Mean Woman Blues (22 page)

He made himself a big bowl of popcorn, got himself an unaccustomed beer, and sat down to watch his girlfriend wow ’em. At first he had eyes only for her. To him, she was beautiful, even with the brown hair. At first he’d disapproved of her wearing the gold cross, thinking it too calculated, but it sure looked good glinting in the lights.

The host gave him the creeps from the get-go. Everything about him looked and sounded phony, from his carefully styled hair to his weirdly familiar voice, with the ersatz English accent. The way he moved gave Isaac the creeps.

When Terri started to talk, the camera came to rest on Mr. Right, showing the compassion in his face. Isaac had a weird, creepy sense of déjà vu. Something wasn’t right with this guy, and he’d seen it before.

But where?

He lost all interest in the content of the show. He put his entire focus on observing Mr. Right, listening to him, watching his eyes.

Mr. Right’s first thought was that everything was fine, it was just a coincidence.
No one
, absolutely no one could penetrate his disguise. He was going all the way, and he’d thought of everything. He was Mr. Right; he was no longer Errol Jacomine. Even his own son wouldn’t know him.

His second thought was that it was a setup. He felt sweat popping out under his fine mane of white hair. It had happened before. Even at his finest moments in his other lives, he had felt the clammy grip of fear, had felt himself zigzagging wildly between his trademark sublime confidence and a crazy, paralyzing tenor. This was just one of the zigzags, the first of many he’d suffer before he achieved his final goal. It was nothing, just one of those moments of panic the great have to live with, the kind of thing a president must feel before pushing the button.

He tried to calm himself, to let in the suggestion that he’d been wrong about this, that somehow he’d overlooked something. This was his own son’s girlfriend, or somebody who claimed to be, and she was about to be on his show.

Oh, hell, no!
No, it wasn’t that. The truth hit him like an anvil. This was someone sent by the Devil-Spawn to make him blow his own cover.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He could see it. Nobody knew who he was, except Rosemarie, and she had everything to gain by keeping him where he was. But somebody who knew him might have seen the show, picked up some little thing— hell, maybe the way he moved or something— and dropped a dime to Devil-Cop. His confidence came back for a moment: Was that conceivable?

He had to be calm here. After all, he had a contingency plan; he never did anything without a contingency plan. But was it good enough? He had to think. His instinct was to do nothing.
Act normal
, he told himself.
No one can touch you
.
No one can do a thing unless you give them a reason.

But his panic told him to get away from the woman as fast as he could. Hell, she could be a cop herself. He didn’t have spies anymore. Without his following, he was like a quadriplegic. He had no idea whether his son Isaac was alive or dead, much less whether he was in art school and had a girlfriend named Terri Whittaker.

Okay, even if Whittaker was a cop, she couldn’t observe him if he didn’t let her.

He called Tracie to get Terri put on ice. When the girl finally came in a good five minutes later, she looked as if the sky was falling. “David? What’s wrong? You said you wanted another full half hour to talk to her. This is our biggest show ever…”

“
Who is that woman
?” he shouted, not bothering to keep his voice normal, to try to seem unruffled, as if nothing had happened. Not even caring.

Tracie, pink and fast getting red, cringed, taking baby steps away from him. “Who is she? She’s Terri Whittaker, the woman the bank sent to jail. Who did she say she is? Is she… I mean, did she say something crazy or something?

“Is she a nut case? Listen, I checked everything out: called the school where she goes; called the bank, of course; saw the police records.”

“You saw the police records? What police records?”

“She sent us copies of them.”

“She sent the copies.”

“Well, yes. She did. David, what’s going on? What’s happening?”

“I don’t want her on the show.” He had seated himself sometime during the interchange. Tracie’s quaking was calming him. He now sat in his executive swivel chair, steepling his fingers, regaining his calm, and he spoke idly.

“Don’t want her…?” Tracie was turning pale, going through a different kind of panic. “But this is our biggest show ever. We don’t even have a backup. We’ve flown in an expert and a lawyer for her. We’ve got a full house out there, not to mention that this is only our second show in the nighttime format, and, quite frankly, Mr. Right, the eyes of Texas are upon us.”

It was that phrase that got him. He’d been about to demand they send Terri home and simply go with the bank expert, when the producer’s words brought him up short. He’d already talked to the damn girl; if she really was his son’s girlfriend and had somehow blundered onto the show, canceling was the worst thing he could do. It would draw the wrong kind of attention to him, make Tracie suspicious, if nothing else.

He dropped his head into his cupped hands. “Oh, hell, girl. I’m sorry. I’ve got an absolutely splitting headache. I guess… the… pain… got to me.” He drew out the words like he could barely speak.

“Omigod, I’ll get you some Vicodin.” Tracie flashed out of his office and came back with a plastic vial. “I keep a supply for occasions like this.” She poured one out in his hand and gave it to him. “Here. Take this. You’ve just got nerves, that’s all, because it’s such an important show. I’ve seen it a million times.”

She seemed back in control now, no longer red, no longer white. Somehow or other— he really had no idea how it happened— Mr. Right actually had in his employ a person he couldn’t control, a person who hadn’t gotten the message that nothing he said was to be questioned. Ever.

Somehow, he didn’t think there was any getting through to her. He’d just have to fire her and start over.

“I’ve got things to do,” she said. “The expert’s plane was late. You lie down, okay? And let that stuff kick in.” She left without asking permission.

He threw out the Vicodin— above all, he needed a clear head— and tried to think. Okay, okay, okay. His first instinct was right. The best thing he could do was act normal. Pretend nothing had happened. After all, if David Wright was who he said he was, he’d never have heard of an outsider artist named The White Monk; the name “Isaac” would mean nothing at all to him. Therefore, he would have to behave as if that were the case. He’d do it, and he’d do a spectacular job. No one would ever be the wiser.

One thing he knew he was good at was dissembling. That was a word he’d learned in England. The thing he was good at was lying. He’d made a career of it. He was an accomplished actor long before he ever became a TV star; it was his stock-in-trade. There was no doubt in his mind he could pull this thing off.

He breathed deeply till showtime, and then he went out and knocked their socks off. He could tell by the audience reaction, by the applause. And it fed him.

He loved that applause. The more of it he heard, the better at his job he got. He damn near convinced himself that little Miss Prissy Whittaker was a saint who’d been wronged.

Karen was in the front row tonight. Strange. She hadn’t told him she was coming. Tracie’d probably invited her, because it was such a big fucking show, the biggest since Karen’s own. Damn, what they could do with the IRS now! They were just getting started when Karen walked in with her precious gift, and even as it was— kind of half-assed, compared to tonight’s extravaganza— it had caused a statewide sensation. Of course, he realized in retrospect, a lot of it had to do with who Karen was.

He had to do twice as good a job with Karen there. He focused deeply on getting the thing done, and he knew he did it well. Better than well. Better than any talk-show host in America could have. If he had a network show today, he’d be halfway to the presidency. Just look at the way people stood up to applaud; look at the way they parted with their money— dollars, too, not just coins; look at the way the women practically swooned. That was one of the best byproducts of this whole thing. Tonight he could probably have any woman in the whole studio, and his stupid wife had picked this night of all nights to show up!

Easy there. Settle down
, he told himself. He knew that was crazy. Karen was the only woman in his life now. He was thinking like he used to.

After the show, he headed for the men’s room to wash his face. He had to have a moment alone to piece things together. On the way there, he began to feel nauseated, and in fact he just barely made it, throwing up before he even got the toilet seat up. He sat on the floor, recovering, and it was only a moment before the nausea came back.
Shit!
He was going to puke again. How the hell could that happen to him?

The second time was almost worse; there was very little left, so it was mostly heaving. God, it was painful. His throat hurt, his stomach hurt, his breath was something out of a rhino. Jesus, who had done this to him?

He was sitting there on the cold tile, when it came to him what had just happened. He had focused on the wrong fucking thing. He should have staged a fainting fit or something. A heart attack. Christ, why couldn’t he have thrown up like this in his damn office?

What he should have done was stay off the air no matter what it cost him. Because if the girl was who she said she was, Isaac would watch the show.

He tried to tell himself it was no big deal. He and Isaac had had practically no contact in recent years. Once, he’d wanted his whole family together so badly he’d actually sent his son Dan to take his granddaughter forcibly from her college campus. But he hadn’t even tried to get Isaac.

Isaac was barely a Jacomine at all— at any rate, not like the others. He and Rosemarie had made Dan, and Dan and Jacqueline had made Lovelace. Isaac was Irene’s boy— plain, tired, stupid Irene whom he had rechristened Tourmaline, just to give her a little style. Hell, he had no fucking idea why he’d ever married her, and he wished to hell he hadn’t. She was about as far from Rosemarie and Karen as Mamie Eisenhower was from Nancy Reagan. No style, no savvy, no nothing. She’d birthed a son who might as well be from another planet, he was so peculiar.

Errol had tried like hell to love him, even turned him into a preacher for a while. In those days the kid was a pleaser, a sad little thing always looking for attention, a child who’d do anything if he thought it was going to get him some brownie points. That was what gave Errol the idea; he thought if the kid tried that hard with his own parents, he’d probably be great with an audience. He was also a cute little bugger who, after a little coaching, would probably be pretty good at making the folks turn loose of their dollars. So Errol invested his good time and energy into teaching the little bastard to preach. Wouldn’t you know, he picked that one thing to say no to? He was shy, the little coward. Hated getting up in front of the crowds. His father had had to beat some sense into him.

It took a long damn time, but dear little Isaac finally came around. Turned into a right fine seven-year-old evangelist if Errol said so himself. Didn’t quit wetting the bed till he was nearly ten, but he could preach pretty good.

But when he was twelve or thirteen, something like that, he got… how the hell did you describe it? He didn’t get religion; he got the opposite of religion. Refused to preach any more and started stuffing his face with everything he could find: hamburgers, milkshakes, french fries. Turned into a regular little butterball. Hell, that wouldn’t have been so bad, but his face broke out in zits the size of eyeballs. God, the kid was ugly. Hell, good thing he wouldn’t preach; nobody could stand to look at him. And ornery! Errol had to go back to the strap again.

Little bastard. Years later, he’d betrayed his whole family in the perfidious manner of an enemy. He had lain with his brother’s wife and brought shame to the house of Jacomine.

After that, not a one of them had any use for him. Errol wasn’t sure he’d recognize him if he passed him on the street. Why the hell should a dumb fuck like Isaac recognize
him
? Especially now that he’d changed his appearance, his accent even his height. He probably had nothing to fear from his lesser son. But he admitted to himself that there was a chance. This crazy thing had brought that home to him. There was a chance, and he’d overlooked it. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t had the little bastard killed.

Karen was in his office, on her feet, beaming, squealing, waving her arms. She was wearing a short paisley skirt and a black T-shirt kind of thing with long sleeves. Her hair was up.

“Ohhhhh, it’s Mr. Riiiiiight!” She leapt up and grabbed his face between her two hands and forcibly kissed him. He was in no mood to kiss back. God, she was irritating. “Sugar, that is gon’ put you over the top! That was the best best best thing I have ever seen in my entire life!”

“Well, that hasn’t been very long, has it?”

The joy drained out of her face. He liked that. He liked being able to put it there and take it away. It didn’t belong there now.

She looked as if she’d gotten a war telegram— “regret-to-inform-you” kind of thing— and then compassion replaced the shock. She grabbed the back of his head, pulling his face close to hers. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t feel insecure. People loved it. They loved that poor girl, Terri, and they just hated the big bad bank. And they think Mr. Right is their knight in shining armor, just like I do.” She actually rubbed her nose against his. He was revolted. Before he thought he shoved a hand in her stomach and pushed her.

“Get the hell away from me, whore!”

She landed in a chair, breathing hard, some of her hair coming out of its tight twist. This time she registered only amazement. “What did you call me?” She pushed at the errant strand.

Pushing her had felt good. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her up, drew her close. “Whore,” he whispered. “You look like a whore in that outfit.”