Mark Schweizer - Liturgical 12 - The Cantor Wore Crinolines (3 page)

This was not the first auction Bud and I had attended together. Four years ago, Bud and I went in together on some wine that Bud spotted at a farm sale. That is to say, we began our partnership. At his behest, I paid ten thousand dollars for three cases — thirty-six bottles — of Chateau Petrus Pomerol, 1998. Two hundred seventy-five dollars per bottle. Ninety-two dollars per glass. The wine was cheap at that price. Meg and I had mistakenly finished three bottles before Bud pointed out (rather hysterically) that just
one
bottle of Chateau Petrus had recently sold for $3500 at auction. A year or two from now, when it reached a sufficient level of maturity, the price was likely to double. That money, close to a quarter million bucks, was what we were planning on using to open our wine shop.

All we needed was a building. A building close to downtown, within easy walking distance, and at the right price.

Okay, sure. I could buy any building we wanted, but that wasn’t the point. This was Bud’s deal. I was the silent partner.

* * *

“Is there any advance on one hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars?” Cynthia asked for the second time.

* * *

It’s a psychological game, you see. Bud and I had talked to an acquaintance of mine in New York, an expert in buying, selling, and negotiating the best deal. He was a psychologist and had written a book about the psychology of auctions. Bud and I were happy to take some advice.

Number one: Ideally, you don’t want the item you want to appear first on the block. The object is to get people attending the auction into a comfort zone. So they think they know how the auction will proceed. This wasn’t a problem. I just asked Cynthia to auction the Maple Street property last. “Sure,” she said with a shrug. Unfair? Nah.

Number two: Throw everyone a curve immediately. You don’t have to go with your drop-dead highest price, but a substantial bid will freeze out most of the competition. Most auctions start low and the bids grow incrementally. Everyone wants a deal and if you can save a hundred bucks, why not? Also, the lower and slower the bidding commences, the more people get in, and once in, folks start contemplating. Hmm, they think, a hundred and fifty is still a good price for this property. I can probably turn around and sell it for one-seventy tomorrow and make twenty thousand. Not a bad day’s work.

Number three: Jump in hard, jump in fast. Unless someone really wants what you’re after, the chances are that they’re not going to drive the price up on you for fun. If you have steel in your voice, the tendency for most people is to back off.

* * *

“Third and final asking,” said Cynthia.

“One hundred and thirty thousand!” yelped Skeeter, unable to contain himself.

The crowd laughed.

“Skeeter,” said Cynthia patiently, “do you have, or can you get, thirteen thousand dollars cash by noon today as your down payment?”

“No, m’am,” Skeeter said, dejectedly, looking at his feet and kicking at a pile of snow where he was standing. He looked up, fire in his eye, “But neither can Bud! He’s poor as a church mouse!”

“Bud,” said Cynthia, “do you have, or can you get, umm
…
” she paused, doing the math, “twelve thousand, nine hundred dollars cash by noon today as your down payment?”

“Yes, m’am. I have it right here.”

Bud lifted his briefcase into the air and the crowd erupted in chatter.

“Sold, then!” proclaimed Cynthia. “Come on up here, Bud. That’s it, everyone. Thanks for coming out.”

She turned and went back into the courthouse with Matthew Aaron, leaving Monica Jones sitting at her desk finishing the paperwork. Nancy stood beside her, guarding the cash.

Chapter 3

Don’t spend too much time over there with your typewriter,” Meg called from the kitchen. Everyone will be here in an hour or so. You’re the designated griller.”

“Everything’s already to go,” I answered back, lifting the lid of the cigar box and fondling a
Romeo y Julieta
Cuban beauty.

“Don’t you dare light that cigar. You and Pete smoke those outside. And find some decent music to put on, will you?”

I sighed and put the cigar that was about to make its way to my lips back in the box. Meg had an uncanny way of sensing a cigar about to be lit.

“What’s wrong with this music?” I called back.

Meg came in from the kitchen, rested a hand clutching a butcher knife on her cocked hip and glared at me. “What’s wrong with it? Just listen to it! It makes my fillings hurt.”

“You don’t like Bartók?”

“I don’t like
that
. Not when actual people are coming over for dinner. Pick something pleasant.”

“Pleasant, you say.”

“No,” Meg said, “I take that back. What I mean is, pick something that
I
might find to be pleasant dinner music.”

“How about an Johannes Ockenghem compilation. Various motets for eight voices, circa 1440?”

“No.”

“Alpenhorn quartets from Gridenwald, Switzerland?”

“Nope.”

“How about
Die Dreigroschenoper? The Three-Penny Opera.
A modern classic. Mack the Knife? Pirate Jenny?”

“Tempting,” said Meg, “but no. Just put on Pandora. Something fun.” She disappeared with her knife.

Pandora Internet Radio was something new for Meg. We’d finally managed to get decent internet service where we lived thanks to satellites, geosynchronous orbits, dishes, wires, routers, and fuel injectors. These were things that I didn’t understand fully even though they’d been explained patiently and with great consternation by our “Internet Installation Associate.” I did know that our internet connection was now reasonably speedy. At least speedier than dial-up, our previous option.

The reason that we were so far behind most third world countries concerning internet service, was that we lived on two hundred remote acres a good ten miles from anyone else. I didn’t mind much, since I came to town everyday and could check email and such. I also managed a cell phone and could text if push came to shove. Meg came to town every day as well, but she did more internet work than I did and so appreciated the recent advances in technology. A couple of years ago, she and Bev Greene had started a nonprofit financial counseling business for people who couldn’t pay — retirees who didn’t know where to go or what to do with their assets, young people starting out, even folks that hadn’t filed taxes for years. She and Bev had gotten some grants and, even though Meg and I had funded the project, the whole enterprise hadn’t cost much.

Not that we couldn’t afford it. Before I’d met Meg, I’d had the good fortune to come up with an invention that I’d sold to the phone company for a large amount of cash. Then Meg came along and doubled my money. Then tripled it. Then lost some, but that was to be expected. Then made it back, plus a bunch. I didn’t worry about it. Meg didn’t much worry about it either. She was too good.

I kept my job as Police Chief in St. Germaine because I loved it. I loved my part-time job as organist and choir director of St. Barnabas Episcopal church as well. Usually. But St. Barnabas had been going through a rough patch concerning the clergy. A couple of the priests in the last few years had been good — excellent, in fact — but some
…
well
…
not so much. Part of the problem was that the good ones had moved on to higher callings. That wasn’t the only reason though, and it certainly wasn’t the reason that I didn’t have any fuzzy feelings for the recently retired priest of St. Barnabas, Dr. Rosemary Pepperpot-Cohosh.

The thing with Pandora Radio was that you could program your own stations, then Pandora would find other stuff you’d like. Using my iPad, I clicked on one that Meg had discovered: French Café Radio. Sounds of a jazz trio accompanied by a French singer filled the house.

“That’s more like it,” Meg called from the kitchen.

I turned my attention to the typewriter in front of me.

* * *

The Cantor Wore Crinolines

It was a dark and stormy night, the kind of night where wishful girls without prom dates ovulated pointlessly while dreaming of seven-minutes-in-heaven under the bleachers where chaperones dare not tread: a night as dark as the intentions of every adolescent male wearing a $39 rented tux from Big Bob’s Land o’ Tuxedos out on Highway 34 (cummerbund not included); as stormy as that song about being caught in the rain – the only song any of the boys will dance to because it’s a “slow” song – the very song that Ginny Mapletoft (president of the Student Council) picked as the “Prom Theme” after Jake McDreamy asked her to go steady during homeroom, not that it bothered Cassandra Rollins, head cheerleader and Jake’s old girlfriend, she didn’t care one whit! That skank! Whatever! – that kind of night.

I took a puff on my stogy, skimmed the daily rag, and contemplated the hard ecclesiastical questions of our time. It’s what I did. I’m a detective, a gumshoe, a shamus: a Licensed Liturgy Detective (LLD), with buzzer, a roscoe, a chasuble, one of those silly hats with the pompoms, and a get-into-heaven free card. The badge and the shooter came from the local pawn shop, the chasuble and the hat from Vestments-R-Us, and the card from the Presiding Bishop that time she was giving them away at Applebee’s on the feast day of St. Yogi the Unbearable. I didn’t know if the card was any good, but I wasn’t taking chances. Maybe she’s got some juice at the pearly gates, maybe she doesn’t, but if I know one thing, I know it doesn’t pay to poke the bear. And St. Yogi’s Day at Applebee’s is always a good deal. Two meals and doctrinal absolution for twenty bucks including appetizer? It’s a deal I’ll take all day. Still, I don’t have much use for bishops. There’s a reason they’re called primates.

* * *

“Here you go, Hayden.” Meg appeared next to me with a beer in her hand, then set it down on the desk next to the typewriter and read over my shoulder.

I was happy to lean back, affording her a fine view of my latest literary effort, and pick up the bottle of Cold Mountain Winter Ale. I was currently on a North Carolina beer kick.

“You can’t say ‘skank.’ It’s not polite. Take it out.”

“I think it’s the future participle form of skink,” I said.

“You know it’s not. It’s a descriptive noun and you can’t use it.”

“Skink, skank, skunk,” I said, conjugating morphemes like the true professional I was. “Skinketh, beskanked, done skunked.”

“Use that in a sentence. I dare you.”

“Easy,” I said. “You done skunked up that potato salad.”

Meg wrinkled up her nose, thought for a moment, then said, “I think we’ve lived in the hills too long, my dear. You’re beginning to make sense.”

“Thank you.”

“Now take it out.”

“Oh, man,” I grumbled, pulling the paper out of the typewriter. “I’ll have to retype the whole page. I don’t see why
…
”

“Hayden Konig, you love it,” Meg said, and gave me a kiss full on the mouth. All of a sudden I couldn’t remember what I was going to say, but it was probably going to be a brilliant rejoinder of some sort. I watched her walk back to the kitchen, enjoying the view and noticing a little more sway than usual. She stopped at the door and turned back.

“What are you looking at, big boy?” she said in her best Katherine Turner voice. “If you want something, just ask.”

“Well, now that you mention it
…
”

“Later,” she laughed. “We have people coming over.”

* * *

Bratwurst Night was something special. Hot German potato salad was a necessity. Fresh rolls from Bun in the Oven, the new bakery in town. Caramelized onions, baked apples, and sauerkraut. The sauerkraut was an old family recipe, consisting of a jar of good kraut with a couple spoonfuls of red currant jam mixed in to sweeten it, bacon crumbles, caraway seeds, and a dollop of goose fat. The bratwursts had to be the best — hand stuffed into natural casings by Bavarian virgins, salted with their tears, and steamed in beer before grilling. I prefer a heavy, dark beer for steaming. Black Raven is perfect.

We never had to dress up for Bratwurst Night. That was another plus. The only person that would not be in something extremely comfortable was Kent Murphee, chiefly because he didn’t own anything comfortable. I had never seen Kent when he hadn’t been wearing his old tweed jacket and vest, corduroy pants, and a tie stained with whatever he happened to be working on. Since he was the Watauga County Medical Examiner, no one ever bothered to ask what those stains might be. Jennifer, the good doctor’s wife, Jennifer, was not inclined to follow his example of quasi-formality. She was happy to dress down for the event and join the rest of us in our sweatshirts and jeans.

The Murphees were the first to arrive, then Pete and Cynthia. Bev Greene and Nancy Parsky drove together and arrived as everyone else was deciding which of the colorful beers to try first.

“Or wine,” Meg said to Bev, as she took her coat. “We have wine as well.”

“Can we have some of that horrifically expensive stuff that Hayden and Bud bought?” asked Bev.

“No,” said Meg.

Bev laughed. “A glass of Pinot Noir then.”

“These are all North Carolina beers,” said Pete, as he perused the selection.

“I’m embracing our mutual heritage,” I answered. “Here, try this Duck-Rabbit.”

“I’ll have one of those Black Ravens,” Kent said. “If you don’t need them all to steam the brats.”

“Help yourself.”

“Heck of a thing about that Pepperpot woman,” said Kent, popping off the cap. “You know it made the paper in Boone.”

“No doubt,” I growled.

“Well, she’s gone now,” said Meg.

“I guess the thing that made us the maddest,” said Bev, “was that she thought she could get away with it. I mean, what priest in their right mind would try to funnel a hundred thousand dollars into their discretionary fund and use it to take a trip to Nicaragua?”

“It was a mission trip,” Meg said. “She was on a mission.”

“She sure was,” said Bev. “She and that personal trainer — which, by the way, the church also paid for.”

It might be said by some that Bev Greene was bitter, since she had been fired by the Reverend Dr. Rosemary Pepperpot-Cohosh from her position as church administrator within a couple months of the new priest’s arrival. And that now she took a certain pleasure in seeing her fall from grace.

“It’s not that I’m bitter and that I take any satisfaction in seeing Mother P’s fall from grace,” Bev said, then offered us all a big smile. “Well, I take that back. I do. Does that make me a terrible person?”

“Yep,” said Cynthia. “It really does. But I’ll pray for you.”

“Well, we got most of the money back,” said Meg. “Except what she gave that Nicaraguan gigolo.

“She’s back working at Walmart,” added Bev, “or so I’ve heard.”

I nodded. “I think that’s right. Herb left and took a campus ministry position back in Iowa. I think Rosemary is up in Roanoke.”

“Did Enrique go with her?” asked Nancy. “I noticed that his workout studio is closed up.”

“I have no idea,” I said. “I doubt it though. A dumpy, middle-aged, ex-Lutheran, Episcopal priest from Iowa now working as a sales associate at Walmart might not be the catch that a young, fit, attractive
…
“

“
Highly
attractive,” interrupted Jennifer.

“Highly,” agreed Nancy.

“
…
Highly attractive personal trainer with an expiring green card might want.”

“She was quite smitten,” said Meg. “It was true love. Agape love. She told me so right before she left.”

“I’m sure it was,” said Bev with a smile. “The trip to Nicaragua in October was to begin building her new church. She was sure Bishop O’Connell was going to give her the blessing of the diocese. What was she thinking?”

“She took the money down there with her?” asked Kent.

“A hundred thousand dollars in cash,” said Bev. “Enrique had arranged for her to make a downpayment to the builder. She was stopped when she tried to enter the country. Customs called the feds in and she was sent back to the states immediately.”

Kent nodded and sipped his beer. “And Enrique?”

“He came back with her on the same plane. I guess he thought he could still make the deal work out, but once the customs officials got involved, the church was contacted immediately.”

“How did she get all that cash?” asked Jennifer.

Meg shrugged. “It was easy, actually, and our fault. You know that St. Barnabas has a trust fund that Gaylen set up when we got the settlement from the bank?”