Antiques Maul (9 page)

In the moment before he spotted me, something about his good looks took on a cruel cast that disappeared when he did see me and a dazzling smile blossomed, and now the cold eyes sparkled, and I might well have been a long-lost friend.

Wearing a Locoste orange-and-yellow-striped ruby shirt, and well-worn jeans, he stood as I approached.

“You’re looking for me?” I asked.

“Yes. Brandy, isn’t it? Will you join me?”

I might have told him to stick it, or I might have fled in fear; but I was a single woman who knew a good-looking man when she saw one, and this was a public place with lots of farmers around to defend a lamb like me.

So I slid into the booth, across from him.

“Something to drink?” He already had coffee, black.

“Iced tea would be nice.”

He motioned to a young waitress who had
Tweety-Bird
tattooed on her neck.

(I remain among the minority of my generation who refuse to have a permanent etching dyed into their skin.
However!
I nearly changed my mind about the art form after a girl I know had her eyebrows, eyeliner, and lipstick tattooed on. Think of the time she saves getting ready every morning! It might’ve worked if the guy’s hand had been steadier with the needle…but as it turned out, her eyebrows give her a perpetually startled look.)

After Miss Tweety-Bird had taken my drink order, my friendly stalker extended a manicured hand, perhaps not unintentionally showing off a Rolex watch that probably cost more than my used Buick.

He said, “Troy Hanson…from the auction the other day?”

I took the hand—warm, not sweaty (his, not mine). “How could I forget?”

He displayed those perfect teeth, which would have been charming except that the longer-than-normal incisors seemed predatory.

As if reading my mind, he said, “I’m not a predator, if that’s what you think.”

I waved that off with a smile, but said nothing, keeping my options open.

The smile disappeared. “I
do
have a good reason for tracking you down.”

“Okay. Let’s hear it.”

“I’m a picker.”

“
Excuse
me?” I didn’t know what he meant by that and wasn’t sure I wanted to. Was he also a grinner, a smoker, and a midnight toker?

“I mean to say,” he said quickly, “that’s what I do for a living…find and purchase antiques for clients. For example, the owner of this restaurant might hire me to buy these”—he gestured to the wall of our booth where several forties and fifties vintage watermelon-oriented advertisements were nailed (several in worse racial taste than our cigar store Indian)—“to give the place a certain nostalgic look.”

“You work for various…businesses?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “I’m also hired by individuals, like the one who wanted me to get a particular antique at that auction yesterday.”

“Ah—the rolltop desk.”

“That’s right.” He looked down at the coffee cup held in his hands. “And I shouldn’t have let it go.”

“Why
did
you?”

Troy (I’ll call him by his first name because he was that good looking) glanced up, smiled one-sidedly. “I honestly don’t know…. In most instances, at an auction like that? I can be quite ruthless, I assure you.”

“Oh, that is reassuring.”

“But…” He shrugged, laughed silently. “I guess I was in a funny mood that day.” He smiled and his eyes met mine in that unmistakable
you are hot, lady
look. “And there was something about you, and that woman you were with, that was so…so…what is the word?”

“Pathetic?”

He laughed. “I was going to say endearing. A peculiar combination of naive and relentless.”

“I’m naive, and Mother is relentless, generally. Sometimes we trade off.”

He waved off my flip comment. “Anyway, I tracked you down to—”

“By tracked down, you mean followed me.”

He frowned in embarrassment. “I’m not proud of myself. But I would like to ask if you would consider selling the desk to me, at a profit. Whatever you think is fair.”

“It’s that important to you?”

He nodded. “You see, it would damage my reputation as a picker if word got around that I wasn’t reliable.”

“Surely your clients know you can’t win everything you bid on.”

“Yes. But I was authorized, for a desk of that style and vintage, to go higher than it actually went. I shouldn’t have allowed you girls to charm me so.”

“Yeah, well, Mother and me, we’re pretty much charm personified.”

“You are to me.”

Not knowing how much of this was B.S., and how much was him thinking he might make a bonus on the sale with the little lady seated across from him, I shrugged and said, “Sure, you can have the desk…but there’s one caveat.”

“What’s that?”

“The rolltop is already in our booth at the antiques mall…”

His dark, calculating eyes betrayed alarm; he must have really wanted it bad.

“…but I’m sure the desk’s still there, because, knowing Mother? She’s overpriced it.”

Another wave. “I’ll pay whatever it’s tagged…. Where is this mall located?”

“It’s a new one, back in Serenity.” I told Troy how to get there, then noticed the wall clock. “But you’ll have to hurry…they close in about twenty minutes.”

“Then you’ll excuse me if I go…?” He tossed a tenspot on the table.

“No problem,” I said. “And thanks for the drink.”

He didn’t stay long enough for “You’re welcome.”

And as quickly as he left, Troy’s true interest clearly was in that desk and not in my bodacious bod; oh well. I hailed Tweety Bird, and got Jake a Coke to go.

Halfway home I’d realized we’d forgotten to get the damn pumpkin.

A Trash ’n’ Treasures Tip

Some dealers will fabricate a fantastic story about an antique just to sell it. For instance, if you’re told a rolltop desk was once owned by Mamie Eisenhower, or Mamie Van Doren for that matter, ask for proof before buying it.

T
he next morning I awoke early, brushed my teeth, threw some cold water on my face, and stumbled down to the kitchen to fix myself breakfast. It was the kind of morning where your first thought is:
I think I have just enough energy to survive….

Mother, however, was up and dressed, and already had a frantic demeanor that said this was going to be a long day.

“Brandy, dear,” she said, so chipper the pope would have wanted to shake her by the shoulders, “I was rooting around, out in the garage?”

“That’s nice.”

“And I found some more simply delightful items that I think would really spruce up the old booth.”

The “old” two-day-old booth.

“Wonderful.” I yawned. “We should do that when we get around to it.”

“No better time than the present!”

One good cliché deserves another.

I said, “There’s no rush.”

Mother’s eyes went wild behind the huge glasses. “Oh, but, actually, there is! Brandy, we mustn’t dawdle!”

“Please don’t say the early bird catches the—”

“Frankly, I have a confession to make. Something I’m truly ashamed of.”

I looked over at her with my eyelids at half-mast. This should be good.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, realized that I put too low a price on the amber vase! I want to get down to the antiques mall before it opens, and correct my error.”

I closed my eyes and mentally groaned.

But, good daughter that I am, I asked, “When do you think Mrs. Norton will get there?” (I wasn’t such a good daughter that I relished the notion of cooling my heels in my Buick outside the place.)

“Why, she’s probably there now, if I know the woman, tacking up more signs. Her efficiency is matched only by her energy. Pent-up sexual tension, you know.”

This rolled up my eyelids like window shades given too hard a tug. “How’s that?”

“Well, these other older women, a widow like Mrs. Norton, they don’t have the good sense to make sure their sexual needs are—”

I held up a hand before I could get chapter and verse on how unmarried women mother’s age dealt with their sexual needs. “We’ll go, Mother. We’ll go.”

“Good. I’m glad you thought of it!”

Ignoring that, I said, “But Jake isn’t up. I don’t think he’ll be thrilled by another trip to the antiques mall.”

“Just leave the dear boy a note,” Mother replied with a shrug. “He’ll probably sleep until noon, anyway.”

I sighed. “Can I at
least
have my Count Chocula first?”

“If you must.”

I must…and poured a bowl of the sugary, chocolatey cereal—Jake’s and my favorite. And did my best to avoid any images that might be triggered by Mother’s sexual needs remark….

When I returned upstairs to dress (jeans, Citizens for Humanity; top, Johnny Was), Jake was still in the spare bedroom, the little devil sleeping like an angel. I left a message telling him where we were, a Post-it stuck to his Game Boy where he’d be sure to find it.

Mother was waiting impatiently for me in the car. She held a cardboard box full of items on her lap, some of which looked strangely familiar.

“Hey!” I said, climbing behind the wheel. “Are those my
Barbie
dolls?”

Mother shrugged. “Why? Were you planning to play with them again?”

I glared at her. “That’s not the point! They’re mine…my precious memories…and
I
should be the one to decide if, and when, we’re going to sell them.”

“They
could
fetch a nice price.”

A pause. “How much?”

The Buick could use a new battery and a pre-winter checkup.

“Into the hundreds, I should think. Most are collector’s editions, and you kept them in such lovely condition, in their boxes, why, it’s almost as if they’d never been played with.”

That’s because I preferred to play with Kens rather than Barbies. Some things never change.

Mother asked, “What say we split fifty-fifty?”

“Are you kidding? Seventy-five, twenty-five. They
are
mine, after all.”

“Ah, but I did buy them for you.”

My eyes narrowed. “I’m sure Peggy Sue gave me
some
of those dolls. What was that awful term you used to describe Bernice and our cigar store Native American? Some certain kind of
giver
?”

She threw up her hands. “All right, all right, you win. Seventy-five, twenty-five it is. You
do
drive a hard bargain, my dear.”

I smiled and started the car. It wasn’t often I outmaneuvered Mother.

But then…why was
she
smiling, too? Could it be that she’d just snagged herself 25 percent of something that was 100 percent mine?

On the way downtown, Mother said, “Some familiar faces stopped by our booth yesterday, dear.”

“Such as?”

“Such as your sister’s friend Connie.”

“Ick. And you can quote me.”

“Well, yes, there is no accounting for taste. Although she did display rather good taste herself—she was sniffing around our rolltop desk to beat the band.”

“Was our price too high for her?”

“We didn’t talk price. She just said, ‘Interesting piece. Maybe later.’”

“I guess her money is as good as the next witch’s. You said ‘faces’—who else?”

“More a familiar face to me than you, darling. Ivan, our ex-mayor? He was doing a war dance around our Indian friend.”

“Really? Didn’t he see the ‘sold’ sign?”

“He did, but he made me a good offer.”

“Mother! You didn’t sell that horrible thing out from under Bernice, did you?”

“I thought about it…but no. A promise is a promise. And anyway, his offer wasn’t
that
good….”

Mrs. Norton was indeed at the mall, as attested to by a tan Taurus parked in a “reserved for owner” space in the back alley. I pulled into another not-so-reserved one marked
PRIVATE
, and hoped I wouldn’t get a ticket.

With me toting the box, Mother and I entered the unlocked back door and stepped into darkness. I fumbled momentarily for a light switch, found it, and we continued up the short flight of cement steps to the first floor, which was also dark, and eerily quiet.

“Why was Mrs. Norton working in the dark?” I whispered to Mother.

“I don’t know. Why are you whispering, dear?”

“I don’t know.”

Mother called out, in her best olly olly oxen free fashion: “Mrs.
Nor
-ton! Oh, Mrs. Nor-
tuh
-un!”

She got no answer.

I called out even louder, and I
did
get an answer…

…but not from my former teacher, rather her watchdog, Brad. Only this was not the sharp bark of a watchdog at all, instead a soft, pathetic whimper.

Brad Pit Bull was crying.

Mother and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Where was the mournful mutt’s mistress?

I moved to an electric panel on the wall nearby, and began switching switches, illuminating the large room, section by section. When I turned back to Mother, she was heading up the center aisle toward the front of the store.

“Be careful!” I called out. “If that dog is
hurt
, he could be dangerous!”

Typically, Mother ignored me, disappearing at the end of the aisle, heading toward our booth. I hurried after her and then, as I rounded the row, bumped full-force into Mother, who had doubled back, knocking the wind out of both of us.

“Dear, please,” she said, gasping for breath, “please don’t…”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look. It’s horrible. Simply grotesque.”

Despite her agitated state, and the melodramatic words, Mother seemed atypically untheatrical.

Now, I ask you…if somebody tells you not to look, especially if it’s “horrible” and “simply grotesque,” what is any reasonable person going to do?

Right.

You’re not only
going
to look, but you
have
to look, you
must
look….

So I pushed past Mother, expecting to find a poor injured Brad, and instead I stared down at a poor, much more than merely injured Mrs. Norton.

My onetime math teacher lay sprawled in the aisle near our booth, in a pool of blood, her clothes—the same orange and brown outfit as the day before—torn and shredded, and the same was true of what had been her face.

The apparent culprit was there, too, the pit bull straddling his master, lethal front paws and deadly mouth blood-caked. On seeing me, the beefy animal’s whimpering morphed into a deep growl, and I backed up slowly, until he was out of my sight, and I was out of his.

I grabbed Mother by the arm and hustled her back down the aisle and outside to safety.

After allowing herself to be swept along, Mother now glared at me while I pushed with two hands on the door as if its being shut tight weren’t enough.

“What’s the idea?” she demanded.

“The idea,” I said, “is that that pit bull mauled that poor woman to death.”

Mother frowned. “I don’t know why you jump to
that
conclusion.”

I just looked at her.

“It seemed to me,” Mother said, “the creature was merely standing guard over its fallen mistress.”

“It has blood all over its teeth and mouth. It’s a pit bull. Mrs. Norton was viciously mauled to death. What
else
could have happened?”

Mother’s frown turned thoughtful; she put a pensive hand on her chin. “Perhaps another dog did it—Mrs. Norton did say the creature was timid. When the other pit bull attacked, Brad cowered in the corner!”

“Mother.”

“Yes, dear?”

“Your Red-Hatted League reading group is doing Agatha Christie again, aren’t they?”

“Why, yes, dear. We ran out of Rex Stout. What makes you ask that at a time like this?”

“Nothing. But let’s say your assumptions are right. You have shrewdly ascertained exactly what was going on in there. Then we were wise to scoot, weren’t we? Because, logically, there’s another,
really
vicious pit bull in there!”

She was nodding, taking my sarcasm at face value. “Yes. Logically. Not necessarily a pit bull, but…”

Shaking my head, I got out my cell phone and quickly told the dispatcher what we’d found. Then Mother and I stood by our car and waited for the sirens to come.

I was shaking, traumatized into silence by the ghastly death of my former teacher.

But Mother wasn’t.

“I wonder how long our things are going to be tied up,” she mused, glancing toward the massive building. “Every day that goes by we’ll be losing money, you know.”

I looked at her, appalled. “Mother…a woman—a woman we
know
and
like
—has been brutally mauled in there.”

“Yes, dear, I saw her,” Mother said patiently. “But Mrs. Norton is dead and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“That’s a little cold, don’t you think?”

Mother’s eyes behind the lenses were disconcertingly calm. “At my age, Brandy, the past becomes quickly irrelevant and the future most pressing.”

“I understand that…but can we wait until this afternoon to talk about the future? Let’s have a little respect here….”

Mother nodded slowly. “That seems reasonable.”

Which was more than I could say about Mother.

A black-and-white police car—siren wailing, lights flashing—wheeled into the alley, stopping abruptly in front of us. From the opposite direction came another screaming siren and a yellow emergency rescue truck, which nosed up to the squad car, and two paramedics jumped out.

The officer reached us first.

I told the stocky, mustached man whose name tag read
MUNSON
where to find Mrs. Norton, adding, “But watch out for the pit bull.”

Mother chimed in: “
Both
of them!”

Munson frowned. “There are
two
pit bulls?”

I shook my head, and whispered, “Mother’s just excited. There’s only one.”

Munson nodded and gestured to the two paramedics. “Stay behind me…. I’ll shoot the damn dog if I have to.”

Again Mother butted in. “Surely that’s not necessary! Don’t you have a tranquilizer gun, young man?”

Officer Munson, who was forty if a day, looked at Mother like she was a suspect in a one-woman lineup. “Vivian Borne, isn’t it?” he said slowly, and smiled, but not in a friendly way. “Mrs. Borne, there’s no time to call for Animal Control…. That woman may be alive and in need of immediate medical attention.”