Park Lane South, Queens (29 page)

The telephone jolted her out of her reverie. “Hello,” she said while she smiled at the dog. He really looked like he could use a snack. She tossed him an entire Vienna finger—usually she reserved half for herself, but just now she could only be tenderhearted.

“Yes, hello. Is this the studio of Claire Breslinsky?”

“That's one way to look at it. Who's this?”

“This is Jupiter Dodd's office. Will you connect me with Ms. Breslinsky please?”

Claire pulled her foot down off the chair beside her. “This is she.”

“Hold the line, please.” The telephone crackled, Spyro Gyra carried on over light FM on hold, and then Jupiter Dodd himself broke in. “Claire!”

“Hi. Gee. What a surprise.”

“Nice to hear your charming voice. Have your ears been ringing?”

“Sorry?”

“I've been talking about you to some friends. Have your ears been ringing?”

“Aunt Claire?”

“Actually, no.”

“Aunt Claire?”

“Just a second, honey. I'm on the phone. I'm sorry, my nephew was talking to me. So you've been bad-mouthing me all over town, eh?”

“Ha, ha.”

Michaelaen tugged on her shorts.

She opened her eyes to their widest circumference and clenched her teeth back and forth at him. Then she shooed him away with a brisk, determined backhand.

“… so if you haven't already started work on the book,” Dodd was saying as Michaelaen's hunched little back retreated out the door, “we were discussing using you to catalogue the gallery's American Women show.”

“Which gallery?” Claire poked her nose through the blind and watched him meander out into the street. Iris stood out on her lawn raking seed.

“The Volkert.”

Even she had heard of that one. But without all of her equipment … “I'm awfully sorry, Jupiter, but you see—”

“Of course, we'll pay your day rate.”

“Yes, but … did you say day rate?”

“We don't pay more than day rate for catalogue. Nobody does.”

“What sort of stuff is it?” She could always start off with her dad's Contax. Rent anything else she'd need. Day rate might not put a dent in a down payment for a house but it would go a long way toward buying chintz over on Grand Street and recovering Salvation Army furniture.

“Mostly modernistic. Objective symbolism. You know, message stuff. That Grillo has such a colossal conscience.”

“That's okay. I even like that kind of thing. I admire significance.” At least, she confided to herself, a job like this wouldn't compromise her treasured integrity. “To tell you the truth,” she told him, “I'd jump at the chance.”

“Hmm. I'm afraid there are a couple pop op things, if that offends you.”

“Well, it does. But I'd overlook it for the chance to shoot the Grillos. She's very good. I might shoot them at the beach.”

“The beach?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not. I guess.”

Michaelaen let himself out the back door and watched his ball bounce down the steps. Oh. The moon was already over in the sky and the sun was still out at the same time. That would mean something. Miss von Lillienfeld would know what. He walked carefully across the yard and said hello softly to the rabbits. The sprinkler was on, going easy does it back and forth with a squeak every time and he stood right beside it, waiting with his clenched-hard jaw until the inevitable arc of wet would crush him suddenly with icy cold. He knew that this time if he got caught, he'd really get in trouble. This time there wouldn't be Miguel or anyone to make the whole thing fun. No more taking silly pictures anymore, either. He whistled a little bit and looked around. Aunt Carmela came down from the bus stop and went in the house and then the coast was clear. Michaelaen took the screen off Mrs. Dixon's cellar window, climbed inside, and pulled the screen back up into place.

They hung up after ten more minutes of making plans. Claire rubbed her hands together energetically and looked around for the dog. She was going to give him a slobbering kiss. But he must have gone out. Anyway, he wasn't in the kitchen. Oops. She must go out and get Michaelaen. He really wasn't supposed to be out on his own.

“Michaelaen!”

“He's scouring the lawn for money.”

“Carmela. Did you drop a cufflink in Freddy's car?”

“Lower your voice, if you don't mind.”

“Just did you?”

“No.”

“Good. Because I found it in your car—”

“Oh, my car! What a riot. I can't believe you got it back already.”

“You're welcome. And I gave it to Johnny and he took it down to the station house.”

“Took what down to where?”

“Carmela. This roulette wheel cufflink that I found in your car happens to be a clue. Maybe.”

“Oh, I can't bear it. A clue. Who are you now, Miss Marple?”

Claire felt her pulse quicken. She could have strangled her. Instead, she told her about her new job. It did the trick, all right. Carmela smiled unconvincingly and turned scarlet.

“So, what is it, for a month or so?”

“Yeah, you know. As long as it takes me to cover each one. Maybe a couple of months.” Screw her. She was fed up with always treading carefully around Carmela's ego. And it wasn't as though the pussyfooting helped any. She was as arrogant as ever, if not worse. “And by the way, if you're still interested in Stefan, I believe he's a free agent.”

“You mean it's over with you two?”

“Most definitely.”

“Meaning you're back on with Benedetto.”

“Not necessarily. But yes.” She grinned foolishly.

“Honey bunny, you are so stupid.”

“I know.”

“He'll be bringing home his beer-drinking cronies and they'll all sit around and talk dick talk and you'll be left with the wives listening to what miniseries they're watching that week.”

“Maybe I'll start watching … oh, dear, no I won't. Hell. You can still love someone and be different from them. At least, I think not to try is horrible. Not to at least give it a chance.”

“You'll wind up pregnant.”

“So what? What the heck other sort of way should I want to be, seeing as how I'm in love with him?”

“And you'll get fat …”

“So I'll get fat. Christ! At my age there's no better reason to get fat. At least I'll be a real person with my own life. You know, you have all these great friends in town who adore you and they all love to have you around, and yeah, sure, of course, you're beautiful and amusing and who wouldn't want you around, but they all go home at night to their own places, their own homes. They close the door and there they are, together with their own lives. And where do you go? I mean, don't you ever want to find someone you can build something with? Instead of … of … of clandestinely screwing around with your sister's ex-husband?”

And of course, Zinnie stood just at that moment in the doorway with an ashen face.

“Thank you,” Carmela narrowed her eyes and leered at Claire as one would expect a snake to leer. “Thank you very much miss better-than-everyone-else and God forbid you might forget to preach it to them because you've just ruined not one but two afternoons.”

Mary and Stan steamrolled through the doorway, pushing Zinnie aside, thrusting plastic bags full of groceries at all of them. Claire got busy right away and then so did Carmela. They buried themselves in cabinets and put away soup cans and dog biscuits and sponges and Jello. Mary just kept handing them things and they just kept on putting away. Stan saw his chance and left and Mary stood there grumbling with her cereal boxes. “Well, Zinnie,” she said, “are you going to just stand there like a lump on a log or are you going to pitch in and help?”

“I was just thinking,” Zinnie drawled, “about the time we all went to visit Carmela and Arnold in their new home in Bayside—”

“Put that ice cream in the freezer before it melts,” Mary said to Claire. “Now what's the Mayor barking at?”

“And just as we were leaving—boy, it's funny because I can remember it like it was yesterday—just as we were leaving and I was the last one out and it was so dark on that porch and Daddy was honking to hurry up and I went to kiss Arnold good-bye, did you know he stuck his whole tongue down my throat?”

Right then the kitchen went still and they all looked at Zinnie. “I mean, I was just a teenager—” she started to say, but she didn't finish, because Mary's hand shot out from across the room and whacked her smack across the face.

“And another thing!” Mary's strong voice roared at the three of them. “If the three of ye go after each other like cats, like blessed enemies, for pity's sake, where will you be when your father and I are gone? What will you do, stand paces apart above my casket? I ask you.”

“Ma—”

“Don't interrupt me, I'll be through when I'm through. What did we go and have the lot of you for, if it was only to argue and bicker and hate yourselves till you're green in the faces and wrinkled with lines running this way from jealousy and that way from envy. And all these years I thought when you'd be grown you'd start to care for each other and I would be able to take a backseat and relax, only no, no, it sure won't be like that for a while!”

There the three women stood, their heads hung in adult supplication. Nothing had changed. She would mention her casket and they would all fall to pieces and promise to be good wee lassies once again. Until next time.

“Mary?”

“What is it, Stan? Can't you go back out and bring the dog in? He's driving me mad.”

“Is Michaelaen in here?”

“Sure I thought he's with you!”

“He's out on the lawn, Dad.”

“He's not.”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Well, he isn't there now.”

“Glory be.”

They went out quickly, each of them taking off in separate directions. Michaelaen wasn't under the porch. He wasn't in the garage. He wasn't in anyone's car, a favorite place of his to be, just sitting in someone's car pretending he was going somewhere. He was, it became terrifyingly clear, missing.

Zinnie stood in the middle of the lawn and shouted his name, again and again, again and again. Her teeth began to chatter.

“Oh God, it's all my fault,” Claire came outside after rechecking the house. “It's all my fault.”

“Shut up,” Carmela told her. “And shut the dog up.”

Johnny arrived with Pokey Ryan in an unmarked car, for Stan had called the 102 immediately. They screeched to a halt and went right over to Zinnie. Johnny put his arm around her and cupped her head in his hand. “Now there's no reason to be alarmed … we've got no reason to think anything's wrong. But … you know … we just want to be sure. We want to get some help here, okay?”

Zinnie, holding her fist, shook her head yes. She didn't call his name hoarsely anymore, just every minute or so someone else would and the pain would greet her again, quickly and deeply, another knife in her gut. She couldn't think and she couldn't pray. She only whispered over and over, “God. Please. God. Anything. God. Please.”

“Uh oh!” Michaelaen worried. They were all outside. He could hear them. They were looking for him. The darn old Mayor was going to make them find him. It was dark down here. He didn't like it anymore. Maybe he would just leave the things down here on that old shelf and go. But now he heard something else. It was Mrs. Dixon coming down the cellar stairs. He was more afraid of her than all the others put together. Once she'd even hurt Miguel. And then she'd given him money and stuff and taken all those pictures. He didn't think he wanted any stuff from her. He'd just hide for a minute and then when she went upstairs he'd go right home. Of course! He knew a good spot. That old refrigerator with the legs on it. It even had a nice light on inside. He climbed inside and shut the door.

“Somebody shut that fucking dog up,” Johnny cried.

“It isn't the sound of the dog,” Mary murmured. “It's that other, strange wild sound that's coming from the von Lillienfeld house. What is that sound, then? It is a banshee wailing, to be sure.”

“Stop that superstitious nonsense,” Stan yelled at her, frightened. “It's the cat. Von Lillienfeld's cat. That Siamese.”

“So now we know what but we still don't know why,” Ryan shuddered. Whatever it was, he didn't like it.

“That's the sound of the banshee, I tell you.”

“So stay here if you want to, but I'm going over there to see what's going on.” Stan headed across the street and the lot of them followed. Claire stood where she was. She would have to calm the Mayor down. What was he doing over there on Dixon's lawn, anyway? Between the cat wailing and the dog barking, she thought she'd go insane. She could turn the hose on him. You'd think he was trying to tell them something, the way he just wouldn't let up. She went to follow the hose to the nozzle but it ended out back on the sprinkler. What the hell, he was closer to Dixon's hose anyway. Claire went behind Mrs. Dixon's garbage cans to turn on her hose. There was one can lopsided on a rock, and as she leaned across it she knocked the lid off. As she went to put it back she caught sight of something down deep in the can. Some magazine or something on cheap paper, a star on a red background and a child on a horse. The star was a pentagram, it occurred to her as she turned on the hose. And the child on the horse had no clothes on. She turned the hose back off. The Mayor looked at her. She looked, alarmed, back at the Mayor. With one last, painful snort, he dropped down onto the grass and was finally quiet.

It was quite a while ago—weeks—when this whole thing had started. She and the Mayor had been sleeping on the porch. The garbagemen had made their way down the block and the noise had awakened her. A golden Plymouth had rattled down the block. And Mrs. Dixon had slammed the lid down on the can and hurried back into the house. Mrs. Dixon. What had she been so in a hurry about? Wasn't that the same day of the first gory murder? Hadn't she had a strange feeling then? A premonition of some sort? Or had she simply been a witness to somebody getting rid of something they would rather no one saw? A pervert did not a murderer make. And then she noticed the screen right next to her, a little crooked. A little off. A little crooked for a house whose screens were all in straight as little soldiers. It was utterly ridiculous to think of Mrs. boring old Dixon involved in anything underhanded. She was her mother's friend. Well, if not her friend, at least her dear old neighbor. With never a thought of suspicion. She and Mom walked to church together, after all. Since years. Years and years. They hadn't always. Something had started it. What had happened years ago? Something with Michael? Hadn't something happened to Michael that he'd never told her about? He was frightened of Mrs. Dixon. Yes, she knew that now. That's why he wasn't afraid to cut through Iris von Lillienfeld's yard the way the rest of them were. Because the yard next to his own held some secret more terrifying. All his false bravado had been fear. And Mrs. Dixon and good-hearted Mom had taken to walking together to church. Suddenly she remembered where she'd seen that strange captioned picture: in Michael's bottom drawer. Had Mrs. Dixon given Michael dirty pictures? Claire looked up at the big, fine house. She looked and looked. The garage door was open. Mrs. Dixon still kept Rudy's cars in there. Old cars, they were. From back in the days when all the cars they made were black. Claire could hardly remember Rudy Dixon, how he was before he'd had his stroke and turned into a whiskered, uriney thing to be left by the window in the front parlor. He'd been sort of bald and flashy back then. Yes, very flashy.