And One to Die On(20)

“If you drink any more of that stuff,” Gregor told her, “you’re going to be in no shape to drive us to Maine tomorrow morning.”

“What worries me, Gregor, is that I might be contributing to the spread of schizophrenia. I might be causing schizophrenia that wouldn’t otherwise exist in the world.”

Back at the bookstore, all Bennis had been interested in was getting finished and getting out, but it hadn’t been easy. The customers had hundreds of books for her to sign, and even after she’d signed them, they hadn’t wanted to let her go. No sooner had Bennis pushed away the last copy of any of her books existing anywhere in the Cambridge Full Fantasy Bookstore, than Darcy Bentley and Natalia came running up, carrying something large between them that was covered by a sheet.

“Look,” Darcy Bentley squealed, pulling the sheet off with her left hand. “Look what we got for you. And it was just a miracle that we were able to find it.”

What they had found was a gigantic porcelain replica of a Stone Age fertility goddess, four feet high and almost as wide, with great drooping heavy breasts and a belly the size and shape of an NBA regulation basketball. Underneath the belly there were feet, but there didn’t seem to be legs. On the head there were long wild tresses of hair that stood up at the ends. Around the neck curled a long snake with flashing green eyes.

The statue had flashing green eyes, too. That’s because the eyes on the snake and on the statue’s head were tiny green light bulbs, and the whole thing was kept working by four CC batteries and a little nest of plastic-coated wires.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Darcy demanded. “We took one look at it and knew that nothing else on earth would ever come so close to expressing the spirit of your books.”





3


Sitting in the Hilton dining room in front of her pitcher of orange juice and an enormous fruit salad, Bennis looked more depressed than Gregor had ever remembered seeing her. She was only picking at her fresh pineapple, which was her favorite thing on earth after dark chocolate. She hadn’t touched her coffee. She had drunk most of the pitcher of orange juice, but Gregor thought that that was mostly because she was hung over. She had to be hung over. After coming back from the bookstore last night, she had put away half of a large bottle of Drambuie, and no dinner.

“Come on.” Gregor nudged her foot gently under the table. “Cheer up a little. We’ve got a long drive.”

“I know we do,” Bennis said. “But do you know what I was just thinking?”

“No.”

“I was just thinking that they aren’t alone. Those people at the bookstore last night. They’re more colorful about it than most people, but most people are crazy.”

“Are they?”

Bennis nodded gloomily. “Take the people we’re going up to Maine today to see. Cavender Marsh. Do you remember Cavender Marsh?”

“Movie star from the ’30s,” Gregor said. “Had an affair with his wife’s sister. Wife died, possibly a suicide. He ran off with the sister. We’ve been through all this before.”

“I know we have. I know we have. But bear with me. In the first place, his name isn’t really Cavender Marsh. It’s John Day. He was—what? My mother’s first cousin once removed?”

“He was your mother’s second cousin. Your mother’s first cousins once removed were the children of her cousins. Your mother’s second cousins are the children of your mother’s parents’ cousins. And there isn’t anything crazy about a man changing his name when he becomes an actor. People do it all the time.”

“I think you’d have to be from the Main Line to understand how a connection like my mother’s second cousin could get me into a mess like this,” Bennis said. “I’m from the Main Line and I barely understand it.”

“I was just trying to point out that, your pessimism notwithstanding, there doesn’t seem to be anything on the lunatic fringe here yet.”

Bennis speared a piece of pineapple and bit off the end of it. “I think there’s enough on the lunatic fringe in this thing to satisfy a psychiatrist for a decade. Her name isn’t really Tasheba Kent, by the way. It’s Thelma.”

“Kent?”

“That’s right. And her sister called herself Lilith Brayne, but her name was really Lillian Kent. Can you imagine anyone wanting to name themselves Lilith, especially in the United States in the ’20s, with all that Bible-thumping and anti-Darwin stuff going on?”

“Sure. It was probably worth its weight in publicity.”

“Well, if it was, it was the wrong kind of publicity,” Bennis said. “Tasheba was the sexy bad-girl one. Lilith was the ever-pure virgin who got tied to the railroad tracks by the villain. They used to have Tasheba Kent-Lilith Brayne film festivals when I was in college.”