Poison Ivory (8 page)

W
hat?”
I cried in alarm

That’s when Phillip Canary took a really good look at me and his jaw muscles twitched. “Shoot a monkey,” he said, “you’re not Mrs. Dougherty, are you?”

I shook my head. “Miss Frockewilli.”

“Hmm. Is this how you treat everyone?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you weren’t coming. Twenty minutes—that’s what you said an hour ago.”

“That is not the case!” I glanced at my watch. “Oops, sorry! I honestly don’t know where the time went.”

Our tones must have been somewhat strident, because the crowd just kept getting bigger. Thankfully, that irritated Phillip as much as it did me. He jumped on his stool and clapped his hands.

“People,” he boomed. “The show is over. Now move along, please. There are some really fine
sweetgrass baskets at entrance to shed three. Don’t forget to shop along the way for the most unique gifts you’ll find in the Southeast.”

Then he hopped down and began turning all his velvet paintings so they faced away from the main flow of traffic. Meanwhile the assembled folk dispersed with a good deal of mumbling and backward glances. As long as at least some of them were jumping to very wrong conclusions, that was fine with me.

“I think some of them suspect something is going on between the two of us,” I said.

He turned. “Miss Frockewilli, I don’t mean to be cruel, but please don’t flatter yourself.”

“But I—”

“I’m a healthy young man; I can sense when someone has the hots for me.”

“Why you arrogant little twerp. You’re not even dry behind the ears. How
dare
you say that?”

“Just so you know, Miss Frockewilli—and I don’t think that’s your real name—I’m already in a relationship. You might even know her; she was a local celebrity of sorts, before she moved back to Charlotte. Her name is Ramat Sreym.”

“The
author
? Ha! Now there’s a laugh. That woman couldn’t write her way out of a paper bag. Her books are zany—they’re like situation comedies. They’ll never get her nominated for any kind of award, and everyone knows that awards are what counts. That’s where publishers put their money: behind award-winning books—uh, well that’s what I’ve been told.”

“Ramat’s books are delightful, and so is she. The point is, Miss Frockewilli, that I’m taken.”

“Okay, I get your point! And for the record, you’re right: I’m
not
really Miss Frockewilli. But listen, if I promise to keep my middle-aged libido in check, can we still discuss the I word?”

“Incorrigible?”

“Very funny. By the way, isn’t ‘most unique’ a bit redundant? Either an item for sale is one of a kind, or it’s not.”

“Touché.” He looked around before motioning me over to a side exit that opened onto Market Street. “Look, if I’d known that you were going to be this much aggravation, I wouldn’t have bothered to call.”

“Me? Aggravation?”

“We’re practically outside, so I know that I’m not hearing an echo.”

I took a deep breath, and counted to ten in my head, but it did no good. When I reached ten, I exhaled a good deal of carbon dioxide along with the last of my patience.

“You know, I’m the one who doesn’t need this
tsuris
.”

“What?”

“It’s Yiddish; with a name like Ramat, your girlfriend should know what it means.” With that I clutched my indignation tightly around me like a cloak and strode across Market Street.

I knew better than to attempt a conversation, especially with someone whose perception of the
world was slightly off kilter, but of course that didn’t stop me. The fact that I hadn’t been able to reach C.J. since leaving Chopsticks made me want to get in touch with her all the more. It’s not that I was worried about the big galoot—she has size going for her, in addition to some awesome brain power—it was purely the fact that she was unobtainable, and I was every bit as stubborn as a Democratic Congress.

But finally, as I passed the candy shop that hands out fresh praline samples—I had two huge chunks—C.J. answered. “International House of Bitter Remorse and Abject Apologies,” she said in a remarkably soothing tone. If I hadn’t been so angry, and in such a hurry, I would have hung up and redialed, just to hear her say it again.

“C.J.!”

“Abby, I said that I was sorry.”

“Where did you go? What happened to you?”

“You’ll never believe it, Abby.”

“Just try me,” I growled.

“Well, you know that a lot of celebrities come to town, right?”

“Yes, C.J. Please get to the point.”

“And you know that I have a crush on Rob Lowe, right?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“So anyway, I see this guy walk past the window at Chopsticks who looks just like Rob, so I jettisoned my mission—but only because I thought it was Rob. Abby, I love
Brothers and Sisters
.”

“Isn’t Rob Lowe a little old for you, C.J.?” Perhaps it was my loyalty to my own jilted brother that made me ask that.

“Don’t be so silly, Abby. Rich men marry younger women all the time.”

“But Rob Lowe
is
married,” I said.

“Praline sample?” A gangly but well-meaning young man lowered a dish in front of my nose again.

“C.J.,” I snapped, “we seemed to have gotten off track. Are you all right? And do you still want your job?”

“I’m fine as frog’s hair, Abby, and of course I want my job.”

“Well, where are you now? In the Rob Lowe look-alike’s boudoir?” That was, admittedly, a punch beneath the belt. C.J. is anything but a floozy.

“I’m helping Mr. Hartman load his truck.”

“Say what?”

“Mr. Hartman is the man who favors Rob Lowe. You see, I sort of followed him a bit, then he caught on and turned around so we started talking, and when I told him I worked in an antiques store, he wanted to see it. Well, he liked a bunch of the stuff he saw, and he just happened to have his truck, so he bought that English oak bookcase—the one you keep saying we’ll never sell—the mahogany sideboard that’s signed by William Moore, and that set of six Gothic side chairs. Isn’t that a hoot, Abby? All those different periods going into one house?”

“Yes, but think of all that money going into my bank account—ack! You
did
get him to write a check before you started loading, didn’t you? Oh C.J., dear, please say that you did.”

“Sorry, Abby, no can do.”

The pralines passed within two feet and I snatched two in lieu of a stiff drink. “Get one now! Call the cops if you have to.”

“Abby, there you go, being silly again. I don’t need to get a check from him, because he paid me in cash.”

“Huh?”

“And before you have more kittens, Abby—and that really did happen to a woman in Paris in 1926—we went to the bank and he withdrew the money, and I got it directly from the teller, all fifteen thousand dollars of it.”

“C.J., I’m so sorry—”

“Oops, gotta go, Abby. Mr. Hartman wants my help in selecting a few smaller accent pieces—you know, like lamps and things.”

She hung up.

One of the problems with hailing a cab in Charleston is that it is a walker’s paradise. Should a cab eventually come along, the odds of it seeing me are about the same as those of a politician sticking to his, or her, pre-election platform. Thus it was that I was pretty much committed to a long walk back to the Den of Antiquity on King Street, or an even longer walk back to my house.

When a car pulled up alongside me and a young lady rolled down a window and said, “Abby, get in, I’ll give you a ride,” you can bet that I accepted.

The fact that she looked only vaguely familiar didn’t matter—at first. But when I stole a second peek and realized that I didn’t know her from the Prime Minister of Canada, I began to panic.

“Uh—you can let me off here.”

“Please wait.”

“I want out.”

“Not yet.”

Foolishly, I tried to open the door while the car was moving. Wisely, the car manufacturers had seen to it that I was indeed going to have to wait. I soon learned that even my window wasn’t going to budge at my command.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“My name is Taiga Fünstergarten”—she spelled her name, then added—“with an umlaut.”

“Well, Miss Fee-
yoon
-ster-garden—what is it you want? Money? I’ll give you my wallet—heck, you can even have my Gucci handbag; just let me out at the light.”

“That’s not a real Gucci—it’s a hideous knockoff. And please, do me a favor, and never try to pronounce my last name again.”

“A hideous knockoff? I’ll have you know I paid almost fifty dollars for it at A
faux
dables on King Street.”

“Like they say, Abby, there’s no accounting for your taste.”

“
Who
says that? And who the blazes are you?”

“In due time, Abby.”

My abductress—for that’s how I chose to think of her—was a very plain young woman, with short curly hair that was rodent brown, and pale down-turned lips. She appeared to be devoid of makeup. She was dressed in a gray skirt and a gray blouse, which didn’t match, and a pair of sturdy gray shoes that almost matched the blouse. Altogether her ensemble was close enough to being a uniform to make the situation even scarier for me.

“Look, lady—ma’am—whatever, it’s not what you think. I’m only trying to help out Mr. Curly.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, help him find the distributor on this end.”

“Who’s Mr. Curly?”

Poodle poop, I said to myself, and without any alliteration. Maybe this one
was
the distributor. Loose lips sink ships, a wise man once said, but a mouth like Abby Washburn’s can get you a lifelong invitation to Davy Jones’s locker.

“On second thought, Miss Taiga, you’d do well to ignore everything I say. The doctor said I’d have these moments of paranoid delusion if I skipped my medication, but oh no, I wouldn’t listen. But I tell you, she is wrong about one thing, I am not violent.” I smacked my pitiful excuse for a faux Gucci. “Just because I insist on carrying a loaded weapon with me everywhere I go is no reason to suspect me of violent tendencies.”

“You don’t fool me, Abby.”

“Yes, that one death was ruled an accident, but what about the other four?” I smacked the hapless tote again.

“I used to drive the transfer van for the state psychiatric prison, Abby. Those patients weren’t nearly as much fun as you.”

“Still, you’re not smiling.”

“I never smile. Would you, if your name was Taiga Fünstergarten? With an umlaut?”

“Point taken, bless your heart. Will you at least tell me where we are going?”

“No.”

“Pretty please? With oodles of sugar on top?”

“You’re starting to annoy me, Abby.”

“Is that a threat?”

“I don’t pack a gun—even a fake one—but I won several wrestling championships in college.”

“Men’s, or women’s?”

“
That
was mean-spirited.”

“But can you blame me? I’ve been kidnapped, made to feel like a fool when you didn’t believe my gun shtick, but worst of all, you exposed my Gucci as a fake!”

“I think you might actually be serious.”

“You’re darn tooting. I’ve toted this tote with me to countless occasions. For all I know now, I’m the laughingstock of Charleston.”

“Calm down, Abby. You need to have perspective. There are a lot worse things in this world than having your friends know that you wear cheap knockoffs—which, I assure you,
they do. Think of the hunger, poverty, and acts of personal violence that women all over the world are experiencing this very minute, and here you are stressing over something I said about your bag. Thank heavens I didn’t say anything about those silly wannabe Jimmy Choo shoes you have on.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Abby, you sound positively outraged.”

“How dare you? How dare you—” I cleared my throat, and in the couple of seconds that this took, I changed my mind. “How did you know the Jimmy Choos weren’t the real McCoy?”

“Experience, Abby. I’ve seen more Jimmy Choos and Guccis and you name the brands—I can spot a designer brand like a forester can spot a maple or an oak.”

I turned to better scrutinize the drab woman.

“Abby, I know what you’re doing.”

“My one butt cheek was going to sleep—that’s all!”

“You’re thinking, how does such a Plain Jane, one who dresses in Goodwill clothes—that’s what these are, Abby—know anything about designer clothes? It’s because I see so much of that crowd, that’s why. But Abby, I think it’s perfectly okay to wear what you do in your circles. I’m sure that no one has noticed. And I’m sorry I went overboard; your tote really isn’t
that
hideous, and I take it back about your friends knowing.”

I couldn’t help snorting. “Do you honestly
expect me to believe all that? I mean, even your car looks like it got pulled off the junk heap and then resurrected.”

Taiga’s down-turned lips actually twitched in what may have been the beginning of a smile. “It is an old car. But it runs well, and it gets me there.”

“I know rich people,” I said. “You’re not one of them.”

We’d made several turns by then and were headed up East Bay Street. This made me think our destination might be somewhere across the Cooper River, so I was totally taken by surprise when she made a right turn onto Calhoun Street, and then a left into the parking garage that serves the South Carolina Aquarium.

“Uh-oh,” I said, “you plan to feed me to the fishes.”

“I care about animals,” she said flatly. If she had a sense of humor, it was as dry as a Carolina summer.

“Abby, we’re going on a little walk. I want you to stick with me. Of course you’re free to run off, holler, and make a fool of yourself, but you might wish you hadn’t.”

“Is that another threat?”

My captor did an expert job of parking on the top deck, and then without further ado got out and made her way as close as possible to the side overlooking the adjacent shipyard. I did consider bolting, but it was mid-afternoon and there weren’t any other people out on the upper deck,
and yes, I confess, I was as curious as a box full of kittens.