Bill shifted in his slippery seat. “He said he’ll help us stop the experiments, too. That’s what we want to do.”
Eileen nodded. “Stop them dead.”
I felt a chill and leaned forward. “Eileen, nothing you can do will stop the experiments. The pressure for an AIDS cure is too great. I told Bill you ought to go after the fur companies instead of the drug companies. Remember, Bill?”
“Yuh,” Bill nodded.
“I worked at Furstmann Dunn. I saw what they did,” Eileen said.
“But people aren’t ready to deal with animal experimentation yet, Eileen. Go after fur. The celebrities are all against it.”
“Celebrities? Like who?” She inched forward on her chair, and for the first time interest glimmered in her eyes.
“Uh, Elle MacPherson.”
“I like Elle. She’s in the movies, like Rene Russo. Did you know Rene Russo was a model before she did that movie with John Travolta? She gets a lot of movie work.”
“Really. You have momentum, since you had all the TV cameras and everything. Why don’t you keep it alive by going after the fur companies? I don’t know if Bill told you, but I represent a lot of radicals, a lot of protesters.”
“Any celebrities?”
Christ. “No. No celebrities. And they, my clients, always use the press when they have it. It helps them win people over, get a lot of followers.”
“Followers?”
“Sure.”
She paused. “I gotta ask you something though.”
“What?”
“Did you really kill your boyfriend?”
I felt a pang, deep inside my chest. “No.”
“Oh,” she said.
Her foot wagging.
“You, a murderer? How could they think such a thing?” Hattie said. She’d been waiting up, wrapped like a Havana cigar in her bathrobe, with her hair in pink foam curlers. She looked exhausted, her skin greasy and her eyes dark and sunken. “How could they even think it?”
“They’re cops. They can think anything.” I scratched Bear, asleep under the table, and stirred my umpteenth cup of coffee. I was fatigued, too, but satisfied that Eileen had forgotten about the CEO.
“The cops were upstairs, you know. They turned your apartment upside down. They woulda broke down the door if I hadn’t stopped ’em.”
“Sorry. I should’ve warned you when I called.”
“They left your place a damn mess! I tried to put it together, but your mother was gettin’ upset.”
My heart sank. “Did they bother her? Did she see them?”
“I calmed her down.” Hattie passed some papers across the table to me. “Here’s a list of the things they took. The detective told me to give it to you.”
I pushed the papers away. “Which detective?”
“I don’t know. Mean-lookin’, funny name.”
“Azzic?”
She nodded.
“Tell me how Mom is.”
“In bed, from ten o’clock. She hadn’t slep’ a wink. Don’t they know what they’re doin’ to you?”
“They don’t care. Did she eat?”
“They should care! It was a crazy house here today! That detective, askin’ questions. They even went lookin’ for your car, to search that, too. The dog was barkin’, your phone was ringin’ all day. One of the girls came with a box of stuff from your office and took it upstairs. Black girl.”
“Renee Butler?”
She nodded again and rubbed her forehead irritably. “What a day. Reporters, buzzin’ at the door through dinnertime. I went out there and ran them off! They called you a murderer!”
“That’s what they’ll keep calling me, until I can prove I’m not.”
“You, with that rowing! It’s what got you into this mess!”
“Not exactly-”
“I told you you should stop. You don’t listen to me, you don’t listen to nobody. Damn fool thing to be doing, rowin’ a damn boat!”
I could almost see Hattie’s blood pressure rising. “What are you so upset about? My mother? You don’t have to be, I set up a trust for her. If anything happened to me, there’s enough in there to keep her, and you-”
“Me?” Suddenly Hattie slapped me, right across the face.
“Hattie, Jeez! What’d you do that for?” I jumped to my feet, more shocked than hurt, but Hattie’s features were contorted with a pain of her own.
“Fool! How can such a smart girl be so damn stupid?! I’m worried about
“Benedetta?” came a voice, agitated, from my mother’s bedroom. “Benedetta!”
“Ma?” I walked past Hattie to my mother’s room, responding on autopilot. I opened the door and the cloying rosewater filled my nose. It was stifling, assaultive. I felt suddenly anxious. Panicky. I hurried to the window and flung it open. The cool night air billowed in the light curtains.
“Close the window!” my mother said. “Close the window!”
“Shhh, it’s staying open. Nobody’s out there. Settle down.” I breathed easier in the fresh air. “Stop worrying. Everything’s okay.”
“Did you do the dishes? Do the dishes, Bennie.”
“The dishes are done.”
“Do the dishes. Do the dishes.”
“They’re all done, Ma. Hattie did them.” I went to her bed and took her hand, which felt weak and warm in mine. I brushed a damp curl from her brow.
“Do the dishes. The dishes are in the sink.”
“Hattie did the dishes. They’re put away. They’re all done. How are you feeling? “
“It’s dark.” She tried to sit up, then flopped back on her pillow. “It’s late. You should go home. Go home. Go home.”
“I am home. Hattie told me you had some soup today. That was good.”
“It’s dark. It’s dark. Do the dishes. Do the dishes. Get me a Kleenex.”
“How are you?” I sat on the ancient bed, which creaked loudly. Another thing she wouldn’t let me replace.
“Get me a Kleenex. I need a Kleenex.”
“You don’t need a Kleenex, forget about the Kleenex. Did you really eat lunch today? Some soup?”
“I need it, I need it. It’s dark.” Her voice rose, thinning out with anxiety. “I need it. I need it. I need it.”
“All right, relax.” I pulled a Kleenex out of the box on her nightstand, and she grabbed it from me, balling it up and squeezing it like a pulsing heart. In a minute she’d be tearing it apart and fingering the pieces, then stuffing the shreds in the pockets of her nightgown. The rest she would hide under the chenille coverlet and in her pillowcase. “Is that better, Ma? You happy, you got your Kleenex?” I couldn’t keep the irritation from my voice. She went through a box of Kleenex a day, even though Hattie bought Family Size. We needed Crazy Family Size.
“Read to me. Read to me. Read to me. It’s dark.”
“Okay, fine.” I dragged a wooden chair over to the bed, kicked off my pumps in the dark, and put my feet into the well of the night-stand.
“Read to me. Read to me. Read to me.”
