Slugfest Page 4

  “Beautiful cat.” I hoped complimenting her cat would disarm her, literally and figuratively.

  “Beautiful but deaf as a post. That’s why I named him Tommy. Can’t hear a thing. But I heard something. Probably the menu deliverymen. When I first moved here it was Jehovah’s Witnesses who left stacks of literature in the hallway. No one wants to feed the soul anymore. Now it’s all about the food. I shred the menus and use them in the litter boxes.”

  A second cat ran into the hallway and sniffed the plastic bags I’d placed on the steps while the woman and I spoke.

  “That’s Moochie. He thinks he owns the building. Always running around, looking for food. You’d think he was a stray. Come on, Mooch.”

  I bent down to play with the cat, then looked up to see if it was okay. The woman nodded. Rules of engagement: if you love my pet, you’re probably all right.

  She eyed the bags. “Supermarket on Ninth delivers. They’re cheaper than the Koreans, too. Even with the delivery charges.”

  I thanked her for the tip, said good-bye to Moochie, and finished my way up the stairs to the sound of multiple door locks being thrown. With the bags hoisted on one hip like a baby I unlocked Lucy’s door, then reenacted the same ritual the woman below me had—chain, bolt, bolt. I piled the groceries and my backpack on the aluminum kitchen set and collapsed on Lucy’s sofa.

  The apartment had originally been a floor-through cut up into studios, two per floor, by the building’s previous owner. Lucy’s plan was to knock down the dividing wall, restoring it to a larger one bedroom; but the renovation had hit a snag after she’d had an argument with her contractor. (Never sleep with your contractor until the work is finished or at least at the punch list stage.) Now the place looked like a deranged person had taken a sledgehammer to the wall or, in the words of Rolanda Knox, “an incendiary device” had gone off. It had been that way for months, and Lucy had turned it into a focal point.

  I felt a powerful desire to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head, but knew that would only have me up and ravenous at 2 A.M. so I forced myself to stow the perishables and crack open one or two of the pint containers. I fiddled with the remote for five minutes before stumbling upon the magic combination and sequence of button pushing that turned on the television. Mission accomplished, I sank into the love seat with a teaspoon and a plastic bowl of chickpea salad. If good food took time, mine was all ready. I was watching an improbable garden makeover when my cell rang.

  “Don’t you pick up messages?”

  “Why would I want to talk to someone whose first words to me are a reproach?”

  “You’re right. Hey, Paula, it’s been ages. Don’t you pick up messages?” It was Babe Chinnery. She’d been leaving messages on my cell and at my home in Springfield. Someone had been trying to reach the woman at booth 1142 at the flower show, and since Babe’s name was on the registration, whoever it was had dialed her number. Babe thought the caller might be a buyer.

  “He said he met you at the convention center. I didn’t want to give him your number. If you’d wanted him to have it, you’d have given it to him, right? Getting his name was like pulling teeth. Garland Bleimeister. Do you know him?”

  The name meant nothing to me.

  “Hank Mossdale was in the diner tonight. I told him some young stud was tracking you down. I think he was jealous. Guy on the phone sounded young. Are you finally taking my advice and going for some young blood?”

  I’d only met one young guy at the show. I wasn’t looking for a date and I didn’t know his name but I had his bag stashed under the cheap royal blue tablecloth at Primo’s booth.

  Fourteen

  The next morning I left a message for Bleimeister at the number Babe had given me. At the convention center Rolanda Knox was marginally more civil than she’d been the first few days. I thought of asking if she’d seen the young man who’d tried to sneak in, but I didn’t want to bring up a painful subject. I smiled, flashed my badge, and headed for my booth, threading my way through union workers still laying down carpet and hopeful contestants spritzing and pruning their floral entries.

  I was expecting another delivery for the prejudged specimen plant categories and braced myself for the notorious trade show issue of drayage. A word that seldom crops up in most conversations. To cut short the six pages of convention mumbo jumbo, your boxes, like Elvis, may be in the building, but until some guy who looks like a member of ZZ Top says so, it’s anyone’s guess when you’ll see them. And new exhibitors were low men on the totem pole who had to dangle candy, free goods, and occasionally cash to light a fire under them. You made your peace with it and thanked them profusely when your merchandise arrived.

  I stopped at the concession stand to refuel. The barista had just arrived and it would be five or ten minutes before the coffee was ready, so I took a spin around the floor. Nursery pots and electrical cables had been camouflaged with literally tons of pine bark mulch. Timed mistings kept everything moist, and consequently the entire building smelled like a national park or the woods after a spring rain. Incongruously, the air was also filled with the incessant beeping of service vehicles backing up. When had that become mandatory? If you can see the vehicle, you don’t need that hideous noise; and if you can’t, how will it help?

  The beeping died down, first one chirping machine, then another, like quitting time at a factory. Then it stopped entirely and was replaced by footsteps and a flurry of activity. Two men with walkie-talkies materialized and sprinted to a set of escalators at the rear of the convention center. Rolanda and three other guards barreled past me, wearing their game faces and trying not to look alarmed. I followed at a discreet distance. Whatever it was, it was bound to be more interesting than waiting for coffee to brew. Had a deer been spotted? A vole?

  A dozen or so onlookers were clustered at the top of the escalator. Below, near an exhibit of storage sheds, more gawkers stood outside a red ten-by-ten unit with faux gingerbread detailing and vinyl hanging planters on the windows. Thirty-seven hundred bucks—I’d talked a client out of buying one by telling her she’d also have to hire seven dwarves to go with it to get the full effect. The white resin planters outside the shed were slightly askew and a trio of smaller pots overturned.

  When the guards reached the lower level, the crowd parted and that gave me a somewhat better view down the nonworking escalator. All I saw were two Timberland boots, feet splayed in an awkward pose that didn’t look comfortable and didn’t look healthy.

  The convention center’s emergency staff, two handymen with a defibrillator, were quick on the scene, but they looked nervous, inexperienced, and in over their heads. Onlookers stepped aside to let them do their work, but when the real deal arrived in the form of a New York City emergency medical team, the Wagner staff was visibly relieved and moved on to crowd control, a role for which they were better suited. I bumped into Nikki on the way back to our aisle.

  “What’s the hubbub this time?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t look good. Someone collapsed or maybe had an accident on the escalator.” I considered telling her what I really thought—that the person was as dead as Connie Anzalone’s veronicas—but why jinx him if he was still alive? And why upset her if he wasn’t? I’d seen a man fall over dead during a keynote speech at another trade show once. It wasn’t that dull a talk. He was whisked away and the speaker went right on yakking. Most people didn’t even know about it until they read about someone who’d taken ill in the show daily the next morning. As heartless as it sounded, one monkey don’t stop no show. A brief announcement over the loudspeakers stated the rear escalators were not in service. No reason was given, but Nikki Bingham already had a theory.

  “Connie’s husband probably found out who nuked her veronicas and had the person killed.”

  Fifteen

  “That’s a little harsh,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean it. I guess I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy this morning.” I’d just met the woman two days ago. Pleas
e tell me she isn’t going to pour her heart out to me.

  “Pay no attention to me,” she said. “Momentary lapse.”

  We reached our aisle and Nikki got to work, rearranging everything she’d pronounced perfect the day before. David arrived bearing gifts—a Box o’ Joe from Dunkin’ Donuts and an aluminum-foil-covered platter that held a homemade frittata he’d warmed in the microwave in the members’ lounge.

  “I could get to like this,” I said, helping myself to a slice. Nikki looked hurt. First I’d refused her crumb cake, then her attempt to get something off her chest, now I was scarfing down someone else’s culinary accomplishment. I’d have to remember to skip breakfast tomorrow and gush over whatever Nikki brought to keep the peace.

  Babe had said three more pieces were coming but I couldn’t do much until the final shipment arrived, so I busied myself tweaking my laptop presentation. The computer battery needed recharging, so I crouched down to find the ridiculously expensive power source we’d had to order. I was on my hands and knees, peeling back corners of the rented carpet trying to find it, and half listening to David discuss what some exhibitors were now calling the Javits Curse.

  They had decided it was the late New York senator’s way of steering business to the sleek, glass structure farther north that bore his name instead of the building we were in that honored a former mayor. If the flower show’s organizers took the bait and left or, worse, succumbed, it could be the final nail in the coffin for the Wagner Center and it could put a lot of people out of work. And invite the wrecking ball so a newer, bigger structure would take its place. It was prize real estate. Needless to say, there were interested parties on both sides.

  “If it’s not the curse,” David said, “and it’s just another mishap, that makes six. The members’ lounge was buzzing this morning. Mostly that viper Allegra Douglas. She’s already pointing fingers.” According to David, more than a few longtime flower show denizens didn’t approve of the new crop of exhibitors, although most weren’t as vocal as Allegra.

  “There’s one of the old-timers now,” he said. His voice dropped. “Uh-oh, she’s coming this way. Big pencil at eleven o’clock … and something tells me she’s not looking for pinecone nightlights. Command performance, ladies.”

  I hadn’t heard the term big pencil to denote a big buyer since my days in the video business, and from my crouched position I craned my neck to see. The low whirr of a machine was followed by a shaky voice behind me. “Redecorating?” I bolted upright, and made eye contact with … no one until I shifted my gaze downward to Jean Moffitt’s wheelchair.

  “Just joking. Don’t get up on my account.”

  She wore a cherry red suit tricked out with more gold buttons and braid than a character from a Gilbert and Sullivan production, and her thin, storklike legs were partially wrapped in a luscious shawl I pegged as Loro Piana. Very Italian and very expensive. At the chair’s controls was a young man with watery blue eyes and sandy blond hair cropped in very short, almost military fashion. A light-colored polo shirt stretched across a well-defined set of pecs, and his chinos looked as if they’d been ironed. Definitely military. He was comfortable enough with the old woman to have been a relative but maybe not. There was also a little reserve.

  “Rick and I should come back when you’ve finished setting up,” Mrs. Moffitt said.

  Perhaps this was how it was done. The on-the-floor business was window dressing; all the big deals were made at off-hours. “No, no, just testing my computer presentation,” I said, kicking into salesman mode. “May I show it to you?” She looked at me as if I’d suggested she view my vacation pictures from the last ten years.

  I’d seen the Moffitt name on a dozen items at the flower show from containers to window boxes to specimen plants—each entry adorned with a ribbon. David had told us about her. Jean Moffitt’s late husband was a wealthy industrialist who’d been a big supporter of the show. No one ever said that’s why she always won, but there were some who thought she was guaranteed a certain number of prizes every year. If the show had been around for a hundred years, Jean Moffitt had been there for most of them, and her sitting room was lined with glass cases filled with blue ribbons to prove it.

  This year’s theme was “A New York State of Mind,” and Mrs. Moffitt’s entry, A Sleepy Hollow Garden, was the odds-on favorite to take first prize Friday night when the biggest awards were given for best overall display garden. The Moffitt garden was a masterpiece worthy of a Las Vegas theme park. Playing on the Washington Irving short story, it featured marble tombstones, rotting tree trunks, and numerous specimens of Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick, which looked like dead, gnarled limbs but were very much alive. She had planned to have a headless horseman galloping through the Friday night reception but at the eleventh hour had learned it would be a building code violation. Her attorneys were still working on getting the variance, and hoped it would come through before the final judging.

  “My gardener was here yesterday,” she said. “He seems to think some of your pieces might suit one of our gardens.” How many did she have?

  “They’re not mine,” I said. “They’re the work of a friend.” I launched into my spiel and fidgeted with the flash drive, plugging it into the laptop and continuing my pitch—but I’d never located the power source and my battery was at 20 percent, so nothing much was happening on the screen.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m a little electrically challenged right now.” I dropped down again to check for the outlet and was at eye level with the woman.

  “That’s all right, dear. We’ll stop by during the reception.” I saw my sale rolling away and was pressing for a firmer commitment and a specific time to meet when Lauryn Peete and two young girls walked by, balancing three vintage streetlights on a too-small dolly whose casters were being uncooperative. The dolly snagged on a cable, and one of the streetlights teetered dangerously close to Lauryn’s head. Rick sprang into action and averted disaster, although the light did guillotine an amaryllis. The kids cheered, “Hey, the marines are here.”

  Mrs. Moffitt and I watched as her companion picked up the fixtures at the middle and carried them like lightweight barbells to the school’s display garden.

  “Rick won’t like that at all. He was at the Air Force Academy,” Mrs. Moffitt said, keeping an eye on him.

  I didn’t know much about the various branches of the armed forces, but I knew you had to be recommended for the Air Force Academy by a congressman. That bit of information came to me courtesy of a snowboarder in Colorado who thought it would help him get to first base. It did. After a short while, Rick jogged back to us, full of unnecessary apologies to me and Mrs. Moffitt.

  “Nonsense. You did what any red-blooded American boy would do—you helped a pretty woman in distress.”

  His ears flushed bright red, and I took the brief silence as an opportunity to get back to the business at hand. “Was there any one piece that particularly struck your fancy?” I asked her, while looking at him.

  “Don’t ask him,” she laughed, patting his hand. “This child wouldn’t know a weed from an orchid. Rick is my physical therapist, my chauffeur, and frequent dining companion. Mr. Jensen is my gardener. He’s not here now; he’s arranging for our last few accoutrements to be delivered.” I wondered if he was interviewing headless horsemen.

  She was describing the pieces Jensen had mentioned seeing, when Jamal Harrington, he of the rubber rat, shuffled by swinging the empty dolly in a manner that could have been considered aggressive. He glared at Rick as if he were trying to burn a hole in him. Rick didn’t flinch.

  “We will come back,” Mrs. Moffitt said. “I promise. But now I must go and check out my competition. Jensen says there are one or two quite original gardens that may give me a run for my money this year. He’s always looking after me. Come along, Rick.”

  As he wheeled her away I overheard her say, “There certainly is an odd crop of entrants this year.”

  Sixteen

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p; I breathed easier when the last of Primo’s pieces arrived. With Nikki’s help they were test-driven in every possible location until the arrangement met with her approval. Her own booth looked ready for a glossy magazine shoot with dried flowers and decorative throws artfully dropped around the vintage tools and furniture. I’d seen at least one photographer strolling the halls, taking pictures during setup, and there were sure to be others on opening night.

  The central element of Nikki’s booth was a sarcophagus topped with a decorative iron grate to be used—if you owned a property big enough—as an outdoor dining table. There was no rearranging that baby, so Nikki contented herself with tweaking everything else she’d brought: a wrought iron bistro set, antique plant stands, Japanese lanterns, carved stone pots, and a hundred smaller items—busts, birdbaths, and vintage tools—for those of us who didn’t live on huge properties but still wanted to feel like the chatelaines of great estates. Then she moved on to Primo’s pieces.

  “If Mrs. Moffitt comes back to see you and happens to also buy my sarcophagus, I will give you anything in my booth as a commission. You’re going to bring me luck, I can feel it. Last year I was next to a couple selling Alaskan fish fertilizer. It was awful,” she said. “Stray cats followed me home.”

  After staging his light fixtures, David had a minor crisis when the power in our aisle died. It was as if the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center had failed to light. It was impossible to appreciate the detail and intricacy of his work without a warm light glowing behind the shades and sconces. Forty minutes and a fifty-dollar tip later, all was well, and we wondered if it was the Javits Curse again or one last attempt by Wagner employees to squeeze additional baksheesh out of frantic exhibitors.