Always (66 page)

“Don’t worry about it. You won’t be expected to remember any details in a situation like this.” I studied her. She was sweating; she’d missed a bit of mucus by her mouth. The perfect picture of middle-class shock. “How are you?”

“I think I might vomit.” I nodded. “You broke her hand. You just broke it. And you cut her face, like she was a . . . a piece of fish.”

Sandra started to slide off the smooth wood of the dining room chair.

“Hold her up, please. I need to make a phone call.”

I called Bette’s new associate, who sounded bright as a new penny, despite the fact that it was both weekend and evening, gave her the address, told her to get here ASAP, and then scanned the room. The body was drained; the blood pool was no longer growing. It was already darkening slightly, congealing. The confused footprints and handprints of Therese and Sandra could be easily explained by the automatic movements of someone in shock.

The officers of APD Zone 5 were not fools. If they looked hard enough they’d see that some of the evidence didn’t add up but at first glance there was enough plausible detail to hang a story on. Everyone knew Sandra was being abused. They themselves had been called out last week. And there was undeniable injury and shock of the victim.

I heard the first sirens in the distance.

I rinsed my gloves under the tap, shook them dry, then carefully stripped them off and put them in my pocket.

The kitchen lights had stopped dripping. Sandra’s breathing was loud but even. Therese was murmuring something, stroking her hair. For one moment, Sandra’s gaze caught mine, and her eyes flashed, and then they dropped.

In the current political climate no Atlanta DA would prosecute Sandra for defending herself, when she could prove she had reason to fear for her life, and when her attacker had clearly meant her harm. Why, it was even his own fault that the knife was so sharp.

The sirens were louder, and now the red kitchen gleamed with a more fiery red and flickers of blue.

She had done it very well: the children conveniently gone, her friend to back her up, me to provide the finishing, undeniable touches. I had shown her how, and I would even provide the lawyer. At least I had made sure it hurt.

THE DINING ROOM WAS ROUND AND TIGHT WITH SUNSHINE. THE STEAM FROM MY
tea appeared and disappeared in the bars of light and shadow. Kick was in her old silk robe, which kept slipping open. I wore her toweling one, which came barely to my knees.

She mused over the newspaper. I tilted my face to the sun and thought idly how pleasant it would be to sit here all day, warm and drowsy and thinking of nothing.

“Where are you?”

I blinked. “Thinking that warmed-up pizza and hot black tea make a surprisingly good breakfast.”

“You want some more?”

“Yes.” But I couldn’t be bothered to move. I closed my eyes, opened them again when I heard her get up.

She fussed with paper towels and sprinkled water and pizza slices. I wondered what she’d make of my kitchen. I longed to see her in it.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said.

“Mmmn?” She pushed buttons.

“About how well we know each other.” The microwave started its hollow drone. She sat down. “You know what food I like but I’m not sure you really know me.”

“Of course I know you. Food is everything.” Her smile was affectionate. “No. Really. Sometimes I think I know you, know who you are deep down, better than you know yourself. You think efficiency is the key to your personality, but it’s not. You’re a sensualist, a hedonist of the first order. Look at the way you cradle that cup, the way you tilt your face to the sun like a flower.”

“It’s efficient. Absorbing heat means my body doesn’t have to create its own.”

“But it’s also delicious.”

The microwave beeped and I got up to attend to it.

“And see how you did that? Pushed the microwave door with precisely the amount of force needed to shut it? Not too hard, not too soft. The pressure of the hard plastic against your fingertips, the swing, the
thunk
as the catch engages, all without a micron of wasted effort.”

“Erg,” I said. “You meant erg, not micron.”

“And the little pebble-like word, erg, feels better on your tongue than micron, so good you said it twice.”

“Come with me,” I said. “Come to Atlanta. Come see where I’ve been. See my life, see my house. Come sleep in my bed.”

She was quiet for a long time. “I don’t know,” she said eventually, and now her face was remote and unhappy. “My life is here. The business, the climate, the people. My family. My doctors. I don’t know.”

We both stared at our pizza slices, the shriveled pepperoni, the wrinkled green pepper. She didn’t know.

We went upstairs and showered and dressed in silence.

DORNAN POURED
coffee for the crew, whistling through his teeth. "Well, I’m happy to see you this morning. Delighted that you didn’t get yourself or Kick killed last night.”

I nodded.

“You were a one-hour wonder here at the set. No one left until midnight. Isn’t that right, John?” The wardrobe assistant waiting for his coffee nodded obediently. “I’m delighted, too, that you’ve—” He broke off, peered at me, and handed John a cup that was only half-full. “Go away,” he said to John, and turned back to me. “Are you sure you weren’t hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

“Then what’s the matter with you?”

“She doesn’t know,” I said. “After all this, she doesn’t know. I asked—”

“Aud,” someone said. I turned. Finkel, looking sleek and self-satisfied. "Allow me to introduce our star, Sîan Branwell.”

Her smile was warm, her hand pressure brief but sincere, and her makeup flawless. I thanked her for being willing to fly back up for the day’s filming. She thanked me for making sure she would now actually get paid, and laughed prettily. She was an actress.

“But we won’t keep you,” Finkel said. “If you need us, we’ll be at the rehearsal stage.”

The rehearsal stage: a corner of the floor where Kick had taped out an outline of an area the same size as the tower platform.

I turned back to Dornan. “I asked Kick—”

“Aud.” This time it was Peg. “Our visitors are here. Did you know you have a great big smear on your pants?”

“Yes,” I said. And a great big bruise under that. I fingered the rust, from the crowbar, mixed with dirt. I hadn’t bothered to drive back to the hotel for clean clothes. None of the visitors were here to see me.

“We’ve got Pat Irenyenko, she’s OSHA, and her daughter, Ekaterina, eleven. Irenyenko’s the one with her arm in a sling. We’ve got Toni Merritt, she’s EPA, and her mother, whose name I didn’t catch but who’s about a million years old. And we’ve got the reporter, Leptke, and a photographer called Cheney. I don’t know if that’s first or last. I told him no pictures that he hasn’t cleared with you or Floo—Rusen and Finkel. Rusen’s looking stressed. Joel, as usual, is fixated on what he can’t do. Anyhow, I’ve already asked about tea and coffee.” She looked at Dornan. “That’s one macchiato, one breve, one chai tea, one green tea, and a swirkle.”

“What in God’s name is a swirkle?”

“No clue,” she said cheerfully. I left them to it and headed for the main entrance.

Toni Merritt wore an Eddie Bauer business suit that had seen better days, and her mother’s name was Margaret. I could see the genetic stamp on their narrow shoulders and strong chins. Irenyenko was considerably better dressed; there again, she was considerably higher up the food chain. I wondered if she’d even considered inviting Michael Zhao, the underling who actually did the work.

I was glad Peg had told me the daughter was eleven. Only a year older than Luz, but she looked more like a teenager than a child: rounder, almost womanly. She wore a bright green ribbon choker with a cameo around her neck. Cheney and Leptke stood apart from the others: the Fourth Estate, in all its impartial majesty.

I said hello, explained that we were very happy to have them. “Ms. Branwell is rehearsing at the moment, but perhaps later we can say hello. Meanwhile, let me give you a tour of the set.”

I took them outside and showed them the gas lines and explained that the finale would be filmed in separate parts. I showed them the production office trailer, and spoke of the astonishing amount of paperwork that could overwhelm a production. We talked to Peg, to Joel, to the carpenters. “Wasn’t it one of the carpenters who nearly died?” Leptke said. “Cheney, get a picture of these guys, would you?”

We spent two minutes posing and snapping. We were getting closer to the corner where Kick and Branwell were rehearsing. I could hear her clear voice,
Now, when you shove here, really show the effort. You’re pushing this man from you, hard.

Then it was on to the costume designer and props manager.

I hadn’t taught her how to hit people. Perhaps she’d picked up pointers last night.

“I think we have a moment for a very brief introduction to Ms. Branwell, ” I said.

Branwell, lightly sheened with sweat—I turned back to Kathy and mouthed, “Tell Rusen to turn up the AC”—gave them the same gracious treatment she had given me. They basked. Kick spoke to them briefly, but no one but me had eyes for anyone other than Branwell, whom they crowded around.

Kick, outside the circle, looked tired. I wanted to pick her up, tuck her head against my shoulder, hold her while she fell asleep. I wanted to ask her when she might know. “Maybe we should forget the demonstration fall.”

She shrugged. “It’s only from the fifteen-foot platform. I’ll get the Model Forty gassed up.” And she walked away to do just that.

Getting the fans away from Branwell was like whipping hounds off a fox, but eventually I persuaded them that she had to get fitted for a safety line, and she escaped. In the background, the racket of an air compressor started.

“This is the scaffolding tower where later Ms. Branwell and the stunt actor will be staging the fight scene. As you can see, it’s very economically designed, with the steps built right up the inside.”

“Those tiny things are steps?” said Toni.

“Certainly. I’ll check with the stunt coordinator, but perhaps we could go up and take a look at the platform.”

“I think Mom and I will get that coffee now,” Toni said.

“Cheney and I want to get more pictures.” I remembered that Leptke hadn’t even liked standing on her desk.

“Oh, I’m sure it would be so interesting,” Pat Irenyenko said, “if only I could climb with this shoulder. But Kat will certainly want to go, won’t you, darling?”

Kat looked as though it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, but she was too young to know how to disagree with her mother.

“We can do something else, if you like,” I said.

“Oh, no, she’s dying to climb up,” Irenyenko said. Mommy couldn’t, and so darling daughter must.

“If you’re sure?”

“Of course she’s sure, aren’t you, sweetie? She’s not at all afraid of heights. And here’s the nice stunt person. There’s no reason my daughter can’t go up there, is there? I mean, I’m sure it’s a very safe structure.” She leaned a little on the last phrase.

Kick knew as well as I did why these people were here, and what the right answer was. “If your daughter is fit and has a head for heights, and if she’s accompanied by Ms. Torvingen, I have no objections.” She turned to me. “When you get to the top, don’t touch the rigging or headsets, and don’t let her near the edge. Oh, and you’d better wear hats.”

KAT WENT
first, keeping both hands on the pipe railings, taking a rest every few steps. It was probably hard on her eleven-year-old quads. It certainly was on mine. I felt every flex and stretch of the crowbar-shaped bruise on my left thigh. It was just pain. Clenching and relaxing the muscle would flush away the miniature clots and speed healing.

“We can stop at any point,” I said.

“My mom can’t do this,” she said in a determined voice. In her bright orange hard hat, her head looked very big.

“True.”

“It’s pretty high,” she said, a few feet from the top. And then, “Oh,” as her head emerged from the stairwell. She froze.

“Keep going, otherwise I can’t get by. That’s right. Keep holding on to that pipe, that handrail, right there.”

She leaned to one side but didn’t move a step farther away from the pipe. Her hand was white around the metal. Keeping her away from the edge wasn’t going to be a problem.

“You don’t have to look down, but if you look out, across that way, you can see Sîan talking to the director, Stan Rusen.”

“The guy in the glasses?”

“That’s the one.”

She swapped hands carefully on the pipe. “They look pretty small from here.”

They did. “About the same size as the figures in a foosball table.”

She giggled. The hand around the pipe rail wasn’t as white. I imagined David up here, picking off the figures one by one with his Nerf gun. Luz would squat down, get on her belly, and inch to the edge. The set hummed. I had helped make all this possible.

It was a small sound, a flat
crack,
and I thought,
Oh.
I thought,
I should have asked Turtledove if we’d taken Mackie’s swipe card. I should have asked Mackie what he did when no one was here.
But I knew, even before I smelled the distinctive, blue-smoke scent of dynamite, even before the platform dipped and swayed, exactly what he’d done.

With all the time in the world, I took Kat’s left hand and put it next to the right on the pipe, lay flat on the platform, and pulled myself to the edge.

Everyone below was crouched in the startle reflex, except Kick, who was running to the soundstage. Behind me, Ekaterina started screaming, and a split second later, so did everyone else. I thought I caught a flash of blue as Dornan lifted his face to look up. The tower swayed again. I could still smell smoke.