Puppet Page 24

  An annoying habit, Amanda decides, picturing Jennifer gazing at him from the other side of the room, her head tilted quizzically in his direction, as if to ask, Who’s calling at this time of night? She swats the unpleasant image aside with a flick of her wrist, watching Jennifer fly into the air and explode, like cheap fireworks, before being swallowed by the dark night sky.

  “So, have you had a chance to look around?” he asks as Amanda struggles to recall the details of her day. “You find anything we missed last time?”

  “Yes,” she says, her voice rising with excitement as the contents of her mother’s medicine cabinet pop clearly into view. “I found pills.”

  “Pills?”

  “At least ten bottles of them. Antidepressants, painkillers—you name them, they’re in her medicine cabinet. Most of them expired years ago, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been taking them. Did she ever say anything to you about being on medication?”

  “The only pills I’ve ever heard your mother mention are her calcium,” Ben says, and Amanda can almost see him shaking his head in wonderment.

  “Do you think we have a shot at diminished capacity?”

  “It’s certainly something to consider. You find anything else?”

  “Nothing,” Amanda says. “Except that all the plants in her house are plastic.”

  He laughs again, the hearty sound reaching through the phone wires to caress her cheek.

  Amanda suddenly fears that he is about to hang up, that she has exhausted her usefulness and has nothing of interest left to offer. “You have plants?” she asks, tightly gripping the phone, as if trying to hold on to him.

  “A few. But they’re not doing very well. Too much sun, I think.”

  Amanda tries to picture Ben’s condominium at Harborside, with its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake, but all she can see is the tiny, second-floor, one-bedroom apartment on Vaughan Road they once shared. The apartment was located in an old yellow-brick building that had even then seen better days. No elevator. No air-conditioning. No dishwasher. The bedroom barely big enough for a double bed, the two of them unable to move about the room at the same time, the living room not much bigger, barely large enough to accommodate the creaky old sofa they’d picked up at Goodwill, their downstairs neighbor forever banging on his ceiling with a broom, his way of telling them they were playing their stereo—the only household item they owned that was actually worth anything—too loud. “You remember our apartment on Vaughan Road?” she hears herself ask.

  A slight pause before he answers. “Who could forget?”

  “It was pretty awful.”

  “That it was.”

  “I liked it though.”

  “I liked it too.”

  Another pause. Longer than the first. For a moment Amanda fears they’ve been disconnected. “Ben?”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing.” She shakes her head, as if he can see her. “I was just afraid you weren’t there.”

  “I’m here.”

  Amanda smiles sadly. She’s made such a mess of things, she thinks, wanting to apologize to him for running out on him the way she did, for all the disruptions she’s brought to his life, for all the pain she’s caused. “So, what do we do now?” she asks instead.

  “I’m in court first thing in the morning,” he answers, oblivious to the question’s larger implications. “But we should probably drive up to see your mother in the afternoon, if that’s convenient for you. I’d like to find out about this pill business.”

  “What time?”

  “Can you be at my office at two o’clock?” “Of course.”

  “Good. I’ll see you then.”

  “See you then,” Amanda repeats, reluctant to end the conversation.

  “Sleep well, Amanda.”

  “You too.”

  And then that awful stillness when someone disconnects. Amanda listens to the unwelcome silence for several seconds, straining to hear Ben’s breathing on the other end of the line, before reluctantly accepting his absence and snapping her cell phone shut, then dropping it back inside her purse. Almost immediately, she retrieves it, deciding to leave it on the night table beside the bed in case he calls back.

  She lowers herself onto the narrow bed and sits staring at the Renoir print on the opposite wall. How many nights had she lain in this bed staring at that painting, with its joyous depiction of a carefree young woman in a long, frilly dress, balancing on a swing in the middle of a crowded park, her body leaning into the sunlight, her round face glowing pink with serenity, completely at ease with her privileged existence, as if such happiness was somehow her due? How she’d envied this girl who wore her entitlement as proudly and easily as the dark blue bows that decorated the front of her creamy white dress, a girl with the confidence to stand on a swing. How many times had she prayed to trade places with her, to be the girl in the sunlight surrounded by admirers, and not the child shivering alone beneath her covers night after night?

  When she was little, she’d actually imagined that if she got close enough to the picture, she might actually be absorbed inside it, and so one night she’d climbed up on the desk and knelt before the painting, pressing her nose against it until it started to hurt and the glass covering the picture fogged with her breath. The girl on the swing remained blissfully unaware of her presence, and Amanda silently cursed the young woman her selfishness. “I hope you fall off and break your neck,” she’d hissed at the wall before crying herself to sleep. But the next morning, the girl was still standing on the swing, looking as contented and peaceful as ever. Clearly, Amanda’s powers of destruction weren’t as great as her mother’s.

  “Want to bet?” Amanda asks now, visually pushing the young woman off her comfortable perch and watching her fall to the ground, dirt soiling her frilly dress, a deep gash opening on her forehead, bathing the soft impressionist palette in bright red blood. Amanda lies down on her bed, closing her eyes in satisfaction. Just ask Ben whose powers are greater. Ask Sean. Ask her father.

  Amanda groans audibly and turns over onto her stomach, trying to find a comfortable position. But guilt, like a lover who takes up more than his fair share of the bed, keeps nuzzling up against her, and after ten minutes of restlessly flipping from one side to the other, trying to stay out of his reach, she abandons any notion of sleep. Maybe she’ll watch some television. There must be a hockey game on somewhere, she thinks, climbing out of bed and walking back into the hall.

  She has no intention of going into the middle bedroom, and so she is surprised to find herself lingering in its doorway. She has no intention of proceeding to the closet, so she is startled to find herself standing in front of it, her hand hovering over the doorknob. She certainly has no intention of picking up the puppet stage and carrying it into the center of the room, so she is amazed to find herself sitting on the floor, separating the strings of the marionettes, then dangling them over the stage’s tall, wooden backdrop. “Hi, guys,” she says, watching the puppets bow and curtsy in turn.

  Hi, yourself, cutie, the boy puppet replies with a slight cock of his wooden head.

  Where’ve you been? the girl puppet asks politely.

  Amanda shrugs, twirls the puppets around the stage.

  They move together easily, sailing gracefully through the air, the girl’s head resting on the boy’s shoulder, the boy’s arm draped protectively across the girl’s shoulder, their limbs gradually overlapping, their strings becoming entwined, wrapping around one another like vines around the trunk of a tree, until the two puppets become one, impossible to separate without causing irreparable damage. True love, Amanda thinks wistfully, picturing herself in Ben’s arms, feeling his cheek against hers, his arm pressing into the small of her back.

  Nobody before or since has ever been able to make her feel the way Ben did, as if by touching her, he was reaching clear into her soul.

  Except she doesn’t want anyone reaching that far inside her. Because if he does, he’ll find out the
re’s nothing there. Nobody worth knowing. Certainly nobody worth loving. Because if your own mother didn’t love you …

  “What am I doing?” Amanda demands in the voice of someone waking up from a prolonged trance. “What the hell am I doing?” She tears the strings from her fingers, causing the puppets to jerk and pull apart. In disgust, she throws them across the room, watching them bounce off the wall and collapse on the bed, one on top of the other, as if determined to complete what she has started. She spins around in helpless circles, her agitation increasing with each turn. “Damn it. What’s wrong with you?” She bends down and scoops up the wooden stage, then takes a final spin around and hurls it toward the window, like an athlete throwing a shot put. The stage misses the window by mere inches, crashing instead against the wall and taking a chip out of its pale pink surface before shattering. Pieces of wood fly into the air, like debris after an explosion.

  Amanda stares at the mess. Tiny wooden planks litter the top of the desk, looking like the Popsicle sticks she used to collect as a child. The floor of the stage has separated from its sides and hovers precariously over the edge of the desk, swaying in anticipation of its imminent fall. Jagged slivers of wood are everywhere. “Great,” Amanda mutters. “I’ve made another mess.” She backs out of the room and heads down the stairs to the kitchen toretrieve the Dustbuster. First the plants, and now this. “I’m just a walking disaster area.” Maybe her mother had been right to keep her distance.

  By the time she returns to the room, the Dustbuster and green garbage bag in hand, the stage floor has already tumbled off the desk and now lies upside down on the gray broadloom, sawdust leaking from its broken form, like blood. “Sorry about that,” Amanda apologizes, about to toss the large piece of wood into the garbage bag when she notices the corner of what appears to be a business card sticking out from a long crack in the wood. “What’s this?” Slowly and carefully, she extricates the card from its hiding place.

  AAA Water Purification Systems, the card announces in bold black letters. Walter Turofsky, Sales Manager.

  “What the hell is this?” Amanda shakes the piece of wood, watches as several more business cards fall to the floor. She drops to her knees, examining one card, then the next, and the next.

  AAA Property Management Inc. George Turgov, President.

  AAA Flooring Company. Milton Turlington, Sales Representative.

  AAA Waterproofing Inc. Rodney Tureck, Senior Vice President.

  “What’s going on here?” Amanda’s eyes dart from one business card to the other. What are all these companies? And who are all these men? Turofsky, Turgov, Turlington, Tureck? “Turk,” Amanda states, the name rising from the pit of her stomach. “Turk,” she says again, this time the name exploding on her tongue. “Goddammit, I know it’s you.” The man the real John Mallins had been involved with before he disappeared. “What are you doing here?”

  Amanda tries peering between the narrow slats of the stage floor to see if there is anything else secreted inside. But the space is too thin and dark for her to know for sure. Shaking the piece of wood as hard as she can brings no results. “What the hell,” she decides, slamming the piece of wood against the side of the desk, watching it break in two. The corner of a shiny piece of paper instantly pops into view, peeking out from inside what is left of the puppet stage. Amanda slides the paper out, careful not to tear it, then flips it over. “Dear God, what the hell is this?” she gasps, falling back on the splinterladen broadloom.

  What Amanda sees: a photograph.

  And while the picture is faded, scratched, and crinkled, the image is unmistakable. It is a photograph of a man holding a young girl on his lap. Both are smiling and happy, sharing a private joke. The man is the man her mother shot and killed. The girl is his daughter, Hope.

  What is her mother doing with this picture? How did she get it? Why does she have it? How long has she been hiding it?

  By the look of it, the picture is at least three or four years old. Hope looks to be about nine or ten, although she still has essentially the same face she had when Amanda saw her several days ago, the same dark hair, the same piercing eyes. Her father is thinner, handsomer than the passport picture that ran in the news-papers, although a thin crease in the paper cuts across his cheek like a scar. “Turk?” Amanda asks his smiling face. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  The man’s smile in the photograph seems to widen, as if he is taunting her.

  What’s wrong with this picture? Amanda thinks.

  “I’m going to find out, you know,” she tells him, searching the picture for clues, finding none. It is what it is: a father and his daughter sit underneath a large tree in what appears to be someone’s backyard; their clothing is summery, but otherwise non-descript; there are no telltale buildings in the background, no rare flowers growing at their feet; a generic blue sky fills the background. “I’m going to find out if you’re George Turgov or Rodney Tureck or Milton Turlington or Walter Turofsky, or whoever else you might have called yourself. I’m going to find out what you did with John Mallins. And I’m going to find out how my mother got this picture,” she says with a determination that surprises and astounds her. “Even if it kills me.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  LESS than five minutes later, Amanda has pulled on a pair of black pants under her purple sweater and is running down the stairs, her purse flung over one shoulder, her cell phone pressed against her ear. “Pick up, dammit,” she mutters, reaching the foyer and fumbling with her boots. “Come on, Ben. I haven’t got all night.”

  The call is answered at the start of its fourth ring. “Hello?” a sleepy voice says. A woman’s voice, Amanda realizes, a rush of fresh adrenaline pushing an unwanted twinge of disappointment out of the way.

  “Jennifer, hi. I’m sorry to be calling so late. I need to speak to Ben.”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Amanda,” she answers, not bothering to hide her annoyance. What’s the matter with this woman? Who else would be calling Ben at this hour of the night?

  “Who?”

  “Jennifer, just put Ben on the goddamn phone. This is an emergency.”

  “You’re looking for Ben and Jennifer? Are you kidding me?” the woman says just before the line goes dead in Amanda’s hand.

  “Ben and Jennifer—shit!” Amanda shouts at the ensuing silence, unwanted images of the infamous Hollywood duo dancing around her head. “Oh, that’s perfect. Perfect.” She chases the images away with a swat of her hand and makes the call again, taking extra care to punch in the correct numerals, this time forgetting to include the area code—she didn’t need an area code for a local call eight years ago—and listening as an annoying recorded message tells her to try her call again. “I don’t want to try the call again.” Amanda drops the phone back inside her purse, careful not to disturb the photograph and business cards she has tucked inside a flower-trimmed pink envelope—the stationery in the bottom drawer of her old dresser having proved very handy. She pushes her bare feet inside her boots, the thick lining feeling soft and warm on her toes, then reaches inside the closet for her coat, throwing it over her shoulders as she opens the front door and steps outside, shoving her arms through the sleeves just as a bitter wind whips snow into her eyes. “Could we please do something about the weather?” she shouts at the black sky before hurrying down the steps and along the path she shoveled earlier to the street. There should be plenty of cabs on Bloor, she thinks, deciding against calling Ben again. Better to just show up at his door, present him with her discovery firsthand. If Jennifer is with him, well, so what? What difference does it make? By Friday, this whole mess will be over one way or the other, and she’ll be on the first plane back to Florida. And she won’t see Ben ever again, no matter how many strangers her mother guns down.

  In fact, it will be good if Jennifer is with Ben, Amanda decides, reaching the corner of Palmerston and Bloor, her eyes searching both sides of the road for a taxi, finding none. It will put an end to all this
silly romanticizing once and for all. She’s never had much patience for romance.

  Amanda sees the crest of a taxi behind an approaching car, and she waves her hands over her head in an effort to attract the driver’s attention, but either he doesn’t see her or he deliberately ignores her. Either way, he doesn’t stop. Neither does the next cabbie who, she notices as he speeds past, already has a passenger in his backseat. “Damn it,” she mutters, tapping the toes of her boots together, her bare feet already growing cold inside their fleece lining. Should have put on socks, she thinks, walking east along Bloor. “Come on,” she wails as a series of cars whiz past. “Where are all the damn taxis?”

  She finally spots one on the other side of the street, about to head north. “No,” she shouts, running across the road and waving her arms frantically in front of her. “Not that way. Over here. Over here.” The taxi stops, and she slides toward the car on a frozen stream of slush. “Thank you,” she whispers hoarsely, climbing inside, automatically checking the driver’s name on his ID, thinking, Wouldn’t it be funny if his name turned out to be Walter Turofsky or George Turgov or Milton Turlington or Rodney Tureck?—and almost laughing out loud when she sees his name is Igor Lavinsky.

  “Where to?” the man asks over his shoulder. His skin is pasty and deeply lined. Thick brown hair falls across his forehead into preternaturally dark eyes. A half-smoked cigarette dangles from his lips despite a prominent sign on the dashboard advising passengers to refrain from smoking.

  “Harborside,” Amanda says, wiggling her toes inside her boots in an effort to warm them. She leans back in her seat and exhales a deep breath, watching it take shape and rise into the air, like a genie released from a bottle.

  “You okay?” the driver asks, his eyes narrowing in his rearview mirror. “You no going to be sick inside my cab, I hope.”

  “No. Oh, no. I’m not going to be sick. I’m just cold.”

  “Cold. Yes, is very cold. But coat look very warm.”

  “Yes,” Amanda agrees, unconsciously assuming the man’s thick Russian accent as she draws the coat’s collar tight against her neck. “Coat is very warm.”