Pernicious (40 page)

         
“Who? All my family are out of state and his won’t do that for me.”

         
“Well, think of someone. A friend, somebody. Neal’s the one holding the trump card here. Perry can’t do anything custody-wise without his consent.”

         
“He might listen to me.”

         
“Whoa!” raising both hands. “That’s definitely a bad idea. You should regard Neal and Perry both as Anthrax. If Neal slips and falls, Perry will somehow blame it on you.”

         
Tasha slapped the table with both hands. “Craps, Bob, that’s it! Don’t you see? That’s it in a nutshell!”

         
“What?”

         
“That conniving…! Don’t you see it?” Bob shook his head. “Bob, she’s planning to kill Neal and frame me. How? I don’t know. But that’s exactly what she’s planning to do.”

         
Bob rubbed his chin. “Geez! If you think about it…you might be right.”

         
“No doubt in my mind. She mentioned Derrick to goad me into a fight, and I fell for it.”

         
Bob groaned. “Can you imagine a woman that damn devious?”

         
“She is. I gotta talk to Neal!”

         
“Uh-uh, Tash. Promise me you won’t confront him. You’ll only play further into her hands. Promise me you won’t. It’ll only make things worse.”

         
Tasha crossed her fingers underneath the table. “Okay, Bob, I promise.”

                                     
* * * * *

         
When the phone rang, Neal was sitting on the bathroom floor, the door locked, his feet pressed against it, smoking a cigarette. A Kool Filter King.

         
If asked, Neal, formerly a staunch anti-tobacco advocate, could not explain why at age thirty-four he suddenly decided to smoke.

         
He was on his second Kool, coughing, his eyes and throat burning. The phone continued ringing. To hell with it, he thought.
Probably someone for Perry
. Steady ringing.
       
Realizing that Perry would have picked up by now, he tossed the cigarette in the commode and went to get the phone.

         
“Yeah,” forgetting that Perry had insisted he answer: Hello, Neal and Perry Montgomery residence.

         
“Neal?”

         
“Tasha?” Neal whispered.

         
“Neal, we need to talk. Please, Neal, I need to talk to you!”

         
“I can’t--I mean, it’s not a good idea,” wondering where was Perry.

         
“Neal, I’m begging you. Please!”

         
He heard the front door open…footfalls on the stairs.
“Neal,” Perry shouted, “was the phone ringing?”

         
He cuffed the phone. “It
was
,” he shouted back. He held his breath and waited. Moments later he heard the front door open and close. “Tasha, are you still there?”

         
“Yes, Neal. Can you talk right now?”

         
“Yes and no.”

         
“Okay. Meet me at MacArthur Park in thirty minutes.”

         
“I can’t do that, Tasha. I can’t.”

         
“Be there, Neal!” Click!

         
“Tasha? Tasha!”
Shit!

         
In order to leave, he would have to confront Perry, who, for reasons known only to her, had started pocketing his keys.

         
He went back to the bathroom and smoked three more Kools before mustering the nerve to confront Perry.

         
She was in the front yard on all fours, neck brace on, gauze pad taped over her left eye, digging dirt with a small spade.

         
“Perry,” addressing her backside, “I need my keys.”

         
“For what?” continuing her work.

         
“I’m going somewhere.”

         
“Where?”

         
“To the store.”

         
“I’ll be finished with this in a few minutes. We’ll both go.”

         
“No. I can go by myself.”

         
Perry stood up and squinted at him. “You wait a damn minute! The phone rings and all a sudden you need to run off? What the hell I look like to you? A dizzy damned fool?”

         
“Baby, I’m only going to the store, that’s it. Just a quick run to the store in my own car with my own keys. Why you gotta keep my keys in your pocket, anyway? I don’t touch your keys, why you gotta hold mine?”

         
Perry fished into her pants pocket and withdrew his keys. “Here’s your fucking keys!”

         
He reached for them and she threw them over his head. They bounced off the roof and jingled to the ground. He snatched them up and trotted to his car.

         
“I’ll be right back.”

         
He cranked the engine and suppressed the urge to screech off. Her erratic mood swings were driving him crazy. One minute she was a sweet, doting wife, the next a vicious wildcat.

         
Just this morning she’d fellated him awake and then insisted he and she go to the courthouse to file custody for Derrick. Upon returning to the house she’d turned into a wildcat, snapping at him for leaving the commode seat up.
 
Something about her made him…He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He wasn’t frightened of her in a physical sense…
Paranoid!
That’s it.
Very paranoid.
Damn eye patch makes it even worse!

         
Even now as he drove, he couldn’t shake the feeling she was watching him. He checked the rearview mirror. No one trailed him.

                                     
* * * * *

         
When Tasha saw Neal’s dirty Hugo round the corner, she jumped out her car, ran into the middle of the street and started waving frantically. Neal stopped alongside and rolled down his window an inch.

         
“What’s up?” he said.

         
“Let me in,” Tasha said. “Craps, Neal, let me in!”

         
“You’re not going to start acting crazy, are you?”

         
“No, I’m not.”

         
Neal unlocked the passenger door and she jumped in.
She’d sat in her car an hour thinking and rethinking what exactly she would tell him.

         
Be calm and convincing. And rational.

         
The second her butt hit the seat: “Neal, she’s planning to kill you!”

         
“What?”

         
“Perry, she’s planning to kill you!”

         
“What are you talking about?”

         
“Neal, she’s already killed three men, made em each look like an accident! She’s psychotic as they come! She’s devious, dangerously devious--and she’s sick! I mean, sick sick!” Babbling, talking too fast, but she couldn’t stop.

         
“Three husbands, Neal. Three! You’re number four. Three! Count em…one, two, three! What comes after three?
You!
Three dead men, Neal, you hear what I’m saying? Dead, as in not coming back!”

         
“Will you just relax. You’re hyperventilating. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Take a deep breath and relax.”

         
“Okayokayokay!” She tried to calm down.

         
“Have you been drinking?”

         
“No, no! Wait right here. I want to show you something.” She jumped out, ran to her car and quickly returned with a file folder. “It’s all in here, what happened to her three husbands.”
 

         
He took it, glanced through it perfunctorily and gave it back.

         
“Neal, think! Three husbands, three murders! That’s how she got all she has. Killing husbands.”

         
Neal’s brow furrowed. “If she did all what you say she did, why isn’t she in jail?”

         
“For one her victims are immature black men who entertain fantasies. Neal, has she mentioned anything about life insurance?”

         
Neal shook his head.

         
“You’re lying, Neal. I can see it in your face. Please, Neal, tell me the truth! Has Perry mentioned anything about life insurance?”

         
“Aw hell, Tasha. So what? We took out a policy. Big whoop!”

         
Tasha closed her eyes. “Oh my God! Neal, you got to get out of there now, before it’s too late!”

         
“Will you calm down? Nobody’s doing anything to me.”

         
“For heaven’s sake, Neal, her other husbands thought the same thing, and before they knew what happened they were dead!”

         
“She told me what really happened. Accidents. Bad luck. You can’t blame her for that.”

         
“You believe her?”

         
“Why would she lie?”

         
Tasha sensed herself getting angry. “Tell me, how did you two meet? She didn’t just happen to bump into you, did she?”

         
“Yeah, she did. How you know?”

         
Tasha moaned. “Listen to me, Neal. I don’t want you dead, your son doesn’t want you dead. God as my witness, Neal, she will kill you graveyard dead!”

         
“How do I know you’re not just jealous, trying to sabotage my marriage?”

         
Tasha covered her face with both hands and slowly brought them down. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m jealous--not insanely jealous. Neal, believe me, she’s a cold-blooded murderer. She’s done it before and she’ll do it again. You’re her fourth husband, Neal. Fourth! Jesus, Neal, four husbands! That alone should tell you something’s wrong.”

         
She paused and watched his expression. Nothing. He was willfully avoiding the truth.

         
“Neal, please! I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this!”