Ed Gorman - Several Deaths Later

"No," she said.

"Then you get right up here and sit with us," Cindy said grandly, and started patting the empty chair next to her as if Joanna were a poodle who knew when to jump up on her mistress's lap.

"Oh," Joanna said, obviously about to protest.

"You come on now," Cindy McBain said. "I'm a nun and you're supposed to obey me." She giggled.

"Well," Joanna said, her eyes once again hooking forlornly on Jere's face. "Well, I guess it would be all right.”

Three drinks later, Cindy, who held her liquor as well as any other horny fourteen-year-old junior-high girl said, "Tobin tells me you're in love with Jere Farris."

Which of course got Tobin one of those ten-thou-sand-daggers-in-your-heart glances from Joanna. "I… I care for Jere."

Cindy patted her hand. "As soon as Tobin goes tinkle, I'll tell you all about married men."

Tobin was about to protest when he felt Alicia Farris's glare on him. She obviously did not care to have her husband's mistress sitting at the same table and Tobin really didn't blame her. He'd been drunk enough that he'd forgotten all about the impropriety of asking Joanna up here.

The lounge boys left the stage to far too much applause, replaced by a dance combo that turned "When Sunny Gets Blue" into a foxtrot.

The dancing began with confetti and streamers drifting from the ceiling.

Tobin turned to ask Cindy to dance but he saw that she was deep in conversation with Joanna. "I've always had a simple rule about married men. If they don't give you a gift every month that's worth at least a thousand dollars, then you're really wasting your time."

Susan Richards must have seen Tobin's dilemma because she walked around the celebrity dais and came over to him. "Would you like to dance?"

"You're about three inches taller than me."

She smiled her wonderful smile. "You can stand on my feet."

The band played "Fly Me to the Moon" and they danced.

She smelled luxuriantly of perfume and herself and he held her tighter than was necessary but she didn't seem to mind, indeed laid her long fingers gently on the back of his neck as they moved through the melancholy darkness of the dance floor, the feeling like that of a New Year's Eve bash, hilarity and a certain sadness at the same time.

Then she startled him by leaning down (she was actually closer to five inches taller in her hooker heels) and brushing her mouth against his.

He came alive in a way that was almost painful, yet was also a wonderful experience for a forty-two-year-old sot who had recently begun worrying not about the quantity of his erections but the quality.

"My God," he said.

"I'm drunk."

"So am I."

"I only do this sometimes. I'm really not promiscuous."

"Neither am I," he said, "though it's not for want of trying."

She smiled. "'The maid who laughs is half taken.'"

"Fifteenth century, I believe."

"Something like that. But it's true. I like your jokes on the set. Everybody else is so concerned about the show. But you-"

She touched her mouth to his again.

He felt transported back to 1958 and the St. Michael's gym. He was moving as one about the floor with Mary Sue O'Hallahan. He knew she knew he had an erection that threatened to cause him a heart attack. He wondered if she minded. That had always been the big mystery in those days-did girls actually want you to get erections or did they just sort of put up with it when you did?

All these long years later, he was getting his answer.

"My cabin or yours?" she said easily.

And then he happened to glance over her shoulder-actually through her armpit, his level of vision not reaching her shoulder-and saw Todd Ames in his Robin Hood getup start to leave the celebrity dais.

Tobin assumed he was going one of two places. To the biffy or to Tobin's cabin.

Tobin would lay even money on the latter.

"Could we," he said miserably, "meet a little later?"

Pressed against him, and breathless as he, she said, "Later? Tobin, are you crazy?"

"I know. And I'm sorry. But…"

She stared at him with her overly made-up eyes (wasn't there a hooker someplace on God's own planet who didn't wear any makeup at all). With a quiet air of disbelief in her voice, she said, "You having some problems?"

"No."

"I mean, we don't have to jump on top of each other. Sometimes men your age-well, I love necking myself. It's like high school again."

Wretchedly, he watched Todd Ames leave the restaurant.

And all he could do was break and run.

"Tobin!" she shouted. "Tobin! You get back here!"

But by now Ames had vanished and Tobin was worried that he wouldn't be able to beat him back to his cabin.

He had to climb three flights of stairs and run down what seemed endless miles of corridor. He was sweating and panting and just about ready to barf when he reached his cabin door.

He pushed his ear to the wood and listened.

Party sounds floated up from below; a sky gorgeous with summer stars spread with radiant beauty round the entire world.

From inside, nothing.

Quickly, he inserted his key and ducked into his cabin.

Todd Ames had apparently gone to the John because twenty minutes after entering his cabin Tobin had neither heard from nor seen the man.

Which caused a certain degree of resentment in Tobin. Standing up in a corner of the dark closet was not fun. At least it was big and mostly empty but still it was dull, particularly given the fact that Tobin had abandoned the chance to have some sort of tryst with Susan Richards to be here.

All he could do now, unfortunately, was wait. The large dusty closet was lit only by corridor light spilling into the louvered door.

Ten minutes later he had to risk going to the bathroom. He just couldn't hold it anymore.

He ran in and did the deed and ran back.

He'd just gotten the closet door closed when he heard footsteps coming down the corridor.

Tobin had made it easy for whoever might want to claim the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson.

He'd put everything right in the middle of the bed.

All the thief had to do was rummage through it, take what he or she wanted, and then Tobin would spring from the closet and trap the person.

It sure sounded simple enough…

The cabin doorknob rattled as it was turned first rightward and then leftward.

Tobin's heart began pounding so loudly he wondered if the intruder could hear it. Sweat started collecting under his arms and down his back and in his shoes. Flop sweat.

The door creaked open.

Either the intruder possessed burglary tools or knew how to use a credit card. The door creaked shut.

A dark form stood in the center of the cabin, looking around, as if he suspected that he was indeed being spied upon.

No problem identifying the person. There'd been only one cowboy at the costume party tonight. Jere Farris.

The cowboy outfit had included a pair of spurs, which did not exactly lend themselves to stealth. As Farris crossed the room to the bed, thumbing on a flashlight whose beam was yellow and lurid in the gloom, his spurs began to jangle.

Farris set to work.

He went through the box belonging to Sanderson first. He picked up a variety of items, examined each, and then put them back.

Next he went through Iris Graves's material and it was here that he paused at great length, especially when he came to the notebook Tobin had so thoughtfully set out.

He thumbed through the pages to the middle section where she'd done most of her writing on the "Celebrity Circle" show. Then he said, "Sonofabitch."

Obviously Farris knew that Iris Graves had known something about the "Circle" crew.

The next set of footsteps were lighter than Farris's had been.