Mean Woman Blues

self-employed boyfriend. He could afford to be frolicsome, since he could sleep all morning if he wanted to, which was more than she could say for herself. For her, there was still a world of details and logistics to attend to, not to mention the hordes of reporters Absolo was going to make her talk to.
    * * *
    Mr. Right was furious. He’d come all the way to Texas to get away from the woman, and here she was on page one of the Dallas paper. It seemed she’d caught a gang of crooks.
    Well, big deal. Wasn’t that her job? The way the paper described it, it didn’t even sound very difficult what she’d done. It was just a crowd-pleaser, one big, fat, giant crowd-pleaser, just like her. She was ugly as sin, mean as the devil, and dumb as dirt, but she was made of nonstick Teflon, and she always landed on her feet. He didn’t understand how it had come about that she was being lionized yet again. If ever anyone didn’t deserve it, it was this bitch. If he didn’t believe in the devil— and he did— this would be enough to convince him the woman was on the wrong side. She was a woman who stood between him and what God wanted from him— a truly evil woman. And yet no one could see that. Everywhere she turned, she met with success.
    This deeply, deeply rankled David Wright. In his heart he felt that every bit of the acclaim that came to Skip Langdon should have come to him. She had beaten him repeatedly, and he hated her for it, felt shame for it, and knew that only Satan himself— or his nearest representative— could have caused such a feeling.
    “Karen! Get me some water, will you?” He was still in bed, but he was having trouble breathing. This was probably giving him a heart attack.
    He got no answer from his wife. What the hell was wrong?
    He yelled again.
    And then he was aware not of sound but the absence of sound, as she turned off the shower. She stepped into their bedroom, hair dripping, wrapping a soft white robe around her. “Did you call me?”
    “Sorry. I didn’t know you were in the shower.”
    “Are you all right? What’s wrong with you?” Her voice was urgent.
    Fear flashed through his body. “Nothing, why? What’s the matter?”
    “You’re red. Your face is all flushed, like you’ve been running or something.”
    He wondered if he was having a stroke. Not wanting to show weakness, he said nothing.
    “David? You sure you’re all right?” He hated it when she looked at him like that, like he might be old, weaker than she was. “Here, let me get you some water.”
    She brought it and sat down beside him and stroked his hair while he drank it. “That’s better,” she said.
    “What is?”
    “Your color’s back to normal.”
    Okay, so he didn’t stroke out that time. He got up and got dressed, trying to think of a way to bring down the Devil-Woman. He read the article again. It was accompanied by a picture of a warehouse into which the police were moving an entire yardful of stolen cemetery art. In a week or so, they were going to open it up like some great department store where you could shop for your own stuff— or for your late Aunt Bessie’s. Langdon was overseeing the whole damn operation, which was bound to be as popular as a tax cut.
    He took the paper into his home office, cut out the article, and put it up on his bulletin board, the picture of Langdon thumbtacked right through the nose.
    A plan was shaping in his head, the notion that maybe this thing was an opportunity. But he needed money to bring it off. He dialed Rosemarie, but he didn’t get her. Damn caller I.D.! She was probably ducking him, but she couldn’t do it forever. Not when she owed him the way she did.
    Karen came back in, dressed in a pair of shorts and smiling, her hair still wet. “Breakfast?”
    “Well, now. Aren’t you as pretty as a picture.”
    She took a step toward him, and he braced for a lapful of pulchritude, but instead she peered over his head at the board behind him, staring right at Langdon’s picture. “Who is that woman?”
    “What woman?” He swiveled his chair.
    “That one. With the tack in her nose.”
    “Hell, honey, I don’t know. What the hell you talkin’ about?” He was aware he wasn’t supposed to speak like that— to drop his g’s, to say “hail” for “hell”; today he did it anyway.
    “She’s attractive.”
    David didn’t even bother turning around. “She’s ugly as a mud fence.”
    “You’re not even looking at her.”
    “Honey, I saw