Now their eyes went to the house, and though they said nothing, the same thought went through all their melancholy heads.
Maybe tonight, something would change. Maybe tonight, with this man in her company, the Queen of Sorrows would make a mistake …
A few of them began to move in the general direction of the house, attempting to seem casual, but fixing their silvery eyes on their destination.
A bank of cloud had come in off the Pacific and covered both moon and stars. On the ridge of the opposite side of the Canyon some of the grotesque offspring of these weary beauties began a wordless howling in the darkness. The sound was loud enough to carry down the hill to Sunset and the Beverly Hill flats. Several valets parking cars for a private party on Rexford Drive paused to comment on the weird din from up in the hills; a couple of patients, close to death at Cedars-Sinai, called for their priests; a man who lived next door to the house on Van Nuys where Lyle and Eric Menendez had murdered their mother and father, decided — hearing the sound — to give up screenwriting and move back to Wisconsin.
Todd heard it too, of course.
“What in God’s name is that?”
He and Katya were deep in the bowels of the house, in a place he had never known existed, much less explored.
“Take no notice,” Katya told him, as the noise came again, even louder and more plaintive. “Whatever it is, it’s out there, it’s not in here with us.” She took hold of his arm, and kissed his cheek. He could smell Ava on her. His erection still throbbed. “Are you ready?” she said to him.
“Ready for what?”
They were approaching a door just a little smaller than the front door; and similarly medieval in style.
“On the other side of that door is something that was given to me a long time ago. It changed my life. As I told you, it will also change yours. When you first get in there, it’s bewildering. You just have to trust me. I’m going to be with you all the time, even if you can’t always see me. And I swear no harm is going to come to you. You understand me, Todd? This is my house. Even this place, which will seem very remote from everything you’ve seen so far, is also mine.”
He didn’t know quite what to make of any of this, but his curiosity was certainly piqued.
“So don’t be afraid,” she told him.
“I won’t be,” he said, wondering what kind of game she was playing now. She, who knew so many; what did she have up her sleeve?
As had happened so many times now, she read his thoughts. “This isn’t a game,” she said. “Or if it is, it’s the most serious game in God’s creation.”
There was surely a trace of condescension here, but what the hell?
“I’m ready,” he said.
She smiled. “In half an hour you’ll realize what an absurd thing it is you’ve just said,” she told him.
“Why?”
“Because nobody can be ready for this.”
Then she pushed open the door.
Before Tammy went to find Todd, she had to eat. Had to.
So, while Todd was stepping over the threshold into a place that would change his life, Tammy was in the kitchen three stories above, at the open fridge, gorging on whatever her hands found. Cold chicken, potato salad, some Chinese takeaway.
“Do we have to do this now?” Zeffer said, looking around nervously. “She could come in here at any minute.”
“Yes, well let her. I’m hungry, Willem. In fact I’m fucking starving. Give me a hand here, will you?”
“What do you want?”
“Something sweet. Then I’m done.”
He dug around on the inner shelves of the fridge and found an almost-intact cherry pie, the sight of which made Tammy coo the way most women cooed when they saw babies. Zeffer watched her with an expression of bemusement on his face. She was too hungry to care. She lifted a slice of pie to her mouth, but before she could get it to her tongue, Zeffer caught hold of her wrist.