Chapter 15

 

“Guess what?” It was Ted.

Dreamland slipped over the horizon and dropped out of sight.

“Whattaya mean, guess what?” I said.

“Aren’t we cranky.”

“Cranky doesn’t get close.”

“Well, this ought to cheer you up.”

I looked over at the clock radio. Almost one a.m. “It’d better.”

“So, you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Oh, goody. I wanted to be the first.”

“Ted, please.”

“Guess who got arrested?”

“You?”

“Better than that.”

“Ted, you’re killing me.”

“Dickhead.”

“Dickhead?”

“Dickhead. It was on the evening news. Guess somewhere after the blackberry cake Dickhead tried to choke Dan Dandrich.”

“What about, Nancy?”

“Hopefully, she choked both of them.”

 

I let Nancy’s phone ring. If Dickhead answered, I wasn’t going to hang up this time. With any luck, they’d already locked him up with Shelley Winters in the brig of the U.S.S. Poseidon Adventure.

After about fifty rings, Nancy picked it up.

“You all right?”

“My, news travel fast.” She let out a sigh. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Where’s Dickhead?”

“In a motel.”

“I was hoping you’d say a cage.”

“This is possibly the most humiliating experience of my life.” Nancy sounded pissed off with a capital P. “My ever-so-charming husband tries to strangle the man who may very well be the next president of the United States. If my ratings go down over this, I’ll kill that sonofabitch.”

“I’ll help. What the hell got into Dickhead, anyway?”

“He’d had a little too much scotch and Dandrich insinuated that Dickhead had been cheap with his campaign contribution.”

“So Dickhead choked him?”

“Not before Dickhead accused Dandrich of trying to come on to me all night long, in front of Patsy, no less.”

“Did he?”

“Did he what?”

“Did Dandrich try to come on to you?”

“Well, of course he did, but that’s hardly the point. Dickhead’s lucky that Dan isn’t pressing charges. It probably helped matters when he had a change of heart about the size of his campaign contribution.”

“Ah, so we’re almost back to being one happy family again.”

She sighed again, then she laughed a tired laugh. “Come home, I miss you.”

I liked the way she said home. I liked the rest of it, too.

“Soon.” The tone of my voice was not particularly encouraging. I gave her the rough outline of recent events. She agreed that the picture in Fogerty did look a little fuzzy. And, after some prodding on my part, to which one hates to resort, Nancy did admit that she felt a little jealous where Amy Delozier was concerned. But it seemed to blow over in about six seconds.

 

I tried to count sheep, but sleep wouldn’t come. After a quick check to be sure that Evelyn was still Prisoner of Zenda, I headed downstairs to the kitchen and rustled up a fried egg sandwich. A fried egg sandwich is the ideal late-night snack. It also goes well with a hangover, which obviously gives it honorary status. Ted liked Dim Sum with his hangovers, but I’d take a fried egg sandwich and a stiff Bloody Mary any day.

I sat down at Evelyn’s kitchen table with my egg sandwich and a Diet Coke and watched the moon duck in and out from behind some Bunky-shaped clouds. I really hated Diet Coke. How could Evelyn drink the stuff? Make mine a Classic Coke.

I decided that, fuzzy picture or not, first thing in the morning I’d get on the phone to Bud Upton. I’d stop screwing around playing Nancy Drew and her sidekick George with Amy Delozier. If some guy wanted to call himself Larry White and waste a bunch of money buying up Fogerty, what did I care? Tomorrow I’d tell Bud that we’d take the check and say thank you. All I wanted was to put Evelyn back on the right track and go home to Gatlinburg and get on with my own mess.