Ben Soul Read online

crawdad flickered the night away.

  The League of Lesbos

  Minnie Vann looked up as the woman came in. Minnie had never seen her before, but guessed right away she was from out of town. Her dress was a demure gray, with a white lace collar. She was not old enough, in Minnie’s opinion, to wear such an old lady’s dress. Presumably, since she had come to the headquarters for the League of Lesbos, she knew what kind of place she was in. Minnie eyed the woman’s statuesque body with appreciation for her Valkyrie looks.

  “Excuse me, I’m new in town,” the woman said. “I just came in yesterday.”

  “What can I do for you?” Minnie put on her most gracious smile, imagining what she could do to this hunk of womanhood.

  “Can you recommend restaurants near here?” the woman asked. She went on, “I’ve got a place to stay. It has a nice coffee shop, but I’d like to try something different.”

  “There’s a place, about three blocks from here that I like. It’s called the Plaster Peacock. Real extravagant décor. It used to be a brothel, way back in the day. Food’s good, and the prices are fair. Woman who runs it is a looker, if you like the lush ones.

  “One of us?”

  “I think so, but I don’t think she knows it yet.”

  “I know how that goes. Thanks.” The woman opened her purse. “May I leave a small donation?”

  “We always like money here,” Minnie said. She got out her receipt book and noted the five dollars in the amount blank. Then she looked up. “What name should I put on the receipt?”

  “Put any name you want on it,” the woman said. “I won’t need a receipt.” Minnie looked at her a long moment. “Call me Sappho, if you need a name.”

  “Okay,” Minnie said. She saw a pair of white gloves in the purse when the woman put her wallet back.

  “Goodbye,” the woman said, “and thanks.” She walked out the door with a Valkyrie’s stride.

  Minnie said, “See you around,” to her back. “Damn it,” she said to the stuffed parrot on its perch by the desk, “I didn’t even get her name. That one’s got promise. I should have asked her what hotel she’s staying in.” The stuffed parrot did not comment. Minnie turned back to the paperwork in front of her. She shuffled the sheets covered with numbers. They meant nothing to her. She sighed with relief when the telephone rang. She picked up the receiver.

  “League of Lesbos, this is Minnie Vann.”

  “Minnie, this is Salvación Mandor, at the Homeless Mission,” the voice on the other end said.

  Minnie looked around. She was alone in the office. “I’m alone. We can talk freely,” she said. Salvación Mandor was not a friend most of her Lesbian acquaintance could understand Minnie having. Missionaries sold poorly among the women at the League of Lesbos. Ms. Mandor, also, was a psychic, another phenomenon outside the League’s particular Lesbian box.

  “Excellent,” Salvación said. “Have you been monitoring the Cosmic Balance today?”

  Minnie replied, “I hadn’t got around to my meditating yet. I usually do that at night.” Minnie was, like Salvación, a Keeper of the Cosmic Balance.

  “I sense a great disturbance. I’m getting strange pictures from my unicorn in the Zoo.”

  “What kind of pictures?”

  “Strange patterns of stretching threads. They stretch and they warp and some of them snap.”

  Minnie wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “Beats me, what to say they mean.”

  “But you’ve sensed nothing?”

  “Not yet. Do you suppose it’s a natural disaster, or one a bunch of politicians cooks up?”

  “I have no guidance about that. I’m laying in a supply of blankets and dried foods.”

  “Need any cash to buy stuff?”

  “Not today. My donors are being generous.”

  “Holler if you need any help.”

  “Please let me know if you get any information from the Cosmic Balance.”

  “Will do. Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Minnie over and out, then,” Minnie said and hanged up the phone. She looked up at the silent parrot. “Strange woman, La Señora Mandor. She’s sure got a tie into some unusual vibrations.” She looked at the pages of numbers before her, and shoved them aside. She turned to the mail and began to open it.

  Minnie had opened only a few letters when Len DeLys came by. His usually impeccably combed hair was slightly tousled by the wind blowing in off the sea. Minnie smiled at him. She thought him attractive, for a man, and appreciated his open acceptance of women.

  “Hey, Minnie, how are you this fine day?”

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “I see you got a day off from the mailroom.”

  “Lucked out this time. The dweeb agreed to stay on through the end of today. Monday, I’m all alone.”

  “That’s going to make things hard for the Lesbian League.”

  “They’ve got other volunteers. They’ll survive. What do you need?”

  “Your list of Lesbian Leaguers that plan to march in the Carnival Parade tomorrow. Do you have it?”

  Minnie shuffled through the papers on her desk. “It’s here somewhere.” She turned over several small piles of documents. “Ah. Here it is.” She handed him the list. “Everything organized for tomorrow?”

  “As organized as things ever get.” Len shrugged as he folded the list and put it in his shirt pocket. Minnie knew from long experience with him that nearly every detail of the parade was nailed in place.

  “And how’s your love life?” she inquired.

  Len sighed. “I’m still alone.” He flashed a sad smile at her.

  Minnie nodded. She knew the condition. “So am I,” she said. “It’s the curse of middle-age.”

  “Or something. Gotta go. Hang in there, Minnie. Your princess will come.”

  Minnie grinned. “She’d better be driving a diesel.”

  “She will be, Minnie, she will be.”

  “See ya, Len.” Len waved goodbye as he left.

  Minnie spoke to the stuffed parrot as the door closed behind Len. “Now there’s a boy who needs a proper fairy prince. Too bad they don’t grow on lamp posts.”

  Beau Meets Doctor Field

  Beau groaned. A rattling rapping at his chamber door betokened he’d sleep no more that day. The rapping rattling increased to pounding.

  “Go away, y’all,” Beau shouted at the door.

  “Colonel LeSieupe! Colonel LeSieupe! Wake up!”

  Beau opened his eyes. He did not recognize the voice.

  “Just a moment,” he mumbled sleepily. At that moment, an acute ear, perhaps one with dialectical linguistic training might have heard Beau’s soft Southern burr waver. Sometimes it was as deep as the pools of Georgia’s Okefenokee and other times it was as high and dry as the Texas Panhandle. The door rapper had no linguistic training in dialects or major languages, though he could and frequently did obfuscate in psychiatrese.

  “I’m coming,” Beau said more loudly. He didn’t want the pounding to start up again. His hung-over head pounded enough by itself. He fumbled for his robe and wrapped the white terry cloth around himself. He couldn’t find the tie, so he clutched the robe closed as he went to the door. Beau opened the door as far as the night latch chain permitted. He peered with one eye at the little red-haired man with Chester Alan Arthur sideburns and a round belly on a lean frame.

  “Yes?” he said, “What can I do for y’all so early?”

  “Early! My God, man, it’s nearly two o’clock!”

  “I work nights,” Beau drawled, getting consciously more southern. “Ah y’all a Damnyankee?” he asked, making six syllables of that last three-syllable word. “Y’all sound like one.”

  “I’m Dr. Chester Field, psychiatrist, from Davenport, Iowa,” the little man outside Beau’s door said, drawing himself up to his full short.

  “Well, how-de-do, a Damnyanke
e,” (six syllables), “for sure!”

  “You can say Yankee, and I don’t mind,” the little man said pompously, “but I am not damned! I’ve been saved!”

  Beau half-expected him to pull out the Iowa National Flag with its picture of Jesus Christ in red, white and blue on a field of green corn.

  “A damn-proud-Yankee, Ah see.” Beau grinned. He enjoyed heckling Midwesterners.

  “Sir,” said Dr. Field, “let me couch myself in these terms: I was asked by a suffering young man to come here and ask you to come downstairs.”

  “Does the young man have a name?”

  “He calls himself Noah Count, and he said you would know who he is.”

  Beau sighed. Noah was the neighborhood purveyor of proscribed herbs, to whom Beau owed several favors. He seldom liked filling Noah’s requests for payment.

  “What makes you think he’s sick?” Beau asked.

  “To be a psychiatrist I had to study medicine. I think he’s been poisoned—perhaps something he ate. He’s pale and perspiring heavily.”

  “Noah’s like that a lot. He probably just dropped a bad combination of pills. Was he spacey?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Beau frowned and thought. “Loco?” he said, dredging the word from his forgotten past.

  “No, altogether lucid. He made excellent sense.”

  Beau thought a minute. Noah lucid was an odd concept. He closed the door and slipped the night latch, and opened it.

  “Come in, sir,” he said.

  Dr. Field’s face turned red. It had a look of incredulity mingled with embarrassment. Beau followed the doctor’s line of sight. He realized that his robe had peeped open, and that he was on display at half-staff.

  “Come in, sir,” he said gravely, “forgive my dishabille.”