Open Season (17 page)

She bought curtains and cookware, stocked up on groceries and household items, bought brooms and a vacuum cleaner and a dust mop—her own vacuum cleaner! She was ecstatic—and worked every spare hour cleaning and getting things put away.

When she wasn’t doing that, Todd kept her busy looking for furniture. She was a little surprised but deeply grateful that he exhibited such interest in her new life, because his aid was invaluable. He took her to a couple of auctions, and she discovered the joy of simply nodding her head until her competitors for any certain piece gave up and dropped out of the bidding; then she’d hold up a numbered card and the lamp or the rug or the end table would be hers. Winning gave her a thrill, so much so that Todd watched her with amusement whenever she decided to bid on a piece.

“You’re like a shark going after raw bait,” he said lazily, smiling at the color in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes.

She immediately blushed. “I am? My goodness.” She folded her hands in her lap as if to keep them from flashing that little numbered card again.

He laughed. “Oh, don’t stop. You’re having more fun than I ever do.”

“It
is
fun, isn’t it?” She eyed the tea cart being offered for sale. She didn’t have much room, and if she bought everything she liked, she wouldn’t have room for the necessities, such as furniture. On the other hand, the tea cart would look wonderful in the corner of the living room, with plants on top of it and maybe photographs on the lower shelves . . .

Several minutes of furious bidding later, the tea cart was hers—along with a cozy little table and two chairs, a pair of lamps with translucent pink bases and creamy shades, a dark sage green rug, a big, squashy easy chair that rocked and was upholstered in dusty blue with cream pinstripes, and a small cabinet for her television. When they were ready to leave, Todd looked over her booty and said, “I’m glad we borrowed a
pickup; that big chair would never wedge into the trunk of your car.”

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” she said blissfully, already imagining herself curled up in it.

“It certainly is, and I know just the piece to go with it. It’s new, I’m afraid,” he said apologetically. “But it’s a perfect sofa, I promise.”

The perfect sofa was covered with the most impractical cabbage roses on a dusty blue background that very nearly matched the blue of her big chair. She considered the sofa outrageously expensive, but fell in love with it on sight. No drab brown upholstery for her, no sir! She wanted the cabbage roses. And when everything was arranged in her little house, the effect was even cozier than she had imagined.

Friday night, Daisy’s little house was full of people and furniture and boxes.

Evelyn and Beth and Aunt Jo were sorting things out, putting boxes in the rooms where the contents would go but not unpacking them, because if they did, Daisy wouldn’t know where anything was. Todd was putting the finishing touches on the decoration, hanging some prints, helping her arrange the furniture just so, and providing some much-needed muscle for the heavier pieces. Her clothes were in the closet, the curtains were all hung, her books were in the bookcase, food was in the refrigerator—everything was ready.

The house was a testament to what could be accomplished when some very determined women—and one antiques dealer—worked at it. Neighbors had been pressed into service moving her bedroom furniture over; the local appliance store had delivered and installed her stove, refrigerator, microwave, and washer and dryer the same day she bought them. She thought,
considering the money she had spent, same-day delivery was the least they could do.

Evelyn had prepared a pot roast and brought it over for Daisy’s first real meal in her own home. Daisy put her mother and Aunt Jo at the tiny table she’d bought, and she, Beth, and Todd sat on the floor, laughing and talking the way people do when they’ve accomplished something herculean.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, unable to stop beaming as she looked around her kitchen. “All of this has happened in only two weeks!”

“What can I say?” Todd drawled. “You’re a slave-driver.” He took another bite of roast and sighed with delight. “Mrs. Minor, you should open a restaurant. You’d make a fortune.”

“I already have a fortune,” she said serenely. “I have my family, and I’m healthy. Everything else is just work.”

“Besides,” Beth said, “I’m just now getting over the shock of how Daisy’s changed her looks. Give me a little while before you start turning my mother into a food mogul.”

They all laughed, because after her stunned reaction on Sunday, Beth had been as enthusiastic as everyone else about Daisy’s improvements. Evelyn had been greatly relieved, because she’d worried about her younger daughter’s ego. Beth was a Minor, though, and the Minor women were made of stern stuff. Besides, Beth and Daisy truly loved each other and had always gotten along.

“I’ll give you a few months to adjust,” Todd said. “But I’m not giving up; food like this needs to be shared.”

“And paid for,” Aunt Jo said, pursing her mouth.

“That, too.” He looked around, then said to Daisy, “I hope you changed the locks on the doors.”

“That was the first thing I did. Actually, Buck Latham did it for me. I have two keys, Mother has an extra key, and the landlady has a key. I wasn’t about to leave the old locks on the doors.”

“And she’s getting a dog,” said Aunt Jo. “As a matter of fact, I have a friend whose dog had a litter several weeks ago. I’ll check with her and see if she still has any of the puppies.”

A puppy! Daisy felt a little spurt of delight. Somehow she’d only thought of finding a grown dog, but she’d love to have a puppy and raise it from baby-hood.

“A puppy,” Todd said, frowning a little. “Wouldn’t a grown dog be better?”

“I want a puppy,” Daisy said, already imagining the feel of the warm, wriggling little body in her arms. Okay, so it was probably transference from wanting a baby of her own, but for now a puppy would do just fine.

Todd lingered as the others were leaving, pausing on her front porch. “Are you going dancing tomorrow night?”

She thought of everything that needed to be done in the house; then she thought of the long hours she’d already put in this week. Last week at the Buffalo Club had been fun, at least until the fight started.

“I think I will. I really liked the dancing.”

“Then be careful, and have fun.”

“Thanks. I will.” She smiled and waved at him as he drove away, thanking her lucky stars she’d found such a good friend as Todd Lawrence.

S
aturday night was always the busiest night of the week at the Buffalo Club, so Jimmy, the bartender, wasn’t sure how long Mitchell had been there before he saw him, holding a beer and leaning over a redhead with enough makeup on her face to cover the San Andreas Fault. The redhead didn’t seem impressed; she kept turning back to her friend, an equally made-up platinum blonde, as if they were trying to carry on a conversation and Mitchell was intruding.

Jimmy didn’t look at them again; the last thing he wanted was for Mitchell to notice he’d been noticed. Since Mitchell had a beer, he must have had one of the waitresses bring it to him, instead of bellying up to the bar the way he usually did. Jimmy picked up the phone under the bar, punched in the number, and said, “He’s here.”

“Well, damn,” Sykes said genially on the other end of the line. “I really need to talk to him, but I can’t get away. Oh, well, another time.”

“Sure,” said Jimmy, and hung up.

Sykes broke the connection, then quickly called two men he knew and said, “Meet me at the Buffalo Club, forty minutes. Come prepared.”

Then Sykes himself got prepared; he pulled on a baseball cap to hide his hair, boots to make himself seem taller, and stuffed a small pillow inside his shirt. In good light this effort at disguise would be obvious, but at night those small things would be enough to make it difficult to identify him if anything untoward happened at the club. Sykes didn’t plan on doing anything at the club; he just wanted to get Mitchell and take him some-place where there weren’t a couple of hundred potential witnesses, but something could always go wrong. That’s why he wasn’t driving his own car; he had borrowed one again, just in case, then replaced the license plate with one he’d taken off a car in Georgia.

Barring any unforseen occurrences, such as another brawl, their little problem with Mitchell should be taken care of tonight.

Daisy found that it took a lot of nerve to go back into a club where one had accidentally caused a brawl. There shouldn’t be too many people who actually knew the cause: herself, Chief Russo, perhaps the guy whose testicles she had smashed—though she thought he hadn’t been paying much attention to what was going on around him—and maybe one or two perceptive people who had been watching. So, five at the most. And what were the odds any of the four other people were here tonight? She should be perfectly safe; no one was going
to point at her as soon as she walked in the door and shout, “That’s her!”

That’s what logic said. Logic, however, had also told her buying condoms would be no big deal, so logic obviously was not infallible.

So she sat in her car in the dark parking lot, watching couples and groups and singles enter the Buffalo Club, which was swinging. Music poured out every time the door was opened, and she could feel the heavy beat of the bass drum throb even through the walls. She was all gussied up, without the nerve to go inside.

But she was working on it; every time she gave herself a pep talk, she got a little closer to actually opening the car door. She was wearing red, the first red dress she’d ever owned in her life, and she knew she looked good. Her blond hair still swung in its simple, sophisticated style, her makeup was subtle but flattering, and the red dress would make all the tube-top wearers look low-class, which was kind of a redundancy. The dress was almost like a sundress Sandra Dee would have worn back in the early sixties, with two-inch wide straps holding it up, a scooped neckline—but not too scooped—a slim fitted waist, and a full skirt that stopped just above her knees and swung around her legs when she walked. She was wearing the taupe heels again, and the gold anklet glittered around her ankle. That and her earrings were the only jewelry she wore, making her look very cool and uncluttered.

She didn’t just look good, she looked great, and if she didn’t get out of the car and go inside, no one except herself would ever know it.

On the other hand, it might be best to let the place get completely full, to lessen the already small chance that someone might recognize her.

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She could feel the music, calling her to get on the dance floor and just
dance.
She’d loved that part of the night, loved the rhythm and feeling her body move and knowing she was doing it right, that the lessons she’d taken in college had paid off because she still knew the steps and men evidently loved dancing with someone who could do something other than stand in one place and jerk. Not that country nightclubs were much into the jerking; they were more into line dances and slow-swaying stuff—

“I’m stalling,” she announced to the car. “What’s more, I’m very good at it.”

On the other hand, she had also always been very good at obeying the time limits she set for herself. “Ten more minutes,” she said, turning on the ignition to check the dash clock. “I’m going inside in ten minutes.”

She turned the switch off again and checked the contents of her tiny purse. Driver’s license, lipstick, tissue, and a twenty-dollar bill. Taking inventory didn’t occupy more than, say, five seconds.

Three men came out of the club, the light from the overhead sign briefly illuminating their faces. The one in the middle looked familiar, but no name sprang to mind. She watched as they walked across the crowded parking lot, wending their way through the roughly formed lines of cars and trucks. Another man got out of a car as they neared, and the four of them headed toward a pickup truck parked under a tree.

Another car pulled into the parking lot, the lights slashing across the four standing near the pickup. Three of the men looked toward the new arrival, while the fourth turned to look at something in the bed of the pickup.

A man and a woman got out of the car and went
inside. The music blared briefly as the door opened, then receded to a muffled throb when it closed. Except for the four men under the tree and herself, there was no one else in the parking lot.

Daisy turned on the ignition switch again to check the time. She had four minutes left. That was
good
; she didn’t really want to get out of the car and walk across the parking lot by herself, not with those four men standing there. Maybe they would leave. She turned off the switch and glanced up.

One of the men must have been really, really drunk, because two of the men were now supporting him, one on each side, and as she watched, they hefted him into the bed of the pickup, supporting his head as they did so. That was good; they weren’t letting him try to drive home in his condition, though from the looks of him, he’d already passed out. All three of them had seemed to be walking okay when they left the club, but she’d heard of people who walked and talked okay up until the very second they passed out. She’d always thought that was so much malarkey, but there was proof of it, right before her eyes.

The two men who had helped their friend into the bed of the pickup got into the cab and drove off. The fourth man turned and walked back to his car.

Daisy checked the time again. Her ten minutes were up. Taking a deep breath, she took the keys out of the ignition, dropped them into her little purse, and got out, automatically hitting the Lock button as she opened the door.

“ ‘Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left...’ ” she quoted as she marched across the parking lot, then wished she had thought of something else, because the Light Brigade had perished.

Nothing happened to her, however. She wasn’t shot out of the saddle, nor did anyone point at her as soon as she opened the door. She stepped inside, paid her two dollars, and was swallowed up by the music.