Gone to Glory Page 9

  “Decent. That was a word your mother loved. Everything had to appear decent. What was going on underneath made no difference to her, so long as company could drop by and be satisfied.”

  His father chuckled. “Your Claire is another kettle of fish altogether. Appearance of propriety is not her strong suit.”

  ‘“Meaning?”

  ‘“You’d better read the subpoena.”

  Traveler righted himself and retrieved the document from the mantelpiece. While standing there, he organized the family photographs into their proper order again, a chronological progression from left to right beginning with his grandparents. Traveler resembled none of them except the dentist, Ned Payson, who came from his mother’s side of the family and was, according to Martin, a harbinger of Kary’s personality.

  He read the subpoena standing up, his back to the hearth. Moroni Traveler, Sr., was named in a paternity suit. He was, according to plaintiff, Claire Bennion, the father of her unborn child.

  “When I saw her the last time,” Traveler said, “there was no baby and no sign of one.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Christ, I don’t know.” Traveler counted on his fingers. “Six months at least.” “It takes nine.”

  Traveler counted in his mind. “I haven’t slept with her in over a year.”

  “If you don’t touch anymore, why do you bother seeing her?”

  “That’s a good question. I know better, but just can’t help myself. It’s like being addicted to drugs. I … shit, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to explain, not to me. Like father, like son says it all. Once your mother got her hooks into me, she wouldn’t let go either. And I didn’t have the gumption to wiggle loose.”

  “You loved her, though. I know it.”

  “Do you? What about Claire? Do you love her?”

  “Wait a minute. You’re the one who’s named in the paternity suit. Maybe I should be jealous.” Traveler tried to hold a straight face but couldn’t.

  “You can make fun all you want, but it makes a man my age feel proud.” Martin rubbed his hands together. “And you thought I was past it.”

  Living with Claire had made Traveler feel past it after a few weeks. But that was only one of the reasons he’d moved out, leaving his apartment to her and coming home to live with his father.

  “She must be crazy,” Traveler said.

  “I told you that the first time you introduced me. But then I had the advantage of having known your mother at Claire’s age.”

  Traveler had no recollection of such a comment. But he wouldn’t have listened anyway, not then, not when Claire had him mesmerized with those eyes of hers. Eyes that burned with promises of sensuality.

  “She can’t expect to win in court,” Traveler said. “You’ve never been alone with her, for God’s sake.”

  Martin raised an eyebrow. “I told you I had a lady friend.”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  “Don’t you think I can get it up anymore?”

  “That’s not the point. You said yourself that Claire and Kary were just alike.”

  “That’s the curse of being human,” Martin said. “We never learn from past mistakes.” He scratched his head. “I wonder if she’d settle for a proposal of marriage?”

  16

  Claire was one of those people who change apartments as often as they do friends, every few months. The only place she’d hung on to longer was the apartment Traveler had abandoned to her. As far as he knew at the moment, her latest habitat was the Norma Jean Arms on West Baltic Court, the wrong side of town but still within walking distance of the temple.

  The three-story building, aglow with security lights set into roof and ground alike, was built of dark glazed brick the color of old slate. Wide, overhanging eaves dominated the roofline and cast deep shadows into a small central courtyard. Directly above that courtyard, exterior stairs as graceless as metal fire ladders clung to the facade.

  Next to the front door, a small slab of granite bore the chiseled date 1917, as if the Norma Jean Arms were a monument to a war architect who learned his trade building barracks. The tenant directory, a row of rusty metal slots into which paper tabs could be fitted, made no mention of Claire Bennion.

  Traveler rang the manager’s bell. Half a minute later hall lights as bright as floods snapped on.

  The woman who came to stare at him through the heavy glass door wore a black dress that covered her from ankle to jaw. Her silver-gray hair had been braided and then wound into a bun at the back of her head. Looking at her, Traveler was reminded of history book pictures of early Pennsylvania Quakers.

  Carefully, she fitted gold-rimmed glasses to her eyes, which widened once they had him in proper focus. Her colorless lips pressed together in disapproval.

  “I’m here to see Claire Bennion,” he said. She shook her head.

  “Claire Bennion,” he said, raising his voice.

  Her head kept shaking, either a denial of Claire’s presence or the woman’s inability to hear him through the door.

  Smiling with what he hoped was reassurance, Traveler pressed his wallet against the glass to display his state investigator’s license. Her lips moved slightly as she read the fine print.

  “It’s important,” he said.

  Grudgingly she opened the door but kept the nightchain in place.

  “Do you realize the time?” she said. Her voice was as drab as her dress.

  “I know it’s ten o’clock, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

  “That woman isn’t here anymore.”

  “Are you saying she’s moved?”

  “The rent’s paid for a month yet, thanks to one of her men friends. But she packed up just the same.”

  “Do you know her new address?”

  The woman smiled suddenly, though with more malice than glee, he thought.

  “Maybe you’d better come in and talk to the people living in her apartment.” She disengaged the chain. “Three C. I’m the manager here. Mrs. Bothwell. Whatever you do with them is all right with me.”

  The music coming from 3C could be heard as soon as he set foot on the third floor. By the time he reached the apartment, the sound was loud enough to set his teeth on edge. He pounded on the door.

  A moment later the music died off and someone shouted, “Who the fuck is it?”

  Traveler slammed both fists against the panel. “All right, for Christ’s sake. I’m coming.”

  The door opened tentatively. The man standing there—chest expanded, teeth clenched, eyes flashing, brimming with aggression-deflated at the sight of Traveler. His hands fluttered to show they were empty. His naked feet shuffled. “Hey, man, sorry about the noise. We’ll keep it down from now on.”

  “Claire Bennion,” Traveler said. “This is her apartment.”

  The man glanced over his shoulder. Behind him three people were sitting on the bare floor, two women and a man. They had the rumpled, grimy look of squatters. None of them was more than thirty, but they’d already surrendered to middle age.

  The room held no furniture, only a few molting pillows and a cut-down coffee can that was being used as an ashtray.

  “Invite him in, Davie,” one of the women said. “Me and Belle will make him forget Claire.”

  Davie hunched his shoulders apologetically. “I think he’s a cop.”

  “He’s too big for that,” she said. “He stands out.”

  “I’ll bet he’s big all over,” Belle added.

  Davie, who’d been watching Traveler closely for reaction, said: “Forget it. Can’t you see he’s not interested?”

  “Only in Claire Bennion,” Traveler said.

  “Shit, man. We subleased this place from her.”

  Traveler leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms. Even from there he could
smell stale sweat and the lingering aroma of whatever they’d been smoking. It smelled worse than Charlie Redwine’s usual concoctions.

  “We’ve got a paper to prove it,” Davie said. “Somewhere.” He looked to the others for support. They nodded their heads in agreement.

  “Show me,” Traveler said.

  “You can’t expect me to put my hands on it right now. But we paid her good money to stay here.”

  “How much?”

  “All we had. We’re supposed to send her more next month.”

  That sounded like Claire all right, her way of thumbing a nose at people like Mrs. Bothwell.

  “Where is she?” Traveler asked.

  “How should we know, man?”

  “You just said you had to send her money.”

  Davie spread his hands, a gesture meant to alleviate his lie.

  “She told us not to worry about it,” Belle helped out. “She said she’d be in touch.”

  Davie rubbed one foot against the other. “That’s right. I remember now. Claire said if we didn’t hear from her, someone else would be coming around. That must be you.”

  Now that was vintage Claire, Traveler thought. “She must have left a message, then.”

  Davie grinned. “Only if you’re the Angel Moroni.”

  “The Moroni part is right.”

  “We weren’t supposed to mail it or anything like that, but only give it to you if you showed up in person.”

  He snapped his fingers and Belle retrieved a dingy envelope from the nearest windowsill. It had been ripped open and then Scotch-taped shut again.

  Inside the envelope was a Chance card from a game of

  Monopoly. It read: go directly to jail. do not pass go, do not collect $200.

  17

  “Its just as well you didn’t find Claire,” Traveler’s father said the next morning. He was standing in front of the kitchen stove waiting for the coffee to perk. His maroon pajamas, form-fitted with elastic cuffs at both wrist and ankle, reminded Traveler of long johns. “It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”

  Traveler spoke through a mouthful of oatmeal, the same lumpy cereal Martin cooked day after day on the assumption that it was good for one and all. “You’re the one she subpoenaed. You’re the groom.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

  Traveler swallowed without chewing. “Your name was on the document.”

  “Never believe what you read,” Martin said. “Especially when it concerns women.”

  “That’s exactly why I went to her apartment last night. Former apartment, I should say. She left a clue behind for me when she moved out.”

  “Doesn’t she always?”

  “If you want to see it for yourself, it’s on the mantel next to your wedding picture.”

  As soon as Martin left the kitchen, Traveler dumped the remains of his oatmeal into the garbage bag under the sink. Had his mother been alive she would have scolded by rote. “Think of all the starving children in China.”

  These days she’d probably say, “Think of the starving Gentiles on the West Side.” The truth of that made Traveler feel guilty, but not enough to eat more of his father’s oatmeal.

  Martin returned waving the Monopoly card. “You should have rousted me out of bed when you came home last night.”

  “It was after midnight.”

  “A detective could wait all his life for a clue like this.”

  “I went to a bar after I left the apartment.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself. I would have gone looking for Boardwalk or Park Place.”

  “The card says go directly to jail. The best I could come up with was the Lock-Up on South Main.”

  Martin took his place at the kitchen table, where he pushed his half-eaten bowl of mush to one side and laid the Monopoly card in its place. Top up, the card said only chance.

  He turned it over and read out loud. “Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.” He tapped the card with a fingernail. “If I know women, that’s what she wanted you to think. That the Lock-Up Bar and jail are one and the same. But that would be too easy. Trust me. Women’s minds don’t work that way.”

  “I thought it was worth a try.”

  “On the other hand, that’s just what she might want us to think, that the obvious was too obvious so we’d ignore it.”

  “Now I know why I didn’t wake you up last night.”

  “All right. You tell me. Where are you going to start looking next?”

  “At State Street and Broadway.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s where the Saints baseball team has its offices.”

  18

  Third South is called Broadway for a few blocks in the heart of town. The only trouble is, the great department stores that once helped Broadway live up to its name—the Paris Company, Auerbach’s, and Keith O’Brien’s—are long gone.

  Yet somehow the Brooks Arcade Building had survived, though most of its first-floor shops were boarded up. Romanesque in style, three stories of pie-shaped gray-brown Kyune sandstone, it was originally meant to rise six floors but was cut down to size by the depression of 1893. It was built for a man named Julius Brooks, one of the first Jews to settle in Salt Lake City, the only place where he qualified as a Gentile.

  One look inside told Traveler the wrecker’s ball couldn’t be far away. The Saints baseball team, he decided, wasn’t exactly a thriving business.

  He didn’t bother looking for an elevator, but settled for the stairs. Halfway to the second floor, the memory hit him, as painful as a sucker-punch. He’d been seven, maybe eight, accompanying his mother to a podiatrist’s office on the top floor of the Arcade. Because of midday traffic, she’d been forced to park several blocks away. “Hold on to my hand,” she’d said the moment they got out of the car. “Your father ought to be here to see me through. Since he isn’t, you’ll have to be the man.”

  Ingrown nails in both big toes made her walk on her heels. Every so often she’d lose her balance and catch herself on his shoulder. Each time she’d complain, “It’s only because of men that women wear foolish shoes and ruin their feet.”

  The doctor’s waiting room had pictures of feet on the wall. An over-sized wooden model of a foot, complete with movable toes, stood on a pedestal near the nurse’s window.

  Traveler’s mother sat him next to a low table covered with magazines he didn’t like. “You’ll have to be brave and wait out here for me.” She smelled of whiskey when she kissed him on the lips.

  Hours later, or so it seemed to him at the time, she emerged from the inner office. Her toes, bandaged grotesquely, protruded from notches that had been cut into her shoes. Walking her back to the car had embarrassed him immensely.

  Traveler pushed through the second-floor door and into an improvised lobby. Chest-high half-walls, papered with Saints banners and photographs, blocked off the corridor in either direction. As a result, only two offices could be accessed from the stairwell. Both had their doors open. The sound of typing came from the one on the left.

  He walked over and looked inside. A man about forty, immaculately dressed in a dark suit, his white shirt bright enough to cause snow blindness, was attacking an IBM electric with two fingers. His prematurely gray hair shone like silver. He was, Traveler thought, the kind of man who’d look the same at seventy as he did now.

  Traveler knocked on the door frame.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute,” the man said without looking up. “I didn’t expect you to get here so quickly. Take a look around if you’d like. There are autographed photos to match the ones on the wall if you’re in the market.”

  Traveler leaned against the frame and waited.

  The man glanced up. Instead of the usual appraisal of size or sign of recognition, his
face flickered with annoyance. “You might try the next office while you’re waiting. We’ve got Saints caps to spare. You’re welcome to take one. The fact is, you’ll be doing us a favor. We need all the advertising we can get.”

  Before Traveler could introduce himself, the man waved him on his way with the comment, “They’ll be collector’s items one of these days. You can take my word for it.”

  The adjoining office contained a mound of cardboard boxes stacked head high. At the top of the pile a carton had been torn open. The caps inside were the adjustable kind. One size fits all.

  He was fitting one onto his head when the silver-haired man joined him in the crowded office.

  “It saves money to order them in bulk,” he said, and handed a sealed envelope to Traveler. “How soon will you deliver this?”

  Traveler read the typed address: Golly Simpson, care of the Phoebe Clinton Home, 12th East between Eighth and Ninth South.

  “Without a stamp on it, your guess is as good as mine.”

  “You’re not the messenger?”

  Traveler shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. I’m Jessie Gilchrist, managing partner of the Saints.” He held out a hand for shaking. “What can I do for you?”

  “For one thing, you can tell me about Golly Simpson.”

  Gilchrist used the hand to take back the envelope. He didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by Traveler’s bulk. “I don’t know who you are.”

  Traveler told him.

  “And what do you want with the Saints?”

  “I’ve been asked to help Pepper Dalton.”

  “I feel sorry for Mr. Dalton. But why does that entitle you to ask questions about Mr. Simpson?”

  ‘“I ran into him at Derks Field yesterday. I got the impression he was spying on me.”

  Gilchrist buried the envelope in the inside pocket of his suit coat before retreating to his office. Once there, he moved behind his desk. Traveler settled into one of two facing chairs.

  “I might as well be honest with you,” the man said. “I’m putting a deal together to sell the Saints. Simpson’s one of my advisers.”