Tom Hoke - Murder in the Grand Manor

A small matter of a thousand bucks was very much at stake, along with some pride.

It had dawned on him on the way home from the strip joint, a little belatedly; that all Duprey had to do was to hear the conversation with Mitchell on the phone to get antsy. And all he had to do was pick up the phone in the guest house. Jim remembered Dupery’s thoughtful glance at the telephone. Maybe he didn't like to be confined. Maybe he didn't like the tone of Mitchell's voice. Jim didn't either. But he had to run Jerry down whether he liked it or not.

Jim called the garage at the airport and asked if a car had been left in the reserved parking spot. He used Mitchell's name to speed up the answer. He got it. The car was there. So, he called to make reservations for a flight to New Orleans. A look at the map showed Bay St.

Louis, Mississippi was about fifty miles east of New Orleans on the Mississippi Gulf coast.

He had to start somewhere. Jerry Duprey was probably taking off for New Orleans when he called. Jim booked a flight to New Orleans leaving at noon.

He slammed down the telephone and sank into a chair. His head felt like it had been pounded with a shovel. He had to make some kind of try to get Jerry Duprey back to Fort Worth.

Maybe it was a matter of pride, but he had to.

He packed in a hurry, and just for luck went out the door he had come in and carried his bag to the main house. There was one car in the garage with a key in it. He took it.

By the time he got to the airport, he was feeling better. It was a good thing, because from there on it was an obstacle race. The plane was late.

After he landed in New Orleans in a pouring rain, he missed the limousine that runs along the coast by five minutes. A funeral blocked his rental car even if he could have hurried through horizontal sheets of rain. And there was more rain.

Traffic crawled with him in and out of the city on the Chef Menteur highway. He stopped for a bite to eat at a roadside cafe. The food was lousy, and when he came out he had a flat tire.

It certainly seemed everything and everybody conspired against his getting to Bay St. Louis.

Maybe he should have heeded the conspiracy.

He wished he had. Long before he crossed into Mississippi he was plain mad and fresh out of sense. By the time he reached Bay St. Louis, he was livid.

This was before he found the Grand Manor Hotel. And this was before he became Charlie Smith with a newly acquired Aunt Annie, and her nuttier friend, Lena Mantel, who had a taste for Camilles.

By this time everything seemed unreal. It seemed unreal until he took a look at George, the flabby bartender, whose thirty-eight was aimed at his head. He came to the party.

This was real!

His newly acquired Aunt Annie took her eyes from the bartender and raised them toward the ceiling. He followed suit. She said,

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

Jim reflected on the thirty-eight. It did things to his scalp. Apparently the bartender didn't trust him any more than the desk clerk. He didn’t like guns pointed at him, loaded or unloaded. But it also seemed quite obvious he was trying to throw a scare into Jim. The gun was there, all right, but hidden quite casually and clumsily.

Aunt Annie repeated her question as if he hadn't heard it. "Well, what are you going to do about it?" He lowered his chin as she lowered hers and looked her squarely in the eye. "Nothing, Aunt Annie," he said sweetly,

"nothing at all. After all, he does have the drop on me, don't you think?"

Lena, Lady Mantel's voice was raised over the music which turned off suddenly. "Bring us another round, Garcon!" she shouted in the direction of the bar. The gun had disappeared, at least out of Jim’s sight. Why the switch? He wondered. Why the gun, and why did he jerk it out of sight? There was the beer drinker, Aunt Annie, Lena, and Jim. He heard a stirring in the doorway which might have answered the last part of the questions.

George stared for a moment in the direction of the commotion, fiddled around the bar, and came over with two Camilles and a bourbon and water. He swabbed the table and moved the drinks before them with an unintelligible grunt. At least he had not brought another Camille for Jim. That showed some kind of intelligence. When George was out of hearing, Jim leaned over and said: "Are there any other guests in this establishment, ladies?"

They both came to attention and Lena's mouth dropped open. Jim was all set to lead to Jerry Duprey, but suddenly before he could pop the question, Lena pounded her gloved fist on the table and shouted: "I am never going into that barbershop again as long as I live!" Jim saw Aunt Annie's eyes flick to the doorway. Then she touched her friend on the shoulder. "Why not, Lena dear?" she asked anxiously, "Why on earth not?"

Jim crossed his legs and shifted his body so he could see the door. Sure enough, the desk clerk, Leddon, was standing there looking like a reasonable facsimile of an undertaker's assistant. Jim didn't wonder how long he'd been there.

Lena seemed completely unaware of him. She said sharply, "Why not, Annie? Do you know that dunderhead refused to cut my hair unless I removed my hats?" Jim began to think Lena was carrying things a bit too far. She was far…far out. He felt like he was living in some sort of nightmare.

George reached up and turned out the bar lights. His beer customer weaved through a door at the far left which must have led to the outside. "The bar is closed for the night,"

George announced firmly.

Jim cringed as he watched the two old girls upend their Camilles. Neither of them seemed the worse for Auntie's concoction when they rose with considerable dignity. He took his glass with him against George's frown. In the lobby, Brother Leddon was again planted behind the desk. He offered a smile which reminded Jim of the spread on the mouth of a hammer-head shark. "Are you staying with us long, Mr. Smith?" Leddon asked.

Jim decided to make him happy, but not too happy. "Not too long," he replied, trying to look properly undone. With this ambiguous remark, he followed Auntie and Lena up the stairs, wishing he could give Leddon a short right hook. But he had to find Jerry Duprey first, and there would be other opportunities, he was sure.

As they walked down the hall he managed to get out half a question, "Where is…?" when the door across from Auntie's room opened. The light from inside outlined a bristle-haired man who filled the opening from side to side. What was with the watchdog bit? The man’s appearance certainly stopped Jim’s question in midair. He shrugged and opened Aunt Annie's door. She and Lena scuttled through the opening like a pair of Siamese twins, with Aunt Annie beckoning surreptitiously. "Shall we have a little visit before bed, Auntie?" he asked loudly and closed the door with a bang.

A little of his growing annoyance was showing up.

Auntie's room was no more charming than his.

True, the flowers on the wall were of a different hue than his, and the spread on the bed was faded lavender. But, below an ancient ceiling fan was a large ornate chandelier, a complete anachronism which would have dwarfed a banquet hall. He blinked as she flicked the switch bringing the prisms on the chandelier to life.

"Lena has the room on the other side of mine."

Auntie was saying. She pointed to the chandelier, and Lena assumed a poetic stance directly beneath it and began humming loudly in a clear monotone. Auntie rolled her eyes and motioned for Jim to put his head down.

She whispered in his ear: "The joint is bugged!" and pointed her finger at the heavy chandelier. By this time Lena was beginning to get weary of humming. Jim turned his glass up and finished the drink. Maybe the Camilles hadn't affected Lena and Annie, but the Grand Manor Hotel and booze combined to make him feel as goofy as these two women acted.