"That was later. Here's Burnham. Where do I park?"
"Anywhere along here."
The lot was sand and stones. Matt had glimpsed a psychedelic sign and display window out front, both radiating color and clutter.
"I'd never set foot in a place like this in a million years," he said as they left the car.
"Good. Stretching your boundaries already. Honest, no illegal drugs and naughty adult toys sold here. Just funky old stuff."
He still felt he wouldn't want Lieutenant Molina catching him going into this place. They wove past unmatched pieces of furniture set up outside the shop, Temple stopping to squint seriously at a wicker rocking chair. "Be nice on the patio, maybe."
Inside was more of the same. Matt studied the chrome glitter of vintage appliances, the bright secondary colors of orange and turquoise dishes, the wire-framed chairs. Suitable for furnishing a clown academy, maybe, but not for his mostly empty five-room apartment "Oooh. That's a nice dinette set."
Temple zeroed in on a chrome and gray table surrounded by four chairs pneumatically upholstered in silver-flecked gray plastic.
"Great condition." She ran her hand over the plump plastic, her
silver-blue nail polish making her hands seem armed in stainless steel.
Dinette sets gave Matt the willies, for some reason. "I'm not about to start serving guests."
"No, but the odd neighbor might drop in."
"Very odd, if she frequents this place."
"You've got to look past the bizarre stuff to the treasures."
"Sounds like a motto for visiting the risque establishments along Flamingo Road and Paradise."
But Temple was already engrossed in exclaiming over a chrome thingamajiggy with attractive pierced panels on either side. With a razor-tipped fingernail she demonstrated that the panels flipped down. "Twenties toaster. Will clean up like new. Twelve bucks. Sold." She picked it up. "Rule number one: if you see anything you like, hang on to it."
"What for?"
"You're eyeing my treasured toaster dubiously."
"It can't still function."
"No, but it'll make a great letter-holder. 'In' mail on one side, 'Out' on the other."
"Never would have thought of that."
"That's why you have rooms full of nothing."
"I don't think twenties toasters are on my 'most urgent acquisition' list."
"You don't even have a list. Just look. See if anything catches your eye. Don't worry about what it used to do. Just think how you could use it now."
His hands slid into his pants pockets as he wandered the crowded floor. Maybe if he didn't touch anything, he wouldn't have to buy anything.
Temple streaked from area to area like a butterfly cruising honeysuckle vines. She had to touch, lift, tilt, study a dozen pieces. And then she was paging through the clothing racks. Except for the somber shadows of old tuxedos and worn leather jackets, the racks were a kaleidoscope of women's clothing. Weird women's clothing. Or maybe that was a redundancy.
Matt found himself staring down at a fifties-model black telephone, its brown cords trailing like rat tails. Funny. He'd forgotten the old phone number in Chicago, before the exchange was altered when phone usage exploded in the sixties. They'd had a word as an exchange, not three little numbers. Exchanges back then had sounded classy. Very British. Very WASP Madison, not Mahoney. Kent, not Kaplan. Wentworth, not Waschevski. Emerson, not Effinger.
"A phone?" Temple's voice was so close it startled him. "You work on phones all night and now you moon over one in a vintage store?"
"Hadn't seen one like this in a long time."
"What a difference three years make," Temple mused. "I was born after everything went from black and white to color--appliances, sheets, telephones and even television."
Matt smiled. "We didn't keep up with the latest trends on Sofia Street. Black and white, and a few good shades of gray, were good enough for St. Stanislaus parish."
"No wonder you have virtually nothing in your apartment. Come on. Except for the toaster, this place is a bust."
"But ... I haven't looked at everything."
"I have."
Temple swept out, toaster in the crook of her arm, along with a small yellow paper, the receipt.
"What's next?" Matt asked when he was behind the wheel of the car and the toaster was stashed on the backseat. "Leopard Lane?"
"Alley," she corrected. " 'Lane' is far too upscale for a vintage store. The name should be a little tawdry. Leopard Alley. It's only twelve blocks away. Take a right at the next corner."
Leopard Alley lived up to its name. It was inside an aging strip shopping center that had been converted to an antiques mall. The interior was a maze of cubicles allotted to various dealers. In one booth glassware dominated; in another, kitchen and garage tools.
Leopard Alley announced its imminence with a painted canvas path of faux leopard spots.
"Look at that footstool! Isn't that wild?"
Matt regarded the wrought>>iron stool upholstered In fuzzy fake Leopard skin, Wild, and not his style. At least he was learning something on this expedition, Perhaps he was hopelessly addicted to Rectory Rococo - Something convoluted and diocesan in Ash Wednesday mahogany, reeking of incense and parish politic's,
"oh! What do you think of this?"
Temple had donned a leopard skin pillbox hat from the fifties, that sat as uneasily upon her springy red hair as Bob Dylan's "mattress on a bottle of wine."
"Not your color," Matt said.
"I guess I'm not built for exotic." She lifted a long black plastic cigarette holder dotted with rhinestones. "Thirty-eight dollars! Give me a break."
"Louie would look like the king of the jungle on this pillow," Matt pointed out.
She studied the huge furry leopard-pattern pillow. "Yeah. Poor Louie. He doesn't know he's in for a major dislocation."
"It's a long time away from home."
"Not so long, ten days. I added the holidays so I could see my aunt. Louie will only be on call for business for three or four days. You'd think this could wait until after New Year's, but apparently when they're hot to trot in advertising, they don't waste a millisecond."
"You'll have a great time."
"But you're not having one now." Temple eyed the pillbox. "You sure I shouldn't invest in this piece of nostalgia? It's only eighteen dollars."
"When would you wear it?"
"I don't know. Maybe for Halloween."
She replaced it on the time-battered bald head of the mannequin bust that wore a matching stole. "I'll think about it. Maybe, if it's still here when I get back ..."
"What's next on the list?"
"Indigo Albino might be too . . . kicky for your taste. Tell you what, I'll take you to lunch at the Monte Carlo as a Christmas present, and on the way we can stop by the Salvation Army. You never know."
"Antique-hunters are eternal optimists, like detectives. I can see where you got your sleuthing instincts."
"Well, you're passing out class pictures of Cliff Effinger all over Vegas. Is it cockeyed optimism or dogged footwork? Anything turn up on that, by the way?"
"Nothing," said Matt the pessimist. "Yet," added the optimist that Temple brought out in him.
"Hey, this Effinger dude could be hanging at the Salvation Army," she suggested playfully as they returned to the car. "You did say he was dressed like a seventies midnight cowboy."
"More like a midlife-crisis cowboy. Okay, a prelunch gander at the Goodwill. I'm beginning to see that hunting anything is ninety per-cent persistence and ten percent damn foolishness."
"Damn foolishness is the best kind. You owe yourself a little."