7 Joanna

Seeing Omar dead didn't bother Joanna nearly as much as the idea of someone seeing her leaving the antiques mall. Maybe there was another set of security cameras, or someone passing along Summer Avenue had pointed to their little borrowed car and said, Isn't that Joanna Grayson, the famous British film star? Believe it or not, she'd slept soundly, perhaps on account of the three gin and tonics she'd downed out by the apartment community pool. If she closed her eyes and shut out the sound of the interstate, she could've very well been in Monte Carlo or along the Amalfi Coast. The Amalfi Coast always made her think of Tippi's father, such an outrageous little raconteur, a tour manager for every brilliant band that no one could remember anymore. That was the seventies, and he'd worn those ridiculous tiny yellow bathing shorts while rubbing coconut oil on her back, their sandy transistor radio playing Italian versions of pop tunes. Caterina Caselli singing "Tutto Nero," a fun little upbeat version of "Paint It Black." Skinny cigarettes and copious amounts of red wine.

When Joanna awoke later that morning, Tippi was absent from their hideous one-bedroom flat, gone to do whatever Tippi did during daylight hours. It certainly wasn't work. The girl had been completely dependent on Joanna since she'd emerged from the womb wearing a contemptuous grin and pointing to an open mouth. Joanna always asked her and Tippi would just reply, "I've been out."

Most surely Omar had been killed, because who ends up with that much blood from a heart attack? Perhaps he'd had an aneurysm? Blood pouring from the nose and eyes, something satanic and awful like the Hammer film she'd made a million years ago, Dracula's Mistress. The blood such a deep red, made of golden syrup, red food dye, cornstarch, and water. What the prop men used to call Kensington Gore. No, someone had stabbed Omar several times and left him there to die sprawled across a thick stack of the carpets he'd imported from freighters out of Turkey. She knew he had a wife and a plonker for a son, Omar always slapping him in the back of his curly black head like something out of a Benny Hill skit, calling him something awful in Turkish. Salak! Salak! Omar didn't come home last night, and someone had most surely found the body.

Joanna poured herself a little espresso and added a large amount of sugar, taking the tiny cup and dry white toast to the living room. The television was already on and she flipped through the morning news stations for anything on poor Omar. Her hands were a bit shaky, waiting for a furious knocking on the door, the police coming for her as a suspect in the killing. They'd take her into a shabby little cinder block room and men would shout at her and pound on a desk with their fists, until she'd be charged with murder. Maybe a big trial with lots of news cameras and a suitable setting for her best dresses and hats.

Joanna ate a bit of toast and set her teacup on top of Tippi's new copy of Italian Vogue, an extravagant purchase for twenty-five dollars filled with clothes she could never afford or ever own. Why did the poor girl torture herself? A move back to London. Why? Their life was here.

Joanna sat back, slipped her cheaters up from the beaded necklace, and leafed through her daily calendar. It appeared she'd already missed a useless call with her agency that morning. Her longtime agent Maury Feldstein had died in Palm Springs in 1981 from a supposed heart attack but actually from a virtual Matterhorn of cocaine. She was being represented by a twenty-four-year-old Harvard girl who'd never heard of either Vivien Leigh or Shelley Winters. Over a particularly awkward lunch in Beverly Hills, she'd asked Joanna if David Lean wasn't that old man who used to sell sausage on the telly. The horror.

We have breaking news for you this morning. Memphis police are investigating a homicide in the seven hundred block of Summer Avenue at Summer Antiques. Police say they were called to the business early this morning to discover the body of a fifty-six-year-old man. Police have not yet released the name of the victim. We will keep you updated as more details become available.

Joanna's mouth was agape. Unbelievable. Omar was only fifty-six! She'd figured him for his early seventies. She could tell he'd been dyeing his hair for years—she'd spotted the ink up under his fingernails—and that potty little stomach aged him considerably.

If only she hadn't left that stupid necklace inside the air vent. She'd been so worried about what Tippi might think that she'd tucked it up inside not twenty meters from Omar's body. If the police weren't complete dullards, they'd search every little crevice and find the pearls and soon connect them to the Elvis party last night. All she ended up with in exchange was some kind of useless shipping manifest from Istanbul. Omar got shipments from Turkey almost every week. Why on earth was this one so important that Omar had hidden it away like a daft squirrel?

Joanna picked up her phone and spotted five missed calls from one of her best clients. Please let me take you to lunch today, dear Joanna. Thank you and God bless.

Joanna choked on the espresso and set down the cup. My god, where was Tippi and their damned car when she really needed it? She dialed Tippi from their house phone and listened to the cell ring and ring and ring until her daughter picked up.

"I'm shocked you're up this early," Tippi said. "Don't tell me. The building is on fire?"

"I need you to come and pick me up," she said. "I have errands."

"What kind of errands?"

"I don't see why that matters," she said. "Where did you go anyway?"

"If you must know," Tippi said, "I'm at the zoo making a sketch of a male and female lion. The male is lazy but rather proud of his equipment."

"They should call him Richard."

Tippi didn't answer, such a prude, and Joanna started to pace, holding on to the phone and looking outside to the pool where she'd fallen asleep last night, now occupied by a half-dozen unemployed twentysomethings who spent their days boozing and having sex. A muscular young man drifted aimlessly on a silver float, a beer can held loosely in his hand. Ten years ago, she could've made him get on his knees and bark like a dog.

"You want to go back for the necklace," Tippi said.

"What necklace?" Joanna asked.

Tippi didn't answer.

"If you must know, I have an important luncheon."

"With whom?"

"I'll explain on the way," Joanna said. "And, oh, by the way, Omar is quite dead."

Leslie Grimes had a horsey face topped with a whoosh of thinning white hair, bright white veneers, and the most outlandish jug ears. He wore a purple dress shirt with a purple striped tie, braided leather braces, a gold wedding band, and a simple gold wristwatch. No one would've paid him a bit of attention if he weren't worth billions of dollars. Grimes was founder and CEO of a Christian gift shop and bookstore chain with more than eight hundred stores in forty-seven states. He also did a bit of chatting on cable news about family values and political nonsense while maintaining a rabid fascination with high-end antiques.

"You sure are lovely, Miss Joanna," Grimes said. "I bet you take after your mother."

"I certainly hope not," Joanna said. "My mother was a mean, self-centered bitch. She only worked to please herself and treated me like an unnecessary appendage. Like some kind of tumor growing out of her arse until I turned sixteen, moved to London, and liberated myself. Everybody who was anybody was there. It was as they said. A happening."

"I'm afraid the sixties never came to Arkansas," he said. "Although a fella did once offer me some pot at a Glen Campbell concert." She and Grimes had been sitting in the upper section of Chez Philippe at the Peabody for nearly twenty minutes now, making small talk—mainly him talking about growing his little ole shop in Blytheville to an empire—as he sipped sweet tea and she drank weak mint juleps that did little to nothing for her hangover.

"Well, Miss Joanna," he said, "how about we get down to those sharp brass tacks. I figured you've heard already that our ole buddy Omar is dead. Someone stabbed him and left him to bleed out on a stack of his finest carpets. Antiques from Afghanistan."

"I know," she said. "So tragic."

"Memphis sure is a dangerous city."

"But it does have its charms."

"Does it now?" Grimes said. "He sure was a funny little fella. Didn't understand half of what he was saying. But, boy, did he deliver. He was a fine man with lovely tastes. My wife and I were saying just this morning that he furnished half our house. With your help, of course."

Joanna forced a smile. "Of course."

Chez Philippe was pretty if a bit stagey for her taste, with marble columns and marble steps, white linen tablecloths, and black-suited waiters buzzing about to refill glasses. The Peabody wasn't exactly the Dorchester or the fucking Ritz but it absolutely beat her little flat where she'd been living for nine hundred dollars a month for the past year. The dreaded "Village," where she just waited for that big white bubble to follow her one day out to the parking lot and envelop her into nothingness.

"Hope you didn't mind us meeting like this," he said.

"Meeting like what?"

"A married man with a pretty woman like yourself," he said. "I've made it my business to never have a one-on-one meeting with a woman unless some more folks are present. That not only cuts down on tongues wagging but also protects me from any of those frivolous lawsuits that come up from time to time. A man in my position can be prone to flattery."

"I'm sure a great number of women just can't keep their hands to themselves."

"You have no idea, Miss Joanna," Grimes said, pushing back a few strands of stringy white hair from his long, florid face. "Did Omar tell you what he'd been doing for me?"

Joanna looked over her shoulder and then back to little Leslie Grimes and said, "Of course," she said, lying. "I have to admit poor Omar told me everything. He was a great flirt."

"Is that right?" Grimes said, leaning back. "I figured. I wasn't trying to cut out the middle man or anything. This was just a very private arrangement and I didn't want too many folks to know about it. Not that I in any way would doubt you."

"Heavens, no."

"Are you a spiritual woman, Miss Grayson?"

"Well," she said, brightening her eyes. "Faith is what bonded me to Elvis. We often spoke of matters of religion. Sometimes he and his boys, what they called the Memphis Mafia, would sing old-fashioned songs while Elvis played piano. I never felt closer to Jesus Christ and his father, too."

"Well," he said, "it's all pretty much the same. Do you read the Bible?"

"Constantly."

"And you believe it is the true Word of God?" he said.

"Oh, yes," she said. "Absolutely."

Thankfully the sad waiter, a slump-shouldered Black gent with a bald head and shaky hands, brought more drinks. She took a sailor's swig, as her old father might say, of the fresh julep. A bit weak on the bourbon. Joanna always felt she was best at lying when she was a bit sloshed. She could bat her eyelashes at the most horrid-looking producer, telling him that his hair plugs looked just marvelous.

"My family has been very blessed," Grimes said. "I started my business with a two-thousand-dollar loan from my momma and the crazy idea to sell art supplies and custom frames to regular people like myself. Silk flowers, Christmas decorations year-round, and paints and glitter to help people express their God-given talent."

"I met Salvador Dalí once in Barcelona," Joanna said. "He told me my eyes were made of flames and my breasts were made to suckle."

"Isn't that something?" Grimes said, pausing to drink some sweet tea. "I never understood all the melting clocks and crazy eyes sort of thing. I'm afraid Dalí was a bit extreme for this ole country boy from Blytheville."

The waiter set down a Cobb salad before her and a salade Ni?oise for him. Neither of them touched it, Leslie too preoccupied with poor Omar's death. Who would rob a sad little antiques mall in such a shabby part of town? Joanna thought of the methadone clinic next door, recalled commenting to Tippi that it was only a matter of time. Omar had wanted to protect her, calling her "Miss Joanna." What a joke. Where was Omar when Otto Preminger slipped a liver-spotted hand up her miniskirt and asked her how badly she wanted to play a gogo-dancing hippie in Skidoo?

"This was a very special project to both me and the Grimes family," he said. "Ole Omar came through in a pinch and did exactly as he was asked. Of course, he was paid handsomely for his services. But his dying has just left a few mysteries for me."

Joanna played her best unconcerned poker face and picked up her salad fork. She began to furiously rake around the salad, concentrating on holding a smile. "Really? What would that be?"

"Well," he said. "You both had been so wonderful about getting those old statues for us without trouble with customs. So I thought I might impose upon him again."

Joanna looked up from her salad. She held the fork and stared at his dumb little face, now knowing exactly why he'd texted her so many times. She wanted to scream aha! but instead held a steady smile. The julep was working wonders. "I imagine this has something to do with Peter Collinson?"

Grimes grinned with his big veneers and plucked a thumb inside one of his braces, looking for all the world like Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Joanna never met Tennessee Williams but she had met Truman Capote once in London at some big shindig at David Bailey's warehouse. He looked content and perverted in a white suit and swinging wicker chair while watching two male models wrestle for a silver plate of cheese and sweets.

"Mr. Collinson assisted me with this very special purchase."

"More trinkets from the desert?"

"Much more than that, Miss Joanna," Grimes said, suddenly turning very serious. "Omar promised to usher my purchase all the way back to Memphis. No questions asked. But a little over a week ago, Peter stopped returning my calls, and now poor Mr. Omar got himself killed."

"And now you can't find where he's hidden your prize," Joanna said, setting down the fork and staring right at ole Leslie Grimes, the third richest man in the state of Arkansas.

"You do know."

"Of course I know," she said. "Like I said, Omar confided everything in me. He trusted me more than he did his own wife."

"Oh, thank god," he said. "Then all is not lost."

"Don't be silly," Joanna said. "But I don't think it's proper to be meddling in Peter's deal without first speaking with him."

"Peter Collinson has disappeared," he said. "With half of my money."

"How much did you pay him?"

"I'd rather not say."

"You not saying means that you paid Peter quite a handsome sum," she said. "You must've been really hot for some old relic. Why not allow me to barter for you? Like last time?"

"This isn't just some relic," he said, face turning a bright red. "What Peter promised me might just change the course of this godless country."

"Goodness," she said. She hadn't heard such theatrics since listening in on O'Toole and Burton after their fifth whiskeys. Was the poor man about to sing a hymn to her? "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and that sort of thing.

Grimes closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before reaching for his sweet tea and staring right at Joanna. "You do realize my position affords me to write you a blank check," he said. "For what would be your considerable assistance."

"Changing the course of this godless country?"

"It's best you don't know all the details."

"I might know a few," she said. "All of this is coming out of Istanbul?"

"That rotten son of a bitch," Joanna said. "That awful, awful deceitful man."

"Which one?" Tippi asked. "You always say that all men are wretched."

They'd left the Peabody and wandered over to the newish shopping mall next door, a big project that was supposed to bring scores of shoppers to downtown but had instead grown into a fatted white elephant. All but two of the shops had closed, a sad little fountain trickling in the center, as she walked with her daughter in solitude past what had been a Victoria's Secret, an empty Gap, and a defunct restaurant that had sold hot dogs and AW root beer. She couldn't think of anything more awful. She'd heard there had been a shooting on the sidewalk the day the mall opened. She couldn't imagine anyone braving this part of Memphis for a fucking hot dog and cheap lingerie.

"If it hadn't been for me, Peter would have never met a fat cat loony bird like Leslie Grimes," Joanna said. "I've been grooming Leslie for years and years. Long before we came to Memphis. Before all this Arabian nonsense, he'd been interested in buying anything that Joan Crawford had ever owned. Apparently, he'd met her as a young man outside a theater in Little Rock and had supposedly become taken with her. This fascination he has now is a beautiful sickness."

"What is it?" Tippi said.

Her daughter wore a sloppy Von Dutch sweatshirt, ragged blue jeans, and bejeweled ball cap. Dreadful pink sandals that made smacking sounds as they walked together.

"I don't know," Joanna said. "He wouldn't say. I was not fool enough to ask."

"How was lunch?"

"It was a salad at a hotel restaurant," she said. "How do you think?"

"I haven't eaten all day," Tippi said. "I'd even fancy a hot dog at the moment."

"Tippi."

"Well," she said. "Not much time to eat while playing chauffeur, Mother."

"This"—Joanna said, stopping by a row of faded movie posters for the derelict movie theater—"this is really something. A true stroke of luck. We haven't had this kind of luck in a long while."

"Omar being dead?"

"Yes, yes," she said. "Poor, poor Omar, that backstabbing little pervert. Who gives a damn about Omar. He should've locked up better. He and Peter. God."

"I've never met your Peter Collinson," she said. "You've told me stories. At one point he sounded too good to be true."

"A charming scoundrel," Joanna said. "And your mother is a curator of scoundrels. He might have topped them all."

"Can you find him?"

"Of course," Joanna said. "Because now I have something he wants."

"And what's that, Mother?" Tippi asked. She wasn't even looking at her mother, studying a ragged poster for a film called The Duchess with that preening little twat Keira Knightley.

Joanna had chosen to wear a silk pantsuit, with an abstract print of black, white, green, and gold brushstrokes. Very Klimt. Tall white strappy heels and the set of pearls (much nicer than the ones she'd nicked last night) layered over a golden necklace she'd borrowed from Twiggy during eight days of frozen debauchery in Saint Moritz. She was pretty sure she'd seen Peter Sellers launch a stuffed olive off his erect penis, a demonstration he offered after a lengthy discussion on the cliff divers in Acapulco.

"Mother."

"Yes."

"What does this Mr. Collinson want?"

Joanna stepped back and waved her hands over herself like a magician presenting a wondrous act. "Me," she said. "What else?"

"Oh, course," Tippi said. "Joanna Fucking Grayson. What else."