The Uninvited (35 page)

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You aren’t stupid.”

Mimi swallowed hard. Her right hand was in her pocket where she had been trying to work the canister of mace free from its holster without drawing attention to the activity. Now, with Mavis so close, it was a little easier, since the woman’s field of vision was so much smaller. If there was somebody coming, she had to be ready for whatever happened. By now Mavis was face-to-face with her, staring directly into Mimi’s eyes. “You got the same eyes as him. I wished in that film he hadn’t had those dark glasses on. I’d have loved to see those eyes again.”

She seemed to go off into a daydream, and while Mimi wasn’t about to try anything rash, she managed to silently pop the top of the canister. Now it was just a matter of getting the thing out of her pocket. But Mavis had recovered from her reverie.

“What are you thinking?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“Liar. You’re thinking about getting away. But you can forget about it.”

Keep her on task,
thought Mimi.

“My father,” said Mimi. “Marc. You want me to phone him?”

Mavis looked suspicious, as if this was somehow a different proposal than the one she had made. Slowly she nodded. Then she smiled expectantly. “Bet he’ll be surprised.”

“Yeah,” said Mimi. She cleared her throat. “But my phone is in the kitchen.”

Mavis shook her head. She backed away toward the bedroom doorway, tripping on the mattress, but righting herself too quickly for Mimi to do anything. At the doorway she picked up her handbag and reached inside. “Your little phone was just lying there on the kitchen table,” she said. She pulled it out and crossed the room, stepping around the mattress this time. She handed the phone to Mimi.

Mimi stared at her. This was totally insane. Even if her father could pay whatever Mavis asked for, how did she expect to get her hands on the money or get away?

“Do it!” said the woman.

“Mavis, it’s just that…”

“It’s just that what?”

Better not try to explain,
thought Mimi. So she punched in Marc’s number. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Leave that to me,” said Mavis. Her beat-up eyes glowed as she waited. But after a long moment, Mimi handed her the phone. It was an answering machine.

“You want to leave a message?”

Mavis glared at her. “Don’t get smart with me,” she said. She handed back the phone. She looked bewildered, as if her crazy plan had not included Marc being out. Mimi glanced at the phone’s clock.
Where is Jay? Is he here?
If he was, he was being quiet, which meant he must have realized something was up. Her only hope was to keep talking and be ready to create some distraction. She quailed inside.

“Do you know what my boy did? My good boy?”

“What?”

Mavis moved closer to her, leveled the gun inches from Mimi’s chest. “He destroyed merchandise worth thousands of dollars. Plasma televisions. Destroyed them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He made some people very, very unhappy. And do you know why? Do you know why he did it?”

Mimi heard a clunk. Surely Mavis must have heard it, too, but she seemed beyond hearing anymore. “I don’t know why he did it,” Mimi said. “Tell me why, Mavis.”

Mavis poked her with the gun. “Shut up! What kind of game are you playing?”

“I’m not playing anything.”

“You think I won’t use this thing? You think I have anything left to lose?”

“No, no,” said Mimi. “I mean … I don’t know. It’s just that I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.” There was another clunking sound, but Mavis only stared at her as if her anger was using up all her attention. As if whatever dimension Mimi was in was fading on her.

“Cramer went berserk,” she said. “That’s your doing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You drove him out of his mind,” said Mavis, poking Mimi in the chest.

“Ow! Stop it!”

“I ought to just shoot you for what you did to him,” said Mavis. And she brought the gun right up under Mimi’s chin.

“That hurts!”

“You wanna know about hurt? Huh? Do you?”

“If you shoot me, you won’t get anything out of Marc,” said Mimi. She watched the woman try to piece together in her shattered mind what she was telling her. “He’s got lots of money,” said Mimi. “He’ll probably pay anything you want. But not if I’m dead.”

At first Mimi thought she had gotten through to Mavis. The woman’s eyes seemed to clear. But as Mimi watched, the look on Mavis’s face went well beyond anything rational. She looked sad—deeply sad—and Mimi had the feeling that Mavis was realizing the terrible lunacy of what she was doing.

“He’ll never give me anything,” she muttered. She lowered the gun but not far. “Why would I have thought Marc would ever give me anything?”

She seemed to actually be asking the question, and Mimi was about to answer her when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Her foam mattress moved. She stared into Mavis’s eyes, hoping the woman wouldn’t see the hope in her own eyes.

“Let me try him again,” she said. “He might have just been on another call.”

Behind the woman with the gun, the trapdoor was opening slowly, silently. Mavis, oblivious, only shook her head. “Don’t bother,” she said. “Don’t bother to call.”

“Let me try,” said Mimi, her voice a little shrill.

“No,” said Mavis, her voice resigned. “I didn’t think this through very well.” Then she smiled, as if a new idea had come to her. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Maybe you
should
phone him. Yes. It isn’t what Marc should give to me that matters,” she said, her voice getting louder, more enthusiastic. “It’s what I should give to him.”

“Okay,” said Mimi. “So I phone him again?”

“Yes,” said Mavis, her eyes wide now, as if everything was suddenly becoming clear. “You phone him. And after you say hello, I talk to him, tell him where we are, the two of us. Tell him exactly where we are and that I’ve got a gun. And he starts talking about all the things he’s going to give me so that I don’t shoot you. And maybe I say, ‘I’ve heard that before, Marc Soto.’ I say that and then, with him right there on the other end of the line, I do it.”

“Do what?”

“It. You. Shoot you.”

The mattress erupted behind them as the trapdoor flew back on its chains, and in the same moment that Mavis spun around and Mimi drew the canister, Cramer emerged, head and shoulders, from the hidey-hole, his arm shooting out across the floor, grabbing Mavis by the ankles and pulling her off her feet.

She crashed to the ground, and her flailing arm knocked the canister right out of Mimi’s hand. Mavis writhed on the floor, kicking out at Cramer’s grasping hands.

“Run!” shouted Cramer.

Mimi pasted herself against the wall behind Mavis, inching toward the door, but Mavis, from where she lay, twisted around, so that the gun was aimed up at Mimi.

“Mimi!” Now Jay was at the bedroom door, and Mavis swung around to face him.

“Don’t do it!” screamed Cramer, clawing at his mother’s leg.

“You!” said Mavis, swinging her attention back to him.
“You!”

Then the gun went off. The trapdoor shuddered with the impact of the shot, and Cramer, howling in pain, crumpled out of sight.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

T
HERE WAS A MAN STANDING
on the bridge over the snye, squinting into the light of the Mini Cooper’s headlights, holding up his hands to shade his eyes. His shoulders were hunched, pelted by the rain. It wasn’t even six, but the storm clouds made it seem like twilight. Jay switched off the lights but not the ignition. The guy was his age but looked huge somehow, standing like that alone on the crumbling bridge, muscular, his head shaved, dressed only in a T-shirt and black jeans. Cramer.

He wiped his face with both hands, squinting from the rain. It was still coming down hard. He waved his arm urgently, then made his way toward the car. Instinctively, Jay locked the doors. What was going on? Where was Mimi? But now Cramer was at his window, his hands pressed against the glass, framing his face, and his face was filled with earnestness and fear. His mouth was moving. He was saying something. Jay turned off the engine. “Mimi!” he said, pointing toward the house. “Hurry!” Jay nodded and Cramer stepped back to let him out. Jay opened the door.

“It’s Mimi,” said Cramer. “She’s in trouble.”

“What did you do to her?”

Cramer looked exhausted. He shook his head. “Have you got a cell phone?” Jay nodded. “Call the cops. And you’d better call for an ambulance, too.”

“What the hell—”

“Just do it!” said Cramer, his voice urgent but not much above a whisper. Jay climbed back in the car, to make the call out of the rain. He punched in 911. Cramer was looking back toward the house, his fists coiled, his face filled with a gravity that frightened Jay. He made the connection, gave the directions.

“Tell them she’s got a gun!”

“What?”

Cramer swore and grabbed the phone from Jay. “There’s a crazy woman with a gun,” he said. “Hurry!” Then he handed the phone back to Jay.

“You get that?” said Jay. The dispatcher did.

“Do not attempt a rescue,” she said. He flipped the phone shut and jumped out of the vehicle, because Cramer was already hotfooting it back toward the bridge.

“They said not to try anything.”

Cramer turned and cried out in a harsh whisper, “Don’t slam the door!”

Jay caught the door in midflight and closed it quietly. Then he ran to catch up.

“They said not to try rescuing her,” he said.

“Shhh,” said Cramer. “Keep it down.”

“But—”

Cramer turned to him, his face stern. “I heard you. I just don’t know if we’ve got that option.”

They had to cross the plank portion of the bridge single file, but as soon as they were on the other side, Jay caught up with Cramer. “For God’s sake, tell me
something
!”

Cramer took Jay by the arm. “It’s so fucked up.”

“But—”

Cramer’s hold on his arm tightened painfully. “Just stay with me,” he said. “We can do this, right?” Then he was moving again, without waiting for an answer, moving in a crouch as if someone in the house might see them. There was a bag attached to his belt and banging against his hip. They moved swiftly up the wet lawn to the house and stopped, near the shed.

“What do we do?” whispered Jay.

Cramer was breathing hard. His face was filled with consternation, but his eyes were quick with possibility, and Jay stopped pressing him. Under the shed roof, the noise was deafening from the rain on the tin. “They’re in the bedroom,” he said. “I’m going to go in through the storm door—”

“You can’t,” said Jay. “I locked it.”

Cramer shook his head. “I know,” he said. “I can get in.” His eyes slid away from Jay’s, embarrassed, but Jay didn’t press it.

“So I’ll go in the back door,” said Jay. “The noise of the rain will cover any noise.” Cramer nodded, then looked down.

“Take off your shoes,” he said. “Get as close to the bedroom door as you can. I could see through a crack in the curtains; the bedroom door’s open. Be ready, okay?”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” said Cramer. “I don’t the fuck know!” His eyes were filled with pain. He swallowed.

“So, be ready for anything,” said Jay. “Any opportunity.”

“Right,” said Cramer. His eyes widened. He nodded. “Yeah.”

So it was half a plan, but at least it was something. Then Cramer punched Jay on the arm—comrades—and disappeared around the shed.

It was like some nightmarish game. For all Jay knew, Cramer was nuts! But he didn’t look nuts. He looked scared shitless. And, anyway, it was Cramer who’d suggested calling the cops.

As soon as he opened the kitchen door, he heard voices: Mimi’s voice and the voice of another woman. There was an edge to her voice that confirmed the panic Jay had seen in Cramer’s eyes. He crept through the kitchen in his stocking feet, turned left, and slid along the wall ­toward the open bedroom door.

The woman’s voice grew louder, more strident, more threatening. They were talking about Marc, about a phone call. Jay hardly dared to breathe. He tried to place the figures in the room by the sound of their voices. Mimi was facing his direction; the stranger must have her back to the door. It would be safe to look, he thought, unless Mimi saw him and the woman noticed. But if she did—if she turned—maybe Mimi could hit her or something. No, it was too dangerous. And then suddenly nothing was as dangerous as what the woman was saying.