That’s what the little tape player sitting on a glass-topped table said, over and over. He stared at it for a long time.
“Go to your car, Clay. Go to the car.”
He went to the car.
She wasn’t there. He snatched the door open.
Inside, his car phone was ringing.
“Clay?” It was Lydia’s voice! She was alive! Oh, God! He was thrilled. He was devastated.
“Lydia! I—”
“Don’t talk,” she interrupted. “Just listen. Yes, the blood is mine. I’m such a wonderfully efficient donor to my own causes. It’s only a pint, but it looks like a lot more, doesn’t it? Sort of like a Pollock.”
Clay couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What was she talking about? Art? Now?
“You’ll need to make some very quick and careful decisions about what you’re going to say. Because no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to clean up all that blood. And you’ve probably stepped in some.”
Clay started, lifted up one deck shoe, groaned. His heart was pounding. His ears were ringing.
“Of course, you don’t know where else I may have spilled a little. Now, I think you’re going to have to forget about the insurance money. Besides, you’re no longer the beneficiary. That’s now Planned Parenthood, back home.” Then her voice shifted gears a tad, but still she was very calm. She might have been talking about plans for a cocktail party for some of his confederates. “You’re going to have to think in other terms—to pay me the money you owe me.”
“What—”
“Please don’t interrupt, Clay. I don’t have much time before my plane, and I want to make sure you understand before I go.”
“Where
are
you?”
Lydia ignored the question. “I think that for my investment in our
partnership
, the charming dinner parties, entertaining your
so
boring cohorts, keeping you and your house, putting up with your mother, the dreary summers, the packing, not to mention your attempt to have me murdered—well, I’d like a lump sum. Two million seems about right. Has a familiar ring.”
Clay’s heart beat out a funeral dirge. Why not? He might as well be dead. It was all over.
Lydia continued, “Yes, that would do it nicely. I’m afraid you’ll have to sell the clinic, but you should be able to get that for it, even in its reduced circumstances, don’t you think? And surely you’ll find something else, someone else.”
“You’ve got to be k—”
“Kidding, Clay? I’m serious as death. And, should you decide not to pay me the money, I think you’ll find that in addition to the business of the blood, my old family friend, Mr. Gallo, might have to mention your indiscretion to certain parties.”
Clay ground his teeth. Family friend! The fucker said he was from Miami!
“Soon I’ll be sending you the number of the Swiss account where you can deposit the cash. After the New York show, I’ll be traveling around the world. But for starters, I’ll be sitting on a porch somewhere with warm days and cool nights, overlooking the water. Doing a few more paintings. Writing some postcards.” Then Lydia paused and took a deep breath, exhaling the words, “Goodbye, Clay.”
“Wait! Lydia! Don’t go!”
“Oh, yes, I almost forgot. You really should unpack the car soon. Then there’s the kitchen—and all that blood. Better start now, before it gets much hotter.”
“You bitch!”
“You know, Clay, I’m glad you said that. It makes me know for sure I’ve done the right thing. For once. And oh—”
He could see her beautiful wide mouth in his mind, making that
oh
.
“—I’m going to have a wonderful time, Clay. Such a wonderful time.”
Then like a bird on the wing, Lydia flew free. She was long gone.
Naked to the World
“So round up the usual suspects,” Sam said, her eyes still glued to her computer. “And can’t you read? The sign says
Keep Out
. I’m on deadline here, Jane.”
“What the hell do you mean—usual? There’s nothing usual about somebody stealing all my clothes!”
Sam Adams leaned back and gave Jane Wildwood, her protégé at the
Constitution
, a long look. When Jane was mad her scarlet hair seemed to take on an even brighter hue. This July 3rd morning it was flaming.
“Later, kiddo. This piece on the creep who sold the sausages he made from his girlfriend’s ex to the Italian deli on Peachtree is already an hour overdue.”
“I’m standing here naked to the world, and you’re telling me sausage is more important.”
It was the kind of line that caused even the most jaded heads in the city room to swivel.
Sam signed, punched SAVE on her keyboard. She thought for a long moment about reminding Jane that her being naked, not that she was, wasn’t exactly big news. When Sam had stumbled over her the previous year, Jane was a poet working part-time as a stripper in a sleaze club called Tight Squeeze.
Sam had done a lot of counseling with Jane about defining her goals. She had some now. “I’m going to hunt down and kill the mothers who broke into my apartment last night and stole every stitch of my clothes.”
“Except this, I presume.” Sam ran her eyes up and down Jane’s ensemble, which didn’t take much: one black cotton pullover, one hot pink elastic cinch belt, and one microscopic wisp of black Spandex which covered her panties, assuming she was wearing any, by an inch. “Well, at least the guy didn’t give himself a hernia.”
Jane’s green eyes narrowed. “Which means what?”
“That you have a wide and highly interesting variety of wearing apparel, sweet thing, but no single piece is bigger than an Ace bandage. Your whole closet must have weighed in at what—twelve pounds? About the same as Harpo?” Who was Sam’s Shih Tzu.
“Very funny. Just because I don’t wear old lady clothes—”
Sam, so crazed with work she didn’t even know what day it was, glanced down at her own red silk blouse and knee-grazing black skirt. “Forty does not an old lady make, and watch your mouth.”
“So are you going to help me, or what?”
Sam stared at her watch, back at the computer screen, then reached in her desk drawer and scooted out a credit card. “Go to Rich’s, buy some new threads.”
“No, thank you.” Jane was halfway out the door. “You can’t be bothered, I’m sure Marcia can help me find the burglar. I can do the killing by myself. Adios.”
Marcia, another reporter who was ten years Sam’s junior, already had a true crime book contract with a hefty advance and was breathing heavily down her neck. Sam heard herself saying, “Give me half an hour, and I’ll be right with you.”
* * *
They had their feet propped up on Sam’s desk and were sipping fresh cups of coffee.
“Tell me again what the cop said.”
“He was standing out on my balcony. You know how the back yard slopes there, so my place is really up three stories instead of two?”
Sam pictured Jane’s apartment on Peachtree Circle in one of the few multi-residence buildings in the elegant old in-town Ansley Park neighborhood.
“And he said,
Damn tall burglar
. There were no ladder marks in the grass. Though the door from the balcony to the living room was open like they’d come in that way. This was some time in between six—when I came home and changed, I left about six-thirty—and eleven, when I got home.”
“And the lock on the front door?”
“Ditto. Open.”
“But not broken?”
Jane shook her head.
“So they had keys.”
“That’s what the cop thought.”
“Did he dust for prints?”
“They sent this really cute guy over later. He printed me too.”
“I bet he did. And?”
“They said they’d get back to me. But they didn’t seem very hopeful.”
“You said nothing else was missing. TV? Stereo? None of the usual fenceable loot?”
“Only clothes. All of them. Plus shoes, underwear, garter belts and other recreational items, pantyhose. It was like they set out to do this one thing.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. The toilet seat was up.”
“So we’re supposed to think it was a man who stopped mid-heist to take a leak. So noted. Okay, let’s make a list.” Sam flipped open a reporter’s notebook. “Who would want your clothes?”
“A pervert.”
“Right. But how many of those do you know?”
“Hey, I was a stripper, remember? Thousands.”
“Thousands you gave keys to?”
“Nope.”
Sam thought for a minute. “Who would want to make you this mad? Harass you? Pull this kind of stunt as some kind of message? Punishment?”
“Like an old boyfriend?”
“Exactly.”
“Bobby LaRue.”
Sam shuddered at the name. Morotcycle-riding Bobby of the black leather and chains was one of her least favorites of Jane’s beaus. “But you got your keys back from him, right?”
Jane shrugged.
“Why not?”
“Seemed like a lot of trouble. Besides, his brother’s a safe cracker, what difference would it make?”
Sam stuck out the tip of her tongue as she wrote. “Number one. Bobby. Do they get any worse?”
“Sure. I’ve dated Attila the Hun, Sly Stallone, and Pete Rose, but none of them got keys.”
“So who did? I have a set but I’m not mad at you, and I swear I didn’t take your pantyhose. What about your neighbor next door?”
“Craig!” Jane smacked herself in the forehead. “That’s right, I did give Craig keys. But I don’t think he’s my size and we’ve got no beef.”
“Also from what you’ve said he’s the world’s leading preppie. Isn’t he the one who married his wife because they liked the same designers?”
“Patti. There you go. But I’m not exactly your Polo queen, so I don’t think either of them was lusting after my wardrobe. Besides, he’s an up and coming at MegaCard. Junior execs for credit card companies don’t steal, do they?”
“Don’t be so sure. So, did you talk to them? Ask if they heard anything last night?”
“I didn’t get a chance to. I’ll call them today.”
“Okay, now, who else has keys? Friends?”
“Sally.”
“Sally’s not your friend, she’s your penance for past sins. Has she slit her wrists this week?”
“You can be very insulting, you know that? I don’t talk about your friends like that.”
“I don’t have any friends like that.”
“That’s because they’ve all gone to the old folks home.”
Ignoring that, Sam was suddenly struck by a terrible thought. “You didn’t roll over for Hoke, did you?”
The paper’s managing editor, whose assistant Jane was, fancied himself in competition with Carl Bernstein for the title of journalism’s chief ladykiller. And his wife Lois was famous for her reprisals.
“Mix business and bed? You think I’m stupid?”
“That’s a relief. Keys, keys, so who else’s got keys?”
“Finito. Except—”
“Who?”
Jane looked around as if the walls had ears. Then mouthed the words
Dick Loudermilk
.
“Trick! No, please, not Trick.”
Jane shrugged. Who was she to resist the advances of Georgia’s junior senator who had plowed the fields of Atlanta’s fairest flowers—each of whom thought she was going to be the one on his arm when he ascended to the White House. Except Jane, of course. Jane was too smart to confuse sex and politics. She said, “But he is a great dancer and he’s burning hell in bed.”
“So maybe you could go on TV with that testimonial during his next campaign. Anybody else? Do I need a fresh piece of paper?”
“None rush to mind.”
“Okay. How about you’ll talk with Craig and Patti, Bobby LaRue. I’ll take Sally and the good senator.
“And do what?”
“Start calling, visiting.”
“I dial these people up and say tell me who did it and/or bring back my clothes. This is what you call finding the burglar?”
“Investigating is talking, Jane. Talking and listening. Listening more than talking. It’ll be a novel experience for you.”
*
I can’t help you if you’ve exceeded your limit,” said Craig, Jane’s next-door neighbor, on the phone. “I’m not in that division.”
“I don’t even have a MegaCard,” said Jane.
“You don’t! MegaCard is the South’s answer to American Express. We plow the profits back into Dixie. Screw the Eastern establishment.” He paused, lowered his voice. “Are you some kind of Communist, Jane?”
“No, I’m a vegetarian. And I’m sorry to bother you at work. Why are you there on a holiday weekend anyway? Nevermind. Somebody ripped off my apartment last night, and—”
“No!”
“Did you hear anything? See anything? It had to happen sometime between six-thirty and eleven.”
“Nothing. We weren’t home. We were at a financial planning seminar. The market. Commodities. It was great. There are new sessions starting all the time. You should come.”