Preview of Hot State

It was a small white building that seemed to want to hide from the world, set back deep from the boulevard, the space in between obfuscated by an overgrown oak whose roots were buckling the sidewalk. Damon Ramp drove by it twice trying to make a one o'clock appointment, but seventy years of nature and muddled urban renewal made him settle for a 1:15. Over the transom was a rusted galvanized sign riveted into the glazed white brick, which simply read BARBERS. It was an old two-chair shop, but somewhere along the way someone attached a brownstone addition, none too cleverly slapped on the back. Curiosity about the odd little building and its place in the uptown neighborhood's eclectic landscape of commercial and residential structures drew Damon in for a closer look. Mostly it was just plain wondering if he had the right address.

The address was right, embossed in arched gold lettering on each of the building's twin picture windows. Below one of the twin 606s, crudely painted in a Gothic, midnight-blue script, was the new name: PETAL TO THE METAL. Damon chuckled at the name but came up empty when he tried to connect the Gothic, heavy metal connotation with one of his favorite things, flowers. He cupped his hands around his glasses to look inside, focusing in on a menu of wares the shop offered: BLACK ARTS SUPPLIES · BODY PIERCINGS & TATOOS · LEATHERS · PALMIST · FETISH ROOM. Incidentally, at the bottom of the list, RARE FLOWERS. The classification given on his preprinted contract was simply “flowers.” Perhaps a reclassification was in order. He stepped inside.

The mirrors from its barbershop days were still intact, perfectly aligned with the two shop windows, a long glass display case filled with unrecognizable sundries in place of the barber chairs, which found new life in the corner anchoring the waiting area. To the right, under the glow of a red neon script that read DARK ROOM, was a large, heavily tattooed bald man in black leather pants and a matching vest, slouched in a wooden chair with his legs boldly spread, an adult magazine in front of his face. A red curtain played go-between with the man and whatever was in that back room. He didn't reveal his face. He revealed only one word in a rough and husky voice: “Milah.”

A pale, thirtyish woman with long black hair came out from behind the curtain. She was wearing a thick, oversized black turtleneck over a long, brown corduroy skirt that hovered above a chunky pair of Doc Martens. Her eyes were dark and thick with mascara. She was holding a Chinese takeout box of what looked and smelled like pad Thai, with two chopsticks poking straight out of the top, like they were angrily shoved into the noodles after her lunch was so rudely interrupted.

“Dammit, Burl, put that thing away, you freak. Couldn't you look at a goddam People once in a while?” She backhanded the magazine, slapping it into his face. Burl kept on reading. “Hey—didja hear me?” She kicked one of his studded, buckled boots. “Hey, do something, wouldja?”

Burl made a slobbering, lapping sound, licking one of the pages from the bottom up, lifting the XXX mask that covered his goateed face. Bulky, silver hoops hung from his ears and nose.

“I'm having lunch, too,” he said.

Milah gave up on Burl and approached Damon.

“You the phone company guy?”

“Hi, Milah. I'm Damon Ramp from NewStar.” He pushed up his thick black glasses and held out his hand to greet her.

“Sorry, I get paid to do that,” she said, refusing to shake his hand, motioning her head toward the menu of services. “Plus, you look a little pale. Stupid, disease-spreading convention if you ask me. I hate doing readings in the winter. I feel like dipping my hands in bleach every time I touch someone's hand.”

“I take it you're the palmist then?” Damon asked.

“Yeah, that and babysitting the good-for-nothing freak over in the corner.” She made sure Burl heard her. Burl kept on reading. “We do other things, too . . .”

“Look, I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch, but do you mind telling me a little about your business? How long have you been here?”

“I don't mind as long as you don't mind if I eat while I tell ya. I hate cold pad Thai—gets all dried out when you nuke it. Whaddaya want to know?”

“How long have you been in business?”

“Oh, about six months or so.” She pushed some noodles in her mouth and chewed a few bites. “Cool old building—always reminded me of a White Castle. Gotta have those sliders once in a while, you know? You like gut bombs?”

“Sure, just never before midnight and a six-pack,” Damon fibbed. He rarely drank anything stronger than iced tea. “That's quite a menu of services. I've got you listed as a flower shop, but it looks like you do a lot more than that. Do you have a specialty?”

Milah coyly shrugged. “Well . . . specialties about captures it. You have a classification for that?”

“Milah, we have a classification for just about anything you can think of. Just tell me what part of your business you want to grow, and we'll help you get there.”

“Well, I like growing things,” Milah said, slurping some more noodles. “That would be a cool classification. Yeah, just put us under—”

A young man burst through the front door, breathless and panicked. He rushed past Damon like he wasn't even there. “Milah, Milah, we need to talk,” he struggled out between breaths. Milah held up her index finger to silence him. It did. It stopped him in his tracks, save for the rushed breaths and gasps coming from the clean-cut kid. He looked about sixteen, and his clothes didn't come cheap, J. Crew and Abercrombie probably right down to his underwear. Milah gestured with her other hand toward Burl, who picked up where Milah left off, guiding him behind the curtain into the DARK ROOM. There was a strange mastery in the way she handled the situation. She'd done this before. And so had he.

“Sorry, gotta go,” Milah said. “But if you come back again sometime with a bag of sliders, maybe I'll give you the tour—looks like you could use a little excitement.”

Damon's first call on Friday morning was a mom-and-pop drugstore right by the state Capitol, that had somehow managed to stay in business despite being surrounded by a pair of competing national chains—probably so entrenched in their own battle that they overlooked the little mouse hiding in the corner. Damon felt that twinge of brightness that Friday brings, a twinge further brightened by a peek of March sunshine, that first hint of spring, the warmest day in four months. He even started to feel downright lucky when he found a good place to park on Rice Street, with a nice fat opening cut into the snowbank so he wouldn't have to play Admiral Peary today. Small-scale climbing expeditions now awaited him before each call, due to a broken driver's side door handle that snapped the week before. Damon scooted across the seat to exit the passenger side, and stepped into the nice fat opening—and into a nice fat puddle of ankle-deep slush. Then he went back to feeling how he usually did. He cursed Pontiac again and went inside.

There was a sweet old man behind the counter, about Mickey Rooney height with a Mickey Rooney hairline, but with a pair of eyeglasses that screamed 1987, when just about everything was just too damned big. They were the eyeglasses equivalent to the giant cell phone Gordon Gekko used in Wall Street. World War I aviator goggles were smaller, and this guy looked old enough to maybe have a pair. And he was really, really happy—humming and whistling and doing a little soft-shoe behind the counter. The kind of bubbly happiness Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy always had. If Judy Garland walked in they'd probably put on a show.

“Good morning,” Damon said, stepping forward with a squish from his soggy foot. “I'm Damon Ramp from NewStar. Are you Harry?”

“Well I certainly am, Mr. Ramp,” Harry said, bright as March sunshine. “A pleasure to meet you, sir. Harry Keillor.”

Harry stepped forward and bowed, doing a theatrical loop-to-loop with his hand before extending it to Damon.

“Keillor?” Damon asked, shaking Harry's hand. “You're not related to the Prairie Home Companion Keillor, are you?”

“No relation whatsoever. A mean old bear, what I hear. Don't let that prairie charm fool you, yes indeedy. What can I do for you, Mr. Ramp?”

“We spoke on the phone about you doing some advertising in the yellow pages. You have an absolutely charming store, Mr. Keillor.”

There was a high wall framed by thick mahogany columns behind the counter, filled with black-and-white pictures of street scenes and tin apothecary signs from the '30s and '40s, with three long shelves brimming with old glass medicine bottles and boxes, mostly of the snake oil variety.

“Since 1936,” Harry said proudly. “And I'm about to make your day, Mr. Ramp. What's the biggest, boldest ad in your book you can buy?”

“The back cover,” Damon said, stiffening to a very still position and trying to calm his brain to work this just right. The back cover was still available. “It's the most beautiful ad in the book; glossy, full color—and we have a wonderful graphic arts department. How does showing Rice Apothecary to a half million people grab you?”

“Like this!” Harry said.

Harry started singing “We're in the Money” and did a ballroom dance with an invisible partner behind the counter. He was singing and hooting and hollering with a bubbly happiness that made Damon wonder if he was taking more drugs than he was selling—and if so, could he have some too. But something didn't look right when Harry tried to do a pirouette. He came down really hard, slapping his hand loudly on the counter. Then he gasped, grasping at the air with a trembling arm, an open-mouthed look of fear on his face. It was as though the world stopped, so still was the moment. Then he collapsed.

Damon had the same look on his face. He stood frozen in time, not even breathing. Then he looked around the store for help. He yelled “Help!” but no one answered. He finally snapped out of it and called 911.

The paramedics were there in five minutes and immediately went to work on Harry. They stopped after a few minutes. Their tension released and they collectively sighed, one of them kicking at the floor. They knew Harry. You could tell. They questioned Damon briefly before hauling Harry away. Damon looked at his cheap plastic watch. The commission on the back cover could have bought him a Rolex.

Seeing someone dead or die has a strange stillness to it. Just about everything becomes meaningless in the face of death. But then you go on, and the meaningless takes on value again. Damon felt that stillness as he stood on the sidewalk outside Rice Apothecary. But his nose had its own agenda. There was a unique smell wafting in on the warm March breeze. His eyes followed suit. Its glazed white brick shone like a pearl in the sun, its blue lettering glimmering like the Tyrrhenian Sea. White Castle was right down the street. Milah.

Damon picked up a half dozen hamburgers and some fries and onion chips and headed for I-94. He only used the freeway when he was in a hurry, preferring to soften his day with a little sight-seeing with all the driving he had to do, the drive up Summit or through Cathedral Hill being so much more pleasant than a freeway wall. He exited on Dale Street and headed down to Grand, then up past Victoria, driving faster than he usually did, his cargo snug in his lap to keep warm. He had the heat blasting to dry out his soggy foot, his shoe off to help speed up the process, an old jacket lining the footwell to keep it from getting any soggier. He would have been in a hurry with or without the cargo or the soggy foot. He hadn't stopped thinking about Milah since he met her.

Damon found a place to park across and down the street from Milah's. He was parked at a slight angle, and could see just part of the small white building under the giant oak. His foot got a shock of cold and damp when he slid his soggy shoe back on, and a couple of test steps revealed a pronounced squish he would have to live with the rest of the day. As he was gathering his things to head across the street, he saw a man exiting Milah's. He was fiftyish, tall and well-groomed, wearing a beautiful charcoal gray topcoat with a black silk scarf underneath. Damon had admired a coat just like it at Macy's, and it was worth more than his car. The man kept his head down and moved quickly, but not too fast to be suspicious, and he was empty-handed. Maybe they didn't have what he was looking for. Damon watched him head down the sidewalk, curious to know which car he was going to get into. Trying to match people and their cars was a game Damon played to help pass all the time he spent in his car. He had it narrowed down to three: a blue Mercedes S550, a black Lexus LS 460, and an Infinity Q50, which sported a color from the gunmetal family, which went very well with the man's coat. Damon was guessing the Infinity and smiled when the man slowed by the car. The man admired it briefly but then quickly crossed the street to a used car lot, filled with a motley mix of ten-year-old cars and a few junkers. He ducked inside a silver Ford Crown Victoria, parked in the jumble of all the other cars. Damon wouldn't have noticed it if the man hadn't gotten in it. It had three little antennas on the trunk.

It didn't look like they were there to catch speeders.

Milah was behind the counter arranging things in the display case when Damon walked in. She looked just like she did yesterday, except she had stepped out of the Doc Martens and into a pair of brown suede boots with short, spiked heels, that disappeared under her long, brown corduroy skirt. And she added a silk scarf, a splash of gold and crimson that took the edge off her goth look. She turned around to see who just walked in her store.

“Can I help you?” she asked, as though she had never seen Damon before.

This didn't surprise Damon but it still felt insulting. Some people are memorable and some are not. Damon was of the latter variety, and everything about him was average: average height, average clothes, topped with medium brown hair and eyes, which were framed by thick black glasses that were hardly cutting edge. But one thing made him memorable today.

He held up the bag of White Castles.

“Remember me?” Damon said, confident that that would do the trick. He liked the way that felt. He seldom felt anything remotely close to confidence.

It took a few seconds, but Milah finally smiled. “Well, well, if it isn't the miniature Clark Kent bearing gifts,” she said.

Damon had never been called that before, but it wasn't totally insulting. It was kind of funny, really, because there was a slight resemblance to Clark Kent, only Damon was a smaller version with brown hair and eyes. But the clumsy meekness and hapless nature were there. And Clark Kent was the kind of guy who would step into an ankle-deep pile of slush and have a guy die on him just when he was about to hit pay dirt. But at least he got to make up for it by being Superman.

“Guess you really want that tour,” Milah said.

“I'll settle for a little information about your business,” Damon said.

“I wear many hats around here. Which one would you like me to put on?”

“Well, we could start with the name of your business,” Damon said. “It seems to me that flowers isn't the main part of your business, yet your name clearly connotes flowers. I'm just curious as to why you chose it.”

“Well, Clarky, it is rather catchy, is it not? And I like flowers.” She motioned to the glass-doored display case filled with flowers in the corner. “Do you like flowers, Mr. Kent?”

“Yes, very much,” Damon said. He liked her pet names for him. They made him feel warm and liked. It beat stepping into puddles of slush. “Which varieties do you have in your display case? They look awfully dark.”

“Dark isn't necessarily awful, Mr. Kent. And which varieties do you prefer?”

“Orchids, mostly. I'm a regular visitor to the McNeely Conservatory at Como Park. I like the crystal dome, with all the palms and orchids. It's so light and warm and colorful. It's one of my favorite places, especially in winter.”

“You're not afraid of the dark, are you, Clarky?” Milah asked, taking a bite out of her hamburger that cut it in half.

“What makes you say that?”

Damon's bites were half the size of Milah's. And he hated when the whole pickle slice came out when you took a bite. He pulled the pickle slice from his mouth and put it in one of the burger boxes.

“And apparently afraid of pickles, too,” Milah said.

Milah was straight to the point with everything she said or did. Damon admired her strength and wit and the confident way she carried herself. There was a street-smart toughness about her, a strong purpose in everything she did. Qualities that Damon could only aspire to.

“Well?” Milah asked, feigning impatience with a shrug of her shoulders. “Come on, Clarky, try and keep up.”

Damon decided against his usual evasiveness and addressed her question head-on. “I guess I never really thought of it in such black-and-white terms. But if you're asking me if I prefer lightness over darkness, I would have to say, 'Yes.'”

“Why? There's so much more complexity and intrigue in the darkness. It's such a closer representation of what life is all about, the mysteries, the big picture, the 'Why are we here?' and 'What's on the other side?' The true power of the universe is in its darkness; in its dark matter and dark energy. And liking orchids and other tropicals is akin to liking puppies. Who doesn't? Way too easy of a button to push.”

“But aren't ghosts and apparitions light?” Damon asked. “Darkness and light need each other. It's weight and counterweight—one wouldn't be without the other. And light can be just as intriguing as darkness. In fact, one of my favorite orchids at the conservatory is the gongora chocoensis. The flowers look like these little apparitions, all white and ghostly. They almost seem to float, like these otherworldly faerie creatures.”

“I'm impressed, Mr. Kent. Scientifically correct and a nicely made point to boot. And I suppose you could also tell me the gongora's tribus and subtribus classifications as well?”

“Cymbidieae and stanhopeinae, I believe. Respectively, of course.”

“Well, of course. Well, well, a cigar for the miniature Clark Kent. You do know your flowers. That was hardly a pedestrian observation. Now all we have to do is conquer your fear of the dark and pickles.”

“I'll settle for a sale. After all, that is why I'm here, Milah.”

“Is it now. Do you always go to such great lengths just to make a sale? Hardly an efficient use of an account executive's time. And judging by your appearance and manner, you're not exactly knocking 'em dead, are you?”

“Well, I knocked one dead this morning.”

“I guess I stand corrected, then,” Milah said. “Big sale?”

“No. A guy died on me—literally. But it could have been one of my biggest. He was all set to buy the back cover.”

“You're kidding, right? The guy you were pitching actually died on you?”

“Honest.”

“Oh, Clarky, Clarky, what are we gonna do with you?”

“A commission would be nice.”

“Would you settle for a tour?”

“Is there a pot of gold at the end of it?”

“No. But it looks like you've got nothing to lose.”