12
“Okay, fill me in on this thing.” Sam flopped herself down in the pressroom beside the Inquirer.
“You noticed on the girls’ bios how they all do good?”
“Never seen such helpful little munchkins. Seeing Eye dogs, hospital hop-alongs, rest home regulars, funding for AIDS, they do it all. A pageant requirement, right?”
“Uh-huh.” The Inquirer was sucking down a giant lemonade. She looked a little shaky. “Since the pageant itself depends on jillions of volunteers to put together the shows on the local and state levels, mostly Jaycees, they’re real big on volunteerism. This scholarship’s winner is usually a girl who’s a victim. Like she had cancer and talks with cancer patients. Gave a lung to her brother, works with transplants—that kind of thing.”
“You’re sounding awfully cynical today for a pageant groupie.”
“I could use a brain transplant myself, if not a whole new head. Too much partying with those Texans. You missed some righteous hooting and hollering.”
“I can imagine. Did you have your stomach pumped last night or this morning?”
“I wish,” moaned the Inquirer. “I’d feel a hell of a lot better. Promise me you’ll go to the Old South Ball Saturday if I can wangle you an invite, so you’ll feel as bad as I do.”
Not a chance. But what was it?
“It’s the best of the parties. Right before the final judging, the Southern delegations put this one on. Complete with color guard in Confederate uniforms, flashing swords, stars and bars, hoopskirts, enough bourbon to drown in.”
“Must be hell on Miss Louisiana.”
“Would be. Except contestants don’t go. Press doesn’t either, usually. Let me know if you’re interested.” That said, the Inquirer snuggled down for a few winks while Barbara Stein went on about the award, volunteerism, and the wonderful young lady who was this year’s first-place winner.
Sam punched her awake. “Hey, hey, hey! It’s my girl! Rae Ann’s Miss Fruit of the Loom.”
Then Miss Rae Ann Bridges, Miss Dogwood Festival, Miss Georgia, and Miss America preliminary talent winner, stepped right up and took that microphone just like she’d taken the stage the night before.
“This is the proudest moment of my life,” she drawled, letting a little more of her Southern creep in than usual.
Sam knew that one. You turned it on and off with Yankees. A little was charming. A tad more, they thought you were mentally retarded.
“I don’t think there’s anything that could make me prouder. Even if I were to become Miss America, that moment just couldn’t make me any prouder and happier than this one.”
“You need a hankie?” The Inquirer gave it her mid-Atlantic drawl, her eyes still closed.
“Hey, I cry at AT&T commercials. The one where Mama picks up the phone and it’s her kid telling her he loves her. Doesn’t mean a damned thing,” Sam insisted.
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” The Inquirer leaned her head back on the top of her chair. “Tell me another one. That Franklin’s dying to jump over into my pocket. Why don’t you just go ahead and pay up?”
“Why don’t you go take an Alka-Seltzer? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go file this little tidbit.” This kind of thing kept up, Hoke was going to give her a raise when she got home, if she didn’t quit first.
*
Harry found Lavert at poolside, where the big man had commandeered a table, two lounge chairs, a waiter, and a telephone with two lines.
“What’s the matter? They didn’t have a fax?”
“Man’s working on it. He’s cool.”
“You tell them you’re James Bond?”
“Naw. It’s easy, you know folks in the business.”
“I thought you were getting out of the business. You better, if we ever hope to get a liquor license for Lavert’s.”
“Not the Joey business. The restaurant business. Nicest people in the world.”
“Great, Lavert. Now, could we get down to it here?”
“Stealing your pretty girlfriend’s money? That’s what you mean?”
“Winning our wager, yes.” He pointed at the phone. “What’ve you got?”
“Not much. A little something. How about you?”
“Zero. I started with Roberts’s office. They told me he was here in Atlantic City, judging the pageant.”
“And his house?”
“Answering machine with a message saying the same thing—like the man was real proud of himself.”
“Well, I put myself in touch with a couple of friends who have access to credit records—”
“Lavert—”
“And they said there’s been no activity on any of his charge cards or his bank accounts since yestiddy afternoon when he bought himself some suntan lotion, a new razor, and some rubbers at the Walgreen’s on Pacific.”
“But that couldn’t be right. What about his hotel bill when he checked out?”
Lavert grinned his run-around-the-tight-end grin. “That’s the little-something part. The man didn’t check out.”
“What?”
“Nope. He’s still registered. Which means he’s probably just shacked up with some lady somewhere, living off her.”
“But wait, man. I’d have to agree with Sammy on this one. Why toss over the pageant for some—”
“We don’t have to worry our pretty little heads about that. All we’ve got to do is find the dude alive and well. Isn’t that the bet?”
“Yeah, but there’s got to be some logic to this thing.”
“Man, you think there’s logic when a lady’s involved? Since when did a man be talking logic to his Johnson?”
Lavert did have a point there. After all, he was the man who’d ended up in the Angola State Penitentiary because he had fallen for a little girl named Sharleen, a maid at the Hotel Monteleone on Royal Street who had access to lots of pretty things in people’s rooms her ownself but asked Lavert would he be so kind as to carry them for her. It had been Sharleen who was screaming at the top of her lungs when the hotel security came busting into that last hotel room, Sharleen already had clean sheets on the California king: He’s the one, the one made me do it, said he’d beat me up, big old boy like him, little thing like me scared to death.
Lavert reminded Harry of that scenario in an attempt to convince him to cherchez la femme, and Harry’s face lit up like it was his birthday. “Shazam, Batman. You’ve led us to the source of all knowledge, inadvertently.”
“Lavert don’t inadvert, man. Tell me what brilliance I’ve zeroed in on.”
“Big Gloria. Queen of Monopoly Housekeeping, Big Gloria’s got her finger on the pulse. And she owes me.”