“I looked after you, didn’t I?” Katya said to Jerry. “When you didn’t have a friend in the world, I was there for you, wasn’t I? And now you let this happen.”
“It wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t stop it.”
Katya was right in front of him now, her palm flat against his chest. She didn’t seem to be exerting any pressure, but whatever power she was exercising through her hand was enough to make him sink back against the wall.
“It wasn’t your doing?” Katya said incredulously.” “You could have killed her. That would have stopped her interfering.”
“Killed her?” Jerry said, plainly horrified at the idea; as though he’d not realized until now that the stakes were so high, or that the prospect of murder-casual, inevitable-was so close. Perhaps, most of all, not realizing that the woman he’d obviously fallen in love with should now show herself to be as cold as the Queen of Hell.
“You little fake!” Katya said, putting her hand on Jerry’s head and ripping at the hair sewn into his scalp. She pulled, and a flap of skin came away in her hand. Blood ran down over Jerry’s face. “Jesus, Katya,” Todd said. “There’s no need — ”
“No need to what?” she broke in, her face perfect in its fury, those wonderful bones, that exquisite symmetry, finding in rage its best purpose. “No need to punish him? He knows what he did.”
She tossed away the flap of hair and skin and slapped Jerry across his face. Tammy had witnessed this kind of cruelty from her before; the last time Zeffer had been its target. And, just like Zeffer, Jerry seemed almost mesmerized by her show of fury, powerless to defend himself against her.
But Tammy wasn’t about to watch him kicked half to death the way Zeffer had been kicked, even if in some twisted way Brahms was ready to accept that fate.
“You know how pathetic you are?” she said to Katya. “Slapping around old men? Pathetic. He didn’t do anything down there. I did it. I did it all. Tell her, Todd.”
“It wasn’t Jerry’s fault. It wasn’t Tammy’s, either.”
“Yours, then?” Katya said, shifting her burning gaze to Todd.
As she spoke she put her hand on Jerry’s face and pushed him. He reached out to stop himself tumbling back down the stairs, but there was nothing to catch hold of. Down he went, head over heels.
Tammy peered over the stairwell. Jerry was sprawled at the bottom, still breathing, but apparently unconscious. She was almost grateful. Better Katya dismiss him, and come after her instead. She could still run; she could still defend herself. And she certainly wasn’t about to be hypnotized by the bitch’s gaze.
She didn’t wait for Katya to start up the flight in pursuit of her. She left the banister and headed into the kitchen.
“She’s crazy.”
It was Todd. He’d followed her in, shaking his head. “You gotta go!” he said to Tammy.
“Catch her!” Katya yelled. She was obviously taking her sweet time coming up the stairs, confident, even now, that she had this under control. “Todd? You hear me? Catch her!”
“What are you: her dog!” Tammy said, “Is that what she’s reduced you to?”
“Just go,” Todd said. “She’s all I’ve got left.”
“She’ll kill you too if it suits her,” Tammy said. “You know it.”
“Don’t say that,” Todd begged. “I’ve got to stay with her. If I don’t, what have I got? You were at the party! You heard what they said. It’s all over for me. I don’t have anything left, except her. She loves me, Tammy.”
“No she doesn’t.”
“She does.”
“No! She’s just using you. That isn’t love.”
“Who the hell are you to say — ”
” — as good as anybody else. Better, where you’re concerned. The years I wasted thinking about you.”
“Wasted?”
“Yes, wasted. I wanted you to love me. But you never did. Now you want her to love you. And she won’t. Not ever. She’s incapable of love.”
It hurt him to hear that. It hurt because he believed her, much as he didn’t want to. It was the truth. She knew it, and so — to judge by those despairing eyes of his — did he. His gaze went to the window. He studied the glass for a time.