Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,108

Pandora had just made a successful bid. She was quite pleased with her purchase, although she had had to bid very high. She generally did well on her buying trips.

Pandora Smythe—she had taken back her maiden surname—owned and managed an antique shop in Pine Hill, North Carolina, a sort of sleepy college town now overrun with development, yuppies employed by the numerous white-collar industries, and retirees from up North. Pandora was English by birth and couldn’t complain about newcomers, especially since they enjoyed spending too much money for antique furnishings to grace their new town houses and condos, erected where a year before all had been woodland.

Her shop was, not unsurprisingly, named Pandora’s Box, but it did a very good trade, and Pandora employed three sales assistants, one of whom she would take with her on buying trips. Pandora Smythe had a peaches-and-cream complexion, angular but pert features, was rather tall, jogged daily to preserve her trim figure, was blond and green-eyed and nearing thirty. Her two vices were an addiction to romance novels and sobbing through vintage black-and-white tear-jerkers on rented videocassettes.

She wished she were Bette Davis, but instead she was a sharp businesswoman, and she had made only two mistakes of note: She had married Matthew McKee and stayed with him for most of a loveless year despite his open philandering and drunken abuse of her. She had bought a locket.

It had been a good day at the shop. Doreen and Mavis had managed very well; Derrick had seen to the packing and delivery of the larger auction items—some very good and very large Victorian furnishings and a few excellent farmhouse primitives, which would be stuck in the back of Volvo wagons before the week was out. Pandora carried back the case of jewelry herself, chiding herself for having paid too much, but that bastard Stuart Reading had been keen for the lot as well. Probably would have fetched far more as individual pieces, but the day was long, and most of it was costume, worth more as antique pieces rather than any intrinsic value.

“Ooh! I love those jade earrings!” Mavis was peering over her shoulder as Pandora sorted through her trove across her desk.

“Take them out of your salary, then.” Pandora gave them a quick look. I’ll want fifty dollars for them. About turn of the century. And that’s green jasper, not jade.”

“Then I’ll only give you thirty dollars.”

“Forty. That’s gold.”

“Staff discount. Thirty dollars. And I have cash.”

Done. Pandora passed the earrings to Mavis. She could have had the fifty easily from a shopper, but she liked her staff, liked Mavis, and there was more here to turn a handsome profit than she had thought. Eat your heart out, Stuart Reading.

“Here’s the thirty.” Mavis had dashed for her handbag.

“A sale. Put it in the cash drawer.” Pandora was sorting the cheaper bits from items which might demand a professional jeweler’s appraisal. Of the latter there were a few.

“Here. I quite fancy this.” Pandora lifted the golden locket. An inscription in Latin read Face Quidlibet Voles.

Mavis examined it. “Late Victorian. Gold. Yours for a mere two hundred dollars.”

“I’ve already purchased it, Mavis.” Pandora fussed with the gold chain. “Give us a hand with the clasp.”

Mavis worked the clasp behind her neck. “You going to keep it for yourself?”

“Maybe just wear it for a few days. How does it look?”

“Like you need a poodle skirt to go with it.”

Pandora faced an antique mirror and arranged her hair. “Feels good. Think I’ll wear it for a bit. As you said, should fetch two hundred dollars. Solid gold. Look at the workmanship.”

Mavis peered into Pandora’s cleavage. “I can’t make out what the lettering means. Face something voles? That’s silly. Voles are cute. Got them in my garden. Industrious little rodents. Better than having squirrels chewing up the bird feeders.”

Pandora studied her reflection. “Problem with gold. A well-worn locket. And I haven’t had Latin since a schoolgirl.”

“Let’s open it up and see what’s inside!” Mavis fumbled with the catch. “Should be a lock of hair or some old portraits.” She tried again. “Shit, it won’t open.”

“Stop tugging!” complained Pandora. “I’ll manage once I’m at home.”

Pandora took a long shower, wrapped herself in towels and terry cloth robe, made a small pot of tea, added cream, two sugars, and a bit of lemon to her cup, flicked on the television, curled up on her favorite couch, snuggled under a goose down comforter, and waited for her hair to dry. Her hair was too