Murder Packs a Suitcase (14 page)

A third woman in the cast, a gypsy who looked an awful lot like Marisa Tomei, magically emerged from a trunk that only seconds before had appeared empty. After making a few dramatic hand gestures, she nimbly ascended a rope that just happened to be close by and began performing graceful stunts on high. This was obviously one gypsy who had used her gold doubloons to pay for gymnastics lessons.

“She can dance in the sky!” the narrator said admiringly.

And not an ounce of cellulite, Mallory thought with at least as much awe.

She glanced over at Wade, slightly embarrassed, hoping he wasn't having a dreadful time. But he seemed enthralled by the gypsy's performance. Or else he was just a good sport.

Mallory relaxed and focused on enjoying the show—that is, until Frederick announced with chagrin that Princess Anita had been captured and hauled onto Sebastian the Black's pirate ship. That was when it became clear that the paying guests had no choice but to attempt to free her.

“When you came in, you were given a colored ticket,” Frederick reminded them. “When your color is called, follow the pirate who's dressed in that color into the theater.”

When it was time for the purple team to assemble, Mallory and Wade joined all the others who shared the same ticket color, lining up like schoolchildren coming in from the playground. They stood in front of a hunky pirate wearing purple pants, a purple vest that revealed an extremely muscular chest, and the same style headband the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wore.

“I didn't realize we were going to have to rescue a damsel in distress,” Wade commented as they shuffled into the theater. “If I had, I would have worn my bullet-proof eye patch.”

“And to think I left my can of Mace in my room,” she added.

But her cynicism faded as soon as she entered a tremendous theater the size of a warehouse. Long tables and chairs that were set up on tiers created a theater in the round. In the center, floating in a pool of water, was a spectacular life-size pirate ship. According to the notes Mallory had scribbled down from her guidebooks, the ship was a replica of a Spanish galleon that was forty-six feet long and eighteen feet wide, with forty-foot masts and tremendous white sails. It was outfitted with ropes, a ladder, and wooden trunks that she suspected would all play a role in the production. The same went for the water, which looked deep enough to keep any pirates who happened to tumble into it from getting hurt.

“My name is Saxon,” the purple pirate announced once they were seated. “Whenever I perform a daring feat, cheer for me. Now, let's give it a try!”

Mallory did her best to cheer enthusiastically. She didn't want the purple team to look weak in front of all the other colors. She apparently did a good job, because Saxon immediately came over to her.

“What's your name?” he asked loudly enough for her purple teammates to hear.

“Uh, Mallory.”

She was about to say something about her mother teaching her never to talk to pirates when he said, “I'm selecting you to be the flag-waver, Mallory. Whenever the purple team cheers for me, your job is to stand up and wave the purple pirate flag.”

Mallory cast Wade a look of helplessness. But he just laughed as Saxon handed her a large purple flag attached to a wooden pole.

“I thought this was supposed to be fun,” she moaned.

Wade shrugged. “That's what happens when you're the designated flag-waver. It's all about the responsibility.”

For the next hour and a half, Mallory allowed herself to get lost in the production that played out on the deck of the huge pirate ship. She whooped and hollered with the rest of the purple team, leaping up from her meal to wave the flag every few minutes. The constant interruptions seemed a small price to pay for supporting Saxon, their own personal pirate, as he climbed the ropes, swung from the masts, and wielded his sword against Yellow, Blue, Orange, and all the other pirates on the ship. When it was time to rescue Princess Anita, Saxon dragged Wade out of his seat, insisting that he join the other able-bodied purple males who, like him, were strong, healthy, and at least four years old.

“Now it's your turn!” Mallory cried jubilantly. “See that? I'm not the only one whose special talents are needed to save Princess Anita.”

“Yeah, but you didn't have to dress funny,” Wade said as he reluctantly put on the three-cornered hat Saxon had just handed him.

The evening ended with the entire cast bursting into song, waving imaginary beer steins as they sang, “What do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor….” Mallory and Wade sang along invoices that were at least as loud as their purple team-mates'.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Mallory said as they filed out.

“I'm just glad we managed to hold on to both our wallets and our lives,” Wade replied. “Most people who've had encounters with pirates aren't lucky enough to make the same claim.”

“And we actually had fun. At least I did.”

“I did, too, although you and I hardly had a chance to say a word to each other. Aside from a couple of ‘yo-ho-ho's,' of course.”

“That's because Saxon immediately recognized my natural talent for flag-waving.” Mallory sighed. “But I guess it's time to become a landlubber again. We're invited to stay for the so-called Buccaneer Bash, but I really should get back to the hotel. It's probably a good idea for me to make some sense of all those notes I wrote in the dark.”

“I have a better idea,” Wade said. “I know a quiet place where there are no pirates and no wenches, although I believe there's plenty of rum. It's a nice, relaxing spot to sit and have a drink.”

“You mean a place like that actually exists around here?” she asked. “I didn't think Orlando was zoned for anything that grown-up.”

She was hedging, trying to decide whether or not to say yes. Part of her wondered if this nice, quiet place was his hotel room. Another part of her replayed her daughter's instructions about enjoying herself tonight. As far as she could recall, Amanda hadn't said anything specific about exactly how to accomplish that.

“The place I'm thinking of is the bar at the Peabody Hotel,” Wade explained. “I went there this afternoon to see if it was a place I should write about in my article. It's right next door to the Orlando Convention Center, only a few blocks from here. And if I remember correctly, its claim to fame is a fountain with real, live ducks, even though it's indoors.”

Frankly, it sounded like the perfect place to recover from all those carousing pirates. Besides, the idea of going back to an empty hotel room sounded dreadful.

“Show me the way,” Mallory said.

Wade's description of the bar at the Peabody Hotel turned out to be accurate. It was peaceful, all right, at least compared to the visual and aural mayhem outside on the streets of Orlando. In fact, it seemed as if its designers had made a conscious effort not to include anything that would attract children.

The bar was crowded with what looked like conventioneers. Enough people were talking to one another, standing around in groups or clustered together in the comfortable wicker-and-wood chairs, that it seemed like one big party. Water streamed down a marble fountain along the back wall, a considerably more dignified version of the waterfalls back at the Polynesian Princess. A baby grand piano played background music by itself, its keys actually pumping up and down.

In the center was the fountain Wade had promised, an octagonal ring of marble. Real, live ducks lounged along the edge. The hotel had even named its restaurant Dux in their honor.

“Better?” Wade asked once they'd gotten drinks at the bar and sat down on opposite sides of a small round table in the corner.

“Much better.” Mallory glanced around, noticing that most of the other people wore name tags. “Even if it is filled with people who are involved in…does that really say ‘Eastern Fats and Oils'?”

“So it does.” He leaned back in his chair and sipped his drink. He'd ordered a martini, which struck Mallory as a truly grown-up drink. She wished she'd thought of it before she'd ordered a whiskey sour.

“So, what's your angle for your article?” Wade asked.

“I'm trying to find if the old Florida survived Disneyfication,” she explained. “I'm visiting all the old-style attractions I can find. You know, the type that were popular in the fifties and sixties. Alligator farms, snack bars shaped like the foods that are sold there, that kind of thing.”

“You mean kitsch Florida. The Florida of the pink plastic flamingo.”

Mallory laughed. “You got it. At least, that's a big part of it.”

“You know,
kitsch
is actually a German word that originally referred to art that copied another style—badly,” Wade explained. “But over the years, it came to mean bad taste in general. The term is generally used in a fun way, meaning something that's so tacky it's fun. Things like paintings of kittens on black velvet or…or Elvis salt and pepper shakers.”

“Lava lamps,” Mallory volunteered. “Inflatable chairs.”

“Coconuts with faces glued on.”

“Ketchup dispensers shaped like tomatoes.”

“And we can't forget places,” Wade added. “Theme parks like Storyland or Santa Claus Village. Or even the Accounting Hall of Fame.”

Mallory blinked. “Does that really exist?”

“It certainly does. It's on the Ohio State University campus in Columbus, along with the Insurance Hall of Fame and the Agricultural Drainage Hall of Fame. Then there's the world's largest chest of drawers in High Point, North Carolina. Smokey the Bear's burial place in the Capitan National Forest in New Mexico. And Carhenge in Nebraska. It's a replica of Stonehenge made out of junked cars that have all been painted the same shade of gray.”

“How do you know these things?” Mallory asked, laughing.

Wade shrugged. “My head is filled with useless trivia. I guess that's one of the reasons I love publishing a lifestyle magazine. It gives me a chance to put all my otherwise worthless knowledge of pop culture to good use.”

She was enjoying herself so much that she was actually disappointed when her cell phone trilled.

“I'm sorry, I'd better take this,” she said, checking the phone number on the screen. “It's one of my children—probably my daughter.”

“By all means.”

“Mother?” Amanda asked anxiously before Mallory had even had a chance to say hello.

“Hello, Amanda,” she answered, turning away. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course everything is all right. I'm calling to see how your evening went.”

Mallory hoped she wasn't blushing as she said to Wade, “Excuse me, I'm going to take this someplace quieter.”

“Mother, don't tell me you're still out with that man!” Amanda exclaimed.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” Mallory replied, weaving through the crowd and out of the bar.

“But it's so late!”

Mallory glanced at her watch. To be perfectly honest, she'd lost track of the time. “It's not even eleven o'clock.”

“That's late for someone like you to be out.”

The whiskey sour seemed to have gone to her head, because she shot back, “Do you mean someone like me who's old or someone like me who's dull?”

“Neither. I mean someone who's having dinner with a man for the first time in ages.”

“It turns out it's not that different from riding a bicycle,” Mallory replied. “It all comes back to you.”

Amanda sighed as if she was finding that trying to deal with an irrational person on a rational level was a complete waste of time.

“Amanda, I'm having a really nice time,” Mallory told her daughter patiently. “Wade and I went to a pirate theme dinner that I thought would be silly but actually turned out to be fun. And now we're at a lovely bar in a big hotel, having a drink—”

“For heaven's sake, Mother, when I told you to have a good time, I didn't mean for you to have
that
good a time!”

“Good night, Amanda,” Mallory said pointedly. “I'll talk to you soon.”

“Mother, don't you think—”

“Good
night,
Amanda.”

“Everything all right?” Wade asked when she returned.

She sighed. “Yes, aside from overly concerned children who find it hard to accept the fact that their mother has a life of her own.”

“Funny, I have a similar problem with my kids,” Wade said, chuckling. “Tell me about yours.”

Mallory smiled. “I'm absolutely crazy about them. Even though a lot of the time, they drive me absolutely crazy.”

“They sound great.”

“They are. Amanda is twenty. She's a junior at Sarah Lawrence. And she has a good head on her shoulders, at least most of the time.” Rolling her eyes, Mallory added, “At the moment, she's in agony, trying to decide between business school and law school. I don't know which one of us is headed for a nervous breakdown faster, her or me.”