Mean Woman Blues

by Smith, Julie

  Again, she breathed, moving her head, trying to straighten out. And she felt something else. But what? She’d have to use the top of her head like fingers, depend on it to tell her what she was feeling.

  She rocked her head back and forth on the object, like a kid playing some stupid game with a pillow, finally easing her neck on top of the object. That was better. Her neck could differentiate textures.

  It felt like some kind of rope, something coiled up. But harder than rope, something with less give. She kept moving until she felt metal— a long finger of metal— finger-long but fist-wide.

  She understood what the object was. It was a set of jumper cables. She tried to remember how they worked. You held them in your hand and opened them and locked them onto screws or something on the battery. And they held. She tried picturing them. Yes! They had teeth.

  Her heartbeat sped up. This could be it. But how to get them in position? Kick them there, maybe. Could she turn her whole body around? She starting working on it.

  Gradually, painfully, she flipped herself, like an embryo in a womb, using her feet for leverage, then for kicking, kicking the cables back behind her, sitting up a little, raising her head till it hit the roof and set off new waves of pain.

  She took a few moments for a few more breaths, but the air was poisonous with gas fumes. She abandoned the effort and just kicked, kicked, kicked some more. She couldn’t gauge how well she was doing; her feet were nearly numb. But she could feel the cables with her feet, feel the length of them inching up her back, feel the grip digging into her.

  She kept at it till she could feel the grip with her elbow; she pushed down on it, and to her surprise, felt it open. She needed to get her wrist into the metal jaws, but she couldn’t do it from this angle. She kept working.

  Finally she had the grip in her fingers. She opened it, tried to work her wrist in, but she couldn’t hold it. She tried again. And again. And a third time.

  Sweat poured off her. Fumes engulfed her. And finally, on the sixth try, she felt the excruciating bite of the grip. She worked it between her wrists, whimpering from the effort. And when she had it in position, she pulled her wrists apart. The fabric gave, a little. But she could do it. She knew now that she could do it.

  She kept working, wondering where they were, what Earl was doing in there, how long he’d be, whether she was going to make it. And finally, with a mighty tug, she did. Her elbows hit the padded sides of the trunk, and she brought her hands around to her front, rubbing them together to restore circulation. And then she sent those fingers out to work, not even bothering to tear the tape off her mouth.

  The button would be near the front, she thought, near the lock. In a moment, she found it. The trunk flew up, and she breathed real air, not moving for a moment, except to free her mouth. Then she tore at the tape on her ankles, using a combination of the cable grips and her own fingers, nails torn and ragged, to rip it off. Still, she couldn’t walk. Her feet had no feeling at all.

  She sat on the edge of the trunk and rubbed them till she could stand, then stomped like a child whose foot has fallen asleep. Slowly, the feeling returned, and, as it did, she surveyed her surroundings. She was behind a small building, in a parking lot. There were other cars there. She realized how fortunate it was that no one had come to rescue her. Because how the hell was she going to kill her husband in front of witnesses? How was she going to do it, anyway, without a weapon?

  Maybe she could improvise one. She set the gas can on the pavement.

  He must be in the building. She walked to the front and opened the door. No guard, she noticed, though there was a desk for one, with an ashtray and a pack of cigarettes beside it, a lighter neatly laid on top. A gift from God, she thought, palming the lighter.

  Thinking Earl might be back any second, she took stock quickly, wondering what the hell he was doing here. She grabbed the guard’s sign-in book and started leafing through it. She had to go back two weeks before she found what she was looking for: an entry for Karen Wright, Room 214.

  That was where he’d be. She went back for the gas can.

  * * *

  Skip parked her car in front of the building, illegally. She walked into the building, noted that the guard was missing, and wondered briefly if that meant anything. She checked the directory and took the elevator to the second floor.

  The door to 214 was closed, but she could hear voices, a woman’s voice, at any rate. She thought briefly of calling for backup but decided it was too soon. Two little old ladies could be in there, phoning around in aid of making the world right for women.

  She leaned close and listened. And there it was, a voice she knew, silky and smooth as ever, saying, “Now, Karen, no need to get excited; just put the gun away, now. This is not the bogeyman; nobody’s here but your loving husband.”

  Okay, she told herself. Be calm. Take a minute. She walked back down the hall and called Shellmire. “Turner. I’ve got him. I think he’s armed.” Well, somebody was armed, anyway. She gave the address, walked back down the hall, drew her gun, listened a moment more. “You asshole!” Karen screamed, and Skip heard the desperation in her voice. So, apparently, did Jacomine. “Karen, no!” he yelled.

  Skip kicked the door open.

  The two people in the room turned toward her, shocked. Karen was holding a gun, hands shaking, and Jacomine was completely bald. For a second, Skip was unnerved, not so much by the gun, which she’d expected, as by seeing Jacomine looking so much like his old self; somehow, hairless, he was no longer Mr. Right, just her old enemy with a better jawline.

  He recovered first, making some sort of motion that could have started out to be a step. Karen fired, but the shot went wild. Jacomine jumped her, knocked the gun out of her hand.

  Skip shouted, “Hands up, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  The two kept struggling. He was on top of Karen, had her nearly on the ground. Skip had no shot.

  She took a step forward and kicked him, but he grabbed upward for her gun. He caught her by surprise, nearly twisting it out of her hand, and held on. She kicked again. Karen grunted, at the bottom of the pile.

  Jacomine still had the gun in his grip; Skip felt her own grip loosening. He was getting it. She held tighter, kept kicking. He twisted hard, and she dropped it, heard it skitter across the room.

  They both dived for it, giving Karen a chance to struggle out of the pile. Skip could sense people in the hall, having come out of their offices. She shouted, “Karen! Get out of here.” And wriggled toward her gun.

  She heard movement, maybe Karen running, and then a sudden exclamation: “Rosemarie!”

  A throaty voice, female, spoke behind her: “Well, hi, Earl, honey.”

  Not even slightly fazed, Jacomine continued to inch toward the gun. Skip held onto his leg, but he was stronger. She couldn’t hold on much longer. Someone walked around her. And then liquid splashed into the room, onto Jacomine mostly. The ominous odor of fumes filled the room.

  Skip shouted, “Everybody, get out of here! Call 911! Hurry!”

  She heard scurrying, then a faint sound, as of a match struck, maybe a lighter flicked. She held onto the leg. The throaty voice said, “Know what that is, Earl? You drop that gun, or I’m gonna burn you alive.”

  Jacomine’s foot went dead in Skip’s hands. He twisted his neck toward the voice. “Rosemarie, you know you don’t mean that.”

  The voice said, “Get up, Earl.”

  He sat up, giving Skip time to grab him and haul him to his feet. She threw him across the room, against a desk, and bent to pick up her gun.

  The woman she saw as she pivoted back was no more who she expected than Karen had been. She’d seen plenty of pictures of Rosemarie Owens, a cool blonde— the sort who married money, repeatedly. This woman was a wreck: hair disheveled, bruised, soaked in sweat, holding a lighter.

  Skip thought, Shit, the fumes. The whole room could go up.

  She said evenly, “Put that out, Rosemarie.”
r />   Smiling, as if her life were complete, Rosemarie doused the lighter.

  Then Skip heard a scraping sound, definitely a match this time, and Karen said, “No. Let’s burn him.”

  The room exploded in flame.

  The women screamed. Skip heard them run into the hall. Jacomine erupted before her eyes into a fireball. Karen had thrown the matchbook at him.

  Skip swiveled her head, scanning for a fire extinguisher, blanket, anything. But the fire went out almost immediately. Jacomine leapt up and ran toward the full-length window that led to the balcony. Skip fired, but she’d been distracted a moment too long; her aim was off. If she hit him, it didn’t stop him. He ran straight through the glass.

  Skip caught her breath and ran after him. By the time she caught up, he had pitched over the balcony and landed in a stand of shrubbery. She stared for a moment, wondering where the hell her backup was and whether she should jump on top of him.

  She couldn’t bring herself to do it; damned if she was going to risk breaking a leg when she was this close to catching him. Instead, she turned and ran down the stairs, fighting her way through the crowd, yelling, “Police! Let me through! Police!”

  He was gone when she got there.

  Gun still drawn, she ran behind the building into the parking lot. A car was barreling down on her. Jacomine? She leapt to the side, raced back to get her own car.

  He had to be badly burned, and he might be shot; he could be dying. But you didn’t feel burns immediately; she’d read plenty about it. He could do a lot of damage before he passed out. And he was probably doing seventy already. She ought to call Shellmire, give him an update, but her hands were shaking too badly. All she could do was drive.

  He turned onto Cedar Springs, headed downtown, then onto Harry Hines Boulevard. To the right loomed the new arena, the American Airlines Center. She tried to think, to give 911 a location. She didn’t know Dallas, but Jacomine did. In his shoes, she’d try to find the nearest freeway entrance, an idea she truly hated.

  She picked up her phone, then realized she’d have to look at it to call 911. There wasn’t time. She tried to speed up, but it wasn’t safe; there was too much traffic.

  She saw what she dreaded ahead of her, an entrance to the Stemmons Freeway. But it was a very narrow entrance, with barriers on either side. If she could just get close enough to force him…

  He skimmed through the barriers before she could reach him. She was gaining, though. She wondered how in God’s name he could be doing all this. She had to force him to the right, get him off the freeway, before he passed out.

  He’d gone only about a quarter of a mile when his car began to weave. He was losing it but he wasn’t slowing down.

  She pulled up on his left and rode him.

  His car veered dangerously close to hers, then back the other way. She kept crowding him. A sign ahead said Victory Avenue and Hi Line Dr. Maybe she could force him off at the exit. He corrected too much to avoid hitting a car, then had to swing wide back to the right— and that was where he lost control. His car hit the barrier, just in view of the back side of the new arena, on a little overpass.

  It flipped over and landed with a thud like a tank crashing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Skip stared at herself in the hospital bathroom and thought, for the first time in two days, of Steve Steinman. She needed to call him right away, along with Adam Abasolo, then Jimmy Dee and the kids, to let them know that it was over.

  She splashed water on her face.

  Jacomine was alive, with one gunshot wound, and third-degree burns on his torso and face. She’d actually seen him in the hospital, lying on a gurney, unconscious, helpless, and it was important to see. If she hadn’t, she’d never believe he hadn’t somehow slipped away again. She felt like crying, perhaps with relief, perhaps simply to relieve tension. The hospital gave him about a fifty-fifty chance of survival. But there was a piece of her that couldn’t believe he wouldn’t somehow get up and walk out of there when no one was looking.

  She combed her singed hair and returned to the emergency room to find Shellmire. “Some scene over there. They cut me loose to come get you. How you feeling?”

  She thought about it. “Kind of shaky.”

  “You’re lucky that whole room didn’t go up.”

  “You’re not kidding. It could have, easily. I just kept thinking about how many times I’ve seen people smoking in gas stations. So far I’ve never seen it cause a fire.”

  “Could, though.” Shellmire shivered, thinking about it.

  “What was weird, when she threw the matches, it was kind of like an explosion. Just a little pouf of flame, then it went out.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes it’ll flash and go right out.”

  “Oh, that’s what the doctor meant. He said Jacomine had flash burns.”

  “Lots of ’em, it looked like.” He stood up. “I’ve got to get some coffee. You need some?”

  “Make mine a Valium.”

  And he left, giving her a few minutes to make her phone calls. When he returned, she made a show of drinking the coffee, which was probably the last thing her body needed after its enormous expenditure of adrenaline, but they both knew she still had to maintain alertness.

  “I just called Abasolo. Good news: Isaac came out of the coma. Looks like he got away clean. No brain damage at all.”

  “All right!” For a moment a grin cracked the agent’s face, but it disappeared almost immediately. There was still a long way to go to close the case.

  “I’ve got a question,” Skip said. “Where the hell was the security guard?”

  “I’m glad you asked. Taped up and locked in a closet.”

  “Might have known.”

  Shellmire drove her to the federal building and, along with Hargett, another agent, and a Dallas cop, listened to her story.

  They exchanged glances when she got to the part about the matchbook. Hargett said, “You’re sure Karen was the one who threw it?”

  “Absolutely. Why?”

  “Tell us again what she said.”

  “She said, ‘No. Let’s burn him.’ Right after I told Rosemarie to put out the lighter.”

  “Did Rosemarie put out the lighter?”

  “I told you. She did. The situation was defused. Karen was very deliberate about it.”

  Hargett persisted. “Did you actually see her throw the matchbook?”

  “I couldn’t. She was behind me. But I heard her strike the match, and I heard what she said.”

  The other four looked miserable. Her stomach flip-flopped. They knew something she didn’t.

  “What’s going on?”

  The cop was the one who told her. “We didn’t find the matchbook. She and Rosemarie both say Rosemarie threw the lighter to save your ass, because he refused to drop the gun.”

  “Wait a minute! I already had the gun.”

  “That’s not what they say.”

  “They.” She was beginning to see what had happened. “Hold it. They were alone together before any officers got to the scene. They cooked this thing up. Rosemarie’s boyfriend’s dead, right? Plus, she’s the one who made Mr. Right; she not only harbored a fugitive, she mentored him! She’s going to have a million charges against her…”

  “And Karen comes from one of the most powerful families in Dallas.” Shellmire spoke grimly.

  Skip felt lightheaded. “But… there were witnesses.”

  Shellmire shook his head. “We’ll keep trying. But so far nothing. When Rosemarie threw the gasoline, you gave the order to get out of there, right?”

  Skip nodded.

  “Good police work. And know what those law-abiding citizens did? Ran for their pitiful little lives.”

  “Oh, hell.”

  “Yeah.”

  The adrenaline high was over, and even Shellmire’s coffee had worn off. “You guys gonna charge me with anything?”

  The special agent in charge spoke up. “I’d sure like to,” Hargett
said. “But looks like you’ve got friends…”

  “Also, she did a damn good job,” the Dallas cop said. Skip hadn’t caught her name, but evidently she didn’t care much for Hargett.

  “Yeah. You did,” Shellmire said. So maybe she had.

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence. Could I get out of here now? I need to go and sleep for about a day and a half.”

  Shellmire took her to her hotel, where she tossed and turned, and intermittently cried, and talked on the phone to Steve and Jimmy Dee and Adam Abasolo, and occasionally did sleep until the next morning, when she caught a plane home.

  The crying still puzzled her. She should have been dancing in the streets. But she put it down to the fact that it’s a horrible sight to see a flaming man jump from a second-story window— and even more horrible that both Karen and Rosemarie were probably going to wiggle out from under their crimes.

  Then, too, there was the question of what she was going back to. There was still a big hurdle to get over. She might have just captured America’s Most Wanted, but she was still in semi-disgrace in her hometown— at least till she could prove Jacomine had set her up.

  There was one note of hope, though. When she phoned him, Abasolo had offered to meet her at the airport. She’d kind of had in mind a reunion with Steve, but it could wait. She sensed that whatever Adam had to say couldn’t.

  The first thing he said was, “You look like hell.”

  Skip winced.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think you were that sensitive.”

  “It isn’t that. I was all set to say, ‘You should have seen the other guy,’ and then I remembered how he actually looked.” She shuddered. “You shouldn’t see him. Nobody should.”

  “I hear they don’t think he’ll live out the week.”

  “He lost a whole lot of skin. Blood too, from the gunshot wound. It was something to see, Adam, those two women hell bent on killing him. You hear what really happened?”

  “One threw the gasoline, the other threw a book of matches at him.”

  “Cold.”

  They were talking as they walked to his car. They paused to get in, and Skip said, “Why’d you want to see me, Adam?”