Short List

By L.R. MacAllister

Having less than six months to live, a terminally ill writer embarks on a coast to coast road trip. Seven names are on his list: the ones who had stolen from him in various ways and would pay the ultimate price for their transgressions. His latest manuscript, about a serial killer, had been rejected by every literary agent he'd send it to, but its research has not been in vain. Less than 50% of homicides are solved. The odds are in his favor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483511542

Book preview

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PROLOGUE

The thin man struggled in a wooden chair, wrists tied to the arms, ankles to its legs. A gag — a wide strip of duct tape — prevented him from screaming. Behind eyeglasses flecked with tiny dots of blood, he blinked spastically.

A gash on the bridge of his nose, the result of a punch, oozed a red trail to his gaunt cheeks. Every time he shook his head it impaired his vision even more, and he tried not to do that. Facing the greatest fear might be one thing to suffer, but fear obstructed by your own bodily fluids is much worse. He tried to pray, didn't know how to begin.

From time to time he'd glance to his wristwatch, as if it was his only link with the outside world. In a bare concrete room fifteen feet square and dimly lit by an overhead fixture reminiscent of a scene in a Bogart movie, he'd been suffering for over five hours. In the shadows of futility the end was not in sight. His fate was in the hands of the one who sat across from him, a black bag at his feet. The blond man spoke softly, but his subdued anger was evident.

At first he had no idea who held him as prisoner but now he did — knew it the first time the blond man suddenly stood and paced, raised his voice and accused like a prosecutor in court. That's what this was: a trial with a one man jury. And these were the times he'd felt the warmth of his bowels and urinary tract seep onto his buttocks and to the front of his pants, when he'd squirm futilely and felt embarrassed. The blond man laughed at his wimpy bodily functions and seemed to relish his reactions to his actions, like he'd done this more than once.

In primordial effort for survival he continued to struggle against his bonds, wishing he could apologize, knowing it would be fruitless no matter how repentant he might appear to be. The gag bonded his dry lips numb. The ropes burned into his skin and there was no escape. A dull thud echoed in his ears. A sharp pain shot through his chest. It was the tenth time he'd felt these intrusions into various parts of his body.

Two darts teetered in each knee and shin. One in each bicep stood at attention in flesh that slightly quivered. Two were in his stomach, one in the neck and one deep in his right cheek that pierced his tongue. Trickles of blood were swallowed while looking down to the horrible trails of even more. He was a human dartboard, slowly dying at the hands of this madman who stood again and shouted while pacing back and forth no more than eight feet in either direction.

"How many times you think I needed that money, scumbag? Seven hundred bucks that could have bought me food or gasoline! I'm not the only one you've done this to but you'll never have the chance to screw anyone else again! You believe in God? Nah, you don't believe in anything except living the good life any way you can get it! But I got some news for you! God gave me permission to send you to Hell!

He reared like a baseball pitcher, threw the last dart into the fleshy tip of his nose. A metallic odor invaded the prisoner's sinuses.

The blond man sat down, took a deep breath and closed his eyes as if in sexual climax. Two items were taken from the bag; one was a pistol, the other a tube.

Bulls-eye, Mister Done Something Bad. You'll never experience the rapture but you'll most certainly feel the tribulation, he said, attaching the gun's silencer. Ever hear of Jean-Paul Sartre? He was a French existentialist?

Prisoner shook his head no then yes, trying to dislodge the dart. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them, a part of him not wanting to witness his own death, the other hoping this was a nightmare he'd soon awake from.

"I didn't think so, asshole. Sartre wrote No Exit, the blond man said, aiming the gun between Prisoner's eyes. "He was right, you know. Hell is other people. Should have just paid what you owed me. None of this would have been necessary."

The bullet dislodged the dart in his cheek, sent it to the concrete floor with a tinny sound that echoed within the walls of justice long overdue. Three more tore into his head. Chunks of brain seeped from what was left of his skull, pieces of it large and small landed on the floor like ceiling plaster in an old house vacant. The blond man liked that particular sound.

A rectangular piece of cardboard with a string attached was taken from the bag and placed around the dead man's neck. He spat into lifeless eyes staring back to him as if in the middle of a thought. The time on Prisoners' gold-banded Rolex wristwatch was 10:55 P.M.

Maybe worth $2,000 or more, it might bring $300 or $400 in a pawn shop. Together with the $436 in the expensive looking wallet, the debt was paid. The end of his life was the interest.

He observed his good work and smiled. The first one you work for but the rest are for free. Some had said that: the ones who were just like him in their own beginnings.

*

He awoke in a sweat from this recurrent dream, this continual nightmare. The faces weren't always the same but the location was. He could read their thoughts and feel their torment when tied to the chair, as if he was a director in a horror movie.

There was the muscular African-American movie producer, the scrawny Caucasian dentist. Sometimes it was the beautiful girl who'd wanted to be a famous author, or the older woman who'd lusted to become a top book publisher. Intermixed, would be a rotund attorney or a wiry computer programmer. In the most violent of dreams, the swarthy bar manager of Dutch descent also discovered that karma wasn't just another five letter word. Though different within their social stratums or race, they were all the same within the melting pot of supposed humanity. In this latest nightmare, the dentist from Houston incurred his wrath. Maybe it was just because he'd been the most recent to have stolen from him.

Rising slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed and looked to the nightstand, to the hard pack of Marlboros, the lighter and bottle of aspirins, and then to the photograph that leaned against the alarm clock. It was taken for all the wrong reasons, this innocent interaction between a man and a woman. But as well, its captured image had nevertheless haunted him for the past ten years. Even though there were the times when wanting to tear the photo or burn it when taking from the drawer, he never could bring himself to do either. Whether on celluloid or embedded in memory, letting go is very hard to do.

5 A.M.: another day above ground, yet another day of regrets and anger and pain. Of late he'd usually awake at different hours of the early morning, gravitating to the living room sofa and then back to the bedroom, hoping for a reprieve from thoughts that had never defined the fine line between sanity and insanity. It was three days ago when he'd first heard the voice. Mostly authoritative and demanding, sometimes it was paternal.

The photo was put back in the drawer. He grabbed the bottle and the pack of cigarettes, and sparked one with the lighter before walking down the hallway, past the bathroom and into the living room.

The days were all the same. The nights were more difficult than the days. Something would have to change. He'd need to change to make something happen.

1

1511 NORTH ATLANTIC AVENUE

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, FLORIDA

THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2000

8:30 A.M.

Moderate breezes wafted through the upstairs apartment. A pad of paper on the floor softly crinkled as he focused on a ceiling yellowed by cigarette smoke. The sofa seemed to sag more than it did yesterday and his body felt like lead weights were attached to it. For everyone and everything, time was indeed the enemy.

On a desk, in front of a glass slider that led to a wooden deck and faced the sea, a stack of hardcopy that would never be published lay next to an IBM computer. Rejection letters were piled alongside, testifying failed attempts to procure a literary agent who'd allow another chance. Although his first book was a success, the only ones who'd benefitted from it was his publisher, an ex-girlfriend and a former friend whom he trusted implicitly.

The voice concurred.

Remember them well, Richard.

At a corner of the fifteen-foot square living room abutting the opened slider, two vintage Gibson guitars stood silent on their stands as if waiting for the words in his thoughts to be magically projected into a hit song from their pearl inlaid necks. In December of 1989 he'd sent home recordings to a music agent in Miami, who'd said they were unique and would sell to name artists. A combination of Tom Petty and JJ Cale and Warren Zevon, he'd opined, adding that his voice was akin to TG Shepard's. But life's realities got in the way and he put that dream on the back burner, having to instead focus on immediate concerns, specifically his subsequent divorce from Fran. In retrospect it was the beginning of the end.

Two of the best venting systems available to those with the gift for music or the written word were within his reach, but optimism had turned to pessimism. Every time he'd tried to write a song or a paragraph these past few months, they instead mirrored a lover's anguish at a midnight bar or the innocuous attempts of a novice writer wishing on a literary star. Death comes in many forms, whether for the living or dying. And within those endings, all we might ever receive at best are kind words in a brief conversation for the living, testimonies from the ones we've left behind via their greatest of journeys. Sometimes they'll leave flowers at our grave and maybe they'd be too busy to do that on a regular basis. But although life's detours and roadblocks seem to occur at inopportune times for those either living or dying, in a book or in a song we can live forever. More often than not, one's best efforts to attain immortality are never enough.

His songs would never be on the radio. He would never be published again. His surrender to failure was complete. Today he was a realist and life totally sucked.

Richard twirled a pen in his fingers and took a last drag from the Marlboro Light, wondering what the tourists and weekenders imagined when driving past the big houses planted amidst picturesque scenery and the perceived tranquil ambiance of this central Florida beach town, connected to the mainland by two causeway bridges that might only provide a brief escape from their particular pressures in life. And maybe they assumed that everyone here hadn't a care in the world — that living on the ocean was equivalent to residing in Utopia or Nirvana. Some of them probably never even worked an honest day in their lives, growing wealthier as they lazily watched the stock market reports on a big screen television from a comfortable chair in a gated suburban enclave with manicured lawns and pedicure mentalities.

Maybe's or not he envied them, for he'd once also enjoyed the freedom of wealth, the ability to travel at whim. And for all the joy they may experience on this particular sunny day, they'd never know what was transpiring in a dark mind in a bright yellow duplex.

The voice was sympathetic.

And how could they, Richard? But we understand.

As he crushed his cigarette in the ashtray on the floor to his left, he wondered how they'd feel if what was happening to him happened to them. He reached for the pack to again light up, remembered how he used to hate people that chain-smoked. Hypocrisy was for those who had time to kill. In the literal sense that's now all he had time for. His hand brushed the bottle of aspirins and his fingers groped the pack that felt empty. He picked it up, crushed it and dropped it to the floor.

Twenty cigarettes since two o' clock this morning; a carton of ten packs was finished in three days. A haze clung to the ceiling, as if attached by invisible glue. He wished he could disappear in a puff of smoke or drive over the edge of the world.

Richard closed his eyes and sang the words to Tom Petty's King’s Highway:

I don't want to end up in a room all alone — don't want to end up someone I don't even know — oh I await the day good fortune come —

The divorce from Fran was a cakewalk compared to the past seven years that any song or novel could never fully describe. Life had become a living hell and became even worse after the letter received yesterday. Try to keep your inherently morbid sense of humor, he'd told himself. Try to laugh at the world that balefully laughed at you. Anyway, this can't be all there is, just like Patsy Cline said in a song from long ago when other people's feelings meant something to someone else. No one gives a shit these days, it seems.

And so, as Richard Calder had whiled away his days while waiting for good fortune to again come his way, today's realization made him cry softly. There would be no salvation and no more good luck. That was in another time; a time that could never be forgotten. Once he had a golden touch. For the past ten years everything he touched turned to dust. Every effort to improve his life suffered from either bad karma or, maybe, from the mindless foray into the dark world of Voodoo.

Is that where I really screwed up? He remembered the second person he'd met here shortly after moving to NSB in February of 1994, and introduced by his first acquaintance, Jefferson McQuaid, who owned a jewelry and art shop on the town's main drag.

His name was Mr. Rafael but you'd had the feeling it wasn't, this short black man with piercing blue eyes in the Daytona shop who'd purveyed herbal remedies and counseling in matters of the heart. A Hard Magic priest, he'd said he was, and then warned that his instructions must be followed implicitly.

Sometimes in life, the desire for revenge overrides one's sense of better judgment. A woman had hurt him almost as badly as Fran and he'd sought retribution in any form available. Doing something was better than doing nothing and the black man with indigo eyes that would have made an ocean envious had concurred. You could feel him ransacking your brain, as if a burglar was rummaging through your closet.

Locks of Carla's hair, salvaged from her hairbrush — which she'd inadvertently left behind after he'd jettisoned her — were intertwined with a chicken's foot, spider's legs and a burnt match, a piece of paper with Hieroglyphic-type symbols. A Ziploc bag served as its envelope. The package was to be placed in a remote wooded area, hanging from a tree. He was instructed to wish her stomach cancer — since that is the embodiment of a woman's aura, and to never go back to that place. But he did the very next day.

The package was missing. He felt spirits clawing at his mind and body. The inclination to immediately leave was prompted by fear of the unknown. For two successive nights he was haunted by a vision that defied rational explanation.

A shadow moved furtively around his bedroom, as if seeking something hidden. It would come to the side of the bed and kneel beside him. He could feel it probing his mind, extracting his thoughts. The shadow disappeared, as if swallowed by the walls. For those two nights sleep didn't come easily.

The Voodoo curse left him feeling even more miserable. He tried to retreat into his Catholic faith, seeking forgiveness and questioning his sanity. Every time thinking about it he tried to define the actual power of the occult, concluding in certain moments of clarity that Voodoo is supernatural bullshit. But after not following Mr. Rafael's explicit instructions and then experiencing the vision, he never again visited the shop.

Nonetheless, he'd checked up on Carla a few years ago, hoping her life was as crappy as his. She'd married well, lived in a mansion on Bay Shore Drive in Ft. Lauderdale, drove a Lamborghini with gullwing doors and life was perfect. So much for justice and karma misdirected: two hundred dollars spent for a private investigator to find out what he didn't want to hear. But at least he was smart about it, calling the PI from a phone booth and paying with a money order under a fictitious name.

Within most women a fat bitch with thin lips lurks: driving a nail into a man's heart or prying his wallet or both, as Carla's had done when trying to take credit for all his work when writing his first book. Maybe he'd allowed himself to be used because he was lonely, in retrospect never fully recovering from Fran's divorce. His acumen for astute decisions had rivaled that of James Cagney's refusal to star in the movie Casablanca because he didn't want an unknown Swedish broad as his co-star, the Boston Red Sox trading Babe Ruth, serial killer David Berkowitz leaving weapons in full view on the back seat of his car when parking near a New York City kill-site.

Blue-eyed and blond, five-foot-six and one hundred-ten pounds of model material, Carla was the kind of girl that made other men turn when she walked into a room and the kind of girl you wanted to keep even though you knew you couldn't. Unfortunately at the time, he wasn't able to see beyond the dim light of his libido that intellectual candlepower was no match for. Although cunning, she wasn't really that bright; a twenty watt girl in a hundred watt world. Instead of judging a book by its cover, he wished he'd perused her pages.

More than the money he'd wasted on her she'd stolen his pride. When analyzing the succinct beginning of a downturn in life, some can actually isolate a particular event. For him it wasn't that easy. There were the times when he hated every woman. Deep inside he understood they all weren't like her.

The voice corrected him.

They ARE all the same, Richard. Never forget that.

Although Carla wasn't his first errant decision after relocating to mainland America from the Caribbean in April of 1993 — yet another mistake, and then compounding it by inanely living with her in Ft. Lauderdale for the following eight months, she was the first name on the list. With nine other names on the pad and probably not enough time to attend them all, he'd have to somehow do what needed to be done. Life is all about give and take, not all about taking. Too many people took and not enough gave.

Jean-Paul Sartre's play, No Exit, was his favorite story in college: its poignant message concluded that we live in hell because people are hell. We are the disease. There are too many people on the blue marble of mayhem. Unfortunately, his greatest mistake was looking for the good in people instead of the bad. In a way, life is a school of sorts, he thought. If so, he'd flunked big-time.

He held the pad close to his face, remembered the adage Life is short. He studied the ten names, thinking that it was apropos to the number of years he'd suffered, chose seven of them because that's all he might have time for and because seven was a lucky number.

Last night he'd prayed, asking for both forgiveness and assistance. Somehow, each one on the short list would soon learn that stealing and lying and cheating always demands a price to be eventually paid. And maybe he was born for this exact purpose, enduring his own suffering for the betterment of all, much like Jesus on the cross. He always believed in God but also figured He was a busy guy. Not enough time to wait for God to attend to them.

When trying to rationalize his revengeful intentions when in bed with the light on last night, he didn't want to be the person he was becoming. Maybe he was no better than those that had ruined his life and maybe not, but it was the first time as an adult that he was afraid of the dark. As the sun broke the horizon like a halo on the crust of the planet of mayhem, he reflected on his Catholic upbringing. Didn't God exact his own revenge when His flock was threatened? And how many Egyptians died underneath the Red Sea? Didn't God kill? What about an eye for an eye, like it says in the Old Testament? They'll get theirs, his mother had told him so many times. But how can we ever be sure? She came from a different world; a world where good people far outnumbered the bad ones.

Death is the only sure thing in this fucking life, he said, and drew a circle around each of the unlucky seven's names. Usually not prone to swearing, he found himself using expletives more of late, as if vulgar was a second language instead of a bad habit. He jabbed the paper with the pen at the targets: Carla Hitchcock. Joan Dillon. Gerald Silverman. Paul Heffernan. Stanley Rawlins. Peter Van Pelt. Bradley Halliday.

You've all done something bad and now you'll pay, he said, and wrote those words in block letters at the bottom of the list.

The pad and pen were dropped to the floor and he closed his eyes.

He wished he had his life to live over again. Maybe it was supposed to be like this.

2

JULY 27, 8:55 A.M.

The doorbell's familiar rings, two long and two shorts, sounded like a cheap alarm clock that needed to be thrown against a wall to put it out of your misery. Heralding yet another unannounced visit, he wished she'd leave him alone as he looked to his wristwatch: a cheap Timex that could tell the time as well as an expensive Rolex.

Kate was a borderline pest since he'd moved here, arriving a few times a week with a plate of food like a refugee from a neighborhood welcoming committee that disbanded for lack of new business. Her comportment was apropos to her matronly appearance: A tad over five-feet; about one hundred fifty pounds that was concentrated on her upper body; brown hair with flecks of gray always tied in a bun. She'd never spoken of a past love life and he'd never inquired because he didn't care. When asking about his, he'd told her that he was once married and didn't want to talk about it. Even though her visits were often intrusive, he still liked a woman's company, albeit for short durations. Kate was lonely, just like him. On the plus-side, she was a very good cook.

A deep breath was taken and he looked to the ocean beyond the dune, wishing for the guts to drown himself. There were the rare days when he'd tried to appreciate the sweeping views that the apartment afforded, but unlike the beautiful Caribbean beaches he'd previously enjoyed, the water here was murky, had a steep drop-off about twenty feet out, and cars were inanely allowed on the beach. Weekends were the worst: wall to wall people, hordes of ants on sand. New Smyrna was also the Shark attack capital of the world, most of them occurring at the northern end of the beach where surfers caught the Ponce Inlet jetty's waves. Though most bites weren't serious, there were already eighteen attacks this year by four to five foot Black Tip sharks that apparently didn't savor the taste of local cuisine.

The doorbell rang again, same as before.

Past the kitchen and into the narrow hallway, he stopped at the body-sized rectangular mirror, slightly tilted and thinly clouded by salt from the sea. It reflected truth in an untruthful world. Eyes were deep blue but weary. Blond ponytail hair was somewhat matted from lack of a shower these past few and especially stressful days. The beginnings of a beard on his rugged face seemed to fill it out a bit, but tracks of sleepless nights on his cheeks attested the long road of a six-foot-one weary traveler who was still losing weight and had spun his wheels for far too long. December 5th was his birthday. Fifty years gone to shit.

The voice, sounding sympathetic, agreed.

See what they've done to you, Richard?

Agreeing with a nod, he envisioned Kate's animated smile, a foil covered plate in her outstretched hands. A voracious reader of newspapers and the New Yorker magazine, she was apparently enamored with him because he'd written a published book, sans no real literary merit as he'd told her many times. When once saying that it was covered by Cosmopolitan Magazine in a featured article, he was probably categorized as a liberated male. Women, a mystery to most men, always purport to desire a sensitive man yet inwardly ascertain that he's a wimp should he shed a tear or emote beyond their meager allowance.

Nevertheless, and as a dedicated follower of the world's current events, Kate was a stimulating outlet in this geographic area that didn't appear to be overflowing with brain activity. But his reason for moving here wasn't predicated to intellectual stimulation. Rather, he'd sought the peace and quiet that a travel article had purveyed. After six long years here, that quest remained elusive. In a way, it was akin to someone buying a book because of its cover and then discovering that the plot had no substance. He'd rented the $425 per month apartment on a whim, only exploring the environs thereof one week later, the thought occurring that he'd once again made a mistake. Even though this beachside enclave projected affluence, railroad tracks three miles away definitively proved that in every town there's a good side and bad.

The east side's residents drove new cars, dressed well, had a casual attitude, ate at restaurants, watered their lawns and tending their gardens The west side folks drove older models, had tentative personalities, wore crappy clothes, frequented fast-food joints, didn't care about grass or flowers. Edgewater abutted New Smyrna's southern flank. Port Orange was to the north and then Daytona. All were inundated with blue collar residential developments and biker bars with post-apocalyptic names. Westward, the town of Deland was called Dead Land by beachside stuck-ups who couldn't differentiate a Monet from a tourism poster. Daytona, home of The World's Most Famous Beach, was nightly patrolled by hungry pedophiles and cracked-out hookers in a surreal assemblage of human waste along its littered shores and rusty-nailed boardwalk, testifying that ecology or Tetanus were the least of their concerns. The International Speedway's spectator infield was a haven for trailer-park rednecks, guzzling Budweiser and greedily consuming greasy barbeque, anxiously awaiting a crash while sitting on the edges of their tattered sofas and chairs that fleas and ticks could tell stories if able. People suck in various degrees, no matter the compass heading.

The voice again concurred.

That's right, Richard. Kate is on the edge also.

There were times when Kate would sit beside him on the couch, craftily sliding nearer when feeling a special link with him that only a woman could understand and men could never fathom. Being that she had the sexual appeal of a crustacean, he'd tactfully move away a bit or get up with any excuse that came to mind, whether for a drink of water or a need to stretch. He never wanted to hurt her feelings, being familiar with that particular pain. It was hard to understand what women ever saw in him to begin with.

The bell rang again, this time with longer intervals between the long and shorts. He thought about Fran as his hand curled around the doorknob, and the feeling of his heart being eaten returned.

She was his soul-mate for twenty three years: met her when seniors in high school, lived together for six years and married for the rest. Moved to Martha's Vineyard in 1978, got his contractor's license, made almost a half-million before taxes during the island's construction hey-day, then left for St. John in 1985 to start another home construction company when the market started to dry-up. Life was good, a new beginning beckoning on the Caribbean horizon. But just when you think the good times will last forever they don't. Sometimes life isn't the proverbial oyster, instead a clam that clamps down when least expected. Peter Van Pelt was a type of clam; someone who wanted everything you had and probably stayed awake at night trying to figure out how to get it, when exactly to shut.

After Fran absconded with Clam, every woman paled in comparison to her. Ten subsequent girlfriends within a two year period were either privy to his occasional fits of anger or foul moods. Unbelievably, most of them wanted to stay but he wouldn't let them. A part of him wanted to sabotage every relationship, another part silently cried for their love. None of them ever knew why except for Brenda, the only one other than Fran who still held a special place in what was left of his heart. He thought about the lyrics of a favorite song and whispered a poignant line.

If you won't leave me I'll find somebody who will.

That's what Warren Zevon had once said.

Sometimes he'd felt like the luckiest guy in the world to have had so many, but mistrust of women, specifically after Carla, had led to celibate periods while living here. There were occasional hookers when his urges became almost unbearable, chance encounters under a lucky star. It was safe, those benign pieces of ass in his jigsaw world. Though always a puzzle they were always soft to the touch. Although women purport to be mysteries, most are predators.

Once again, the voice concurred.

Sit them in the chair. Play darts.

With a shake of his head to expel the voice, he opened the door and forced a smile. He would be short but sweet to Kate because no inhabitant of the blue marble of mayhem could ever totally understand his predicament. He thought about a cigarette, the best reason to open the door. She smoked Merit Ultra-Lights, the kind you have to suck hard to get a decent drag. However, nicotine in any form is still a dose of vitamin T. He surveyed the pockets of her jeans, looked for the pack.

Good morning, sweetie, she happily said at the top step. Some breakfast for the writer? Saw your lights on last night. Have you had more inspiration for the novel's rewrites? You must be starving!

I'm tired more than starving, Kate. But I did get a bit more done on the book. Endings always seem to be the hardest part, he said, fully realizing the truth of that profound statement.

Tucked under her right arm was the perquisite New Yorker magazine, rolled to a tube and undoubtedly containing some boring article written by a staffer more concerned about a paycheck than good reporting. Pages would be dog-eared to varied subjects Kate and he would discuss to pass the time, politics and psychology and current events. Depending on his mood he'd peruse them further, but his favorite reading was always his novel about a serial killer he'd also shared with her.

Kate found it both morbid and fascinating — sometimes offering suggestions for the manuscript so far rejected by seventy-six literary agents via its outline and sample chapters sent to them. In form letters that insulted the intelligence of a gifted writer, they'd suggested that he contact other agents that might be more attuned to his particular graphic niche.

The voice offered another suggestion.

Watch this bitch real careful, Richard.

Wincing at this perceived hallucination's bad grammar, he knew Kate was just trying to be helpful as always. And just as he'd always cherished intelligent interactions, she'd also relished any opportunity to bond with active brain cells. At the end of every visit he'd thank her and promise to read the articles later. After she'd leave, the magazine was usually tossed in the trash container under the kitchen sink. Kate had always appeared to be the stuck-up type prevalent here. She also seemed to be vicarious, apparently not having a life of her own.

Richard rubbed his eyes and faked a yawn. Her eyes gravitated to his white shorts. For a moment he wished she was a beautiful model who suffered from a blond moment and needed directions to the beach. Old habits never seem to die, even for a man with a high libido, dysfunctional attitudes and more important things to think about. And why, he thought, would any girl want to be with a guy who could barely afford to pay his rent?

He took the plate from Kate as she crossed the threshold, trying to remember when he'd eaten last. Was it Tuesday afternoon? The five-for-four-dollar Swanson chicken pie supermarket special cooked in a microwave that had recently sounded more like a cement mixer? She brushed him aside, as if squeezing into a crowded elevator. He hoped her visit would be shorter than the usual hour or so.

As always, Kate was bound to start picking up after him, then wash the dirty dishes and all the other things a woman does for a man. Seemingly, they're all part mothers and big sisters; men are part little boys and father figures. Somewhere in between are we all, ultimately and miserably failing to be what someone else wants us to be. He missed Fran today more than yesterday. No matter how he'd tried to hate her for these past ten years, he couldn't.

Kate made a beeline to the kitchen and reached into a pocket of her loosely-fitting blue jean shorts, taking out a pack of Merit's with a red lighter that she also laid down on the counter to the right of the sink. Beside them, she placed the magazine that instantly unfurled its dog-eared pages. She turned the faucets, a gush of water broke the silence of an uncomfortable situation that they'd both grown accustomed to at certain times. Richard put the plate on the counter then picked up the pack of smokes. Greedily, he took one out. He was glad she was here. Kate had cigarettes. His sorry-ass life had come to this.

What's that? she asked, washing a glass and nodding to the letter from Halifax Medical Center on top of an envelope. Are you okay? She fully turned to him, lines on her forehead deeply creased and thick eyebrows raised. He placed a Merit between his teeth, tossed the pack on the counter.

Saw a doctor a few days ago. I'm just run down a bit.

He scooped up the letter and envelope and slipped them in a drawer, fairly sure she hadn't read the letters contents. When the time came to leave for good it would be best if nobody knew the reasons why. Just a kind word on his behalf in a passing conversation would suffice. Hopefully, it would turn out that way.

The voice congratulated him.

Now you're thinking, Richard! Nobody really cares. Remember that.

Kate nodded affirmatively and then began a diatribe about how her legs were breaking out in sun-rashes, and then complained about Pauline, her domineering mother. As he sat on the edge of the sofa nearest the slider he wished he was deaf. It was always the same with Kate: lamenting how her wealthy mother treated her as an indentured servant and in the next extolling her virtues as a loyal daughter attending to the needs of a cancer-stricken matriarch. In reality, she was instead awaiting Pauline's demise so as to collect a share of the inheritance that would be divided between her alcoholic brother, a greedy-bitch sister and herself: the fifty-three year old who insufferably played the part of a suffering woman in a modern-day version of the movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Times never change on the blue marble, only the names.

Dishes done, Kate said, drying her hands on a towel. Food's getting cold.

Almost forgot. Sorry —

That's why you need me, Rich.....One of the reasons, anyway. She smiled sweetly, winked an eye.

He took a drag and crushed it in the ashtray, knew the other reason because women aren't as mysterious as they think they are. But he needed to eat something and something smelled wonderful as she took the foil off the plate.

Omelet ....Spanish, beaming as she handed it to him. Hope you like.

Way to man's heart is through his stomach?

It's one of the ways, Rich.

The voice opined: This bitch needs a good fuck, Richard. Just do it!

He ignored the opinion and her comment with a forced smile, wishing he'd just taken the plate from her and given a lame excuse for not letting her in. Kate handed him a fork and sat closely beside him. He looked at the omelet on his lap like his lucky lottery number had just hit.

Yellow and fluffy, cubed tomatoes and lengths of red pepper encircled it like Indians attacking a wagon train. Richard squeezed tightly into his corner and put the plate on the sofa's arm, piercing the omelet in half with his fork like a neurosurgeon intent on discovering the definitive difference between the right and left sides of the brain. He took a bite and savored it, recalled the last time that he'd eaten a good Spanish omelet: eight years ago at the Cruz Quarter restaurant on St. John. Memories made him smile as he looked to the sea.

Living in the Caribbean was uncomplicated, the hardest decision of the day sometimes being what pair of dirty shorts to wear and what bistro to have lunch at. Darts would be played at the evening pubs, sometimes letting someone else win when you thought they needed the ego more than you. On certain days or on certain nights life was as good as it could be. Even for the shady people that gravitated to sunny places, it was always easier in the tropics. He wished he'd never left and that Fran had never left him. He remembered the words of a song by JJ Cale.

You've been hidin' out, I know that's true — crazy mama I sure need you — crazy mama where you been so long.

Kate asked a question. Reluctantly, he returned to reality.

Smile means you like? Faraway look says a thousand words?

Best I've ever had. He stuffed another forkful in his mouth.

Hmmm, this looks interesting, she said, picking up the pad, studying it. Notes for the book? You've all done something bad and now —?

I've decided to do some major rewrites and resubmit to agents.

I'm glad you're not giving up. Wow, these are cool sounding names.

His plate was put on the sofa, between him and Kate. The pad was abruptly grabbed from her hands. Kate's brown eyes widened like moon-pies.

Are you sure you're okay? Do you have another headache?

She looked to the bottle of aspirin and frowned in concern. Maybe she'd noticed all the other empty bottles when recently taking the trash out from under the sink, becoming aware of the seriousness of his headaches? Maybe Kate was more intuitive than he'd thought?

I didn't mean to grab. Very sorry, he said, putting the pad upside-down at his feet. Just not myself today, I guess. Yeah, I do have a slight headache. It's stress, that's all.

Kate put a hand on his shoulder and it impacted like someone had sucker punched him. There was a time when a woman's touch felt like a slice of heaven but now it hurt: intangible pain from too many years of being alone and afraid to try again.

Maybe I should leave?

It's not you. These rewrites are driving me crazy.

Then take your time. There's an agent somewhere who will take it and you'll hit bulls-eyes just like those, she said, pointing to the dartboard on the wall above his desk with three rusted darts clustered in its center."

I'm just going through the motions at this point — pardon the pun, but it's a great book.

I know, she laughed, I can't eat peanut butter anymore."

Then I've done my job, he said with a grin.

Are all writers of mystery novels weird?

"Why are some women