Slugfest

Thirty-three

Days before the show had opened, exhibitors and staff had been informed that in the event of police or medical emergencies, we should notify convention center security of the Big Apple Flower Show office and not dial 911, which we’d been told would slow down response time. But everyone’s first instinct was to call 911, and that’s what Lauryn Peete had done when she’d gone to freshen up in the members’ lounge ladies’ room and seen a lifeless arm sticking out from under one of the doors. She pushed the door open with her foot and saw Nikki Bingham facedown in the stall.

Nikki was unconscious. Her panty hose had giant holes, her knees were skinned, and she had a lump on her forehead the size and color of a damson plum. After the police and convention center security had been alerted, Rolanda Knox called me.

“An anonymous caller to the BAFS emergency line said they heard a fight between a man and a woman in the lounge. But the call was right before the blackout,” she said. “No one did anything and no one remembered until afterward.”

Rolanda didn’t know Nikki’s condition. She had been stabilized—or collared and boarded, as the hired EMT staff person had put it. It looked gruesome—and serious—but it was standard procedure for anyone with a head injury even if it turned out to be nothing. Then she’d been taken to St. Athanasius’s Hospital in Greenwich Village.

Rolanda and I stayed on the phone until I reached the members’ lounge, where she’d agreed to wait for me. By the time I got there, most of the onlookers had gone.

“Maybe there really is a Javits Curse,” I said. I hit Call End and shoved my phone in my too small clutch purse. I don’t know at what point I decided to tell Rolanda what I knew about Jamal and the jacket, but I had. Somewhere between the news of Garland Bleimeister’s death and Nikki’s what … accident? Assault? Domestic violence incident? I needed a reality check from someone who knew about this stuff, even if it was only through show gossip and eavesdropping on the police radio.

Rolanda looked tired. “Damn. This may just have trumped the shenanigans at the cat show.”

“Interested in a drink?” I asked.

“With you in that dress and me looking like a prison guard? Wait until I change and then, hell, yes.”

I sat on a low, gray settee outside the staff locker room. Exhibitors and workers were still trickling out, and the extra police hovered discreetly, probably wondering what I was doing sitting on a bench in the darkened convention center as if I were waiting for a bus.

When Rolanda finally emerged, she looked totally different. Tight jeans, a black leather jacket, and big earrings made her look not just more attractive but younger. And she had unleashed her hair from its tight bun at the nape of her neck.

“What are you looking at? You’ve seen me in street clothes before, haven’t you?”

I hadn’t. “Nothing. You look nice, that’s all.”

“Damn skippy. I’m going for a drink with a white girl in a red dress, the least I’m going to do is put on makeup and some jewelry, otherwise someone might think I’m your date. Or worse. Your pimp.”

She took me to a bar called El Quixote that was close by and apparently the place where everyone knew Rolanda’s name. They’d known Otis Randolph, too. A small framed picture was behind the bar, wedged in near the cash register. A popcorn bucket held donations for flowers. When we entered, the bartender said nothing but looked me over and, recognizing Rolanda, chucked his chin at us as a greeting. Without looking left or right Rolanda headed straight for a table in the back, which she slipped into like a comfortable pair of shoes. She ordered a rum and Coke and I asked for a beer.

“See, I had you pegged for a chardonnay,” she said.

“Always a mistake to assume. My cop friends tell me that.”

“You have cop friends?”

“In Connecticut.”

“And what do they do? Catch bad guys who park illegally in the handicapped spot? Oh, no that’s right, you said you found some bodies. I’d like to hear about them one day.”

The bartender brought the drinks himself, apparently a first, and I put my hand over the glass to prevent him from pouring my beer.

“Brian, stop pretending this is a fine dining establishment when all you really want to do is ogle this woman’s cleavage.” His face turned as red as the dress, but the bartender did as he was told and left.

“You trying to impress me, knowing shady characters, drinking from the bottle like one of the masses?”

“The beer stays colder this way. Who do you think I am? I live in Connecticut. Doesn’t make me Caroline Kennedy.” I took a long pull on the frosty bottle. “So how was your day, honey?”

“By the time I got to the members’ lounge, a swarm of people had gathered, getting in the way and probably contaminating a crime scene. Allegra Douglas was rallying the troops, saying we’d all be bloodied and battered before the show ended.” Vandalism was outrageous enough but personal violence was unspeakable. That didn’t, however, keep Allegra from speaking. Nothing and no one could.

“She went on about the old days and how management had sold out and she practically accused that Ms. Peete and her students of vandalizing the show and attacking Nikki. That teacher stayed cool, but I could tell she was still shaken up at having found the body.”

“What do you think happened?” I asked. Rolanda gave it some thought but came up empty, shaking her head.

“I’ll tell you what didn’t happen. Some high school kid followed a woman into the toilet just to knock her on the head. No rape. No robbery. No personal connection or grievance. What the hell for? Now if someone had bashed Ms. Douglas on the head, I could understand it.” She sipped her drink, pinky up. She talked to Brian over my head. “Less ice next time, baby.”

Rolanda was right. There were probably a lot of people who wouldn’t mind taking a whack at Allegra, and that number was rising. But why Nikki? What was the motive? Rolanda said she’d been found fully clothed, her handbag untouched, and still wearing an expensive watch.

That was all the news either of us had and I didn’t know how we’d get any more. The hospital was only likely to give relatives information over the telephone, and I didn’t really feel like schlepping downtown to the hospital to ask in person. But who did she have? No kids and no family here, as far as I knew, just an unhappy husband, who had had a few too many and, depending how long Nikki had been lying there, could have been the head basher.