“Tim, did Bix call anybody and tell them she was bringing you over to the prop warehouse?” asked Jane.
“I don’t think so. She told the assistants where she was going as we were leaving,” said Tim, handing her a glass of ice and a mini bottle of Grey Goose. He was leafing through his own notebook, preparing for the flea market. “It was all set up.”
“What do you mean, all set up?” asked Jane.
“She didn’t have to call Gary because she had called him before. There were passes with our names on them waiting for us, so she must have arranged it in advance.”
“Where were the passes? Did someone pull them out of a drawer when you came in?”
“They were lying out on a table. There were four or five badges with different names on them,” said Tim, opening a jar of olives, ignoring Jane’s protest as she picked up the minibar price list. “Mine said VIP. “Tim fished the plastic-covered badge out of his pocket and tossed it to Jane.
Anyone who walked by the table could see who might be coming in with a guest that day. If the box bomber wanted Bix—Jane noted that she was now starting to sound like the alliterative showbiz headlines in Variety —he or she could note Bix’s name tag on the table, go off and rig the box, tag it, and place it where Bix would see it.
Dinner arrived. Tim was delighted to note that the room service waiter also looked like Brad Pitt and if there were this many look-alikes in one hotel, how many must there be in the whole city?
Jane picked up the tiny bottle of ketchup that accompanied her club sandwich and french fries. She attributed her love of miniature anything to her own small stature. Tiny boxes and bottles made her feel like a giant in a world where she usually had to ask for help getting Cheerios down from the high shelf in the supermarket.
“Isn’t it funny how wonderful condiments look when they’re tiny?” she asked, then picked up the saltshaker. “I mean, this little individual saltshaker makes you want to—”
“Slip it in your purse, dear?” asked Tim, cutting into his filet while inhaling the aroma of melted butter that accompanied the “surf “ half of his dinner.
“Wait, Tim, isn’t the props warehouse enormous? Didn’t you say it was—”
“Huge,” said Tim, spreading a bathroom towel over his Armani slacks before attacking his lobster.
“Where was Bix when she opened the box?” asked Jane, turning the saltshaker in her hand.
“I was two aisles over, I think, and we were both surrounded by table-setting pieces, so she was…I guess she was in the middle of the Depression glass. Lots of small cruets and salt and peppers…oh,” said Tim. “Bix collects Depression glass salt and pepper shakers and the box was there, in the middle of them.”
“Right where Bix was sure to go whenever she took a VIP visitor to the prop warehouse,” said Jane. “Bix’s box bomber bided his time, then planted it—”
“Say that five times fast.”
“She needs police protection. She’s a sitting duck in that hospital.”
“Bix didn’t want the police called. She made that clear to me when it happened. She wanted you. What’s the code of ethics on this, Nancy Drew?”
Jane was already dialing, glancing down at her notes from the hospital.
A woman’s voice answered, a perky healthy voice that didn’t sound like Bix, who had been unable to keep her eyes open when Jane left her earlier.
“It’s Skye,” she answered when Jane asked to whom she was speaking.
“I was worried,” Jane began, “about Bix being there alone all night.”
“Aren’t you sweet? Me, too. She was so shaken up. I’ve never seen Bix like that. She’s always such a rock. I’m spending the night with her. Got a cot and everything. Turns out that the night nurse was a huge fan of S and L, particularly my character. They’ve got me all fixed up here. They’ll wake me first if anyone comes in wanting to see Bix.” Skye took a deep breath. “They said it was impossible to get up here after visiting hours and I reminded them that I had come back and walked right up, so they get it.”
“Can you persuade her to call the police, Skye?”
“The only one who can talk Bix into anything is Jeb,” said Skye. Jane thought she heard disapproval in Skye’s voice. “And he thinks calling the police would be bad pub and a bad move all around.”
Jeb and the B Room had left Bix’s hospital room when Jane and Tim left. Jane asked Skye when Bix and Jeb had discussed calling the police.
“Oh, Jeb came back up for a minute after you all had left. He wanted to know if Bix wanted him to call her sister or something. Kind of a made-up excuse, if you ask me. Jeb just always wants the last word. Bix told him she was scared and maybe it wasn’t an accident and he just cut her off and patted her arm and shushed her. I was listening right outside the door,” Skye said. “I always try to keep an eye on things when Jeb’s around.
“Told Bix she’d lose her office at the studio while some investigation dragged on. He said it’d give the prankster just what he wants. What?” Sky responded to someone in the room. “Dolly, the nurse, said the phone has to be shut off now. I’ll be here until they take her into surgery in the morning. Don’t you worry, I’ve got it covered.”
It was hard for Jane to imagine Skye as a bodyguard. Although she realized that Skye was all grown up, only eight or nine years younger than Jane herself, she would always think of her as the little girl on the show. Celie was a resourceful, spunky girl, the kind of wise and funny daughter that every parent on television spawned. Since Jane watched the show long before Nick was born, she had no idea what it would be like to have a smart-ass-TV-worthy-wisecracking kid. Now that she knew, she’d have to cut Sandy Pritikin’s character a little more slack. No wonder he always seemed so hapless and defensive. Having Nick, who could outthink her in almost every subject, made her head hurt. As much as she adored her son, his steady assurance made her feel all the more wobbly. What if there was only so much self-confidence allotted per household? Charley was totally comfortable in his own skin and Nick was almost uncrackable—except when his mother talked about his soccer prowess on television—so were those two using up the household’s ration of confidence? Better grab some while they were out of the country.
“I know you do, Skye,” said Jane, taking a deep breath,” but if Bix wakes up in the night, I want you to use all your power of persuasion to get her to call the police. Tell her I called and I’ll do anything for her I can. But the police need to be there to protect her. Do you—”
The line clicked off. Jane redialed the hospital to make sure it was the switchboard shutting off the phone. She listened to the first sentence of the recorded message about patients’ room phones being silent until seven A.M. tomorrow and hung up.
Jane dialed Jeb Gleason’s number and got a businesslike message—no jokes or cutesy patter—but didn’t leave a message. She would call back in the morning and accept his invitation. She had been ready to refuse his offer of an extra few days at his place, but now she thought it might be a good idea. If Jeb was the only one who could persuade Bix that she needed more help than Jane could give, Jane needed to persuade Jeb. The B Room group was an odd little cabal. Since Jeb seemed to be the leader of the pack, his house was as good a place to start as any. And according to the note Bix had received, they only had five days to figure it all out.
Jane Wheel had come all the way to L.A. for what Tim had assured her was a well-deserved vacation. As she prepared for tomorrow’s adventure—laid out her tan fisherman’s vest and loaded the pockets with sunscreen, a small notebook, and a camera—she realized that she had flown across the country to do exactly what she would be doing back in Evanston. At six A.M., she would stuff her hair up under Nick’s old Little League baseball cap, put her sunglasses on a neck chain so she could whip them off in a hurry to check colors on a vintage tablecloth and read the markings on the bottom of a flowerpot, and wear thick, cushioned socks with her most comfortable running shoes. Armed with cash in one pocket
, tools of the trade in all of the others, she and Tim would walk every inch of the vast parking lot, sweep every table with their eyes, and lift and scratch and smell every object that whispered their names at the Pasadena City College Flea Market.
Jane and Tim would scold and laugh with their imaginary children, Patina and Veneer, who had accompainied them on all their jaunts since they had invented them out of boredom during a few ho-hum lots of new pots and pans at a Kankakee auction. They would relentlessly comb every aisle for the most precious treasure of all, the one which, when glimpsed, would set their hearts racing, take their breath away, stop them in their tracks, infuse them with the I-found-it-and-you-didn’t power that is a picker’s potent drug—that object which they wouldn’t know until they spied it, wanted it, had to have it, couldn’t explain how they had lived without it before that moment. That’s what Jane would be doing in Pasadena in the morning…all the things she did every weekend morning of her life. And, just as she did every market morning in Evanston, she hoped she wouldn’t find a dead body in the middle of it all.
7
If you mention a hot gossip item to an actress, be prepared for a quizzical know-it-all glance. It’s not that she’s already heard it, it’s just that she can’t move her eyebrows out of that position. And that actor who doesn’t seem to be concentrating on the question you just asked him? Honey, no one’s been able to fur-row their brow out there since an in-the-know hostess served mohitos at her botox party.
—FROM Hollywood Diary BY BELINDA ST. GERMAINE
Tim needed no help navigating the freeways. Jane held a map in her hand for the first five minutes until she realized that her directional skills, praiseworthy as they may be, were not necessary. Tim had either crammed for this trip by studying maps and charts, pulling an all-nighter to become an A+ student of greater Los Angeles, or he was telling the truth when he said simply,” I was born to live in this place.”
Since Tim was happily listing the pros and cons of the various neighborhoods he had decided he might be able to live in and Jane did not want to listen to any of it, she shushed him and dialed Detective Bruce Oh’s cell phone number.
“Oh,” he answered.
“My,” said Jane, trying yet another counter to his stubborn habit of answering the phone with his confusing last name.
“Mrs. Wheel,” he said. “I was just about to call you. I have been called away on a personal matter and was unable to reach you before I left.”
“Me, too. I had to leave town and tried to call.”
“Interesting that we have so many devices for keeping in touch and yet somehow we still miss giving each other our vital information. How do you suppose one would document whether or not communication has really improved?”
“I won’t be able to stop by the office to pick up messages on Monday. I’m in California with Tim. I think I’ve taken a case.” Even as Jane said it, she felt ridiculous. Taken a cold, maybe. Taken a fever, certainly. But taken a case? What was she thinking? Just because Bix was sure Jane could help her didn’t mean Jane actually could.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Wheel.”
“Thanks. I sort of fell into it because the producer I was talking to out here was involved in an explosion and she thinks someone is trying to kill her. It wasn’t a large explosion, but—”
“I would like to take you out to celebrate. It is in your wallet at all times, yes?” said Oh.
“I’m sorry…” said Jane.
“Your license. You received your private investigator’s license. We will celebrate when we return from California. My wife is parking our car now. I should make myself available if she requests guidance.”
Jane heard Claire Oh’s voice in the background. It did not sound as if she were asking for help. Maybe she was just commenting on Oh’s use of the royal we. Had Oh told Jane where he was?
“I will call you later.”
Ah, sweet missed communication. Jane now wished they had continued the game of phone tag. Talking to each other was not exactly communication in its purest form. In order to obtain her private investigator’s license, Jane had promised she would take the required state of Illinois examination. She had studied all of the material Oh had brought to her home—the handbooks on criminal code and procedures, the government statutes, every mind-numbingly boring piece of professional literature he had thrown her way. Nick and Charley had quizzed her from the sample test. Piece of cake. She knew the information. She was also a good test-taker. She loved nothing more than sharpening a handful of No. 2 pencils and strutting her stuff. It was just that the test was scheduled on the same date as the first day of the Canton farm sale in Crete, Illinois. Jane and Tim had planned their strategy for months. There was to be an auction of large items out in the yard, a conducted house sale inside the rambling fifteen-room main house, and a barn full of all the rest, as the bill of sale described it. The Cantons had lived on the property for over a hundred years, hoarding and gathering and saving and mending, and when the last grandchild agreed to let it all go, mouths began watering in five states.
So, while Jane should have been acing her exam, busily answering which amendment guaranteed the right to bear arms and other questions equally pertinent to the day-to-day life of being a private investigator, she was wrapping up twenty place settings of antique china in bubble wrap after beating out three dealers to the barrel in the barn where they were stored. Detective Bruce Oh, former police investigator, now her partner in criminal investigation, was never sarcastic. He sincerely believed she had received her license in the mail. He believed it because, Jane now realized, she had forgotten to tell him she did not take the exam.
He hadn’t said how long he would be gone. Maybe she could get home, take the exam, and pass it before she saw him again. Yeah, and maybe they were handing out a free carved Bakelite bracelet with every flea market admission today.
Tim parked the rental in the covered garage structure as if he had reserved this spot for every first weekend of the month. Jane looked her friend up and down as they got out of the car.
With her hair stuffed under her cap and her vest pockets bulging with her flea market essentials, she was dressed like an illustration from Picker’s Digest, if such a magazine existed, and she fervently wished it did. Tim, as usual in linen shirt and pressed trousers, was modeling for GQ. Tim had always looked handsome, but he had never looked so…alive. When had he gotten so tan?
The market was laid out inside the parking garage as well as in the parking lot outside. Most friends who attended flea markets for their own entertainment strolled the aisles together chatting and holding up the teapots that were just like Grandma’s and the old pot holders that their mothers had thrown away, but Tim and Jane had a more professional approach. Tim was a speed scanner—looking over a table quickly and only honing in on the valuables on his own list. He was open to finding the unexpected, but only if it began beeping on his radar screen during that initial methodical scan.
Jane, on the other hand, was a feeler. She had to touch every object possible, turning over pots and vases to check marks, yes, and feel Depression glass for chips and cracks, of course, but more than that she had to feel the texture of cloth, hold a candlestick in her hand, turn the pages of an autograph book. She had to touch it all. She knew what she had to have by how quickly it warmed her hand.
The plan was for each of them to go at their best pace and reconnect every hour. Tim pointed to the spot where they’d meet after the first hour. A blue truck with yellow lettering and four i brake for junk bumper stickers plastered across the tailgate.
Jane walked to the first table, called over by the green McCoy flowerpot with saucer. She had two of them already, but needed to check prices out here to see how they compared to Chicago. That was another essential when easing into a new market. Check out the familiar objects right away to see how prices compared. Often, what was dear in one region might be plentiful in another. Of course, with the television shows on collectibles and t
reasures multiplying exponentially, the playing fields were being leveled all over the country.
First, it was Martha Stewart jacking up the price of jadeite dishes everywhere by featuring it in her magazine and on television. Activities related to insider trading were the least of her crimes. How about price-fixing? As soon as she featured crocheted pot holders in the magazine, Jane saw the price jump from twenty-five cents to five dollars each. And the Antiques Roadshow? As much as Jane pined for the Keno twins to appraise her with half the excitement they lavished on a Philadelphia highboy, she knew that the show did more harm than good. Everyone believed that they just might have a treasure and raised prices accordingly.
Jane picked up a box from under the table and sifted through the heavy cardboard rectangles. Great graphics. Primary colors on light brown card stock. Illustrated alphabet flash cards. Large classroom-sized and, best of all, bilingual. C is for cake and T is for Torta. Too cool. Muy bueno. Jane bought the whole box, practically stole it for five dollars. The dealer showed her another box of classroom flotsam and jetsam. Science experiments, art project ideas on heavy square cards with bold illustrations from the 1950s. The group of blond curly-haired girls and clean-cut rosy-cheeked boys cavorting on these cards were even more fun than the unbiquitous Dick and Jane illustrations. Jane bought the whole box.
At the next table, there was a huge suitcase filled with keys. Old, rusty, and corroded. Jane’s heart pounded. Need, desire, greed inflamed her. She wanted them all. She wanted to be able to fill a suitcase with keys—with all of their potential. That many keys had to provide answers to almost everything. Jane reached in and fished out a stainless steel ring five inches in diameter, filled almost entirely with keys. It weighed at least three pounds, She needed to own it. Jane didn’t like the look in the dealer’s eyes. A wizened old scalper she could handle, but a young girl with long brown hair was going to mean trouble. She was there because she still saw the stuff instead of the dollar signs. Jane could tell she was afraid to sell any of her keys. She needed them, too.
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