“Felix’s relationship with Julie was a pretty open secret, though?”
“I think it appears that way in hindsight.” Okay, that answer was as prepared as precut lumber. But then, she had known why he was coming to talk to her. “Felix was circumspect, all things considered. He always had girlfriends, from the first. I asked Bert never to speak of it to me because I didn’t want to feel as if I were keeping secrets from Bambi. And Felix managed to keep his worlds very separate-until he disappeared. Only then was he so uncharacteristically inconsiderate.”
“How so?”
“He put his coffee shop in Julie’s name. That made it public, created a record, something for the newspapers to chew on. And there was Bambi, left with nothing.”
“I know that’s the official story.”
“It’s the true story. Bambi has been living by hook or crook ever since Felix left. We all thought he would provide for her. But no arrangements were made. Or, if they were, the person he trusted was unscrupulous.”
“Who was that? The person he trusted, I mean.”
A flicker of the lawyer’s wife in her eyes, a pause to consider the words that followed. “I didn’t mean to imply that there was anyone. I can only tell you that if Felix did make plans for Bambi, he didn’t do a very good job of it. Bert and I have done what we can. Bambi and her girls are like family to us. There was a time when I hoped Michelle might even marry one of my boys, but she’s almost four years older than they are and that is an insurmountable gap when one is young.”
“You say Felix didn’t make any arrangements for his wife, but he made sure his bail bondsman wasn’t hurting.”
“Do you know that for a fact?” she countered. “Or is it more gossip, like the gossip that Felix found a way to provide for Bambi?”
He gave her his best grin. “You got me there. But, come on, Tubman’s awfully good-natured for someone who ate a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bond.”
“Good-natured now. Time heals even financial wounds. Did you enjoy your visit with him?”
“Ah, so you guys still talk?”
“He and Bert do. Tubman was not someone to whom I was close.” She appeared to suppress a shudder, which seemed a little melodramatic to Sandy. The guy had seemed nice enough to him. He sensed some snobbery at work. Funny to him because he wouldn’t wipe his ass with a defense attorney, but bail bondsmen were doing honest work, by and large, just cogs in the system.
“So he told your husband that I came by?”
“Yes, and Bert tells me everything.” There was an odd emphasis in that sentence, a stress on “me.” “They were so close, once. The three men. Felix’s disappearance-that was the beginning of the end. Then Tubman got married, and his wife made him drop all his old friends. She was never comfortable with our crowd. Churchy. Maybe a little anti-Semitic, to tell the truth, although I suppose I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Anyway, I know when Julie Saxony disappeared, Bert and Tubman couldn’t help thinking she had gone to Felix. Then, when her body was found-I don’t know how to explain this, but it made them terribly sad.”
“Sad?”
“They had this fantasy, see, Felix was with his lady friend, enjoying life. They thought that would be a happy ending.”
“For Felix.”
She favored him with a smile. “Whereas-I won’t say I was glad that Julie was dead, but I felt better for Bambi when the body was found. Because it was really hurtful to her, having people think that Felix had chosen Julie over her. Hard enough to have no money, but if Felix had sent for Julie-that would have been a betrayal.”
“Not the affair, during the marriage?”
She nodded as if to concede a point. “A different kind of betrayal, then. Look, lots of men do what Felix did.”
“Including your husband?”
“Oh, no. Not Bert. Do you know Bert doesn’t even really understand how good-looking he is? Women are forever throwing themselves at him and he doesn’t even realize it.”
I bet, Sandy thought. Although, come to think of it, there had never been a lot of gossip about Bert Gelman, and that courthouse crowd gossiped like old biddies.
“What about Tubby?”
“What about him?”
“Was he, well, envious of Felix? For the relationship with Julie? I can’t help thinking he might have had a little thing for her.”
“Tubman. Tubman.” Lorraine Gelman had clearly never considered this idea before. But she was willing to consider it now, which was part of the reason that Sandy had wanted to talk to a woman. Women were natural-born murder police in some ways, at least if a case turned on love shit.
“I mean, he found her, right? Spotted her in a drugstore, took her to his friend’s place.”
“I guess so. But Tubman had a girl at the time.”
“I thought you said that was later?”
“No, he married later. After Felix disappeared.” Disappeared. She kept using that word. As if it weren’t quite Felix’s fault that he ran away while appealing his conviction. “Before, he dated a girl. A friend of Julie Saxony’s. Susie something.”
“A friend. You mean another stripper?”
“Yes. We did not socialize-I’m sorry if that sounds snobbish.” Why was she apologizing to him? Did she equate strippers with cops? “But even if I had been comfortable, Felix would never have stood for Bert and me to spend time with one of Julie’s friends. No overlap between the two worlds. Someone who knew Julie could never be around Bambi.”
“But Tubby knew her. And probably your husband, Bert. Right?”
“Men are different. It was the women who had to be kept separate. The worlds. Felix’s daughters, to this day-they don’t really understand that he actually owned the Variety. They think he had an office there, nothing more. It’s a selective bit of revisionism, and I think Bambi’s entitled to it.”
“So how did you know about the girlfriend? If you never socialized, I mean.”
Lorraine’s smile was polite and practiced, social but not exactly fake. Not exactly. “Tubman threw a party, sort of a holiday open house, and she presided over it, playing the part of hostess. Felix refused to go, even alone-Felix was smart that way. Whereas Bert is naïve in some things. He didn’t realize the girlfriend would be there. She was so tiny-I don’t think she was five feet tall. The two of them together-I’m sorry, but everyone wondered how he didn’t crush her. Anyway, I was trapped talking to her for what seemed like hours. She wore a green velvet floor-length gown. I’ll never forget that. She looked like a teeny-tiny Christmas tree. She even wore red ornament earrings.”
Lorraine shook her head at the memory, clearly still appalled by Tubman’s girlfriend.
“But just because he had a girl-does that mean he didn’t have a thing for Julie? He discovered her, right?”
“Discovered. You make her sound like a starlet. He saw a pretty girl in a drugstore and told her that she could make more money. You know, most women wouldn’t have done that. That tells you a lot about Julie Saxony’s character right there. She wasn’t going to work at a drugstore if she could make more money dancing naked. And she wasn’t going to settle for dancing naked if she could get the boss.”
Sandy couldn’t help thinking about the chef, who had defended Julie for dancing in an outfit not much different from a modern bathing suit. Men and women saw some stuff differently.
“Are you saying she expected Felix to marry her?”
“Expected? I don’t know if she was that stupid, but it was what she wanted.”