Christine and her friends continued to maintain a twenty-four-hour vigil on the house for the next four days. By the fifth day, Christine cursed out of frustration, and by the sixth day, she had a temper tantrum.
“Well, I guess I’ll just dilly-dally till she gets back from wherever the hell she is!” Christine said. “I can’t staaaaaand the thought of her and the stinky, rinky-dink cretin that she is! Smell her! A dumb-ass, demonic jackal probably gave birth to the frickin’ Cerberus that she is.”
“What’s that?” Tawny asked.
“Hades’s three-headed devil dog in Roman mythology. In Greek mythology, it’s Kerberos, which is basically a multi-headed hellhound, a terrrrribly ugly thing which is supposed to guard the entrance of the netherworld to keep the dead from escaping and the living from entering. At least, the old fuddy-duddy has one foot in the grave already, haw haw. Always coming and going whenever she damn well pleases. Well, not for long. I intend to see that she has both feet in the grave—and soon!”
“You said she has servants, right?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah. So?”
“What if one of them sees the evidence of breaking and entering? You know, the hole that Dougie made in the sliding glass door near the back of the house.”
“Don’t worry about it, Jimmy. The worst they can do is call the police and squeal. The best I can do is simply kill ’em.”
Later that evening, Christine had more than a few glasses of champagne and called Vivian for no reason other than to relieve her boredom. She hadn’t cared that she neglected to get in touch with Vivian as soon as she found a place to stay. Christine figured she had put it off long enough.
“Hi,” she said to Vivian. “Now, now, before you prattle on, let me just say I apologize for not getting in touch with you sooner. I hope you weren’t sick with worry. I’ve been busy, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, I said I was sorry. I have been busy.”
“Indeed, you have been busy, so much so that you still managed to find a little time on your hands to do something or other.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why don’t you think about it, Christine? And after you have carefully thought long and hard, call me again sometime.”
“Wait a minute. What are you getting at? Hello? Hello?”
Christine hung up in a huff.
“Stoopid girl,” she said. “No one hangs up on me.”
Aww, poor Miss Sensitive is upset ’cuz I didn’t call her sooner, Christine thought. I’m all verklempt. Wah wah wah. Effin’ crybaby. What could’ve possibly upset her so? Well, I apologized. If she’s still in a tizzy about that thing with my gun, well then, she’ll just have to get over it . . . or shove it where the sun don’t shine. Oh, wait. I know what it is. Vivian’s problem is that she’s still got it in her thick, thick skull that I came to LA just to settle the score with the old geezer. Yes. That’s what it is. Plus, when I took all the jewels and all the money, apparently the old freak-tard figured it out like the slutty sleuth that she is and had the unmitigated gall to come a-knockin’ veeeerrrrryyy early that one morning. That’s when I tossed everything over her head. Is that it, Vivvy-Wivvy? Well, gee, I wonder what else it could be that has Vivian acting as if she has a bee in her bonnet? What else am I forgetting? Oohhh, come to think of it, it’s that stoopid needlepoint thing of hers that I mucked up. Her infernal bleedin’ bitch-ass roses. That’s gotta be it. After all, I admit that what I did to it was crude, hee-hee.
Christine sipped some more champagne and called Vivian again.
“Okay, I get it now,” she said to Vivian. “You’re ticked off ’cuz I messed up your needlepointing thingy-wingy.”
Tawny stifled a laugh with a hand clasped to her mouth.
“You sound drunk,” Vivian said.
“Well, what can I say?” Christine said.
“Yes, what can you say?”
Drop dead, Christine thought and belched into the phone.
“Well, I apologized,” she said.
“That’s beside the point and you know it,” Vivian said. “You acted irresponsibly and with malice. It hurt me that you deliberately did this. It may not mean anything to you, but it had some meaning to me. I’m just going to let it go. I can always do another one. Just drop it. Forget about it.”
“Okay, if you insist.”
“I hope you’ve been keeping yourself busy.”
“You still sound huffy.”
“Can I help it? Well, at least, without me around, you’re staying out of trouble, I hope.”
“Of course, Viv. I’ve been busy with all the endless modeling assignments and auditions and acting workshops and what-have-you. Anyway, um, I want to let you know that I’m staying at the Summerlin Suites Hotel. Actually, I wasn’t going to tell you—”
“Oh, thanks a lot.”
“Cram it. Now you know where I am in case of an emergency or whatever.”
“Well, I hope you can manage,” Vivian said. “I mean, isn’t that very expensive?”
“As you can see, I still haven’t found a place for myself, yet. I assure you, money’s no object.”
“All right. If you need anything, you know where I am.”
“Likewise.” Christine hung up. “The frigid nitwit.”
Tawny’s unexpected shrill laugh startled Christine.
“Hey, it’s true,” Christine said. “When you think about it, her hubby was killed and she has no children to speak of. After all, her hoo-ha and related entrails are like a frozen tundra.”
“Oh, man, you’re vicious,” Tawny said as her laughter tapered off. “By the way, how are your acting workshops, auditions for TV commercials, and modeling assignments going so far?”
“Eh, things are kinda slow right now.”
“Yeah, those things go in cycles, more or less. They slow down, then pick up again, then there’s nothing for a while, and so on.”
“True that. So, how’s it hangin’?” Christine asked Dougie as she came up behind him while he looked through the telescope.
“Short, shriveled, and to the right,” Dougie said with a chuckle.
“Haw haw, very funny,” Christine said. “Well, I hope the old harpy isn’t away for too long or else I’ll start looking for her, even if it means chasing her around the world.”
It was now Jimmy’s turn to sit by the window and look through the telescope while Christine slept on the couch after drinking a little too much champagne. He glanced at the TV every so often and waited for the weather girl to appear on the evening news. Finally, she stood before the digital weather map, gave the national and local weather reports, and cautioned local citizens about the impending fire danger.
“Since we’re right on the cusp of summer,” she said, “and the Southland is at the beginning of fire season, officials have put out a red-flag alert that the notorious Santa Anas will bring more heat and drier air in the next few days, starting tomorrow. As you can see here, the high pressure system over the southwestern part of Utah will bring a strong offshore flow, which isn’t very encouraging news. As for the wind advisory, expect winds of up to thirty-five miles per hour with gusts up to fifty miles per hour in the deserts and through the canyons and mountains. Later on in the broadcast, we’ll have someone here to share fire-safety tips with our viewers. Turning to international weather, residents in the West Indies, from Cuba to Grenada, are boarding up as Tropical Storm Aidan continues to gain strength and momentum, traveling north-northwest at seven miles per hour with winds clocked from fifty to sixty miles per hour.”