He brushed back the hank of long hair from his eyes and that elusively familiar smile gave approval. “You have been paying attention.”
The aroma of hot buttered popcorn wafted from a nearby booth to tempt buyers into a display of Southwestern pottery. I’d eaten nothing that day except a banana and a doughnut, and those bowls of candy at each booth were starting to call to me as well.
“Hungry?” asked Pell. “Then we should hit some of the bigger showrooms for real food. Come on.”
He led the way up the escalator and down a wide hall where one large exhibitor after the other had hospitality areas. Employees had to eat lunch, so did clients. Why not conduct a little business on the side at the same time? Instead of the usual candy and nuts, I learned that most of the big companies had food catered in. One showroom offered pizza squares, others had chicken drummettes or sausage biscuits, and still others provided a modest array of breads and salads. There was usually a bar, too, stocked with soft drinks and an occasional bottle of wine. Most were hosted by very attractive young women in very short skirts and very high heels.
At Redd-Peabody, all the hostesses wore red dresses.
“Because of the name?” I asked.
“So they would have you believe,” said Pell.
The showroom down the hall and around the corner from Redd-Peabody belonged to Tart, one of the oldest furniture houses in the state. The whole length of the hall had been paneled in Tart’s favorite walnut and the name of the firm was superimposed on the paneling in foot-high walnut letters.
Unfortunately, the Redd-Peabody hostesses in their tight red dresses chose to lounge against the wall and to take their cigarette breaks by the ashstand which stood directly beneath the wooden letters.
“I should have brought my camera,” Pell murmured as we passed.
“Well, sex sells liquor, cars, and clothes. No surprise that it sells furniture, too.”
“James was born in High Point,” said Pell, unconsciously assuming I knew who James was. “When he and his friends were boys, their fathers used to take them out to the airport to watch the hookers fly in for Market. Some of the bigger companies had party buses stocked with bars and wide seats. They used to pick up their best clients, drive them around for a few hours and then deliver them back to their hotels, sated and satisfied and ready to sign on the dotted line of a quarter-million order.”
“Used to?” I asked.
“Hookers still come in for Market, but they’re not as flagrantly subsidized now. Probably the AIDS scare.”
So far, neither of us had seen anyone remotely resembling Savannah, but I was convinced that she was probably somewhere loose in the Market, munching her way through the exhibits, too, and no doubt filling some of her plastic bags for a late supper or tomorrow’s breakfast. As long as Market lasted, she wouldn’t have to trek over to Yolanda Jackson’s soup kitchen.
Ever since we left Tracy Collier, Pell had been greeted by friends and clients, but I saw no one I knew until I caught a glimpse of a tall, slender woman with blonde hair and a familiar walk. I thought at first that it was Drew Patterson, but she proved to be Drew’s mother, Elizabeth, who accepted a kiss on the cheek from Pell and gave me a mischievous smile as she touched my badge and said, “I understand we’ll see you at dinner tonight, Judge Sotelli. Chick Simmard’s asked us, too.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said, thinking what a nice woman Elizabeth Patterson seemed to be. Too bad Drew hadn’t inherited Elizabeth’s aquiline nose instead of a thinner version of Jay’s. On the other hand, getting that fashion-model body was nothing to gripe about. Better to inherit her father’s nose than her father’s chunky build.
The thought of one chunky build seemed to conjure up another. As Pell and I helped ourselves to fresh fruit cups from the Mindanao Wood Products Collective’s hospitality counter, I found myself face-to-face with Heather McKenzie.
Or rather, chin-to-hairline with her, since she was so much shorter.
I smiled. “You have an interest in Mindanaon wood products?”
She held up her own fruit cup. “Nope. Just an appetite for pineapples and fresh mangoes.”
I introduced her to Pell and we took our fruit out to a central hub of the building where benches were scattered around the balcony area.
She was dressed more seasonally today in a simple cotton tunic over blue straight-legged slacks. The tunic was severely tailored, with a stand-up collar, and the ivory color flattered her dark eyes. Her only jewelry was a single string of lapis lazuli and her lustrous black hair was braided into a single plait that hung down her back and reminded me of Lynnette’s.
“Would Savannah talk to you yesterday?” I asked, spearing a chunk of banana with my plastic fork.
“Not a word. I met them as they were leaving Century’s showroom. Drew Patterson had another appointment and I couldn’t get Savannah to stay.”
She sighed. “Maybe I should just forget about her and get on with my life.”
“Your life?” Pell was amused by the all-or-nothing gloominess of youth. “Surely a single profile’s not all that crucial?”
“It is when you’ve invested as much time and energy in it as I have. This wasn’t a one-shot deal. I was going to get a whole magazine series out it. I know she hasn’t been well, that she’s gone off her medications, and—”
I glanced at Pell, who lifted his eyebrow.
“Look, I did my homework,” Heather said. “I know all about the Hollytree Nursing Home in Athens, Georgia.”
She stared moodily into her fruit cup. “It’s so bloody unfair. I finally learn where she is and I’m too late. Her father died in December, did you know that? Her only living relative and he dies a week before I get there. I did meet a woman who knew her as a child and that was interesting. Her mother was extremely proper—white gloves and ladies calling on each other every afternoon for formal tea. That frilly dress she’s wearing now could’ve been one of her mother’s tea gowns.”
I frowned. “I thought you said this was your first real trip south.”
“I meant this whole assignment,” she said hastily. “Besides, I was only down there two days. Just long enough to visit her in the nursing home and start to talk to her and Bam! Next day, she’s gone. Just walks away without checking out. Her doctor said I’d stirred up too many memories. How was I to know she’d take off like that? When she’s off her medications, she thinks Drew Patterson’s her daughter. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” Pell said quietly. “We know.”
Heather suddenly looked at him with interest. “Pell Austin. Hey, you’re a designer, too, aren’t you? At Mulholland?”
Pell nodded.
“I bet you’ve known Savannah forever, haven’t you?”
“Over twenty years,” he admitted.
“What was she like back then?”
Pell started to tell her the same things he’d told me, but Heather brushed that aside.
“Other people have told me about her innovations,” she said. “But what was she like as a person? As a woman in a man’s world?”
“There have always been women in this industry.”
“A few tokens,” she said impatiently. “We all know the real powers in this business still wear three-piece suits and piss standing up. You think I haven’t sat in restaurants here waving my empty cup for more coffee while any man gets his topped off automatically? Dish me some dirt. Who did she have to sleep with to get her first big break?”
“Sorry,” he said lightly. “I wasn’t here then. She was twelve years older than I and already an established name when they gave me the studio next to hers, so if there’s any dirt, it was shoveled under long before I got here.”
Heather smiled suddenly and her dark eyes glowed as she patted his arm as if she were the forty-two-year-old professional and he the tyro of twenty-four. “She must have been pretty special to keep a friend like you all these years.”