The Merchant of Menace jj-10 Read online

  Billy Joe introduced himself and the others and said, "That was just my sound system. I guess I had it set too loud. I'm a little deaf myself, so I didn't notice. But Tiff says I damned near blew out her circuits!" He laughed uproarishly at this witticism. "Don't it look great?”

  Jane felt a sudden engulfing tide of something like tenderness. These people really thought they'd created a work of art. They were proud of it and expected everyone else to like it. "I think it's wonderful," Jane said in a sudden, well-intentioned burst of mendacity. "Just wonderful.”

  Billy Joe swelled with pride. Tiffany simpered. Shelley looked at Jane as if she were seeing her for the first time and was not able to quite take in the sight.

  “Just keep the noise level down if you would, Mr. Johnson," the police officer said. "Merry Christmas, everybody." She got in her car and backed out of the driveway, shaking her head and smiling.

  Billy Joe invited Jane and Shelley inside for some holiday punch. "And bring the young 'uns, too."

  “I really can't," Jane said. "I have cookies in the oven that have probably burned up by now. And Shelley's helping me with the icing. Maybe tomorrow?”

  When they got back to Jane's front door, Katie had disappeared, but Todd was still standing and muttering, "Awesome."

  “Don't even think about it, Todd," Jane said. "We're not doing anything like that. A Christmas tree, a tasteful wreath or two, maybe a few lights on the tree outside. That's it!"

  “But Mom, old thing, just think if there were two houses in a row just like it. And maybe Mrs. Nowack would make a third one." He cackled with laughter. "Super!”

  They came inside and he bounded up the steps, yelling at Katie to get off the phone so he could call his friend Elliott to come over and look.

  “You think it's 'wonderful'?" Shelley quoted in a voice of doom.

  “No, it's hideous, but they were so proud of it," Jane said, shivering. "And I suddenly felt like a mother duck trying to console two ugly ducklings. Oh, Shelley, what if they decide to live here forever? It's a rental house, but sometimes renters stick around for a long, long time.”

  Shelley considered the question for a moment. "We'll either have to kill them — or ourselves — or move away. Might be time to start thinking about condos.”

  Jane was rummaging in the fridge, trying to find something to fix for dinner, when the doorbell rang. She found a neighbor, Sharon Wilhite, standing on the porch. "Just wondered if you needed some help getting ready for your parties," Sharon said. "How did you get conned into giving two of them back-to-back?"

  “I'm still trying to figure it out, Sharon. Come in and tell me what to fix for dinner," Jane said.

  “No good on that, I'm afraid. I almost never cook," Sharon said, shedding her coat and following Jane to the kitchen. She was a short blond, a bit on the buxom side, but very stylish and meticulously neat. Jane would have guessed her age to be about thirty.

  Sharon looked around the kitchen as if it were foreign territory. "I don't have the time or skill for cooking and usually eat out, but I'm good with drinks."

  “Drinks!" Jane exclaimed. "I haven't thought beyond coffee!"

  “I'll bring along some wine, then.”

  Jane didn't know Sharon well, in spite of several years of living a few doors away, but liked her anyway. She was one of the few independent, single, childless women in the neighborhood. She was an attorney who specialized in property law and commuted to work in Chicago, so she wasn't around a lot. Her income permitted her to have cleaning help, yard workers, and driveway shovelers in the winter. But she made an effort to be part of the small community, singing in the church choir and volunteering time for the city council when their concerns touched on her expertise.

  “Stay for dinner?" Jane offered. "Nothing spectacular.”

  Sharon shook her head. "I've got Chinese carryout ordered. In fact, I better get home and watch for it. Sure you don't need napkins, tablecloths, silverware, or something else I don't have to cook?”

  When Sharon had gone, Jane fixed the kids and herself sandwiches and macaroni and cheese for dinner, went on with her baking, and started the first of many loads of washing that needed to be done. Todd put a new bag in the vacuum cleaner, which he insisted on calling "the Big Suck," in preparation for a marathon session of cleaning the next morning. Katie pitched in by devoting a full phone-free hour to cleaning every inch of the guest bathroom. This kind of cooperation and thoroughness was so astonishing to Jane that she was tempted to stand and admire the miracle of it.

  Jane's mother had once told her that daughters don't get to be a pleasure to have arounduntil it's almost time to lose them and Jane was starting to see the truth in that. After a couple years of constant tears, arguments, and raging hormones, Katie was gradually turning into a very nice young woman. And in less than two years, she'd be going off to college.

  Pull yourself together, you sap, Jane told herself briskly. You always turn into a blubbering wimp at Christmastime.

  It didn't help that Billy Joe Johnson had his music back on. The volume wasn't nearly so deafening, although Jane could hear every lyric distinctly inside her house and suspected that outdoors it was probably intolerable. Still, she hummed along with the familiar melodies as she finished up the last batch of date-roll cookies and started packing the day's culinary output into lidded plastic containers that were intended for shoes and sweaters but were perfect for cookie storage. The floor was still sticky. She had inadvertently added some flour to the icing in her hair.

  About nine there was a knock on the kitchen door. Shelley's special knock. Jane opened the door and Shelley nearly fell in. "Paul's sister Constanza is on her way over to our house. May I hide here?"

  “Sure, but I was getting ready to take a shower."

  “Take a shower. Take a long soaky bath if you want. God knows you need it. I'll eat cookies, watch television, and let myself out when I see her leave."

  “So you didn't come for my scintillating companionship?"

  “You're kidding, right?" Shelley said, shed- I ding her coat and boots. "Go bathe. Please!”

  Jane took Shelley's advice and soaked luxuriously, using up a good deal of some expensive jasmine-scented bath salts she'd been saving for a special occasion. Today hadn't been special in any good way, but she needed a treat.

  When she came back downstairs half an hour later, Shelley was gone and the kitchen was spotlessly clean. The floor shone, the appliances glittered, everything was put away and the dishwasher was humming along. Jane laughed out loud. Shelley just couldn't stand a mess, not even someone else's mess. A note on the small blackboard on the refrigerator door said, You need more dishwasher soap and tile cleaner. I stole a dozen cookies. S.

  Jane drifted into the living room, combed out her hair while watching television, and nearly fell asleep on the sofa. It had been a long day. Tomorrow would be even longer. She dragged herself upstairs and cuddled down into her freshly washed sheets. After trying to read for a few minutes, she gave up and turned off the light.

  But the room didn't get dark.

  She sat back up, confused. Then she realized that one of her bedroom windows was on the Johnson side of the house and the blaze of light from their decorations illuminated her room as if it were broad daylight. She staggered over and pulled down the shade. Not much help. She dragged the drapes across the window. That was a little better. She'd have to get new ones tomorrow that were heavily lined. Great. One y to keep track a to hire of all her boring, a secretaryneces- r sary errands.

  Back in bed, Jane dropped off into sleep halfway through "O Come All Ye Faithful.”

  Three

  Jane was up early the next morning and got a little more cleaning done before even waking Todd and Katie. The clouds had cleared and it was a brilliantly sunny day. Rats, she thought. This meant she had to let Katie drive to school. Katie had her learner's permit now and was mad to get her hands on a steering wheel at every opportunity, but the rule, so far, was that she cou
ld only drive on dry streets. Jane wasn't up to teaching her the rigors of snow or rain driving yet. Teaching Katie, however, was easier than it had been to teach Mike. For one thing, Jane had anticipated it with Katie. With Mike she'd always assumed his father would take this duty, but her husband had been killed in a car accident before driving lessons had been necessary.

  Mike had been a curb-hugger, nearly nipping off a number of mailboxes and joggers before he learned where the car should be. Katie got the car in the right place on the road and didn't seem to have any urge to speed. But she complained constantly and bitterly about the car itself. Jane couldn't really blame her. The beat-up old station wagon really was a disgrace. It was ten years old now and had spent those years hauling innumerable car pools — little kids bouncing all over the backseat, bigger ones who dropped potato chips and gum on the carpet and periodically spilled soft drinks. The exterior hadn't fared much better and although Jane was pretty good at avoiding falling in the pothole at the end of the driveway, the pothole was turning into an ever-widening chasm that occasionally snagged the undercarriage. Jane was wondering if it might not be cheaper to buy mufflers by the dozen.

  “I can drive today, can't I?" Katie said, bounding into the kitchen. "Oh, my gosh! What happened to the kitchen? It's clean!"

  “Mrs. Nowack cleaned it for me last night as a surprise. A very nice surprise," Jane admitted.

  “Wish I had friends like that," Katie said. "Wonder if I could persuade Jenny to clean my room."

  “I wouldn't count on it. You remember I took care of Mrs. Nowack's dog for a whole week while they were out of town. Jenny might stick you with an even bigger payback. Todd! Hold it," she added as he came into the kitchen and headed for the refrigerator. "If you spill so much as a drop or crumb in here, you'll be grounded until you're of voting age.”

  He looked around in wonder. "Hey, it's clean in here!"

  “You don't need to sound that amazed," Jane groused. She wondered if she ought to put a drop cloth under the table.

  When she returned from getting Katie to school, Todd's car pool had picked him up and Jane was pleased to discover that he'd heeded her warning. The kitchen was still spotless except for a cardboard milk carton on the table. She gave Shelley a call, thanking her effusively for cleaning up for her.

  “Oh, Jane, quit being so mushy. You know that my deepest, darkest secret is that I love to clean. Just don't let anybody else know. Need any more help?"

  “No, I think I've got a handle on it. I've got lists of things to do all over the house."

  “You and your lists!" Shelley laughed. Jane was a compulsive list-maker, often breaking a single job down into components so she had more items to check off to bolster her sense of accomplishment. Sometimes, when she did something that wasn't on the list, she added it for the sole purpose of striking through it.

  “If I don't have my lists, I just sit in a stupor, wondering what I'm supposed to be doing," Jane said. "But now I've got to start marking things off. Talk to you later.”

  The caroling party was to be the next evening, so she had two days to prepare. Cleaning the house and getting out the holiday decorations were the first orders of business, but there was shopping and cooking to be done, as well as bill-paying, carpooling and all the other normal, time-consuming chores. She was looking for where the toilet brush had deliberately hidden itself when the doorbell rang.

  Julie Newton stood on the front porch, staring at the Johnsons' house. She was so stricken by the sight that she didn't even notice when Jane opened the door.

  “Decorative, isn't it?" Jane said.

  Startled, Julie gasped, "I've — I've never seen anything quite like it."

  “Come in before you freeze," Jane said.

  Julie did as she was told, following Jane to the kitchen. "I have the most exciting thing to tell you," she said, shedding her coat and stocking cap, her fingers making dainty darting motions at her hair to fluff it. Julie Newton, Jane thought, would be cute all her life. She was the perky kind of woman who never seemed to age. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled, which was most of the time, and she was always in motion. Fluffing her hair, gesturing enthusiastically äs she spoke, swinging a leg when she was seated, and almost bouncing when she walked. A regular bundle of energy.

  Jane offered her coffee or tea. Julie chose tea and squealed with delight at the sight of the plate of cookies Jane set on the table. "How darling! Jane, you're so clever!”

  That's how she gets people to do things they don't want to, Jane thought. With flattery.

  “Uh — what are these green ones supposed to be?" Julie asked.

  “Elves. Don't ask. What's your news?”

  Julie jiggled around in her chair with delight. "Oh, Jane. It's so neat! You know who Lance King is?"

  “Lance K— oh, yes, that 'action reporter' on television. What's so exciting? Did somebody bump him off?"

  “Bump him off? Oh, Jane, you're joking, right? You're so funny!"

  “What about Lance King?"

  “Well, you know he does all those reports on unfair stuff. Crooked businesspeople and sham charity organizations and all? But he sometimes hosts the regular nightly news from special events."

  “Yes, I know.”

  Julie was quivering with excitement and looked like she was about to explode with the thrill of it all. "Well, Jane. We are going to be his special event tomorrow night!" Her voice was almost a shriek of joy.

  “What?" Jane asked, appalled.

  “Yes, it's true. He's going to anchor the news from your house! From your very own house!”

  “Oh, dear God…" Jane whimpered.

  “Isn't it fabulous? I knew you'd be so excited."

  “Julie, I don't think that's—" Jane started to bleat.

  “No, don't thank me. It was a pleasure to do it. I just took myself in hand and said, 'Julie Newton, there's nothing to stop you. The worst that can happen is that he'll say no,' and so I just called the television station and they actually put me through to him. I told him about the neighborhood caroling party and even suggested it would be a nice change, to do a 'revealing' piece about something that went right instead of wrong. I told him all about the neighbors, what nice, interesting people they all are—"

  “You told him all about us?" Jane asked.

  The thought made her stomach hurt. She, and many others, thought Lance King was far and away the most obnoxious individual who ever got in front of a television camera. He was the expert at the surprise attack, taking a camera crew to some unsuspecting individual's home or place of business, shoving his way in, and asking 'Do you still beat your wife' questions and berating the victim, barely skirting FCC regulations on obscene language issues. If he'd really only taken on genuine crooks and rip-off artists, it might not have been so offensive. But as often as not, he was simply dead wrong in his accusations. He'd be back on a week later, making a patronizing apology that always managed to be every bit as insulting as the original interview.

  According to newspaper accounts, the local station was always being hit with enormous libel suits, most of which they lost. Or more correctly, their insurance carrier lost. There had been an article only a month ago about the insurance carrier trying to drop the station's coverage, but the station had filed suit against the carrier, claiming it was the carrier's incompetent lawyers who were to blame. When it got to court, a judge had ruled in the station's favor. The newspaper reporter, mincing among the libel laws himself like a trained soldier in a minefield, managed to suggest, without saying so, that the judge was afraid of what Lance King might to do him if he didn't rule in the station's favor. The general manager of the television sta‑ tion had been quoted as saying that Lance King was the brightest star in their galaxy of fine reporters and they considered his reports an honorable and necessary public service. . blab, blah, blab. In other words, he was a point grabber and, Jane suspected, would have been out on his ear if the insurance had been canceled.

  And now
darling, cute, bubbly, idiotic Julie Newton had blabbed to him about their block caroling party, no doubt told him interesting tidbits about the neighbors and, worst of all, invited the jerk to Jane's house.

  “Julie," Jane said, sitting down across from her and fixing her with a bleak stare, "you have to uninvite him. I won't have the man in my house.”

  Julie quit bouncing in place for a minute. Then said, "Oh, Jane, another joke!" She wiggled like a happy puppy.

  “I'm not joking, Julie," Jane said firmly. "You're going to have to call him back, explain that you failed to check with the hostess of the party in advance and she has now told you her house can't accommodate any more people — like him and his crew."

  “Jane, I can't do that."

  “You must do it. Otherwise I'm going to tell everyone the party after the caroling is canceled. Or you can have it at your house."

  “No, I can't. I don't have a kitchen. I made some changes and Bruce couldn't finish it all." Julie sat very still for a moment. "He knows your name and address. Lance King does. I'm sorry, Jane, but he asked where the party was so he could come by early in the day and setup cameras. If I tell him you won't let him in, it'll make him mad at both of us."

  “I don't care if he's mad at me," Jane said. "Are you sure?" Julie asked.

  “What can I do?" Jane asked Shelley half an hour later. Shelley had responded instantly to Jane's frantic call for advice and sprinted across their driveways to chew the situation over. "Even if it hadn't been somebody obnoxious, Julie had no business inviting an outsider to my house."

  “No, she didn't, but the problem now is to get rid of him," Shelley said.

  “If I refuse to let him come, he'll be insulted and angry and he's the last person in the world I want to make enemies with," Jane said. "On the other hand, it makes my stomach hurt to think about having him in my house. People will think I'm expressing some sort of approval of his appalling behavior."

  “You could come down with a sudden, violent, and highly contagious disease," Shelley suggested.