Death On the Dlist (2010) (3 page)

“You really think you’d lose your job? Over
one guest
?”

He did look pitiful sitting there on the cement step like a lump, a cigarette butt stuck to the side of his pants.

“Okay. I’ll do it. But one condition. Not a word about Will. Don’t have Todd bring him up, don’t mention him, don’t
anything.
Understood?”

“Yes! Yes! Anything! Oh, Hailey, thank you so much. I’m sorry I offended you, I’m so stupid.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And I promise, not a word about Will. It’s totally on the up-and-up, nothing but integrity, all about justice, you’ll see. I promise. I give you my word as a producer.”

Hailey paused to take that one in.

“And by the way, I couldn’t help but notice you don’t wear jewelry . . . would you be opposed to slipping on a gold lamé blouse? I keep one in my office. You know . . . a little bling? It’ll look great on camera . . . The viewers will love it!”

He didn’t wait for a response. “And on second thought . . . I’d better
personally
escort you to hair and makeup . . . a little eye shadow wouldn’t hurt a thing . . .”

Hailey shook her head, walking up the stairs ahead of him. She didn’t bother shooting a withering glare at him. It would just roll down the side of his shiny little head, wasted.

But Hailey had her own plans. Ever since she left the courtroom, her life’s mission, since Will’s murder anyway, felt unfinished. Fighting back against what had happened to Will,
to her,
was all she really knew to do. Everything else was just filling time.

Now she had an opportunity to attack the violence, the hurt, and the anger in a new and unexpected way . . . on the airwaves. If someone had told her way back, say in law school, when Will’s murder was still a raw, open wound, that she’d end up on television as an anti-crime crusader, she’d never have believed it.

Violent crime nearly destroyed her. Even now, not a day went by she didn’t feel the acute pain of Will’s murder. She’d already tried the courtroom route. It had worked, one case at a time. She even killed a killer with her own hands, something she tried very hard not to think about.

Could TV, specifically
The Harry Todd Show,
be any worse?

WHO IN THE
HELL
WAS AT THE FRONT DOOR?

The doorbell hadn’t worked in years, and he couldn’t even remember the last time somebody actually knocked on his door. The rapping was firm and insistent. A-holes!

When he first papered the windows, he didn’t realize how thin the
New York Times
really was. Poor quality paper. The
Post
was so much thicker. Bottom line, nobody could see in. He’d punched dozens of tiny holes in the paper with straight pins, then twisted the pin round and round to make perfectly rounded, miniscule peepholes, strategically placed so he could peer out when necessary, but so small they were useless to anyone who wanted to look in. Plus, he planted prickly holly in front of every window, which had grown tall and thick. Let the mothers wade through
that
if they wanted to find out if somebody was home.

He actually thought of taking out one of his guns and shooting straight through the front door. Just blow ’em to hell and back. He could always argue self-defense. He was in his own house, and an intruder was antagonizing him on his own front porch. If he hadn’t duct-taped over the front door peephole, he could get a better look at whoever was standing there, but after reading about reverse peepholes used as spy techniques by the U.S. government, specifically the IRS and the CIA, he beat the Feds at their own game and duct-taped his peephole.

Tiptoeing across the den floor, he avoided every spot he knew made a creaking sound.

Ha! He made it to the front window without a noise. He picked his favorite pinhole, in an article about cancerous food additives in fast-food french fries. The
Times
was always exposing something. They should expose themselves. What a crock of simmering liberal holier-than-thou twits.

Staring hard, he spotted a goldish-brown sedan parked in his front drive.

Cocking his head and looking as far left as he could without shifting locations, he could make out the very bottom of a white short-sleeved shirt. Was it the Amway people?

He took another look, with only one eye at the pinhole, twisting his neck at such an angle it was unnatural. He didn’t want to actually touch the newspaper, so as not to tear it. He could feel his breath hot against the yellowed article on french fries.

Holy crap.
It was
them
again.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Either them or the fricking Amway people. He didn’t want any of their stupid detergent. Plus, last time he’d waved his shotgun at the Amways, so he doubted they’d be back any time soon. More likely the Jehovahs. They didn’t scare easy.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses were a different animal altogether . . . God only knows what it would take to make them go away. He’d either have to sandblast them off the front porch or else answer the door and accept their pamphlets.

Several months ago, two of them caught him coming in with both arms full of groceries and trapped him on the front porch. They kept inching toward the front door, but he held his back to it. They actually made themselves at home on his porch furniture and started pushing their
Awake!
magazine on him.

The very first thing they told him was Michael Jackson had been a member of their congregation. Well, that didn’t go far at all with Francis. True, Jackson was one of the greatest music icons that ever lived, but wasn’t he a junkie? That’s not a very good advertisement for the Jehovahs, but apparently they didn’t agree.

Aside from their refusing to acknowledge birthdays, July Fourth, Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving, the only thing he knew about them was they were against blood transfusions, vaccinations, and all festivities in general.

And of course there was the mandatory door-to-door proselytizing. A mandate of which he was now a victim. How many others had suffered like himself?

Oh yeah, and they were run by an outfit in Brooklyn, New York. That didn’t set well down here on the Bayou. Anything run out of Brooklyn, New York, could kiss his butt.

That very night he’d removed all the patio furniture off the front porch. It was 2 a.m. when he did it, pulling out the hardware where he’d bolted the wicker chairs to the porch’s wooden floor. Without porch furniture to plop down on, the Jehovah’s Witnesses would never get another piece of him.

He didn’t want anybody to see his activities, especially his crab of a neighbor. Gladys Kravitz he called her. From
Bewitched.
Always looking through the fence at him and everything he did since his mother passed away and left him the house. He got sick of her watching him, too. He was convinced she was in league with the Feds, so he welded sheet metal over all the windows on the side of the house that bordered Gladys Kravitz’s yard. Nosey crone.

He looked longingly back at the poster of Leather Stockton at the far end of the long hall running the length of the house. She was posted there at the end of the hall, at eye level so he could talk to her one-on-one whenever he felt like it. He’d just lit a vanilla-scented candle and placed it at her feet. She loved the vanilla-scented candles he bought at Yankee Candle Company. It made the others jealous, so sometimes he’d pick one up for a few of them, specifically his other girlfriend, the wholesome singing star Cassie Lake. Everybody knew Cassie had a jealous streak. He got lilac scent for her and lit it on Fridays. Like date night.

That was Friday. On Tuesdays, he communed with Prentiss Love. He had lots of posters of Love, but his favorite, and the one he had taped to the wall in his bedroom, was her as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. So alluring, but at the same time so wholesome in that little navy blue and silver skirt. Yes, she shot to stardom, but she still looked best in the little cheerleading outfit. His all-American girl.

Wednesdays were reserved for Fallon Malone. Of course, just like everybody else in the country, he’d seen her in her famous screen role where she washed a red Corvette
sans
underwear. But there was so much more to Fallon . . . a heart and soul that only somebody like him could understand. She hurt a lot, he could tell.
Extremely sensitive,
that one. All of her sexual flamboyance was to cover up her pain and self-doubt. If only he had the chance, he could turn her life completely around.

Then there were all the others, but this was Monday and right now, the Jehovahs were keeping him from Leather. She was getting pissed, he could tell. He looked at the poster, glowing goldish in the candlelight. She had that look in her eyes. She was angry he was keeping her waiting.

He hated it when Leather got this way.

Beside the candle, he’d very soon lay the pair of Leather’s underwear he swiped from the Shutters on the Beach Hotel out in Santa Monica. He read how she’d go there, and so he went there and hung out at the hotel pool for four weekends in a row, living out of his car the whole time. Well, technically, it was his mother’s car, but she was dead, anyway.

Finally, on his last day there, Leather came walking out of a cabana and strolled beside the pool heading for the main lobby. He wound his way through all the lounge chairs and drinks sitting there chilling on classy little tables beside the chairs and chaise lounges. He wanted to talk to her, maybe just touch her arm to see what Leather Stockton’s skin felt like.

Was that so wrong?

When he finally got close enough to talk to her, he called out her name.

“Leather . . . Hi! It’s me!”

The guy with her, whose hair, by the way, was obviously styled with hairspray or some related hair product, pushed him back hard in his chest.

He didn’t want to appear uncivilized to Leather, so he didn’t kick the guy in the crotch like he wanted to.

“Hey! Leather! It’s me! I sent you the roses for your birthday last month! The white roses . . . Your favorite! Right?”

She only slightly glanced backwards. The guy just grabbed her elbow from behind and pushed her forward a little forcefully, saying something into the back of her hair.

Francis tried to keep up, but in the process, knocked over one of the little white plastic poolside tables with four frosty little drinks sitting on it. The glasses slid to the cement, splintering into pieces as they made impact.

Idiots!
You should never serve drinks in glass glasses poolside!
Plastic,
people! Plastic! Ever heard of
plastic?

Now, two hotel staffers headed straight for him. One was short and chunky. The other one was tall and lean, his collar loose around his throat. Their black jackets matched each other.

He couldn’t give up this easily . . . He was finally in her presence. Screw the black jackets.

He called after her. “Leather . . .
It’s me!
You sent me the photo of you in the swimsuit . . . Remember? I love it! It’s up on my wall right beside the greatest poster of you I got at Spencer’s.”

“Sir!
Sir!
Can we be of some assistance?”

Closing in on him from behind, the Shutters security guards stepped up, one on each side of him, firmly placing their hands around each of his biceps.

He’d better cool it. He couldn’t afford another arrest. That last stunt back home with the makings for a pipe bomb in the garage nearly landed him in the Federal pen. It was all BS of course, he hadn’t even assembled it. What happened to freedom of speech? That’s what his public defender said.

But now, his mother wasn’t around anymore to bail him out.
There could be no more arrests.
That was one of the last little nuggets of wisdom she shot at him from her deathbed in the hospital.

Old bag.

Assistance?
He managed to keep it together and answer almost normally. “Oh no, assistance will absolutely not be necessary. I’m fine. Just thought I recognized her.”

He saw them exchange glances. Two little snots. They apparently didn’t seem to think he was “fine.”

The short, stocky one piped up. “Sir, in which room are you registered?”

“Actually, I just got here, I hadn’t even stopped in the lobby to register yet.”

Who was he kidding? He’d been here poolside for days, trying to scope out Stockton.

“Sir, do you have any identification on you?”

“Well, not exactly on me, but I do have it in the car. I’ll just go out to the parking lot and get it.”

“Did you valet? We can get that for you . . .”

Hell no, he did not
valet
.

He wasn’t about to part with $25 to have some moron dent his car. His mother kept it in pristine condition for ten full years and he meant to keep it that way, although it was currently covered with a thick coat of dust. That was only because of the long drive out here. He planned to take it to the Minute Car Wash way before Leather got into the front seat with him.

“We’ll just escort you to your car, sir.”

“No need! I can find it.” They could drop the “sir” bull. He knew they were going to have his butt arrested.

“No problem at all.”

S.O.B.s.
They literally walked him off the property and then tagged along the full seven blocks to where he parked the Saturn on the side of a street with no parking meter to worry about.

The “guards” stood by the side of the car as he got in and pretended to shuffle through some papers. Within sixty seconds, he switched on the ignition, floored it and scratched off.

The two must have seen it coming, because they jumped back pretty fast when he gunned the gas. Good thing, or else he might have taken one of their feet with him. Too bad.

Fine. They wouldn’t let him talk to Leather?

He got them good.

That night, after he’d sneaked back onto the property, he watched the cabana he’d seen her come out of earlier . . . It was damn miserable squatted down in a thatch of palmetto bushes. The plant was like a bushel of swords. And the automatic sprinklers had come on, too.

S.O.B.s.

Around 9:30 p.m., he heard the cabana door open and music come floating out from inside. She’d been all alone in there. If he had known for sure she was alone, he’d have gone right in. He saw her step out onto the lighted walkway and leave.

She was a vision, dressed in a beaded, white halter top that looked great against her tan skin and blonde hair, and tight, white pants. He didn’t dare move an inch, crouched there on the wet dirt beneath him, watching her walk away from the cabana. The man from earlier at the pool appeared out of nowhere and walked along beside her. So he wasn’t a boyfriend, he was a bodyguard or else he’d have been inside with her. She was single. In his heart, he’d already known it.

But what about security? They could kiss his ass. Even with the best hotel security, Francis found a way. He waited till the coast was clear and jimmied the lock on a secluded window behind a group of three thick palm trees.

Once inside, he looked around. Leather’s clothes were tossed casually across the bed and one of the chairs, and a hair dryer was lying on a counter next to a tall, silver can of hairspray. A bottle of vodka was beside the bed, with a glass of melting rocks. So she
was
a drinker after all. Probably out of sheer loneliness.

There were the jeans she’d had on earlier at the pool. They were on the floor, as if she’d just stepped out of them. Shoes were everywhere. Who cared if she wasn’t a neatnik? She could learn to be a good wife. He would be patient.

He couldn’t help but stop to just breathe it in. Her perfume was delicious. He couldn’t stop himself. He had to pick up the jeans and rub his face in them. The heady sensation sent tingles up and down his whole body. The touch of her jeans against his face . . . It was so much more than he could ever have imagined. He was overcome with love.

He stopped the sniffing and rubbing when, from beneath lowered lids, he spotted her bed pillow. This was the pillow where Leather Stockton had laid her beautiful face and luxurious hair. There was no other word to describe Leather’s hair than simply luxurious.

The sight of her pillow caused him to take several deep gulps of air. He stared down at it intently and walked toward it carefully, as if it might jump off the bed and run away frightened. Kneeling down on one knee at the top corner of the bed, he leaned in closer to the mattress, looking intently for a strand or two of Leather’s silky hair, but didn’t see any.