Killer Pancake

I groaned, ready to admit she had a story. But she was on a roll.

Frances made a face. “‘I need something really sexy,’ I told that woman with the French twist. She sold me Ardor.” Frances brandished a heart-shaped bottle of perfume. “Funny, she sold Ardor to my neighbor for her eighty-year-old mother, whose sexiest social engagement is when her garden club plants bulbs. And the same sales associate, Harriet, told the daughter of the head of the Journal advertising department that Ardor was just the right perfume for a girl to start wearing to school. She’s twelve, Goldy. Sales of Ardor, as you might imagine, have taken off. And speaking of sales, if their associates don’t keep up their quotas, they’re fired. Kaput. So these same sales associates, of which your Claire S. was one, make claims to customers that get more and more bizarre. More and more outlandish. No one has challenged Mignon, and I’m going to be the one who does it.”

“Oh yeah? And just how’re you going to do that?”

She rustled around in one of her bags and held up a small rectangular box. It was covered with navy-blue satiny paper crossed with thin gold and silver stripes. “Mignon Gentle Deep-cleansing Soap with Natural Grains. Twenty bucks. It’s soap, period, with about a dime’s worth of ingredients, including”—she peered at the label —“ah-ha, oatmeal! But it’ll chap your skin if you use too much of it. Did you hear what that Harriet Wells said to me?” She glared at me indignantly. “‘Cleans deeply but gently into the pores. Restores the original state of your skin!’” Frances grunted. “Crap. Soap robs the skin of lipids. Use it as much as old Harriet says to, and you’ll have a nice red face.”

“Don’t you think people know—?”

“No, I don’t think people know anything, I think people believe what they’re told.” She reached into the bag again, then held up a tall rectangular box covered with the same elaborate decoration. “Magic Pore-closing Toner? Forty-five bucks? To do what? They swear it tones the pores. As if your skin cells were muscles, ha. You want an astringent, try witch hazel. If you need anything at all. Oh, and did you happen to notice this fall they’re going to be adding Mediterranean Sea Kelp to their Magic Pore-closing Toner? Link any cosmetic with something European, and it’s a sure sell. And this!” She thrust a squat jar of cream at me. “Did you hear all the baloney that Harriet-woman was feeding me about how she was sixty-two and this moisturizer stuff stopped her aging process? This junk doesn’t even have sunscreen in it! Hate to tell maybe-early-fifties Harriet, but that’s the only thing that’ll prevent wrinkles, and folks need to start using it when they’re young or they’re sunk. Biochromes, my ass. What the hell is a biochrome, I ask you?” Her black-striped eyes opened wide. “It was never mentioned in any biology class I ever took. Or in chemistry. Or physiology. Or dermatology, for that matter.”

I clapped. “Yeah, yeah. They’re going to run all this in the Mountain Journal. And the wife of your publisher is never going to wear makeup again. Is the Journal bankrolling you in this undercover operation?” I gestured to the red shoes, the bags of cosmetics, and her dress.

Before she could answer, however, I got that strange feeling I’d been having the last two days, the kind I used to get when the Jerk was following me in his Jeep after we were separated. I’d been having the feeling a lot lately: on the highway coming to the banquet when I’d veered in front of a pickup, just after the helicopter passed over; during the storm night before last, when I thought I saw the light go on in the pickup at the end of our driveway, even at the Mignon counter this morning. As I sat next to Frances, the feeling began again as a kind of prickling along the back of my neck. I looked up for the pizza-eating teenagers, but saw only a sudden movement toward one of the tents, the kind of thing you catch out of the corner of your eye.

“What is it?” Frances demanded, her senses ever acute to some emotional change in the person to whom she was talking. “Goldy, what’s the matter?”

I looked around and saw absolutely nothing suspicious. This was what happened when you didn’t get enough sleep, I told myself. Or enough food. You had hallucinations. A teenager with long, stringy brown hair hopped onto the store roof where we sat and approached us.

He said, “Uh, who’s the caterer?”

I identified myself and the fellow said, “Somebody said to tell you there’s a message for you over at your booth.”

“From whom?” I demanded.

But he had turned his back. When I called out to him again, he shrugged without turning and loped back off into the food fair crowd.

“I’ll go,” Frances said firmly as she gathered up her glossily wrapped parcels. “It might be the rent-a-thug. I could vouch that you’ve been sitting here berating me for the last fifteen minutes. Besides, you need to eat your lunch.”

I smiled at Frances’s ill-disguised nosiness, at her sudden insincere concern about my need for nourishment. “Nah,” I told her lightly, “it’s probably the food fair people. Or maybe it’s a new client. I’ll be right back.” But she ignored me.

We walked across the roof and maneuvered back onto the top of the parking garage. I told the money-takers that Frances was helping me, and didn’t need a bracelet because she didn’t eat normal food. They waved her through. The jazz band had gone on break. Their audience had dispersed and turned their ravenous attention back to the booths.

“Okay,” I said, as if granting Frances permission for what she was going to do anyway. “Let me get just a quick bite to eat first, and then we’ll see what the message is.”

The crowd buoyed me along to the booth of a vegetarian Mexican restaurant. I chose a burrito stuffed with roasted peppers, tomatoes, and onions. It dripped with guacamole and melted cheddar, and sour cream oozed out of both sides when I took a bite. The American Heart Association definitely wouldn’t approve. My mouth full, I thought of Marla and resolved to get really serious about lowfat cooking. Tomorrow.

“Enjoy,” said Frances with a laugh. “Isn’t this where your booth was?”

The booth had been abandoned early by the barbecue people. I guess “all you can eat” had been more than they could handle. They’d even pulled down the flaps on the tent, as if to say nobody was home.

Frances pulled up the flap and peered into the dark interior. I stepped up beside her and felt the hot, stuffy air inside. There was a plastic bag taped to the near table.

“There it is,” said Frances as she stepped confidently forward. “Wait,” I said. “Frances,” I said again sharply, “wait.” But I couldn’t restrain her; one of my hands held the burrito, the other the tent flap.

There was a sudden movement. I heard the intake of breath that accompanies effort.

“Frances!” I shouted.

“Help!” she cried.

Stale air swished against my face. Something was coming at us. Because of my years with the Jerk, I had learned how to protect myself from a potential assault. The air—or maybe it was liquid, I realized— whooshed. I dropped the burrito and buckled forward.

“Duck!” I shouted to Frances.

A loud sloosh traveled through air. It was coming toward Frances and me. The smell was familiar … acrid.

It was a bucket of bleach water.

“Close your eyes!” I screamed to Frances. I shut mine tight, held my breath, and covered my face with my hands. The water cascaded over my doubled-over body in a hard, heavy slap. Cold liquid saturated my chef’s jacket.

Someone pushed past me. One of the canvas tent flaps brushed my legs and I heard footsteps. But with the possibility of bleach anywhere nearby, I knew better than to open my eyes.

“Frances! Are you there? Keep your eyes shut, it’s chlorine bleach!”

A stream of loud, inventive curses came from about a yard away. Yep—Frances was there.

“Back out of the tent,” I ordered, ignoring her angry protests. “Follow my voice. Go slow.” Still doubled-over, my hands covering my face, I treaded backward slowly. Soon, cooler air indicated I was outside the tent. I felt metal. Moving metal. A baby stroller.

“Help!” I cried. “I have bleach on me! Don’t let any get on the baby!”

A woman screamed and the metal veered away. I started to lose my balance. Voices erupted all around and within a few seconds I felt a large, gentle hand on my shoulder. An adult? A teenager? Whoever had assaulted us?