The Animal Hour (49 page)

Eight o'clock. It's eight o'clock. It's the Animal Hour.

She gathered in a great breath. She stood off the wall.

Well, then
, she thought.
Here I am.

O
liver saw the gun in his brother's hand. He shook his head. He turned his eyes away. The busts carved into the arches watched with blank eyes. The images in the stained-glass windows flickered all around him then disappeared. He said, “Zach. Man oh man …” But he couldn't go on. He pressed his lips together to keep from crying.

“Come on, Ollie. Oh, come on,” said Zach again with a little laugh. He stepped toward him, the gun trembling in his hand. “You gonna tell me you didn't know? Come on!”

Oliver couldn't look at him. He couldn't say anything. He felt too heavy, too weary, to speak. It was an unexpected feeling. Not at all the way he had thought it was going to be; not as violent as he had thought it was going to be. The black batlike thing inside him had spread its wings finally. But it was only like the opening of a door—a door that led into more blackness. Oliver closed his eyes and looked into that dark. He saw Zach's face. The boyish, big-cheeked face with the huge black eyes. Peering up at him expectantly.
What do we do now, Ollie?
He shook his head.

“Come on!” Zach said. He laughed again, nervously. “You knew. You knew. You washed out the goddamned teacup, didn't you? You had to know.”

Oliver breathed painfully in the dark.

Downstairs, for another moment, the woman in the domino stood still. The silence hovered over her. The blinking lights on her mask sent a little flash and glow into the dark around her. She sensed the library's glowering arches. She saw the faint glow of stained-glass windows; the gaze of their eyes. She was black inside; black and twisted. She staggered a step farther into the room.

Now, under the sharp, hoarse rasp of her breath, she heard something. She began to make out dim strains of music. The parade. The windy roar of the crowd in the distance. And something else …

Voices. The murmur of men's voices. It was coming from somewhere above her. She lifted her eyes. She swayed wearily on her feet. She saw the flight of steps curling gracefully away from her, up into the deeper shadows.

I don't
know, she complained, shuddering.
I don't
know
who I am.

Still, she came forward on stiff legs, dragging her body like a burden. Her gun hand was dangling at her side. Her other arm reached out. She felt her way. She touched cold stone.

She was standing under a lowering arch. She felt her way down along the wall until her fingers brushed a wooden banister. She clutched it. She began to pull herself forward. Her feet found the first stone step.

She began to climb.

Zachary took another step toward Oliver. Oliver heard it and flinched. He was all raw nerves now. Standing there, his eyes closed, peering into the dark. He could see his mother now. His mother's body. She was lying on the floor beside the coffee table. The teacup was on its side. The spurt-stain of tea stained the plush rug. The spurt-stain of poisoned tea. Unbearable. It was unbearable. He did not care what happened to him now.

Zachary peered at him, smiling. He crouched, hiding behind his gun. “What did you think?” he said. Oliver flinched again at the sound of that familiar voice. That familiar laugh: heh-heh, heh-heh. “I mean, why else would you wash the teacup at all? You knew it was me and my trusty chemistry set. I mean, right? Oh yeah. Come on, Ollie. You knew. I mean,
I
didn't ask you to wash the damn cup. Hell, I didn't even think, you know, the way her heart was; I didn't think anyone would even be suspicious enough to look for anything. You just covered up for me on your own, man.” He grinned. “That's the symmetrical thing about it, see? You're covering up for me again. Now.”

Oliver opened his eyes.

The woman in the domino climbed the stairs. She could not climb fast. Her legs were like slabs. She drew them up the high steps stiffly, slowly. She felt her way up along the banister.

Please
, she thought.
Please.

She climbed past stained-glass windows set in niches in the wall. Ghostly faces gleamed in them. The murmur of voices grew louder above her with every step she took. She became aware, too, of another sound. A distant sound that sent a chill into her. A dim howl, growing louder. Sirens. The police. They were coming to get her.

She dragged her legs up the stairs, clutching the banister, clutching her gun.
Please
, she thought,
Oliver. Please.

The upper room came into sight above her. It was a corridor of a room. It was lined with books. She tried to breathe more softly as she crested the stairs. She bit her lips. She saw the two figures standing together in the center of the room.

“You see, you've got to look deeper into things sometimes,” one of them said. “Then they begin to make sense.”

That voice. She knew that voice. It was the voice she had heard as she dragged herself down the hallway. The urgent, murmuring voice:
Eight o'clock. You have to be there.

The woman in the blinking domino mask reached out to one side. Her hand touched the wall. Her fingers crept along the stone. She felt a metal plate. The light switches. Three of them in a row.

She heard the sirens growing louder outside. She heard their scream pierce the rhythms of the distant music.

She pushed up the light switches, all three at once.

Oliver faced his brother. His breath came shallow, trembling. He saw Zach's black eyes suffering at him out of the shadows. He saw the outlines of the sweet, smooth face.

Don't go over the bumps, Ollie.

Oliver's lips parted and he wanted—something—to speak, to scream, to say … anything … He wanted to say: Remember? How Dad used to complain over dinner? Remember the time I pretended I'd caught that trapped ball? Remember how Mom burned the carrots and cried? He wanted to talk to Zach about the things they knew. The things only they knew …

But Zach's face jutted toward him out of the dark. His painful smile, his fever-bright eyes. The muzzle of his gun. And the words stuck in Oliver's throat. He was too weary to speak. He could not stand the effort. Every word he thought of was so freighted with meaning. Anything he said, anything he did, would give him away, would give it all away …

Because he
had
known. Somewhere inside him. He had always known. And every word that came to his mind was a confession of it.

Zach took one more step and they were face-to-face in the center of the room. The faint music filtered in to them. The sturdy books stood solemn in the shelves along the walls. The faces on the arches, at the windows, watched them. And Oliver looked down at his brother, and he did not care what happened anymore at all. He looked down at him and he looked so much like her. Zach looked so much like their mother that the yearning was unbearable and he just did not care. She had been, like Nana, a nervous, birdlike woman. Jittery gestures, darting eyes, fingers fiddling with one another. She had had gentle cool hands and they were only still when they were holding someone or stroking someone. When she could worry about you—when you were sick or you fell off your bike or something like that—then she could be calm for a few moments about herself.

Oliver knew that Zach had killed her. Somewhere inside him, he had always known. He had known without knowing. He had kept it hidden from himself forever. But he had known, too, every day. Every hour. In his sleep, minute by minute. He had always known.

Why? he wanted to ask. He shaped the words with his lips, but they didn't come. He was too tired. He just didn't care anymore. But he tried again. Looking down at Zach, at his face so much like hers. Hoarsely, quietly. He forced the words out: “Why'd you do that to her, man?” Then he made a noise and tears came down his cheeks. “She never hurt you,” he said. “I mean, she
never
hurt you. You know? I mean, Dad—he—I know—he was angry, he … But she … I mean, gee, Zachie,” he said, crying. “I mean, gee, I really
loved
her. What'd you go and do that for?”

Zach was inches from him. Oliver could see his face contorting. He could see the skin go red. The lips twisting together. The eyes glowing like coals. A mask of rage. Zach snorted once, and then again. And he said: “She
let
him hurt me, didn't she? Huh? Didn't she? Didn't she? And
you
…”

The two brothers stood facing each other, both in tears. Zach couldn't speak anymore. He let out a cry of frustration and anger. Grimacing, he stepped forward. He planted the muzzle of the gun against Oliver's head.

Oliver looked down at him. He didn't care what happened. He felt the cold steel of the gun. He saw Zachie's hand trembling.

Zach hesitated like that for one more second.

Then he smiled. His finger tightened on the trigger. “You broke the typewriter,” he said.

There was a flash. A faint one. Like lightning at the vanishing point. The fluorescents in the ceiling crackled. They all started to flicker on at once. All along the length of the ceiling, they sent down a faltering purple glow.

The woman in the domino mask saw the two figures in that strange and strobic light. She saw Oliver

alive!

looking up in surprise. She saw the other man spinning toward her. His face whipping around toward her, his open raincoat fanning out.

That's him! That's him!

She recognized King Death, the real King Death. Zachary, that was his name. The man who was supposed to be beneath the skull mask. He was spinning toward her in the flickering light. His arm was whipping around with him. His hand was pointing out toward her. The purple light was flashing on the silver barrel of his automatic.

The lights snapped on. She saw it all frozen in glaring white. She started to bring her own pistol up from her side. She saw Oliver reaching out. She saw Zach aiming the gun at her: the twisted, scarlet, coal-eyed face of rage sighting her along the gun barrel.

Oliver cried out, “Zachie! No!”

She leveled her pistol.

And then Zach shot her.

O
liver had seen the woman first. He saw her mask wink red, green, and yellow out of the dark as she crested the stairs. Then the fluorescents above him were flickering on. He saw the woman's small pathetic figure. Her torn black jeans, the bloodied gray turtleneck. He saw the face in the cheap mask streaked with grime, sagging with exhaustion.

That was when Zach pulled the gun away from his head. He started spinning away from him. Spinning toward the girl in what seemed slow strobic motion so that Oliver had time to think,
Christ! Christ! He's going to shoot her!
And then he heard himself screaming, “Zachie! No!” His hand was flashing out toward Zach's gun arm. His fingers were scraping the slick raincoat sleeve, touching the sinewy arm beneath, pushing it to the side.

Zach fired. The automatic kicked and slammed. Oliver saw the masked woman thrown back a step as the bullet drove into her. He saw her stagger back to the edge of the stairs. She planted herself there, set her feet on the floor, bared her teeth in mindless determination. Zach was bringing his automatic to bear on her again, but the woman already had her revolver trained on him. Once more, Oliver shouted, “No!” but the word was blown away by the next explosion. The blast seemed to fill the room. To shake its heavy stone. To widen out to the walls in a deafening red roar. And then, slowly, the noise sank down, drifted down like ashes. The room became utterly silent, trembling. Then utterly still.

Zach stepped backward once and dropped his arms to his sides.

Oliver stared at him. “Zach?” he said.

He moved up behind the younger man and took him by the shoulders. Zach's shoulders felt flaccid and weak. His arms just hung down. Oliver heard a dull thud as Zachary's automatic dropped to the floor.

Zachary's knees buckled.