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“Nobody would dare to put a hand on you,” Patsy said. “You’re feisty, girl.”
“That’s right,” Tess said. “I take no shit.”
“You sound hoarse.”
“On top of everything else, I’m getting a cold.”
“Well… if you need something tonight… chicken soup… a couple of old Percocets… a Joh
“I’ll call if I do. Now go on. Fashion-conscious women seeking the elusive size six A
“Piss off, woman,” Patsy said, and hung up, laughing.
Tess took her coffee to the kitchen table. The gun was sitting on it, next to the sugar bowl: not quite a Dal? image, but damn close. Then the image doubled as she burst into tears. It was the memory of her own cheery voice that did it. The sound of the lie she would now live until it felt like the truth. “You bastard!” she shouted. “You fuck-bastard! I hate you!”
She had showered twice in less than seven hours and still felt dirty. She had douched, but she thought she could still feel him in there, his…
“His cockslime.”
She bolted to her feet, from the corner of her eye glimpsed her alarmed cat racing down the front hall, and arrived at the sink just in time to avoid making a mess on the floor. Her coffee and Cheerios came up in a single hard contraction. When she was sure she was done, she collected her pistol and went upstairs to take another shower. – 21 -
When she was done and wrapped in a comforting terry-cloth robe, she lay down on her bed to think about where she should go to make her anonymous call. Someplace big and busy would be best. Someplace with a parking lot so she could hang up and then scat. Stoke Village Mall sounded right. There was also the question of which authorities to call. Colewich, or would that be too Deputy Dawg? Maybe the State Police would be better. And she should write down what she meant to say… the call would go quicker… she’d be less likely to forget anyth…
Tess drifted off, lying on her bed in a bar of sunlight. – 22 -
The telephone was ringing far away, in some adjacent universe. Then it stopped and Tess heard her own voice, the pleasantly impersonal recording that started You have reached… This was followed by someone leaving a message. A woman. By the time Tess struggled back to wakefulness, the caller had clicked off.
She looked at the clock on the night table and saw it was quarter to ten. She’d slept another two hours. For a moment she was alarmed: maybe she’d suffered a concussion or a fracture after all. Then she relaxed. She’d had a lot of exercise the previous night. Much of it had been extremely unpleasant, but exercise was exercise. Falling asleep again was natural. She might even take another nap this afternoon (another shower for sure), but she had an errand to run first. A responsibility to fulfill.
She put on a long tweed skirt and a turtleneck that was actually too big for her; it lapped the underside of her chin. That was fine with Tess. She had applied concealer to the bruise on her cheek. It didn’t cover it completely, nor would even her biggest pair of sunglasses completely obscure her black eyes (the swollen lips were a lost cause), but the makeup helped, just the same. The very act of applying it made her feel more anchored in her life. More in charge.
Downstairs, she pushed the Play button on her answering machine, thinking the call had probably been from Ramona Norville, doing the obligatory day-after follow-up: we had fun, hope you had fun, the feedback was great, please come again (not bloody likely), blah-blah-blah. But it wasn’t Ramona. The message was from a woman who identified herself as Betsy Neal. She said she was calling from The Stagger I
“As part of our effort to discourage drinking and driving, our policy is to courtesy-call people who leave their cars in our lot after closing,” Betsy Neal said. “Your Ford Expedition, Co
Tess sat down on her sofa and laughed. Before listening to the Neal woman’s ca
When she finally stopped (only it felt more like ru
Arriving at The Stagger I
“How do you know that?” Tess asked, bemused.
“Left your car, right? Happens all the time, specially on weekends. Although we also get calls after karaoke nights. Your cab’ll be there in fifteen minutes or less.”
Tess ate a Pop-Tart (swallowing hurt, but she had lost her first try at breakfast and was hungry), then stood at the living-room window, watching for the taxi and bouncing her spare Expedition key on her palm. She decided on a change of plan. Never mind Stoke Village Mall; once she’d collected her car (and whatever other property Betsy Neal was holding), she would drive the half a mile or so to the Gas amp; Dash and call the police from there.
It seemed only fitting. – 23 -
When her cab turned onto Stagg Road, Tess’s pulse began to rise. By the time they reached The Stagger I
“Everything okay, ma’am?”
“Peachy,” she said. “It’s just that I didn’t plan on coming back here this morning.”
“Few do,” the cabbie said. He was sucking on a toothpick, which made a slow and philosophical journey from one side of his mouth to the other. “They got your keys, I suppose? Left em with the bartender?”
“Oh, no trouble there,” she said brightly. “But they’re holding other property for me-the lady who called wouldn’t say what, and I can’t for the life of me think what it could be.” Good God, I sound like one of my old lady detectives.
The cabbie rolled his toothpick back to its starting point. It was his only reply.
“I’ll pay you an extra ten dollars to wait until I come out,” Tess said, nodding at the roadhouse. “I want to make sure my car starts.”
“No problem-o,” the cabbie said.
And if I scream because he’s in there, waiting for me, come on the run, okay?
But she wouldn’t have said that even if she could have done so without sounding absolutely bonkers. The cabdriver was fat, fifty, and wheezy. He’d be no match for the giant if this was a setup… which in a horror movie, it would be.
Lured back, Tess thought dismally. Lured back by a phone call from the giant’s girlfriend, who’s just as crazy as he is.
Foolish, paranoid idea, but the walk to The Stagger I