Shop Talk (13 page)

Jazz knew she should speak up, but she was fascinated by the two women at the door. Hessie’s long gray hair, normally styled in a Gibson girl, had tumbled down about her shoulders, and her face was dangerously red with emotion. The other old lady, not a regular patron, was holding her purse on one arm and Hessie’s on the other. She stood at the edge of the top step, her face devoid of emotion.

“Without Lucille, we don’t have a place to meet.” Mona stated the hard fact.

Jazz straightened her shoulders, finally looking at Mona. “I’ll call her. What choice do we have?”

Dallas clutched the papers in her hand as she stepped up to the microphone. Cameras whirred; flash-guns popped. “Since the abduction of my husband, Dr. Robert Beaudreaux, last Tuesday evening, there have been no ransom requests, no contact of any kind with the kidnappers. I’ve called this press conference to appeal to the person responsible for my husband’s abduction. Robert is quite wealthy. Release him and there will be no questions asked. No inquiries made. I am offering one million dollars. The condition is that Robert is released, now.” She lowered the page. “That’s all I have to say.”

“Mrs. Beaudreaux! Mrs. Beaudreaux!” A reporter held out a microphone. “Are you certain your husband has been abducted?”

Dallas tugged the peplum hem of her scarlet suit jacket. “What, exactly, are you implying?”

Beneath her intense stare, the reporter faltered. “It’s been rumored that perhaps Dr. Beaudreaux … left voluntarily.”

“My husband would never leave me.” Dallas shifted her weight so that one hip cocked out at a slight angle. “Robert and I have a wonderful marriage. A perfect partnership.”

“Mrs. Beaudreaux! One more question. There is the rumor that you might be responsible for your husband’s disappearance. Something about insurance money to cover your credit card debts.”

Dallas stared the woman down. “I have no debts, credit card or otherwise. Your implication is vile and disturbed.”

Another reporter stepped up. “What about his research? There has been talk that he was working on a top secret project. Do you know what he was working on?”

“Robert’s work is vital to U.S. security, but I have no idea what it entails. It could very well be that something he discovered precipitated his kidnapping. So far the government has made no effort to locate my husband. I am bitterly disappointed in that lack of effort.”

“Is it true he was living in the garage?”

The question came from the back of the crowd of reporters, and Dallas thought it came from an older man. Using her hand to shade her eyes from the glare of the lights, she caught sight of a tall, thin man whose cool blue eyes held cruelty and laughter.

“Who are you?” She pointed at him. “What news organization do you represent? Who is that man?”

When Dallas looked up again, he was gone.

As she searched the crowd for the older reporter, she heard the shrill double ring of her cell-phone.

Dallas stepped forward into the bank of eager microphones. “The reward is one million, in cash, to anyone who brings my husband safely home to me.”

“Mrs. Beaudreaux …”

“Just a minute.” She lifted the slender flip phone from the pocket of her suit jacket. No one except the members of WOMB had the telephone number. It was used only for emergencies.

“Excuse me.” She stepped back from the microphones and answered the call. “Right now?” she asked. “Okay, I’ll pick up Coco.” She closed the phone and returned it to her pocket. “I’m sorry. I have to conclude the press conference now. I have another emergency. Remember, Robert is my husband. No one has a right to take him from me. No one.” Turning abruptly she made her way off the platform she’d had erected on her front lawn and hurried to the garage. The Mercedes was parked outside. She got into it and headed south. Since Robert’s disappearance, she hadn’t had the heart to open the garage door. Only the police had been there, going through all of his personal things, drawing ugly conclusions because his underwear and socks had been in a chest of drawers, his lounge chair and a neatly made cot in one corner.

The old journalist had known about her living arrangement with Robert. How had he discovered his information? It had to be from the cops. The only other possibility was from Robert himself. Somehow she had to get a list of the reporters at the conference. There were some questions
she
wanted to ask.

She almost overran the gravel road that led behind one of the tin warehouses. She pulled into it, slinging gravel and braking as hard as she could. The back bay smell of dead fish and salt water wafted around the convertible. This wasn’t exactly the way Coco had described Walden’s studio. She’d said it was “artistic.” In Dallas’ thesaurus, artistic had never been synonymous with slum.

She found the single block building that bore Walden’s address and knocked. A thin man with round, wire-rimmed glasses, threw the door open wide.

“I’m looking for Coco Frappé.” Dallas shifted her weight. The smell of fish was overpowering.

The man blinked. “She isn’t here. I’m closed today.”

Dallas stared deeply into his eyes. Something didn’t ring true. She’d called Coco at home and there was no answer. Coco had to be here. Ignoring Walden, Dallas burst into the large, cement-floored room. Everywhere she looked, Coco stared back at her. Coco eating strawberries. Coco virtually tied in a knot with a cheesecake under one leg. Coco sitting on a bag of pecans, leaning back against a big tree and holding a nut above her face, lips in a pout as if she intended to suck the nut, shell and all, into her mouth. Coco in an aggressive fencing stance with a flaming crepe on the end of a rapier. Coco holding a basket and bending over to pick fresh herbs. Coco licking whipped cream. Coco surrounded by crystal vases filled with caramel, chocolate and cherry syrups.

In every picture, Coco was wearing gaudy earrings, strange high heels, and tiny little wisps of aprons.

Nothing else.

Walden watched Dallas as she turned slowly around the room. The pictures, none smaller than 16 by 20, hung on every wall and leaned against every chair in the otherwise sterile room.

“Where is Coco?” Dallas heard a ticking sound deep in her brain. She knew it was her fuse burning down, notch by notch.

“She was here day before yesterday. We finished a shoot on the key lime pie.” Walden’s voice grew excited. “It was excellent. She had little limes sewn all around the hem of her apron, which was lime green lamé. And she had the greatest heels. They were clear, like lime Jell-O, with miniature limes and beautiful parrots glued to the strap across her toes. Backless.” The last word was a caress. “This one is my favorite.” He pointed to Coco cranking an old-time ice cream machine. Coco wore a red, white, and blue apron and red high-heeled boots.

Dallas touched his arm. “Walden, I’m a member of WOMB.”

His face seemed to fill with light. “Dallas!” He took her hand. “You should have said so.”

“Mona has called an emergency meeting. I need Coco.”

Walden shook his head slowly, and a small frown appeared between his eyes. “I’ve been worried myself. She was supposed to meet me last night for a neon shoot of some fruit slushes that are out of this world.”

“Coco didn’t show?”

Walden shook his head slowly. “I called her and no one answered. Not for two days.”

“She may have gotten lost.” Dallas was summoning up the very best reasons. “Coco is a bit of a Magoo behind the wheel of the car. Once she starts out in a direction, she just keeps going until she runs out of gas.”

“I know. I’ve retrieved her several times. She should have called by now. Usually I pick her up, but she said she’d been having a lot of trouble with her roommate, the dreaded Elsie. She didn’t want me to go by her apartment.”

Dallas shifted her weight to her other hip, feeling the pull of the perfectly cut suit she wore. “Maybe it’s time we went over there to meet Elsie.” She couldn’t shake the feeling that Coco was in trouble, and if it wasn’t Walden, then maybe it was the roommate. The more she thought about it, the more she realized she’d never heard Coco say a civil thing about her roomie.

“Let’s go. We’ll take your car.” Walden grabbed her elbow and steered her out the door.

They raced down Pass Road to the section of town near Mary Mahoney’s restaurant. At Walden’s direction, they parked across the street from a two-story fourplex.

“Look.” Walden pointed up to the second floor window where a curtain inched slowly open. Quick as a flash it dropped back into place.

Dallas gripped the steering wheel and pushed her black curls back from her forehead. “Did you see who it was?”

His face was pale with round splotches of color on his cheeks, his lips almost bloodless. “Was it Elsie?”

“I’ve never met her.”

“Neither have I, but it sure wasn’t Coco.” Even as he spoke the curtain inched back again, revealing the partial silhouette of an enormous woman. Breasts were stacked on top of wide, swelling hips, but the head was still sheltered by the curtains.

“She’s watching us,” Dallas said. She was sweating in her suit. Only one other time in her life had Dallas wet the armpits of a designer outfit–when she’d been abducted by two inmates who’d escaped from Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison. They detained her at gunpoint only twenty minutes before they’d decided she was worse than a lifetime behind bars. They’d surrendered, but her suit had been ruined. Looking up at a slight bulge in the drab beige curtains, Dallas knew she’d met a foe far more formidable than two escaped murderers.

“What should we do?” Walden nervously fondled his camera.

“Go up there.” Dallas got out even as she spoke. Her high heels clicked authoritatively as she walked across the street and climbed the exterior stairs to Coco’s door.

“Allow me.” Walden stepped in front of her and pounded on the door. “Coco, it’s me, Walden. I have to see you.” He pounded with more force. “Open up, Elsie, or I’m going to kick the door down.” He gave it a stout thud with his big foot.

Dallas put her ear to the wood. “It’s deathly quiet.”

“Stand back.” Walden hugged his camera to his chest as he reared back and kicked the door with all of his might. The wood near the lock splintered and the door flew open.

“Aauugh!” Dallas staggered backward to the landing.

“Pe-yew!” Walden grabbed his nose and pinched it, his expression registering disgust and fear.

Both wrists up to her nostrils so that the stench was cut with the last vestiges of Poison, Dallas blinked the tears from her eyes. “Something is dead in there.” When she realized what she’d said, she staggered. “I’ll get my car phone and call the police.”

“Go on, but I’m going in.” Walden stood up straight. “If Coco is in trouble, we can’t afford to wait.”

Stumbling down the stairs, Dallas abandoned her heels and headed for the car phone.

Taking one last gulp of air, Walden entered the apartment that bore no resemblance to the place he’d used for the cheesecake photo shoot.

Beneath the soles of his shoes, chips crackled and pistachio shells popped. He sidestepped a carton of pecan-caramel-fudge ice cream that was slowing moving across the linoleum on the backs of a million ants. Other yeoman ants toted barbecue pork rinds.

At least three dozen cream soda bottles were on the floor and the counter, along with Big Mac containers and what looked like deep-dish pan pizza boxes. He eased further into the room and stopped at the knee deep pile of Pecan Sandy cookie bags piled beside two empty jars of Jiff creamy peanut butter. Nudging the cookie wrappers with his toe, he watched as they fell over, empty, revealing a stack of empty Little Debbie swiss rolls and oatmeal cookie containers.

The rancid smell was coming from the oven. His hand trembled as he reached for the handle, terrified at what he would find. Chopped up, Coco would fit into the oven.

A soft moan came from the bedroom.

“Coco?” He gladly abandoned the oven and tiptoed to the bathroom, which was empty except for the stale remains of half an apple fritter.

“Coco?” He tapped lightly on a bedroom door.

The silence was so heavy he could hear the ants shifting the ice cream box toward the door.

“Coco?” He put more force into his knock. Had he imagined the moan? Was Coco dismembered and in the oven?

He banged hard on the door. “Coco!”

From the other side of the door, a woman answered. “Coco isn’t here. She’s gone.”

He was so startled by the voice that he froze, fist raised. “Open this door. I want to make sure Coco isn’t here.”

“Coco has gone away. She’ll be back in a day or two, when she gets herself under control. Now go away, please.”

The voice was strained, panicky. It had the sound of an older woman who was hiding a terrible secret. “Is this Elsie?” he asked.

“Who else would it be, you moron?” The tone had changed. All attempts at niceness were gone. “I told her she couldn’t stay skinny. I told her she was a pig. Oink! Oink! She couldn’t resist the food any longer.” There was a hard laugh. “Especially not the pecan-caramel-fudge ice cream. Her favorite. I put it in the freezer just for her, knowing it would start the avalanche of her breakdown.”

“Elsie, open this door or I’ll kick it in.”

“Get out of here before I call the police.” There was the sound of heavy steps shifting in the room.

“Coco!” Walden hugged his camera to his chest. “I’m coming for you.” He kicked the door with all of his strength. It exploded back on its hinges, slamming into the wall with such force the doorknob went through the sheet rock and held the door open wide.

“Coco!” He stood, heaving, on the threshold. As his eyes took in the room, he saw the large form of Elsie at the bedroom window as if she meant to escape.

“Where’s Coco?” He launched himself across the room, flying over the filthy, unmade bed that was littered with little silver wrappers of Hershey’s kisses. He caught the hefty figure around the hips. To his total surprise, Elsie was light as a feather. Together they toppled to the floor.

Clambering to his feet, he saw the woman was headless. “Oh shit!” He scrabbled backwards, moving away from the decapitated body, until he realized that he was terrified of a dressmaker’s dummy. It was, without a doubt, the biggest dummy he’d ever seen.

“Walden!” Dallas had returned. Nose pinched together by one hand, she burst into the apartment and ran unerringly to the bedroom where Walden stood over the fallen dummy.

“What in the world?” Dallas was stunned.

“Coco isn’t here.” He looked around the room. “Neither is Elsie.” One eyebrow arching, he looked at Dallas. “Then who was I talking to?” Before she could answer he pulled up the dust ruffle around the bed. A moment later he had hold of Coco and was pulling her out. The bloated hump of her stomach caught, and Walden had to really tug to get her free.