Sweet Revenge

by Diane Mott Davidson

  “They’re working on it,” I replied, my tone still light. “Shall I set you two places?”

  “They’re both really pissed,” Chantal said, her voice conspiratorial. Since she hadn’t answered my question, Vix, who seemed more tractable than her friend, kindly began removing items from the tray to the desk. “My mom is pissed because, like, one extra guy is coming to this party you’re cooking for.”

  “Extra guy?” I asked dully. Someone besides Neil Tharp? Had I made enough curry?

  Chantal went on: “I’m like, ‘Mom, call the cops if you don’t want people to crash your party.’ She’s all, ‘He’s not technically crashing, since he’s taking someone else’s place, and you know your father would have a fit if I got the cops up here, with their sirens and all.’ Maybe I should have called them. That would have been fun.”

  “You were going to call the cops?” Vix echoed in a worried tone. “And get them all the way up here again? I don’t think either one of them would want that.” She turned to me and smiled, which must have been difficult with all that blue plaster stiffening her facial muscles. “Maybe this guy won’t make it because of the snow. My parents have a Hummer—”

  “The replacement guest is here,” I told them. “His name is Neil Tharp.”

  “Oh, him,” said Vix.

  “Vix, will you stop?” Chantal said. Clearly she wanted to be in charge of the conversation. Vix, who seemed unhurt by Chantal’s reprimanding her, went about arranging their place settings. I, however, was both annoyed and curious.

  “Who called the cops before?” I asked.

  “The neighbors,” Chantal and Vix said in unison.

  “Anyway,” Chantal hurried in to say, “so that’s why my mom’s pissed, and don’t be surprised if she takes it out on you tonight.”

  “Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’m used to it.”

  “Better you than me,” Chantal said ruefully.

  “Your father’s angry, too?” I asked. “Do I need to worry about him taking anything out on me?”

  Chantal and Vix exchanged a look. A few clicks of a cat clock on the wall passed before either one of them answered.

  Vix finally said, “Mr. MacArthur is angry about a map he bought from a guy. The guy was killed yesterday, so he’s dead and can’t be bawled out by Mr. MacArthur. His name was—”

  “Drew Wellington,” I supplied. I looked at Chantal with curiosity. “But your father’s down there showing a map right now. A panorama, actually. He seems proud of it, not angry. Is that the one he bought from—”

  “Drew?” Chantal supplied. She moved over to a mirror and checked the consistency of the turquoise cement. “I don’t know. But whatever one he did buy from Drew, it was, like, ninety thousand dollars. And then something went wrong with the deal.”

  “What went wrong?” Did these girls know more than the police did in this investigation? “One map was worth ninety thousand dollars?”

  “Not anymore!” Chantal squealed, and both girls broke out in gales of laughter. “Poor old cheap dad won’t buy me a mountain bike, and then good old Drew rips him off for ninety K. It’s so ironic.”

  “Good old Drew?” I repeated. “Did you know him?”

  The girls looked at each other, unsure of how much to divulge, it seemed to me. Oh, how I wished that they didn’t have that blue stuff obscuring their facial expressions. Guilt, shame, anger? I couldn’t tell.

  “Yeah, we knew him,” Vix finally said. She pressed her lips together, since they didn’t have blue stuff on them.

  “He was cool,” Chantal agreed. She nodded and dislodged her turban. When a few stray curls of black-and-pink hair tumbled out, she poked them back under the towel. Then she lifted her chin at me, and her tone became defiant. “And guess what? He didn’t have any problem giving us booze.”

  “What?”

  “Wow, is there an echo in here?” she asked me. “I mean, come on.”

  “So,” I said calmly, trying to make sure I had this story straight, “Drew Wellington gave you alcoholic drinks?”

  “He gave us a lot of booze,” Chantal replied, her tone proud. “Too much, actually. Anyway, Vix and I and some girlfriends got into our, you know, lingerie? And we turned on the stereo and outside speakers, so the music was blasting, like, really loud. We went outside and started hooting and hollering and dancing around? Oh, man, we were just having a good old time.”

  “And that,” said Vix, “is why the neighbors called the cops.”

  12

  Goldy!” The male voice and knock at the door startled all three of us, and when the door opened slightly, the girls shrieked. “There’s something here you should see.” Julian’s tone was urgent, and he was careful to keep the door only slightly ajar.

  “I have to go,” I said to the girls. “You know what to do with your tray when you’re done?” When the girls groaned and rolled their eyes, I took this to mean that they did. “And there’s lime pie in the kitchen, if you want some,” I added quickly before scooting out. I certainly hoped they didn’t wear their…lingerie when they came downstairs.

  Julian had already started for the back stairway. He was walking quickly and shaking his head. “Everything was going really well, and everybody was digging the curry, and Mr. MacArthur was giving a little talk…and all the guests were paying attention to him, and he was loving it—”

  “A little talk about what?”

  Julian was descending the staircase. “Where Dutch thieves used to hide maps when they were trying to smuggle them out of Portugal in the sixteenth century. It was cool; he said he wanted me to stay and listen, so I could learn something—”

  “Oh, Julian, I’m sorry.” Julian had graduated from Elk Park Prep with high honors; he had been at Cornell before transferring to the University of Colorado. But clients inevitably treated us as if we were uneducated dunces.

  “It was interesting,” Julian insisted as he reached the bottom of the steps. “If you controlled the trade, you could make lots of doubloons, or whatever they called them. Stealing maps was punishable by death!”

  “Yeah, I know. Arch told me.”

  “Mr. MacArthur was saying how over the centuries, thieves have tucked maps into the jackets of other books, they’ve sewn maps inside their hats, and everybody was listening really well, and then Neil Tharp, you know, Drew Wellington’s creepy assistant? He got into a fight with another guy.”

  “Neil fought with somebody?” By this time we were both in the kitchen. I strained to hear arguing voices, or worse, the crash of people falling over furniture. “Here at the party?”

  “You bet. Old Neil got into it with that bald dude I had to slug at the conference center. What’s his name, Craddock? He finally showed up after the guests had already gone through the buffet line.” Julian began to lay out the dishes and dessert forks for the lime pies.

  “Larry Craddock.” My spirits sank at the same time that I heard Craddock’s familiar shout.

  “Why don’t you go ask the girl?” he howled. Where was he? Downstairs? Or in the garage? It was hard to tell. “Maybe she knows something!” he shouted. “Should I ask her, Neil?”

  “Turn on the light, you dummy!” Neil Tharp’s high voice replied. “I can’t see a thing!”

  Their voices were indeed coming from the nether regions of the house. Had the party broken up already? I looked nervously back at the center island, where Julian was loading dishes and silverware onto a tray. Would my first time catering for the MacArthurs also be my last? What about the big luncheon Hermie wanted me to do on Monday?

  “Don’t worry,” Julian said as he came out of the refrigerator holding the pies. “I think the MacArthurs were glad to be rid of them.” He frowned as the men bellowed at each other. “Sounds like they’re trying to find their way to their cars. Maybe they’re in the garage.”

  “Hey! Tharp!” Larry’s booming voice traveled upward, and was followed by the scraping and groaning of an automated garage door being opened. Larry said som
ething else, to which there was a muffled reply and question. Then Larry’s voice was suddenly much clearer. “So, what are you saying, Tharp? That I should ask the cook?”

  Excuse me? I scurried over to the bank of windows that overlooked the driveway. I strained to listen and worked even harder to see something, anything. Outside, all was dark. Right next to the windows, the still-falling snowflakes reflected the lights of the kitchen. More hollering came from outside. I frowned. Small wires traveled downward from each of the windows. On the left side of the casement was an array of switches, one of which was bound to illuminate the driveway…but one of which might also set off the burglar alarm. Hearing the squeal of the alarm would be the final blow in finishing up this party.

  But wait—the side door, the one we’d come through to bring in our supplies, was still partly open, because Hermie had said we should leave it cracked, to help dispel the scent of curry. She’d pressed the panel of buttons to reset the alarm, she told me, because Smithfield was “unbelievably paranoid” about someone stealing his maps. I raced over to the door and looked back at Julian, whose face was frozen in incredulity.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked. “I wanted to tell you about the fight so you could witness it from the kitchen!” I put my finger to my lips and gently pried the door farther open. Julian tsked and backed through the kitchen door, holding the tray with the pies and plates. “That’s fine!” he said merrily. “I’ll do the desserts, you do the conflict. Great idea.”

  “Maybe you’ll have more luck than I did, Tharp.” Larry Craddock’s voice rose through the snow. He must have been standing outside, I figured. Looking for his car? Or just wanting to keep arguing? “She’s a bitch and her kid’s a brat. First chance I get, I’m going to teach them both a lesson, I swear!”

  Oh, I thought, really? I pulled the kitchen door all the way open. The stairs down to the path that led to the driveway were loaded with at least four inches of new snow. I looked for the men, but couldn’t see them. They must still have been standing near the garage.

  Breathing deeply, I tiptoed through the white stuff till I was at the bottom of the steps. Nobody was going to teach me a lesson, or Arch either, for that matter, without my having something to say about it, thank you very much.

  “Goldy, Judas priest, I swear.” Julian’s stage-whispered voice from above caused me to jump, and I almost lost my footing. “Where do you think you’re going?” When I didn’t respond, he began creeping down the stairs behind me. “Skulking around at a client’s house,” he mumbled. “This is sure to bring us all kinds of new bookings. For sure. By the way, they insisted on cutting the pies by themselves.”

  “Thanks, Julian,” I whispered. “Now hush, will you?”

  He groaned with exasperation. Once he was beside me, he handed me a sweatshirt. “Here, put this on. I don’t want to do the rest of the Christmas catering with you sick in bed. Where are those guys, anyway?”

  As if in answer, Neil Tharp screeched from around the corner. Unfortunately, his words were muffled, since I was pulling on one of Julian’s well-worn “Elk Park Prep Swimming” sweatshirts. My head emerged long enough to hear Neil say something like, “You have it! You son of a bitch! Don’t deny it. You’ve got it!”

  “You’re so sure of that,” Larry shouted back, “why don’t you call the sheriff’s department, have them come search my place?”

  Neil cried, “Don’t deny it! Don’t tell me he didn’t give it to you!”

  “That asshole wouldn’t even give me the time of day!” Larry yelled. “Why don’t you go ask his girlfriend? That’s what I’d do. She’s the one who…” Neil’s whining reply was too low for me to make out.

  Larry was shouting again. Honestly, the guy was going to blow out his vocal cords one of these days. Whatever it was he said, it hadn’t satisfied Neil, because the next thing we heard was a loud “Gah!” followed by “Get your hands off me, you dumb bastard!”

  One of them threw the other into the wall of the garage, and the whole house shook. Shouts and sounds of choking followed. I looked desperately at Julian. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “Yeah! We should go inside. Come on, Miss Nobel Peace Prize.” He yanked at my sweatshirt. “Let’s get out of here.” More you bastards and you stupid son of a bitches echoed around the corner. Then suddenly it seemed as if they were getting closer. One of them slammed into the gutter system, making it whine and reverberate. Julian tugged hard on my sleeve and bared his teeth. I decided that the better part of valor might indeed be to scurry up the stairs behind him. We had just scampered into the kitchen when we heard Larry Craddock’s voice coming from much closer.

  “Dammit, Neil, maybe you need to ask the girl. D’you think there might be something you didn’t know about your boss? Or something the girl’s parents didn’t know about your boss?”

  When Julian and I peered out the windows, we could see the two of them, both covered with snow. Larry was at least half a foot taller than Neil, but Neil was wider. And, apparently, he’d had a bit of martial-arts training, because when he squawked, “Shut up!” he was able to lunge effectively. Larry went reeling back down the driveway, from where he’d come.

  “Your boss was a criminal!” Larry’s voice, now hoarse, faded back around the corner. There was the sound of a car door being opened.

  Neil yelled, “Hey, you thief! Get back here so I can pin you down and call the cops—”

  “Try the cook, dummy! Her husband’s a cop, so maybe she can help ya out.”

  “Larry!” Neil again. I caught a brief glimpse of him charging down the driveway. He slipped sideways on the snow but kept barking at Larry. “Give me what belongs to our business!”

  “I keep telling you, I don’t have it!” Both of these guys were determined to get the last word in, apparently. Julian went back to doing dishes. When I tried to shush him again, he just shrugged. Outside, Larry hollered, “How long d’ya think it’ll be before the entire map world finds out what your boss was up to? I keep tellin’ ya, ya need to ask his girlfriend.”

  Standing safely back in the kitchen, I pushed the door open a bit more, in time to hear Neil respond sourly, “Oh, like she’s going to tell me anything—or give me anything.”

  “Then go ask the girl!” Larry yelled. There was a thumping noise, as if someone had been thrown against a car, followed by more grunting and hacking. “You stupid dumb bastard! Force her to give it to you before I kick your butt over this cliff!”

  At that moment something the size of a tennis ball sailed up, up, through the snow. Terrified, I realized it was coming right at me. I ducked out of the way, just in time to see one of the windows shatter with a terrific crash. Glass exploded into the kitchen. The burglar alarm shrieked, which caused yelling and consternation from the distant dining room. More stamping and hollering and revving of engines boiled up from the driveway.

  Outside, car headlights blinked. From two cars? First one, then another vehicle roared away. I hurried in the direction of the dining room, toward Hermie and Smithfield. I needed to find out what we were supposed to do. Call the cops? Call whatever security company they used?

  Smithfield was hurtling toward me, and I stepped out of his way. I didn’t know where Julian had gone—maybe he was still standing by the sink working on the dishes, trying to make everything appear normal.

  “Will you tell me what the hell is going on?” Smithfield demanded. “First those two dealers start fighting, and now somebody’s broken into our house!”

  “Not exactly,” I replied, but he ignored me. Hermie followed him back into the kitchen, and I brought up the rear. Julian was already patiently pulling off half a roll of paper towels, one by one, as if eruptions of glass happened all the time at our catered events.

  There on the floor lay a snowball that had broken into pieces, revealing a—wait a minute—a paring knife. I moved around our hosts to help Julian. Several curious guests peered around and over Hermie and Smithfield. Our hosts, hands
on hips, still demanded to know from anyone who would listen how this could have happened. Matter of fact, this was downright inhospitable, and what was the matter with this neighborhood anyway, etc., etc.

  After I’d wiped up melting snow and glass bits for a few minutes, I stared at the knife. When I was growing up back in New Jersey, mischief-making boys would crouch by the side of the road and throw these kinds of weapons at passing cars. One time, a rock-inside-snow missile hit our old Buick as we were coming home from church. The rear-seat passenger window had shattered, and I was showered with glass. At ten years of age, I’d been traumatized.

  I kicked myself out of my reverie and scrambled over to a wall of tall cabinets, where a moment of rummaging yielded a broom and dustpan. The guests were edging toward the mess, and I had to sweep up the window glass before someone got cut on it. Hermie and Smithfield were now arguing with each over whether they should call the sheriff’s department. Some of the guests were pulling out their cells, just in case.

  Meanwhile, the house phone rang, and Hermie and Smithfield scrambled over each other to get it. Smithfield won, and announced that the security company wanted to know if this was a false alarm. The guests murmured that maybe people should start checking all of the house’s doors and windows. I wondered why the alarm hadn’t gone off when Craddock and Tharp opened the garage door, but maybe that didn’t happen if you opened it from the inside. Smithfield was barking into the phone that no, it wasn’t a false alarm, and they should get over here, by God! And then he decided to call the sheriff’s department; he gave them the same command.

  The guests who’d been standing by to see if anything else exciting was going to happen filtered back into the living and dining rooms. Time to go, they were saying, Thank you so much, need to get back before the snow gets too deep. Finally it was only the Barclays who stood by, trying to soothe a hysterical Hermie. By the time all the other guests had left, I had most of the glass and snow swept up. Julian appeared beside me with a garbage bag and more paper towels.