“That noise. That sound. Didn’t you hear it?”
She allowed herself to turn slightly, to look up at him. He was crouched behind her, the knife in his hand. His eyes, hot and white, were fixed on the nursery door.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Avis whispered.
“Someone’s in there.” He turned on her angrily, his teeth showing. “Is someone in there?”
Avis shook her head. Think! But she couldn’t think. She spoke automatically. “No. In there? That’s my bedroom. I live alone.”
“Damn it!” said Zach. And he started marching to the door.
He went with long strides, his hand reaching for the doorknob even as he moved. The seconds it took him to cross the room seemed longer than forever. Avis stared at him.
Scream. The baby! Scream.
But she opened her mouth and the scream stuck in her throat. If she screamed she would wake him up for sure. That would be the end of it. He would kill them both. She knew it. She had to stop him and she couldn’t think and now he was there. He was at the door. He was reaching for the knob in the long, long quarter-seconds. His hand was on the knob.
Do you fuck Ollie? she thought.
The seconds were almost frozen now, so slow they were almost still. And yet he was turning the knob. She heard the latch clicking. The nursery door was coming open.
All the girls just love him.
“Don’t go in there,” she said. “I do fuck Ollie. I do fuck him.”
“What?” Zachary’s head came around toward her. The moments broke into full speed. It was as if time, like a carny ride, had reached the top of the loop, stopped for an instant, and now swooped down. The nursery door opened a crack. She could see the shapes of a Muppets mobile. Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy. Just their dangling silhouettes through the opening, in the dark.
But Zachary had turned away from them. He was looking back at her with a sidelong glance. His eyes were so white, so wide. His hand, his left hand, slipped from the doorknob. In his right hand, he held the knife. He pointed the knife at her. Its blade glinted in the top light.
Stay asleep, baby, Avis thought. Just stay asleep.
“What did you say?” said Zachary.
“That’s my bedroom,” she blurted out, thinking Stay … “I fuck Ollie in there. Don’t go in there. He says things in there. You shouldn’t go in. He says things about … about you … about, uh … about your penis.”
“What?” He looked at her as if she were crazy.
Avis thought she was crazy too. She didn’t even know what she was saying. She was blabbering without thought, going on instinct. She was thinking, Don’t wake up now, baby. Lull-a-by. Lull-a-by and good night, little baby. And she said, “That’s right. He always says these things, he tells me things about your penis and he fucks me. He fucks me and we laugh about your limp dick, what a girl, he says, what a girl you are in bed …”
The words tasted like dirt in her mouth but she ignored it. She kept talking and she kept thinking, Lull-a-by and good night, little ba-by, sleep ti-ight …
“What a limp dick and he fucks me,” she babbled.
Zach took a step closer to her. He cocked his head. “Are you shitting me? Are you …? What else did he say? Really. I’m just curious. Is this for real?”
“Real?” Avis’s eyes darted to the open nursery door. Kermit and Miss Piggy and Gonzo bear turned softly in a cool breeze in the dark. “Real. Yes. Every day and he fucks me. And we laugh.” Bright angels up above will send you down their love, she thought.
Zachary frowned. He looked like a little boy about to cry. “Goddamn it,” he said. “I knew it. I knew it.” He took another step toward her. “What did he tell you? What else? Did he say anything about Tiffany, about me and Tiffany?”
Avis clung to the wooden frame of her chair. She leaned back, away from him as he came closer. “Tiffany?” she said, her voice cracking. “Tiffany yeah. He told me about her and that was, yeah, we really laughed and he fucked me a lot …”
Zach took another step and he was standing right over her. He was hanging over her like a vulture and yet she was hardly aware of him. Her eyes, fixed on the nursery door, had glazed over. The whole force of her mind was concentrated on keeping her baby asleep. Lull-a-by … The whory words kept pouring out of her.
“I fucked him and his big dick, his big hard dick, you can’t even with that knife but he laughed about Tiffany …”
“All right!” Zach barked suddenly. “Shut up!”
Go to sleep, go to sleep … Little baby, good night … “You can’t even get it up but he fucks me and he laughs …”
“You bitch! I can’t believe this! Goddamned Oliver! I didn’t ask to live, you know. I didn’t ask him to save me! I’m the one who suffers with it …”
“Laughing fucking dick …”
“Stop it!”
“Laughing at you, girl, girl …”
“Stop!”
“Laughing.”
“Stop!”
He gave a wild cry and leapt at her. The movement brought her from her trance. At the last second, she tried to roll away from him, to roll off the chair. But he got her. He grabbed her hair in his fist. She fell to the floor, her knees cracking on the wood. He ripped her backward, ripped her head back over the chair arm, baring her throat.
Avis bit back her scream. She saw his face looming above her, filling her vision, his eyes black. She heard his hoarse panting and saw the flash of the knife as he lifted it in the air. She clutched at his arm, staring up at him.
Lull-a-by, lull-a-by …
Zach, holding her hair in his fist, hissed down at her in triumph. Just as he had hissed at the woman last night. Just as he had hissed into the glazed eyes of her severed head when finally in his rage he had stuffed it into the toilet. It was the same sound of triumph. They were the same words.
“You’re not alive!” he told her.
Bright angels up above, she thought, will send you down their love!
“The soul shrinks from all that
it is about to remember …”
—Richard Wilbur
Perkins was scared. It wasn’t just dread now. It was real fear, beating in his throat like a trapped butterfly. He had left Zach alone too long. He had lost track of Tiffany outside Nana’s apartment. And now …
He hurried down the hall to Nana’s door. He was thinking: If Tiffany’s here, if she’s brought Nana into this … He was thinking about Nana, about her weak heart. He was thinking: She won’t be able to stand it.
He pounded on the door with his fist.
“Nana?” he called loudly. “It’s me.” He was already fumbling for the keys in his jeans. “Nana?” He had the key. He fit it into the lock. Took hold of the knob.
But the knob turned in his hand. It was pulled away from him. The door swung in. Swung open.
She stood before him in the doorway, peering out at him with frightened eyes.
“Hello, Oliver,” she said.
His own fear beat harder at his throat. He spat her name out between his teeth. “Tiffany.”
Tiffany pushed her black and silver hair away from her face. She braced herself, took a breath. Then she pulled the door all the way open. Perkins could see his grandmother now. There by the coffee table near the windows. Her shapeless old self was slumped comfortably in the satin bergère, propped by her hand-embroidered pillows. She looked up when he came in. Her sagging, melted face lifted in a smile.
“Why, Oliver!” she said. Her frail voice quavered. “I’ve been hoping and hoping you would turn up. You’re just in time for tea.”
“Yes, Oliver,” Tiffany said nervously. She forced a smile of her own, one corner of her mouth lifting. She swallowed hard. “Chamomile or Earl Grey?”
Perkins looked helplessly from the young woman to the old one; back and forth again. He felt sweat beading under his hairline. What could he say? How much did Nana know? He felt the fear beating harder at his throat.
Tiffany shut
the door behind him. Perkins started at the sound. He looked at her quickly. A grandfather clock in the foyer struck the hour: six o’clock.
Zach, Perkins thought. I have to get back to Zach. “I can’t stay long,” he said hoarsely.
“Oh,” Nana called from her chair. “Stay. Tiffany can put another cup on for you. I’m sure it’s no trouble, is it, dear?”
“No trouble at all, Nana,” said Tiffany. She did not take her eyes off Perkins. “Well? What’ll it be, Ollie?”
He glared at her, his teeth gritted. He wanted to seize her right then and there. He wanted to shake the truth out of her. In fact, he wanted to tear her in half like a piece of paper. “Chamomile,” he snarled.
And Tiffany managed to sing out brightly: “Back in a mo.” She turned her back on him. Walked away unsteadily. Even in the quilted shirt, even in the baggy jeans, he saw the movement of her figure as she left the room.
Still helpless, still silent, he looked at Nana. The old lady’s quivery smile was expectant. Her eyes were expectant and damp. The light was gone from the tall windows beside her. Only one standing lamp cast a pale yellow glow over the nude Venus in its stand. The rest—the carved chairs, the fireplace, the dark pattern on the rug—was fading into the dusk shadows. Nana seemed tiny and dim at the fringe of the circle of light.
Perkins forced himself to return her smile. “Back in a mo, Nana,” he croaked. And he dashed after Tiffany. The knick-knacks in the room rattled as he stomped out of the room.
He found her in the kitchen around the corner. It was a narrow corridor of a room but gleaming. Copper pots and kettles hung from the tiled walls and reflected the light. Butcher block counters shone between the black iron stove and the white refrigerator. Tiffany was setting blue willow china on a silver tray. A copper kettle steamed cheerfully over a blue flame on the stove top behind her. Tiffany’s mouth was a thin line. Her eyes were fixed on her work. She did not look up, but Perkins could tell she was aware that he had come into the room.
He glanced cautiously toward the living room, toward Nana. Then he bore in on Tiffany fiercely. His voice dropped to a whisper. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She looked up at him. Her eyes were enormous. “You have to stop following me. You have to stop following me now.”
“What’s that got to do with it? Why the hell did you come here?” He was whispering so hard he sounded as if he were strangling.
She turned back to her tray. The china clinked merrily as she arranged the cups and saucers. “How else was I supposed to get rid of you?” Her voice was low. “I know you won’t start a scene here. Not around Nana. Especially not … well, I could tell her things, Oliver.” When she looked up this time, her gentle, pale face was set. Their eyes met, hard. “And I will tell her too. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll tell her anything I have to. It’ll upset her, Oliver. It’ll make her sick, you know that.”
“You goddamned—”
“Shut up, just shut up,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going on. It’s all crazy. You don’t know. Now we’re just … we’re just going to have a cup of tea. You and me and Nana. We’re going to have a cup of tea and then—then, after a while, I’ll excuse myself. All right? I’ll leave—and you’ll just let me go. Do you understand? That’s all I want. Just let me go. You can’t follow me now. All right?”
Perkins rushed at her. The rage seemed to explode from the core of him: molten, white, liquid rage that spread all through him. He grabbed her by the shoulders. Twisted her around to face him, lifting her until she was on tiptoe, until his eyes were inches from hers. “What have you done?” The whisper hissed out between his teeth. “What have you done to my brother?”
“Let me go.” Tiffany’s eyes filled with tears. “You bastard. You idiot. You don’t know anything. Let me go.”
“You set him up, didn’t you?” He shook her. “You set him up to take the rap for this murder. Didn’t you?”
Her hair spilled over her face. She looked up at him through the strands as he gripped her. She said nothing. Their faces were so close he could smell not just her toilet water but the scent of her skin beneath. He stared down at her, searched her eyes, searched in the aching depths of her eyes. He was aware of the sinewy strength of her shoulders under the quilted fabric. He remembered the feel of her flesh in his hands.
His lips parted as if he were about to speak again.
“The water’s boiling,” Tiffany said softly.
And Perkins, his mouth open, let her go—he practically dropped her to her feet. He turned away from her as she went to fetch the kettle. He stood there, slumped. He looked down at the silver tray. His gaze fixed on one of the teacups, on the creamy white bottom of it. He gazed down into it until his vision blurred.
It was me, he thought. I broke the typewriter.
And it occurred to him—in an odd, dreamy way—that his father had always known that somehow, that he had known the truth of it all along. The bitter old man had pounded Zach’s ass again and again with that heavy ruler. He had beat him black with it. Black. And all the time he had known, he had known it was really him.
Perkins felt sick to his stomach. He felt that fluttering fear; larger; filling him; beating against the walls of his entire body now.
“Now watch out,” said Tiffany.
Perkins stepped aside as she brought the steaming kettle to the tray. She stood at the counter with her head bowed, her hair spilling forward. She poured the boiling water into the china teapot. A tear fell from her cheek onto the side of the copper kettle. The tear sizzled and evaporated in a little burst of steam.
“You know who killed that girl in the mews,” Perkins said to her. “Don’t you?” He spoke weakly now, his shoulders raised. He did not look at her. “Whoever helped you with your blackmail racket—he’s the one, isn’t he? God, Tiffany. I mean, blackmail? You just fucked that guy, didn’t you? That Fernando guy. You just fucked him and your partner took the pictures, right? Oh, man, oh, baby, that was cold. Jesus.” He heard Tiffany let out a broken sob. He grimaced but he didn’t look at her. “So then what? Huh? Woodlawn used the Kincaid girl for a courier so he could keep clear of it, and she got scared and brought in the FBI. And you panicked, right? You panicked and your partner killed her because she was innocent. She wasn’t like Woodlawn, she was innocent and she had nothing to lose by giving evidence against you.” Perkins’s breath came faster, as if he were walking uphill. It was hard: working it out, trying to put it together. It seemed like nothing quite fit. Everything was just a little out of joint. “Then you tried to set me up for it, me and Zach. You got us both to go to the mews. You called the cops while I was there and told them you’d heard screaming …” He brought both hands to his forehead. He felt like it was full of sludge. Out of joint, out of whack. He couldn’t make it all work. He lifted his eyes to her, confused. “He’s your lover, isn’t he?” he said slowly. “This partner of yours. That explains it. He’s your lover and you do what he says. All this mystical feminist shit and you do whatever he says and you just fucked this Woodlawn guy and now you’re in on a murder and you don’t care who takes the fall, as long as lover boy gets away, is that it? You don’t …” He stopped. He couldn’t make it all fit. His breath hissed out of him like steam. He was silent and looked at her.
But Tiffany said nothing. She sniffed back her tears as she finished filling the teapot. She turned away to set the kettle on the stove again. Then she turned back to the tray. She shuddered once. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the side of her hand. Finally, she lifted the tray off the counter.
“Okay,” she said. “Now we’re going to have tea.” She straightened, faced him. “And you won’t make a scene. You won’t make a scene or I’ll tell Nana everything. About you and me and the woman in the mews and everything. It could kill her, Oliver, and I’ll do it, I swear.” Their eyes met again for a moment. “Now we’re going to have tea,” she repeated. She moved toward him. For a second, he opposed her, he ju
st stood there in her way. But then his eyes dropped and he stepped aside. Tiffany carried the tray out of the kitchen, into the living room.
They had tea with Nana around the white marble table. In the pale outglow of the standing lamp. In the shadows of evening. Each of them sat in a fading embroidered chair with clawed feet and scrolled arms. Tiffany perched on the edge of her seat and did the honors. She poured the yellow brew into the teacups, first for Nana, then for Perkins, finally for herself. She had prepared a plate of Pepperidge Farm Brussels cookies too and she set one on each saucer. She handed the cups around and sat back with her own, averting her eyes from Perkins. With thin, trembling hands, Nana dipped her cookie delicately in her tea. Tiffany sipped the steam from her cup and gazed into the middle distance. Perkins gripped his saucer and stared Black Death at her.
I’ll tell. I’ll tell everything.
He could not just let her go, he thought. He would hold her here by force if he had to. He would haul her down to the Sixth Precinct himself. He had to get her to tell Mulligan the truth before she disappeared again.
I’ll tell.
He had to get her to clear Zach before the cops got ahold of him. And if she tried to start trouble with Nana … Perkins’s chest heaved as he slumped heavily in his chair. He gripped his cup and saucer tightly. If she tried to upset Nana, or tell her things … With her weak heart … His jaw worked slowly. The vein in his temple throbbed. Well, he did not know what he would do. But somehow, he had to keep hold of her. He couldn’t let her get away.
“Well!” Nana said. “Isn’t this pleasant!” She smiled with tremulous benevolence on them: her grandson and her ersatz granddaughter-in-law. “The three of us together for once.”
Perkins tried to nod. Tiffany smiled vaguely. Both of them brought their teacups up to their lips, hiding their mouths.
Nana set the crescent of her cookie carefully on the edge of her saucer. “So,” she said, “let’s talk about the murder.”