The Truth Hurts

  Deborah hasn’t even created the illusion that I fired her.

  And to burst it completely, she came to work today.

  He’ll know. He already knows, I’m sure of it.

  When we open my E-mail to see if anything new has arrived, we both see that it’s true: he knows.

  Dear Marie,

  You and your friends don’t follow directions very well, do you?

  I warned you. First your assistant, then the children.

  And while I’m at it, may I inquire—whose bright idea was it for the prosecutor to write directly to me? He claims it was his. If that is the case, the best that can be said for you, my darling, is that if he won’t exert the self-discipline required to await my instructions, and if you won’t or cannot discipline him, then I will do it for both of you.

  Let me ask you something, my dear.

  How long has it been since you have read John D. MacDonald’s novel The Executioners? If it has been a long time, I recommend that you review it. You’re in for such a treat. I do believe he sets the standard for building unbearable suspense in his fictional victims and in his readers. His villain, as you may or may not know, is a very bad man by the name of Max Cady who reacts badly—to say the least—when his enemies defy him.

  So let’s ask ourselves, Marie: what would Max Cady do?

  “Oh, my God, Marie!” Deborah is terrified by this E-mail, and I don’t blame her. I have to get her out of here and I have to get her to safety. I only hope that my poor young assistant has never ever read The Executioners. Maybe she doesn’t know what “Max Cady” would do. But I’ve read it, and I know.

  “Steve!” I call out, having heard him return to the house. “Would you come in here? I need you.”

  And then I make the most difficult phone call of all of them I’ve made this day: to Franklin, to warn him to arrange immediate protection for himself and his children.

  While I have been gone, my private investigator, Erin McDermit, has fulfilled her promise of doing a “sweep” of my home and telephones. Notes attached to them declare them to be free of “bugs,” so I feel fairly secure about calling people.

  “Can you get cops to watch Trudy’s house and the kids?” I ask Franklin when I have reached him at home and explain the situation. The fact that he helped to bring this latest emergency on us does little to mitigate my sense of sorrow and guilt. “Or do you want me to hire somebody? I could get Erin herself to do it—”

  “Neither,” he says. “I’m going to send them out of town, if Truly will let them go.”

  “I’m so sorry, Franklin.”

  “Me, too. What about your safety?”

  “I’m taking care of it,” I assure him.

  There’s a pregnant silence, full of many things not said, and then we hang up.

  His idea for his children has given me an idea for Deb, and so after I hang up, I tell her, “I want you to make a list of everything you would pack for a trip to Southern California. Steve? When she finishes her list, I want you to take her to the airport. Wait there and I will arrange for a personal guard to meet you with a suitcase for Deb. Deb? The guard will accompany you to L.A. I’m going to call my cousin Nathan and ask him to put you up for a couple of days. If this hasn’t blown over by then, we’ll find another, even safer place for you to stay for a while.”

  Her only response is “Oh, God.”

  Steve’s is more practical. “What about you?”

  “He’s not after me right now. I’ll be okay.”

  “I’ll come right back here,” Steve says, “as soon as I know she’s safely on the plane.”

  Neither of those events can come too soon for me.

  20

  Marie

  Within the hour, Erin McDermit herself is knocking on Deborah’s apartment door and handing the roommates a list of the items Deb wants them to pack for her. A phone call from Deb to them has taken care of their questions about this urgent request—“I have to go to Boston to do some research for Marie. I have to get right to the airport, so she’s sending another assistant over to get my stuff.”

  I’ve hired Erin to stick to Deb until it’s no longer necessary.

  The “boss” costs about twice what her other operatives do, but I want the best for Deb, and Franklin’s not going to need Erin for the children. I would have “given” Steve Orbach to either of them, but he wouldn’t have done the job for Franklin, and it didn’t seem wise to send him off to L.A. with Deb. She’s too young; he’s too weird. Things might happen that she’s too naive to prevent. I’m not too naive. And that’s why Steve stays with me where he can watch my back—and I can keep an eye on him.

  Deb and Erin will be staying with my cousin Nathan in L.A.

  When I called him to ask if he could take them in, I said, “I want to make this sound stupid and funny, so you won’t worry.”

  “Fuck that. Just tell me.”

  “It’s going to sound so melodramatic.”

  “Marie, will you just fucking say it?”

  “Somebody has threatened to kill me.”

  Utter silence. Then, “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish. Somebody—a man, apparently—has been threatening me.”

  “Since when?” he asks, sounding angry, as if I’ve been holding out on him. “What’s today? Is it still Saturday? I just talked to you Thursday, and you didn’t say—”

  “It hadn’t started yet. I got the first E-mail right after that.”

  “Okay,” he says then, sounding mollified. “So what did it say?”

  “He says if I don’t do what he tells me to do, he’ll hurt Deborah, and then he’ll hurt Franklin and his children.”

  “Shit. What does he want?”

  “Oh, it’s the creepiest, strangest thing, Nate! He wants me to write a book with him—”

  “A book ? What kind of book?”

  “A true crime book about . . . about my own murder.”

  There was an appalled silence. And then, my cousin said with the driest of wit, “Damn, why didn’t I think of that? I could probably have sold that script.”

  It made me laugh, as he intended it to, and then I felt better.

  “Send them to me,” Nathan said, lightly. “Your tired fliers, your huddled assistants yearning to breathe free. I lift my lamp beside the western shore. Plus, I’ll haul out the clean sheets.”

  While I wait for Steve to return from taking Deb to the Bahia Beach Airport, I turn on a lot of lights and think about my dream of the monster in the basement.

  Until that dream, I had not admitted to myself how frightened I am to be alone with so much responsibility for myself and for other people. The truth is, I’ve always been alone. I’ve always been frightened, too, although I’ve managed to avoid accepting any of the burden of other people’s lives. I like to think the fact that I have persevered in spite of great fear means that I am brave. I choose to think it means I’m brave, even if the rest of that equation suggests that I’ve been timid, or even cowardly in relationships. Never married, never cohabited, no children—

  Paulie Barnes predicted I would learn things about myself.

  Damn him, he’s right.

  The first thing Steve says when I let him back in is, “They got off fine.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “Ms. Lightfoot, you want to explain all this to me now?”

  “Yes, come on in and let’s sit down. What did Deb tell you on the way to the airport?”

  “She told me about the E-mails, about what this asshole threatened, about how she thinks it’s her fault this happened.”

  I shake my head to deny that. “He would have found me anyway.”

  “That’s what I told her.”

  I stare at him for a minute, thinking, And considering your experiences, you ought to know. His blunt, aggressive way of expressing himself may have convinced Deb in a way I never could have done. It’s after midnight now. Steve is sitting on the edge of my living room couch with his knees apart, his el
bows resting on them, his hands clasped between his legs, and he’s bending his torso attentively toward me. I have to admit that he looks the epitome of sui generis “bodyguard”—all muscle, focus, and grim intent. There’s no lightness in this man that I’ve ever seen, no sign of humor, good or otherwise. There’s just this immaculate courtesy and an aura of weightiness, of some kind of meaningful substance. Or maybe I’m only imagining that. Maybe the “substance” is nothing but the self-important air that some ex-cons assume, the ones who do the intimidating rather than being the ones who get intimidated. The bullies instead of the victims.

  He’s no victim, not anymore.

  Whatever Steve Orbach really is, and whoever he is now on the way to becoming in this new freedom, there is something both reassuring and discomfiting about having him sitting in my living room staring across at me like this.

  I tell him every detail he hasn’t already heard.

  He listens without interrupting, and then at the end of it, he asks, “So what do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be my eyes, Steve. I don’t need for you to watch me. I need you to keep an eye on everybody around me.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “You may know that better than I do. I think you’re looking for people who are paying attention to me with maybe some kind of edge to it, an”—I search for the right word, but can only come up with an insipid one that doesn’t even begin to express what I mean—“unpleasantness—”

  “You mean like Ted Bundy was unpleasant?”

  I have to laugh. He has caught on, all right. When he doesn’t smile back, much less laugh, I can’t tell if he actually made a wry joke. “Right.”

  “A predatory look? A devious one?”

  “I guess.” Steve may be an ex-con, but his grammar, his elocution, and his vocabulary are as immaculate as his clothes and his manners. I remember that when I first met him, while he was still on death row, I was extremely impressed by the discipline it must have taken for him to maintain his body, much less his intellect and his emotions. Now, months later, it seems that he’s in even better shape.

  “A man?” he asks me.

  “I think so, don’t you?”

  He nods. “And you think that if he’s around, I’ll recognize him because I have known his type in prison?”

  I’m startled by the dead-on aim of his perception. “Does that offend you?”

  “No. I will also look for faces that appear more than once. Repetitive appearances.”

  “Good. Yes.”

  “But you know, Ms. Lightfoot, there’s no guarantee I can spot this person.”

  “I know that, Steve.”

  “Do you expect an attack of some kind?”

  “I don’t know what to expect. I don’t think that will happen right now, not as long as he keeps me writing his damned book for him. If he does attack, or tries to snatch me, I don’t think he’d try it in public, do you?”

  “Bundy picked up his victims in parking lots, on beaches, in broad daylight sometimes.”

  “But he did it when there was nobody else with them, unless it was another young woman, and then he would lure her into going, too. You’ll always be with me.”

  “Won’t he object to that?”

  “We’ll find out. He may already know about you. If he does, he isn’t objecting.”

  “I think I can tell you why. He’s not going to mind my being around, because he’s not going to make his move for a while. You still have to do the research and write the book, right? But when he thinks the time is right, his first move will be to try to separate you from me somehow, or just get rid of me.”

  “Steven, are you sure—”

  “He won’t get rid of me.”

  “Maybe I’m asking too much—”

  “That’s bullshit. You can’t do this all by yourself, Ms. Lightfoot. You may have hired that private investigator and that criminologist, but they aren’t here to protect you. I agree that I’m uniquely suited to help you, and I can, and I want to. Besides, you can never ask too much of me, Ms. Lightfoot, not for the rest of your life.”

  “I don’t know about that, Steve.”

  “That’s because you’ve never been in prison. I do know.” He shifts his weight on the couch. Almost every time he makes a sudden movement my heart jumps a little and I start to flinch away from him. I’ve got to stop that. Surely, eventually, I’ll get over that instinctive reaction to this strong, rather mysterious, and intimidating person. “When you say I’ll always be with you, how literally do you mean that?”

  “Pretty literally. What do you suggest?”

  “I think you need a pocket of relative safety while you work on the book, and I’ll provide that just by being here. I should accompany you wherever you go, so I can check out the crowds. And you need me here for a couple of other reasons, too. One, to check out this neighborhood to see if anybody’s been watching or asking questions. And also just to make you feel better.”

  He surprises me with that last one, but of course in my mind, it’s the main reason to have him here at all.

  “Steve, I have to say—you’re absolutely right that I need you here to make me feel safer and less alone. But I’ve also got to tell you that you may be the nicest and most considerate guy in the world, and it will still drive me crazy to have you around all the time. I’m a writer. I require solitude. I go nuts without huge doses of it. It makes me feel a little crazy just to think of having somebody in my house day and night for an indefinite period of time.”

  He pauses only an instant, before pronouncing, “Tough shit.”

  I’m startled, but I agree with him. He’s here. You need him. Don’t like it ? Get over it, Marie.

  21

  Marie

  By Sunday morning, I know that Erin’s people are working on my E-mail traces, but they haven’t told me anything about it yet. It’s too soon. I understand this kind of thing can take a while. With no helpful information coming in, and just when I’m hoping to get a little of my own work done, the morning E-mail reveals new twists to the developing theme:

  Dear Marie,

  While you’re waiting to see what happens next, is the suspense killing you? Gee, I hope not. Killing you is my job.

  I’ve changed my mind about something. No, not about punishing you for breaking my rules, but about bringing in law enforcement. I know I told you not to do it, but I’ve decided that’s a bad idea, storywise. I was thinking too conventionally, don’t you agree? Too much like a screenwriter following all the conventions of a hostage movie, and not enough like the original creator that I am.

  I’ve decided that it won’t be good for our book if there aren’t any cops chasing me and if nobody is trying to protect you. A two-person book might be boring, even though you and I are the two people. Even so, I believe that we need to enlarge our cast of characters, add some action—the more desperate, the better. Let’s up the ante. Let’s put more people at risk. Let’s make things more complicated and challenging not only for you, but also for me. If I am pitted only against you, that’s not much of a fight, dear. Too one-sided, with me holding all the cards. I don’t believe our readers would like it if you appear to be as powerless as, in fact, you are. They will quickly lose interest if you seem too much the “victim” too soon. Their full realization of how completely I control you and these events must only dawn on them and on you gradually. Let them—and you—fool yourselves into believing you have hope. Let them believe for a little while longer that you might still have a chance to survive, to identify me, and to catch me before I kill you.

  Now, in order for us to ratchet up the suspense in that way, I’ll need to loosen your reins. I am going to allow you the illusion of freedom, Marie. As of this moment, I give you permission to call in law enforcement agencies of your choice. Maybe, because you’re famous and you know a lot of cops, you can persuade them to give you more help than you’d receive if you were just any Jane Doe.

  Oh, and speaking
of that . . . don’t worry about whether or not I’ll leave your body so mutilated that not even your own mother could identify it. Not that she could, being already quite deceased, herself. You’ll be easily identifiable; they won’t need dental records, fingerprints, or DNA to name you. One look at your face and they’ll know. Your face may be allthat’s recognizable as Marie Lightfoot, but that’s all they’ll need.

  I wonder who will face the poignant task of identifying you. Don’t you wonder about that, too? It’s not as if you have relatives who care about you. Well, you do have one, your cousin Nathan. But would you really want poor Nate to have to do it? He’s a poet, a sensitive soul. Poor Nathan might be traumatized for the rest of his life. On the other hand, it would give him such delicious material from which to grow his poems and screenplays. Maybe he’d finally see one made into a movie. That would be a great benefaction, Marie, for you to bequeath your cousin through your death—the writing success that eludes him while you live.

  But if Nathan doesn’t I.D. you, who will?

  Your boyfriend could, I suppose. I like that idea, probably more than you do. Imagine the drama of the moment, when the coroner pulls backthe covering from your face. See DeWeese’s grief! Watch how he chokes back his tears! Imagine his conflicted feelings—how sorry he is that you are dead, but how relieved he is that now his children are safe from me.

  Or, possibly, one or two of the police officers who know you will be called to the scene, to identify you. That depends where it happens, I suppose. Frankly, Marie, I don’t know whether a bodily identification by next of kin will be required in the particular county in which I plan to kill you. But who cares about that? I couldn’t care less, and you will not be in any position to mind.