Deadly Dues (26 page)

“End of the hall.”

Ha. All that primping worked. Lulu Malone has been around the block a few times, and knows the score and the right wardrobe for every occasion, I triumphantly reminded myself.

I could feel her watching me, like one of the fiends in
Village of the Damned
, as I strolled down the hall with all the swagger I could muster. I am an actor, and actors are blessed with the ability to bluff magnificently and walk down any carpet without fear.

Just as I got to Sherilyn's door, I tripped and had to catch the doorknob to keep from falling. The door swung open and I was face to face with the dreaded Sherilyn.

She looked up from her desk with malicious amusement. Today she was the same as ever: big blonde hair, black eyeliner, pink lipstick and a low-cut black T-shirt. Her pink talons rested on her desk. But her face was splotchy, with little red marks here and there, as if she had been crying or had eaten an entire box of truffles.

Behind her, attached to a long rope tied to the railing of her patio, was Horatio.

“Horatio!”

I threw my bag on the floor and ran to the open patio doors. Horatio lifted his head and bared his teeth. At
me
. I stopped just short of an attempt at a hug.

“Horatio?”

His big, beautiful eyes were dull and glazed.

“What have you done to my dog?” My voice was even and cold. Inside, I felt my heart crumple

“Your dog?” said Sherilyn, sorting through papers on her desk, making a great show of being disinterested. “I think Bambi is my dog now. Look at him.” She flipped open a tin on her desk and tossed him a large piece of fudge. He wolfed it down and then looked at her like a supplicant.

Sugar? Bambi? Horatio was on vet's orders not to have any sugar, and she was feeding him fudge? He was going to look like a sumo wrestler with hair if this went on. I would have to take him to Weight Watchers Doggonymous. If he didn't die first from the humiliation of answering to Bambi.

“He doesn't look like your dog. He doesn't even recognize you. Good luck getting him out of here.”

She had a point. If Horatio didn't recognize me, there was no way I could lead him out of there for the sake of auld lang syne. And I certainly couldn't heave him over my shoulders like a trophy of war and swagger my way out of the building. I would collapse under the weight and be smothered by an avalanche of fluffy white hair—although his hair wasn't fluffy anymore. Couldn't that woman have combed him? He looked terrible. I felt sorry for him, the way I have a little pang when I see a woman at the supermarket with rollers in her hair and dirty nails.

Of course I could call the police. But how long would it take to get Horatio out of her clutches? I worried that the kidnapping of a large, lovable dog would not be high on their crime list.

I forced myself to walk to the chair, hang my bag over the arm and lounge authoritatively. Not easy to do when you have dimples, but I managed.

“You're lucky I haven't pressed charges,” I said, gesturing delicately toward my face.

She looked at me contemptuously. “As if. I know you can't afford a lawyer. Aren't you working at some fast-food dump?”

I was offended on behalf of Habim, Robyn, Thug and Geraldo. “It is not a dump. It is a highly successful franchise. And I was a proud part of the team.”

She picked up on
was
.

“Lost that job, too?”

She gave a little snort of pleasure.
How could anybody be so awful?

As she laughed, her eyes fastened on me, and I looked inside her. It wasn't much, a little lightning flash of silver grey light that was pure malice, maybe even evil, and something else. Jealousy? And terrible pain.

I didn't want to think Sherilyn was evil. I always tried to see unpleasant people as struggling with their own pain and expressing it in malicious or destructive behaviour. But that flash of nastiness made me shiver. And the shot of pain and anger inside her eyes was so intense that I wanted to burst into tears and run down the hall. I didn't. I had to deal with Horatio. Even in that moment, I realized that Sherilyn probably didn't even know the sorry state of her soul. Expensive spa treatments do not equal self-awareness.

“I wasn't fired from the Bow Wow gig,” I said, calmly. “They loved me and would have kept me on forever if Stan hadn't interfered.”

Wrong move. She smiled even more. I realized that it might not have been Stan who decided to end my gig. It was Sherilyn.

I tried to figure this out. Most of us knew that Sherilyn kept Stan dangling—
whoops, poor choice of words
—but it had never occurred to us that she was entirely responsible for the foul things he did.

She continued to leaf through papers, occasionally glancing at me, waiting.

“I think I have something you want,” I said.

“More than one,” she said. Her bright pink lips curled into a little snake for a second.

My rose lips almost twitched. What else could she want?

“You—temporarily—have Horatio,” I said. “Let's trade.”

She nodded. “Stan for the dog.”

Stan? Stan? Did she think I had Stan?

I obviously led a more sheltered life than I realized, because I couldn't figure out whether her loyalties lay with Stan, or with Gretchen, or with both. Maybe she didn't really care about anybody.

I blurted out what was, to me, the obvious.

“How could you think I had Stan? The smell alone would be a deal breaker!”

“Stan does not smell! I didn't like the aftershave he wore when we met, but I fixed that fast. Stan is clean, and he dresses the best he ever has, since he met me.”

I stared at her. She had used the present tense, so it appeared she was not referring to the late Stan, but to somebody she thought was still alive and kicking. Not dangling from a dumpster, which is where I last saw him.

“Why would I have Stan?”

“He always liked you. Go figure,” she snapped. Her face changed colour and sprouted little red freckles. This was major blood pressure or rosacea, on somebody whose monthly beauty treatments totalled more than my yearly grocery bill. For a split second, I felt sorry for her. I also felt like bursting into entirely inappropriate guffaws. This woman thought I was competition for Stan's affections? Which I could only guess were nothing like affection and more like the stuff that parents try to keep their teenagers from watching on the Internet.

“Maybe he told you where he was going.”

I was agog. Stan tell me anything other than to put my opinions where the sun doesn't shine, to use his quaint but colourful vocabulary?

“I don't know where Stan is,” I said truthfully, mentally glossing over the back story of the statement.

She looked at me, her eyes hard. Then she looked down at her papers again, trying to look disinterested and cool.
Excuse me.
She was dealing with an actor, a person trained to spot dissembling. I could tell she was upset.

Was she never going to mention the key? This was my high card, and I knew she wanted it. I tried to gnash my teeth silently, given Alphonse's reminder that I should monitor the volume level.

“So what about the key?” she said, her pink lips in a tight line, as she pretended to look at her papers.
Bingo.

“Oh, the key,” I said. I took a long pause, just because I love to play the moment. “What key?”

“You know what I mean,” she said, looking at me, and again I saw the same flash of evil—or pain—that I had seen moments before. People joked that she was Lucifer in pink lipstick. At this moment, it seemed like an accurate description.

And I was trapped in her office.

But I was there with Horatio. I saw the non-look in his eyes, and I wondered if I could get him out of there before any permanent damage was done to his sensitive, formerly fluffy nature.

Sherilyn stood up, leaning over her desk until I could see her cleavage to Australia. Totally wasted on me. I guess it had worked wonders with Stan and, sigh, Pete. And numerous others in the film industry, whose brains were in their pants, shoes or pockets.

“I want that key.”

“Gee, Sherilyn,” I said, dimply in an impossibly adorable way. “I put it in my safety deposit box yesterday. And it's going to stay there until Horatio is safe back home in his beddy-byes.” I was lying, but I realized as the sentence escaped my lips that it was a very good idea.

She snarled, and I leapt back. Good grief, was this woman trained in early Roger Corman films? She must have practised for months in front of her mirror. She had turned snarl into high camp. I suddenly found it ridiculous, even hilarious. I would probably double over with laughter once I left her office. But now, for Horatio's sake, I was carefully deadpan.

“Gee, Sherilyn,” I said, sweetly. “You should see an orthodontist about that spray problem.”

“Lu,” she spat at me. “That ‘gee' routine is so old.”

I knew it would weaken my bargaining position, but I tried one more time to get Horatio to acknowledge me. But even when I leaned into his dear, hairy face, he looked at me with dead, dreary eyes. I wanted to cry.

I backed out of her office, pausing at the door to say, “When Horatio is home, I will consider giving you the safety deposit box key. Don't you agree that we should have our lawyers negotiate the exchange?” What a bunch of hooey. She was right. I couldn't afford the legal fees for something like this. I could ask my parents for the money, but they had never felt the same toward Horatio after the time he sat on Daddy. They blamed Horatio for Daddy's prostate problems, which was so unfair. But, hey, I was bluffing here, in a
Charge of the Light Brigade
attempt to save my dog from the Devil in the Pink Lips.

I dimpled again, glanced at Horatio (did I see a fleeting look of hope in his doggie eye?) and walked down the hall, passing the goth receptionist, who looked at me balefully as I dimpled and closed the door behind me.

I couldn't help it. I squeaked out a laugh, the sort of disbelieving laugh that friends share when something totally bizarre has happened. Unfortunately, I had no friend with me to share that laugh.

That inappropriate and hysterical laugh was squelched the moment I thought about Horatio.

I got into my car, drove around the corner, out of sight of the complex, turned off the engine and started breathing deeply. Oh, poor Horatio. All that sugar was a form of abuse. And what sort of drug was she giving him to glaze the eyes that once had entranced millions? Did anybody care? If nobody seemed to care about me, could anybody care about my co-star of so many years?

I wiped a few tears off my face, reminding myself that this was a tough business, and Horatio was used to hard knocks, like the time he had been sent to an audition with twenty-five miniature poodles and had been humiliated by having to stand next to these tiny would-be dogs while he, a Real Dog, stood unappreciated and scorned. Although he wasn't standing now. He had been dumped in the corner of Sherilyn's patio like a twenty-year-old, smelly, mashed-up floor cushion.

I blew my nose and pulled out my cell. I called Pete first. We had a little communication problem for a few moments.

“Lu, take a deep breath,” he said, his voice raspy with concern. “Breathe. Breathe. Then try to speak. Stick to single-syllable words. It will be easier.”

I rolled my eyes, even as I was choking on Horatio tears.

“Horatio,” I sobbed. “Sherilyn.”

“No,” he said. “Get out. I knew Sherilyn was kinky, but an affair with Horatio? How does that make me feel? I know he has more hair than I do, but—”

“This is not about you. And Sherilyn and Horatio are not an item. Get your mind out of the porn shop, for Pete's sake.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, chastened. “I was out in left field there. So what are you saying? Sherilyn wants Horatio? For what? She's doing a dog movie? Who's casting?” (This is the standard actor's response to news of a film shooting.)

“She has Horatio,” I said. “She has Horatio, and he is a zombie, because she is feeding him fudge by the buckets, which his vet has said will kill him. She's going to kill him”—I allowed myself a hiccup—“unless I get him away from her.”

“Oh, damn.” Pete's voice was somber. “That woman is a witch.”

“Change the first letter to a
b
,” I said, between hiccups.

“You should call the police.”

“And then—?” I allowed him to fill in the blanks.

“Right,” he said. “And the police would ask a lot of questions.”

“And if anything happened to me, who would take care of Horatio? The rest of you would be in jail with me.”

We signed off, without anything more productive in place other than Pete's sympathy and my reduced sobs.

I called Gretchen next.

“Horatio?” she said vaguely. “Which boyfriend was he?”

“He's my dog! My best friend! Much more interested in my life than you are!” I signed off, disgusted. I thought Gretchen was one of my best friends, and she couldn't even keep track of Horatio, my best pal of how many years. Hadn't she watched my commercials? Horatio and I were imprinted into the psyches of TV watchers across North America. Where had she been all that time?