She had been in the house almost a week when things took a turn for the worse.
“I’d like you to do something for me,” the European said.
“What?”
“I’d like you to find Mr. Toy. You do remember Mr. Toy?”
Of course she remembered. Not well, but she remembered. His broken nose, those cautious eyes that had always looked at her so sadly.
“Do you think you could locate him?”
“I don’t know how to.”
“Let your mind go to him. You know the way, Carys.”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“Because he’ll be expecting me. He’ll have defenses, and I’m too tired to fight with him at the moment.”
“Is he afraid of you?”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
“You were a babe in arms when Mr. Toy and I last met. He and I parted as enemies; he presumes we are still enemies . . .”
“You’re going to harm him,” she said.
“That’s my business, Carys.”
She stood, sliding up the wall against which she’d been slumped.
“I don’t think I want to find him for you.”
“Aren’t we friends?”
“No,” she said. “No. Never.”
“Come now.”
He stepped toward her. The broken hand touched her: the contact was feather-light.
“I think you are a ghost,” she said.
She left him standing in the corridor, and went up to the bathroom to think this through, locking the door behind her. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d harm Toy if she led him to the man.
“Carys,” he said quietly. He was outside the bathroom door. His proximity made her scalp creep.
“You can’t make me,” she said.
“Don’t tempt me.”
Suddenly the European’s face loomed in her head. He spoke again: “I knew you before you could walk, Carys. I’ve held you in my arms, often. You’ve sucked on my thumb.” He was speaking with his lips close to the door; his low voice reverberated in the wood she had her back against.
“It’s no fault of yours or mine that we were parted. Believe me, I’m glad you carry your father’s gifts, because he never used them. He never once understood the wisdom there was to be found with them. He squandered it all: for fame, for wealth. But you . . . I could teach you, Carys. Such things.”
The voice was so seductive it seemed to reach through the door and enfold her, the way his arms had, so many years ago. She was suddenly minute in his grasp; he cooed at her, made foolish faces to bring a cherubic smile to bloom.
“Just find Toy for me. Is it so much to ask for all my favors to you?”
She found herself rocking with the rhythm of his cradling.
“Toy never loved you,” he was saying, “nobody has ever loved you.”
That was a lie: and a tactical error. The words were cold water on her sleepy face. She was loved! Marty loved her. The runner; her runner.
Mamoulian sensed his miscalculation.
“Don’t defy me,” he said; the cooing had gone from his voice.
“Go to Hell,” she replied.
“As you wish . . .”
There was a falling note in his words, as though the issue was closed and done with. He didn’t leave his station by the door, however. She felt him close. Was he waiting for her to tire, and come out? she wondered. Persuasion by physical violence wasn’t his style, surely; unless he was going to use Breer. She hardened herself against the possibility. She’d claw his watery eyes out.
Minutes passed, and she was sure the European was still outside though she could hear neither movement or breath.
And then, the pipes began to rumble. Somewhere in the system, a tide was moving. The sink made a sucking sound, the water in the toilet bowl splashed, the toilet lid flapped open and slammed closed again as a gust of fetid air was discharged from below. This was his doing somehow, though it seemed a vacuous exercise. The toilet farted again: the smell was noxious.
“What’s happening?” she asked under her breath.
A gruel of filth had started to seep over the lip of the toilet and dribble onto the floor. Wormy shapes moved in it. She shut her eyes. This was a fabrication, conjured up by the European to subdue her mutiny: she would ignore it. But even with canceled sight the illusion persisted. The water splashed more loudly as the flood rose, and in the stream she heard wet heavy things flopping onto the bathroom floor.