Jerk. Of course, like any good cop, I’d been trained to despise lawyers, so having to go to one for help was excruciating. I’d used this guy, Quentin Delacourt, a few times after David died, for wills and estates stuff that I never really understood. But he didn’t know me. And I didn’t much care for having him make these blanket proclamations about who and what I was.
“I’m not going to sit here defending myself to my own attorney,” I said. “Will you take the case or not?”
“That depends on what you mean.”
“I mean getting my niece back.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” He leaned back in his burgundy leather chair, adopting what he undoubtedly thought was a deep, contemplative pose. “There’s no rush. Maybe you should give yourself some time.”
“I gave myself a week. Look what happened.”
“Give yourself a month. Just to relax. No stress, no work. And no alcohol, of course. Give your body a chance to recover. I don’t think you’ve taken any time to get your head together since-”
“I’m not wealthy, Mr. Delacourt. I don’t have the luxury of indulging myself in some spiritual walkabout. I want my niece back-now. I want you to file a motion or whatever it takes to get her yanked out of that hideous foster home.”
He opened a file on his desk and thumbed through it. “From what I can see, the Shepherds’ home is far from hideous. Apparently they have taken in many minors from-um-difficult situations.”
“Rachel was perfectly happy with me. And she hates it where she is.”
“That’s to be expected, at least at first.”
“So will you bring the motion or not? I want a hearing.”
He gave me the contemplative look again, this time even steepling his fingers for added effect. “If you’re sure that’s what you want, then I’m honor-bound to get it for you. But I can’t say that I’m optimistic about your chances. NDHS wouldn’t have intervened unless they thought they had due cause. They’ve really papered this file.”
He was starting to piss me off, big time. “How much mileage can they get out of one stupid mistake?”
“It goes way beyond that.” He continued thumbing through the file, not making eye contact with me. “You’re currently unemployed.”
“I’m going to fix that.”
“I won’t lie to you, Susan. As long as you’re unemployed, there’s no way you’re going to get custody.”
“I told you, I’m going to fix that.”
“Rachel’s grades have been falling for the past year.”
“It’s hard losing a father figure. For the second time. Hasn’t been a real picnic for me, either.”
“Her school counselor says she’s been depressed.”
“I think that’s somewhat understandable, given the circumstances.”
“NDHS says you often leave her alone at night, while you’re ostensibly working.”
“Ostensibly? What is that supposed to mean?”
He closed the file. “One has to wonder, given the frequency…”
I stood up. “What are you implying?”
“Have you been drinking around Rachel?”
“I never drink at home.”
“I ask again, have you been drinking around Rachel?”
“Absolutely not. Look, I screwed up once. I wasn’t drinking that often.”
“If you make that claim at the hearing, NDHS will bring out your blood work and prove you a liar.”
“What the hell do they know about it?” I screamed. And immediately felt embarrassed. I was proving myself just as unstable as NDHS said I was. Playing into their hands. “Let those sons of bitches lose a husband! Let’s see how well they handle it.”
“We all know you’ve had some difficult trials. But the focus at the hearing will be on what’s best for Rachel.”
“I’m best for Rachel. She needs me!”
“Or is it more that you need her?”
I felt as if the top of my head was going to blow off. Literally. I gripped the edge of the man’s desk, consumed with fury. “Are you going to get me the damn hearing or not?”
“I’ll get the hearing,” he said quietly. “But I can guarantee the attorney for NDHS will be much rougher on you than I have been. And if you behave in court the way you’re behaving now, you haven’t got a snowball’s chance.”
It took him more than three hours to remove all of Annabel’s teeth. He used no anesthetic and nothing to stanch the bleeding. She bled profusely, down her chin, onto her bare neck and shoulders, mixing with saliva and coagulating to create a nasty bubbling paste. He had no means of measuring the quantity of blood lost, but it seemed enormous, an endless flow from those torn and ravaged gums. He had no idea if, as in the story, she would bleed to death, but it certainly seemed possible. And if she did not do so as a natural consequence, he knew how to see that she did.
After the first tooth was removed, she began to scream. He turned the Mozart up high. Fortunately, Camille’s boyfriend was not nearby; it would have been an inopportune time for a visit. After the third tooth, the screaming ceased, as did the threats about her mother’s revenge, the name-calling, the inappropriate remarks about his parentage. By the tenth tooth, she was entirely broken, shattered, incoherent. She began to hallucinate. She lost all sense of who and where she was. She called him Warren, made sexual advances. She alternated between pleading for mercy and babbling about her schoolwork. He was moved by her pain, truly. It took great force of will to remind himself that there was a higher purpose behind all this. The path to godhood was strewn with sacrifice.
“Am I dead?” she asked at one point just before unconsciousness descended, her pulpy gums mashing together. “I feel dead.”
“The sleep will come, my sweet Berenice.”
“Thasss good,” she said, and her last thought was expressed as a single word. “Why?”
“ ‘And still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy,’ ” he murmured, and with gentle fingers closed her eyelids for the last time. “Make a place for me in the firmament, my darling. Tell my love I will soon be reunited with her. That we will all be together once again.”
He walked upstairs and gazed out his window at the striking sunset. It was a glorious evening, bright and clear, a vivid orange and blue curtain draped across the skyline. He could almost feel the warmth of the light emanating from the Luxor pyramid, a forty-billion-candlepower beacon said to be the most powerful spotlight in the world. It shone for ten miles into space, carving a swath through the heavens. Was it the light that illumined sweet Virginia ’s face? Was it a trail of bread crumbs Annabel might follow? There was no basis for these beliefs in the prophecies. But it seemed so in his dreams, and the prophet did teach that dreams were a portal into the land of the ideal. If he could dream there, he could be there. And so he would. And so would they all.
After dark, I told Lisa I was going to the grocery store for some Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch. Hated to lie, but it seemed simpler than having an argument about whether I should do what I already knew I was going to do. I had to see O’Bannon. And I’d decided to confront him in an environment in which he couldn’t so easily blow me off.
Short drive with the top lowered down the streets of neon did me a world of good. Saw the transparent dome of the Fremont Street Exposition, my new favorite tourist joint. Basically, they tarted up the old Strip so it could compete with the new, and did a darn good job of it, in my opinion. Hey, beats seeing David Cassidy lip-sync or the ten billionth magic show, right?
Once I arrived at his house, I pounded on his front door, literally pounded. Guess my rage was still boiling. When I thought about what he’d done to me, after all I’d done for him, the cases I’d solved, only to have him shaft me the first time I’m vulnerable-it just infuriated me. I pounded and pounded, and when he didn’t come to the door immediately, I started shouting.
Some kid opened the door.
Okay, kid might be pushing it, but he seemed like a kid to me. He was probably in his early-twenties. He had peach fuzz on his upper lip and cheeks, and long brown hair that wasn’t very well groomed. He was dressed in a green T-shirt and was tall and lanky. Actually, my first thought was of Shaggy from those Scooby-Doo cartoons.