"You look skeptical."
"I guess I am," I said.
"Don't you want to hear what she wanted me to do?"
"Sure. Tell me," I said.
"You speak so casually, Geoffrey. It's as if you don't believe anything I say." I didn't know what to believe, but I was curious.
"Why don't you tell me," I said.
"Then I'll let you know if I believe you or not."
She nodded.
"I was to bring you around in the morning to a certain address.
Darling's people would be waiting for you there. I wouldn't have to come in. I only had to deliver you to the door. They'd snatch you right inside." She turned and stared at me, directly into my eyes.
"they were going to blind you, Geoffrey. Hold 'you down, then slowly drop acid into your eyes. Drop by drop, and Darling was going to watch them do it. He was going to stand over you with a camera and take photographs of the whole thing. Pictures of your pain, your fright.
That's what he was going to do, Geoffrey. That would be his revenge!"
I started to shudder. My pulse began to race. All the terror came back to me from the night the boy had come and thrown the lye. I didn't think then about whether she was telling the truth. All I could think about was blindness. A little bottle of acid in someone's hand. The liquid moving slowly to the bottle's lip. The first drop trembling slightly, reluctant to depart the glass. Then falling, falling slowly toward me. Darling leering. The flash of his strobe. I shut my eyes to make the vision disappear. And Kimberly talked on.
"The moment she said that I went into a fury. I picked up this coffee thermos she kept beside her bed, and brought it right down on her head.
When she went limp, I turned her on her belly and looked around for something to tie her with. There was a coil of rope we used for our bondage scenes. I knew just where it was. I ran and fetched it, and then I tied her up."
She paused as if to catch her breath.
"That was the weird part, Geoffrey. I'd never touched her before. In class she always had us touching each other, but she always kept aloof.
So there I was, handling her, tying knots around her limbs, and doing that got me excited, like finally I had this power over her-I was in control.
"When I had her hog-tied, I went to the kitchen and found the varnish remover. She woke up while I was pouring it around. 'Going to burn me, Kimberly?" 'Yeah, you got it, Mrs. Z!" I said."
Kim rolled her head across the pillow, as if she were suffering some sort of delirium.
"She started blubbering, begging me to spare her. But I felt no pity, none at all. I couldn't forget how she'd played solitaire while Sonya's bones were being broken. And the way she'd smiled when she'd showed me the video of Shadow being tortured. ,, 'No deals,' I said, 'it's your turn now." I smacked her again, untied her, and started all these fires around the room. I stayed until the flames caught the bedding, then waited across the street until the fire engines came. I left when I heard a fireman say the smoke was so thick he couldn't check if anyone was trapped."
She stopped rolling her head.
"I hurried back to our hotel. I remember I sang to myself in the shower there, just an old song to help me forget. But I was glad I'd done it.
And I haven't regretted it since. I figured that since killing Rakoubian had been their message to us, killing Mrs. Z would make a good message back. And it turns out I was right too. Darling heard us loud and clear."
I must have looked at her strangely then, because she smiled back.
"Yeah, I've talked to him, Geoffrey. I phoned him from St. Louis last night. Told him to get his ass out here, and don't forget the cash.
Told him if he didn't show day after tomorrow, the same thing was going to happen to him."
"Jesus! You called him! Where did you get his number?"
"Out of Mrs. Z's book before I lit the fires. I'm glad you weren't with me, Geoffrey. It wasn't pretty. Not at all. But like I said, maybe you have to burn a witch. Maybe that's the only way to get rid of one…
Her eyes closed not long afterwards, as if her act of confession had made it possible for her to sleep with impunity. But I lay awake beside her, more frightened than I'd been since the night of the lye attack.
She was a killer. I'd seen joy in her eyes even as she'd admitted that.
Now I was entangled with her. We were lovers and partners in a blackmail scheme. For all I knew, I might also be accessory to a murder. And more frightening than any of that was my conviction she had still not told me the entire truth.
A little before dawn I stole out of our room, took the car, and drove down to Galisteo. The house was quiet when I drove up, so I sat in one of the deck chairs in front and waited for the sun.
It rose out of the mountains, triumphant light, burnishing Mai's sculptures turning them into images of broken dinosaurs. By the time Frank sat down beside me I was starting to wonder if things were as bad as I'd thought.
He surprised me: he already knew Mrs. Z was dead.
"Kim phoned from St. Louis, told me everything. f told her to call Darling and what to say. After she spoke with him, she called me back and we talked for quite a while. "
"About what?"
"You, mostly, Geof. I told her she had to tell you the truth. Told her if she didn't, I probably would. She said she'd think about it. Thanked me for my advice."
I looked at him. His eyes were spectral, fracturing the rising sun.
"I'm frightened of her, Frank."
"She's crazy about you."
"Is that what she says?" He didn't answer.
"What the hell am I going to do?"
"Wait till this is over, then decide."
"Let's get the money first-right?"
"We're close now. You don't want to mess up the deal. "
"Two more people are dead, Frank."
"Two very bad people." He shook his head.
"Look, Geof, you didn't 'kill' Rakoubian. He was always going to get killed. As for Kim's little bonfire, if you look at it a certain way, it was a pure act, a justifiable act of revenge.
"Does that make it okay?"
"Maybe not 'okay." But human. Very human."
"You don't think she's a monster?"
"What's a monster? I don't think you have to be afraid of her, if that's what you mean."
I turned to him.
"Why wouldn't you see us yesterday? You didn't want to meet Kim. Why?"
"I'll meet her eventually."
"But not now. This idea the three of us can't be seen together-that's bullshit." He shrugged.
"Why?" He didn't answer.
"Don't you trust me, Frank?"
"Course I trust you. And now I want you to trust me. Sometimes, in this kind of an operation, it's better to keep a few things compartmentalized."
I didn't quarrel with him, but I was upset, which is why, when he urged me to stay for breakfast, I turned him down. Also, I wasn't in the mood to face Mai and the kids. Our parting was cool when I left to drive back to Santa Fe.
In our room at the Seek And Ye Shall Find, I found Kim breathing heavily, evidently asleep. When I got into bed she reached out for me, then molded herself against my flank.
I don't know how long I slept or what I dreamt about; I remember only that I was awakened by a harshly ringing phone. Groping for it, my eyes still closed, I could feel she was no longer in the bed.
"It's Frank. I'm at the studio."
I opened my eyes. Kim was gone. The room was filled with blinding light. I looked at my watch-it was almost one in the afternoon. Kim probably woke up, saw I was sleeping, then walked down to the Plaza to shop, I thought.
"What's up?" I asked Frank. "Developments. I think you should come over here."
"Developments?"
"Better get your butt over here, pal." He hung up without saying good-bye.