He need not have worried – Martha was far too busy trying to rip the plasma TV off the wall. Freddie had asked for it to be secured with special clasps – because this was not his first rodeo. The woman can’t have been more than a hundred and ten pounds, but she possessed a freakish strength.
“Martha, O celestial voice, I sense you are upset.”
She turned to glare at him. She wasn’t bad-looking for a woman her age. They didn’t specify it on any literature, but Freddie had glimpsed a passport. Sixty-eight. Every promo shot they had of her she was wearing that same benign smile. People said you could see how kindly her spirit was. Freddie always nodded and remembered just how many pills they’d crushed into her orange juice on the morning of the shoot to achieve that effect.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I was busy, Martha. Lots of preparations need to be done.”
Her mascara was running, and she had a look in her eyes that regularly sent hotel staff running for shelter and – on several occasions – a career change. She could also be very sweet. The problem was that the woman had spent decades on a hippy commune, hoovering up what even Keith Richards might consider an unhealthy amount of drugs. This meant her moods were “erratic” – which was a very nice way of putting it.
Freddie had gone looking for a “true believer” to front the church, and in many ways Martha had been the perfect choice. He had written the Book of the Truth – which was really not much more than a pamphlet – laying out the whole belief system, and she had quietly read it. The following day she had explained it back to him, like she honestly believed it was all her idea – or rather, that it had been “delivered to her in a dream”.
For all he knew, she really did think that. The woman often couldn’t remember what state she was in. Still, if you needed someone who could get on board with the idea that aliens were communicating with them in their dreams, she was the perfect girl for you. A mind with that level of suggestibility was always going to come with other issues.
“What the fuck do you call this?”
She pointed at the contents of a room-service food cart, which were spilled across the floor. Freddie bent down to look. The mess was dispersed over a wide area but he saw some toast, a slice of melon, and a lot of coffee that was soaking into the carpet.
“It’s tough to say, but I’m going to go with breakfast?”
“Are you mocking me, Freddie?”
Freddie held up his hands. “No. God no, definitely not. I’m sorry, Martha. Tell me what the problem is and I’ll fix it.”
She jabbed an accusatory finger at the trolley. “I asked for Eggs Benedict! Eggs! Benedict!”
Freddie paused for a second and then lifted up the napkin that was lying by his foot. Under it was something that looked a lot like it had once been Eggs Benedict, before it had become yet another stain for housekeeping to deal with and the church to pay for.
“I apologise. I take it that you’re not happy with Eduardo’s work?”
“Eduardo?” said Martha accusingly.
Shit.
“Sorry,” said Freddie, “my mistake. I fired Eduardo last week. This will have been prepared by Maxwell. You don’t like it – he is gone. Done!” Freddie held up his phone. “Not. A. Problem. I got the number for the sous chef over at the Bellagio. Everybody says he is magnificent. Celine only eats his food when she’s in town. I’ll make the call. He’ll be over here within the hour.”
He wouldn’t be. Freddie had figured out a long time ago that while Martha enjoyed the idea of a personal chef, she oddly didn’t like to meet them. She seemed uncomfortable around people who prepared her food. Freddie had no clue why. On the upside, this meant that Eduardo, Maxwell and this guy from the Bellagio were all figments of his imagination, made up to make her feel special and listened to. She got the same food as everybody else who stayed at Clown Town, which was, he had to admit, lacking.
On the other hand, who stays in a place where the mascot is a clown shooting himself in the face with a seltzer bottle and expects fine dining? He really would have got her a personal chef if he’d thought it would help with the tantrums, but it wouldn’t. The woman just enjoyed losing her shit, and outbursts such as this seemed to be her preferred method.
Martha looked slightly mollified by his offer.
Freddie moved closer. Holy crap. As he walked by, he noticed that the lunatic had almost managed to get the TV off the wall. He was going to have to ask Arnie to get the thing concreted in there.
“This isn’t just about the eggs, though, is it?”
Martha extended her lower lip. “I am under a lot of pressure.”
“You are,” said Freddie in his softest voice. “You absolutely are.”
“There are a lot of people coming here this week, and they’ll be looking to me for answers.”
“I know,” said Freddie, placing an arm gently around her shoulders. “It’s not easy, but remember – we talked about this.”
“I know,” said Martha. “But you don’t realise how tough it is, leading this whole church.”
Freddie nodded his head furiously, for fear his smirk might slip through. “Leading this whole church”? Bitch, please. He was dealing with organising the VIP service for the three hundred platinum acolytes, who were dropping ten grand each for the privilege of inner-circle access and, hush hush, a guarantee of a place in heaven. He had all that, plus the other two thousand attendees who still needed to feel special for their five hundred bucks. He had the press sniffing around, looking for an angle, which needed to
