And here they were, reminiscing like classmates, as if they shared an advanced degree in Abuse and Terrorism 101.
“No,” he said. “No memories. And, I imagine, a lot of possible memories I could have resurrected died in the fire.”
“I should have torched that hellhole while we all were there.”
“You can’t afford repercussions of failed mayhem now. Sean knows you’re back. He was influential in the IRA in fairly recent years.”
“Influential in giving up the battle.” She narrowed her eyes. “Where do you think I hid my razor?”
“I’m hoping in the travel bag I sent away.”
“You can’t send me away.” She looked to the locked door. “You promised to control me.” She looked at the LED numbers on the bedside table. “We’ll not sleep and we’ve already discussed the only two books we have in common, Mr. de Winter.”
“Wait. But not the film.”
“I never saw the film of Rebecca.”
“I’m talking about the film of another kind of woman entirely.”
“Oh, that Philomena. Named after a girl martyred at fourteen in the early days of the Church.”
“Lord,” Max said. “That sounds like Malala Yousafzai and other schoolgirls attacked and even killed by a religion desperate to keep women controlled. When was this?”
“I learned my church history. In 304 Rome. She is the patron saint of babies, infants, and youth.” Kathleen’s voice reeked with irony.
“Oddly amazing.”
“Why?”
“Think about it. The book the film is based on, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, has inspired thousands of Magdalene-adopted children to seek their birth mothers and information. It isn’t easy, as we’ve said, with the girls in the convent forced to use other names and they never knew each other’s true identities.”
“Philomena went by ‘Marcella’—” Kathleen shook her head, her beautiful black hair as glossy as onyx. “It’s Martin Sixsmith who’s the hero, the detective, who followed the few clues there were. Philomena didn’t have the nerve to question the nuns and the Church. But Sixsmith…he was a fallen-away Catholic enraged by what he found. He had balls. He found the truth and created the exposé, not her.”
Max wanted to smile. Kathleen didn’t see that he was now playing Sixsmith to her Philomena Lee. She didn’t want to confront the reality of her grown daughter, as Philomena had. She wanted only to nurse past grievances. Max needed to keep her off-balance, blinded by the roles that had always worked for her in that past.
“I understand why your keepers gave you the name they did,” he said. “Google says Rebecca means ‘beautifully ensnaring’.”
“Oh, don’t think the nuns back then had Google to underline their evil, only a wrathful God. We shall see how true I am to that name on this trip,” she said, softly, seductively.
What really was her endgame? he wondered. She had his exclusive attention at last…but did she hope or need to seduce him again, or did she intend to kill him or get him killed?
32
Show Off
It had become dismayingly evident, during my earlier walkabout of the home site with the Misses Temple and Electra, that something dark and dirty is transpiring too close for comfort.
All my fringe senses (those a bit beyond the usual five) tell me that the Circle Ritz residents have only scratched the surface of what criminal or even mystical schemes may be deploying under our very noses.
This is not something I can share with the ever-skeptical Miss Midnight Louise. She is a modern girl, and scoffs at my seasoned intuition.
So. The next step is clear. I must prepare to humble myself in pursuit of deeper intelligence. The only question is whether I begin this quest with the insufferable Karma, Queen of Metaphysical Mumbo-jumbo, or with the equally annoying Ingram, who sits literally atop books and books of information, and presumably has more private access to Google than I would ever dream of.
I decide that Ingram is the better bet.
I also decide that I will not boldly go via the bookstore front door, where Ingram can see me waiting and not make one attempt to attract Miss Maeveleen Pearl’s attention to admit me. Arranging an audience with Ingram is always complex. So I hunker down at the building’s side and wait for an opportune customer to appear, alongside of whose ankles I can slip within.
In my hunting days when I had to crouch in a prey-blind, I was prepared to wait patiently for hours upon a likely prospect. Alas, we are all now in an era of fast food, me included. Once I discovered I could work at the Crystal Phoenix with a nearby fishing hole, the koi pond, and tourists spreading their bread upon the waters by dropping tidbits for my maintenance, patience flew out the window.
I had heard about the Great Bookstore Recession, whereby such enterprises large and small and independent and franchised faced terrible losses at the advent of digital books and online retailing, but until you have sat for four hours on a weekday waiting for a customer to come, you do not realize what a travesty all this is.
At last some soul with a late lunch hour walks by and straight for the front door. I am almost catatonic with boredom by then and barely shake myself into action in time to streak for a disappearing pair of ankles.
“Oh, my goodness,” the woman says, spinning as I whisk past her and behind a table display. “Did you know,” she asks the approaching Miss Maeveleen Pearl, “there is a cat in here?”
“Yes. He is sleeping in the window display. His name is Ingram. If you are allergic, I can remove him to the stockroom.”
Stockroom? I visualize pairs of feline-size Old Salem penal stocks imprisoning Ingram, who already wears prison stripes. I see Ingram’s fore-and-aft soft pink footpads (mine are Bad Boy black) sticking through the wooden manacles, for passing vermin to tickle with their feelers. A comforting picture.
“I love stores with resident cats,” the woman customer is saying. “Ingram is a strong presence. I could swear I felt a welcoming fur-rub on my leg coming through the door.”
“I do not doubt it,” Miss Maeveleen says, leaning confidentially close. “I often think cats can astral-project.”
“That is just what I am looking for, a fun mystery series. So there is one about a cat that astral projects?”
“If there is not, there soon will be,” Miss Maeveleen assures her, guiding her to a shelf where every book cover features homebody tabbies surrounded by images of food, items from every imaginable domestic hobby, and things that go bump in the night.
Holy Sam Spade! I shake my head. These domestic slaves do not walk the walk (the mean streets) or talk the talk (though several seem to be more than somewhat chatty with their amateur sleuth owners). I am sworn not to talk to humans by my own druthers. I lead; they follow if they are smart.
Unfortunately, I can and do talk to the animal kingdom. A P.I. must have some reliable sources.
A low, slow, advanced-degree East Coast drawl unrolls behind me. “So, Louie, what brings you to my cozy nook?”
Ingram apparently resided with a Yale professor early in life. I turn and face the music, probably something maddeningly repetitive, like Bach.
“I did not realize we were neighbors now, Ingram. How long has this been going on?”