Killing Monica

“Jonny.” SondraBeth grimaced. “Now you listen. The truth is that in the last few years—well, your sister and I weren’t exactly friends. I’ll explain why, someday. But in the meantime, I never got the chance to tell her the truth about Jonny.”

SondraBeth leaned past her to reach into the top of the medicine cabinet. “It’s nasty stuff, but Pandy always said you were the kind of person who wouldn’t be swayed by sentiment. Unlike Pandy herself. I always told her she was too emotional about men, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“Is that so?” Pandy said archly.

SondraBeth laughed as she removed a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, which she shook at Pandy. Pandy took one.

“But since you already know Jonny’s a bad guy…” SondraBeth stuck a cigarette into her mouth, lit it, and then lit Pandy’s. SondraBeth inhaled and exhaled quickly, like someone who hasn’t had a smoke for a while. “I happen to know that Jonny owes the mob a lot of money.”

“What?” Pandy began coughing. SondraBeth patted her on the back.

“I know. It sounds shocking, but you have to remember that Jonny was in the restaurant business. He borrowed all this money from the mob. But that’s not the worst of it.”

“There’s more?”

SondraBeth nodded, and with the guilt of someone who knew she shouldn’t be smoking, she took another furtive drag. “That guy who was just here, Freddie the Rat? Your sister and I used to hang out with him. A long time ago.”

“I know all about Freddie,” Pandy sighed.

“Well, Freddie knows all about Jonny. And he told me that if there weren’t any more Monica movies…if Monica were, to say, die”—SondraBeth took another drag—“the mob would go after Jonny for the money he owes them, because they’d know his source of funds had dried up.”

“What are they going to do? Kill him?” Pandy asked sarcastically.

“Don’t be silly,” SondraBeth said. “They’re not going to kill a famous person. They don’t operate like that.”

“How do you know?” Pandy asked.

“Because they do business with famous people. It’s like being a drug dealer, okay? You don’t want to kill your clients.”

“Holy shit,” Pandy said, remembering the Vegas guys Jonny had mentioned; those mumbled phone calls in the bathroom.

“But it’s way more than that,” SondraBeth continued. “He’s been cheating the union guys, too. Who are part of the mob.”

“You mean those people who make deliveries to his restaurants?” Pandy gasped.

“Hey.” SondraBeth’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’re in the restaurant business, too.”

“I’m not. I know all about it because I was married to Jonny.”

“What?” SondraBeth nearly dropped her cigarette. “You too?”

“I’m Pandy!” Pandy shouted. “Christ, Squeege. We’ve seen each other naked. Remember that time on the island? You invited me to come and visit you, and then you convinced me to invite Doug there. And then you stole him,” she shrieked.

“I did not!” SondraBeth jumped back in shock.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s not the way it happened. Technically, he wasn’t her boyfriend,” she said quickly.

“What difference does it make? Because after you had sex with Doug, you sent him to me as a present.” Pandy’s voice rose to a screech. “And then, you acted like it was no big deal and I was crazy. Like I was the crazy one who fucks their best friend’s boyfriend behind their back! And you want to know another thing?”

“There’s more?” SondraBeth demanded.

“The last time I looked at you, I saw evil. Pure evil. I saw a serpent come out of your head and swoop down toward me. Well?” Pandy demanded in reaction to SondraBeth’s still-startled expression.

And at last, SondraBeth’s eyes widened in recognition. She took a deep breath. “Well, yourself,” she said. She took another cigarette from the pack. As she raised her hand to light it, Pandy saw her hand was shaking.

And suddenly, Pandy felt dizzy, too, as if she was about to swoon in fear, anger, and excitement. The history she and SondraBeth had between them could fill a novel—yet, at this point, they might as well have been bookends on the opposite ends of the longest bookshelf in the world.