Dying to Call You

Helen felt a lot better, except for the spike in her back.

Rattle, rattle. Hank shook a pill out of a prescription bottle. Viagra. Which one of the bored women was the lucky winner of the short trip through Hank’s tunnel of love?

Hank locked the cabinet, then walked down the hall.

Helen waited a full five minutes before she sat up and got the spike out of her back. She carefully shifted the pile of encyclopedias against the wall. They stayed in place. The briefcase did not slide off the top.

Helen slowly unfolded from behind the ironing board. Finally she could find out what that fiendish spike was.

It was a cheap red high heel. Size six. A scuff on the toe had been covered with red ink.

Laredo, Helen thought. I’ll bet anything this is Laredo’s shoe. Savannah will know for sure. She picked it up and stuffed it into her purse. She didn’t see a second shoe. She checked her watch. She’d been back here for half an hour.

She had to get out of this place fast, then get the shoe to Savannah. She straightened her clothes, combed her hair and walked down the hall.

Joey was sitting at the kitchen table with the others. He looked ridiculously handsome next to these men with their big ears, big bellies and baggy skin. But on the inside, he was as ugly as they were. The long-eared man was telling a joke.

“What’s the difference between a black man and a large pizza?”

“I dunno,” Joey said, playing the stooge.

“A pizza can feed a family of four,” Long Ears said.

The men all laughed. Especially Joey. She tried not to show her disgust. He finally noticed her, standing at the kitchen door.

“Hey, honey, why haven’t you put on your suit?” There was a touch of impatience in Joey’s voice.

“I don’t feel like swimming,” Helen said.

“What’s the matter—embarrassed?” Joey said.

She nodded. She was embarrassed to be with these swine.

“Tits too small, huh? Don’t worry. We can fix that.”

“What?” Helen said.

“You need a boob job. It will give you confidence. Don’t worry. I’ll get you one. I buy all my girls boob jobs. The doc practically gives me a group rate. I see it as investment—something we can both enjoy.” He nudged the man next to him and grinned.

Ugh. How could he think she wanted fake boobs?

Because you work for Steve, who hires topless bartenders for charity orgies, she thought.

“Besides, it will help you in your work. Bigger tips with bigger tits.”

“Call a cab, please,” Helen said. “I’m not feeling well.”

“I can drive you, if you want,” Joey said. It was a halfhearted offer.

“No, a cab is fine. I need to go home. I think I’m going to throw up.”

Chapter 14

“Another young Lauderdale girl is dead,” Ethel said. “Murdered. Says so right here in the paper.”

American violence was the Saturday evening topic for the tsk-tsk taskforce—Fred, Ethel and Cal. Helen saw them out by the pool as she was leaving for her bartending job at the Mowbry mansion. She planned to pass by the sour trio with a nod and a wave.

“Strangled with her own hair.” The paper crackled with Ethel’s righteous indignation.

Helen stopped dead.

Debbie. Her murder was in the paper. Of course it would be. She was young, beautiful and worked at a popular restaurant. Helen wanted to run away. She wanted to rip the paper out of Ethel’s hands and read every detail.

“How old was she?” Cal asked.

“Twenty-three years old. Isn’t that awful?” Ethel’s chins wobbled in disapproval.

“It’s drugs,” Fred said. He’d turned his gourd-like gut into an anti-gay billboard. His T-shirt said, GOD MADE ADAM AND EVE, NOT ADAM AND STEVE. Helen figured Fred was safe from homosexual advances. Hetero ones, too.

“I don’t doubt it,” Ethel said. “It isn’t right, a young girl working at that Gator Bill’s. Too many men and too much money. No daughter of mine would work at a place that serves alcohol.”

“In Canada—” Cal began.

“Any suspects?” Helen cut short his budding tirade.

“Huh?” Ethel said. Helen was supposed to bash kids or society, not spoil a good discussion with the facts.

“Do the police have any suspects?”

“They don’t say anything about them,” Ethel admitted.

“They wouldn’t,” Fred said. “The police only investigate important murders.”

“In Canada—” Cal said.

“You’d be freezing your ass off,” Helen said. The three stared at her. Helen walked off. Poor Debbie, dead and dissected by these dolts.

“Really, that woman is so rude,” Ethel said. “I don’t understand how Margery puts up with her.”

By the time she was aboard the water taxi, Helen felt better. The evening was a gift and she enjoyed it. She watched the brilliant sunset fade to tender pink and felt the soft, warm breeze. The little taxi churned through the pearly gray water, passing luxurious yachts and splendid homes, until it docked near the Mowbrys’ mansion.

A thirty-five-foot Cigarette boat painted with red flames was parked at the Mowbrys’ dock. Helen squinted to read the name: Hellfire. She was looking at nearly a quarter-million-dollars’ worth of boat—about what she’d make in a lifetime of minimum-wage jobs. Penis boats, the sail-boaters called them, and made unkind remarks about their owners’ masculinity. But Helen figured if you could afford a Cigarette boat, you didn’t much care what other people thought.

Tonight’s party was supposed to benefit the Broward County Wildlife Coalition. Helen liked that idea—wild life to save the wildlife.

“You’re cutting it close,” Steve said, when she arrived at the service entrance. “I can’t have late bartenders. Got that?

Go set up your bar. It’s by the pool again.”

This wasn’t the same man who’d begged her to call Joey.

She wondered if he’d heard about their date.

Tonight, the Mowbrys’ party area was done in brilliant tropical greens, blues, reds and yellows. Young women in safari outfits walked around with live macaws, spider monkeys and spectacularly ugly lizards. Helen hoped the animals went home after the first party. God knows what would happen to them at the second.

The band did a thumping version of “Baby Elephant Walk” that sounded like it was being played by pachyderms.

A different bored newspaper photographer showed up and snapped the same pictures.

It was the same crowd of thin face-lifted women and fat rich men. Helen heard the same conversations as the men lined up at her bar.

“Greatest president we ever had. Bombed those camel jockeys back to the stone age,” said a scotch and soda.

“No, he didn’t. They were already in the stone age,” said a bourbon and water. The two broke into braying laughter as they left with their drinks.

Helen poured red wine for a white-haired politician who said, “This is America. If they want to live here, let ’em speak American.”

A hatchet-faced doctor agreed, then said, “Some bleeding heart is trying to raise the minimum wage again. Those people don’t understand what it takes to stay in business. I’m running an office and barely breaking even.”