"I'd like to ask you a few questions before you go. About the party."
"Party? Was it a wedding?"
"I don't think so."
"Good. I was just beginning to get used to what's-his-name."
"The senator?"
"Yes, that's him. i was married to him once."
"I thought you were married to him now."
"Am I? How marvelous. George is such a dear."
"John," the fat lady corrected.
"John? Did I actually marry John?"
"Jonn Spangler," Remo said. "The senator."
She burst into peals of laughter. "But that's too divine! i married the senator. Wait until my friends hear about it. Here, have a cookie." She offered the bag to Remo. "Not a big one. The big ones are for me. Just wet your finger and stick it to a few crumbs."
"I'll pass," Remo said. "Mrs. Spangler, I'd really like to talk to you about Thornton Ives, the Secretary of the Navy. He was a guest at your party last night."
"Now you're wasting your time," she said firmly.
38
"Whoever this Thornton Ives is, he's no husband of mine. I would never marry a secretary. What kind of diamonds can a secretary afford?"
"He was the Secretary of the Navy. An admiral or something."
"Oh," she said. "That's different, I do love shipboard romances. Has he sent you to ask for my hand?"
"He's dead, ma'am. Somebody murdered him last night outside this house. With a bayonet."
"What a shame," Mrs. Spangler sighed. "A honeymoon on board a yacht would have been divine. Charles and Di adored theirs. Now do be off, my dear. There's a good boy," she said, shuffling Remo out the door. "If I miss my plane, I'll be absolutely brokenhearted. Such a bother, traveling to airports like this. My third husband-or maybe it was the sixth-had his own plane. I should have stayed with him. Ralph was so sweet. I mean Richard. I'm sure it was Richard. He gave me a lovely diamond for our one-week wedding anniversary. Well, no matter." She patted Remo on the shoulder. "Do stay in touch, darling. It was divine while it lasted. I'll never love another man like you again." She kissed him briefly on his cheek and brushed past the fat lady without a word on her way to the waiting limo. A moment later the car was whooshing down the curving drive.
Remo stood in silence. It was broken shortly by rude laughter! The fat lady beside him pressed the door back into place with a final whack, her sides shaking with mirth.
"Very funny," Remo said.
"I can tell you've never been here before. Hoo."
"Hoo, yourself. Who else is around?"
39
"No one. Just me."
"The senator?"
"He's already at the farm. Mother's gone to join him."
"Mother?" Remo asked. "Who's mother?"
"The dizzy broad who just left. That's Mama. Mater. Mommie Dearest. Mammy. The vine which has yielded the tender grape standing before you. Me."
Remo looked at the woman incredulously. She was easily twice the age of the cookie-eating doll who got into the limo. "You mean she's your stepmother or something," Remo said.
"My real mother, Bozo," she shouted. She scraped some dried egg off her coveralls with a filthy thumbnail. "I guess I don't look much like a senator's daughter," she said more somberly.
"Look," Remo said. "You can be anybody's daughter you want to be." The world was full of hooples. "Just tell me where I can find-this person-Cecilia Spangler."
"Quit treating me like a fruitcake," she said, her hands resting on her vast hips. "The Spanglers have one daughter, and that's Cecilia, and that's me. But I don't care if you want to talk to me or not, because I'm not going to talk to you. So make like an egg and beat it."
Just then a black maid stepped into the vestibule. "Telephone for you, Miss Spangler."
"Tell whoever it is I'm busy. Tell them I'm dead. I don't care. Neither will they."
"Yes, Miss."
"Probably some charity looking for money. Nobody else calls me," she said.
40
Remo looked back at the retreating figure of the maid. "Are you really Cecilia Spangler?"
"I told you who I was. Which is more than you've done. Remo who?"
"Remo Williams. A friend of a friend."
"Friend of whose?"
"Of yours," Remo lied.
"Can it, reporter. I don't have friends who have friends who look like you. Only mother has those friends. And they're all at the same place she is."
"Where's that?"
"Some fat farm or something," Cecilia said, waving the thought away. "She goes there every month. She claims that's how she and daddy stay so young. Big deal. I don't care how she looks. I don't care how I look. I know I'm a pig, and I don't care, see?" Her teeth were bared.
"Fine," Remo said placatingly. "You don't have to get nasty."
"Of course I have to get nasty. Wouldn't you be nasty if your mother looked like your daughter and you looked like everybody's fat maiden aunt?"