Dead Famous

by Carol O'Connell

  Or was it afternoon?

  Johanna turned back to the problem of the spider spinning chaos. It was said by some that the observer influenced the outcome of the thing observed.

  The telephone rang. It was jarring, frightening, this ordinary thing, this common sound. Her answering machine picked up the call. She recognized the voice of a veterinary surgeon reminding her that Mugs’s checkup had been rescheduled. The cat padded toward her and sat down at her feet. Odd, but he seemed unwilling to touch her. Was he sensing something unhealthy in the air—something not quite sane?

  Johanna would not look at the spiderweb again. Half the day had been lost before she rose from her chair and felt the hundred needles of limbs gone to sleep. She walked to the closet to fetch the plastic pet carrier. Even before she pulled it out, the cat was backing into a corner, baring his teeth and hissing the sentiment, No! No way! You can’t put me in there, not again!

  After a cab ride across town and uptown to Sixtieth Street, Johanna and the screaming Mugs entered the animal hospital. Behind the front desk, the teenage receptionist suddenly tensed every muscle in her young body, bracing for a touch of hell in the afternoon. The pet carrier in Johanna’s hand was shaking with rage. And the poor beast’s last howl conveyed the message, I’ll kill you all!

  4

  THE NETWORK’S CONFERENCE ROOM HAD TWO walls of glass, a fabulous view that only obscene amounts of money could buy, and entirely too much light, though, during the daylight hours, Ian Zachary saw everything through the darkest of polarized lenses. He sat down at the head of a table lined with chairs to accommodate thirty media executives. He sat alone.

  The producer of the shock-radio program had not arrived, but then Needleman never showed up for staff meetings. Yet Zachary continued to attend each week, lured here by the prospect of finally meeting the invisible man. Beyond the idiosyncrasy of extreme shyness, he could find no fault with the producer. This one was the best of the best, seducing guests with promises that their reputations would not be destroyed on the radio, promises never kept. So far, the man’s only failure was Johanna Apollo.

  Zachary’s personal slave, the most recent in a long line of disposable employees, entered the room carrying a covered tray. She wore a secretive smile as she set it down before him. And there were other warning signs. The girl had not combed her hair today, but that was only mildly interesting. It appeared that she had misplaced her shoes, for she was walking barefoot through corporate America. And were those the same clothes she had worn last night? Yes. He smiled with genuine affection for her, his best find in months. It was a pity that she could not last much longer. His genius lay in the ability to spot fracture lines in a damaged psyche. He had known what she was on the day of her hire; he had seen it in her eyes, a bit too wide, too bright. The less astute personnel director had mistaken the girl’s manic chatter for enthusiasm.

  Her smile turned ghoulish as she lifted the silver tray cover to reveal a generous serving of steak tartare. “Mr. Needleman said this was your favorite.”

  “My producer? You talked to him?”

  “Yeah, he called me this morning.” She sat down at the table and lowered her head until her nose was only inches from his food, then watched his plate with great concentration.

  “The bastard never calls me.” And now he also stared at his lunch. “So you pissed on it, right?” When she raised her face to his, he saw deep disappointment in her eyes. “Sorry.” He pushed the tray away. “I spoiled your fun.”

  She rallied with a triumphant smile. “Mr. Needleman gave me the call-in figures for last night. He said the listener response was over the moon.”

  Evidently, the producer had also told her that she was the inspiration for most of those calls. The fans had wanted to know if she had been fired or not, for the show had ended abruptly with the last caller’s find of a live juror in Manhattan. Bless Randy of SoHo. Whenever the juror death rate remained stagnant for too long, Zachary worried that the game would become stale, that he would lose the high ratings of his shock-radio audience. Sometimes he had to skate by on his talent for torturing the hired help. The sound engineer had proved a huge success as his new whipping girl, and she knew it.

  “So now you think you’re bulletproof, don’t you, babe?” He shook his head. “No way.” He could kill her with words any time he wanted to. She would break and fold before tonight’s show was over. Or maybe not.

  The girl picked up a fork and began to eat the red meat, which obviously had not been pissed on. “Jerk-off,” she said.

  And his new term of endearment for her was “You crazy bitch.”

  She looked up from the lunch plate, responding to this name, and grinned as another thought occurred to her. “That window in my booth, is that bulletproof?”

  “Absolutely unbreakable.” Zachary had insisted upon that specification before he would sign with the New York media giant. Thick glass on the booth windows was a necessary precaution, a lesson learned the hard way when his show had been based in Chicago. One memorable night in his old studio, the security door had held up through a pounding—but the engineer’s window had not. A crazed woman had broken the glass to get at him. She had nearly bled to death, clumsy fool, after cutting herself on the shards. And all the while, he had taped a play-by-play account of the action to the rhythm of a security guard banging on his door. The ambulance crew had provided the climax, asking for Zachary’s autograph while strapping a bleeding woman to a gurney bound for a hospital psychiatric ward.

  His most current crazy bitch was stuffing food in her mouth with her fingers. The concept of silverware was quite beyond her now.

  “Maybe I’ll take over the show,” she said, “when they take you off the air.”

  “They? Who? The FCC?” He shrugged. “They can try.”

  In fact, lately he had wondered why they did not try harder. He missed his daily visits from frustrated bureaucrats who had failed to shut him down. Perhaps they were afraid of more formidable attorneys. Or had they simply tired of losing every legal action to the American Civil Liberties Union?

  “Maybe the network will get rid of you,” she said. “Sooner or later, somebody’s going to sue you for—”

  “I get sued all the time.” He leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, warming to his favorite subject. “Usually it’s the outraged relatives of dead jurors, looking to make some fast cash. The network accountants crunched the numbers. Given the current advertising revenues coast to coast, it’s cheaper to pay off the families.”

  “Then the Reaper will get you.”

  “Oh, I doubt it. He couldn’t find the jurors without me and my fans. He’s probably my most loyal listener.”

  “What if he’s saving you for last?”

  He nodded, as if considering this. In reality, he was wondering why her cognitive reasoning remained unimpaired, and he made a mental note to work on that.

  “If you die,” she said, “I could be your replacement. I could be bigger than you.”

  “Well, you can dream.” Zack smiled at his newest candidate for induced psychosis. He had to admire her stamina. She was the only one who had remained with him after that moment when her mind had gone elsewhere. “You crazy bitch.”

  Johanna Apollo almost dropped the pet carrier. Kathy Mallory was a jarring sight on any occasion, but this was such a gross invasion. The uninvited visitor stood at the end of the narrow foyer, somewhat annoyed by Johanna’s intrusion into her own hotel suite.

  Riker appeared at the young woman’s side. “Hey, Jo.”

  Johanna entered the living room and set the pet carrier on the floor at her feet. “How did you two get in here?”

  “Same way we got into this thing.” Riker stood before her open armoire and nodded to the tall blonde. “She has a way with locks.”

  Mallory strode toward the front door, causing Johanna to move out of the way or be trod upon. One foot in the outer hall, the younger woman’s face was turned toward the glass doo
r that gave a view of the elevator. She called back over one shoulder, “Hurry it up. We’ve only got a few minutes.”

  “Get out now,” yelled Riker.

  “I’ll call from the lobby.” Mallory dropped a cell phone and kicked it to the end of the foyer, and then the door closed behind her.

  Riker picked up the phone and pocketed it, then resumed his chore of ransacking the armoire. Johanna stared at the empty shelves and cubbyholes. Her red suitcase lay open on the floor, and it was filled with file holders and loose papers. She was being robbed.

  “I didn’t have time to wait for you, Jo. I’m one jump ahead of the cops.”

  “But Mallory’s a cop. You’re a cop.”

  “Not anymore. They pensioned me off.” He pulled out a drawer and upended it, sending the contents into the suitcase. “And Mallory was never here. Remember that, Jo—when Flynn comes.”

  After replacing the drawer, he hit the wood hard with the heel of his palm to bang it shut, then moved on to the next one. She could not tell if this was done in anger. For as long as she had known him, he had slammed every drawer and door, though that quirk did not fit with his easygoing nature. This was a man with a great deal of unresolved anger, and he no doubt believed that he was hiding it well.

  “If you’ve got anything else that’s incriminating,” he said, “go get it. I have to take it out of here before—”

  “Incriminating? You can’t believe I—”

  “Jo, if I was still a cop, I’d lock you up—right now!” He hunkered down to open the bottom drawer filled with wine bottles, all the same vintner, the same year. This was Timothy Kidd’s drawer. Riker looked up at her. “Is the hotel maid pilfering your bottles?”

  “Something like that.” It was nothing like that, but only now did she see her error, and it was too late to call the words back.

  Riker’s eyes strayed to the wine rack on the other side of the room. He had once commented on the high cost of her vintages, for the price labels had never been removed, and now he was checking the stickers on the bottles in the drawer, a lesser wine trove than the one in plain sight and reach of the hotel staff. Gallant man, he never called her on that lie. He simply closed the drawer on the wine, then dropped Timothy’s file into the suitcase. “The cops got a warrant to search your rooms.”

  “Since when does an innocent bystander—”

  “They upgraded you to a suspect.” He closed the suitcase and stood up, the better to scrutinize her face, perhaps looking there for tells of guilt. “This is what Flynn told the judge who signed the warrant. Back in Chicago, you destroyed evidence before the cops could secure the scene of another homicide—same cause of death, same weapon he found this morning at the playground.” He was staring at the contents of her suitcase. “And now it looks like murder is a hobby with you.” Riker leaned down and picked up a newspaper clipping for one of the Reaper’s kills. “If Flynn saw this, he’d put you in a lockup. Oh, and he knows you’re not on good terms with Bunny’s lawyer, but that was my lie, not yours. So just say as little as possible. Don’t give him a reason to arrest you.” He turned back to the gutted armoire. “Get me some stuff to put in this closet.”

  She understood. Her rooms should not have the appearance of hastily removed evidence, and now she helped him load in papers and items from other drawers in the kitchen and her bedroom. When they were done, the armoire had the messy look of a catchall closet that had not been recently disturbed.

  “Is there anything else in this apartment? Anything Flynn shouldn’t see?” He stared at her, and she wondered if he knew she was holding out on him. It was so hard to tell with Riker. Suspicion was built into the very shape of his eyes.

  “Jo, there’s nothing you can hide from a police search. The toilet tank, the light fixture, stuff taped behind a drawer—they know every damn hiding place.”

  Johanna glanced at the cat’s pillow basket, a hiding place that would only be secure while the cat was loose. “No,” she lied. “There’s nothing else.”

  He looked down at the growling pet carrier that was rocking in place on the floor. “Keep Mugs locked up. Flynn might get pissed off and shoot him.” The cell phone beeped in Riker’s pocket. “That’s Mallory. They’re coming, Jo. Take a deep breath and try to act surprised, okay?” He picked up the red suitcase and crossed over the threshold.

  Johanna put out one hand to prevent him from slamming the door. “Riker? Why take the risk? If you get caught with . . .” Her words trailed off as he passed through the fire door leading to the staircase and the elevators. He was taking her on faith and going against his old religion of a police.

  Riker disappeared down the stairs as the elevator opened. Johanna quickly closed the door to her suite, then released Mugs from the pet carrier. She rushed to the cat’s basket and unzipped the pillowcase. Reaching toward the back of the pillow, she retrieved a packet of letters and concealed them in her jacket pocket.

  The knock at the door was a bang, bang, bang. A man’s voice yelled, “Police! Open up!”

  Mugs waited to greet them, scratching the rug, warming up to shed some blood. The cat had had a bad day at the animal hospital, and the next one to enter this room would pay for that. Johanna cracked the door by a few inches, and the cat’s front paws slipped into that narrow opening to snag anything within reach.

  Detective Flynn stared at the frenzied animal. “Let’s do something about the cat, okay?”

  “I have to get my gloves,” said Johanna, as Mugs desperately tried to widen the crack in the door so he could maul his first pair of pant legs. “Unless—you’d rather—”

  “Make it fast.”

  She held the door shut with one shoe as she donned a pair of gloves from her pocket. She picked up the cat, minding the place along his spine that caused him pain. “You can come in now.”

  Flynn opened the door wide, and Mugs growled.

  “I’ll just put him in the pet carrier,” said Johanna.

  “That can wait, Doctor.” Flynn entered the room leading a parade of three men in suits and a woman in uniform.

  The detective handed her a photograph, and Johanna looked down at the image of herself at the playground in the company of police.

  “Bunny’s social worker identified your picture,” said Flynn. “She told us you were the psychiatrist who recommended Bunny’s hospitalization and surgery. Odd you never mentioned that when I questioned you.”

  “I was upset. I didn’t—”

  “The social worker says you used the same alias you gave us—Josephine Richards. But we couldn’t find any shrinks by that name. So we pulled your prints from the playground bench. That’s how we tracked you down to Chicago. Those cops remember you very well, Doctor—you and that dead FBI agent. But they call you Johanna Apollo.” And now for his finale, there was a flourish of folded papers as Flynn handed her a search warrant.

  She stared at this document, all too familiar from past experience with the Chicago police. “Can I put the cat away before you start?”

  “Not yet.” Flynn nodded to another man. “Check that thing out.”

  The younger man walked over to the pet carrier and turned it upside down to shake it. After a look inside, he pronounced it “Clean. No false bottom.”

  Mugs leaped out of Johanna’s arms, but he did not attack. Perhaps the cat was overwhelmed by this embarrassment of riches, so many potential victims in one place. He stood beside her, eyeing the company of police as they spread across the room, pulling out drawers and sofa cushions. His ears flattened back, and he showed every sharp tooth in his mouth when he hissed.

  “Mugs, it’s all right,” she said, then read the warrant with some relief. It included no search of her person, no discovery of the letters in her jacket.

  “Mugs,” said the female officer. “That’s his name?”

  “Yes.” Johanna turned to look at the other woman’s sensible black shoes, tightly laced and double knotted beneath the cuffs of uniform trousers. “It’s short for Hugge
rmugger.” And now she looked up to the young face beneath the tri-cornered cap.

  The police officer hunkered down for a closer look at the animal, not minding the warning of the arched back and bristling fur. This woman was definitely a cat person, for she engaged the animal’s eyes, then imitated his slow blink. Mugs began to purr as he walked toward her. “Huggermugger. Cute name.”

  “More like a warning. Don’t—”

  “It’s all right. Cats like me.” Mugs rubbed up against the woman’s thigh, then turned on her, biting her hand and drawing blood.

  Johanna gathered up the cat before it could make another strike. “Sorry, so sorry.”

  “What the hell’s wrong with him?” The policewoman was staring at the holes in her flesh as they pooled up with blood.

  “Old nerve damage.” Johanna pushed the cat inside the plastic pet carrier, using both gloved hands to corral the whirl-wind of fur and flying claws that tried to prevent the door from closing. The cat’s small face appeared at the wire window of his jail. Mugs growled as loud as any dog. Johanna glanced at the woman’s injured hand. “I can fix that for you.” She led the wounded officer into the bathroom. “This won’t take long.”

  As she opened a cupboard below the sink, Johanna listened to the activity in the next room, sounds of drawers opening, objects hitting the floor, the cat alternately growling, hissing and screaming. She pulled out her first aid kit and found the bottle of antiseptic. “This might sting.” She took the officer’s hand in hers and irrigated the tiny holes. “These tooth marks aren’t deep. There won’t be any scars.” When she was done with the bandaging, she reached into the back of the closet where she kept a physician’s gladstone bag. Inside it she found a block of paper, each page bearing the medical icon of a caduceus beneath her name. “I’m prescribing a topical antibiotic and another one in pill form. Animal bites are easily infected.” Done writing, she tore off the two sheets and handed them to the officer.