A Deadly Dealer

by J. B. Stanley

  “Beware to whom you belittle fine whiskey, my dear.

  Besides, your grandfather always told me that if I was going to drink, I might as well drink the best. Crown Royal is a superior intoxicant.”

  “I guess it’s an acquired taste,” Molly conceded.

  “Actually, I used to drink the same kind of sweet spirits that you do, dear. There will come a day when you will outgrow drinks accompanied by umbrellas or maraschino cherries.”

  “When did you grow out of them?”

  Clara shrugged. “Honestly, the day you came home from the hospital.”

  Molly signaled for the waiter. Her mother so rarely talked about the days of Molly’s infancy that she wanted to keep the words flowing.

  “Well, in those times, hospitals were sensible. They knew that giving birth was a traumatic event. First of all, they knocked you out completely, which is a truly marvelous idea. Why anyone would want to be awake for the actual labor process is truly incomprehensible. Once you finally did deliver—your baby having been plucked neatly from your womb with a handy pair of forceps—you got an entire week in the hospital to rest and regain some sense of well-being and calm.”

  The waiter arrived with their second round and noiselessly scooped up their empty glasses. Molly absently chewed on her drink stirrer and willed her mother to continue. Clara’s second whiskey seemed to help in the loosening of her tongue.

  “I assumed that you’d be just as easy to manage at home as you had been in the hospital,” she continued. “The nurses showed me how to change a diaper, feed you, and assured me that you’d sleep most of the time.” Molly sat up straighter. “So my father was there, too?” Clara’s eyes grew cloudy. “Oh sure, he made it through the first week of your life. In fact, he made it through exactly eight days. The day we brought you home proved to be his last.”

  “Why?” Molly asked in anguish. “Was I that bad?”

  “Oh no, cupcake. You just turned as yellow as a lemon and wouldn’t eat a thing. It was a little scary.”

  “So I had jaundice and . . . were you breast-feeding me?”

  “I should say not!” Clara exclaimed in horror. “Thank goodness breast-feeding was not in vogue as it is now. No, no, you were a formula baby from the first. You ate beautifully in the hospital, you just wouldn’t eat at home.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I called the nurse who had taken care of me all week.

  She came over after her shift and told me to make sure you got some sunlight and brought me one of the bottles the hospital used. You drank up everything she fed you. See how stubborn you were, right from the get-go?”

  “And what did Dad do?” Molly asked quietly, knowing that her mother might cease her narrative at any moment.

  Mentioning the man she had been married to for less than a year was a subject everyone knew to avoid with Clara Appleby. She had made it clear to all that the name of Nathan Appleby and anything relating to him was strictly taboo.

  “Your father freaked out, that’s what he did!” Clara practically shouted, her eyes flashing with anger. “Said we had decided never to have children and that he realized he couldn’t handle being a father. Off he went into the sunset on that old Harley of his, and I had my first taste of bourbon. We could only afford the cheap stuff, but it was hardly a margarita moment, you see, so I drank it. And then I drank some more.”

  Molly was quiet. “Oh, Ma. I know you said he left, but I didn’t think I was that young. No wonder I have no memory of him.”

  “You’re better off this way, trust me.” Clara took a deep swallow of her drink.

  Suddenly the waiter appeared with another round. Clara eyed her daughter suspiciously. “You know I never have more than two, Molly.”

  “Don’t look at me.” Molly threw up her palms in a gesture of innocence.

  “Ah, ma’am?” The waiter graciously interceded. “Compliments of the gentleman seated next to the bird-of-paradise.” Molly swiveled around in her chair in order to catch a glimpse of their benefactor. Seated at another bar table was a man with a lined and distinguished face, a carefully manicured silver beard and moustache, and an impeccable gray suit paired with a pink-and-white-striped tie. His eyes twinkled merrily as he issued an appreciative dip of the head, clearly meant for Clara.

  Molly provided the gentleman with a quick smile and then turned her body back around as quickly as possible in order to catch her mother’s reaction. Clara thanked her admirer with a regal nod and a close-lipped smile, her eyes alight with curiosity and something else that Molly had never seen before. Could her mother actually be attracted to a man? Molly had known many men to pursue her mother, for Clara was intelligent, cultured, ambitious, and stunningly attractive. And although Clara had deigned to share a meal or two with prospective suitors, no one had captured her interest long enough for any serious relationship to ever take root.

  “These men all want me to take care of them,” she had snorted a few months ago when Molly suggested that Clara might want to remarry one day. “Who needs that? Plus, the only wedding I want to be involved with is yours. Now that you’re thirty, I would have thought you’d be a bit more aggressive about tying down that boyfriend of yours.” Molly brought her thoughts back to the present. “Do you know that man?” she asked her mother with avid interest.

  “I know who he is. Everyone does,” her mother whispered excitedly. “That’s Grayson Montgomery.”

  “Of Montgomery Antiques & Rare Books? Out of Atlanta, Charleston, and Richmond?” Clara nodded, trying not to steal a glance over at the famed antique dealer. “The same.”

  Molly was impressed. “Wow. I’ve never even seen a photo of him. He cuts quite a dashing figure. Have you ever met him before?”

  “Oh.” Clara put on an expression of nonchalance. “Twice before at this show, when I still had my own shop and was on the show circuit and once at a lecture in Charleston. He hasn’t been to a show in years. He’s got people to represent him at all of these types of venues now. In fact, I wonder why he’s here. He must be on a buying trip.” As Clara snuck a sly look at Grayson, a willowy redhead approached his table and placed her hands proprietarily on a pair of angular hips. The Appleby women watched with avid interest as Grayson rose and then graciously offered his arm for the younger woman to take. The pair stepped lightly off of the platform but not before Grayson cast a sincere smile in their direction. Clara beamed in return, but her attention was then drawn to the back of the auburn stranger by his side.

  “Who’s that?” Molly asked.

  “Don’t know.” Clara shrugged. “She may work at his booth.”

  “I didn’t get a look at her face at all.” Molly was disappointed.

  At that moment, the woman glanced back over her shoulder and shot a venomous glance in their direction. With a flounce of her gorgeous mane, she clung to Grayson’s arm more firmly and hastened her stride across the nearest bridge, practically dragging him along.

  “What a nasty little fox.” Clara glared at the retreating figures. She returned her attention to her daughter and then blushed ever so slightly, an action completely out of character. “Stop looking at me like that. Yes, he is handsome.

  Yes, he is enormously rich. And yes, he has excellent taste in arts and antiques, but he also happens to be married.

  And that, my dear, is not his wife. I met her once, years ago. He must have a bevy of mistresses as well.”

  “No wonder. He looks like a southern Sean Connery,” Molly muttered, her hopes at playing cupid dashed.

  “Come on, let’s go. If we finish these drinks we won’t even know what we’re looking at during the preview.”

  “Maybe I’ll be checking out Grayson Montgomery’s left hand, to see whether that wedding ring is still there,” Molly teased. “And while I’m at it, maybe I’ll find out exactly who that redheaded minx is.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We have serious work to do tonight. We have to make a mad dash for the meat—they always run out—
and then we have to find you a painted wall shelf to display your miniature Rebecca pitchers on.”

  “Fine, fine. But don’t forget, I have an article to write, too. I think my first interview will take place in . . .” She flipped hurriedly through her show catalogue. “Booth number fourteen. Montgomery Antiques & Rare Books.”

  Chapter 2

  “The ‘tippler’s stick’ was used in the United States often during the Prohibition era. Contained within its hollow shaft and handle were a thin glass flask and tiny drinking glass with which to imbibe illegal alcoholic beverages carried discreetly with the cane wearer.”

  Jeffrey B. Snyder, Canes and Walking Sticks: A Stroll Through Time and Place

  There were at least fifty people already waiting in line to be the first to enter the large room where the Heart of Dixie Antique Show was being held. Nervous laughter and scores of hands tightly clenching orange-hued preview party tickets did little to alleviate Clara’s anxiety that they had lingered too long at the bar.

  “At least they’ve only just started letting people in,” Clara said, craning her neck over the backs of those in line in front of her. “There might still be a few tasteless chicken wings left by the time we get inside.” The entrance to the show was restricted to one set of doors, propped open by two dignified matrons in black who accepted the orange tickets with gentile smiles.

  “Y’all make sure to vote for the best jack-o’-lantern, ya hear?” they reminded each new group of incoming revelers while handing out ballots.

  “What are they talking about?” Molly asked her mother as she looked at her ballot.

  Clara’s eyes remained riveted on the buffet spread up ahead. The food was now close enough to smell but the bodies of those helping themselves to heaping plates still obscured the particulars of the menu. It seemed to Molly that the diners in front of her were dithering about as they picked their way through the choicest morsels.

  “We’re going to be stuck eating cubes of Cheddar cheese,” Clara grumbled and then turned her attention to her daughter. “In answer to your question . . . being that this is the Pumpkin Patch Preview Party, the show producers host a contest each year to see which dealer carves the most creative pumpkin. The ticket holders—that would be us—each get to vote on one pumpkin, and the winning dealer gets a pretty handsome prize. Sometimes their room here is paid for, which is a nice bonus when you’ve got to deduct two or three nights of hotel room fees from your profits, or they get a voucher for dinner at one of Opryland’s nicer restaurants. The dealers get a bit competitive about the whole thing.”

  “The contest would be a neat introduction to my piece on this show.” Molly shuffled forward along with the rest of the crowd hungrily waiting to serve themselves from the buffet. “I’ve got to come up with some real front-page material if I want to get that promotion to senior staff writer. I thought Matt Wilkinson would be there until he died, but he’s decided to retire and hang out with his seventeen grandkids.” Dreaming of her new byline, Molly indelicately stepped on her mother’s heel. “Sorry, Ma! So . . .

  can you remember what some of the winning pumpkins from the past looked like?”

  “Sure. Two years ago one of the Northeastern dealers won by carving the Boston Tea Party into an enormous pumpkin. The year before that was won by one of the textile dealers. Her jack-o’-lantern showed a woman in a rocking chair sewing a quilt. I remember she had somehow managed to carve a wedding ring pattern into the quilt. It was the most incredible carving job I’d ever seen—well, on a vegetable anyway.”

  All around them, those who had already gathered plates of food were convening near bar tables covered by papaya-colored linen cloth in order to hurriedly devour their dinner before perusing the contents of the show. Molly loved the feeling of anticipation that emanated around the enormous room. People were speaking with friendly animation as they bit into buttery corn bread or lifted heaping forkfuls of barbequed brisket into their mouths. Molly noticed that everyone appeared to be drinking the same orange liquid out of plastic margarita tumblers.

  “Are those some kind of margaritas?” she asked Clara, wetting her lips at the thought.

  “Mango Madness Margaritas.” Clara nodded, smiling.

  “And boy, are they good. Even I like them, sweet as they are. Look! I can see a dish of enchiladas up ahead.” She rubbed her hands together with glee. “No cheese cubes for us, my cupcake. Dig in!”

  Molly piled her plate with two tostadas, a steaming corncob, a spoonful of refried beans, and a plump biscuit. She and her mother moved off to the side, shoveling the food into their mouths without speaking so that they could get a look at the show booths before the remainder of the swelling crowd finished their dinners. Before they could completely clear their plates, however, a tall, kind-faced man with a shock of white hair and a ruddy complexion appeared next to Clara and deposited a plate of pulled pork dappled with Tabasco and a puddle of watery slaw onto their table.

  “Clara Appleby! Don’t tell me you’re back on the show circuit,” the older man said, putting an arm around Clara’s shoulders and squeezing with affection.

  “No, Tom. I’m through with all that. I’m actually here on vacation, accompanying my daughter.” Clara pointed at Molly. “She’s a reporter for Collector’s Weekly. Molly, this is Tom Barnett, one of the most honest dealers you’ll ever meet.

  He always has a spectacular inventory, and you don’t have to be a professional athlete to be able to afford his prices.”

  “You’re too kind,” Tom said and shook hands with Molly.

  “I’ve seen your ads in our paper,” Molly said, wiping her mouth with an orange paper napkin. “You specialize in antique medical items, right?”

  Tom smiled. “Yes. My shop’s called the Country Doctor and I carry everything from apothecary chests to surgical cases.” He took a swallow of mango margarita. “You’ll see my pathetic attempt at representin’ my shop when you see my pumpkin. I tried to carve a caduceus on it but it’s no prizewinner, that’s for sure.” He issued a wry laugh.

  Molly chuckled politely to humor the dealer. It was impossible not to like the pleasant man, but Clara’s eyes narrowed as she quietly studied Tom. “I’m glad to see you here, Tom. Last time I saw you at this show you were in the middle of a divorce and your shop wasn’t doing too well.

  Have things perked up?”

  Tom shrugged and looked instantly weary. “I don’t know about that. Ever since I started listin’ on the Internet, sales have been real good, but my ex-wife is nothin’ short of a holy terror. The U.S. Treasury doesn’t print enough money to satisfy that woman. She’d sell my corpse for science without waitin’ for me to die first.” He took a deep swallow of margarita. “I guess it’s the liquor makin’ me feel so fine tonight. Makes me forget all my troubles and believe me, my dear, I’ve got a boatload.” He hesitated, running a finger around the rim of his glass, “Along with these orange beauties, I also met a friend for drinks at the bar earlier so this isn’t my first taste of hooch this evening.” He smiled ruefully and then his smile instantly contorted into a grimace as he recognized someone behind Molly. “Gotta go! Here comes Charity, aka Demon-Woman. Stop by my booth later and we’ll catch up,” he said to Clara and hurried off, leaving most of his dinner untouched on the table.

  “That was a quick exit,” Molly commented and colleted their plates for the trash.

  “That’s because his ex-wife is heading over.” Clara grabbed Molly’s elbow and steered her in the opposite direction of the nearest trash bin. “I don’t want to get in the middle of anything. She looks like a regular viper.”

  “Which one is she?” Molly tried to glance back over her shoulder. She was curious to see what a human viper looked like.

  “The black-haired woman with the black dress. Looks like a witch. Uh-oh, she has her broomstick pointed this way. Let’s go!”

  Molly caught a quick glimpse of a woman in her mid-forties with shining black hair wearing an attractive calf-length cotto
n dress and a fierce scowl as she shouldered her way through the buffet line. A glimpse was all Molly got, however, as Clara dragged her away. As Molly passed by the dessert display, she saw an opening in the line and darted in, snatching a plate bearing a piece of yellow cake with chocolate icing like a moray eel striking out at its prey.

  “Damn, I threw out my fork,” she muttered to herself as they moved down the first aisle of dealer booths. Shifting the cake plate to one hand, she pushed her leather tote bag containing her camera and notepad higher onto her shoulder and then tried to tear off an end of the moist cake as her mother paused to examine a bucket bench in mustard paint.

  “This would look nice on my front porch.” Clara ran her hand over the surface of the pine bench. “Too bad we have no way to get furniture back home.” She sighed theatrically. “Looks like we’ll only be buying smalls on this trip.” As they progressed deeper into the booths away from the dining throng, Molly attempted to eat her cake without making too much of a mess, but just as she was admiring the Windsor chair carved into the jack-o’-lantern in a booth called Ye Olde Homestead, Clara nudged her in excitement and a chunk of frosting tumbled down Molly’s chest.

  “Ma! Look what you did!” She glared at her mother.

  Clara tried to suppress a smile. “You could have waited until you had a fork. Never mind your sweater. We’ll get it clean back in the room. Right now, I want you to see this game board. It would be perfect in your living room.” The board was a simple thing—a flat piece of wood bearing squares in cranberry and deep saffron paint. The squares were imperfect and the paint had flaked off in a few places, but even at its marked price of $595, Molly loved the piece. As she began to bargain with the dealer, who was hovering expectantly beneath a booth sign reading past times, Clara examined a beautiful pie safe with incredible tins. Each of the six panels contained punched curlicues surrounding the profile of a proud rooster. Molly photographed the pie safe while dropping pointed hints to the dealer about her occupation and promising to add a line or two about the booth in her article on the show. As a result, she was able to walk away with the game board for the nicely reduced price of $475.