The Crafts-a-Palooza stock room smelled terrible, and my throat started getting scratchy. I guessed it was the potpourri.
There were huge crates of it nearby, shredded dead vegetation treated with an assortment of chemicals, most of them toxic, I guessed, if not lethal. If I hadn’t had a more urgent task, I would have phoned the ePA.
I saw no safe — my chief worry had been that the Brienings had a safe that was locked and too heavy for me to carry — and I didn’t see any “box” either. The file cabinets were unlocked, and I began flipping through the manila folders. There was nothing filed under Van Horn or Rita or confession or embezzler.
“What’s happening?” I asked Marylou.
“There are fifteen or twenty people. The Brienings are trying to elbow other folks out of the way.”
“Slow them down if you can.”
There was a wooden crate nearby with what looked like old financial records heaped atop it. I flipped through these, fruitlessly, and then set the records on the floor and lifted the lid off the crate. It was full of more reeking potpourri. I replaced the lid and set the bank records back where I had found them.
My eyes were watering and I sneezed. I sneezed again. Then I sneezed a third time.
Lockbox, lockbox. Where was the lockbox?
I opened the drawers of the desk, but they were full of office tools — scissors, staples, rubber bands — and junk mail from the Republican National Committee. Hanging on the wall above the desk were various “awards” from the RnC for helping save America from socialism.
I went back to the file cabinets to see if maybe a “box” of some kind had been secreted behind the rows of stuffed file folders. Nothing. I had a brainstorm and decided to check the crates of potpourri to find out if a box had been buried inside the many pounds of leaves and twigs.
I opened one crate and sneezed again. Then again. Then I sneezed and sneezed and could not stop sneezing. The lavatory was nearby, its door ajar, and I went in still sneezing, and wadded up bits of toilet paper and stuffed them up my nostrils. But when I sneezed again one of the wads shot out my nose, and then the other one became dislodged and flew across the enclosure and bounced off the door.
I kept on sneezing, and I could only think, Christ, I’ve got to get out into the open air.
I managed to say to Marylou, “What’s happening out there?”
“What?”
“I’m sneezing. What’s going on with the Brienings?”
“Oh, darling they wanted to buy a dozen books, but now they are acting…odd.”
“Are they — atchooo — suspicious?”
“I think they might be. Especially Arletta. Clyde is plainly in love with the governor, but even he is starting to look at her in a funny way.”
I sneezed some more, and Marylou said, “What? What?”
My eyes were watering so badly that I was having a hard time CoCkeyed 183 seeing the Brienings’ desk or anything else. I wiped my eyes with my hankie, but then the sneezing started again and the eye watering got even worse.
I said, “I have to get outside. I can’t see. Or breathe without sneezing.”
“Somebody is talking about calling nine-one-one,” Marylou said. “Arletta said something about imposters. I’m afraid they’re onto our merry chicanery, Donald, luv.”
“Then pack up and leave. I’m heading out. If I can find the door.”
“Are you all right, darling? Oh my.”
“Leave the books in the parking lot and go back to McDonald’s.
I’ll meet you all there.”
“We sold all the books. Clyde and Arletta bought six. Raphael autographed them.”
I sneezed some more but managed to wipe the tears from my eyes long enough to get out of the Crafts-a-Palooza back door and slam it shut. I got my car going and barely missed the Dumpster behind Subway. As I pulled around to the front of the strip mall I could make out through the blur of tears the Palin book tour van and the Lincoln Town Car cruising out of the parking lot and onto the highway.
Back at McDonald’s, I went into the lavatory and washed out my eyes and sneezed some more and cleaned myself up as well as I could with a fistful of napkins I had grabbed.
Outside, the book van, its sign removed, had left for the drive back to Albany, but Marylou was waiting and looked worried about my well-being and appearance.
“Donald, you look like Olivia De Havilland in The Snake Pit.
Is Hunny going to have to have you committed?”
“I didn’t find the so-called lockbox. Or anything else. I was attacked by crates of potpourri. The Brienings might as well have had a rottweiler in there.”
“A little potpourri goes a long way. I have a quarter of an ounce or so in a Burmese lacquer dish in my Palm Beach boudoir, and it is more than enough to clear my sinuses after a long day of doing charity work.”
My cell phone went off, and it was Hunny.
“Donald, girl, how did you make out snatching the lockbox?”
“I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t able to find it. My information turned out to be too vague, and I didn’t get lucky.”
“Oh, well, rats. Antoine didn’t have any luck either. Mom and Tex weren’t at the Lake George Super 8 either, and the desk clerk wouldn’t tell them who was staying there. They checked the Silvery Moon again also, and they are all heading over to Cobleskill now to meet Quentin and the other Rdq boys who are on their way to Crafts-a-Palooza. They’re going to perform an exorcism on the crafts store, they said. I told them not to bother, really. But they wanted to help out in the way they know how.
And what harm is there in it, anyways? They should be over there any minute now if you want to watch.”
Marylou rode with me in my car, and we parked along the highway about a hundred yards from the crafts store. Hungry and worn out, we had picked up a couple of Big Macs and a bottle of water at McDonald’s and sat and ate while we waited for the show to begin.
“Oh, I’ve never eaten one of these before,” Marylou said.
“This time of day I am generally pecking at a ladylike nibble of fois gras.”
“Are you enjoying your burger?”
“It tastes predigested. As if it had been marinating in someone else’s stomach chemicals.”
“If you say that, you are arguing with success.”
“I wasn’t criticizing, just pointing out.”
We chatted for a while about Palm Beach life and about the Saratoga social scene during the summer racing season. Marylou reminded me that Rita Van Horn had also been an aficionado of the race track, and this gave me an idea as to where Hunny’s mom and her friend Tex might have been spending recent days, if in fact it was her old pal from Texas who had carried Mrs. Van Horn away to parts unknown.
At seven nineteen, the Radical Drama Queen convoy arrived.
The strip mall lot was nearly empty, except for three cars in front of Crafts-a-Palooza and four or five down at Subway. There were no cops around. The Brienings apparently had not reported the fake Sarah Palin book event, and they must not yet have discovered that the lock on the back door had been broken and their desk and files rifled.
Shoemaker’s little Fiat led the way, and it was followed by what looked like a twenty-year-old Ford Econoline van, and then Antoine’s Chevy Malibu with the twins and two of the RDQ boys in it.
“Well, won’t this be fun!” Marylou said.
“Yes, and if you want to join the party, go ahead. I think it’s better if I stay out of it to minimize the chances that the Brienings will connect this with Hunny.”
“I hate to go dressed like this. But I don’t want to miss out either. So tood-lee-oo, Donald. I’m sure I can ride with the Rdq ladies if it becomes necessary to beat a hasty retreat. And if Clyde and Arletta recognize me as Sarah Palin’s publisher’s rep, I’ll just tell them I’ve gone all mavericky like my boss.”
Marylou had another swig of water and then strode across the tarmac to the RDQ crew, who were out of their vehicles now and were decorating themselves with objects they were lifting out of a number of what looked like burlap sacks. The August evening light was weakening now, but the parking lot lights were coming on automatically and I had a clear view of the proceedings.