Dexter's Final Cut (30 page)

Her hair was black, streaked with gray that might have been dyed, and she had large glasses in black frames that swirled out on the sides and glittered with rhinestones. Her face was set in an expression of permanent meanness, lips pinched and eyes squinched, as
if she automatically disapproved of absolutely everything and knew
just
what to do about fixing it and making you sorry.

A tape measure hung around her neck, and she was yelling at someone named Freddy to for
shit’s
sake get the fucking hot-glue gun before it fucking
froze
. And a wispy young man, probably Freddy, fled from her in terror, presumably to find the fucking hot-glue gun.

Over by the floor-to-ceiling window, on a low couch and several accompanying chairs, a handful of men and women sat together, chatting. On a side table next to them was a large chrome coffee urn and a few pastry boxes.

Another slender young man ran by in the opposite direction, his arms full to overflowing with blue police uniforms. I glanced at one sleeve that dangled loose; it said,
MIAMI POLICE
. I wondered where they’d gotten the badges, since I had been around Miami police my whole life and I had never seen anything like them.

“Close your mouth,” Jackie said, and I realized I had been staring in wonder, mouth agape, at the melee. “If Sylvia sees any weakness, it’s all over.”

I closed my mouth and Jackie took my elbow to steer us both to safety. But before I could take more than one step, the door to the suite bumped open, and I turned around to look. And sadly for my self-image, my mouth dropped open again.

Because standing there, framed by the doorway, stood Cody and Astor. Behind them, a baby carriage with two passengers rolled into view, and my jaw dangled even lower as I recognized the two passengers as my daughter, Lily Anne, and Deb’s son, Nicholas. “Dadoo!” Lily Anne called, holding her arms out for me to pick her up, and Nicholas bounced up and down with the excitement of the moment.

And, of course, right behind them, wearing a smirk and pushing the carriage, was Sergeant Sister Deborah.

“Hi, Dexter,” Astor said. “This place looks crazy. Do they have any doughnuts or anything?”

“Aunt Deborah
said
,” Cody said softly.

“What, the what what,” I said, sounding brain-damaged even to me.

“Move it, Dex,” Deborah said. “And close your mouth.”

H
AVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT EVERY NOW AND THEN IT
begins to feel like the entire world is a conspiracy designed to make you look like a total idiot? And if you are a reasonable being with even a nodding acquaintance with logic, you tell yourself this is mere paranoia; you talk yourself out of it and soldier on. But then something happens to make you think it’s not such a far-fetched idea after all.

This was clearly one of those moments. In front of me Debs was smirking. Cody and Astor, moving around me to see into the room, glanced up and smirked, too. And when I turned around to look at Jackie, there on her face was the unkindest smirk of all.

“What, um,” I said, and I was quite proud that I did not actually stutter, “what is going on here?”

“Dexter, you get to work on a
movie
,” Astor said, with a certain amount of venom, though not as much as she used with Rita lately. “With stars …” She glanced at Jackie, and then at Robert. “And instead you didn’t even tell us, or bring us here, or
anything
.” She looked at me now, a cold and cranky glare. “You
know
I’m going to be an actress, and you’re supposed to
care
about us, and help us learn things and do cool stuff, and you didn’t even
tell
us.”

“You should have told us,” Cody said softly, and that hurt more than Astor’s contempt.

“Yes, but, school is … and anyhow,” I said, and regrettably, I was stuttering now.

“It’s
Saturday
,” Cody said.

“You’re acting like a
putz
,” Astor told me. And before I could wonder where she had learned that word, Deborah pushed the stroller through the door and into the room next to me.

“Rita called and asked me if I could watch the kids,” Debs told me. “Some kind of awful crisis at work involving the euro and real estate prices in Germany. Which you would know if you ever called her.”

“Yes, but …” I said. “I mean, on a Saturday …?”

“You really are a putz,” Debs said, shaking her head.

I glanced at Jackie; she smiled and nodded. “You are,” she said happily.

They all stared at me with mild contempt and amusement; it seemed like even the two babies had learned the look, and I waited for Lily Anne to call out, “Putz, Dadoo!” Happily for me, she didn’t, and I made a valiant effort to collect the tattered shreds of my dignity.

“Well,” I said, “I’m very happy to see you all.”

I could have continued my embarrassing groveling, but Astor had locked her eyes onto Jackie. “Are you an actress?” she asked, almost shyly, which was a very odd tone coming from Astor.

Jackie looked down at her and raised one eyebrow. “Yes, I am,” she said.

“Are you
famous
?” Astor said.

Jackie gave her a polite smile. “I guess it’s a matter of opinion,” she said.

Astor stared a moment longer, then frowned, glanced at me, and asked Jackie, “Why are you with Dexter?”

Jackie looked at me for help, but I had nothing. The tip of her tongue poked out between her lips and she took a deep breath. “Dexter is … 
helping
me with … a problem,” she said.

Astor shook her head. “What kind of problem could
he
help you with?” she said, and the old, snarky tone was back in her voice; she even snickered. “Do you have a blood-spatter problem?”

“No, of course not,” Jackie said.

“That’s all Dexter can do,” Astor said. “Except—” She caught herself just in time, looked at me, and then her jaw dropped open and she whirled back around to Jackie. “Oh, shit,” she said. “You’re having an
affair
.” She looked back at me. “Dexter is having sex with a famous actress! That is so cool!”

Jackie actually blushed, and my sister, Deborah, helpful as ever, let out an amused snort.

“What? No!” I said. “Astor, that’s ridiculous.”

“Well, then,
what
?” she demanded. “Why are you hanging out with her?”

I hesitated, and Jackie didn’t have anything to say, either. Deborah raised one eyebrow and shrugged, which was not terribly helpful. Apparently it was all on me, so I tried tiptoeing up to it. “It’s kind of secret,” I said.

“Affairs are always secret,” Astor said. I wondered if anyone would notice if I flung her out a window.

“Astor, it’s not an affair,” I said, and then, taking a deep breath, I plunged in headfirst. “Jackie got some scary letters,” I said. “I’m just … making sure nothing bad happens to her—”

Astor’s face lit up and she beamed at Jackie. “You got a psycho stalker? Wow! You really
are
famous!” she said.

Jackie turned an appalled expression on me, and I said, “Astor, please, it’s a secret.”

“Why is it secret?” Astor said. “If I had a stalker, I’d want everybody to know.”

“Jackie could lose her job,” Deborah said.

Astor frowned and shook her head. “Why?” she said. “It’s not her fault.”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “Just please don’t tell anybody.” Astor looked at me like she was calculating what she might wangle out of me in exchange for her silence, and I was ready to promise her a new pony, when fate smiled on me for once. From the far end of the room, near a short hallway, there was a loud outburst of angry yelling and everyone turned to look.

Renny was holding on to Kathy, Jackie’s assistant, by her wrists; she was struggling to get away and shouting at him furiously to let go or she would tell
everybody
. Renny said something soft and urgent,
and Kathy yanked her arms away and slapped him. “I told you last time!” she said. “I swear to God, Renny, you just—” And then one of Sylvia’s thin young men was there, stepping bravely between them and speaking soothing words. And Kathy backed off, gave Renny one last glare, and said, “I mean it, asshole!” She whirled away and steamed straight over to Jackie. For the first time, her arms were not filled with papers, and she didn’t even have her trademark phone in one hand and Starbucks cup in the other. She pushed past me with a glare and stood in front of Jackie. “Sylvia said she couldn’t wait for you any longer and she was going to do Robert first—”

“All right, Kathy, it’s all right,” Jackie said soothingly. “Are you okay?”

Kathy pushed her glasses up with one stubby finger. “I am fine,” she said. “But that piece of shit Renny—”

“Okay, it’s over,” Jackie said, taking Kathy by the arm and leading her over toward the couch, on the opposite side of the room from Renny. He stood watching her, a look on his face that was a strange combination of anger and amusement. Then he turned and saw me looking, and as our eyes met I heard a soft hiss from a coiled Something inside and the distant rattle of leathery wings as it stretched and twitched uneasily in half readiness to rise and meet the thing that stared back at us from Renny’s hissing Something—

And then Renny turned away and the Passenger yawned and turned over and went back to its lazy nap and I was left wondering once again if I had really seen that threat in Renny’s eyes. What, if anything, would it steer him toward? And what had he done to Kathy? She seemed as angry at him as she had been at me—had Renny made her pee on the floor, too?

But before I could do any more than frame the questions, Astor spoke up again.

“Oh, oh,” Astor said, and her voice was reverent and hushed. “That’s the guy from the show Mom used to like. It’s on reruns all the time. What’s his name …?”

I turned around to see what she was talking about. Unfortunately, she was staring directly at Robert.

“You mean Robert?” I said. “Mom watches Robert’s old show?”

“Robert
Chase
,” Astor said with excitement. She stared at Robert
with a hungry look and licked her lips. “I’ve seen him on TV, like, a hundred times.” There was a tone of yearning in her voice I had never heard from her before, and I realized that, as ridiculous as it might seem to me, Astor was starstruck—and with
Robert
, for God’s sake.

Still, I had obligations as her stepfather, as she had already reminded me, and I was willing to do almost anything to take her mind off Jackie’s little secret, so I pushed away the weary sigh that was trying to come out and replaced it with cheerful parental words. “Would you like me to introduce you?” I said. And Astor shot me a glance that made me think there might be some small hope of someday working my way back into her good graces.

“Hell, yes,” she said.

“Astor,” Debs said warningly.

“I mean, yes, please, Dexter,” she amended, with a completely artificial look of angelic innocence on her face. “I really want to meet him.”

“Me, too,” Cody said, stubbornly refusing to be left out.

“Well,” I said, thinking of the Robert I had come to know far too well, “I hope you aren’t disappointed.”

Astor snorted and shook her head. “Dexter, he’s a
star
,” she said, her voice laced with pity for my stupidity. “How can we be disappointed?”

I could think of a dozen ways off the top of my head, all based on my knowledge of Robert, but it would probably be better to let him crush her dreams all by himself, so I just said, “Okay. Come on.”

“You know him?” Astor said. “You really
know
him?”

“Oh, yes, I know him,” I said. “Come on.”

I walked over to where Robert was struggling with his repugnant Hawaiian shirt; it seemed to be a few sizes too small, and he couldn’t quite get all the buttons done. “I haven’t gained an
ounce
,” he was saying to the scary woman. “Not one ounce in fifteen years—the size is wrong. Or it shrank when you cleaned it.”

“I don’t do shrink,” the woman growled at him.

“Well, somebody did—look at this!” Robert held open the shirt and showed his bare chest. It was smooth and hairless, as if he waxed it, but it must be said that it was also lean and smoothly muscled. “There’s no fat there, none at all!” he told her.

The woman—Sylvia?—stepped in to Robert and pulled at the shirt; she couldn’t make it close either. She hissed loudly, and then jerked the shirt off him. “Teddy!” she snarled, and the young man who’d been carrying uniforms hurried over.

“Sylvia, the arm patches are all coming off, too, and we don’t have enough hot glue for—”

Sylvia flung Robert’s shirt at the poor guy, and he caught it with his face. “Take this,” she snarled. “Go get another
just
like it—two sizes bigger.”

“I don’t know if they have any more in this pattern?” Teddy said plaintively, peeling the shirt off his face. “The man said they—”

Sylvia closed her eyes. “Go,” she said quietly, but in a voice that was boiling with dreadful menace, and Teddy fled with the shirt.

“Hey, Dexter!” Robert said. He swung his eyes onto Cody and Astor. “Whatcha got here, huh?”

Astor looked at me with brand-new, never-before-seen respect in her eyes. “You
do
know him,” she said. “You know Robert Chase!”

“Of course he knows me,” Robert said happily. “He’s been teaching me about forensics all week. For my new show.” He took a step closer to the kids and held out a hand to Cody. “Howdy, partner,” he said.

“Hi,” Cody said, staring at him solemnly, and then slowly shaking Robert’s hand.

Robert turned to Astor and held out his hand. “And what’s your name, beautiful?”

Astor blushed. It was an astonishing sight, something I had never seen her do in all the long years I had known her. She blushed, and held out her hand to Robert as if she was reaching for the crown jewels.

“Astor,” she said, in a voice so soft it might have been Cody’s.

“Astor,” Robert repeated, smiling at her. “Beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” He beamed at her, holding her hand for a few seconds too long, and then turned to me. “Dexter, holy smokes, you said you had kids, but you didn’t tell me your daughter was a supermodel.” Astor’s face turned even redder, but Cody frowned. Clearly he was feeling slightly left out.