Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

“I’m scared already. Just the type you gotta watch out for. A creep.”

She looked at him with asperity. “You’ve never seen him. How do you know?”

“How do you know he isn’t? How do you know he hasn’t got the bodies of authors past buried in his basement?”

“Please.”

“Okay, then explain why he followed you to Texas.”

“Who said he followed me? I’m sure yesterday was a coincidence.”

“He’s your number-one fan. He sees you coincidentally in an airport like fifteen, twenty states away from where you’re both supposed to be, and he doesn’t come rushing over to speak to you, make his presence known? He doesn’t say, ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe this! My favorite author out here on the frontier!’”

“Put that way…”

“Right.” He took the photograph from her and carried it over to the window, where the light was better. He studied it for several long moments, then his chin went up suddenly and he looked over at her.

“Yesterday. In the park. Two lovers lying on a blanket, getting it on. A pair of grandparents playing ball with their grandson. A group of cheerleaders practicing. And a late arrival. An ordinary-looking guy. Kept his back to us while he appeared to be talking into his cell phone.” He tapped the photograph. “It was your Jerry.”

Rupe had been in the dental chair until midnight last night. He’d called his dentist even before driving himself to the hospital following his violent encounter with Dale Moody.

Fortunately he and the dentist played golf together, so Rupe had his cell-phone number. “No, it can’t wait till regular business hours tomorrow,” he’d said when the dentist balked. “It’s an emergency. I’ll be there by eight.”

At the hospital, the ER doctor recognized him despite the damage done to his face. “Say, aren’t you the King of Cars? What happened? You sell somebody a lemon?”

“I ran into a door.” He’d had to speak carefully to prevent his loosened caps from falling off. He’d already lost one, creating a significant gap in his top row of pearly whites.

“Yeah, that happened to me once,” the doctor said, adding archly, “When I owed a guy money.”

Ha-ha. I get it. The doctor turned out to be an intern, and once he’d stopped with the wisecracks, which Rupe had borne with false good humor, he confirmed that Rupe’s nose had indeed been “busted all to hell and back.”

With Rupe gnashing his teeth despite the loose caps, the doctor had repositioned his nose the best he could, taped it, and then told Rupe that plastic surgery would probably be required to make it cosmetically pleasing again.

“But nothing can be done until the swelling goes down.”

“How long with that take?”

“Several weeks. Six, eight maybe.” The prospect of a long, slow healing process seemed to delight him. He ripped a prescription for painkillers off a pad, and as he handed it to Rupe, he said, tongue in cheek, “Don’t be a stranger.”

Cute. That was the tag line with which Rupe signed off all his television commercials.

He had stopped at his house long enough to wash down two of the pain pills with neat scotch and to change his clothes, which still bore the heel marks of Moody’s boots. Fortunately, his wife and kids were spending two weeks in Galveston with his in-laws, so he hadn’t had to make explanations. By the time they returned, he wouldn’t look quite so bad, and he would have thought of something plausible to explain his altered appearance.

At eight o’clock, the dentist had met him at the back door of his office, and then Rupe had spent four grueling hours with a blinding light in his eyes and sharp instruments in his mouth.

When he awoke this morning, his nose was throbbing, his eyes were swollen practically shut, and, although his caps had been re-cemented to last for a thousand years, his gums were too tender even to sip coffee.

Looking at himself in his bathroom vanity mirror, he muttered, “Fucking Moody,” and pledged to find the former cop and kill him.

Toward that end, he called Haymaker.

“Hey, Rupe,” he answered cheerfully, “how’s it hanging?”

“You son of a bitch, you turned him on to me, didn’t you?”

“Who? Turned who on to you? What are you talking about?” Haymaker’s voice was so ridiculously innocent it was taunting.

“I’m going to ruin you.”

“If you could’ve, you would’ve. Know what I think, Rupe? I think you’ve lost your touch. That edge you once had just ain’t what it used to be.”

“I’m giving you one last chance, Haymaker.”

“To do what? My car note is current. I even paid a month ahead. So don’t send one of your goons after that sorry tin can you sold my wife, or I’ll have to report it stolen.”

“Tell me where Moody is.”

“Oh,” he said, dragging out the word. “So that’s what this is about. Moody. You haven’t found him yet?”

Rupe could swear Haymaker smothered a laugh. “If you don’t tell me—”

“I swear, Rupe. Dale hasn’t shared his current address with me. Waterboarding wouldn’t get it for you.”

“Find out where he is. You have until this time tomorrow. If you don’t come through, you’re going to have me as an enemy for the rest of your life. And, Haymaker, you don’t want that.”

“Uh, Rupe. I don’t think you ought to be worrying about Moody.”

“I’m not worried. I can shut him up forever. I can shut you up forever. And I don’t even have to get my hands dirty. I don’t even have to leave my office. I can—”

“What I mean is,” Haymaker said, interrupting. “I don’t think having Dale and me killed is gonna solve your problem. Because, see, I’m looking out my front window as we speak, and guess who’s coming to call?”

While Bellamy was showering and dressing, Dent swapped out their cars, then made toast and scrambled eggs, which she ate hungrily when she rejoined him in the kitchen. More casually dressed than he’d ever seen her, she had on a pair of snug jeans and a white shirt. She looked good and smelled great.

Once they were on I-35, driving back to Austin in her car, she asked him where they were going. “Haymaker. He partnered with Moody during the investigation.”

“I vaguely remember him.”

“I saw them more than you did and got the impression they were pals off the job. Maybe he can tell us where Moody is.” Then he reintroduced the subject of Jerry. “What do you make of your number-one fan being in the Georgetown park yesterday and then apparently following us to the airport?”

“I admit that it smacks of stalking. If I ever come face-to-face with him again, I’ll tell him that his behavior is making me uncomfortable.”

“Oh, that should put the fear of God into him.”

She shot him a dirty look and the conversation died there.

Donald Haymaker lived in one of Austin’s older neighborhoods, which hadn’t yet had an influx of younger people looking for homes to redo and modernize. As they approached the small porch of his house, Bellamy asked, “How do you think we’ll be received?”

Dent didn’t have time to venture a guess. The former police officer opened his door even before they rang the bell. He regarded them as curiously as they assessed him.

He’d developed a pot belly, which looked comical in contrast to his hairless, bandy legs and knobby knees. His eyes were small and squinty, his nose upturned and sharp at the end. Put a silly cap on his head, and he’d look like one of the Rice Krispies elves.

He made a point of appraising the cuts and bruises on Dent’s face. “Still finding trouble, I see.”