Killer Pancake Part 8

Hip, hop! I can't see!

Hip, hop! Wha'ja do to me?

Scores of hand-held placards denouncing Mignon Cosmetics' animal-testing practices bounced up and down above the crowd. I looked around helplessly for a way to get into the store that did not involve trying to slip past crowd-restraining sawhorses. A thin stream of shoppers was headed for a nearby pasta place. I followed.

Once inside the mall, I ran up a chrome and polished granite staircase and entered Prince & Grogan on the second level. Bright lights and mellow piano music-coming not from speakers but from a real piano player in the center of the store-took me off guard. After a moment of attempting to get oriented, I saw a far-off neon sign, OFFICES. Someone there, presumably, would have my check.

I negotiated a labyrinth of sparkling crystal and china displays, blaring audio equipment, whirring small appliances, and large, blank-faced mirrors. These were not like Tom's quasi-antique mirrors with their charming, wavy gla.s.s. These were oversize, glaring department store looking-gla.s.ses, the kind the ad maven surely had in mind when he said, Make a woman insecure enough and you can sell her anything. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see myself in my denim skirt, white T-s.h.i.+rt, and sneakers; I just wanted to find the department store office.

Eventually, I was successful. The Prince & Grogan personnel, security, billing, credit, and customer service departments were grouped together in a section of the second floor that was still being renovated. After several misdirections I finally ended up sitting in a tiny office across from a straight-haired woman named Lisa, who claimed she handled accounts payable. Lisa shuffled through papers and files with no luck, however, and went off mumbling about finding someone from security.

While she was gone I looked around her office, which was in desperate need of the upcoming paint job. The interior walls of the old Montgomery Ward had been covered with a mind-numbing aquamarine pigment. On the far wall of the office, paler squares indicated spots where framed recognition of merit awards, maybe even family photos, had once hung. Next to them, also painted aquamarine, was what looked like a medicine cabinet or key box. On the floor, computer print-outs were neatly stacked two feet high. Then by the wall closest to me was a gray set of file cabinets. My fingers itched to open the cabinet and look up Satterfield, Claire. But with my luck, not only would the drawer be locked, but Lisa of accounts payable would sashay back in while my hand was still on the handle.

Lisa did indeed sashay back in, and luckily my hands were placed innocently in my lap.

"The head of security has your check, and his office is locked. Nick's out dealing with some insurance investigators today, and was wondering if you could come back tomorrow."

I wanted to growl something unappreciative, such as Why doesn't the bonehead just mail it to me? but I was coming back to the mall the next morning for the food fair. Besides, after a few years of running my small business, I was becoming somewhat cynical. Promises of checks coming in the mail all too frequently meant We might mail this when we get to it. Then again, we might not.

I checked my watch again: three forty-five. I still felt repulsed by the idea of going back to the hospital to wait, so I made the instantaneous decision to go down to the Mignon counter. Just briefly, just to see if Dusty and Harriet and maybe even Tom were there. I had Julian grieving at home. Perhaps if I returned with something to tell him ...

Before I knew it I was on the down escalator. As I descended I could see both Harriet and Dusty on the floor below. Harriet was talking to a hunchbacked woman whose white hair was piled elaborately on her head. One of Harriet's hands held a bottle, the other tapped the bottle's s.h.i.+ny gold top.

"And what's that one called?" I heard the older woman ask as I neared them.

"Tangerine Tide," confided Harriet smugly. "It's coordinated with Raspberry Dunes and Apricot Sunset-"

I imagined a beach full of fruit.

"-and it's exactly the hue the designers are using for the fas.h.i.+on colors of late summer. We sell so much of it, we can't keep it in stock!"

"Well, then!" said the white-haired woman decisively. "I'll take some!"

Dusty was lifting the long, heavy pages of what looked like a ledger. A handsome, balding customer had approached the counter and was picking up bottle after bottle and appraising each one. Dusty, shaking her head over the pages, seemed not to see him. She did catch a glimpse of me, however, and came scuttling over. Her forest-green uniform barely swathed her ample tummy. Her orange-gold hair was somewhat wilder than usual, and her eyes were bloodshot.

"Goldy, did you hear about Claire?" Her voice was raw. I figured she'd been crying for quite some time.

"I did. I'm sorry. You all must be devastated."

She took a shuddery breath. "We are. How's Julian doing?"

"Not well. I'm trying to convince him to take some time off."

She said, "We have to work. Do you believe that? So, the cameras are watching. Are you interested in something? What kind of problems are you experiencing with your face?" she asked brightly.

"What cameras? Can I look around? Will you show me?"

"I can't now," she replied softly. She brought out a slender white tube with a gold top. "This is Timeless Skin." She squinted at me. "This will do wonders for those dark circles under your eyes. Why don't you let me do a free makeover?"

"Er, thanks, but not now. I was thinking that sleep would do wonders for my dark circles."

"Well," Dusty said, scrutinizing my face, "how about some Ageless Beauty/Endless Appeal night cream for when you're getting an that extra sleep? What kind of skin regimen are you using for your face?"

"No regimen." I gestured at the stacks of glistening bottles arrayed on the gla.s.s countertop. "Nothing, really. I don't want to buy anything, Dusty. I just wanted to check on you. Because of Claire."

She shook her head. "We have a new line of-" she began.

The man at the counter cleared his throat loudly; Dusty glanced nervously at him.

"Go help him," I pleaded. "I'm really just looking."

"Okay," Dusty said with a hasty look back at the ledger book. "But I doubt he's going to buy anything."

I moved away from the blushes and scanned a pyramid of Carefree Color lipsticks. Cherryblossom Cheesecake. Fudge Souffle. Rose-hips Revolution. The person who named Mignon lipsticks must have been a dessert caterer.

Dusty greeted the balding customer and nodded knowingly. She became animated, or pretended to be animated, when he started to talk. Tall, mid-fortyish, good-looking, he was the kind of fellow I saw at high-society catered events all the time. I squinted: Maybe I'd even seen this guy at some catered event in the Aspen Meadow Country Club area. He picked up bottle after bottle and examined it, asking questions the whole time, as if the shape of the container were more important than what was in it. Then he put down the bottle, leaned in to Dusty, and said something. She reared back and replied. Their conversation appeared to be veering toward an argument.

"Don't act ignorant, Reggie," Dusty said loudly to her customer. "We saw you. You are going to get into so much trouble!"

I touched the tops of the lipstick tubes. Trouble? What kind of trouble? Who saw him? Saw him doing what? I peered at a display of blushes near Reggie, and then moved toward it as if I'd finally discovered what I'd come for.

Reggie, whoever he was, waved off Dusty's concern and pointed to a large white bottle. "So what are your sales projections on the new moisturizer?" he asked. Farther down the counter, Harriet Wells gave Dusty and her inquisitive customer a disapproving glance.

I picked up one blush after another-Sensuosity, Valentine Kiss, l.u.s.tful Gaze. No thanks. I peeked sideways: Dusty and Reggie were standing with several trays of mascara between them. Yes, I was eavesdropping, I could imagine myself admitting later to Tom. I wanted to hear what Dusty had to say to Reggie, the guy who was going to get into trouble.

"I noticed they changed the packaging for the compacts," Reggie was observing.

"Yuppies don't want white," Dusty informed him airily. "White reminds them of old ladies. So Mignon changed it to navy-blue and gold and we've sold a zillion of them."

"Don't use the word zillion, Dusty, it's not specific. And I can't imagine that you were selling lots of them. You said you were behind the last couple of months."

"Don't be a p.r.i.c.k, Reggie, or I'll tell the world the truth."

"You wouldn't do that. Now, listen," he went on, "just tell me if they've set their sales goals for this new line they introduced yesterday, before all h.e.l.l broke loose."

"Yes, of course they have, you know they always set goals. Twenty-three hundred a week for the full-time people."

Reggie considered this, "What did they send you to advertise them?"

Harriet had finished with the white-haired woman and was heading back toward the center of the counter. For the first time, I realized that although she was short, the way she held herself revealed she was either a former model or dancer. Instead of coming to me, however, Harriet walked straight up to Dusty and her male customer, Reggie-the-troublemaker.

"Mr. Hotchkiss," Harriet said with a tiny, wicked smile, "are you actually going to buy something today?"

"Buzz off, Harriet," Reggie Hotchkiss said loudly. "Look." He gestured in my direction. "You've got a customer. You can't keep up those hefty sales numbers if you ignore a customer, now, can you?"

Harriet lifted her chin and walked past him to me. Like Dusty, her face sagged with fatigue, but she did not look quite as disheveled. "Ah, Goldy. The caterer. You heard, I suppose ...?"

I nodded.

"So tragic. That girl had a future in cosmetics, she was a natural. We're all going to miss-" Her voice broke, and she stopped to rea.s.sert control. Her large blue eyes appealed to me. "Is your boy all right? It must have been a terrible shock for him."

My watch said 4:05. "Yes, thanks. Julian is my helper and he's fine. But I have a friend in the hospital, and she's quite ill. I'll ... see you tomorrow."

"Then why are you-"

But I waved and hightailed it out of the store, past the demonstrators, through all the cars, and to my van. Revving my vehicle over to the hospital, I was obsessed with wondering who Reggie was and why he was going to get into trouble for being seen. Reggie Hotchkiss, Reggie Hotchkiss.

Oh yes, how could I forget? He did indeed live in Aspen Meadow. His family owned a prosperous Denver-based company: Hotchkiss Skin and Hair.

When the orderlies finally wheeled Marla back up from having her angiogram, she looked completely transformed. Her complexion was wan, and her usual animation had disintegrated into grogginess. I waited while the nurse hooked her back up to her monitors. By the time I came into the cubicle, Marla, a large, raucously funny person whom I always thought of as being in full bloom, appeared completely deflated.

She caught sight of me and groaned. "I feel gross. I look gross. My back's killing me. You gotta get me out of here, Goldy."

"I'm trying, believe me-"

Dr. Lyle Gordon walked into the cubicle and checked Marla's IV. He was wearing a white lab coat over his scrubs. His gray fluff of hair stood up straight on his head. "Ah, the patient's sister. Did she tell you?"

I said, "Tell me what?"

His eyebrows pinched inward. "We had an emergency operation this morning and had to delay her procedure. Your sister's angiogram showed blockage at the mid-right coronary. So we're going ahead with the atherectomy." He turned to Marla. "But it's too late today, unfortunately. We'll need to wait until tomorrow."

"Oh my G.o.d," groaned Marla. She eyed her cardiologist with as much fierceness as she could muster. "You mean, I'm going to have to go all night with this ... this thing sticking into my groin-"

"It's called a catheter," said Lyle Gordon patiently, patting the sheet. "Ms. Korman. We're going to get through this-"

"Oh yeah?" Marla interrupted. "Who's we, white man?"

"Ms. Korman-"

Marla snapped, "Shut up!"

Dr. Lyle Gordon clenched his teeth and straightened his shoulders. Then he addressed me, enunciating each phrase: "I need. A surgeon. On standby. Tomorrow. I can't get a surgeon to be on standby until tomorrow. And we need the surgeon in case something goes wrong. Worst case, we'll have a surgical suite ready if the catheter perforates the heart or tears the artery or she has another heart attack-"

"As G.o.d. Is my Witness." Marla growled from her bed, "I am never giving this hospital another-"

"Help me out here, would you please?" Dr. Lyle Gordon begged me.

I said, "Sure," and he abruptly left the cubicle. "Marla, look," I said lightly, pointing to a potted coral begonia on her nightstand, "someone's sent you flowers."

She skewed her glance sideways at the perky blossoms, then turned away. "I don't care."

I opened the card and could not hide my astonishment. "They're from the general. 'Hoping for a speedy recovery.' I thought your brother-in-law was in jail for possessing explosives."

"He is in jail, but Bo has friends everywhere." Marla closed her eyes.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "They're going to kick me out of here any minute. Please tell me what I can do for you."

"I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars to help me escape."

"Marla-"

"You'd have to cater birdwatchers' picnics for three years to make that kind of dough."

"And your second choice is ..."

She sighed such a deep, depressed sigh that I briefly considered trying to break her out. "Okay, Goldy." She seemed suddenly tired, as if she'd given up. "Get somebody to bring me some lingerie and my mail. Some folks have been calling, and I guess Tony's coming in tomorrow." Tony was her on-again, off-again boyfriend. "I don't know what the h.e.l.l the hospital's done with my stuff. The spare house key is in a key box under my dryer vent."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"My life is over. I'll never eat another eclair. They'll put me in a wheelchair to go around Aspen Meadow Lake...."

"Your life, sister, is just beginning. Buck up, now, I'm going to learn how to cook lowfat, and we'll walk around the lake together-"

Before we could pursue this healthy vision further, Marla drifted off to sleep. I kept my hand on her shoulder until the ten minutes were over.

Then I zipped out to a pay phone, put a call in to Tom, and reached his voice mail. I told him about Reggie Hotchkiss, proprietor of what could be a rival company to Mignon, and about Reggie's conversation with Dusty Routt. I told Tom that I missed him and hoped we'd see him tonight.

At home I fixed grilled cheese sandwiches for Arch and me, at his request. When he asked about Marla, I put my gooey sandwich down and decided against finis.h.i.+ng it. I took a salad and bowl of soup upstairs, but Julian said through his door that he didn't want anything, thanks. Finally, Arch and I sat in the backyard and watched rippled pink clouds slowly change color as the sun drifted toward the mountains.

"Did you talk to Tom on the phone, Mom? Has he found out anything yet?"

"Haven't talked to him. He'll be home late."

"Seems as if he's always working when, you most want to talk to him," Arch observed. "During an investigation, I mean."

"I know." I'd been thinking the same thing myself.

A gentle breeze bowed the stems on the nearby columbines. Close by in the neighborhood, someone was cooking steak on a grill. The succulent smell filled the air and reminded me I had the food fair to start in the morning.

"Todd and I are going out tomorrow afternoon to look for 33 rpm records," Arch announced. "Unless Julian needs me. Do you think he will?"

"Hard to tell."

The doorbell rang. It was Todd, wanting to see if Arch could walk into town for ice cream. After I gave my permission, however, Arch hesitated. "Are you okay, Mom? You seem ... sad. Is it because of Marla?" When I nodded, he said, "I know she's your best friend."

"Thanks for asking. As soon as she's out of the hospital, I'll feel a lot better."

"How about if I bring you back a pint of mint chocolate chip?"

"You're sweet, but no. I just want to work in the kitchen, get my mind off things."