulp the rest of her coffee and slipped out the door just as quick as Sonny had, leaving me to wishing I’d gotten a look at Charley.

After Velma left, I hurried to wash and dry the dishes because I’d promised Rita I’d help her with her story for the newspaper. Like Grover, I didn’t see why she wanted to write another one. It meant more heartache for Ella if people kept talking about Ben, but Rita was set on it. Rita didn’t want to interview folks on the telephone for fear of somebody listening in, so I volunteered to drive her around, thinking she might mention my name in the newspaper, and wouldn’t that be something!

Rita showed up before I’d finished drying the dishes, and I thought even people in a big city like Topeka didn’t get as many visitors through the kitchen door in one morning as I did.

“You’re a peach to do this, Queenie,” Rita told me as I poured her a cup of the coffee I’d made for Velma. In her blue suit with a long skirt that was just the latest thing, and a stylish little hat with a feather on it, Rita looked like she’d stepped right out of the Mrs. Newlywed’s store in Eskridge.

“Good Java,” she added, tightening the screw on her double-decked eardrops. She took out a list from her pocketbook. “These are the places I want to go. I thought I’d write them down so you can plot our trip. No use wasting gas.”

There were only three places written on the paper, so it didn’t even qualify as a list. Rita could have just remembered them, but maybe that wasn’t the way reporters worked. The three places were Ella’s field, where Ben had been buried, Mrs. Judd’s house, and the sheriffs office. I asked why she wanted to go to Mrs. Judd’s.

“Ella’s staying there, isn’t she?”

“You mean you want to ask her questions for your story? Why would you do a thing like that?”

Rita put down her cup, which had a bright lipstick smudge on the edge, and looked up at me. “Don’t be so surprised. Reporters always talk to the grieving widow.”

“It doesn’t seem very polite to me. We want Ella to get over Ben’s body being found. I don’t think it’s a nice thing to ask a friend about.”

“I’m a reporter, Queenie, and reporters don’t have friends.”

The remark sounded like something Rita had read in a book instead of a thing a real person would say, but I was shocked anyway. “That’s the worst thing I ever heard. Nothing’s more important than friends.”

Rita laughed. “Oh, Queenie, it’s all right. This is just business, as they say. I can’t see any difference between me interviewing a friend and Grover selling Ella a cow.”

That didn’t sound right to me, either, but I wasn’t sure why. “Grover would
give
her a cow if she needed it,” I said.

“I know that, but it’s beside the point. Are you ready to go?”