Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

He held a shoe to his nose and inhaled. “A heavy glue smell is always the first giveaway.”

I said, “They’re fakes?”

He nodded. “Not even good fakes.”

In an aggrieved voice, Cupcake said, “That woman brought me fake Nikes?”

He sounded so offended that Jancey and I started to laugh, but then we remembered the woman who’d left them had been either a murderer or a victim of murder.

Steven said, “Counterfeit sneakers make up about forty percent of the goods smuggled into the United States every year. The majority of those goods are fake Nikes. Some of them are obvious fakes. Some are so good even Nike’s people would have a hard time telling them apart from the authentic ones.”

I wiggled my toes in my Keds. “If they’re that good, does it make any difference?”

Steven’s eyes grew frostier. “It matters to the company with legal rights to manufacture and distribute them. It matters to the people whose jobs go to Asian sweatshops. It matters to the counterfeiters who make billions but pay their workers only pennies a day.”

Cupcake said, “It matters to me! If I pay for real Nikes, I don’t want fakes.”

Steven said, “So does every other consumer. But the prices for fake goods are enticing: A handbag exactly like the original that sells for fifteen hundred dollars may sell for six hundred, and the buyer will think she got a bargain. The only items almost impossible to fake are things like a six-thousand-dollar Cabat handbag. Women who know that bag are savvy enough to recognize when the leather weaving is inferior.”

I swallowed wrong and had a coughing fit at the idea of somebody spending six thousand dollars for a handbag. Any woman who would do that should just go whole hog and spend ten thousand for a new brain.

When I’d got myself under control, Steven said, “Other high-end labels are particularly easy to copy. Two-thirds of expensive timepieces are actually fakes.”

I turned my wrist so the fake Rolex was facedown. I’d never pretended it was a real Rolex, but it was still a rip-off of the genuine article.

I said, “I don’t understand how they get away with it. Isn’t that what customs inspectors are for?”

“They catch bad fakes, but it’s impossible to spot good fakes with a cursory inspection. Fakes don’t come all in one shipment, either, or with one point of origin. A single shipment may contain fake Pradas, Fendis, Guccis, Versaces, all the top brands, all with falsified labels of origin.”

Jancey said, “I’ve always known there were fakes, but I never realized it was such a big problem.”

“Most people don’t, but high-fashion counterfeiting rings have tentacles all over the world. The goods are distributed to upscale shops in resort areas such as the one you live in.”

Jancey and I looked at each other, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was: Which shops, and had we ever bought something there? Since my fashion choices are more likely to come from Target or JC Penney’s than a haute couture shop, I didn’t imagine I had bought any good fakes. Jancey shopped at those high-end shops, though, and she might very well have bought a fake and not known it.

Steven said, “Versace just won a twenty-two-million-dollar settlement in a Los Angeles counterfeiting lawsuit. We found seventy-two retail stores in California and Arizona passing off fake Versace merchandise and charging for the real thing.”

Jancey said, “Those stores knew the merchandise was fake?”

Steven smiled grimly. “Nobody sells counterfeit merchandise by mistake. If you sell a genuine Gucci watch, your profit margin is slim. If you sell a good counterfeit Gucci watch, your profit is large. For a lot of retailers, it isn’t a difficult decision to make.”

Jancey said, “What does all that have to do with a woman breaking into our house and killing somebody?”

Steven said, “That’s the big question, Mrs. Trillin. I was hoping Mr. Trillin might be able to shed some light on that.”

Like a scudding cloud, Cupcake’s face went from confusion to recognition to anger in about two seconds. “You think I have something to do with fake Nikes?”

“If you do, or if you know anybody who does, now would be the time to say so.”

Like a mother lion whose cub has been threatened, Jancey stood up. For a moment it looked like she might snatch the plate of cookies off the table.

“Don’t you dare imply that we’re criminals! We were in Italy on the first vacation we’ve had together in years. We got a call from Dixie saying a crazy woman had broken into our house. We cut our trip short and made reservations to come home, but then we got another call saying the woman was murdered before the cops could come and throw her out of our house. Except it wasn’t that woman, it was some other woman, and the first woman, the crazy model with one name, disappeared. Then we got to the Sarasota airport after twenty-two hours of worried travel, but Dixie couldn’t come get us because she was lying on her front porch knocked out by some thugs who ransacked her apartment. Now, to add icing to our cake, you waltz in here and hint that Cupcake is making fake sneakers! Talk about adding insult to injury!”

Steven’s eyes cut to me, and this time they weren’t flat. “What thugs?”

I said, “It happened last night. About nine o’clock. I stepped out my front door and somebody slammed me so hard I almost lost consciousness. Probably used a sap and an asp baton. I lay on the porch floor and drifted in and out of awareness while some men trashed my apartment. I don’t know what they were looking for. They left, and I got up and called Cupcake.”

“Did you report it?”

“I didn’t want to worry my brother. He was next door asleep, and he’s a little bit overprotective, so I didn’t want him to know. Besides, I didn’t have any evidence that it had happened. No bruises, no bumps. No broken bones. No scratches. My ribs weren’t even bruised.”

“But the pain was so great that you fell down semiconscious.”

I sank lower in my chair remembering it. “They were pros.”

“When those men were in your apartment, did you hear any conversation?”

“They spoke a foreign language I didn’t recognize.”

“Did they take anything?”

“I don’t think so. They threw things around, broke a teapot.”

“For effect? Or in a real search?”

“I don’t think they searched thoroughly. I don’t know if they left everything a mess to make it look like they had searched or if they were just incompetent.”

“Yet you thought they were professionals when it came to knowing how to incapacitate you without leaving evidence.”

“You think they weren’t really looking for anything? That they just wanted to hurt me?”

“I don’t know what their intent was, Ms. Hemingway, but if you meet them again, please report it. Even if it causes your brother worry.”

“Do you know who they could have been?”

“I have no idea.”

His eyes had gone flat and bleak again. I wondered if that was something he did on purpose to hide when he was lying.

Steven sat up straighter. “I want you all to listen very carefully. I’m not at liberty to give you particulars, but certain transnational criminals seem to believe that you are a threat to their business.”

With a nod toward Cupcake, he said, “Each of you has been thoroughly investigated. We have not found evidence linking you to any crime, but somebody believes you are, and you must be extremely careful until this investigation is resolved.”

In one voice, Cupcake, Jancey, and I said, “You investigated us?”

He met our angry glares with a shrug. “Don’t take it personally. Remember that FBI stands for the Federal Bureau of Investigation .”