Popcorn

Chapter TwentyThree

Detectives Jay and Crawford stood on another sweeping drive outside another gorgeous colonnaded mansion. As before, all around them the false rainbows shimmered above the lawns.

‘You know, if your theory’s right,’ Crawford said, ‘this door’s going to get opened with lead.’

‘Hey, you get paid, don’t you?’ Jay replied, and he rang the bell again.

Inside the house there was panic.

Susan Schaefer had only recently arrived home, having spent the night with a new acquaintance whom she had met at the Oscars. But it was not this that had thrown the movie star into a frenzy of confusion. She was a forthright modern celebrity, and press revelations about her latest boyfriend held no fears for her. In fact, if anything she was rather proud of her exhausting private life. That was not the reason that the sound of the buzzer had created this agony of indecision in her.

The problem was simply what to do with her breakfast.

She had arrived home famished, and had instantly stuck six streaky rashers under the grill. When they were perfectly crispy, she put them on a plate, added maple syrup and some double choc ice cream from the freezer, and wolfed the lot. She had been on her way to the bathroom to puke it all up again when the buzzer buzzed.

This was the reason for the panic. Every moment that the food remained in her stomach her traitorous gastric juices would be digesting it. She had to get to the toilet and hurl.

But the buzzer kept buzzing.

‘Later. I’m busy,’ she shouted into the intercom.

‘Police,’ Jay shouted into the microphone.

‘Police?’ A shaky voice asked.

‘That’s right, Ms Schaefer. We need you to come and speak to us.’

Susan rushed down the stairs and flung open the door in an agony of haste. She could almost feel herself getting fatter as she faced the cops. Six rashers, about a barrel of maple syrup and two scoops of double choc! She had to get it out of her stomach! Already half of it must have attached itself to her hips.

‘Yeah?’ She said, looking so panicky that the detectives believed immediately that they had scored a bullseye.

Carefully they asked her the same questions they had asked Kurt.

‘Look, I’ve only been back half an hour,’ she answered breathlessly, ‘and I have not seen any psychos.’

But she was sweating, shaking even. She was clearly not happy. Jay tried to keep her talking. He asked her where she had been, where she would be going later in the day. Had she checked her answering service?

‘A friend’s. The gym. Whadaya think? Of course I checked my messages.’ All the time Susan could feel the fat caking on to her thighs, swinging from under her chin, piling up on her bottom. Eventually she could stand it no longer.

‘Look, just come in and search the fucking house!’ she shouted.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Jay.

Was it an ambush? Had this poor, terrified woman been coerced into luring two cops to their deaths? They had no choice but to risk it.

Drawing their weapons they crept past Susan and entered the house. Without a word they split up and began their search. Both were on tenterhooks, listening for the slightest disturbance which would, they were sure, be the precursor of terrible violence.

It wasn’t long before their worst suspicions were confirmed.

‘Ugh ugh honor aaarrrrghh!’

Behind them, they could hear Susan Schaefer croaking and gasping in agony. The psychos were killing her for allowing them in. It sounded as if she was already in her final death throes. Both officers rushed back through the house the way they had come. There was a small door leading off the hall: it was clear that the noise came from there.

‘LAPD!’ shouted Crawford, and assumed the firing position as Jay tore open the door.

There on her knees before them, head in the toilet, fingers down her throat, was the female star of Ordinary Americans.

‘What’s the matter with you guys?’ she shouted. ‘Can’t a girl finish off her breakfast in peace?’