“Thin? Americans are so obsessed with thin. Do you know how it makes me feel when I hear some American rock star say, 'All those starving children in Africa… oh, I'd love to be that thin!'“
Cady sighed. She didn't need this guilt trip; not today.
“You seem to forget, Doctor. I served as a member of the United States Congress. I supported the rescue mission to Somalia, aid to Rwanda.”
“Fine,” the doctor said. “If Americans feel guilty about starving children, they should damn well feed them. But you won't help one single African kid by starving yourself to look like the skeletal remains of a twelve-year old.”
A gentle rap on the door interrupted the doctor's tirade.
Food. It must be Lupe with the lunch tray.
“Don't worry, doctor,” she said. “I guarantee Miss Lupe will not let me starve.”
Dr. Lillian gave a deep, throaty laugh.
“Oh, my. Look at the size of those prawns, Reverend. When you're all healed up, we'll put you on an exercise plan. But right now your job is to stay still, eat, and get lots of rest. I'll be back tomorrow and we'll see about taking those bandages off.”
“Off? The bandages? Will I be able to see?”
“Think positive.”
Cady prayed silently as she heard the doctor leave the room. Tomorrow. The nightmare would be over tomorrow.
She found her fork and pierced a prawn. Butter ran down her chin as she chewed her first delicious bite. She tried to banish the guilt. Maybe Dr. Lillian was right. Just this once, maybe she could allow herself to enjoy her food without thinking about the size of her butt.
But she hoped Dr. Lillian was wrong about the pills. She'd been taking them for six months. Could she really have damaged her health?
When she heard Tyrone's footsteps outside her door, she put down her fork and wiped her chin. She didn't want him to see her slopping like a pig at a trough.
“I'm back, but I've got to go out again, Cady,” he said from the doorway. “But you would not believe all the phone messages I've had for you. We can sort through the requests for interviews together tomorrow. I'd go with Oprah and Time and let the rest of them drop dead, but you'll have to decide for yourself. And you'll have to talk to Dr. Lillian about how soon you want to deal with Sneed and the Monsignor. If it was up to me, I'd say talk to them about a week and a half after Hell freezes over.”
Tyrone sounded breathless. He was in a big hurry to go. Wherever he was going.
“And there were three messages from somebody named Florence Adams. She says you need to tell her if she should go to San Montinaro for the funeral, and she says she's sent the box of Regina's things. To help with the grieving, she said. She wants to make sure you give yourself time to grieve.”
Flo. She had to call Flo. She needed Flo here.
But now—something was going on downstairs. She heard a bang. Two more bangs and a thump. Then a woman's voice, full of fury.
Cady could feel Tyrone's tension from across the room.
“Hey!” He slammed the door. “Fatima! Hey, Babe. Wait a second, will you?” He rushed down the stairs. “Fatima, I told you, I have to give the Reverend her messages. You'll love the Malibu condo; it's got everything.”
“Everything but my life, you bastard!”
Now, the furious clicking of high heels on the stairs.
“Don't go in there! Fatima, go in there and I'll…”
“You'll what, Power?” Their voices were right outside the door now. “You'll throw me out of your house? You already did that. I come home from a tour and you got a church lady in your house who's supposed to think you're a goddamn monk, so I gotta go live in effing Malibu? Happy Valentine's Day, bitch!”
“Keep your voice down. We'll talk on the way to the condo. Did you pack up everything you need?”
“No. I didn't. 'Cause what I need is a new brain. Why am I putting up with this? I'm sorry the old lady is blind, but she is not your Gramma. Tell her the damn truth. I live here.”
Gramma. Old lady. No, Cady was not Tyrone's Gramma, but she was her surrogate. All that warmth and respect wasn't about romance. It was about Tyrone trying to reach his grandmother. Cady was five years his senior. In this part of the world, where aging men routinely discarded women for younger models every few years, that put her a couple of decades on the wrong side of dinosaur.
Besides, Tyrone seemed to have a girlfriend already.
Fatima, the rap star—that's who she had to be. Cady remembered now. Power Magee had directed Lady Fatima's last video, “Church Lady”; a video so offensive, even by MTV standards, that it was banned from the airwaves. It reputedly showed images of Fatima making love to a person dressed as Jesus Christ. Cady had heard the lyrics coming from a passing car stereo in South Central: “Poor old church lady ain't had none yet/Cause Jesus the one that make her wet.”
Music like Lady Fatima's, if it could be called that, was about the obscene arrogance of the very young: infants playing with their own excrement.
Lady Fatima was… what? Maybe nineteen years old? Cady picked up her fork and speared a greasy prawn.
But the butter had cooled to a waxy slime. Not worth jeopardizing her diet now. Tyrone might think of her as a grandmother, but she didn't have to humiliate herself further by looking like one. She put down the fork and signaled the nurse to take away the tray.
She couldn't count the ways she'd been about to be a fool.
Maybe it was shock from the accident that was making her stupid. Or maybe it was grief. Flo was right. She hadn't given herself time to grieve over losing Regina. Somehow, she couldn't really believe Regina was dead. When Sinclair Jr. died—her own mother—Astrid—even her brother Leroy, all the way over in Vietnam, she'd felt something; a spiritual loss at their passing.
Now, with Regina, she felt only a strange nervous energy. Like there was something she was still supposed to do.
Of course there was. She had to go to the funeral.
She picked up the phone and felt for the keys to punch in Flo's number. She needed to talk to a sensible adult. To get away from the seductive craziness of L.A. She didn't belong here. She was a church lady.
Chapter 18—Regina: Pie with the Angels
Regina dreamed of Mikhail; of kissing his sweet mouth, his rough, unshaven cheek, his soft hair; of clutching him close to still the thunder in her heart; of guiding his hands from her breasts to her hungering thighs—making sure, of course, that he missed the little mound of fat below her waist she'd got from eating all that baklava and island wild honey.
“Regina. My queen. I'll always love you. Only you,” he murmured, nuzzling her ear. “I will protect you. Stay with me and you will be safe.”
Nuzzling her ear. Something warm and damp was actually hovering around her ear.
Not her dark-eyed love of all those years ago.
An animal. A horse. A big horse. Standing above her.
A big horse with very big feet. She and the huge animal, and its awful, lethal hooves were alone in the dark. Somewhere in the smelly, damp dark. In a horse trailer. She had to get out.
She listened for sounds outside. Was she still in the parking lot of the racetrack? Was her cowboy pursuer still outside?
She could hear nothing of city hustle and bustle, only the roar of highway traffic and the sharp cry of an occasional bird.
A seagull. Yes. She could smell the clean scent of the sea above the manure and horse-sweat stink of the blanket and straw where she lay. The ocean. Was that roar the sound of waves, and not traffic at all?
She wriggled around the horse's legs to the end of the trailer and pulled herself up to look over the tailgate. She saw a sign, barely readable in the half-light of early dawn that said “SF 398 mi. LA 162 mi.”
She sank into the straw and caught her breath. Where was she? On the road between Los Angeles and San Francisco? Near Santa Barbara, maybe—a little north. The Valium must have knocked her out for quite a while.
She listened for sign
s of life outside the trailer and heard the trickle of water nearby. She pulled herself up again.
A tall, gray-haired man in a big, black cowboy hat was urinating over the side of the cliff. Regina averted her head in a reflex of politeness.
Her quick movement was the wrong one.
“Hey!” The man zipped his fly. “Hey, what's going on in there, Dreams?”
His weathered, unshaven face looked angry as he peered into the trailer.
“What's in there with my horse? Get out!” He reached down and grabbed at Regina's disheveled hair. “Get out of there, you bum. Get your slimebag ass out of my trailer.”
“I'm terribly sorry, sir.”
Regina tried to speak in as reasonable a tone as possible as she struggled to rise and adjust her skirt for decency.
“I'm afraid I must have fallen asleep. I was hiding, you see, from a rather terrifying cowboy. I'm sorry. You're a cowboy, too, aren't you?”
She attempted a charming smile.
He didn't smile back.
“But of course, his hat wasn't nearly as impressive as yours. The poor man was drunk and misunderstood my motives. He didn't know that all I wanted was to listen to his radio.”
The man's grim, unshaved face stared at her, immobile. In the gray early morning light, he looked like some lichen-covered statue of one of those perpetually furious Old Testament prophets.
She spoke in a soothing tone, trying to explain.
“They were talking about my funeral, you see. On his radio. Very disconcerting. Apparently even Al and Tipper Gore are going to be there. Imagine. The Vice President of the United States. At my funeral. I've met them, of course. Tipper was very cordial. Much warmer than Hillary. That's Hillary's problem, really. I admire her enormously, but she's not warm. Do you—do you suppose you could help me out of here?”
The man's slit of a mouth opened in a roar.
“Out! You bet I'll get you out of there, you crazy welfare bitch. You and your friend Hillary Clinton! Weirdo lesbo femi-nazi. Getting fat off our taxes and taking away our guns. See if your UN black helicopter will give you a ride—I caught sight of one right back there. Like we're really supposed to believe they don't exist.”
“A UN helicopter? That would be lovely,” Regina said, “Perhaps you could flag it—send a flare or something?” She tried to ignore the man's irrational tone of voice.
“Go ahead, mock me, but I know what I saw. Or maybe you think it's a UFO, like those wackos on TV? Hey, lady, if you're lucky, the space aliens will take you along to their home planet. You sure aren't doing so good on this one. You heard me, lady. Out!”
What came next happened so fast that it all turned into an awful blur. There was a clang as the tailgate dropped, and the horse's startled whinny. Then came shouts and the clomping of the horse's terrifying hooves, which seemed to be everywhere, as the man's rough hands grabbed her—dragged her, as she tried to reach her crutch and purse.
“Get out! Get out quick or Dreams will stomp you to death, you stupid bitch. What kind of an idiot gets in a trailer with a racehorse?”
He had a grip on her Garfield slipper, and another on her left arm, which felt like as if it might be pulled out of its socket. Then she fell onto the ground, squealing in pain as the rough gravel cut into her knees and palms.
She tried to catch her breath as the man clanked shut the back of the trailer and stomped toward the cab of the truck. There was lettering on the side of the trailer she hadn't seen before. “California Dreams” it said.
Obviously the racetrack woman's “inside poop” about the winner of the tenth race had been wrong.
“I'm sorry your horse lost,” Regina said. “But it's a bit immature to take it out on a perfect stranger, don't you think?”
She heard the engine of the truck start.
“Wait!” He wasn't going to leave her here, was he? “My crutch. I'll need my crutch. And my Chanel bag. They're in there with the…”
But with a crunch of gravel, the truck and trailer lurched forward and then pulled out onto the highway.
The highway: a two-lane road with nothing but rocky ocean cliffs on one side and sheer rock on the other, and not another car to be seen in the foggy darkness of early dawn.
Regina was alone; alone and helpless. Every part of her body seemed to be conspiring to give her pain—hands, knees, head—even her stomach was in rebellion. Those women had been right about Ida Belle's chili.
She tried to move, but could only roll over onto some oddly squishy vegetation. Even if someone came by, would they see her? Would they help? Or was the 'California Dreams' cowboy typical of the people of this compassionless place? She had no money. No identification. No health insurance.
She lay on her back and shivered. The plants she lay on were cold against her skin. Ice plants, she'd heard someone call them. Cold as ice. Cold as the grave.
She was no one. In the middle of nowhere. With nothing.
Everyone in the world thought she was dead.
She stared up at the gray sky and wondered if she could really be sure she wasn't. She felt as if the force of the cowboy's anger had physically collapsed her chest and she could barely breathe. As she listened to the waves crash against the rocks below, she concentrated on remembering how to inhale and exhale; feeling herself grow numb—as if the plants were freeze-drying her, sucking out of her the very last of her will.
The Gores would be at her funeral. Bagpipers would play—all that sad, lonely shepherd music of the mountains. She wished she could imagine some rock and roll. Lou Reed, maybe; some old tunes from the Velvet Underground days. Maybe Tipper could play drums. She used to be in a rock and roll band, didn't she? They'd all gotten so respectable. So old.
But funerals were for the old, weren't they? It would be lovely and solemn. Max would be wearing all his princely finery, and so would the boys.
The boys! It would be so awful for them. She thought of her father's funeral, and how her mother had been furious at her for crying so loudly.
Maybe no one would miss her at all; except the paparazzi, of course. Probably not poor Cady—hospitalized and blind because of her. There was hardly anyone left to care. Both her parents gone—and her New York friends, most dead or sick with HIV.
And Max wanted her dead. How long had he been trying to kill her?
She couldn't imagine him climbing a ladder to cut the chain on that chandelier. He'd always been so terrified of heights—such a sad thing for the ruler of a mountainous land. He must have had help. But who? Who would have been willing to help him? It must be someone she knew, but wouldn't suspect. As was the bungling hit-person who had tried to kill her at the Clinic. And who had been incinerated in that car crash in San Montinaro? Had Max been so frustrated at her continued survival that he had actually murdered someone else; some innocent victim, like Cady?
There was no getting around it now. She was married to a monster. The horror of it, and the enormity of the lie she'd been living all these years fell upon Regina like a weight, pressing her deeper into the cold earth. All that irrational hate. Like the California Dreams cowboy. But why did Max hate her? Because she was a woman? Because she had desired him? Because she'd gotten fat?
That was it.
Of course. She was fat. Everyone hated a fat woman. All that uncontrolled female flesh, hanging out for all to see. Fat was the worst shame of all. It proclaimed its own guilt, its own wicked self-pleasuring. To be fat was the ultimate sin of the flesh in the contemporary world, worse than drug addiction, illicit sex, thievery, or the occasional hacking to death of an ex-wife and her lover.
One had only to glance at the tabloids. Any retired actress or model could be pilloried mercilessly for the sin of fat. It was the irredeemable scandal, the most humiliating possible disgrace. Better to be dead.
To be dead. She rolled over on her side and looked out at the ocean. A few more rolls, and she'd be over the side. Part of that ocean. One with the universe. Gone. No longer a hungry, lustful, u
seless fat woman.
Why not? The funeral was already planned. The Vice President of the United States would be there.
As she stared down over the cliff, she felt suddenly light and free. She made one more roll toward the edge and looked down at the dark water and frothy waves. Like chocolate and whipped cream. Like Cady's mother's Chocolate Angel Pie.
Chocolate. It had been so long since Regina had let herself eat real chocolate, and she'd left the Clinic before getting Nigel's Cadbury bar.
How long before that had she been surviving on boring, fat-free food, carefully prepared by the well-meaning Titiana? Months? Years? But even with the hunger, the boredom, and the weary hours spent in the exercise room, she kept getting fatter. What did she have to look forward to if she lived but more suffering, more fat, and more of the endless humiliation in the tabloids?
She wasn't sure she believed in heaven, but if there was one, she knew they would have chocolate there.
And her Israeli soldier. He would be there, too.
She imagined she heard his voice. In a dream-state she heard her Mikhail shouting to her—and saw him running toward her through the mist, illuminated by shining beams of light from above. He called out her name.
But no—it wasn't a dream. Somebody was there. What was that thing? Was the cowboy right about the UN helicopter?
Or maybe the woman at the lunch table had been right. It looked an awful lot like a UFO.
A creature who seemed to have come from the craft ran toward her: not the Mikhail she had been dreaming of, but an alien, gray in the face, with a terrible mushroom-shaped head and huge blank eyes.
It was all true—all those poor people who said they'd been abducted; the sad little man at the Clinic; the lunch woman with her rat eyes—a bank officer, she'd been. Before the abduction. Before they'd made her into a lab rat.
No. Regina wouldn't let that happen to her. She looked down at the frothy waves.
“Mikhail,” she whispered, as she rolled over one last time. With any luck, tonight she'd be eating pie with the angels.
Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries Page 86
