Killer Pancake gbcm-5 Page 3

  As the van lumbered eastward behind Claire’s little Peugeot, a Flight-for-Life helicopter thundered overhead going west, toward Aspen Meadow. I braked automatically and pulled into the right lane in front of a pickup truck. The driver had to swerve to avoid me. Julian and I exchanged a glance. Paranoid, overprotective mother that I was, I felt my heart race as I mentally placed Arch. My son had spent the night at a friend’s house. He was due back home this morning. As soon as we arrived I would call from Hot Tin Roof and make certain he was all right.

  Forcing my mind off the helicopter and its rescue mission, I sped up again and imagined all the gorgeous women who would be attending the day’s banquet. The nightclub would be filled to bursting with blondes, brunettes, and redheads. All would be impossibly thin, impeccably made up, and fashionably dressed in suits with skirts shorter than what I used to wear when I played tennis, back when I was a doctor’s wife. Thinking of my caterer’s uniform and scrubbed face, I had a sudden attack of feeling inappropriate. Was that the real reason I resented doing this banquet—there would be all those stunning women, and then there would be me?

  Disheartened, I glanced in the van mirror and gave myself another pep talk. The helicopter had droned away and was no longer visible. The pickup driver had changed lanes. My own face looked the same as always, my uniform, equally drab but serviceable. Later, I realized I’d made a mistake by not checking my reflection more closely. But at the time I was saying to myself: Relax. Nobody ever notices the caterer.

  Also a mistaken assumption.

  So are we supposed to follow her, or not?” I asked Julian as Claire’s car spewed a cloud of inky exhaust while passing the silvery-gray marble exterior of the Prince & Grogan store building. No demonstrators stood outside the entrance to the upscale department store. I hoped this was a good sign.

  The Peugeot darted into Westside Mall’s parking garage. Julian craned his neck to see where Claire had gone. “Let’s stay separated, the way she said. In case the activists are waiting at any one place. The salespeople aren’t even supposed to wear their Mignon Cosmetics uniforms. Claire’s going to park by the crêpe place because she has some stuff to bring in. She told us to go on over by Stephen’s Shoes. She’ll take her things in while we start to unload.”

  I wheeled the van past the majestic hemlocks and short, lush aspens that formed the mainstay of the expensive new mall landscaping. After a moment of confusion, I headed into the far end of bottom-level parking spaces. Hopefully we were going in the direction of empty parking spots near the chrome-and-glass garage entrance to the mall near Prince & Grogan. The space inhabited by the department store, as opulent and inviting a shopping environment as one could ever hope for, had formerly housed a Montgomery Ward. I’d come to know Montgomery Ward well during my lean divorce years, but the refurbishment and enlargement of Westside Mall had been so ambitiously undertaken that at the moment I felt completely turned around.

  Not so Julian, who pointed to the garage entrance to the mall. I strained to Catch a glimpse of police cars or activists waving signs, rabbits, or Lord knew what-all. I saw only gaggles of gorgeous women, presumably the sales associates and top customers who’d been invited. They threaded through the rows of cars on their way to the Hot Tin Roof Club. Near us, a stunning hermaphroditic blonde dressed in blistering lemon yellow strutted alongside a Porsche with an empty parking place on the row just behind it. Beyond that line of cars glowed the neon sign for Stephen’s Shoes. I waited for the woman in yellow to move away, then quickly swung the van past Prince & Grogan, around the end of the row, and into the vacated spot. I checked my watch. So far we were exactly on schedule.

  Guarding the doors to this level’s impressive glass-prismed mall entrance was an older-looking man in the process of instructing a couple of muscular fellows sporting slicked-back hair, matching charcoal suits, and gleaming black shoes with pointed toes. The muscular two stood nervously, feet braced, hands clasped behind their backs. As the older fellow addressed them, they rolled their massive shoulders and tilted their heads overattentively. I was pretty sure the three weren’t policemen. For the threat of riots, the Furman County Sheriff’s Department would certainly send officers in plainclothes as well as uniforms. But no matter what they were wearing, sheriff’s department deputies never acted so obviously like hired goons.

  I glanced at my watch again: ten-thirty. “The mall’s open, right?”

  Julian’s cap of blond hair fell sideways as he tilted his head to get a better look at the suits. “Actually, yeah. It opens at ten usually, but earlier day after tomorrow because of the food fair. Most of the stores don’t get busy until the afternoon, Claire says. Those dudes look like they’re from Mignon Cosmetics or Prince & Grogan. Or maybe they’re from some private security company.”

  “I guess they’re supposed to look tough.” I turned off the ignition and pulled up the parking brake. “Maybe they figure they’ll be a deterrent if they act like they’re wearing shoulder holsters. That ought to tick off the Beastly Bulletin folks.” I couldn’t remember what the law regarding carrying a concealed weapon was in this gun-loving part of the country. Coloradans don’t like to conceal their weapons. In fact, they seize every opportunity to be exhibitionistic about them.

  Outside the van, the foul, overheated garage air hit us like a slap. We’d have to hustle to get the food into a cool spot. In this heat, anything could wilt or grow bacteria. I opened the van doors, surveyed the undisturbed array of spa dishes, and wondered if the muscle-bound security men in the matching suits would go for the roast hot pepper, if I laid a few jalapenos on top and sprinkled them with cayenne.

  As we began to unload the vegetables, shouts erupted from near the garage entrance to the mall. Julian and I exchanged a worried glance, hoisted our loads, and began to walk rapidly toward Stephen’s Shoes. Twenty feet away, the security guys were hollering at several demonstrators who had suddenly appeared, waving large placards. Laden with trays of broccoli, I couldn’t see if the activists were carrying anything else. From my vantage point, the demonstrators’ ages and gender were indeterminate. They uniformly sported long, unkempt nests of hair above their logo’d T-shirts, torn blue jeans, and sandals. I couldn’t hear what everyone was yelling, but I could guess it had to do with preserving small gnawing mammals with cute tails.

  “Feel all right?” Julian murmured as he whacked open the service-entrance door with his sneaker and held it for me to pass through.

  “Yes,” I said uncertainly. The shouts had increased in volume. “Maybe the security guys, or whoever they are, can run interference while we bring in the supplies.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt.

  Julian moved to the shoe-store door and opened it wide. We quickly carried our culinary burdens past rows of brightly colored pumps and air-cushioned cross-trainers. Curious customers and gaping store employees allowed boxes of sandals and sailboat shoes to drop from their hands as we hustled past. They acted as if they’d never seen a catering duo lugging eighty pounds of food past them before.

  The store manager, a tall fellow with sandy-red hair, came to our side quickly and murmured conspiratorially, “I know about the routing for the banquet.”

  I wondered if he was going to ask for the password to cross enemy lines. “Sorry,” I whispered from behind the broccoli. “This’ll just take a few minutes.”

  As the manager moved across the store’s carpeted floor to reassure his customers, Julian said, “I don’t know if those security guys will be able to protect us going back and forth.” He glanced back at the garage. “Just for safety, we’d better make all our runs in tandem instead of alternating.” He nodded knowingly to show how much he was learning about food service.

  I didn’t return the nod. It looked as if more people had joined the altercation outside. Julian was right, though. When two caterers work an event, one usually hovers over the delivered food while the other brings in the rest of the supplies. If you leave platters out anywhere before serving time
, people will take the mere presence of edibles as a sign it’s time to start consuming them, no matter how impenetrably the food is wrapped. Perhaps there would be a bar at the nightclub where we could stash all the courses below eye level.

  We came out the main entrance of the shoe store and turned to enter the august beauty of the renovated main hall of Westside Mall. In the late sixties, when it opened, Westside had been a splashy, hugely successful shopping center. But Westside Mall had gone bankrupt like an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero: gradually and then suddenly. The Denver papers had been full of accounts about stores going out of business during the first phase of the oil recession. It wasn’t long before the whole mall ended up repossessed as part of the savings-and-loan mess. After several years of vacancy, the management of Prince & Grogan, a department store chain with its headquarters in Albuquerque, had agreed to provide the anchor for a redone, upscale mall. A complete face-lift of the old shopping center and construction of the multilayered garage had transformed the former shopping haven into a glitzy series of fancy stores and chic boutiques.

  But Arch had mourned the loss of the old Xerxes’ Magic Shop. As I stepped across the threshold of the Hot Tin Roof Club, I imagined my son would be awed at the unquestionably magical transformation of the old store he’d loved so much. Gone were the rows of masks, the shelves of top hats, the glass counters filled with tricks. The walls of the enlarged space were painted silver and black. Under high-intensity spotlights, chrome buttons and table edges glistened. An array of overstuffed furniture had been upholstered in black leather. A slender woman with elaborately teased hair and a sheath as diminutive as Claire’s nodded in our direction and motioned us past the hostess stand.

  We moved uncertainly out of the service entry and through the new foyer. Despite the fact that it wasn’t quite eleven in the morning, a palpable air of excitement filled the place. Lively music pumped out of overhead speakers. About thirty women had already arrived and were bustling about. One was setting up a slide projector. Another pulled down a screen. Two more checked on the audio system and the podium. Whether the high-pitched voices and feverish rushing around were the result of nervousness over the upcoming event—the unveiling of their fall line—or the presence of the demonstrators outside was impossible to determine. I saw Claire briefly. She seemed to have forgotten us as she giggled and squealed and moved from group to group of chattering females. On one long table, three rows of brightly colored corsages were arrayed. Some women already had them on. Others were in the act of pinning them to their stylish outfits. My guess was that the flowers had something to do with the fall colors we were about to see. I wouldn’t have minded having a corsage, I thought absentmindedly as I moved toward the bar with the heavy tray of broccoli. On the other hand, was there such a thing as a bittersweet-chocolate-colored orchid? With raspberry-colored roses to complement it? Probably not.

  A sudden banging and shouting outside caused a momentary hush to fall on the bevy of scattered women. Launching into a new song, the music from the speakers blasted into the silence, overwhelming any sounds of a disturbance. I cursed silently when I thought of all the food Julian and I still needed to bring in past whatever had erupted outside.

  Julian read my mind. “Stay put,” he ordered firmly. “I’m making another trip.”

  “No, let me do it. I’m used to moving around with heavy containers of food.”

  “No, no, I’m much faster than you,” he replied without apology. “If some demonstrator started yelling at you, you’d get into a big argument, the way you always do. You want the food in here fast? Let me get it.”

  “Well,” I said reluctantly, “why don’t you see if you can get those security guys to help you?”

  But Julian was already moving away. “If they’re not busy,” he replied over his shoulder. If he heard my call to be careful, he gave no sign.

  I used the phone at the bar to call Arch’s friend, Todd Druckman. Todd’s mother told me the two of them were sitting in front of the television eating Cocoa Puffs and Pop-Tarts. Did I want to talk to Arch? I laughed and declined, then hung up and washed my hands in the bar sink, grateful that my concerns about my son were needless. And Arch loved eating at Todd’s; it meant he didn’t have to taste-test a single nonfat roll or experimental curry.

  I poured the dips into the hollowed-out cabbages, then checked the trays. The rows of vegetables had become only slightly disheveled. I lifted the plastic wrap and reached in to straighten them.

  “Oh my God, Harriet, they’re stunning!” exclaimed a low, fruity voice from the other side of the oblong granite bar. “Diamond-cluster earrings? That must have set Mignon back a pretty penny!” It was a voice I recognized. I looked up to see big-bodied, big-haired, big-moneyed Babs Braithwaite standing next to Harriet Wells.

  “Top producer for May,” Harriet announced smugly.

  “Wait a minute,” commanded Babs as she put a hand on Harriet’s forearm. Then she steered Harriet in my direction, and addressed me. “Goldy? You’re doing this banquet too? Are you ready for Charles’s and my party?” Without waiting for a reply, she rushed on. “Harriet, do you know Goldy of Goldilocks’ Catering in Aspen Meadow? Isn’t that a cute little name? She didn’t always do catering. She used to be married to a gorgeous doctor.”

  Well, now, wasn’t this nice. I stared at Babs Meredith Braithwaite and tried to think of something to say. Babs was about fifty, although the heavy makeup she wore over pockmarked skin made her look older. Charles Braithwaite, her reclusive microbiologist husband, was younger than his wife and reportedly quite handsome, but he hadn’t inherited a fortune from the family butter company. With her bags of bucks, Babs spared no expense on decking herself out. Her large features were accented with masklike foundation and powder, dark smears of blush, black eyeliner, and long, false eyelashes. Her elaborately frosted hair was wildly poufed, and her expensive-looking dark silk dress was adorned with a fat corsage of pink roses and baby’s breath. She looked like the mother of a Barbie doll. I was again conscious of my plain apron and unstylishly curly hair, worn Shirley Temple-style.

  “What was his name,” Babs continued, tapping her bottom lip with a plump finger. “Well, of course. Korman! Doctor Korman.”

  “No,” said Harriet sadly. “I didn’t know.”

  Incredible, really. Someone, it always seemed, was still dying to share the news now five years old. It had been that long since I divorced John Richard Korman, whose initials made up his oh-so-appropriate nickname, the Jerk. People could never understand why I’d let such a good-looking and wealthy guy get away. They just didn’t know about the violence. My descent into food service was observed with a pitying sneer. I was already working for Harriet’s company. I’d be doing Babs’s party in three days. Wasn’t that enough? Why bother with the history? Because people can’t resist being bitchy, Marla Korman, my best friend and the other ex-wife of Dr. Gorgeous, was fond of pointing out. Marla had recommended my business to Babs, so I kept mum and summoned a flat smile.

  “Goldy has garnered quite a reputation in Aspen Meadow,” said Babs with a wide, explanatory sweep of her bejeweled hand, “for the success of her little business.”

  “Yes.” Harriet’s saccharine tone was hard to decipher. Also around fifty, Harriet was as slender, petite, and understated as Babs was expansive. Her beehive of golden hair, impeccable makeup, and short, slender fingers with their manicured nails paired perfectly with her flared Chinese-style royal blue silk pants and matching sleeveless top. “Goldy and I have had many discussions about the lowfat food for our banquet. She was the one who pointed out that when people have fish for a main course, they always want chocolate for dessert! We’re lucky she was able to come all the way down here.”

  “I come to Denver all the time,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “I’m doing the food fair too.”

  “You’re doing the food fair? You shouldn’t,” Babs reprimanded. “You might just be overburdening yourself.”

  Did I
look as if I wanted advice from Babs Braithwaite? I scanned the room for Julian. Maybe if I appeared busy, these women would leave me alone.

  “Of course,” Babs continued, “all the major food people in Denver will be here. The food fair is one of our benefits. Playhouse Southwest, do you know the group? We used to be called the Furman County Dramatic Auxiliary. We just did The Taming of the Shrew. Sound familiar? Didn’t I tell you about it?”

  I nodded vapidly. Actually, I’d talked to Babs Braithwaite on the phone only about the Fourth. We’d seen each other briefly after her car hit Julian’s. I bit my lip. Don’t say anything, I reminded myself. At least not anything nasty. The Taming of the Shrew. Sound familiar? Actually, no. Knee-deep in nonfat ingredients, I hadn’t caught any plays lately. Then again, her little auxiliary might want to have a catered function sometime in the future. If I could do John Birch Beef, I could do Shakespeare shashlik. I gave Babs what I hoped was an ingratiating grin.