by Becky Clark
I couldn’t remember if she had hurried outside after accosting me in the restroom. I pictured where people got off the train. Union Station was straight across the plaza, but if they veered to the right, they’d go around the building and be on Wynkoop Street, full of shops and restaurants to duck into. And if they’d doubled back, away from Union Station, they’d be able to catch a light rail train anywhere.
I pulled out one of the business cards and placed it on the table between us, then typed in the URL of the website listed. “Under construction. Great.” I performed a search for her name. She didn’t seem to have the accent to be a realtor in Dublin, the address to be a Hollywood hair stylist, or the body type to be an Olympic sprinter. “I don’t have time to plow through 5,660,000 hits on her name. I have to talk to Martina McCarthy.”
“What if she turns out to be a stalker?”
“I doubt she’s going to tell us that.”
“Probably not.”
We finished breakfast staring at the card in the middle of the table. I willed it to talk to me and tell me everything I needed to know about Martina McCarthy. It remained silent.
Five
We drove in Ozzi’s Prius to the address on the card. It was in the Cherry Creek shopping district in the middle of a block flanked by a nail salon and boutique on one side, and a pet store and frozen yogurt place on the other. They all appeared to be open, since parking was scarce. We circled the block and parked.
We walked past FroYolo and saw an employee writing flavors of the day on a chalkboard out front. The Furry Fiesta Pet Store was having a sale on puppies and puppy supplies and it was mobbed with excited kids and harried adults.
“Nine hundred bucks for a puppy? Why don’t they go to the shelter and put those puppy mills out of business?” I grumbled, veering toward the door.
Ozzi caught my hand and pulled me back. “Oh no you don’t. Only one crusade per day and you have a mystery to solve. Focus on Martina.”
“Fine.” I dodged two adults with two little boys and a surly teenager heading past us toward the pet store. “But people should adopt dogs instead of buying them from pet stores!” I raised my voice so the family would be sure to hear.
The teenager stopped on the sidewalk and stomped her foot. “See, Dad? I TOLD you this is bogus. We HAVE to go to the animal shelter. It’s a matter of LIFE and DEATH!”
Nobody did drama better than a teenage girl on a mission. I stopped to watch.
Her father clamped her on the shoulder and tried to steer her into the pet store. She wouldn’t budge. He gritted his teeth. “The boys have their hearts set on a pug puppy. And this store has three pug puppies. On sale. Right here. Where we are.” She still didn’t budge. The rest of the family entered the store. He pointed his finger at her. “Wait right here until we’re done.”
“Done ruining the world, you mean.” She put her hands on her hips, clearly a pose her weary father had seen before. The girl looked at me. “What are ya gonna do? People refuse to be reasonable.”
“Yes, they do,” I said. “But I will say, pugs have a certain charm. I have one in my life. He’s a mess. Can barely breathe since his face is so squished in, but his wheezing is second only to his capacity for unconditional love. You want my advice?”
“Why not,” she said.
“Whatever dog they get, love it with your whole heart, but keep working on your folks to adopt the next one. They’ll come around.”
“I don’t know. They had three kids. I don’t think they’re very smart.” She leaned against the brick wall, one foot planted flat behind her. Cool as only a teenager could be.
Ozzi and I both laughed. “Good luck to you.”
“Whatev.” She turned her head, signaling the end of our encounter.
Ozzi held his hand on the door of Martina’s business address but didn’t open it. “Are you ready for this?”
“You mean do I have a plan?”
“Do you have a plan?”
“No.” I crooked my finger at him. “Give me a minute.” He let go of the door and followed me back to the brick wall. I leaned against it. The teenage girl gave a loud “hmph” before moving away from us. I knew she kinda wanted to go in the pet store, but she couldn’t very well do so now, after her outburst. She sat on the curb instead.
“What’s my plan ... what’s my plan,” I murmured, flicking the business card back and forth. It made a pleasing little fwoop sound between my fingers. The card fwooped right out of my hand. When I stooped to pick it up, I frowned. I walked toward the curb in front of the building and looked up at the sign. I looked at the card again. Ozzi joined me at the curb.
“What?”
“Look at the logos.” I handed him the card then nudged my chin skyward at the sign on the building. “They’re completely different.” The curlicue logo on Martina’s card did not match the stylized lettering spelling out Pandora’s Mail Box on the sign above us.
“You’re right,” Ozzi said. “I was just looking at the address on the building.”
“This must not be the right place.” I crossed the sidewalk and pulled open the door.
We stood in the lobby surrounded by freestanding kiosks of packages of stationery and shipping supplies. Lining the walls were mailboxes, large and small. I had a flashback to where we picked up our mail in college, mostly scary stuff like financial aid notices, but sometimes cookies from home. In the rear of the store was a long counter with one employee helping a customer package up a box.
“Oz, this isn’t her business. It’s just where she gets her mail.” I moved toward the counter in the back, waiting to speak with the employee. I watched her work. Her thin, mousey hair hung limply in her face. She didn’t even bother to brush it back or tuck it behind an ear. Like she and her hair had a fight and she’d lost. Badly.
“Packing peanuts or craft paper?” she asked the customer in a voice that reminded me of Eeyore.
“What’s the difference?” he asked.
She didn’t look up. Just shrugged without answering. And they say customer service is dead.
“Packing peanuts, I guess.”
She maneuvered a huge, flexible tube over the man’s box, pulled the lever and held it as Styrofoam pellets poured into the box. By the time she’d let go of the lever, an equal number had poured onto the counter. She brushed them to the floor. Every time she moved I heard them squelch and crack under her feet.
“Plastic, filament, or gummed tape?” Eeyore asked.
The man laughed. “No idea. Which would you choose?”
Again, she didn’t look up, just shrugged.
The man looked at us for help.
Ozzi said, “I’d go with plastic.”
“Definitely plastic,” I said.
“Plastic it is, then,” he told Eeyore.
She taped his box, but their interaction was so painful I couldn’t watch anymore. I inspected the packages of stationary until the man left. Then I said to Eeyore, whose nametag I could see now and showed REGINA, “I’m looking for someone.” I held Martina’s business card out to her.
Eeyo—Regina simply stared at me through her curtain of hair.
I tried again. “Martina McCarthy? She has a box here?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, she does? Or yeah, continue with your question?”
She didn’t respond so I showed her I could win a staring contest with a bored employee any day of the week. The key was to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star over and over in your head.
Finally she indicated the business card. “You know as much as I do.” The effort seemed to exhaust her and she had to brace herself by bending over the counter and resting her head on her arms.
I shot Ozzi a will you get a load of this look. He clearly could not get a load of it either.
“Regina, luv”—I don’t know why I thought channeling my inner Vera Stanhope would help—“I know this is hard on a wee bairn such as yourself, but I need you to answer my questions.”
&nb
sp; She raised her head, tucking her hair behind her ears. Vera Stanhope comes through again!
“Luv, do you know Martina McCarthy?”
“Seen her once or twice. Gets packages sometimes.”
“Atta girl. Does she pick up her mail at a regular time every day?”
“Shouldn’t say. Privacy stuff.”
I felt as exhausted as she looked so I was happy to conclude this conversation, or whatever it was. “Thanks, luv, you’ve been a big help.” I kind of meant it, too. I feel like this was the longest, deepest, most intimate interaction she’d had in a very long time.
As Ozzi and I left, I made note of the hours posted on the front door. We held hands as we walked back to the car.
“I’m coming back here before they open tomorrow. I need to talk to this Martina McCarthy.”
“Charlee, didn’t she threaten you at the train station?”
“I suppose. But only to keep me away from Lapaglia. Obviously I’ve done that.”
“Obviously.” He dropped my hand so he could slip his hand around my waist and pull me close. “I really think you should stay away from her. Wait until you can talk to Penn & Powell.”
I nodded. “I’ll call them first thing tomorrow. Since they’re in New York, I can call really early. But I doubt they’re going to help.”
“But they might. Or maybe they’ve already heard from him.”
“Maybe. But don’t get your hopes up.” We walked a little further. “I have to find him. I need that money, despite any vague threat from her.”
“Just do me a favor and don’t do anything until you talk to your editor.”
“That’s my plan. But if they can’t or won’t help, I’ll be waiting for Martina McCarthy starting at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll wait there as long as I have to.” I saw the look on his face. “You can come with me if you want.”
“I can’t. I have that presentation tomorrow.” Ozzi stopped walking as a cocky grin spread across his face. “But I have an idea.” He led me across the street and zigzagged through the short blocks of the shopping district until we got to a huge toy store.
“This is your idea? Buying a game?” I gave him a sidelong glance. “Do you think I’ll be bored on my stake out?”
“No, but I think you might not be safe.” He opened the door for me. “They sell costumes here. Let’s look for disguises. If I can’t be there with you, I’d feel better if I knew you might not be recognized.”
“I’m going to talk to her, Oz. Pretty sure she’ll recognize me. And don’t you think she’d turn and run if she saw a naughty nurse coming at her?” I didn’t say anything about that mob guy, because I didn’t want to worry Ozzi any more than he already was, but I wouldn’t mind being incognito if he really was skulking around after me and not just a figment of my imagination.
We got upstairs to the costume department and the first one I saw was the naughty nurse outfit. I held it up. The dress barely covered my lady bits. “Like this?”
Ozzi leered. “Let’s hold on to that one.”
“Not.”
“Aww.”
“Isn’t the idea to blend in? Not be noticed?”
“I suppose.” He pulled a melodramatic sad face.
We shopped for more than two hours, having fun but also collecting some solid disguises—hats, wigs, dowdy housecoat, a baker’s outfit that made me look like Lucy Ricardo at the chocolate factory (or maybe Ethel Mertz; it was pretty dowdy), and my favorite ... a pregnancy suit. Ozzi pulled out his credit card. He laughed and nodded at the rhinestone cat-eye glasses and a huge tangerine-colored drag wig I had donned. Sure, they were more noticeable, but lordy, they were fun to wear.
In fact, I wore the glasses and drag wig home while Ozzi wore my new Farrah Fawcett wig. I didn’t know if it was the innate politeness and tolerance of the populace of Colorado, but nobody even looked twice at us.
Maybe this disguise thing really was a good idea.
Six
At six on the dot Monday morning, I dialed Stephanie Szabo’s number at the New York offices of Penn & Powell Publishing. I knew she’d be at her desk an hour before everyone else got there. I was miffed she hadn’t responded to my frantic messages over the weekend, but she once told me she could get half a manuscript edited in that hour before her day really began, which was probably what she was trying to do today. Tough luck.
“Charlee! I was just getting ready to call you, but I didn’t know if you’d be up this early.”
“Hey, Steph. So you got my messages?”
“Yes, but just a few minutes ago. I turned my phone off. My sisters and nieces were here for the weekend. I feel just awful!”
Now I felt awful for thinking she was ignoring me. It’s hard to remember some people have actual lives that didn’t revolve around my drama. “No, it’s fine, but I need to find Lapaglia. Have you heard from him?”
“No. I called him and left a message but he hasn’t called back. Still never showed up at the hotel. I don’t know what else to do.”
“What would really help me is if you could reimburse the money all those participants paid for his workshop, and the money I fronted for all the costs.”
“Me personally?”
“No. Penn & Powell. It was your idea, after all. You said it would be good for my career. And his.”
Steph was silent long enough for me to wonder if the call dropped.
“Are you there?”
“Charlee, I can’t do that. I don’t have the authority and I know my boss wouldn’t agree to it.”
“But it was your idea!”
“I know. And I feel terrible.”
“Well, that doesn’t help me in the least.” I was trying to keep my anger and frustration in check. I didn’t need to lose another editor.
“I know! What can I do to help?”
“Front the money.”
I heard her take a deep breath and whoosh it out. “Here’s the thing. I didn’t run this workshop event of yours up the chain of command here. Nobody signed off on it because nobody knew.”
“But didn’t you guys pay for his train ticket and hotel?”
“No. I told him I’d try to submit it afterward … because I knew they wouldn’t go for it. I figured he’d forget about it because the event would go so well.”
“Steph!”
“I know, I know. But I really thought it was a slam-dunk, that nothing could go wrong.”
A series of squeaky frustration noises escaped from my mouth before I could control myself. “Stuff went wrong. Stuff went very wrong.”
“I know. And I feel terrible.”
“So I’ve heard.” I didn’t really have a Plan B for Steph so I wracked my brain. How else could she help? “What you have to do, then, is find Lapaglia, and pronto. Give me his cell number. And do you have his home number in Nebraska?”
“Um ... Charlee, I can’t give you his number.”
“Why?”
“Client confidentiality. I signed a paper.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You SIGNED a PAPER? What about all the papers I signed? You know, the ones that promised to pay a gazillion dollars THAT I DON’T HAVE?”
“I’m sorry!”
I took a deep breath to control my temper and my tremor. Luckily these days it only showed up under extreme duress. Like when I’d exhausted all options and my cause seemed lost. “Okay. Can you give me his agent’s info?”
“Um—”
“You have GOT to be kidding me!”
“I can call Lapaglia’s agent and explain the situation. We have a working relationship so maybe I can get through to Lapaglia that way. I doubt his agent would talk to you anyway.”
She was probably right. “Okay, fine. You keep trying to call Lapaglia and his agent and get my money back. And let me know the minute you find out anything.”
“You know I will, Charlee. And believe me, I feel just awful.”
Fat lot of good that does me. “I know, Steph. Just
get me my money.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I hung up, had a good cry, then called my agent.
Her assistant answered. “Piper O’Shaughnessy’s office.”
“Hey Tina. Is she in? It’s Charlee Russo.”
“Oh, Charlee.” Tina’s voice changed in a way that made my stomach lurch. “She’s in the middle of a conference call—”
“Can you give her a message?”
“No, she told me to interrupt if you called. Hang on.”
That did not sound good. But at least I knew she got my messages.
“Hey, Charlee, I just have a minute.”
“Thanks for taking my call, Piper.”
“I just wish I had better news for you.”
“What—”
“I can’t do anything to help except maybe lean on Penn & Powell to reimburse you. I’m calling them as soon as this conference call is over.”
My heart sunk even lower, if that was possible.
“Don’t bother. I just talked to Stephanie. She won’t help.” I had a brainstorm. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to represent Rodolfo Lapaglia, would you?”
“No. Sorry.”
Maybe less of a brainstorm and more of a drizzle. “Do you know who does?”
“No, but I can try to find out.” I heard fuzzy mumbling, like she’d covered the phone to talk to someone. “Charlee, I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch.”
She was gone and I was on my own to solve this.
Looked like I had to talk to Martina McCarthy after all.
Seven
We forgot to bring the bags of disguises up from Ozzi’s trunk yesterday so I headed to his apartment to borrow his keys. I got three-quarters of the way there and saw his empty parking space. He must have left early for his big presentation. I toyed with the idea of not using a disguise, but Ozzi would be mad, and truth be told, a disguise probably was a good idea.
I returned to my apartment and donned the rhinestone cat-eye glasses and tangerine-colored drag wig. I followed the intricate steps the salesclerk gave me to properly attach the wig, since it threatened to fall off so many times yesterday, even when it was wedged between my head and the ceiling in Ozzi’s car.
