“I guess it was her told me, yes,” Kate said.
“Your mother, verdad?”
“Yes.”
“Whose name is?”
“Annie.”
“Carmody?”
“No, Santoro. She remarried. I told you, Jenny’s my—”
“And she lives where? Your mother?”
“I told you where.”
“Venice, you said.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the address?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Will you give it to me, please?” Ernesto said.
Kate looked at the knife in Domingo’s hand.
“Yes,” she said, and went into the bedroom for her address book.
Ernesto gestured with his head for Domingo to follow her. Domingo went into the bedroom. The telephone was on the bedside night table, and Kate was sitting on the edge of the bed, leafing through her address book when he came into the room. The telephone rang as he walked through the door. Without once thinking they might not want her to answer the phone, she picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” she said.
Domingo came across the room at once.
“Katie?”
“Yes?”
He was standing in front of her now.
“It’s Mother.”
“Oh, hi, Mom,” she said, and covered the mouthpiece. “My mother,” she said to Domingo. She uncovered the mouthpiece and was about to say that two men were here asking for her address when her mother said, “Alice is dead.”
“What?” she said.
“Alice. She was killed yesterday in Miami Beach.”
“Oh my God!” Kate said.
“She was stabbed,” her mother said, and suddenly the phone was trembling in Kate’s hand. “The police called me five minutes ago. Took them all that time to locate me. Because my name is different, you know? My last name. They think it was drug-related. They really don’t know, Katie. They see an addict, they automatically figure drug-related.”
“Oh God, Mom,” Kate said.
She got up suddenly, moving away from Domingo, trying to find some room for herself in the narrow space between the bed and the wall, Domingo still there crowding her, the open knife in his right hand.
“I have to go to Miami to identify the body,” her mother said. “Can you meet me there?”
“When?” Kate asked.
Domingo was watching her, listening to her end of the conversation.
“I thought I’d drive over there tonight. They’re holding her body in the morgue, they need a positive ID.”
“I... uh... I don’t know, Mom. I have to go to work tomorrow, tomorrow’s a workday. If you can handle it alone...”
“This is your sister,” her mother said.
“I know she’s my sister...”
Domingo looked suddenly alert.
“So?” her mother said.
“I’ll have to call you back later,” Kate said.
“I’m going to need help with the funeral arrangements, too.”
“Let me see what I can do about work, okay, Mom? Can I call you back?”
“I won’t be leaving for a while yet.”
“All right, I’ll get back to you,” she said, and put the receiver back on the cradle.
Ernesto was standing in the doorway to the room. She wondered how long he’d been there.
“Your mother?” he said.
“Yes.”
“What did she want?”
Kate hesitated.
“Yes?” Ernesto said.
“She... she...”
“Le contó de su hermana,” Domingo said.
“No, she didn’t!” Kate said.
“Did she tell you about your sister?” Ernesto asked. “That your sister is dead?”
Kate said nothing. If they knew her sister was dead... oh my God, if they knew...
Ernesto sighed deeply, and nodded to Domingo.
Kate broke for the door, screaming, tripping over Domingo’s immediately extended leg and foot, falling headlong across the room, twisting so she wouldn’t land square on her face, her left cheek nonetheless colliding with the floor. Pain rocketed into her skull but she started to get to her feet at once, coming up like a runner, palms flat on the floor, legs behind her and ready to push off, ready to propel her toward that bedroom door and into the living room, and out the front door and down the stairs to the street, screaming all the way. But Domingo jumped on her back and knocked her to the floor again, straddling her like a rider on a fallen animal, his left hand grabbing for her long hair, twisting it in his fist, pulling back on it, head and chin rising, his right hand — the hand with the knife — coming around her body instantly and slashing swiftly across her throat.
Her eyes opened wide.
She saw blood gushing from her throat in a torrent.
A scream bubbled soundlessly in her mouth.
In an instant, she was dead.
Domingo wiped the blade of his knife on her skirt, and then ran his hand up her thigh to her panties. Ernesto watched him and said nothing. He tore the page with Anne Santoro’s address and phone number from the address book, and then walked toward the bedroom door.
“Vienes?” he asked.
Domingo nodded.
5
At ten o’clock on Wednesday morning, Matthew remembered that he had to call Susan about the Father’s Day weekend. He did not much feel like making this particular call. On his desk were copies of the two files he had Xeroxed at Otto Samalson’s office on Monday. Matthew wanted to read those files more thoroughly than he had yesterday, when he’d only briefly glanced through them. He had asked Cynthia Huellen, the firm’s factotum, not to put through any calls. But now he was about to make one. To Susan. Who, on Sunday night, had left his bedroom in a huff.
Years ago, when there were still some laughs left in their marriage, he and Susan had defined a “huff” as a “small two-wheeled carriage.” A person who went off in a huff was therefore a somewhat lower-class individual who could not afford to hire or own a “high dudgeon.” A high dudgeon was one of those big old expensive four-wheelers. A person who went off in “high dudgeon” was usually quite well off. A person who was in a “tizzy,” however, was truly rich since a tizzy was a luxurious coach drawn by a great team of horses to a stately mansion called “Sixes and Sevens.” All at Sixes and Sevens were in a tizzy save for Tempest, the youngest daughter, who was in a “teapot.” A teapot was even smaller than a huff, about the size of a cart, but fitted with a striped parasol that...
And so it had gone.
In the days when their marriage was still alive.
These days, their marriage was as dead as old Aunt Hattie, who had left Sixes and Sevens in a “trice,” which was a flat-bedded vehicle used to transport coffins. Dead and gone. Like all things mortal. Which is why he had no burning desire to talk to Susan today. But place the call he did. Dialed the number by heart — used to be his number, after all — dialed all seven numerals, and waited. Listened to the ringing on the other end. Waited. Five... six... seven... all at Sixes and Sevens...
“Hello?”
Susan’s voice.
“Susan, hi, it’s Matthew.”
“Matthew! I was just about to call you!”
“I wanted to discuss arrangements for the weekend,” he said. Business as usual. Forget the foolish hugging and kissing on Sunday. “You do remember it’s...?”
“Father’s Day, yes, of course,” she said. “But, Matthew, first I want to apologize for Sunday night.”
“There’s no need.”
“I’m so ashamed, I could die.”
“Well, really...”
“That’s why I was calling,” she said. “To apologize. I’m genuinely sorry, Matthew.”