Silence filled the space between them. Maybe the noise had only been wishful thinking. But she suddenly realized that she needed to keep Mavis talking. “Cramer had a picture of me?”
“You and some other rich bitch. I decided I’d better do some snooping,” said Mavis. “A mother likes to know what her boy’s up to. It didn’t take me long to find out. I’ve been here before.” She looked at Mimi, nodding, waiting for her to respond. Play dumb, Mimi told herself. The woman glanced again at the corners of the room. “I was here often enough,” she said.
“Mavis, I don’t know-”
“Shut up!” Mavis wiped her nose again, this time with the back of her gun hand. She looked nervous, suddenly, and Mimi didn’t think she wanted Mavis nervous.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I couldn’t quite figure out how he was getting in and out. Cramer, I mean. So, when the time was right, I found my own way in.” She nodded her head toward the window. Jay had replaced the glass, but Mimi still found broken pieces of it now and then. “And that’s when I found that movie camera of yours. Took it home to look it over. And there-there he was, older and losing his hair, but I recognized him, all right, even with the shades. Recognized the smile. The lying smile.”
“Does Cramer know?”
“Who knows? The boy’s not himself. I guess I’ve got you to thank for that.”
“But does he know about him and me-about us being-”
“I said I wouldn’t know what he knows,” Mavis shouted. “He doesn’t know his own mind anymore. Or who his mother is. Or what’s right or wrong.”
She stopped and made a face as if she’d just bitten into something bad.
“What about the guitars?” asked Mimi. “Was it you who took Jay’s guitars?”
Mavis shrugged. “Distributing the wealth a little. Those guitars are long gone.”
There was another noise. In the shed? Mavis didn’t seem to notice. Mimi spoke up in any case, but not so loudly this time as to create suspicion. “Why are you telling me this? Why are you here? What is it you want from me?”
“We’re going to make a phone call,” said Mavis, as if it were going to be fun-a party game.
“You said that. But I don’t understand.”
“We’re going to phone your daddy,” she said. Then she slid along the wall toward Mimi, stopping an arm’s length away. “We’re going to find out how much he thinks his pretty daughter is worth.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. You aren’t stupid.”
Mimi swallowed hard. Her right hand was in her pocket where she had been trying to work the canister of mace free from its holster without drawing attention to the activity. Now, with Mavis so close, it was a little easier, since the woman’s field of vision was so much smaller. If there was somebody coming, she had to be ready for whatever happened. By now Mavis was face-to-face with her, staring directly into Mimi’s eyes. “You got the same eyes as him. I wished in that film he hadn’t had those dark glasses on. I’d have loved to see those eyes again.”
She seemed to go off into a daydream, and while Mimi wasn’t about to try anything rash, she managed to silently pop the top of the canister. Now it was just a matter of getting the thing out of her pocket. But Mavis had recovered from her reverie.
“What are you thinking?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Liar. You’re thinking about getting away. But you can forget about it.”
Keep her on task, thought Mimi.
“My father,” said Mimi. “Marc. You want me to phone him?”
Mavis looked suspicious, as if this was somehow a different proposal than the one she had made. Slowly she nodded. Then she smiled expectantly. “Bet he’ll be surprised.”
“Yeah,” said Mimi. She cleared her throat. “But my phone is in the kitchen.”
Mavis shook her head. She backed away toward the bedroom doorway, tripping on the mattress, but righting herself too quickly for Mimi to do anything. At the doorway she picked up her handbag and reached inside. “Your little phone was just lying there on the kitchen table,” she said. She pulled it out and crossed the room, stepping around the mattress this time. She handed the phone to Mimi.
Mimi stared at her. This was totally insane. Even if her father could pay whatever Mavis asked for, how did she expect to get her hands on the money or get away?
“Do it!” said the woman.
“Mavis, it’s just that…”
“It’s just that what?”
Better not try to explain, thought Mimi. So she punched in Marc’s number. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Leave that to me,” said Mavis. Her beat-up eyes glowed as she waited. But after a long moment, Mimi handed her the phone. It was an answering machine.
“You want to leave a message?”
Mavis glared at her. “Don’t get smart with me,” she said. She handed back the phone. She looked bewildered, as if her crazy plan had not included Marc being out. Mimi glanced at the phone’s clock. Where is Jay? Is he here? If he was, he was being quiet, which meant he must have realized something was up. Her only hope was to keep talking and be ready to create some distraction. She quailed inside.
“Do you know what my boy did? My good boy?”
“What?”
Mavis moved closer to her, leveled the gun inches from Mimi’s chest. “He destroyed merchandise worth thousands of dollars. Plasma televisions. Destroyed them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He made some people very, very unhappy. And do you know why? Do you know why he did it?”
Mimi heard a clunk. Surely Mavis must have heard it, too, but she seemed beyond hearing anymore. “I don’t know why he did it,” Mimi said. “Tell me why, Mavis.”
Mavis poked her with the gun. “Shut up! What kind of game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing anything.”
“You think I won’t use this thing? You think I have anything left to lose?”
“No, no,” said Mimi. “I mean… I don’t know. It’s just that I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.” There was another clunking sound, but Mavis only stared at her as if her anger was using up all her attention. As if whatever dimension Mimi was in was fading on her.
“Cramer went berserk,” she said. “That’s your doing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You drove him out of his mind,” said Mavis, poking Mimi in the chest.
“Ow! Stop it!”
“I ought to just shoot you for what you did to him,” said Mavis. And she brought the gun right up under Mimi’s chin.
“That hurts!”
“You wanna know about hurt? Huh? Do you?”
“If you shoot me, you won’t get anything out of Marc,” said Mimi. She watched the woman try to piece together in her shattered mind what she was telling her. “He’s got lots of money,” said Mimi. “He’ll probably pay anything you want. But not if I’m dead.”
At first Mimi thought she had gotten through to Mavis. The woman’s eyes seemed to clear. But as Mimi watched, the look on Mavis’s face went well beyond anything rational. She looked sad-deeply sad-and Mimi had the feeling that Mavis was realizing the terrible lunacy of what she was doing.
“He’ll never give me anything,” she muttered. She lowered the gun but not far. “Why would I have thought Marc would ever give me anything?”
She seemed to actually be asking the question, and Mimi was about to answer her when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Her foam mattress moved. She stared into Mavis’s eyes, hoping the woman wouldn’t
