“Is he still there?”
“I really can’t be sure, sir. It’s been a most busy evening, and I haven’t had a chance to go back and check.”
“l see. Well, is that it?”
“Except for the other gentleman who just recently came to see you, sir. A Mr. Kupp. I told him also that you couldn’t be disturbed. Then he asked to see Mr. Jones. I informed him that Mr. Jones was occupied with a business meeting, but he was just as insistent-—-although his manner was more polite -- as the first gentleman. Finally I informed Mr. Jones of the urgency of Mr. Kupp’s request to see him, and Mr. Jones had me escort him to the parlor in the right wing until he might break away to speak with him.”
“Has J.P. spoken with him yet?” Archie asked.
“I don’t know, sir. It’s been such a —“
“Hectic evening. I know. All right, Lester. Thank you.”
“Oh, sir,” Lester called after Archie as he started to walk away. “I thought you’d like to know that Professor Stynestein is also here. I happened to overhear him inquiring after you. I believe he’s in the main living room with your mother’s other guests.”
“Thanks, Lester.” Archie was glad to hear that his father was in town. He might be helpful concerning the scientific aspects of the mess surrounding Beaumarchais’ murder, the mess Archie was beginning to regard as a tangled jungle springing up all around him. On impulse, Archie headed into the main living room to greet his father.
It was jammed with people, and Archie wasn’t able to pick him out from the throng of actors and artists and writers and playboys present. He wandered through the panoply of evening clothes, blue jeans, saris and Arab robes, tiaras and turbans, nodding hellos to people, most of whom he knew, as he went. Halfway across the large room, his path was blocked by a pair of breastworks, loaded, and defying him to pass. Rising out of red velvet, they were familiar to Archie.
“Hi.” He acknowledged them. “How’s your toilet?" A few heads swiveled around at the question.
“Jus’ bubblin’ away like a little ol’ fishpond,” Melanie Leander answered. “That plumber-man was right wise, an’ Ah’m mighty careful what I feed it now.”
“What brings you here?” Archie wondered.
“Ah’m an invited guest,” she told him proudly. “Ah happened to meet this boy who’s, y’all know, a artist-type, an’ he was asked an’ tol’ to bring a friend by the hostess herself, an’ so he brought me. How ‘bout y’all?” She lowered her voice confidentially. “Y’all crashin’?”
“No,” Archie told her. “The hostess is my mother.”
“Is that the truth? Y’all mean you’re one of the Joneses?” Melanie was impressed.
“One of the Jones boys. Asa me, babe.”
“Foah real? Well naow! Y’all jus’ have to meet mah escort. He knows youah mothah personally.”
“That’s a coincidence. So do I,” Archie remarked as she hooked a passing arm and yanked back the man attached to it to introduce him to Archie.
“This heah is—" she started to my.
“Hi, Quentin,” Archie beat her to the punch. “How are things in the world of ovarian abstractionism?"
“ ’Lo, Archie. What are you doing here? Why aren't you out leading the teenage rebellion?”
“You two know each othah," Melanie deduced. “Well naow, isn’t that cozy? ”
“Probably a helluva lot better than either one of us know you, my dove,” Quentin told her with a lecherous glance down her velvety bodice. “But I, for one, am willing to correct that.”
“Doing research, Quentin?” Archie asked.
“Don't be sarcastic, my lad. The ovarian movement will resurrect our fast-dying culture.”
“Could be,” Archie shot back. “But why does it have to look so much like another kind of movement?”
“Oh! Y’all mean-—” Melanie clapped her hands. “You naughty boy! Such talk in front of a lady!”
“ Sorry. I figured it fit in,” Archie said apologetically. “Considering the circumstances of our first meeting, I mean.”
“Just how do you two innocents happen to know each other?” Quentin asked.
“You might say that Johnny introduced us,” Archie told him, winking at Melanie as she giggled. “How about you? What evil fortune put a satyr like you on the track of this sweet Southern cat? ”
“Johnny who? Oh, never mind. As it happens, Melanie and I met under circumstances of unimpeachable respectability. In a government office, if you will, in the light of early day.”
“Ah met Quentin this mawnin’ on the Unemployment Insurance line,” Melanie confirmed. “Ah could tell right away that he was a darlin’ boy by the respectful way he tawked to the lady at the desk.”
“Always be respectful to the hand that feeds you, hey, Quentin?” Archie said. “Yeah,” he added to Melanie, “Quentin’s just about the nicest forty-two-year-old ‘boy’ who ever seduced half the jailbait in the Village.”
“He’s goin’ to paint me,” Melanie told Archie proudly. “He wants me to pose foah him.”
“And did he tell you that he only paints the area between the navel and the knees?” Archie wondered.
“He says Ah have an intriguing pelvic structuah,” Melanie added.
“Why, Quentin, did you say that?” Archie nudged him with his elbow. “How flowery can you get?”
“Insolent young pup! ” Quentin growled amiably.
“Naow, don’t you two boys be quarrellin’ ovah me,” Melanie fluttered. “Say,” she turned to Archie and diplomatically changed the subject. “Did y’all evah find youah friend, that professor fellow who knew Helen?”
“Not exactly.” Archie didn’t bother explaining that Melanie had his interest in the professor somewhat garbled.
“He cawled Helen this evenin’. Ah tol’ her she should get his numbah so’s you could cawl back, but she didn’t pay me no mind.”
“He what?” Archie looked at Melanie dumbfounded.
“Cawled Helen. ’Bout seven. Why are youah eyes bulgin’ like that?”
“Thyroid,” Archie muttered. How could Professor Beaumarcbais have called Helen Dawes? The question spun around his mind like a pinball gone berserk with palsy. How could Andre Beaumarcbais have called anybody? He was dead!
“Archie!” It was a yoohoo call from the other side of the room. It snapped him out of the daze into which he’d fallen. He looked up to see Carlotta, his mother, waving at him. “Archie!” When she saw that she’d gotten his attention, she started toward him.
In her late thirties, Carlotta O’Toole Jones was still a beautiful woman. Her face was unlined, her figure as lithe and supple as ever, and her personality warm and sparkling. People found it hard to believe that she had a near-grown son. Archie himself was sometimes floored by the realization that this beautiful young woman was really his mother.
“Hello, darling,” she greeted him, brushing her lips against his cheek. “I suppose it’s no good asking for an explanation of where you were all last night and why you didn’t come home.”
“You didn’t bring me up to give explanations,” Archie reminded her.
“Well, l do hope she was something special, whoever she was,” Carlotta said with equanimity.
It bugged Archie. Even his mother assumed his sex life was being taken care of. It was downright humiliating. For some obscure Freudian reason he would have been more shamed to have his mother find out about his virginal status than anything else. So he lied by implication with an insinuating wink by way of reply.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I almost forgot. There’s a phone call for you. I guess you can take it in the library. A female,” she added with a deliberate leer.
“Why can’t I have a nice, normal, over-possessive, Oedipal-type mother like every other American boy?” Archie sighed. He excused himself to Melanie and Quentin and went into the library to take the call.