All this was fabrication, of course; she didn't even attempt to make it sound particularly plausible. She just mouthed the words, and defied him to contradict her. He chose not to challenge her, at least for now. He could afford to wait. Lord knows, he'd learned patience, playing the supplicant grandchild while Cadmus held on to his life and his power. Now the old bastard was gone, and Loretta was almost out of cards to play. The only thing she had left in her hand was the truth; and being the cool player she was she'd hold on to it for as long as she could. It would avail her nothing. Events would move quickly now, and before she knew it the card she held would be valueless. He'd pluck it out of her fingers, for curiosity's sake, when she was out of the game completely.
Mitchell came to join him in the bedroom.
"I had a few words with Jocelyn," he said. "She always liked me."
"So?"
"So I got her to tell me what happened." Mitchell wandered over to the old man's bed, milking the moment for all it was worth. "For one thing, Rachel was here."
"So what?" Garrison said, with a shrug. "She's an irrelevance, Mitchell. For God's sake start treating her like one."
"Don't you think it's suspicious that she was here?"
"Suspicious how?"
"Maybe she's working with whoever did this. Maybe she let them in. Then helped them get away."
Garrison stared at his brother with that waxwork look of his. "Whoever did this," he said slowly, "does not need help from your fucking wife, Mitchell. Do you understand me?"
"Don't talk to me that way," Mitchell said, jabbing his finger in his brother's direction. "I'm not an imbecile and neither's Rachel. She got hold of the journal, remember that."
Garrison ignored the remark.
"What else did Jocelyn tell you?" he said.
"Nothing."
"That's all you got out of her?"
"That's more than you got out of Loretta."
"Fuck Loretta."
"Has it ever occurred to you that we might be underestimating these people-"
"Let it go."
"No, you listen to me. They could be conspiring behind our backs."
"Let 'em. What the fuck can a couple of women do?"
"You don't know Rachel."
"Yes I do," Garrison said wearily. "I've seen her type over and over. She's nobody. Anything she has, you gave her, this family gave her. She's not worth one minute of our time." With this he turned his back on his brother, and walked away. He was almost at the door when very quietly Mitchell said:
"I can't get her out of my mind. I want to. I know what you say is right. But I can't stop thinking about her."
Garrison stopped and, after a moment, pivoted on his heel to face Mitchell again. "Oh," he said, very slowly. He regarded his brother with a new sympathy. "What do you want to hear?" he said. "Do you want me to tell you it's okay to get her back? If that's what you really want. Go get her."
"I don't know how," Mitchell said. His anger had drained away completely; suddenly he was Garrison's little brother, desperate for guidance. "I don't even know why I want her. I mean, you're right: She's a nobody. She's nothing. But when I think of her with that… animal…"
Garrison smiled, comforted. "Oh I see. It's Galilee."
"I don't want her near him. I don't even want her thinking about him."
"You can't stop her thinking." He paused for a moment, the smile still on his lips. "Well… you can, but you probably don't want to go that far."
"I've thought about it," Mitchell said. "Believe me. I've thought about it."
"That's how it starts," Garrison said. "You think about it and you think about it and one day the opportunity presents itself. And you do it." Mitchell stared at the littered carpet. Garrison stared at Mitchell. There was a long silence. Finally Garrison said: "Is that what you want?"
"1 don't know."
"So think about it some more."
"Yes."
"Good."
"No. I mean: yes, that's what I want." He was shaking. Still staring at the ground, and shaking. "I want to know nobody is ever going to have her but me. I married her; I made her into something." He looked up now, his eyes wet. "Didn't I? Didn't I make her into something?"
"You don't have to convince me, Mitch," Garrison said, oh-so-gently. "It's like I said: just a question of the right opportunity."
"I made her into something and she turned her fucking back on me as though I was nothing."
"You want to punish her for that. Of course. It's natural."
"What do I do?"
"Well for one thing, you find out where she is. Make nice to her."
"What the hell for?"
"So she doesn't suspect anything."
"Okay."
"And then we'll sit down after the old man's buried and we'll work out how to get this sorted out for you."
"I'd like that."
Garrison opened his arms. "Come here," he said. Mitchell went to him. Garrison hugged him tight. "I'm glad you told me," he said, his mouth against his brother's cheek. "I didn't realize how much you were hurting."
"She just treated me like shit."
Garrison patted his back. "It's okay," he said. "I understand. It's okay. We've got a long way to go, you and me. And I want you happy."
"I know you do."
"So whatever it takes to make it better, that's what we'll do. You've got my word on that, okay? Whatever it takes."
Later, Garrison went to see a lady whose company he hadn't kept in several weeks: his lovely and ever-accommodating Melodic. It was thoroughly relaxing to keep such quiet company after the stresses of the day. He watched her lying there for fully half an hour, touching her chilly feet now and again; her thighs, her belly; slipping his fingers into her pussy. Lord, she was good at her job. Not once did she flinch, even when he rolled her over and roughly fucked her ass.
When he'd shot his load into her he didn't leave, as he would normally have done. He went into the narrow lime-green bathroom and washed his dick and his reddened neck, then returned to sit and look at her for a while longer. In rolling her over he'd crushed the flowers around her body, and their perfume seemed to quicken all his senses. Her skin looked almost luminous to him, the brandy he sipped contained nuances of flavor he could not remember tasting before; even the glass was silky against his fingertips.
What was happening to him? It was as though there was some kind of transformation about to take place; as though the Garrison he'd been-the dogged, nose-to-the-grindstone Garrison whose presence had never truly inspired anybody, least of all himself-was about to be sloughed off like a dead skin, and something else show itself: something brighter, stronger, stranger.
It was surely no coincidence that this other self was only coming out of hiding now that Cadmus was dead. The old regime was finished. Its rules, its hypocrisies, its limitations were a thing of the past. It was time for something new to make itself known; to impress its visions upon the world. And that something was moving in him-deep, deep in him-tantalizing his senses with the bliss that would come when it made itself known.