Better Off Dead Read Online Free Page B

asked. I couldn't blame her. It hadn't done much
good the last time she went to the cops.
    I returned to the living room and listened
to a few of the tapes. They were worse than the letters. The voice
was muffled, sometimes altered with a whisper or phony accent,
even, at times, disguised by an electronic device. He kept the
messages short but sweet: "That pink nightgown looks delicious on
you." "Would you like wrist scars to match your neck?" "Thinking of
you. And the rock." Oh, yes—the rock. The rock where she had been
repeatedly raped.
    I'd heard and read enough. Whoever was
sending these threats knew Helen and knew what would frighten her.
He was fucking with her head big time—and that's what made me think
it was David Brookhouse. I would need help protecting her.
    "Where's the telephone?" I asked Helen when
I found her in a small interior room, staring at a painting of
spring flowers.
    "By the door," she whispered.
    "Which door?" I asked, then stopped as I
spotted a wall telephone mounted near the door that led to the
hallway. An odd place to have a phone, I thought.
    I walked into the next room for privacy and
saw another telephone, this one also mounted near the hall door. I
continued on my search, the realization hitting me. She had a
telephone in the kitchen, the drawing room, near the front door and
in both downstairs bedrooms. There was even a telephone mounted in
the bathroom, next to the toilet.
    That struck me as saddest of all.
    So many telephones for a woman unable to ask
for help. Yet it was her only stand against evil, her only attempt
to protect herself. Unable to bring herself to do anything else,
she had invited the outside in for one day to install useless
telephones everywhere. Just in case of what? I wondered who she was
planning to call to save her if she no longer trusted the
police.
    I used the phone in the bathroom to call
Bobby D.
    "What's shaking?" I asked him.
    "Nothing's shaking," he answered sourly.
"We're all too busy swimming." I heard a sloshing in the
background.
    "What was that?" I asked.
    "My leg. The office is going under. I feel
like I'm on the fucking Titanic."
    "Still can't find Rosy?" I said, asking
after the landlord.
    "We're never gonna find that dame again.
It's women and children first." He stopped to take a bite of
something, I knew, as food was never far from Bobby's reach.
"What's up?" he asked, mouth full.
    "Clear the decks," I told him. "I need
you."
    "Oh, baby. Your place or mine?" He said this
halfheartedly, his auto-pilot lascivious instincts kicking in. In
truth, Bobby was too scared to ever really proposition me. He liked
his women older—and a lot more grateful than I was likely to
be.
    "Neither. I'll let you know where to meet me
later today."
    I hung up and went to find the woman who,
whether she liked it or not, was my newest client. "Helen?" I
called out loudly. She was still in front of the painting. "Why
don't you call the police now? Before something happens? What will
all these telephones do for you if he..." I hesitated. "... if he
gets inside?"
    She was silent.
    "Are you afraid the cops would want you to
come downtown?" I asked. She glanced at me briefly and nodded. "And
that they wouldn't believe you?" She nodded again.
    Abruptly, she walked to the base of the
steps that led to the second floor. "David Brookhouse has filed a
two-million-dollar civil suit against me," she said. "That's a lot
of motives to make up these letters and threats, don't you
think?"
    "I believe it's him," I told her. "I always
have."
    Without warning, she yelled up the steps in
a voice so loud I was astonished: "Mother," she bellowed. "It's
almost twelve fucking o'clock. How long do you plan to stay in
bed?"
    An answering crash told us that, while
Mother was out of bed, she was still clearly in the throes of
waking up.
    "Your mother lives with you?" I asked,
remembering what Helen's cleaning lady had told me when she visited
my apartment. She'd called the old lady "evil."
    "Yes."