Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante Read online

  “I’m awfully sorry about the other night,” Tanya apologized. “I guess I’m still carrying a torch for Lon.”

  “That’s okay.” Maxie was relieved. “You’re not alone, you know.”

  “Lon’s too popular for her own good.” Tanya shook her head. “And none of these dumb bunnies realize it’s hopeless.” She leaned closer to Maxie. “You’re a nice kid, so I wanted to put you wise.”

  “Wise to what?” Maxie wasn’t sure if she was asking on behalf of the Bureau or herself.

  “The other woman—the big femme in Lon’s life.”

  “Who is she?” Maxie felt herself tense with excitement.

  But Tanya shook her head. “I don’t know. I only caught a glimpse of her once. Classy. But this I do know: When she says jump, the only question Lon asks is, ‘How high?’ ”

  Maxie tried pumping Mamie the next night when she sank down at the bar with her usual relieved sigh. “What’s the word on the street about the big boss, the Queenpin? Anybody ever get a gander at her? I hear she’s a looker!”

  “Oh, Maxie, when are you going to stop chasing girls and settle down?” Mamie scolded. “Not with Pamela, of course—she was always a pill and you’re well rid of her. But someone sweet, to keep house and mend your stockings. What about that nice little Lois? I always liked her.”

  “So you haven’t heard anything?” Maxie was disappointed.

  “Give me a Gibson, darling, and make it a double. No, no one would talk about the Queenpin. And now I’m so busy covering the DAP’s annual election banquet, I haven’t had time to sniff around. Your mother’s pushing that Velma Lindqvist for the Bay City Beautification Committee. What’s she getting in return, I wonder? Is she going to oust Inga as President?”

  Maxie wanted to ask Mamie if she’d heard any rumors that Mumsy was in bed with the mob, but she stopped. A dog that will fetch a bone will carry a bone, she reminded herself. The memory of Mamie making incriminating comments about her ex-employee to the Bureau was still too recent, even if Mamie had apologized, saying, “That Agent Kathy hypnotized me with those intense eyes—she’s a little peculiar, isn’t she?”

  Stella was the next one to carry a message from Janet. She’d stopped in to show the busgirl the published Larry Lathrop piece in Idol Gossip. “And here’s the check!” She waved the slip of paper triumphantly.

  “Stella, you did a wonderful rewrite on the tell-all.” Maxie was reading the pull quote, splashed across the picture of Larry: “ ‘The tearstained girl tried to hold the ends of her torn blouse together.’ ” She looked up. “Let’s make it a fifty-fifty split!”

  Stella waved away the praise modestly. “It was easy. I wish I could say the same about the revisions to my novel. I can’t seem to make Patricia’s dope addiction convincing! Maybe . . .” She hesitated, and looked at Maxie through lowered lashes. “Maybe if we worked on it together? You could stop by my place tonight, after the Knock Knock closes.”

  Maxie was conscious of Lon passing behind her and going into the little room she used as an office. She wondered if the beautiful butch had overheard Stella’s unmistakable offer.

  “Gee, Stella, I wish I could,” Maxie told her honestly. “But I’m pretty tired by the time I get through here.” She didn’t want to tell the attractive writer that she had a date to meet Kathy. Stella was liable to misunderstand.

  She’d used the same excuse to discourage Kathy the other night. But that time it wasn’t just fatigue—she was steering clear of the unbalanced agent!

  In truth, while the fires of passion still smoldered inside Maxie, her preoccupation with the underworld was distracting her. I need to get to the bottom of this Queenpin business, pronto, she thought as Stella’s face fell. And get on with living my life!

  The disappointed novelist delivered Janet’s message as an afterthought. “Oh—I ran into your lawyer friend, and she’s awfully anxious to talk to you. She said she’s left you several messages.” Stella brightened, as she concluded, “I guess you really are tired!”

  Maxie vowed to call Janet the next day, even if she had to call her at work. But Janet beat her to it. It seemed to Maxie she had just laid her head on her pillow when someone was shaking her awake. She opened bleary eyes and peered at Phyllis, who leaned over her. “What time is it?” she croaked.

  “It’s seven thirty A.M.,” Phyllis said apologetically. “I’m awfully sorry—but Janet insisted. She’s on the line now, waiting to talk to you.”

  It took two tries for the groggy bar girl to insert her feet into her slippers and shrug on her dressing gown. Grumbling every step of the way, she descended the five flights to the first floor. I’m firing Janet and hiring a lawyer who keeps reasonable hours, she thought as she picked up the phone.

  “Why haven’t you returned my calls?” Janet demanded like a betrayed lover. Then, without giving Maxie a chance to explain, she said, “I need your authorization to ask for an injunction. Your parents are cleaning out your trust account, and if we don’t take action quickly, there’ll be nothing left when you’re thirty-five!”

  Chapter 33

  The Switch

  “What?” Maxie was awake now. “How? Why?” “The Mainwaring finances are a mess.” Janet spoke rapidly. “The Manse is mortgaged to the hilt and so are most of the other properties. Your father’s been selling off shares in Sunshine Dairy to settle his gambling losses, and he’s about to be kicked off the board.”

  Shocked, Maxie could only stutter, “But—but when I went to Loon Lake everything seemed the same as always—”

  “They’ve been keeping up a front, heaven knows how, but it can’t last much longer.” Janet explained, in gruesome detail, the mistakes the senior Mainwarings had made, and the many ways in which they’d mismanaged their inheritance. “They should never have touched the principal,” she said severely. “But your father and his polo ponies—I’m afraid he has a bit of a problem!”

  Her mother probably hadn’t helped, Maxie realized, what with her desperate desire to maintain social status at any cost. Was this what had gotten her mixed up with the mob? How much was she a victim, and how much a participant?

  Janet was still pouring information into Maxie’s ear: that the Nyberg Trust had been invested in some sort of shell corporation—“the money’s there on paper, but that corporation is your parents’ piggy bank! ”—and that she was prepared to go to court and make a case for mismanagement and freeze whatever assets were left.

  “Hold off on that injunction a little longer.” Maxie managed to interrupt the account of the Mainwarings’ financial fiascos. “I know, I know,” she said, holding the phone away from her ear as Janet squawked loudly. “But I must talk to Mumsy first!”

  She knew where to find Mumsy that morning. The dowager would be preparing for the DAP’s election banquet that evening by beautifying herself at Countess Elfi’s.

  Sure enough, when Maxie reached the salon on Linden Lane, she found Mumsy in the exercise room. Mabel Mainwaring was using the weight-reduction machine, the vibrating band jiggling away at her already trim waistline.

  “Mumsy, I need to talk to you—privately.” Maxie practically had to shout over the noise of the machine.

  “I don’t have time,” the matron shouted back. “The banquet is tonight, and I’m beyond busy. Is this about your allowance? The check is in the mail.”

  “I’ve got bigger things than the allowance on my mind,” Maxie shouted firmly. “It’s about the Nyberg Trust.”

  Mrs. Mainwaring looked up uneasily at the name, and then around the room at the other vibrating dowagers.

  “It’s time for my steam,” she said, switching off the weight reducer.

  Maxie followed her mother into the small room and waited until the attendant had fastened the cover of the steam-bath machine and set the gauge.

  “You don’t owe me any allowance,” she began. “My lawyer kept looking into the family finances, and she found out what you’ve been up to with the trust—robbing your own da
ughter!” Despite her best intentions, Maxie began to simmer with rage.

  “Keep your voice down, young lady!” Mabel glared as steam curled out from the narrow opening around her neck. “I told you not to interfere with my management of family affairs! Is it too much to ask a little obedience from my only daughter?”

  “Management?” Maxie laughed sarcastically. “Dad’s gambling away the family fortune, and your solution is to get mixed up in the mob!”

  A flicker of fear flashed over Mrs. Mainwaring’s face. “You have no proof for these fantastical claims!”

  “I have some, and the FBI has more! For God’s sake, Mother, get out now, before you get thrown in jail or worse!”

  “Don’t threaten me, Maxine!” Her mother was pale, but stubborn. “I’m your mother and I know best!”

  Maxie was tempted to turn up the temperature and try to steam some sense into Mumsy, but she knew her mother would sizzle like Joan of Arc at the stake before she admitted she was wrong. She made one more try. “That policeman at Loon Lake,” she said quietly. “The truth is going to come out about his murder. If there is an oar floating around with your fingerprints on it . . .”

  Mabel Mainwaring gave Maxie a freezing look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I’m talking about you bludgeoning Officer Schuster with a paddle!”

  “Only an unnatural girl would believe her mother was capable of murder! If you continue broadcasting these insane accusations, I’ll have you committed!”

  And Mabel closed her eyes and leaned back, the better to enjoy her steam.

  She would never get the better of Mumsy, Maxie concluded, cast down, as she exited Countess Elfi’s. She was depressed by her inability to extract the truth from Mabel Mainwaring. Even confronted with evidence, Mumsy still refused to have a frank discussion with her daughter.

  She never thought I had any intelligence or talent, Maxie thought self-pityingly. That’s why she brought me up to be a debutante. She’ll never approve of anything I do!

  As she entered the Arms, she could hear Mrs. DeWitt, somewhere, reciting one of Maxie’s least favorite poems.

  “Work—work—work

  In the dull December light!

  And work—work—work

  When the weather is warm and bright!”

  In a few hours Maxie would have to go to the Knock Knock and spend her Saturday night serving a crowd of girls bent on fun. Already her new employment was beginning to pall. The novelty was gone, and the usual boredom and impatience had set in.

  What’s the matter with me? Maxie asked herself, dismayed at her own sentiments. Why can’t I be like normal girls, happy with just one job?

  Kathy popped out of her room, when she heard Maxie unlocking her door. This didn’t do anything to lift Maxie’s spirits.

  “Maxie!” She seized the despondent girl and pulled her into the washroom. “We got that bug at the pawnshop up and running, and we struck pay dirt!”

  “Oh?” Maxie tried to be interested. But everyone was going to jail anyway, so what did it matter? “Why are you telling me here?” She looked around at the tiled walls and towels hanging on hooks.

  Kathy flushed. “I guess I’m getting sentimental,” she said with one of her too-intense looks. “Have you run across any mob connections nicknamed ‘Little Mackerel’?”

  “No.” Maxie felt her interest stir in spite of herself. “Who’s that?”

  “Someone not long for this world, I’m afraid,” Kathy told her. “We caught a couple mobsters talking about how the ‘Big Tuna’ was going to ‘hook’ the ‘Little Mackerel, ’ who was a ‘weak link.’ Ring a bell?”

  Maxie shook her head. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground tonight,” she promised.

  But in spite of the intriguing information from the would-be agent, Maxie’s cloud of confusion and despair followed her to the Knock Knock. She moved in a fog as she went through the routine of getting ready for the busy night. “Maxie, honey, I’ve told you twice, we’re out of stuffed olives.” Della’s impatient voice cut through Maxie’s gloom. “Look alive—it’s Saturday night!”

  Saturday night, and things would be swinging at the Knock Knock Lounge and across town at the Bay City Women’s Club where the DAPs were holding their all-important banquet. But what did any of it mean? Maxie sighed heavily, as she watched the olives glug-glug from the jar to the square container.

  The door opened, and a shaft of sunlight shot in like a ray of hope. Maxie looked up and saw, to her astonishment, Pamela standing in the doorway. The Junior Sportswear Buyer was looking around a little anxiously, and Maxie knew, suddenly, that Pamela had come to the Knock Knock to find her. Her heart began to pound with the familiar reunion rhythm. She had missed the old grouch—maybe that’s all that was the matter with her!

  Maxie half lifted her arm to signal Pam, but her ex-girlfriend didn’t see her. She was opening the door a little wider, and ushering in a petite brunette. It was Lois Lenz, the abandoned office manager. Yet Lois wasn’t looking particularly abandoned, as she smiled up at Pamela.

  She got some sun at Loon Lake, Maxie thought irrelevantly. With disbelieving eyes, she watched as Lois followed Pam to a table in the back corner. It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself, as she stood frozen over the olives while Pamela and Lois clasped hands. They’ve always been fond of each other, in a friendly way.

  But when Pamela leaned over to lock lips with the supposedly lovelorn Lois, Maxie couldn’t deny the truth any longer. A wave of anger engulfed her from head to toe. Why, that two-faced turncoat! That scheming skirt-chaser! Maxie wasn’t sure whether her unspoken imprecations were aimed at Pamela or Lois or both. Does Pamela really think she can treat me like an outdated magazine to be replaced by a newer issue? She scowled at her oblivious ex, squeezing the olive jar in impotent rage. She’d sacrificed everything for that heartless hussy! Family, fortune, the best years of her life had been spent kowtowing to that selfish sportswear buyer!

  But no; the churning sea of emotion inside Maxie subsided gradually, and gave way to the calmer waters of melancholy common sense. Pamela had given their affair her all. If anyone was at fault, it was I, the ex-deb admitted silently, a salty tear trickling down her cheek. And if Lois found some healing balm for her heartbreak in Pamela’s company, who was Maxie to blame her? Hadn’t she told both of them it was over, finito? Hadn’t Dolly warned her?

  Maxie lifted her chin and put on a brave smile. She, too, had loved and lost, at last. This experience would enrich her life, mature her, just as the rest of this summer of trials had. She couldn’t help feeling a little forlorn that Pamela had replaced her so fast. And with Lois! A girl who looked so much like her, that when they swapped clothes—

  Maxie’s jaw dropped. Suddenly she knew how Lon had been eluding her shadowers!

  “Maxie!” Della’s voice rang out from the other end of the bar. “Stop mooning over the olives and making funny faces and go take the customer’s order!”

  The two lovebirds at the back table gave guilty starts when they heard Maxie’s name. Pamela paled a little when she saw Maxie herself coming toward them.

  “What’ll it be, girls?” she asked breezily. She was so pleased with herself for figuring out Lon’s trick, she forgave her old friends for getting together behind her back.

  “You’re working here?” Pam said incredulously.

  “Scotch on the rocks and a martini,” Maxie decided. “My treat. Lois—” The office manager looked up guiltily. “Can I talk to you, alone?”

  “Sure, Maxie.” Lois got to her feet uneasily, and Pamela stirred. “Should I—”

  “No need.” Maxie waved her away, and Pamela sank obediently back into her seat. Lois followed the busgirl to the other side of the room.

  “We never meant for it to happen,” she said as soon as Maxie stopped. “But now that it’s happened, it seems like it was meant to be!”

  “I’m sure it does,” Maxie said kindly. “But I need to ask you a favor.
How about swapping outfits with me again? And pretending to be the busgirl for a tiny bit?”

  Lois looked down at her clothes. She was wearing her newest dress—a two-toned linen with a tucked white bodice and an apple-green skirt. “Pam and I were going to go to dinner after our drink,” she hedged. “Pam made reservations at the Blue Danube.”

  “You can get dinner later. Don’t you think you owe me this one favor”—Maxie’s eyes bored in on Lois—“after all I’ve done for you?”

  Lois caved. “Of course, Maxie. Right now?” She was ready to disrobe in the middle of the Knock Knock at Maxie’s word.

  “No—not quite yet—” As if on cue, Lon came in. She was carrying her canvas bag and headed straight for Maxie, instead of ignoring her as usual.

  “I need to talk to you.” It was Maxie’s turn to follow Lon to the tiny office. “I heard about your dockside dip,” she told Maxie with her trademark terseness. “You need to leave town. There’s a contract out on you.”

  Maxie’s blood ran cold. So she was the Little Mackerel. “How do you know?”

  Lon gave her a long look. “They wanted me to do the job.” After an electric pause, she continued, “I told them no. I’m out.”

  Maxie was both relieved and utterly frustrated. She was glad Lon didn’t want to kill her, but why did the mob girl have to choose this moment to go “straight”? Just when Maxie had figured out how to figure it all out!

  “But first,” Lon added, “I have one last good-bye.” Maxie sagged in relief as Lon bent down to pick up her canvas bag.

  “So . . .” Lon looked at Maxie for a long moment, a novel’s worth of unspoken words in her sea-blue eyes. “I’ll send you a postcard from the Galápagos.” And she exited the office.

  This was it. Maxie felt it in her bones. Lon was going to lead her to the big boss!

  “Now!” she called to Lois, heading for the ladies’.

  “Please be careful with my outfit,” Lois begged, without much confidence, as Maxie buttoned the bodice. “I just got it cleaned.”