by Elaine Viets
Helen had refused to go naked this time. She couldn’t take off her shirt again, no matter how she rationalized it. Instead, she’d come up with a good way to keep her clothes on. At least, she’d thought so back at the Coronado.
Now that she was sliding along a dark corridor in the depths of the Mowbry mansion, Helen wasn’t so sure. It was midnight. Somewhere, a clock bonged twelve gloomy notes.
Black shadows stretched down the corridor. She could hear party laughter, but the sound was distorted. It sounded demonic. She was afraid the boredom underneath it would suck her bones dry.
Helen counted at least six doors on the long corridor.
About half opened onto lighted rooms. The rest were dark.
She didn’t know which looked more ominous.
It had been easy to find out when the next charity orgy was. She’d called Steve for a bartending job. “I could use you tomorrow night,” he’d said. “Wanna work? I hear you were a hit with a certain guest.”
“He was pretty cute,” Helen said. Cute? Where did that come from? What was this, high school? “But I’m booked tomorrow night.”
“Suit yourself,” Steve said, his voice like a slap. “Don’t call again unless you want to work.”
That was Steve, always ready with a threat or a putdown.
She was glad she’d never work his parties again, even if they paid obscenely well.
It was also easy to find the clothes for her disguise. Helen had a pair of beige khaki pants in her closet and sensible shoes from another dead-end job. She borrowed a khaki work shirt from Margery. It had BILLY sewn on the pocket.
She knew better than to ask her landlady who Billy was.
All she needed to complete her scam was a toolbox. She used the gray metal box she kept under the kitchen sink. No one would know it held only a hammer with a duct-taped handle, a screwdriver and rusty pliers. She added enough cash for a water-taxi ticket, so she wouldn’t have to carry her wallet. While she was rooting around in her purse, Helen found the can of oven cleaner she’d confiscated from Savannah and threw that in. She might need it for protection.
In her pocket was the envelope with the rest of Fred and Ethel’s metal slivers. They were going on a final fraudulent mission.
“What in hell’s name do you think you’re doing?”
Helen nearly dropped the toolbox. She recognized that bullying bark. It was Steve. She froze against the wall, hoping the shadows would hide her, knowing they wouldn’t.
I’m caught, she thought. He’ll see the toolbox and think I’m a jewel thief or something. I’ll spend the night getting cavity-searched at the city jail.
“I told you before,” Steve said, “Wedges and peels. Wedges and peels. We don’t use lemon slices at a service bar. The limes are wedges. The lemons are peels. Always. Only. Why can’t you get that through your thick head?”
Steve was screaming at some hapless bartender.
The door to the next room was partly open. Helen caught a glimpse of a bare-chested blonde and a red-faced Steve.
The bullied blonde cringed against a supply rack as Steve whipped her with his words. Helen felt sorry for the woman, but she had to get past that open door.
Don’t stop yelling now, she thought, as she sidled past the doorway. But Steve didn’t see her. He was too busy badgering the bartender.
Helen almost made it when her toolbox banged against the doorframe with a loud clunk.
“Who’s there?” Steve said.
Helen ducked into the next open door, one of the dark ones, and bumped against someone. “Sorry,” she whispered.
No answer. She could feel hard, pointed breasts jutting into her back. This woman was packing serious silicone.
Why didn’t she say anything? Was this another kinky game?
Steve went back to verbally beating the bartender. He’d forgotten about the noise.
Helen’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. She was in a closet. She could see brooms, mops and buckets. Her back was pressed against a strange woman’s chest. A woman who wasn’t talking. Helen was afraid to turn around, in case she knocked over something noisy. She carefully moved her hand back a few inches. She felt a leg. In black leather. It seemed lifeless and rigid.
The hair went up on the back of Helen’s neck. Was she in a closet with a dead body? Helen stepped back and hit something metal with her foot. It felt like... a stand.
Helen almost giggled. She was up against a department-store dummy. There’s another big dummy in here, she thought. Dead body, indeed. I should know better. A real leg doesn’t feel like that.
Helen wondered what the Mowbrys were doing with a dummy, and decided she didn’t want to know. By the time she could breathe normally, Steve and the freshly battered bartender were gone. Helen started down the hall again, keeping her toolbox away from the wall. The corridor stretched endlessly. How long was it? She’d taken shorter walks down Las Olas Boulevard. Her neck and shoulder muscles ached from tension. The toolbox weighed a thousand pounds.
Three more doors to go. She scooted past another one, then saw that the next opening wasn’t a door. It was a window. What did her mother always say? God didn’t close a door without opening a window. Helen had had a roommate like that. It was annoying.
This window was at least seven feet high and gave Helen a good view of the pool area. She leaned out the open win-dow and looked down on the party. From this height, the writhing couples in and around the pool were white and wormlike. She recognized a few. Mr. Shamrock Shorts was pawing another waitress.
Helen was relieved she didn’t see Patricia Wellneck, theme funeral planner. She wondered if Patricia had ever buried any of her surgeon husband’s mistakes. She was even happier to see no sign of the boiler-room reptile, Mr. Cavarelli.
But she did spot Phil, with his shining silver-white hair and black jacket. He was talking to the real estate dealer in the La Perla panties. Tonight, she was wearing a hot-pink thong. Ms. Realtor kept rubbing Phil’s arm like she was releasing a genie from a bottle. Phil had his hands wrapped around a beer, but he was smiling at the little—Helen heard a noise. She saw a semi-naked couple walking down the far end of the hall. The woman’s high heels clicked on the floor. The man padded alongside her barefoot.
They seemed to see only each other, but Helen wasn’t taking any chances. She streaked down the corridor and shot around the corner.
At last. There were the mahogany doors with the dancing dragons and demons. She’d reached the back room. The gold knobs gleamed in the shadows.
Helen opened the double doors. The blackness drew her in.
She saw the ebony casket, surrounded by flickering flames and white flowers. It held a pale woman in a white lace dress, with hair like a dandelion. Helen didn’t recognize her. Good. Kristi must have left town. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about that young fool.
Helen’s ordeal was almost over. Once she had her hands on Laredo’s computer disk, her job was done. She’d turn it over to Phil. He’d give it to the authorities. Helen would be free.
All she had to do was find the disk.
Helen saw something else now in the wavering light. A naked man was fingering the undead corpse’s lily bouquet.
The dandelion blonde regarded him with absolute ennui. The man had to be dead to miss it. But he did. He also didn’t see Helen. The blonde didn’t care.
Helen reached into her pocket for Fred and Ethel’s metal slivers. She moved her hand along the edge of the casket and left a trail of metal bits.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I need to check this casket. Routine maintenance.”
“What?” the guy said. “Beat it. We’re busy.”
“You’re going to be on the floor at the crucial moment, buddy, if you don’t let me fix this. See the problem?” Helen pointed to the metal. “This coffin’s coming apart. I can fix it with a simple adjustment.” She showed him the toolbox.
The blonde looked frightened—the first emotion Helen had seen on that dea
d-white face. Her lipstick was a bloody slash. Maybe she saw herself in a casket for real.
“Come on, sweetie, it will just take a minute.” The blonde sounded like a nanny with a balky toddler. “Help me out of here.” She thrust her lacy bosom against his bare chest. It was too much for him to resist. He did the manly thing and helped her out of the casket. The blonde rolled her eyes at Helen when his back was turned.
“Thank you,” Helen said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Nice set of tools, Billy,” leered the corpse-lover, eying Helen’s khaki chest. In this crowd, clothes were a perversion.
The dandelion blonde led her man into the blackness. She was having trouble keeping her dress on with that slit up the back.
Helen checked the coffin mattress first. It felt thin as a sofa bed. Helen hoped it was comfortable for the corpse. It would be hell to spend eternity in the guest room. She found no disk in the mattress. There were no slits in it, either.
The sides of the coffin were lined with pleated white satin.
Helen wondered if she’d be able to feel the disk through the thick fabric. She kneaded it like bread dough. She massaged the coffin innards all the way down the long side and didn’t find anything. She was about halfway around the head end when she felt something flat and square. Helen leaned over for a closer look. In the dim candlelight, she saw a slit along a pleat. She stuck her hand in and slid out a red plastic computer disk.
She had it.
Helen took a deep breath. The worst was over.
“What are you doing? What’s that in your hand?” The voice cut like a knife.
Helen slowly turned. She recognized the face from the society pages. But the outfit was new.
It was Mindy Mowbry. In skin-tight black vinyl. With a wicked whip.
Chapter 27
Mindy’s whip was black leather, slender and flexible. Her heels were cruelly high.
She wore a catsuit like Diana Rigg in The Avengers. Except Mindy’s nipples were showing. And they were pierced with needles.
The black vinyl cat suit clung like slick, synthetic skin. A spotted scarf floated around her neck like a fashionable disease.
This can’t be real, Helen thought. I’m with the Wicked Whip of the West.
But she could smell the burning candle wax, the funereal flowers and her own fear. Pale, naked lovers crawled out of the shadows like resurrected corpses. They surrounded the black casket, watching Helen with dark, feral eyes. The room was a black cave. It was a long way to those demon-studded doors.
“What are you doing here?” Mindy had the clothes of a porn queen and the languid lockjaw voice of a rich woman.
“I said, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Mindy’s eyes shone with crazy light. Helen thought if she looked into them, they would steal her soul.
“Maintenance.” Helen’s voice sounded surprisingly normal. She hoped the bluff would buy her a few seconds.
“Liar. You found something in that coffin. Hand it over.
Now.” Mindy’s whip tore through Helen’s shirt and left welts on her neck. No hesitation. No warning. No change in those crazy eyes. She lashed out, and the disk spun out of Helen’s hand.
The pain stunned Helen. Then it enraged her.
This house and all its kinky riches came from the Mowbrys’ telemarketing sweatshop. Helen spent her days in that filthy boiler room, so Mindy could spend her nights in extravagant depravity. She thought of her coworkers, cheated and abused in the boiler room. The money they needed to live decent lives cost less than Mindy’s twisted flowers.
Now this vinyl-coated scum had slashed her with a whip.
It was too much.
Helen swung her metal toolbox and caught Mindy in the face. She went down like a sack of cement. Her whip flew from her hand and hit a serpentine flower vase standing by the casket. The vase toppled and took down a tall candle. The ebony casket rocked backward, but righted itself.
Helen flung herself on top of Mindy, throwing punches wildly. Some slid off uselessly. Some landed. One caught Mindy in the mouth. Her teeth cut Helen’s knuckles.
“You miserable, greedy, no good—-” Words failed Helen, so she hit Mindy again. She saw with satisfaction that Mindy’s face was bloody.
The women rolled around on the carpet, trying to bite, scratch and kick each other. Mindy’s razor-sharp heels cut Helen’s leg. She bit Helen’s hand and scratched her face.
Helen landed a good jab in Mindy’s gut and pulled out a hunk of sprayed hair. Hah! Try wearing that hairdo to the Langley School PTA.
Some orgy goers thought the wrestling match was staged for their entertainment. They shouted advice and encouragement.
“Get her eyes.”
“Hit her in the boobs.”
“Kick her in the crotch.”
“Five on Mindy.”
“Fifty on the big brunette, Billy.”
“A hundred on Billy.”
The major money is on me, Helen thought, and couldn’t help being pleased. Then she heard why: “That Billy babe’s got a good thirty pounds on Mindy.”
I do not! Helen wanted to shout. It was ten pounds. OK, fifteen—max. She’d stopped pummeling the porn queen a second for this weighty issue. Mindy took advantage of her hesitation. She punched Helen hard in the right breast. The pain was so bad, Helen fell backward on the floor, gasping.
Mindy got to her knees. Then, wobbly as a newborn colt, she stood. The crowd cheered. Mindy accepted their applause with a regal incline of her head.
Too soon to be taking your bows, Helen thought. This fight isn’t over yet. She dragged herself upright and kneed Mindy in the groin. She’d read that maneuver had the same effect on a woman as a man. The article was right. Mindy doubled over, clutching herself.
This time, there were no cheers. The crowd was ominously silent. Helen felt something cold and hard at the base of her skull. The rage drained out of her, replaced by freezing fear.
“Move and you’re dead,” a man said. “Now, down on your knees.”
He’s got a gun, Helen thought. He’s going to blow my head off. No one will help me. These ghouls will watch me die—and enjoy it. I won’t whimper. I won’t beg. And I won’t lay down and die. I thought my way in here and I can think my way out.
“Darling.” Mindy’s voice was silky as her scarf. “You’ve saved me. It’s so delightfully old-fashioned.”
“You can take care of yourself, babe. But this farce has gone on long enough. You women look stupid when you fight, all that hair pulling and rolling around and shit. You can’t throw a decent punch.”
That voice, Helen thought. I’ve heard it before. But where? Mindy’s husband, Dr. Melton? No, Melton Mowbry came from money. This guy sure didn’t have a private-school accent. Helen couldn’t turn around and look at him with the gun barrel jammed in her head. Her mind was working so slowly.
“We girls are lovers,” Mindy cooed, “not fighters.”
“Get the disk, Mindy, and let’s get out of here.” The man sounded impatient. And frustratingly familiar.
“You’re so masterful,” Mindy mocked. “Whatever you say, Hank.”
Hank? Of course. It was Hank Asporth. How could Helen forget his voice? He was Mindy’s lover? She had a husband and little twin girls. And I am such a Midwesterner, Helen thought. Melton and Mindy were hardly Ozzie and Harriet.
Then Helen heard someone shout, “Hey! The curtains are on fire.”
The candles. One had been knocked over during the fight.
No one had seen the fire start. They were too busy watching the women wrestle. Now the dry black velvet curtains behind the coffin were in flames. The fire was small and energetic.
It seemed an acre away in the huge room.
But Helen saw little flames, like malignant sprites, running along the silk rug toward the ebony casket. It burst into flames. The satin lining caught fire. A crazy giggle rose up inside her. Shouldn’t a casket be fireproof—especially for this crowd?
Smoke from th
e finest ebony smelled like the world’s best autumn bonfire. Helen also smelled raw panic. Naked people were screaming and pushing one another as they ran for the double doors. The doors were closed, the demons dancing insolently in the fiery haze.
A skinny woman rushed by, her waist-length hair on fire.
A muscular middle-aged man was knocked sideways against the double doors. His black toupee came loose and slid along the floor like a hairy hockey puck, until it hit the blaze and burst into flames. But the newly bald man was strong. He pushed and punched his way back to the doors. Then he tore them open and escaped.
An older, flabbier man was not so lucky. He was trampled by panicked people rushing toward the doors. He tried to rise to his knees, but someone kicked him in the head. His body was pushed back toward the flames, and he did not move again.
Helen hoped the man was unconscious when the fire engulfed him. She felt oddly numb, as if she were watching a movie.
Hank and Mindy stayed cool in the chaos. Flames did not frighten them. Hell was their home.
“Get the disk, Mindy, and I’ll put a bullet through her head,” Hank said.
“Can’t I strangle her?” Mindy twisted her long filmy scarf.
“There’s no time,” Hank said.
“I’ll be quick. I always am.”
Her eyes were savage. Helen saw one thing clearly in the smoky darkness: Mindy liked to murder.
“You killed her,” Helen said. “You strangled Debbie.”
“Of course, you idiot. And that stupid piece of trailer trash.”
“Laredo? You killed Laredo? Hank strangled her. I heard him.”
“You heard me,” Mindy said. “Hank watched. Hank likes to watch. This time, he saw more than he wanted. Scared the poor baby.”
“I wasn’t scared,” Hank snapped. “I was angry. You shut her up too soon.”
“And now you want to rush.” Mindy slowly drew the scarf through her fingers.
The air was electric with heat and black with smoke.
Helen could see the disk on the floor, next to her abandoned toolbox. Soon, the only link to Laredo’s murder would be a lump of melted plastic. Little fires burned along the floor only a few yards away.