To his dismay, a second pair of legs swung out of the vehicle. When the pudgy guy in the crimson-colored suit wedged himself out of the backseat, he produced a camera, his gaze swiveling in all directions.
"Where are the clothes?" he asked.
"Well, they're not out here on the street, darling," Zara drawled, unleashing a heavy stream of smoke. She drew on her electronic cigarette again.
Mr. Wolfe didn't particularly wish for the companionship of celebrity blogger, Urnie Marriott, but there wasn't much he could do about it.
"You're the archivist?" Marriott asked Mr. Wolfe. "What do you think of my shoes?"
Mr. Wolfe peered down at them. "Is that what they are?" He lifted a brow. "How...interesting."
Zara let loose a smoke-filled laugh. "That's industry code for ugly. And you know, Urnie darling, those shoes are ugly."
"No, they're not," Urnie muttered, but as an auction house associate met them in the loading dock, Mr. Wolfe noticed the blogger kept trying to yank down his pants, attempting to cover his shoes with the hem.
Inside the shuttered garage, Mr. Wolfe and Ambrosio brushed past the others to examine the Beckett costumes.
Mr. Wolfe could have wept for the shameful way these iconic treasures had been treated. He lifted a miniature soldier's uniform with reverent, gentle fingers and examined it. The collar was outlandish. Wide and big. It still stood stiff as a board since it had been glued to Styrofoam, the go-to product of the seventies. Not looked after, fabric tended to slip away from the foam, as had happened here.
He could tell in one swift glance that this collection would be a massive reclamation project.
"What do you think?" Urnie breathed in his ear.
Mr. Wolfe tensed. He disliked Urnie immensely, just from reading his bitchy blogs. He'd also covered the shocking, horrible murder of Bobby Beckett by his former lover slash bodyguard in lurid, often incorrect detail.
Mr. Wolfe had known Bobby as a child and often fretted about the kid's dislike of the public eye. He swallowed hard when he glimpsed the last costume Bobby Beckett had performed in. It was a black sequined tunic he'd worn over tight black pants in a sold-out Staples concert the night he died.
The whole world now knew that he had left the stage, changed into street clothes in his dressing room and had received a text message from his ex-lover who demanded to speak with him. Beckett had tried to dodge the man by taking the elevator down to the garage where his chauffeur-driven limousine awaited him but Lewis Ingersoll stepped out of a shadowy corner, opened fire on Beckett with an unregistered handgun, before turning it on himself.
Ingersoll survived the shooting. Beckett did not.
Mr. Wolfe examined the black tunic, shocked at how tiny the man had been.
"He's what? A size two?" Ambrosio whispered.
Mr. Wolfe nodded.
"I want to archive everything. I want to create a special showroom for all of Bobby's grieving fans to come and visit him. I want to charge five dollars a person, all the proceeds going to AIDs-related programs," Zara said. "I think Bobby would like that."
She would know since he'd been her protégée and, from everything Mr. Wolfe had heard, she'd taken the pop singer's death very hard.
"Will you do it for me?" she asked Mr. Wolfe. "Will you help me?"
"Yes." He nodded slowly. It was another massive undertaking, but he wanted to do this for Bobby, who'd made the human mistake of loving the wrong man. He had to do this for Bobby whose costumes had been allowed to languish in dusty hell.
"Good," she said. "Then you can finish it by the end of the month along with my collection."
"I can't--" he began but she'd already turned and walked out, her blogger-pup scampering after her. Yes, he would do it. Somehow. Some way.
The auctioneer said, "Where would you like the collection shipped to?"
"I'll let you know in the morning," Mr. Wolfe said, his mind still spinning.
"Very good, sir." The auction house assistant slid him his business card. "I'll await your call."
As soon as they'd all stepped out of the garage, Virginia spoke.
"He was so skinny! What kind of mannequins will you use to display his clothes?"
Mr. Wolfe had forgotten she was still there and struggled to lift himself from his racing thoughts.
"Foam fashion forms," he said. "We'll still have to shave them down to fit his clothing."
"How fascinating!" Virginia's eyes practically glowed in the dark.
Mr. Wolfe smiled when she asked if she could help in any way.
"Yes, my dear. I'll contact you first thing tomorrow when I've figured out where we'll store the collection."
"Oh, boy!" She rushed forward and squeezed him again. As if it were an afterthought, she hugged Ambrosio too. "I can't wait!"
The two men watched her climb into her ergonomically sound vehicle and take off.
"Dinner," Ambrosio said. "What are we going to do, Wolfie? That fucking bitch just handed you double the workload."
"Yeah." Mr. Wolfe glowered. "I know.
He was so stressed out about the new collection that he couldn't stop talking about it all the way into Little Tokyo.
With Ambrosio at the wheel, the journey took a scant twenty minutes. Parking almost as long. It was the only thing he hated about his favorite part of town.
Inside the tiny, homey House of Shabu-Shabu, the restaurant staff greeted the two men with genuine pleasure.
The owner, Yoshi, escorted them to a corner table in the tightly packed premises. Mr. Wolfe sat opposite Ambrosio, inhaling the pleasing scent of freshly cooked meat. Mr. Wolfe was a big meat eater and loved the beef at the House of
