Chapter Two
The slap of the pet store smell—part puppy, part gerbil droppings, part Clorox—was nothing compared to the racket the birds were making. Mrs. Barsky loved birds. Her mynah, Myron, had died last year and had gotten a bigger farewell than her husband.
Kittens were mewing in their metal cages and even the fish seemed agitated. I saw something hop on the floor to my left, but when I turned, it was gone. Nerves, I thought. I moved toward the counter and saw a stack of packing boxes and paperwork beside the “ferret hammock” display.
“Mrs. Barsky?”
“Mrs. Barsky’s a fox! Mrs. Barsky’s a fox!” a cockatiel squawked, giving me half a coronary. I tripped, flying toward the floor and catching myself on one elbow, while my other hand slid on something acrylic. And blond.
Mrs. Barsky’s platinum wig was splayed and horribly empty under my palm.
I turned to my right and saw her tiny head. Her real hair, or what was left of it, was pressed into tiny whitecaps under what looked like control-top panty hose. I reached for her neck, hoping for a pulse, and got nothing but wattle. I knelt into CPR position as I grabbed my phone, calling 911 between breaths. After seven minutes of trying, all I could do was hold her hand.
One of my old school friends, Hank, was the first uniform through the door, followed by three other guys from the neighborhood. They all nodded as Hank pulled me up. He and I had played doctor in second grade. I guess, with him, it stuck. Hank worked on Mrs. Barsky for another five minutes, then closed her eyes. He called the coroner, then patted my arm.
“Cyd. There was nothing you could have done.”
In my experience people only said that when there had been. “We had a break-in last night, maybe she heard it and it pushed her heart over the edge.”
“The woman was eighty-three, she’d had four strokes, she was still smoking—a flea bite could have pushed her over the edge.” He pointed to her freshly scarred and bitten hands and forearms, the price of pet-shop ownership. “Okay?”
“Okay.” I wasn’t okay.
“Do you want me to call Joni?” Hank patted my other arm.
I shook my head. “No, I’ll do it.” Joni, Mrs. Barsky’s daughter and my former babysitter, lived in Syracuse. I moved away from the body and called her at work.
“Those damn cigarettes,” Joni kept saying over and over. She wouldn’t be able to get down until the next day and would I please put up a sign and lock up the store? I had been the flower girl at her first wedding. I said of course.
Joni hesitated. “And could you take care of the autopsy?”
“The what?”
“The autopsy. Remember? It’s in her will.”
I did remember. She wanted proof the government had it in for her. After her son, Bobby, was wounded in Vietnam, she had chained herself in protest to the bike rack outside the local Army recruiting station and wound up in jail. She was convinced she’d been under government surveillance ever since.
“Mom will feel better wherever she is if she knows she wasn’t poisoned by the CIA. Of course she was crazy, but I promised her. You know Dr. Paglia, right? He won’t talk to me after that whole prom night fiasco.”
“Okay. Do you know where Bobby is?”
Joni sighed. Her older brother Bobby, a former Green Beret, had shipped out in the last days of the Vietnam war, decided he liked Southeast Asia, and stayed. Though he called his mom on holidays and sent the occasional postcard, he’d only been home twice in thirty years. His absence had broken Mrs. Barsky’s heart. “Last address I had for him was someplace in Indonesia, but his birthday card came back.”
“E-mail?” I asked.
“No way. He’s as paranoid as Mom.” Joni hung up.
There was a knock on the window. I had completely forgotten about Gonzo. He was waiting outside Redondo Travel in freshly pressed overalls, his thick black hair gelled off his forehead, stiff as marzipan. He had a shiny silver thermos, a tool box the size of Connecticut, and a burlap bag. The locks were already done.
“Mrs. Barsky?” He nodded toward the body. “The government always gets us in the end.”
We went into my office, where he poured two cups of grappa from his thermos and we toasted our fallen friend. He gave me a new set of keys and warned me, as always, that life was a burglary waiting to happen. I gave him Circle Line Tour tickets for his grandkids, wrote him a corporate check for two hundred dollars, and went back to Pet World.
By then, our neighborhood medical examiner and travel client, Dr. Paglia, was leaning over Mrs. Barsky’s body while he sucked down a triple espresso. He was a gambler who specialized in card-counting, so I alternated his trips to Las Vegas, Mississippi, and Atlantic City.
“Cyd. How’s the most beautiful travel agent in Bay Ridge?”
“Sad.”
“Yeah. She was a genuine broad. I’ll give her that.” He straightened his creaking knees, snapped off his gloves, and nodded to his assistants. “You can take her.”
As they wheeled Mrs. Barsky out, I ran behind them, finger-combing her wig and putting it on the gurney. “She’d want it.” I turned to Dr. Paglia. “Will you let me know what happens with the autopsy?”
He didn’t have enough espresso left for a full spit-take—it was more of a dribble. “What are you, nuts? The woman’s had five strokes, four would have been enough.”
“I know, but she’s requested an autopsy.”
“What, from the grave?”
“It’s in her will.”
“People don’t get to request their own post-mortems. Besides, she sold my daughter one of those turtles that gave her salmonella.”
“Doc, I promised Joni. She’ll pay for it. Come on. I’m the one who found the body and I’ll sleep better if I know it happened before I got into the office. I’d hate to think she was lying there dying while I was checking my horoscope. I feel bad enough already. Please? I have a new Atlantic City promotion coming in December. I could comp you a room.”
“Alright, alright. Smoking, high floor. Should I call Joni with the results?”
“Call my client line. I have a better bedside manner than you.”
“Hey, I don’t hear anyone complaining.”
“Just do it when you can.”
“You got it, doll.” He tossed his cup into the trash, and left me alone in the store.
I called my brousin Jimmy and let him know what had happened, asking him to come in and feed the animals. I didn’t mind the kittens and hamsters, but I wasn’t about to go into the reptile room. The neighborhood boys had begged Mrs. Barsky for years to add snakes, lizards, and frogs. She had finally agreed when Jimmy offered to help her out. She must have been paying him under the table. I’d ask him about the parrot later.
That reminded me of our break-in. I took a look around to make sure Pet World hadn’t had one too. The back door was still dead-bolted from the inside and everything else looked normal. I picked up a few empty FedEx boxes off the floor and put them in the trash, then grabbed the paperwork off the counter and took the cash from the till to save for Joni.
Before I left, I looked up at the picture above the cash register: a young, glamorous Mrs. Barsky was leaning against Bobby. He was in his Green Beret uniform. They had the same unfortunate ski-jump nose, but they looked happy. I hoped Joni could find him.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t lost clients or friends before, but I couldn’t imagine a day without Mrs. Barsky’s left-wing theories, hot-pink pill dispenser, and horrible Russian tea. I said a quick prayer that they had a smoking section in heaven and locked the door behind me. It was the end of an era.
Back in the office I saw the clock. I had to get my favorite clients, the Minettis, on the Queen Mary 2 by noon. I couldn’t let any more AARP members down today.
Herb and Maria Minetti were my favorite clients because they were still in love.
They were always touching each other lightly, like you would a rabbit’s foot, for good luck. By the time I was born, they had already been married for thirty years and lived one block down in a red brick house covered with thick, shiny ivy that climbed to the second floor. It had a white metal awning that popped and bounced when it rained. They had never had any kids, which was sad for them, but great for me, as they were always inviting me in. Sometimes Herb played checkers with me on a Sunday after he got home from grinding pork. I remember their house as an oasis of lovely flowery smells, unlike the mixture of garlic, dirty sweat socks, and Lysol that hit you the minute you entered ours.
Booking this trip for their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary was the pinnacle of my travel-agenting career. To my delight, they allowed me to fold my Tanzania package into the trip. I called in a couple of favors for a room on the QM2, British Airways London to Tanzania’s Dar Es Salaam on frequent flier miles, two days on romantic Zanzibar, and four days at the Serena Lodge in the Ngorongoro Crater. I’d designed the trip for maximum vehicles and minimum bugs. After all, they were in their eighties, if spry.
I headed into my supply room/gym. Although I did most of my kickboxing at Alana Health and Fitness on 86th, I kept a hundred-pound punching bag and a pair of remaindered pink gel Everlast gloves at the office, in case I felt like punching Jimmy but didn’t feel like nursing him afterwards. He was a bleeder.
The supply room was also stocked with standard office items, fashion-emergency staples, and every possible size and shape of Tupperware. Its inventor, Earl Silas Tupper, understood life was messy and needed to be contained—in something that didn’t leak. Each Redondo Travel customer got nesting containers as well as Redondo Travel visors, luggage tags, phrase books, and a special emergency kit.
I found a textured pink sheet cake container for the documents, grabbed my bag, and reached for a magnum of Dom Pérignon. I checked Uncle Ray’s office as I was leaving. The parrot was gone. It must have been in Gonzo’s burlap bag. I shuddered as I went out the back door. The instant I pushed it open, I heard the growl of a V-6 engine and watched a Lincoln Town Car reverse in a swirl of gravel and head down the alley. Could it be the parrot stabber? I ran across the lot as fast as I could, but the car disappeared before I got to the corner.
Chapter Three
I rechecked the new locks, then headed over to pick up the Jade Palace. My emerald green 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 was the cruise ship of cars, wide as a walk-up and built when more was more, gas was plentiful, and children were well-behaved.
The car was on its third transmission, but it was still on the road, thanks to my standing arrangement with an old grammar school buddy who ran a garage off Fifth Avenue and loved fly-fishing. I got him a discount package to Idaho every year, meals and complimentary gutting included. In exchange, he maintained and hid my car. Despite my age, my uncle still liked to keep track of me. Literally. My mechanic pal had found tracking devices twice.
I entered the chained lot filled with smashed bumpers and sagging exhaust pipes and found my old pal in the second bay, deep under the oil pan of a silver Mercedes. He rolled out and grinned, his shiny Tic Tac teeth the only part of him not under two layers of motor oil. We had dated, briefly, but he had wanted to settle down right out of high school and I hadn’t been ready. A local waitress had been, and now they had three tow-headed, rambunctious boys.
“Cyd!” He got up, wiped his hands on a rag, and moved toward his wall of keys. “Where you off to today, gorgeous?”
“Red Hook,” I took the slippery keys. “I’m putting the Minettis on the Queen Mary 2.”
“Are they still alive?”
“And kicking. It’s their anniversary. Sixty-five years.”
“I’ll be lucky to make fifteen, the way things are going,” he said.
“You don’t know anyone in the neighborhood with a new Town Car, do you?” I was thinking of the break-in.
“What, besides every airport car service and undercover cop in the borough? Nope. They’re shit cars. My clients know better.”
Ten minutes later, after I had downed his special double espresso—brewed with a blow torch—I patted his cleanest shoulder and told him we’d grab a beer next week.
“Be careful. The front end is shimmying a little. Kind of like you.” He winked as I swung myself onto the bench seat. I gave him the finger as I put my bag on the floor, buckled my lap belt, and started the V-8.
I could open it up better on Shore Road, so I took 86th there, winding along the water just above the Verrazano-Narrows. The bridge to Staten Island was the jewel of the neighborhood. On a sunny day, the metal frame shot quick, sharp flashes, and at night it glowed like a felled Christmas tree. When I was six, Uncle Ray squatted down, his knees groaning, and told me if I always kept the bridge in my sights, I’d be safe. He had kissed me on the forehead and sighed as I headed off for first grade.
Today, I was venturing out of the bridge’s safety zone, heading up Fourth Avenue to the Fort Hamilton Expressway. I was grateful for the time to think. When you lived in a house with eight people, thinking was at a premium. So was anonymity. As I passed Owl’s Head and headed into Sunset Park, I thought about the few times in my life I’d been allowed to go unrecognized. It was kind of sad that I remembered all of them. The first was when Ma took me to see The Nutcracker when I was nine. I sat in the plush seats mesmerized, not by the stiff, bright tutus or the flying shoes, but by something much more exotic: strangers. It was a completely new experience. No one called me “Cyd the Squid.” No one asked me if I was eating my vegetables or if I had seen my brousin Jimmy, or if my spelling was improving. It was bliss and I wanted more. I wanted the whole world. Thinking about sunsets in Tanzania, I almost missed my exit.
I made the hairpin turn onto Terminal Drive with about two inches to spare. When I swung around, the whole city lay behind the top deck of the cruise ship. The Terminal at Pier 12 was a tiny, one-story white building with bright blue trim. Beside the luxury liner, it looked like a discarded drink napkin.
I braked for five reverent seconds in honor of the QM2, which resembled the world’s most ambitious Lego project, complete with a Mercedes engine and Gucci fireworks. Happily, I had a special deal with my client, Lou Fagamo, who ran the parking service. Lou had gotten me an employee sticker in exchange for setting him up with Betsy McGuire, whom he later married. As long as the marriage lasted, so did my parking privileges.
I turned into the lot, waved to Lou, and parked. I decided not to tell the Minettis about Mrs. Barsky. Why ruin their vacation? I checked their emergency kit: tiny flashlight (for bedbug check), Band-Aids a tourniquet a snakebite kit, water-purifying tablets, rain ponchos the size of a sandwich, a laminated form with all their medications, allergies, and conditions, and a tiny currency calculator. I always included ten dollars in the currency of their destination, as a good luck gesture. Maybe the snakebite kit was over the top, but snakes scared the bejesus out of me, and the tourniquet could save a limb.
I headed down the dock, trying not to catch my heels in the slats. I’d dressed professionally, with a knee-length metallic green snakeskin skirt, a white tie-front blouse, and of course my Stuart Weitzman patent pumps. The heels were non-negotiable. I was five-foot two and couldn’t leave the house in anything under three-inch heels if I wanted to stay alive in my family. Plus, stilettos doubled as a weapon. In flats, I just felt short and unarmed.
My skirt provoked a few wolf whistles, thank goodness. Really, if you can’t provoke dock-workers, you may as well cash it in. I made my way inside where the Cunard greeter nodded and smiled.
A cruise terminal beat an airport every time: no luggage restrictions, no armed TSA guards, no need to buy soggy, expensive sandwiches to eat on the plane. Here, people laughed through security, gleefully flaunting huge bottles of shampoo and dressed for a holiday rather than an accident. It was one of the last truly hopeful places in the world.
I spotted the Minettis. They were pretty easy to spot, with their matching orange Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts, and varicose veins. They were headed up the gangplank in identical Sketchers’ Shape-ups, with a sole curved so high I worried it might break their brittle bones. I thought about the way Herb always asked, with a slight blush, to be sure they had one bed instead of two. God bless them. I hadn’t been around a lot of long-term marriages, including my own, so the Minettis were my gold standard. I hurried up to meet them.
“Did I tell you? That couples-only outlet mall is magic. You both look gorgeous.” I grinned, pulling their paperwork from the translucent pink box and burping it closed. “Okay, open jaw return tickets, Dar Es Salaam to London to JFK—I got you the exit row—don’t tell them about your hip, okay? Here are vouchers for free massages, and a “Midnight Oasis” dessert buffet. You want to change anything, you just call me, okay?”
Maria leaned forward and kissed me, smelling of Rive Gauche. “We know everything is perfect, Cyd. It always is.”
“How about on your end? Sunscreen? Travel insurance number? Non-aerosol pepper spray?” They nodded. “Anniversary present?” I pulled out the champagne.
“Cyd, you shouldn’t have. Not on your salary.” Herb had seen my books.
“Don’t be silly, nothing’s too good for my best customers. And, anyway, I got it at cost. I’m so excited for you. It’s almost as good as going myself.”
“Yeah, Cyd, when are you getting a vacation? It’s high time you got out of here,” Herb said.
He was right. The truth was, at thirty-two, I’d barely made it past New Jersey. Every time I planned a trip, something would conveniently “come up” with the business or the family, or my mother would lay on the guilt about leaving her “drowning in Redondos” and I’d be forced to cancel. Not only was my lack of travel experience embarrassing, it occasionally resulted in professional errors, like putting the Collearys by the trash hold on the QE2 or Mrs. Bialik and her daughter next to a crack house on Capitol Hill. I mean, our Owl’s Head Park is one of the prettiest in Brooklyn, but if you haven’t actually been there, you’d have no idea it sits above a sewage treatment plant and the smell practically knocks you unconscious. There were some things you could only know by being there.
Lost Luggage Page 2