Killer Pancake

“Where’s Julian?”

“Inside that nightclub. Hot Tin … you know, where they’re having … he was catering with me.” I tried to think. “What should we do, tell him? Or wait? Did the person who hit her not stop?”

“Hit-and-run. State patrol will handle it. You know, they do traffic And yes, you and I should go find Julian. Let’s not tell anybody else, though, we don’t want a general panic. Plus we need to follow procedure here, find the next of kin…. How long have you been here? You said you didn’t see this accident. What did you hear, anything?”

Haltingly, I told Tom that Claire and I had come out to get supplies from our vehicles about ten minutes before. I had not seen Claire after I got to the van. I’d loaded up and only moments later heard the growl of an engine, squealing, and the horrible thump as metal hit flesh. I pointed in the direction of the van, then remembered slapping down the fish and vegetables on the hood of a nearby car. “I guess I better go get my stuff,” I said lamely.

“Hold on.” He brought his bushy eyebrows down into a V. “The car you heard, did it honk? This squealing, was it like tires or brakes? Was it the sound of a car going around a corner?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to clear what felt like cotton in my head. “No horn. The sound was like someone going around a corner. I guess.”

Two light beige Colorado state trooper patrol cars pulled up. Tom held up a hand for them to wait. Then he pointed at the shoe-store entrance. “Get your stuff and meet me over there, would you?”

“Get my stuff?” I was incredulous. “You mean you think I still should do this stupid banquet when one of the company employees has just been killed?”

“Please. Goldy, we can’t tell her employers or coworkers yet. We’re going to have to take care of Julian. If you don’t do the banquet, the word will get out and then the journalists will make a mess—”

“Okay, okay.”

“We’ll go in to see Julian together. Avoid the demonstrators.” Then he strode off to deal with the troopers while I struggled to get my bearings. After a few shaky breaths, I turned to backtrack toward the Jeep, then turned back. Tom and the two troopers were crouched near the garage floor. Beyond them, the paramedics had hooked Claire’s body up to their telemetric equipment. Tom and the troopers were pointing at something on the asphalt.

I surveyed the garage and shivered. Could Claire really be dead? I had just talked to her, been with her, less than half an hour ago, I started to walk, then suddenly felt dizzy and reached out for one of the cement columns. How am I ever going to break this to Julian? What could I have done differently? What? Get a grip, I ordered myself. I stepped on something and stared down at the asphalt. Under my foot was the stem of a rose. At first I thought the fluorescent light of the garage must be playing tricks on me, or maybe stress arising from what I’d just witnessed clouded my vision. The rose seemed to be blue. Its closed petals were blue as a robin’s egg, blue as the color of the Colorado sky in the early days of autumn.

Without thinking I reached down for the blossom I’d crushed beneath my heel. Immediately I was rewarded with a thorn in my right index finger. Well, Tom the garden man would be interested in seeing it anyway, I thought absurdly. I held the flower up to my eyes, still unable to determine how its unique color had been applied. I turned back to see what Tom was doing. He was deep in conversation with the troopers. Twenty feet away, the ambulance, its sirens off, moved slowly out of the garage.

I walked holding the rose by its stem until my steamer and bowls were in front of me, on the Jeep hood. I put the rose on top of the salad greens, picked up the food, and started walking toward Stephen’s Shoes. Where had Tom said to meet him? Oh yes, by the entrance. Well, he’d have to come find me. He was remarkably good at that.

As I lugged the food toward the shoe store, a voice screeched.

“Hey! You! You’re one of them! You’re serving the animal-killer fascists!”

The man who accosted me was short, with a thin face framed by tightly curled black hair tucked into a small ponytail, and a wiry beard. A gold earring adorned one ear. He put his hands on his waist, cocked one hip, and glared. I made him out to be in his late twenties. He was very attractive in addition to being diminutive, but neither quality quite went with the fury emanating in my direction. Crossing his arms, he yelled, “You’re either for us or against us, you know!” His black eyes blazed. “Do you care if innocent albino rabbits are tortured for makeup? Do you? Do you think you could see if you’d had a Draize test?” He folded his arms and pushed his body forward. Taking another step, he chest-bumped the steamer and bowls I carried. “Do you care about animals or not?” he demanded.

My skin prickled hot with rage. After all I’d seen today, I was in no mood for this.

“So do you care about animals or not, bitch?” he shrilled.

I announced loudly: “I’m going to pour forty pounds of vegetables on the ass in front of me if he doesn’t move.”

The demonstrator’s mouth dropped open. Unfortunately, he quickly recovered. “You don’t know about the rabbit body-count, then? Is that why you’re serving the fascists?”

I began, “You don’t know what I’ve just seen—”

“Hey, lady! Do you think I care—”

“Excuse me,” said a familiar voice behind me.

The demonstrator’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he fell silent and looked Tom over. His glance stopped on Tom’s jacket logo. “What’s this? The storm troopers protecting capitalists?” He turned his glare back to me. “You got a vested interest in being a fascist? You think eyeshadow’s going to help your looks, Ms. Plump? Take the attention away from your blond afro?” He rolled his shoulders in a muscular, he-man sort of way. Then he reared back and once again chest-bumped the food in my hands. “Guess what?” he yelled. “I’m not going to let you go in there!”

I hauled back and thrust the full weight of myself, the vegetables, and the steamed fish into him. Too late, Tom realized what I was doing and launched himself at us. Tom’s wide hands managed to catch the steamer, a heavy metal rectangle with a rigid plastic top. The covered bowl of salad greens skittered across the garage floor. No such luck with the container of vegetables. My ponytailed irritant lay at my feet decorated with roasted red peppers, thick slices of grilled mushroom, chunks of charred onion, and blobs of cooked tomato.

“Man, lady, what is your problem?” he shrieked from the floor. “Did you see that, Officer? Wasn’t that assault? I’m going to press charges!”

Tom handed me the steamer. His face was impassive. “Do not let go of this,” he ordered in that voice of his. “Get up, you,” he commanded the demonstrator. “Go on over there with your anti-fascist friends. Don’t let me see your face by this door again. Hear?”

“You pig,” the demonstrator screamed as he scrambled to his feet and brushed off vegetables. I noticed with satisfaction that the tomatoes had left long red smears on his SPARE THE HARES T-shirt. “I’ll show my face by any door I want!”

Tom Schulz loomed over him. “You want to go to jail, Jack? Try blocking public entrances again.”

“What the hell do I pay taxes for?” the demonstrator barked over his shoulder as he scurried back to his buddies.

Tom Schulz retrieved the covered bowl of greens from the garage floor and shot me a look. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Where’d this come from?” He was staring at the rose that had miraculously stayed with the bowl of greens on its bounce across the asphalt.

“From the floor near where Claire”—I gestured—“over by that column. It’s probably been sprayed—”

“What column?”

I pointed.

“You found this fifteen, twenty feet from the body? And you picked it up?” he said, trying to clarify.

“I’m sorry. She was hit by … a vehicle, and I just saw the flower there on the floor—”

“Okay, wait a minute, let me go put it in an evidence bag.”

He strode away holding the flower delicately by its stem. When he returned, he said, “Goldy—no more violent encounters with the demonstrators, okay?”

“Look, I hit that guy with the food only because he was threatening me and he wouldn’t get out of my way. That’s justified, isn’t it? Oh, Lord.” I teetered backward. What did I care about some demonstrator?

Tom took hold of my shoulders, steadied me, and shook his head. “Goldy, I know you’ve taken a lot of crap in