Pernicious (41 page)

         
Neal popped a cigarette into his mouth and, fingers trembling, put the car lighter to it. “I just can’t believe what you’re saying.” Shaking his head: “I just can’t believe it.”

         
“Since when you do you smoke?”

         
“Helps cut down on stress.”

         
“What are you going to do?”

         
“You’re asking me to leave my wife. That’s a lot to ask. What if you’re wrong? Huh? What if, you know, in a strange way, she truly loves me?”

         
“Neal, please! She doesn’t love you. She’s using you!”

         
“How the hell you know? You can’t read people’s minds. I leave her and what do I have? Not a damn thing! I leave her I’m back in the same rut, babysitting for you day and night without so much as a thank you. In a day or two you’ll kick me out again. ‘Neal, it’s time you leave. Neal, get to stepping. Neal, don’t let the door pop you in the ass on the way out.’”

         
“Neal Montgomery, I never said anything about a door popping you.”

         
“You implied it!”

         
“I’m sorry. All right? I was going to apologize before all this, but I didn’t get a chance. Neal, I am really and truly sorry.”

         
“No big deal. Don’t worry about it. I’m rich, Tasha. Filthy rich. Right now I’m worth a million dollars.”

         
Tasha stomped her feet on the floorboard. “No, you’re not! Stop kidding yourself! She’s worth a million--you’re not worth…”

         
“Go ’head, say it.”

         
“Neal, I’m sorry.”

         
“Shit!” Neal said ruefully.

         
This isn’t going well at all.
“What about your son, Neal?”

         
“What about him?”

         
“Can you imagine how devastated he’ll be if something happens to you? You’re his whole world.”

         
Neal stared at his lap. “That’s why he’s coming to live with me.”

         
Tasha clenched her fist. “I don’t think so, Neal!”

         
“He’s better off with me. I can provide a better life for him. Two parents, a house, a pool, maybe private school. He deserves the finer things in life, don’t you agree?”

         
“Is that what she told you?”

         
“It’s the truth.”

         
“Let me make myself crystal clear here!” tempering her tone, gesticulating with a finger. “The only way my son lives with you and her is over my dead body! Over my dead body, Neal Montgomery! It’s best you understand that!”

         
“What about the courts? The law?”

         
“I’m trying to be civil with you, okay? I suggest you change the subject.”

         
“I didn’t expect you to be reasonable.”

         
“Reasonable!” Tasha shouted. “A psycho has jeopardized my career…my son! And you sit here and tell me I’m not reasonable!”

         
Neal clutched the steering wheel. “I think I’d better go now.”

         
Tasha grabbed his wrist, just below the Rolex, and held it up. “Is this worth it, Neal? Worth your dignity, self-respect? Your pride as a man? If you say it is I’m gone. You’ll never hear from me again.”

         
Neal freed his wrist but said nothing.

         
“Tell me if I’m wrong. She’s cold. Materialistic. Possessive. Except when she wants you to do something for her. Neal, deep down in your heart, do you honestly believe she loves you? Do you?”

         
Still Neal said nothing.

         
Tasha cuffed his chin and turned his face toward hers. “You’re a good man, Neal. I really mean that. Don’t stoop to her level for the lifestyle she’s dangling in your face. You can end this nightmare if you wake up, stop dreaming. Your conscience is bothering you, that’s why the cigarettes.”

         
She paused, took a deep breath. “Neal, I want us to be a family again. You, Derrick and me. I won’t needle you like before. If you don’t want to work, fine with me. It’s your call. We’ll make it the best way we can.”

         
Neal sat up in his seat.

         
Mention not having to work and he’s all ears.

         
“All these years!” Neal said. “All these years, you’re finally admitting I was right and you were wrong. All those arguments when I knew what I was talking about and you insisted on raising hell. Like the time with the eggs.”

         
He’s pushing it!

         
“All you had to do was contribute to a few incubators. Noooo, you couldn’t do that! You whooped and hollered and carried on, I lost the confidence to complete the project. When I set up that rummage sale you ran everybody off. And remember when you--”

         
“Hey! Let’s not rehash everything, okay? What’s really important is when are you coming home?”

         
Neal stared out the window. “I need time to think about this. I can’t just up and leave the woman.”

         
“Yes, you can. We can drive home. Right now. I’ll get my car later.”

         
“Let me think about it, okay?”

         
“How long will that take?”

         
“A couple of days.”

         
“A couple of days! Neal, that’s too long.”

         
“No, it’s not. When and if I do come back,
I
’ll be in charge of
all
the money, including the checkbook.
I
’ll decide when and how to discipline my son. No one else! Is that right?”

         
Now Tasha went silent, wondering had he lost his mind.
Again!

         
“Is that right, Tasha?”
 

         
She crossed her toes. “Sure, Neal.”

         
After Neal drove away, Tasha sat in her car thinking that nothing had been accomplished. Neal, she knew, would not be coming back, not in a couple of days, not in a couple of years. Perry, with all her money and bling, had him hooked. Nothing she had to offer could lure him away from a date with death.

                                     
* * * * *

         
Perry put the binoculars back in the glove compartment and started the Cadillac. She would have to hustle to beat Neal back to the house. She floored the accelerator and the gold-rimmed tires squealed with a rage short of her own, waking dual skid marks. Her chest burned. Acid indigestion, a byproduct of her disgust.

         
All I’ve done for that big-headed bastard and he goes and stabs me in the back!

         
Perry had hopped into the Cadillac seconds after Neal had turned the corner, and followed him at a safe distance. When Neal turned into the park, she drove to a Texaco Station two blocks away and watched from there.

         
When Tasha held Neal’s chin in her hand, Perry considered shifting into drive, flying across the street, hopping the curb, zipping across the Bermuda grass and slamming into them. In her mind she could see them, just seconds before impact, their faces stricken with guilt and terror, regretting the moment they decided to fuck with Perry Monette Montgomery.

         
As badly as she wanted to--so badly, in fact, she’d had to remove the keys in self-restraint--she knew it couldn’t be done that way. That way was self-incriminating. A surefire way to land in jail.
Uh-uh.
She had a plan. A damn good plan. Had it since the day she walked home.

         
Weasel Dick is fouling up the water, messing up everything. If he goes back to Bumpy Face, who no doubt begged him back, the plan is shot.

                                     
  
* * * * *

         
Neal drove up and parked in front of the garage.

         
Perry was on her knees in the yard, trimming flowers with hedge shears.

         
“Baby,” Neal said, “it’s hot out here. You oughta take a break. Make sure you’re drinking plenty of fluids.”

         
Perry responded with the hedge shears. SNAP!

         
“I’m tired,” Neal said, yawning. “I guess I’ll take another nap. Wake me up when dinner ready.”

         
SNAP! “Did you find what you were looking for at the store?” SNAP! Her hands gripped the handles so tightly the blades vibrated.

         
“Nope. They were out.”

         
SNAP! SNAP!

         
“What were you looking for?” SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

         
“Men shit,” and before stepping inside: “You get a sec, see if you can fix the remote. It’s stuck on TBN.”

         
Perry jumped to her feet and stared at the door, bottom lip quivering, teeth grinding, right eye pinched, breathing hard, almost gasping…With all her might and a feral grunt, she hurled the hedge shears.

         
Later that evening, Neal would wonder how in the hell did she stick the tool in the brass door.

                                     
Chapter 22