I resisted the temptation to tell him about Julian’s aspirations of molesting his favourite cousin. He wouldn’t be interested.
“I’m kind of hungry,” I said to him when he started pushing me toward the back of the house. “Is there anything to eat?”
“Later. I want to introduce you to Thor. He’s in the solarium.” He made it sound like a blind date.
Dougal had the solarium built after his parents died within months of each other three years ago. They left him a great deal of old family money, which afforded him the freedom to quit his position as a high-school science teacher and move back home. Shortly afterward, he announced that he was going to write a mystery novel with a botanical setting, but so far I hadn’t seen a single chapter. Then, about eight months ago, he developed agoraphobia and had refused to leave the house since. And guess who became his errand girl, gardener, barber, and junk food delivery slave? Every minute I wasn’t working elsewhere, I was doing Dougal’s bidding for a pittance. At least he let me do my laundry sometimes and take home the food he didn’t want.
“What’s the big deal?” I glanced around the ceramic-
tiled solarium. An orchid collection bloomed in multi-hued abundance along the perimeter of the room, but nothing else looked ready to flower.
“What’s a Thor, and where is it?” I preferred not to hang out in humid places like solariums. They made me sweat like a roofer on a hot summer day, and already my shoulder-length brown hair was frizzing up around my ears.
Orchids aside, Dougal owned a sorry display of horticultural specimens. At the far end of the room, a dozen fern-like plants four to five feet high grew in plastic pots. Groups of buds drooped from the plants, but they didn’t look like flower buds. Seed pods?
Dougal’s African grey parrot, Simon, perched on top of his multi-level cage, lifting one leg and then the other, as though his feet hurt. The bird eyed me hopefully, but I stayed out of beak range. “Pretty baby,” he coaxed, “I love you.” He waggled his red tail feathers at me.
“Not a chance,” I told him. I knew for a fact that beak was sharp, and as for his love, well, he was probably fickle like most males.
Dougal gazed lovingly at the only other object in the room — a massive concrete pot. It sat in the middle of the tiled floor, shaded by overhead screens that cast filtered shadows on the centre portion of the space while leaving the perimeters of the room in sunlight. A thick stake about six feet high rose from the pot. It was yellowish-grey and looked like a cactus, but smoother.
Dougal gestured dramatically at the container. I stepped closer to the rim. The stake had one continuous pale green petal with frilled edges curling around the base. I backed away.
“That’s obscene! What is it?”
“That, darling Bliss, is an Amorphophallus titanum, better known as a Titan Arum. The largest flower in the world! My Thor.”
“You named your flower? All I see is a huge phallic spike in a skirt. If it gets any bigger, I wouldn’t want to be in the same room.”
“Well, stand back, because it will probably grow another foot or more in the next few days, then burst into flower. And that’s where you come in.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t even want to ask what part you expect me to play in this fertilizing business.”
“Pollinating, not fertilizing, you ignoramus. Let’s go into the kitchen and get some supper, and I’ll explain what little you need to do for a thousand dollars.”
Dougal hauled a vegetable lasagna and salad out of the refrigerator and deposited them on his antique pine table with a flourish. While waiting for the lasagna to heat, I forked up the wilted salad.
“Where’s the garlic bread?” I asked between swallows.
Dougal stopped crunching barbecue potato chips long enough to take a swig of Coke. He stifled a belch and replied, “I ate it for lunch. Want some of my chips?”
He ate nothing but junk food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, even though the wonderful Mrs. Boudreau, who came in each weekday morning to clean and cook, left him delicious, nutritious meals. I did my best to liberate them, but too many ended up in his garbage bin.
Simon waddled into the kitchen and glared at Dougal.
“Simon wants a chip,” he said in what I assumed was Melanie’s voice. The voice impersonation was a nice change since the bird’s repertoire usually consisted of mimicking the sound of the ringing phone and the chiming doorbell. Occasionally, he bayed like the hound next door or made grunting noises similar to a yeti in heat.
Dougal handed the parrot a potato chip. Simon held his treat in one scaly claw and nibbled at it until it was gone. Then he turned and shuffled out of the room, leaving a gelatinous puddle behind on the oak floor.
I looked pointedly at the mess, but Dougal only shrugged and said, “Mrs. Boudreau will clean that tomorrow.”
I got a paper towel and wiped up the slimy deposit. Dougal was finicky about everything except parrot poop. Go figure.
“Can I take the rest of this lasagna home if you’re not going to eat it?”
“Go ahead; it’s too high in fat and carbohydrates anyway.” He opened the wrapper on a Mr. Big chocolate bar and bit it in half.
Chewing noisily, he watched me clear the table and put my plate and cutlery in the dishwasher. “Are you ready to listen now? There isn’t much time. Focus on the money.”
He settled down on his spine and rested his bare feet on another chair. His long fingers dipped in and out of a second chip bag, the chocolate bar already just a memory, and began to lecture.
“The Titan Arum is indigenous to the rainforests of Sumatra. As far as I know, only a few large botanical gardens and universities have specimens, and maybe there are one or two others in private collections like mine.” His almond-shaped blue eyes glittered in his narrow face with the fervour of a fanatic. He scratched at his dark buzz cut, leaving a few potato chip crumbs behind.
I suppressed a yawn, partly from boredom and partly from plain fatigue. Wielding a rake for eight hours was hard work, and, at thirty-two, my muscles took longer to recover than they used to.
“Are you listening, Bliss? Now, I’ve owned my Titan for about eight years. Every year or so it has produced one huge compound leaf that grows about ten feet tall and then the leaf dies and the tuber lies dormant again.”
“Really?” I gave in to the yawn. “I never saw it in your apartment before you moved back to this house. The pot itself would have taken up half your living room. And your ceiling wasn’t even eight feet high, so …”
“Button it, will you? A friend was keeping it for me, okay? Now then, the last month or so, when I was expecting the leaf to start growing again, it didn’t.”
He pulled a battered cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.
“When did you start smoking? And why? I don’t understand you, Dougal. You’re going to croak before you hit forty, between your appalling diet and now smoking.”
He ignored me and sucked in the smoke. “This time is different. The Titan is producing an inflorescence that consists of the spadix — the tall column you saw in the pot — and a spathe — the green, furrowed structure wrapped around the base. Soon, thousands of tiny flowers, both male and female, will form at the base of the spadix, and the spathe will unfurl around them. The spathe will be dark red on the inside — I saw one years ago when I was in England, at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, and it was spectacular. Now, I may have a chance to observe it right in my own house.” His eyes sparkled with excitement as he waved