Perkins was scared. It wasn’t just dread now. It was real fear, beating in his throat like a trapped butterfly. He had left Zach alone too long. He had lost track of Tiffany outside Nana’s apartment. And now …

He hurried down the hall to Nana’s door. He was thinking: If Tiffany’s here, if she’s brought Nana into this … He was thinking about Nana, about her weak heart. He was thinking: She won’t be able to stand it.

He pounded on the door with his fist.

“Nana?” he called loudly. “It’s me.” He was already fumbling for the keys in his jeans. “Nana?” He had the key. He fit it into the lock. Took hold of the knob.

But the knob turned in his hand. It was pulled away from him. The door swung in. Swung open.

She stood before him in the doorway, peering out at him with frightened eyes.

“Hello, Oliver,” she said.

His own fear beat harder at his throat. He spat her name out between his teeth. “Tiffany.”

Tiffany pushed her black and silver hair away from her face. She braced herself, took a breath. Then she pulled the door all the way open. Perkins could see his grandmother now. There by the coffee table near the windows. Her shapeless old self was slumped comfortably in the satin bergère, propped by her hand-embroidered pillows. She looked up when he came in. Her sagging, melted face lifted in a smile.

“Why, Oliver!” she said. Her frail voice quavered. “I’ve been hoping and hoping you would turn up. You’re just in time for tea.”

“Yes, Oliver,” Tiffany said nervously. She forced a smile of her own, one corner of her mouth lifting. She swallowed hard. “Chamomile or Earl Grey?”

Perkins looked helplessly from the young woman to the old one; back and forth again. He felt sweat beading under his hairline. What could he say? How much did Nana know? He felt the fear beating harder at his throat.

Tiffany shut the door behind him. Perkins started at the sound. He looked at her quickly. A grandfather clock in the foyer struck the hour: six o’clock.

Zach, Perkins thought. I have to get back to Zach. “I can’t stay long,” he said hoarsely.

“Oh,” Nana called from her chair. “Stay. Tiffany can put another cup on for you. I’m sure it’s no trouble, is it, dear?”

“No trouble at all, Nana,” said Tiffany. She did not take her eyes off Perkins. “Well? What’ll it be, Ollie?”

He glared at her, his teeth gritted. He wanted to seize her right then and there. He wanted to shake the truth out of her. In fact, he wanted to tear her in half like a piece of paper. “Chamomile,” he snarled.

And Tiffany managed to sing out brightly: “Back in a mo.” She turned her back on him. Walked away unsteadily. Even in the quilted shirt, even in the baggy jeans, he saw the movement of her figure as she left the room.

Still helpless, still silent, he looked at Nana. The old lady’s quivery smile was expectant. Her eyes were expectant and damp. The light was gone from the tall windows beside her. Only one standing lamp cast a pale yellow glow over the nude Venus in its stand. The rest—the carved chairs, the fireplace, the dark pattern on the rug—was fading into the dusk shadows. Nana seemed tiny and dim at the fringe of the circle of light.

Perkins forced himself to return her smile. “Back in a mo, Nana,” he croaked. And he dashed after Tiffany. The knick-knacks in the room rattled as he stomped out of the room.

He found her in the kitchen around the corner. It was a narrow corridor of a room but gleaming. Copper pots and kettles hung from the tiled walls and reflected the light. Butcher block counters shone between the black iron stove and the white refrigerator. Tiffany was setting blue willow china on a silver tray. A copper kettle steamed cheerfully over a blue flame on the stove top behind her. Tiffany’s mouth was a thin line. Her eyes were fixed on her work. She did not look up, but Perkins could tell she was aware that he had come into the room.

He glanced cautiously toward the living room, toward Nana. Then he bore in on Tiffany fiercely. His voice dropped to a whisper. “What the hell are you doing here?”

She looked up at him. Her eyes were enormous. “You have to stop following me. You have to stop following me now.”

“What’s that got to do with it? Why the hell did you come here?” He was whispering so hard he sounded as if he were strangling.

She turned back to her tray. The china clinked merrily as she arranged the cups and saucers. “How else was I supposed to get rid of you?” Her voice was low. “I know you won’t start a scene here. Not around Nana. Especially not … well, I could tell her things, Oliver.” When she looked up this time, her gentle, pale face was set. Their eyes met, hard. “And I will tell her too. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll tell her anything I have to. It’ll upset her, Oliver. It’ll make her sick, you know that.”

“You goddamned—”

“Shut up, just shut up,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going on. It’s all crazy. You don’t know. Now we’re just … we’re just going to have a cup of tea. You and me and Nana. We’re going to have a cup of tea and then—then, after a while, I’ll excuse myself. All right? I’ll leave—and you’ll just let me go. Do you understand? That’s all I want. Just let me go. You can’t follow me now. All right?”

Perkins rushed at her. The rage seemed to explode from the core of him: molten, white, liquid rage that spread all through him. He grabbed her by the shoulders. Twisted her around to face him, lifting her until she was on tiptoe, until his eyes were inches from hers. “What have you done?” The whisper hissed out between his teeth. “What have you done to my brother?”

“Let me go.” Tiffany’s eyes filled with tears. “You bastard. You idiot. You don’t know anything. Let me go.”

“You set him up, didn’t you?” He shook her. “You set him up to take the rap for this murder. Didn’t you?”

Her hair spilled over her face. She looked up at him through the strands as he gripped her. She said nothing. Their faces were so close he could smell not just her toilet water but the scent of her skin beneath. He stared down at her, searched her eyes, searched in the aching depths of her eyes. He was aware of the sinewy strength of her shoulders under the quilted fabric. He remembered the feel of her flesh in his hands.

His lips parted as if he were about to speak again.

“The water’s boiling,” Tiffany said softly.

And Perkins, his mouth open, let her go—he practically dropped her to her feet. He turned away from her as she went to fetch the kettle. He stood there, slumped. He looked down at the silver tray. His gaze fixed on one of the teacups, on the creamy white bottom of it. He gazed down into it until his vision blurred.

It was me, he thought. I broke the typewriter.

And it occurred to him—in an odd, dreamy way—that his father had always known that somehow, that he had known the truth of it all along. The bitter old man had pounded Zach’s ass again and again with that heavy ruler. He had beat him black with it. Black. And all the time he had known, he had known it was really him.

Perkins felt sick to his stomach. He felt that fluttering fear; larger; filling him; beating against the walls of his entire body now.

“Now watch out,” said Tiffany.

Perkins stepped aside as she brought the steaming kettle to the tray. She stood at the counter with her head bowed, her hair spilling forward. She poured the boiling water into the china teapot. A tear fell from her cheek onto the side of the copper kettle. The tear sizzled and evaporated in a little burst of steam.

“You know who killed that girl in the mews,” Perkins said to her. “Don’t you?” He spoke weakly now, his shoulders raised. He did not look at her. “Whoever helped you with your blackmail racket—he’s the one, isn’t he? God, Tiffany. I mean, blackmail? You just fucked that guy, didn’t you? That Fernando guy. You just fucked him and your partner took the pictures, right? Oh, man, oh, baby, that was cold. Jesus.” He heard Tiffany let out a broken sob. He grimaced but he didn’t look at her. “So then what? Huh? Woodlawn used the Kincaid girl for a courier so he could keep clear of it, and she got scared and brought in the FBI. And you panicked, right? You panicked and your partner killed her because she was innocent. She wasn’t like Woodlawn, she was innocent and she had nothing to lose by giving evidence against you.” Perkins’s breath came faster, as if he were walking uphill. It was hard: working it out, trying to put it together. It seemed like nothing quite fit. Everything was just a little out of joint. “Then you tried to set me up for it, me and Zach. You got us both to go to the mews. You called the cops while I was there and told them you’d heard screaming …” He brought both hands to his forehead. He felt like it was full of sludge. Out of joint, out of whack. He couldn’t make it all work. He lifted his eyes to her, confused. “He’s your lover, isn’t he?” he said slowly. “This partner of yours. That explains it. He’s your lover and you do what he says. All this mystical feminist shit and you do whatever he says and you just fucked this Woodlawn guy and now you’re in on a murder and you don’t care who takes the fall, as long as lover boy gets away, is that it? You don’t …” He stopped. He couldn’t make it all fit. His breath hissed out of him like steam. He was silent and looked at her.

But Tiffany said nothing. She sniffed back her tears as she finished filling the teapot. She turned away to set the kettle on the stove again. Then she turned back to the tray. She shuddered once. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the side of her hand. Finally, she lifted the tray off the counter.

“Okay,” she said. “Now we’re going to have tea.” She straightened, faced him. “And you won’t make a scene. You won’t make a scene or I’ll tell Nana everything. About you and me and the woman in the mews and everything. It could kill her, Oliver, and I’ll do it, I swear.” Their eyes met again for a moment. “Now we’re going to have tea,” she repeated. She moved toward him. For a second, he opposed her, he just stood there in her way. But then his eyes dropped and he stepped aside. Tiffany carried the tray out of the kitchen, into the living room.

They had tea with Nana around the white marble table. In the pale outglow of the standing lamp. In the shadows of evening. Each of them sat in a fading embroidered chair with clawed feet and scrolled arms. Tiffany perched on the edge of her seat and did the honors. She poured the yellow brew into the teacups, first for Nana, then for Perkins, finally for herself. She had prepared a plate of Pepperidge Farm Brussels cookies too and she set one on each saucer. She handed the cups around and sat back with her own, averting her eyes from Perkins. With thin, trembling hands, Nana dipped her cookie delicately in her tea. Tiffany sipped the steam from her cup and gazed into the middle distance. Perkins gripped his saucer and stared Black Death at her.

I’ll tell. I’ll tell everything.

He could not just let her go, he thought. He would hold her here by force if he had to. He would haul her down to the Sixth Precinct himself. He had to get her to tell Mulligan the truth before she disappeared again.

I’ll tell.

He had to get her to clear Zach before the cops got ahold of him. And if she tried to start trouble with Nana … Perkins’s chest heaved as he slumped heavily in his chair. He gripped his cup and saucer tightly. If she tried to upset Nana, or tell her things … With her weak heart … His jaw worked slowly. The vein in his temple throbbed. Well, he did not know what he would do. But somehow, he had to keep hold of her. He couldn’t let her get away.

“Well!” Nana said. “Isn’t this pleasant!” She smiled with tremulous benevolence on them: her grandson and her ersatz granddaughter-in-law. “The three of us together for once.”

Perkins tried to nod. Tiffany smiled vaguely. Both of them brought their teacups up to their lips, hiding their mouths.

Nana set the crescent of her cookie carefully on the edge of her saucer. “So,” she said, “let’s talk about the murder.”

Perkins choked on his tea. He coughed and sputtered. Tea splashed over the rim of his cup, off his saucer, onto his sweater. “What?” he finally managed to say.

“Well, it’s such a catastrophe, isn’t it!” said Nana. For a moment, there was a wicked little gleam in her damp eyes.

Open-mouthed, Perkins stared at Tiffany. She looked … thunderstruck, was the only word for it. Her cheeks had gone gray as slate. Her eyes were hollow and haunted. She cast an unhappy gaze at the old woman.

“How …?” Perkins coughed again before he could speak. “How did you find out about it, Nana?”

“Find out? Oh now. Ollie.” Nana looked down her nose at him reproachfully. Strands of gray hair played on her brow. She looked almost ephemeral in the shadows. As if she might dissipate and vanish, a wisp of smoke. “You didn’t think you could keep it from me, did you?”

“I … I just …”

Tiffany sipped her tea carefully. Watched him. Watched them both.

“I own the place after all,” Nana went on. “The police called me early this afternoon. A very nice man named Nathaniel something. Mulligan. Nathaniel Mulligan.”

Perkins swallowed. He closed his eyes. Mulligan must have called her just before he started questioning him. She probably knew more than he did. “I didn’t want you to worry,” Perkins said. He tried to capture his usual tone. “You know what a horrible old crone you are when you worry.”

“Well, and I do worry,” said Nana. “I am worried. Of course I am. Look at me. I’m coming apart at the seams, anyone can see that. I called you right away and again this afternoon but you weren’t in. Where were you? I finally had to take a pill! Oh, Oliver!” The full appeal of her damp old eyes was on him. “I knew I should have sold that place the minute you boys moved away. Now look what’s happened! I won’t ever be able to survive it.”

At this, Perkins and Tiffany exchanged a long glance across the tea table. Tiffany’s sweet face was all terror now. Her big eyes seemed to glow in the semidarkness like lamps. She doesn’t know, Perkins thought. She doesn’t know what I’ll say. She doesn’t know how far I’m willing to go.

I’ll tell. I’ll tell everything.

But if Nana knows, if Nana already knows the worst … He bit his lip. Maybe he should just make his play. Maybe he should just call the police right here and now and hand Tiffany over …

“Mr. Mulligan said I had to call him right away if I heard anything,” Nana rattled on, almost picking up his thought. “It was so strange. He said I had to call him if I found out where Zach is. And I said, ‘Zach? Why do you have to talk to Zach? Zach doesn’t know anything about this.’ And he said, well, yes, he knew that, but he did need to talk to him, that it was part of his routine. But I don’t know, Ollie. What sort of routine is that? I told him, I said, you know, ‘I have a very bad heart, Mr. Mulligan, and I am very easily upset and you are making me very frightened.’ And he said, well, no, I shouldn’t worry about anything. But, of course, that isn’t possible at all, now is it?”

Perkins swallowed hard. He was still looking at Tiffany. She was still looking at him, trying to gauge his reactions.

“Just don’t get all crazy,” Perkins said thickly. He looked at Tiffany as he said it. Then he cleared his throat, willed himself to look at the old lady. Her shapeless body trembled. Her teacup clattered on its saucer in her hand. At any moment, it seemed to Perkins, she would keel over. Spill to the floor. And yet he still thought he saw that gleam. “Zach is fine,” he said. “I talked to Zach and he’s okay. Okay? Don’t worry about Zach.”

Nana’s hand moved to her chest. Perkins couldn’t tell if it was a gesture of relief or if this was the Big One. “Zach is all right?” she said.

Perkins hesitated. His blood seemed to have turned to acid. He could taste the burn when he licked his lips. No, he thought. No, Zach’s not all right. Zach’s in bad trouble and Tiffany here knows why. We’ve got to turn her in, Grandma. There’s gonna be police and ugliness and you’ll hear about what I did with Tiff and Zach will hear. But they’re going to kill him otherwise … His mouth opened, as if he were about to speak. But he didn’t speak. Nana waited for him eagerly, fingers at her breast. The teacup chattered in her other hand. Perkins stared at it.

“I have to go,” Tiffany sang out suddenly. She stood up. She looked from one to the other of them. “I’m sorry, Nana. I have an appointment. I have to go.”

Quickly, she set her saucer down on the marble table. She smoothed her quilted shirt. Even in the half-dark, the quilt looked bold and colorful against the fading antiques around the room. Why are they dressed alike? Perkins thought. Why are they always dressed alike?

“Oh, but Tiffany, dear,” Nana said. “You just got here. And you mustn’t leave me to worry about this by myself. I can’t possibly handle it.”

Tiffany looked at her. Looked at Perkins. Looked at her. Her lips moved a moment before she could force out the words. “I’m … I’m sorry, Nana, really. I have an appointment. I really have to, I … I’m sorry.”

And with that, she rushed from the room. Hurried down the hall.

The back door! Perkins thought at once. The back door was down there, across from the bedroom. Tiffany could duck out there, take the fire stairs or the freight elevator.

“Excuse me just a minute, Nana,” Perkins said. He spilled tea again as he set the cup down. He was on his feet and following Tiffany.

“What on earth is happening?” said Nana.

But Perkins was already on his way down the hall.

At first, he thought she must have gotten away. He saw the rear exit to his right, the heavy metal door with the bolt across it. He saw the dark bedroom doorway to his left. He thought: She’s gone, she’s already gone. Then he reached the bedroom doorway. He saw her.

She was bent over in the dark, lifting something from beside Nana’s bed. She straightened and he saw it was an overnight bag. A red overnight bag just like Zachie’s. She turned with it gripped in her hand. She took a step toward the door before she saw Perkins there.

She was breathless, her voice low. “Let me go, Oliver.”

He stepped toward her. “Not until you tell me the truth.”

“You know the truth. You don’t want to know the truth. Just let me go.”

She charged him. Stormed toward the door, lugging the suitcase, her head down as if to butt him out of the way.

This time, Perkins stood his ground. He braced himself in the doorway, his heart pounding, the fear coursing in him. Tiffany pulled up, flung her head back. The silver streak in her hair flashed in the light from the hall. Her teeth flashed. Her eyes flashed.

“Let me go, damn you! It’s too late to stop it now. It’s too late to stop anything. Oh God!” she cried. “Why is this happening to me? Oh God!”

“I’m calling the police, Tiffany.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, anything else to do. With the pounding fear in him, he couldn’t think of anything except: I broke the typewriter. Me! “I’m calling Mulligan.”

For a moment, she could only shake her head at him. He could hear the hoarse rasp of her breath, the choked-back tears. “Go on then,” she said through her teeth. “For the love of Christ, for the love of sweet Christ, go on.”

And for another moment—another interminable moment—they faced each other in the bedroom doorway. Perkins couldn’t move. He did not want to move. He wanted to reach out and grab her. He wanted to shake her again and make her tell him. Make her say that Zach was innocent. Zach was innocent! She had to say it! His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, but he couldn’t lift them. He did not want to touch her again. He did not want to feel her shoulders in his hands.

He turned away from her. There was a phone by the bed. An old-fashioned Princess on the bowlegged nightstand. Perkins knew it was there. But somehow, it did not occur to him to use it. He just didn’t think of it. He went back down the hall instead. He crossed through the living room.

“Ollie?” said Nana from her chair.

He went right past her, back into the kitchen. There was a phone in there too. It was hung on the wall beside the refrigerator. He lifted it—lifted the handset to his ear. He stood there, staring at the number pad. He raised his hand to the numbers.

But he did not press the buttons. He just stared. He held the handset to his ear. He listened to the dial tone. He saw the kitchen in his peripheral vision. The gleaming copper cookware. The green linoleum floor. He stared at the phone and listened until the dial tone broke. A recorded voice came on: “If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again …”

Then, slowly, Perkins lowered the handset into the cradle. He stared at the phone. He felt black and sick inside and the oddest thought came to him suddenly. Suddenly, he thought: I’m going to die tonight. Just like that. All at once, he was absolutely certain of it. They’re going to kill me. It wasn’t just a premonition. It made sense in a way, after all. If Tiffany and her partner were setting him up, they would have to kill him, wouldn’t they? Otherwise, he might be able to clear himself. He might be able to convince the police of the truth. If they could kill him, if they could make it look like an accident or a suicide … Well, that way, they could pin the whole thing on him.

And Zach too.

Zach too, he thought. That’s right. They would have to kill Zach too …

He stared at the phone. His hands began to tremble at his sides. His fear was no mere butterfly anymore. It was a great batlike thing. Squatting there in his stomach. Squatting with its wings furled. Waiting to spread those wings. Waiting to rise …

You know the truth. You don’t want to know the truth.

Perkins stared at the telephone and trembled. Why hadn’t he called the police? he wondered.

I’ll tell everything.

And why—it occurred to him now—why hadn’t he used the phone in the bedroom? Why had he come in here instead?

Perkins closed his eyes, his heart sinking. The bat-thing inside him tested its wings, beating them against him, yearning to rise. It would rise too, if he let it. He knew that. If he relaxed for a single moment, it would tear its way to the surface. Grinning, shrieking. If he let himself go. If he let himself think. If he let himself stay sober too long. If he let himself love someone. If he let himself write his poems, it would rise …

It would rise, and it would ruin everything. It would destroy everything—everyone—that he loved.

You don’t want to know.

With an effort, he lifted his head. He turned and looked down the hallway. He already knew what he would see.

The door across from the bedroom stood ajar. The rear exit. The bolt was thrown back and a dark silver of hallway showed between the jamb and the door’s heavy edge. Perkins stood where he was and looked at it, and the black thing squatted down deep in his belly, its wings furled again, its eyes red and eager. It was waiting for the right moment …

“Ollie?” It was his grandmother’s voice. Frail and tremulous. Calling to him from the living room. “Ollie? What’s going on?”

Perkins said nothing. He took a breath. He held on to himself, held himself together. He stood in front of the telephone and he looked down the hallway at the open door.

She’s gone, he thought dully. Tiffany’s gone.

And it was true. He had let her get away.

Nancy woke up to the sound of sirens. Sirens in the air above her head. Red demons, flitting here and there, howling. The flash of them: red lights, white lights … She rolled onto her back and groaned. Her eyes fluttered open. She saw the sky. The washed-out black of the Manhattan sky with no stars. A gibbous moon in rainbow wisps of clouds. The jagged city skyline: half-lighted towers reaching up like fingers, clawing up the purple wall of the night.

“Oh God,” she grunted. There was so much pain. And the sirens were screaming at her. Swooping and diving at her head. Whoop, whoop, whoop. Louder and louder. They’re here, she thought hazily. They’re here to get me. She lifted up a little. The pain! It made her throw her head back, open her mouth in a silent scream. The muscles in her back felt torn in two. The wind seemed to have been pounded out of her belly with a baseball bat. Her head—it was ringing—throbbing—Jesus! She put her hand to her brow to keep her brains from spilling out. The screams of the sirens were intolerably loud. The red lights danced in the sky.

She felt something damp in her hair. Something warm and sticky just above her temple. She brought her fingers away and looked at them.

Blood?

It was. Blood. What the hell had happened? Where the hell was she? She looked up. It made her neck hurt. Her vision went blurry. She squinted into the dark. There was a dwarf up there. Just hanging up there. Squatting lewdly above her head, as if pinned to the brick wall behind him. He was grinning, his legs spread wide, his eyes malicious and bright. He was lifting an alabaster ledge in his two upraised hands. He seemed about to hurl it down on her.

Gargoyles, she thought. Right. She remembered now. The stone gargoyles had come to life. They had chased her, scrabbling right down the side of the building. Oh yeah. It had been that kind of day. She shifted, grunting with the flash of agony through her back. She lifted herself into a sitting position. The sirens now seemed to be a solid dome of sound, ear-hammering sound, surrounding her, pressing down on her. She blinked a little. Peered at the asphalt around her. She remembered that too. She had been at the corner of the ledge when she fell. Lexington Avenue on her left, the flat roof of the connecting building to her right. She had fallen to the roof. If she had fallen the other way, if she had fallen toward the street, it wouldn’t be the cops coming for her now, it would be the Sanitation Department.

She almost laughed—and then she grimaced instead as she felt something like a punch in the pit of her stomach. She was working herself over onto her hands and knees now, trying to push her way to her feet. The asphalt roof, the flashing sky around her, tipped and swayed. The sirens throbbed inside her head. She jacked her eyes open wider, fighting down nausea. Other things were also coming back to her. Coming to her in flashes, bathed in the red light all around. Her mother. Her mother’s face. Pressing in on her. Her voice. Murderer! Murderer!

“Uh!” She let out a syllable of pain as she got her feet under her.

Murderer!

And the newsman’s voice: The brutal killing of Nancy Kincaid.

Murderer!

Who the hell am I? she thought.

And with a great effort, she stood. Her knees felt raw, bone scraping against bone as she straightened. She groaned and looked down at herself. Her jeans were torn at one knee. Her skin was torn and bloody. Her gray turtleneck was ripped at the sleeve, stained with blood, streaked with dirt in front.

And I just changed my goddamn clothes five minutes ago and now my lipstick’s probably smeared and …

The sirens stopped. Just like that, they went off like a light bulb, that suddenly. They reached a peak of sound, they filled the sky, the flashing lights danced and sparkled around the moon—and then the sirens died. The lights flashed silently. Nancy stood swaying in the eerie quiet, the whoosh of wind and traffic. Her head felt loose on her neck. Her thoughts were blurred and slow, as if they were underwater. She heard doors opening and clunking shut on the street below. Half-staggering on stiff legs, she moved toward the sound. She moved to the edge of the roof. There was a low parapet there. She leaned her hands against it. She looked down over it onto Lexington Avenue.

The cars had halted to her right. They were strewn around the corner, near Gramercy Park. There were six of them that she could see. More, probably, out of sight. God, you’d think she was Public Enemy Number One or something, the way they were clustered down there. Their red and white flashers spun swiftly. They threw light off onto the wall of the building. The underside of the leaves. The trees and statues and iron gates of the little park. Red and white light everywhere. Nancy leaned against the parapet and watched. The cops were now piling out of their cars. Two cops from one car. One from another. Two from a third. They were all running toward the building’s front entrance. Their faces set, their hands to their gun butts. And now, on Twenty-first Street, a huge blue and white truck was pulling up too. A whole truck! It looked about a block long and a story tall. Nancy watched, amazed, as the truck’s back doors opened and an army of policemen poured out. Cops with body armor, Plexiglas visors, and metal shields. They rushed toward the building’s doors as well.

“Whoa,” Nancy murmured. She shook her head. It made her feel tired. All those cops. Coming to get her. She hurt so much. Too much to run for it. And what would happen, anyway, if they caught her now? What would be so bad about it, really? They’d probably just take her back to the hospital. Pump her full of tranquilizers again. Maybe they’d even let her have more therapy sessions with what’s-his-name. Dr. Schweitzer, whatever. That sweet man she’d kneed in the balls. Then, of an evening, she could sit around with Billy Joe. Chat about her heroic journey to find the magic word, about sending dead Jews to the moon …

Nancy’s eyes drooped closed. She swayed back and forth, her mouth open. What would be so bad? she thought. She was tired. So tired …

Oliver …

She snapped awake. She straightened at the parapet, her fingernails scraping the concrete. Her heart beat fast as her eyes came wide open, as she stared down at the police below. The blue men, gripping their holsters, ran toward the building under the flashing red lights.

And she thought: Oliver. Oliver Perkins. She had to find him. That was the thing. The urgent thing. The one thing she really knew. She remembered him. No. She remembered the feel of his book. The slick feel of his book’s white cover in her fingers.

He gave it to me. He said I had to carry it for identification.

She remembered the rough texture of the pages, their corners between her finger and her thumb. And the black print of the words beneath her eyes.

What if we went off together into the hills
and on into the hills beyond the hills where the

leaves are changing?

Where the first remark of gray among the branches
is insinuated in me now like something one

learned before youth

and has, in consciousness, forgotten …

She remembered the rhythm, the music of the words. She had not even understood them all exactly. Poetry. Christ. What did she know about poetry? But the feel of it. She had gotten that, she remembered that. The sweet-natured melancholy. The sense of life and death creeping down out of the woods at night to the lonesome man watching. She remembered his eyes, his lonesome eyes: the picture of the poet on the back cover. She had sat there, hadn’t she? All girlish and dreamy for a few minutes. Her feet up on her desk, the book against her thighs. Thinking back to what it was like when a boy said things to you, so-deep things, leaning toward you with his earnest eyes and you still believed him. She had sat dreaming about the garret where she’d lie, her uptight Catholic body skinny and naked under the single sheet. And him hunched grimly at his desk, his pen moving over the pad in the lamplight …

This is the Animal Hour.

She swayed, gripping the parapet, nauseous, weak. The Animal Hour. Yes. Yes. She had to be there. She had to. It could already be too late. She did not even know what time it was anymore. It could already have happened.

Oliver.

They were going to kill him. She had to get there. She had to get to him in time.

Without thinking, she began to climb onto the parapet. She cried out with the effort, cried out in pain. Her back, her knees, her head—the ache everywhere blended into a single hot sting through her entire body. Still, she worked her leg over the concrete parapet. Looked down. A long drop to the sidewalk. She could break her legs easily. She could break her neck …

But there was a window below her, halfway between her and the sidewalk. If she could lower herself to the window ledge, if she could get her feet on it …

She glanced up. Looked to the corner. More cops were rushing toward the entrance now. Others stood poised at their cars, standing at the open doors, their radio mikes in their hands. None of them was looking her way. She brought her other leg over the parapet, grunting with the pain. Slowly, she lowered herself. Clinging to the parapet with her hands, she let her legs hang down.

She dangled there. Her face tapped against the brick. Her muscles burned as her arms stretched above her. Her head pounded. Her feet sought for purchase on the ledge below. A car horn blasted. Nancy gasped. Her fingers began to slip away. Someone yelled at her from a passing car. She heard their laughter fading as the car went by.

Panting, she lowered her feet to the windowsill. Tears of pain made her nearly blind. Red pain, all through her. The tips of her sneakers touched the sill. Her fingers slipped to the edge of the parapet.

And then they slipped off. She dropped to the window ledge. She clutched at the face of the building. For an instant, she balanced there. But only for an instant. Then, twisting, she half-fell half-jumped to the sidewalk below.

It was a light landing. Not that far to fall. She came down on her feet, but her legs gave under her. She collapsed to her knees. The sidewalk slapped against her raw knees. She gave a muted cry and pitched forward. Sprawled on her face on the concrete.

She tasted grime. Felt the gritty stone against cheek and nose. “I hope you appreciate this, Oliver,” she muttered. Then she pushed herself to her hands and knees.

“You okay, lady?”

She cried out. Her head snapped back. She saw a werewolf. A werewolf was standing over her. A werewolf wearing a high school letter jacket.

He bared his fangs. His red eyes peered through a mask of bristling fur. His hairy paw was reaching down at her. “Need a hand?”

“Aaah!” she said. She stared at him. “Aaa-aaa-ah!” She scrambled away from him on her hands and knees, ignoring the pain. She found the wall and clawed her way quickly to her feet, her breath rasping. The wolfman stood where he was and stared at her with his red-streaked eyes. She staggered away from him. Staggered up Lexington, toward Twenty-second Street. She cast looks back over her shoulder at him. Held her hands up to ward him off.

The werewolf shrugged, finally. Stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and ambled off toward Twenty-first Street, where the cops were gathered. Nancy stopped to watch him go. She stood at the corner. Her head throbbed, her heart pounded hard. She watched as the wolfman joined a mummy and Frankenstein monster. All of them walked off together under the canopy of flashing lights.

Nancy let out her breath. She lifted her head. She looked up at the building above her. She saw the open window through which she had come. The lace curtains blowing out through it, fluttering in the cool October breeze. Her father had his head poking out. She saw his silver hair. He had his arm raised and was pointing along the ledge where she had gone. He pointed along the face of the building toward the connecting roof where she had fallen.

Only he’s not my father, Nancy thought. My father is dead. My father died when I was little.

Now there was a policeman too. A young patrolman with a thin mustache. He was sticking his head out the window also. Leaning out next to the silver-haired man. He was looking along the ledge where the silver-haired man was pointing. Nancy stood on the sidewalk below and gazed up at them. In another moment, she thought, the policeman would look down. He would look down and spot her standing there. Still, she did not move. She did not want to move. She stood there, looking at the window, thinking of the bedroom inside. The soft, frilly canopy bed. The mirror. The photographs of laughing girls who were all friends together. She did not want to leave …

She shivered. Shook herself. Oliver, she thought. Come on. Come on. The time … She had to go.

The silver-haired man was pointing and pointing. And the cop beside him was starting to look down, scanning the face of the building with his sharp cop’s eyes. He would look down at the sidewalk. He would see her.

Nancy hesitated only another second. Well, she thought. Good-bye. Good-bye.

And then she turned. She hobbled off. As fast as she could. Around the corner. Into the night. To find Oliver.

Now the parade was about to begin. The thick crowd of people on Sixth Avenue had congealed into a solid mass. They packed the sidewalks. They pressed against the blue police barricades. Masked and hooded, smeared with makeup, sucking at sack-covered bottles of beer, they watched the street. They waited for the marchers. Behind them, on whatever thin strip of sidewalk was left, another crush of people pushed uptown: a gelatinous flow between the spectators on one side, and the vendors on the other. The vendors shouted above the shouts and murmurs of the crowd. They hawked their battery-powered domino masks fringed with blinking lights. They blew paper trumpets into the night air.

Perkins came out of Nana’s building and saw what was happening. He stopped under the awning. He cursed under his breath. It had taken him several minutes to free himself from his grandmother’s anxious hands. It was almost seven o’clock now. And that crowd—he was going to have to fight his way downtown.

But it didn’t matter. He had to get back to Zach. He had left his brother alone too long. The police could have found him already. The FBI. Or Nancy Kincaid’s murderer …

He started toward the avenue. He joined the rapid stream of costumed spectators as they flowed into the muddy human river. They’re going to kill him, he thought, his mouth set, his eyes fixed. They’re going to kill him and set him up for the Kincaid murder. He shouldered his way into the mass of people. He ignored the weight of blackness in his belly; the premonition floating around his mind like haze. He kept moving as the heavy tide of flesh closed over him.

He had to get back to his brother.

In the darkened room, amidst the mounds of books, the slanting towers and shelves of books, Zachary knelt on a spot of bare floor. The small, sinewy man was in deep shadow there, his hands clasped beneath his chin. His head was bowed. His eyes were closed. His lips were moving. Silently, he prayed to Jesus.

Let Ollie come home in time, he prayed. It would all come apart if Ollie didn’t come home and save him. He would never take drugs again, if Ollie came. He swore it. He knew he’d promised before, but he really swore it now. Really. Please, he prayed, don’t let me go to prison. Dear God, please, not that. Just give me a chance to convince the police that I’m innocent. That it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. Please …

He shut his eyes tighter. He peered into the blackness beneath his lids. He tried to clear his mind, even of supplication. He tried to go blank, to go empty. He wanted God to come into him. He wanted the power of God to fill him. He wanted to be one with God, a single force of desire.

But his mind … He couldn’t get it clear. Even in the dark, even with his eyes closed, so many little things … They invaded him. They ate like termites at his concentration. The sound of voices through the open window. The touch of air, the fresh October air that smelled of leaves. Shouts and laughter from the street … And music now too: the music from the parade.

“Damn it!” Zachary whispered harshly.

And a baby crying. Somewhere. Eating at him, buzzing in his brain. Giving him no peace: a baby, somewhere, crying and crying.

The library’s castlelike spires were silhouetted against the purple sky. Their silver steeples glistened in the city light and the white light of the gibbous moon. Below, the huge crowd pressed in from either side on the empty, waiting avenue. Masses of humanity coursed sluggishly: uptown on the east sidewalk, downtown on the west by some unspoken agreement. In the street, the police ambled back and forth along the barricades. Under the barricades, children sat on the curb. The children’s faces were blackened by makeup or hidden by masks. Their eyes were big as they stared up at the passing cops.

Perkins had crossed over at Twelfth. He was on the west sidewalk now, directly beneath the library. He had shouldered his way into the downtown tide and the flowing mass had sucked him in. Bodies were pressed against him, back and front. Shoulders were pressed against his shoulders. The heat of breath, the smell of sweat, the stink of beer, swept up into his nostrils. He elbowed and twisted, trying to edge his way deeper into the flow. But the mass was unyielding. It carried him along. Under the library’s lowering facade. Under a stand of yellowing sycamores. Under the awnings of stores and their dark windows with paper skulls and pumpkins and witches grinning out at him. He made his way downtown yard by sludgy yard. He felt the time passing, felt it like a pulse in the world outside him. Inside him, the black batlike thing crouched with its wings furled, waiting to rise.

Maybe he would find the apartment empty when he got there, he thought. Or maybe he would find Zach dead. His body sprawled on the bed. The blood everywhere. His head …

Look what they did to my head, Oliver.

With a grunt, he forced his way between two women. Forced himself to stop imagining things. He pushed against the mass. He craned his neck, looked over the solid carpet of heads leading downtown. There was his street. Cornelia Street. Just up ahead.

And there was the parade.

It was coming up the avenue. A high-stepping Dixieland band led the way. He could hear the mournful horns playing “St. James Infirmary.” He could see a cornet’s bell as it caught the streetlight, as it slashed the air, leaving green and golden traces in its wake. Behind and above the band, dancing to the music against the sky, were skeletal dinosaurs. Enormous fossils made of papier-mâché, swaying over the heads of the people who carried them. Clowns and spangled transvestites skipped along the edges of the march, along the curbs, throwing confetti at the onlookers. A cheer went up from the crowd as they passed. It rose up toward Perkins like a wave. Paper trumpets honked loudly. Noisemakers rattled. The crowd seemed to tighten around him.

Then he broke free. He twisted away from the muddy flow. He went stumbling down Cornelia Street, toward his brownstone.

Zach.

Breathing hard, forcing down his premonitions of disaster, he ran for home.

Zachary was on his feet by the time Oliver got there. He was pacing back and forth in the little floor lanes between the books. The sound of the key in the latch made him stop short, spin to the door. The door swung open. Zach saw Oliver there, leaning against the jamb, slumped, panting.

Thank you, Jesus, Zachary thought.

It was quarter past seven. There was still time.

“You all right?” Oliver said, breathless. He peeled off the jamb, staggered into the room. He pushed the door shut behind him. Neither of them moved to turn on the lights. They faced each other in the blue shadows. For some reason, the dark made them speak low, almost in whispers.

Zachary already knew what he had to say. He had it all worked out. Still, the words came shakily. “She … she was here, Ollie. She came here.”

Oliver coughed, tried to catch his breath. He leaned back against the wall, holding his chest. “Who …? Who did?”

“Tiffany.”

“What?”

Oliver straightened. Zach couldn’t make out his expression. He didn’t want to meet his eyes. He paced back and forth a little in the dark. He ran his hand up over his bristly crew cut. “That’s right. That’s right. I was on the bed …”

“She came here?” Oliver whispered. He shook his head. “When? I just saw her. I just saw her at Nana’s. She left, like, ten minutes before me.”

At Nana’s? Zachary stopped pacing. His heart seemed to ball itself into a fist, expand like a balloon, and then contract again. What the hell was she doing at Nana’s, for Christ’s sake? She wasn’t supposed to be at Nana’s. She wasn’t supposed to be anywhere! No one was supposed to see her. She was supposed to stay out of town, stay out of the way at her mother’s until the time was right. That was the plan. EVERYTHING’S GETTING FUCKED UP, JESUS, HEEELP! “Uh, that’s right, that’s right,” he went on quickly. He paced again in front of his brother. His brother peered at him, watched him going back and forth in the shadows. Zach massaged his forehead. The sound of Dixie brass was at the window. Under that, he could hear the baby crying louder: Aaah. Aaah. Aaah. It was hard to think. “That’s right,” he pressed on. “She was here, uh, just about ten minutes ago, that’s just about right. I was … I was on the bed …” He went back to the story he’d planned. Oliver, panting, gaping, watched him. “Just lying there and I heard a knock. A knock at the window and I looked up. God, Ollie, it was like she was floating there in the night, floating right outside the window.”

Oliver turned toward the window, as if he expected to see her there. “She came up the fire escape.”

“Yes. Yes. So I went—”

“How? How did she know you were here?”

“What?”

“How the hell did she know you were here, Zach?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Zach answered quickly. He watched the floor as he paced. His black eyes shifted back and forth. He had to think. “I mean, that’s why … that’s why I was so surprised to see her and … And I got up, I … I went to the window. I said, ‘Tiffany …’ You know, like: ‘What the hell is going on?’ And she said—she said she knew everything, Ollie. About the murder. The girl in the mews. She said she knew the whole story.”

“Damn her, damn her.” Oliver’s voice cracked. His eyes were suddenly gleaming eagerly in the darkness. Zach turned his face to the side to hide his smile. Yes! he thought. I’ve got him. “Did she tell you?” Ollie asked.

“Um … um … um …,” Zach said. A drum echoed him outside: Bum, bum, bum. And that goddamned baby. The thin wail, spiraling higher now with frustration, fear. Why didn’t somebody pick the fucking kid up? “Well, she said, she said she wouldn’t talk here,” Zach stammered. “She wanted … she wanted to meet me. Somewhere private, she said. She said she’d tell everything, but it had to be … it had to be somewhere private.”

“No.” Oliver shook his head. “No. No. No. This is a setup, man.”

Zach thought his heart would blow right through his ribs. He halted in midstride. He swallowed hard and turned his head to stare at his brother. “What-What-What … What-What … do you mean, a setup?” he said.

Oliver did not answer right away. He just shook his head again. “I don’t know, I … I have this feeling … It’s just … It’s all wrong. I can’t work it out, it’s all wrong.” Then: “Where is this? Where does she want to meet?”

Again, Zach buried a smile in the shadows. “At your room.”

“My room?”

“In the library. It was my idea. The library is closed during the parade and you’re the only one who has a key. You see? It’s totally private, no one can get in but you. Tiffy said she’d meet us there at eight. She said she’d tell us everything. She said if we weren’t there by eight, she’d leave.” It was a good story. Oliver would go for it; Zach was sure. But he added: “I’m really worried about her, Ollie. This isn’t like Tiff at all. She’s in some kind of terrible trouble.” It sounded bogus even to him, but Oliver didn’t notice.

Oliver just made a noise of frustration. He ran both hands through his long hair. “No,” he said. “No. Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong with this. I gotta think. We gotta figure this out. Call a lawyer. Call the cops.” He squeezed his eyes shut. His hands gripped his hair.

Zach could only stare at him, stare at his silhouette, holding his breath. He was thinking, Please. Please, Jesus. Please.

Oliver opened his eyes. He looked around the room. “Do you hear a baby crying?” he asked.

The sound—the thin wail punctuated by screeches of anguish—vanished for a moment under the sound of the parade. An old-fashioned marching band was passing by the corner of Cornelia and Sixth. “Halls of Montezuma” came in through the window. Oliver wasn’t sure he’d heard the baby’s cry at all. He held his head. He tried to think. His mind was empty except for the consciousness of blackness: that heavy weight, that hunkering thing inside him … For a moment, strangely, he thought of the sledding hill again. The snowy hill outside his home on Long Island when he was a boy. He thought of riding down the hill on the Flexible Flyer, he and Zach. Don’t let go, Ollie, don’t let go!

Suddenly, Zach stepped toward him out of the shadows. His face was clear. His large, dark eyes appealed to him. His voice was tremulous and youthful. “I’ve gotta go to her, Oliver. You don’t have to come, but I’ve got to. Okay? I love her. Nothing else matters to me. I don’t care about the police or anything. I’ve just got to go.”

Oliver looked down at him. The band was marching by. He could hear the baby again. Aaah. Aaah. Aaah. It couldn’t be Avis’s, he thought vaguely. She’d never let him cry like that. Christ, she’d never let him off her tit long enough.

“I’m going, Oliver,” Zach said with boyish determination.

Oliver stood silent. What could he say? That he suspected her? That he’d had a premonition? That he knew she was faithless because he’d done her his own damned self? He stood silent, his lips moving.

“I’m going,” Zach said again. “With that crowd out there, I may not make it in time as it is. I’ve got to go.”

He turned and marched away, into the room, into the dark. He went into the bathroom. Oliver knew there was no stopping him. There never was when he got like this.

In a moment, Zach came out again. He was gripping his bag, his red overnight bag. Just like hers, Ollie thought. Everything the same.

“There are a million cops out there tonight,” Oliver told him. “You’ll be nailed in a minute.”

Zach was at the closet now. He pulled out a long gray raincoat, shrugged it on and buttoned it. He pulled a cap from its pocket and tugged it down over his eyes. “I’ll be okay,” he said.

Oliver snorted. Zach hardly seemed to be there anymore, hidden under all those clothes. He was like the Invisible Man.

Zach stepped to him and held out his hand. “I’ve got to see her, bro. I’ve got to go. Give me the key to the library.”

The two brothers stood silent in the darkened room. The crowd cheered outside. The baby cried.

“All right,” Oliver said after another moment. “All right. I’m coming with you.”

Awright! Awright! I say, Hallelujah, Lord! Zach went high-stepping down the brownstone stairs, Oliver behind him. The younger brother was practically giggling with glee. Praise Jesus! he thought. It was all coming true. Ollie had played right into his wicked hands. Nya-ha-ha! He clutched the handle of his red bag. He pranced to the entrance hall, to the foyer door. It was going to be easy now, he thought. There was still plenty of time to get to the library. Plenty of time to get the thing done, to make the switch with Tiffany and be off, the twenty-five thousand dollars in their pockets. Even if Nana had seen her, they could still make up some alibi or other. Besides, when Nana found out Oliver was dead—well, there probably wouldn’t even be a Nana anymore. Snark-snark-snark-snark-snark. Yes! God still loved him. All was forgiven. He could feel it in his crazy bones.

He gripped the door. Pulled it open. Glanced back to urge his brother on.

Oliver wasn’t there.

Zach did a double take. His eyes shifted this way and that, as if he thought Ollie had disappeared. Then he looked up. His lips parted. He moved back to the foot of the stairs. He peered up from under his cap, through the harsh light and dark shadows cast by the hallway bulbs.

Oliver still stood on the second-floor landing. He had his hand on the newel post, as if he were about to come down. But he did not move. His head was lifted, cocked, as if he were listening. His face was turned away. He was looking up the stairs.

“Ollie! Ollie!” Zach called up to him. “Come on! Come on! We’ve got to go. Now! Or we’ll be late.”

“That is coming from upstairs,” Oliver murmured.

“What?” said Zach. “What is? Come on! Come on!”

Oliver still hesitated. He shook his head. “That’s Avis’s baby,” he said.

“Ollie! Come on! Would you hurry? Would you …”

Zachary stopped. The words died in his mouth. They turned to dust in his mouth. He could taste them, taste the dust.

Avis’s baby.

His stomach went soft. For a moment, he thought the shit would just stream out of him where he stood. He tightened his ass. He gaped up the stairs at Oliver.

She had a baby. A fucking baby.

He knew it was true. The minute Ollie said it he knew. Jesus! Jesus Christ! If he hadn’t been in such a goddamned hurry to get out of her apartment! He should’ve checked that door. He’d meant to. That closed door. That other room. He should’ve checked in there! There had been a baby!

Zachary felt his face go hot, go red. He felt a helpless wailing rage well up inside him. It seemed echoed by the baby’s frantic screams. She had tricked him! Damn her! The bitch! That’s why she had started cursing at him like that, he thought. That’s why she’d said all those ugly things to him. She just wanted to make him mad. To draw him away from the door. To draw him away so he wouldn’t find the baby. So he wouldn’t kill her goddamned motherfucking baby!

Zach snorted in his rage. He licked his lips. He tasted the dust in his mouth, the bitter dust. Oh. Oh, he thought. He would’ve done it too. Oh yes. Oh yes. He would’ve pinned the wailing snot-nosed little shit to his crib cushion with a single stab. He wouldn’t have let him wake up like this, after all. He wouldn’t have let him start screaming like this. Drawing Oliver’s attention away, drawing him upstairs to find what had-happened …

Zach peered up the stairs, red-faced. His bowels churned like a cement mixer. This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted.

“Oliver,” he said again—but his voice was so weak that Ollie probably didn’t even hear it. “Ollie …”

“Hold on a minute, Zach,” Oliver said. He let go of the newel post. Moved away from the top of the stairs. “Hold on. I’ve got to go up there.”

Zach followed his brother up the stairs. He went heavily, miserably, like a prisoner to his doom. His head was hung. His footsteps thudded on the stairs. Why did God hate him so? Why would God not forgive him?

As he trudged up the second flight, he heard the pounding above him. Oliver’s fist on Avis’s door. Thump, thump, thump. The baby shrieked in answer. Oliver shouted: “Avis! Ave! You in there? You all right?”

Zach reached the landing. He saw his brother at the door, his fist still raised. There was a woman in the hall too, standing in the neighboring doorway. She was a thin woman with a waxy face and bug eyes. Her hands were clasped before her, fingers working, as if she were a mantis.

“She never lets that baby cry like that. Not ever,” she whispered. She had an English accent.

Zachary watched sullenly, his shoulders hunched inside his coat. His eyes had sunk deep beneath his brows. Damn her! Damn her!

Oliver was reaching in his pocket for his key. He would have a key, wouldn’t he? He was muttering to himself. “If her fucking ex is in there … if this is you, Randall, if it’s you, you just don’t know, you can’t imagine the hurt I’ll put on you, pal, no one can …”

He was slipping the key in the door. Zach just watched him sulkily. He could think of no way to stop him. He was out of ideas. Damn her! he thought helplessly. His mouth worked bitterly. Damn, damn, damn her! She had tricked him. Tricked.

Oliver pushed the door open. The baby’s cries were suddenly loud. The hoarse, choking sobs washed out over them in waves. Oliver stepped into the apartment.

Zach sighed miserably. Shit, he thought. He shook his head. He did not bother to follow his brother into the apartment until he heard Oliver’s wild cry rising up to mingle with the baby’s. Then, sagging, he humped to the doorway. The bug-woman frittered along behind him.

“Oh God!” Zach heard her gasp.

Oliver stood just within the threshold. His head was thrown back. His hands were clutching at his sweater. He was tearing at his sweater, tearing it open. Frowning, Zach watched as his older brother cried out wildly again.

Zach thought: Oh come on, Oliver. Don’t overdo it, for Christ’s sake.

Oliver sobbed and looked down at Avis Best. She lay still and silent on the floor where Zach had left her. She lay on her back near the canvas chair. One arm was resting on the seat, the other was flung outward. Her blonde hair was fanned out, turning black at the edges where it had sunk into the pool of blood that surrounded her head like a scarlet corona.

Her face was tilted back, her chin was lifted. Her glasses were askew on her nose. Her eyes were shut.

Her throat was slashed open.

In the other room, the baby cried and cried for her to come. But she was surely dead.