Slashing Mona Lisa

by D. M. Barr

  “We trust you will keep our confidence. No one else knows, and we’d like to keep it that way, for now,” added Mangel.

  I bet you do. Wouldn’t do for any of the other girls to find out, would it? No matter how she tried to trust Mangel, that cynical, distrustful, little voice kept popping into her brain. Well, Mr. Mangel, your ‘prey-dar’ is off the mark this time. I’m immune to your charms.

  “Of course I will. Thank you for trusting me.”

  April came over and whispered into Mangel’s ear.

  “Ms. Torres, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. Pressing business. But I do so look forward to our chat on Sunday.” He reached out to shake her hand again, but this time, he squeezed it tightly, and for a moment longer than necessary.

  Then April led him away, leaving her with Maria. Perfect.

  “Maria, I’m so happy for your engagement! How wonderful, and how romantic, traveling together from city to city.” If she was the one killing off fat shamers around the country, it would be good to know now.

  “I wish. That would be wonderful. But I have a sick mother back in Atlanta on dialysis. I fly in occasionally to address the crowds, but it depends on whenever I can arrange for my sister to take over for me at home.”

  “So…I’m confused. I thought you worked for Terry.”

  “Oh, I do. I work on the website. I can do that remotely. I expect that once we get married, I’ll join the caravan. Though what I really hope is that he’ll settle down, give up the tour. I’ve been trying to convince him that he can reach more people with webinars. I don’t know why he’s so opposed to preaching on YouTube. He’d reach so many more people.”

  And sell far less merchandise.

  “How often do you join the tour and address the audience?”

  “Oh, only occasionally. Though—” She lowered her voice again and pointed to her stomach. “I’m incubating a little Mangel, if you know what I mean. I don’t think I’ll be doing any more flying after another few months.”

  Ah, so Terry had to say he’d marry you. Interesting. Was that what precipitated the earlier show of tears?

  Disappointed that her sporadic revival attendance meant that Cam had to cross Maria off her list of potential suspects, she decided to press her luck, gain more insight into the personal side of Mangel.

  “It must be very difficult for you, with Terry on the road, surrounded by all these women, throwing themselves at him.”

  “I know what you’re thinking—men will be men. But Terry’s different. They might flirt with him during the revival, but at night, I’m the one he calls and pours his heart out to. I’m the one who will be standing next to him at the chapel—Mrs. Terry Mangel.” She lifted her hand and pointed around the room. “Let them all eat their hearts out. He’s mine.”

  Camarin snuck a glance across the tent at the evangelist, charming his minions, including a portly couple, their arms laden down with ‘Mangelphenalia.’ April was standing by his side, about two inches too close to make a convincing case for a purely professional relationship. Exactly what magical blinders was Maria wearing?

  April caught her eye and raised a finger. She walked over to the side of the tent and returned carrying a Feel Good About Yourself tote bag, teeming with lovely parting gifts. “I’ve got some background information about Terry in here, along with his entire inventory of our goodies, including a price list. I’m sure you’d want to include a review of these items with your story, right?”

  Subtle. Camarin flashed her best attempt at a genuine smile as April led her to the tent’s exit flap.

  “I’ve set some time aside at five PM tomorrow, as we discussed, and I’m still checking around for anyone else who’s interested in being interviewed for your story.”

  “I’ll be here. I think this is going to be an article that every one of our readers will be thrilled to read.” And as she walked away, she added under her breath, “Especially the officers dressed in blue.”

  Chapter 23

  On Saturday morning, Fletcher tossed back two extra-strength Excedrin as he continued to search for answers, care of Google and his Dell Inspiron. What had given Camarin cause to visit the revival? How did she uncover the connection between Mangel and the Blubber Be Gone murder? And why would she take off and investigate without consulting with him first? He’d specifically told her not to research anywhere but online.

  Perhaps that was the answer—she couldn’t consult him without risking being dressed down by the boss. He wanted to kick himself for ever encouraging her to pursue the BBG story in any capacity, virtually or otherwise.

  He was well aware of the extent of Terry’s empire, as well as the conglomerate that backed his manufacturing and got a cut of all sales. He had his own plans for Mangel—but better to attack when he was fully prepared. Then he would dislodge the Lehming Brothers wall of commerce brick by brick until the whole thing toppled over, and Margaret was finally avenged. Why did Camarin have to involve herself, especially now?

  He looked past the hard sell on the Feel Good About Yourself website, searching instead for the address of the evening’s meeting. Instead of the fundraising dinner he’d originally planned, now he had to go down to Fairmount Park and crash the revival. Make sure Camarin was okay, hadn’t gotten in over her head. What to do after that, he hadn’t a clue. As long as she didn’t see him. That was key. If she thought he was hovering over her, doubting her skills or her motives, that could be the end of everything between them.

  If his calculations were correct, she’d be chugging down to Washington around now, off to cover the Perri Evans interview he’d pulled so many strings to procure. The comeback story of the year. It had seemed like such a promising idea at the time, something to keep her mind off the murder she was so hot to investigate. Why couldn’t that have been enough for her? A reason to drop the sleuthing and still crusade for the maltreated, their common bond. One day he would make her understand that deep down they were soulmates. But only if he could keep her safe long enough to listen. And if he could recapture his own soul, the one he’d blindly lost to the gods of revenge.

  * * * *

  Camarin arrived at the Hay Adams Hotel at exactly one PM. If the interview took only an hour, she could make it back to the station by two-thirty, travel the two hours back to Philly, and return to the revival in time for her late-afternoon interviews. That was if everything went like clockwork. She walked up to the concierge and asked for Perri Evans. He rang, announced her arrival, and then sent her up to the penthouse suite. Perri was living high on the proverbial hog.

  Three knocks, no answer. Camarin bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, anxiously waiting for her idol to answer. After another three knocks, the door finally opened.

  She gasped, unable to hide her surprise. Perri Evans, the young woman who made it to the pinnacle of success wearing a size twenty-eight dress and symbolically telling the judgmental world Up yours! was staring back at her, looking haggard and anorexic in a wrap-style, silk dress. She took a deep drag on her cigarette and gave Camarin the once-over.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting. I was putting myself together.” Her voice, famous for its hillbilly twang, now sounded coarse and raspy, as though she’d smoked one pack too many. It was hard to believe she was still in her twenties.

  “No problem.” She held out her hand. “Camarin Torres. So happy to meet you.”

  Evans ignored the offer of a handshake and waved her inside. “I won’t lie to you. They’re making me do this interview. Said they wouldn’t release my album if I didn’t promote it at least once to the press. Make no mistake—I’m doing this under duress.”

  “Well, it’s a lovely duress, if it makes you feel any better.” Camarin winced at her own bad joke. Anything to break the ice.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” She slumped down on an easy chair, dress falling slightly open, revealing half a sagging breast.

  “Not from the looks of it, no.” Camarin sat on the couch opposite, deter
mined to win the singer over. “But I must tell you, I’ve been a fan of yours from way back. Even before American Dynamo. And the reason was—aside from your amazing voice—you were so secure in your own skin. You didn’t conform to what people expected, and I respected you for it.”

  “And so, your unspoken question is, what fucking happened, right?”

  “Between you and me, totally off the record, yeah.”

  “Twats like you happened, that’s what.”

  Camarin opened her mouth to protest, but Evans kept right on talking.

  “Not you personally, of course, but all you fucking journalists and critics. All telling me what a great voice I had, if only I’d lose the weight. Contest winner or not, the record company refused to sign me if I didn’t drop two hundred pounds. So that’s what I did. But what I should have done was just release the songs over the internet like everyone else. Fuck the record companies. Fuck the critics. Plenty of people do just fine selling direct on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube. But stupid me, I believed my agent. Conveniently forgetting that if I released directly, she’d get nothing. Zilch. Lesson learned.”

  She glared at Camarin with daggers in her eyes.

  “You know what really kills me though?”

  Camarin shook her head, dumbstruck by the singer’s wrath. Journalist or not, she was the last person who deserved Evans’s contempt. More than anyone, she understood the injustice of having to lose weight to be socially accepted.

  “I beat out thousands of other singers to compete in that contest, and fuck if I didn’t win. I sang my heart out on national television in front of millions of viewers. And now, all that anyone at home can talk about is the weight loss. How did I do it? Doesn’t everything seem better thin? People who didn’t give me the time of day before, even with the TV show, are all nice to me now, like sugar wouldn’t melt in their mouths. Fuck ’em all.”

  Evans punched her fist in the air, causing her sleeve to slip back, revealing bare arms ravaged by track marks. There was one question answered—how the singer had lost all that weight. Heroin was a powerful appetite suppressant, at least based on what Camarin had heard. Apparently, Evans hadn’t kicked the habit for good.

  “You want a drink? Mini-bar’s yours. My apology for being such a goddamned disappointment.”

  Camarin knew she had three choices here: join Evans in her despair and drink herself blotto, pick herself up and leave, or the choice she decided on—get her story. “I’m good, thanks. The thing is, no matter what your size, I want to hear about the album. I want to know what you were thinking when you wrote the songs and what you hoped to convey to the listeners who buy it.”

  “You for real? You listening to anything I said? The album sucks. I suck. But at least I’ll be skinny when I read the one-star reviews. ‘Uninspired lyrics, tone-deaf delivery, but what an ass she’s got on her now.’”

  Camarin remained tongue-tied, Evans’s self-denigrating remarks evoking snippets from her childhood with Monaeka to flash before her. Skipping shopping trips with school friends, because they wouldn’t want to be dragged to the plus section at Macy’s. Turning down an invitation to go horseback riding, because the mare might not be able to handle the excess weight. Always an excuse, a refusal to meet life head-on until ‘someday’ when the scale read a more acceptable number.

  Maybe Mangel and his followers had exerted more influence on Camarin than she previously realized, but she couldn’t endure another moment of Evans’s defeatism.

  “That’s it. I’m done.” She stood up, ignoring the singer’s scowl. “If you want to wallow in self-pity, that’s up to you. But I’m not leaving until you hear what I have to say. The world isn’t fair. We all make mistakes. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again. In your case, lay off the drugs, eat every piece of cake you want, fuck the critics, and believe in your own musical instincts.”

  She felt the blood surging through her veins, her heart beating a million miles a minute. She was shocked by her own audacity, telling off a woman she’d once admired. Evans just looked at her, mouth ajar. She’d gone this far, no reason to stop before completing her speech.

  “I spent last night in Philadelphia covering Terry Mangel’s Feel Good About Yourself revival, and I’m going back there tonight. I can’t believe I’m recommending it to anyone—Terry Mangel, in my opinion, is a greedy manipulator—but listening to his followers talk about how they lifted themselves up and made something of themselves would do you a world of good. If you like, I’ll bring you with me. My treat. There’s even an extra bed at my Airbnb. What do you say?”

  Camarin waited for Evans’s response, shaking with emotion, proud to have stood her ground. Evans remained silent, drawing her knees up to her chest and embracing them, rocking back and forth. Finally, she looked up, eyes bright with resolve.

  “Do you know what I think? You come in here, my first interview in years, and have the nerve to bully me, lecture me, to tell me how to live my life. How dare you. Get out. Get out now before I call security.”

  Evans’s words hit Camarin hard, not because of the singer’s indignation or the lack of a meaningful interview, but because despite her passion, logic, and determination, she couldn’t break through. Nothing she said had made a dent.

  Camarin hung her head, utterly defeated, and sulked her way into the foyer. “I’m sorry,” she said, staring at the doorknob. “I wished I could have been there when you needed me, Monaeka. Maybe I could have saved you. But nothing can save you from yourself now.”

  “Who the fuck is Monaeka?”

  Camarin didn’t respond. Physically, she was already in the elevator, pressing the button for the ground floor. Mentally, she was visualizing a graveyard filled with tombstones which all read Dying to be Skinny. All people who had put off living until thin set it, only to realize—when it was too late—that they had sacrificed happiness to please an army of faceless nobodies named ‘society’ who really didn’t give a damn about them.

  And hadn’t she been equally as uncaring toward her twin, her other half? Her cross-country move may have divided her from Monaeka temporarily. But the mounds of dirt the undertakers slowly shoveled onto her grave had turned that separation into forever.

  Chapter 24

  By the time Camarin arrived back at Fairmount Park later that afternoon, she had banished her ghosts, at least temporarily, and was eager for the evening ahead. If she couldn’t rescue Perri Evans, at least she could prevent the future deaths of countless weight-loss advocates if she asked the right questions tonight and trusted her instincts. While it was hard to overlook the irony, since she and the killer were at least philosophically on the same page, there was a right way to defeat fat prejudice, and then there was the murderer’s way. Maybe Mangel was right—maybe the answer really was love.

  It was amazing how much prep work went into making the revival look seamless. Behind the scenes, the makeshift arena was a madhouse, people hanging huge banners, stocking the sales counters with t-shirts and other tchotchkes, laying out the beginnings of another massive post-event feast.

  She spotted April Lowery by the cashier in the administrative tent, a roll of admission tickets in her hands. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” she called out, “as soon as I finish putting out a fire or two.”

  Camarin strolled by the buffet table, already stocked with sustenance for the roadies and the setup crew. She was so tempted to grab a churro, just a quick, late-afternoon pick-me-up. Then she touched her fingers to her tummy and thought better of it.

  “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” said the public relations director, all smiles after wrapping up her prep work and seemingly eager to claim some of the spotlight for herself. “Let’s go to my trailer where it’s a bit quieter and we can hear ourselves think.”

  April led her out of the tent and to the parking lot, where several massive busses housed the team when offstage.

  “I share this with some of the other senior staff, but they’re off doing sound checks,
so we should have some privacy.”

  “How long will we have before any of the others arrive?”

  “Others? Oh…oh, no, it’s just me. I asked again and the other ladies…reconsidered. Wanted to keep a low profile, you know?”

  “That’s okay. I completely understand,” Camarin said, all the while wondering if April wanted to keep the focus on herself or was worried that some of the others might say something untoward about Mangel.

  If any of his followers were naïve enough to believe that Mangel ran a non-profit organization, the inside of April’s trailer would have instantly set them straight. Everything screamed luxury, from the swiveling, black-leather recliners and side tables at the front, to four oversized bunk beds, piled high with decorative pillows to the rear. They settled down opposite each other in a diner-style booth across from the one-wall kitchen.

  “Would you like something to eat or drink?” April asked. “We’ve got plenty to spare.”

  “No, I’m good. You don’t mind if I record this, do you?” she asked, pulling out her smartphone. “I like to give people my full attention, not just scribble notes onto a pad.”

  “No, that’s fine,” said April, but her body language told a different story. She squirmed uneasily in her seat as Camarin hit record and left the phone in the middle of the table.

  “Tell me, how was it that you joined up with Terry in the first place?”

  The public relations director grew a bit dreamy-eyed as she reflected. “A few years ago, I was living in Tampa, alone, just another divorcee in her mid-thirties, working at this dead-end clerical job. My ex-husband? He nicknamed me Tonsils. ‘She started out small,’ he’d tell his moron friends, ‘but once she swelled up, I had to have her removed.’ Big laughs, all at my expense.”