 
# the rental

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### mjmoore

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&copy

This book was produced using PressBooks.com.

# Contents

  * Introduction: Neo Exploitation And Noir For The Now.
  *  1. A Dive In The Valley, A Box In The Hills
  *  2. The Lease Agreement Pays Dividends.
  *  3. The Blind Bird Sings.
  *  4. Sleep Is For Losers; Nightmares Win Pullitzers.
  *  5. Love On Fire.
  *  6. Chilli.
  *  7. Appetizers Galore.
  *  8. You Can Take The Girl Away From The Hunt...
  *  9. Her Chariot Awaits.
  *  10. The Death Of The Dead-Eyed Doe.
  *  11. Angela.
  *  12. The Eradication Of A Baine.
  *  13. Services Rendered.
  *  14. Truth, Beauty, And The Stuff In Between.
  *  15. Recompense.
  *  16. Full Circle.

### 1

#

I'm a recent convert to noir. How recent? Try a couple of months ago. I had avoided picking up books like L.A. Confidential and The Killer Inside Me for years, because I was always unshakably prejudiced against what I saw as a male-oriented writing style. Then I watched a little movie called The Black Dahlia.

Picture my mind exploding.

Far from the one-dimensional, cardboard cliches I was expecting, I was confronted with an array of the most complicated, outrageous, wicked, exciting characters I'd ever encountered, and I LOVED it. This led me to seek out everything Elroy has ever written, as well as the works of Jim Thompson, and Raymond Chandler, amongst others, and it gave me the push I needed to write a short story to clear out my head and escape the world of the novel I was stuck in.

The novel, I think, will be wonderful, but I'm the sort of writer who, at some point beyond the sixty thousand word mark, actually needs another project to consume me for a while. and now, I had one.

Two quick things: I realise this story is set in nineteen-eighties Hollywood, which is a far cry from the toxic glamour of the time periods in which most of the stories of the aforementioned authors were set. I also realise that my story doesn't contain a hard-boiled detective, or a femme fatale (as such), but a literal representation of the genre wasn't quite what I was going for. I was more concerned with atmosphere, which is the thing I think these genius craftsmen excel at providing.

Almost every person you'll meet in The Rental has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever, save for a hint of vulnerability toward the end, and the reason I like to read (and write) stories about people who, for all intents and purposes, are complete and utter arseholes is this: it's FUN. At some basic level, it amuses me, (and a lot of you, if best seller lists are any indication). It's precisely because my lead character has nothing at all in common with me that he was such a hoot to spew forth.

At a particular point, the book gets very dark, and I will admit here and now, without fear of judgement, that I was thinking of exploitation cinema while I was writing it. I'm not one of those charming people who finds violence against women titillating, nor was I trying to score points with said people. I just wanted to see if I could take all the elements of a much loved but equally maligned art form and redeem it, somewhat.

And yeah, I love to see chicks kick arse. So sue me.

### 1

##

Cole Jensen was a writer; a _bad_ writer. His agent knew it, his mother knew it, even he knew it, but it didn't matter – bad was in nowadays. It didn't do his self-esteem a hell of a lot of good, but self-esteem didn't pay the bills, and it certainly didn't get you laid – not that he had been lately. His first novel, My Lovely Lorina, was the story of a twin who survived a horrific car accident only to find herself being stalked by her dead sister's fiancé, and it caused a sensation. His second novel, Antonia's Secret, was about a woman who discovered she was adopted, and went in search of her father and brother, only to inadvertently sleep with both of them and throw herself off a bridge with the shame of it all.

His third, fourth, and fifth novels were a trilogy about a detective trying desperately to be accepted by her peers (some of whom were family), achieving her goal in the final chapter of the third instalment after nine hundred pages of beatings, torture, rape and several metaphorical lacerations from being repeatedly thrown against the glass ceiling. These 'Women In Peril' stories were very hot in the seventies and, rather inexplicably, the majority of his fan base was female. The fact that Cole himself could barely stand to scrawl his signature on the inside covers at book signings seemed lost on most of them, and it was with no remorse whatsoever that he often took the prettier ones home with him. Life (or at least a facsimile of it) was good.

Then Atlanta Williams came along and usurped him using the oldest con in the publishing world: a sensational bio. Her two four novel series – also featuring abuse, neglect, power struggles and inter-familial courtship – were made all the more titillating when she hinted that her first novel, In The Greenhouse, might just have a few smatterings of truth to it. Millions of readers poured over every syllable of the god-awful book trying to nut out which aspects of her belagured heroine's life were taken from her own, and she went from unemployed secretary to millionare virtually overnight.

The crowds of damaged women who had been eating up Cole's novels (and Cole) shrank, as did his bank balance and, owing to his penchant for imbibing impeccably aged whiskey whilst gambling away thousands of dollars at a time to less than impeccable people, he soon found himself bankrupt and at the mercy of the single most mercenary creatures known to man: landlords. His first rental residence was a room in a charmingly cramped little establishment called the Blue Moon Inn. His tenancy there came to an abrupt end six weeks after he moved in, when he came home to find that the place had burned to the ground (and taken down his latest manuscript with it).

A stint at another dive lasted three weeks, until it became painfully obvious, judging by the thumping and howling going on above and below him on a twenty four hour basis, that everyone was having sex but him. He was in the lobby, throttling the ancient Coke machine, when a woman who was several stations above every woman that had shared his life thus far – including his mother – came in to use the phone.

'Tenants only,' said the manager.

'Please, I have a flat and I need to call my auto club. Surely a gentleman like yourself wouldn't abandon a lady in need?'

The landlord dropped his newspaper and opened his mouth to say something that was probably not going to be terribly gentlemanly, but then he got a good look at her and smiled.

'Well, ma'am, that all depends.'

'On what?'

'On just how un-lady-like you're willing to be.'

The woman spat on the Perspex screen the manager was sitting behind and stormed out, the manager calling after her.

'No deal, sweetness – I like swallowers!'

Cole debated whether or not to follow, given that the woman was plenty pissed already and would undoubtedly view anything males had to say to be solicitation at this point, but temptation soon beat discretion into submission. She was standing on the curb, hugging herself, waiting to cross the road so she could try her luck with the all-night liquor store.

'You won't get any further there; the manager's a sixty year old woman whose husband left her for a young chick. You got a tyre iron?'

The woman eyed him suspiciouly. Cole smiled.

'I'm not gonna whack you over the head and take you back to my lair,' he pointed back over his shoulder, 'he'd charge me extra for having a guest.'

The woman gave him a relieved but cautiously tight-lipped smile.

'I think there's one in the trunk, not that I've ever used it...well, once.'

She laughed to herself as Cole started loosening the crippled tyre, and he couldn't help but join in.

'I take it you used it for something other than vehicular maintenance.'

'You might say that...a mechanic once made me a similar proposition to your friend in there, only he was a little more... _insistent_ about it, so I grabbed that thing and whomped him on the back of the head with it. Then I got in my newly repaired car and drove away. That was the first time I ever ditched on a bill, and I didn't feel the slightest bit bad about it.'

Cole loved confidence in a woman, and it was twice as sexy when that confidence was justified. He had only spent fifteen minutes with this one, but he already knew she was the smartest person he would ever meet, even if she didn't know how to change a tyre.

'All done.'

'You make it look so easy,' she reached into her purse, 'let me reward you...'

Cole held up his hand.

'Your peace of mind is my reward.'

He held out his hand. She shook it.

'I'm Constance, Constance Morrell.'

'Cole Jensen.'

'Well, Cole Jensen, I am not leaving here until you let me repay you. You won't take money, and you haven't asked me for sex...what else is there in life?'

Then a portly man entered the motel with a woman on his arm who was young enough to be his daughter but bore no family resemblance whatsoever. Constance regarded them, then smiled.

'I think it's time you moved up in the world.'

They pulled up in Constance's M.G. convertible half an hour later outside a modern art inspired cube house in the hills that boasted a stunning view of the city lights below. Cole wondered what he was doing there. He had paid his security deposit with kindness, (and a lot of restraint), but what would he have to do to make the rent each month?

'This is where _I_ sleep,' Constance said, reading his mind, 'let me take you round back and show you _your_ quarters.'

The semi-colon-shaped swimming pool joining the pool house to the main house, (or separating them, if you chose to look at it that way), was surrounded by formidable-looking cactus and succulent plants, just in case guests were in any doubt as to the home owner's aesthetic sensibilities. The pool house was a miniature reproduction of the flat, square concrete and granite monstrosity looking down upon it, except that the pool house had been painted a vivid, disgusting shade of green – inside and out. Cole put his bags on the green Moroccan-tiled floor and smiled.

'Tequila and divorce don't mix,' said Constance.

'Oh, I don't know,' said Cole, 'a home is a calling card; it's décor reflects the owner's personality. I'm sensing that the owner of this place has spent a lot of time in here, ruminating on things that should have been.'

'What's important is how _you_ use it, seeing as you're going to be living here for a while.'

'About that, I don't have much in the way of...'

Now Constance was holding up her hand to shush him.

'I will not broach the sordid topic of coin, except to say this: you did me a huge favour back there at that rat hole, and in return I am offering you room and board at cost. The cost itself we'll discuss tomorrow, when you've had a chance to clear your head a little and relax and, don't worry, my rates are more than affordable for someone such as yourself.'

And on that mysterious and rather provocative note, she left.

Cole watched her walk around the pointy abstract garden and up to the house, curious as to whether the chill she exuded from every pore was always present, or if she lost it in bed. He hoped not. He'd fucked hundreds of warm-blooded women, and no matter how wild they were they all wanted the same thing: a sounding board for their own needs and desires. The ones who liked it on top wanted validation, (look at me, aren't I self-assured?); the ones who liked it beneath wanted comfort, (hold me in your big strong arms and make me feel better about myself?); and the ones who liked taking it from behind wanted permission, (I want to be treated like an animal so badly – that's okay, isn't it?).

Cold women knew exactly who they were and what they wanted, and although he'd never actually fucked one, he imagined it to be a superlative experience. He passed through the generous kitchenette (green tiles and woodwork) and went into the (green and white striped) bathroom to take a shower and ruminate some more. When he was done, he went into the purple and green peacock feather wall-papered bedroom, pulled back the green and gold satin bed covers and slipped naked into bed, not considering for a moment what the previous occupant might have done in there; being forced to sleep in cheap motels tended to negate one's personal hygiene standards.

A splashing sound woke him up at two. Cole reached for his jeans on the end of the bed, picked up an ugly tribal statue and flung open the door, ready to mame whichever nut job it was that had the audacity to break into his benefactor's home and do a couple of laps before ravishing her. He dropped his weapon – and used his free hand to cover his modesty – when he saw who it was. Constance was doing a leisurely backstroke, despite the freezing cold, and was just as naked as Cole was. She completed her first lap, and then another, her eyes fixed firmly on Cole except for when she had to turn around, and when it was over she climbed out of the pool and picked up her towel, but didn't wrap it around herself right away.

'I'm not armed,' she said, 'but I see you are.'

She wrapped her towel around her, fastened it with a dragonfly jewel clip and smiled.

'Be careful where you point that thing.'

She strolled back up to the house, completely conscious of what she had done, and offered him no right of reply. Cole returned to the solitude of the pool house and to his ruminations. He had an idea of what the cost was going to be for his room and board, and he wasn't so sure he could afford it.

### 2

## The Lease Agreement Pays Dividends.

After enduring two more physically-exhausting showers, and the single worst night's sleep of his entire life, Cole woke up feeling like he had a hangover. Not a pleasant, Jack Daniels sticking around for a long farewell hangover, but the dry-mouthed, heart-pounding, blinding kind of hangover he experienced on the occasions he was forced to slum it with the no-name piss you could pick up at the supermarket for five bucks. He was being punished for his unwillingness and inability to provide his hungry system with the relief he unwittingly promised it when he clapped eyes on that breathtakingly cool vision in the moonlight.

He got dressed and poked his head out the door to see whether she was up yet, and he wasn't disappointed. She was standing on the second floor balcony, draped in a jade silk kimono, smoking a cigarette. He waved, although for the life of him he couldn't figure out why. She didn't wave back.

'My mother always told me to be wary of overly friendly staff.'

'Staff?'

'I've left the patio doors open for you. You'll find brunch on the table.'

A meal of eggs, sausages, bacon and hash browns was waiting for Cole when he got there, but he wasn't at all hungry. Constance kept him waiting for an hour before joining him, draped head to toe in white, as she had been when they met. Cole noticed for the first time that her eyes were such a light blue that they were almost transparent, and he imagined she could see through to his soul with them. He doubted they would offer up the same transparency should situations be reversed.

'What I was hinting at before was an offer of employment, in exchange for your living expenses.'

'Yeah, I figured that out already.'

'I know that.'

Subtly but soundly chided, Cole shut his mouth and let the lady talk.

'There are things I need maintained, the least of which being the pool. You'll be on call, most likely working no more than five hours a day, which should give you plenty of time to pursue your writing.'

Cole gawped at her.

'I can spot a writer of your station a mile away, Mr Jensen. You all have that same look of, what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yes – resignation. You create characters you can't stand to please readers whom you find equally repulsive, and you keep doing it for the same reason that you bed them – need. Without the trash you write, you can't eat, and without the trash that eats you, you can't sleep, so you continue to circumnavigate this vicious cycle and don't bother to hone your craft, because you can't cash laurels.'

She stubbed out her second cigarette of the day, folded her hands in front of her and looked into his eyes.

'Have I accurately summed up your situation, Mr Jensen?'

Cole offered her nothing, which of course meant everything.

'I'd like you to start now. Some malevolent pack of winged rats has seen fit to defecate all over my car. I'd like it cleaned.'

'I'll take it to the...'

'I want it done by hand. I don't trust those glorified process workers down at the car wash. After you've done that, I'd like you to take my dry cleaning into the city.'

Cole balked at that idea. Maintenance man was one title, maid was another.

'Don't you have...servants?'

'I'm between servants just at the moment, but if you'd prefer to go back to your previous residence I'm sure your former landlord would be only too happy to extend you some credit.'

Cole bit his lip.

'Will there be anything else, Mrs Morrell?'

Constance smiled, and Cole felt the room temperature drop a degree or four.

'I'll summon you should I need something.'

Cole didn't go in much for sports cars; he'd take a Mustang over an M.G. any day of the week, but he could see why someone like her would love them so much. People like Constance – Mrs Morrell – loved cars, and learned to appreciate people, and that was just fine. He spent the next sixty five minutes cleaning, polishing and buffing her cherry-red M.G. to within an inch of its life, then took it into the city to drop off a white mink coat and a backless, silver lame dress at the dry cleaners. He brought the dress to his nose and inhaled, expecting to encounter French perfume, but the only odour it gave off was a musty one, as if she had worn it to a party several years back and forgotten it in a corner somewhere.

Cole imagined her standing by the pool, surrounded by an aura of winter mist, wearing nothing but the coat and a hard expression. This mental image led him to drive to the other side of town, park the M.G. under an old bridge that was only used at night when the junkies came out of hibernation, and spend some quality time with the coat. He knew he should have been ashamed to hand it in even filthier than it was before, but he wasn't. It wasn't as though he was handing the damn thing over to Constance's mother, and he doubted Constance would give a rat's ass what her dry cleaner thought of her social life.

The house was a one-woman hive of activity when Cole returned. Constance was flitting in and out of the parlour, setting down hours d'ouvres, putting the finishing touches on her party décor, and picking out the best record albums to play.

'You having a get-together...Mrs Morrell?'

Constance smiled.

'That's correct.'

'Is there anything I can do to help, or would you prefer I made myself scarce?'

Constance looked him up and down.

'Well, I can't be all I can be as a hostess if I'm running around refreshing drinks and attending to coats, can I? _Of course_ I need your help.'

Cole took off his jacket, threw it on the coat rack by the front door and awaited her instructions.

'You'll need to change first.'

She left the room for a few moments, then returned with a tuxedo that looked as though it had been custom made for him. She held it up, then waved it in front of him impatiently until he took it from her.

'I'm a maintenance man, not a butler.'

'Make no mistake, I don't want you to act as my butler tonight – the women I have coming here can spot fake servitude a mile off, and you weren't exactly bred for the position. The task I am about to set you falls well within the broad boundaries of your employ. Tonight is all about maintenance – maintaining refreshment, maintaining mood...and maintaining the good vibrations of the room by bending over as much as possible and letting my guests objectify you.'

Cole had been waiting for her to ask something of him that he had no trouble saying no to, and this was it.

'I'm not a piece of meat, Mrs Morrell.'

Constance laughed.

'On the contrary, Mr Jensen – you're the finest piece of sirloin ever to enter this house that wasn't ordered through The New Yorker.'

Constance studied Cole's expression. There was a limit as to the depths he was willing to sink, and she had found it.

'How about if I offer you a sweetener?'

'Such as?'

'How would you like to go car shopping tomorrow?'

The word on the street was that Atlanta Williams had just bought another classic car to add to her collection. It was an aqua marine, late sixties, Mustang coupe with a white soft top, just like one of the cars in the movie version of The Outsiders. There was just one problem: it was a Mustang Shelby, the rarer but far less coveted Mustang coupe, not the paired-back thing of beauty that Randy the Soc drove; the yellow racing stripes down the sides were a dead giveaway. The thought of cruising past Atlanta's house in Beverley Hills in a car that screamed "I'm everything you're not' was too irresistible for Cole not to take up Constance on her offer, even if it did mean choking down his pride.

Constance's party guests were a bunch of mixed nuts, to say the least. They were all society queens – Cole couldn't imagine her slumming it for anyone she wasn't interested in sleeping with – but that was the only thing uniting them; that and their general creepiness. They ranged in age from sixteen (the daughter of one of the guests, who Cole supposed was receiving her due for coming out into society), to anyone's guess, and their figures went from would-blow-away-in-a-good-nor-east-er to holy crap, please don't fall on me. Cole supposed he had a prejudice when it came to women, but it was too late to change that now.

In any event, it wasn't the larger women who first offended him; it was a tall, attractive woman not unlike Faye Dunnaway, who also happened to be the skinny, rather frail looking younger woman's mother. He saw her whisper in her daughter's ear when he came around with the drinks, (cocktails for the adults, pink lemonade for the girl), but thought nothing of it when the girl dropped her empty glass on the parquet floor, and he immediately bent down to pick it up.

Without a word of warning, the mother reached out and grabbed him, squeezing him as though she were confirming, to her own satisfaction, his ripeness. Cole straightened up, ready to smack the bitch across the face, but then he saw that Constance was watching him, waiting for him to react, and he didn't want to give her the satisfaction. He bent down again, picked up the larger shards of glass, ignoring the uncomfortable new direction the woman's hand was travelling, and waited for her to finish before going to the kitchen to dispose of the glass and grab a dustpan and broom. When he returned, the woman was in hushed conversation with Constance, and the girl was sitting on the couch alone, watching him with a keen but terrified curiosity.

He bent down again to sweep up the remaining glass, and felt every eye in the room boring into the back of him. Women were probably used to being on the receiving end of this bristling kind of attention, but Cole wasn't. The irony of the situation would be lost on these women – philosophical concerns weren't a blip on your radar when you didn't have to work to get what you wanted – but Constance understood it. She understood it all too well.

He looked to Constance when he caught the attention of the elderly lady, but Constance looked away and carried on talking to her unoccupied guests. This was her party, he was the entertainment and, like it or not, he was there on her dime. He felt his cheeks light up as the woman's leathery, spotted hand travelled up his leg, and he wanted so badly for his hand to fly on it's own and crack the old bat square in the needle-like partition she called a nose, but it didn't. He simply endured – without reciprocation – until she grew bored and dismissed him. The two large women followed the old woman's lead and stood either side of him, each with a hand on either of his shoulders.

'I'm Clarissa,' said Hog One.

'I'm Claire,' said Hog Two.

'Hello,' he nodded. He thought maybe he should have said Good Evening, or Hello Ladies, but as Constance pointed out earlier, gracious servitude was not the sort of position he was bred for – if he had been bred at all. They didn't care how well-mannered he was, or whether he knew Moet from Blue Nun; they wanted to spend the evening deriving cheap amusement from a common man, and Cole was (almost) as common as they came.

'Constance tells us you're a writer,' said Hog One, 'have you published anything we might have heard of?'

'Yes, do tell us what you write!' piped Hog Two.

'Have you heard of My Lovely Lorina?'

Hog One squealed.

'Oh my god! You're HIM? I loved that book! I bought it at the airport, because they didn't have anything else, and read it on the plane coming home from Aspen. What a page-turner that was! I recommended it to my sister here, and she loved it too!'

'Oh yes,' nodded Hog Two, 'I just love a good tragedy.'

'Have you read any Shakespeare?' asked Cole, knowing full well what her answer would be.

'Who?'

Hog One giggled and elbowed her rib.

'Oh, you ninny! That Englishman who wrote that play we listened to on the radio...Romeo and Juliet.'

'Oh...that,' Hog Two rolled her eyes, 'couldn't get past act one. You'd think an Englishman could write a play in plain English!'

Cole felt a laugh rising up from the soles of his feet, and stifled it. There would be plenty of time to ridicule these bitches later, when he started writing the novel they'd just helped him think of. A woman wearing diamond encrusted spectacles smiled at him, and he contemplated returning the favour, but decided against it. Part of the thrill for his audience – and that was exactly what they were – was that he was there by virtue of only the smallest modicum of free will, and he would therefore extend to them only the bare minimum of cordiality.

The woman silently summoned him, and he went to her. He waited for her to say something, or to make a request, or an advance, but she simply stood there, and smiled. Cole started to say something, but let the words evaporate on his tongue when her smile turned into a scowl. When he shut up, she smiled again, and he understood what it was she wanted. He stood there for an hour and a half, his arms at his sides, while she stared and smiled. He let out a long, slow breath when Constance rang an antique silver bell and severed their connection.

'Ladies, I'd like to thank you for coming. You will notice that there are several envelopes on the hall table. Please collect the one that bears your name on your way out.'

Most of the guests filed out immediately, as if failure to do so meant they would be held in some sort of societal contempt, leaving only the mother and daughter behind. The daughter remained on the couch, waiting for her mother to finish the seemingly endless conversation she was having with Constance, a tapping right foot betraying the fact that she was doing so under duress. When the woman's gums finally stopped flapping, she and Constance turned, looked at Cole, then looked back at each other.

'I'll see what I can do, Lydia, but I won't promise anything.'

Lydia nodded, and the two exchanged social kisses before she motioned for her daughter to follow her. Constance watched the pair leave, then closed the double doors, turned to Cole, and laughed.

'Lydia Baines. Stupid, stupid woman. I honestly don't know why I still receive her.'

She strolled over to Cole, unknotted his tie, and smiled.

'Would you like to know what she asked of me?'

'Okay.'

'She wanted to know whether you would break-in her daughter.'

Cole glared.

'Don't worry,' Constance said, 'your reward isn't predicated on _that..._ the poor little thing isn't worth a car...not to her mother, anyway.'

'I can't do this again tomorrow.'

Constance kissed him on the cheek.

'You can and you will.'

The Mustang didn't get rid of the acrid taste left in Cole's mouth after the Sicko Soiree, but it proved invaluable in other ways. He screeched down the winding road, cruising for consolation, and found it in the arms of two of the same women who used to read his books. The only difference now was that they were too drunk to care what he wrote, and so long as they were willing to let him indulge in an hour or so of frantic hate sex, he didn't give a shit if they read at all.

What the car also did was to help him settle an old score. Atlanta Williams moved to Hollywood when the first of her wretched novels was adapted into an even more wretched film, and one evening, while Cole was cleaning up vomit left on his pant leg after one of the Hog Sisters indulged in a fantasy that would put Cole off swizzle sticks forever, Constance surprised him with the address.

'How did you get it?'

'From Margaret Warrington. Do you remember Margaret?'

Cole gritted his teeth.

'The old lady who felt me up? How could I forget.'

Constance smiled.

'Her son David is on the board of directors at Prentice Publishing, and she's a big fan, but Ms Williams still refused to give her an advance copy of the new book and, well, Margaret doesn't take kindly to disappointment.'

Cole drove to the life-size Barbie dream house the next day, and parked the Mustang in front of the gate, in full view of the newly-installed security cameras. He didn't imagine for a moment that the lady herself was going to come out and greet him personally right away – she was very selective about who she spoke to these days – but relaying messages to her via the help would prolong the fun.

'Yes?' came a voice over which James Mason would have sued for rights.

'I'm C.R. Jensen.'

'How nice for you.'

'I came to congratulate Ms Williams?'

'And so you have.'

'I'd like to do it in person,' he held up a bottle of Don Perignon, 'I brought her a gift.'

Cole thought he heard a very British sigh.

'If you'll leave it at the service entrance with the other deliveries, you'll be rewarded accordingly; give me a moment to rummage in the petty cash for quarters.'

Then the front doors opened, and the lady of letters stepped out in a pink Chanel suit and homicidal heels.

'C.R. Jensen. Pleasure to finally meet you. Loved your book, by the way.'

'Which one?'

'The one with all the incest. The title escapes me, I'm afraid.'

Cole smiled, his bottom teeth almost piercing his inner lip.

'You're doing very well for yourself. It's good you were able to rise above all that stuff the critics said about your lack of originality. I mean, if you're going to steal, steal from the very best, right? How is Jackie Collins, by the way?'

Atlanta Williams gave him a look, but kept smiling.

'This was lovely, but if you'll excuse me, I have an industry party to prepare for. I'd invite you along, but I wouldn't want to dangle a carrot in front of you only to yank it away.'

Cole put the bottle of champagne down in front of the mail box.

'Don't sweat it, I have work to do, anyway. Wouldn't want anyone to say I didn't earn my advance.'

He bent down, buffed the hood of his car with the sleeve of his plaid, madras jacket, (a costume from The Outsiders – another compensation payment from Constance), tossed his keys in the air and caught them, then got into the car and turned the ignition. He let the engine purr for a good couple of minutes, and stole a final glance at the house before he turned and drove away. The look on Atlanta William's face made him wish he'd brought a camera.

### 3

## The Blind Bird Sings.

Jennifer Finch put her diamond-studded glasses on her bedside table and smiled. There were so few men left in California who reminded her of the love of her life. She met him when she was sixteen years old. Six feet, two inches tall of chestnut-haired, black-eyed trouble, he was the stuff of a father's nightmares, and a teenage girl's gooey dreams.

Jennifer was a funny girl. She went through toys, pets, and babysitters twice as quickly as her sisters, and was shipped off to 'boarding school' when she was ten for reasons of safety – that of everyone around her. Maplethorpe Academy held the distinction of being the strictest youth detention facility outside of Asia or the U.S.S.R, and the management's reportedly liquid approach to children's rights was what led her father – infamous Beverley Hills defence attourney Louis Finch – to enrol her. He even went so far as to ask for a continuance on the murder trial of an infamous film director, just so he could sit next to her on the plane and make sure she got there.

The stalag-like structure of the school seemed to work, for a while, but then a new cook arrived. Dale North was himself a former graduate of the corrective school system, who one day surprised even the lawyer who got him tried for manslaughter as a juvenile by suddenly showing a talent for cooking. This, and his conversion to Catholicism saw him released onto the streets the day after his eighteenth birthday, but rather than take up the generous position the state had lined up for him – short order cook at a diner in east L.A. – he requested that he be allowed to give back to the system that had given so much to him, by nourishing the bellies and souls of the lost and forgotten.

His real motivation was finding an accomplice with whom to embark upon a cross-country journey of discovery of the kind only a select type of person would ever willingly agree to. He knew he had found that person in Jennifer Finch when she smiled at him over her macaroni. The day of the dining hall massacre was one Jennifer always marked out on her calendar in the years following Dale's death; their first and only anniversary.

A scream tore through the thick, enforced silence of the dining hall when Martha Foster, a bear of a girl whom Jennifer befriended for protection – largely from Martha herself – began vomiting blood. The girl sitting next to Martha went from screamer to gurgler when she suffered the same fate, and before long every person in the room – from the inmates to the governess herself – was either dead or in the throws. Jennifer just so happened to be on kitchen duty that day, and was up to her elbows in potato peelings when Dale came rushing in with the head cook's blood all over him.

'It worked, baby...it worked!'

He swept Jennifer up into his arms and whirled her around.

'You're a genius, that's what you are, a goddamn, ever-lovin' genius!'

He set her down again, and Jennifer took off her apron. She took his hand and pointed it to the delivery hatch, and the two of them made their escape before the guards knew either of them were missing. They drove to Mexico, were married in Cancun, and consummated their union on the bar of a Cantina, surrounded by the bullet-ridden bodies of eighteen locals, only seven of whom were truly deserving of such a death.

They spent the majority of their two month honeymoon in much the same way, first driving back to California, where they were able to seduce and murder seven (mostly) innocent people before the pigs even got a whiff that they were back. From there, they went zig-zagging across the states. In New York, they 'offed' a bartender in Manhattan, a singer and a club owner in Soho, two hookers in Brooklyn and a cook, a vacationing beat cop, and his five year old daughter in a bed and breakfast in Poughkeepsie. In Florida, they broke into an old folks home and strangled, slashed, and force-fed their way to infamy by shoving nature aside and ridding the sunshine state of twenty-six of it's less than productive citizens.

The spree took them as far as Maine before Dale confessed that he was tired, and wanted to kick back and rest on his laurels for a while, having managed to collect sixty one lives in such a tiny crack of time. Jennifer, who had been smiling pretty much non-stop since the dining hall incident, was suddenly very displeased. She shrugged his hand off her shoulder, folded her arms, and scowled. It was the most terrifying thing Dale North had ever seen, and although his darling had never spoken a syllable for as long as he'd known her, he suddenly realised she was in charge.

'Okay, baby, we'll do a few more jobs. We'll go up to the sticks, and we'll pick off a few rubes, then we'll go to Vermont, like we planned, and give a few skiers a downhill ride they'll never forget. How does that sound?'

Jennifer let her arms fall down at her sides, and smiled. Dale had managed to appease her...for now. This skinny little girl had accomplished something not even the guys in kid prison who they called the Lonely Boys could: she owned his ass. They drove up to a farm in a fly-speck of a town that would easily be wiped from the map by a drop of Liquid Paper at two a.m., let the German Shepard who was supposedly guarding the place bark until a light came on in a window on the second storey of the house, then broke its neck when they saw the farmer approaching, toting a double-barrelled widow-maker.

'Rat-bastard kids, I know who you are. You killed that family in Portland...'

He cocked the rifle and aimed.

'You just get down on your knees, before I blow your friggin' nuts off.'

Dale got down on his knees. Jennifer held up her hands and shook her head, playing the innocent hostage, just like they planned. Dale smiled as she ran up to the farmer and threw her arms around his waist, waiting for her to pull out the knife she had stashed up her sleeve and give him a vertical smile from the kidneys on up.

'Please, Mister, you gotta help me! He killed all those people and made me watch! Then he made me...do things to him.'

She buried her face in the farmer's chest and sobbed. Dale stared, bug-eyed.

This was new.

'Uh, honey? Whatcha doing?'

'Getting away from you, you sick creep!'

Now, Dale wasn't afraid anymore. Now, Dale was angry.

'You lying, treacherous, little, BITCH!'

Dale pulled out the Colt he was concealing inside his right sock and lunged at the only woman he had ever loved. The farmer shot him in the chest, the force of the shot shoving his back against a tree.

'Stay there, or I'll blast you again!'

'BITCH!'

Dale only managed to take half a step toward the girl this time before the farmer cracked off two more shots; one to the face and another to the chest.

'That one was for my dog, you little prick!'

The farmer told Jennifer to stay where she was while he went into the house and called the cops and, for the first time in her life, Jennifer did exactly as she was told.

'I...l...love you,' Dale stammered, 'tell me y...you love me.'

Jennifer smiled.

It was because he loved her that she killed him, and it was the memory of his sputtering, choking declaration of affection that fuelled her hands during the small hours when she was too wired to sleep. That was, until her sight began to fail. She couldn't sleep in her glasses, and she was beginning to think she might never sleep properly again when she described Dale to a dear friend, and was introduced to a man whom, she was assured, bore a striking resemblance to him. Constance gilded the lily somewhat by insuring that Cole doused himself in Pino Silvestre cologne – Dale's scent of choice – before the party. It was effective enough, but Cole didn't smoke cheap roll-your-own cigarettes, and it wasn't possible to truly reconstitute Dale's spirit without the combination of sweet and sour that had alerted Jennifer to his presence even when there was a room between them.

Jennifer got into bed and turned toward the wall. A tear ran down her cheek and onto the pillow. It was a tear for the husband she should have had; the husband she was entitled to; the husband Dale should have been. She went solo for a while, but it wasn't the same. She could only kill one person at a time, and seeing the lights go out in one set of eyes didn't pack the same punch as watching an entire room expire. Dale was the first man Jennifer had ever had sex with, and the act itself was nothing special. The slaughter, the groans and screams of five or ten people begging for life even as it was being wrenched away from them, that was what made her tingle. That was carnal. What she and Dale did afterwards was more like smoking a post-coital cigarette.

The old sweet-sour smell wafted over her just as she closed her eyes, and Jennifer turned over, feeling around on her bedside table for her glasses. She always left them in the same spot, but they weren't there. Jennifer was for all intents and purposes legally blind. Even with the glasses, all she was able to see were detailed shadows. There was nothing else to do.

'Dale? Is that you? Am I dreaming?'

The figure moved closer, standing next to her bed now. Jennifer made out a tiny speck of light before it fizzled out, then the smell covered her like a blanket and there were no more doubts.

'You came back for me. I'm sorry I did what I did, but you weren't yourself anymore. You wanted to retire, to stop doing what you loved, so you see it wasn't really you I was killing in the end, it was...'

The rest of her final sentence was left unspoken when her voice was taken from her. The last thing she managed to ponder before the hands crushed her larynx and her brain shut down was why he was wearing gloves. Dale had never once tried to cover either his fingerprints or his face during their blissful time together, so why was he worried about being caught now?

### 4

## Sleep Is For Losers; Nightmares Win Pullitzers.

Cole still wasn't sleeping at all well, but the one benefit of this semi-insomnia was that it gifted him with a sudden burst of productivity. He would get in two, sometimes three hours shut-eye, then he would bang out five to six thousand words until his alarm went off and his 'day job' started. It had taken him a year to write each of his Oestrogen Epics, and that was with a helping hand from a network of pharmacists who took cheques and didn't ask questions, but it was different this time around.

For one thing, his current project was nothing like the hack-for-hire shit he'd managed to eek out a living with up until now, and that made the writing feel more like a hobby than actual work. He was also fortunate that Constance was serving up inspiration on a silver platter in the form of the gilded trash she saw fit to socialise with. Cole had no illusions about being a social satirist of the old order, but although his story lacked dandies and fops, it was positively teaming with the debauched antics of the restless rich.

It was the story of a woman who surrounded herself with people she hated, for the sheer privilege of laughing at them behind their backs. It was a form of amusement in which only the filthy rich could whole-heartedly indulge; friendship wasn't a commodity to the little people. Cole knew he needed to give her some pathos, so she would have the proper motivation to carry out whatever despicable deed he would eventually come up with for her. The trouble, as was evident in his body of work thus far, was that creating flesh and blood characters wasn't really his forte, and his muse wasn't the sort of woman who would divulge anything about herself without first putting a gun to his head, (metaphorically and literally speaking).

From the next party on, Cole decided he would keep a closer eye on Constance. He didn't hold out much hope, and found this lack of faith rewarded; nothing about her countenance changed. There was no gleam in her eye, no slight turning up at the corners of her mouth, just the cool, measured look of an employer appraising an employee. When the appointed time passed and The Smiler (as Cole called her) didn't arrive for the second party, Constance waited the customary ten minutes, then simply got on with the festivities without even making a phone call.

Cole wasn't bothered by this; so long as he didn't have to stare at those blindingly white teeth again, the creepy bitch could be laying naked in a ditch for all he cared. Margaret Warrington made a bee line for Cole as soon as Constance's welcome speech was over, and Cole braced himself. Her leathery, time-bitten fingers made their way up his trouser leg again, and he swallowed hard, waiting for them to inevitably discover the X that marked the spot, but they stopped just short of his undercarriage.

Margaret Warrington sat down on her haunches, reached for her drink, and poured it onto Cole's shoe. Cole swallowed again, desperately wanting to close his eyes, but fully aware that his boss would frown upon it. Rather than get down on all fours and lap up the liquor like a dog, as Cole was so sure she would do, Margaret Warrington reached into her pocket, brought out a match and, surprisingly quickly for a woman who had to be pushing eighty, flicked the flint with her thumb and dropped it onto his shoe.

It wasn't the blue flame, bubbling and burning the Italian leather that frightened him; it was the laughter that accompanied it. The old woman threw back her head and roared as though the devil himself had just delivered the zinger of all time, whooping so hard as to give The Joker a run for his money. Cole raised his other foot, then looked to Constance. As soon as she nodded, he stomped out the fire, and the lady who set it got up, dusted herself off, and went over to the bar, still snickering under her breath. Just as Cole was about to duck into the kitchen and inspect his foot, he was approached by another guest.

'Excuse me, but can I help?'

The skinny girl whose mother had tried to force her onto him the night before took off Cole's shoe before he could protest, as well as his sock. She looked carefully at his toes.

'Still nice and pink,' she smiled, 'no damage done.'

With a quivering mouth, she kissed each of his toes in a fashion Cole assumed she thought was loving, from the big one down, then redressed his foot and looked to her mother for approval. Lydia Baines nodded – a gesture not dissimilar to but somehow colder than Constance's – and the girl scrambled to her feet again and sat down on the couch, looking like she'd just received the caning of a lifetime from the principle. The Hog Sisters watched all this, exchanged a look, then walked over to have their share of fun with the new toy.

'I know the help aren't supposed to eat with the rest of us, but I can't bare to see a man go hungry,' said Hog One.

'I'm fine.'

'Nonsense, I insist,' she said, and pointed at the refreshment table. Hog Two spread a thick dollop of Beluga caviar onto two pieces of melba toast, placed the food on a napkin and held it out to her sister. Hog One picked up one of the toast pieces and waved it in front of Cole.

'Open wide.'

Cole shook his head, as politely and as patiently as he could.

'As I said, I'm not hungry, but thank you.'

Hog One pressed the toast to his lips.

'And as I said, I insist.'

Cole sighed and opened his mouth just wide enough to accommodate a single bite. Hog One gently placed the toast between his teeth, and took the other end in her mouth as he was beginning to chew. The taste of fish, wine, and tongue grazed his palette as he endured the first kiss he'd actually been forced into since kindergarten. The tip of her tongue ran over his teeth and tongue and gums, and Cole had the sickening thought that this was what it felt like to be eaten – in the literal, not the figurative (and infinitely more pleasurable) sense of the term. Hog one swallowed her share of the treat, and Cole felt obligated to do the same, but made a mental note to try to locate some mouthwash and ipecac syrup once the party was over.

Hog Two grinned.

'Mmm, that did look tasty. I'll have to try some.'

Hog One shot her a glare.

'I thought you didn't eat meat?'

'Aren't you the one who's always telling me woman can not live on salad alone...dear?'

Hog One took her sister's arm and yanked her away, and Cole inwardly thanked god or mother nature or whatever divine force it was that created jealous women. Sisters or not, they would fight each other to the death to get what they wanted. Cole hoped it would be a tie.

Constance rang the bell a little after midnight.

'Thank you for coming ladies. You'll find more envelopes on the hall table. Please take the envelope with your name on it on your way out.'

As with the night before, Lydia Baines and her mousy daughter stayed on when the others left, Lydia talking in hushed tones with Constance while the girl fidgeted on the sofa. Constance gave much the same response.

'I told you Lydia, I'll see. I can't promise any more than that.'

Mother and daughter left, the latter given a helpful shove out the door. Constance turned to Cole and shrugged.

'Another one down.'

### 5

## Love On Fire.

Margaret Warrington was always considered the soul of charity, but when her husband, Lawrence, passed away at fifty under rather murky circumstances, she took what should have been a socially disastrous event and turned it on its ear, announcing her intention to open her home to a young man who had the same start in life as Lawrence did, in the hopes of preventing it from ending the same way. The plan wasn't without its detractors in the beginning; all Margaret's money ever did for Lawrence was allow him to indulge in more expensive habits. Who was to say this poor motherless boy wouldn't end up dead in some under-age street-walker's lap?

The boy she rescued was David Kinder. He lost his father at seven to suicide, and his mother at nine to a dope pusher who refused to further advance her credit. His grandmother took him in for a while, but when her brand of old testament discipline – namely water torture and the application of a four inch thick chopping board to any place on his body he couldn't protect – failed to make the boy any holier, she dropped him off at the St. Michael's Home for Boys and never looked back.

David was fifteen when Margaret Warrington picked him out of a line-up. He was one of St. Michael's old dogs. The younger children – the puppies – were snapped up before they'd even had time to feed off charity's teet, the five to eight year olds were still cute enough to be picked on second look, and the nine to twelve year olds always came in handy as working dogs. The rest were either too challenging, too expensive, or too much of a risk to occupy a room down the hall from the prospective parent's daughter. David was none of these things.

David was nothing.

He had been through seventeen of these line-ups, and not once did anyone take him home; not even for a weekend. He was pale, myopic, preternaturally thin, and stood four inches above the tallest of his fellow unfortunates, his grades were well above average; and the fact that he had read everything from Treasure Island to Death Of A Salesman – the fact that he read at all – belied his economic and social status, but none of this made him stand out.

For two years, he watched as other boys drifted in and out of his life. Athletes, brains, even the thugs who were too dumb to point out their home state on a grammar school map were chosen ahead of him, so when the older woman in the sable coat came shopping for a dependent, David didn't even drop the book he was reading to look at her.

'What is your name, young man?'

David wasn't aware she was speaking to him until she had rejected all twelve of the boys he came in with.

'David...David Kinder.'

The woman pointed to his book and smiled.

'Kafka's a little advanced for someone your age, isn't it?'

'For someone else my age, maybe...Ma'am.'

'Are you an avid reader, David?'

'Yes, Ma'am.'

'Can you remember the first book you ever read?'

David's face flushed.

'A book by D.H. Lawrence, Ma'am. It was my Dad's. I didn't like it.'

The director's face reddened, too. Margaret Warrington's did not.

'I understand, dear. What is your favourite book?'

A trace of a smile played on the boy's lips.

'Animal Farm by George...'

'Orwell, yes, I know it. It's one of my favourites, too. Rather sad ending.'

'That's what I like about it, Ma'am. It's realistic, because things don't always end the way you want them to.'

Margaret Warrington nodded.

'Son, how would you like to see my house?'

David was given the bedroom at the end of the hall. It had a desk, a window seat, and a bay window that offered an almost panoramic view of the city, but the room he gravitated toward was the library. Margaret (as she insisted he call her) owned every book he had ever wanted to read, and books by authors he had only dreamed of reading. The room also housed an antique globe the size of a television, and a telescope that boasted four times the magnification of the plastic toy the church donated to the home. Margaret stood in the doorway and watched him.

'I'm so glad you like it.'

'It's wonderful Ma...Margaret.'

'My husband, he never appreciated it,' she took a moment to compose herself, 'and now for my next surprise: I am taking you clothes shopping tomorrow. It's high time we got you out of these donated straight-jackets and into some smart, grown-up attire tailored especially for you. What do you say?'

'Thank you, Margaret, but I couldn't. You've already done so much for me.'

Margaret gave him a wan smile.

'As you wish, dear,' she took a handkerchief out of her jacket pocket and dabbed at her eyes, 'forgive me, it's just that, you remind me so much of someone I used to know.'

She burst into silent tears and turned away.

David wasn't sure how to respond, so he went in blind and did what he saw the nuns do whenever one of the younger kids cried at the home. Margaret let herself go limp with grief in the boys arms, so as to give him the illusion that he was helping. She used the tactic again that night, when David woke to the sound of her wailing. He crept down the hall, and found her sitting up in bed, pleading with an entity visible only to her.

'Why did you leave me, Lawrie? I only wanted to take care of you. I needed you so much...why didn't you need me?'

David looked at the large photograph in the antique silver frame that sat on Margaret's bedside table. Margaret looked beautiful on her wedding day. The same could not be said of her groom, a tall, lanky, lost looking man with a shock of a cowlick that seemed to be pointing mockingly at his bride.

It was obvious David felt like a fraud in every outfit Margaret picked out for him, but that didn't stop him from taking every one of them home. It was the least he could do. She assured him that every item suited him down to the ground, and her compliments were fairly innocuous at first.

'Blue is definitely your colour.'

'That jacket makes you look twenty-one.'

'The grey cashmere makes you look far more distinguished than the Marino.'

Then Margaret threw a party, to show David off to the very friends who were so convinced that the adoption was her greatest folly since marrying the never-was who inadvertently inspired it.

'As you all know, I've invited you here this evening to introduce you to someone I met just over a month ago; a young man whom you will be seeing a lot more of from now on. Every child I met that day had had a turbulent start in life, and I must confess that I was apprehensive about inviting a stranger into my home, but once I met this young man, I knew I had met a kindred soul, and that I was destined to nurture it. My dear friends, won't you please raise your glasses...to David!'

'To David!'

All seventy-one of Margaret's closest friends held their glasses aloft as they awaited the arrival of the orphan prodigy Margaret had been telling them about. They were so flabbergasted by the meek-looking creature who appeared at the top of the stairs that, for several seconds, they couldn't summon the strength to bring down their hands again. Margaret waited for him to descend the stairs, slowly, as she had instructed him, then took him by the arm and led him around the room.

The first person she introduced him to was Hyacinth Tate-Cannon, her best friend, oldest enemy, and high society's answer to Hedda Hopper. Flaunting him before her would guarantee Margaret's return to the upper eschalon – grudgingly though the endorsement may come. It would provide a nice little smoke screen to camouflage Margaret's real intentions for the boy; intentions that would only be realised once she had properly prepared him. She started working on him the moment they had the house to themselves again.

'I would say that was an unqualified success, David, wouldn't you agree?'

'I guess so.'

'You _guess_ so?'

'I just got the feeling they were...'

'Disappointed?'

David nodded.

Margaret smiled and stroked his cheek.

'That, darling, is precisely what made it such a triumph. I've known most of those people for forty years, and I can tell you with absolutely no reservation that they are all contemptible snobs. They came here tonight expecting to see a character from one of those dreadful youth gone wild pictures. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't leave money poking out of their pockets, tempting you to steal it.'

'One of them did.'

Margaret lit up a cigarette and exhaled exasperatedly.

'Well, there you are. You may not have been born into society, but I doubt there was a person here tonight who possessed an ounce of your intelligence or character. In many respects, I have more in common with you than I do with any of them.'

She reached out and stroked his cheek.

'We could have been soul mates, if we hadn't been born three decades apart.'

David was still just a boy – and a sweet one at that – but the weaknesses that come with burgeoning manhood were there, just beneath the surface, stirring. Margaret had seen it in the way he looked at her whenever she took a drag from a cigarette and slowly let it trail from between her lips like a cat-o-nine-tails at rest. Encouraging an interest in sports would dull the urges somewhat, but David wasn't that way inclined and, besides, Margaret didn't want him running around a tennis court, taking his frustrations out on a green, fuzzy ball. She wanted them to nag at him, to build up until there were only two ways he could relieve himself of them, and she would help him with both of them.

Despite being inundated with offers from dozens of prestigious boarding schools since news of the adoption went public, Margaret elected to have David home-schooled. The reason she gave for the decision, (even though her status meant she didn't need to provide one), was that the boy had lived an institutionalised life for long enough. The real reason was that she didn't want him to develop a taste for the outside world, because even stray dogs would be fiercely loyal to their owners if given proper training and a tight leash. For his sixteenth birthday, Margaret gave him a first edition of Ethan Frome, knowing full well how much he coveted the mint green Mark II Continental she was driving when they met.

David wouldn't be given a car until Margaret could be absolutely certain she would be the only female ever to sit in the passenger seat. To ensure this, she filled David's non-school hours with activities – trips to the movies, gallery visits, nights at the opera – and removed corruptive influences like television, radio, and magazines, filling the remaining windows to the world of his generation with reflective glass. She began raising the hemlines on her skirts – not so much that it was unseemly, but enough to provide the boy with a glimpse of the very sheer black stockings she ordered exclusively from Paris whenever she sat down.

It was also around this time that she, ever so discreetly, increased her affections toward him; firmer hugs on her way out the door, the accidental grazing of his backside when going in for said hugs, and lingering kisses on the cheek that made it impossible for him to avoid inhaling her perfume. The final cog in her plan to eliminate thoughts of other women was to place one of her bras in the top drawer of his bureau. The act had a two-pronged effect – it fuelled the frantic bodily explorations she watched him embark upon through a crack in his bedroom door, and it gave her an excuse to fire her twenty year old maid in favour of a far homelier woman closer to her own age.

Just as the seeds of lust and confusion that she planted within him were sprouting, Margaret took on a gardener to tend her own plot in the guise of a second-generation hotel chain millionaire. Richard Billson Junior was a playboy, a gambler, and a drunk, and that, along with his youthful energy and enthusiasm in a particular area, was precisely what made him the perfect matrimonial prospect. David hated him on sight, before he was given a reason, and Margaret poured kerosene on the fire by loudly extolling her second husband's sexual prowess four times a night during the honeymoon phase of their relationship.

She ushered in the end of this phase not only by allowing Ricky to drink, but also by slipping Vodka into his orange juice and coffee. This clandestine bartending was made possible by the permanent loss of smell Ricky was left with after he suffered a deviated septum in his first bar fight. David threatened to step in once or twice when he found Margaret crying after one of Ricky's louder rants, but Margaret managed to talk him down.

'No need, my darling; I'll feel better just knowing you're here.'

The one place David wasn't allowed was the bedroom, and it was there that Margaret finally ruined him for anyone else. Ricky came to bed for the last time at four a.m., rip-roaringly drunk as usual, and in no mood to deal with a nagging wife.

'I hope you didn't get into the champagne – I'm saving it for the day David goes to college.'

Ricky laughed.

'Betcha he's a real wild man when he's tied one on.'

'You have no idea what that boy's capable of.'

Ricky turned to his wife and twirled a strand of her hair around his index finger.

'And you do, I suppose.'

'As a matter of fact,' Margaret smiled.

Ricky pulled the strand taught.

'You gonna enlighten me?'

'Haven't you ever noticed the way he looks at me? Heard him groaning on the other side of that wall at night? He's wanted me since the day we met and you want to know something else?'

'What?'

'Last Saturday night, while you were drooling and lying face down in the den, I let him have me.'

Ricky spoke through gritted teeth.

'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah. Young men his age are full to bursting with passion, and he's surprisingly well endowed for one so slim. At one point, I found myself biting into his shoulder – it was all I could do to keep from crying out his name.'

'I don't believe it.'

'Believe it. You might have seventeen years on David, but he packs four times the punch that you ever did.'

Margaret put a period on the statement by jabbing Ricky in the eye, and used her spit for quotation marks. Ricky lunged for her as she leaped out of bed, the shock of the cold parquetry meeting his face making him even more livid. Margaret laughed.

'I remember when you were hard. These days the only thing you can hit is the floor.'

Ricky flew across the room and landed a right hook squarely against her cheekbone. Margaret fell to her knees, but got back up again.

'Is that it? Or have your upper extremities failed you, too?'

Margaret turned her face as Ricky hit her again, so as to be sure the blow wouldn't result in a difficult to correct broken nose or the loss of teeth, then she picked up a vase and threw it at the wall, and filled the silence that followed with the loudest, most terrified scream she could muster.

She yanked open the door and headed for the stairs just as she heard David's feet hit the floor. She fell in a heap near the top of the bannister, hanging onto the iron railing for life as her husband came toward her. Her eyes locked with David's as he emerged from his bedroom, wielding the colt .45 she gave him for his eighteenth birthday. He pointed it at the back of Ricky's head.

'Step away from her, now.'

Ricky held up his hands and turned to face him, grinning.

'You really think you've got the sack to shoot that thing, Junior?'

David was unmoved.

Margaret watched for a few more seconds before taking a vase from a pedestal and hitting Ricky over the back of the head with it. He fell forward, landing at David's feet, and Margaret got in seven more whacks before David threw away the gun and wrenched her weapon from her. Margaret looked around in a daze.

'Oh my god. The blood...all the blood...and the china...everyone will know! Everyone will know I killed him!'

David dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of his pyjama shirt and kissed her forehead.

'No they won't. Not if I confess to it.'

Margaret grabbed him by the shirt collar.

'No! You can't do that! I couldn't bare it if you went to prison, not for a single day. I'll kill myself!'

'Don't talk like that, Margaret...'

'What if we took him somewhere; some filthy, hidden away place in the city where he won't be discovered until morning? We could drive there and back without the headlights on, and clean the house when we got back. No one need ever know that he died here. Of course, we'd have to make it look like the work of a thug.'

David furrowed his brow.

'How would we do that?'

'Ricky often told me about the methods those people used. Burning, cutting, all manner of torture. Just suppose we made it seem as though Ricky made one too many risky business transactions and his associates caught up with him? We'd be free of Ricky and free to start a new life...together.'

David's eyebrows crept up.

'Together?'

Margaret took his face in her hands and kissed him.

'Together,' she nodded.

Thoroughly motivated, David helped Margaret carry Ricky's body downstairs, through the backyard and into the garage once the body was safely locked away in the trunk, they got into the car and Margaret let it roll down the hill, only turning the key in the ignition once they were out on the main road and far enough away from her nearest neighbour. They drove to a vacant lot in Beverley Hills, a site the Billson Corporation had just purchased in order to build a vacation resort, and dumped the body in the mud in a spot camouflaged by the decaying walls of an abandoned housing project.

They followed through with the first stage of their plan, and although David was more than a little rattled to see Margaret's eyes dance while he was inflicting grievous, post-mortem bodily harm on her husband, he couldn't help but be excited by it, either. They obeyed the speed limit all the way back home, both of their hearts thumping along to the same rhythm, and once the house was as clean as the maid had left it before Margaret gave her three days off to visit with family, Margaret invited him into her bedroom for the first time.

The scorched, punctured, open-throated body of Richard William Billson Junior was found the following morning, and the grieving widow refused to give any further insight into her relationship with him, other than to say that he was a wonderful husband and stepfather who was unfortunately seduced by the promises of evil men. The blood and grey matter of the man Margaret loved, (publically at least), was the glue that bound her and David together, in body as in all other ways, and to keep that bond holding strong while he was away at college earning his Master's degree, David began frequenting the bars and clubs his class mates wouldn't stop in front of to tie their shoes, stopping in a back lot on the way to change into less preppy gear in order to blend in with the regular patrons.

All of the men he left with were straight. He seduced them with a picture of his girlfriend's sister, whom most men found intimidating to be around, on account of her looks and all. David made sure to leave the picture inside his wallet when he showed it to them, where the accompanying magazine caption wouldn't show, and was equally careful about hunting in a different dive every time. Wherever he picked them up from, there was no disguising their eagerness, which David helped along by giving them a list of all the things Peggy would do for a man, if only she were given the chance.

As soon as he got them inside the remodelled carriage house that Margaret bought for him, he would lock the door behind him and tell them to wait while he woke Peggy up. He would tell them that the reason it was so dark was because he couldn't pay the power bill, then he would go into the bedroom and, after a whispered one-sided conversation, he would kick off his boots, step into a pair of high heels and pull on a pair of velvet gloves, go back out into the living room and lead them to the honey trap.

Once they were there, they were his, and the litany of humiliations and terrors to which he subjected them were stored in his brain, where they stayed as fresh as the day they were planted until he came home on his breaks and told Margaret about them. Margaret liked the burnings best. They made love seven times on his first night home for Spring break, purely on the strength of David's slow, deliberate retelling of the way he burned a man alive, over the course of five hours. It was a heart attack, caused by the prolonged but intermittent infliction of pain, that took the man in the end, and Margaret echoed his agonised words in the ecstatic final seconds of her climax.

'Oh god! Oh god! Oh...my...GOD!'

Most of Margaret's friends assumed that the reason David never left home was because he was gay and in denial. The rest were convinced he was merely putting the kibosh on Margaret's social life, so that there would be no competition for her estate once she was gone. No one – not even the help – even vaguely suspected that David's bed hadn't been slept in since he was a teenager.

These days, all David did in bed was sleep, having been rendered catastrophically impotent by years of rich food and sedentary living. On the night Margaret received her very last visitor, David was sitting on the toilet where, if past performances were anything to go by, he would remain for at least the next sixty minutes.

This afforded the intruder the luxury of time.

The phone on Margaret's bedside table rang at two a.m., tearing through the medicated fog of sleep in which she was blissfully floating . Margaret let it ring six times, in the hopes that the inconsiderate ass on the other end of the line might take the hint and piss off. When the caller showed no sign of giving up, Margaret jerked the receiver away from the cradle and barked into the mouth piece.

'WHO IS THIS? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?'

The caller breathed.

'I will not tolerate this crap a moment longer.'

'Oh god!'

The line went dead. Margaret replaced the receiver and grunted.

'Goddamn perverts,' she sat up and called out, 'I just had another breather call. They moaned in my ear. Are you going to do something about it?'

No answer from the bathroom.

'David!' she brayed, and waited for the inevitable "Yes Dear."

It didn't come.

'Huh. Someone's having sex somewhere and you're not interested; WHY DOESN'T THAT SURPRISE ME?'

She flopped back onto her back and turned over. The phone rang again. She turned and yanked it off the cradle. She spoke slowly so that the obviously challenged caller would be sure to understand her.

'What...is...it?'

'Oh god!'

The dial tone clicked on.

'For Christ's sake. Must they throw it in my face?'

She had just replaced the receiver when the phone rang again.

'Oh...my...GOD!'

The caller cut the communication again, just as David screamed.

Margaret threw back the covers and rose grudgingly to her feet.

'Jesus, David, what did the doctor say? If it hurts _that much_ , you need to switch to whole wheat and lay off the goddamn Brie and beluga!'

She shuffled down the hall toward the bathroom, where David was banished whenever one of his excruciating bouts of constipation struck. The smell of burned phosphorus hit her when she was halfway there, and she laughed.

'When I said I'd love to see you light a match again, I didn't mean for this reason!'

When she reached the bathroom, she froze. David was standing in the doorway, with his pyjama pants around his ankles, pointing a gun at her. Margaret smiled.

'Don't tell me...you've got your juice back? Wonderful! Except for the part where you hold the gun to someone else's head instead of mine. You're dreaming, for heaven's sake. Finish taking your shit and go back to bed.'

David grabbed her by the collar of her nightgown and forced her down onto the toilet seat. Margaret stopped smiling.

'What the hell's gotten into you? I'm sorry I called you flaccid, alright? You know I didn't mean it,' she reached out, with the intention of petting him, but then she noticed his fingers and pulled back her hand.

'David...what have you done to yourself?'

David's fingers were black, from nail to knuckle. So, she noticed upon looking down, were his toes. She was genuinely appalled – how was she going to explain _this_ to her friends?

'Darling, there's no need for this, really...'

A book of fresh matches flew through the air and David caught them, dropping the gun. Margaret guessed they were a replacement for the dead matches that were littering the white tiled floor. What she didn't know – what she wasn't sure she _wanted_ to know – was who threw them.

'David, what's happening here?'

'I'm so sorry,' David spluttered, 'but she made me choose...'

He took out a match, struck it, and moved in on her.

'It was this, or cut you...' he stammered, shaking all over.

'WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING?'

'I'm SORRY!' David cried, and held the match against her big toe.

Margaret's eyes widened and she started to scream. David slapped her as hard as he could. Margaret endured the scorching of the rest of her toes in shell shocked silence, fearing that another slap from one of David's beefy hands might knock out the perfect set of natural teeth she'd managed to hang onto all these years. David dropped the match once it had burned down to his fingers and struck another, focusing this time on Margaret's fingers, burning them from the thin skin below the cuticle down. David threw back his head and pleaded with the unseen person who's bidding it was he was doing.

'Please don't make me do this!'

A white cane swung out and struck him on the back, knocking him down to his knees. He sobbed, dropped the dead match, and struck another. He deliberated about where to apply it for a couple of seconds, which was apparently too long for the silent partner. The cane struck again, this time on the soles of David's naked feet. He screamed in pain, pushed up Margaret's nightgown, and held the match to her right inner thigh. Margaret bit her lip, drawing blood. David dropped the match, lit another, and held it to her left inner thigh.

By five a.m., Margaret had suffered burns – some superficial, some not so superficial – to ninety per cent of her body, but she wasn't dead yet. Unlike her lover, who had been denied the good things early on in life and was thus powerless to fight the urge to gorge himself, causing untold stress on his inner workings, Margaret was in perfect health. Her only vice – that anyone else knew about – was smoking, and for some reason her doctor couldn't fathom, her six pack a day habit had caused no lasting damage to her heart or her lungs. She was made of strong stuff; it would take more than a little pain to break her.

And David knew it.

That was why he was forcing a funnel into her mouth with one hand and unscrewing the cap from a bottle of industrial strength bleach with the other. A groan escaped from somewhere in the back of Margaret's throat before it was drowned by half the contents of the white gallon bottle. Choking with grief, David ripped out the funnel and let go of Margaret's head, letting it loll forward so that her chin was left resting on her chest.

'That's it, Dear, don't look.'

He poured the remainder of the bleach over her head and shoulders and wiped his running nose with his sleeve. Margaret's cinder-grey face turned up toward him again, the mouth gaping, and she uttered what she probably intended to be a scream as her body started to convulse.

'Nngaaaaaahhh....'

David lit a match and threw it on her, but before she'd had time to burn up properly, he grabbed the gun and aimed it between her eyes, aching to end the only suffering she'd ever been a party to that she hadn't had a hand in herself. The silent partner stepped out of the shadows and took the gun away from him.

'She doesn't deserve pity.'

A gloved hand pulled back the hammer and pressed the gun against David's temple.

'But you do.'

### 6

## Chilli.

Cole went to bed at two, waling stomach and all. Food was the last thing on his mind. Of particular repellence was anything bite-sized that cost five hundred bucks a pound and came from a sea creature's baby hatch. He would also never be able to look at pressed meat the same way again. When he got up at four to write, it was glaringly obvious that hunger was going to make the task impossible. He pulled on jeans and a shirt, went into his bathroom and rinsed with Listerine for the seventh time, and grabbed his car keys. A drive through the hills would soon clear his head.

Constance was inside the garage, waiting for him.

'Lovely night for a drive.'

'You mean despite the east coast weather?'

'I think a good, torrential downpour might be just what this town needs.'

'How's that?'

'You can't clean the streets with eternal sunshine. You hungry?'

'Thanks, but I don't like to eat at places where the bus boys look down on me.'

'I had somewhere else in mind.'

Cole couldn't help but grin when they pulled up in front of the non-descript white building in downtown Burbank. He was even more tickled when Constance ordered for him.

'Two extra-hots, please; one regular and one super. The regular with spaghetti and the super with beans. Oh and a large bowl of fries, please.'

'I'm not going to need my stomach pumped after this, am I?'

'Trust me.'

When the waiter came back with their orders half an hour later, and went to put the larger bowl down in front of Cole, Constance smiled.

'I think you'll find that's mine.'

Cole shook his head.

'Someone's eyes are bigger than her stomach.'

'I'm quite hungry, I can assure you.'

Cole snorted.

Constance tilted her head.

'Is that a challenge, Mr Jensen?'

'No, I couldn't do that to you. I would never hurt a lady.'

'I'm afraid you have understated impression of my constitution and an exaggerated one of my seemliness.'

Constance took a wedge of garlic bread roughly the size of her fist, dolloped a heaping helping of chilli onto it and bit into it like a long-haul trucker eating his first meal in a thousand miles. Cole nodded.

'Challenge accepted.'

An hour later, Cole was struggling to get through his second regular bowl. Constance mopped up the dregs of her second super serve with the rest of the garlic bread, took a sip of her chocolate milkshake and sighed pleasurably.

'I could go for some dessert. How about you?'

Cole rolled his eyes. Constance hailed the waiter.

'One chilli cheese dog over here, please.'

Cole pushed his bowl aside and watched, flabbergasted, as Constance polished off the hot dog, savouring every bite as though it were her last. She dabbed away the remnants at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, clearly amused by his wonder.

'Don't let my size fool you; I'm a hearty girl on the inside.'

'I think you've got two or three hearty girls in there.'

Constance laughed.

'That's what my father used to say. I was ten years old when he first brought me here. He swung those doors open, strode inside like Caesar and said _I've had it with that fruity crap your mother dishes out. This is what I call food!_ I was so embarrassed, I wanted to sit in that corner booth over there and hide, but Daddy wouldn't hear of it. _We're going to sit right here at the counter and get our lunch straight from the kitchen._ Our food came out and I was terrified – I'd never eaten any meat that looked or smelled like that – so I watched him eat it, just to see how it was done.

He closed his eyes and sighed. I'd never seen him that happy before, so I decided to give it a try. We came here every Saturday after that, without fail. It wasn't just that the food was amazing; we both got something we needed out of it. He got to feel like a man for one hour a week, and I got him.'

Constance held up her hand again.

'Cheque please.'

She reached into her purse, pulled out some money and left it on the counter. Cole stood up to leave, then doubled over. Constance smirked and held out her hand.

'I think I should be the one to drive home, under the circumstances.'

Cole tossed her the keys.

'You are one of a kind.'

Constance smiled, and Cole felt a sudden warmth emanating from her.

'Thank you. That's what my father used to say.'

The car had barely come to a stop when Cole got out and opened Constance's door for her. It was an unnecessary gesture, given that he was off the clock, but he felt obliged to do it anyway.

'Is this the part where you ask if you can kiss me goodnight?'

Cole shook his head.

'Would there be any point?'

Constance smiled.

'You're learning.'

Once he saw her inside, he went back to the pool house, his typewriter, and his favourite lady protagonist, practically at a trot.

### 7

## Appetizers Galore.

Constance delayed the beginning of Monday night's party fifteen minutes longer than she did the night before then, when forty-five minutes passed without a word from Jennifer or from Margaret, Constance picked up her bell and rung it.

'Wouldn't do for us all to be polite, would it?'

Hog One accosted Cole before Constance had even rested the bell on the mantle.

'Where are you from?' she asked, one hand on his chest, the other running fingers through his hair, 'Originally, I mean.'

Cole managed not to shudder.

'New York.'

Cole had never seen someone's face light up so quickly.

'Claire! We have a fellow east-coast refugee here!'

Hog Two drained the rest of her double scotch and ambled over to them.

'Really? What part?'

'Brooklyn.'

'Oh!' said Hog One, 'I always wanted to visit the boroughs! Daddy would never allow it, of course. _Clarissa,_ he used to say, _all you get from mixing silk collar with blue collar is polyester._ Connecticut was such a bore in the winter.'

'I'd go back there tomorrow,' said Hog Two.

Hog One rolled her eyes.

'And I'm sure you'd like your virginity back, too, but both those ships sailed a long time ago.'

Hog Two glowered.

'At least I didn't sleep in steerage.'

Hog One's smile was razor-sharp.

'I don't recall you _sleeping_ at all.'

Hog One pushed Cole down onto the couch, next to the skinny girl, and straddled him. When she started undoing his shirt buttons, Cole inwardly prayed to a god he didn't believe in that she wasn't going to rape him.

'Claire-Bear, bring me that dish of strawberries, would you?'

Hog Two did as she was asked, clamping the fruit into her sister's hand. Hog One picked out a strawberry, squeezed it in her palm, and smiled apologetically at her.

'Oh, how rude of me; I forgot how much you like to lap up juice from nubile skin. Would you like to do the honours?'

Hog Two looked away, her chest heaving.

'Suit yourself,' Hog One shrugged, and returned her attention to Cole.

'Now...where were we?'

She slapped her palm hard against Cole's chest and smeared the mangled fruit onto the right side.

'Right about here, I believe.'

She was gentle at first, scooping up dainty morsels, using only the tip of her tongue. Then she sucked in the pulp just as she would if it were whole again, and Cole winced as her teeth grazed the skin around his nipple. She shot him a wicked look and sank her teeth in. It wasn't enough to penetrate him, but it sure as hell felt like it, and the only reason he managed to resist the urge to knock her on her ass and give her a kick in the ribs for good measure was that he had the novel to think of. He closed his eyes and bit down on his bottom lip while she went to work on his left side, contemplating the myriad of ways he could kill her off.

When she had left her mark on his upper body, she sat back and inspected her work. She nodded, then shook her head.

'No, no...this is entirely too sweet.'

She clicked her fingers in the direction of the skinny girl.

'Little one? Would you be so kind as to hand me that Tequila Sunrise your mother abandoned?'

The girl froze, her eyes like saucers, until Lydia Baines decisively cleared her throat. Hog One took the drink, shifted it over to her left hand, then reached out with her right and stroked the kid's cheek.

'Such a good girl.'

Hog Two threw her glass at the wall and left the party. Hog One laughed out loud. A moment later, Hog One threw the drink onto the freshly inflicted wounds, and Cole screamed twice as loud. Hog One grinned and beckoned the girl again.

'Be a love and get me some salt from the kitchen.'

Knowing what was about to happen, Cole tensed every muscle in his body, but it did nothing to prepare him for what he felt.

Pleasure.

He could still register the burning sensation of the sodium seeping into his cuts, but hard as he tried not to, he liked it. There was something freeing in letting a woman use him so ill. The natural order of things had been reversed, and now he knew what it was like to be seen as nothing more than an object, an elastic thing with a heartbeat that existed only in the moment and wouldn't dare complain, for fear of appearing ungrateful. It was his own hands that were using everything at their disposal to torture him – ice cubes, toothpicks, lemon wedges, forks – and his body responded. Hog One sat back, looked at his crotch, and clambered off him, horrified.

'You sick bastard!'

She gave him a backhand that left him reeling and stormed out. Constance waved at the girl.

'Angela, honey, you know where the bathroom is; could you please get a hot wash cloth, some band aids and a tube of antiseptic cream?'

Angela obeyed, returning not two minutes later with the supplies and starting to apply them. Uncomfortable in the extreme, given the girl's age and the bulge in his pants, Cole wondered where her father was. He wasn't in the picture – no halfway decent father would allow his wife to take a kid her age out late every night, even in Hollywood – but just how far out of focus was he? Did he see her on weekends, or on school vacations? Were they ever alone long enough for Angela to tell him how things really were at home? Or did Daddy get a taste of his wife's true nature a while back and cut and run, leaving his little angel to her own devices?

Whatever the circumstances of her upbringing, Angela proved to be an excellent nurse, and Cole guessed that she had inherited her tenderness from someone who was also not a part of her life anymore.

'Angela! Home!'

Constance patted Lydia Baine's arm and whispered something in her ear that seemed to appease her. It wasn't clear whether it was Angela's kindness or Cole's failure to deflower her that had pissed off her mother, but whatever the reason was, Angela would pay for it if Cole didn't deliver soon. Cole made up his mind there and then to sleep even less; the sooner the novel was finished, the sooner he could leave Hollywood in the dust.

He would go back home and find a normal woman who wanted nothing more from life than a regular husband, a regular house, and nice, regular sex three times a week. He would be contented...consistently, mind-numbingly contented, and that was okay. That was right. The only thing missing from the scenario would be the two point four kids.

Kids he could do without.

Constance poured herself a double bourbon, threw it back and poured another. Cole watched her down the second drink, and saved his question for when she was done with her third.

'Why do you keep inviting her here? Those other women, they're entertainment, I get that, but why her?'

'Technically, it's her daughter I'm interested in.'

'Angela? Why?'

Constance rested her glass on a side table.

'Lydia was willing to go anywhere from here to the border to shop her around...'

'And you figured you could keep an eye on her here.'

Constance poured her fourth drink and saluted him with the glass. Cole was stupefied.

'Why don't you just tell the cops?'

'Justice isn't the only thing that's blind in Hollywood.'

'You mean they'd...'

Constance got up and brushed herself off.

'I meant exactly what I said.'

She put the half-full bourbon bottle back in the liquor cabinet, locked it and walked to the door. She stumbled, held her arms out for balance, and recovered. Cole rushed over and took her arm.

'You okay?'

'Better than okay.'

She took his hand away from her as firmly as she could without it seeming like force.

'Thank you.'

Cole took a step back.

'I just waned to help.'

'I don't need help,' she said, 'I need hindrances.'

### 8

## You Can Take The Girl Away From The Hunt...

Claire and Clarissa Chambers were five years old when their father, Bernard Chambers, first took them hunting. It had been the family pastime for generations, and the twins took to it even more quickly than their brothers did, bagging their first kills before their eighth birthday. Neither of them performed remotely as well academically, but that was of little consequence. School, Daddy said, was nothing but a year long holiday camp with books. Hunting, he said, would teach them everything they needed to know about life, and he was right.

There hadn't been a sporting club, civic association, town council, or chamber of commerce in Hartford without a Chambers sitting on it since Hartford was first civilized, and if ever a Chambers did leave Hartford for an extended period of time, they only got as far as Yale. In order to keep this tradition alive, Bernard Chambers was rigid in his contention to ensure that his girl's populated a small social circle once they were of age, wrapping his rubber band around a particular end of the city and flinging only the most impeccable, societally prejudiced suitors into their path.

Clarissa was never without a date, starting every Saturday evening with one and ending it with two or three, and Claire went through the motions whenever her father insisted he had found a keeper, but Bernard didn't know his daughters as well as he knew tax law, and he frequently ignored both. A childhood filled with organised murder meant that Clarissa learned early on to play with her conquests a little before she went in for the kill.

It wasn't so much the pleasure she got from her prey that did it for her – it was taking it _away_ from _them_. There was nothing Clarissa adored more than getting a man so close to tipping point that his eyes were rolling back in his head, then watching with joy as his face reddened and his cock wilted in sudden, agonising defeat. If the guy was still conscious, she would let go of his flattened gonad, kiss it better, and bring him back to the brink, only to pull the rug out from under him again.

This penchant for torture would have ruined any other girl's reputation, but Clarissa had two reasons to feel secure. The first reason was that her father was old money; _ancient_ money. The second, and most important reason was that being her father's favourite meant that Clarissa was given free reign to be as selective as she wanted to, and the guys she selected were always harbouring secret faux pas of their own. If they threatened to harm her or, worse, threatened to tell, they found that they couldn't, and so her sexual awakening went by swimmingly.

The same could not be said for her sister.

If the weaker twin did exist outside of gothic fantasy, Claire was it. Identical, but somehow worlds apart from Clarissa both physically and socially, a date with Claire Chambers meant that a guys father owed Bernard Chambers a favour. For Claire, every Saturday night ended the same: at nine-thirty, with a thank you and a cordial handshake. She didn't mind – none of the dates her father threw at her were her type, anyway. Her type, she had discovered at summer camp at eight, was the skinny specimens who slept in the bunks surrounding hers.

She kept this proclivity secret until she turned fourteen, when an incident behind a boat shed with a girl whose father practically owned half of Rhode Island was witnessed by an eighteen year old camp counsellor, who was searching for a spot to do a similar thing with a camper from the senior cabin. He took the girls straight to the director, having first come up with a reasonable excuse for being there himself, and Claire was collected by the butler, who passed the director a heavily stuffed envelope before taking Claire home to face her father.

The girl's father was contacted and was reminded, once he finished bellowing, that he had just as much, if not more, to lose should the story get out. It was then suggested to him that his daughter's correspondences should be intercepted until such time as she boarded the flight that would take her to the very exclusive German boarding school where she would see out the remainder of her education. Claire spent all of her summer vacations at home after that, where she would socialise only under her mother's watchful eye...even if her mother couldn't actually look at her.

Clarissa's summer holiday activities were also curtailed following her sister's shame, which gave her all the more reason to torment her. When their father's girly magazines went missing, a tearful Clarissa pointed her parents in the direction of her sister's room. A search revealed the thirty seven issues of Swank to be stuffed under Clarissa's mattress with the pages featuring blonde models dog-eared, presumably for quick, clandestine reference.

She gave them the same intelligence, again with a heavy heart, when a beautiful, blonde, twenty year old cousin came to stay and somehow misplaced all of her underwear. It was at this time that Claire began a campaign of her own; one to get her father off her back by forcing him to see Claire for what she really was. On a shopping trip for school supplies, Claire and Clarissa were each allowed two hours unsupervised shopping time, provided Clarissa acted as her sister's keeper. Clarissa, typically, abandoned her post as soon as the help was out of sight.

'I'm meeting someone who has real, _bona-fide_ balls, and having you tag along will only louse things up, so here's what's happening: you are going to take your money, plus a little extra of mine, and spend it doing whatever it is that you Slacks like to do while us normal girls are having fun, and I will meet you outside the movies at three, capiche?'

Claire went to the movies and bought two tickets, tore the top off each of them and put them in her purse. The Regal was the only theatre in town that showed older films, or Rust Reels, as her sister called them, and today's feature, The Blue Dahlia, was a particular favourite. It was the last decent appearance of Veronica Lake who, in Claire's opinion, was the perfect woman. She hated to miss it, but beauty would have to take a back seat to justice just this once.

She went to Barrett's Bookstore, another favourite haunt, but didn't do any browsing, much as she wanted to. No one in the family new about her passion for reading, and she had worked very hard to keep it that way, stashing any purchases she made there in a place none of them would ever find it – the study. Daddy didn't abide reading fiction, so the myriad of books that sat on the wall-to-wall shelves were, in fact, wallpaper; an optical illusion that made the room seem warmer and, he asserted, would up the resale value of the place.

Clarissa read, but the dime-store trash she devoured would need to be stripped of its contents, have a yard sale advertisement scrawled on the dust jacket in marker and stuck to a lamp post to be considered literature. Her mother had neither the patience nor the inclination to read, what with all of her philanthropic activities and grovelling after Daddy. Reading was something that was Claire's and Claire's alone, none of them could destroy.

On this particular afternoon, she spyed a new translation of The Iliad, and desperately wanted to take it home, but she reminded herself that she was here on business first, and carefully returned it to its place – after she took out her father's pen knife and scored a line down the book's spine and back cover, so as to spoil it for collectors and render it (almost) unsellable. She went to the stationery section and bought three small ledger books that would easily fit under the false bottom she had fashioned in her purse, just in case she was searched, then she pulled the Homer book off the shelf, showed the clerk the atrocity that someone had waged on it, and asked for a wear and tear discount.

After that, she checked her watch, and went to an ice cream parlour, where for an hour and fifty minutes she would indulge her sweet tooth, her brain, and her self esteem. Clarissa was ten minutes late, as usual, and full of graphic, expository details about her latest victim's anatomy.

'His thing was almost as wide as a baby's wrist! I had to clamp down hard to do any damage! What movie did we see, anyway?'

'Blue Dahlia.'

'Ech! What is it with you and Veronica Lake?'

Claire shrugged.

'He won't say anything, though,' Clarissa grinned.

'Who?'

'Tommy Colt, idiot.'

'Oh yeah, and how'd you manage that?'

'I told him I knew it was his baby Helen Farmer was lugging around Switzerland in that pasty Irish gut of hers. That shut him right up. He'll walk with a lurch for a while, but as far as everyone else is concerned, it's the result of a freak frat party incident. Don't you just love politician's sons? Oh, I guess you don't, do you?'

Claire smiled and committed this latest transgression to memory, as she had every one she'd been privy to for the past three years, and that night, she put pen to paper and began writing an Odyssey of her own; one that chronicled the exploits of someone who would soon lose her god-like status. If the author did her job correctly, art would soon imitate life, and it would give her a front row seat to watch the downfall of a girl who was a city unto herself.

The plan was doomed to succeed.

Claire wanted to make her parents wonder why Clarissa didn't spontaneously combust whenever she went to church. She wanted their mother to wonder where she'd gone wrong. She wanted their father to question which, out of shame or repulsion, was the lesser evil. What she wanted more than anything was to inject a little chaos into the Chambers family legacy, and she administered it at a time and place when no one – least of all their father – was expecting it.

When Bernard gave Clarissa his late mother's sable trimmed hunting coat for her sixteenth birthday – the day Verna Chambers died – and said _There you go, darling; now you can stop coveting the damn thing!_ Clarissa vowed to wear it to every hunt, and she kept her word. Claire had loved the coat just as much, and had loved her grandmother even more. At two fifteen, on the day of what would turn out to be the last ever Chambers family hunt, Claire stood in her sister's bedroom, staring at the coat while Clarissa snored.

'You should be mine,' Claire whispered, 'you _will_ be mine.'

When Eunice Chambers ran out of bullets, although she could have sworn she packed them, she reached for the bag that lay on the ground next to hers. Bernard Chambers shook his head, marvelling at his wife's absent-mindedness, and returned to his stake-out spot. Clarissa Chambers, oblivious as usual to anything anyone else was doing, stayed where she was, poised and ready to inflict maximum possible pain on whatever animal had the misfortune to cross her path. Claire reached down, pretending to scratch her ankle, so she could get a good look at what was about to unfold.

Eunice opened the bag and felt around for the bullets, but the first thing on which she lay her hand was an open ledger book, which she would have ignored, were it not for the object stuck in the middle of the page. It was several short, curly strands of pubic hair, stuck together and arranged to form a wreath, of sorts, tied at either end with red ribbon. The inscription above and beneath it read:

**Tommy Colt**

**Garage, Colt Estate.**

Noting the date written in the top, left hand corner of the page, Eunice scowled and read on. On the day that both of her daughter's were supposed to be shopping with one of the maids for next year's school clothes, one of them had found time to trim the hair of the unmentionable area of the governor's son... on his property...while he was home. The artful manner in which the ungodly things had been arranged fled her mind, along with all other coherent thought, when she read the passage on the following page:

_These athletic boys act all manly, but they're the biggest cry-babies of all. His thing was so thick, I could barely fit it in me, but you can't measure a guy's manhood by the size of his prick. His face turned all purple when I took one of his balls and squeezed it, but he didn't fight me. These old fashioned boys who won't hit girls, don't they just make you sick? And you want to know the best part? When he asked me to let go and I refused, he cried! He actually CRIED! Like a baby! Boring! Give me a real man any day!_

Eunice turned back the pages to the start of the ledger, and began to pour over the meticulously documented exploits of a little girl she didn't recognize as her own. Ten pages in, she came to a bushel that was arranged into the shape of a horse shoe, which was labelled: **Greg Hinton. Hinton Stables** , and dropped the book. She scrambled into a clearing and was violently ill, stepping on a twig in her haste and frightening away a stag that was in her husband's cross hairs. Bernard Chambers took off his hat and threw it on the ground in frustration.

'For Pete's sake, Eunice! What the hell's the matter with you?'

Eunice took a deep breath, swallowed back more bile that was threatening to rise, and pointed back toward the ledger.

'That, over there,' she gasped.

Bernard threw up his hands.

'What about it?'

'READ IT!' Eunice shrieked, and threw up again.

Clarissa lost interest in whatever it was that her mother was garbling on about and returned to the hunt. Unaccustomed to his wife treating him with anything other than blind reverence, Bernard was suddenly curious, and opened the book. Shortly afterward, he was standing a foot behind his daughter, his little golden girl, his teeth clamped together, breathing so hard through his nostrils that it produced a whistle, which got Clarissa's attention.

'Daddy! That's disgusting! What's...'

Bernard Chamber's large hand struck her across the face and she stumbled backwards, grasping at a tree trunk for leverage. She'd never seen her father's eyes filled with so much rage; not even when Bernard Junior announced he was voting democrat.

'You sick, perverted, vile, evil little...'

Bernard Chambers was mercifully forced to leave the rest of the sentence hanging when he found he didn't have the breath to complete it. He stumbled toward his daughter again, reaching for her throat, but ended up clutching his own. Eunice screamed. Claire pushed her father to the ground and unfastened his coat and shirt to the waist, panicked.

She'd wanted to punish him, not _kill_ him.

'What are you doing to him?' screamed her mother.

'Giving him room to breathe. I think he's having a heart attack.'

Bernard's chest had been bothering him for months, but his distrust of the medical profession meant that the problem went ignored and untreated, and now it was too late, His face turned a darker red, and his eyes bulged, staring accusingly at the creature who did this to him, before the tired, neglected thing inside his chest gave in and stopped beating, his final, horrified and bewildered thought etched onto his face for all eternity. Eunice got up, brushed herself off, and after taking a moment to compose herself, pointed a finger at Clarissa.

'You are cut off, do you hear me? Cut OFF!'

'But Mummy, what did I?' Clarissa cried.

Claire couldn't help but be impressed that her sister knew _how_ to cry. Eunice stood her ground, unwavering in her sudden unbridled contempt.

'It's bad enough having one of... _those_ in the family,' she waved dismissively at Claire, 'but at least she had the decency not to record her habit for posterity! We invited one of Daddy's biggest shareholders along today, but thank god he came down with glandular fever. Can you imagine what would happen if this were to get out? Our name would be worth nothing! Well, that just isn't going to happen. Not while I'm around.'

She picked up Clarissa's open hunting bag and threw it at her.

'Take that and bury it in the woods. Claire, you run up to the house and call nine one one.'

'Then what, Mummy?' asked Claire.

'Well, then, we wait for the paramedics to arrive, we play the grieving, gobsmacked family for the press, we bury your father, and we get on with our lives...as best we can, given what we know.'

Claire nodded and started toward the house. She had just reached the driveway when she heard the gunshot. When she got back to the wood, her sister was standing beside her mother, who was lying on her stomach with a hole in the back of her head.

'She would've cut me off,' Clarissa breathed, 'she would've cut me off, and I can't be poor.'

Claire moved slowly toward her, holding out her hand.

'Why don't you just come with me, nice and easy, and we'll talk about what we're going to do next, okay?'

Clarissa gazed at Claire.

'I can't be poor, Claire. I wouldn't know what to do without money; I'd die. And now I think I've made it worse. Did I make it worse?'

'I'll make it better, don't you worry, just let me help you, and I'll make it better.'

And Claire did make it better, for a while. She buried the ledger and, much as it hurt her to do so, the coat, and Eunice Chambers death was written up, thanks to the eyewitness accounts of her shell shocked girls, as the result of an accidental shooting. Bernard Chambers heart attack was deemed a result of the stress following the tragedy. Claire explained, on her sister's and her own behalf, that their father had just returned from the car, and was poised ready to shoot a buck when their mother must have popped up out of the grass and startled him.

When asked what their mother had been doing in the grass, Claire said she had told them she lost her glasses, and they assumed she was looking for them when their father came back from the car, having just reloaded his gun. She and Clarissa were talking at the time, and only knew what was about to happen when they heard their mother scream for perhaps a half a second, by which time it was too late to do anything.

It didn't occur to the cops to investigate the incident any further, seeing as the culprit was the head of one of the most upstanding families in the state, and all they were going to achieve by poking into the activities of a dead man was to cause his children more turmoil.

It didn't occur to Claire to ask questions either, until she and Clarissa had been living together for ten years. Claire suggested that they move from Connecticut to California together once they graduated, as much for her own protection as her sister's. Should Clarissa come down off her crazy cloud and start talking, the police wouldn't stop at labelling her a murderess; they'd come after the person who helped her clean up afterward. Then they'd both be convicted felons.

And once their brothers got through with them, they'd both be poor.

Doubt only surfaced as to the degree of her sister's insanity at the time of the shooting when Claire went through Clarissa's dresser, looking for a cameo brooch she 'borrowed' to wear to a formal dress dance a month before, and the bottom of the second drawer moved. Claire took everything out of the drawer and pulled out the thin sheet of plywood, expecting to find the brooch and at least four other pieces of jewellery her sister had 'misplaced.'

She found the cameo, her diamond tennis bracelet, and her gold rosebud earrings, alongside her father's gun gloves. Infernally practical man that he was, Bernard Chambers always carried two sets of gloves when he went hunting, so that if he lost a pair, he wouldn't have to "Traipse about through the scrub like a fairy and frighten off the god damned dear."

Claire noticed that Clarissa was missing a fingernail as soon as she found her with their mother, and assumed she'd broken it when she grabbed at the tree, but it was a tiny detail that soon ceased to matter when all sorts of other, more pressing ones presented themselves. A knock-on effect of this pressure was that she neglected to look inside her father's hunting bag, and consequently didn't notice anything was missing.

She lay the right glove in her palm and stared at it, putting off doing what she knew she had to do for as long as she could, then carefully turned it inside out. The jagged tip of a seashell-pink-painted index finger nail was wedged in the inner stitching of the leather, and was poking out at her like Jack The Ripper's missing scalpel. Clarissa had hung onto the single piece of evidence that would tie her to their mother's murder for all these years, and didn't bother to clean it.

'Gee Claire, if you wanted to borrow my good undies for one of your lickety-split affairs, all you had to do was ask.'

'These are Daddy's missing gloves. You put them on to shoot Mummy.'

'Well I was hardly going to put my fingerprints all over the bloody murder weapon, was I?'

'You weren't wearing gloves when I found you. You must have stashed them before I got to you.'

Clarissa smiled.

'So?'

'So something like that takes _planning_. You weren't crazy when you blew Mummy's brains out; you knew exactly what you were doing. You killed Mummy and made it look like Daddy did it.'

'Yeah, and you helped me get away with it.'

Claire walked over to Clarissa's bed and sat down.

'I thought you'd lost your mind. I covered for you, I cleaned the non-existent fingerprints off the gun, because I felt sorry for you; because it was me who put you in that position. I thought to myself okay, now there's something sisterly between us, now we have a bond. I thought we were finally going to be friends.'

Clarissa sat down next to Claire and put an arm around her shoulders.

'We were _never_ going to be friends, Claire-Bear. I played nice all this time, helped bring you out of your shell, sat through those retched old movies with that scrawny blonde who gives you your jollies, but it wasn't out of friendship. It was out of _need._ I didn't even use Daddy's gun to kill Mummy – I used my own, and I needed to keep you on side, just in case you figured that out and forgot about that whole accessory-after-the-fact-thing and went singing to the blue boys. It would've been interminable, if not for the wonderful little distractions you brought me.'

'What distractions?'

'Let's see, what were their names again? Oh yes: Marcia, Jean, Louise, Ingrid, Martha, Lillian, Diane, Mary, Susan...the rest of the names escape me, I'm afraid.'

'What are you saying?'

'Haven't you ever wondered why it is that none of your relationships last for longer than a month?'

Clarissa didn't wait for her to answer.

'It wasn't _you_ scaring them away, darling; it was _me._ You fall for the same willowy little waifs every time _,_ and they're so eager to please that they'll do anything you want them to...even if you ask through me.'

Claire stood up.

'What did you do?'

'I'm as good at doing your voice as you are at doing my handwriting. I called them up and invited them over for dinner, and when they got here, I told them that you and I were close. So close, in fact, that we share everything.'

'Oh my god.'

'Half of them scampered before I got to the end of my speech, and I showed the ones who stayed what it's like dating identical twins.'

'We are NOT identical.'

Clarissa laughed.

'Oh, they found that out, I assure you. If any of them came here hoping to indulge a fantasy, they left sorely disappointed...and I do mean sorely.'

'Why would...'

'Mary was the most eager. She walked in that door with a big, guilty grin on her face, and I did make her feel good, for a while. Of course, she ran away in tears – as best as she _could_ run with the slashes I left on her inner thighs.'

'Please, don't tell me any more.'

'But I have to. You're my audience, Claire-Bear. You always have been. Now, who should I tell you about next?'

She mulled it over, then clapped her hands.

'Susan! She was a shy little thing. I had to go in gently with her. Took me an hour to get all those chopsticks in there. Louise will never be able to look at safety pins again without appreciating the irony behind the name. I completely ruined the joys of home made dildos for Martha. Ingrid – you know that isn't her real name, right? – a kiss isn't just a kiss when your lover has a mangled paperclip between her teeth...'

'GET OUT!'

'But I like living here with you. I need someone to talk to – tell my stories to – and yours is the only ear that interests me.'

'Why?'

'Because you react so well! Doing all those things wasn't nearly as much fun without being able to come home and tell you about it afterwards. I've been _bursting,_ waiting for you to find that glove. I wouldn't be caught dead in that schoolgirl jewellery you wear! I knew that if I lost enough of it, you'd eventually come looking. Didn't think it'd take you ten years, but there you go. You always were the slow one in the family. I've done so much since we moved here, Claire-Bear, and I want to thank you. Those troubled little unfortunates you pick up in the city are such easy targets. All I have to do is run their rap sheets back to them and they clam up as though their lips were sewn together!'

She sprang for the door, and bounced from foot to foot as she spoke.

'I'm going to go downstairs and fix us some drinks, then we're going to have a rap session. We've got so much to catch up on and I want to get it all out of my system before we get started on a whole new adventure...'

'I'm not having anything more to do with this!'

Clarissa stopped bouncing, her smile faded, and she looked suddenly, eerily calm.

'But you are, you see. We _do_ have a bond. Those nasty things I did when we were kids and every nasty thing I've done since, they've all been connected to you, one way or another, and if you won't keep that tradition alive I'll go to the cops myself, because whether we have fun together on the outside or we have fun together on the inside, it makes no difference to me; not now.'

But it made a difference to Claire. Clarissa was just the sort of person who would thrive in prison, with her charm and her beauty and her sickening resourcefulness. Claire, on the other hand, was just the sort of person who would end up being a toy for the guards _and_ the inmates. She had kept her true intelligence hidden for so long now, she wasn't entirely sure how confidently she would be able to use it, should she have to depend on it for survival. Clarissa would say she was faking, and they would believe her.

So Claire did the unthinkable, and travelled the world as a sadist's pimp. She knew exactly which girls to pick, and the dance floors, park benches, and street corners on which to find them. Claire stopped reading works of literary genius under the covers, took up smoking despite the fact that it tasted like sour death, emptying herself a little each day until there was nothing left of her but blank, emotionless compliance.

She wouldn't have gotten through it otherwise.

But the (for all intents and purposes) motherless girl at the party filled her up again. Angela was the one girl Claire could still save, and Clarissa had seen it, too. The mother was clearly out to ruin her, and the fact that she wanted a man to perform the deed would not stop Clarissa from trying her hand at it. Claire took a bottle of wine from the liquor cabinet and poured two glasses, outwardly adhering to her sister's nightly routine. She was waiting on the couch in the parlour when Clarissa came home from the party, not even a tenth as satisfied as usual. She slammed the front door, kicked her shoes across the entryway and hurled a potted fern at the stairs.

Claire felt fuller than she had in years.

'What happened?'

'The filthy pig _liked_ it! Do you hear me? He LIKED it! Yuck, I just want to take a long shower, soak my clothes in disinfectant and brush my teeth with bleach! What are you smiling at?'

Claire put her feet up.

'I don't think I've ever seen you like this.'

Clarissa marched into the parlour and grabbed the wine that was waiting for her on the bar.

'Well don't get used to it. We're going duckie hunting just as soon as I've freshened up. No reason this evening should be a total loss.'

She got halfway up the stairs before the thought occurred to her to suggest what Claire was waiting for her to suggest. She turned around.

'Then again,' she called, 'don't you think it's time I introduced some red meat into my diet; some nice, tender, baby doe, perhaps?'

Clarissa strode back into the room, her bravado returning.

'We could approach the mother at the next party, what do you think?'

Claire sipped at her drink.

'Claire-Bear? I asked you a question.'

Claire sat back and closed her eyes.

'CLAIRE!'

'Yes,' Claire sighed, 'what can I do for you?'

Clarissa folded her arms.

'You know perfectly well what you can do for me; I just told you.'

Claire opened one eye and regarded her quizzically.

'Oh I see.'

She closed her eyes again.

'No.'

'I beg your pardon?'

Claire opened her eyes again.

'Oh, I thought I'd made myself quite clear; I do apologise...NO.'

Clarissa put one foot on her sister's knee and leaned forward.

'You're not going to force me to remind you of the precarious position you're in, are you? You'd be lost in jail. Out here, you're my sister, but in there,' she shook her head, 'in there you'd just be the latest weak bitch to take their fancy. You wouldn't end up working in the mail room either, oh no; they'll have you doing laundry duty. You'll spend your days lighting some murderess's cigarettes and praying she doesn't decide to prop you up against the spin dryer and fuck you with one.'

Claire smiled, lifted Clarissa's foot from her lap, and got up.

'I'm nobody's bitch, least of all yours.'

### 9

## Her Chariot Awaits.

Cole got up at four to work on the novel, and had over eight thousand words down by seven thirty. It was becoming more and more like free association writing as the book went on, the words pouring out through his fingers and onto the paper like dirty deeds summarised by a sinner in a confessional. Reading it back made him feel like the priest on the other side of the screen. His past hardly qualified him for the priesthood, but his current function was to allow (semi) normal-looking women to act out their basest desires, without fear of judgement, so that they could re-emerge in the real world with their slates wiped clean.

Now that he thought about it, there really was very little difference between him and a priest, except that the higher power he had to answer to wasn't a mythical, all-seeing, all-knowing deity, looking down on his children from a temple on high. He had multiple gods. They were called readers, and they would forsake their son for the likes of Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz if he displeased them again. That was a far more terrifying notion than spending eternity being boiled in oil. Who knew? That might be pleasant after the first dozen years or so; unless Satan sat on the edge of the tub reading Mills & Boon novels to him.

Cole was suddenly in dire need of fresh air.

He made a coffee, threw a sweater over his pyjamas, and went outside to sit by the pool and not think for a bit, but no sooner had he put his feet up on the banana lounge than he heard the unmistakable sound of a car suffering the agony of having its transmission assaulted. He went to the garage and found Constance sitting behind the wheel of her M.G, looking resplendent as usual.

He knocked on the driver's side window, and was about to expound upon the fact that goddesses needed very little sleep these days when he noticed her hand. She was throttling the gear shift.

'You're not okay to drive. Let me in, I'll take you wherever you want to go.'

Constance took her foot off the gas and rolled down the window.

'I'm fine, thank you.'

'Fine. By rights, you shouldn't even be conscious. Let me drive.'

'I don't want to take you away from your work.'

'Then let me call you a cab.'

'I'll let you know when I need your help.'

'I'm not offering help; I'm offering a hindrance.'

Constance forced a smile.

'The only thing you're hindering at present is my ability to tolerate you.'

Constance forced the car into reverse, put her foot down and screamed out into the street, narrowly missing Cole's foot. Cole contemplated getting into his Mustang and following her, but then he thought again. Women like Constance Morrell didn't die in auto wrecks. They might wind up face to face with the rear view mirror, or with a hooker-shaped dent in the hood of their cars, but they always came out of accidents the same way they came out of any other circumstances of their own making – pristine and coated in Teflon.

Cole went back to the pool house and his masterpiece. Rest would be impossible now, even if he wanted it.

### 10

## The Death Of The Dead-Eyed Doe.

Claire went to bed to read, leaving Clarissa behind to seethe and wonder what the hell happened to the spineless lackey she'd spent a lifetime cultivating. Claire got a quarter of the way through Bleak House before she was sure her sister wasn't going to burst into the room and finally turned in. What woke her several hours later wasn't Clarissa's shrill, demanding voice, or the sound of one of her cloven hooves bashing on the door. It was a telephone conversation.

'And as _I_ told _you,_ that isn't possible. I was at the woman's house just last night; her judgement as far as hiring man servants might be questionable, but the rest of her is very real, I can assure you. Well would you care to check again? No, I do not think I may be confusing her with someone else. Do you have any idea how condescending you sound? Con-da-scen-ding, dear, it's a four syllable word meaning glorified public servant who likes to make herself feel superior by belittling smarter people. I have _every_ right to speak to you like this. Hello? Hello?'

The sound of the phone receiver being crunched back into the cradle echoed around the house. Claire put on her robe and glided downstairs. There wasn't a prettier sound in the world than the sound of her sister not getting her own way.

'What's all the hubbub?'

Clarissa whirled around to face her, sending the bottle of wine she'd just opened crashing to the floor. Clarissa balled up her fists, and grit her teeth until the redness drained out of her cheeks and she could speak again. She waved the small piece of paper she was holding.

'This was waiting for me on that bitch Constance's hall table last night.'

'And? We get one of those thank you notes after every party. It's a little cotillion but...'

'This isn't a thank you note, you silly bitch,' she held it out with a quivering hand, 'read it!'

Claire walked down the stairs, taking her time about it, and took the note.

'Your adventures are about to end.'

Claire closed her eyes.

'What did you tell her?'

Clarissa immediately went into indignant-self-preservation mode.

'Nothing she hadn't heard before, I can assure you. She's a head-shrinker.'

' _You_ went to a psychiatrist?'

'About a year ago. I was losing my mojo a little and I needed someone to pep me up a bit.'

Claire leaned against a wall.

'Then she knows everything...all of it.'

Clarissa rolled her eyes.

'Oh for Christ's sake, Claire, I'm not an idiot; she thinks I'm a writer! She councils a whole slew of creative types. That's what these parties are all about – working with your inner demons, or some such nonsense.'

'What about that horrible woman and her little girl?'

Clarissa threw up her hands.

'I don't know! From what the mother told me, it's the girl who has the problem there. She's some sort of genius, apparently, but she's been going off the rails, getting into fights, and Constance thought it might be good for her to let loose her urges in a controlled environment.'

'Angela wouldn't hurt a fly!'

'Not when the fly looks like Robert Urich.'

Clarissa went into the parlour to get another bottle of wine. Claire stood frozen in the entryway.

'What does she mean, your adventures are about to end?'

'WHAT?'

'Your ADVENTURES are about to END...what do you think it means?'

Clarissa came out of the parlour with a bottle of seventy nine bordot.

'Your guess is as good as mine.'

'It can't be good.'

Clarissa uncorked the bottle.

'Well, one would think not, given what...given what we know.'

She poured herself a drink, staring at the glass in an effort to concentrate on something – anything – other than what lay in front of her.

'And you haven't done anything about this yet?'

Clarissa plonked the wine bottle onto the hall table.

'I only discovered the damn note this morning! I've been trying to contact her, but the number isn't listed.'

Claire was confused.

'Then how did you...'

'At one of Tawny Werner's parties. You know Tawny, the one whose mother,' she made a gun with her fingers and pressed them against the side of her head.

The doorbell rang. The sisters looked at one another.

'You don't think she's come to...' Claire whispered.

'Well, I don't know, Claire, would you like me to ask her?'

The maid came from the back of the house. Clarissa reached out and grabbed her arm.

'Slowly!' She hissed.

While the maid crept toward the door, Clarissa took the tiger skin rug that lay at the foot of the stairs and slapped it down on top of the spilled wine and broken glass, then tied up her robe and fixed her hair. The maid turned when she got to the door and waited for the go-ahead. Clarissa nodded, and the maid opened the door.

'Yes?'

'I'm Constance Morrell. I think the ladies have been expecting me?'

The maid turned to Clarissa. Clarissa nodded again and the guest was shown inside. Constance smiled, and looked from one twin to the other.

'Perhaps it's best if we discuss things in private?'

'Of course,' Clarissa waved, 'Gina, run down to The Drive and return those stillettos I bought the other day.'

'Yes Ma'am.'

Once the maid was gone, Clarissa motioned for Constance to go into the parlour. Constance took a seat, but rather than take the couch, as was the custom, she opted for the Queen Anne chair which she knew, from previous conversations, was eternally reserved for Queen Clarissa. The monarch sat next to her sister on the couch and ignored the slight.

'Well, isn't this nice? I can't believe I haven't had you over before, especially seeing as you've opened up your home to us so often. I really must give you a tour of the place before you leave...'

'Let's just get down to business, shall we? I think you know why I'm here.'

Clarissa cleared her throat.

'Yes. Your note. I did find it rather puzzling, I must say.'

Constance was unmoving, unsmiling.

'There's nothing puzzling about it. You're not a writer, and I'm not a psychiatrist. You are a murderess, torturer, and rapist, and I've come to see that you retire.'

'I don't know where you got this preposterous idea, but I don't have to sit here and...'

Constance pulled a gun from inside her white Chanel jacket.

'Actually, Clarissa, you do. For the first time in your life, you are going to do exactly as you are told.'

Constance turned her attention to Claire, leaving the gun trained on her sister.

'What is it you want more than anything from her?'

Claire trembled.

'Just...respect.'

'Let's not prolong things any more than we have to,' Constance smiled, 'truth is best.'

Claire's eyes filled with tears.

'Everything. Everything she's ever had! Love, and friends, and, and, and...'

'And freedom?'

'Yes!' Claire barked.

'Except, you wouldn't use your freedom in quite the same way, would you?'

'I wouldn't use it to hurt people, no.'

'How would you use it, then?'

Claire's lips started working before the words had formed.

'I'd read; I'd go to night school and earn my English Literature degree; I'd help girls who grew up the way I did...'

'Aren't those the very same girls whose trust you betrayed when you gave them to her?'

Claire swallowed. Clarissa chuckled.

'I'd start brushing up on your prison etiquette now if I were you, Claire-Bear.'

Constance turned back to Clarissa.

'Did I say anything about prison?'

Clarissa closed her mouth. Constance reached into her jacket again and pulled out a length of rope.

'Claire,' she said, 'bind your sister's hands and come with me. We're going for a drive.'

Clarissa shook her head.

'Someone will see us,' she spat, 'someone will see us, then both of you bitches will end up right alongside me in prison.'

Constance hit her on the chin with the end of the gun.

'Don't make me hit you again. You're a big girl, but I will find a way to carry you to my car if I have to.'

Claire tied Clarissa's wrists and the three of them went outside and got into Constance's car. They drove to a large parcel of undeveloped scrub land in the hills, where Constance parked, pulled another gun out of the glove compartment and gave it to Claire and told her to take her sister over to the centre of a clump of large trees. When Clarissa threatened to scream, Constance smiled.

'You're welcome to, if it makes you feel better. No one will hear you out here. No one hears anything in Hollywood, unless they want to.'

She cocked her gun, and motioned for Claire to do the same.

'It's only sporting that we give you a head start; a doe would hardly walk up to a hunter and surrender.'

Clarissa tossed back her head and laughed.

'This is a hunt? Please. You're a Hollywood brat, and the only reason she was ever any good at hunting was because she copied everything I did, and even then she didn't bag nearly as many kills as me. I could run circles around this place before she even got off a shot.'

Constance fired a shot near Clarissa's right foot. Clarissa ran. She had travelled three feet before she tripped over a felled tree and landed in a puddle. It took ten seconds for her to realize that the liquid she was now covered in was bottled fox urine; the kind her father used on hunting trips during mating season. She screamed, mostly because of the indignity of it all, clambered to her feet and ran again.

She stumbled through a patch of stinging nettles and a spider web before a set of iron teeth clenched around her left ankle and dug in. Screaming, she moved as fast as she could, dragging the trap and the flaring foot behind her. Following the stench of blood, sweat, and animal piss, Constance and Claire were soon on her tail with no effort at all. She negotiated another ten feet before something pulled her up off the ground and into the air, yanking her left leg behind her.

Clarissa let out a yelp, then clamped down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming again when she felt the tendons in her thigh pull and tear loose as the rope struggled to hold her weight. Constance knew by the sudden rise in the inflection of the short but clear sound that Clarissa had found the rope trap. She stopped to rest against a tree before doing anything about it.

'We're not just going to leave her there, are we?' Claire pleaded.

Constance took a deep breath, then exhaled calmly.

'I'm curious, Claire – has she ever shown this much concern for you?'

Claire looked up at the tree tops.

'No. Never'

Constance smiled.

'She doesn't deserve you. This is just my way of showing her that. I know this seems harsh, but you'll both come out the better for it afterward, I assure you.'

She took Claire's face in her hands and kissed her.

'I just want you to get what you deserve, that's all.'

Constance made love to Claire on the forest floor while Clarissa hung suspended in the air just ahead of them, forced to listen to the sound of her sister being made happy. If she hadn't already passed out, she would be wanting to. When Claire woke up in Constance's arms, it was afternoon, and her sister had been in the tree for four hours. Claire got dressed and gently prodded Constance awake.

'Shouldn't we get her down now?'

Constance blinked, smiled, and kissed her on the cheek.

'Yes. It's time.'

She took Claire by the hand and led her to the spot and they found Clarissa, passed out and snoring like an Opossum. Claire gasped.

'Jesus! I didn't think she'd be up that high!'

Constance picked up a rock and hurled it at the tree trunk. When the loud thunk it made hitting the wood wasn't enough to wake her, Constance picked up another and threw it at her face. The rock smacking against her forehead did wake her up, and she was not happy.

'I'm going to...get you for this...if it's...the last thing I...do, you...sick... bitches! I'll...turn myself in if it...means taking you down with me.'

Constance picked up another rock and tossed it up and down.

'You're not taking anyone anywhere. You've done whatever you wanted since you were a kid, and Claire's always tagged along with you, out of guilt and a misplaced sense of loyalty. But, Clarissa, your adventure ends today.'

Constance tossed the rock at Clarissa's face, hitting her square on the bridge of the nose. Clarissa coughed and sputtered as blood ran back down through her nose and into her throat. Without pause, Constance picked up another rock and threw it, hitting her in the eye. She flung three more rocks before Claire took her hands and stopped her.

'I think that's enough. She's learned her lesson.'

Constance pulled her hands free.

'No, she hasn't; not the one I actually intended. Neither have you. Why do you think those girls trusted you, Claire? They would have been willing to do anything for you because you were the only person they'd ever met who offered them love. They gave you their devotion, and you gave them to her. You'll never be free as long as she's alive.'

Constance took a pen knife from her pants pocket and used it to cut into the anchor end of the rope at the base of the tree. She only cut half way through, preferring to rely on gravity to finish the task. Claire started to scream. Constance clapped her hands over Claire's mouth.

'Listen to me. I have been doing this for a very long time. She is going to die, whether it's in the parking lot of a motel at two a.m. with a bullet in her head or out here in the sticks, and there is no way you can stop it. Now you can die with her here and now, slowly and painfully, or somewhere else. It's completely your decision.'

Claire followed Constance back through the scrub land to the car, her progress hastened by the howling sounds coming from the distance. Clarissa's cries for help faded the further out of the forest Claire went, and she didn't hear the thump Clarissa's body made when it hit the ground. Claire was already halfway home by the time the coyotes started work on her sister, but she knew she would never be able to get a full nights sleep for as long as she lived without seeing them tearing the flesh from Clarissa's bones while she kicked blindly at the air.

Constance covered her hand with her jacket sleeve and trained her gun on Claire's back as soon as she got out of the car and followed her to the front door. The maid answered, looking somewhat bewildered as to her boss's attire.

'Miss Claire, I, I thought you were...'

'It's all right, Gina. We just had a bit of a scare. Constance here told me that a friend of ours isn't doing at all well and offered to take me to see her. I was so concerned, I didn't even change first.'

The maid stepped out of the way and let the ladies inside.

'I returned Miss Clarissa's shoes, but the manager of the shoe department said it was the last time.'

Claire forced a smile.

'That's my sister, outstaying her welcome.'

Gina smiled behind her hand.

'Yes. Shall I fix you and your guest something to eat, Ma'am.?'

'No, thank you, dear. We have a few more things to discuss. Why don't you take the rest of the day off?'

Gina's smile could have lit up Rodeo Drive.

'Yes Ma'am. Thank you, Ma'am.'

Claire watched her walk toward the kitchen, then called to her.

'Gina?'

Gina stopped and turned around.

'Yes Ma'am?'

'Isn't your mother's birthday coming up soon?'

'Yes Ma'am, the twenty-fourth.'

Claire nodded.

'I tell you what. Go upstairs to my bedroom, take the lid off my crystal jewellery box and take out my string of pearls. They'd look much better on your lovely mother than they do on me.'

Gina's jaw dropped.

'Oh, Miss Claire! I couldn't!'

'Nonsense. Take my cameo brooch for yourself while you're there.'

'Yes, Ma'am,' Gina ran to the stairs, remembered her manners, turned around and curtsied, 'thank you, Ma'am!'

Claire watched after her and held back a tear.

'You really are nothing like your sister, you know.'

Claire sighed.

'So what happens to me now?'

'We'll see.'

### 11

## Angela.

Cole was sitting on the doorstep when Constance finally came home after dark. He didn't know why he felt entitled to an explanation – he was barely an acquaintance, after all – but he wanted one. He placated himself by positing that it was for purely artistic reasons that he needed to know what she'd been doing all this time, and where and with whom she'd been doing it.

He waited for her to come out of the garage before he started in, and was as calm as he could be.

'You've been gone a while, I was a little worried about you.'

Constance walked past him and opened the front door.

'If that's a thinly-veiled accusation of cheating, you can rest assured that you're the only man-servant in my life.'

Cole had never felt more like hitting a woman.

'All I'm saying is some consideration would have been nice.'

Constance shut the door, chuckling, and turned to him.

'Consider this, Mr Jensen: you were there when I needed help, and I showed my appreciation by taking you in – to my POOL HOUSE. We are not lovers, we are not friends. I have hired you for the winter. You are my temporary employee – the rental, if you will – and there is no disclosure clause in our contract.'

She turned and started up the staircase.

'I'd appreciate it if you got ready; my guests will be here in an hour.'

She turned again halfway up the stairs.

'As this will be my final party of the season, I'll have no further need of your services after tonight. You'll find an envelope waiting for you on the hall table when you leave in the morning.'

Cole didn't know whether to feel like a scorned husband or a happy divorcee. It wasn't as if she'd promised him anything, really. He had seen her naked, there was that, but he had hoped to stick around long enough to see _all_ of her.

Again, for purely artistic reasons.

The book was almost finished, so whatever hijinks were yet to transpire would serve as filler material at this stage, but unless he could come up with the rest of his leading lady's biography on his own, the story would stay in developmental heaven forever. He hoped Constance would forgive his marital behaviour and give him something juicy to end it with.

_Their_ story would have to remain unwritten.

'It isn't as though they have anything better to do. I mean, _look at them_!'

Lydia Baines was astonished that all four of the other guests had decided not to attend Constance's last party until Spring. Cole was sick about it, because it meant 'entertaining' one guest alone.

Angela.

Constance had promised it would never come to that, but Constance wasn't in such a benevolent mood just now. Cole hoped she wouldn't back him into a corner; for his own sake as much as the girl's. Constance left the bell on the mantle and clapped her hands.

'Well, I don't think there's any need to stand on ceremony. Miserable a turn out as this is, I am still lucky enough to be able to host one of the most fascinating women in the city...'

She motioned to Lydia Baines, who puffed up with pride.

'...and her lovely daughter, Angela, in whom I see potential greatness just waiting to bloom.'

Angela smiled bashfully and bowed her head, not needing to look at her mother to know that she had already made her angry. Constance took Lydia by the hand and led her out into the hallway, which restored the woman's pluck somewhat. Constance hadn't said a word, or made a gesture to infer that her expectations of him had changed regarding the kid, but when fifteen minutes passed by and the two women didn't return, he knew what she wanted.

And damned if part of him wasn't thinking about it.

Angela was a soft, dewy rosebud who had made it through most of her adolescence without losing her petals to some clumsy seventeen year old gardener, or a sweaty green thumb with dirt under his nails. Taking possession of what she had inside of her would be like sipping wine from the cupped hands of God, and would probably restore the belief he had held for the briefest time in his own adolescence – that for all of its putrescence, there was still truth and beauty to be found in the world.

Angela took his hand and led him to the couch.

'Come sit with me.'

Cole put a piece of tape over the blinking dash light that was his conscience and accepted the invitation. When she didn't let go of his hand, he started to sweat, and she felt it.

'It's okay. I'm nervous, too.'

Cole let out a short laugh.

'Not nearly as nervous as I am, honey.'

They sat in silence. The girl was still, calm, barely breathing, but he could still hear every sound her body made. The soft tha-thump of her heartbeat, the whispered puffs of breath, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck in anticipation of the life-affirming event that was about to unfold.

Then she caressed his cheek, and the noise was too much for Cole.

'No, I can't do this. I'm sorry honey, but I can't.'

'What's the matter? Aren't I pretty enough? Mother told me to wear my hair down...'

She started unbuttoning her blouse. Cole leapt to his feet.

'No, it-it-it isn't that. You're a very beautiful girl, but I think your first time should be with someone else...a guy who reminds you of some rock star you like. Who do you like?'

The girl's eyes filled with tears of relief.

'Rick Springfield,' she smiled.

'There you go! See, I could never wear my hair like his. I could never pull it off with this big, square jaw.'

Angela laughed, but the joy went as quickly as it had come.

'What about my her? If she finds out we didn't...you know...she'll be mad. You don't know what she's like when she's mad.'

Angela sobbed. There were now two women on Cole's hit list.

'Why does your Mom want you to do this?'

'Because she's not my real Mom. My real mom killed herself when Daddy left her for Moth – for Lydia – and he got custody of me. Daddy's always looking at me, telling me how pretty I am, how proud he is of his good girl. I guess she's jealous.'

'Why don't you tell your dad?'

'I've tried, whenever he's home. He tells me Lydia just wants to be my friend, and that I don't need to make up stories to get his attention. Lydia says she'll kill me if I don't do what she says, and I know she would.'

She took off the large, jade bangle she'd been wearing on her wrist.

'This is what I got the last time I ran away.'

There was another ring around her wrist where the bangle had been, but this one was made up of equal-sized circular charms, and was burned into her skin. Cole ran his thumb along the wound.

'Have you shown this to your dad?'

Angela nodded and let out a sigh.

'He told me that if I didn't stop hurting myself, he'd have to send me away.'

Cole clenched his teeth.

If there had been nails in the vicinity, he would have ground them into dust.

### 12

## The Eradication Of A Baine.

Lydia Baines followed her hostess upstairs.

'I can't tell you how thankful I am that this is finally out of the way. That girl has been a thorn in my side since the day she came to live with us. Now my husband will finally see what I've been telling him all this time – she's nothing but trouble, just like her mother was.'

'I'm glad I could be of some assistance.'

'SOME assistance? Darling, you've been tremendous! Nobody wanted her, and I mean _nobody._ It was if they could smell the commonness oozing out of her pores.'

'Common is as common does,' Constance muttered.

'Pardon?'

'Nothing dear. Just come in here to my office and take a seat.'

But when the double doors opened, Lydia could have sworn she was looking at a bedroom. Granted, the plastic sheeting that covered everything rendered it useless in terms of sleeping – or even sitting – comfortably, but it was hardly a place of business. Unless.

Constance swung the doors shut and locked them just as Lydia tried to bolt, and shoved her onto the four poster bed. Lydia sat up, attempting to escape again. Constance picked up a table lamp – the only thing in the room besides the minimal effects on top of the dresser not covered in plastic – and hit her in the face with it, knocking her right back down again.

'Whaas going on?' Lydia slurred through broken teeth.

Constance went over to the dresser and opened up a jewellery box. She took several items from it and laid each of them out.

'I have a confession to make, Lydia: I'm no more a psychiatrist than you are a wife or mother, and I'm certainly not...'

She held up two knives, measured them, and evidently decided to go with the longer, smooth-edged one.

'...a friend; not to women like you.'

Constance opened the top dresser drawer and pulled out a long, transparent rain slicker and gloves, and put them on.

'You were supposed to be my first catch of the season, if you want to know the truth, but for some reason, I kept putting it off.'

Lydia rolled off the bed and tried to crawl to the door. Constance sliced the tendons on both of her ankles. Lydia crumpled in a heap and Constance dragged her up onto the bed again. Lydia screamed.

'I suppose it would be unfair of me not to tell you – this room is sound proof. The former owner? He _entertained_ rather a lot. Three or four women a night, I hear. He would tell his wife he'd be staying at the office for the night, then bring his...friends...up here after the butler told him his wife was asleep and have himself a lovely time.'

She traced a line down Lydia's face with the tip of the knife.

'But he didn't really want them. He didn't want his wife, either, make no mistake. What he _really_ wanted, more than anything, was his step daughter.'

Lydia's eyes widened.

'Oh yes, there's a reason I picked you out at that interminable party at Tawny Werner's house that night.'

She made an inch long slash down Lydia's right cheek.

'You remind me so much of my mother.'

She made another slash, down Lydia's left cheek.

'I hated my mother.'

Constance took a handful of Lydia's hair and cut it off with the knife. She held it up to the light and gazed at it.

'Daddy used to say I had the prettiest hair he'd ever seen. It was sweet, in the beginning. He'd take me to football games, we'd see movies, we'd go out for Chilli once a week; all the things my mother found childish, or dull, or _common_ – there's that word again.'

She cut a long, vertical line from the centre of Lydia's forehead, down her nose and through her top lip.

'My mother was exactly like you; looking in the mirror, watching her beauty fade day by day, crease by tiny crease, hating the one who took it from her.'

She stepped back and lay the knife on Lydia's belly, so that the blade pointed down to her groin.

'There is one thing that separates you from my mother, though. You both had exactly the same motive for hurting the child you were supposed to care for and to love unconditionally – you just went about it differently. My mother didn't whore me around, trying to ruin me for my father – she just chose to ignore all of the neon signs that were flashing all around her and _let_ _him_ _ruin me_.'

Constance took up the knife, forced open Lydia's legs slashed each of her inner thighs.

'It hurt, the first time and several after that. I screamed for my mother, but I doubt she would've come even if she had heard me. She saw me shuffling down the hall to breakfast the morning after my fifteenth birthday, wincing, trying not to let my bruised, chaffed thighs rub together. She even suggested that he take me away on a Daddy-Daughter Weekend to New York. Needless to say, I didn't see any Broadway shows.'

Constance walked over to the dresser again and picked up the jagged knife. She sat down on the edge of the bed and waved it in front of Lydia's face.

'The gun is the most common weapon used in serial murder, but that's just semantics. A murderer can up his body count with a gun because a gun makes it a snap to knock off anywhere from two to ten people at a time, depending on the gun and the dexterousness of the shooter. Killing with a knife takes skill, forethought, planning. It's also a way of getting intimate with your victim, and...Oh, but I digress. Would you like to know the reason that I'm pointing all this out to you?'

Lydia blinked.

'Because I am not a killer of opportunity, Lydia,' Constance said, pointing the knife at her rib, 'I am a killer of integrity. When a person such as yourself meets death at my hand, each blow comes from a place of love. Not for my victim, naturally, but for theirs. My Daddy knew that when I killed him. My mother made it look like an accident, naturally; I mean, she didn't want to lose the house or anything. "Billionaire Breaks Neck In Stair Fall" was the headline. I'm surprised you don't remember it, actually.'

Sweat poured down Lydia's face. She remembered it, all right.

'Daddy left me this place instead of her, as a matter of fact, and she couldn't get the will changed no matter how hard she tried. She was essentially a tenant from the moment I turned twenty one, and I treated her like one. I made her live in the pool house. I even fixed it up for her first but, alas, she was never the same after the will reading. She took a bottle full of sleeping pills and jumped in the swimming pool.'

Constance stared out the window, reminiscing, but not all together happily, before returning her attention to the woman on the bed.

'Your husband was awfully good at ignoring things. I wonder how long the police will be able to ignore it when you and his daughter both go missing so soon after his death? It'll be a difficult task, once they find young Angela's cardigan in the trunk of your car. It wasn't easy, arranging that little event; I don't usually like to outsource my work. But my good friend Tawny is a fellow survivor, so I knew I could trust her to do the job as neatly and efficiently as I would. At any rate, it'll give you something to focus on while I finish up here.'

She stuck the knife into Lydia's rib to the hilt, then ripped it out again.

'What I'd like to do is take my time with you, give you the death of a thousand cuts, one for each wound you've inflicted on that little girl's psyche, but I'm under time constraints here, so I'll just have to make do with killing you as painfully as I can in the time allowed.'

### 13

## Services Rendered.

The sound of metal, tearing into flesh, pounding through muscle and scraping against bone didn't travel downstairs, and neither did Lydia's screams, but Cole had an inkling as to what he was a part of – an accessory to. Fifty minutes had gone by since the two women left him alone with Angela and, despite her surly demeanour, Constance did genuinely seem to care about the kid; Cole thought he knew what those things added up to, but he hoped he was wrong.

'Wait here just a second, okay honey? I'm going to check on...something.'

'You mean, you're going to check on _them_?'

Cole shrugged.

'Yeah. I'm not great at this whole "Lying to a kid to make her feel better" thing, am I?'

Angela smiled and shook her head.

'Yeah,' Cole smiled.

He opened the parlour door and stepped out into the entry hall just as Constance came in the front door, stuffing a set of car keys into her pocket that didn't look like her own.

'I assume you were a complete gentleman?'

'You assume correctly.'

Constance smiled. Cole took her by the arm and half dragged her to the kitchen. He wasn't letting her off the hook that easily.

'Where's Lydia Baines, Constance?'

'Right where I need her to be at this moment.'

Cole gripped her arm tighter.

'You mean you...here?'

'The girl needed saving, and I thought it would be better this way.'

'Better for who?'

'I think you mean better for _whom,_ oh purveyor of literary excellence? Taking care of Lydia here just makes things simpler. You'll see.'

She took back her arm. Cole didn't make another grab for it.

'You just made me an accessory to murder.'

'Would you rather be a paedophile?'

Constance was right, but Cole couldn't help but think that, had he stayed where he was and babysat the kid, he would have been able to say he didn't know what Constance had planned, and who knew? The cops just may have believed him. Now, the guilt was probably written all over his face. He followed Constance into the parlour.

'Guess what, darling? You're staying the night!' Constance kissed the top of Angela's head, 'I have someone I need to see, but I thought it might be nice if Cole here took you out for pizza and then, seeing as there's nobody here to say no, a double-feature! There's a theatre in town that plays nothing but classics, especially musicals, and I know how much you love those. What do you say? My treat.'

Angela thought it over.

'I do love musicals.'

Constance grinned.

'It's settled then.'

Constance kissed Angela again as she opened the front door.

'Have fun, and eat as much junk food as you want!'

She left to pick up Tawny Werner once Cole's car rounded the corner.

'Hey You!'

'Hey.'

They drove back to Constance's in silence, but Constance wasn't taken aback by the flatness of the greeting; Tawny had been cooling off for some time. She gave a piece of herself away with every errand she ran, and it was clear by the look on her face that this one would be her last. When they were growing up, Tawny was the sort of girl who threw up at the sight of a band aid, and cried when she broke a nail. Now, she could stand in a room in which the least disturbing thing was a mutilated corpse and not even flinch.

But this corpse was different.

'This one was personal, wasn't it?'

'How can you tell?'

'It's amateur. She died quickly.'

Constance grimaced.

'An unfortunate necessity, but she still suffered.'

Tawny pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and zipped up her coat.

'Let's get this bitch cleaved, already.'

The process of making Lydia portable was not a long one, given both women's experience, and they had all of her wrapped in just under an hour. The difficult part, so far as Tawny was concerned, was going to be packing her for the journey.

'Fucking coupe's. This is going to be a tight fit.'

'Yes, well I don't think the manufacturers took body disposal into consideration during the design process.'

They drove along the I-90, Constance in Lydia's car and Tawny following closely behind in hers, and stopped at the side of the road. The hillsides below Mullholland Drive were the stuff of local legend – a graveyard where hundreds of cars, most of which were taken before their time, were unceremoniously piled on top of one another and left to rot. It was the perfect final resting place for Lydia Baines, even though most of the cars were taken before their time, and Lydia had had it coming from the moment she first picked on a little girl who did nothing to her. The snob of all snobs would be forced to decompose with her BMW among the corpses of unwanted T-Birds, Chevys, and Chryslers.

Constance couldn't help but chuckle. Tawny, who was not in a laughing mood, pointed at an approaching car.

'Here comes Eli.'

A G.T. Mustang pulled up and parked in front of them. A tall, handsome, muscular man got out, walked over to Tawny and gave her a hug. Constance received a handshake.

'This the car?' He asked, pointing at the BMW.

'That's the one. I'd like it pushed as far down there as possible – I don't want some scavenger hunter stumbling on her a year from now.'

Eli fixed her with a steely stare.

'However you want it, I'll get it done. This makes us about even, doesn't it?'

He took his sister's hand, and the two of them confronted her.

'Yes,' Constance smiled, 'this makes us even.'

Eli searched her face for a moment, looking for signs of deception, then was satisfied. He looked at Tawny.

'You think Mom's been watching us?'

Tawny offered him a weak smile.

'I do.'

'You think she's still happy with the way we took care of Dad, considering what we've had to do to pay for it?'

Tawny shook her head.

'I think she understands.'

Eli nodded.

'I hope so.'

The siblings kissed goodbye and Tawny got back into Constance's car. She watched incredulously as Constance handed Eli an envelope. Eli opened it, took a look at its contents, and tore it to pieces before two passengers got out of his car and the three men started pushing the BMW. When Constance came back to her car, she tried to look as cool as usual, but it was obvious the rejection had bruised her.

'You tried to pay him?'

'I just wanted to thank him for everything he's done.'

'You mean you wanted him to forgive you for everything you've made him do. Our father was an evil bastard, and our Mom wouldn't have lived as long as she did if you hadn't taken care of him for us, but I can't light a candle for her in church without thinking of all the bodies I've dumped for you, and the people I've killed, just because I owe you. Eli can't even _go_ to church anymore. This is our last job – that's payment enough for us.'

After another silent car ride, Constance dropped Tawny off without seeing her to her car and went inside to start cleaning up the scene of the crime before Cole and Angela came home.

### 14

## Truth, Beauty, And The Stuff In Between.

It was astonishing to Cole how normal Angela was. Even if she hadn't been lumped with the stepmother from hell, and a father who was essentially a ghost in her life, the town in which she was born and raised should have had some adverse effect, if history was anything to go by. But the girl who was sitting in his passenger seat, munching on leftover popcorn and gushing about the movie she'd just seen could have just hopped off the plane from Nebraska.

'So, you liked it?' Cole asked.

'I LOVED it!'

'And what was the best part?'

'That scene where Anita and Bernardo sing that song about what it's like to live in America. She's fantastic.'

Cole smiled.

'It's okay, you know,' Angela said.

'What, the movie?'

'No, silly, the situation with my parents; Constance killing them, I mean.'

Cole thought he felt his heart jump up into his throat.

'Constance and I have been planning it for ages. I didn't think it'd take so long, but I'm just happy it's done now.'

Cole thought he should probably pull over into the motel parking lot just ahead of them so they could talk in private, but he wasn't sure he wanted to be alone with the kid anymore.

'You both planned it...together?'

'Uh, yeah. How else was I supposed to get rid of my step mom _and_ go live with my Grandma in Paris? Daddy would never have let me go there – he _hated_ Grandma.'

She lay her head back and smiled.

'Grandma's going to send me to dance school; I'm going to be just like Rita Moreno.'

_You can be whatever you want to be now,_ Cole thought, _no one's there to stop you._

Constance was sitting in the living room, watching a black and white movie on television and drinking bourbon, when they got back. She put her glass down on the coffee table, narrowly missing the edge, and jumped up to meet them.

'Darlings!' she cried. 'You're home!'

Constance bounded over to them and put her arm around Angela. Cole needed to talk to her...fast.

'So, what did you end up seeing?'

'Carousel and West Side Story.'

'Oh!' Constance clutched at her heart. 'Such a beautiful film. So sad!'

'Yeah, but the music was great...'

Constance clapped her hands in ecstatic agreement and began performing a dance routine which Cole imagined she thought was a dead-on approximation of the choreography.

'I like to be in A-mer-ick-ahhh!'

Angela giggled nervously as Constance took her hand and whirled her around the room. Then she let go, mid-spin, and sent the girl crashing face-first into the floor. Cole helped her up and inspected her for marks. There would be an angry bruise on her right cheek, and it'd be swollen for a while. He put his hand on her shoulder and led her to the staircase.

'It's getting pretty late, honey. Constance, which room is Angela sleeping in?'

'Which room is...oh, upstairs, third room on the left. Night night, angel.'

She blew Angela kisses.

Angela half-heartedly blew one back and ran upstairs.

Cole dragged Constance into the parlour and shoved her down onto the couch.

'I don't know when it was the two of you started making this little revenge sandwich of yours, but I don't like being the meat in it!'

Constance burst into a fit of laughter.

'You're a writer, and _that's_ the best line you could come up with?'

Cole went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Then he went back to Constance and threw it in her face.

'Sober up for Christ's sake and tell me what the fuck's going on!'

'How dare you?' Constance spluttered.

'How dare YOU? I might be a so-so human being who's only fit to be your Rental, but up until now I've at least been able to say I wasn't a criminal. Are you going to pin all of this on me? Is that why you brought me out here?'

'Not exactly,' said a voice from behind him.

Angela was standing in the door way, holding a gun that made her dainty hands look even smaller. Constance smiled wanly and sat up.

'I've been doing this since I was her age – younger, actually – and much as I hated it sometimes, I never really saw an end to it. But as soon as I met Angela, I knew I'd come full circle. I finally agreed to help her with her problem, as long as she did something for me in return.'

'And what does she have to do for you?'

Constance took a deep breath and smiled.

'Retire me.'

Cole stared at her, agog.

' _Retire_ you? You mean, _kill_ you?'

'Precisely. I know what you're thinking; why delegate the task to someone else? The sad truth of the matter is that, good as I am at what I do, when it comes to doing it to myself, I go all wobbly at the knees. You develop a strong survival instinct when you live a life like mine and, unfortunately, it isn't something that can be turned on and off like a switch.'

'But why get a kid to finish you off? Why not a professional?'

'Because this way I'll _have_ to live with my Grandma,' Angela piped up, 'the state isn't going to stick me with some foster family in California if it means I'll have to live in the same place where my Dad was murdered.'

She pointed to her cheek.

'Especially when they get a look at this.'

'Self-defence, they'll call it,' said Constance, standing up, 'especially when they go through my dresser drawers and find the letter Lydia wrote to me, ordering me to kill Angela once she was out of the country.'

'How'd you cook that up?'

'A friend of mine has a talent for forgery.'

Cole held out his arms.

'Where do I come in?'

'You're my witness,' said Angela.

Cole shook his head and laughed in spite of himself.

'This is good, this is really, really, good.'

'Thank you,' said Constance.

'What if I say no?'

Constance bent down and pulled a gun out from under a seat cushion and held it on him.

'Then I'll have to kill you. You'll come out of this squeaky-clean either way, the only choice you have to make is whether you want to come out dead or alive.'

Angela cocked her gun.

'Make a choice, Cole.'

Cole looked at Constance.

'This is really what you want?'

Constance took his face in her hands and kissed him.

'Why'd I have to meet you _now_?'

Cole kissed her back, muttered an expletive, and stepped out of the way.

### 15

## Recompense.

The doorbell rang just as Claire was in the middle of a spirited debate about wallpaper with a woman who wanted to deck out the entryway in pastel peach. She was thankful for the interruption, and answered the door herself.

The most beautiful brunette she had ever seen was standing before her, carrying a bouquet of flowers.

'Hi, my friend Connie told me I'd find you here,' she smiled and held out her hand, 'my name's Tawny.'

Constance had slipped a piece of paper into the back pocket of Tawny's pants when she was getting out of the car a week before. Claire's address was on it, along with a brief introduction.

**It took me until recently to realise that, despite what I did for you all those years ago, you don't owe me a thing. You never really have. If anything, I owe you. The occupant of the above address is a Miss Claire Chambers. She is lovely, brilliant, single, a teensy bit Rubenesque (just the way you like them), and recently lost a room mate. She also did a favour for me recently.**

**Please consider both debts paid in full.**

'So,' Claire said, 'Constance.'

'Damn good judge of character.'

'I'll say.'

Tawny handed her the flowers.

'I hear you're looking for a roomy.'

Claire smiled.

'Not any more.'

### 16

## Full Circle.

Cole endured the countless interviews, interrogations, and invasions into his private life over the next few months with a kind of defeated stoicism. He was positive the kid would crack under interrogation, and tell the cops that Cole knew everything. He was also certain, despite the little agreement with Constance, that she would try to give him credit for her role.

How wrong he was.

Angela stuck to the story that she killed Constance in self-defence, and that Cole was an innocent bystander; a temporary employee who had no idea of the mess he had walked in on. When asked what Cole did when she took out the gun her father insisted she carry with her for protection, she said he tried to stop her, and that he had been more like a father to her in the short time she had known him than her real father managed to be in sixteen years.

The promise of a kid wasn't worth much – and that went double for a kid like Angela – but, oddly enough, Angela had turned out to be the noblest person of all.

That didn't sit well with Cole.

The day after the trial, she was on a plane to Paris and he was free, but to do what? He drove around town in the Mustang for a couple of hours, but driving was _all_ he did. He was getting too old to use a hot car to pick up chicks, and none of them appealed to him anymore. He knew what he really wanted, and he wasn't going to find it on The Strip, so he drove to a liquor store, picked up a bottle of Jack, and went home.

Home was the 'budget' motel he'd been living in before fate decided to give him a leg up, only to turn around later and give him a roundhouse kick to the balls. He parked the Mustang, hoping and praying it would still be there when he woke from the self-induced coma he planned to put himself in once he'd finished the book.

Reading it back again for the first time since the start of the trial confirmed his original critique: it was perfect. It was a comic, tragic, neo-noir epic. It's protagonist had a dark world view, and an equally dark sense of humour about it. All it needed was an ending.

And he couldn't give it one.

Playing it too close to the bone might mean he'd have to sit through another trial, and this time it would be his own. Ending the story on a high – the protagonist and her man servant driving off into the sunset, for instance – would definitely please some readers; they just weren't the readers he wanted to please. Killing off every bastard in the room would likewise satisfy the sorts of people who only read books when there wasn't a Clint Eastwood movie playing somewhere, but the thought of signing books for those guys made his skin itch.

The reason the story was so brilliant was that it wasn't _his_ story.

There was only one way to end it.

Cole took the manuscript, a pack of Pall Malls, a book of matches, and the Jack Daniels into the bathroom. He dropped the manuscript into the bath, struck a match, and let it fall from his fingers. He drank the whiskey and watched the flames claim the only evidence that his pulp-filled brain was capable of even transcribing brilliance.

When there was nothing left, and the fire had burned itself out, Cole went back into the room, sat down at his typewriter, and started writing a new story, from scratch.

**Lorina's Daughter**
