The Baxter Trust

1

Sheila Benton pushed the long, blond hair out of her eyes and peered at the clock.

7:20.

Damn.

She rubbed her eyes, sat up in bed and turned to the man sleeping next to her. She grabbed his arm and shook him.

“Johnny!” she said. “Johnny!”

John Dutton, twenty-eight, lean, muscular, pretty boy, stirred slightly and said something noncommittal like, “Mumph.”

She shook him harder.

“Johnny! Wake up! You’ll miss your plane.”

“Good. Good. Miss my plane,” he muttered.

She pulled the pillow out from under his head.

John grimaced, twisted his head around, opened a bleary eye and found himself staring at a magnificent pair of bare breasts.

The thing is, he hadn’t seen them quite this way before. At times when he had been awake, they’d seemed impressive. In the early morning, they impressed him not at all.

“Johnny!” said the breasts. “Wake up! It’s seven-twenty!”

“Fuck it,” Johnny mumbled. He rolled his face into the sheet, away from the breasts.

Sheila hit him with a pillow. “Get up!”

John rolled over onto his back, opened his eyes, squinted at her and gave her the smile she found totally endearing.

“I haven’t got the energy,” he said.

She smiled back. A warm, friendly smile. A smile between lovers. But more than that. Between conspirators. Between people enjoying an in-joke.

Sheila turned and reached over to her night table. On it was a round shaving mirror. On the mirror was a pile of white powder, a razor blade, and a straw. Sheila took the blade and fashioned some of the powder into four white lines. She picked up the mirror and held it out to John. He took the straw and snorted two of the lines. She took the straw from him and snorted the other two. She put the mirror back on the night table, then turned back to Johnny.

“Feel better?”

“Uh huh.”

“Got the energy to get up now?”

Johnny smiled at her impishly. “Now I don’t want to get up.”

He rolled over on top of her and began kissing her.

“Johnny!”

She couldn’t believe he was doing this. Jesus, how the hell were they ever going to make the plane, and-

Johnny suddenly rolled off her and jumped out of bed.

“Last one in the shower is a silly girl,” he said, and bolted for the bathroom.

Sheila stared after him in total exasperation. Then she shook her head, laughed, rolled out of bed and followed him.

They soaped each other happily, with a great deal of giggling and fun. Sheila clung to him, kissed him.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said.

He grinned. “You want me to get a divorce, don’t you?”

“Silly question.”

“Then I gotta go. What a pain in the ass to go all the way to Reno just to get rid of some lousy bitch.”

Sheila smiled. “When you put it that way, it sounds kind of attractive.”

“Hey. When I divorce you, it’s gonna be right here in New York.”

“ Johnny.”

“And then when I marry my third wife-”

Sheila stepped back and turned off the hot water. Johnny screamed and jumped back. Sheila turned the hot back on, but kept her hand on the knob.

“Are you going to be a good boy now?”

“Yes. Yes. I promise.”

Sheila relaxed and let go of the knob.

Johnny held up the bar of soap, and mimicked a gas-station attendant.

“Soap your tits, lady?”

Ten minutes later they were both out the door of Sheila’s brownstone on West Eighty-ninth Street, Johnny lugging his suitcase. The MG was right where they’d left it, halfway down the block. To Sheila, that seemed a small miracle. Even with the N O R ADIO sign and the code alarm on the car, Sheila couldn’t believe it had never been stolen off the streets of New York. Each time she found it still there, she attributed it to the fact that it was Johnny’s car, and somehow Johnny seemed able to do anything.

They crammed the suitcase in the trunk, hopped in and took off, with Sheila driving.

She headed uptown to One Twenty-fifth Street, went over the Triboro Bridge and took the Grand Central and the Van Wyck out to JFK Airport. Traffic was good, and Sheila pulled up in front of the terminal ten minutes before the plane was due to depart. Another miracle of the Johnny kind.

There was just time for a quick hug and kiss and then he was gone, and she was back on the Van Wyck heading home and thinking about what she was going to do with herself now.

Jesus. Two days. Two whole days without Johnny. It wasn’t fair. And all because of that woman. That woman. The infamous Mrs. Dutton, whom Sheila hated as much as it was possible to hate someone one has never met. Why should she be causing them this trouble? Sheila could understand her wanting to hang onto Johnny, though. He really was perfect. So handsome, and nice, and funny, and witty, and intelligent, and sexy and brilliant. Only twenty-eight years old, and already an influential stockbroker on Wall Street. A real Prince Charming. A perfect man.

Except for the cocaine. Sheila wished Johnny wasn’t so fond of cocaine, hadn’t introduced her to it. Of course, it was good, and Johnny wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t really all right, would he? Still, there was all that talk about it being psychologically addictive. Johnny said that was horseshit, and he ought to know. And she did cocaine, and she wasn’t addicted. The hit she had taken was wearing off, and she did feel like another, but she didn’t have to have it. It wasn’t like the world would stop if it wasn’t there.

Sheila began wondering how much cocaine was left in her apartment. They’d had a whole gram. How much had they done last night? Couldn’t have been that much. She probably had at least half a gram to last her for the two days. That ought to be enough.

It had to be enough, she suddenly realized. Johnny hadn’t left her any money. How much did she have? Thirty, forty dollars? Barely enough to eat on, let alone score any drugs.

Sheila drove back over the Triboro Bridge. She pulled the money out of her purse. Yeah. Forty-three dollars. Not nearly enough to score any drugs.

Shit. Sheila was angry with herself. Why was she thinking about scoring drugs? She didn’t need them. Two days without Johnny was not the end of the world. Besides, she had a half gram left.

Sheila pulled onto her street. A block away, a car pulled out of a spot right in front of her building. The light on the corner was changing. Sheila gunned the motor, and shot across Columbus Avenue, causing a taxi to slam on its brakes and a pedestrian to dive for safety. Sheila felt no guilt at this. In New York City, you kill for a parking space.

Sheila parked the car and got out, after remembering to set the code alarm. She walked up the steps and into the foyer of her building.

The mail had come. Sheila could see the white of a letter through the slots in the box. She dug out her keys and unlocked the mailbox.

The letter was addressed to her. It was typewritten. There was no return address.

Sheila tore the envelope open and pulled out the letter.

And knew at once that something was wrong.

The letter was made up of words cut from newspaper headlines and pasted onto a sheet of paper. It said: “I K NOW A LL A BOUT YOU.”

Sheila stared at the letter with the disbelief a normal person feels when something like that happens to him.

She folded the letter, and went up the stairs.

Sheila unlocked the door and let herself into her apartment. The letter was still in her hand. She flopped down on the bed and read it again. “I K NOW A LL A BOUT Y OU.” What the hell did that mean? Was it a joke? One of Johnny’s jokes, perhaps. She doubted it. Johnny had a terrific sense of humor, and he was always kidding around, but this wasn’t like him. This wasn’t funny. This was scary.

She folded up the letter and put it on the night table as if to dismiss it from her mind. Screw the letter. It’s nothing.

She stood up and looked around. The apartment, of course, was a holy mess. It was a small studio apartment, and with the couch folded out into a bed, there was barely room to move around.

Sheila began to straighten up. She made the bed, folded it up and put the cushions back on the couch. She picked up the dirty clothes from where she had left them lying on the floor and stuffed them into the laundry bag in the bathroom.

The remains of the Chinese food she and Johnny had ordered the night before were still sitting on the table in the small kitchen alcove. Sheila dumped them in the garbage and wiped the table.

She realized she was doing all this to keep from thinking about the letter. Which, of course, made her think about the letter. The nagging thought that taunted her, of course, was what if it wasn’t a joke? What if it was real? “I K NOW A LL A BOUT Y OU.” Knew all what about her? What was there about her that someone could know that could hurt her?

The answer, of course, was the cocaine. Someone could tell the cops about the cocaine. Or tell her uncle, which would be worse. Or actually, which would be the same, since if she got busted, her uncle would find out.

So what should she do? If this was a blackmail letter, she should go to the police. But what could she tell them? She couldn’t say, “Hey, I do cocaine and someone’s threatening to tell you about it.”

Shit. She wished Johnny were here. Johnny would know what to do. She would too, if it weren’t for the cocaine. That was the tricky part.

Thinking about the cocaine made Sheila realize she really needed another hit. She opened the drawer of her night table, and took out the plastic bag.

Shit Almost nothing left. Had they really gone through that much? They’d had a whole gram last night. There was only enough left for a couple of good lines.

Sheila ripped the bag open, and dumped the coke out on the mirror. She chopped it with the razor blade, fashioned two lines, picked up the straw, and snorted the coke up her nose. She licked the powder off the inside of the plastic bag. There. That should make her feel better.

It didn’t, however. And she’d known it wouldn’t. Snorting the last line of cocaine never made her feel good. There was always the sense of loss.

Well, that was that. Two whole days without Johnny or coke. Well, it would be good for her. A chance to show herself that she didn’t really need it.

The phone rang. Sheila walked over and picked it up.

“Hello,” she said.

A gruff male voice said, “I know all about you.”

Sheila felt as if the floor had suddenly disappeared from under her feet. She had a flash of absolute, total panic. What triggered it was the sudden realization, the sudden awareness. In that split second she knew, absolutely knew, that this was no joke, that this was real, and this was now, and this was happening. Happening to her.

“What?” she gasped. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The phone clicked dead. A dial tone buzzed in her ear.

Sheila knew that the man had hung up, but she couldn’t help jiggling the button on the phone and saying, “Hello?… Hello?” Finally she gave up, and hung up the receiver.

She sat there for a moment, pulling herself together.

Okay. The letter was one thing, but this was something else. And Sheila realized she just couldn’t take it. There was only one thing to do.

She picked up the phone and dialed 911.