Antiques Roadkill
Page 21
Was this the right day? The right time? Maybe PM instead of AM?
Mother was digging the chief’s letter out of her purse when the gunmetal-gray door cracked open and an old man poked his head out.
“Are you girls the Bornes?”
The Borne girls nodded.
“Then come on in. Come on in!”
We followed the toothless gent inside—and it must in fairness be noted that this man who considered us “girls” looked like Gabby Hayes on the Western Channel—where he handed us a booklet listing the items that would be auctioned today. Then he ushered us over to a disturbingly large area of folding chairs, placing us in the first row, directly in front of a podium, and disappeared.
We were still the only ones there.
Mother whispered, “The auction must not start until seven.”
I grabbed her arm. “Mother! Look!”
Among the vast assortment of items up for bid around the perimeter of the floor, I spotted our furniture, grouped together. We sprang out of our chairs and ran like the idiots we were, arms waving.
Standing in front of our roped-off antiques—labeled as Lot Number One—Mother clasped her hands.
“I … I believe everything’s here,” she exclaimed.
I consulted the booklet. Lot Number One was on the auction block first.
Showing the entry to Mother, I asked, “Does this mean our things will all be auctioned together?”
Mother nodded, frowning. “It appears so, dear.”
“Then … then … we’ll being going home with everything, or … or—”
“Nothing.”
My heart sank into my stomach. So much trouble, so much excitement, and now … so much pressure. Glumly, we returned to our seats to wait.
But not for long.
At six-fifteen, a woman wearing a plaid shirt, tan slacks, western boots, and wielding a gavel, stepped to the podium.
I looked behind me.
Our butts remained the only ones in these chairs. Mother and I stared at each other with raised eyebrows.
The lady auctioneer dispensed with the microphone since we were six feet away, and announced, “Now auctioning Lot Number One.” She then read the contents of our former living room, dining room, and china cabinet, concluding with, “Do I have an opening bid?”
I was so flabbergasted, I couldn’t find my voice.
Mother, however, had hers and shouted, “Twenty thousand dollars!”
I stomped on her foot as if I’d spotted a particularly nasty-looking spider. Not acting at all, Mother screamed.
I recovered from my muteness. “Mother didn’t mean that! What she meant was one dollar!”
Mother, aghast, cried, “Brandy! Our things are worth much more than that! Why, the Chippendale chairs alone are—”
I clamped a hand over her mouth. “One dollar!” I repeated to the auctioneer.
Mother bit my hand. And, not acting at all, I screamed.
But what I screamed was: “One dollar!”
The lady auctioneer came to my rescue by breaking protocol and slamming down the gavel.
“Going, going, gone—sold for one dollar! Pay the man at the front desk.”
And, with a tiny smile, she exited the podium.
Mother and I sat in stunned silence.
Then Mother asked, “What just happened there? Other than you stomping on my foot, and me biting your hand—that Polident is a wonder, by the way.”
“I … I … think we just bought everything back—for one dollar.”
And then we threw our arms joyfully around each other and began to shout and babble in joy.
At the front desk, Officer Brian Lawson was lingering nearby, in plainclothes—wearing a yellow Polo shirt and black jeans and an elfin smile.
“Did you arrange this?” I asked, as Mother stepped up and paid Gabby Hayes one dollar.
“I’d like to take credit,” Brian said, “and maybe get on your good side. But our resident hard guy, Chief Cassato, bless his soft heart, arranged this private presale … just for you.”
“I have to thank him!”
“No. Never mention it. He said for me to tell you, consider it payment in full … for undercover work.”
I grinned. “Kind of a bonus!”
He arched an eyebrow. “Consider it a pension plan for your mother, Brandy—you two’re leaving the detective business, remember?”
“Sure. Sure thing, Brian.”
And we hired a couple of enterprising teenage farm boys—who hung around for just such a purpose—to help Brian load everything into the trailer, although it all didn’t fit.
Smaller things, like lamps and chairs, went into the trunk and backseat of the car, some parts protruding out the windows. And the dining room table—wrapped in a moving blanket, sweetly provided by Mr. Hayes—had been turned upside down and roped onto the roof.
Brian waved as we finally took off, looking like the Beverly Hillbillies with all their worldly possessions stuffed in one vehicle, slowly creeping away, big grins on our faces, all the way.
Mother and I didn’t even mind the car horns and occasional middle finger we received holding up traffic on the river road.
Sure was good to be home.
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
If you’re a fidgeter, always insist on a number card to hold up at an auction. Mother once scratched her nose and became the proud owner of a Civil War chamber pot.
About the Authors
Barbara Allan is the joint pseudonym for husband-and-wife mystery writers Max Allan and Barbara Collins.
Max Allan Collins, a five-time Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee in both fiction and nonfiction categories, has been hailed as “the Renaissance man of mystery fiction.” He has earned an unprecedented fourteen Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his historical thrillers, winning twice for his Nathan Heller novels, True Detective (1983) and Stolen Away (1991).
His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, song-writing, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, including Air Force One, In the Line of Fire, and the New York Times–best-selling Saving Private Ryan.
His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award–winning DreamWorks feature film starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law, directed by Sam Mendes. Collins’s many comics credits include the Dick Tracy syndicated strip; his own Ms. Tree; Batman; and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, based on the hit TV series, for which he has also written four video games and a USA Today–best-selling series of novels.
An acclaimed and award-winning independent filmmaker in his native Midwest, Collins wrote and directed Mommy, premiering on Lifetime in 1996, as well as a 1997 sequel, Mommy’s Day. The screenwriter of The Expert, a 1995 HBO World Premiere, he wrote and directed the innovative made-for-DVD Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market (2000). His latest indie feature, Shades of Noir (2004), is an anthology of his short films, including his award-winning documentary, Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane. A DVD boxed set of his films, The Black Box, is currently in release.
Barbara Collins is one of the most respected short story writers in the mystery field, with appearances in over a dozen top anthologies, including Murder Most Delicious, Women on the Edge, and the best-selling Cat Crimes series. She was the coeditor (and a contributor) to the best-selling anthology Lethal Ladies, and her stories were selected for inclusion in the first three volumes of The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories.
Two acclaimed hardcover collections of her work have been published—Too Many Tomcats and (with her husband) Murder—His and Hers. The wife-and-husband team’s first novel together, the baby boomer thriller Regeneration, was a bestseller; their second collaborative novel, Bomb-shell—in which Marilyn Monroe saves the world from World War III—was published to excellent reviews.
Barbara has been the production manager and/or line producer on Mommy, Mommy’s Day, and Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market, a
nd other independent film projects emanating from the production company she and her husband jointly run.
“Barbara Allan” live(s) in Muscatine, Iowa, their hometown; son Nathan recently graduated with honors in Japanese and computer science from the University of Iowa in nearby Iowa City.