Death of a Rug Lord (15 page)

I totally ignored Mama's comment, which, while not necessarily rude, was certainly the most aggravating thing I could have done.

Fig, having neither a daughter nor a wife, was oblivious to our mother-daughter power struggle. “Well now, ma'am,” he said to me, “the answer to that may surprise you. You might think that I wouldn't, on account of their nastiness, but you see, I was born and raised a God-fearing Presbyterian, and I learned in Sunday school that one should always turn the other
cheek. Besides, I figured that by throwing a little business their way, I might get them to cooperate some.”

“And did they?”

“Not in the least. They stayed as ornery as mean dogs—although some of the counter people were right nice. But they never stayed around long.”

“Did they at least do a good job?”

“Funny you should ask. On shirts and the like they did, but they always came back in bags that had another dry cleaner's name on them. But the kicker—”

“What was the name?”

“I can't rightly remember. Something about a little Dutch girl—I think. But what I started to tell you was that I had them pick up this carpet that Lula Mae had inherited from her Grandmother Tibbins—well, not
inherited
, exactly, but got as a wedding present. It was supposed to be an early inheritance, which was a good thing, on account of Granny Tibbins died seven years after Lula Mae passed.”

Mama waved her arm excitedly like a schoolgirl who finally knew a correct answer. “I remember that rug! It was blue, wasn't it? With orange whatchamacallits. Lula Mae said that when she was a little girl she used to call it her Granny's Purring Rug. She said that she thought the rug was really called that because her granny's rocking chair was in that room, and the old woman, bless her heart, was always snoring. Of course the adults were saying
Persian
, not purring.”

We all laughed, until Fig, bless
his
heart, wiped away what I hoped was a tear that had been induced by a happy memory. “Mozella, you're still a hoot, but I'm not yet done with my story.”

“Press on,” I urged.

“So anyway, they pick up the carpet, and it takes them six doggone weeks to clean the bloody thing, and then when they do bring it back, well—”

“It isn't the same one.” I clamped a petite paw over an equally petite maw.

“Abby!” Mama said sharply. “Don't interrupt with such nonsense.”

“But she's right on the mark,” Fig said.

“Go
fig
ure,” Mama said, but nobody laughed.

“How different was it?” I asked.

A
t first the rug I got back looked identical to me—minus the dirt, of course. Granny Tibbins had gotten it for her wedding, and it was already
supposedly
an antique then. And to my knowledge Granny had never had it professionally cleaned. So anyway, the colors were much brighter, especially the blue background, which made the orange whatchamacallits really stand out.

“But what I didn't check to see at first was that Granny had hand-stitched Lula Mae's and my initials on one of the whatchamacallits—designs, I would call them—in a slightly darker shade. It was the kind of thing that would pop out to Lula Mae and me every time we walked into the room and looked down, but nobody else would notice until we pointed it out. In fact, it was always fun asking first-time visitors to look for our initials.”

“Kind of like
Where's Waldo
,” Mama said.

“What?”

“Never mind,” I said. “So the rug you got in return didn't have the initials. Is there any chance they might have come off during the cleaning process?”

“I thought about that. But it's not like they were painted on, or written on with a pen or a marker. They were stitched on really well. Fat letters too, that looped all the way through the rug and back again. They were just hard to see at first because the color difference was so subtle.”

“Was there anything else different about the rug you got back from the cleaners?”

He nodded, slowly at first, but faster when he saw that I was a respectful and receptive audience. “I took to studying the rug after that, and other rugs too. Heck”—he grinned shyly—“I even started visiting those high-end antique shops down on King Street.”

“My Abby owns one!” Mama squealed. “The Den of Antiquity. Did you go in there?”

Fig winked at me. “I might have. At any rate, Abby—may I call you that?”

“Her name is
Mrs
. Gregory Washburn,” Mama said.

I beamed with pleasure. “Yes, please call me Abby.”

“Anyway, Abby, a lot of the older rugs, and the more expensive ones, don't seem as well made.”

“Hear, hear,” Mama said.

“Why is that, Abby?”

“Ah, you must be referring to uneven stitches and such. Was Grandmother Tibbins original rug one of those?”

“Yeah, I'm afraid so. The thing is, even though I'm pissed—pardon my French again—”

“That wasn't French,” Mama snapped. “Really Fig, how would you like it if the French said, ‘Pardon my English'?”

“Actually, Mama, they do.”

Mama bathed me with a loving glare.

“Please, Fig, continue,” I said.

“What I'm trying to say is that even though I'm really ticked that it's not the same rug, I'm kind of relieved at the same time. The rug they substituted looks so much nicer.”

“That's because you're not snooty and pretentious,” Mama said. Apparently she couldn't make up her mind whether she was still making a play for the handsome widower.

“Fig,” I said, “can you tell me anything about this Andy Garcia, the guy who owned the restaurant on the other side of Magic Genie Cleaners?”

“Andy was a first-class guy. His parents were from Mexico, but Andy was born and raised right here in Charleston. Spoke English like the native he was. Andy's dream was to own an authentic Mexican restaurant, not one that catered to the night-out crowd, but to Hispanic workers.”

“The illegal immigrants,” Mama said, before her lips all but disappeared.

“It was a brave venture, but doomed from the start. He kept his prices low by serving mainly peasant dishes family style, so the place was always packed, but the city health department and the Federal Department of Immigration were always riding on his buttocks—pardon my English. They kept him jumping through hoops, filling out forms, and paying fines for minor infractions. Then one day someone from the Magic Genie Cleaners hierarchy shows up and asks Andy if maybe he needs a little help dealing with the bureaucracy.

“Well, Andy had seen enough movies to know that this sounded an awful lot like protection money, so he wasn't about to start something that was just going to escalate and he said no. Shortly after that some of Andy's customers got assaulted coming and going from Casa de Mama Mia. The first couple of times it happened, Andy called the police, but a fat lot of good it did because everyone ran away; the customers ran away as well. It was a crazy scene.”

“Why did they run if they were innocent?” Mama asked.

“This is your chance to say illegal immigrants, Mama.”

“Why Abigail Washburn, are you implying that I'm prejudiced? Because I most certainly am
not
. I am quite aware that our own ancestors landed on this continent without the local inhabitants' permission. But just so you know, it's a fact that most of the Indians were killed off by the diseases that we brought with us, not by our guns.”

“Please excuse her,” I said. “She doesn't like to say Native Americans because she was born in America, which, strictly speaking, makes her a native of America, and ergo a native American with a small N. But at any rate, I can guess what happened to the restaurant: the customers stopped coming and poor Andy Garcia had to give up on his dream.”

“Exactly.”

“Fig,” I said, “are you sure the shakedown men were from Magic Genie Cleaners?”

“I'm darn sure that at least one of them was. You see, the first time they beat up on the customers, I was
locking up my store and I heard the fight. I went over to see what was going on, and that's when I recognized this one guy; you can't mistake him for anyone else. He has shoulder-length bright red hair—curly, mind you—and a mean old scar that starts above his right eyebrow and continues across the bridge of his nose, makes a sharp downward turn, and ends up just beside the left corner of his mouth. Really nasty-looking scar. Maybe put there with a box cutter.”

“Ick,” said Mama. “I'm not sure Lula Mae would approve of this.”

“Of what, Mama?”

“Well, it isn't my place to say it, but—”

“We really must be going,” I said.

“That's not what I was going to say, dear.”

I kicked Mama under the messy lunch table. Unfortunately I forgot that I was wearing open-toed sandals.

“Loach, gouramis, and neon tetra,” I exclaimed with a great deal of emotion.

“Why Abigail Louise, I taught you not to swear.”

Fig roared with laughter.

“I fail to see what's so funny,” Mama said. Her eyes had narrowed to mere slits, which in Mama-speak means you're on pretty shaky ground, no matter who you are.

I looked helplessly at Fig. “You better tell her, because she won't believe me.”

He got right to it. “Mozella, your baby girl didn't swear; those are names of fish species. Where did you learn that, Abby?”

“In the distant past my son Charlie had an aquar
ium. He tried just every kind of fish there was, and then settled on fried.”

“Shhh, better not say that too loud.” He pointed a thumb to the showroom.

We both laughed.

“I don't get that,” Mama said. “Fish can't hear.”

I struggled to my functioning foot. “You've been very generous with your time, Fig. We really appreciate that, don't we, Mama?”

“You tell
me
, Abby, since you're doing the talking on my behalf.”

“Mama!”

“What?” She tried to sound like an innocent little girl. What mattered is that she gathered her voluminous skirts and stood.

“Ladies,” Fig said, before gallantly ushering us into the showroom, “I'd bet you dollars to doughnuts that these words are going to fall on deaf ears. Nonetheless, I feel obligated to say them. Stay clear of anyone, or anything, that has to do with Magic Genie Cleaners. They're bad news.”

 

Outside in the brilliant sunshine the empty building next door didn't seem quite so ominous. Plenty of businesses close in the first few years, and as for the boarded-up restaurant adjacent to it, wasn't it in the highest risk category? I'd been overreacting as usual. Doing the “Abby thing,” as Greg sometimes says. Well, it was time to step back and get some perspective.

“Abby,” Mama said, as if handed a cue card, “I have an idea.”

“I bet I know! Let's bop on over to Northwoods
Mall, since we're so close, and get pedicures
and
manicures. My treat. Are you willing to have flowers painted on your big toes this time?”

“Shoot a monkey,” Mama said, shaking her well-lacquered head, “if that doesn't take the cake, nothing does.”

“What?”

“I just never thought I'd see the day when the flesh of my flesh would put pleasure over duty.”

“Mama, that's not fair. What am I supposed to do? Track down a gang of thugs and punch their lights out?”

“Gracious no, dear. A proper lady never engages in fisticuffs. That's why we have husbands and gentlemen friends.”

“Like Big Larry?”

She looked away momentarily as the corners of her mouth tugged upward. “I'm just saying that we still have work to do, and that there is always a way to get it done.”

 

There were several men named Andrew Garcia in the Charleston area telephone book, so I asked Mama to pick which one to start with. I'm not saying she's telepathic—okay, I
am
saying that she does have an uncanny ability to know who's calling, even without looking at caller ID. She can also guess exactly how many pennies (jelly beans, etc.) there are in a jar, but she never enters those contests, because she thinks they'll lead to gambling. Perhaps in her case they would. At any rate, I use Mama's gifts only when they're offered: I don't want to be the one responsible for leading her down that path of destruction.

He answered on the first ring. “Andy here.”

“Mr. Garcia, you don't know me, but—”

“Excuse me, but I don't take calls from strange—”

“I'm not a stranger! Not really.”

“Yeah? Not really how?”

“Fig's my uncle,” I said, lying between the smallest of gaps between two of my top left molars. But it was
sort
of the truth. Had Lula Mae and Daddy lived, and our parents kept in touch, I'm sure that Toy and I would have thought of them as family. Heck, the way Mama was carrying on, if Daddy hadn't come along just in time, Fig might well have been my daddy, which is a sight closer than an uncle.

“Well, in that case, what's this about, ma'am? If you don't mind me asking.”

“I hate to say this over the phone, Andy, because it involves
you know who
. You might say that I'm a private detective and that I'm doing my best to expose them for the crooks they are. I wouldn't use your name, of course: I swear on a pile of dead kittens, and I love cats more than anything in the world.”

Mama poked me in the ribs. “Abby, that was horrible! How could you even say that?”

“Who was that? And what did you say your name was again?”

I was losing him. “Abigail Washburn. Look, is there a McDonald's, or someplace like that, near you where we could meet? We're just outside Uncle Fig's place.”

“Let me speak to him.”

There was a chance that my cell phone reception might be spotty inside the store and ruin my everything, so I palmed my cell phone and held it as far
from my mouth as possible. “Mama, go get
Uncle
Fig and bring him here. Andy wants to speak to him.”

“But he's not your—”

“
Favorite
uncle,” I said, just in case Andy could still hear me. “Mama, please do as I say and go get Uncle Fig.”

Fortunately Mama gathered her petticoats and was back in a flash with Fig. He winked as he took the phone. I was too nervous to listen in so I walked over to the empty building that had once been used as a dry cleaning store. The doors were locked and there was nothing to see through the windows except for sills lined with dead flies, lying belly up, and a bare counter. There weren't even any chairs in the lobby. As for the vast area behind the counter, it could have been previously occupied by any business. Gone were the rotating racks one associates with the dry cleaning business. Absent was the glorious scent of formaldehyde.

“Abby.” This time Mama poked me in the back with her index finger.

I shrieked. “Mama! I'm practically middle-aged. I could have a heart attack.”

“You
are
middle-aged, dear. Although it is a mystery, seeing as how I just barely reached that milestone myself.” She pointed toward Fig. “Andy wants to talk to you.”

My heart still thumping like that of a witless teenager in a horror movie, I scurried over to my newly created uncle and grabbed the phone.

“Hello?”

“This is your last chance, Mrs. Washburn: is Fig really your uncle?”

I bit my lip before answering. “No.”

“Meet me in fifteen minutes, just outside the mall entrance to Dillard's. What do you look like?”

“I'm four feet nine. Look down.”

“Very funny.”

“I'm serious. What do you look like?”

“I'm six feet two and have sandy hair.”

“Ha ha.”

“I'm serious as well. See you.”

He hung up.