“That’s a lot like the lady herself. Should I find out if the artist is willing to make another piece like the one Mrs. Anzalone bought?”
“Gracious no. I wouldn’t want that. Then it wouldn’t be unique. Rick and I will test the waters to see how attached the lady is to her purchase.” That was his cue to unlock the brake on the wheelchair. Mrs. Moffitt’s card was still in his hand and I saw my sale slipping away or, more accurately, rolling away. She motioned to Jensen, who was again nearby, taking photos.
I’d clicked through most of the slides of Primo’s work, when I remembered that I had uploaded them in ascending order by price. There were two more pieces after the one the Anzalones had purchased. I cleared my voice and tried not to sound desperate.
“There are two other important sculptures no one else has seen. May I show you?” Exclusivity. It was the old quantities limited, act now routine. Old as dirt, but still effective. And important. I’d seen that word used in an auction catalog. What did it really mean in that context? Important to whom? Mrs. M. had already lost out on one piece, so she summoned Jensen, who had started to drift to the next aisle.
I waited for his return before advancing the slide show to the last, biggest, and most expensive piece in Primo’s collection. Jensen waited a beat, then asked me the dimensions and copied them down in a black Moleskine notebook much like one I owned. He stared at the numbers as if visualizing the item’s placement. Rick wheeled Mrs. M. a discreet distance away, and the woman and her gardener conferred. When they returned, they pronounced it perfect for the Montauk garden. How many homes did this woman have? She wasn’t going to let this one get away. And neither would her two employees, who would do just about anything to keep her happy.
Thirty-one
While we did the paperwork on the sale, the judges announced the winners of the major display garden prizes. Best Suburban Garden: Fran Strauss, Glen Landing. Best Beach Garden: Pamela Choy, East Hampton. Best City Garden: The Sticks and Stones Garden of High School 240, Brooklyn. Best Country Garden: Mrs. Jean Moffitt, Sleepy Hollow. Best Overall Garden: Mrs. Jean Moffitt, Sleepy Hollow.
I didn’t know if the winners had been informed before the rest of us, but Mrs. M. didn’t seem surprised and neither was Jensen. All she said was, “I refuse to let them call me suburban.” That seemed as much a triumph to her as winning the awards.
Jensen and I ironed out the shipping details and Rick and Mrs. M. rolled away to celebrate and prepare for the obligatory photos.
“That’s it,” I said to David. “I’m done. I can’t take any more smiling for a while. My face muscles need to relax. This is my neutral face. How does it look?”
“Grim but good. Like Victoria Beckham. Does that woman ever smile? With her dough, it can’t be bad teeth—must be fear of wrinkles.” We agreed that wrinkles or not, if either of us was with David Beckham, we’d be smiling. A lot.
“Take a break,” he said. “Get something to eat and explore the show before the hordes come tomorrow. Member night is like visiting the museum without all the tourists and group leaders with green umbrellas. But don’t take too long. You’ve got a few more hours of this.”
It was a good suggestion. I knew people to congratulate, but first I went to the buffet table to fortify myself.
Only the most mean-spirited, Grinch-like woman would have begrudged Lauryn and her students the first prize they were awarded for best city garden. As it happened, the Grinch and her friend were standing right beside me, criticizing a platter of pierogie. Allegra Douglas looked as if she’d just eaten a spoonful of sour cream that had spoiled.
“Are you enjoying the show?” I asked.
The friend spoke first. “Oh, yes! Even the blackout was thrilling!” Allegra mumbled a response, but her disgusted look said it all—this was torture for her. Someone was sabotaging her show. Not only had the youngsters from the high school taken a ribbon, but apparently Connie Anzalone had received an honorable mention in the beach garden category ahead of three East Hampton gardeners that Allegra knew well. It was anarchy. Chaos. I left Allegra and her pal stewing over the canapés and went to congratulate Connie and Lauryn.
Whatever else happened at the show, it was Lauryn’s night. Most of the television cameras were on her and her students. Every year there was one plant or garden that got all the attention, and this year it was hers.
I hung around, waiting for a free moment to extend my congratulations to her or to Jamal, but she was swamped and I didn’t see him anywhere. Another student told me the boy hadn’t shown up.
Not far away, Connie’s garden was almost as crowded. “Congrats.” She was deliriously happy and couldn’t wait for Guy to join her later that evening. She had made it through the show unscathed, hadn’t needed the bodyguards, and decided that, while tragic, her veronicas had died a perfectly natural death. Not only had her garden been acknowledged, but her backless fish-scale dress was causing quite a stir. A photographer had already immortalized her standing next to a papier-mâché sea horse. On top of that, she excitedly told me that someone named Mrs. Moffitt had invited her to a garden party to be held Sunday evening after the show closed.
“My first real friend at the show,” she said. “After you, of course. But you know what I mean. One of them.” I did know what she meant. I wasn’t one of them. Suburban girl in the city. City girl in the suburbs.
“I’m happy for you, Connie. You deserve it.”
A second photographer approached and politely asked if he could take our pictures, but I knew he really wanted Connie so I backed away to the perimeter, where I had an overview of the entire spectacle. That was where I bumped into Rolanda.
“So was it all you thought it would be?” she asked.
“All that and a bag of chips,” I said.
“I was going to come find you tonight.”
“To check my badge again?”
She shook her head. “No, wise guy. The kid? The one whose bag you have? He won’t be coming for it. He’s dead.”
Thirty-two
Rolanda Knox was not your garden-variety security guard. I knew that the first time I walked into the building. What I didn’t know until the reception was that she attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the evenings after a full day’s work, and she monitored police radio the way other people listened to National Public Radio or watched baby owls on webcams. All day long.
“I always learn something from the scanner even when it’s on in the background. I listen, so I know how to observe. Yesterday I heard about a floater found in the Hudson not far from here. White male, twenty-five to thirty.”
She repeated it in that staccato, impersonal cop lingo that suggested it wasn’t a human—wasn’t somebody’s kid or friend or lover. It was a “floater,” like a raft or pool toy. I guess they had to say it that way. Otherwise, it would be too hard to think of the victim as an infant, then a toddler, then a teenager, the mental home movies fast-forwarding until the final frame, when it becomes just—a floater.
“He was wearing jeans, Timberland boots, a T-shirt.”
“Isn’t that every third guy who works at the Wagner?” I asked. “The carpenters and electricians? The show staff?” I didn’t want it to be the kid I had joked with, the kid who would have made a cute adult if he’d ever gotten the chance. “Was he wearing a jacket with a lot of souvenir patches?”
Rolanda shook her head. “A T-shirt that said Happy Valley. He was identified as Garland Bleimeister, from Trenton, New Jersey. Wasn’t that the guy who left you a message about the bag?”