Page 41 - Just Deserts

Excessories

And the right sort of person could not be questioned by a
reporter about her personal possessions. But she might tell all to
those of her friends she wished to impress, and they could not be
expected to remain silent. He enlisted the aid of the society editor
without putting her completely in the picture; were she later to be
embarrassed by anything revealed by her sources, Swerdlow, in his
zeal, would not be discomfited. So he showed her the photos of three
women wearing ornaments studded with tiny whitish oblong beads
and made up a story about a visiting Hungarian princess who would
be very grateful to learn where similar items could be purchased. It
took very few chatty phone calls to get the answer: all three had
boasted openly about the incredible discovery they had made at that
very posh boutique, Excessories.
But the shop had closed. Employees of the executive bootery next
door told him that Excessories had been open but a few months,
going out of business just days before he had received the headdress.
He searched the Beverly Hills records, trying to trace the holders of
the fictitious business name license. And drew a blank: the owners
were just as artificial as the name. Thrown back upon the letter and
the headdress as his only sources of information, Swerdlow had
sought the advice of Dr. Tuccifili. Now he had to decide what to
make of that expert’s judgement. It would be a shame to waste all the
work he had done. There was still a story in this mess somewhere; all
he had to do was get the proper angle. Not ivory? The thought
plagued him. Damn! Who would care about some old teeth?
He pulled into the parking lot at the Examiner, found his spot
occupied by a junior staffer, and arrived at his desk in a less than
charitable mood. Among the heap of phone messages, editorial
directives and Xeroxed office humor that awaited him, he found a
single sheet of paper which turned everything around. Affixed to it
was a small yellow sheet from a self-sticking pad, on it scrawled ‘FYI’
in pencil. He never found out who had left it for him, and it did not
even occur to him to try to identify the sender until far too many
days later.
Swerdlow glanced through the short paragraph of apparently
wire-service text with practiced speed, ready to toss it aside in the

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