The Way You Look Tonight (25 page)

Diana had not been using a polite euphemism, she really
did
need to powder her nose.

Jackie told her she’d see her back in the room with the others and Diana spent a minute or two in the fragrant, thickly carpeted bathroom re-applying lipstick and powder in front of an
enormous mirror in its gold-painted frame.

She felt slightly embarrassed that she’d been so tongue-tied with the Kennedys. Still, they
were
the most famous and gilded couple in the world. Next time – if there really
was going to be a next time – she’d give herself a good talking-to in advance.

She snapped her compact shut, rinsed her powdery fingers in the sink beneath the mirror and opened the door.

President Kennedy was standing directly outside, holding a large black leather-bound notebook in his hand. He grinned at her, gesturing to the book. ‘Found it,’ he said obscurely.
‘And I, ah, wanted to find you too, before you leave us.’

Diana stared at him in surprise. ‘How did you know I was here, Mr President?’

‘I was coming out of the room at the end there when I saw you go in, so I figured I’d wait here for you.’

He moved a little closer to her, still with that engaging smile on his face.

As an attractive woman, Diana was well used to men making passes at her and she had learned to see them coming, but this man, she thought, beat the lot. He had to be the fastest mover
she’d ever encountered.

‘The thing is, Diana . . . the thing is . . .’

The next second he was kissing her, the back of his free hand resting lightly on her cheek.

She almost began to respond – in fact, reviewing the extraordinary moment later, she had to admit to herself that she definitely
did
start to respond – but managed to pull
sharply back, pushing him firmly away with both hands. Her undeniable thrill of excitement gave way to a sudden and powerful desire to laugh. This was
ridiculous.

‘Now look, Mr President,’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘This is NOT happening. I have just met your lovely wife and she’s in that room just down there. Quite apart
from anything else, what if she came out here and saw you kissing me? Now, I’m going back to my daughter and my friends and we will pretend that this never happened. All right?’

He was entirely unperturbed.

‘On the contrary, Diana, the memory of kissing your lovely face will sustain me through what I have no doubt is going to be the most difficult evening of my presidency thus far. But
you’re right, of course. This is neither the time nor the place. The next time we meet I will be certain to, ah, arrange things differently. It would be my pleasure to spend some time alone
with you.’

Now Diana couldn’t stop herself from laughing aloud. ‘Perhaps it would, but it’s not ever going to happen! You can be completely certain about that, sir.’

His eyes crinkled as he laughed in his turn. ‘We’ll see about that, Diana. We’ll just see about that. I always say—’

Diana never discovered what it was the 35
^th
President of the United States always said because at that moment Dorothy emerged from the room further down the corridor, calling:
‘Diana? Are you lost? We’re—’ She came to a full stop when she saw the two of them. Jack Kennedy gave her a friendly wave.

‘Oh!’ Instinctively, she waved back. ‘Um . . . are you ready, Diana? We’re off now.’

‘Yes,’ Diana called back. ‘I’m just coming.’

She turned and put out her hand, which the President shook with an elaborate formality. He continued to grin at her in the most disarming way.

‘Goodbye, Mr President. Good luck with whatever the matter is that’s troubling you. I’m sure your wife is right and everything will turn out well in the end.’

His smile faded just a little.

‘It has to, Diana. For all our sakes, it has to.’

He could see that his boss was in a bad mood. It was obvious from Tom’s sulky expression and the set of his shoulders as he walked slowly back into the Springfield
less than an hour after leaving for an afternoon in bed with his new – and very secret – boyfriend.

‘I thought you left me in charge until happy hour,’ he said as the owner stamped behind the bar and poured himself a generous scotch. ‘You told me you wouldn’t be back
’til six.’

‘That was the plan,’ Tom snapped. ‘But Bruce got a phone call almost as soon as he’d taken his gun and uniform off. Afternoon leave cancelled. They’re calling
everyone back in to his headquarters because of this Keys Killer thing, you know, the manhunt. They still think he’s hiding out in Key West, and there’s been some kind of a
breakthrough.’

He was careful to show no emotion and carried on methodically stacking the still-hot-to-the-touch tumblers he’d just taken from the automatic dishwasher – the first one
he’d ever used – and asked in a voice as offhand as he could manage:
‘His uniform? Headquarters? What, you’re telling me your new boyfriend’s a cop?’

‘Yes, and he’s gorgeous. Not that I got to do anything with that fantastic body of his this afternoon. And from what he told me I might not get another chance for days, unless they
get lucky. He said there’s been some sort of development in the investigation. All hands on deck.’

He closed the door of the empty dishwasher and began wiping down the bar top. Steady now, he told himself. Don’t look too interested. Let’s not frighten the horses here,
OK?

‘Well good, actually.’
His voice could hardly sound more casual.
‘Because I’m sick of seeing that guy’s face wherever I go around here. If they nail him
then at least they can take all those frigging posters down. They give me the creeps.’

‘Really? I think he looks cute myself, quite the regular piece of eye candy. But your wish might come true because from what Bruce said they may as well tear them all down right now for
all the use they are. He’s changed his appearance, apparently. Looks totally different now.’

OK. Stay cool.

‘Wow . . . is that the breakthrough? What are they doing about it? Why are they calling everyone back to the ranch today?’

‘Bruce didn’t know at first – they just told him to get his sorry ass back there pronto. I stayed in bed when he’d gone, watching some mindless daytime game show and
eating the chocolate cake I’d brought for him – Bruce loves chocolate cake – and finishing off the bottle of Chardonnay we’d started together.

‘But just before I left, he called me from work. Of course, he has to be careful. If they find out he’s . . . well, you know . . . he’ll be kicked straight out of the force,
maybe even sent to jail, and it’s much worse for cops on the inside, obviously. Anyway, he said they’re getting one of those police artists to draw some of the different looks the
killer might have adopted – you know, blond like you, or the total opposite. Maybe with glasses . . . hey, like you again, Den! Watch yourself – you could be pulled in on suspicion of
being the famous Keys Killer!’ He laughed.

‘Jesus, don’t joke about it, Tom. I skipped bail, remember? I’m a wanted man, for Chrisakes. I don’t want to find myself dragged all the way back to Texas on some fucking
framed-up soliciting charge.’

His boss looked uncomfortable.

‘Of course not . . . jeez, Denny, I’m real sorry, I wasn’t thinking. It was just a stupid joke . . . anyway, we’ll get to see what they think this guy looks like now in a
coupla hours – his mugshot’s gonna be on the main news show out of Miami at six o’clock, you know, the one hosted by that Todd Rodgerson guy, who, by the way, isn’t half as
cute as he obviously thinks he is.

‘But he’s gonna show the drawings. That’s why Bruce and everyone has been ordered back in – they’re expecting a whole bunch of calls. He says the picture that
attracts the biggest response is the one they’ll check out first. Bruce thinks they might even make an arrest just a few minutes after the first broadcast – after all, this is Key West,
not Miami. There ain’t many places to run to. But if not, the sketches will make the morning papers, too. It’s all quite exciting, don’t you think? I always say I enjoy a good
manhunt!’

Laughing at his own wit and with his spirits restored, Tom offered to hold the fort if Dennis wanted to take a late lunch.

‘Thanks, Tom. I’ll do that. I just need to go to my room for a coupla things. I’ll be back to help out at happy hour, OK?’

Five minutes later, he slipped out through the rear fire exit, so his boss wouldn’t see he was carrying the bag he’d arrived with the week before. It had briefly crossed his mind
to kill Tom before leaving but too many other people, staff and customers, could testify that he’d been working in the Springfield and he could hardly kill them all.

When he got out to Duval he reached into the back pocket of his skin-tight cords for the coaster some sad old queen had insisted on giving him the night before, telling him:
‘I’m always at the house, gorgeous, if I’m not in here. Come up and see me sometime. You could make an old man very happy.’

He squinted at the phone number, blurred by spilt beer, that the old guy had scribbled down in red ballpoint before tottering off home. Was that a three, or an eight? Fuck it, it
didn’t matter, he’d dial it both ways.

Without looking back at the bar that had been his sanctuary, he headed for the phone booth on the corner of Duval and West. He glanced at his watch as he went.

Four-thirty.

He didn’t have much time.

The street was just a couple of hundred yards up from the old Pier House, built on land that had been reclaimed from the mangroves more than a century before. It was a
near-forgotten corner of this last fragment of the United States, a single boulevard of shabby, paint-peeling clapboard houses that petered out where a long-silted-up channel that once connected to
the Gulf now lay dank and stinking. Residents said half of Key West’s mosquitoes bred here in summer and that the town should dig it out and then concrete the whole damn thing over. Make it a
parking lot or something.

The old man had been delighted to receive his call. The jerk had a phoney English accent that sounded even more pronounced over the wires. But he had to admit the guy was pretty funny too,
with his immediate invitation to
‘come and have tea with the Queen, darling!’

He’d hung around for a while at the top of the street, checking that no one was around. But the place was quiet, just a couple of beaten-up cars sagging on old springs against the
kerb, and nobody sitting out on any of the mostly half-ruined porches, their rotted rails in splinters and the planks that made up the private boardwalks that ran alongside the properties either
badly split or missing completely.

When he was as satisfied as he could be that it was safe to move unobserved, he walked quickly to the address he’d been given. It was almost at the very end of the street and the house
opposite was boarded up. Good.

He climbed the steps to the front door and yanked at the cracked ceramic bell-pull. He heard a tinkle from somewhere inside and after a long pause, just as he was about to ring again, the
shuffle of footsteps.

The front door opened and there he was, the old fuck, practically dancing from foot to foot with delight, powdered and rouged all to hell. Jesus. Mascara too. The guy looked like a decaying
marionette.

‘You darling boy, you came! When I returned home last night I decided I’d wasted my time and a very large tip on you.’

He grinned, said something meaningless about wine improving with age – where did he get crap like that from? – and a moment later he was standing in the hallway, the door closing
behind him.

‘I guess I thought . . . well, why not. I have a coupla hours off shift. Why the hell not?’

The old guy looked hurt.

‘Oh well, if this is merely a pity visit . . .’

He reached out with his left hand and rested it gently on the old guy’s shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze.

‘Hey, don’t be so goddamned sensitive. I came because you invited me over, OK? I assume it’s just you and me here, by the way.’

‘Of course, dear boy. I told you last night; I’ve lived alone here for years.’

‘And you have a TV?’

‘What? Yes, yes of course I do. Doesn’t everybody these days?’

His hand, resting so casually on the bony old shoulder, instantly became a grip of iron. He whipped back through ninety degrees, right arm extending simultaneously behind him, and spiralled
back round again, delivering a tremendous straight-armed punch to the old man’s face.

The decrepit body flew more than a yard backwards and slammed down onto the floor, the head snapping back against the uncarpeted boards and bouncing up again towards the chest in a grotesque
parody of a courtly bow, before falling all the way back to expose a sad, chicken neck.

He stepped across the unconscious man and stamped hard on his windpipe, continuing to press his foot against it, using all of his weight. After a few seconds the body shuddered and the heels
drummed frantically against the floorboards. Then, sooner than he expected, he felt the instinctive, primal fight for life fade away. The body slackened and became perfectly still.

He calculated that it had taken the old fart less than thirty seconds to die.

‘You cannot be serious. I really have to wear make-up for this?’

The girl sighed. She got this kind of crap from almost every guy who was booked to appear on
South Florida News Tonight.

‘Yes, Mr Foster, you do. Everyone does. Otherwise you’ll end up looking as pale as a ghost, and after you’ve been under the studio lights for one minute you’ll be
perspiring so much you’ll look like a ghost that’s been splashed with cooking oil. I don’t try to tell you how to do your job, sir, so will you please just let me do
mine?’

‘Holy smoke, after a telling-off like that? I can only apologise. I am putty in your hands.’

He was somewhat reassured to be told that President Kennedy always wore make-up for television. ‘Don’t you remember that pre-election TV debate he had with Nixon in ’60?’
the girl asked him. ‘Nixon refused make-up and that’s why he looked so sweaty and shiny and kinda untrustworthy. Did him no favours at all. JFK looked cool and composed because he
wasn’t embarrassed to have a little base and powder beforehand – and in the commercial breaks, too, I heard. So just relax, sir. If it’s good enough for the President, it’s
good enough for you.’