“Michael!” I lower the weapon.
“You trying to shoot me?”
Bang!
He jumps down, covers his head.
“It’s just a game. We’re playing a game.”
He rises carefully, rubbing his head. “Funny game.”
Bang!
He flinches but stays standing. “I heard the noise. Thought they were all killing one another.”
I explain the Simunition to him. “You should leave. They’ve all gone crazy.”
“Are you kidding? This is the perfect time to go up to the house. See what’s not nailed down.”
I am about to tell him he can’t, like I always do, but this time I stop myself. I step aside. “Knock yourself out.”
He salutes me with pride, like I’ve passed some test, then hurries up the stairs.
Bang! Over our heads as I watch him vanish. Suddenly I don’t want to wait out the game. I want to play it. I want to have fun. I want to enjoy the game.
* * *
I FOLLOW THE path at the back of the house until I find an open door leading into the far section of the house. It’s quieter here. There is a stairwell that leads to the overhang above the entryway. I could take a spot up there, shoot them all down like a sniper.
Or there is a servants’ stairwell, darker and narrower but hidden, more secret. They will never see me coming.
I bound up the steps. They lead me into a dark hallway. I hear shots firing, but the sounds are far away, muffled. Still, the paintings rattle on the wall. The hallway is cluttered with dozens of oil-paint portraits, not of a person but of a red dog. The same dog I saw out walking every day. The same dog I saw dead on Graham’s front stoop. Margo’s dog.
The shots are sounding farther and farther away and I slow. I don’t want to leave the game. I’m going the wrong way. I am about to turn around when I hear a voice. “Hello? Viola? Where did you go? I need you. I need help!” I follow the voice to a gilt door cracked open at the end of the hall. That’s when I realize I am out-of-bounds. I am in Margo’s room.
She is perched in a bed as big as an ocean and just as turbulent. Frothy white blankets roll like waves across its surface. The room is a maze of mirrors. This house is like a fun house. I slowly step back. “Wait! I see you!”
I could run, but if she yells and someone comes, they will know I’m out-of-bounds. I’ll be thrown out of the game. I have to win.
So I freeze, straighten my dress, set my gun down on the side table.
Bang!
I put on my most subservient expression. “Can I help you, ma’am?” I step into the room. A portrait hangs over her bed, this one featuring a much younger Graham grinning with the red dog in a choke hold.
“Viola was supposed to rub my hands,” Margo protests, wringing her wrinkled palms.
I recognize Margo from the street. She was the woman who kept smiling at me. She doesn’t recognize me. She looks older, frailer than I remember. She has one of those faces that’s made for makeup, and without it she looks pinched and undefined.
“Where is everybody?”
This whole house is hers. And the one below and the guesthouse. All the houses and everything in them. Even Graham.
“I think they’re helping with the game,” I say. “I’d better get back to work.”
“Wait!” She frowns. “Who are you? I don’t remember your face.”
“I’m just here for tonight. Lyla asked me.”
Bang!
She covers her ears. “I can’t stand all this noise!” She shakes her jeweled hands. The noise stops for a while, long enough for her to catch her breath. “You’ll rub my hands, won’t you?” She stretches her fingers like claws. “I’m in the most terrible pain. And it’s always my hands that get it. All of my pain goes right to my hands.” She clenches and unclenches her fingers.
“Okay.” I need to leave, but I can’t run now. As I cross the room toward her, my nostrils fill with her heavy scent. It’s like a body in a bath of milk. It’s like death but more expensive. Up close, her face is a mask of fillers and stiffeners, swollen as a stone balloon. But her eyes are extraordinary. Even watery with age they have a purple cast.
She holds out her hands. “Help me. It’s all in my hands.” I reach for her and she grunts, “The lotion.” There is a bottle of Crème de la Mer on her bedside table. “Don’t be stingy.”
I scoop up fifty dollars’ worth. She takes off her rings one by one. They are as thick as teething toys. I rub her hands. They are old and crinkled, strung with bones. She deepens her breath. “Yes, that’s better. Can you believe my son is thirty today? I never thought he would live this long.” Her voice is low, confidential, like we are on intimate terms. Her staff is her best friends but also totally interchangeable. “You won’t believe the trouble it took to get him here, a boy like that! But he’s special, very special. He’s not like other people.”