Lady in the Lake(65)
The B’hoy
The B’hoy
The second I walk into the bar at the Lord Baltimore, I know which brunette is my brunette, the one my baby sister asked me to see. The woman is quivering like a greyhound, eating pretzels one after another. Judith has assured me that this is not a social meeting. God, I hope so. Judith seems to be the only person in the family who has a sense of who I am, although we never talk about it, of course. She tells people I’m married to my job, too hard-driving for a romantic life, much less marriage and family. That’s not untrue. It’s truer than most things you could say about me. I wouldn’t have time for a family even if I wanted one.
But, oh my God, if I were to choose a bride, my mother would plotz if it could be someone like this Madeline Morgenstern Schwartz, although she wouldn’t be happy about the divorcée part. My mom is very hard on other women. Can you blame her? My father—well, let’s just say we’re lucky that the only public shanda in the Weinstein family was the bankruptcy of Weinstein’s. Not that I know things. I don’t want to know things. That’s our specialty in the Weinstein family, not asking questions, leaving the stones unturned.
She sips a martini, eyes demure. Flirtation is her automatic mode, I can tell, natural as breathing. The women I interact with, because of my job, are either flirts or steamrollers. I wonder, sometimes, in which camp Judith will land. Once she hooks a guy, I suspect she’ll be more like our mother, trying to control everything, which is the obvious way to be when you control nothing. I don’t think Judith has picked up on all the things I’ve figured out about our parents. She was so young, a baby really, when everything was happening. She’s still a baby, in a way, living at home. She thinks she wants out, but I’m not sure why. I’m trying to get her a secretarial gig at NSA, through a guy who knows a guy. I hate calling in favors, don’t like to be in anyone’s debit column. But I’ll do it for Judith, although if she thinks she’s going to be allowed to move down to Howard County she really doesn’t know our mother. Only marriage is going to get her out of that house. And the guy better be Jewish. Judith has shaygets fever. She thinks I don’t know, but I do. Redheads, she’s forever running around with redheads. She better get that out of her system or she’s going to be disowned, not that there’s anything to inherit.
“What do you need to know?”
“Why does Shell Gordon want Ezekiel Taylor to get the Democratic nomination for senate?”
I love how she just pulls her big gun out. Experienced reporters palaver, toy with you, waste your time. This one has no idea what she’s doing, but at least that means I won’t be here long.
“He sees an opportunity, pure and simple. Willie Adams is beefing with Verna Welcome, thinks she’s not loyal to him. Jerry Pollock, who used to control the Fourth, thinks he can get the seat back. With the field this crowded and two senate seats open, anything could happen. But, hate to burst your bubble, Shell had no reason to get rid of Cleo Sherwood. She made Ezekiel happy and the affair gave Shell even more power over EZ.”
I don’t tell her that I’ve heard Shell has been trying to find new girls for EZ, but he’s not having it right now. Maybe he’s waiting to see how the election turns out, if he’s going to have to learn a new level of discretion. He’s a long shot and maybe he likes it that way. But Shell isn’t going to give up on Taylor. He’s almost like a nagging wife trying to force her husband to be ambitious.
The girl frowns. It’s a pretty frown. “But if she had gone public, made a fuss, that would have been bad for everyone.”
“Girls like that never make a fuss. She knew the score. Besides, she was with another man the night she disappeared. That’s an established fact.”
“Is it?”
It’s hard not to reach over and pat that earnest little head. “Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory. I bet you think the Warren Commission was wrong when it ruled that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”
“No—no. It never occurred to me to question that.”
“Life is very simple, miss.”
“Mrs.,” she corrected.
“More often than not, things are pretty much as they seem. Maybe that doesn’t make for good movies or page one newspaper articles, but that’s how the world works. Okay, sure, this girl they found in the fountain, she dated EZ Taylor. Successful men, rich men—they’ve always had women on the side. It’s no big deal.”
“But he wouldn’t be able to run for office if people found out.”
“No one was going to find out. This happens all the time, ma’am.” Heh. She doesn’t like ma’am any better than she liked miss. Be careful what you wish for, honey. “All the time, at every level. Men are men. Presidents have fooled around—look at Warren Harding. FDR, probably. LBJ, almost definitely. But it’s understood if you keep things discreet, keep up appearances, no one talks about it. And Taylor’s a long shot, anyway. Shell hasn’t built the coalitions he needs to get his own candidate in. Maybe two, four years from now, but not this year.”
She looks chastened but not defeated. The set of her jaw—she’s going to keep going. Not my problem. I’ve told her how things work, the way I promised my baby sister I would. Maryland politics 101. It’s all about money and organization. The Democratic primary is the real contest, especially in Baltimore city, and it’s winner take all, no runoffs. We’ll know the winners by the morning of September 14, but we’ll pretend it’s a contest until November.