by Nancy Martin
Pepper rested a muscular forearm on the counter. Various tattoos showed—including one on her neck that read Doreen and featured a lipsmack. She said, “You going to tell me who’s pregnant?”
“Nope.”
“It’s not you?”
“No way.”
“Is it Loretta?”
“Not unless pregnancy can be caused by hot flashes.”
“Is it anybody I know?”
“Pepper, I need a tank of gas.”
Pepper transacted the business with a speedy slip of the cash and a bang on the cash register.
Watching most of her money disappear, Roxy said, “You know anything about Valdeccio, a guy married to one of the Calderelli sisters for a while?”
“Valdeccio? Yeah, sure, he’s in here all the time.” Pepper handed back a couple of small bills. “He takes care of all the cars owned by that dead gazillionaire Julius Hyde, you know. Drives him around a little. Drove him, I guess you could say.”
“Have you seen Valdeccio since Julius died?”
“As a matter of fact, he was in here yesterday, filling up gas tanks. He charges all the gas for his own car and half the neighborhood, and he uses the Hyde credit card.” Seeing Roxy’s expression, Pepper said, “What do I care if he ripped off his employer? He’s not the only one. I guess he was worried the card would get canceled.”
“Nice guy. Did he say anything about the night Julius died? Was he around? Did he see anything?”
Pepper took the cigarette from her lip with her left hand. “Yeah, he did. He was pretty upset, in fact. Going to lose his job, which had a lot of perks besides credit cards.”
“But did he see Julius get whacked?”
Pepper shook her head. “No, he left, he said, before the old guy got shot.”
“I suppose he told that to the police.”
With a grin, Pepper said, “I doubt it. He’s a slippery dude.”
Roxy supposed anyone who used his employer’s credit card to buy gasoline for his entire family wasn’t on the up-and-up.
Pepper put her elbow back on the counter. “I heard a couple of guys talking about you lately.”
“Who?”
“I thought you didn’t want me spreading rumors?”
“Pepper—”
“Okay, okay, a couple of guys who work in the kitchen at that fancy restaurant, Rizza’s—they came in to get a price on new tires for their motorcycles. I hate that. They know exactly how much tires cost here, so why are they running around doing comparison shopping when they can see I’m busy? I had a minivan up on the lift and—”
“Pepper?”
“They were talking about Patrick Flynn. About how he’s settling in real well at the restaurant.”
“Am I supposed to care about Flynn and his job?”
“I guess not. But the guys told me that Flynn said you look just as good now as you did back before he joined the Marine Corps.” Pepper scratched at one of her tattoos—an eagle with an olive branch in its beak. “They went to hear you sing at a club a couple of weeks back. Said you were dynamite. When are you gonna get me some tickets to hear you sing?”
“I’m only backup.”
“Still, it’s kinda cool.” While Roxy put her change away, Pepper said, “You know, as men go, Flynn’s not bad. He’s got a real nice butt, know what I’m saying?”
“If you decide to cross the railroad tracks, Pepper, don’t leave Doreen for Flynn. He’s not as upstanding as he looks.”
Pepper cocked her thumb and forefinger into a gun. “Gotcha. He’s seeing somebody else, anyway. They’re living together.”
“What? Who?” The information caught Roxy up short. She had guessed Flynn might be doing the dirty dance with someone, but this news took her by surprise. It wasn’t like Flynn to commit to sharing a tube of toothpaste. “Who’s he with?”
“Marla Krantz.”
“Marla—? You’re kidding me!” Roxy’s chest locked up tight. “Is she still doing smack?”
Pepper nodded. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”
Roxy grabbed the pregnancy test, slammed out of the garage, and climbed into the truck. She loosened Nooch’s teeth when she banged her door shut.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Why are men so predictable?”
“Huh?”
“Marla Krantz!”
“Oh,” Nooch said. “The pretty one. What about her?”
“Shut up!”
Marla Krantz, well-known junkie, was now Flynn’s live-in girlfriend. Great. Exactly the kind of people Roxy wanted around her daughter.
She dialed Sage’s number again. This time, she left a blistering message.
“Call me back right away, you little sneak. Or you’re so grounded, your kid will be in kindergarten by the time you get out. You hear me, Sage? Call your mother.”
Back at the yard, just to make her life even more complicated, Roxy found that Bug Duffy had left a note jammed in the office door.
“Call me,” it said. And provided two phone numbers.
Roxy let Nooch put the stained-glass window in the garage, and she went into the office to call Bug. Fortunately, he didn’t take her calls. One went to his voice mail immediately, and the other was picked up by a secretary at the police station.
“They’re in the squad meeting,” the secretary said on the phone. She had a thick Pittsburgh accent. “I’ll tell him yunz called. What’s your cell number?”
Roxy gave it and hung up, glad to have avoided talking with the police. She called Sage again. No answer.
At least now Roxy could be reasonably sure Sage wasn’t with Flynn. Because he was probably at home banging his drug addict girlfriend.
To Sage’s voice mail, she said, “You’d better have a good reason for not calling me.”
Tapping her fingers on the desk, she found herself thinking about men in general. Flynn, of course. And premature Henry Paxton. And finally Trey Hyde.
Trey. Okay, he was fun in bed. But Roxy didn’t want to think about exactly why she let guys like Trey take her clothes off. She’d probably done it the first time just to get the upper hand with him. Ordering around a man from Trey’s background, making him do her bidding—it gave her a kick, she had to admit. Plus he had a lot of stamina and some creative ideas.
The top drawer of Roxy’s desk called to her, and she slid it open. She played her fingers lightly over the collection of items crowded there. A pocketknife she’d taken from a guy she’d had her way with in the men’s room of a nightclub. A rabbit’s foot that belonged to the artist who sloshed paint on canvases he bolted to the walls of a warehouse. The earring she’d nipped from the earlobe of the college kid in her truck last night. A key, a wristwatch, a class ring, a shirt button torn off in a moment of steamy excitement.
Her trophies? Were these trinkets reminders of her conquests—gathered the way a serial killer took mementos from victims? No, not quite. But they were a kind of list, she thought, a list of men she’d overcome, taken for a ride. Enjoyed and discarded before that elusive something changed and made life less about good times and got unpleasantly complicated.
Not even Adasha knew how many men there had been.
Uneasily, Roxy thought about her mother and the way she had groveled for Pop’s attention. Being sexy for him. Coaxing him to be nice. Before he beat her face to pulp.
Roxy shut her eyes to make the mental image go away.
She fingered the earring and thought. In her truck, the college kid had done everything she’d told him to do. She’d had some laughs and a hell of a big climax. He’d done it happily and maybe learned a thing or two. And when she dropped him off at his apartment afterward, she’d felt satisfied. Which was good, especially after her spat with Flynn at the restaurant.
But it was weird, and she knew it.
Adasha guessed, too.
“Understand why you’re doing it,” Dasha had once urged.
But Roxy resisted.
Better sex
than drugs, though. Of all the people from the neighborhood who had chosen drugs as their form of recreation, none of them had handled their addiction well. Some were dead, and others like goddamn Marla Krantz were making a mess of more than their own lives.
Then there were girls like Kaylee who used their God-given talents to hook up with sugar daddies. That hadn’t turned out well, either.
Kaylee, Roxy thought. Time to pay her a visit.
19
Arden arrived at the coffee shop with time enough to walk Samson around the leafy residential block before her scheduled meeting. The Great Dane moseyed on his leash and snuffled all the bushes before leaving discreet messages for other dogs while Arden tried to organize a plan that would make the Greek government happy. Except no ideas sprang to mind.
During the bedside meeting at Fair Weather Village, Daddy had expounded about “company assets” until Dodo conked out. At first Arden was horrified, thinking Daddy had put her into another coma. But a nurse came in and pinched Dodo, which woke her up in a temper. Monica diplomatically suggested they leave Dodo so she could take a nap. Arden hadn’t been able to get her grandmother alone to talk.
On the drive back, Arden wished she could have had a coma of her own. Daddy talked and talked and made Monica cry. Then he dropped her off at Hilltop—no Henry in sight—and drove back to the city, sulking while Arden tried to stave off panic about Interpol and the FBI.
Later, to Samson, Arden said, “I just hope we don’t start a war with Greece.”
Samson snuffled his way back to the Mercedes SUV Arden had borrowed from Daddy’s garage. Two very tall girls with backpacks waited by the parking meter. They wore identical plaid skirts with white blouses.
The girl with an angelic face, curly black hair, and crazy kneesocks said, “Cool dog. What’s his name?”
“Samson. Are you Sage?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” She took off her John Lennon sunglasses and stuck out her hand. Her nails were painted purple, and the same color rimmed her dark eyes. Her white skin made the contrast more dramatic. She had gorgeous cheekbones. Her sidekick had pink tips on the corona of her hair.
Sage said, “When you said to look for a big black and white dog, you weren’t kidding. He’s huge. You’re Arden? This is my friend Kiryn.”
Standing between the two rangy girls and the large dog, Arden suddenly felt like a hobbit. She wondered if all important art deals started out so unpromisingly.
Kiryn shook her hand limply. “Hi.”
Sage tipped her head in the direction of the coffee shop’s front door. “You want me to order something? We could sit outside. That way, you don’t have to put Samson in the car.”
Three outdoor tables stood on the sidewalk. One was occupied by a pair of young mothers with baby carriages, another by three elderly men in tracksuits arguing over a crossword puzzle. The third table sat empty. Sage didn’t wait for an answer before tossing her backpack down onto one of the empty chairs.
“Sure. Good idea.”
Kiryn said, “I’ll order for everyone. What do you want?”
Sage said, “My treat. I’ll have a chai with honey and soy milk.”
Sage pulled a Hello Kitty wallet from her backpack. Judging by the various buttons clipped there—CoExist and Give Peas a Chance—Arden guessed the Hello Kitty was intended to be ironic. She realized she was already intimidated by this self-assured young lady.
Arden said, “I’ll have the same.”
Kiryn accepted some cash from Sage and disappeared into the coffee shop.
Sage flung herself onto the chair and proceeded to rough up Samson’s face. The dog waggled his tail and tried to climb into Sage’s lap. She laughed and hugged him impetuously. “What a nice boy you are! I love dogs. Don’t you? They’re unconditional.”
Arden said, “I guess so.”
“A dog is good training. You know, for bigger responsibilities.” Sage looked up at her with a direct gaze. “I guess you’re more into the arts. Committed to the cause, right?”
Had Arden said something like that to Sage on the phone? She didn’t remember all the details of their earlier conversation.
Sage looked more carefully at her. “You okay?”
Arden realized she had zoned out for a moment. She sat down at the table. “Yes, fine. You talked to Hadrian, right?”
“Yeah, Mr. Sloan-Whitaker. He was really generous to spend so much time with me. And for putting me in touch with you. This is great. I hope you don’t mind helping me with my project.”
“Project?”
Sage pulled a notebook from her backpack. She had made a collage of magazine photos on the cover—pictures of rock singers Arden didn’t recognize and an actor who played in the Bridget Jones movie. Sage’s pen had floating confetti inside, like a snow globe.
Sage looked squarely at Arden. “This is for a school project.”
Arden had missed more than a few important details. “Are you an art major?”
Sage laughed. “Hey, no, I’m just in high school. It’s for Sister Mary Matthew’s history class. We’re studying antiquities and their cultural significance to the past and the future, and of course she’s all interested in Vatican stuff, but that’s why I thought I’d go Greek, you know? Shake her up a little.”
“I must have misunderstood,” Arden said. “I thought…”
Sage waited. Her blue eyes seemed to absorb a lot, and Arden remembered she was supposed to be clever enough to draw out information. But she felt inept, sitting there with this high school girl with a confetti pen.
Arden made an effort to be normal. “When we talked on the phone, I wasn’t completely awake, I guess. I’m happy to help. What do you need to know?”
Inside Sage’s backpack, an electronic device began to play Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars. The music made Sage roll her eyes.
Arden said, “Phone call?”
“My mother, that’s all. She’s been calling me for an hour.” Sage checked the screen on her phone. “Yep. She thinks I still need a babysitter. Jeez.”
“If you need to take her call…”
“No, no. She’s just overprotective. Can we talk about statuary now?”
“Sure, of course.”
From the jumble in her backpack, Sage pulled out a battered laptop. The case was plastered with more faded stickers—Think Green! And Free Tibet. Opening the computer, Sage quickly tapped on the keys. Her long fingers were decorated with an assortment of rings—one featuring a skull and another one a curlicue of silver. The third looked like something from a box of Cracker Jacks. While she typed, she said, “This coffee shop has wireless Internet, so I can show you stuff. I did some research on Greek statues—you know, the kind in museums. And I ran across this one in particular, see? Some fishermen pulled him up from the bottom of the Adriatic. They sold it to a museum for a bunch of money—”
Arden looked at the computer screen and recognized the photo. “Over three million dollars, if I recall.”
Sage sat up straighter. “You know it?”
“Yes, of course. The question is, where was the piece discovered? If it was in international waters, the concern about its country of origin is fuzzy enough, perhaps, to justify the museum’s acquiring it. But the Italian government is calling for its return.”
“Why? It’s a Greek statue, right?”
“Yes, but presumably some Romans were in possession of it when their boat capsized, so—”
“But why aren’t the Greeks asking for the statue back?”
“Well…” Arden lost the thread of her own argument, so she started all over again. “Lately, there’s been a flood of artifacts on the market from Iran and Iraq. It’s because they’ve been stolen and smuggled out of their homelands during this time of political instability. Is it fair that those countries will lose their heritage?”
“I don’t know. If their stuff stays in their country, isn’t it in danger of getting blown up?”
“Should that be our concern?�
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“Hell, yes,” Sage replied. “If it’s gone, nobody gets it.”
In time to save Arden from flubbing another attempt at explaining, Kiryn returned with one cup of chai, which she set in front of her friend. She said, “The others will be ready in a minute.”
Arden tried to form a reasonable argument. “The question of whether or not antiquities might be destroyed isn’t really the point. It’s the provenance that matters.”
“You’re saying a country has the right to preserve its heritage. But what about those horses in Venice? The ones that have been on top of the cathedral of San Marco since, like, the year 1200? Back then, they were stolen from Constantinople. Should they go back to where they came from originally? Or stay where they’ve been for almost a thousand years? Which country can claim them as part of its heritage? Both, right?”
“Well, that’s—”
Kiryn caught the thread of their discussion easily and said, “I’m half Colombian. Why should Colombian artifacts stay in Colombia when half the Colombians like me have moved elsewhere?”
“Yeah,” Sage agreed. “The world is more global now, you know?”
Arden said, “Colombia is such an interesting country! And beautiful artifacts.”
“Yeah, but the real growth industry is actually kidnapping. So maybe it’s not the best place for artifacts right now.”
Arden said, “You could see it that way, I suppose. Ancient civilizations belong to all of humanity—the whole world. At least, that’s the argument of some of the big international museums.”
“It’s like musical chairs,” Sage said. “Everything moves around. Maybe somebody needs to pick a time when the music stops and that’s when everything stays where it ended up.”
Kiryn whistled a few bars of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”
Arden said, “Wasn’t there a specific sculpture you were interested in learning about?”
“Oh, right.”
Kiryn went back into the coffee shop, and once again Sage typed on her keyboard, then turned the computer so Arden could see the picture on the screen. “Yeah, maybe something like this.”
Arden felt a thrill of recognition. Sage’s statue wasn’t the one from Dodo’s garden, but it had surely been done by the same artist. Only a careful inspection by an expert like Tiki would confirm that, however. “It looks familiar. What do you know about it?”
