Lucky Stiff Read online

  "That he'd killed my mom and dad." I felt Minerva's hand come to me under the table. She placed it on my thigh and I covered it with mine. I felt steadier.

  Trix murmured, "He had no idea."

  "I think he did."

  "What?"

  "I looked at the news pictures. His car was parked down the alley at least as long as it took a newspaperman to get there to take pictures of the burning building. Then a little later the car was gone."

  "Well, I don't know."

  "He could have raised an alarm when he heard my mom and dad screaming."

  "Well, I don't know. He sure didn't want your dad to die. Your dad was gonna give him that insurance money. No Marty Byrd, no insurance money. He was gonna skip out on your dad, I mean, that goes without saying. He had no intention of paying him that money back. But he wasn't gonna kill him. Didn't wanta kill him, for gawd's sake."

  "What happened afterward?"

  "Well, I stick around this motel in Sterling Heights. I change my hair and how I look. I go shopping. I eat at a restaurant. Watch TV in the room. Robert came to see me a couple of times. Bill came to see me quite often. I got nervous they'd run into each other. This was while the kid was at camp."

  "Duane, that would be Duane."

  "Yeah."

  "The boy whose mother you helped murder."

  "No, no, I wasn't even there when she died."

  Sudden rage blurred my vision. "You stupid puke! You helped kill her and then you helped cover it up!"

  I felt Minerva's hand tighten in mine. I wanted to smash Trix's face in. But I got ahold of myself because, more than that, I wanted her to keep talking to me. In a calmer way, I said, "You were, in fact, an accessory before and after the murder of Juanita Sechrist."

  Trix considered that. "I guess so. I guess I feel like I had something to do with it, even if I wasn't right there."

  Minerva's grip grew even firmer.

  I said, "The only thing that kept me from dying too was luck. And the Detroit Fire Department."

  "I'd say it was mostly luck," Trix reflected. "It usually is in these types of things. If you really think about it, Lillian, you're an extremely lucky stiff. Luckier than me."

  Ignoring that and keeping control, I said, "And then Robert double-crossed you."

  "Yeah. He got the money in his name. Who else's, right? The insurance company was suspicious, but they couldn't find any evidence of anything. They gave him the money, and he put it in an account right away. When I got in touch with him, he said he'd decided to keep the money all to himself. I thought it was a joke. I can still hear him laughing at me."

  "He double-crossed you before you could double-cross him."

  Minerva exclaimed, "A triple cross!"

  "Yeah, that was a good joke," I said. "There would've been no way for you to get the money. Same exact problem he would've had. Couldn't cry foul and run to the police."

  "No, no way. I trusted that bastard to play fair with me. That's what comes from being too trusting."

  I'd have laughed myself sick if we'd been talking about a crime other than homicide. I said, "So neither you nor Bill Sechrist got anything off those two $50,000 insurance policies."

  "That's right. What a couple a chumps, huh?"

  "I would use a different word."

  "Well, we got away with it, at least." A touch of pride came into her tone. "You can say that much for us." She sighed wistfully. "Your uncle got the fire insurance money for you, and I guess there was life insurance too."

  "Yeah."

  "You didn't hurt for anything growing up, then."

  Control. Control. I said, "I always had clothes and enough to eat."

  "Yeah. Well."

  "What happened in Florida then?"

  "Another fiasco. Bill'd always wanted to go to Florida. So that's where we met up. The kid was an inconvenience."

  "Duane."

  "A real inconvenience. That period of time in Florida was tough. You know, we fucked up big-time. But I was willing to stick with Bill Sechrist. I don't know what happened. I thought we'd do Florida for a while, maybe figure out something else to do to recoup that money we never got. There's a lot of money around Miami, you know? Then too, I thought we'd maybe give Vegas a try. But we never did get to Vegas together."

  "What happened to Bill?"

  Slowly, Trix said, "Well, I don't know. That's a mystery to me, I think prob'ly the biggest mystery of my life. What happened to Bill? One day he said he had to go see a man about some work. Some man told him he could earn a bucket of money doing practically nothing. It was dirty work he wanted done. That's what it sounded like, anyhow, when Bill told me about it. He was excited. Ten grand for one night's work, he kept saying. I think my luck's finally turning. He went out at midnight to meet this guy. Wouldn't tell me where he was going. He never came back. I never saw him again."

  I found that a very interesting story.

  Trix said, "The kid was already out of control. When a swishy kid like that hits the streets and starts to turn tricks, you're gonna have trouble. And then when Bill disappeared, it was like…well. Looking back on it, I'd have to admit that kid had a pretty tough time of it."

  "No shit."

  "No shit. Well, the kid took off, God knows where. And then, finally…" She paused and scanned the barroom.

  A scrim of smoke hung in the air. A chair scraped. The bartender laughed at a joke. The desert sun beat in through the slits around the shades.

  Trix inhaled, long and deep. "And then, I finally made my dream of being in Las Vegas come true."

  Chapter 20

  I had heard of high rollers at Las Vegas hotels, people who get free suites and gourmet dinners and obsequious personal attention, who in exchange drop hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars per year at the tables in pursuit of the thrill of chance. The people at the Las Vegas Hilton treated Minerva LeBlanc as such a VIP, but I hadn't known she was a gambling woman.

  "You didn't know that?" Minerva said. "But I gamble every day of my life."

  I appreciated that.

  The room service steward had just closed the door noiselessly behind himself, and I turned to Minerva with a smile.

  "Know what I mean?" she said.

  "I think so. Will you go down to play in the casino on this trip?"

  "Probably not. They're glad to see me, and they know I'll be back soon."

  "What's your game?"

  "Craps. I love to throw those bones." She rubbed her hands over the feast the steward had laid out on the suite's dining table for us. There was a mound of caviar the size of a meat loaf, a platter of frighteningly tiny roasted birds lined up in a row, seared vegetables in a fragrant sauce, raw ones that smelled of rain and sun, a silver bin of toast points, along with butters and things caramelized, reduced, rouladed, truffled, and gilded.

  "That's some snack," I remarked. "Are you really that hungry?"

  "Famished." She lifted a lid and inhaled. "Mm, this, I believe, would be the conch chowder. Come on, let's eat." She lowered herself into one of the smoothly upholstered dining chairs.

  "Conch chowder? That soup they serve in Key West?"

  "Mm."

  It seemed obscene to fly saltwater mollusks 2,000-plus miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the desert so that a chef could spend half a day with them in order to make a customer say "Mm." On the other hand, the stuff sure smelled good. I had to smile again.

  "Have some. There's champagne, too. See?"

  "Actually, I'm in the mood for a cup of coffee and some of this fish roe." I helped myself generously.

  "Ugh. Caviar and coffee."

  We sat at the table together. She was genuinely hungry; I watched as she worked her way through ninety percent of the food. The steward had opened the wine and poured a glass for her, and she sipped it.

  I wanted to know if she knew what had happened to her when she blanked out in Trix's trailer.

  "Oh, yes," she said unhappily. "Since my accident I've had seizures."
Her accident, she called it. "Stress or thrills can bring them on. I had them a lot, for a while. Not the big ones with convulsions and tongue-biting, just moments when something goes funny in my head. I started on medication for them right away, and the stuff worked. I was seizure-free for a couple of months. I'm disappointed."

  "So that one came out of nowhere, sort of?"

  "Yeah. I felt it coming but couldn't stop it. I regret that." Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe I was getting more and more used to her, but it seemed she was speaking totally normally.

  I said, "Dear God, Minerva, what you've been through."

  She paused. "I know you might not accept this, Lillian, but it's all right. Everything is really all right." She smiled at me in a way that made me believe it. And wonder. We went back to eating.

  I enjoyed the caviar, which I applied thickly to buttered toast points, and ate slowly. The glistening black spheres made small, succulent explosions on my tongue, tasting of the sea, of dark depths and secrecy. I thought the coffee went perfectly well. The combination would make a luxurious breakfast.

  Far from making her logy, the food and sips of champagne energized Minerva. I saw her revive, the light in her eyes strengthening. We had taken (separate) showers and I'd washed out my dusty clothes and hung them to dry. I felt revived too.

  I poured coffee for Minerva as she rang for the empty dishes to be taken away, which shortly they were.

  "Oh, that was good," she sighed. "I'm comfortable with you, Lillian. You know?"

  "Yes. I feel the same way."

  Then we talked about our remarkable day. I was experiencing a strong, bottled-up, sorrowful feeling. A whole raft of feelings, to tell you the truth.

  A few hours ago we had driven Trix back to her slut hut. Minerva counted a thousand dollars out of her wallet and handed it to her.

  "This'll help," said Trix as she got out. She ducked her head back in and addressed me. "I want to tell you something."

  I waited.

  She looked very tired. But her eyes smiled faintly as they met mine, and she reached to touch my hand. "You know, I always got a boot out of you, kid. You had a funny way about you."

  I made no reply.

  Softly, painfully, she said, "Kid, I'm sorry."

  .

  Now, as Minerva and I talked, I felt sadness creeping over me, stronger and stronger. The shock I'd felt since talking with Duane at his kitchen table in Indian Village and finding out the things I did, had ebbed. To let the sadness flow in, I supposed. I was much less confused than I'd been. Yet I didn't feel any more peaceful.

  Minerva and I moved over to the wide couch with our cups and saucers.

  She said, "I wondered earlier today if you'd feel a sense of finality about things after talking with Trix. Do you?"

  "I was hoping I would."

  "But you don't."

  "Not really."

  "How do you feel about her now?"

  "Oh…ambivalent. At best. It's just so strange. She was rather a significant figure for me. We really got to know each other."

  "Or so you thought."

  "Yes, I feel pretty damned betrayed."

  "I would expect that." Minerva drank some coffee with a tiny slurp. She liked hers with cream.

  "Grown-ups," I said, "keep things from kids, of course. But I thought—I just didn't think these particular people could be so careless. And in the case of Trix, so…casually malevolent."

  "When you're a grownup you sort of expect betrayal, or at least you know to watch out for it."

  "That's right. The thing that bewilders me is—her little apology to me aside—how she's still Trix, she's still got this kooky, half-assed approach to life. I'd expected her to have achieved a more mature outlook by now."

  "Lillian, she's a drug-addicted hooker."

  "I know! I know! I'm still hoping she gets it together someday!"

  We laughed at that, marveling at the relentless absurdity of life. Man, I enjoyed that laugh.

  Serious again, I said, "Minerva, I…"

  "Hmm?"

  "I must formally apologize to you for losing that money. I'm very sorry. I'll…" I swallowed. "I'd like to pay it back."

  She made a dismissive sound.

  "Yes, but," I said, "that money didn't just fall out of the sky on you. You worked for that money. I'm making no mistake here: Just because you have a lot of it doesn't mean you don't care if a whole big wad of it goes up in smoke."

  "Lillian. I don't care if a whole big wad of it goes up in smoke."

  "You're just trying to make me feel better."

  "Dear heart, it was money well spent."

  "Mph."

  "Listen, I've lost more than that in a night in the casino downstairs. In an hour, once or twice, to be honest."

  "My God!"

  She looked at me mirthfully. "There's something still so innocent about you, do you know that? Something very little-girl-like about you."

  I didn't want to be little-girl-like.

  "I'm making you uncomfortable," said Minerva gently. "Never mind. Now, what do you want to do next?"

  "Find that son of a bitch Bill Sechrist."

  I poured some more of the perfectly brewed coffee and we sipped. The cups and saucers were paper-thin china. Bone china, I guessed it was. The cup rim felt almost crisp against my lips. Minerva said, "Don't you want to talk to the police?"

  "I don't give a shit about the police. Minerva, come on. I mean—yeah, OK, I could talk to the Detroit cops and maybe find a detective who'd really listen. Ciesla could help me, I guess he knows most of them. I could try to get Duane to stay involved on it. But," I paused to view the jagged mountains beyond the windows, "all I want now is to find Bill Sechrist. Did you think I'd be satisfied after hearing what Trix had to say?"

  "I honestly didn't know."

  "I'm glad as hell to have found her. I guess it was lucky it played out like it did. She was gonna trick us and split with that money somehow, or try to."

  "Yes. What do you want from Bill Sechrist?"

  I looked at her intently. "Please understand something important. I don't want a goddamn thing from him. I want to talk to him. I want him to hear what I have to say."

  Quietly, Minerva asked, "What do you want to say to him?"

  I put down my coffee. "I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my father was forty-four years old and he had a strong back and arms and he liked to play horseshoes, he was a very good horseshoe player on those hot Sundays when we would go to Belle Isle for a picnic, and he would organize horseshoe tournaments with every other family in the picnic area. I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my father could run fast and he knew how to whistle incredibly loud between his fingers and he knew how to get a sliver out and what to do if a poisonous snake comes around; that he had a tattoo of Betty Boop on his left biceps and a pair of bluebirds on his chest; that he could jump up and kick the top of a door frame with the flat of his shoe, and nobody else I've ever met in my life could do that. I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my dad bought a microscope from a wino who'd probably stolen it and he liked to look at things under it and show me things; that he liked to drink beer and tell jokes and beat his hands on the bar tremendously fast in time to the polkas on the jukebox; that he let guys win dime bets off him on whether that fly would land on the rim of Hiram's glass before the end of 'Soldier Boy Polka.'"

  Minerva listened.

  "I want to tell Bill Sechrist that on the last day of my mother's life she worked on the seed pearl bodice of a wedding gown for one of the Kaminsky girls, the transmission shop heiresses, and when a pearl fell off she gave it to me and I put it in my treasure box; that she wore a size eight dress and her favorite flowers were lilacs and she liked to take me to Sanders' for a hot fudge sundae for no reason once in a while; that she hated Cream of Wheat and never made me eat it either; that she liked Johnny Carson and Rosemary Clooney and Harry Belafonte and Adlai Stevenson; that she wished she'd taken up an instrument and she insisted on midnight Mass on
Christmas eve and thought that John Steinbeck walked on water. I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my mom didn't get mushy about the Kennedys or little kids who got cancer, and she liked to play cards; that a few hours before she died she showed me how to balk the crib, why you don't want to get stuck at the 120th hole, and why it's funny to say you have a nineteen when you have a crappy hand.

  "I want Bill Sechrist to know that neither my dad nor my mom laughed at me when I expressed a serious interest in growing up to be a garbageman. Riding on the back of the truck looked exhilarating. They understood that."

  I stopped and breathed. "That, more or less, is what I want Bill Sechrist to know."

  Minerva had moved closer to me, listening, watching. Now she drew me into her arms. And the anguish that I'd carefully managed in the days and years following the fire came coursing out, unstoppable. I laid my head on her shoulder and gave in to it. For a long time, she patted me and murmured and waited and was there for me.

  .

  Afterward, I felt sleepy, and almost napped on her shoulder. Maybe I did for a minute or two, because when I lifted my head I felt clear and OK.

  No, the truth was I felt more than OK. From our perch on the couch we watched the mountains as the pink glow of twilight intensified to an impossibly pure hippie purple. The air in the whole suite tasted cool and fresh; I'd opened the glass door to the small patio out there, hanging so high over the desert. We sat in silence like that for a long time. I went to the bathroom and washed my face. The bathroom, too, featured excessively huge windows and a view out to the mountains. I watched them some more as they settled into deep blackness.

  I returned to Minerva, who was nibbling on a finger cake, a plate of which, along with a fresh pot of fragrant coffee and a bottle of cognac, had mysteriously materialized on the low table next to the couch.

  She stretched herself, plump and inviting, on the cushions. Lifting an eyebrow, she offered, "Dessert?"

  I believe I forgot to mention that neither of us was wearing clothes. That is, after our showers we'd slipped into the sophisticated, crest-pocketed bathrobes supplied by the hotel and had lounged through dinner barefooted and refreshed.