Dating Dead Men

by Harley Jane Kozak

  “Hendrix. Oh! Dylan Ellison called this morning and I rescheduled him for tomorrow. Wollie, have pity,” she said, moving to block my path to the stereo. “It's not my regular day. I'm only wired for bad music Tuesdays, Thursdays, and—”

  “Fredreeq,” I hissed, moving around her. “Spies.”

  “Who, Mr. and Mrs. Retirement Village?” She nodded to the customers, who looked heavenward as electric guitar gave way to flutes. “You think Bundt has the brains to recruit our regulars? I'm thinking he gets rejects from the Wal-Mart security guard program. Anyhow, now that you're back, I'm outta here, I've got three facials coming and I need lunch.”

  When Fredreeq and the seniors were gone, I slipped into the back room, propped the door open to listen for customers, then moved Doc's laundry from washer to dryer, adding a fabric softener sheet. My pulse raced with the thrill of taboo behavior.

  In addition to the List, each Dating Project subject had individualized Dos and Don'ts, compiled by her discriminating friends. Mine were all Don'ts: Don't Do His Laundry, Don't Let Him Move In, Don't Use the “L,” “R,” or “B/G” Words (Love, Relationship, Boyfriend/Girlfriend) Until He Does. We research subjects were to note all List and Dos and Don'ts violations, which would presumably decrease our chances of romantic success. Joey, a cynic, was of the opinion that Dr. Cookie had already written her book and the “research” would adapt itself to her conclusions. Fredreeq, concerned with getting me to the finish line, didn't concern herself with philosophical details. But I was trying to be conscientious about it all.

  In this case, I told myself that laundry wasn't technically “done” until the clothes were dry and folded, but in my heart I knew this was rationalization, the kind of thinking common to compulsive gamblers and heroin addicts. I was on a slippery slope.

  The shop remained quiet, so I went into the bathroom to try on the dress. I wanted to make my own assessment before Fredreeq bonded to it; if it was unwearable, I'd talk the boutique into sending an alternative, or at least a larger size. I fought with the fabric and found my way through the various straps that constituted the dress, then contorted myself to check out the back of it in the mirror, only to find it had no back.

  The phone rang. I bounded around the room, then out onto the shop floor and found the cordless phone in a box of newly arrived Passover cards. I gave a breathless greeting. There was a pause, then, “Is this the lady I talked to the other day?”

  I closed my eyes. Carmine. I opened them. “Yes. It is.”

  “Okay,” he said, and coughed violently. “So I'm wondering, you hear anything from that friend we talked about? He still got your car?”

  “Uh . . .” My heart was beating fast.

  “What about the merchandise? He gonna cooperate?”

  A woman wearing a baby in a backpack entered the shop and headed to stationery. I watched her until my own reflection, in a glass-framed poster, caught my attention. A low-cut little silver dress. Someone who'd wear this before lunch might do anything. The thought inspired me.

  “Carmine,” I said softly, “if it's cooperation you're looking for, you'll find that I'm very—cooperative. I'm a businesswoman. I understand supply and demand.”

  “What are you saying? That you and me can work something out?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Describe this merchandise.”

  “Aw, don't waste my time. If you don't even know what I'm looking—”

  “You're looking for something found very recently. Something hidden for a year, while a certain person's been doing time in Corcoran.”

  He was silent. I held my breath. I could not believe I was doing this. Had he been able to see my face, I'd never have tried it. Finally, he said, “You've seen it?”

  He was buying it. The ground seemed to shift beneath me, and I leaned against the wall for support. The wallpaper was cold on my bare back. “I have access to my friend's, uh, collection,” I said, envisioning Doc's gym bag. “But it's extensive. That's why I need you to describe the—item.”

  “You telling me he deals in these?” Carmine demanded.

  “Why not?”

  “He got a middleman, or he fences them himself?”

  “Depends. Locally, he does it. In Europe, he'll go through a middleman.”

  “Europe?” Carmine sounded startled.

  “Or South America. Central America,” I said, bringing it closer to home.

  Carmine snorted. “He got a deal set up already? Because he's gonna take a bath on it. He'll never get what it's worth. You got it there with you?”

  “No, we'll have to meet somewhere. You need to tell me how to recognize it.”

  “What do you want, the three C's, or whatever? It's got the name inside.”

  Three C's? Name inside? Fenceable?

  He said, “Or bring the whole collection, I'll know which one it is when I see it.”

  Portable. Small.

  “So how 'bout today?” he said. “What time's your place close?”

  “Oh, late, very late,” I said. “And then there's stockwork. Today's bad.”

  “Tomorrow night. Nine o'clock.”

  “Midnight.”

  “Nine-thirty. Done.” He hacked again. “Where?”

  “Jerry's Famous Deli, on Beverly,” I said, naming the biggest, brightest, most public place I could think of. “Listen, Carmine, what do you think it's worth?”

  “I hear half a million.”

  I exhaled slowly. “For something that small?”

  “Well, it ain't just size, it's whose it was. That's the whole point, isn't it?”

  Hard to know what to make of that. “Well, I'm an artist, so I tend to think more in terms of . . . color?” I guessed.

  “Color?” he said. “What? White? What the hell are you talking about?”

  White. Drugs? Heroin?

  “Never mind,” I said. “Tell me this: what kind of deal were you thinking of? Because I have to tell you, other people have shown some interest in this item.”

  “People. What people?”

  I hesitated. “Swedish people.”

  Carmine choked. “You outta your tree? You don't wanna be—Jesus, those guys are so connected, they're spitting spaghetti. You ever hear of the Terranovas? Or Eddie Digits? They're his—Christ, you deal with Olof and Tor, you're as good as dead the minute you hand it over.” Carmine worked himself into a coughing fit. “Your boyfriend's a dead man already,” he spat out.

  “He's not my boyfriend,” I whispered.

  Although we were dating. Well, one date. It had lasted over two hours, anyway, and he'd bought—okay, not dinner, but doughnuts. It seemed important to be clear about this, absolutely accurate, if only in my own head, sticking to my Dos and Don'ts, in order to block out the second part of that sentence, the part where Carmine called Doc a dead man.

  Carmine's coughing subsided. I swallowed, and spoke up. “So, what would your offer be?”

  “Best offer there is, Blondie. You and him and the little girl don't get your balls shot off. Everybody walks away still breathing. How's that sound?”

  Across the shop, the baby in the backpack uttered a cry, sending shivers up and down my naked spine. “That sounds good,” I said.

  chapter twenty

  “Damn, you look hot,” said Fredreeq. “Doesn't she look hot, Joey?”

  I felt cold, actually. The back room, with its high ceilings, was perpetually drafty.

  “Great, Fred, let's see how much more self-conscious we can make her.” Joey was the only living person allowed to call Fredreeq “Fred,” the result of a bet. She aimed a Polaroid at me. “Uncross your arms, Wollie.”

  It was 6 P.M. Normally we scheduled weeknight dates after eight, giving me time to close up the shop. The early hour was a concession to my date's mogul status. Joey would mind the store, with Fredreeq, working next door, as backup. In honor of the occasion, Joey wore ironed clothes.

  I sighed. “I don't know how to talk to one of the Fifty Most Powerful Men in Media.”r />
  Fredreeq said, “Sugarplum, that dress will do the talking. Okay, I gotta go—big tipper next door in two minutes. Joey, bang on the wall if you need me.”

  When Fredreeq was gone, I turned to Joey. “Ever hear of the three C's?”

  Joey made notes on the Polaroid and reached up to replace the camera on its shelf, next to an accordion. Her hair fell in a thick red braid down her back. “Yes. No—only the three B's. Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.”

  “What do you know about the Mafia?”

  “The usual—Godfathers I, II, and III.” Joey perched on the back of the sofa, her long legs dangling. “Why don't you ask Robert Quarter? He claims close personal relationships with several Kennedys, so ask him if the mob was behind JFK's murder. That'll get him going. Guys love talking about ‘the Outfit,' especially if they have nothing whatsoever to do with it.”

  “You don't like Robert Quarter?” I asked, adjusting my garter belt.

  “I don't know him. But I have friends who've dated him. Everyone's dated him. I'm not sure how Fredreeq found him, by the way, because he's not—never mind.” Joey stood.

  “What? We're not following protocol? Joey, we're on the honor system! Dr. Cookie trusts us, Tiffanie's trusts us. I know you think the Dating Project's a joke, that they don't care about research methods, but Dr. Cookie's a Ph.D., she's got standards—”

  “Wollie, there're schools that give you Ph.D.s for frequent flier miles, they don't guarantee integrity. And Tiffanie's Trousseau would sponsor the Flat Earth Society if it would sell more bustiers. Uh-oh, the front door. I'll go. You relax.”

  “No, I'll go.” I hurried out to the shop floor, wondering whether our playing fast and loose with the dating rules could affect the fate of lovelorn women everywhere. Joey was wrong. It wasn't her fault; she'd lived in New York for a long time. But her skepticism about the Dating Project was misplaced. It had to be. Dr. Cookie's method might not result in True Love for me, but I had to believe that others would benefit from my research, or else I myself was in it just for the money. This depressed me. “May I help you?” I asked the incoming customer.

  He was the mysterious Blue Patron, he of the baby blue sweater and blue leather jacket. Today he wore a blue linen shirt. He smiled. “You look too lovely to be working tonight.”

  I felt myself blush. “I—thank you, I have a—” I stopped. Who was this man? Had he ever bought anything? Well dressed, middle-aged, why was he haunting my shop?

  My suspicion must have showed. He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I like your place. I like everything you've done with it.” He looked around. “I was here when the previous owner—”

  “Aldwyn Allen?”

  “Yes. Aldwyn's Willkommen! Greetings. That didn't work out.” He studied the lemon grove mural. “It'll work out for you, I think. You've made this your own. That's a gift.” He turned back to me. “Well. That's all I wanted to say. I don't often tell people when I like their work, but we all need to hear it sometimes.” He nodded, as though I'd responded, then shook my hand and walked away. He got to the door and turned. “Good luck.”

  I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and floated into the back room. Could that really be Mr. Bundt's plainclothesperson? Had he really just implied what I thought he'd implied? I felt like drinking champagne. I said nothing to Joey, afraid to jinx things. She went onto the shop floor, and I hobbled over in my strappy high-heeled sandals to the dryer and began folding Doc's laundry, utterly giddy.

  I'd managed to convince myself that Carmine calling Doc a dead man was just hyperbole, a figure of speech. Not that murders didn't happen; the corpse in the road was proof they did. But not to regular people, I decided, people I knew, people whose socks I mated, whose T-shirts I folded . . . There was a button-down shirt I longed to iron, but my silver dress, with its indeterminate fiber content, might explode if it got too close to an iron. I started in on Ruby's clothes, as intriguing as Doc's—one floral ankle sock, a puffed-sleeved blouse, a pea green velour shirt. Perhaps my laundry fetish was something platonic. Harmless. Not a romantic addiction after all, but simply—

  I reached in the dryer for one last sock and felt something small and hard and circular. I didn't need to see it to know what it was.

  A plain gold wedding band. Thick. The kind a man would wear.

  I MADE MY way around the manicure stations of Neat Nails Plus, overwhelmed by nail lacquer and formaldehyde fumes. I tripped over a Crenshaw melon adorning the plastic Buddhist temple, and found Fredreeq behind a beaded curtain, doing a facial.

  On a table lay a smock-wrapped, towel-turbaned woman, her face covered in broccoli green clay. A slice of cucumber rested upon each eye, creating a corpselike image, until a gentle snore animated the lips. Fredreeq, cell phone balanced on her shoulder, massaged the woman's ears. I waited for her to hang up, then showed her an invoice.

  “You need to do this now?” she asked, deciphering her shorthand for me. “You're not taking paperwork on your date, are you?”

  “No, but I'll need to work on the books late tonight. I'm behind on everything.” It was true enough, I thought.

  Fredreeq continued the massage, her thin black fingers strong on her client's fleshy neck. “What else? Something's taking up space in your head. What's bugging you?”

  I took a deep breath. “Did Doc—my cousin—mention Ruby's mother?”

  “The wife?” Fredreeq snorted. “What a piece of work. You ever meet her?”

  I shook my head.

  “She's either a knockout, or she's great in bed, or both, for him to make excuses for her. It's gotta be embarrassing to love someone like that.”

  “When did you guys talk about this?” I asked, trying to keep the petulance out of my voice.

  “Hour ago. He and Ruby came into the shop looking for you, while you were off getting all dolled up. He didn't volunteer it, but I dragged it outta him. The wife's the one who dropped Ruby with the nuns and gave them a rubber check, and did he tell you what she did then? Flew to Japan. Hello? Sense of responsibility, anybody? He says she's impulsive.” Fredreeq rolled her eyes. “Impulsive is buying shoes when the rent's due. Flying to Japan and not telling anyone, that's bullshit. Men. So blind about women sometimes, you wanna slap them upside the head.” She was putting a little too much energy into her massage now, and the woman on the table stirred, mumbling something that sounded like “cigarette.”

  Fredreeq looked down. “A few less cigarettes, you wouldn't have to spend so much time in green clay.”

  Naturally, in the back of my mind I realized that Ruby had a mother, but I'd managed to avoid the kind of logical thinking that led to these questions. Dr. Cookie was right. I hadn't wanted to know this. I started to leave, then said, “Do ‘the three C's' mean anything to you?”

  But Fredreeq was back on her cell phone, giving dinner instructions to her husband. She paused long enough to wave me off. “Get outta here. Robert Quarter's probably waiting out front. Go out there and break some hearts tonight.”

  No problem, I thought, walking back to the shop. I was breaking my own heart without leaving the neighborhood. Never had I been less eager to go on a date.

  I shuffled into the shop and slumped over to the counter. So I was on my own. Tomorrow I'd work on finding those court transcripts and—

  “Wollie,” Fredreeq said, running in behind me. “He's pulling into the lot, Robert Quarter, I saw him from the window. Go. Don't you even think about taking that sweater. Go. Go.” She pried me from the counter, shoved an evening bag at me, and shepherded me out the door.

  A woman stepped in front of us, plastic smock flapping in the wind. Fredreeq's client. Her green clay face moved in close as she exhaled a mouthful of smoke and said, “Wanted to tell you: cut, clarity, and carats.” She pointed her cigarette at me. “Diamonds.”

  Before I could process that, she stepped aside, revealing a man standing in the parking lot, a man whose face and uniform were imprinted on my memory.

  “He
llo, Ms. Shelley.” He smiled, and opened the door to a very large brown limousine.

  HIS NAME WAS Kelvin and he was, he said, very sorry to have scared me Saturday night, in the course of checking me out. From the limo's front seat, a puppy yapped at us.

  Confusion rooted me to the sidewalk. Did assassins introduce themselves? Apologize? Bring puppies?

  One of the back windows descended with a hum, revealing half a head. I recognized the receding hairline and salt-and-pepper hair from the news photos. Robert Quarter. Kelvin, my erstwhile assailant, it seemed, was the mogul's chauffeur.

  chapter twenty-one

  Strung across a thirty-yard-long front porch, a banner proclaimed, “Saul and Elaine's 14th Annual Beverly Hills Hoedown!” I stepped out of the limousine and faced a lawn the size of a small golf course. Around me, Mercedeses and Jaguars disgorged cowboy-booted passengers onto the circular driveway. Robert joined me, liberated at last from the conference call that had occupied him the entire drive. In the limo, I'd had plenty of time to wonder about his red checkered shirt and well-pressed jeans, but here he looked right at home. I, however, was in couture hell.

  Then I was attacked.

  My assailant was Robert's dog, the half-grown boxer who'd been riding in the front seat of the limo. Oblivious to her owner's “Sweetie Pie! Sweetie Pie! Down,” Sweetie Pie had to be physically separated from my silk stockings by Kelvin, materializing to haul her back into the limo. I began to sneeze.

  “She's a juvenile delinquent,” Robert said, leading me toward the mansion. My spike heels sank into grass with each step, which at least brought me closer to my date's height. He was solidly built and escorted me with the confidence of a man accustomed to tall, bobbing females. “I'm very sorry. You're all right?”

  I nodded, wondering what had happened to number nine, No Pets. “The thing is,” I said between sneezes, “I'm not really dressed for a hootenanny.”

  “I should have told you,” he said. “I had a stock drop seven points this morning and I let it distract me until it went back up. What'll it take for you to forgive me?”