The Merchant of Menace

for a phone book. She was quite serious about hiring someone to keep Lance away. She'd toss his television equipment out in the front yard so she couldn't be accused of stealing anything from him.

She heard muffled sobbing and followed the sound to the little bathroom next to the kitchen. 'Julie? Is that you? Come out here right now and let me beat you about the head,' Jane said firmly.

The door opened a crack and Julie peered out with one eye. 'Oh, Jane—' she wailed, suddenly opening the door and flinging herself into Jane's arms. 'I'm so, so sorry. He's so horrible. I had no idea. What can I do? How can I ever, ever make this up to you?'

“By sitting down with the phone book right now and hiring a security firm to get over here right now and keep him from coming back into my house,' Jane said, disentangling herself from Julie's embrace. 'And you're paying for it.'

“Oh, yes. Of course. Thank you. I'll do that,' Julie babbled between sniffles and hiccups.

“There's a phone and phone book upstairs in my bedroom.”

Julie hurried to do as she was told.

Shelley came into the kitchen a second later. 'Thank God you're here, Jane. I've been looking for you. I was afraid you were out looking for him with an Uzi.'

“None of my Uzis are oiled. Or primed. Whatever. I don't really know what an Uzi is, come to think of it. But right now I wouldn't mind acquiring one.”

Mel entered the room as she was speaking. 'Jane, that's not really funny.”

“Mel, none of this is funny!”

He knew when the river of affection was running at full flood the wrong way. 'No, it's not. I'm sorry.”

She sighed. It wasn't his fault. 'Is Todd back?”

Mel nodded. 'Yes, all your chicks are home and safe in spite of all the traffic. The street looks like there's a parade going on with all the gawkers at the Johnsons' house.”

She smiled weakly. 'And I guess everybody else has left, huh? Think of the leftovers we'll have. I hadn't even put the desserts out yet.'

“No,' Mel said. 'You've still got a mob out there.'

“You're kidding!' Jane edged around him and looked into the living room. He was right. 'Why don't they go home while the getting's good?”

Shelley spoke up. 'Some of them still think it's a joke. The rest are ghouls. By the way, that woman who lives next door to Suzie asked me what agency you used to hire the Johnsons. She thought they were actors pretending to be hillbillies.”

Suddenly Jane's accumulated tension dropped away. She started laughing. There was an edge of hysteria to it. 'No, Shelley, don't get that look,' she said between giggles. 'And don't get any ideas about slapping me to my senses. I'm okay. It's just that—”

She went off again.

Billy Joe swaggered in from the living room, bumping a bowl of pretzels off an occasional table with his oversized snowman butt. 'Wondered where's you got to, Jane. Oops, sorry.' He tried to lean over to pick up the pretzels, but with the fat costume, he couldn't reach the floor.

Jane rushed over and pulled him back upright. 'Never mind, I'll just sweep them under the table for now.'

“What are you laughing about?' he said. 'Nothing at all. I'm just happy you're here. That's all.”

Billy Joe looked pleased and deeply embarrassed. 'Shucks,' he mumbled.

An hour later, Jane was nearly back to normal. Ginger had forced the cameraman and the rest of the crew and equipment outdoors. The crew had left the electrical cords plugged into an outside socket and gone off in their van to have coffee and keep warm at a nearby convenience store.

Julie had struck out on security guards, but Jane was resolved to simply lock the doors when Lance returned. It was probably just as well that she hadn't been able to surround her house with armed guards. Imagine what Lance could have made of that. He could have yapped about it on the nightly news for weeks.

Jane could just imagine the headline: 'Suburban housewife barricades house against seeker of truth — what dirty secret is she hiding?' That was Lance's style.

Most of the guests had professed the intention of leaving well before the newscast and kept glancing at their watches. But they were determined not to waste a good party and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the exchange of neighborhood gossip. A couple of the men — and Suzie, naturally — gravitated to the basement where they fooled around with Jane's computer and talked RAM, ROM, and modem speeds. Jane's dog Willard had been confined to the basement for the evening and was thrilled to have company. Her cats Max and Meow, who didn't like strangers in their house, had retreated indignantly to the laundry room.

A clump of women gathered in the kitchen, picking at the remaining desserts and talking about diets, their jobs, shopping, and, mostly, the atrocities of having the kids home all day for two weeks. One complained bitterly about the Johnsons' house attracting so much traffic to the block. (The Concerned Citizen, no doubt, Jane thought.) A handful of people who were devotees of It's a Wonderful Life settled in the living room to watch it for the sixty-seventh time on television. One of the men kept asking if he couldn't just see if there was a sports channel during a commercial and was hooted down. If it hadn't been for the threat of Lance King's return hanging over her, Jane would have judged it a perfect party.

Julie Newton had finally finished crying and apologizing and was talking to anybody who would listen about the progress of her new kitchen. Addie had made friends with a woman who was a regional book rep and they were having a good jaw about the horrors of getting out-of-town authors around to the bookstores. 'She would never take a flight after seven in the evening or before ten in the morning, had to have a bottle of chilled champagne in the car at all times, and carried more luggage than Hannibal crossing the Alps,' Jane overheard Addie telling the other woman.

Jane's neighbor nodded sagely. 'When we sent her out on tour, she insisted on dragging along her hairdresser, too.”

Shelley and Jane crossed paths as Jane headed upstairs for potty break and Shelley came down the steps from the same errand. 'It's turned into a decent party after all, hasn't it?' Shelley said.

“It has,' Jane said. 'A credit to my hostessing skills.'

“You are a good party-giver, Jane. Better than I am,' Shelley said.

Jane laughed. 'That's because I let people do what they want. You tell them where to sit and what they should talk about.'

“I do not! I merely make helpful suggestions. And try to put people together who have common interests.'

“Uh-huh. Like that voter registration meeting you had at your house and you made that rabid pro-choice woman and the Operation Rescue guy sit together?'

“I've already admitted that was a mistake, Jane,' Shelley said haughtily. 'You don't need to keep harping on it. Still, I think they could have had an enlightening exchange of views if they'd only stopped screaming at each other.'

“Maybe, but when they got to the drink-flinging stage, it was too late.”

Jane went on upstairs and when she came back down, Julie was in the front hall in her hat and coat. 'My baby-sitter has to leave at nine-thirty. I'm afraid I've got to go.”

Jane didn't believe the baby-sitter story for a second. Julie was just trying to escape being on the scene when Lance came back and discovered he was locked out. But that was okay. Jane couldn't bear another round of hysterical apologizing.

“Bundle up, then. It's nasty outside,' Jane said. 'May I keep your little snack dishes for the cookie party tomorrow afternoon?'

“Oh, please do,' Julie said as Jane opened the front door for her. 'I have more of the snack mix, too. I'll come early and refill the dishes.”

Julie stepped out the door and started down the steps. As she reached the bottom she turned, presumably for one last repentant remark, but in doing so, her glance went over the Johnsons' front yard.

She stopped. Stared.

Her eyes opened very wide and then she screamed.

Jane lurched out onto the porch. Julie was pointing at the Johnson' house. At first Jane couldn't imagine what