She said, “Please stop what you’re doing.”
She was near to my height, wearing a black cowl-neck dress and black boots. I thought she was somewhere around thirty. She had a heavy sheaf of bronze hair and brown eyes with half-moon lids, just a hint of gray shadow in the corners, or maybe that coloring was natural. A tall, heavyset man in a suit trailed her, like a bodyguard.
Babyface said, “Do we know each other? Jimmy I know”-nodding to the guy in the suit-“but I’ve never seen you before. I work for Mr. Skouras, and I’ll stop what I’m doing when he tells me to.”
She said, “I’m afraid that’s not possible. You know Mr. Skouras had a heart attack two days ago, don’t you?”
I raised my head slightly at this unexpected news.
“Of course I know,” Babyface said. “He’s getting better. They were going to move him to the step-down unit today.”
The woman shook her head. “So I was told, but I’m afraid he had a second, more serious attack. He died several hours ago.”
My limbs were starting to shake. I wished they wouldn’t. The situation in front of me was so delicate, I didn’t want to disrupt it by even breathing too loudly. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that this woman in front of me was going to be able to back down these monsters. They’d never let me go on a strange woman’s say-so.
She was going on: “I didn’t answer your original question. I’m Teresa D’Agostino Skouras. Tony Skouras was my father.” Her speech was so precise, it almost had a British clip.
“Mr. Skouras only had sons,” said Quentin, thrusting himself into the exchange.
The woman said, “By his marriage, yes. But he’s long acknowledged me, privately at least, as his biological daughter. He supported me financially when I was younger, and now, in the absence of his sons, he’s left his estate and businesses to me.”
Babyface said, “Mr. Skouras has mentioned you to me, but I never heard him say anything about leaving his estate to you, and-”
“I understand this all comes as a shock,” she interrupted, her tone smooth and civil. “Here, call Mr. Costa’s office. He can confirm everything-my father’s death, the disposition of his businesses, all of it.” She extended her hand, with a cell phone in it. Babyface looked at it a moment, as though he’d never seen a phone before. Then he said, “I have my own,” and began to fumble in his pockets.
I didn’t really believe this was happening.
Babyface walked a few short paces away from all of us. Unexpectedly, Teresa Skouras turned to Will. “For heaven’s sake, do you think you could let go of her? In her condition, if she tries to run, I could catch her myself.”
I didn’t expect him to grant her any authority here, so when he actually did what she asked, I wasn’t ready, and my knees gave out. I went down so hard my chin hit the edge of the editing table and my vision jolted like badly spliced film. I heard Quentin make a humorless snort of laughter.
Babyface was still pacing, saying,
On hands and knees on the floor, I felt and tasted blood, flowing from where I’d bitten my tongue, hitting the table’s edge. I didn’t get up. Teresa Skouras was right; there was no point in trying to run. I didn’t believe this situation ultimately was going to go my way.
Babyface disconnected and said to the guys, “It’s true.”
Neither Quentin nor Will spoke, though Quentin glanced quickly at me as if to ensure that I wasn’t already walking away.
Babyface squared his shoulders. “Listen, Ms. Skouras, I’m sorry for your loss. It’s my loss, too.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“But this is important business we’re doing here. It was important to Mr. Skouras that his only grandchild be raised a Skouras. I know you’re new to the situation; you may not understand.”
She nodded sagely. “If family weren’t important to my father,” she said, “he wouldn’t have supported me so graciously in my youth. But sadly, he died before he could see his grandchild, and nothing will change that. He’s gone, and any professional contract you had with him is now void. Including your commitment to”-she gestured at the bloody table-“this task.”
“But Adrian’s kid-”
“Is my concern, and I’ll decide how I want to proceed on that.”
Babyface stood for a moment, tin snips in hand, looking at the wall and the small dark window cut into it, the one that looked out onto the theater. Then he shrugged and said to Quentin and Will, “Let’s go.”
“What?” Both of them, in unison.
“Mr. Costa says she’s in charge now. We’re leaving.”
Babyface walked over and nudged me with his shoe. “One thing, Ms. Skouras,” he said. “Be careful with her. She’s the only one we know for sure knows where the kid is, so you need her. But she’s not the pushover she looks like she should be. I was thinking I was gonna have to take off all ten of her fingers, and even that might not have worked.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Teresa Skouras said blandly.
“I’m saying,” Babyface said, “that it’s probably not in your interests to leave her alive when all this is over. If you don’t have anyone for that kind of work, Mr. Costa has my number.”
“Thank you,” she said in the same dry tone.
With that, Babyface and his men walked past me and out.
I still couldn’t believe this was happening. I listened for the sound of their footsteps receding, making sure they were really going, that they weren’t going to come back, or wait just out of sight.
Teresa Skouras dropped to her knees beside me, lifting my injured hand to examine it. “Dear God,” she said. “Miss Cain-”
I jerked my hand free of hers and staggered to my feet.
She looked as though I’d slapped her, then she recovered. “You’re in shock.”
I stumbled backward until my back was against the wall and pressed my hands against my face to keep the rage from coming out. She didn’t deserve it. She’d saved me. The fingers Babyface had been about to take, whatever else he or Quentin would have thought to do, this woman had stopped it, Skouras or not.
I lowered my hands, breathing raggedly. “I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’ve been through worse than this.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“I just want my clothes. Then I’m leaving. I’ll be fine.”
Then I took two steps forward and collapsed.
fifty-seven
I opened my eyes in an unfamiliar low-lit bedroom done in cream-and-gold colors. The window curtains were open, and outside the sky was a dark blue. Someone was listening to Christmas music in another room, but it was instrumental, only my mind translating the old familiar words. A clock at bedside read 5:35. It was either before dawn or after sunset. A closer look at the digital face revealed a lighted dot next to the letters
I was sore all over, but in no immediate pain. Raising my hand above the covers revealed a lot of white bandaging, but my little finger was really gone. It stung, but not badly, and I wondered if I was on pain medication.
I kicked the covers aside, intending to check my body out for bruises and injuries, but instead I was drawn up short by the realization that I was dressed in pajamas with a fine orange-and-pink stripe, feminine and whimsical,
