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He indicated a stool and I sat, setting my big canvas handbag at my feet. There was a long worktable to my right, with a coarse brown-paper pattern laid out on it. The right front portion of a mink coat had been put together and he was apparently still working on it. The wall on the left was lined with hanging paper patterns and there were various quite ancient-looking sewing machines to my right. Every available surface was covered with pelts, scraps, unfinished coats, books, magazines, boxes, catalogues. Two dress forms stood side by side, like twins posing self-consciously for a photograph. The place reminded me of a shoe-repair shop, all leather smell and machinery and the feel of craftsmanship. He took up the coat and examined it closely, then reached for a cutting device with a nasty curved blade. He glanced up at me. His eyes were the same shade of brown as the mink.
"So what do you want to know?"
"You remember the woman?"
"I know the coat. Naturally, I remember the woman who brought it in. Mrs. Boldt, right?"
"That's right. Can you tell me when you saw her last?"
He dropped his gaze back to the fur. He made a cut. He crossed to one of the machines, motioning me to follow. He sat down on a stool and began to sew. I could see now that what had looked at first like an old-fashioned Singer was actually a machine especially designed for the stitching of fur. He lined up the two cut pieces vertically, fur-side in, and caught them in the grip of two flat metal disks, like large silver dollars set rim to rim. The machine whipped the leather edges together with an overhand stitch while he deftly tucked the fur out of the way so it wouldn't get caught in the seam. The whole maneuver took about ten seconds. He spread the seam, smoothing it with his thumb on the backside. There were maybe sixty similar cuts in the leather, a quarter-inch apart. I wanted to ask him what he was doing, but I didn't want to distract him.
"She came in in March and said she wanted to sell the coat."
"How'd you know it was really hers?"
"Because I asked for some identification and the bill of sale." The irritable tone was back, but I ignored it.
"Did she say why she was selling it?"
"Said she was bored with it. She wanted mink, maybe blond, so I offered her credit against something in the store, but she said she wanted the cash, so I told her I'd see what I could do. I wasn't that anxious to pay cash for a used coat. Ordinarily, I don't deal in secondhand fur. There's no market for it here and it's a pain in the ass."
"I take it you made an exception for her."
"Well yeah, I did. The thing is, this lynx coat was in perfect condition and my wife's been after me to get her one for years. She's already got five coats, but when this one came in, I thought… what the hell? Make the old broad happy. What's it to me? Mrs. Boldt and I haggled and I finally got the coat for five thousand, which was a good deal for both of us, especially since I got the matching hat. I told her she'd have to pay to have the coat cleaned and recut."
"Why recut?"
"My wife is on the down side of five feet. She's four foot eleven, if you want her exact height, but don't ever tell her I told you that. She considers it some kind of birth defect. You ever noticed that? Short women get that way. From the time they're teenagers, they start wearing fu
I shook my head. "I've never seen it."
"Hey, come on. You ought to take a look. I've got it right back here. I haven't cut it yet."
He moved toward the rear and I trotted obediently behind. He opened the massive metal door to his vault. Cold air wafted out as though from a meat locker. There were fur coats hanging on both sides in double racks, sleeves almost touching, like hundreds of women lined up with their backs to us. He moved down the aisle checking coats as he went, wheezing from the effort. He really needed to lose some weight. His breathing sounded like someone sitting down on a leather couch and it couldn't co
He took a fur down off the top rack and we moved back out of the cold-storage room, the door shutting behind us with a clang. He held Elaine Boldt's coat up for me to inspect. The lynx was two shades-white and gray in a luscious blend, with the pelts arranged so that each panel ended in a tapering point at the hem. He must have guessed from the look on my face that I'd never seen a coat that expensive close up.
"Here. Try it on," he said.
I hesitated for a moment and then eased into the coat. I pulled it around me and looked at myself in the mirror. The coat hung almost to my shins, the shoulders protruding like protection pads for some strange new sport.
"I look like the Abominable Snowman," I said.
"You look great," he said. He looked from me to the image in the mirror. "So we take it in a little bit. Shorten the sleeves. Or maybe you'd look better in fox if this doesn't suit."
I laughed. "On my income, I think it's high-class to have a sweatshirt with a zipper up the front." I took the coat off and handed it to him, getting back to the subject. "Why'd you pay her for the coat before she paid you? Why not deduct your costs from the five grand and give her a check for the balance?"
"The bookkeeper wanted it the other way. Don't ask me why. Anyhow, it's not going to cost that much to clean the coat, and the alterations I'm doing myself, so what's it to me? I got a good deal. Adele probably bugged her for payment as a matter of course, but I can't get that upset over the whole thing."
While he returned the coat to cold storage, I went over to my bag and took out the Polaroid picture of Elaine and Marty that Tillie Ahlberg had given me.
When he came back out, I showed it to him. "Is this the woman you dealt with?"
He glanced at it briefly and gave it back.
"Nuh-un. I never saw either one of those women before in my life," he said.
"What did she look like?"
"How do I know? I only saw her once."
"Young, old? Short, tall? Fat, thin?"
"Yeah, about like that. She was middle-aged and she" had blondish hair. And she wore a muumuu and chain-smoked. I wouldn't let her come back here because I don't like the smoke around my skins."
"What kind of identification did she have?"
"You know. The usual stuff. Driver's license. Check guarantee card. Credit cards. You go
"I don't think 'stolen' quite covers it," I said. "I suspect someone's been borrowing Elaine Boldt's identity. I'm just not sure where she is in the meantime. If I were you, I'd leave the coat intact until we figure out what's going on."
My last glimpse of him, he was pulling unhappily at the wattles on his neck and he didn't offer to accompany me to the door.
I went out into the oppressive Florida humidity. The cloud cover felt like a premature twilight and the first of several big raindrops had begun to splatter against the hot pavement. I scurried to my car, half-ducking as though I could avoid getting wet by shrinking myself to half my size. I thought about Jack's description of the woman who'd called herself Elaine Boldt. He'd seen the snapshot of Elaine and he'd sworn it wasn't her. It had to be Pat Usher as nearly as I could tell. I ran back through my encounter with her: her attitude of wary amusement, the questions about Elaine she'd fielded, the mixture of lies and truth she'd told. Had she simply stepped into someone else's shoes? She'd been staying in Elaine's condominium, but how had she acquired the lynx coat if not from Elaine? If she was the one ru