He had a large sample case with him and he started aligning pill bottles on the coffee table, some the new stuff for Marion and some he thought I might be interested in.
Marion said yes to whatever he suggested—so much for exhaustive research—and didn’t ask a single question. Once he had tallied up her purchases, he looked inquisitively at me.
“Thank you so much for this great information, but…uh, well, I don’t get paid until next week and, uh…things are a little tight right now,” I hemmed and hawed like someone who was embarrassed about her financial situation.
“How about some sample packs?” Vincent offered, taking several small foil packets out of his case.
“For me?” I said.
“Try ’em. We so back our product we think if you try them, you’ll see such a difference that you’d be crazy not to buy them.”
Marion enthusiastically sang his praises, well, praises for the product, but she was batting her eyelashes at Vincent the entire time.
“Thank you, that’s so kind of you,” I gushed. “Should I take them with food? Or on an empty stomach?”
“Either is okay,” Vincent said smoothly. “When you first start out, you might want to take them with some food, especially if you’re taking several at one time.”
“All I need is a sip of coffee,” Marion interjected as if taking the pills on an empty stomach was a mountain she had climbed. “Then I’m good to go for the rest of the day.”
“Now, Marion, remember what I’ve told you. These pills are a miracle, but they don’t replace nutrition taken through food. You need to promise me that you’re eating three decent meals a day.”
“Heavy on the veggies, light on the butter,” she said, clearly repeating advice he had given her.
“Exactly,” he answered. “When was the last time you had something fried?” he asked her.
She ducked her head, a move that would have been cute on a twenty-year-old. “Well, you know sometimes I don’t have much of an appetite, and the one thing that always gets me going is the fried seafood platter at Salty Sally’s.”
“How many times this week?” he asked, but his tone was friendly, not a castigation. It was more like a friend trying to help someone.
“That really rainy day and just yesterday. I got a chill and needed something warm.”
“You’re doing better,” he said cheerfully. “When we first met you were there every other day.”
“Sometimes even twice a day, once for lunch and once for supper.”
“So you are doing much better,” he cheered her on. “Do you get any veggie sides with your meals?”
“I got the fried okra yesterday.”
“Okay, well, how about get your fried seafood, but go for the steamed veggies next time?”
“You mean like the smothered green beans?”
Vincent shot me the barest look. We both clearly knew enough about Southern cooking to know that beans smothered with ham and bacon wasn’t exactly the heath food he was aiming for. But neither of us said that.
“How about something really rad—steamed broccoli with lemon juice?”
Marion made a face that gave me a clue as to how hard Vincent was working to get her down to a massive plate of fried food twice a week. “But that’s so chewy. I’ll do vegetables but not chewy ones.”
“Sweet potatoes are good,” I chimed in.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed. “With some brown sugar and melted butter. That’s a good vegetable idea.”
I didn’t chime in again. She and Vincent continued for a few minutes more. I had to admire his patience with her. She’d shoot down most of his suggestions, but he remained cheerful and positive.
When they came to a break in their conversation, I said, “Marion, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I’ve enjoyed meeting you, but I still have to get a few more surveys done today, so I’d better run.” I stood up, but kept talking. “And, Vincent, I’m so glad I was here when you arrived.” I patted the sample packets. “This might just be my lucky day.”
He stood as well. “I’ve got to run along, too,” he said. “But I’ll be back next week.”
“Same time, same place,” Marion said, also clearly a long-running banter between them.
She also got up, moving slowly as if reluctant for us to leave. Of course, once we left, she’d be lonely again. Only her pill bottles as company.
Much as I wanted to get out of here, I patiently let her lead us to the door. It’s what any woman in pink would do. I gave her a polite hand shake; Vincent gave her a hug and a final wink with those puppy-dog eyes. She remained at the door waving good-bye until we were almost at the street.
“Interested in a cup of coffee?” he asked. He gave me a lopsided grin and his best puppy dog stare, one that morphed into a slow trawl down my body.
OMG, Vincent, the pill-pusher man, thought he was in cougar town.
“That’s very kind of you, but I do have to be going.”
“Some other time? Can I have one of your cards?”
Clearly Vincent was so used to getting his way with old ladies that he was sure a woman in pink would be a pushover.
“Thanks, but I’m probably old enough to be your mother.”
“Naw, I’m older than I look. Comes from good living. Plus I’m a modern guy; I don’t think age differences should just go one way.” He gave me an up-and-down look meant to be flattering.
I was supposed to be a divorced woman, out on her own in the big, bad world. Vincent obviously assumed that I had to be missing male company. Or he was missing female company and he was casting his line out at anything that swam by.
“You’re tempting,” I answered pinkly, “but I’m dating someone.”
“Someone in as good shape as me?” He flexed a bicep to let me know what I was missing.
“Closer to my age. But, yeah, in pretty good shape.” Lies work better when you stick close to what you know. “A doctor.” I left out the female part.
“You’re dating a doctor? Better hide those foil packs. I haven’t met one yet who isn’t bought into the whole for-profit medical model.”
Oops, I had gotten a little too close to what I knew. I could lie and say it wasn’t very serious, but that might give Vinnie the idea that I was available. Hell, I was already in pink; I might as well lie and lie again. “Not that kind of a doctor. A chiropractor. He’s pretty open-minded. I once dated a surgeon and that was awful. If it hadn’t been part of a peer-reviewed study, it didn’t count.”
“Yeah, I know the type. So, were you taking the samples to be polite or because you’re really interested?”
Vincent seemed to have given up on bedding me and now was checking me out. If I rejected him, there had to be something hinky about me. I didn’t want to end up in the hot pink zone—so eager that he’d think I was playing him or faking.
“I have to admit, I’m curious. But a little skeptical. I mean, Marion went through a long list of things wrong with her. Yet she’s taking just about everything you have to offer. How come it’s not doing more for her?”
“This is the first time you’ve met her, right?”
“Well, yes.”
“She was shriveled-up old lady when I met her.”
Which was how I’d describe her now. With money. “Okay…”
“Now she’s much better, getting around more. Popping some pills can only help so much. Even as good as this stuff is, it can’t totally make up for a lousy diet and no exercise. How old do you think I am?” he challenged.
“Uh,…around twenty-four.” I deliberately guessed low. I’d really put him at around twenty-eight to thirty-two.
“I’m twenty-nine years old. But no one ever thinks I’m as old as I am. Because I do it right. I eat good food and get to the gym as often as I can. When I’m Marion’s age, I’m going to look twenty years younger than I am.”
“How do you know it’s not just the healthy diet and exercise?”
“When I was young
er,” he said in a tone that no one less than fifty should use—and even then sparingly, “I tried to work out, but just couldn’t get going. I ate the typical diet, hamburgers, fries at fast food joints five days a week. I was only able to really get in shape after I started on Nature’s Beautiful Gift. I quit the burgers, turned to salads. And now I look ten years younger than I am.”
Well, no, but I didn’t say that. With his muscles and puppy-dog eyes, he probably did well with women—his easy come-on to me indicated he expected a yes—and he was used to getting the answer one usually gets from a brand-spanking-new love interest, an answer that rarely involves a cold, hard slap of realism.
He wasn’t finished. “Plus my mom and dad take these every day and they’ve told me over and over again what a difference it makes. I have a college friend of mine who wasn’t doing very well, childhood disease. I gave him the same sample packets I gave you and he was off the crutches in two days. It was amazing.”
Vincent was a true believer. Maybe his intentions weren’t evil like a scammer, but the result could be worse. True believers weren’t lying, so there was no falsehood to detect. True believers invested not only their money, but their ego and honor. When they had that much at stake, it was hard for them to believe their grail was fool’s gold.
I was skeptical—and educated enough to know about the placebo effect. (Well, and I was living with a doctor who liked explaining things to me.) Thirty percent of people get better—or feel like they have—with just a sugar pill. It’s not fake; the mind is a powerful thing, and believing you will get better often makes it true. Clinical trials for new drugs have to do better than placebo effect, otherwise they’re no more effective than the proverbial sugar pill. People like cause and effect—if they take a pill and get better, then the pill—or being outside, or resting in bed—made the difference. It couldn’t just be random, because no one wants to live in a random world. But colds run their course; people recover, even if all they do is eat chicken soup. Some diseases, like multiple sclerosis—or sickle cell—often improve with only time as a remedy. But if you take a pill and get better, or exercise and take a pill, then life isn’t random and you have control over your fate. It’s a very seductive answer and Vincent had been seduced by it.
But he looked like a man very close to thirty, and Marion McConkle was a shriveled-up women, held together more by money and its access to good medical care and a comfortable lifestyle than the natural supplements she was gulping. Maybe they helped. Maybe Marion would be a little more shriveled and Vincent would look in his mid thirties instead of late twenties without them. There was nothing in the evidence that called for zeal either for or against.
I was willing to be skeptical both ways. Some of the herbal remedies might well help. Hell, I took fish oil pills. Joanne swore that glucosamine and chondroitin helped with joint pain. The medical establishment could be closed-minded as well.
But the true believers—on both sides—scared me. Nothing is perfect; nothing with benefit is without cost.
However, I wasn’t here to have a debate with Vincent, I was here to get information for a case. And to get home and out of this pink dress as soon as possible.
“That sounds pretty convincing,” I said. “But why not do more research, like what they do with regular drugs?”
“Those fake trials?” he replied. “They don’t want people cured. They want people on their drugs for the rest of these lives. Their snake oil has to keep people just well enough so that they can keep on spending their money.”
“So why is spending their money on your stuff better than spending it on medications that at least went through clinical trials?”
“Because our stuff is better and we’re not in it just to make money. We charge as little as we can, just barely cover costs, so as many people as possible can afford these.”
“I don’t know, thirty-five dollars for a remedy for gas seems kind of expensive to me.”
“Not for what you get. It’s all natural, carefully processed so nothing is lost. And it really works.”
“Drug companies do something called compassionate use. Do you do anything like that?” I asked.
“What’s that?”
“If you can’t afford their drugs but you need them, you can get them for free. Admittedly, your doctor has to fill out a bunch of paperwork and jump through some hoops, but at least it’s a way for people to get needed medications.”
“Please, they get a tax break, and given how much money they earn—they spend more on marketing than research—it’s the least they can do.”
That was hard to argue with—especially since I’d heard some quite knowledgeable people say pretty much the same thing.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m not saying the drug companies are great, their bottom line is making money, not saving lives. But there are some scams out there.”
“This isn’t one of them,” he retorted. Just like a true believer.
“I’m not saying it is. You’re much too nice and sincere to be doing that. I saw how caring you were with Marion, trying to get her to eat right and all that. It’s just so hard to know.”
“Come with me for a cup of coffee and I’ll be glad to give you more details.”
I suspected I’d get the facts only as pillow talk, and I just wasn’t willing to go there for a case. “Can’t. I really do need to be going. Is there any place I can learn more?”
“We’re having a community event next week. If you give me your e-mail, I can get you the where and the when. Come to the session and then you’ll get the facts.”
He was persistent. “Damn, I’m all out of my cards. Give me your e-mail and I’ll send you mine.” He did and I scribbled it down.
And then it was adios to Vincent and his puppy-dog eyes.
He was parked in front of me, a new red truck. I fumbled with my seat belt long enough to let him drive away, keeping my license plate safely out of his sight. I noted his, quickly scribbling down the numbers as he pulled away. He might have been savvy enough to have gotten mine before he came in, but that wasn’t likely save in my suspicious brain. He didn’t know the car was connected to me then. I could have been a random stranger parking here. Plus, he was a cog in a multilevel marketing scheme, not a security expert. Noting license plates probably wasn’t part of his everyday thinking, like it was mine.
I drove away slowly, wanting to let Vincent get blocks away. Maybe my recent brush with a raging muscle man make me wary of anyone with a bulging bicep, but I wasn’t used to men coming on to me in such a sexually aggressive way. I wondered if he’s really been okay with me turning him down or if he thought I was playing a game, one he’d eventually win.
I cut up to Freret Street, heading home through the ’hood, a poor area slowly coming back after the flooding of the levee failures. I didn’t want to worry about Vincent, and this was his least likely route.
What I’d learned wasn’t going to please my client—or Mr. Williams. From what I could see, Nature’s Beautiful Gift was a legitimate company, selling a legal product. Marion McConkle was crazy, but not in a way that anyone would consider certifiable. She was a competent adult making her choices. I suspected those choices were swayed by Vincent and his puppy-dog eyes, but I didn’t think he was deliberately trying to con her or get her to buy things she didn’t need. He could have pushed anything and everything to her, but he confined his sales pitch to things that seemed to meet her complaints. He truly believed he was selling something that could help her. She believed the supplements were helping her. He was probably selling because of the time he spent with her. Clearly they talked about things like her eating habits that had nothing to do with a sales pitch and everything to do with him helping her live a healthier life.
If Fletcher McConkle wanted a larger slice of his aunt’s money, he had to man up and visit regularly and fuss about her health. That would be his best line of defense against Vincent and Nature’s Beautiful Gift.
Of course, I
still had more work to do. I wanted to see what the Grannies had dug up. It would be interesting to see if NBG had any complaints against it, or reports of adverse reactions. Or financial malfeasance. Either—or both—of those could give me additional ammo to hand to Fletcher. I was reluctant to attend the “naturalist” session. I suspected it would be a high pressure, even if in a low-key “we’re all just friends” way, sales sessions, with enough true believers there to exert enormous peer pressure. And perhaps a few not-so-true believers who understood that NBG was a pyramid scheme and that it was the people at the bottom who got screwed. Plus Vincent might be there and I’d have to wear a pink outfit–type costume again, as I’d have to go as Deborah Perkins. On the other hand, it might give me greater insight into their products and sales methods.
I hit the Central Business District just at the end of lunch. The only saving grace was that most of them were going in the opposite direction of where I was headed.
I had to return to my office if I wanted to shuck the pink dress there and get back in my regular clothes—which I did want to do. This was a PI costume, and it needed to stay with the PI costumes in my neatly arranged closet. Nor did I want to explain to Cordelia why I left in jeans and returned in pink.
When I got there I started to drive around the block again before realizing Dudley Dude was in the hospital. I didn’t need to worry about him for a long time. I parked in front, a lightness in my step as I got out of my car. Of course, normal precautions were still needed, but it was much easier to deal with the random insanity of some mugger who happened to be on your block as you were getting out of your car than someone crazed meth user waiting for me specifically. Just as I got to the door I remembered the bags I’d taken from Reginald Banks’s place. I didn’t want to leave them in my trunk, so I grabbed them. I could leave them in my office, not a much better solution.
I pushed open the downstairs door and almost ran into the first-floor tenant. He was an artist who had at some point in his life smoked or imbibed too much of something. He could wax on about his show in Paris, but that was a long time ago and he now mostly made his living by hanging out around Jackson Square and painting tourists. He looked like he had never seen me before. The only excuse I’d give him was he’d never seen me in pink before. I hurried past him with a mumbled hello lest I be again treated to the glories of his art show. Someday I’d have to ask him if it was Paris, France, or Paris, Texas—if I could ever actually be annoyed enough with him to be that snarky.
J.M. Redmann - Micky Knight Mystery 7 - I'll Will Page 16
