He looked at her blankly. He said, “Sure, sure. When the hell does this thing get underway?”
“It won’t be long now. Where’s your daughter?”
“Somewhere. She’s around here somewhere. Little girl’s room. She’ll turn up. She always does. I’m parked here for the duration no matter what. Came to see your old man in action. He’s a son-of-a-bitch. But a pretty good auctioneer.”
“Thanks,” Jasper said politely.
“Yoo-Hoo!” a familiar voice called to her. On the other side of the aisle sat her downstairs neighbor Mrs. O’Neil.
Closer up, Jasper caught a whiff of that familiar dual scent of menthol cigarettes and flowery air freshener. She stifled a cough. Lately, all she had to do was think of the Smokey O’Neils and she’d cough. “Well, what a surprise. It’s nice to see you. I didn’t know that you and your husband were auction-goers.”
“Well not so much anymore. Dick’s health, you know. But we used to go all the time. And I’ve known Jimmy for years.” Mrs. O’Neil smoothed her gray permed hair.
“My Jimmy?”
“At one time, he was My Jimmy,” Mrs. O’Neil said. She winked.
Jasper took a step backwards. “You don’t say?”
“Oh, my, yes. The stories I could tell!” She covered her mouth like a Japanese geisha and giggled. “But that was before I found Jesus. And Dick found me.”
“Well, okay then! You tell that husband of yours I said hi,” Jasper said, inching away. She backed into some tall man’s backside. Ted Phillips looked over his shoulder.
“Nice running into you too!” he said loud enough to bring guffaws from the crowd around him. He draped an arm over Jasper’s shoulders and drew her in alongside him. “Folks, this little lady is studying up to step into her daddy’s shoes.”
“Well, that’s not exactly – .“ Jasper tried to wriggle free of Ted’s clasp but he held on tight. His strength and muscularity reminded her, embarrassingly, of Pastor Tim’s, and she felt both drawn to him and repulsed, an icky sexual entanglement of feelings.
The men and women clustered around Ted showed real interest in her, reaching for her hand, introducing themselves.
Ted teased them about their special interests in auction items. “Now, Charlie here, wherever you see Royal Doulton, there’s Charlie.”
“No, no,” Charlie said. He moved away into the crowd.
Ted went on “And Edith and Ardith, these girls love their jewelry.”
“We have a shop,” the taller of the two sixty-something women said. “You’ll have to stop by sometime, Jasper.” They nodded to Jasper and stepped away. Ted steered Jasper off behind the steps up to the auction block.
When they were alone, he said earnestly, “I want to know if you feel ready to get up on the block for a while tonight.”
“What?” Jasper shook her head. “I’m way not ready, Ted! What are you thinking?”
“Jimmy said you’ve been practicing.”
“But not in front of people! I’ve been selling to telephone poles! Or selling telephone poles. I’m not sure,” Jasper said. Her usually cold hands had gone sweaty.
Ted’s dark brows moved together toward the bridge of his nose.
I wonder if he plucks his eyebrows. I bet he broke his nose in a fight or falling off his motorcycle, Jasper mused irrelevantly.
“Jasper! What do you say? Atta girl!” Ted slapped her on the back, and when she stumbled, drew her to him in a quick hug.
“Ted!” Kelly came around behind the auction block. “Well, well,” she said. “One big happy family!” She laughed. Ted joined in. And Jasper climbed up the steps to the elevated auction block.
Up there were the portable headsets and controls for the wireless sound system, along with a computer at the clerk’s station and a chair. Jasper rested her trembling hands on the surround wall and looked out over the auction house floor. From this elevated perch, she could see the entire room, from the tables covered with white paper and smaller items to be sold on either side of the block, to the ones set up straight across the front with their displays of small appliances, assorted glassware, folded quilts, and cases of silverware.
Two sections of folding chairs with an aisle down the middle now held some fifty people. The ones not engaged in conversation with their neighbors looked up at her expectantly. “Are you going to auction tonight?” a man with rosy cheeks and a mild smile called out. Jasper shrugged. I hope not, but it’s beginning to look that way, she thought. Where the heck, no, where the hell was Jimmy? Jasper joined the auction team on the ground.
“Anybody seen Estie?” Ted’s voice bellowed. “Man, where’s everybody gone?”
Jasper was in the office, helping latecomers register for their bidder numbers when a large Boom! sounded from the back table. Jasper jumped.
“We better get moving. Ted’s dropped the step,” Kelly told Jasper. The clock read 4:33.
Jasper followed the more experienced woman through the crowd packed in tight around the back table. Kelly and Jasper worked their way up toward the bid catchers. “Try to keep people from looking over my shoulder,” Kelly said into Jasper’s ear. She didn’t want prying eyes to know what her top bids were.
Ted tugged on his headset and tapped the mouthpiece. “Run up there and switch me on, Jasper!” he ordered and gestured toward the auction block.
Jasper hesitated.
“You know an on-off switch when it you see it, Girly?” Ted said loudly.
“Go! I’ll be fine,” Kelly told her.
Jasper elbowed her way through the crowd at the table, saying “Sorry, Sorry,” all along the way. Then she hurried up the lane between the seated bidders and the furniture and made her way up the steps to the top of the auction block. She kneeled down in front of the box of electronic equipment. “Oh, Lordy,” she said.
“It’s somewhere on the right side,” Grace said from where she sat ready to type in all the winning bids.
Jasper pressed her face in close so she could read the various labels. And there it was, On-Off. A simple toggle switch. She pushed it up. Then got to her feet.
“There she is! Back from the dead! Can you hear me okay up there, Jazz?” Ted’s voice was now amplified and bigger than ever.
Grace handed her the cardboard megaphone she sometimes used to get the auctioneer’s attention when she missed hearing the item description or bid. Jasper held it to her mouth. “A-OK,” she said.
Some of the crowd applauded. Her first words from the auction block.
Before she left the block, Grace whispered to her, “Where are Jimmy and Esteban?”
“Don’t know.” Jasper hurried down the steps and ran back to the table.
“Get back here,” Ted ordered her. “You’re Esteban.”
“Hi, Estie!” a gnarled man with a friendly, crooked smile said.
“We’re a few minutes behind the clock tonight, folks. But it’s business as usual from now on.” People wanted to know where Jimmy was, and Ted said that he was still on a call. There was friendly joshing among the bidders. Maybe he’s taking a nap. Maybe he’s having a little lee-ay-zon! There were snickers and chortles. Letting off steam. Jimmy wouldn’t like to hear those comments.
Ted cut them off. He quickly introduced the auction crew, saying that tonight the part of Esteban was being played by Jasper who was here studying up on how to walk in her Stepdaddy’s shoes, then gave the order of the sale followed by terms and conditions. “We’re gonna try to stick to the way we usually do things here at Biggs. This back table first. Then we’ll move up front for the purty stuff.” He told the crowd to use their bidder cards. “If we can’t see you, you’re not in,” he said. “There’s a 10 percent buyer’s fee on all purchases. Settle up tonight with the girls in the office. All items are sold As Is, Where Is.”
“What if we find a chip or a crack and you haven’t mentioned that?” a newcomer asked.
“Folks, we look everything over pretty careful before the auction. If we find a p
roblem, we’re gonna call it. If we miss something, well, we’ve missed it. That’s what previews are for.”
Jasper caught the eye of the man in suspenders who’d asked the question. His face had flushed red. She smiled kindly. The man shrugged and turned his attention to the item Tony was holding over his head.
“Okay, let’s get started! Tony, what’ve you got there?”
“First item up! Monkey wrench, boys. They don’t make ‘em like that, anymore! Who’ll give me 25 and go? Now 25-25-25? Bid ‘em in at 25! Let’s go, folks!”
Kelly studied her stack of bidder cards. She held up five fingers.
Ted said, “Make it ten, and go!”
Kelly waved her card and nodded.
“I’ve got ten right here, with Kelly. Who’ll go 15 now? 15 there! Now 20, and 25. Bid 25-25-25? Sold it. Twenty dollars. Right there. Number 102 bought it, Grace. 102 for $20.” 102 was the man who’d embarrassed himself with the question about chips and cracks. Maybe, thought Jasper, he was winning back his self-respect by winning the first item of the auction.
The crowd stuck close as Ted walked his way down the table, the way Jasper had seen Jimmy do it the week before. Tony would pick up a flat full of license plates or a cast iron doorstop and hold them high, turning to show some of the people, mostly men. The bidding moved quickly. The doorstop brought $37.50 and a mason jar full of buttons went higher than Jasper could’ve imagined: $55 to a long-haired brunette named Hillary. “There you go, sweetheart,” Ted said before he handed her the jar himself.
Ready Teddy, Jasper thought, remembering the words of his ex-squeeze, the pregnant waitress.
Jasper helped as much as she knew how, handing up items for a quick look-see by Ted before he launched his attack again. When Kelly won the bid for one of her absentees, Jasper took turns with Tony, running the item up to the storage room behind the auction block, scrawling a bidder number on one of the scraps of paper there and tucking it under the item, then racing back to the table to help catch bids with a hearty Yep! or run the next item back the way she’d come.
Ted raced through the back table items one after the other. Postcard albums. Old empty milk and medicine bottles. If he couldn’t get a bid, he’d say, “Put ‘em all together. OK, all for one money!”
Jasper was sweating. Her head was reeling. How could Ted keep up with all the bidders, and the objects that Tony or Kelly scooped up from the table, marbles, and calendars and rusty old tools? How could Grace up on the auction block possibly understand all this keep and type an accurate record of each winning amount and bidder amount into her keyboard?
And the question that most made Jasper sweat: Where, oh were, was Jimmy?
Before she knew it, Ted had reached the end of the table. “Jasper’s gonna sell for a little while,” he announced. Then he pressed a button on the black box he wore on his belt. Unclipped it, and handed it to Jasper with the attached headset. “Put this on. Get up on the block. Switch the switch and sell a few things. I need a quick break.”
The crowd at the back table broke up, many of them going to chairs they’ve saved earlier with empty boxes on the seats or jackets or a copy of their bidder number taped on.
Jasper felt a hot hand on the back of her neck. Tony said in her ear, “Come on. I’ll tell you what we’re selling, and you just go through the motions.”
“My bid-calling stinks!” Jasper said.
“You’ll be fine.” Tony said. He hurried her up the aisle.
She climbed the steps, feeling as if she were ascending to her own hanging. She fumbled the headset on. Grace helped her snug it down for her smaller head size. It was moist with Ted’s sweat. Maybe I’ll get electrocuted and this nightmare will end, Jasper thought as she switched the button the little black box she’d tucked into her pocket. Unlike Ted, she wasn’t wearing a belt.
Since she didn’t instantly go up in smoke, she faced the expectant crowd spread out below her. “Okay, everybody, same terms and conditions,” she said.
Grace whispered, “Same auction. You don’t have to do that. Just sell. You can do it.”
Jasper had spoken from the pulpit before – only a couple rare times when Pastor Tim relinquished control – so she knew she could address the crowd.
“Let’s get started then. Tony, what do we have first?”
“Art glass!” Tony called out. “Choice off the table!” He gestured at the globular bowls and stalactite vases in oranges, yellows, bright blues that covered one of the front tables.
“Who’ll give me five to start?” Jasper asked.
Two different bidders raised their cards.
Jasper hesitated. What did she do now?
“You got five!” Tony called.
“Now seven-and-a-half?”
Both bidders raised their cards again. Jasper, not sure which one to pick, just pointed at one of them and kept going. “I have seven-and-a-half. Now ten. Okay, there’s ten. Now 15. Who’ll go 15? One of you ladies want back in at 15? 15? 15?”
“Sell it!” Tony yelled.
“Sold for – " Jasper turned to Grace who whispered, “Ten.” “Sold for $10 to buyer number 67.” The winning bidder got to her feet and walked up to the table. She picked up one of the bases and a bowl.
“Takes two!” Tony called. “Anybody else?”
“Say that,” Grace whispered.
“Anybody else?” Jasper echoed.
The other woman, the one who’d been outbid moved up to the table. With whispered instructions from Grace, Jasper announced, “Bidder 112 takes two. Anybody else?”
The crowd sat still. Some of them moved impatiently in their seats.
“All to go!” Tony yelled and punched the air.
“All to go!” Jasper called over the mike. “How about five for it all. There’s five! Now ten! Who’ll give me ten?”
Number 67 made a cutting motion across her throat with her bidding card.
“She’s cutting your bid. Seven-fifty,” whispered Grace.
“Do I take it?”
People in the crowd snickered. A few groaned.
“You have seven-fifty!” Tony yelled. “Go ten!”
“Ten, anybody, ten? There’s ten! Now 12…12-and-a-half! Got it! Now 15. 15, anybody? 15? Sold – twelve-and-a-half to number 67. Whew!” Jasper said on mike.
There was a smattering of applause, but Jasper knew she was supposed to keep the auction under control. Hadn’t the nice auctioneer teacher from WorldWide College of Auctioneering said just that on her study CD? So she looked to Tony down below. He’d moved over to the front table on the other side of the block.
“Got some nice quilts here, Jasper!” Tony shouted.
Poor Tony. His voice was growing hoarse. Jasper decided to try harder to take up the slack so he didn’t have to use himself up. She eyed the quilt that Tony was holding out to his full wingspan. “Show me!” she ordered Tony. He turned quickly with a sideways glance up at Jasper.
"Madame,” Tony said with a bow. Esteban hurried in the back doors and took his place by the other ringhand. He belched loudly.
"Nice of you to join us. Keep that quilt up off the floor,” Jasper ordered. “Show them now.”
“The lady’s got herself some new nards.” Esteban spoke quietly but Jasper caught his words. She shrugged them off. “Very nice quilts,” she told the crowd. “This one is wedding ring pattern. See the pink and rose colors intertwined? The background white is spotless, meaning that this quilt was cherished and protected.” Tony seemed to be taking in her words and stood straighter, held the quilt higher. Visible on either side of him, the crowd lifted its diverse heads as if it had become a single-minded entity.
Kelly, seated in the front row so the auctioneer would always see her holding up bidder cards for the absentees, got to her feet. She stood up on one side of the quilt and faced the crowd. “Let’s sell ‘em one at a time, Jasper!” she shouted. “These ain’t blankets, folks. These are some damn fine handmade quilts!” Kelly turned Jasper’s direction
and mouthed the words, “What am I bid?”
Jasper took a deep breath. ”What am I bid for this one fine quilt?” she asked the crowd. Then she took off, her bid-calling growing stronger by the second. It was as if she were channeling the soul of Jimmy Biggs, Master Auctioneer. “One hun-hun-hundred dollar bid, now 125, and 150!” The bidding finally topped off at $225 and Jasper called, “Sold!” while Tony and Kelly called out a simultaneous, “Number 107.”
“One hundred and seven,” Esteban said.
“107 takes it,” Jasper said.
Kelly turned and winked at her. “My oh my,” Jasper thought to herself. She nodded gratefully at Kelly. “My oh my, we might become friends after all.”
“Good job, Jasper,” Grace whispered from the clerk’s spot next to Jasper.
Tony shouted, “Next quilt up, Jasper. We got another good one here!”
Jasper paused for a quick slurp of water from the bottle, and in those few seconds saw the entrance of the next real, hard, phase of her life.
Glenn Relerford dressed in somber brown marched up the central aisle. “Talk to you,” he said.
“Me?” asked Jasper on mike.
Glenn pointed at her and signaled that she come down off the auction stand. Estie stepped in his way and spread his arms wide like he was going to stop him.
“Don’t let him take Jasper!” a man in the crowd shouted.
“We’ll protect you!” a woman said.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jasper said, still speaking into her headset microphone as she walked down the steps at the back of the platform and joined Glenn. She fiddled with the switches on the side of the microphone box at her waist. “It’s Jimmy, isn’t it?” she asked and her voice boomed throughout the auction house.
“I’ll take you to him,” Glenn said. He placed his hand lightly on her shoulder.
Ted stomped back into the room and rushed over to Jasper and Glenn. “What the hell is going on here?”
Jasper took off her microphone and handed it to him. “Sell something,” she said.
Chapter 12
Jasper left the auction house in a squad car with Glenn and a uniformed officer who said to call her Sheila.
The Case of the Angry Auctioneer (Auction House Mystery Series Book 1) Page 8
