My closest relation is myself.
— Terence
September sun streamed in through the windows, a not unpleasant reminder that the night had ended. Still, Annie sighed, reluctant to start the day.
“Mornin’,” Grady said from somewhere above her, and she liked the way his voice rather rumbled in his chest as she lay against him.
“Yes, I know. Close your eyes, and maybe it will go away,” she said, snuggling closer.
“Well, it is Sunday. Technically, my day off. So, if you don’t want to get up yet, I’ll just stay here a little while longer. Oh, and by the way, it’s reassuring to know you aren’t nervous anymore.”
“Who says?” Annie asked. “I don’t remember issuing a bulletin to that effect.”
Grady laughed. “You don’t have to. Remember, I know where your hand is.”
“It slipped,” Annie said, quickly moving her hand back up above Grady’s equator. She hadn’t even realized what she’d been doing, as touching Grady had become so natural to her. A night of loving could do that to a person, she’d decided, not without pleasure.
“If you let it slip again, I’ll buy breakfast,” Grady said, his own hand sliding down her back, tickling her lightly.
“Tempting as that sounds,” Annie told him, repositioning herself so that the two of them were half-sitting against the headboard, “I think we’d better remember where we are.”
Grady ruffled her curls. “I’d rather remember where we’ve been.” When she looked at him, trying to be stern, he added, “Okay, okay. So maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea if anyone saw me leaving your room.”
“Good thought,” Annie said, grabbing the top sheet, pulling it loose from the mattress, then hopping out of bed even as she wrapped it around herself. “Besides, if you don’t soon do your fingerprint thing on my bathroom, I’m going to use it anyway. I hate skulking down the hallway.”
Grady was already slipping into his briefs, having located them hanging drunkenly from the desk chair. “I’ll bet you didn’t have your own bathroom when you were a carny,” he said easily, just as if he hadn’t been waiting all night for a way to bring that particular subject back into the conversation.
“Is that your clever detective way of saying I owe you one?” Annie asked, plunking herself down in the desk chair, trying to look nonchalant as Grady pulled on his slacks, zipped them.
“Could be, or it could just be that I envy you. There isn’t a kid alive who didn’t think it would be neat to run away with the circus when it left town. Is that what you did?”
Annie nodded. “But not the circus. Just a small amusement company, the sort we saw last night. They travel around, from small fair to small fair, and become part of the midway. No lions or tigers, not even a monkey. Just our wheels and darts and milk bottles.”
“And B-B guns,” Grady reminded her as he pulled his shirt over his head, emerging from the neck hole with his hair so sexily ruffled that Annie had to silently compliment her newly liberated sexual self for not jumping him. “And you said you’d never held a gun. See? I remember this stuff. That’s because I’m a master detective. I’ve got a license and everything.”
“A B-B gun, Grady,” she repeated. “Hardly a real gun. But you’re right. I can take out any target that looks like a five-pointed star. Other than that, I’m pretty much a novice.”
“Aiming is aiming,” Grady pointed out, bending down to kiss the tip of her nose. “Not that I’d expect you ever to aim at a person, but it’s nice to know you could probably hit whatever it is you aim at. With a ball, with a dart, with a water hose. You’ve got a real talent, Annie.”
“Planning on hiring me on?” Annie asked, beginning to feel very naked beneath her sheet now that Grady was completely dressed. She felt vulnerable. She hated feeling vulnerable.
He grinned. “Nope. I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure. Now, tell me about being a carny. Pretty please?”
Annie shrugged. “There isn’t much to tell, not really. I was sixteen, the carnies were in town, and when they left I went with them. For about three months, as we traveled through... through several states, I did odd jobs. Helped set up stands, broke them down again, helped in the cooking trailer, played shill a couple of times when business fell off.”
“Shill?”
“Well, not quite a shill,” Annie explained. “I’d just pretend to be a customer when things were slow. Win a few prizes, let the carny yell about how well I was doing. You know, make people think they could win.”
“But they couldn’t, because the games were fixed?”
Annie pleated the sheet as it lay in her lap. “A couple of them. Or did you think a nice, reputable, family-owned business would hire on a sixteen-year-old without asking a few pertinent questions first? So, as it happens, we got busted.”
“Ah, now I understand. The carnies got busted, and you got caught as a runaway? Still, I’ll bet your parents were relieved, even if you couldn’t have had the best home life. Not if you ran away in the first place.”
Annie bit on her knuckle, trying to decide how much she wanted to say. She had to say something. She didn’t know why, but she just did. Grady made her feel honest. It was an uncomfortable sensation, as she tried very hard never to be honest about her childhood.
“Annie? Did I say something wrong?”
She shook her head, then looked up at him. “No. You couldn’t know, could you? I... I didn’t have parents, Grady. I had a mother, once upon a time, but she died or left or something, and I was put into foster care before I was three. And tried to get out of it ever since,” she added, trying to smile at him even as she blinked furiously, to hold back sudden, stupid tears. “Running away with the carnies was about my tenth or twelfth try at getting out of the system. There were no more foster homes after that. They stuck me in a juvenile detention center laughingly called a private school, until I was eighteen. But that was okay, because at least I had books there, and I actually went to community college afterward, and then on to get my B.A.”
She stood up, holding the sheet close to her. “And that’s today’s episode of Annie’s World, the Real Story. It’s also all I’m going to say, okay?”
Grady had been silent the entire time Annie had been speaking. He’d just looked at her, his eyes slowly going all soft and warm. But not with pity. She would have brained him if she’d seen pity in his eyes. What she saw there was compassion, a true sadness for the girl Annie had been, the life she’d had to endure.
“I swear I’ll never ask you another question, Annie,” he told her now, laying his hands on her shoulders. “But if you ever want to talk, I also promise I’ll be here to listen. Okay, Slugger?”
She bit her bottom lip, nodded. “That wasn’t easy,” she admitted at last, smiling up at him. “I don’t share well, you know? Not about my private life. I... I’ve always been pretty much of a loner, you know?”
“And your best friends were books, and television, and the movies,” Grady said, stroking her hair. “You hid in the dark theater, or inside the covers of a book, and made your own realities. It’s all coming together for me now. And if I ever ask you another personal question, you have my permission to clobber me.”
Annie felt a real smile tickling the corners of her mouth. “That’s a deal. Maisie, I get to boil in oil, though. I know she’s only doing her job, but she just seems to enjoy it a little too much.”
“I’ll call her off,” Grady said, his hands moving to loosen the sheet tucked in over Annie’s breasts. “Next time I see her, that is. It’s only eight o’clock, you know. Even us conscientious types don’t report for work on Sundays before ten. Damn! Who the hell could that be, and why does he have a death wish?”
Annie had already turned her head toward the door, having heard the knock at the same time as Grady. “Okay,” she said, looking back at him. “I’m not dressed, and you shouldn’t be here. So which one of us hides in the closet?”
“Mr. Sullivan? If you would please be so kind as to open the door?”
“Dickens,” Annie and Grady said together, both of them pretty much hissing the word through clenched teeth.
“Now I know how Jerry Seinfeld felt when he’d open the door to see Newman standing there,” Annie said, then laughed. “Newman? Seinfeld’s nemesis? Never mind. Old sitcom joke. I’ll be in the closet, okay?”
“Hey, I watch television, you know,” Grady called after her. “I’ve heard Seinfeld say ‘New-man.’ ” To prove it, he went to the door, pulled it open, and ground out, “Dick-em.”
He could hear Annie’s bubbly giggle from the closet, as she hadn’t quite closed the door all the way.
“Good morning, sir,” the butler said, walking into the room just as if he’d been invited, carrying with him a small silver metal attaché case that he seemed to have manfully resisted handcuffing to his wrist like some government courier. “I have those items you require.”
He placed the attaché case on the bed and snapped open the locks. “Each is in its own plastic bag, labeled, of course. The Messrs. Peevers—all three of them—Miss Muriel, Miss Mitzi, Dr. Sandborn, Miss Goodenough, Attorney Banning. Prints from the other employees: the maid, cook, et cetera, et cetera. And mine. I gave you both the right and left of my own prints, as I am ambidextrous, sir, and didn’t want to confuse you.”
“You lifted Archie’s prints? Why? I thought you said he never leaves his rooms.”
Dickens looked right, then left. He pulled a small pad of paper from one pocket, a pen from another, and began scribbling. When he was done, he handed the pad to Grady even as he commented on the mild temperature expected today and the possibility luncheon would be served on the terrace.
Grady frowned at Dickens for a moment, then looked at the pad, his eyes widening as he read: No, sir, I did not say Mr. Peevers never leaves his rooms. Mr. Peevers says he never leaves his rooms. Don’t say anything, as these rooms are most probably bugged. Monitored electronically, sir.
“You’re kidding,” he said, reading the message again.
“No, sir,” Dickens said stiffly. “I have already read the weather report in today’s newspaper, and the report states quite clearly that it will be a mild, sunny September day.”
Grady pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and index finger, trying to get his bearings. Bugged? Archie had the rooms bugged? Even this room? This room, where he and Annie had made love? Where Annie had told him things she believed only he could hear?
“Sir?” Dickens said, cocking his head to one side. “Are you all right? You look rather... disturbed.”
“Oh, yeah?” Grady said, his smile tight. “You think so? Well, I gotta tell you, Dick-ens, old sport, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” He held out his hand. “Give me the key. He’s still locked in, right? Give me the damn key.”
Annie stepped out from the closet, Grady’s tone alerting her that something was not right. “Grady? What’s the matter?” she asked, now dressed in her flowered bathrobe, which covered her from neck to knee.
“I can’t do that, sir,” Dickens said, although he was backing up as he said it. There was just something in Grady’s eyes, and the tightness of his jaw, that told him backing up was probably a good idea. Turning tail and running for his life became a viable second option. “Sir? Please don’t look at me like that. I would have told you... eventually. The... the time was never right.”
“Gimme,” Grady said, his hand still held out, palm up, as he moved his fingers in a come-hither movement. “Archie and I are going to have a little talk, even if I have to shoot the lock out.” He looked up, raised his voice. “Did you hear that, Archie? Are you listening now, or just getting this all down on tape to amuse yourself later? Doesn’t matter, does it? Better get ready, old man, because here I come!”
He grabbed the key from Dickens’s hand and broke into a run as he went out the door, turned right, and headed for Archie’s rooms, Annie close on his heels, still asking him what was wrong.
He jammed the key in the lock, throwing the door open with enough force to have it bang against the wall and nearly hit him in the face on the recoil as he stomped into the room. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, Archie,” he said as he plowed through the vestibule to see the empty bed in the middle of the larger room.
“Grady? What are you doing?” Annie asked, grabbing his arm. “Where’s Archie? Grady? You’re scaring me! And what’s that smell?”
He stabbed a hand through his hair, then looked at Annie, took a deep breath, tried to compose himself. “It’s Archie, and this whole thing smells to high heaven. He’s bugged the rooms, Annie. Bugged them! And now I’m going to ring his scrawny chicken neck!”
“He—he bugged the rooms?” Annie’s eyes got wide, and she clapped both hands to her mouth, speaking through them. “Oh-my-God. He bugged my room?” Then her eyelids narrowed and her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Where is he? I’m going to kill him!”
Annie’s instant anger, mingled as it was with some genuine terror, served to calm Grady, who had to admit to himself that he had been about as angry as he’d ever been in his life. Bugging the Peevers heirs? Okay, with this crew, it was almost to be expected. Bugging Grady’s rooms? The sign of a pure paranoid, checking up even on the people hired to protect him. He could live with that.
But he had bugged Annie’s room. Annie, who had shared a bed with Grady last night. Annie, who had shared a painful story of her childhood with him this morning. With him. Not the whole fucking world!
Dickens walked up beside Grady and gave a discreet cough as he tipped his head to the right, toward a door in the corner of the room. “The bathroom is that way. I believe I shall drive into town now, sir, for my regular Sunday morning breakfast with a few of my friends.”
“You have friends?” Annie asked, then quickly put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, Dickens, I’m sorry. It’s just... it’s just—well, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t tell you,” Dickens said, raising his voice. “Mr. Sullivan here guessed. Isn’t that right, Mr. Sullivan?”
But Mr. Sullivan didn’t answer. He was already all the way across the room, pulling open the door to the bathroom, as Dickens beat a hasty but still oddly dignified retreat.
Grady found Archie in the bathtub, hunched into a fetal position and mostly hidden under a blanket, only his eyes and the top of his head visible.
“How dare you! You’re fired! Get out! Get out!” Archie yelled, and as the acoustics were quite good in the tiled room, he almost succeeded in sounding angry rather than frightened.
The sight of Archie, cowering, served to bring Grady down from the pinnacle of the anger he’d felt. Besides, what could he do? It wasn’t as if he could punch Archie in the nose or anything. “The tapes, Archie. Where are the tapes?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out!” Archie declared, trying to stand up now that he was pretty sure Grady wouldn’t knock him back down again.
Grady looked at him, even helped him out of the tub before he slipped on the porcelain. “Okay, Archie, have it your way. I’ll start with your clothes closet. I imagine it’s large enough to hold a whole, sophisticated system.”
“No, no, not the closet!” Archie cried out, following after Grady, the tails of his nightshirt flapping around his skinny legs. “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you! Just—not the closet!”
“Definitely the closet, Archie,” Grady said, yanking open the door and looking inside. Then he blinked. “Maisie?”
“Mornin’, honey,” Maisie said, walking past him, into the room, patting at her hair with one hand. “Don’t look at me like that. We weren’t doing anything wrong. Well, nothing too wrong, right, Archie, honey?”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Annie said, sitting down in one of the chairs in front of the fireplace. “Maisie, how could you?”
Maisie looked from Grady to Annie, then back again. “What? You think we were... that I’d—oh, please! I gave him a pedicure, all right? Anything more than that, and the guy would have to swallow a Viagra the size of a house. Right, honey?”
Archie climbed into bed, not before Grady and Annie saw that his toenails were a rather tasteful shade of mauve, bits of cotton still stuck between each toe. “I was working up to it, I was working up to it. If these idiots could have stayed where they belong.”
“Yeah, right,” Maisie said, sniffing. “Look, Grady, you told me to get information. I was getting information. Boy, honey, was I getting information. Archie’s got a setup in his sitting room that would’ve given Nixon wet dreams. State of the art, honey.”
Annie was on her feet again, heading for the heavily draped French doors that led to the sitting room. She flung them open, then looked at the equipment inside. Tape recorders. Television monitors. Earphones. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase stuffed with cassettes and VCR tapes, all neatly labeled. The labels marked “Asswipe” in red pen stood out easily.
Now Annie recognized what she’d smelled when she’d first come into the room. Nail polish. The room reeked of it, and an opened bottle of polish sat on the window-sill. Clearly Archie had just been in this room—Archie and Maisie. Painting nails and listening to every word that had been said in Annie’s room.
The monitors showed her views of the drawing room, the hallway outside Archie’s bedroom, the kitchen, the front drive. Not her bedroom. Thank God, not her bedroom.
Grady joined her at the huge console, picking up one pair of earphones after another, pushing buttons, rewinding tapes, listening. After he’d picked up the third set of earphones, he hit the stop button on the machine and ejected a cassette tape.
“Yours, I believe,” he said, handing the tape to Annie.
She took it, clutched it to her chest, and stomped out of the room, heading straight for Archie’s bed.
“You are a mean and despicable old man, and you should be ashamed of yourself!” she told him as Archie held the covers up beneath his eyes. “How dare you eavesdrop on me?”
Suddenly, Archie seemed to locate his courage. Or at least his outrage. “How dare I? How dare I, little girl?” he shouted, sitting up in the bed. “Somebody’s trying to kill me! Did you think I was just going to sit back and let it happen?”
Annie shook her head so hard her curls bounced. “No, I’m not buying that. You’re just nosy. Mean, and nasty and nosy and... and a dirty old man! Shame on you!”
“Shame on me? Ha! Look who’s talking about shame on me. Lucky for you I only was listening this morning. Had yourself some great roll in the hay, didn’t you, girl? You and my other employee. I could have been murdered in my bed while the two of you were—”
“Shut up, Archie,” Grady said quietly, now standing beside Annie. “Just do yourself a great big favor and shut up. Oh, yeah, and one more thing. I quit. I quit, Annie here quits, and we’ll all be out of here today. You might want to go back to hiding in the bathtub until you can hire a bodyguard who can stomach you.”
“But—but you can’t quit!” Archie said, sliding out of the bed, mauve toenails first. “We have a contract.”
“So sue me. Hopefully, posthumously,” Grady said, taking Annie’s arm. “Come on, Slugger. We’re out of here.”
“No,” she said, pulling free of his grip.
“What?” Grady glared at her.
“I said, no,” Annie repeated, not looking at him, but definitely feeling the heat of his glare. “I signed a contract, too, and I’m not leaving. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Jesus H—damn it, Annie, this isn’t the time for your stupid ethics! He was spying on you. On us. Is it the money? He’s not worth it. Nothing is worth it.”
“Not to you, maybe,” Annie said, folding her arms across her chest and turning away from him. “So go if you want to, but don’t tell me what to do. I make up my own mind.”
“Hah! That’s my girl!” Archie said, hopping back up onto the bed, like some geriatric jack-in-the-box. “Can I pick ’em, or what? Money-hungry, sonny, the girl’s money-mad. I can see it in my kids, I could see it in her. So go away, sonny. Who needs you?”
“Annie?” Grady asked, feeling his anger rising again. “Is he right? Is it the money?”
She turned to look at him. Looked straight into his eyes. “Yes, Grady. It’s the money.”
Archie cackled in delight, right up to the point where Grady looked at him, at which point he quickly sobered.
Then Grady looked at Annie again, opened his mouth to say something, closed it. Shook his head. “Okay.” He spread his arms, closed his hands into fists. “Okay. The hell with you. I’m out of here!”
Maisie lingered as Grady made his grand exit, slamming the door behind him. “He’ll be all right, honey,” she said, patting Annie’s shoulder. “And he’s not going anywhere. I know Grady Sullivan, and he’s no quitter. But first he has to go kick something.”