A Killing in Antiques (19 page)

“I’m not sure what he’s selling, but he collects fine examples.”

Maybe I’d get a line on that candlestand from the friend.

T
he field was now swarming with dealers and their vehicles. This created enough bustle to keep the monitors busy, and I managed to do a little business on my way back.

On my return, Coylie agreed to take a turn around the field. “But I’m leery about buying something I’ve never seen, from someone I don’t know,” he said.

“I feel the same, except that I haven’t paid for anything yet.”

“Why does it have to be surreptitious? I hate this cloak-and-dagger business.”

“Because the best stuff of its kind will be sold so fast that unless you’re the very first one to see it, you’ll never see it.”

“So why do the field owners insist on these rules? We’re paying a fixed rent here—we’re not promising a percentage of our sales. They’re getting the same rent for the space whatever way we sell it.”

“Coylie, in this particular field, the owner felt he was guaranteeing an even playing field, giving everyone the same chance at the goods. Those of us who figure out how to shop the fields before they open get the best prizes. The rest don’t get a chance at the stuff we buy.”

“It’s not fair either way,” he said.

But he soon left to see what was happening around the field, and returned grinning like a Cheshire cat, explaining that he’d had fun buying things he hoped would be wonderful.

Shortly before nine we congratulated ourselves on our preopening luck. We had done well. No cash had changed hands, but we had both done some buying, and some selling, too. We had dibs on a good many items we hoped were special. Additionally, there were several items in the truck that would be held for other dealers.

We were once again going over our plan for unpacking when we heard a rumble in the distance.

“Thunder?” The sky was clear and sunny.

“What, then?” And with a few minutes to go, the sound became clearer. Oh, yes, I had forgotten.

“Moo, mooooo, moooo!” And louder,
“Mooooo!”

The crowd here sometimes shows its impatience during the last few minutes of waiting by mooing. After waiting in line for many hours, with just a few minutes to go, someone will start mooing. The mooing grows as the crowd picks it up and joins in.

I’ve been in the crowd when this has happened. Mooing’s not my thing, but as part of the impatiently waiting crowd, I recognize it as a signal to get ready to move fast. Now, standing here with Coylie, listening, I was intrigued with the sound. Then it broke into a roar, and I woke up. This field opens punctually.

“Coylie, that’s it. They’ve opened the gate, the buyers are on their way.”

“Holy shit,” he said, and his eyes went blank. “What should I do?”

“We have a few seconds,” I said. “They have to stop inside the gate to pay. That bottleneck gives us time.”

This field charges five dollars on opening day, usually nothing the rest of the week. One learns quickly not to get behind someone with a twenty-dollar bill. Worse luck is when some idiot pulls out a checkbook upon arriving at the gatekeeper. Save me from those people. As a buyer, if I can’t be first, I scan the crowd and get behind some large fellow with a fiver grasped in his hand.

But finally, Coylie and I jumped up into the truck. Then the next three or four hours were a blur, and I have trouble putting things in order. I was out of the truck in a flash with as many cartons as I could carry, which I quickly piled onto our space.

Coylie stayed in the truck, moving things to the edge, where I could grab them, swing around, and place them in our space. Dealers around us scurried to set up. No one attempted to raise a tent; the fine weather had saved us from that struggle.

I noticed some dealers defining the edges of their space with inventory as they unloaded it from their vehicles. I copied this method; it made movement easier, and would make arranging the inventory simpler later. Before we had a dozen items out, the first of the crowd approached.

“Civil War, Civil War items, Civil War.” He’s always among the first to cover the ground. The sellers expect him, the experienced ones anyway, and he didn’t disappoint them. If they had anything they could even remotely call a Civil War item, they waved it at him or pointed to it.

Often, he just nodded, with maybe an “I’ll be back.” He didn’t always have to stop and pay in advance; he was such a fixture and so dependable that it was no gamble for the dealer. He’d be back for his booty, for sure. It, whatever it was, would very likely be the first sale the dealer made in the newly opened field. I knew that we had nothing for him. I shook my head to let him know, and he was off in a flash.

Now the rest of the crowd flowed our way, a tidal wave of hunters. We saw everyone during that early rush. It was almost fun. People we knew said quick hellos. Some rushed by, some stopped briefly to look or buy, then moved on. Within what seemed like seconds, Mr. Hogarth was in front of us. He scanned our space, bought a pair of hammered tin lanterns, and asked if he could leave them in the booth. We set them aside.

That’s when we noticed that we had forgotten to bring the red “sold” tickets that everyone uses. We piled our sold stuff in a corner of our space and covered it with an old packing blanket from the back of the truck. We had trouble keeping people away from that blanket; they were sure that it hid exactly the treasure they needed.

Coylie emptied the truck quickly and I did the selling. I didn’t bother to arrange things. There was no time. Soon both Coylie and I were both busy selling.

Frankie’s paintings surprised me. They were the kind of pictures I thought of as wallpaper. Large over-the-sofa pieces, in a Southwestern but hackneyed style. And people were snapping them up like they were Old Masters. Without quibbling over price.

In addition to selling an amazing percentage of our inventory, for amazing prices, we also took turns running out to the places where we had prepurchased stuff. Then rushing back, to sell yet more inventory.

When that first rush ended, Coylie began setting up the tent while I organized the inventory. People now arrived one or two at a time for the second run-through. When the tent went up without a hitch, he appeared to be as astonished as I. With all of my assurances that everything would be fine, I had no idea that it would go this well.

We had managed to gather enough good stuff to create quite a heap under the blanket. I had a half dozen pieces of furniture, too heavy to bring back, which I would collect later. When it really quieted down we began sorting through the pile under the blanket, and stashing our own purchases deep inside Coylie’s nearly empty truck.

With that out of the way we were able to arrange the rest of our inventory attractively, and make it easier for people to see. I looked for my Normandy pedestal so that I could bring it to the Andersons later, but I didn’t see it. Perhaps Coylie stored it in the front of the truck. Not there. I asked him about it.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I sold it.”

I looked at him; he was serious. “I promised that to someone.”

“I know, but the guy offered me eight hundred dollars, and you said you were only going to get six hundred for it.”

“Coylie, aren’t you the guy who was outraged because a dealer could sell something out from under the person he promised it to?”

“I didn’t see it that way. And didn’t you tell me that you sold the rocking chair that you’d promised to Al,” he said.

“That’s different.” But was it?

He just smiled his goofy smile, and waved at me over his shoulder as he set off on another foray into the field.

While I was there alone, Wilson stopped by.

“Looking for anything special?” I asked.

“No, just browsing.” He looked around with raised eyebrows. “This can’t be yours,” he said, and swept his hand around, indicating what was left of Frankie’s Southwestern art. “These paintings look like carnival prizes.”

I held back a smile of agreement and attempted to rise to Frankie’s defense. I can be a snob when I’m in the mood, but I didn’t want to cozy up to Wilson if he was going to be condescending about my friend’s friend.

“The seller is a beginner.” Pretty weak defense, and also untrue, since only Coylie was a beginner. Frankie had been at this for some time.

But Wilson had already moved on. He hovered over Coylie’s jewelry case.

“Interesting,” he said.

Well, okay, that changes everything.

“I’m just beginning to appreciate it,” I admitted.

“I’m not quite there myself,” he said. “I always feel that jewelry should add elegance, but Indian jewelry doesn’t strike me as elegant.”

Oh, he meant
that
kind of “interesting.”

“Elegance isn’t the same thing for everyone,” I said. “This particular jewelry is well designed, and wearing a work of art can create its own elegance.” Coylie had been telling me that many of the Indian jewelers were true artists, and I was coming to appreciate their work.

“Still, some of it is too bulky to be attractive,” he said.

“That’s probably because so much of it was made to be worn by men. It’s larger—some pieces are huge—but notice the graceful lines.”

“This stuff would overwhelm someone like you,” Wilson said, measuring my stature with his eye.

I wondered who someone like me could be. “Some women can carry off big jewelry,” I said. “I’m not one of them, but I can enjoy looking at it. And I have been admiring this little brooch with the birds on it.”

“That piece is small enough,” he said. “But it’s the only piece in the case that’s not made by the Indians.”

“Really?” I was surprised. The brooch looked rustic and sophisticated at the same time. It was worked in silver, and had tiny turquoise orbs and a large emeraldcut amethyst worked into the design. The amethyst was flawed, but the brooch was very pretty and the design suited me.

In matters of taste, I’ll put my opinion up against Wilson, or anyone else. In matters of attribution, if I haven’t done my own research, I’m willing to defer to the specialist. Wilson, though not an authority on jewelry, had such broad experience within the museums that I deferred to his background.

“I’ve been thinking about buying it. But you say it’s not Indian? Is it a fake?”

“It’s not Indian,” he said. He shook his head, looking irritated. “It’s Mexican, the work of a peasant called Matilde. Notice the flaw in the large stone; she used anything that came along in her work. I wouldn’t call it a fake—it’s just inferior.”

We looked at it. I still found the brooch striking. If it doesn’t go, maybe I’ll buy it. I’ll do a little research, but even if it’s not fine stuff, I think I’ll enjoy wearing it. So there.

We didn’t have much to say after that, and Wilson was able to tear himself away without much effort. As he walked away, I spotted Coylie coming back with his arms full. Wilson carried nothing. I hadn’t seen him carry anything all week. What was he after?

Coylie enjoyed showing me his finds. We were both satisfied with the day. There was now plenty of space in our tent. Customers were few and far between, so Coylie unfolded his lawn chairs. We threw ourselves into them and laughed about getting through the day.

My part in the opening had long been over, but I had enjoyed myself so much that I stayed. We had stockpiled bags of junk food to encourage us throughout the opening, but we had been too busy to open any of them. Now I got into a bag of cheese popcorn, and Coylie a bag of M&M’s. Coylie wet his finger with his tongue, slid the pointed finger into the bag, and extracted a blue M&M on the end of his finger. He captured many blue M&M’s this way.

While we were thusly engaged, Baker came by, flushed and out of breath. He looked upset.

“RAM wants to close down the whole kit and caboodle here,” he said.

“Who’s Ram?”

“RAM is Residents Against Murder, as if the rest of the world approves of the dirty deed. They formalized after Monty’s murder, but I understand they’re the same folks who have been trying to get the antiques extravaganza out of here for years. Now they want to close it up permanently.”

“Why?”

“Well.” He paused and looked at me over his glasses. His voice took on a higher pitch, he sputtered, and he picked at the empty tote bags slung over his shoulders as he said, “Think about how irritating we must be to the townies. The traffic, the parking, the crowds.”

“I know that. It’s the usual pain in the neck here, but what’s RAM up to, Baker? If they’re trying to make the case that this is a crime spree . . .” I sounded whiny myself.

Baker reached into Coylie’s bag and took a handful of M&M’s. “Lucy,” he said, munching, “today their claim is that it’s dangerous here. Especially now that Billy’s been released from jail.”

“Do you think they can close the place down?” I asked.

“In the long run Brimfield, I’m sure, will continue,” he said. He looked convinced.

“But in the short run?”

“That’s harder to say. It’s possible that they could close down the rest of this week’s festivities, or just as bad, they could create enough bad press to keep buyers away. I can’t predict what will happen. RAM has called for a meeting with the promoters and the town officials.”

Coylie continued selecting blue M&M’s. Baker’s hand was halfway to the bag again when he noticed Coylie’s method. He stopped reaching, and held his hand, frozen, toward the bag. Coylie saw him and held the bag out. Baker politely resumed his movement, reached into the bag, and removed one red M&M.

“That’s not the worst of it,” he said. “While I was checking out Monty’s old trouble with the law, I came up with another problem. A serious one.”

“What now?”

“Monty’s situation was pretty much as Matt told you, but what he didn’t mention was that it became Monty’s habit to hire helpers who were convicted felons.”