CHAPTER 30

Roz is not a screamer. I don’t mean she’s quiet. Particularly when using one of her tumbling mats for love-making, she can turn out the most incredible progression of provoking noises. But this was something different, and I was out of the bedroom before I thought about what the trouble might be.

She had tried the second-floor bathroom. I don’t know if her lover, the tall, dumb plumber had told her it was safe in some fit of overconfidence, or her nonlover, in a corresponding fit of jealous rage, had told her the same, but Roz was stuck in the bathroom, staring transfixed at the geyser erupting from the ruptured faucet of the Day-Glo orange sink.

She was soaked, dripping, huddled on the window side of the bathroom. To get to the door she would have had to run under the fountain. Steam was rising.

“Shut-off valve!” I yelled.

“It’s under the fucking sink,” she screamed. “Too hot.”

“Don’t move,” I said.

“I’m going out the window,” she cried.

“Is it hitting you?”

“No, but the steam—”

“This is the second floor,” I shouted. “Stay there.”

“I can jump,” she said.

“There aren’t any fucking tumbling mats. I’ll get the shut-off in the basement.”

“Hurry,” she said.

I was already down the stairs. Every time I took a step I muttered something about the Twin Brothers. Stupid, shitty, dumb-ass, motherfucking Twin Brothers.

I had to find a flashlight, race down two flights of stairs, remember where the damn shut-off valve was, all the while hoping Roz didn’t scald herself to death or crawl out the window and crash to the ground.

When I ran back up, the first words Roz screamed, peering over the landing, were, “Did you catch her?”

Valerie. She was goddamn gone.