Mean Woman Blues

there. I saw you, and I was so excited… then when you wouldn’t… I don’t know… the adrenaline… we had so much riding on that show… I’ve really been under a lot of pressure.”
    He tried to help her up, but once again she writhed out of his grasp, and this time he let her go. “Don’t you touch me, you bastard.” She strode out of the room on her fuck-me pumps.
    Well, hell, she’d be all right. Mr. Right was philosophical about it. Why shouldn’t she be? No one was more of an expert on women than he was. They got upset; they got over it. In the end, it just made them more passionate. But this thing was going to cost him: He was going to have to give up sex with his wife tonight, and he was going to have to buy her some kind of fancy present to make up, and it was going to be tedious going through all the crap he was going to have to go through.
    Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
He wished he’d never seen that goddamn Terri Whittaker. Well, one thing— he sure wasn’t going to be betrayed by his own son.
    He went into the hollowed-out book where he’d kept the cell phone he’d bought to deal with Lobo and punched in the gangbanger’s pager number.
    When the phone rang, Lobo said nothing, just breathed.
    “It’s me.”
    “I know ya. Bettina frien’.”
    He told Lobo what he wanted him to do, and as he did so, a Bible verse came into his head. He thought that he had named his sons well: Daniel had certainly ended up in the lion’s den, and the Lord had his own plans for Isaac.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    After the show, Isaac spent half an hour shaking, trying to recover. Several times, he picked up his phone, but he couldn’t get his fingers to work. And when his coordination finally returned, he couldn’t reach Terri; either she had her phone off, or she’d forgotten to charge it, as usual.
    He dialed the station and asked for her.
    “I believe Miss Whittaker’s left, sir.”
    “But you don’t know for sure?”
    “I didn’t see her walk out, but I’m fairly sure she’s gone.”
    “This is her boyfriend,” he told the receptionist. “Can you tell me where she’s staying? She left me a message, but it was garbled. The, uh…” He held his breath, hoping she wasn’t the suspicious type.
    “We put our guests up at the Bluebonnet Motor Lodge.”
    He exhaled. “Did she leave alone?”
    “The producer probably took her back.”
    “But you don’t know for sure?”
    “No sir.”
    He pushed it. “Does Mr. Right produce his own show?”
    “Sorry, sir. I have another call.” She rang off, having apparently gotten suspicious.
    She could be with his father. Errol could have asked her out to dinner or something, and she, in all innocence, would have been flattered, would have accepted. If his father understood the connection between her and Isaac, he’d kill her the second he thought he could get away with it.
    Hands shaking, he called the Bluebonnet Motor Lodge. “Whittaker?” a female clerk said. “Just a moment, please.”
    Isaac breathed a sigh of relief. At least he could leave a message here.
    The operator came back on the line. “Ms. Whittaker has checked out.”
    “What? When?”
    “I’m sorry, sir. I do not have that information.”
    “Give me the front desk, please.” Maybe someone would remember her.
    “This is the front desk, sir.”
    “Oh. Do you remember Ms. Whittaker?”
    “No sir, I don’t.”
    “Is anyone else there?”
    “Mr. Ramos is helping a customer, sir.”
    Isaac gave up, thinking,
Okay, that’s that.
She was supposed to stay overnight; if she wasn’t there, something was wrong. Seriously wrong.
    He felt like he was going to pass out.
    His hands slick with his sweat, he picked up the phone to call the Dallas police, then realized how futile that would be.
Well-known television personality’s about to kill my girlfriend
? Uh-uh, it wouldn’t fly.
    Langdon!
he thought. Langdon could get to them— they’d believe another cop. Where the hell had he put her number? He fumbled for it, his fingers dull and uncooperative. Eventually, he thought of calling the Third District.
    “Officer Langdon has been reassigned,” he was told. “Can someone else help you?”
    “No. No one.”
    Absolutely no one
, he thought.
    * * *
    Karen left the studio with dignity, heels clicking, even mustering a smile for anyone who passed. Once in her car, she sat there in shock, trying to convince herself that what had happened was real, to give it some kind of a name.
    What about if I