Holiday of the Dead (54 page)

But the Jessica Carlton thing was bothering me. She had come to Texas to see her jock boyfriend, and her people had been calling to set up a meeting. No surprise there. I just didn’t know what to tell them.

I started smoking again. Cigarettes, I mean. I never quit weed. That was almost impossible when you hung around Tommy Grind. I quit cigarettes back in 1998, and never felt better. But the stress of dealing with Tommy’s unique needs – he was up to four girls a week now, and it was getting increasingly difficult to dispose of the garbage in a way that didn’t attract dogs of both the canine and human variety – and the Jessica Carlton situation conspired against me. In a weak moment, I bummed a smoke off of Isaac and within a week was back up to a pack a day.

It made me feel ashamed every time I lit up. Like I was some kind of pansy or something, but, to quote Tommy, a need is a need and it has to feed, like it or not.

The situation reached a head on the night of February 14
^th
– Valentine’s Day.

I was in Tommy’s fully restored 1972 Triumph TR-6, headed back to the mansion from the store where I’d gone to buy another carton of smokes. It was a cool, crisp night, full of stars, and I had the top down and Tommy’s 2003 album
Desert Nights
cranked up on the CD player. The night was cool and clear, and the little Triumph handled the Hill Country roads like a dream. Any other night, I would have been in heaven.

I parked and went inside, just to make sure. But I wasn’t surprised to find Tommy gone. Isaac hadn’t even done a half-assed job of cleaning up Tommy’s latest meal. Nice enough girl. Said she was from Kentucky, I think.

I went to the security room and replayed the tape. There was Isaac, talking to Tommy through the Plexiglas, opening the door, coaxing him outside. Tommy staggering toward Isaac, hands raised in a gesture that almost looked like supplication.

And then they were off camera until they got downstairs and out the front door.

I turned on the GPS tracker – basically a glorified version of what veterinarians use to track the family pet – that I had injected into Tommy’s ass after the last time Isaac walked him outside. Then I called the signal up on my iPad and got a good fix on him.

He was heading down to the west point of Lake Travis. There was a secluded little pocket of vacation homes down there for the uber wealthy. Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughey both had houses there not too far from Tommy’s. It was his private little retreat from the world. Tommy didn’t often like to disconnect, but when he did, that was where he went.

And then, a terrible thought.

Please dear God. Tell me he’s not taking her to meet Jessica Carlton. He can’t be that stupid.

Damn it.

I got in my Suburban – the one I’d specially modified with a police prisoner barrier in the back so I could transport Tommy if I needed to – and headed after them.

Thirty minutes later, I was looking up at an eight thousand square foot mansion done up like a Mediterranean villa – red tile roof, white adobe walls, fountains and hibiscus everywhere. I had parked off the main road, in a small gap in a cedar thicket that concealed the Suburban just perfectly, and tried to figure what Isaac was doing. What possible reason could he have for bringing Tommy here? If Jessica Carlton saw him, we were done for. Despite the constant upkeep, Tommy was looking pretty rough these days. Worse than Willie Nelson after a three day whiskey binge. Which I’ve seen, by the way. It ain’t pretty.

And then it hit me. Valentine’s Day. Today was Valentine’s Day. Isaac Glassman had no chance of ever becoming Tommy Grind’s lover. Not anymore anyway. The pathetic bastard’s heart was probably breaking. He couldn’t give Tommy flowers, or candy, or stuffed animals, or any of that worthless shit people give each other on Valentine’s Day. But he could give him something pretty. Something that Tommy
did
still care about.

I reached behind the driver’s seat of the Suburban and took out a badly scuffed Louisville Slugger, the one with nicks in the business end that went back to the Houston beer joint days.

Old School persuader in hand, I advanced up the driveway and tried the doors and windows until I found an unlocked servant’s door off the kitchen.

I didn’t recognize him, which probably meant he was part of the legal community. Maybe one of Isaac’s lawyer friends. He wore a light gray double-breasted suit with a canary yellow silk shirt and no tie, both of which were torn and splashed with blood. He was clean-shaven and fit-looking, but his eyes were crazed.

“To-Tommy Grind. Oh Jesus. He … something’s wrong. He attacked Jessica. He bit her leg off. I … I think she’s … I think she’s hurt real bad.”

“Leslie, I want you to kneel down right here, okay?” He let me guide him to his knees. “That’s right,” I said. “Just like that. Now put your arms down at your side. Look over there.”

Isaac was standing in a hallway outside the master suite. He turned when he heard me approach, and his eyes went wide as the bat came up.

I was close enough now to see into the master suite. Jessica Carlton, blouse torn off, exposing her absolutely amazing tits, skirt hiked up high enough to give a peek of a white, lacy thong, was pulling herself across the deep pile, honey-coloured carpet. There was blood on her face and a huge big bite mark on her right leg. From her expression, I could tell she’d been drugged.

Tommy was staggering towards her, moaning like I’d never heard him do before. There was fresh blood on his face and hands and chest, but if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn he was aroused.

Tommy caught up with her, fell on her and started to feed. She let out a weak scream, but there was nothing behind it. In less than a minute, she had stopped thrashing.

“I wanted to give him something, you know? We just take and take and take from his talent. Nobody ever gives back to him. I wanted to give him something special.”

“So you gave him Jessica Carlton? Jesus, Isaac, how did you expect to pull that off. This isn’t some two bit groupie chick. People are gonna notice she’s gone.”

“She wanted to meet Tommy. Leslie Gant called me. He said she was going to be in town. He asked me if we could set up a private meeting between them. You know, a little romantic Valentine’s Day dinner the paparazzi wouldn’t know about. She’s still with that football player guy.”

But I was worried about Isaac. In his mind, he must have felt he was making the supreme lover’s sacrifice. He must have felt almost like a martyr, giving someone else to Tommy Grind so that they could satisfy him the way Isaac only wished he could.

I put my arm over his shoulder and led him back to the living room. He balked at Leslie Gant on the living room floor, but I guided him away from the body.

“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “Here, we got time for one drink. Then, we got to think about how we’re gonna clean all this up. Can’t afford any loose ends.”

He looked back at Leslie Gant and grunted.

I handed him his drink. “To Tommy Grind,” I said. We clanked glasses. I downed mine in one gulp. He sipped his, but managed to get most of it down just the same.

I took the whiskey and a couple of other bottles back to the master suite and lit the bodies on fire. Once I had it going, I came back to the living room and grabbed Isaac by the shoulder.

“Come on,” I told him. “Gotta stay on your feet until we get to the car.”

We passed his car in the driveway, and though the drugs I had slipped into his drink had made him so groggy he could barely walk, he was still able to point at his car and groan.

Isaac stared at me, stupidly. His mouth was hanging open, a thick rope of drool hanging from the corner of his lips. Some people don’t handle the GHB well at all.