Free The Merchant of Menace by Jill Churchill Page A

grown up all over the world. And she'd been told, practically from birth, that the host or hostess must be polite to guests — no matter what. No running away or hiding in bathrooms. As a child and teenager, she'd attended various dinners her parents gave that included sheep's eyeballs, petrified codfish, and eating on the floor of a tent with the sound of wild animals just outside. Lance King was only marginally more revolting than any of those.
    She emerged and found herself face-to-face with Mel.
    “I've been looking all over for you, Janey," he said. "What's wrong? You look upset.”
    “Probably because I am."
    “It's not my mother, is it?" he asked, looking suddenly wary.
    Jane managed to laugh. "No." She almost added,
"Not this time,"
but resisted the temptation. "It's that jerk Lance King."
    “He's here?"
    “Here? Of course. How could you have missed him?”
    Mel put his arm around her and walked her slowly back through the kitchen. Jane noticed that the volume of the party had gone back up to normal. "He must have left. Thank goodness. Maybe Ginger arranged for that airplane crash after all.”
    By the time she finished explaining who Ginger was and what she meant, Jane felt considerably better. "Thanks for listening," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I'm going to go enjoy my own party.”
    Jane, the diplomat's daughter, made her rounds, making sure she welcomed everyone individually and cordially. At ten minutes toeight, Lance King reappeared with his television makeup and the fake beard back in place. Ginger helped shuffle people out of the way of the electrical cords and lighting stands and at one minute to eight, held up one hand and stared at her watch.
    When her hand dropped, Lance King smiled broadly and looked into the camera with a lizard-like smile. "A neighborhood block party in celebration of the holidays. What could be more fun? More innocent? Nice people and good food. But is there a dark underbelly to this happy, if not to say smug, suburban life? Tune in to the late news and find out.”
    The television lighting went off and there was a moment of dead silence. Lance King pulled off his beard, looked around the room, and strode out of the house, laughing.
     
    Nine
;·.
     
    There
was a long, frigid moment of silence as '· Lance King walked out the front door, slamming the door behind himself.
    Then Billy Joe Johnson, who had mistakenly assumed this was a costume party and was dressed as a rotund snowman, said, "Who is that guy and why's he being so darned nasty?”
    Fairy Princess Tiffany said, "He must be a television person. What with the cameras and all. Wonder if we'll all be on the news." She apparently had paid no attention at all to the content of his broadcast.
    Somebody muttered, "The bastard." Jane thought the remark came from one of Lance's own crew, but couldn't be sure.
    Ginger, her long face flushed and blotchy, grabbed Jane's arm. "I'm so sorry. And if it helps any — which I know it won't — I'm unemployed as of this moment. Voluntarily!"
    “What peculiar behavior," a woman from the mock Tudor house at the far end of the block said, setting her plate on an end table and rising."I'm certainly not planning to be here when he returns to make another distasteful display. Jane, where's my coat?”
    A half dozen or so of the guests departed in a mob. None of them looked frightened especially, only disgusted. Jane helped find coats and saw them off with broken apologies, trying to make everyone understand that she had most assuredly not invited Lance King to the party. She was even good-hearted enough to refrain from mentioning that this was all Julie Newton's fault.
    As she watched them leave, she said, "Mel, can I get a police officer at the door to keep him from coming back into my house?"
    “Janey, calm down.”
    Her eyes filled with tears of fury and frustration. "I'll hire a private security guard then. I wonder how you find one on short notice.”
    She felt