We lapsed back into silence. I recalled that last talk with Sheila, realizing how much about her marriage she had still kept hidden, and I mulled over what Queenie had just shared. An ugly story. Sordid. Painful. The Bernards had destroyed a child’s mind. They had created a monster, and he had destroyed them. I wondered about that child, about what he must have gone through, what he must have contemplated during those long years of torture and imprisonment.
“Did you ever think about running away?”
“Sure I did. Damn near every minute, day and night. For years. But when it came down to it, I was just too damn comfortable. And I was getting stronger while Junior was getting weaker—and so were the Bernards. I figured that all I’d have to do was wait. They’d kick the bucket and I’d get everything. But they sure showed me.”
“What did they do?”
“Something I wouldn’t have expected in a million years: they sent Junior off to college. That shocked the socks off of me. When I woke up in that dorm room, honey, I was fit to be tied.”
I was stunned too, but not just because the Bernards had relented and given Junior his freedom. What puzzled me even more was Queenie’s surprise. Why hadn’t he known of Junior’s plans to go to college and the process he’d gone through to get there? There must’ve been discussions, maybe even arguments, definitely negotiations, promises made. Then there would have been the whole application process, the testing, the interviewing. Finally, the acceptance and the packing, followed by the actual trip and arrival. How could Junior have accomplished all of that without Queenie being aware of it? Maybe Junior was stronger than Queenie realized or wanted to admit.
“But what really screwed things up,” he continued, “was when he met that Sheila bitch.”
At the mention of Sheila, my nascent sympathy for Queenie vanished. “He loved her.”
“He didn’t need to love her. He had me.”
“So you were jealous.”
“No—”
“And you meant to kill her from the very beginning.”
“Put it like this: I knew I had to get rid of the bitch. Junior’s stupid kidnapping plan gave me the chance.”
I peered at him. “She loved you, you know. You destroyed the one person who was totally on your side.”
“She loved him. She should’ve known better than to mess with me. I always knew what that whiny-ass husband of hers was up to. But he never knew a damn thing about me.”
That was a lie. Queenie had just admitted that he didn’t know everything that Junior knew. He hadn’t known about the plan to go to college. And the bitterness in his voice. It was the voice of someone who felt neglected and ignored, who felt his work had gone unappreciated. So he reveled in his supremacy over Junior, but resented it too.
“Just when did you step in with the kidnapping?”
“I knew about it from the get-go, just as soon as it popped into his head. I let him play with it and I made my own plans. It was easy once Stax sent Olmo after me.”
“A bad mistake, huh?”
“Bad for him, good for me.”
I was really beginning to understand now. It was Olmo who’d enabled Queenie to go through with his plan. “Olmo made all the difference, didn’t he?”
“Honey, I laid the kind of loving on him that a man don’t forget. He didn’t know what hit him. By the time I finished with him, he was in my hip pocket.”
“But Sheila said Junior mentioned Olmo to her. How could he have known him, when it was you who—”
“When it was me who met him?” He laughed. “I simply told Olmo what the deal was, told him how to approach Junior. At first, Junior didn’t know what Olmo was about. But Olmo played it right. Pretty soon Junior was spilling his guts, begging Olmo to help him.”
Incredible. Queenie had actually used his lover to trick himself—his alternate, original personality—into a double-cross. Then he’d double-crossed the wife and the lover. And what had he said?
“Junior’s gonna lay down and die. I’m gonna make sure of it.”
So now he intended to double-cross himself too.