I have to let my head fall, back, back, back, so that I can look all the way up the gray stone exterior to the gargoyles on the roof. The mansion is fucking enormous, like the Biltmore, and I think of my television partner, Tosca Musk, and her saying, “I’m going to have to find you a mini-Biltmore for season two when we do the mansion.”
She got that right. For real.
“Come, come,” Fritz says as he shuts that car door. “I shall let my Lord know you’re here. He should be arriving momentarily.”
The front entry is so grand, it reminds me of the cathedrals I studied in Art History at Smith. The huge doors are carved with scenes, and I wonder if they weren’t brought over from the Old Country. They certainly are fitting for a castle-like house that sprawls out in both directions as far as the eye can see and all the way up into the night sky. As I measure the countless diamond-paned windows and the glowing golden light that spills out of them at every level, I wonder how many rooms there are. I’ve never counted—
“Ninety-two,” Fritz supplies cheerfully.
I’vegotto cut this speaking-thoughts-out-loud shit. And holy fuck, what the electric bill must be like here. I’ve never thought about that, either.
“Challa?”
He’s waiting for me to make the move up the steps, the inquiry not at all a you-need-to-get-going, more like a should-I-call-Doc Jane-because-you’re-having-a-stroke.
Meanwhile, my feet are nailed to the ground.
To buy myself a little time, I glance back at the fountain. It hasn’t been shut down for winter yet, the water spraying up into the chilly autumn air falling to a marble basin the size of a—natch—swimming pool.
And beyond it…the gatehouse that’s made up of the same stone as the big house, and that has the same slate roof and window style and chimney routine. Like the mansion’s been put in the dryer and shrunk.
The Pit.
I think of everything I’ve seen in there. That the door is open a crack and sporting a little yellow line of welcoming light around the jambs seems like both an invitation and a directive.
“Wrath isn’t here yet,” I say.
“No, Challa?”
“All right, I’m going over there first.” I point, even though he can see where I’m looking. “I want to walk around inside and just…”
As my sentence drifts, the butler bows. “But of course.”
“Thank you.”
I start forward, my high heels making a clipping sound that seems too loud. Ifeeltoo loud, like I’ve got fire alarms for earrings and bear horns for shoes and an off-note trombone for a bodice. The drive around the house used to be white pebbles, and I’m not sure when they paved it over. Maybe I’ll find out.
I go around the fountain and look to the valley view that falls off from the summit, the Adirondack Park’s undulating, pine-scented wilderness like something God spilled while painting and the happy accident pleased Him. Fall is so much farther along up here than where I live, the air crystal clean in the sinuses, my skin prickling from the cold like it’s warning me to find a parka or some radiant heat soon.
When I get to the Pit’s entrance, I note the renovation. There used to be a vestibule, but now there is only a single door, and my hand pushes at the cold wood—
I expect to see it the way it once was, with V’s Four Toys computer set up to the left, the black leather sofa straight ahead, the galley kitchen with its Grey Goose and Lagavulin bottles to the right. And some of that is correct.
What I’m unprepared for is the man who is standing with his back to the entry, one hand in the pocket of his Tom Ford slacks, the other holding a rocks glass that has nothing but ice and a wash of Scotch in the bottom.
Butch, the Dhestroyer
a.k.a. Brian O’Neal, former homicide detective
“Well, fancy meeting you here.”
That Boston accent. And of course he knows it’s me without turning around. He might have started out as a human—or at least half Homo sapiens. In the end, he was one of them.
Butch’s head goes left, and I see his profile. From the side, his nose looks pretty good. As the male pulls a pivot and faces me, that’s when I see the old damage. I’ve never asked him for details on how he broke it, but I’m guessing more than once and at least one time in a bar fight.
“Been a while.” He smiles, though. “Thought we were meeting in the big house.”
“We are.” I awkwardly nod at the door. “But it was open so…”
