Tea Cups & Tiger Claws (32 page)

The man with the scarred face had killed before. Dorthea had given the order, and he’d stabbed someone in the heart. And as soon as Dorthea tickled his ear with another royal command, he’d come back to the dungeon and kill again. Sarah knew it without a doubt. She needed to make a plan.

A
few anemic particles of light sifted down into the dungeon from the ramp, and her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but only enough to turn nearby objects into semi defined shadows. She reached out for one of those shadows, a wooden bucket, and hoisted it by its handle. Maybe she could bash him on the head with it, she thought. It seemed heavy enough. But what if she missed, or didn’t knock him out? And honestly, what chance did she really have of being able to take him down with a bucket? She needed something better, something deadly but easy, like a knife. If she stabbed him before he stabbed her, if he fell dead by her feet, and if he had keys in his pocket, she just might be able to set herself free. Even though this plan had way too many “ifs” attached to it, she didn’t see a better one coming her way anytime soon.

She ran her fingernails along the side of the bucket
to feel for the individual slats, which seemed to be only an inch or two wide. If she broke the bucket apart, and sharpened one of the slats on the concrete floor, she’d have the knife she needed.

She rose
to her knees, held the bucket by the handle with her right hand, and slammed it sideways onto the floor. Nothing happened, except a jolt of pain shot up the length of her scraped up arm. She wound up and bashed it again and again and again, becoming a robot, methodically slamming the bucket to the ground, only stopping periodically to inspect it. When the burning in one arm and shoulder got too hot, she switched to the other, although her left arm, not as strong as the right, and hindered by the manacle and chain, proved less effective. When her knees started bleeding, she crouched from her feet instead. On and on she went in this manner until she finally ran out of strength and slumped against the wall, head drenched in sweat, hair clumped to her face like slithering worms.

With a spastic yank she jerked the bucket upright and inspected it one more time by running her fingers up and down the outside.
Rock solid. What kind of bucket was this anyway, she wondered. Probably some kind of Shaker masterpiece made to withstand Armageddon.

Without the strength to go on, she knew her plan had more holes in it than she’d ever be able to make in the bucket, but she liked the essence of it
: find something simple, any little thing, and sharpen it enough to do the job. She just needed to find the right thing to sharpen.

That’s when she saw Bob
, her bashful cellmate. She saw him for his true worth. And say what you will about his shortcomings, Sarah had to admit that he never looked so good.

If good times could be plucked like flowers, Veronica would’ve had them tucked between her toes, bunched behind her ears, and daisy-chained around her neck. Nobody chased the fun like she did. Unfortunately, good times can sometimes be more like smoke rings than daisies: pleasant, entertaining, and then gone. No matter how tightly she gripped, the fun always seemed to disappear. Of course that didn’t stop her from chasing the next fluffy wonder that blew her way, and which would surely satisfy forever. For a while she thought she’d found such a thing in cocaine.

Veronica brimmed
with arrogance and conceit and other prerequisites of a spoiled heiress. Coke made her superiority even more absolute. Now she didn’t just star at the parties she attended, she owned them. She owned the people with nothing more than a glance, and she owned the conversation, which she shredded like a machine, if she wanted, or rode away with like a motorcycle daredevil. Even alone, in her quarters at Sunny Slope, coke turned her into super-girl, kicking the shit out of boredom and scaring the hell out of sleep. Coke was fun…for a while.

The first small sign, the thinning of the smoke ring, came a few months before her mother died when her heart started squeaking. It literally squeaked every time she snorted. Of course it freaked her out, but, after a while, when nothing worse happened, she ignored it. Besides, it stopped when she stopped snorting, and since crazy Dorthea had her on rations, the squeaking
stayed off almost as much as it stayed on.

Now things had changed.
Dorthea had moved in, the rationing had stopped, and Veronica became best friends with a cokehead pachyderm. Now, besides a heart that squeaked, she had a numb face, fingers that twitched incessantly, and arms that shook spastically if given an ounce of freedom. Instead of sleeping at night, she sat up with wide eyes and waited for secret enemies to crash through her bedroom door. She had lungs so abused by a wildly beating heart that it became almost impossible to get a decent breath of air.

~~~

Nanny paced her fourth floor bedroom, waited for the phone to ring, and repeatedly looked out the window. In all directions buzzing, crackling work lights hung from rusted hoists and leaning poles. They blanketed the grounds in glaring light. With no regard for the late hour, pounding hammers echoed nonstop from every corner, regularly interrupted by screeching power saws and barking, cursing foremen. Under Dorthea’s orders, construction crews worked around the clock building security posts at the two gates and a security center adjacent to the house. On top of all this, a newly hired army of security guards now patrolled the property, trying to look intimidating, if not competent. Sunny Slope Manor had taken on the appearance of a frontline military camp after a midnight attack.

And Nanny felt shell-shocked. Without warning
, Dorthea had taken away the two most important people in Nanny’s world. First Dorthea had chased Sarah off the property under threat of arrest, and since then, two days and nights, nobody had seen or heard from her. Then, the same day she moved on Sarah, she posted an armed guard outside Veronica’s bedroom door. All visitors had been barred and not a peep had been heard from her quarters for the same two days. Nobody could say if Veronica was even alive.

Perkins, for his part, hid behind doors and whispered about biding
his time and striking when the iron was hot. Well, Nanny knew Perkins, and she told him to his face that she’d bet on the next ice age arriving before she’d bet on him striking anything. That got him off his duff.

The phone rang.
Nanny quickly answered it. She listened, whispered a response, and hung up. For the umpteenth time she reached into her apron pocket to feel for her house keys, and then quickly left the room. The elevator made too much noise so she took the stairway down to the third floor, where she stopped on the landing, short of the hallway. Soon Perkins appeared from below carrying a tray of food up the stairs. Without word or smile they passed each other on the landing. Perkins continued on into the hallway, while Nanny hugged the wall and inched closer, careful not to show herself to the guard stationed around the corner, outside Veronica’s apartment.

“I’ve brought you some refreshment
, Mr. Hunter,” said Perkins to the guard.

“Oh. Ok.”

“Perhaps you can assist me by getting the folding stand from the room to your right.”

“Naw, don’t bother.
I’ll just put the tray on my lap.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hunter, I must insist. These rugs are very rare.”

“Ok.”

Nanny heard shuffling and peeked around the corner to see the guard disappear into the other room. She ran on her toes
toward Veronica’s room as bug-eyed Perkins looked on.

“I don’t see it in here,” said the guard.

“I believe it’s in the wardrobe.”

Nanny jabbed a key at the keyhole but missed the mark, causing the whole assortment of keys to fall loudly onto the wooden floor between the hallway runner and the wall. She stiffened and held her breath while Perkins did an agitated jig.

“What was that?” asked the guard.

“I…I was looking for my key to the wardrobe…just in case you need it,
” said Perkins, as he slid over to block the guard from re-entering the hallway.

Nanny tried again. This time she used both hands to steady her nerves and she found the
keyhole. The lock clicked twice, she turned the knob, and disappeared into Veronica’s darkened apartment. She reflexively reached for the sitting room light switch and then thought better of it; no sense arousing the guard’s curiosity with light under the doorway.

She continued into the bedroom, where she quietly closed the door and turned on
the light.

The sight of Veronica’s sickly body spilled out across the bed, with her legs hanging over the side, stopped her in her tracks. She looked for signs of life, which she thankfully found
, then she looked some more. She didn’t see Veronica the delinquent or Veronica the heartbreaker. She saw Veronica the little girl who used to call her “Souwy”; Veronica who used to hide her face in Nanny’s apron when she got embarrassed; Veronica who had her mother’s shrewdness and her father’s beautiful eyes. She saw her Veronica, because, whether anyone admitted it or not, that innocent Veronica, as well as this troubled one, was as much her child as anyone’s.

She
pulled a folded paper from her apron pocket, stepped over to the desk, and grabbed some tape. Her eyes scanned the room until they settled on a cute little elephant figurine, which she’d never seen before. She taped the paper, an old, browning page from a coloring book, to the elephant. Veronica couldn’t miss it.

“Am I going to die
, Nanny?”

Veronica’s unexpected waking, as well as the question, which she asked calmly, almost serenely, caught Nanny off guard.

“Oh mo chroí,” said Nanny, using her Irish pet name for Veronica, “don’t be talking like that.”

Veronica pulled up her legs and positioned her body normally on the bed. “I’m cold
, Nanny,” she said as she rolled onto her side. “Lay down next to me.”

Nanny grabbed a quilt from the trunk at the foot of the bed, draped it over Veronica, slipped off her shoes, and lay down next to Veronica, wrapping her up with her free arm.

“Why are you here, Nanny?”

“
To see my little girl, but it’s not so easy as it used to be. Dorthea has a guard with a gun outside your door and nobody’s allowed to be seeing or talking to you.”

“Then how’d you get in?”

“Perkins tricked the guard, and I slipped in behind his back.”

“Perkins did that? I guess your sneaky ways are rubbing off on him.”

“Yes, Lord help us, underneath all that starch and shoe polish there might just be a human being after all.”

“I miss you Nanny. And Perkins
, too. I miss everyone.”

“We’re still here
mo chroí, we’re still here…except Sarah. Dorthea called the police and had Sarah taken away from Sunny Slope Manor.” Veronica didn’t respond. Nanny continued. “And then she went and had Mack Brimwahl arrested. She said he kidnapped you. He’s in jail now, you know.” Nanny waited again for a response, but it didn’t come. Finally she blurted, “What is it this lady has hanging over your head, Veronica? I want you to tell me.”

“It’s too late
, Nanny.”

“No it’s not!” said Nanny,
as she propped herself up on an elbow to look at Veronica. “That lady is full of nothing good and the sooner you get rid of her the better off you’ll be. Are you hearing me, Veronica?”

“It’s too late because most the time I don’t care. And even when I do care
, I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll tell you what to do! I can tell you right now! Do you want
your nanny to do that for you?”

“I don’t know
, Nanny.”

“You just take a single step. That’s all
there is to it. Don’t be looking at how far you have to go, just take a step in the right direction. Then, when you’re ready, take another one, and another one, and before you know it, you’ll be seeing that you’ve come quite a way.” Nanny rested, not wanting to push too hard.

“What does it mean to have a marriage annulled?”

“That means you sign a paper and the marriage goes away,” said Nanny, careful not to sound too excited by the question.

Veronica said, “Oh,” and then no more.

“When did you eat last?” asked Nanny.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re going to eat now. Do you hear me?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“If you don’t go down to the kitchen and take that guard with you, there’s no way for me to get out of here. And he’ll shoot me. You wouldn’t want that to be happening now would you?”

“No.”

“Good. Perkins is down there waiting for you. Now look at me, mo chroí. I’ve got one more thing to say.” She gently placed her hand under Veronica’s cheek and turned her head. “It’s time for you to stop acting like your mother didn’t love you. Nobody ever said she was a great mother, or even a good one, but she did love you, and everyone seems to be knowing it except for you. You can stop trying to punish her now because it’s not doing any good at all.”

Nanny reached across and took the crayon artwork from the elephant and held it up to Veronica’s eyes. “What does it say across the top?” she asked.

“For my supermom who can do everything.”

“Who wrote that and who colored the supermom?”

“Me.”

“And what’s it say at the bottom?”

“For my super girl who can do even more.”

“And who wrote that and drew the picture and colored it?”

“Mother.”

“That’s right. Your mother. And she believed it. She still believes it. She’s pulling for you Veronica, pulling for you to take that first step.”

~~~

Veronica
took that first wobbly step later that same night when Dorthea escorted her down to the parlor to meet with Chief Bolton of the Prospect Park Police Department. With Dorthea looking on, the chief said that all details of the kidnapping had been provided and that Veronica only needed to sign her name at the bottom of the statement. Without the slightest inhibition, Veronica said that Mack hadn’t kidnapped her and that she wouldn’t be signing anything. That took the wind out of Chief Bolton but not out of Dorthea, who asked the chief to wait in the hall while she spoke with the “poor, traumatized child.”

Dorthea
then unloaded everything she had on Veronica but had somehow forgotten that seals perform for fish and, when they’ve had their fill, they stop the performance and become seals once again; Veronica had had her fill, thanks to the pachyderm with the big head. She told Dorthea to take a hike and then she sashayed right out the door and back up to her room.