‘See,’ said Donnell to Ezawa. ‘It’s going to blow up in your face. Fay Wray and the Mummy here will meet the Wolf man, have a group hallucination, and then comes the shitstorm. He’s her puppet, and she’s out of her fucking mind. Do you honestly believe they can keep it together?’
‘Simpkins!’ shouted Otille. ‘Get them out of here!
Before Simpkins could cross the room, Valcours launched a feeble attack on Donnell, attempting to batter his legs with the cane. But Donnell rolled aside, pulled himself up by the desk and snatched the cane from Valcours. He spun Valcours around, levered the cane under his jaw and started to choke him.
‘This bastard’s weaker than I am,’ he said. ‘I bet I could crush his windpipe pretty damn quick.’
Simpkins held his distance, looking to Otille for instruction; but she was again in thrall of the listlessness which had governed her during most of the encounter. Spit bubbled between Valcours’ lips and he thrashed in Donnell’s grasp.
‘Look at her, Ezawa,’ said Donnell; he increased pressure on Valcours’ throat until his eyes bulged and he hung limp, prying ineffectively at the cane. ‘Don’t you see what they’re hamming up between them? This is her big chance to make it in the Theater of the Real, to go public with her secret third act. A gala of obscenity. Otille and Valcours. Lord and Lady Monster together for the first time. Help us! Help yourself.’
‘I can’t.’ Ezawa had risen and moved around to the side of the deck. ‘She’d ruin me.’
‘You’re already ruined,’ said Donnell. ‘And it’ll be worse if you let it go on. She’s so far gone it won’t stop until you’re scraping dead virgins off the streets of New Orleans. This women thinks evil’s a nifty comic book and she’s the villainous queen. Maybe she is! Whatever, she’s going to do evil, and the word’s going to get around. Help us! I’ll finish this one, and we’ll all jump Simpkins.’
Ezawa’s face worked, but his shoulders slumped. ‘No,’ he said.
‘No, huh?’ Donnell let Valcours sag to the floor. ‘Another time,’ he said, prodding him with his foot.
‘Hit him,’ said Otille in a monotone. ‘Don’t kill him, but hit him hard.’
Jocundra draped herself around Simpkins’ neck as he went for Donnell, but he threw her off and her head struck the desk. White lights seemed to shoot out of her eyes, pain wired through her skull, and someone was holding her wrist. Checking for a pulse, probably. She wanted to tell them she was all right, that she had a pulse, but her mouth wouldn’t work. And just before she lost consciousness, she wondered if she did have a pulse after all.
On the fourth day of their confinement Jocundra remembered the trick door in the Baron’s room, but for the first three days their position had appeared hopeless. Donnell’s jaw was swollen, his eyes rapidly brightening, his skin paling, and he would scarcely say a word. He stared at the bedroom walls as if communicating with the peaceful ebony faces. The wind blew twice a day, not as strongly at first as it had for Donnell, but stronger each time, and they would watch out the window as Otille, invariably clad in her black silk robe, led Valcours back and forth between the veve and the house. Their meals were brought by Simpkins and the chubby ‘friend,’ an innocent-looking sort with close-set eyes and a Cupid’s mouth, whose presence seemed to upset Donnell. Simpkins would wait in the hall, picking his teeth, commenting sarcastically, and on the evening of the third day he gave them some bad news.
‘Brother Downey has gone the way of all flesh,’ he said. ‘We hog-tied him and put him on the veve, then the late Papa Salvatino started walking around and a pale glow came out of his fingers. Well, when that glow touched Brother Downey, you would have sworn he’d gotten religion. Quakin’ and shakin’ and yellin’. I was up on the hill and I could hear his bones snap. Looked like he’d been dropped off a skyscraper.’ He worried his gums with a toothpick. ‘Sister Clea ran off, or I reckon she was next. ‘Bout the only reason you alive, brother, is Otille’s scared of you. If it was up to me, I’d kill you quick.’
It was then that Jocundra remembered the door. Two iron brads held it in place, but removing them was not the main problem.
‘We’ve got to wire it so we can trip the release,’ said Donnell. ‘Then we’ll lure Simpkins in, try to trap him in the alcove, and hope we can take them one at a time.’
They worked half the night at prying off the molding, both of them breaking fingernails in the process; they disconnected the release mechanism and undid the springs of their bed, straightening and knotting them together to attach to the mechanism; they jiggled loose two bed legs to use as clubs, shoring up the bed with books, and refined their plan.
‘You’ll be at the table,’ said Donnell, ‘and I’ll be about here.’ He took a position halfway between the alcove and the table. ‘When the guy sets down the trays, I’ll go for him. You drop the door as soon as Simpkins starts to move. Then you hit the other guy. The worst case will be two against two, and even if Simpkins does get through, maybe we can finish the other one off first.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘When I hit Papa on the boat it was all reflexes. Fear. I don’t know if I can plan to do it.’
‘I think you’ll be sufficiently afraid,’ he said. ‘I know I will.’ He hefted his club. ‘Afterward, I’ll head to the veve and see if I can get control of it.’
While the wind was blowing the next morning, they ran a test of the door. Donnell stood on the table beneath it and caught it after it had fallen a couple of inches.
‘Let’s do it tonight,’ he said. ‘He’s getting stronger all the time, but I still have a physical advantage. You keep away from the veve until it’s over. Find some car keys, grab some of the videotapes. Maybe we can use them. But keep away from the veve.’
Jocundra promised, and while he wound the bedsprings around the leg of the table beside her, she tried to prepare herself for swinging the club. It was carved into whorls on the bottom but the business end was cut square and had an iron bolt sticking out from the side. The thought of what it could do to a face chilled her. She let it lie across her lap for a long time, because when she went to touch it her fingers felt nerveless, and she did not want to drop it and show her fear. Finally she set it against the wall and ran over the exact things she would have to do. Let go the wire, pick up the club, and swing it at the chubby man. The list acquired a singsong, lilting rhythm like a child’s rhyme, drowning out her other thoughts, taunting her. Let go the wire, pick up the club, and swing it at the chubby man. She saw herself taking a swing, connecting, and him boinging away cartoon style, a goofy grin on his face, red stars and OUCHES and KAPOWS exploding above his head. Then she thought how it really would be, and she just didn’t know if she could do it.
Donnell had never been more drawn to her than now, and though he was afraid, his fear was not as strong as his desire to be with her, to ease her fear. She was very nervous. She kept reaching down to check if her club was still leaning against the wall, rubbing her knuckles with the heel of her palm. Tension sharpened her features; her eyes were enormous and dark; she looked breakable. He couldn’t think how to take her mind off things, but at last, near twilight, he brought a notebook out from his bureau drawer and handed it to her.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘Pictures,’ he said; and then, choosing his tense carefully, because his tendency was to think of everything he had planned in the imperfect past, he added, ‘I might do something with them one of these days.’
She turned the pages. ‘They’re all about me!’ she said; she smiled. ‘They’re pretty, but they’re so short.’