Carol Clark - Fleeced

So far, so good, she thought. She unlocked the second door, stepped inside, shut the door behind her, and hurried up the staircase. Ben’s apartment was on the second floor at the top of the stairs.

Janey stopped at Ben’s door, unlocked it quickly, and pushed it open. It rumbled slightly. She ducked into the apartment, bolted the door behind her, and breathed a sigh of relief. I can’t believe I’m doing this, she thought.

The whole place was eerily quiet. Even though the apartment was neat, it seemed to Janey to have a neglected, sad air, as though it knew the owner wasn’t coming back. Just yesterday she had been here bringing food…

And now I’m coming to take it away! Janey pushed the thought from her mind and went down the hallway into the kitchen. It was big and old-fashioned, with a small butler’s pantry/closet off to one side. Janey placed her thermal carrying case on the floor next to the refrigerator, opened the door, and proceeded to empty the refrigerator of her home-cooked meal. Her chicken, potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, and pie safely tucked in her case, she opened the freezer to see what else she might salvage. Janey laughed. A Tupperware container full of lasagna. She grabbed it and bent down to place it on top of the vegetables.

Suddenly she felt a presence. In an instant a hand came from behind and sprayed her eyes with Mace.

“Aaaah!” Janey cried as she struggled with her attacker. But her eyes were burning, and she was thrown completely off balance. Within seconds she had been pushed into the tiny, dark closet, with the door slammed shut and locked behind her.

“Let me out!” she cried as she banged on the impossibly heavy door. But it was no use. She knew whoever threw her in here wasn’t going to let her out. She was lucky they hadn’t really hurt her.

She sank to the floor in the near darkness, just a sliver of light from the kitchen filtering in from the crack under the door. The reality of what had just happened started to hit her. Oh my God! she thought. This is humiliating! How can I ever live this down? If I’m ever rescued, Thomas will surely dump me! As her tears started to flow, she decided that if she did get out, Mrs. Buckland could cook for herself from now on.

Archibald Enders and his wife, Vernella, had long enjoyed living on Gramercy Park. Both in their seventies, they had traveled the world over but were always happy to come back to the town house where Archibald had grown up and give their staff a hard time. They weren’t happy if there wasn’t something to complain about.

The Settlers’ Club virtually falling apart right across the street from them gave them a lot of fat to chew on. Archibald made sure he knew every disgraceful thing that was going on there.

As a boy walking docilely in the park with his nanny, as a lad on holiday from prep school, as a Harvard-educated young broker in the family firm, invited to teas and formal dinners at the Settlers’ Club, Archibald could remember when the club had been worthy of its surroundings. But it had been in decline for the last quarter of a century. The rumblings of commercialism had become a stampede. Now its new president was turning the place into a tacky madhouse.

Home to a dating service! The setting for a third-rate film!

And all the hoopla last night, with the wailing of police sirens and the shrill of an ambulance. All the people out on the street stopping to gawk. Whispers of diamond theft and murder!

Not such good publicity for an old club that was trying to attract new members. The Settlers’ Club will close its doors, he thought. No doubt about it. It will soon be occupied by someone more worthy of the surroundings.

And come to think of it, I have just the one.

He put through his second call to England that day.

“Thorn,” he said into the phone. “I suggest you get over here on the last flight out tonight. We’ve got work to do this weekend.”

Regan and Stanley cabbed it down to the converted gas station.

Now I’ve seen everything, Regan thought as Stanley escorted her inside.

“What do you think?” he asked with a big smile. “Other people convert warehouses into palatial apartments. I turned a gas station into a cozy home.”

“You’re a genius,” Regan said.

“Thank you. Please sit down.”

Regan sank into the couch, still amazed at her surroundings. She’d seen a lot of crazy abodes in her day, but this one took the cake.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Stanley asked.

Fill ’er up, Regan wanted to say, but thanked him and accepted a cup of special herbal tea that Stanley assured her cleared everyone’s sinuses. I’m not really sure I want my sinuses cleared in this place, Regan thought. But the tea did taste good.

Stanley sat down and slipped one of the tapes from the party into the VCR hooked up to his big-screen television. The tape began with people milling around, chatting. The butlers were passing hors d’oeuvres.

“Pigs in blankets,” Regan commented.

“Some people consider them low class. But they always go over well,” Stanley said as he stared admiringly at the screen.

How did some of them end up in Nat’s garbage can? Regan wondered…“What did you make of the crowd?” she asked Stanley.

“Generally nice people. Not everybody wanted to be on camera.”

“How many didn’t want their faces shown?” Regan asked.

“About half of them. As you can see, I still got the feeling of a big party. There’s Lydia conferring with Maldwin and the other butlers in the kitchen…”

“There’s a female butler,” Regan observed.

“A hard worker,” Stanley said vehemently. “A hard worker.”

Now they were watching a man talking to a woman holding a Snoopy purse.

“That’s some purse,” Regan said.

Stanley sighed. “She hung onto it all night. As a matter of fact, she got very upset when the whole commotion started and we found out Nat Pemrod had died.”

“Did she know him?”

“She said to me that she had met him at one of the other parties. He told her he liked her purse.”

Could she be Buttercup? Regan wondered. Could one of these other women be Buttercup?

Regan didn’t have time to watch every minute of the nearly four hours of tapes, but what she saw acquainted her with some of the people she’d be meeting at the party tonight. “What happened when the police showed up?” she asked Stanley.

Stanley fast-forwarded to the end of the tape, which showed a policeman standing outside Nat’s apartment. Then it went blank.

“That’s it?” Regan asked.

“I ran out of tape.”

It figures, Regan thought.

“But they wouldn’t let me inside anyway.” Stanley pressed the OFF button on his set. “Was that helpful?”

“Yes,” Regan said truthfully.

“You know, I take a lot of footage and then boil it down to the most interesting sound bites.”

“I understand,” Regan said, then lowered her voice in a way that indicated she wanted to make Stanley a confidant. “Bring a lot of tape tonight, would you? I’ll pay for it. Your camera can be another set of eyes for us. You never know what we’ll pick up.”

Stanley beamed. Maybe I’ll get a network show out of this, he thought.

When Regan left, she hailed a cab uptown. It was four o’clock, and even though it felt cold and wintery, the days were getting longer and longer. Springtime was just around the corner.

Of course, April is the cruelest month, she thought. Although I think that for certain people March is a strong contender. Certainly for Nat and Ben.