manly thing and helped her out of the casket. The blonde rolled her eyes at Helen when his back was turned.
“Thank you,” Helen said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Nice set of tools, Billy,” leered the corpse-lover, eying Helen’s khaki chest. In this crowd, clothes were a perversion.
The dandelion blonde led her man into the blackness. She was having trouble keeping her dress on with that slit up the back.
Helen checked the coffin mattress first. It felt thin as a sofa bed. Helen hoped it was comfortable for the corpse. It would be hell to spend eternity in the guest room. She found no disk in the mattress. There were no slits in it, either.
The sides of the coffin were lined with pleated white satin.
Helen wondered if she’d be able to feel the disk through the thick fabric. She kneaded it like bread dough. She massaged the coffin innards all the way down the long side and didn’t find anything. She was about halfway around the head end when she felt something flat and square. Helen leaned over for a closer look. In the dim candlelight, she saw a slit along a pleat. She stuck her hand in and slid out a red plastic computer disk.
She had it.
Helen took a deep breath. The worst was over.
“What are you doing? What’s that in your hand?” The voice cut like a knife.
Helen slowly turned. She recognized the face from the society pages. But the outfit was new.
It was Mindy Mowbry. In skin-tight black vinyl. With a wicked whip.
Chapter 27
Mindy’s whip was black leather, slender and flexible. Her heels were cruelly high.
She wore a catsuit like Diana Rigg in
The black vinyl cat suit clung like slick, synthetic skin. A spotted scarf floated around her neck like a fashionable disease.
This can’t be real, Helen thought. I’m with the Wicked Whip of the West.
But she could smell the burning candle wax, the funereal flowers and her own fear. Pale, naked lovers crawled out of the shadows like resurrected corpses. They surrounded the black casket, watching Helen with dark, feral eyes. The room was a black cave. It was a long way to those demon-studded doors.
“What are you doing here?” Mindy had the clothes of a porn queen and the languid lockjaw voice of a rich woman.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Mindy’s eyes shone with crazy light. Helen thought if she looked into them, they would steal her soul.
“Maintenance.” Helen’s voice sounded surprisingly normal. She hoped the bluff would buy her a few seconds.
“Liar. You found something in that coffin. Hand it over.
Now.” Mindy’s whip tore through Helen’s shirt and left welts on her neck. No hesitation. No warning. No change in those crazy eyes. She lashed out, and the disk spun out of Helen’s hand.
The pain stunned Helen. Then it enraged her.
This house and all its kinky riches came from the Mowbrys’ telemarketing sweatshop. Helen spent her days in that filthy boiler room, so Mindy could spend her nights in extravagant depravity. She thought of her coworkers, cheated and abused in the boiler room. The money they needed to live decent lives cost less than Mindy’s twisted flowers.
Now this vinyl-coated scum had slashed her with a whip.
It was too much.
Helen swung her metal toolbox and caught Mindy in the face. She went down like a sack of cement. Her whip flew from her hand and hit a serpentine flower vase standing by the casket. The vase toppled and took down a tall candle. The ebony casket rocked backward, but righted itself.
Helen flung herself on top of Mindy, throwing punches wildly. Some slid off uselessly. Some landed. One caught Mindy in the mouth. Her teeth cut Helen’s knuckles.
“You miserable, greedy, no good—-” Words failed Helen, so she hit Mindy again. She saw with satisfaction that Mindy’s face was bloody.
The women rolled around on the carpet, trying to bite, scratch and kick each other. Mindy’s razor-sharp heels cut Helen’s leg. She bit Helen’s hand and scratched her face.
Helen landed a good jab in Mindy’s gut and pulled out a hunk of sprayed hair. Hah! Try wearing that hairdo to the Langley School PTA.
Some orgy goers thought the wrestling match was staged for their entertainment. They shouted advice and encouragement.
“Get her eyes.”
“Hit her in the boobs.”
“Kick her in the crotch.”
“Five on Mindy.”
“Fifty on the big brunette, Billy.”
“A hundred on Billy.”
The major money is on me, Helen thought, and couldn’t help being pleased. Then she heard why: “That Billy babe’s got a good thirty pounds on Mindy.”
I do not! Helen wanted to shout. It was ten pounds. OK, fifteen—max. She’d stopped pummeling the porn queen a second for this weighty issue. Mindy took advantage of her hesitation. She punched Helen hard in the right breast. The pain was so bad, Helen fell backward on the floor, gasping.
Mindy got to her knees. Then, wobbly as a newborn colt, she stood. The crowd cheered. Mindy accepted their applause with a regal incline of her head.
Too soon to be taking your bows, Helen thought. This fight isn’t over yet. She dragged herself upright and kneed Mindy in the groin. She’d read that maneuver had the same effect on a woman as a man. The article was right. Mindy doubled over, clutching herself.
This time, there were no cheers. The crowd was ominously silent. Helen felt something cold and hard at the base of her skull. The rage drained out of her, replaced by freezing fear.
“Move and you’re dead,” a man said. “Now, down on your knees.”
He’s got a gun, Helen thought. He’s going to blow my head off. No one will help me. These ghouls will watch me die—and enjoy it. I won’t whimper. I won’t beg. And I won’t lay down and die. I thought my way in here and I can think my way out.
“Darling.” Mindy’s voice was silky as her scarf. “You’ve saved me. It’s so delightfully old-fashioned.”
“You can take care of yourself, babe. But this farce has gone on long enough. You women look stupid when you fight, all that hair pulling and rolling around and shit. You can’t throw a decent punch.”
That voice, Helen thought. I’ve heard it before. But where? Mindy’s husband, Dr. Melton? No, Melton Mowbry came from money. This guy sure didn’t have a private-school accent. Helen couldn’t turn around and look at him with the gun barrel jammed in her head. Her mind was working so slowly.
“We girls are lovers,” Mindy cooed, “not fighters.”
“Get the disk, Mindy, and let’s get out of here.” The man sounded impatient. And frustratingly familiar.
“You’re so masterful,” Mindy mocked. “Whatever you say, Hank.”
Hank? Of course. It was Hank Asporth. How could Helen forget his voice? He was Mindy’s lover? She had a husband and little twin girls. And I am such a Midwesterner, Helen thought. Melton and Mindy were hardly Ozzie and Harriet.
Then Helen heard someone shout, “Hey! The curtains are on fire.”
The candles. One had been knocked over during the fight.
No one had seen the fire start. They were too busy watching the women wrestle. Now the dry black velvet curtains behind the coffin were in flames. The fire was small and energetic.
