Shop Talk

by Carolyn Haines

  Tapping the top of the stack with a sensible nail, she was pretty sure she’d been able to select the same books Marvin Lovelace had been so interested in perusing. If not every single one, then she had a good start. She had twenty minutes to scan through them before Celia returned, then she’d have to finish the day acting as normal as possible.

  She needed help. That was the ticket. Help. From the members of WOMB. Without a second thought she went to the telephone and dialed Andromeda Ripley’s number.

  “Whaddaya want?” Andromeda’s mother’s sounded like a fistful of rocks thrown into a blender.

  Jazz almost cringed. “I’d like to speak with And … Angela,” she said sweetly.

  “You another of her putrid friends? The girl can’t make normal friends. All weirdoes and head cases.”

  Jazz sighed. “This is the head librarian in Biloxi.” She assumed her most authoritative tone.

  Natalie snorted. “If she’s run up another overdue book, you’ll have to take it out of her hide.”

  The telephone clattered to the counter. “Angela, Angela, get your ass to the phone. You’re in trouble again, you ingrate.”

  Jazz hunkered down, hiding her face at the raspy cry. The Harpies could not have sounded more fearsome. Andromeda’s true circumstances were known to no one else in the group. And as far as Jazz was concerned, they never would be.

  “Hello.”

  At first Jazz didn’t recognize her voice. “Andromeda?” “What?” Life snapped back into the telephone.

  “Meet me at the library. It’s urgent. I’ve come up with the best idea, and I need your help. We can do a book and a screen play simultaneously.”

  There was a hesitation.

  “Give the old bitch another sleeping pill. It hasn’t killed her yet, and believe me, there’s not much chance it will this time.”

  “Give me half an hour.” Andromeda hung up the phone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lucille peeked out her bedroom window and watched the Biloxi policeman and her brother walking round and round her car. She could see by Bo’s expression that he was worried. Not gut-twisted as he was so often, but perplexed. He kept going to the passenger side and bending down. Then the cop would do the same thing, and they would hunker there for a while, doing God knew what. Actually, Lucille didn’t care what. As long as they kept up the investigation, she didn’t have to go to work. The nice policeman was doing everything he could. He was a sensitive man and had even called Everett Johnson at the bank to explain that she was part of a police investigation. He’d also asked her to go have soft-shell crabs and cold beer for dinner Wednesday night. Too bad it was a WOMB meeting, but all of the crabs and beer in the world couldn’t lure her away from WOMB.

  The smell of burning bacon caught her attention, and she hurried to the small kitchenette to flip the crispy strips and push down the toast. Whenever she felt stressed, there was nothing like a bacon and grape jelly sandwich and a cup of strong, black coffee.

  She’d just licked the last crumb from her lips when the front door swung open and Bo walked in alone. “What did you say to that cop?”

  Lucille’s eyebrows drew together. “Nothing, really. I just said when it came to a choice of crabs or WOMB, I’d have to take WOMB.”

  Bo held up both hands as if he were warding off blows. “Don’t even try to explain that. Just listen. Officer O’Neill feels someone was trying to steal your car.”

  Lucille nodded eagerly.

  “But I’m thinking something else.”

  Bo’s gut-twisted look was back. Even as a child he’d frowned a lot, worried about things no adult could discern. Once, his stress had even led to an emergency trip to the hospital. He’d been only eleven, but his face had worn the same pinched look it had now. “Bo, do you remember the time you got so stressed your little intestine attacked your big intestine and tried to wrap around it and crush the life out of it? You looked a lot like you look right this minute.”

  “Lucille!” Bo seldom raised his voice, but he yelled at her. “I’m trying to make a point here.”

  “Like what?”

  Bo went to the stove and helped himself to a cup of coffee. It was probably the last thing he needed, an extra boost of acid to his stomach, but it gave his hands something to do so they didn’t fly over and wrap around Lucille’s neck. He sniffed the coffee to see how scorched it was. Lucille could nasty up the taste of water. It was a real talent of hers.

  “Bo, want some bacon? It might help your feelings.”

  He turned back to Lucille, making sure his face was calm, his voice under control. “Those new friends of yours. What do you know about them?”

  “They’re writers. That’s all I need to know.” Lucille felt her defenses going up. Everything she did, Bo found fault with. Now he was going to throw WOMB out of his shop because some creep had tried to steal her car.

  “Lucille, calm down.” Bo put his hand on her shoulder. It was affectionate as well as forceful. “I think someone was trying to do some damage to your car. Not steal it.”

  “What kind of damage could be worse than stealing it?” Lucille didn’t follow him at all.

  “As in pulling the brake line loose. That kind of damage.”

  “Did someone do that?” Lucille wouldn’t know a brake line if it coiled up and bit her on the ass, but she’d seen enough cop shows to know that killers often tampered with a brake line to send a car careening down a cliff.

  “It was loose. Someone could have done it.”

  Lucille puffed out her cheeks in exasperation. “You’re always looking for the worst, Bo. Always. I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Martians could have come down here from Mars, but they didn’t. Besides, there aren’t any cliffs in Biloxi for me to fly over if the brakes failed. The worst that would happen would be I’d go rolling into the Sound. And if the sand didn’t stop me the water would. Hell, you can go out there two miles before it gets deep enough to wet the tip of your …” She pressed her lips together in stunned shock. Good lord, she was even beginning to talk like that wild Clara. Personal anatomical parts had never, ever been mentioned in the Hare household.

  “Lucille, you’ve gone too far.” Bo put down his coffee cup. “Mama Hare would be very disappointed in you.” “I didn’t say it, Bo.”

  He looked at her. “You might as well have.”

  She considered that, looking long into her brother’s disapproving eyes. Clara would have said it. Mona would have said it or something worse, without batting one mascared eye. If Mona had said it, not another single writer at the table would have given her a second glance. It was only Bo who found such things grounds to invoke the disapproval of a dead woman. Lucille stood up from the table. She took a deep breath.

  “Penis, Bo. Penis. Pecker, love lizard, crotch cobra, wanker, boner, Mr. Happy, rod, kickstand, tripod, schlong, weenie, ding-dong, John Thomas, tube steak, night crawler, trouser mouse, joy stick, bushwhacker, bingy, dojigger, cock, flapdoodle, foreman, goot, hose, bald-headed hermit, jones, maypole, peacemaker, love pump, tickle-gizzard, whang … peter.” She took a breath. “You want more?”

  “Lucille.” Bo shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “Don’t play shocked and innocent with me.” Lucille felt the power of WOMB inside her. She was a writer. An artist. A person with ideas and opinions. She was tired of trying to meet the expectations of everyone, even her own dead mother. But most especially, she was tired of Bo making her feel bad about herself. “Don’t act like you’ve never heard that kind of language before. I know about you, Bo.” She licked a fleck of grape jelly from the back of her hand. “I know about you and Iris and how you lock up the shop and go back into that apartment and play Mandingo.”

  “Iris and I are married.”

  “That may be the case, but I don’t see y’all acting out Little House on the Prairie.”

  “That’s unfair, Lucille. Michael Landon had a great show. Good, solid family values. That’s a show even Bob Dole wo
uld watch. But it’s not one for me and Iris.”

  “Thank God for small blessings.”

  “Lucille, I think you need to get dressed and go on in to work. Your car is okay now. Just test your brakes before you go flying into a traffic light or stop sign. Be sure they’re firm.” Bo was already moving toward the door. “I’m going to pretend the rest of this conversation never took place.”

  Lucille followed him, stopping with her hand on the front door. “Bo, I don’t care what you and Iris do. I just want you to stop caring so much what I do. I’m thirty-four. Try to accept the fact that I’m not your responsibility any more.”

  Bo stood in the bright sun. Behind him a blue-jay made a dive for a gray and white cat. “I’ll try, Lucille. I promise I’ll try. It’s just that I’ve always been responsible for you.”

  “It’s not fair to me or you. I’ve got friends now. I’m going to be a writer. You have to let me try.”

  Bo nodded.

  “Then we can still meet in the shop?”

  “Just don’t tell the others about … Mandingo.”

  “You have my word,” Lucille said, closing the door on her brother’s retreating back and her smile of victory. Bo was a lucky, lucky man that she was interested in writing only romantic historicals.

  Mona bent over the five by seven notecard. “The calligraphy is beautiful, but it isn’t much of a mystery as far as I can tell.” She tried not to snap. Jazz had been having a really hard time with her writing and her life. This was the most enthusiastic Mona had heard her in months. The truth was, though, she’d been in the middle of an acupuncture experiment. Not really in the middle, closer to the climax, when she’d heard Andromeda’s anxious voice on the answer machine. The motto of WOMB was that members and their needs came first. Even before research.

  “There’s something about the island,” Jazz insisted. “Something dark and sinister.” She pulled off the seahorse earbob to reveal a red and throbbing lobe. Her gaze focused on the map as she gently massaged her ear.

  Mona met Andromeda’s gaze. Andromeda shrugged, her eyes unreadable behind the Raybans.

  “I can feel it,” Jazz pressed, her voice notching up slightly with her desperation to make the others understand. “This is the book I was meant to write. Not a historical. Not a book about women on the edge who need uppers and downers to get through the day. Those books I’ve lived. This one, this thriller, is real fiction.”

  Mona put her feet in the chair beside her and leaned back. In her hurry to get to the library, she’d forgotten to change the thong panties and now they were definitely making their presence known. “Real fiction, in contrast to what? Fake fiction?”

  “The Scottish book was about Mac. I guess I knew he was a jackass, but I wanted to give him some of the qualities of a hero and hope that maybe he’d develop into one.” Jazz licked her bottom lip. “If I could write him into the role, maybe some magic would happen and he’d become MacGlenn. And then Valley III was about me. I just wanted to wallow a little in misery, and the book gave me an excuse to do it. But this book, this idea, has nothing to do with me. There’s not a character in it that I have any link with. This evil old dude just walks in off the street and hands me the idea on a silver platter. It’s destiny.”

  “What exactly is the plot?” Mona was unmoved.

  “There’s a secret on Horn Island, and this bad guy is trying to protect it. To keep it from becoming public.”

  “What secret? And protect it from whom?” Mona moved her leg before Andromeda could hit it with the tip of her half-boot.

  “That’s what I need you to help me with.” Instead of getting upset, Jazz was only more enthusiastic. “Since this isn’t taken from my life, I’m actually going to have to come up with a plot, a story. I’m going to have to make something up.” She clenched her fists and held them up level with the top of her bee-hive. “This is mag-nif-i-cent! This is creating! It’s like this major rush of … this fertile, powerful flood of …”

  Mona looked up. “Estrogen. Call Dallas and Coco.” She crossed her legs and sat back in the chair, but the casual pose seemed laden with energy. The air around her almost crackled.

  “Should we bother Dallas?” Jazz asked. “They still haven’t found her husband.”

  “Call her. It’s a WOMB matter.” Mona uncrossed her legs.

  “Right now?” Jazz looked toward the locked door of the library where two blue-haired ladies were rattling the handle. She recognized the larger of them as Hessie Latimer and felt a twist of anxiety. Hessie was a regular library patron and knew the hours by heart. By all rights, the library should be open and Hessie knew it. She was also on a mission–the new Harold Robbins novel she’d been on the waiting list five weeks to receive was due in. When it came to particular authors, Hessie’s primary character trait was impatience. The week before she’d taken a Jackie Collins novel out of another patron’s stack at the check-out desk. When the woman protested, Hessie had beaned her with the book. Harold and Jackie brought out the tiger in Hessie. She would be growling any moment.

  “We need an emergency meeting.” Mona’s blue eyes shifted from Jazz to Andromeda. “If there is a secret on Horn Island that the sinister Mr. Lovelace is trying to find, then the simplest thing to do is follow him and see what he discovers.” She leaned forward. “He’s old as dirt. There are five of us–we should be able to keep up with him.”

  A smile slid slowly across Andromeda’s face. “Since none of us really knows anything about action sequences, we let the book plot itself. It’s perfect. We’ll just take turns following him.”

  Mona’s eyebrows arched. “Exactly. A shift every day or so won’t be too much of a hardship. I’m willing to put aside my personal … research.”

  “I can take a night shift, or during the weekend.” Jazz nodded. “This could work.” She eased out of the line of vision of the two old ladies who were now pressing their bodies against the glass door. “You think the idea is worth all of this?” Her voice trembled with excitement. “Really?”

  Mona tapped the table with one long red nail. “Don’t be so mealy-mouthed, Jazz. Just get on the phone and call.”

  A loud thump came from the front door and Jazz looked over her shoulder. Hessie was using her considerable butt as a battering ram. “We can’t meet here.”

  Andromeda checked her black diver’s watch. “I have to get home.” A death sentence might have been spoken more cheerfully.

  For a few seconds there was silence. Mona slowly stood. “Call Lucille. We’ll meet at the shop tonight. Eight o’clock.”

  Andromeda and Jazz rose also but they did not look at Mona.

  “You’d better open the door before the glass gives.” Mona’s Corvette key clattered against the pair of thumb cuffs she used for a key chain. “I’ll see you tonight. Don’t be late.”

  Jazz looked down at her salmon pumps. She’d had them dyed to match her dress, but the color was wearing off the toes. She rubbed one toe on the back of her calf.

  “Is there any other way?” Andromeda looked into Mona’s blue stare. “I don’t know if I can pretend again.”

  “She is our access to the shop.” Mona shrugged.

  “She’s ghastly.” Andromeda spread her feet slightly apart as if to find her balance. “I can’t take another syllable of Forbidden Words. I’m sorry, Mona. I keep thinking of those cows. All of those hungry, thirsty cows walking across the country to slaughter while Slade Rivers, idiot cowboy, writes one of those dreadful poems about putting it to the yodeling Clara. Talk about a cow-poke.” She shuddered. “She’s got Mexican bands in Montana, and if I’m not mistaken that fool Slade has taken the cows south, west, north and east. In other words, in a complete circle.”

  A loud rattle drew Jazz’s attention to the front of the building. Outside the door, Hessie’s face was very red. Her mouth was open as she panted and moved back so she could gather momentum for her next assault. She took a frontal tactic. Charging the door, she met it full force. Her big,
soft breasts flattened against the glass, a blossom of blue and lavender calico. She fell back and caught her balance before she tripped down the cement aggregate steps.

  Jazz knew she should speak up, but she was fascinated by the two women at the door. Hessie’s long gray hair, normally styled in a Gibson girl, had tumbled down about her shoulders, and her face was dangerously red with emotion. The other old lady, not a regular patron, was holding her purse on one arm and Hessie’s on the other. She stood at the edge of the top step, her face devoid of emotion.

  “Without Lucille, we don’t have a place to meet.” Mona stated the hard fact.

  Jazz straightened her shoulders, finally looking at Mona. “I’ll call her. What choice do we have?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dallas clutched the papers in her hand as she stepped up to the microphone. Cameras whirred; flash-guns popped. “Since the abduction of my husband, Dr. Robert Beaudreaux, last Tuesday evening, there have been no ransom requests, no contact of any kind with the kidnappers. I’ve called this press conference to appeal to the person responsible for my husband’s abduction. Robert is quite wealthy. Release him and there will be no questions asked. No inquiries made. I am offering one million dollars. The condition is that Robert is released, now.” She lowered the page. “That’s all I have to say.”

  “Mrs. Beaudreaux! Mrs. Beaudreaux!” A reporter held out a microphone. “Are you certain your husband has been abducted?”

  Dallas tugged the peplum hem of her scarlet suit jacket. “What, exactly, are you implying?”

  Beneath her intense stare, the reporter faltered. “It’s been rumored that perhaps Dr. Beaudreaux … left voluntarily.”