Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante Page 24

  “Don’t worry,” the madcap girl assured her, setting off after Lon. “I’ve got everything under control!”

  Chapter 34

  Unmasked!

  Is it because I raised a stink about the trust? Is Mumsy the Big Tuna? Maxie didn’t have time to puzzle out the answers as she followed Lon on board the bus. Lon looked over her shoulder after switching buses at Linden Lane, but she didn’t make Maxie, disguised in Lois’s two-toned linen, a paisley scarf over her hair.

  At the train station, Lon timed it carefully, darting into the women’s restroom just as a throng of chattering theatergoers trooped in. Maxie didn’t bother to follow. She waited outside, pretending to pore over the latest issue of Polish (HEMLINES SHIFT FOR FALL) and carefully eyeing each woman who emerged from the ladies’.

  Even knowing what to look for, she almost missed Lon. The beautiful butch was barely recognizable in the pink dotted swiss Maxie had last seen in the old armoire at the Seneca Hotel. Her feet were shod in pumps, there were rings on her fingers and ears—she was undoubtedly wearing the engraved gold band, probably picked up at Pete’s pawnshop. She wore a hat that sported a little veil. She even walked differently, Maxie thought. Kind of mincingly.

  Falling in behind her, Maxie marveled at the brilliance of Lon’s disguise. All this time, she’d been hiding in plain sight, fooling Maxie and the Feds, too, with her clever switch from butch to femme.

  Confident she’d lost any pursuers, Lon went directly to the line of taxis waiting at the curb and got in one. “Follow that cab,” Maxie said, climbing into the one next in line. She was going to net the biggest fish in town, she exulted. And then Lon would be free to swim away to the Galápagos or wherever. . . .

  It was like her heart stopped for a second, and Maxie had a queer sensation of being outside her body, hearing in a strange sort of echo chamber, “the Big Tuna’s going to hook the Little Mackerel . . . a weak link . . . ”

  They’d been talking about Lon!

  The insight hit like a steel beam. Of course: Lon’s refusal to kill Maxie and her decision to leave the mob made her the weak link. And the kind of queenpin who killed cats wasn’t going to send her off to the Galápagos with a kiss good-bye—Lon was taking a taxi to her own funeral!

  Maxie leaned forward urgently. “You’ve got to catch that cab! It’s a matter of life or death!”

  “What do I look like, a race-car driver?” the cabbie hooted. “Anyway, it’s stopping.”

  Lon’s cab had come to a halt in front of the Bay City Women’s Club. As Maxie watched, Lon slid out and gave her dress a little tug to straighten it. Then she was climbing the steps. The doorman opened the door.

  She disappeared inside just as Maxie’s cab pulled to the curb. Maxie threw money at the driver, not bothering to write it in her budget book or even note the amount for future reference. She launched herself out of the cab and up the steps, yanking open the door before the doorman could get to it.

  She was met by a wall of noise—the well-bred chatter of hundreds of Daughters of the American Pioneers, blended into a high-pitched, ear-shattering din. Maxie felt rather than heard her pulse pounding in her ears.

  There was a banner over the entrance to the dining room, DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN PIONEERS 76TH ANNUAL ELECTION BANQUET, but every member seemed to be in the big hall, catching up with friends or occupied with some last-minute campaigning. Posters propped on easels gave the names of the candidates: Gretta Johannsen, Ingeborg Lund, Hazel Houck, Velma Lindqvist . . . the names blurred before Maxie’s eyes as she turned and craned her head, trying to peer past the plump shoulders, the waving, white-gloved hands, the bobbing hats. The smell of perfume and flowers was so thick she felt dizzy.

  She worked her way through the crowd toward the dining room. Half-familiar faces loomed at her, and through the roar of noise she heard snatches of greetings: “Maxine, your mother said . . .” “. . . look just lovely,” “Sookie told me . . .”

  The dining room, when she finally reached it, was almost empty. A few women and the club’s maître d’ were urging the crush of DAP members in the hall to come inside and sit down.

  There was no one in a pink dress with a bolero jacket.

  Maxie fought her way back to the hall. A woman clutched at her sleeve, and Maxie shook her off irritably. The woman tugged more persistently. “Maxie, it’s me!”

  Maxie looked into Kathy’s intense green eyes. “Kitty! Kathy! Have you seen Lon? I followed her here, and I’ve lost her!”

  “Lon? No, no one in the least like her has been by.” Maxie had to lean over to hear her, although Kathy was almost shouting.

  “You wouldn’t recognize her—she’s wearing a pale pink dress and a hat with a veil!”

  The green eyes widened. “A woman answering that description just went into the powder room.”

  “I’ve got to warn her!” Maxie leaped at the green-painted powder-room door. Kathy tried to hold her back. “Your mother’s in there—don’t interrupt my surveillance!” Maxie shrugged free of the grasping girl and pushed open the door.

  The maid was handing a towel to a woman at the sink, and two more women wearing DAP pins in their lapels left while Maxie swept the room with a searching glance. “Hurry up, Olive,” one of the women called over her shoulder. “They’ll be starting soon.”

  Lon wasn’t there. The door to the back room, where long ago Maxie had shared a cigarette with Elaine, was closed. She hurried toward it, Kathy hot on her heels. “Stop!” the aspiring agent ordered. “You’re ruining everything!” Maxie ignored her. She pushed at the door. It wouldn’t give.

  “It’s locked! We’ll have to break it down!”

  “Maxie, are you mad?” Kathy was staring at her.

  Maxie tried to explain. “The Big Tuna’s inside—Lon’s the fish—she’ll get hooked or speared or whatever—” It was no use, and there wasn’t any time. Even as Kathy opened her mouth, there was a soft “pop” from inside the locked room. Maxie seized the bewildered Bureau girl and ripped open her seersucker suit jacket.

  “No, Maxie—not here!” gasped Kathy.

  The ex-deb reached under Kathy’s unresisting arm and before the lustful agent realized what she was up to, she’d gotten the gun from Kathy’s shoulder holster. Taking careful aim, Maxie shot off the lock to the inner room. The maid screamed, as Maxie swung open the shattered door.

  Mrs. Mainwaring, one knee braced on the green pouf, grappled with Velma Lindqvist for control of a wicked-looking weapon with a silencer screwed on the end. A rising tide of nausea almost choked Maxie. She’d long suspected her mother, but she hadn’t wanted to believe it. But there was Lon, slumped in the corner. The mob girl was clutching her left arm, and blood dripped from her limp fingers onto the green carpet.

  “Velma, give me that gun,” Mabel Mainwaring panted. “You simply don’t shoot people in the Bay City Women’s Club!”

  Relief flooded Maxie. She sprang at Velma, using the flying leap she’d picked up from Nadia Nemickas earlier that summer. Mumsy wasn’t the Queenpin! It had been Velma, all along!

  “It was you who killed that cop!” Maxie cried, as she landed on Velma, knocking her flat. “You borrowed a canoe and paddled over to the Schuster pier while I was flirting with Nancy Nyhus!”

  She’d knocked the breath out of the faux clubwoman, and it was Lon who croaked an explanation: “He’d seen her with me and then he spotted her at Loon Lake and tried to put the bite on her.”

  “Shut up, sweetheart,” Velma gasped at the bleeding butch. “She can’t prove a thing!”

  Lon pulled herself up, blue eyes stark in her white face. Maxie saw that the left sleeve of the pink bolero was soaked scarlet with blood. “You were going to shut me up permanently, weren’t you? If Maxie’s mother hadn’t jostled your arm, I’d be fish food!” Her face crumpled. “You never loved me!”

  Maxie’s heart contracted with sympathy for the betrayed butch. She wondered how the Queenpin could have been so calculating and callous as to
dispose of a girl with Lon’s fine qualities.

  “On your feet, all of you!” Kathy had collected both guns and was pointing them at the group of women.

  “Who are you?” Velma eyed the green-eyed girl disdainfully as she climbed to her feet. “And what’s your price?”

  “Kathy O’Connell, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and I can’t be bought!” Kathy’s voice rang out triumphantly. “I’m taking you and your accomplice in for attempted murder!”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” Maxie’s mother protested. “Velma simply asked me to introduce her into Bay City society—”

  “And I paid you plenty for the privilege,” snarled Velma.

  “Certainly, she gave me financial advice—steered me to investments,” Mabel faltered. She turned to Maxie and said pleadingly, “She said if I invested the money from the Nyberg Trust in a scheme she had, it would restore the Mainwaring finances!”

  “And all you got was bullets at the banquet,” Maxie replied. Seeing Mumsy embroiled in her own scandal made Maxie feel sort of sympathetic toward the woman who’d raised her. After all, whatever mistakes Mabel had made, she was still Maxie’s mother!

  The ex-deb started when she saw Ingeborg Lund’s reflection appear in the mirror. It was like dejà vu to have the dowager suddenly come in behind her.

  “There you are, Mabel!” said the DAP President in relief. “I’ve been looking all over for you. It’s time for your opening remarks.”

  “I’m afraid we’re holding Mrs. Mainwaring as a material witness, ma’am,” Kathy told her politely.

  And then the powder room was swarming with police and medics. Lon left first, carried away on a stretcher. Then Mrs. Mainwaring was marched away between two officers.

  “I’ll have Janet meet you at the station, Mumsy,” Maxie told her, then added, “Don’t say anything to anybody until she arrives!”

  The Mainwaring matriarch held her flowered hat in front of her face to protect herself from the curious crowd. Mamie McArdle pushed forward. “Mabel!” she called. “Is it true you own a dockside dive? Has the milk business gone sour?”

  Finally it was Velma’s turn to go. She looked Maxie up and down before she left, and Maxie felt a faint shock run through her, an echo of that unearthly attraction.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t recruit you,” Velma told her nemesis with a charming smile. “I would rather have employed you than ordered your elimination.”

  Maxie watched as the lovely mobster was led away in handcuffs, a queer tinge of regret mixed with her relief. She couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if she’d accepted Velma’s offer to join Amalgamated Enterprises and found herself working for the mob. Certainly, it wouldn’t have been as boring as she’d believed!

  But if she’d been as talented as Velma said, she would have solved the mystery in May. The bankrupt heiress watched Velma’s exquisite legs as they slid into a squad car. She would have realized when she admired those legs on the Mainwaring terrace, that she’d already seen them in the Buick next to Lon!

  Chapter 35

  At Home in Bay City

  It was Monday night, but Francine’s was full of girls. Maxie stopped mid-descent to survey her old haunt. Girls stood three-deep at the bar, and the new bartender was pouring so fast her hands were a blur. Every table was packed. Girls were crowded on the tiny dance floor in the back, gyrating madly to the jukebox.

  At the curved corner of the bar sat an older woman, very erect. Her white hair was cut in a 1920s-style shingle, and she held a tiny kitten on her lap.

  “Why, that’s Francine!” Maxie realized as she compared the woman to the framed photo on the wall. “Francine Flicka!”

  “It is,” Miss Watkins confirmed from behind Maxie.

  Maxie twisted around. “You said once that running a bar for gay girls was just a sideline for her, but you never told me what her true career calling was.”

  “She’s a cat fancier.” Miss Watkins urged Maxie forward. “She breeds a superlative sub-species of Siamese. But let’s not keep Mrs. Spindle-Janska waiting.”

  As she made her way between tables, Maxie wondered if the perceptive career counselor sensed how nervous the ex-deb was about this upcoming conference.

  She would much rather join the gang at the round table in the center of the bar. Even the sight of Pamela and Lois exchanging enamored looks was preferable to having her career fate finally decided.

  And she wished she could sit down in the quiet corner where Kathy was debriefing Lon, and listen in as Lon, looking like herself again in a plaid shirt and pants, laid out the inner workings of the Lindqvist mob. She wondered if the Bureau knew Agent Freitag was still incapacitated, and Kathy was running the case.

  Kathy had told Maxie that she thought Lon would be “more comfortable and talkative” in the congenial atmosphere of Francine’s. “And how about you?” Maxie had teased. “Will you be more comfortable too?”

  As usual, Kathy had flushed. “Maxie, you’re incorrigible!”

  However, Miss Watkins marched the ex-deb past her friends, to a table in the back, where Mrs. Spindle-Janska was waiting.

  The career guru half rose from her seat to take Maxie’s hands in both of hers. “Maxie,” she said simply.

  She was a heavyset woman with short hair, strong features, and deep-set eyes. Later, Maxie couldn’t have said what she wore or what color her hair was. A small, strangely carved wooden figure hung from a cord around her neck.

  Maxie felt herself relax, as the soothing energy flowed from Mrs. Spindle-Janska to herself. It was even stronger in person than it had been over the phone. Her anxieties seemed to dissolve at Mrs. Spindle-Janska’s touch. She felt a little lost when Mrs. Spindle-Janska finally released her hand and they all sat down.

  There was a slim folder on the table. Did it contain the answer to her career quandary? The career guru opened it. “Maxie, it’s been an honor to analyze your Personality Penchant Assessment, as well as your educational records and the results of the Psychographic Recorder Interview Miss Watkins administered.” She paused, and Maxie waited with bated breath. “Our extensive analysis has revealed that you are that unusual creature, a true dilettante.”

  “A dilettante!” Maxie couldn’t help feeling disappointed. “That’s what Pamela called me back in May!”

  “I’m sure she didn’t realize the full meaning of the term,” Mrs. Spindle-Janska replied. “Or the range of possibilities the word implies.”

  “‘Subject shows executive ability in fifteen different possible fields, ” Miss Watkins read over her colleague’s shoulder. “‘Subject will excel as impresario, information broker, and influence peddler.’ ”

  “Really?” Maxie began to feel as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “But—but my education has been so incomplete and my experience so erratic,” she objected, not daring to believe what she heard. “Sure, I know a little about a lot of things, but not a lot about any particular one.”

  “That’s ideal!” chorused the two career counselors. “You have an uncanny ability to make use of others’ more in-depth experience and knowledge,” Mrs. Spindle-Janska informed her. “Ignorance is no limitation.”

  “ ‘Delegating is a strength,’ ” Miss Watkins read. “ ‘Subject will easily subjugate others to her own purposes.’ ”

  Maxie was stunned by this unexpected analysis. “But where should I start? I mean, what about a regular job?”

  “It would be folly for you to limit yourself to one job, or even a regular work schedule, at this particular time,” Mrs. Spindle-Janska said. “I imagine you have a number of projects fermenting in your fertile brain?” At Maxie’s nod, she spread her arms. “Give yourself free rein to bring them to fruition!”

  “We understand you have a lawyer on retainer,” Miss Watkins added. “That’s very wise. She will help you balance your impulsive side, and keep your criminal tendencies in check.”

  The two older women stood up, and Maxie automatically
rose to her feet. Mrs. Spindle-Janska took the dilettante’s hand again. “It’s been a delight, my dear. Doris will check in with you from time to time, to hear what you’ve been doing.”

  “We’re coauthoring a paper on your case for the next Career Counselor Conference,” Miss Watkins added.

  The stunned girl managed to thank the counselors, scarcely aware of what she was saying. She made her way over to the center table and sat in the chair Dolly had saved for her.

  “Well? How did it go?” Dolly demanded.

  “What did Mrs. Spindle-Janska say?” chimed in Phyllis.

  Even Pamela tore herself away from Lois to ask, “Did they find you a new job?” Lois, Janet, and Stella looked at her eagerly.

  “I’m an . . . impressario!” Maxie’s mind began to move again. “An influence peddler!” An idea bloomed in her head like a flower. “Forget about making Patricia an addict,” she told Stella. “I’m publishing your novel as is! It will be the first book from Fifth Floor Editions!”

  The aspiring author lit up. “I’m in!” she cried. She turned to Pamela. “You never really worked as a dope fiend,” she confided to the mystified girl.

  “We’ll put out the calendar as well,” Maxie told Dolly. “Why give that money away to some middleman?” Now it was Dolly’s turn to beam with delight.

  “What will you do for funds?” asked Lois with interest. “You’ll need to pay for printing, and that’s just the beginning.”

  “I’ve got the price of the garnet and pearls in my pocket, that’s for starters,” Maxie told the office manager. She turned to her lawyer. “Janet, what else have I got?”

  The young lawyer had been hard at work, untangling the Mainwarings’ money mess, and now she pulled out a memorandum of Maxie’s remaining assets. “I’m afraid not much,” she warned. “The majority of the trust was invested with Amalgamated Enterprises, and of course anything of value that company controlled has been confiscated by the government.” She looked down at the list. “The only item that seems to be clear is the title to the Knock Knock Lounge.”