Cinderella (7 page)

    "You don't have it with you?"

    "No, I don't. The police are investigating a homicide, Mrs. Nettington-"

    "You mean the
police
will be listening to that tape?"

    "There's a good possibility of that, yes."

    "Oh God," she said. "What's on it?"

    "Everything you wanted," Matthew said.

    "When can I hear it?"

    "I'll check with the police. I'm sure-"

    "I wish the goddamn
police
weren't in this," she said.

    "Yes, it's unfortunate that Otto was killed," Matthew said dryly.

    She looked at him, uncertain whether sarcasm had been intended.

    "Was your husband home on Sunday night?" he asked.

    She hesitated.

    "Mrs. Nettington?"

    She put the sunglasses on.

    "I don't know," she said. "I was out myself. I went to a movie with a girlfriend."

    "You didn't call home at any time Sunday night? From the theater? Or anyplace else?"

    "No."

    "Then you don't know whether your husband was here or not?"

    "I'm sorry. I don't."

    "What time did you get home, Mrs. Nettington?"

    "At a little past midnight. We stopped for a drink."

    "You didn't try calling your husband from where you were, did you? The bar, or the restaurant, or wherever."

    "We were at Marina Lou's. No, I didn't."

    "Was your husband here when you got home?"

    "Yes, he was in bed. Asleep."

    "But you have no idea if he was here all night or if he-"

    "No."

    "What movie did you see?"

    "
Dr. Zhivago.
For the fifth time," she said, and smiled. "They're showing it again at the Festival."

    "Up on the North Trail?"

    "Yes."

    "Good movie," he said. "Very romantic," she said. "Yes," he said. There was a long silence.

    "Mrs. Nettington," he said, "do you think your husband
knew
he was being followed?"

    "I have no idea."

    "He didn't say anything to you about it, did he?"

    "Nothing."

    "Didn't accuse you of hiring-"

    "No."

    "Didn't
hint
that he knew-"

    "No, nothing like that," she said, and then, in sudden realization, "You're asking exacdy what
they'll
ask, aren't you? Daniel will be a
suspect
in this, won't he? Because he was being
followed
by the man who was killed!" She swung her long legs over the side of the chaise, facing him now, lips compressed in a tight angry line, sunglasses reflecting the approaching storm clouds, towers of storm clouds hiding her green eyes, a cool wind blowing in suddenly off the bayou. "They'll ask Daniel where he was Sunday night, and Daniel will want to know
why
they want to know, and they'll have to tell him that a private investigator was killed, and my husband will ask what a private investigator has to do with Aim, and they'll say he was being followed by this man who was killed, your wife
hired
this man to follow you-and there goes my goddamn marriage down the drain!"

    "Mrs. Nettington," Matthew said, "I thought the reason you came to me-"

    "Not because I wanted
this
to happen!"

    "But… you told me… I'm sorry, but you said you were thinking of a divorce. You said that if your husband was in
fact-"

    "Never mind!" she said sharply.

    Matthew almost flinched.

    "Forget it," she said. "Thank you very much, Mr. Hope, please send me your man's report,
and
the tape, and of course your bill."

    He looked at her, still puzzled.

    "Go now, would you? Leave me alone, okay?"

    "Mrs. Nettington…"

    "Would you please
go?"
she said.

    

    

    Two men were sitting in Kate Carmody's living room when she got home from work that Tuesday afternoon. Both of them Hispanic. One of them clean-shaven and as slender as a toreador, the other one a huge man with a slick little mustache. The clean-shaven one was reading a copy of
People
when she came in. The one with the pencil-line mustache was cleaning his fingernails with a switchblade knife. Kate took one look and turned to run out of the apartment.

    The one with the knife was off the couch in a wink.

    He grabbed her shoulder, spun her away from the door, hurled her back across the room, and closed and locked the door. The other one put down the magazine and said, "Miss Carmody?" Heavy Spanish accent. She immediately thought
Miami.
She next thought
Alice.
This had something to do with her dumb junkie sister in Miami.

    "What do you want?" she said. "Who are you?"

    "Ernesto," he said, smiling. And then, indicating his pal, "Domingo."

    The one with the knife said nothing, and he didn't smile, either. He was the one who bothered her.

    "So what do you want here?" she said. She was frightened-two strange spies in her house, a knife that looked like a saber-but she was also annoyed. Come home after a day with Mickey Mouse, you wanted to grab a beer, change into some shorts and sandals. She was living in this really tiny place-closet-sized living room, kitchen too small even for roaches, a bedroom the size of a shoebox-six miles from Disney World, where she worked as a ticket taker for Jungle Cruise. She did not like working for Disney World, and she didn't like Orlando, Florida, either, but she kept telling herself this was only temporary. Florida was supposed to be water and boats, not the middle of a damn desert like Orlando. Wasn't for Disney World, nobody would've ever heard of Orlando. Orlando sounded like some kind of magician doing tricks in a sideshow. And now, ladies and germs, we are proud to introduce the
Great
Or
-lan-
do! Plus his two assistants, Ernesto and Domingo, who will show you how to break and enter a small apartment without using brute force. "How'd you get in here?" she asked Ernesto.

    "Jenny Santoro," he said. "Your sister."

    Accent you could cut with a machete. Jenny came out "Henny" and sister came out "seest'."

    "What about her?" Kate said. "Jenny, you mean? What about her?"

    "Where is she?"

    "How the hell do I know?" she said, and was starting to walk into the kitchen when Domingo stepped into her path.

    "I'm only going for a beer," she said. "You want a beer?
Una cerveza,"
she said. "You want one?" She turned to Ernesto. "How about you? You want a beer?"

    "I want to know where your sister is. Jenny Santoro. That is her name?"

    "Give or take," Kate said, thinking Jenny, Henny, six of one, half a dozen of the other. She went to the refrigerator, opened the door, took out a bottle of Bud, twisted off the cap, and drank straight from the bottle. "And she's not my
sister,
she's my stepsister.
Mi hermana politica."

    Not many Anglos knew the Spanish word for stepsister. Ernesto looked at her admiringly and then said,
"Usted habla espanol correctamente."

    "I picked some up in Puerto Rico," Kate said in English- no sense showing off and making mistakes. "I used to be a cocktail waitress in a casino down there."

    Ernesto nodded. Domingo was looking her over, appraising her legs, her ass, her breasts, his eyes roaming insolently. Ernesto hoped Domingo wouldn't cut her the way he had the other one. He was thinking she had no idea her sister was dead. Maybe this could be useful, her ignorance. He didn't know how yet, but he thought perhaps it could be.

    "You have two sisters,
verdad?"
he said, testing her.

    "Two," she said, nodding. "But only one of them's my
real
sister.
Mi propia hermana.
Alice. She lives in Miami Beach. The other one, I don't know where she is. Last I heard, it was L.A. Why?" she said, and looked first at one and then at the other.

    "We have to find your
hermana politica,"
Ernesto said.

    "That's the one in L.A. Have you tried L.A.?" she asked, making a joke-L.A. was so far away-but nobody smiled. "I haven't seen her in six years, it has to be. She left Miami when she was sixteen, went to New Orleans, I heard, and then Houston, and then L.A. is what my mother told me.
Seven
years, in feet."

    "Where does your mother live?" Ernesto asked.

    "In Venice."

    The two men looked at each other.

    "Not Venice,
Italy,
" Kate said. "Venice,
Florida.
Near Sarasota. About fifteen, twenty miles south of Sarasota."

    "Does
she
know where your sister is?"

    "Jenny? I got no idea."

    "But she was the one who told you Jenny was in Los Angeles,
verdad?
"

    "Yes," she said. He pronounced it so pretty.
Los Angeles.
The Spanish way.
Los
to rhyme with "gross," the first syllable of
Angeles
sounding like "ahn," all of it so pretty. But the other one had a knife.

    "Did she also tell you when your sister was in Houston?"

    "I guess it was her told me, yes," Kate said.

    "Your mother,
verdad?
"

    "Yes."

    "Whose name is?"

    "Annie."

    "Carmody?"

    "No, Santoro. She remarried. I told you, Jenny's my-"

    "And she lives where? Your mother?"

    "I told you where."

    "Venice, you said."

    "Yes."

    "Do you have the address?"

    "Yes," she said.

    "Will you give it to me, please?" Ernesto said.

    Kate looked at the knife in Domingo's hand.

    "Yes," she said, and went into the bedroom for her address book.

    Ernesto gestured with his head for Domingo to follow her. Domingo went into the bedroom. The telephone was on the bedside night table, and Kate was sitting on the edge of the bed, leafing through her address book when he came into the room. The telephone rang as he walked through the door. Without once thinking they might not want her to answer the phone, she picked up the receiver.

    "Hello?" she said.

    Domingo came across the room at once.

    "Katie?"

    "Yes?"

    He was standing in front of her now.

    "It's Mother."

    "Oh, hi, Mom," she said, and covered the mouthpiece. "My mother," she said to Domingo. She uncovered the mouthpiece and was about to say that two men were here asking for her address when her mother said, "Alice is dead."

    "What?" she said.

    "Alice. She was killed yesterday in Miami Beach."

    "Oh my God!" Kate said.

    "She was stabbed," her mother said, and suddenly the phone was trembling in Kate's hand. "The police called me five minutes ago. Took them all that time to locate me. Because my name is different, you know? My last name. They think it was drug-related. They really don't know, Katie. They see an addict, they automatically figure drug-related."

    "Oh God, Mom," Kate said.

    She got up suddenly, moving away from Domingo, trying to find some room for herself in the narrow space between the bed and the wall, Domingo still there crowding her, the open knife in his right hand.

    "I have to go to Miami to identify the body," her mother said. "Can you meet me there?"

    "When?" Kate asked.

    Domingo was watching her, listening to her end of the conversation.

    "I thought I'd drive over there tonight. They're holding her body in the morgue, they need a positive ID."

    "I… uh… I don't know, Mom. I have to go to work tomorrow, tomorrow's a workday. If you can handle it alone…"

    "This is your
sister,
" her mother said.

    "I know she's my sister…"

    Domingo looked suddenly alert.

    "So?" her mother said.

    "I'll have to call you back later," Kate said.

    "I'm going to need help with the funeral arrangements, too."

    "Let me see what I can do about work, okay, Mom? Can I call you back?"

    "I won't be leaving for a while yet."

    "All right, I'll get back to you," she said, and put the receiver back on the cradle.

    Ernesto was standing in the doorway to the room. She wondered how long he'd been there.

    "Your mother?" he said.

    "Yes."

    "What did she want?"

    Kate hesitated.

    "Yes?" Ernesto said.

    "She… she…"

    "
Le contd de su hermana,"
Domingo said.

    "No, she didn't!" Kate said.

    
"Did
she tell you about your sister?" Ernesto asked. "That your sister is dead?"

    Kate said nothing. If they
knew
her sister was dead… oh my God, if they
knew…

    Ernesto sighed deeply, and nodded to Domingo.

    Kate broke for the door, screaming, tripping over Domingo's immediately extended leg and foot, falling headlong across the room, twisting so she wouldn't land square on her face, her left cheek nonetheless colliding with the floor. Pain rocketed into her skull but she started to get to her feet at once, coming up like a runner, palms flat on the floor, legs behind her and ready to push off, ready to propel her toward that bedroom door and into the living room, and out the front door and down the stairs to the street, screaming all the way. But Domingo jumped on her back and knocked her to the floor again, straddling her like a rider on a fallen animal, his left hand grabbing for her long hair, twisting it in his fist, pulling back on it, head and chin rising, his right hand-the hand with the knife-coming around her body instantly and slashing swiftly across her throat.