by Ali Brandon
“I fear it is even worse. She indicated—quite subtly, of course—that she wishes to take our relationship to the next level. I believe she wishes to cohabitate with me.”
“You mean, move in with you? I have to say, that doesn’t really sound like her.”
Darla had been to Martha’s apartment once before, and had been more than a bit impressed with how the woman had transformed what obviously had been a nondescript one-bedroom walk-up into a charming loftlike apartment. With ample use of lace, sheer curtains, and pastels, the place reflected both Martha’s tea-and-crumpets heritage, courtesy of her English mother, and her father’s magnolia-scented Georgia roots.
You don’t have to say it; I know it’s girlie, Martha had confided to Darla with a rueful laugh, but it’s me, deep down. And, I can’t imagine living anywhere else.
James, meanwhile, was shaking his head.
“During the course of our meal, Martha mentioned the downside of living alone in the city. She also said that if her situation does not change in the foreseeable future, she might be forced to bring in a cat to keep her company. I do not know about you, but I cannot see any other way to interpret her remarks.”
“Don’t panic, James,” Darla assured him. “We single gals all go through that stage on a regular basis. I doubt she’s trying to rope you into living together. If anything, she’s probably worried you might want to move in with her so she can take care of you in your dotage.”
As she’d hoped, the friendly insult was enough to draw a smile from the ex-professor.
“Touché. I will take your advice, Darla, and try not to dwell on the subject.”
By now, they had reached Perky’s. The gate to the steps leading down to the coffee shop was shut, and a “Closed” sign hung on the door. Darla glanced at her watch. Four thirty. The Kings must already be back home.
“Let’s try their apartment,” Darla said, her insides suddenly a bit shaky now that the confrontation actually was at hand.
“Perhaps I should ease into the conversation by mentioning the book Mrs. King asked us to order,” James suggested, obviously sensing her discomfort. “I called her back last night with my best price, and she gave me her credit card number.”
Darla bit her lip and shook her head. “No, according to Livvy, George doesn’t think much of her herbal treatments. For all we know, that might set him off. Let’s just get down to business and let them know we’re onto their scheme.”
To the side of the glass entry door were mounted three buzzers, each labeled with a different name. “King” was neatly printed under apartment number one. With a final glance at Darla, who nodded, James pressed the bell.
“Yeah,” came a mechanically distorted voice that Darla recognized as belonging to George.
“Hi, it’s Darla and James from the bookstore,” she replied through the nearby intercom. “Can we talk with you for a minute? It’s kind of important.”
For a moment she thought he was going to ignore their request. Then the door buzzer sounded.
“Quick, before he changes his mind,” Darla said to James, and grabbed the handle.
The tiny entry hall was a pleasant twin to Darla’s own brownstone, the walls paneled below and painted a neutral sand above. A narrow occasional table hugged one wall and held a lighted ginger jar lamp whose cheerful lavender shade coordinated nicely with its darker purple belly. Apartment number one was just a few steps away, giving George a commute as short as hers to the bookstore.
James knocked, and the door opened a crack. George stuck his florid face out, his expression one of annoyance. “Is this about that stupid block party again? I thought Livvy took care of it.”
“Actually, this has to do with coffee,” Darla replied.
George’s expression morphed from annoyance to suspicion, but to Darla’s relief he pulled the door open.
“You can sit over there,” he said, gesturing them toward an overstuffed love seat strewn with vintage crewelwork pillows.
Darla took her seat beside James and spared a look at the apartment’s main room. Livvy’s influence was apparent here, too . . . a little modern décor enlivened by quirky “found” and vintage touches. Except for the empty pizza box on the small dining table in the corner, the apartment was neatly maintained.
“Yeah, so whaddaya want?” George demanded, spinning a ladder-back chair around and straddling it. Someone else might have pulled off the clichéd move, but not George. With his puffy features and pale, hairy legs poking out from a pair of baggy blue cargo shorts, he reminded Darla of a certain doughy advertising icon stuck behind bars.
He gave them an expectant frown and added, “If yer looking for advice running yer coffee bar, you come to the wrong place. I ain’t helping the competition.”
“Actually, this involves both you and Mrs. King,” James smoothly interjected. “Is she available?”
“Nah, she’s off gallivanting around somewhere.” Then, squinting in James’s direction, George asked, “Now, who are you again? I don’t know that many black guys.”
“James is my store manager,” Darla told him, praying that the Coffee King wasn’t about to spout off with any inappropriate remarks.
George gave a braying laugh. “I thought that cat of yers was in charge.”
“He thinks he is,” James said with a polite smile, “but I can assure you that is my job.”
“Yeah, yeah, that was just a joke. So, why are you guys here?”
Darla took a steadying breath and reached into her shoulder bag. Maybe it was just as well that Livvy wasn’t around. Better that the odds be two against one . . . even if the “one” was George.
She pulled out the sack of roasted beans, plopping it onto the glass-topped coffee table before her. Then she summoned a coolly pleasant smile to match James’s and said, “Here’s the deal, George. We want to talk to you about Kona Blue Party.”
George squinted a moment at the bag, as if uncertain what it was. Then his coffee bean eyes hardened, and he glanced back up at them. “So, you don’t like the coffee? What, yer looking for a refund?”
“You know darned well we’re not talking about the coffee. We’re talking about the little prize included with every purchase,” Darla shot back, plucking the rolled baggie from the sack and tossing it onto the table beside it. “So, come clean, George. What’s the deal here?”
“You guys ain’t supposed to buy that stuff,” he protested. “We only sell it to them kids that vape.”
“Well, I didn’t know the rules. I heard from several of my customers that your best product was Kona Blue Party, so I shelled out a hundred and fifty dollars for what I thought was some exotic coffee. What I got was a cheap Full City roast and a baggie of catnip.”
“Hey, hey, don’t get yer panties in a twist,” George protested. “So we make a little money on the side with the stuff. Nothing in there is illegal.”
“Yes, but I surmise that your customer base is under the impression that it is, that they are purchasing illicit drugs,” James interjected. “It appears you are selling common kitchen herbs, which you are representing as marijuana or some similar intoxicating drug.”
“Fine. So sue me.”
“I’m not going to sue you, but I might have to discuss this with my friend, Detective Reese of the NYPD,” Darla countered, pulling out what she hoped was her figurative ace in the hole.
She must have trumped him, for some of George’s bluster seeped away at that. Then, with a snort of disgust, he lowered his voice and said, “Look, this don’t have to get out, you know what I mean? Besides, it ain’t my fault if them kids is too dumb to know the difference.”
“That might be true,” James agreed, “but the bottom line here, as they say, is that even if you are not peddling illegal pharmaceuticals, you still are perpetrating a fraud.”
“Nah, it’s not like that. Livvy just di
d it as a joke, at first.” Then, when James gave him an encouraging nod, he went on, “Some Asian kid came in a couple months back asking her if she had some herbs he could vape that would get him—what did he call it?—‘happy.’ He never says in words what he wants, but she knew what he meant. So she tells him no.”
He shook his head.
“So then, the same kid, he comes back a coupla days later. Livvy, she tells him no again, but he thinks she’s just blowin’ him off. And he keeps coming back, askin’.”
“So she finally did something to get rid of him,” Darla guessed, feeling sudden sympathy for the woman. She’d had a customer or two herself who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Of course, none of that excused the fact that Livvy had ripped Darla off for more than a hundred dollars.
George nodded and leaned forward against the chair rails, immersed now in his account.
“So now it’s, what, four times the idiot comes back,” he went on, “so Livvy, she decides to fix him for good. She tells him she has a special blend she’ll sell him under the table, but that he has to swear not to tell anyone where he bought it. So she mixes him up a little baggie of catnip with some sage and hops, tosses in a little tea. And then she charges him a hundred and fifty bucks. He paid it, and you know what? He came back the next week saying it was the best high he ever had, and he wants to buy more.”
“Seriously? He got high vaping that?”
The man shrugged. “You got your caffeine in the tea to give a buzz, the hops gets you going, too, and the other stuff relaxes you. So, yeah, you vape it and you feel a little something. But mostly, it’s—whaddaya call it?—the Placido effect.”
“I believe you mean placebo effect,” James corrected him. “One has an expectation of reacting a certain way to a certain substance, and so one does.”
“Yeah, that.” George nodded. “It’s like thinking you’re getting drunk off them nonalcoholic beers. It’s all in your head. Anyhow, instead of staying quiet, that idiot kid tells all his friends. So we figured, what the heck? Them kids got money to burn, and it’s not gonna hurt them. So we made up a name for the stuff, and after a while, we had four, five kids a day looking for the Kona Blue Party.”
“Good Lord,” James muttered, “Breaking Bad comes to Brooklyn.”
George, meanwhile, reassumed his belligerent air. “Hey, like I told you, it wasn’t nothing illegal. Besides, I didn’t sell nothing to no one. It was Livvy who did all that.”
Right, blame the wife, Darla thought with a snort. You just count the money.
Aloud, she said, “It’s happening under your roof, so you’re equally responsible, George. But maybe if you swear to me that Perky’s Coffee Shop is officially out of the Kona Blue Party business, we can forget this conversation. Assuming you give me my money back, that is,” she added when she noted the little spark of triumph in his tiny eyes.
George shoved himself off the chair and stalked over to the dining table, where he picked up a bulging wallet. He pulled out a handful of bills and strode back to where she and James sat.
“Fine, here ya go,” he exclaimed, tossing the money onto the table.
While a startled Darla gathered the scattered bills, George reached stubby hands for the coffee and bag of herbs that she’d left unattended. James, however, was faster than the other man.
“I believe we will hang on to this,” James said as he got to his feet, coffee beans and baggie safely in hand. With a glance at Darla, who had shoved the cash, uncounted, into her bag, he added, “It seems we have overstayed our welcome, Darla.”
For a moment, she feared that George might wrestle her store manager for the bag of coffee. But to her relief, he merely blustered, “Yeah, you have. Now why don’t ya get outta here?”
Agreeing that discretion was the better part of valor, at least when dealing with the King of Coffee, Darla hurriedly stood and followed James to the door. It wasn’t until they were safely on the sidewalk outside the brownstone that she heaved a sigh.
“Thank goodness that’s over.”
“I second that,” James agreed in ironic understatement, handing back Darla her bag of Kona Blue Party as they started down the sidewalk. “You might wish to keep this as proof of the Kings’ business sideline, just in case Mr. King attempts to claim later that you somehow took advantage of his wife in a business deal.”
“Do you really think George would do that? I mean, he’s the one in the wrong, not us.”
“Yes, but in my experience, people like him ‘do not go gentle into that good night,’ as Dylan Thomas would say. I suggest that we keep our distance from Mr. King for the foreseeable future. He is—how should I put it?—a live wire.”
“What about tomorrow at the block party? Do you think he’ll try to cause any trouble?”
“Actually, he should be worrying that we will cause the trouble by reporting his fraud to the proper authorities.”
Darla considered that while they waited on traffic. “You’re right,” she said as they crossed the street, “but even though George is a jerk, and he and Livvy are ripping kids off, I’d feel kind of bad turning them in.”
“Then I have a suggestion,” James told her. “Remember that Detective Reese should be at the block party tomorrow. Perhaps you should ask him what he thinks . . . without naming any names, of course.”
James’s proposal made sense, and Darla nodded.
“I guess that’s as good a plan as any. If I can get a private minute with him, I’ll ask him. But, I tell you, James,” she finished with a grimace, “I’ll be glad when this block party is over, and the only drama I need to worry about is on the theater reference shelf at Pettistone’s.”
EIGHT
“Oh, Darla, this reminds me of my childhood,” Mary Ann Plinski exclaimed as a dozen children under the age of ten each came trotting down the middle of the street gripping a tablespoon upon which was balanced a red- or blue-dyed hard-boiled egg.
The Plinskis, Darla’s septuagenarian neighbor and her brother, owned Bygone Days Antiques and Collectibles. Their store and apartments were housed next door to Darla’s in the connecting brownstone. Robert lived in the garden apartment under the shop, receiving a cut-rate rent in return for doing odd jobs for the elderly pair.
“First a gunnysack race, and now an egg-and-spoon relay,” Mary Ann continued to gush from her chair beside Darla and Hamlet, under one of the street canopies. “My goodness, I haven’t seen this sort of old-fashioned fun in years. What a marvelous way to spend the Fourth of July!”
“You haven’t seen everything yet,” Darla warned her with a grin. “Next up, we’re going to have a genuine pie-eating contest for the grown-ups. I hope you like blueberry.”
The old woman gave an approving chuckle that echoed Darla’s own high spirits. In fact, so far the block party was a smashing success—at least, in Darla’s estimation. Beginning at eight thirty that morning, the police had begun closing down the two-block area where the event was to be held. Darla had been ready for them, already dressed in red denim capris and a vintage red, white, and blue tie-dyed shirt that she’d found in a thrift store. To beat the heat, she’d braided her auburn hair into twin pigtails that she’d looped back over themselves, so that she looked like she was wearing oversized red earrings. A bit hokey, she’d told her mirrored reflection, but perfect for a July Fourth event.
The decorating committee had promptly gone to work hanging streamers, bunting, and flags from every conceivable pole and awning, while the volunteers from TAMA began putting up a series of canopies down the center of Darla’s block. By the time the block party officially began at ten, almost two dozen people were already milling about. By noon, when the competing aromas of fresh doughnuts and Thai food and smoked deli sandwiches hung heavily in the warm air, almost a hundred people were strolling the street and sidewalks.
Everything was going so smoothl
y that Darla was almost willing to forget yesterday’s unpleasantness with George over the Kona Blue Party coffee-that-wasn’t and not bother Reese about it. That was, assuming the detective showed up as promised.
Resisting the temptation to call and find out where Reese was, Darla instead peered over to see how the bookstore’s booth was faring. As planned, shop owners along either side of the street had set up tables or booths to showcase their wares and services. Darla’s own offering (overseen by James and Robert at the bottom of the shop steps) was a stack of remainders and advance reader copies to give away, along with coupons for future visits. They also were handing out discounted cups of iced coffee to help beat the heat and promote the coffee bar. Roma, in a star-spangled harness and lead tied to the bannister, delivered the canine cuteness factor, sitting prettily on the shady stoop next to a big red bowl of water.
In addition to the tables that most of the retailers had set up outside their respective establishments, even more activities were taking place under the canopies that Hank and his crew had raised. One area served as public relations, where the various retailers were taking turns handing out fliers from the participating shops and restaurants. In another, the two owners of Child’s Play, an upscale toy store, were teaching children’s crafts to a handful of eager grade-schoolers. The final canopy, where Darla and Mary Ann were currently sitting, had been designated a rest area with tables and chairs. This was where the event-goers could relax with their food, or simply kick back with a cold drink.
The next street down, however, was where the action was. Darla and Hamlet had just come back from watching another exhibition by TAMA. Rather than more canopies, several of the dojo’s older students had assembled a makeshift ring of heavy red tumbling mats arranged in a large square in the middle of the street. One of Hank and Hal’s classes was scheduled to give a demonstration of martial arts skills every hour. This time, it had been the advanced karate students demonstrating falls and throws. Hamlet had watched in particular fascination . . . no doubt remembering his glory days as the Karate Kitty, Darla thought in amusement.
