The latch lowered, and the door opened with a gentle push. He prowled through the dark rooms until he found her. Her long slender body was stretched out on the bed. Her hair had a glow to it, as though she had found a way to trap sunlight, to bring it indoors with her and keep it alive in the night.
He lay down beside her with animal stealth and rolled on to his back and into sleep, four feet paddling the air, chasing mice across his dreams.
It was the cold metal of the gun against his nose that woke him to the bright light of a lamp. He looked at the tip of the gun, and it was necessary to cross his eyes to do this. Weary and unsteady on the bedding, he rose to his hind legs and began the dance. But she was already gone, having slipped from the bed and into the dark of the next room, preceded by the gun in her hand.
He thudded down to the floor and padded after her as she searched behind each door. She stopped awhile by the bathroom door. He rubbed his head against one of her bare feet, which did not love him back but pushed him away. Her hand depressed the latch on the door. She pressed on it again and again.
She looked down at him and whispered, ‘Are you that smart?’ which he, more or less correctly, interpreted as ‘Good boy,’ and he began to purr.
Now he was being picked up in her arms, luxuriating in the warmth of her skin. And then, he was falling toward the tiles of the bathroom floor. The light went out, the door slammed, and he sat alone in the dark, wondering what he had done wrong this time.
Mallory, the consummate liar, had barred herself from the poker game for the damage of a lie. How perverse and convoluted was her code of what passed for honor.
Charles had learned to lie and betray in one night. Oh wouldn’t Mallory be proud of how far he’d come, how low he’d sunk.
No, no she wouldn’t. One did not do such damage to people in Mallory’s orbit. But she would never know what he had done. Even if he was in the confession mode, he was bound by Slope to keep silent. A lie of omission.
As Riker had once explained to him, her history belonged to her alone. She would hate this intrusion, this conspiracy of knowledge. Slope would never discuss this evening with Riker. The lies and betrayal would go unnoticed. And so there were more lies by omission.
He didn’t have the luxury of barring himself from the poker game. Questions would be asked, she would ferret out the answers, more damage would be done. Once a week, he would be reminded of his crimes, sitting across a card table from Edward Slope.
And he could not confess to Riker either, not without the web spreading. He only wished he were a practicing Catholic so he could confess to someone.
The pattern of his web had become too intricate. Sleep was lost in the tangle of the weave. But finally, sleep did come for him, all in visions of a little girl running in the dark, pursued by things which were darker still and might be spiders. And when she slipped in the blood of his dreams, he snapped awake.
His mind flooded with music to kill the images and thoughts created by a night of lies, and now his penance was in the room with him. He shut his eyes and tried to end the music. But he could hear the light steps of Amanda’s feet all around his bed.
‘Interesting, isn’t it,’ said Amanda. ‘She was able to pretend sleep while another child was being murdered.’
No, please, I don’t want to think about that.
‘Oh, Charles, you’ll never stop thinking about that. It wasn’t the reaction you’d expect from a small child, was it?’
Since when was Mallory predictable?
He kept his eyes closed, in hopes of minimizing the damage to his mind. He didn’t know how to send her away. Perhaps the delusion would pale without the reinforcement of sight.
But no. She continued to pace, footsteps growing heavier, waiting on her answer as a solid woman would do.
Addressing his words to the ceiling, he said, ‘It wasn’t Mallory’s mother who was killed in the film. You were wrong about that angle.’
‘Was I?’ Amanda’s pacing stopped for a moment. ‘She never moved the entire time a child was being tortured. She played dead.’
‘She might only have been paralyzed with fear. There are no facts to support – ’
‘Logic and facts have failed you, Charles. You had a qualified medical examiner as a witness to the film. She was playing dead. Where did she learn that? Maybe she’d had some practice witnessing another bloody murder. Maybe that’s what happened to her mother, and to Justin’s mother.’
He rolled over to face her, this woman who was not there, yet he kept his eyes closed. ‘Amanda, this is ludicrous. Justin’s mother died of a heart attack. That’s a fact. Now the aspect of child abuse makes more sense. That’s what Mallory would see in the boy. She would recognize the signs of an abused child. Even Mallory could not divine a murder through the boy’s eyes.’
Strains of the concerto meandered through his brain. He recited the Greek alphabet in a whisper. The music fled; Amanda remained to pace the floor around his bed. Her footsteps were heavier now. He opened his eyes to faint moonlight and the stronger light of street lamps pouring through his bedroom window. He turned his face to the opposite wall, where his ultimate nightmare was moving across the wallpaper. Amanda had learned to cast a shadow.
CHAPTER 7
She had been unsuccessful in her efforts to bully the maid. Perhaps it was true that Betty Hyde was not at home this morning. And neither was Eric Franz answering his telephone. But the judge was in, and so was Harry Kipling.
She picked up the plastic evidence bag and held it up to the camera to visually record the chain of evidence written on the seal, and then the breaking of the seal. She pulled out the cap gun and set it down on the table in the front room.
Back in the den, she ran a test of the camera equipment which had just made her visual record of the evidence. On her way to the front door, four gilded wall mirrors caught the swift passing reflection of her T-shirt, shoulder holster and jeans. She was pulling on the new brown cashmere blazer, a twin to the garment Amanda Bosch had been wearing when she died. The tailor had reproduced it exactly. Not that most people would appreciate the detailing.
She had been tempted to re-create the cigarette burn on the sleeve, but the ghost of Helen Markowitz wouldn’t let her do it. And Helen would have been the first to comment on the bulge the gun made in the line of the blazer. Mallory stopped at the mirror in the foyer, checking the giveaway bulk with a critical eye.
She called the cat to her, and it came. She snapped her fingers, and the cat made a leap into her arms and nuzzled her neck. She looked back to the mirror. No, it wouldn’t do. The squirming cat wouldn’t hide the bulge of the gun unless she killed it first and pinned it on like a furry corsage.
She dropped the animal on the floor at her feet, shrugged off her blazer and removed the shoulder holster. She slid the gun into the drawer of the small table beneath the mirror. Putting the coat on again, she snapped her fingers for the cat.
With no self-respect, no pride, Nose jumped back into her arms.
She made her way down the hall, wondering that doors didn’t open to inquire about the racket of purring. She stopped at the door to Judge Heart’s apartment and knocked. It was a repeat of last night; the chain had apparently been replaced. The door only opened a crack. The judge was staring at her.