Usher's Passing (54 page)

Katt's hand flashed out. She gripped the cane, and Rix's visions fragmented, faded away. They held the cane between them for an instant. Katt's eyes were fierce, her forehead beaded with tiny drops of sweat. Startled, Rix released his grip, and Katt clutched the cane to her with both hands. What was I thinking? he asked himself, as his stomach twisted with self-disgust. That I actually
wanted
Usher Armaments? The defiance slipped from Katt's face. She was his sister again, not the stranger she'd been a few seconds before.

"Edwin will be here in a few minutes," Margaret announced, returning from the phone. "Of course you realize, Mrs. Reynolds, that I will speak to Dr. Francis about this."

"Do what you please. You know as well as I do that Mr. Usher insisted on one nurse only. And I
earn
my salary, Mrs. Usher. If you don't think so, I'll pack my bag and leave right now."

Margaret's face tightened, but she didn't reply.

Mrs. Reynolds glanced at Katt. "He'll want his cane back. He hasn't been without it since I got here."

Katt hesitated. Margaret said, "Give it to her, Kattrina."

With what seemed to Rix like great reluctance, Katt handed the cane to Mrs. Reynolds. The nurse turned away and went back to the Quiet Room without a word.

Rix's hand was still tingling, and he rubbed it with the other. When he looked up, he caught Katt's gaze again—and he knew she'd been in his room, and why.

She said, "I'm going back to bed." Her voice was pitched slightly higher than usual.

"Lord, what a start that was! I'm going downstairs for a cup of coffee to steady my nerves, if either of you cares to join me." When neither of them answered, Margaret took the candelabra and walked along the corridor toward the staircase, flinging a scathing glance at Puddin', who stood wrapped in a sheet outside Rix's door. She stopped in her tracks, realizing at once what must have been going on. "My God," she said. "One of my sons isn't enough for you, is it?"

Puddin' answered by flashing the sheet open. Margaret muttered,
"Filth!"
and hurried to the stairs.

In the dark, Rix said quietly, "I have what you're looking for, Katt."

She paused in her doorway, framed against the faint blue dawn light that was beginning to creep through the bedroom windows. "I knew you must," she replied calmly. "I've already searched Boone's room. Where is it?"

"Under my bed."

"Get it for me, Rix. I need it."

"How long?" he asked.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. How long?"

"Two years." The words fell like hammerblows across Rix's skull. "Get it for me."

"What if I don't? What if I flush it down the toilet where it belongs?"

"Don't be stupid. It's easy to get more."

After his attack had passed in Katt's Quiet Room, Rix had taken off the blindfold and returned it to the shelf behind his head. The metal box up there had drawn his curiosity, and he'd taken it out into the bedroom to open it. Inside were two hypodermic syringes, a half-burned candle, several thick rubber bands, a scorched spoon, and a small packet of white powder. "Why?" he said. "That's all I want to know."

"Come in and close the door," she said, a hard edge in her voice. Rix followed her inside and did as she asked. Katt struck a match and lit several candles around the room. The sweat sparkled on her perfect face like tiny diamonds, but her eyes were dark and deeply sunken, like the eyeholes of a skull.

"Why heroin?" Rix whispered. "Jesus Christ! Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"I'm not an addict." She blew the match out. "Why did you steal it? Were you going to show it to Dad? Or have you already?"

"No. I haven't, and I didn't plan to."

"Sure." She smiled tightly. "Tell me another one. You were going to show it to Dad, weren't you? You were going to go up there and tell him all about Katt the junkie, weren't you?"

He shook his head. "I swear to you, I—"

"Don't
lie,
damn it!" Her smile faded, replaced by a twisted, angry sneer. "Why else would you have stolen it if you weren't going to blackmail me with it? I saw the way you held Dad's cane! You know as well as I do what having that cane means! You want it just as much as I do!"

"You're wrong," Rix said, stunned at how little he really knew about his sister. "I don't want anything, Katt. For Christ's sake, why heroin? You've got everything anybody could want! Why are you trying to destroy yourself?"

She turned away from him and went to the window, staring out across Usherland with her arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself. The sky was plated with dense, low-lying clouds, shot through with purple and scarlet. The wind keened sharply, and a scatter of red leaves swirled against the window. "Don't pretend you care," Katt said hollowly. "It doesn't suit you."

"I do care! I thought you were off drugs! After what happened in Japan—"

"That was nothing. Just bad publicity, because I'm Walen Usher's daughter. What were you doing in my Quiet Room? No one ever goes in there but me."

"I had an attack. I didn't rummage through your room, if that's what you mean."

"What now?" She shivered, and looked at Rix. "Are you going to Dad?"

"I said I wasn't. But you've got to get help, Katt! Heroin's a damned serious—"

She laughed. It was a silky laugh, but the sound grated on Rix's nerves. "Right. Pack me off to a sanitarium. Is that the idea? Then you and Boone can fight over the estate without little Katt getting in the way. Same old Rix, so goddamned predictable. You and Boone were always at each other's throats, and both of you were so intent on killing each other that you pushed little Katt aside. Little Katt was pushed and shoved so much that she went into her shell—and she stayed there for a long, long time."

Katt smiled, the sweat sparkling on her cheeks and forehead.

"Well," she whispered, "little Katt's grown up now. And it's my turn to shove. I've always wanted the business, Rix. I got into modeling because it was easy, and because Mom encouraged me. But I wanted to prove the point that I can handle responsibility—and I know what to do with money."

"Nobody ever doubted you were intelligent. And God knows you've made more money than Boone and me put together!"

"So," Katt said, staring intently at him, "why couldn't you love me?"

"What?
I do love you! I don't understand why—"

"I let them find the pot, that time in Tokyo," Katt continued. "When I called home, I asked for you to come and help me. I didn't want Dad or Boone or the lawyers. But you didn't come. You never even called to see if I was okay."

"I knew Dad and Boone would bring you home! Besides, there wasn't a hell of a lot
I
could've done to help you!"

"You never cared enough to try," she said softly. "I admired you so much when we were children. I didn't care about Boone. It was you I loved, most of all. But you never made time for me. You were too busy hating Dad and Boone for the things you thought they'd done to you, and later—when we were teenagers— you were too busy brooding over the business."

"I've always had time for you!" Rix protested, but even as he said it he knew he was lying. When had he really listened to his sister? Even when they'd gone out riding together, he'd manipulated her into going over to the cemetery. He'd always used her as a pawn in his struggles against Boone and Walen, used her to spy on Margaret for him, all without regard for her feelings.

"You lucked out when we were kids. At least you had Cass and Edwin. Mom bought me dolls and dresses and told me to go play in my room. Dad set me on his knee once in a while and checked my teeth and fingernails. Well. . . that was a long time ago, wasn't it?"

"Maybe I wasn't the best brother in the world," Rix said, "but that doesn't have a damned thing to do with you shooting heroin!"

She shrugged. "The drugs came along when I had the agency. I started with tranquilizers, because I didn't want to have an attack on a location shoot. Then for fun I tried LSD, PCP, coke—whatever was handy. The heroin started for a different reason."

"What?" Rix prompted.

"Then . . . I wanted to see what the junk would do to me."

She ran her fingers over her flawless cheekbones. "What do you see when you look at me, Rix?"

"A beautiful woman, whom I feel very sorry and scared for right now."

She took a step closer to him. "I've seen other beautiful women who got hooked on drugs. Within a couple of years, they were wrecked. Look at me;
really
look." She traced a finger under her eyes. "Do you see any wrinkles, Rix? Any sign of sagging? Can you see anything that might tell you I was thirty-one, instead of ten years younger?"

"No. Which is why I can't understand the heroin. For someone who takes such meticulous care of—"

"You're not listening to me!" she said fiercely. "I don't take care of myself, Rix! I never have! I just
don't
age!"

"Thank God for your good genes, then! Don't try to kill yourself!"

She sighed and shook her head. "You're still not listening, are you! I'm saying that the heroin should have had a physical effect on me. Why hasn't it? Why doesn't my face ever
change,
Rix?"

"Do you know how many women would kill to look like you? Come on! If you expect me to give you back that junk so you can continue some kind of stupid experiment on yourself, you're crazy!"

"I'll get more. All I have to do is drive to Asheville."

"You're committing slow suicide," Rix said grimly. "I'm not going to stand by and watch it."

"Oh no?" She raised her eyebrows, her smile mocking him. "My suicide would suit your purpose, wouldn't it? You want the estate and business for yourself. I saw it on your face when you held that cane. Why else would you have come home? Not for Dad. Not for Mother. And certainly not for Boone and me. You've pretended not to be interested; maybe, all those years, you were pretending to turn your back on the business so you could find out how Boone and I felt. I see the real
you
now, Rix. I see you very, very clearly."

"You're wrong." Rix was stung by Katt's accusation, but he saw she'd made up her mind about him and there wasn't much he could say or do.

"Am I?" She stepped forward until she was only a foot or so away. "Then you look at me and tell me you can walk away from ten billion dollars."

Rix started to tell her he could, but the images of power he'd felt when he held the cane whirled through his mind. Ten billion dollars, he thought—and felt something deep inside him, something that had hidden and festered far from the light of his convictions, writhe with desire. Ten billion dollars. There was nothing he couldn't do with that much, money. Hell, he could buy his own publishing company! Katt had been right, he realized with sickening clarity. If Usher Armaments didn't build the bombs, missiles, and guns, somebody else would. There would always be wars and weapons. His days of marching in peace parades suddenly seemed ludicrous; had he ever believed a few dissident voices could make a difference? The radical heroes of that era were now Wall Street businessmen, establishment politicians, and greedy merchandisers. Nothing had been changed, not really. The system had won, had proven itself unbeatable.

Had he come to Usherland, he asked himself, because he wanted a share of the inheritance? Had he been waiting all these years, hiding his true personality, in order to seize some of the Usher power?

The skeleton swung slowly through his mind.

Like a pendulum, he thought—and shunted the image aside.

"It's blood money," he said, and heard the weakness in his voice. "Every cent of it."

Katt was silent. Behind her the sky was turbulent, a gray and scarlet sweep of ugly stormclouds advancing over the mountains. The sun's rays probed through for an instant like an orange spotlight, and then the clouds closed again. The grim dawn grew darker.