deep V-neck. Thank God a Miami Basel STAFF ID was hanging from her neck. Mercifully, it covered part of the sternum bonescape where her cleavage was supposed to be. She unlocked the glass doors, put on a brittle smile, and gestured down the hall. The maggots remained silent, eerily so, as they began the big push through the doorway.
Flebetnikov popped through like an immense cork. He lost his footing for a moment in the hallway beyond and had to do a little hop to regain his balance. His great T-shirt-swathed belly pitched and yawed. He led the pack… with both elbows jutting out, as if to make sure no one passed him. Magdalena noticed for the first time that he was wearing what looked like basketball shoes. She looked down at Fleischmann’s feet. He had on sneakers, too!… tan sneakers practically the same color as his poplin pants… not so obtrusive as the Russian’s, but sneakers nonetheless… On! Into the Art World! Faster!
Now all four of them, Magdalena, Fleischmann, Norman, and A.A., squeezed through the door. The gristly woman in Art Black had wisely stepped back, out of the way of the pumped-up old men. It wasn’t a stampede exactly… not some utter loss of control such as pushing… but Magdalena could feel the pressure… One man was so close behind her, she could hear him breathing stertorously near her ear. She was being swept along in a tide of old bones dying to get in there, whatever there was.
A little hallway opened up into the main exhibition hall. The place must have been the size of a city block all by itself… the ceiling was—what?—three stories high?—four stories?—all in darkness. The lights were below, like the lights of a city—the lights of incredibly long rows, streets, avenues, of booths—of galleries from all over Europe and Asia as well as the United States… must be hundreds of them! Art for sale! A gigantic bazaar… just lying there, spread out before these, the most important maggots… All theirs!… See it! Like it! Buy it!
The clump of frenzied old men began to break apart… they began to regain their voices, but all were drowned out by a bellowing voice just inside the entrance.
“Gedouda my vay, imbecile! I cromble you and your biece a baper!”
It was Flebetnikov, trying to maneuver his big belly past a security guard who stood between him and all the irresistible treasures beyond… The guard was in a dark blue-gray uniform with all sorts of cop-look-alike insignia on it, including a shiny badge. Magdalena knew the type at a glance… Not just any security guard, but a classic Florida redneck… thick buzz cut of reddish-blond hair… meaty, fleshy… huge forearms stuck out of his short-sleeved shirt like a pair of hams… In one hand he held an official-looking document up before Flebetnikov’s face.
Flebetnikov swatted it aside and stuck his face directly into the redneck’s and roared in his deepest voice, spraying spittle, “Now you gon’ ged ouda my vay! You onderstond?” With that, he placed the heel of his hand against the redneck’s chest, as if to say, “—and I mean it! You either get out of my way or I’ll throw you out of my way!”
Big mistake. Faster than Magdalena would have thought he could move, the redneck bent the arm of the hand that touched him into some sort of hold that locked Flebetnikov up, his voice, his body, his soul. Not a peep out of him. He seemed to know instinctively that here was a good old country boy who would happily beat a fat Russian senseless and feed him to the hogs.
Magdalena turned toward Fleischmann and Norman—but they were no longer beside her. They were three or four feet ahead. Fleischmann nudged Norman in the ribs with his elbow, and they looked at each other and grinned. A.A. was ahead of them, walking at a terrific pace, heading presumably toward the Jeb Doggses to nail down the advantage, now that the security guard had terrified Flebetnikov and stopped him in his tracks.
Maggots were rooting and slithering all over the place with their advisers, scurrying toward the booths of their dreams. Over there!—a shoving match!… Looked like the two hedge fund managers—from someplace in Connecticut?—Fleischmann had pointed out… Even farther ahead of Magdalena now a HahaHHHHock hock hock hock cackle, and Norman’s looking back at the two chubby little pugilists… but not Fleischmann. He and his A.A., Miss Carr, are all business, about to head into