The Truth Hurts (8 page)

7
Marie

It’s Friday morning. I suffered no nightmares. The sun rose again in the east. My store-bought grapefruit tasted almost as good for breakfast as those I pluck off my own tree in wetter seasons. And now Deborah Dancer and I are companionably at work out back on my patio. Before she came to work full-time for me, Deb was a feature writer for our local newspaper. Although she liked that well enough, she says they didn’t stock their refrigerator nearly as well as I do. Or let her work barefoot.

Deb’s seated at the patio table going through the mail she didn’t have time to get to yesterday. I’m stretched out on a chaise, deep into editing the galleys for my next book. (It’s
Anything to Be Together,
a shocking story about a minister who was sent to death row for murdering his wife.)

All of that is interrupted by the telephone, which Deb answers.

When she puts it back down, she says, “That was Tony at the gate. FedEx is coming in with a package.”

It’s not even five minutes before we hear the doorbell.

When Deb comes back onto the patio, she’s opening something. I wouldn’t even have noticed her return, except that she drops something onto the bricks, where it lands with a soft thud, and she exclaims, “Oh, my gosh, Marie, this is so weird!”

I look up to find her staring at me with a strange expression on her face. There’s a FedEx envelope in her left hand and a paperback book lying at her feet. From here, I can’t see what it is. For a strange, suspended moment, time seems to float between us like a bubble that’s about to be violently broken.

In this odd little bubble of time, while I wait to find out what’s so “weird” that it would make her drop a book, I see all sorts of emotions playing across her young face. One of them is the mundane, but unhappy realization that I hate to be interrupted when I’m writing or editing. “Please don’t interrupt me unless a hurricane is bearing down,” I warned her when she first came to work for me, “or your hair is on fire.”

“What if yours is?” she impishly asked me then.

“Let it burn.”

Already, after only a few months on the job, Deb knows that if a class five hurricane were on its way, I’d probably say, “You go. I’ve got to finish this sentence.”

Normally, I might fix her with a baleful glare.

Normally, her expression might say, Oh, shit.

But in this pause, I feel no annoyance, just tension.

My number two black lead pencil is poised in my right hand at the galley’s edge; the forefinger of my left hand touches the page, pointing to the spot where I stopped working. Out of my peripheral vision, I see boats moving on the Intracoastal Waterway a hundred yards away and down a cliff from us. I can hear traffic on the Bahia Boulevard Bridge, feel sweat under my T-shirt, taste and smell the orange juice I drank for breakfast. I don’t
want
to be aware of these things; I don’t want to know what the matter is. I want to be lost in my work-trance, oblivious to everything except the printed pages on my lap.

I lay my pencil down on the galleys.

In slow motion, Deb bends over and picks up the book.

Then she holds it face out to me, and I see that it is a copy of
The Executioners
by John D. MacDonald.

First, my stomach lurches and my skin gets gooseflesh.

But then I am suddenly disgusted and furious.

“Give that to me!”

She walks it rapidly over to me and releases it into my hands, as if she’s glad to be rid of it. I grab it from her, and make an angry show of slamming it down into the wicker wastebasket to my side.

“There’s a letter that came with it—”

“Give it to me, too.”

She fishes it out of the FedEx package and hands it over.

I make another production out of crumpling it up and tossing it in the basket to go with the damned book, no offense to John D.

“Aren’t you even going to read it, Marie?”

“No, I am not.”

She looks like a spooked kid who wants somebody older to reassure her that this is nothing to worry about, so I say, “It just pisses me off, that’s all. But don’t you even give it a second thought, okay? If I know some of my fans, this guy is locked up in prison with too much time and not enough rehab.”

Deb laughs at that, as I hoped she would.

“Believe me,” I continue, “these guys are all bow and no arrow.”

She sits down again but doesn’t look entirely convinced. “Okay.”

“Hey, it’s all grist for the writer’s mill,” I suggest, smiling at her.

“It just gives us a little more insight into the minds of criminals and perverts.” I cock my head at her. “Such a lovely place to be. Are you sure you want to stay there with me?”

“Yes!” She sits up straighter, as if trying to demonstrate her resolve. “If I didn’t, I might never get to see Franklin again.”

I laugh, while she blushes. “That
would
be a terrible fate.”

“Did I tell you,” Deb blurts, “that one of my roommates—Tawna? —is pissed off because he’s dating you? She says why should white women get all of their best men? I told her, I don’t know about that, but I don’t think you can help who you fall in love with, you know?”

I nod, without exactly committing to that opinion.

When Deb blushes even deeper, I look out toward theIntracoastal, pretending not to notice that her complexion has turned rosy. She has a massive crush on Franklin, but it would mortify her to know that we’re aware of it. How can we not be, since the poor kid stumbles all over her feet and her words whenever he’s here? God knows, I understand her feelings. I’m pretty crazy about the man myself. Whether or not I’m in love with him is another question, and one that I’m not prepared to answer yet; whether or not I have any choice in that matter is still another conundrum that I don’t want to have to solve at this moment. So I give her a moment to collect herself, before I look at her again.

Her non sequitur has nicely broken that other tension.

“Deb, would you go in the house and check my E-mails again? Print out anything new that has come in. I’m expecting something from my agent.”

That’s a lie, intended only to get her off the patio so that I can fish the damned letter out of the wastebasket.

When she’s gone, I read:

Dear Marie,

What is the point of my contact with you ?

Why have I gone to the trouble of planting a news story to get your attention, then followed that up with a second and third message to make sure you understand how well I know you, and then had the gift of a book delivered to you ?

It is so that you will take seriously my book proposal.

You’re tempted to laugh, aren’t you ? You think you’ve heard it all before, don’t you ? No doubt many people come up to you with book ideas. But I’ll wager that no one has ever approached you with this one.

Marie, you are a true crime writer. I love to read about true crime. So you and I are going to combine forces, only this time
you
are going to be the victim in your next book.

I am going to kill you, Marie.

You are going to write the book about it.

Isn’t that brilliant ? Wouldn’t any editor jump at the chance to publish a book like that ? Just think—the famous writer describes her own demise, right up to the very moment before it happens! Imagine the suspense, Marie. Imagine the television coverage, and the exciting, suspenseful movies that will be made from our story. What a “hook,” as they say in Hollywood! Just think of the diabolical inevitability of the ending. And don’t worry about that—I’ll write the epilogue.

It will be a blockbuster best-seller, I’m sure you agree.

But we have work to do before that time.

So let’s get down to business.

Here are your initial instructions, Marie:

1. Fire your assistant immediately.
   
2. Contact no law enforcement.
   
3. Write our first chapter and E-mail it to me by 2
   P.M.
   today. It must contain a full description of these past two days. Build suspense for our readers! Share your initial disbelief, your embarrassment or anger, your growing horror and dread, Marie.
   

Are you thinking, This is absurd ? Are you thinking, This can’t be for real, and whoever he is, he doesn’t mean it, he can’t do it ? It is for real, Marie, and I do mean it. Not only that, but I can do it.

But why should
you
do it ?

I’ll tell you why. Pay very close attention now, Marie.

If you disobey, first I will hurt Deborah Dancer, your girl with the ridiculous clothes and the hair that looks as if she stuck her finger in an electrical outlet.

Do I have your full attention now ?

Good, because you need to know that after I hurt her, I will turn my attention to your boyfriend and his children.

And speaking of him, by “law enforcement” I don’t mean him.

Do tell him everything. You have my permission to do that.

Then, we won’t have to force him to leave you. He will abandon you in order to save himself and his family.

Then you and I will be on our own, writing partners to The End.

It gives a whole new meaning to those two words, doesn’t it ?

Start now, Marie. Fire Deborah. Write the first chapter and E-mail it to me by 2
P.M.
today in the addressed reply block I have thoughtfully provided for you.

Yours truly,

Paulie Barnes

“Marie, you
did
read it!”

She returns to the patio, catching me with the unfolded letter on my lap. “No message from your agent, sorry,” she says, and then, after a moment, tentatively, “what does it say?”

I hold up a finger, bidding her wait a sec while I pick up my cell phone and ring Franklin’s office.

“Is he there?” I ask his secretary, Arvida Waid.

“Still in court, Marie,” she says.

“Ask him to call me, will you please, Arvida?”

“Sure thing. I could page him—?”

Not while he’s inside a courtroom trying a case.
“No, just have him call as soon as he can. Tell him—tell him I heard from our friend Paulie Barnes again.”

“Barnes?”

“Yes. Thanks, Arvida.”

After I turn the phone off, I glance up at Deb again.

“Is everything okay?” she wants to know.

I still don’t answer her. I can’t; my mind is busy demanding its own answer of me.
You have to decide now, Marie. In this moment. Will you err on the side of caution or cynicism ? If you err on the side of caution, no one can possibly get hurt and the worst that can happen is that you will look and feel like a fool for believing him. If you err on the side of cynicism, it is possible, however unlikely, that someone may suffer for it. You can’t ask Deb to make this decision; that wouldn’t be fair.

She is standing in front of me, looking quizzical and a little worried now.

“Marie? What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

The sundress she has on today is bright yellow with a print of purple seahorses. As accessories, she has chosen bulbous yellow earrings and a matching necklace and bracelet. Franklin thinks she’s cute; he says it makes him smile just to see her.

Decide, Marie. It’s up to you. What’s it going to be ?

“I’m sorry, Deb. I don’t want to say this. I’d give anything not to have to say this. But it appears that I have to, because you have a right to know. This idiot”—I wave my right hand dismissively over the letter—“says in here that if I don’t do what he wants me to do he will hurt . . .”

I swallow, feel myself frowning.

Deb looks horrified. “He’ll hurt you?”

“No. I’m so sorry. I hate this.” My mouth snaps shut, because it doesn’t want to utter the next words I have to say. I swat away a fly that buzzes near the lip of a glass of lemonade I have sitting beside me. But finally I have to say it. I have to tell her. It wouldn’t be right not to warn her. “He says he’ll hurt you.”

Deb blinks, opens her own mouth, but for once nothing impulsive comes out. Finally, she squeaks,
“Me?”

I propel myself from the chaise, take hold of her right wrist, and pull her over to sit with me at the patio table. I look into her shocked blue eyes and try to sound a lot more calm than I feel inside. “That’s what he threatens, but I don’t believe it for a minute. It’s the craziest thing! You’ll never believe what this nut wants. He claims he’s going to force me to write a book with him!”

“What?
A book? What kind of book?”

“A true crime book. Don’t even worry about that part of it, it’s nothing. It’s not important. This is all nothing, I’m sure of it. If it were just me he threatened, I’d throw the damned thing away again. But it’s not just me, it’s you. He says that I have to fire you—”

“What?
No!”

“Of course I won’t,” I assure her quickly. “But, Deb, the problem is that we don’t know for absolutely sure that this guy can’t do what he says. He knows my E-mail address, he knows where I live, he knows just enough to make us careful. I think the thing for us to do is to fake it for a while. Apparently, he wants everyone out of the way, starting with you. So we may need to make it look as if you’re packing up and getting out of here. You may need to stay away for a few days.”

“I
won’t,”
she proclaims angrily, stubbornly, though there’s fear in her eyes.

“Yes, you will,” I inform her in a tone that tells her I will brook no further argument. “Just to be on the safe side. There is plenty of work you can do from home, and I’ll keep paying you no matter what.”