Dastardly Bastard (3 page)

“Yeah, yeah, Lars… New York Times… best seller…
blah, blah, blah
,” Donald droned as he washed his hair with the vanilla-scented shampoo the hotel provided. He always used the stuff, having never brought his own toiletries along on trips. What was the point when four- and five-star places—the only hotels suitable for a best-selling author such as himself—carried the best of the best? If Donald were to go out and buy the shampoo he was currently using, he’d spend over a hundred dollars for a sixteen-ounce bottle. His frugality was the reason Donald was sitting on over four million in his savings account. That, and the fact he had no place to call home.

During his book signing tours, which lasted six to eight months, there was no need for a permanent address. When Donald wasn’t on tour, he stayed with friends and family. None of them knew he was technically homeless, all of them so happy to see him they would offer a guest room or guest house for his use. He would feign shock, adding phrases like, “I couldn’t impose,” and “I have other arrangements,” until people actually begged him to stay.

When his first book,
Timber
, had become so popular ten years back, he’d been living in a trailer on the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona. The entire book had been written on an old Brother typewriter, a
clickety-clack
machine Donald would hear in his nightmares after day-long writing sessions. He had since moved on to a three-thousand dollar iMac, so quiet he didn’t know he was working half the time.

He stepped out of the shower, drying off with a plush towel that would probably cost most of America a day’s wages. He used the stool he brought with him everywhere to stand on while he combed his hair and tweezed his eyebrows in the steamy mirror. He was using his electric clippers to trim his reddish-brown beard when he heard the room phone ring.

“Shit.”

He turned off the clippers and followed the trill of the phone into the main living area, where the handset lay on a bar in the kitchen nook. A red light blinked in tandem with the tone. Donald pressed the answer button and screwed the speaker to his ear, holding it with his shoulder as he returned to the bathroom.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Adams?”

“Yes?”

“This is Robert from the front desk. How are you doing today?”

“Fine. What can I do for you, Robert-From-The-Front-Desk?”

“I have that information you requested. It will be waiting for you at the front desk.”

“Information?”

“On Waverly Chasm, sir.”

Trying to remember where he’d heard that name before, Donald thought back to the evening before. After dinner at a popular restaurant in downtown Pointvilla, he had taken a taxi back to the hotel and was met by a sexy chick in a hotel maid uniform. Her name was Candice, and her black hair shone in the bright lights of the lobby chandelier. He normally would have ignored the giantess, but there was something in her eyes—a faint attraction. Donald felt drawn to her, to her beauty, to the possibility he might get laid by someone over four feet tall.

“Are you in town long?” she asked.

“Just for two days. I leave the day after tomorrow.”

“You should check out Waverly Chasm, might give you something to write about.” She winked.

“Sorry, I don’t write. The guy I’m here with does all the writing. H.R. Chatmon. Ever heard of him?”

“Everyone needs an avatar, Donald.” Another wink.

Donald hadn’t liked where the conversation was going. He left it at that and went upstairs to confront Jeff, sure that his friend must have dropped the ball. Candice had certainly caught Jeff in a lie. Donald could think of no other reason why Jeff would chance losing his meal ticket over a piece of ass. Plus, Jeff’s role as H.R. Chatmon got the man plenty of tail. The man had no reason to admit to anyone that he wasn’t actually the author, never mind telling someone the actual writer was a dwarf named Donald Adams.

Jeff didn’t answer when Donald knocked. Confused and mentally tired from a long day, Donald had gone back to his room and gotten ready for bed.

“Sir?” Robert-From-The-Front-Desk broke in.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Was there anything else?”

Donald thanked Robert-From-The-Front-Desk and hung up the phone. Before putting the handset down and continuing his daily clean-up session, he dialed Jeff’s room number. While the line rang in his ear, he paced from the toilet to the door, door to toilet, then stopped in the middle of the bathroom, breathing hard. Something was wrong. He was suddenly very sure of that fact.

Jeff stayed in his room on book signing tours. Even when he got lucky, he would always bring the woman back to the hotel room for the fling. Jeff always did as he was told. The last thing Donald or Scribner needed was H.R. Chatmon’s model running around strange towns making a fool of himself in public. Chatmon, the persona, was a recluse. He needed to be. If too much was learned, Donald would turn into Lucy Ricardo with some serious
‘splainin’ to do
.

The phone continued to ring in Donald’s ear, until Robert-From-The-Front-Desk answered, “I’m sorry, but your call doesn’t seem to be going through.”

“Mr. Chatmon might be asleep,” Donald said. “Could you send someone by to—”

Someone knocked on the door. “Never mind. Someone’s at the door. It’s probably him. Thanks, Bob.”

“It’s Rob—”

Donald hung up and moved to open the door.

A red-cheeked girl stood on the other side with her face downcast. The front of her shirt showed a laptop with a soft S&M scene on its screen. Above the picture, in bold italics was
eMurder
.

“I think you have the wrong room.” He was closing the door when the girl placed her palm on the wood. He could have shut it if he tried hard enough. She didn’t appear to be very strong, but her confidence was palpable, or maybe her anger.

“We respected you,” she said, her eyes still on the floor. Her auburn hair cascaded down in front of her face. The girl couldn’t be more than sixteen.

“I don’t—”

“You fucking lied to us!” She snapped her head up and gave him a nail-studded glare. “You’re a goddamn
midget
?”

He put his shoulder into the door, slamming it in the girl’s face. He backed away slowly as she pounded for entrance. Luckily, hotel doors locked automatically from the outside when shut. He said a silent thank you for that one.

After a moment, Donald heard other voices out there, new ones, male and female. The girl had brought an entire brood with her. Donald wondered, distantly, if they were carrying torches and pitchforks.

“Shit.”

Jeff. He needed to find Jeff. And quite possibly castrate the bastard.

Donald moved as fast as his small legs could carry him. He ran through the foyer into the great room and on toward the bath, where he snatched up his cell from the area next to the sink. He’d forgotten all about the vibrating he’d heard while showering.

1 Missed Call

3 New Messages

The call was from Lars Stillstead, and in the subsequent voicemail he only said something had gone terribly wrong. The other two were text messages—one from Lars telling Donald to call him as soon as possible, the other from Jeff.

The last simply read:
good luck lil buddy ttyl!

“Motherfucker!” Donald roared.

Jeff had given him up. For whatever reason, Donald had been betrayed. He’d known Jeff for almost twenty years, even since Sunne died, and he’d thought the man a true friend. What the hell had happened over the course of less than twenty-four hours?

Donald called the cops to deal with the unhappy mob at his door. Then, he called Lars to find out what came next.

~ * * * ~

By the time the police arrived, the throng of angry villagers had dispersed. Donald supposed they had thought better of their actions. The Pointvilla Hotel might have had something to do with it, as well. It didn’t look good for a five-star hideaway to be harboring possibly dangerous fans, especially since someone on staff must have given away Donald’s room number. Donald would let his lawyers have a field day with that once everything died down.

Lars Stillstead was not happy. “I just can’t believe Jeff would do something like this.” Lars sighed into his end of the phone, so loud Donald thought he could feel the wind in his ear. “I think he sold the story to
Newsweek
.”

“
What?
” Donald almost screamed as he finished packing his suitcase. “You’re shitting me!”

“Afraid not, Don.” Lars always called him Don, and Donald hated it. “The only other emails I got, other than the one about
eMurder
placing
numero uno
on the best seller list, were from John Clarence over at
Newsweek
.”

“
The Man with the Two First Names
,” Donald scoffed. He hated John’s gossip column.

“That would be him.” Lars’s breathing sounded labored. “I’m going to need you to keep your head down, Don. At least until all this shit blows over. I’ll handle John Clarence and the rest of the press. They can’t go live with this bullshit until they get a confirmation from the source. But what I’m worried about is—”

“
The Trash
.”

“Yep.”

The Trash
referred to the tabloids housewives frequented while waiting in grocery store checkout lines. Those women couldn’t care less about the spine of a story; they wanted the bleeding heart. True or not, the story would break in the tabloids first if Lars didn’t do his job.

“So I hide?” Donald asked.

“Exactly. Leave that hotel. Go find some place where no one will give you a second look.”

“Have you not noticed I’m a wee bit short, Lars? I get attention
wherever
I go.”

“Damn it, Don!” The outburst was unlike the agent, but Donald let it slide. “I’m trying here, pal. Really, I am. Just keep out of sight.”

Something occurred to Donald, something Candice had mentioned. “Waverly Chasm,” Donald whispered, not meaning to make the thought audible.

“What? You losing it on me, Don?”

“No. It’s just… something that was brought to my attention last night. I think it’s a tourist spot, or something. The deskman called this morning before everything went down and told me he had some stuff on it. I think I might go out there. Keep a low profile and all.”

“Sounds like a plan. Vacationing douchebags are less likely to make a stink over you. People don’t watch the news on vacation. I know I don’t.”

~ * * * ~

Robert-From-The-Front-Desk turned out to be a skinny white man with a cleft lip. The uppity garb he wore fit his surroundings, but not his wraith-like frame. He looked like the result of someone letting the air out of a bellhop.

“I’m so very sorry, sir, but I can assure you that none of our staff would ever break our privacy policy.”

“What about Candice? She seemed to know a little too much last night.”

They stood in the lobby. Donald had asked the man to step out from behind the counter; otherwise, he would have had to step back to the middle of the atrium to see Robert over the counter. Donald knew human beings well. He was a people-watcher at heart, like most authors. Writers couldn’t create real-life, flesh-and-blood characters people cared about and be a shut-in. It just didn’t work like that.

“We don’t have anyone named—”

“Bullshit, Bob.”

“My name is R—”

“I don’t care what your name is. Candice
was
here last night. She’s the one who mentioned this place.” Donald waved the brochures for Waverly Chasm.

“There was a note left for me to acquire those for you, sir, but not from anyone named
Candice
.”

“Then who?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know. There was no name on the note, only a brief sentence asking for the morning staff to procure them. Other than your room number, the note didn’t even have your name on it.”

“And you have no idea who left it? Not a clue?
Really
? Somehow, I don’t believe that,
Bob
.” Donald liked the defeated way the deskman looked, and felt a little taller, more powerful, because of it.

“I manage a staff of over one hundred people, sir. It could have been any one of them.” Robert straightened his tie, nodding to a group of customers as they entered the lobby area.

Donald fumed. People did that to him all the time. It was so easy to look over him, past him, as if he wasn’t even there. Donald snapped his fingers at Robert, whistling up at the man.

Robert looked back down, his face full of shock. “I don’t appreciate being whistled at like a dog.”

“And I don’t appreciate being looked over like one. Listen,
Bob
, I suggest you tell your owners to lawyer-up. Because if this shit hits the proverbial fan, you’re going to be out of a job when I own this fucking place.” Donald rolled the brochures and stuffed them in his back pocket. “I’d wipe that smirk off your face, as well. Keep looking down on me. I’ll show you just how big I can get when I’m crossed.”

Donald turned, going to the bellman’s cart where his belongings waited.

“My sincerest apologies, sir,” Robert said.

“Sir
this
, asshole.” Donald flipped the bird over his shoulder as he pulled the cart through the front doors.

4

JUSTINE MCCARTHY ROLLED OVER ONTO her boyfriend’s sleeping form, needing the warmth of his body. Cold fall air seeped through the tent at an alarming rate, and her feet were frozen solid. Why had she let him talk her into going camping? Because she loved the man with all her heart, that was why.

Trevor was the best of the worst. Atlanta hadn’t given Justine a big pool of winners from which to choose, and in the end, Justine had finally settled on a white boy from Warner Robins, Georgia, an ex-Air Force geek with a penchant for urban wear. Justine’s family called him a ‘wigger.’ Justine just called him ‘baby.’

Nana Penance, Justine’s grandmother, had loved Trevor. The way Nana Penance smiled when she met Trevor had warmed Justine’s heart. Nana laughed at the story of how Justine and Trevor had found each other, thinking that internet dating was ‘of the devil’ before realizing her granddaughter had snagged Trevor in a Yahoo chatroom.