Slugfest

Thirty-two

Rolanda Knox was not your garden-variety security guard. I knew that the first time I walked into the building. What I didn’t know until the reception was that she attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the evenings after a full day’s work, and she monitored police radio the way other people listened to National Public Radio or watched baby owls on webcams. All day long.

“I always learn something from the scanner even when it’s on in the background. I listen, so I know how to observe. Yesterday I heard about a floater found in the Hudson not far from here. White male, twenty-five to thirty.”

She repeated it in that staccato, impersonal cop lingo that suggested it wasn’t a human—wasn’t somebody’s kid or friend or lover. It was a “floater,” like a raft or pool toy. I guess they had to say it that way. Otherwise, it would be too hard to think of the victim as an infant, then a toddler, then a teenager, the mental home movies fast-forwarding until the final frame, when it becomes just—a floater.

“He was wearing jeans, Timberland boots, a T-shirt.”

“Isn’t that every third guy who works at the Wagner?” I asked. “The carpenters and electricians? The show staff?” I didn’t want it to be the kid I had joked with, the kid who would have made a cute adult if he’d ever gotten the chance. “Was he wearing a jacket with a lot of souvenir patches?”

Rolanda shook her head. “A T-shirt that said Happy Valley. He was identified as Garland Bleimeister, from Trenton, New Jersey. Wasn’t that the guy who left you a message about the bag?”

There was no mistaking the name. Babe had spoken to him. And the Happy Valley shirt had registered with me. I’d had a friend who went to Penn State and wore a Happy Valley hat every time the Nittany Lions had a game, even if he was in another state. We are Penn State. Maybe that was why I couldn’t reach the boy and he’d never called again.

“What does the medical examiner say? Did he drown?”

Rolanda shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Cops don’t always like to say right away, but not many people going for a dip in the Hudson this time of year. Not many civilians think to ask about the medical examiner either. You a crime show junkie?”

“No. I just had the bad luck to find a couple of bodies.”

My mind was racing. Do I tell Rolanda I saw Jamal wearing the kid’s jacket? Do I call the police? What if I was wrong? I didn’t know what kids wore these days. For all I knew, some designer at Old Navy had a thing for the national parks and had emblazoned all the park names on their new spring line. Thousands of people could be walking around with the word Canyonlands written across their backs or tied around their hips. Maybe it had something to do with the guy who had to cut his arm off. He’d turned into a hero to some people. Why wasn’t Jamal here? Was he afraid because the body had been found and it would only be a matter of time before he was apprehended?

“I’d better call the cops,” I said. “I still have the kid’s bag. Even if it’s not evidence, the next of kin will want it.”

“If I don’t see you later, can we catch up tomorrow?” Rolanda said.

“Sure. I should get back to work. You know where to find me. We can talk in the morning.”

“Late afternoon. There’s a service for Otis at a Baptist church up in Harlem. A lot of us will be there, so there may be some new faces here tomorrow.”

I was drawing a blank.

“Otis Randolph, the janitor who passed.” I felt ashamed to have forgotten him. Rolanda and I exchanged cell numbers and agreed to meet tomorrow in the Overview Café, just outside the show’s entrance on the second floor of the convention center. If I was too busy and couldn’t sneak away, I’d call, and if the service for Otis ran long, she’d do the same. I took my time getting back to the booth. Death has a way of slowing you down, of reminding you there are more important things than whatever you’re rushing off to do. Maybe there’s a sympathetic, physical reaction, an acknowledgment of a soul leaving the planet.

Back at the shops, where no one knew or cared about the dead boy, business was booming. David’s partner, Aaron, had arrived. The wavy black hair and heavy-framed eyeglasses had me itching to break into a chorus of “Peggy Sue,” but I restrained myself since I didn’t know if the look was intentional or not. The men were chatting up a middle-aged woman and her companion who—judging by the shopping bag and fabric books—could only be her decorator. I overheard something about redoing the country house, so I figured things were going well.

We’d talked about a late dinner and a drink if the three of us had anything to celebrate, and so far David and I had each made a big sale. It was Nikki’s turn. But even though I’d only met him once, it seemed ghoulish to party now after having learned of Garland’s death. They could celebrate without me. Besides, Nikki was still gone.

The husband had amassed a stack of clear plastic cups on the wicker table he was using as a desk. I counted six. Like wet rings on a bar they told me how long he’d been waiting. They could have been club soda, but his demeanor told me they’d held something stronger. Perhaps it was the muttering, which was not as sotto voce as he thought it was. I took the direct approach.

“So, where’s Nikki?” I asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I just dropped by … never mind.” He’d repeatedly called Nikki’s cell, but there’d been no answer for the last thirty minutes, the whole time I’d been away from our group.

It was hard to believe she’d just leave. Did she decide she looked hideous in her stained dress and go home to change? Women have done crazier things. I’ve changed my clothes in elevators on my way out. Maybe she was still in the lounge talking to one of those “big pencils.” But even then, wouldn’t she drag the buyer back to her booth to close the sale?

“She did this on purpose,” Russ said. “She’s always complaining that she does it all. I do plenty. She knew I needed to be somewhere tonight, but she resents my trying to leave the business. She saw me here and knew I wouldn’t leave the booth deserted. She let me do all the work out of spite.”

“I don’t think so. She was very excited about this evening. You might want to call security to make sure she’s okay. Someone had an accident on an escalator here the other day.”

After a brief, testy exchange on the phone, Russ sucked it up and resurrected his charm, but only when someone was within ten feet of Nikki’s booth. He was effective when he wasn’t fuming and glaring at his cell, willing it to ring. What did I know? I was rusty in the relationship department. Maybe she had seen him and stayed away. Between the Anzalones and this couple I was feeling good about being single.

Two browsers, well dressed and drinking, were gently spinning one of Primo’s wind devices, so I excused myself and turned on my smile. “May I tell you about the artist?”

Over the course of the next two hours, floor lamps, tufa troughs, urns, four of Primo’s smaller pieces—including the wind device—and countless pinecone nightlights were taken away or tagged with sold stickers. Only the mini Niagara fountains remained untouched.

At 7:45 P.M., an announcement came over the public address system that the reception was ending. I crouched down and pulled aside the blue polyester drape Velcroed to the folding table to retrieve Garland Bleimeister’s bag.

It was gone.

David, Aaron, and I scoured the area, but the kid’s bag was nowhere to be found. “Maybe someone moved it.”

“Who’d move it?” David said. “You know how neurotic some of these people are. And the cleaning staff knows better than to touch anything.”

Just the same I looked underneath the tables on both sides of the booth and behind the backdrop curtain. No bag, just knocked-down cardboard boxes and two cases of Trader Joe’s water.

“Afraid we’ll have a dry spell?” Aaron asked.

“Go ahead, laugh. I can’t bring myself to spend five dollars for a bottle of water, even when someone else is paying for it. It threatens my self-delusion that we’re living in a rational world.”

“Wow. Glad I asked.”

“Here. Hydrate.” I pulled two bottles from the opened case and tossed them to David and Aaron.

“Do you think he picked it up when you weren’t here?”

“Like when? I’ve been here every hour the show’s been open.”

“Which leaves the hours the show hasn’t been open. Maybe that’s why the ornaments were out of place,” David said. “Sorry—artwork.”

They looked so cheerful, I hated to blurt it out and ruin the moment.

“I’m pretty sure the owner is dead.”

David stared. “Dead as in you’ll no longer have anything to do with him?”

“No. Dead as in pushing up daisies. Taking the big dirt nap.”

The overhead lights were flashing when a ripple of news spread through the crowd, finally reaching us.

A woman’s body had been found in the members’ lounge.