Don’t Look Now

by Richard Montanari

  ‘That’s quite all right.’

  ‘By the way, how much does this particular powder retail for?’

  Andie sat on the edge of her desk. ‘Chaligne retails for anywhere from sixty to eighty dollars, depending on the store.’

  ‘Is that a lot?’

  ‘Not really. We have other lines that retail for much more. They’re sold online, and in Saks, Bergdorf, Neiman-Marcus. Because Chaligne is more affordable it is available in a lot of places. Over fifty stores and catalog outlets in northern Ohio.’

  ‘Is that a lot?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said, smiling. ‘We have a very aggressive sales force.’

  Paris saw a flash of the man-eater she was when she tried to pick him up at the Impulse.

  Back, he thought as he stood to leave, when she was a blonde.

  Paris pulled the car over at the corner of West Thirty-fifth and Franklin just as the rain began to come down in sheets. Tommy, who had been standing in the doorway to Minerva Beauty Care, made a dash for it with a newspaper over his head, cursing each drop of water that hit his Zegna suit.

  ‘Fuck this weather.’ Tommy slid in, slammed the car door behind him.

  ‘We’ve got two left,’ Paris said. Chaligne was available at nine Cleveland locations in all. They had visited seven. ‘Allied Salon Products on West Forty-fourth, and DeQuincey’s on Clark and Fiftieth. We could almost walk.’ Paris handed Tommy the list and looked over his shoulder at the traffic. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll drop you off at Allied and swing by to pick you up when I’m done with the other place.’

  ‘No,’ Tommy said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’ll take DeQuincey’s.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’ Paris pulled out into traffic.

  ‘I want to hit Clark News. It’s two doors down from there and I want to pick up a Racing Form.’

  ‘I’ll get it, Tommy.’

  ‘Jack, I owe Benny DeMarco for like six months of forms. Gotta be up to a three hundred-fifty bucks by now. I was gonna take care of him today, but if you want to pay him for me.’

  ‘Um, no.’

  ‘A’ight, then,’ Tommy said, doing his wiseguy thing, shooting the monogrammed cuffs of his shirt like a mobster. ‘Drop me off close, though. I’m not walking in this shit.’

  Paris opened the bell-clad door to Allied Salon Products and immediately noticed a rather plain-looking woman in her late thirties running a feather duster over a long row of aerosol cans. She had dishwater-blond hair that drooped into her face and wore a pale-lavender cotton dress, tan Rockport walkers.

  ‘Hi,’ Paris said, shaking off the rain.

  The woman looked at the floor, as if he had shouted at her. Her name tag said ‘Sam’.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘I was wondering if—’

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The man appeared to Paris’s left. He was loud and fragrant, overdressed for the warehouse ambience of his showroom. He was fiftyish and balding, but impeccably groomed and accessorized. His tag said ‘Mr Hendershott’.

  Paris turned open the wallet bearing his shield and got right to business. ‘Do you carry a product called Chaligne?’

  ‘Of course,’ Hendershott offered, snapping to attention, energized by the intrigue of having a policeman in the store.

  ‘Would you have a recent customer list handy?’

  ‘It’s all on the computer,’ Hendershott said. ‘Right this way.’

  Hendershott moved with a feminine grace through the labyrinth of shelving. He reached the back counter and tapped a few numbers into his computer terminal. He brought his bifocals to his face and grimaced. ‘Just six this month. Not good.’

  ‘All to one person?’

  ‘No, no, no. Six separate sales,’ Hendershott said. ‘Chaligne is relatively expensive. For us, anyway.’

  ‘Can you tell me who bought them?’

  Bifocals back up. ‘Five of them are cash sales. No record of their names, I’m afraid. One’s a credit-card sale, but she’s a regular customer.’

  ‘Her name?’ Paris held his pen expectantly over his pad.

  Hendershott frowned but, after a few moments, gave in. ‘Dorothea-with-an-e-a Burlingame. But Miss Burlingame has got to be eighty-five years old if she’s a day.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Paris said. ‘You never know where a lead is going to come from.’ He replaced his notebook and handed Hendershott a card. ‘If you think of anything.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Paris turned to leave – the weight of having to ask the same questions a thousand times suddenly draining him of all energy – and smiled perfunctorily at Sam. He placed his hand on the worn brass knob, and saw it.

  It had been propped against the top of a wooden bin full of small shampoo samplers the entire time, daring him to notice, mocking him like the old arcade steam-shovel games that never gave you a really good grip on that pack of Luckies with the lighter strapped to it: ‘The Penrod Collection’, it read in faded blue and red type. ‘Mustaches of Distinction for Men of Action.’

  Freddie Mercury, Paris thought as he walked back to the counter. The man in the Penrod Collection logo looked just like the late Freddie Mercury.

  ‘Let me see,’ Hendershott said. He keyed something into his computer, scrolling through screen after screen. ‘Nope, haven’t sold one of these mustaches in, well, I haven’t sold one this year. Last year either. Not a one.’ He looked over at the display card, wrinkling his nose. ‘Nobody really wants them anymore, you see. In fact, I don’t even know why they’re out here. I haven’t seen the Penrod Collection in a very long time.’ He shot a reproachful look at Samantha, who reacted by lowering her eyes and dusting a little faster.

  ‘Could one of these mustaches have been sold recently without having been recorded on your register?’ Paris asked.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Hendershott said, somewhat indignantly. ‘Everything is rung up.’

  ‘I’ll need to take two of them with me. I’ll sign a receipt, of course.’

  Hendershott rolled his eyes, as if he had been asked to donate a few thousand gallons of perfume to an old-hookers’ charity.

  ‘Will the department reimburse me if something happens to them?’ he asked as he reached beneath the counter and retrieved a narrow plastic box with a thin block of Styrofoam along the bottom. He put the mustaches inside and clicked the box shut.

  ‘Of course,’ Paris answered. He signed the receipt, took the box, dropped it into his pocket and headed once more for the door.

  ‘They’re fifty dollars, you know,’ Hendershott added. ‘Each.’

  Paris stopped, turned in the doorway, glanced back. ‘You know, I’m going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that’s why you haven’t sold one in two years.’

  18

  UNTIL THE BLUE Lantern, I hadn’t been completely sure.

  We had dared the semi-public venue on a few occasions. Like the time she sat on my lap, wearing a full peasant skirt, sans lingerie, on the crowded RTA. During the twenty-minute ride I was able to work myself out of my zipper and deep into Saila. As we sat in the corner fold-down seat – lost in a forest of overcoats, elbows, umbrellas and briefcases – the rhythm of the train and the nearness of those sweaty strangers brought us both to a silent, blazing orgasm as the car roared through the East Fifty-fifth Street station, the lights dimming and flashing and strobing above us.

  But that night at the Blue Lantern was the first time she ever went violent.

  She wore a lemon silk dress.

  We had eaten only appetizers, so we were still rather frisky, not too weighed down by the food. Friskier than usual perhaps because of the bottle of Wan Fu wine we had polished off and the half-joint of sensimilla we had smoked on the way to the restaurant.

  ‘Fuck me in the bathroom,’ I said.

  Her voice dropped a half-octave. ‘Bad little tomcat.’

  I moved closer, ran my eyes over her chest, her shoulders, up to her mouth.


  ‘Go into the bathroom,’ I said. ‘Take off everything under your dress and walk back to the table. I want to watch every man in here get hot.’

  I glanced at the ‘Rest Rooms’ sign at the back of the restaurant and then at Saila, who was beginning to color. I moved my hand between her legs and squeezed gently. Saila responded with a short gasp and a slight arch of her back, thrusting her breasts up against me. She clamped her thighs around my hand and smiled.

  ‘What do I get out of this?’ she asked.

  I grabbed her hand and brought it under the table. I moved it a few inches down my leg.

  ‘And what about later?’

  A few more.

  ‘I think I’m going to order us a brandy,’ I said. ‘This is a brandy caper, don’t you think?’

  She looked at me, her eyes full of a mischief, and said, ‘Make mine a double.’ She slid out of the booth, grabbed her shoulder-bag and started toward the back of the restaurant.

  A full five minutes passed.

  Then, a glimpse of silken hair in the dim light of the hallway told me that Saila was coming. The sexy, confident click of her heels on the hardwood floor kept time with my accelerating pulse.

  Ten minutes later, in the car, she placed a perfect leg over the front seat and whispered my name. But before we could consummate our passions, we saw Emily Reinhardt walk across the parking-lot.

  And everything changed forever.

  * * *

  If there was a kick to it all, besides the obvious, it was getting ready to go out. Because, despite the danger, despite the forever of it all, the foreplay was my end of things, and I could never get enough.

  It may have been too early in the season but I selected a cream-colored ventless linen sportcoat by Valentino, flat front black slacks. My shirt was a straight-collared white Ike Behar. I wore no tie. My shoes were black Santoni.

  Friday.

  Saila had said, ‘look smart,’ on the phone and, in British vernacular, one of her favorites, that meant dress.

  19

  AT 12.40 A.M. Saturday morning, while Jack Paris stood at the bar at the Emerald Lounge on Euclid Avenue dressed in his borrowed jacket, chatting with a short, thrice-divorced woman named Laurel Bettancourt, the man and woman responsible for the recent wave of killings in Cleveland, the ones who called themselves Saila and Pharaoh, but only after sundown, figured out precisely what they had to do. They knew how risky it was, of course, but they agreed, without discourse, that they had no choice.

  Soon.

  Two

  Tantrum

  20

  PARIS WANTED MELISSA to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. But, like all young girls of her age (almost twelve) and delicate position (child of divorce), Paris knew that she lived for the day her parents would come to their senses and realize that they just couldn’t live without each other, that they had made a huge and terrible mistake and that from there on in, the divorce would be over and every Easter and Christmas and Halloween and Thanksgiving and birthday would be spent together, cross-legged, in their pajamas, on the living-room floor, like families are supposed to. And they’d take a lot of pictures and laugh themselves silly at something Daddy did. And they’d have their old house back.

  Jack and Beth and Melissa Paris.

  Maybe a brother for her to pick on.

  But until then, if she had to put up with the Dr Bills of this world, Paris hoped she would warm to the women her father brought around too.

  Paris swung into a parking-space and stepped out of the car, straightening the front of his brand-new sweater. His casual-date sweater. One hundred and twenty bucks he didn’t have. He started anxiously toward the door to the theater.

  ‘Wait for me, Dad,’ Melissa said.

  She called him ‘Dad’. It sounded so teenaged to him. He was counting on ‘Daddy’ for at least a few more years. ‘Sorry.’

  They grabbed each other’s hands, instinctively, as they had in every parking-lot since Melissa had taken her first rambling steps out of the stroller. Paris wondered if his daughter was embarrassed yet. Most pre-teenagers would rather be eaten by sharks than even be seen with their parents, let alone touch them.

  But neither of them let go.

  Not yet.

  At least three times during the movie there was some kind of sexual reference that made Paris squirm. He couldn’t believe what was passing for PG-13 these days. He’d picked the movie because the reviews said it was okay for twelve and up, but every ten minutes or so there was some kind of sex thing.

  He was dying.

  To make him even more uncomfortable, each of those times, as if on cue, Melissa and Diana glanced at each other and giggled. They seemed to be sharing ‘girl’ moments, and the thought both scared and intrigued him. He wanted Melissa to like Diana, but he didn’t want to feel excluded.

  Later, as they sat in the Food Court finishing their Cinnabon pastries, Paris couldn’t get a word in edgewise. But it wasn’t as if he had anything to contribute anyway. The talk between Diana and Melissa ricocheted from boys to clothes to music to boys to school to boys to movies to martial arts to colleges. None of the topics were a part of Paris’s knowledge base. Except college, perhaps. When he joined the force nearly eighteen years earlier, he had been one of only a handful of four-year college graduates – most of the recruits then had high-school or two-year degrees, many coming out of the military.

  But Missy? College? That was still years and years and years away.

  Please God, let it be years away, Paris thought.

  He watched the two of them chatter away as he sipped his coffee, and wondered if he was doing the right thing.

  When he heard them making a tentative date for the Home and Flower Show in a few weeks’ time – plans that didn’t seem to include him – Paris almost said something.

  But, for reasons unknown to him, at least at that moment, he kept silent.

  A swath of early hyacinth bordered Shaker Square: a soft, lilac quilt straining for the sun. The air was thick with the fragrance.

  Beth sat at one of the dozen or so tables on the patio in front of the Yours Truly Café on the Square, scanning a USA Today, nursing a cappuccino. She wore sunglasses with burgundy frames and lipstick that matched.

  ‘So how was the movie?’ Beth asked, holding out her hands to Melissa but directing a concerned look at the bandage on Paris’s cheek.

  Missy ran across the sidewalk and gave her a hug. ‘It was good.’ She sat down. ‘Daddy got a little embarrassed at some of the sex stuff, but otherwise it was okay. We had Cinnabons.’

  Paris looked at Beth, shrugging his shoulders. How had Missy known that he was embarrassed? God, he was an open book.

  He sat down across from Beth. ‘You look really nice,’ he said.

  ‘Why thank you, Patrolman Paris,’ Beth replied. She had called him ‘patrolman’ when they were courting. It was a long-shelved term of endearment that, from the look on Beth’s face, had just slipped out.

  Missy, having witnessed the exchange with a look of measured hope, slipped a five-dollar bill off the table and skipped over to the pharmacy.

  ‘What happened to your face, Jack?’

  Paris fingered the gauze. ‘Bad guy threw a cigarette machine at me.’

  Beth shook her head, remembering living with it day in and day out. ‘Stitches?’

  ‘Nope,’ Paris said. ‘Not this time.’ He snapped off a corner of her raspberry scone. ‘So how’s, uh, business?’ It sounded so strange when he said it out loud, but he was determined to change the subject.

  ‘Business,’ Beth replied, ‘is fantastic.’ She had gotten her real-estate license the year she met Jack Paris, but had put it on hold when Melissa came along. In the time they had been separated Beth had gone back to work and risen to the number-two slot at Hallsted Davidson, Cleveland’s largest realtor. ‘Closed on a house Friday in Rocky River. Iranian engineer and his wife. Cash, Jack. Can you believe it?’

  He couldn’t. ‘I can,’ he
said. ‘Who can resist you?’

  They went quiet, looking around the square, feeling the sun on their faces, sensing the impending change of seasons in the air. When Jack looked back at Beth, she was smiling at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Right.’

  Beth caved in with no further prodding. ‘I saw you the other night, you know.’

  ‘What?’ The words sounded like another language for a moment. He felt oddly violated but, ever the law enforcement professional, managed to calmly ask the next logical question. ‘Where?’

  ‘The bar in the Embassy Suites in Beachwood.’

  ‘You saw me?’ He really hoped she wasn’t talking about his tackling of Danny Lawrence.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  It was that playfully accusatory tone that only two people with a deep sexual history could recognize in each other. She even sounded a little jealous.

  Paris smiled, felt himself redden a bit. ‘What was I doing?’ He crossed mental fingers.

  ‘Forget doing. Let’s talk about what you were wearing.’

  Tommy’s jacket, Paris thought. Here we go. ‘What about it?’

  ‘You looked really handsome.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Oh, please,’ Beth said. ‘You had to know that you looked good. It’s just that I don’t remember you ever looking so GQ when we were married.’

  Paris debated about whether or not he should tell her that he was undercover. Seeing as Beth hadn’t brought up the task-force, neither would he.

  ‘So how’d you do with that blonde?’ she asked.

  Paris was stunned. It was one thing to be divorced and not know what your ex was up to. But here she was asking about his sex life. Something was definitely afoot. He felt a hopeful stirring deep inside.

  ‘How’d I do?’ Paris replied, thinking about Andrea Heller, still uncertain what game the woman had been playing. ‘Not really my type.’

  Then it dawned on him that he had a big, fat, nosy, diversionary, yeah-we’re-unbridled-but-what’s-up-with-this-shit question of his own. ‘And what brought you to the Impulse Lounge, if I may be so bold as to inquire?’