The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy by David Handler Page B

shot a look at Barry. “You told him?”
    Barry gave him a mild shrug in reply.
    Marco breathed in and out several times rapidly, his eyes wild. Man looked like he was about to explode. Then he let out a wounded sob and went running off to the bedroom, knocking over several more partygoers en route. He slammed the door behind him. The whole apartment shook.
    Barry sipped his martini, totally unfazed.
    I got to my feet. So did Lulu. “Thank you for your time, Barry,” I said.
    Barry frowned, or tried to. “But you’ve not touched your drink, Hoagy.”
    “You drink it. For some strange reason, I’m not thirsty anymore.”
    I walked up Riverside to my old apartment, the drafty fifth-floor walk-up on West Ninety-third Street I’d had since before I met Merilee. And still kept as an office. It had little or nothing in the way of heat, and hadn’t been painted since the seventies. Or cleaned, for that matter. Something of a dump, if you want to know the truth. But the apartment on Central Park West was ours. The farm was hers. This place was mine. What can I tell you—it’s a guy thing.
    Lulu made right for the fridge. There wasn’t much in there besides her jar of anchovies and a half loaf of pumpernickel with a bull’s-eye of blue mold growing on it. I threw her an anchovy. Then I called home.
    “How’s my little girl?” I asked when she picked up.
    “Fine, darling,” she answered wearily. In the background I could hear small splashing noises.
    “And how’s the midget?”
    “A holy terror. We’re having a bath. And when I say we, I mean we … No, sweetness, please don’t kick! Mercy, I’ve gotten soap in my eyes six times already. I should start wearing goggles.”
    From the floor next to me Lulu started whimpering. She always knows when it’s her mommy on the phone. Don’t ask me how.
    “I’ve been thinking, Merilee. We haven’t had an evening out alone in quite some time.”
    “We’ve never had an evening out alone. That was all a dream.”
    “We’ll dress to kill. Something black and low-cut and slinky.”
    “Sounds perfect for you, darling. But what shall I wear?”
    “We’ll eat caviar, we’ll drink champagne, we’ll paint the town until we drop. Tracy can stay with Pam for the night. What do you think?”
    “I think you’ve just saved my life. But what of Thor and the bovine girl?”
    “Oh, him. I would have words with him, if he’s available.”
    “They’re out in the chapel, darling.” She lowered her voice. “It’s the afternoon, you know.”
    “It’s important, I’m sorry to say.”
    “I’ll have Dwayne fetch them out a cordless phone. Hang on … Oh, darling?
    “Yes, Merilee?”
    “You’re not too terrible.”
    “You’re not too terrible yourself.”
    Thor got on in a few moments. “How’s the big city, boy?” he boomed, all hale and hearty.
    “I take it you haven’t heard the latest news.”
    “Which news is that?”
    I told him. And he hadn’t known about it. Or at least he gave a very good imitation of not having known about it.
    “I would never do such a thing, Hoagy,” he protested, his voice turning thin and strangely high-pitched. “Clethra’s body is a sacred temple. I would never, ever defile it in such a way.”
    “You didn’t sell the tape?”
    “I don’t even own a video camera,” he insisted. “You must believe me, boy. You must. ” He sounded genuinely shaken. And old. He sounded old.
    “Thor, would you mind putting Clethra on?”
    I heard heated words between the two of them. Couldn’t make out what they were. Then she got on.
    “I don’t know anything,” she whined right off, like a kid who’d just been caught with a couple of joints in her sock drawer.
    “Clethra, you know who filmed you taking your clothes off, don’t you?”
    “Duh … yeah.”
    “Well, then we have to have a talk about it.”
    “But—”
    “When I get back.”
    “But—”
    “Just you and me.”
    “Oh, okay,” she said glumly. “But I