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.“Or Taylor.”“But why?” The sick feeling I experienced earlier when I saw the demolished Buick made an encore performance.“C’mon, boys.” I walked toward the trailer, the red meat I’d consumed earlier in the evening a heavy wad in my gut.I reached in my bag for the key, then recalled I’d left my keys in my car before I’d switched to the Buick.I ran to the Plymouth, retrieved the key from the ashtray, and hurried to the front door.Townsend took the key ring from me.“I have to whiz,” he said.“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to do that before you leave?” I teased, then stepped in and turned the light switch on.“Hell’s bells,” Townsend said.I looked at him, then at my dining room and kitchen, or what purported to be my dining room and kitchen.Frankly, it was hard to tell what I was looking at.The place looked like it had been used for a WWF free-for-all.My table and chairs were overturned.The refrigerator was standing open, its contents spilling onto the floor.The kitchen faucet was running and the sink was overflowing.Dishes and plates were busted.In the living room, sofa cushions were slashed, flower pots upended, and my quaint little knickknacks were now pea-sized gravel.My bedroom was just as bad.My mattress had been violated and my drawers emptied, leaving my holier-than-thou underwear in plain view.I was shaking so much I had to sit down, so I chose to join my intimate apparel on the floor.I couldn’t decide if I was shaking because I was so afraid, or because I was so friggin’ angry.How dare someone break into my home? Destroy the property I worked—Gramma worked so hard to acquire!“You okay, Tressa?” Townsend asked from above me.“No, I am not okay,” I said, trying to keep my lips from shaking along with the rest of my body.“Some scum-sucking, deadbeat, no-good bastard broke into my home.I am definitely not okay!”Townsend bent over and grabbed the red thong panties from the floor and used them to pick up the phone.Seconds later I heard him recite my address.Then he cradled the phone.“Don’t know if they will dust for prints, but, just in case, we better not touch anything.”I nodded, so weary that Townsend could have made a lewd suggestion and I would have yawned in response.“I’m gonna have to use the john,” he said.“It can’t wait.”Any other night, the idea of Rick Townsend in my trailer with his pants unzipped would have left me short of breath and low on spit.But this night, I couldn’t manage even the teensiest naughty thought.That injustice, if anything, deserved retribution.Big time.Once Townsend was finished, I excused myself, leaving him to greet the police (I was up to here with coppers), and headed to the bathroom.Good lord, even my john hadn’t been spared.They’d dumped my toiletries all over the place and done something quite obscene with my curling iron and the bathtub faucet.I went to pull the electrical appliance out and drew back the maroon shower curtain.In big, block letters reminiscent of my Mystical Mauve shade of lipstick, were four words: “PAY UP OR ELSE!” My throat tightened.My chest hurt worse than when I’d taken my first spill from a horse, and unwisely tried to inhale.A cold sweat began to form on my goose-pimply skin.I sank down on the toilet seat and stared at the words.This was not the act of some bill collector gone postal.Nor was it my mother reminding me I owed her seventeen dollars and some odd cents for groceries.No, this little greeting card had nothing to do with financial insolvency, and everything to do with corpses, cash and cobras.I noticed my light brown Perfect Blend eye pencil sitting near the sink.I picked it up, pulled out a length of two-ply toilet paper, and started writing.1.Left work2.Took the wrong car3.Flat tire4.Body in trunk5.Cash in glove box6.Body not in trunk7.Cash not in glove box8.A visit from Cobra Man9.Buick vandalized10.House destroyed11.Lipstick threatI looked at my list trying to do a dot-to-dot.You know, make some connections.Nothing jumped out at me.Usually that’s what it takes for me to have a clue.Obviously, cobra guy thought I had the money.I had returned the money to the glove compartment, hadn’t I? What if I’d dropped it? What if, when the killer returned for the body, he couldn’t find the money? It was hardly a stretch to believe a hard-up blonde who was chronically out of work had pocketed the green.A short rap sounded at the bathroom door.“You fall in or something?” Townsend asked.I quickly wadded up my toilet paper notepad and flushed it.I opened the door.“Townsend, you gotta see this!”“See what?” The look on his face suggested he did not think there was anything in the can he cared to see.I grabbed his arm and hauled him to the bathtub.“Look.” I pointed at the Mystical Mauve message.“What do you make of that?” I asked.“Doesn’t that prove something to you? Well, doesn’t it?”Townsend took so long to reply I wondered if he was having difficulty reading the four words.“ ‘Pay up or else.’ Do you see that? Or else? Now I don’t know about you, but generally when I hear the words or else I’m thinking major threat.As in ‘or else, you’re history.’ ‘Or else, you’re dead meat.’ ‘Or else, you join the spare tire club.’ Or else.Get it?”A deep crease marred Townsend’s brow.I considered telling him that frowning like that would produce wrinkles, but suspected I would hear something like, “I only get crinkles when you’re around,” or something like that, so I kept it to myself.“You’re not telling me you think there is a connection between the Peyton Palmer piece of fiction and this?” Townsend said.“It’s as clear as the lipstick on the wall,” I asserted.Actually, it wasn’t all that clear to me, but Townsend didn’t have to know that.“So you think.what, exactly?”“Do I have to draw a picture?” I asked, hoping that Townsend would complete his own dot-to-dot in his head and, perhaps, fill in the some of the blank spaces in my own mental picture of how and why this was all unfolding
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