The particulars on Gregor Demarkian that Carmencita had for Shelley Feldstein were height, weight, hair color, eye color, waist circumference, and shoe size. She also had a measurement she didn’t usually take, but that she’d come across accidently and immediately seen was important. The measurement was of Gregor Demarkian’s chest. Carmencita had found it in an ancient copy of People magazine, in a story about a murder Demarkian had solved during a Fourth of July party at the summer home of a movie star. That was a little intimidating, that was. That Gregor Demarkian went to Fourth of July parties at the summer homes of movie stars.
Carmencita pushed the detail sheet across the table until it was right under Shelley’s nose.
“Chest measurement,” she said. “That’s what I wanted you to look at.”
“Very big,” Shelley nodded. “Yes, it is. We’ll have to be careful with that. If we aren’t, he’ll make Lotte look like a China doll.”
“I’m not worried about Lotte,” Carmencita said. “If she looks like a China doll, it’s just fine, at least according to DeAnna, that is. It was the first thing I worried about when I saw the measurements. He is so big. Lotte is so small. But we don’t have to worry about that. DeAnna said.”
“What do we have to worry about?”
“Herbert Shasta.”
“Herbert Shasta?”
“He’s the other guest. We were supposed to have four of them. Serial killers, I mean, but we couldn’t get the prison system to go along with it. You should have heard what the warden at the Florida State Penitentiary said. Anyway, all we got was Herbert Shasta, who was called the Allegheny Apache until the Apaches complained. Mr. Shasta used to murder very fat women and—um—commit acts on their dead bodies.”
“Oh,” Shelley said. “Well.”
“Yes. Well. This is the problem. Mr. Shasta, you see, is very small.”
“How small?”
“Five feet one inch tall. And slight.”
“How slight?”
“One hundred and twenty-five pounds.”
“One hundred and twenty-five pounds. I weigh more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds.”
“Lotte weighs more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds,” Carmencita said. “There are twelve-year-old boys who weigh more than one hundred and twenty-five pounds.”
“Oh, dear,” Shelley said.
“It would have been better if we could have gotten one of the other ones,” Carmencita said. “There was a man in Texas who killed only women with red hair. He was six ten and built like King Kong. He would have been good. There was a man in Chicago who preferred Asian women in white jeans. He was six two and fat. He would have been good, too.”
“Don’t these guys ever kill anyone but women?”
“Of course they do. But we didn’t ask them to be on the show, because the show is called—”
“‘Sex and the Serial Killer,’ yes, I know.”
“Mr. Demarkian is going to be sitting on that stage looking like a gorilla,” Carmencita said. “He’s going to make this Mr. Shasta look sympathetic. If we don’t do something.”
“Well,” Shelley said with determination. “We’ll just have to do something, won’t we?”
“We’ll have to do something for more reasons than you know,” Carmencita said, “because you see, when Mr. Demarkian shows up at the studio tomorrow, he’s going to get something of a surprise.”
“What kind of a surprise?”
“He doesn’t know yet that Mr. Shasta is going to be on the program.”
Shelley Feldstein cocked her head and grinned. “You know, Carmencita, I think you’re going to make a world-class talent coordinator.”
“If I don’t get killed between six and noon and tomorrow morning,” Carmencita said. “Can you fix this?”
“I don’t know if I can fix it, but I can certainly help. Here comes the waitress. Think of something that you want to eat.”
Carmencita didn’t really want anything to eat, but she thought it would be impolite not to have something, so she ordered a chef’s salad. Carmencita was the kind of person who ate when she was nervous and wasn’t much interested when she was not, and now that Shelley seemed to be taking this little problem in stride, Carmencita was calmer than she’d been since she climbed into the limousine in New York.
Now if she could only think of some way to resolve all her problems with Itzaak, life would be perfect.
3
FOR SARAH MEYER, LIFE would only be perfect if she woke up one morning and found out she was someone else. Dorothy Hamill. Madam Curie. Michelle Pfeiffer. Her own sister. Sometimes Sarah thought it would be enough to be herself, but transformed. Taller. Thinner. Smarter. Prettier. Something.