The Recycled Citizen (8 page)

“You’re taking an awful risk, though, you and Max.”

“And we’re all accessories,” said Jem cheerfully. “Not that I personally give a hoot.”

Theonia said she didn’t give one, either. Dolph snorted.

“What risk? Be sensible, Mary. We can’t even guarantee that bag belonged to Chet. I got a thousand of them, all alike, and at least half are gone already, God knows where. The police had the bag before they turned it over to us. They didn’t find any heroin in it, so why should they think we did? If it was in fact Chet’s bag, did he know the dope was in it? And what if he did? Suppose he bought a dose from some street peddler just to see what it was like? What are the police supposed to do about that, haul his body out of the coffin and ship it off to a methadone clinic? You didn’t tell that chemist where you found the heroin, Max?”

“No, I only said I’d run across it in a case I’m working on and wanted to find out what it was.”

Dolph gave his wife a satisfied nod. “There you are, dear, nothing to worry about. Hell, I’ve run risks a darn sight more hazardous than this one.”

Jem sneered. “Like what, for instance?”

“Like the time Uncle Fred took a notion to reform the girls at Madame Jolene’s Palais de Joie. Osmond Loveday damn near had a heart attack over that one. Jolene took umbrage in a big way, and Jolene had connections. Before she was through, she’d come within a hair of getting both Uncle Fred and me jailed on a charge of moral turpitude. I beat that rap, and I’ll beat this one if I have to. My head is bloody but unbowed, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Really?” said Jem. “I’m always so put off by the disgusting general effect that I never notice the details. Bloody but unbowed, you say?”

While Dolph was trying to think of a sufficiently crushing comeback, Theonia defused the situation. “I have always felt strongly that dear Dolph is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul. Jem, surely you must agree to that?”

Under duress Jem agreed. The captain of his soul cleared his throat and took charge of the quarterdeck.

“So as far as I’m concerned, it’s a case of damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Redfern says we’re better off not publicizing the will, except for the mandatory announcement of probate; but that won’t hinder us from starting our fund drive, and the sooner the better. Mary wants one section open by Christmas, if it’s humanly possible.”

“If we don’t, we may find we’ve lost some of our members by Easter.” Mary sighed. “The shelters get filled up so fast, and there are so few rentals available at prices our members can afford. Half of them wind up sleeping in the bus terminals. How soon do you think we can hold our auction, Sarah?”

“How soon do you want it?”

“I’d say tomorrow if I could, but I know it’s impossible. I don’t know anything about arranging those swell affairs. What’ll it be, next month sometime?”

“How about Saturday night?”

Mary gasped. “This coming Saturday? Are you serious?”

“I don’t see why not. We’ll call it a secret surprise auction. Goodness knows the patrons will be surprised enough when they see some of that stuff we’re going to sell. I’ll hand-letter an invitation tonight, take it to one of those instant copying places first thing in the morning, and we can have them in the mail tomorrow night if Mr. Loveday has his list together and Theonia will help with the addressing. Uncle Jem, you’ll be auctioneer. I can’t think who could do a better job.”

“Neither can I,” said Jeremy Kelling, “but I’m supposed to be dining with the Whets Saturday night.”

“Tell them it’s an emergency situation and that they’re to bring their guests and come along. We’ll serve wine and things. Dolph, you still have all those crates of champagne Great-uncle Frederick ordered for that victory celebration he never got to hold back in 1978 because his candidate lost. It ought to be drunk up, anyway; champagne doesn’t keep long. Theonia, has Mariposa any relatives we can hire to be waiters and runners?”

“My dear, we shan’t have to hire anyone. Charles knows scads of out-of-work young actors and actresses who’ll be thrilled to do it for a free meal and a chance to mingle with the right people. It would be divine if they could all come in costume.”

“There are lots of old clothes in the attic,” said Mary. “Gay nineties, roaring twenties, all that stuff the hand-me-down boutiques are peddling nowadays. We could have the actors put on a fashion show and auction off the clothes.”

“That’s a marvelous idea.” Sarah got up to fetch paper and pencil. “I’ll make a list, like Aunt Emma. And I’ll phone her this evening and tell her to come and bring her orchestra.”

Emma Kelling did in fact have her own band of musicians. Among the Kellings this was not considered unusual.

“If I know Aunt Emma, she’ll charter a bus and bring all her friends. That would be lovely.”

“Provided she leaves Mabel home and doesn’t expect us to pay for the bus,” Dolph grunted.

“Of course Aunt Emma wouldn’t ask you to pay,” Sarah retorted. “When has she ever? And I’m sure she’ll have the presence of mind to tell Cousin Mabel everybody’s expected to spend wads of money and give a large donation besides. You know Mabel, that will keep her away if anything would. Isn’t it lucky Great-uncle Frederick never went ahead with that notion of his to turn your ballroom into an indoor skating rink? That will be the perfect place to hold the auction. Is the room in usable condition, I hope?”

“It’s clean and empty, if that’s what you mean,” said Mary. “Nobody ever goes in there except to brush down the cobwebs. I don’t think it’s been used much since Dolph’s Aunt Matilda gave up fencing.”

“That was after she speared Uncle Samuel straight through the brisket,” Dolph reminisced fondly. “Remember, Jem? You and I were hiding behind the draperies and made the mistake of yelling touché! Uncle Fred thrashed us both with that rattan flyswatter he brought back from Tierra del Fuego.”

“Who cared?” said Jem. “It was worth every welt. Ah, the golden memories of a misspent childhood.”

“You did a damn sight more misspending than I ever got a chance to. All right, Sarah, have it your own way. I daresay if we spread the word around and send out plenty of invitations, we’ll get enough customers to make the evening worthwhile, even if it is awfully short notice. Do we have to ask Appie?”

“Why not? She’s wallowing in money, and I can’t think who else would be likely to buy those seaweed mottoes.”

“Darling Sarah,” cooed Theonia, “always so ready to see the best in everyone. I shall be delighted to help with the addressing. Shall I also make myself responsible for the decorations and the buffet? Perhaps I might also choose the costumes for the models and plan the fashion show. Brooks would love to pitch in, too, I’m sure. He can arrange the merchandise for the auction and set up the chairs.”

“I’ll send Egbert to help,” said Jem, nobly making his ultimate sacrifice for the cause.

“You will not,” said Mary. “We’ve got Genevieve and Henrietta to clean the house and fix the food. Once we get some kind of idea how many chairs we’re going to need, we’ll call the rental place and get their men to set them up. Theonia, you can do some flower arrangements and help me hostess on the night and pick out the clothes for the fashion show if you want. We can get plenty of people from the center to lend a hand. Harry Burr would, I know.”

“Is he that nice-looking man who was reading the church magazine?” Sarah asked her. “I noticed him at the center.”

“Must have been. I can’t think who else would. And that sidekick of his.”

“Billy Joe McAllister?” Dolph shook his head. “I wouldn’t trust that bird within two hundred feet of a bottle.”

“Who said anything about bottles? Billy Joe can lug the knickknacks downstairs, can’t he?”

“I don’t know that I’d trust him with a knickknack, either, not if he thought he could pawn it for the price of a drink. What about that new feller, Ted Ashe? He looks husky enough.”

“What you can see of him for dirt,” Mary sniffed. “Ted would be fine if you could get him to take a bath first. We do have a shower at the center,” Mary explained to the others, “but some of the members don’t seem to have any clear idea what it’s for.”

“Bad as those whelps of Lionel’s,” Dolph grunted.

“Worse, because our folks have had a heck of a lot longer to get dirty in,” Mary agreed cheerfully. “I’ll leave it to you, dear. If Ted shows up too ripe, we can always keep him outdoors to park the cars. I’ll grant you Ted would be better than Billy Joe. He’s a lot younger, for one thing, or looks to be. I’ve been wondering why he comes to the center at all. If Ted would clean himself up, I should think he could get a steady job as a night watchman or something. Oh well, no use trying to arrange other people’s lives for them. We gave that up the week after we opened the center. Now, dear, don’t you think we’d better head for home and let Sarah start her dinner?”

M
AX SAT DOWN ON
the edge of the bed and began admiring Sarah’s nightgown. “Morning,
angela mia.
How’s it going?”

“Mother and child are doing nicely, thank you.” Sarah sat up and took the glass of orange juice he’d brought her. “What got you up so early? Did you have to call Pepe Ginsberg again?”

“Oh yes. He’s deeply touched to know I still care. Pepe sends you his compliments the most respectful, by the way.”

“How kind of him. Is he getting anywhere, do you think?”

“He sounds as if he’s hot on the trail. I only hope it’s the right trail. As for getting up early, I didn’t. Nor did you, which doesn’t surprise me. You sat up half the night lettering that invitation to the auction, remember?”

“So I did, and I’d meant to have it all printed by now. I must get going. There are also the stamps and envelopes to buy, and I have to pick up that list of names and addresses from Mr. Loveday before we can start the addressing. I do hope I wasn’t overoptimistic, rushing Mary into this. It is awfully short notice.”

“Ah, you’ll get a decent crowd. Did Emma say she’d come?”

“She called back shortly after you went to bed to say she’d rounded up fourteen patrons, a flute, a bassoon, and a viola da gamba so far. She’s going to keep trying, bless her. Marcia Whet’s bringing the Tolbathys and a few more, and no doubt Aunt Appie will drag along a bunch of her cronies. They won’t know what it’s all about because she’ll have got the information mixed up, but no matter. If we don’t raise enough at this auction, we’ll hold another. At least it’s a start, and it will give Dolph and Mary something besides that awful Chet Arthur affair to think about. Are you planning to attend the funeral, by the way? It wouldn’t hurt for one of us to put in an appearance, don’t you think?”

“I do and I am. I’m also going to see whether I can get any sort of line on that forty thousand dollars. The police could trace it better than I, but I’m not ready to tempt fate by alerting them yet.”

“No, dear.” Sarah picked up his wandering hands, kissed them both—Max had wonderful hands—and put them firmly away from her. “Not now, I really must get up. Do you think you could manage to start the teakettle boiling? Only put some water in it first this time.”

“How much?”

“Never mind.” She ought to know better by now than to turn Max loose in a kitchen. “I’ll be right there.”

Over at the boardinghouse Theonia would have already presided over a gargantuan breakfast buffet of eggs, fruit, creamed salt fish, ham, bacon, toast, hot rolls, muffins, and perhaps even baked hominy grits. In the apartment Sarah rejoiced that she no longer had to cook those breakfasts and poured cereal from a box.

They were neither of them dawdlers. Max ate his cereal standing up while he made some more expensive calls to agents in faraway places with strange-sounding names like Taormina and Meddy Bemps. Then he kissed his wife and was gone with the wind. Sarah made her simple toilette, whisked the cups and bowls into the dishwasher and made sure her artwork was still in the big envelope she meant to take with her, because life had taught her to take nothing for granted. Since what she could see of the sky looked a bit iffy, she put on a raincoat and felt hat and set off across the Public Garden. There was a copy shop near Arlington Street that she’d often patronized back when Aunt Caroline was alive and forever pestering her to do bulletins for one civic organization or another.

The shop was in a basement, halfway down a narrow alley which in Boston passed for a full-grown street even though unloading trucks and piled-up trash waiting for the collectors made it all but impassable. The stairs down from the pavement seemed steeper than Sarah had remembered them, but of course she hadn’t been carrying a passenger then. She waited until a messenger had been dispatched on his rounds with a pile of letter-sized gray cardboard boxes and a secretary wearing a businesslike tweed suit and high-heeled red sandals with flurry pink ankle socks had got a handful of graphs duplicated, then handed her invitation over the counter.

“Cute.” The operator smiled at Sarah’s lively artwork, picked up a ream of the India buff paper she’d specified and started the machine.

The swish-swish-swish of the emerging copies was pleasant; the crisp reproduction of her neat calligraphy and her saucy cartoon of Uncle Jem as auctioneer was satisfying. Sarah paid the modest bill and picked up her own gray cardboard box. Now to get the envelopes and collect the list. Brooks would buy the stamps; he loved being asked to do errands in a worthy cause. She was halfway up the stairs when the yelling began.

Nobody down in the shop was paying any attention; probably they heard plenty of yelling from the alley. Why should she let it bother her? Nevertheless Sarah hesitated before opening the glass-fronted door to the street. In front of her she saw nothing but trash and trucks. The racket was coming from farther down, near the Berkeley end. She had a clear path to Arlington.

But Sarah didn’t go. She’d caught sight of the two people who were shouting at each other. One was the vigorous-looking middle-aged man she’d noticed yesterday at the center because he was so much dirtier than anybody else. This must be the Ted Ashe about whom Dolph and Mary had been talking the previous night. The other was a youngish woman with matted black hair and blue jeans tucked messily into clumpy laced boots, wearing a hairy brown poncho Sarah had seen only the day before. What in heaven’s name was Tigger doing, staging a public brawl with a member of the Senior Citizens’ Recycling Center?