EQMM, July 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Fifteen minutes later, fresh from the shower, I was sitting alone in the waiting area of the spa, listening to the purposefully soothing music. The resort was quiet, not yet in season. Another reason why I'd chosen it.

  "Tanya will be with you directly,” the woman at the desk told me, gracious in white, depositing a jug of iced water by my elbow before melting away again.

  The only other person in the waiting area was a big blond guy who worked maintenance. He was making too much out of replacing a faulty door catch, but unless you have the practice it's hard to loiter unobtrusively. From habit, I watched his hands, his eyes, wondered idly what he was about.

  The sound of raised voices from one of the treatment rooms produced a sudden jarring note. From my current position I could see along the line of doors, watched one burst open and the masseuse, Tanya, come storming out. Her face was scarlet with anger and embarrassment. She whirled.

  "You slimy little bastard!"

  I wasn't overly surprised to see Cadillac Man hurry out after her, shrugging into his robe. I'd been right about the extent of that body hair.

  "Aw, come on, honey!” he protested. “I thought it was all, y'know, part of the service."

  The blond maintenance man dropped his tools and lunged for the corridor, meaty hands outstretched. The woman behind the reception desk jumped to her feet, rapped out, “Dwayne!” in a thunderous voice that made him falter in conditioned response.

  I swung my legs off my lounger but didn't rise. The woman on the desk looked like she could handle it, and she did, sending Dwayne skulking off, placating Tanya, giving Cadillac man an excruciatingly polite dressing down that flayed the skin off him nevertheless. He left a tip that must have doubled the cost of the massage he'd so nearly had.

  "Ms. Fox?” Tanya said a few moments later, flustered but trying for calm. “I'm real sorry about that. Would you follow me, please?"

  "Are you okay, or do you need a minute?” I asked, wary of letting someone dig in with ill-tempered fingers, however skilled.

  "I'm good, thanks.” She led me into the dimly lit treatment room, flashed a quick smile over her shoulder as she laid out fresh hot towels.

  "Matey-boy tried it on, did he?"

  She shook her head, rueful, slicked her hands with warmed oil. “Some guys hear the word masseuse but by the time it's gotten down to their brain, it's turned into hooker," she said, her back to me while I slipped out of my robe and levered myself, facedown, flat onto the table. Easier than it had been, not as easy as it used to be.

  "So, what's Dwayne's story?” I asked, feeling the first long glide of her palms up either side of my spine, the slight reactive tremor when I mentioned his name.

  "He and I stepped out for a while,” she said, casual yet prim. “It wasn't working, so we broke it off."

  I thought of his pretended busyness, his lingering gaze, his rage.

  No, I thought. You broke it off.

  * * * *

  Later that evening, unwilling to suit up again to ride into the nearest town, I ate in the hotel restaurant at a table laid for one. Other diners were scarce. Cadillac Man was alone on the far side of the dining room, just visible round the edges of the silent grand piano. I could almost see the miasma of his aftershave.

  He called the waitress “honey,” too, stared blatantly down her cleavage when she brought his food. Anticipating the summer crowds, the management packed the tables in close, so she had to lean across to refill his coffee cup. I heard her surprised, hurt squeak as he took advantage, and waited to see if she'd “accidentally” tip the contents of the pot into his lap, just to dampen his ardor. To my disappointment, she did not.

  He chuckled as she scurried away, caught me watching and mistook my glance for admiration. He raised his cup in my direction with a meaningful little wiggle of his eyebrows. I stared him out for a moment, then looked away.

  Just another oxygen thief.

  * * * *

  As soon as I'd finished eating I took my own coffee through to the bar. The flat-screen TV above the mirrored back wall was tuned to one of the sports channels, showing highlights of the latest AMA Superbike Championship. The only other occupant was the blond maintenance man, Dwayne, sitting hunched at the far end, pouring himself into his beer.

  I took a stool where I had a good view not just of the screen but the rest of the room as well and shook my head when the barman asked what he could get me.

  "I'll stick to coffee,” I said, indicating my cup. The painkillers I was taking made my approach to alcohol still cautious.

  In the mirror, I saw Cadillac Man saunter in and take up a station further along the bar. As he passed, he glanced at my back a couple of times as if sizing me up, with all the finesse of a hard-bitten hill farmer checking out a promising young ewe. I kept my attention firmly on the motorcycle racing.

  After a minute or so of waiting for me to look over so he could launch into seductive dialogue, he signaled the barman. I ignored their muttered conversation until a snifter of brandy was put down in front of me with a solemn flourish.

  I did look over then, received a smug salute from Cadillac Man's own glass. I smiled—at the barman. “I'm sorry,” I said to him. “But I'm teetotal at the moment."

  "Yes, ma'am,” the barman said with a twinkle, and whisked the offending glass away again.

  "Hey, that's my kind of girl,” Cadillac Man called over, when the barman relayed the message. Surprise made me glance at him and he took that as invitation to slide three stools closer, so only one separated us. His hot little piggy eyes fingered their way over my body. “Beautiful and cheap to keep, huh?"

  "Good coffee's thirty bucks a pound,” I said, voice as neutral as I could manage.

  His gaze cast about for another subject. “You not bored with this?” he asked, jerking his head at the TV. “I could get him to switch channels."

  I allowed a tight smile that didn't reach my eyes. “Neil Hodgson's just lapped Daytona in under one minute thirty-eight,” I said. “How could I be bored?"

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dwayne's head lift and turn as the sound of Cadillac Man's voice finally penetrated. It was like watching a slow-waking bear.

  "So, honey, if I can't buy you a drink,” Cadillac Man said with his most sophisticated leer, “can I buy you breakfast?"

  I flicked my eyes towards the barman in the universal distress signal. By the promptness of his arrival, he'd been expecting my call.

  "Is this guy bothering you?” he asked, flexing his muscles.

  "Yes,” I said cheerfully. “He is."

  "Sir, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave."

  Cadillac Man gaped between us for a moment, then flounced out, muttering what sounded like “frigid bitch” under his breath.

  After very little delay, Dwayne staggered to his feet and went determinedly after him.

  Without haste, I finished my coffee. The racing reached an ad break. I checked my watch, left a tip, and headed back out into the mild evening air towards my chalet. My left leg ached equally from the day's activity and the evening's rest.

  I heard the raised voices before I saw them in the gathering gloom, caught the familiar echoing smack of bone on muscle.

  Dwayne had run his quarry to ground in the space between the soft-top Cadillac and my Buell, and was venting his alcohol-fueled anger in traditional style, with his fists. Judging by the state of him, Cadillac Man was only lethal behind the wheel of a car.

  On his knees, one eye already closing, he caught sight of me and yelled, “Help, for Chrissake!"

  I unlocked the door to my chalet, crossed to the phone by the bed.

  "Your maintenance man is beating seven bells out of one of your guests down here,” I said sedately, when the front desk answered. “You might want to send someone."

  Outside again, Cadillac Man was going down for the third time, nose streaming blood. I noted with alarm that he'd dropped seriously close to my sparkling new Buell.

  I starte
d forwards, just as Dwayne loosed a mighty roundhouse that glanced off Cadillac Man's cheekbone and deflected into the Buell's left-hand mirror. The bike swayed perilously on its stand and I heard the musical note of splintered glass dropping.

  "Hey!” I shouted.

  Dwayne glanced up, instantly dismissed me as a threat, and moved in for the kill.

  Okay. Now I'm pissed off.

  Heedless of my bad leg, I reached them in three fast strides and stamped down onto the outside of Dwayne's right knee, hearing the cartilage and the anterior cruciate ligament pop as the joint dislocated. Regardless of how much muscle you're carrying, the knee is always vulnerable.

  Dwayne crashed, bellowing, but was too drunk or too stupid to know it was all over. He swung for me. I reached under my jacket and took the SIG 9mm off my hip and pointed it at him so the muzzle loomed large near the bridge of his nose.

  "Don't,” I murmured.

  And that was how, a few moments later, we were found by Tanya, and the woman from reception, and the barman.

  * * * *

  "You a cop?” Cadillac Man asked, voice thick because of the stuffed nose.

  "No,” I said. “I work in close protection. I'm a bodyguard."

  He absorbed that in puzzled silence. We were back in the bar until the police arrived. Out in the lobby I could hear Dwayne still shouting at the pain, and Tanya shouting at what she thought of his stupid jealous temper. He was having a thoroughly bad night.

  "A bodyguard,” Cadillac Man mumbled blankly. “So why the hell did you let him beat the crap out of me back there?"

  "Because you deserved it,” I said, rubbing my leg and wishing I'd gone for my Vicodin before I'd broken up the fight. “I thought it would be a valuable life lesson—thou shalt not be a total dickhead."

  "Jesus, honey! And all the time, you had a gun? I can't believe you just let him—"

  I sighed. “What do you do?"

  "Do?"

  "Yeah. For a living."

  He shrugged gingerly, as much as the cracked ribs would let him. “I sell Cadillacs,” he said. “The finest automobile money can buy."

  "Spare me,” I said. “So, if you saw a guy broken down by the side of the road, you'd just stop and give him a car, would you?"

  "Well,” Cadillac Man said, frowning, “I guess, if he was a pal—"

  "What if he was a complete stranger who'd behaved like a prat from the moment you set eyes on him?” I queried. He didn't answer. I stood, flipped my jacket to make sure it covered the gun. “I don't expect you to work for free. Don't expect me to, either."

  His glance was sickly cynical. “Some bodyguard, huh?"

  "Yeah, well,” I tossed back, thinking of the Buell with its smashed mirror and wondering who was in for seven years of bad luck, “I'm off duty."

  Copyright © 2010 Zoe Sharp

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: FETE WORSE THAN DEATH by Judith Cutler

  * * * *

  Art by Laurie Harden

  * * * *

  Judith Cutler taught full-time for many years at an inner-city further education college while she wrote short stories for BBC Radio and magazines such as Bella. In 1995, her first novel, Dying Fall, was pub-lished. That book became a series and she has since created four more popular series, the two best known featuring, respectively, amateur sleuth Sophie Rivers and Detective Sergeant Kate Powers. Almost all of the books are set in Birmingham, England, where the author was born and raised.

  * * * *

  How could I, Josie Welford, licensee of the White Hart, waste a whole day worrying about putting right a perfectly innocent mistake? In fact, it wasn't until I was on my way back from my Weight Watchers meeting in Taunton that it dawned on me. There was only one thing to do, irritating though it was. Stopping the car, I placed my new mobile phone carefully under the nearside front wheel. There was a satisfying crunch as I drove over it.

  That weekend, Duncombe Court had looked its best, no doubt about that. The old bricks glowed in the afternoon sun, the borders looked as if no weed had ever dared to set root in them, and you could have played billiards on the manicured lawn. The front door was glossy with fresh paint and the brass knocker gleamed. Someone had even polished the shoe scraper. The Court might only a couple of years ago have come into the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Trent Harpledon-Dean—for some reason no one seemed to be on first-name terms with them—but it had been transformed into an archetypal stately home. Not bad for a half-ruin that had come onto the market at well under a million pounds.

  Never had the village fete been set against a more glorious backdrop. And clearly all the stall holders had risen to the challenge. On the produce stall, the jars of homemade jam—plum, strawberry, damson, and raspberry, each wearing a little checked mobcap over a more prosaic lid—might have been jewels. Though I wouldn't eat any—after all those years on a diet I wasn't about to let any of my six, nearly seven, stone come back for a return match—I had already reserved three dozen assorted jars for my King's Duncombe gastropub, the White Hart, with a promise to buy anything left over. What better draw for afternoon teas in the pub garden than homemade scones with both clotted cream and homemade jam bought locally?

  I couldn't offend my regular suppliers by buying the brownest eggs I'd ever seen (mine apart), or the glossy vegetables. But I made sure I slipped a donation into each cash box. After all, the fete was raising money for two excellent causes, the repairs to the village hall and the ongoing maintenance of the communal gardens here at the Court.

  Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Harpledon-Dean had always truthfully said that had it not been for the efforts of the villagers, their home would never have been anything but a crumbling shell. The villagers’ reward was open access to the Victorian parterres and shrubbery, provided that they joined the Friends of Duncombe Court at twenty pounds a throw. Apart from the days when the Court was open to the public, of course, or when there was a big family celebration. Since the Harpledon-Dean family was—to say the least—extended, it seemed there was a wedding or a reception every other week. And now that tourists were welcomed with open arms, and there was a lucrative shop and a mini garden centre, there might have been grumbles from folk who'd given freely of time and plants when they couldn't wander round what they'd come to regard as their territory. To do them justice, I heard none.

  The villagers had also responded wonderfully to any entertainment the Harpledon-Deans had offered. Antiques fairs, craft fairs, small touring theatre groups, even a pocket-sized opera company—all came to Duncombe Court. Villagers who would never have dreamed of switching on even Classic FM found themselves bemusedly tapping in time to gems of Gilbert and Sullivan, or puzzling as three actors applied themselves, ill-advisedly, to solving The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The amount of cutting of lines and doubling of parts meant Dickens himself would have been mystified, but it did not matter. Every five-pound admission fee for a fair, every ten or twenty pounds for a concert or play, meant we were closer to preserving the lovely old house.

  I had to admit that I was amazed at the villagers’ selflessness, but, as an incomer of ambivalent reputation, I didn't risk saying anything. I presumed ancient powers of fealty were in operation, the same duty that bound yeomen to accompany their lords of yesteryear on crusades and other foolish wars hardwired into their rural souls. I personally volunteered neither time nor effort, since I did, after all, have a job that occupied all my working hours—I might employ chefs and reception staff, waiters and washers-up, but I could and did take the place of any one of them at a moment's notice. However, if I was asked to do anything, such as provide a raffle prize, I always responded positively and usually unobtrusively. No one would know who had furnished the tombola stall, or provided the book-token prizes for all the children's competitions, from the sack race to the bran tub.

  I'm sure Hardy—Shakespeare, even—would have recognised some of the sideshows. Gurning, for instance, for which I certainly did not volunteer: It involved putting your hea
d through a hole in a board and pulling the worst face you could. Or bowling for a pig. Or throwing wooden rings over a variety of bottles. Or even shoving a penny. There was even a pillory set up to pinion some brave soul's head and hands: In Shakespeare's time the victim, a law-breaker, would have been pelted with rotten fruit and worse—sometimes a great deal worse!—but today's volunteer would get nothing worse than sodden sponges hurled at his face.

  We all strolled round under glorious sun, listening to a brass band organised by someone's cousin and, apart from me, feeding our faces with wonderful cakes produced by the Women's Institute.

  I took photos, with my phone, of one happy, smiling face after another. Later on, I'd download everything and print them off. Okay, it was a displacement activity. I was supposed to be learning all the functions and transferring numbers from my old model. But at my age I preferred to learn one skill at a time. It stopped my brain cells from squeaking almost audibly in protest.

  At one point I retired to the beer tent, only to have a complete silence fall as I stepped in. What was wrong? My antennae vibrated wildly. Was there something wrong with the beer? Or was there too much lemonade and not enough fruit in the Pimm's?

  Heart in mouth, I checked with the bar staff, lads I'd personally trained at the White Hart.

  "Everything's fine, Mrs. Welford,” one lad assured me, pulling a half of bitter for me.

  Although I'd provided it, I insisted on paying—there was to be no talk of my expecting freebies when every penny of profit was going to such good causes. The same for a glass of Pimm's—a sip confirmed that it was suitably alcoholic. And no one seemed reluctant to talk to me, as I exchanged pleasantries with the new vet and our local antiques dealer. I was just aware of something in the air.

  But I couldn't stand about theorising. It was time for me to make my way back to the White Hart to make sure everything was in train for the evening. Not that it ever wasn't, not with my wonderful staff. I just liked to make sure.

  A wave and a last smile to everyone and a few last photos—though I couldn't help noticing a distinct turning of backs and averting of faces—and I was on my way.