Maxi stood outside the warped, rusted-out gate and waited. She sensed that the woman was observing her from behind the curtain at the front window. So much for the element of surprise. She’d wanted to catch her off guard; that would have made it harder for Zahna Cole to say no to a quick interview. Now she would be deciding whether or not to open the door.
There was a nearly imperceptible change in the configuration of light and shadow behind the window, and seconds later, the front door opened. The woman in the sketches stepped out onto the stoop and down the trampled path, and stood facing Maxi on the other side of the locked gate.
“Hello,” Maxi offered, smiling. “I’m Maxi Poole from Channel Six News.”
“I know who you are,” Zahna responded in a guttural voice. Her eyes were red, her pupils dilated, her demeanor spacey. Drugs, Maxi knew immediately.
“Can we talk for just a few minutes?” Maxi began. “About Meg Davis. I understand she was a friend of yours.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Zahna asked. Maxi could feel hostility emanating from this woman. Paranoia was a major side effect of drug abuse, she knew.
“The people at Sotheby’s told me you were with her at the auction,” Maxi returned. “I’d like to talk to you about what kind of woman she was, and what she might have done with the cross she purchased that night.”
“If we knew that, we’d know who’s doing all these killings, wouldn’t we?” the woman snarled. Then she surprised Maxi with a complete about-face. “Wanna come in?” she asked sweetly.
Zahna took a key out of her jacket pocket and opened the gate from the inside. “This used to be electric,” she muttered, “but it doesn’t work anymore.”
She pulled the creaking gate inward a couple of feet and stood aside for Maxi to walk through, then slammed it shut and locked it again with the key. Maxi was uncomfortable with that, but she figured the woman probably locked it out of habit, for security reasons.
Zahna ushered her into the cluttered living room, and Maxi was assaulted with the stench of acrid perspiration and rotting food. Trash littered the floor and tabletops, and rays of sunshine streaming in through soiled lace curtains revealed a thick coat of dust over every surface.
Pushing some newspapers, a sweatshirt, some socks, and tennis shoes off a tattered canvas-backed director’s chair onto the floor, Zahna gestured to Maxi to have a seat. Dropping cross-legged on the floor, Zahna leaned back against a faded flowered couch and looked up at Maxi with a vacant smile.
Inhaling the rancid odors and the dust-laden air, Maxi stifled a wave of nausea. She experienced an ominous sense of dread, looking down at the drugged-out woman who sat at her feet with a self-satisfied smile on her face. Her instincts told her to ask a few questions and get out of there fast.
What’s to be scared of? She’s just a junkie, Maxi thought. The tennis shoes, she flashed, eyeing them on the floor by her chair— black Reeboks. But lots of women wore black Reeboks—Maxi owned a pair herself. Maybe it was the fact that she felt trapped, that she was dependent on this whacked-out woman to unlock the gate and let her out. Whatever was provoking it, Maxi had the sensation that hell was just beneath the floorboards.
“Did you know Meg Davis well?” she asked now, trying to conceal her apprehension.
“Nope, didn’t know her at all,” Zahna said without changing her vacuous expression.
“Oh. The women at Sotheby’s said you were at the auction together, so I hoped you could tell me something about her,” Maxi said, fixing her gaze steadily on the woman’s face, trying not to look around her at the squalid quarters. “Her mother didn’t know of any other friends she might have had.”
“Is it fun playing detective?” Zahna asked, with an edge of sarcasm.
“No, not fun,” Maxi returned, “but it’s part of my job. You went to the auction with her?” she persisted, not wanting to get sucked in to some druggie head game with this woman.
“No,” Zahna shot back. “I met her there.”
Maxi decided to attempt a couple more questions, then leave. She was getting nowhere, her trepidation was mounting, and she was due at the station. “Well, I was told you left together,” she tried. “Did she tell you anything about that cross?”
“Yup, it was a prop in a movie she was in with Jack Nathanson. You know, Black Sabbat,” she said. “I was in one of his movies, too.”
“Really,” Maxi replied. “Which one?”
“Internet Crypto. You see that one?”
Maxi didn’t know if this woman was aware that she had been married to Jack Nathanson, in fact during the time that he shot Internet Crypto. “Yes,” she said. “Which character did you play?”
“I was the disc jockey he listened to when he couldn’t sleep at night,” Zahna Cole answered. Maxi remembered that sultry voice now.
“I have something of Jack Nathanson’s, too. Wanna see it?” the woman asked, almost mischievously.
“Uhh, okay, sure,” Maxi responded, curious despite the impulse that told her to flee.
“C’mon, I’ll show you,” Zahna said, and she got up and walked toward a door that led to a darkened hall, beckoning Maxi to follow.
She led Maxi into a bedroom that exuded the stench of dirty laundry. Zahna snapped on a switch that illuminated a dim lamp with a broken lampshade listing on a table beside the bed, revealing a room so filthy and disheveled it was hard to believe a woman lived there. On the king-size bed was a wrinkled, stained sheet, oily and threadbare in the center. Soiled blankets lay in a heap on the floor. Clothes were strewn everywhere, and a bent-wood chair with a broken cane seat was lying on its side.
“Here’s what I have of Jack Nathanson’s,” Zahna tossed back over her shoulder, heading for a scarred pine bedside table on which stood, among other things, a half-empty two-quart bottle of a grocery-store-label vodka. “Come over here, Maxi Poole,” she said, “and I’ll show you what I have of Jack Nathanson’s.”
Expecting to see some object on the nightstand, Maxi moved closer, and suddenly Zahna grabbed her arm. In one fierce motion, almost jerking her off her feet, she pulled her toward the black iron bars of the headboard, and Maxi felt sharp steel scrape across her skin and clamp shut around her wrist. She let out a gasp of horror, and tugged at the handcuffs that had her lashed to the bed. “What is this, a joke?” she shrieked.
“Nope, no joke,” Zahna hissed, glowering at her, and Maxi saw hatred blazing in the woman’s black, sunken eyes. “Those handcuffs belonged to Jack Nathanson. Now get on the bed.”
“I’m not getting on the bed,” Maxi said evenly. “Unlock these handcuffs, Zahna, before you find yourself in big trouble.”
“Oh, you really scare me, bitch.” Zahna laughed menacingly, and she knelt down and reached under the bed. She was feeling around on the floor, her head lowered, and Maxi had the urge to kick her as hard as she could, knock her over. But she knew that would only enrage her, and she was helpless, shackled to the bed. Better to try talking this woman out of whatever madness she was intent on.
Zahna loomed up before her now, brandishing something that glinted in the lamplight. “Is this the cross you’re looking for?” she asked with a leer. Maxi felt her heart stop and her knees crumple beneath her as she caught sight of the Black Sabbat cross in Zahna Cole’s hand. She collapsed onto the bed, fighting desperately to keep from blacking out.
“Good girl,” Zahna said, and she loped around the bed and reached for a second set of handcuffs that was fastened to another one of the iron slats of the headboard. She lunged for Maxi’s left arm and cinched on the cuff.
“These were Jack’s too,” she said. “Didn’t he ever handcuff you to the bed for sex, Maxi Poole?”
Maxi heard a low groan escape her. She had to rally her wits, try to keep the woman talking, give someone time to get to them. But who? When she didn’t show up for the six o’clock show, Pete would be looking for her. Richard would remember that she’d been on her way to Sotheby’s, but the auction house closed at five. They wouldn’t find out about Zahna Cole.
She felt a stinging slap across her face, and her eyes flew open. “Hey, I’m talking to you,” Zahna jeered, looming over her now. “I said, didn’t your husband ever chain you to the bed and fuck your brains out? He loved that—”
“Who are you?” Maxi interrupted weakly.
“No you don’t, Miss Hot-Shot Newsbitch; I’m asking the questions here,” Zahna rasped. “Did he cuff you to the bed?” she demanded, and she slapped her again.
“No. Is that what he did with you?” Maxi asked, knowing that keeping this crazed woman talking amounted to the only slim hope she had.
“Oh, yeah,” Zahna purred, “that and a lot of other things too. Wanna hear some of them, Miss Frigid?”
“Sure,” Maxi ventured. “This S-and-M stuff is actually very erotic.” She hoped that would sound convincing to Zahna, who was now stuffing something into a small glass pipe. Crack, Maxi surmised. Crystalline rocks, which were known to turn users violent, sometimes give them superhuman strength. Maxi shuddered to realize that this was probably what had given Zahna Cole the force and the bravado to kill the way she had with that cross.
Zahna was smoking her pipe now, and babbling on about lewd acts that Jack had supposedly performed with her. Maxi hoped she appeared interested, but her mind kept wandering. To death, and dying, she realized.
Funny, she thought, how her mind was skittering over trivial things. She was sorry she wouldn’t get to try the new Vera Brown jade moisture cream she’d just bought. She regretted that she wouldn’t see her family at Thanksgiving. Where were the deep, profound concepts that should come when death was imminent? Probably eluding her because she was generally comfortable with the concept of death, and with the way she’d lived her life. Oh, she had her venal moments, her human failings, actions she regretted. Dear God, she prayed, don’t let me start dredging all of them up now. Forgive me, okay?
“Ever smoke this shit?” Zahna was asking her.
“N-no,” Maxi stammered.
“Well, here, take a hit,” the woman cajoled, bringing the pipe up to Maxi’s lips.
Maxi turned her head to the side. “No, please,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to.”
“Hey, Newsbitch, this just in! I don’t give a shit what you don’t want,” Zahna bellowed, and she slapped her hard again, leaving a reddened imprint of her hand on Maxi’s cheek. “You probably don’t want me to kill you, either, but I’m going to. Smoke it,” she ordered, and she jammed the pipe stem into Maxi’s mouth.
“Suck it up, dammit!” Zahna roared, and Maxi inhaled the fiery smoke. Almost immediately she felt her head swimming, her blood beating a cacophonous rush through distended arteries, and she saw sharp, blinking lights whirling kaleidoscopically before her eyes. Zahna saw the effects taking place and smiled. She took two more drags herself.
“Nice, huh?” she taunted, and shoved the pipe into Maxi’s mouth again, forcing her captive to inhale more, then more. Maxi squeezed her eyes shut to keep the room from spinning.
She felt a hand on her breast, rubbing, tweaking her nipple. The cocaine was making her hallucinate. The hand moved over to her other breast. She opened her eyes to see Zahna Cole in the half-light, fondling her, moving her free hand down her body now and between her legs, while Maxi writhed in repulsion.
“Jack loved to watch two women together,” Zahna murmured in a husky voice. “He taught me to like it. He brought me women. Didn’t he ever bring chicks home for you?”
Maxi’s mind was racing. She felt a surge of strength, and she jolted her body to shake Zahna off.
“Oh, no, you don’t, baby,” Zahna snapped. She laid the cross down on the bed, grabbed the front of Maxi’s blouse, and furiously ripped it open. Then she picked up the cross, and with the sharp, jagged point, she pierced through the flesh just below Maxi’s throat, and cut a deep line straight down between her breasts, almost to her waist. Maxi felt her warm blood spilling over her body. Tears streamed down her face.
Zahna lowered her head and licked the blood, then moved to Maxi’s face and licked her tears. Maxi turned her face away, feeling sharp pain at her wrists where she’d been straining at the handcuffs. Putting a hand on Maxi’s face and savagely tilting it toward her, Zahna bent down and kissed her hard on the mouth, running one hand through Maxi’s disheveled hair, and with the other, squeezing Maxi’s breast, her tongue hungrily exploring the inside of her mouth.
Suddenly she released her. “I have to pack. I’m going to Mexico, where they’ll never find me,” she said in a rush, taking another hit from the pipe. “You can watch me pack, Maxi Poole; it won’t take long. And then I’m going to have you. And then I’m going to kill you.”
Zahna clutched a handful of Maxi’s hair and yanked her head up. She stuffed an oily, fetid pillow behind her, propping her up so Maxi could watch her move about in the foul-smelling room. Maxi yearned for unconsciousness now, but the drug had sent her speeding. She felt bile rise up into her throat. She tasted it, gagged on it. She was going to throw up. She swallowed it.
Zahna threw a dirty canvas duffel bag on the foot of the bed and started tossing things into it. “You know that I killed Jack, don’t you?” she threw at Maxi. “I didn’t mean to, really. But he pissed me off. I just went to Debra’s house to talk to him. I knew he picked the brat up at two on Saturdays.”
She pulled a black garter belt out of a dresser drawer and held it up. “What do you think, Maxi Poole? Jack bought me this.” She laughed. “He liked to undo it with his teeth.” She threw it in the bag. “Might need it down there. Might have to sell my bod for a while.” She drew on the pipe again, several times, until she determined that it was finished.
“He didn’t call for a couple of weeks, and I saw a picture of him and the Orson broad in the paper, dressed to kill for some frigging society bash. And I was rattling around all by myself on a Saturday afternoon, obsessing about him as usual, and I decided to take a drive to the beach and tell him I missed him.
“He saw me there when he pulled up. He saw me standing right across the street. I smiled. I waved. I expected him to come over and say something. Anything. Like, ‘Hi, what’re you doing here?’ Know what he did?”
Maxi didn’t respond. She wasn’t listening anymore. Zahna leaped to the head of the bed and yanked her upright by the hair again. “Do you know what he did, Maxi Poole?” she shrieked.
Maxi let out a low moan, which Zahna took for a response.
“He ignored me. He never even acknowledged that I was standing there. He looked right through me. Like I was invisible. That’s what I always was to him. Invisible.
“Not you! And not the fucking mother of his only child. Not Janet Orson, the ice queen. You’re all larger than life and in living color. I’m the invisible woman. Do you have any idea how that feels, Maxi Poole?” This time she didn’t bother looking to Maxi for a response.
“I had a key,” she went on, as she sorted clothes and threw her choices into the bag. “Had yours, too, you know. I decided to power right into the house after him, and if the freaking spaghetti movie star saw me, I’d just tell her to get the hell out of my way. I wasn’t good enough to introduce to her. Same with the kid. The fucking kid knew me, and treated me like I was dirt, and Jack let her. A junior prig. I’d swat her outta my way if I saw her.”
Maxi was crying softly, in pain, humiliation, anger, and despair. She wanted it to be over. All the pieces fit, made sense in a macabre way.
“I got in easy; the alarm wasn’t set,” Zahna rattled on. “Heard some voices coming from the kitchen, so I ducked into the kid’s room off the hall to figure out what I was gonna do, when who the hell walks in? Himself!”
Zahna was relishing telling the tale, but it was lost on Maxi, who was light-headed now. She wondered if she was dying. She wondered why her life wasn’t flashing before her eyes. She used to joke that when she died, Barbara Walters’ life would flash before her eyes. She thought about that now, and managed a feeble smile. That’s how Debra would handle it, she reflected foggily. Laugh to the end.
“And he sees me, and he says what the hell are you doing here? And I tell him I missed him and I was hurt that he didn’t call me, and he grabs my arm and tells me he’s calling the Malibu sheriffs, they’re gonna come and arrest me for breaking and entering. I told him I’d tell about us, and he said, ‘Yeah, right; who’s gonna believe you?’ He said, ‘I’m through with you; you’re nothing. Nothing but a dumb slut.’ He was furious—you know how he gets, Maxi Poole?” Maxi vaguely heard her name from far away.
“Then, would you believe, I thought I must be totally fried, the kid walks in and she’s holding a gun. A real gun! Jack was reaching for the phone. He said he was calling the sheriffs. So I grabbed the kid and snatched the gun away from her, aimed it at Jack, and shot him. Just like that. Like in the movies. I put the gun to the kid’s head then, and said if she told anyone I’d come back and kill her, too. Then I wiped the fingerprints off on my shirt, dropped the gun, and I just waltzed out the same door I came in.
“I saw you, you know,” Zahna went on. “I was driving like a maniac down the street, and I saw you going past me in your fucking big-deal black Corvette toward the house, Maxi Poole. Maxi Pooler!” she screeched, getting no response from the sweating, bleeding figure on the bed. Maxi had passed out. Zahna went over and shook her.
“Wake up, Maxi Poole!” Zahna spat out. “We’re gonna have a party!”