“That’s it,” Mimi said. “That’s exactly what he did, Nick.”
I said to Gilbert: “You don’t think he killed her.”
“No, I don’t think he did, but I’d like to know why you don’t think so–you know–your method.”
“And I’d like to know yours.”
His face flushed a little and there was some embarrassment in his smile. “Oh, but I–it’s different.”
“He knows who killed her,” Dorothy said from the doorway. She was still dressed. She stared at me fixedly, as if afraid to look at anybody else. Her face was pale and she held her small body stiffly erect.
Nora opened her eyes, pushed herself up on an elbow, and asked, “What?” sleepily. Nobody answered her.
Mimi said: “Now, Dorry, don’t let’s have one of those idiotic dramatic performances.”
Dorothy said: “You can beat me after they’ve gone. You will.” She said it without taking her eyes off mine.
Mimi tried to look as if she did not know what her daughter was talking about.
“Who does he know killed her?” I asked.
Gilbert said: “You’re making an ass of yourself, Dorry, you’re–”
I interrupted him: “Let her. Let her say what she’s got to say. Who killed her, Dorothy?”
She looked at her brother and lowered her eyes and no longer held herself erect. Looking at the floor, she said indistinctly: “I don’t know. He knows.” She raised her eyes to mine and began to tremble. “Can’t you see I’m afraid?” she cried. “I’m afraid of them. Take me away and I’ll tell you, but I’m afraid of them.”
Mimi laughed at me. “You asked for it. It serves you right.”
Gilbert was blushing. “It’s so silly,” he mumbled.
I said: “Sure, I’ll take you away, but I’d like to have it out now while we’re all together.”
Dorothy shook her head. “I’m afraid.”
Mimi said: “I wish you wouldn’t baby her so, Nick. It only makes her worse. She–”
I asked Nora: “What do you say?”
She stood up and stretched without lifting her arms. Her face was pink and lovely as it always is when she has been sleeping. She smiled drowsily at me and said: “Let’s go home. I don’t like these people. Come on, get your hat and coat, Dorothy.”
Mimi said to Dorothy: “Go to bed.”
Dorothy put the tips of the fingers of her left hand to her mouth and whimpered through them: “Don’t let her beat me, Nick.”
I was watching Mimi, whose face wore a placid half-smile, but her nostrils moved with her breathing and I could hear her breathing.
Nora went around to Dorothy. “Come on, we’ll wash your face and–”
Mimi made an animal noise in her throat, muscles thickened on the back of her neck, and she put her weight on the balls of her feet.
Nora stepped between Mimi and Dorothy. I caught Mimi by a shoulder as she started forward, put my other arm around her waist from behind, and lifted her off her feet. She screamed and hit back at me with her fists and her hard sharp high heels made dents in my shins.
Nora pushed Dorothy out of the room and stood in the doorway watching us. Her face was very live. I saw it clearly, sharply: everything else was blurred. When clumsy, ineffectual blows on my back and shoulder brought me around to find Gilbert pommeling me, I could see him but dimly and I hardly felt the contact when I shoved him aside. “Cut it out. I don’t want to hurt you, Gilbert.” I carried Mimi over to the sofa and dumped her on her back on it, sat on her knees, got a wrist in each hand.
Gilbert was at me again. I tried to pop his kneecap, but kicked him too low, kicked his leg from under him. He went down on the floor in a tangle. I kicked at him again, missed, and said: “We can fight afterwards. Get some water.”
Mimi’s face was becoming purple. Her eyes protruded, glassy, senseless, enormous. Saliva bubbled and hissed between clenched teeth with her breathing, and her red throat–her whole body–was a squirming mass of veins and muscles swollen until it seemed they must burst. Her wrists were hot in my hands and sweat made them hard to hold.