Edna picked up a walkie talkie, a twin to the one I’d seen on Victoria’s belt and said, “Ruthie, dear.”
Not three seconds passed before Victoria’s voice came back. “What is it, Grandma?”
“Could I trouble you for tea? Charlie has come to visit.”
“In a few minutes, Grandma. I’ll have to boil the water.” Her voice was patient, solicitous.
So I had tea with Edna Woolley. I was alternately Douglas, Charlie, Albert, and someone named Rupert. I was never again Mortimer to her. The tea was wickedly awful, Victoria’s revenge, no doubt, though Edna seemed to like it. Winter delivered it wearing white jeans and a conservative shirt, sandals. And a smile I couldn’t read, but it was meant for me, and I didn’t much care for it.
When she was gone Edna looked at the door and said, “Isn’t she the loveliest child, Albert?”
“She certainly is.”
“So much like my precious Jacoba.” Then the sadness descended again, lifting only after minutes had gone by. Evidently the memory of Jacoba had its dark moments.
Shadows crept up the walls. Sunlight on the window frame became golden, then turned burgundy and gray. Clouds went pink, dulled, lost all color. I found myself stifling yawns. Three hours of sleep the night before was beginning to catch up, and it had been a full day. I almost nodded off several times, gagging down swallows of now-cold tea the color of olive brine to rouse myself. The rest of it went out the attic window where it most likely killed a few plants. Finally I said, “Do you know the Sjorgens, Edna?”
Edna’s eyes cleared, brightened, filled with a harder light. “This is his house,” she said.
“Whose?”
“Wendell’s, of course.” Her lips pressed together in disapproval. “He never visits any more, you know.”
Jonnie’s dad. She got the name right, which surprised me. I couldn’t tell if she knew he’d been stabbed to death in an alley some two decades ago. Perhaps she’d never known, or had, years ago, but had long since forgotten.
“I thought the house was Jonnie’s.” I didn’t know how far to go in that direction, but just mentioning his name seemed safe enough.
“Jonnie. That boy.” Her cup rattled on its saucer and her face grew agitated.
“Mr. Angel,” Victoria’s voice came over the radio, crisp and hard.
I picked it up. “Yes.”
“Your time is up.”
“Just about to leave.” I set the radio down. I hadn’t known it was two-way, like a cell phone, a kind of monitoring device, always on. “Time for me to go, Edna.”
“Oh, and we were having such a lovely visit, too, Albert,” she said, disappointed.
“Yes, I know. I’m very sorry.”
She looked around, perplexed. “Now where on earth do you suppose Sparky’s got to?”
“Sparky?”
“My kitty. He was here only a moment ago.”
The attic window was open. Had been all day. Sparky probably kept his own hours. I’d been there nearly two hours, so a moment in Edna’s life was an indeterminate amount of time.
Her hands fluttered helplessly. “Do tell Charlie I miss him so, won’t you, dear?”
“Yes. I certainly will.”
“Will you come back?” Her eyes seemed to tug at mine, wanting company.
“I’ll try.”
I hugged her as if she were my own grandmother. She stood in the middle of the room where I’d first seen her, watching as I let myself out.
Into a dark passage. Dim light came from the far end, through a north-facing window with a view of an almost-black sky through a canopy of elms.
I felt blind. I missed my gun. I groped to the stairs, found a switch that turned on a grimy fifteen-watt bulb that might’ve once belonged to T. A. Edison himself.
Down the stairs and back along a hallway lit only slightly better than the one above. Then past several doors, off to my right. Ahead, I saw the second-floor landing at the head of the stairs.
A light clicked on. “Mort?”
I turned. Six feet away, Winter was in a doorway wearing a filmy black bra and a black thong, illuminated in soft light by a frosted globe lamp on the ceiling. Her pubic hair must have been shaved off because the thong was a silk patch the size of a credit card. The bra was loose, straps off her shoulders, cups drooping at the sides as she held it to herself with a pale hand. That whorehouse feeling ratcheted upward a notch or three.
“I’m undone,” she said. She turned, revealing the free ends of her bra in back, a nice expanse of bare skin, that improbably tiny waist. The thong hid nothing at all of her bottom, which was nicely rounded and well-muscled.
I stared at her. She turned and faced me again, returning my look, still holding the bra to her chest, one hip thrust out far enough to touch the frame of the door. It was a striking sight, the filmy black undergarments, the raven-haired girl, her smooth, pale skin. I could see that black comforter behind her, the crossed foils on the wall.
“Hitch me up?” she said.
“Depends,” I answered. “Where’s the plow?”
She struck a measured pout. “I mean, my bra, cowboy.”
“Nope.”
I headed for the stairs, started down without looking back. Under the conditions, hooking up Winter’s brassiere wouldn’t have been the smartest move of the day. Under any conditions I could imagine, it wouldn’t have been.
The word “fucker” floated down after me, and a lilting, almost indiscernible laugh. Sweet child.
I’d almost reached the front door when Victoria appeared at the double doors to the parlor. Her face was in shadow, eyes glinting, catching stray light. How these people got around without crashing into things was beyond me, but I guessed they saved a bundle on electricity.
“I told you not to mention Jonathan,” Victoria said tightly.
“You told me not to tell her he was dead. Or how.”
“Get out. Don’t come back.”
“That’s not very friendly.”
“You are an extremely
