The Animal Hour (40 page)

“Why, Oliver!” she said. Her frail voice quavered. “I've been hoping and hoping you would turn up. You're just in time for tea.”

“Yes, Oliver,” Tiffany said nervously. She forced a smile of her own, one corner of her mouth lifting. She swallowed hard. “Chamomile or Earl Grey?”

Perkins looked helplessly from the young woman to the old one; back and forth again. He felt sweat beading under his hairline. What could he say? How much did Nana know? He felt the fear beating harder at his throat.

Tiffany shut the door behind him. Perkins started at the sound. He looked at her quickly. A grandfather clock in the foyer struck the hour: six o'clock.

Zach
, Perkins thought.
I have to get back to Zach.
“I can't stay long,” he said hoarsely.

“Oh,” Nana called from her chair. “Stay. Tiffany can put another cup on for you. I'm sure it's no trouble, is it, dear?”

“No trouble at all, Nana,” said Tiffany. She did not take her eyes off Perkins. “Well? What'll it be, Ollie?”

He glared at her, his teeth gritted. He wanted to seize her right then and there. He wanted to shake the truth out of her. In fact, he wanted to tear her in half like a piece of paper. “Chamomile,” he snarled.

And Tiffany managed to sing out brightly: “Back in a mo.” She turned her back on him. Walked away unsteadily. Even in the quilted shirt, even in the baggy jeans, he saw the movement of her figure as she left the room.

Still helpless, still silent, he looked at Nana. The old lady's quivery smile was expectant. Her eyes were expectant and damp. The light was gone from the tall windows beside her. Only one standing lamp cast a pale yellow glow over the nude Venus in its stand. The rest—the carved chairs, the fireplace, the dark pattern on the rug—was fading into the dusk shadows. Nana seemed tiny and dim at the fringe of the circle of light.

Perkins forced himself to return her smile. “Back in a mo, Nana,” he croaked. And he dashed after Tiffany. The knick-knacks in the room rattled as he stomped out of the room.

He found her in the kitchen around the corner. It was a narrow corridor of a room but gleaming. Copper pots and kettles hung from the tiled walls and reflected the light. Butcher block counters shone between the black iron stove and the white refrigerator. Tiffany was setting blue willow china on a silver tray. A copper kettle steamed cheerfully over a blue flame on the stove top behind her. Tiffany's mouth was a thin line. Her eyes were fixed on her work. She did not look up, but Perkins could tell she was aware that he had come into the room.

He glanced cautiously toward the living room, toward Nana. Then he bore in on Tiffany fiercely. His voice dropped to a whisper. “What the hell are you doing here?”

She looked up at him. Her eyes were enormous. “You have to stop following me. You have to stop following me
now.
”

“What's that got to do with it? Why the hell did you come here?” He was whispering so hard he sounded as if he were strangling.

She turned back to her tray. The china clinked merrily as she arranged the cups and saucers. “How else was I supposed to get rid of you?” Her voice was low. “I know you won't start a scene here. Not around Nana. Especially not … well, I could tell her things, Oliver.” When she looked up this time, her gentle, pale face was set. Their eyes met, hard. “And I will tell her too. If you don't leave me alone, I'll tell her anything I have to. It'll upset her, Oliver. It'll make her sick, you know that.”

“You goddamned—”

“Shut up, just shut up,” she said. “You don't know what's going on. It's all crazy. You don't know. Now we're just … we're just going to have a cup of tea. You and me and Nana. We're going to have a cup of tea and then—then, after a while, I'll excuse myself. All right? I'll leave—and you'll just let me go. Do you understand? That's all I want. Just let me go. You can't follow me now. All right?”

Perkins rushed at her. The rage seemed to explode from the core of him: molten, white, liquid rage that spread all through him. He grabbed her by the shoulders. Twisted her around to face him, lifting her until she was on tiptoe, until his eyes were inches from hers. “What have you done?” The whisper hissed out between his teeth. “What have you done to my brother?”

“Let me go.” Tiffany's eyes filled with tears. “You bastard. You idiot. You don't know anything. Let me go.”

“You set him up, didn't you?” He shook her. “You set him up to take the rap for this murder. Didn't you?”

Her hair spilled over her face. She looked up at him through the strands as he gripped her. She said nothing. Their faces were so close he could smell not just her toilet water but the scent of her skin beneath. He stared down at her, searched her eyes, searched in the aching depths of her eyes. He was aware of the sinewy strength of her shoulders under the quilted fabric. He remembered the feel of her flesh in his hands.

His lips parted as if he were about to speak again.

“The water's boiling,” Tiffany said softly.

And Perkins, his mouth open, let her go—he practically dropped her to her feet. He turned away from her as she went to fetch the kettle. He stood there, slumped. He looked down at the silver tray. His gaze fixed on one of the teacups, on the creamy white bottom of it. He gazed down into it until his vision blurred.

It was me
, he thought.
I broke the typewriter.

And it occurred to him—in an odd, dreamy way—that his father had always known that somehow, that he had known the truth of it all along. The bitter old man had pounded Zach's ass again and again with that heavy ruler. He had beat him black with it. Black. And all the time he had known, he had known it was really him.

Perkins felt sick to his stomach. He felt that fluttering fear; larger; filling him; beating against the walls of his entire body now.

“Now watch out,” said Tiffany.

Perkins stepped aside as she brought the steaming kettle to the tray. She stood at the counter with her head bowed, her hair spilling forward. She poured the boiling water into the china teapot. A tear fell from her cheek onto the side of the copper kettle. The tear sizzled and evaporated in a little burst of steam.

“You know who killed that girl in the mews,” Perkins said to her. “Don't you?” He spoke weakly now, his shoulders raised. He did not look at her. “Whoever helped you with your blackmail racket—he's the one, isn't he? God, Tiffany. I mean, blackmail? You just fucked that guy, didn't you? That Fernando guy. You just fucked him and your partner took the pictures, right? Oh, man, oh, baby, that was cold. Jesus.” He heard Tiffany let out a broken sob. He grimaced but he didn't look at her. “So then what? Huh? Woodlawn used the Kincaid girl for a courier so he could keep clear of it, and she got scared and brought in the FBI. And you panicked, right? You panicked and your partner killed her because she was innocent. She wasn't like Woodlawn, she was innocent and she had nothing to lose by giving evidence against you.” Perkins's breath came faster, as if he were walking uphill. It was hard: working it out, trying to put it together. It seemed like nothing quite fit. Everything was just a little out of joint. “Then you tried to set me up for it, me and Zach. You got us both to go to the mews. You called the cops while I was there and told them you'd heard screaming …” He brought both hands to his forehead. He felt like it was full of sludge. Out of joint, out of whack. He couldn't make it all work. He lifted his eyes to her, confused. “He's your lover, isn't he?” he said slowly. “This partner of yours. That explains it. He's your lover and you do what he says. All this mystical feminist shit and you do whatever he says and you just fucked this Woodlawn guy and now you're in on a murder and you don't care who takes the fall, as long as lover boy gets away, is that it? You don't …” He stopped. He couldn't make it all fit. His breath hissed out of him like steam. He was silent and looked at her.

But Tiffany said nothing. She sniffed back her tears as she finished filling the teapot. She turned away to set the kettle on the stove again. Then she turned back to the tray. She shuddered once. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the side of her hand. Finally, she lifted the tray off the counter.

“Okay,” she said. “Now we're going to have tea.” She straightened, faced him. “And you won't make a scene. You won't make a scene or I'll tell Nana everything. About you and me and the woman in the mews and everything. It could kill her, Oliver, and I'll do it, I swear.” Their eyes met again for a moment. “Now we're going to have tea,” she repeated. She moved toward him. For a second, he opposed her, he just stood there in her way. But then his eyes dropped and he stepped aside. Tiffany carried the tray out of the kitchen, into the living room.

They had tea with Nana around the white marble table. In the pale outglow of the standing lamp. In the shadows of evening. Each of them sat in a fading embroidered chair with clawed feet and scrolled arms. Tiffany perched on the edge of her seat and did the honors. She poured the yellow brew into the teacups, first for Nana, then for Perkins, finally for herself. She had prepared a plate of Pepperidge Farm Brussels cookies too and she set one on each saucer. She handed the cups around and sat back with her own, averting her eyes from Perkins. With thin, trembling hands, Nana dipped her cookie delicately in her tea. Tiffany sipped the steam from her cup and gazed into the middle distance. Perkins gripped his saucer and stared Black Death at her.

I'll tell. I'll tell everything.

He could not just let her go, he thought. He would hold her here by force if he had to. He would haul her down to the Sixth Precinct himself. He had to get her to tell Mulligan the truth before she disappeared again.

I'll tell.

He had to get her to clear Zach before the cops got ahold of him. And if she tried to start trouble with Nana … Perkins's chest heaved as he slumped heavily in his chair. He gripped his cup and saucer tightly. If she tried to upset Nana, or tell her things … With her weak heart … His jaw worked slowly. The vein in his temple throbbed. Well, he did not know what he would do. But somehow, he had to keep hold of her. He couldn't let her get away.

“Well!” Nana said. “Isn't this pleasant!” She smiled with tremulous benevolence on them: her grandson and her ersatz granddaughter-in-law. “The three of us together for once.”

Perkins tried to nod. Tiffany smiled vaguely. Both of them brought their teacups up to their lips, hiding their mouths.

Nana set the crescent of her cookie carefully on the edge of her saucer. “So,” she said, “let's talk about the murder.”

Perkins choked on his tea. He coughed and sputtered. Tea splashed over the rim of his cup, off his saucer, onto his sweater. “What?” he finally managed to say.

“Well, it's
such
a catastrophe, isn't it!” said Nana. For a moment, there was a wicked little gleam in her damp eyes.

Open-mouthed, Perkins stared at Tiffany. She looked … thunderstruck, was the only word for it. Her cheeks had gone gray as slate. Her eyes were hollow and haunted. She cast an unhappy gaze at the old woman.

“How …?” Perkins coughed again before he could speak. “How did you find out about it, Nana?”

“Find out? Oh now. Ollie.” Nana looked down her nose at him reproachfully. Strands of gray hair played on her brow. She looked almost ephemeral in the shadows. As if she might dissipate and vanish, a wisp of smoke. “You didn't think you could keep it from me, did you?”

“I … I just …”

Tiffany sipped her tea carefully. Watched him. Watched them both.

“I own the place after all,” Nana went on. “The police called me early this afternoon. A very nice man named Nathaniel something. Mulligan. Nathaniel Mulligan.”

Perkins swallowed. He closed his eyes. Mulligan must have called her just before he started questioning him. She probably knew more than he did. “I didn't want you to worry,” Perkins said. He tried to capture his usual tone. “You know what a horrible old crone you are when you worry.”

“Well, and I
do
worry,” said Nana. “I
am
worried. Of course I am. Look at me. I'm coming apart at the seams, anyone can see that. I called you right away and again this afternoon but you weren't in. Where
were
you? I finally had to take a pill! Oh, Oliver!” The full appeal of her damp old eyes was on him. “I knew I should have sold that place the minute you boys moved away. Now
look
what's happened! I won't ever be able to survive it.”

At this, Perkins and Tiffany exchanged a long glance across the tea table. Tiffany's sweet face was all terror now. Her big eyes seemed to glow in the semidarkness like lamps. She doesn't know, Perkins thought. She doesn't know what I'll say. She doesn't know how far I'm willing to go.

I'll tell. I'll tell everything.

But if Nana knows, if Nana already knows the worst … He bit his lip. Maybe he should just make his play. Maybe he should just call the police right here and now and hand Tiffany over …

“Mr. Mulligan said I had to call him right away if I heard anything,” Nana rattled on, almost picking up his thought. “It was so strange. He said I had to call him if I found out where Zach is. And I said, ‘Zach? Why do you have to talk to Zach? Zach doesn't know anything about this.' And he said, well, yes, he knew that, but he did need to talk to him, that it was part of his routine. But I don't know, Ollie. What sort of routine is that? I told him, I said, you know, ‘I have a very bad heart, Mr. Mulligan, and I am very easily upset and you are making me very frightened.' And he said, well, no, I shouldn't worry about anything. But, of course, that isn't possible at all, now is it?”

Perkins swallowed hard. He was still looking at Tiffany. She was still looking at him, trying to gauge his reactions.