“No.” Karen had tightened slightly. Or maybe it was just his imagination. “No, you’re right. Like I said, I’ll talk to him.” She lifted her glass and let the liquid flow past her lips. She was lovely; he could not deny the fact. And she was a strong woman, though not strong enough to let his comment about Helen pass, hypothetical or not.
She spoke, smoothing her skirt, looking down. “It isn’t true though, is it, Jan?”
“What isn’t true?” he asked. He knew of course, and his heart was hammering in his chest.
“You’re not in love with this woman.” She looked at him. “With this Helen.”
He would have answered. Sure he would have. What he would have said he’d never know, because suddenly it was neither his voice nor Karen’s speaking in the stillness. It was another.
“Hello.”
They looked toward the basement entrance together. She stood there with her blond hair in tangles, smiling innocently. Helen.
Helen! Heat washed down Jan’s back. He shot a quick glance at Karen, who was staring, stunned. She’d never met Helen so she could not know . . .
Then Helen changed that as well. She walked forward and extended her hand to Karen. “Hi, I’m Helen.”
Karen stood and mechanically reached out her hand. “This is Karen,” Jan said.
“Hi, Karen.”
“Hello, Helen,” Karen returned. But she wasn’t smiling. Jan rose from his seat and they stood there awkwardly, Karen to his right and Helen to his left, staring at each other in very different ways. Helen as if wondering what the big deal was, and Karen as if she’d just been stabbed in the back with a ten-inch bowie. It was an impossible moment, but Jan knew that there was no chance of rescuing it.
And then he knew something else, staring at these two women side by side. He knew that he loved the woman on the left. He loved Helen. Somehow seeing them side by side, there was simply no question of it. It was the first time that he’d held both in his mind and seen their places in his heart. To Helen he was even now giving his love, and to Karen his empathy.
He cleared his throat. “Helen’s staying with me for a few days while she gets back on her feet. I’m sorry, I should have told you.”
Karen glared at him. “Back on her feet? And here I thought it was you who was receiving all the attention. Or is that bandage something you picked up at the dime store?”
“Karen . . .” He shook his head. “No, it’s not like that—”
“Then what is it like, Jan? You take me for a fool?” The daggers from her eyes tore at his heart.
No, Karen! It’s not like that! I do care for you!
But you love Helen.
“Please—”
“Save your breath.” She was already walking for the front door. “If you need me, do us both a favor and call Roald.” Then, with a slam of the door, she was gone.
For a long moment Jan and Helen just stared at that closed door in silence. “Maybe I should go,” Helen finally said.
“No! No, please don’t leave me.”
“She seemed so . . . hurt.”
“But it’s not you. It’s me. It’s my love for you.”
She thought about that for a few moments, and then she came to him and put her head on his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, don’t be.” He stroked her hair. “Please don’t be.”
NEVER BEFORE had Helen felt so chosen. It was how she came to see the meeting with Karen. She’d been chosen by Jan. Not chosen as Jan’s girl, necessarily, or even as the woman who belonged in this crazy scenario. Just . . . chosen. To think of it beyond that led only to confusion. And whom had
she
chosen? Glenn or Jan?
Jan.
On Thursday, Jan emerged without the head wrap. It had been a week since his attack; four days since his hospital visit; three days since Helen’s return. The two-inch cut above his right ear was healing remarkably well. He carried himself like someone who’d just discovered a great secret, and Helen caught him looking at her strangely on occasion, as if there was something in her eyes that threw him for a loop. At times he seemed to have difficulty keeping his gaze from her. Not that she minded. Goodness, no! She didn’t know what to do with it, but she certainly didn’t mind.
He made mention of a man named Roald a few times, a man associated with his work. Something about the fact that Roald would just have to adjust. They seemed busier that day, eager for the day to run its course. Several times she heard Jan and Ivena talking in soft tones, and she let them have their space. If the talk concerned her, she didn’t care. Actually, it probably did concern her—what else would they be discussing concerning the police and Glenn? But hearing this she wanted to interfere even less.
She continued her reading of
The Dance of the Dead
, and it struck her that the central character in the book was perhaps the most profound person she’d heard of or read about. The fact that his name was Jan Jovic and that he was in the next room talking to Ivena, the mother of the daughter, Nadia, was difficult to believe. The fact that he had winked at her no less than three times that very day was mind numbing. She had winked back, of course, and he’d turned red each time.
Ivena left at five o’clock, after a long talk with Jan in the backyard. They were up to no good, those two. “I will see you tomorrow, Helen,” she announced wearing a grand grin. “Behave yourself and don’t let Janjic out of your sight. He is trouble-prone, you know.” She winked.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Ivena.”
Jan walked up behind her. “We’re not children, Ivena.”
“I know. And this is supposed to comfort me?”
They laughed and Ivena was off in her little gray Bug.
She’d been gone for less than ten minutes before Jan entered the living room and made his grand announcement. “Helen, I think that you owe me a date. Am I right?”
She laughed nervously. “I guess.”
“You guess? Either I am right or I’m not, my dear. Which is it?”
“You’re right. I did stand you up, didn’t I?”
“Well then, shall we?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“To where?”
“Ah, but that would ruin my surprise.”
“Wearing this?” she asked, indicating her jeans and T-shirt.
“You look lovely.”
She stood, smiling nervously. “You’re saying that you want to take me on a date now? Right now?”
“Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
“You’re sure?”
“I insist. Have I given you any other impression since you first came back?”
“No.”
He smiled very wide. “Okay, then.” He stretched out his hand.
Helen touched it . . . then took it. “Okay, then.”
IT HAD been a bad week for Glenn Lutz. A very bad week indeed.
Homicide detective Charlie Wilks and another cop, Parsons, sat across from him in black suede guest chairs, the only furniture in the office other than his desk. They sat with crossed legs, their hands in their laps, avoiding his direct glare, isolated in the top story of the East Tower. They, like the Atlanta sky beyond the great glass wall to their left, wore a gray pallor of death.
Glenn was losing his patience with them. In fact, he’d lost his patience long before their arrival, when Beatrice had first informed him that Charlie needed to see him. It meant that the slime-ball preacher had whined like some two-bit hooker.
“So you receive one call from some lowlife preacher and you come whimpering to me? Is that all the esteemed Atlanta police force is good for these days? Can’t you go find yourselves a cat to haul from a tree or something?”
“If we were talking about one call from some lowlife preacher, we wouldn’t be here and you know it, Glenn,” Charlie returned. “We interviewed him in the hospital and we checked the guy out. He’s one of the most popular religious figures in America.” The detective nodded to a copy of
The Dance of the Dead
sitting on Glenn’s desk. “A fact you seem to have familiarized yourself with already.”
“Yeah, so the guy’s a writer. Does that make his word better than mine? I thought we had an understanding.”
“We do have an understanding. You keep your habits out of the public, and I won’t throw any fits. This Jan character is definitely a public man.”
“Actually, as I recall, the understanding was you keep your hands off and I get you elected.”
Wilks smiled uneasily and turned pink around the collar. “Come on, Glenn. I’m not a magician. You can’t expect me to keep my hands in my pockets every time you haul some upstanding citizen in and beat him up. Who’s next, the mayor?”
“This punk’s not the mayor, and I’m not saying that I did beat him. And as far as Mayor Burkhouse is concerned, he may be the mayor today, but you just remind him that he
is
up for re-election in nine months.”
Charlie scowled briefly. “Come on, Glenn. Come on, man, we all go way back. All I’m saying is that there are ways and there are ways, you know what I mean? Not everyone’s attention is best arrested by a club to the head. I don’t need you upsetting the balance we have by making a public display of people like this Jan fellow.”
Glenn looked at the detective and thought about reaching into the desk drawer for his revolver. Put a hole in that forehead. That was absurd, of course. He might have this city by the short hairs, but that was
because of,
not in spite of, men like Charlie here.
He glanced at the book on his desk. Jan Jovic was no louse. He’d been through more than most; had to hand him credit there. There was as of yet no conclusive evidence that Helen had gone back to him, but if it surfaced that she had, Glenn would have to kill the preacher, that much he knew with certainty. It was one thing for a man to stumble onto your possession and mistakenly think it his for a time. It was another thing for that man to be schooled in the matter for a couple of days and then still have the gall to take what was not his.
Glenn placed his hand on the book and tapped its red cover lightly. “This man isn’t doing me any favors, Charlie. If he touches my girl, I’m gonna have to kill him. She’s been gone for two days now, and if it turns out that she even went near him, I’m gonna have to put a slug in his head. You know that, don’t you?”
Charlie lifted his hands in resignation. “No, I don’t know that, Glenn. This guy made a complaint, for crying out loud! He turns up dead and I’m supposed to say what? ‘Oh, well, let’s never mind that one’?”
“He came here to threaten me. I defended myself. That’s the story. And you watch your tone in my office! Do something useful—go find Helen. You should be turning this punk’s house inside out but instead you’re here telling me how to run my business.”
Charlie shook his head slowly. “I can’t cover up everything. Some things have a life of their own, and I’m telling you this is one of them.”
The man needed a lesson in respect, Glenn thought bitterly.
“Did you know that Delmont Pictures just announced a movie deal with this guy?” Charlie asked. “That book there is slated to be on the silver screen soon, and you’re sitting here talking about taking out its main character. You think I can cover that up?”
Glenn squinted. “Delmont Pictures? Delmont Pictures is making a film about
this
guy?”
“That’s right. News to you, I take it. Maybe if you took a bath and got your head out of that powder now and then, you’d know what—”
“Shut up!” Glenn shoved a huge hand toward the door. “Get out!”
They stood to their feet. Detective Parsons was wide-eyed, but Charlie was not as easily influenced as he once was. He’d seen this all before—one too many times, it appeared.
“Out, out, out!” Glenn jabbed his forefinger at the door.
“We’re getting out, Glenn. But you remember what I said. I can only do so much. Don’t cut your own throat.”
“Out!” Glenn thundered.
They left.
It had been a bad week. A very bad week indeed.
JAN DROVE the Cadillac in silence, his stomach floating with anticipation, exchanging amused glances with Helen and generally ignoring her questions as to their destination.
She had brought the magic into his house with those blue eyes, Jan thought. She had appeared at his doorstep dressed in her wrinkled dress, trying so hard to find acceptance, feeling despondent and puny, when all the while it was
she
who carried the power.
She!
It was a power to intoxicate with a single look. The magic to send him to the ground, weak-kneed, with a casual glance. The ability to squeeze his heart with the delicate shift of her hand. She could move her chin, just so, to ask for some more bacon or another glass of tea, and his breathing might thicken right there at the table. It was a raw power, maddening and exhilarating at once. And it was she who possessed it.
Helen.
If she only knew this—if she could only grasp her hold over his thoughts, if she too could feel, actually
feel
this same love for him—they could rule the world together. Never mind that she was from the street, it was nothing in the face of these emotions that swept through him.
But she didn’t know her own power, he thought. Not the way he knew it. Well, tonight that might change. And the thought of it made Jan’s stomach rise to his chest as he pulled the Cadillac along the deserted drive, toward the dead end.
“This is it?” Helen asked.
“What time is it?”
“Almost seven.”
“Let’s hope we are not late.”
A round white moon cast a perpetual twilight over a wall directly ahead, perhaps twelve feet in height, extending each way as far as Jan could see. Vines covered the barrier, thick and dark but still green by the bright moonlight. No other structures were in sight, only this tall fence. Jan stopped the car and turned off the ignition.
“This is it?”
He looked at her and winked. “Follow me, my dear.”
They climbed out. “This way.” He led her to a small gate buried in vines, cut from the wall, no more than five feet tall. Jan looked back and saw that she stepped lightly, her eyes wide and casting their spell without even looking at him. His heart was bucking already.
Father, this is what you mean. Yes?