Aphrodisiac (9 page)

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 before 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.

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.

It wasn’t Tara’s professional success that bothered me, it was her annoying habits. Well, maybe I was a tad miffed that my book,
Literal Clitoral
, got remaindered after one season, while hers was still topping the lists. But what really got me was the way she would corner me after my conference lectures and give me corrections on material she undoubtedly never studied. Or helpful hints on dressing to hide those problem areas around my hips.

In any case, I was in no mood to pit myself against the long-legged beauty. I turned and headed for the playground where I’d seen Rochelle earlier.

“Hey, Saylor. Come have some watermelon.” Tara was too fast for me, as usual. And today she was a knockout in shorts and halter top. Probably a real ego trip for Eldridge around his friends from the gym.

I strolled their way and managed to force out a pleasant greeting. I felt like offering Eldridge my therapeutic analysis of men who like to tell themselves they aren’t in relationships while they continue to date the same woman week after week. But I suspected it wouldn’t go over too well.

Luckily, Tara was sticky from the melon, so I was spared one of her over-the-top embraces. Tilting her head, she popped the biggie. “What happened to your lip?”

Where was my brain? Did I think Tara’s scrutinizing eye would miss such a luscious opportunity? “I had a small accident with a…door.” Might as well be consistent.

She gave me the phoniest sympathetic smile this side of
General Hospital
. “Poor baby. Doors can be tricky. And you know what they say about the metabolism as you approach forty. You get a little slower.”

Oh please, Universe. Somewhere out in space there must be a small asteroid that needs a place to land. Should’ve splashed on my Jo Malone. A clinical trial showed that women wearing a grapefruit scent tend to appear several years younger.

Eldridge seemed to be studying me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He had a face that was difficult to read. Didn’t show his feelings. Maybe that was his Mohawk side. Suddenly he said, “Excuse me, Tara. I need a couple minutes alone with Saylor. Do you mind?”

Was I hearing things? This was too good to be true. Tara’s expression went from surprise to a silent implosion. At one point it looked as if she might even have a seizure. Gee, this was better than the asteroid I’d prayed for.

Eldridge didn’t wait for her response. He gripped my upper arm and led me to a quiet area. I shot him a flirtatious smile. “Thanks for carrying me to Benita’s car on Wednesday night down in the Hook. Guess I drank a little too much.”

I expected a playful wisecrack but instead got a dose of stern parenting. “Tell me the truth. What kind of trouble are you mixed up in?”

Oh. I see. Tara was the hot babe, while I got the role of needy puppy. Sure, a part of me was dying to spill my whole story to Eldridge. To cry in his arms and ask him to go beat up the bullies for me. But he was only a boxer; no match for real killers.

And frankly, I’d never been comfortable in the helpless female role. Maybe I was a wimp who puked at violent movies, but I also spent my life troubleshooting other people’s problems, being the rescuer rather than the rescued. That’s just who I am. There’s no way I’d accept Eldridge playing big brother protector. I met his commanding eyes with a firm gaze of my own. “I told you. I ran into a door. You of all people ought to know what a klutz I can be.”

“Get real. You’d never admit to me that you’re clumsy. Which means you’re hiding something.”

“What do you care? You already have a girlfriend.” Oops.

He looked pleasantly stunned for a moment and was about to say something, when Tara shouted, “Ridge, get over here. Paulie said you’re washed up. I think he needs a beating.”

“You beat on him,” he said without taking his eyes off me. “I think he’d like that.” Eldridge stared at me so long I thought he was going to kiss me. I prevented my legs from turning to Jell-O by reminding myself he was probably just examining my split lip. Or maybe he was using some Mohawk technique to get me to tell my story.

Our little powwow was interrupted again by another call from Tara. Eldridge brushed his fingers down my arm. “Gotta go.”

Guess my two minutes were up. As he turned to leave, I couldn’t resist grumbling under my breath, “Yeah, hurry back to your flaming bitch.”

He paused mid-stride. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you?”

“Nothing.”

I saw big-boned, square-shouldered Rochelle on the boardwalk and joined her at the guardrail. We exchanged a peck on the cheek. Standing beside her, I gazed out at the East River pretending I wasn’t about to have a complete and total emotional breakdown. Barely sixty seconds into our conversation I asked her for the details concerning the legal consultation Gwen had requested.

Rochelle’s hand perched on her hip. “You want me to disclose on a client? Would you do that to one of yours?”

This do-it-yourself detective work definitely took a toll on my social and professional etiquette. Rochelle had me dead to rights. But that was better than being just plain dead. I pressed on. “You know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t extremely important. Please.”

She cocked her head, then shrugged. “There’s really nothing to tell. Gwen wasn’t actually a client yet. We only spoke on the phone for a couple minutes. She wanted me to sit in on a contract meeting and negotiate for her. Sounded like she was trying to market her aromatic oils to some big company. I didn’t get much further than that. We were supposed to have lunch and get down to details, but she never called me back.”

This jived with what Gwen said that day when she was all excited over the possibility of selling her latest perfume. Could her little home business selling aromatic oils and fragrances to boutiques and friends have anything to do with her death? She’d used a perfume name in her poem. But it was an ancient artifact that Curtis wanted. An artifact I had seven days to find.

Rochelle studied me a moment, then zoomed in for a close-up. “What’s going on with your lip?”

Did I tell myself this party was going to be therapeutic?

***

Benita and I met at the Jackson airport around nine p.m. We rented a Taurus sedan, drove through Pearl and saw hotels that were postcard perfect with manicured lawns and sparkling pools. But none were the Jewel. Our computer-generated directions took us down one road after the next and finally onto a long, lonely stretch of highway.

I checked my voice mail. Nothing. “Gee, the management at the Jewel never confirmed my phone reservations.”

“Must be one great place if the guy at the car rental agency had never even heard of it.”

“We aren’t here for the luxury, Bin. I just hope they have rooms for us when we get there.”

“If we get there,” she said. “Think we missed our turn?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we should go ask at that diner we just passed. Aren’t you hungry?” It was ten o’clock, and we hadn’t yet eaten dinner.

We pulled in next to a tractor-trailer and made our way across the paved lot. The primarily male clientele gaped at us as we walked in. Benita had come straight from the conference in Atlanta, and her navy silk pants suit seemed a bit upscale for this glorified truck stop. The jersey knit dress I wore clung to my skin in the muggy Mississippi night. A trucker’s bloodshot eyes fixed on my breasts. At least he wasn’t staring at my split lip. I brushed my wrist across my cheek, balancing myself with my Angel perfume’s chocolate-vanilla scent, and slid across the cool vinyl seat of the booth.

Benita perked up when she saw banana pecan waffles on the menu. She ordered them with eggs and sausage. My appetite was still on hold, so I stuck with a garden salad.

By the time our food arrived I’d filled her in on the info Rochelle gave me about Gwen. I nibbled sparingly at my salad and planned our strategy for the next day. “When we get to our rooms at the Jewel we should go over the material Schumacher’s assistant faxed me. That’ll tell us which archaeological dig sites to hit.”

“Too bad you couldn’t get a hold of the professor himself, since he was down here with Gwen. Tomorrow is day two out of seven, and we don’t even know exactly what we’re looking for.”

“Whatever it is, it could be in any one of those rooms at the Jewel. Why else would Gwen specify the motor lodge in her poem?”

Benita reached for the syrup. “We should make a complete search of the place.”

“Which is why I brought some extra money.”

“Good idea. Pay the guy off. How else are we gonna get into all those rooms.”

When our friendly waitress returned, I told her we were trying to find the Jewel Motor Lodge.

“Why does that ring a bell?” She paused then turned to the waitress at the counter. “Hey, Molly. Jewel Motor Lodge. That the place they shut down last year?”

“Shut down?” I said.

Molly nodded.

“Board of Health,” our waitress added.

“I been told they reopened,” Molly said while wiping down the counter with her bus rag. “Let’s hope those things don’t come back.”

Benita put down her fork. “Things?”

“Some kind of weird-looking insects growing out of his cesspit. Getting in people’s beds at night. Left some pretty nasty bites on folks’ ankles and legs.” She read our concern. “But don’t you worry. He had the place fumigated. Far as I know the Jewel is good to go.”

Benita gave me that pre-knockout look of hers.

“It’s only for a couple of nights,” I said.

She leaned forward. “I refuse to shack up in some dive hole with bugs that come out of a poop pit.”

I held my ground. “If the Jewel is where Gwen hid the tablet or left a clue that’ll lead us to it, then that is where we belong.”

She wiped her mouth with a napkin and pushed away her plate. “Okay, here’s the deal. We are going back to the airport to find ourselves a hotel. From there we can drive out to the Jewel in the morning to investigate. But no checking in.”

“Agreed,” I said, keeping the peace.

The coffee here was really good, and after several refills we were both feeling a much needed caffeine rush. I took the poem out of my bag and quietly read the whole line that brought us here. “ ‘Embark for the Jewel in the center of Pearl. Behold the words of Raphael.’ Do you think the part that says ‘the words of Raphael,’ is related to the ‘Jewel’ part? There’s a period after Pearl, but it’s all on the same line.”