House of Blues (14 page)

Finally, one of the oldest women, the one they called
the Wise Woman, held him and patted his back and soothed him until he
felt better.

When he got home, he told the people he lived with
what had happened to him, and they said the same words he had heard
in the spaghetti grove. "Evil. The Evil One," they said.
"She planned it that way," they said. "She cut the
spaghetti short so that no one could harvest it, and she is
devilishly clever. Do you see what she did? She made sure that
whoever tried to harvest the spaghetti would be standing right over a
root, so that he would fall down and knock the skin off his knee. She
must be punished."

Bill didn't understand at all. "I don't see how
anyone could do that," he said. "There are thirty spaghetti
trees in the grove and every one of them had short spaghetti. How
could she know I would be under the one with the exposed root? And
how could she know my lion would bolt? And how could she know that if
it did, I would fall off it?"

"
You ask too many questions," they said.
"Elders know things that you don't."

And that was all they would ever say.

But that night he heard terrible shrieks and screams
that turned the planet into an ugly and fearful place. He dreamed
about crawling things with many legs and writhing things with forked
tongues and winged things with fur and fangs.

He woke up hot and exhausted and asked the others
what the sounds in the night had been.

"
Oh, that was the Evil One," they said. "We
punished her."

That was not the only time he heard those screams. He
heard them many times after that, always when something went wrong on
the planet.

Once the barrels that caught the spaghetti sauce had
been slightly moved so that some of the sauce fell on the ground and
could not be eaten.

He found out later that the man whose job it was to
set the barrels said the Evil One had moved them.

Once, one of the children who couldn't yet swim fell
in a river and almost drowned.

He found out later that the child's mother said the
Evil One distracted her, so she couldn't watch her child.

Once someone burned a pizza he was making.

He knew he was not supposed to ask questions, but
that time he was simply too puzzled to keep quiet. "‘Was there
a punishment last night?" he asked.

"Why, yes, there was," said the people he
lived with.

"Did they punish the man who burned the pizza?"

"Of course not," they said. "The Evil
One was punished."

"But surely it was the man's fault about the
pizza," said Bill.

"Why did they punish the Evil One for that?"

"Because it wasn't the man's fault," they
said. "It was the Evil One's fault. She turned up the heat when
he wasn't looking."

"Why would she do that?" asked Bill.

"
You ask too many
questions," they said.

* * *

Grady was thrilled when he
was done, sure he was finally getting somewhere, that this was a
breakthrough at last. However, when he read it over, he thought,
Fine. Good statement of the problem. But no resolution.

* * *

Heavy curtains covered the windows, and the lights
were kept on, so that Reed couldn't tell whether it was day or night.

The television was on as well, and Reed had been
given some books and magazines to read. One hand was free; the other
was handcuffed to the chair she sat in.

The room itself was beautiful, or nearly so—but
perhaps it was just a beat off. The ceilings weren't quite high
enough for the heavy period furniture, and most of the pieces were
reproductions. Still, they had been chosen with care, almost
certainly by a decorator. The carpet was thick and the curtains were
expensive brocade-gold, not Reed's favorite color, but undeniably
rich-looking. The mantel was genuine—something that had probably
been bought at auction—and so was the clock that stood on it. Above
the mantel hung a dark, brooding European painting of some sort;
nineteenth century, Reed thought. It had probably cost plenty, and it
cast a pall of gloom on the room.

It was a room that was meant to impress, and in that
it succeeded, with its ostentation if nothing else. A room you'd be
thrilled to get in a bed and breakfast, say, but not one you'd
necessarily want to live in—and certainly not one in which you'd
wish to be handcuffed to a chair.

She was not gagged. Thinking it might help and
certainly couldn't hurt, she'd screamed loud, hard, and long, to no
avail. It occurred to her that the room must be soundproofed, though
why it would be was beyond her.

She had nothing but questions about this situation.

A hand had gone over her mouth the minute she stepped
in the gate at this house, the house where she'd followed the
kidnapper, Once inside the gate, she could see there was a
porte
cochere
behind the wall, and cars parked
there. The place was lit up as if there were a party going on, and
Reed could hear voices. She was dragged to a side entrance, following
the kidnapper, she thought, but she'd lost sight of Sally and could
no longer hear her.

It came to her that someone was holding Sally's
mouth, just as hers was being held, and the thought made her break
out in a sweat, followed by a fury she couldn't contain. She whipped
her shoulders back and forth and tried to kick, but the man who held
her was too good—she couldn't get near him. She let her knees bend,
so he'd have to drag her, but he said, "Don't make me hit you.
It'll give you an awful headache," and she saw the wisdom of
that.

She was taken to a back stairway, and from there she
could see the kitchen, which appeared to be full of caterers hard at
work. The others were stumbling ahead of her, but she still couldn't
see or hear Sally.

Then she was in this room, and for a while she had
been gagged as well as handcuffed. Perhaps, even if the room were
soundproofed, it leaked a little. She was left here, in the dark,
alone, not knowing where her child was, for an hour or two, she
thought, probably until the party was over.

And then a woman came into the room, a woman of about
sixty, she thought, or perhaps seventy, a stunning beauty; but
terrifying. Her hair was a steely color, streaked with white so
becomingly it might or might not have been natural. It was thick, and
cut so that it waved and pouffed in ways Reed had seen before, that
made her envious of those born with thick curls instead of fine silk.
The woman wasn't black or Creole, Reed thought, though she couldn't
be sure. She was Mediterranean perhaps, but who could say in this
city where anyone could be anything?

She wore a black dress with expensive jewelry and
lots of it, some of it diamonds. Her face was longish, very elegant.
Her mouth was red, her makeup flawless.

She was perfectly groomed, perfectly tailored,
perfectly in control—a perfect dragon lady. A perfect aristocrat.
She could be a high-up corporate executive, or perhaps an ambassador
from some sun-drenched country.

Or maybe she was just a department store buyer who
knew how to dress.

"Who are you?" the woman asked.

"Who are you?" Reed retorted.

The woman did something with her chin, and a man, the
one who had found Reed at the gate, tossed the woman a document.

"No purse in the car. This is all there is."

"Dennis Foucher," read the dragon lady.
"Who are you?"

Reed realized the document was Dennis's car
registration. "I don't see why I should tell you that. Where is
my little girl?"

"Your little girl?"

"
Of course my little girl. Goddammit, what's
going on here?"

"Perhaps you can tell me." The Dragon did
the unexpected; she smiled. "How did you come to be here?"

"
How did I—" Reed stopped and looked
around, speechless, gripped by the absurdity of the thing. And then
the words poured out, as if she couldn't talk fast enough.

The more she talked, the grimmer the Dragon's
features became.

When Reed was nearly finished, when she was at the
part where she had leapt from her car, she saw a way to make an ally
of the Dragon. It was the New Orleans way, the way that always got
you through. "We have mutual friends," she said
breathlessly. "I saw people I know leaving your house." She
was beside herself in her relief. "Bruce Smallwood and Lafayette
Goodyear. Barron Piggott. I saw them leaving your party."

Reed thought the Dragon flicked her eyes at the man,
but otherwise she remained impassive. "I don't believe I know
them," she said.

"
Oh."

The Dragon said nothing.

Reed let a moment go by and then she began to plead.

"
Where's Sally? Where's my child? Please tell me
my baby's all right."

The woman looked annoyed, as if she couldn't stand
having her time wasted this way. "Of course she's all right."
There was something different about her voice; it was still very
definite, but a little softer.

But her face remained hard as a peach pit. She left
without speaking again, and as Reed remembered the scene, she could
hear the click of the Dragon's heels.

But that was impossible, the carpet was inches thick.
She didn't know how long ago that had been, but she had had two meals
since then; a day must have passed, or nearly a day. She couldn't
hear anything, even telephones ringing. Not once did she catch a
child's voice, even a faint high cry.

Where is Sally? What's happening to her?

The questions came up and up again, but Reed never
saw harm as coming to her child, couldn't, in her heart, imagine her
hurt. She was unable to watch television or read the books and
magazines; instead she thought about having Sally back, about what
their life would be like when this was over.

Would Sally be scarred? Would she have nightmares?
She might be afraid of people from now on, and loud noises; she might
be clingy and whiny. Oh, poor, poor thing, who had been so
innocent—it was so unfair.

Nothing untoward had happened to Reed. Her life as a
child had been idyllic, perfect. Except for one thing, of course. How
could she have forgotten?

She was transported to another room where she'd been
a prisoner, a place that made her sweat and writhe to think of, where
everything was white instead of gold.

Quickly, she wrenched herself out of it. She thought
about her father, how he took her to the restaurant and showed her
things; how he called her his "little smart girl."

She had made him a cake when she was six.

When she was a teenager she was already working at
the restaurant, already planning to go to Cornell to learn how to run
it. The thought of him—his smile when she did something right, his
big, heavy features, the way he spoke so softly when her mother
yelled at her—all that was so sad now.

She had nearly forgotten him in her fear for Sally.

Was he dead? Could he really be dead?

She hadn't seen, she had left too soon, but the
answer weighed heavy inside her.

Yes, he was dead. Her dad was gone.

She cried for him now, and for her daughter, but
furtively, feeling guilty and inept; worried that the Dragon would
catch her.
 
 

9

Maya's house was actually an apartment not far from
the bar, a large apartment with high ceilings and big rooms. Skip
could see only the first two, which had once been double parlors and
now seemed to serve much the same purpose. The furniture was minimal
but effective. An ancient sofa had been draped with some sort of
covering to make it presentable, yet a table with a wonderful antique
lamp stood next to it.

It was dark, what light there was coming partly from
candles, partly from very dim bulbs. All the lamps were of lacy
metalwork like the ironwork on the city's balconies.

There was a table in the second room, which might
sometimes have been used as a dining room—though Skip doubted
it—and there were a few chairs in both rooms. The drama came from
the lamps and from the walls, which were decorative by virtue of
exuberantly peeling paint. A few darkish paintings hung, probably
found in thrift shops.

The peeling paint may have been left that way on
purpose, and the dim light, the dark paintings, were certainly for
effect. But if the idea was to create a storybook den of iniquity,
there were two even better effects—a slight scent of mildew under a
few layers of incense, and a thick coat of dust over every surface,
including the floor.

On the mantel was an altar of sorts. There were
flowers and a few leaves, and a couple of framed photos, one of
Marilyn Monroe, another of Tom Cruise, the logic of which was lost on
Skip. There were also Mardi Gras beads, a ceramic figure Skip
couldn't identify, and five or six of the colored candles poured into
glass and marked for success, riches, or various saints that can be
found in occult stores.