Killer Pancake

Someone’s elbow jostled me and my ears rang from the shouted insults, but moments later, I was safely inside. I scanned the opulent store interior. Frances Markasian had made a detour into accessories and was fingering the various leathers of expensive handbags. Once again she was, as my parents would say, all dolled up. This time she sported a scarlet dress with a flared skirt, scarlet heels, and scarlet scarf twisted in some remarkably woven way through her mass of black hair. I quickly paralleled her step as she minced past a table display of wallets and headed for the far side of the Mignon counter. I slithered into the shoe department that faced that side of the cosmetics counter. Frances had spied on me so many times that I felt no compunction about seeing what she was up to this time. It had even become something of a game between us. Whatever today’s game was, the fact that it required two disguises in three days made it extremely interesting.

“I’m here because I need help with my face,” I heard Frances inform Harriet Wells. Dusty was waiting on a man I vaguely recognized—the tall blond fellow I’d seen in the shoe department that morning. Maybe he was an undercover cop.

Harriet looked at Frances and frowned. “What would you say is the skin problem you’d like to correct the most?” she asked politely.

Out in the aisle between the cosmetics counter and the shoe department, a five-tiered display of plastic boxes filled with a navy-blue and gold display of Mignon lipsticks, soaps, toners, and creams offered a hiding place. I ducked behind it.

Within moments, Harriet’s voice rose slightly. She was trying to sell Frances some concealer, and Frances was making such uncharacteristically enthusiastic responses that I ducked around the plastic box holding the Fudge Mousse lipstick and Nectarine Desire blush for a better view. From there, I could watch Harriet without her seeing me, since all her attention was focused on Frances, who was whining, “But I just want to look younger.” Uh-huh.

“This is Rejuvenation, the newest product to come out of Mignon’s European labs.” Harriet delicately gripped the pale, ribbed cylindrical bottle. “It has biochromes in it, and just look at what it’s done for my skin.” She lifted her free palm like a fan toward her superbly painted face. “I’m sixty-two,” she declared with a sunny smile. “Rejuvenation will take two decades off your face.”

“Sixty-two?” Frances echoed with loud incredulity as she shifted uncomfortably in the red spike heels. “I would have sworn you weren’t a day over fifty-five!”

A tiny frown appeared between Harriet’s eyebrows, then swiftly disappeared. I myself wouldn’t have put Harriet’s age over fifty.

“The biochromes penetrate to the deepest layer of the skin. They actually stop the aging process,” Harriet announced proudly.

“Is that right? How much for a big bottle of that?” Frances asked brightly.

“Well,” mused Harriet, “you need all the preparations to do the complete job. It’s like the four basic food groups. First we start with the pre-cleanser….” Here she frowned at Frances and shook her head. “Here, you hold the Rejuvenation while I look for the right cleanser for your skin.” She handed the bottle to Frances, who turned it, held it out at arm’s length, and grimaced. Harriet groped beneath the counter. When she reemerged, she gave Frances’s face a swift, shrewd assessment. “It really does look as if you have quite a bit of damage to your skin. Did your dermatologist send you?” When Frances shook her head, Harriet asserted, “You could certainly benefit from one of our rejuvenating cleansers …” and then she chided and explained and piled creams and cosmetics on the counter until Frances’s tab was, by my reckoning, well over four hundred dollars.

I leaned in closer to Harriet and Frances, but was stunned to be interrupted in my eavesdropping by a stocky fellow who edged in beside me and asked: “What are they saying?” He smiled at me as if this were some kind of joke only the two of us were in on. He had dark brown hair and short, stubby fingers that he drummed on his knees as he crouched next to me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied huffily, and straightened up.

“Is that your boyfriend?” he asked as if he hadn’t heard my answer. His accent was flat and midwestern. His arms seemed too short for his body when he gestured knowingly in the direction of the tall blond man with Dusty.

“He is not my boyfriend. Would you please go away?”

He opened his eyes wide, as if I’d refused to laugh at his joke. Then he touched the badge on my white jacket. “Are you really a chef? I mean, you’re wearing one of those coats. Is your restaurant here in the mall?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. Two of my coworkers are right nearby.” Maybe I could frighten this guy away with the threat of numbers.

“Really?” He looked around. “They won’t mind if I talk to their boss, will they? How long have you been here?”

“Look, mister, please, please, please go away—”