This quick note should serve as a warning to you all. This piece contains the obligatory Dietz sex scene. I know that each and every one of you have dreaded this, nay feared it. But don't worry, it is over in a flash!
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Dietz steeled himself to tell her the truth about what he had been through and what was left to do to save his own skin, heck the entire Santos clan�s skin, he wondered whether that thought was grammatically correct, oh heck what did he care?
He saw that she was thinner than the last time he'd seen her. And her hair was longer and more golden. She looked at him and flashed her winsome and curious smile and it all poured out of him, every detail and every thought he'd had since Labor Day. It took him about 9 ½ minutes to tell all.
Holly was aghast at what he'd been through. She apologized for not being there for him, to act as a sounding board, to commiserate with him. Dietz shrugged. It is all right Holly, there isn't anything between us anymore. I was frankly worried about you. David Grant told me that he was keeping you locked up in the loony bin for your own protection and I thought that they would get suspicious if I raised too many questions about your condition. Forgive me for not contacting you sooner.
Well, as you can see Dietz, I am out of the hospital and have been since June. And if my daughter Blake ever figures out her marital problems and stays out of other men's beds not to mention staying away from foreign countries, I�ll be able to get some real work done. Do you know what kind of coverage the paper has given this issue?
No coverage Holly. Heck, your paper and that blam TV station you own part interest in is like reading about or viewing a bad episode of Entertainment Tonight. Looked at the paper yesterday and the big story was "Petulia�s Burned to the Ground by Repeat Young Arsonists." Then I read into the article and found it was just a feed story based on two other headlines from the last few years. One of em,� "Buzz�s Diner Burned to the Ground in May 1999 by Young Arsonists, but Rest of Fifth Street Saved." And the other was a few years back, "Fifth Street Burned Down by Arsonist, Believed to be Very Young and Upset by His Mother's Death, Only Buzz's Diner Saved." Don't know why the media can't come up with anything new.
Ben Dietz, this issue is new and I am back and strong now. Let me publish this story and get things out into the open. I�ll go with you down to San Cristobel.
Holly, you know that is not gonna work. Ever since Boom Boom had that affair with your brother Ken a few years back, things just aren't right with Ken, as you know. Well, things aren't so good with Boom Boom either. She's started using the Internet a lot and is using code names and communicates with groups of women on some kind of list that talks about some kid named Jesse or is it Dresse? I'm plain worried sick about her. Never saw two people who handled an extramarital affair so poorly and to such disastrous results.
Bennie, we aren't here to discuss our errant relatives. If you won't let me come to the island with you, could I at least set up a news feed for you to keep me updated? Bennie, I am worried sick about you. Taking on the Santos family, the Spauldings, the Family Flan, the Madeira's and the Tapas clan couldn't be good for your health--not to mention your indigestion. Dietz, I feel so sad that we are no longer close anymore. You see me as a loser in life, now that you know my weaknesses, you won't love me anymore.
No, Holly, I love you more now for these frailties. If things were different now and the Santos family was safe again, I�d tell you how I really feel. I�d tell you that I see you as a wild untamable little fox and I know that only I could tame you�you know break you in the right way! But as things stand now, it is a no how, no way and no win situation. Holly, our cover isn't blown to the high heavens yet, let's keep it that way.
Dietz, you are a genius in figuring this out and having a plan to save all the innocents caught up in this endeavor.
Don't flatter me my little red fox. I wouldn't know what to do with your praise. Just remember kiddo that you can't kid a kidder who isn't all that good at the kidding game.
But Bennie, we've had something special here, why not see if it could bloom into love?
Holly, love is the one real and terrifying fear. If you are going to be afraid of anything in life, be afraid, very afraid of falling in love. No doll, once everything hits the fan down in San Cristobel, I know that I won't be able to go on much longer if I�m not dead already. The show for this fellow is coming to a close. Sorry Holly, I gotta go now.
Just then, the band starts playing an extremely loud and abrasive song. Dietz and Holly look up to see a large number of the country club set doing the Electric Slide. Darn, he thought, there that Beth woman was again in a cute little purple chiffon number cut up the side and down the middle. He didn't like the looks of that dork she was with, though, what did she do pick up every Philip, Carl and Jim she met?
The music gets louder.
Holly says, but Bennie, where are all the bombs planted? Help me out here.
Where, who, what did you say? Did you ask me where all the bulbs are planted? I don't know nothing about tulips and irises. I don't know bulbs babe. But if you want to know where the bombs are planted, here is a map. Holly, remember you can trust the FBI. They are clean and they've agreed to help. I don't recommend calling in that Springfield Police Department's ATF squad, heck they can't tell the difference between a bomb and a souped up CB radio. Nope, if you don't hear back from me by September 30, call in the FBI, use Boom Boom�s name (it'll work wonders, believe you me). Then give them the list. The bombs aren't scheduled to blow until Columbus Day. I still cannot get over Spaulding�s sicko sense of humor. They all think it will be so funny to see Springfield blow sky high on the day that the Spanish fleet discovered the Americas.
Just then, Alan Spaulding and his Macarena band start up that famous, trendy yet oddly haunting song, the Macarena and everyone including Holly and Dietz get up to perform the dance and walk around the dance floor in an impromptu conga line. Dietz took a minute while he had both hands on his hips to ponder Alan. He thought, when a man can sing like this (hands behind head), do a stage show and run a multinational-national company it just amazes me that he cannot keep his sister, Victoria, on the straight and narrow (or for that matter Alex either).
After the dance was finished, Dietz and Holly sway to some golden oldies including "Papa was a Rolling Stone," "Keep on Truckin," "All the Young Dudes," "YMCA," "Macho Man," "Three Times a Lady," "Give it to Me Baby," "Right Place, Wrong Time," "Rescue Me," and "Pushing Too Hard," When the band started the music to the Bryds famous hit, Chestnut Mare, Dietz got tears in his eyes. He said well, Holly, I gotta hit the head, don't be here when I get back.
Holly agrees. But the truth is she'd like to be with him again. He's not so bad once he's cleaned up and taken a shower, the good lord knew she had definitely been with worse men. She'd do as he asked and just hope that he would come back. If he did, she'd invite him over for dinner and give him a nice haircut and a few new ties to go with those 2 suits. And maybe take him horseback riding, he was always saying that he wished he had a horse. Funny man, our Mr. Dietz.
She remembered their first moment of passion, and sadly it had just been that. They were in the confessional booth at the Catholic Church up the hill from the now burned down Company/Petulia�s restaurant. Holly remembered the time fondly. She had been doing research on Catholicism and contemporary society. She'd made an appointment to meet with one of the vicars there (odd, she thought they kept telling her to call them priests, note to self, find out more about Catholicism by actually finishing this piece). Dietz had met her there and they'd talked a bit in his car. He had the strangest car she had ever seen. The back seat was filled with all kinds of strange paraphernalia. Sure there was the usual collection of stolen VCRs, audiovisual and stereo equipment. But he also had a small arsenal back there along with all kinds of tools. Why would anyone need to carry bolt cutters around with them? Oh well. She had first gotten his attention when she told him that she was a recovering Catholic. He'd been so kind, even offered to drive her to the recovery meetings. She should tell him one day that she is a Lutheran. She liked being a Lutheran, you got to vote on things.
The time they'd shared that day was meaningful. She had looked into his one good eye (not the lazy one) and felt something she had only experienced maybe 10 or 20 times for other men. They started kissing, but she had to stop their massive make-out session because she saw by the clock in Dietz�s car that she was either very late or very early. Now thinking back on it, maybe that clock didn't work. He had escorted her into the Papa Santos Memorial Chapel. While there, they'd gotten carried away and Bennie and she had gone at each other in that strange little concession stand, no, confession booth. She had gotten so excited that she had been screaming, STOP, STOP, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW and one of the fathers, the young one, had come to assist what he believed was a damsel in distress. She had pulled up her panty hose and gone off to the interview. But the priest didn't look so good during the Q+A session. Kind of green around the gills as Dietz so aptly put it.
She hoped that people wouldn't think that she was promiscuous or that Bennie was a philanderer. No, it had just happened due to Bennie�s own stress over his wife's infidelity. Oh sure there was that other time when they were stuck on that elevator at Towers for 3 hours. They'd been riding on one of the elevators and all of a sudden the thing just shut down. They'd telephoned and learned that it was shut down for maintenance. Yes, they'd gone at it like Blake in heat that night. Later they'd both felt bad that Meta had been in the elevator too but some things cannot be helped. Plus she is kind of like family, right?
Then there was that night on the back 9 at the country club, and then there was the time behind the Dairy Queen and the Tastee Freeze (she had been doing a restaurant piece for the paper). And of course there was that wild night out by the pool at the Bauer BBQ and then that long weekend at the cabin, oh heck she thought maybe we have seen enough of each other to last a lifetime.
Dietz came back out, laughed that the Macarena was still a popular lounge act dance and proceeded back to the mansion to pick up his car. He drove straight to the Springfield Airport. There he jumped a plane to Puerto Rico and then the connecting charter to San Cristobel. LIAT was a great airline. They loved him, that was for sure, as he never carried on or checked any luggage. Just wore one suit over the other to save time, space and worry.
He got into San Cristobel at 11 that night. He drove immediately to Casa Santos. No one was home so he rested until morning. Boy he needed that rest. Then a quick call and he was at the palace and sitting before Carmen's sister (by marriage), Olivia, a powerful woman in this little town and on this little old island. Now the hard work would begin but would they believe him and could he finish this all up by Columbus Day?
He thought back about what Holly had done for him during the short time they'd known each other. Sure there were the 33 1/3 trysts they had, hey if you were with a woman like Holly, you would keep count too, what a fox! Oh, yeah, back to the topic. Holly had suspected Bernard was Nino�s father right off. There was a certain resemblance she had seen in the shifting of the eyes and the growth of hair between both eyebrows that struck her as oddly interesting. Could he truly trust Holly with the information she now had about the Spaulding clan? She was a newspaper woman after all. But women once they'd been with him had a tendency to try and cover that fact up, so he was probably safe for now.
But the information Holly provided to him was of the most concern right now. Why hadn't he caught on and listened to her before? Heck why didn't he listen to Boom Boom more? Why didn't he listen closer to women in general when they talked? They always seemed to have that 10-4 hindsight that men lacked. But then again what was a 10-4 and why did that sound like something you might hear at a truck stop?
Holly told him that she'd never trusted David Grant. The idea that a well paid private detective would willingly take a position as a lowly cop on the beat should have always been suspect. Add this to the fact that he'd hooked up with Ms. Vicki Lewis, a vapid woman with no personality and he shoulda seen that 2 and 2 and 2 just didn't add up to 4 anymore.
It all centered on her and Grant. Alan Spaulding was guilty as heck but he was as much a pawn as Carmen Santos in this mess. Yep, they were both sitting ducks in this bullpen. He thought back to what a fortune teller had told him once, "life is a work of art designed by the one who lives it," heck if that was true he was a living example of Jackson Pollock�s work!