She nodded. 'We're going to McDonald's. Then we're gonna work in the shop tonight. I'm gonna help.'
'Ah. Are you excited about going home?'
'Yeah,' she said. 'It'll be okay.' She looked down for a moment, then said with juvenile candor, 'Mr. Hamilton, is it true about Sid? Did he really hurt – kill Donna?'
'I don't know, Whitney. I'd rather believe not.'
'I don't think he did,' the girl said. 'He loved her too much to hurt her. He never hurt me, and he got mad at me sometimes.'
Dennis smiled, blessing the trust of children, wishing that it remained in himself. 'I think you may be right, Whitney. I hope so anyway.'
'Then did someone else do it?'
'I… I don't know. It could be, I suppose.'
'I'm not afraid. Grandma'll take care of me.'
'I'm sure she will.' As if on cue, the elevator doors opened, and Marvella stepped out. 'Hello, Marvella.'
'Dennis,' she said, and nodded to him. She looked as though she had been crying. 'Awful thing, awful thing.'
He nodded back, and without another word she took her granddaughter's hand and they left the building.
Dinner was mercifully bereft of any discussion of the killing, but it was there all the same, a ghostly presence, impossible to ignore, that sat at the table with them over each course, that ingratiated itself in every bite of food, every word they spoke.
'You didn't eat very much,' Steinberg observed as the waiter cleared away Dennis's half-eaten dessert.
'Not much of an appetite.'
'You need exercise. When's the last time you had a swim?'
'Weeks ago. I feel too tired.'
'That's precisely when you should exercise. Let's have a dip when we get back.'
Though a swim was the last thing that Dennis wished for, he felt incapable of refusing. It was somehow easier to go into the locker room, change into trunks, and join Steinberg in the pool. Dennis marveled at the man's grace in the water, heavy as he was. Steinberg swam laps, dove from the high board, and went for great lengths underwater, breaching the surface and taking in great lungfuls of air that Dennis felt would have burst him in two. Dennis, on the other hand, paddled without much vigor back and forth across the pool, resting often, his arms on the cool tile of the pool's edge.
After twenty minutes of exertion, Steinberg pulled himself out of the water for the last time. 'Well, I'm sufficiently exhausted for a good night's rest, even after the events of the past day. Join me for a nightcap?'
Dennis shook his head. 'No thanks. This feels good. I think I'll just stay in the water a bit longer.'
'You'll be all right alone?'
'Why, you think there's something here?' He said it before he even realized it was out of his mouth. It was the lassitude the water caused that made him careless. Steinberg's eyes narrowed. 'Something? What do you mean, something?”
“I… don't know. I guess I'm spooked, that's all.'
'There's nothing here,' Steinberg said with more force than Dennis thought was necessary. The three words implied a multitude of sentiments, chief among them that Sid was safely in jail.
'You think he did it?' Dennis asked Steinberg. It was the first time either of them had spoken of it that night.
'Yes. I do. There is no one else.' Without another word, Steinberg turned and walked into the locker room, leaving Dennis alone in the pool.
He closed his eyes and rested his head against his arms. 'No,' he whispered to himself, unable to believe his friend had done what everyone except he and a trusting child thought he had. Even the attorney had seemed dubious that anyone else could have conceivably murdered Donna.
As if to escape from his thoughts, he twisted backward into the pool, immersing his head beneath the water, diving down, down, until his fingers touched the smooth surface of the pool's bottom, then came up again, his eyes still closed against the chlorine, against what he himself was beginning to think was the truth.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw that he had been right after all, saw that Sid was innocent. When he opened his eyes, he saw the Emperor standing by the side of the pool.
He was holding out a towel.
(THE EMPEROR wears his full dress uniform. His skin shows no signs of perspiration from the humidity of the pool. Smiling, he holds the towel toward DENNIS, who, treading water, seems stunned, and afraid to swim any nearer.)
THE EMPEROR
Not ready to come out? It won't wash off, you know. No matter how long you stay in there.
DENNIS
What… won't wash off?
THE EMPEROR
The blood. Your friends' blood on your hands.
DENNIS
You're… you're holding it.
THE EMPEROR
The towel? Oh yes. I'm quite capable of corporeality now, no small thanks to you. (He swings the towel about in demonstration.) I owe you a great deal, oh creator of mine. I owe you my very existence, of course, but you knew that. What you don't know is that I also owe you lives. Lives that I, in my imperial power, have taken.
DENNIS
(He is growing tired, continually treading water.) You killed Donna.
THE EMPEROR
I did.
DENNIS
Why? For God's sake!
THE EMPEROR
Why? Surely not for God's sake, but for the sake of the Emperor. You see, my friend, you no longer have the strength of will, the force of character required to hold such high office. It is time, my dear fellow, to abdicate to a higher power. Me.
DENNIS
No! It's a character, just a character! There is no emperor!
THE EMPEROR
(He spreads his arms) There is now.
DENNIS
Why did you let me think you were… harmless?
THE EMPEROR
It amused me to play such a game, to pretend, to perform. After all, was I not born of performance? Born of an actor? Born of artifice? Yet, in a way my… harmlessness was true. My corporeality grew slowly, like a child learning to walk. I pulled the pin that dropped the curtain on that scheiskopf of an assistant stage manager – my first physical act, and it exhausted me. There was no way I could physically destroy one of your sycophants – not then – without great care and happy coincidences. But I could be seen, and I could move objects, were they small enough. (He grins) Like the servant's knife.
DENNIS
Harry… Harry Ruhl…
THE EMPEROR
Yes. The physician was correct, you know. He did perform those.. . surgeries upon himself. But at my direction, and by my will. He had practically none of his own. His brain was like butter. Your wife, I had hoped,
