I shiver, repelled. Maybe a little jealous of how easy it is for him to take. “No, thank you.”
“Where is she?” He takes a long gulp.
“How did you find me?” I counterquestion.
“I followed you the other night.” He sips speculatively. His eyes follow the ceiling. “I was gonna wait for you but I ended up in this garden. This place is like a maze. Have you seen the castle on the hill?”
I stop my eyes from darting to where her body lies. It’s lucky that it’s dark. It’s lucky that it’s crowded and strange and haunted, the type of place a body fits right in.
“She’s away. She had to go away for a while, but she wanted someone to keep an eye on the place.”
“A while,” he repeats. His smile disappears fast but I see it. Never kid a kidder. He knows something is wrong, but he could never guess what.
Suddenly, he crosses the room, walks right toward Demi as if guided by God. He stops just short of her body and he looks at the books on the shelves.
“The Kid Was a Killer,” he reads, removing the red-and-yellow paperback from the bookcase and slipping it in his back pocket. “I bet you she doesn’t even reads these, bet you she has them because of the way they look.” He talks like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, but it’s an act I think he cultivates. In LA, the best actors are acting for their lives.
“I bet,” I repeat, trying to think of how I can get rid of him fast.
“Hmm.” He takes another long pull of his beer; then he swivels, lands hard on the couch. “Makes sense, you house-sitting.” He stretches his arms along the back of the couch. “Who doesn’t invite a homeless woman they just met to house-sit?”
“I’m not a homeless woman,” I snap. “And she wanted to help me. She said I was smart.” The screech of the gate ricochets down from above.
“They know you’re here?”
“Of course they do.”
“What a lucky break.” He pounds his chest until he burps. “When’s she coming back again?”
“Soon.”
He nods, finishes the drink and sets the can carefully on a coaster. Then he stands. “Lot of nice things in here. Valuable, I bet.”
“You can’t take anything. She’s coming back.”
He nods again. “Still. She couldn’t notice everything. Things go missing all the time. Maybe just something small? What do you think?”
“No.” I set my chin.
“Jewelry. A little ring or something. Something she wouldn’t notice.”
I swallow again. I feel stiff all through me. I feel stupid. This was all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone to the market. I shouldn’t have left the house. I should have locked the doors and hid.
I go to the jewelry closet; I slide out one thin drawer.
Michael lights up and strides over. He smells of urine and my nose twitches like I am twenty-four hours and a whole world away from him.
“This one. And she probably won’t miss this either. Or this.” He fills his pockets with diamonds and pearls. He can’t help himself.
“Michael, we don’t want to get caught.”
“Sure,” he says, sliding one last ring into his pocket. “When she comes back.” His eyes have this beautiful lilt to them, lashes darkening on the ends. In another life, he could have been anything: a drowsy playboy, a Greek archer, a serial killer in a broken-down truck waiting for his next victim to come along and save him.
Like every poor man I know, like my father, he has this air of having chosen this life—more, of having stolen it. But I guess that, like my father, there are nights when it hits him—all at once because he stores it away—that none of his dreams have ever really come true.
“You should leave,” I say. “I’m not supposed to have anyone over.”
He doesn’t look concerned. “I want a shower.”
“What?”
“I want a shower. You got one.” I feel a wave of guilt. It will be the death of me.
“Okay. But we have to hurry.” I lead him quickly to the bathroom, eager to get him away from the body at least. I forget about the door until it stops me in my tracks.
It yaws like an abandoned horror movie set.
He goes still, clicking the scene into place. “What happened here?”
“I don’t know,” I decide, looking at the axed door. “It was like that when I got here.”
He clucks his tongue, then passes through the busted door and shuts it behind him. I can hear every move he makes as he takes off his clothes, as he climbs into the shower. The steam oozes through the break in the door, filling the house with a balmy hothouse scent.