Aphrodisiac

by Alicia Street

  “Fuckin’ bitch pussy. Fuckin’ bitch pussy.”

  “Now, Petey, that is one phrase you are going to unlearn.”

  When Lana and Irv left, I made myself scrambled eggs and toast, smearing on gobs of comforting butter. Benita wasn’t here to lecture me. Once I cleared my head with three cups of coffee, I went to my bedroom, taking Uncle Pete with me for company despite his untidy habits.

  The red message light on my business phone blinked away. Last night I’d been too chicken to listen to any messages. I couldn’t deal with the possibility of hearing Curtis’s voice again. Especially since this whole thing was real now. I was no longer just following a hunch. Gwen had indeed been murdered. And this was day one of a deadly seven-day race. It felt like reality TV except the stakes couldn’t get much higher.

  I pushed the playback button. One message. I held my breath until I heard the familiar voice of a client. Just another going-on-vacation cancellation. In the summer months people were in a hurry to blow this town. Normally I’d bemoan the financial downside, but not now. My latest project demanded attention 24/7.

  My cell phone sat on my dresser, where I’d left it last night. It rang twice while Lana and Irv were here, but I’d carefully ignored it. With a touch of butterflies, I flipped it open. Not Curtis, please.

  A message from Rochelle Thomas: “Just wanted to remind you about our picnic down at the Lot. I know Benita’s in Atlanta, but we’re expecting to see you for Jaleel’s birthday. My man’s turning the big 4 - 0. We’ll be right outside your door, so boogie on down, girl. Party starts at noon. Be there.”

  After yesterday’s episode, I figured I’d pass on the picnic. Jaleel probably wouldn’t notice if I didn’t show. But his wife would. Rochelle was a corporate lawyer with a head for details, and she always remembered everything about everybody. She’d be royally pissed. Especially since my out-of-town roommate already told Rochelle I’d be bringing Jaleel a special birthday gift.

  Dammitall. It was bad enough I’d probably lose a couple of clients from this mess, did I have to lose my friends as well? I played the message again and decided that sunshine and good company would be therapeutic. Would hiding out really save anybody’s life or help me find Gwen’s tablet? And in the back of my mind I knew that Mr. Mace would no doubt be there. But did I want to see him?

  Tabling that question with a big sigh, I sat on the bed in my bathrobe and focused on more urgent matters. A logical step one—phone call to Darryl Applebee. Careful not to give any hints that I was in sleuth mode, I started right in thanking him for sending me those perfume bottles of Gwen’s. “It was so thoughtful of you.”

  “Don’t thank me. I’m just doing what my sister would have wanted.”

  “You said there was more in the basement that was up for grabs. Sounds great. I’d love to come over and browse.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Maybe we can set up a time in the next few weeks.”

  “Actually I need to do it right away.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sort of in a hurry.”

  “Why? You want to be the first to claim her old Scrabble game?”

  “It’s my mother’s birthday,” I said. “I’ve been racking my brain all day for the perfect gift.” Oh, the joys of pathological lying. I had no idea how much fun it was or how easily it would come to me. Amazing how the fear of death tends to bring out one’s hidden talents. “And I decided on a tablet.”

  “A what?”

  “A tablet. I’ll be glad to pay you for it.”

  “Saylor, what the hell are you talking about now?”

  “A tablet that belongs to Gwen.” I waited. Darryl obviously had no idea what I was after. Come to think of it, did I? Who knew what Curtis was talking about? Gwen always used the word “tablet” to refer to those inscribed fragments. Could it be anything else? “Did you find any kind of engraved shards of pottery or stone hidden among her things? Or maybe stashed away in her safe-deposit box?”

  “No I did not,” he said.

  Benita would say he was lying. And although my dear roommate might be ultra-practical in many respects, she had an imagination that sometimes went bonkers. I could never picture Darryl as an evil godfather who gave the orders to put a hit on his own sister. Not in a million. “Are you absolutely sure? My mother will be very disappointed.”

  “The only artifacts I found were an urn and a figurine. And I already have a buyer.”

  Due to his emotional state plus his innately impatient personality, Darryl’s observation skills might not be one hundred percent lately. Which was why I needed to go through Gwen’s leftover belongings myself. But out of respect I had to leave the ball in his end of the court. A risk I had to take despite my deadline. “Tell ya what. How about you call me as soon as you think it’s okay for me to come over and look around.”

  “Will do.”

  After hanging up, I nearly had a panic attack over the possibility of Darryl unwittingly throwing out the tablet along with whatever else he considered worthless clutter. I used my counseling skills to calm myself. Anything to keep a case of the dreaded what-ifs from incapacitating me. What reassured me most were the words from Gwen’s journal: “Only Saylor knows where I hid the tablet.” So, it couldn’t have been thrown out, because she’d hidden the damn thing in a place where Darryl may not be able to find it. And somewhere deep within the synapses of my brain, I knew where that place was.

  The reclining position allows the subconscious to surface. I lay back on my queen-sized bed, arms and legs wide, and asked my inner mind where the tablet was. If only I could remember my old mantra. Let me see, what was it? Zah-roooo? No. How about zah-rinng? Or was it zah-naaammm.

  I gave up and stared out the window, settling my eye on a passing cloud. Its odd shape and squiggly contours made me wonder what it must be like trying to interpret the symbols of some ancient writings. One thing was for sure, a world-class thug like Curtis was no expert in hieroglyphics. He was obviously just the errand boy. But who was the person identifying the tablet? Very few people knew how to decipher the ancient scripts Gwen had been able to read.

  Which brought me to another unpleasant realization. Neither could I. Duh. How was I supposed to recognize this tablet of hers?

  I sat up. Time for some research. I grabbed Gwen’s poem off the night table and went to my desk. I turned on my new computer and Googled the word “tablet.” Once I got past a zillion pages of computer stuff, all that was left was cut-rate Viagra. No help. I looked at the poem. No mention at all of a tablet.

  After a few more searches that led me absolutely nowhere, I studied the poem again and noticed something: “Embark for the Jewel in the center of Pearl. Behold the words of Raphael.”

  Embark. She wants us to go somewhere. And Gwen didn’t write “the” pearl, just Pearl. Capitalized. Pearl might be a place. The location of the tablet? If she saw this tablet as precious, maybe she dubbed it a jewel. Except why did she spell Jewel with a capital J? Hmmm. I entered “Pearl” and couldn’t believe what came up: Chamber of Commerce for Pearl, Mississippi.

  About two years ago Gwen did a consultation at an archaeological site in Mississippi— along the Pearl River! This had to be it. I continued perusing. Wait a minute. There were two towns named Pearl and one named Pearl River. All close to each other in the river basin area. Okay, so I’d either find out exactly where Gwen had been, or else we’d drive around and check out all three.

  Hot on the trail, I clicked on some of the travel links. Benita and I could fly into Jackson. And we’d probably need to stay overnight. Now the accommodations. Plenty of hotels and motels listed near the airport. And in the area around Pearl. I read through the list. Ohmigod. Can it be? The Jewel Motor Lodge. The Jewel! Eureka!

  I was so excited I called Benita’s cell and told her everything.

  Her reaction to my discovery didn’t exactly score high on the happy meter. “A Nuyorican and a Jew in the deep South? Those dudes in pointed hats will take us out b
efore Curtis does.”

  “Stop it, Binnie, there are nice people everywhere. And if we can find the tablet quickly, it’ll give us more time to nail the sucker behind Gwen’s murder.”

  “I don’t know. Sounds like a pretty hairy idea to me.”

  “You never like my ideas.”

  “Whole thing seems totally off-the-wall.”

  “Too bad. I’m booking a flight tonight. I can go it alone.”

  “No way,” she said. “We’re in this together. I’ll leave the conference early. Meet you at the Jackson airport tonight. Let’s set a time.”

  “I’ll try to coordinate our flights and get back to you. Bin, do you remember that guy I met at Gwen’s funeral? Conrad Schumacher, that professor of ancient languages she used to date. Didn’t he go with her for that Pearl River excavation?”

  “Yeah. That’s where he and Gwen started their fling. Can you imagine having sex in a cave with your ass pressed up against some moldy stone wall?”

  “Not exactly Club Med. I wish I’d questioned him more at the funeral.”

  “Looked like you wanted to do a lot more than question him,” she said.

  “Oh please. Did you see the way he was chowing down on those tea sandwiches? I thought he was going to start filling his pockets with turkey slices.”

  Uncle Pete waddled across my dresser. “Wonderbra! Wonderbra!”

  “Ooh, I can hear Uncle Petey,” Benita cooed. “Can’t wait to get home and see my bebe.” She started lecturing me on how to get rock-bottom airline prices, but luckily she had a meeting

  scheduled, so we signed off.

  I marched to my dresser and opened the top drawer, where I kept a bundle of miscellaneous business cards in a rubber band. Professor Schumacher could help us cut corners. I tried his home phone. Got only voice mail. I left a message, and then called his office at Columbia University.

  I reached a grad assistant who told me Schumacher was working in a remote area of the Andes where there weren’t any cell towers. Just my luck. But she did agree to check his files on the Pearl River site and fax me anything with Gwen’s name on it.

  Next I called the Jewel Motor Lodge. The phone seemed to ring an awfully long time. A tape came on. A man cleared his throat. “Uhm, ahumng. You have reached…ahemmm…The Jewel…ahhum. Say yur piece and uh, we’ll uh…ahemmm…” Beeeep.

  Poor man needs a lozenge. I left my name, number and an urgent request for a double room this very night.

  After arranging our travel, I left our flight times on Benita’s voice mail. I also contacted the pet sitter to schedule a caretaker for Petey. Then I phoned clients to cancel my appointments for the early part of the week. Not a great move, but we’d probably need some time down there to zero in on the tablet. And I did not intend to come back empty-handed.

  Uncle Pete was pecking at the box that sat on my dresser. It contained Jaleel’s birthday gift. A new pair of sky blue eighteen-ounce training gloves Benita picked out for him. I nudged Petey away and wrapped the present, while he tried to make off with the tape and ribbon. I signed the card, “To our favorite Leo from Binnie and Saylor.”

  It was through Jaleel’s guidance and expertise that the pro female boxer named Binnie “The Bitch” Morales was born. When she was a twenty-three-year-old grad student, she found a teacher, role model and friend in Jaleel. Although her dad and her five brothers had all boxed, they weren’t too keen on women entering the sport. But when Binnie started showing her mettle, there they were, sitting ringside at every match. So was I. But to be honest, I have a lot of trouble watching two people act out their combative disorders.

  I’d often envied Benita growing up in a warm, noisy, demonstrative family headed by two fearless parents. Having a father who taught her how to use his carpentry tools, and a spontaneous mother who talked about spirits.

  For me, there’d only been my one brother Steven, a quiet, creative kid four years younger than I. He now designed theater costumes and lived in the West Village but traveled to Provincetown every summer working backstage with a men’s troupe. No doubt he thrived on the chaos and bustle of a theater family after years of skulking beneath the tense and lonely atmosphere produced by our emotionally repressed, hardworking parents, whose affection for each other had long ago evaporated. All their silent brooding and unspoken resentment used to make me wish they’d just come out and have a rip-roaring brawl. Fertile ground for a future therapist.

  The clock read twelve thirty. My flight left LaGuardia at five twenty, so I’d have to leave the party early and pack. I’d just wish Jaleel a happy birthday, catch up with Rochelle…and see if a certain boxer happened to be there. I took a quick shower, tamed my wild curls with some mousse and did some last minute eyebrow plucking in the bathroom mirror.

  For about twenty minutes I actually forgot about Curtis. But the fear rolled back in when I got to my lipstick. My upper lip was still split and swollen. I covered it with three layers of semi-matte Orchard Rose. Maybe I could pass it off as a bad collagen injection.

  Next, what to wear? As if on cue, Uncle Pete chanted, “Big butt! Big butt!”

  Like I needed that. I stood in front of my bedroom closet getting cranky before pulling on low-slung blue and black striped pants and a navy V-neck fitted tee. Aside from Eldridge’s insulting estimation of my weight, I hated picnics. Bugs attacked your food, and grass made walking in heels tricky. Time for my fringed clogs with a four-inch wedge. At least I wouldn’t sink into the dirt.

  Now for the most important accessory. What perfume should I wear? Don’t laugh. Scent has power. The English once passed an Act of Parliament allowing marriages to be annulled if a woman used perfume to seduce a man into marrying her. And during Elizabethan times, a woman would place a peeled apple in her armpit to soak up her personal odor and present it as prized gift to her lover. Naturally, I recommend organic apples.

  I chose a scent with a vanilla, peach and rose combo and some other weird but interesting smell and dabbed it onto my pulse points. It was one of Gwen’s originals. Probably her best. She’d called it Forget Me Not. Today it seemed frighteningly appropriate.

  EIGHT

  The Lot at the end of Main Street was now called Brooklyn Bridge Park. It connected to the larger Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park that spanned the waterfront between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. And as Rochelle Thomas mentioned on my voice mail, it was an easy stroll from our loft. Right across the street.

  The playground used to be an abandoned parking lot filled with garbage. Today it was teeming with mothers and kids. I saw Rochelle there with two-year-old Andre, the youngest of her three children. Judging by the shouts and wails going on, I’d say Andre was having a little run-in with Mom. Better save my hellos for later.

  On the lawn to my left a circle of buff guys in oversized shorts cackled at each other’s jokes. Jaleel and Rochelle’s ten-year-old ran zigzagging across the lawn with two friends. A lanky Jamaican woman, I couldn’t remember her name, hurled a green Frisbee to a trainer I recognized from the gym. I waved to Jaleel’s brother. He wore a yellow and black print dashiki and sat in a lawn chair next to his girlfriend, who was playing a conga drum.

  I spotted Jaleel standing under the trees by a picnic table spread with sandwiches, pastries and cakes. This being my first outing since my rite of passage ceremony into Curtis’s clan of the cavemen, I had no appetite. But I did notice a bowl of Jaleel’s famous Gatorade punch. Liquor wasn’t allowed in the park. My guess was that Jaleel accidentally on purpose spilled an entire bottle of vodka into this mix. I added our present to a pile on the table and dipped a cup into the punch bowl. Rehydration never tasted so good.

  Jaleel caught me in his sights and said, “Check out the booty wagon coming my way. The foxy Doc is on the loose.”

  I wished him a happy birthday, and he responded with one of his famous bear hugs. Feeling tiny was fun with Jaleel. It meant being safe and fussed over. Unlike yesterday, when I would have sold my soul to be the Incredible Hulk.<
br />
  He touched my lip. “S’up with this?”

  “Um, I had a little mishap with a door.” My lipstick cover-up was obviously inept. Almost as lame as resorting to the generic bumping into a door crap.

  “Gonna say, somebody put a shot on you, just gimme da sucka’s name.”

  I only wished it was that easy. “Thanks. And if anybody ever lays a finger on you, give me the sucka’s name. And I’ll do therapy on him.”

  Jaleel flipped me a baby-faced grin. “You smell real nice today.”

  “It’s a fragrance Gwen Applebee made. You remember her?”

  “Sure do. We met her a few times over at your place.” He shook his head. “Terrible thing. I know you and Binnie were pretty tight with her.”

  I nodded. “The three of us spent our college years together. And she was my friend since grade school.”

  “Too bad. From what she told Rochelle, she had some ambitious plan cookin’ round her business.”

  “Plan?” I remembered Jaleel and Rochelle seated across the table from Gwen last March at Benita’s birthday. Still, knowing how fanatical Gwen was about her privacy, it seemed uncharacteristic of her to blab about business matters. Much less at a dinner party. And particularly when she hadn’t even told me. Strange. “Do you remember what exactly it was about?”

  “Not a clue.” Jaleel turned to the table and cut himself a slice of cheesecake. “She buzzed Rochelle a couple months ago for some legal advice. Something about patents and trademarks for all those fancy smelling oils she was into.”

  A fellow trainer from Gleason’s grabbed Jaleel and pulled him aside for some shoptalk. I looked around for Rochelle and didn’t see her. But I did see Eldridge Mace. The sight of him in sleek Astro pants and sleeveless tee brought a deep, involuntary sigh from my chest. And wouldn’t you know, right next to him, sliding a wedge of melon into his mouth, was Tara Buckley.