In that sleep I realized that death was an impermanent situation, a transition from bubbling thought to inert thing. The grave was also ever-changing but at a much slower rate. The ground was like glass — liquid but seemingly solid, flowing and yet so slowly that it would take centuries to move appreciably. And the thing that was my remains would flow with it, no longer rotting or stinking, writhing under ten thousand men, their eyes closed and dreaming of women who had unknowingly betrayed them.
The phone made its chimes at irregular intervals. The voices of men and women nattered at me. The doorbell rang but I slept on. The sun rose and set, rose and set. I remember staggering through the darkness to the toilet, twice. Somewhere Theon lay dead, his flesh slowly collapsing toward the earth.
Then there was somebody screaming loudly, beseechingly. Maybe there was a fire and a lost child, an explosion on a street somewhere named after a person I didn’t know or in a language I didn’t speak.
I was forced up out of the coffin of sleep, grasping my father’s pistol.
The alarm system was blaring. Lights were going on and off all over the house. It was day, maybe morning, maybe afternoon.
Whatever door or window the voice says, you go in the opposite direction, Theon had told me when the sophisticated system was installed. He had been worried about men like Richard Ness coming after him in his sleep. He was still my husband, still taking care of me in his wrong-headed way, still alive.
The phone began to ring. That was the security company calling.
“Back door intruder,” the recorded voice was saying over and over.
Whatever door or window the voice says, you go in the opposite direction.
I headed for the back door.
With an arm jutting through the broken window the intruder was just undoing the lock as I made it to the kitchen.
“Back door intruder!” the recorded voice spoke.
The telephone was ringing.
I was still at least half-asleep.
“Stop!” A single warning before I allowed myself to pull the trigger.
“Police!” a man’s voice responded. It was simultaneously a plea and a command.
Perry Mendelson, the upper half of his light brown suit coming through my shattered back-door window, held up his hands to ward off bullets and suspicions.
“It’s us, hon,” Lana Leer screeched from somewhere behind him. “We thought you were dead, baby.”
I was holding the gun so that Perry was looking down the barrel. He was scared. That made me smile. I lowered the pistol and went to the wall panel to disengage the alarm. Then I answered the ringing wall phone.
The security company had a special ring that bypassed the answering machine, so it would have rung all day.
“Everything’s all right,” I said into the receiver.
“Mrs. Pinkney?”
“Yes.”
“What is the code phrase, please, ma’am?”
“Brer Rabbit.”
“And what are the last four digits of your social?”
“Two, two, two, nine.”
“And your maiden name?”
“Peel.”
“Is everything all right?”
“My friends thought I was dead and they broke the back-door window.”
“Do you need help?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I told you I’m fine and I answered your questions. Now I need to go look after my window.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it took you so long to get to the phone,” the male security operator said. “One more minute and I would have had to call the police.”
Perry and Lana had come into the kitchen. She was looking worried while he seemed embarrassed.
“I was dead asleep,” I said. “I guess I’ve been depressed or something. It took me a while to realize that the alarm was even going off. But I’ve turned it off and I’ve answered your questions. Can I go now?”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the operator said. “Certainly. Have a nice day.”
I hung up and turned to my visitors.
“Do you have a permit for that pistol?” Perry asked.
“Yes.” I did. I registered my father’s illegal piece when I turned eighteen. “I even have a carry permit after I was stalked by this crazy guy from Glendale.”
“What happened to him?” the cop asked.
I didn’t blame him for asking. He had broken into my home — a policeman. He needed to get some control back. Maybe if he showed some authority I wouldn’t bring him up on charges for breaking and entering.
“Fuck that,” Lana said in an unusual show of anger. “Where have you been for the last three days?”
“Three days?”
“It’s Thursday,” Lana said. “Linda’s been calling you morning and night. She even made me give her your red phone number.”
My red phone.
“I was sleeping,” I said. “All those days?”
“You really been asleep all this time?” Lana said.
“What are you doing here, Officer Perry?” I asked.
“Ms. Leer called me.”
I looked at the waif-woman.
“It’s true,” she said. “When you didn’t answer I called down to the police department and asked for Mr. Mendelson.”
“I’d called twice myself and I was worried,” Perry added.
“Worried?”
He looked down at his feet and it felt to me that an empire, somewhere, had crumbled without warning.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. “And then I need a bath. Come on.”
I led the odd allies through the hallway, past the guest bedroom, leaving them while I went into the smaller bathroom where no one had died.
I went in and did my business, dropped the rest of my clothes on the floor, and then went back to open the door for Lana and Perry. He was surprised to see me naked; I knew he would be. With some men, maybe all men, my sexuality gave me various advantages. Sometimes it was them wanting to take my clothes off; with others they were driven into a shell, seeing my body and not knowing whether to run or to scream.
When I bent over to turn on the bathwater I’m sure Perry looked away.
I took pity on him and poured bubble-bath gel under the stream. Then I climbed in to let the rising water and bubble line slowly hide my dark body.
“Is there any other reason you’re here, Officer?” I asked.
“Um,” the policeman uttered.
“What’s wrong with you, hon?” Lana asked. “Linda says that if you aren’t on the set by this afternoon she’s going to fire you.”
“Hm,” I mused. “How are you, Lana?”
“What?”
“How are you?”
“I understand that your husband’s dead and all, baby, but you have commitments.”
“Who’s that guy?” I said. “The carpenter that works on the sets on all Linda’s shoots?”
“Richie,” Lana answered, upset to be derailed from her line of questioning.
“Richie — that’s right. Call him and ask him to fix the window you guys broke. There’s an extra set of keys in the knife drawer in the kitchen. The security code for the alarm system is bilbo.”
The bubbles were rising quickly and so Perry chanced a glance in my direction.
“We’ve identified the woman who was with your husband,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Her name was Myrtle May. She was a minor from out near Barstow.”
“And how did she know my husband?”
“We haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Hm.”
“Myrtle’s mother told us that she found out about her daughter’s death from a black woman who came to her home in the late hours of the night a few days ago.”