After room service delivered, I popped a beer, took a few sips, and continued. No smokes, but I’m not really addicted anyway.

“What else can I say? I mean, you already know the housekeeper, Lupe, found them the next morning, tried to run back out, got woozy, passed out, and cracked her head on the counter on the way down—so they sent an ambulance for her too, along with the meat wagon. The barn is at least a hundred yards from the house. But you know all that too. I took some Heinekens from the fridge that night. Beer always puts me to sleep,” I lied. “That and horse sounds. I sleep in the hayloft.”

I went on, feigning weariness despite being a little wired.

“Earlier that night, Dick said—at the dinner table—to, and I quote, ‘Get the fuck out of my sight,’ and so I did what I was going to do anyhow. After dinner the two of them usually went off to separate areas of the house, or out again, doing whatever it was they did. When Bianca slept, it was with Prince Valium, or whatever else was in the cabinet. Or the happy housewife stomped off to meet one of her boy or girl toys—maybe both at once.”

The truth is, I never wanted to know what they did. I only wanted to get away from their shit. Aside from what they were into, they were like two vampires bickering over who or what to suck the life out of next. What most people don’t realize is how dull rich people are, especially the nouveau kind, the kind who’ll do anything for enough loot to get them into the inner sanctums of the old-money blood drinkers. They really are—boring and evil at the same time. Because they’re almost always mean and conniving, people get the idea that they’re fascinating, that they’d just love to hear all about their insider sex and money dirt. Lots of regular people would love to be that vicious too—in so many more stimulating ways—if they only had the time and money. If they weren’t too busy making ends meet and fucking up their kids. I can’t remember when I figured that out. Maybe it was even before I met up with Dollar Man.

I know. “Who’s that?” you’re about to ask. I’m getting there. Patience.

DB looked up from her scribbling. You could almost hear her thinking that no teenager should talk like this, should know this much. But I knew of at least one other girl who did—who does: my sister, my twin. I stared at the blank TV screen and lifted my palm, as if to clear the dark glass, sweep aside that painted veil separating what passes for reality and the engine of orderly chaos that operates behind it. Chaos and order… hot ice… wondrous strange snow. Khalika.

I conjured that evening, then the moonless night, the event horizon before the morning that sucked it all down that voracious black hole, then puked me up in this new universe where I had to start from scratch again, to reinvent, restructure my narrative.

“It was after dinner, so both of them were pretty shitfaced off a couple of bottles from the wine cellar, and they started sniping at each other. It was SS/DD.”

I figured she would get the abbreviation, and she did.

“Bianca didn’t care where the money came from to stock that cellar, her closets, her jewelry vault—only that it flowed at the same rate as Victoria Falls. They have his and hers Manhattan condos. Sorry, I mean had.”

DB tipped so far forward on her chair that she almost lost her balance.

“Dick interviewed his modeling hopefuls in his. Bianca entertained a steady stream of bisexuals. Dick was all man though, at least in his habits. Whatever ‘man’ means.”

I laughed then; I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mention that Khalika knew about Bianca’s wide-ranging tastes by listening in on a few of her phone calls, and by tailing her. Him too.

“By the way,” I added, nonchalantly, “did you know I always had a feeling they conspired and then murdered my real father, JeanLuc DeLoache, for his money? It’s quite romantic, huh? My birth mother, Oceane, died a week after I was born. Sepsis.”

DB’s face registered shock before she collected herself, asked if I had any other family.

“Nope, I’ve always had those two lovebirds all to myself.”

I guess it’s obvious now that I never mention Khalika if I can help it, unless she’s given me the OK. She prefers it that way—an element of surprise that might come in handy at some point. She’d left the Westchester house as soon as possible—laid low and lived off grid, for so long now. We were thirteen when she ran away in the fall of 1978 and even though we’re technically legal adults now, I still avoid talking about her. Why should I? It only complicates matters.

I made a mental note to remember the boxes of papers that Khalika stored in the hay loft when I went back. She always told me we’d open them when the time was right, and she never steered me wrong.

They say smart cops don’t ask questions they don’t already know the answers to, but I don’t think she saw any of this coming.

“If you check it out, JeanLuc’s death was deemed a suicide, which actually kind of made sense, since he made the tragic mistake of marrying Bianca and living with the ice-cold, greedy bitch for three years. Of course, it’s too late to reopen it now. She had him cremated before the body was cold.”

I stared into the middle distance for a moment, for effect.

Finally: “It doesn’t even matter anymore. I hardly remember him.”

But that’s another lie, Daddy. I think of you all the time—dream of you. I’ve imagined finding your consciousness somewhere in space time. I’d tell you how those two fuckers were defiled before being sliced open like rotten melons. Would your spirit find peace, or would you be horrified—repulsed by the violence and my joy at their obliteration? It’s done though, was always going to be done, and it is beautiful in my eyes.

“Needless to say, I don’t remember all that much of the earliest stuff—not consciously anyway. After all, I was a mere infant.”

But I do have a vague memory of Bianca’s wicked stepmother smile, her big tombstone caps flashing, as she pinched my baby flesh—hard, but not hard enough to bruise—when we were alone. Not long after she and my father married, she hired another nanny. She quit the pinching when I learned to talk, to babble with Khalika. Maybe JeanLuc caught on that we were beginning to be afraid of her—at least that’s what Khalika thought. When I asked Khalika if she remembered the pinching, she wouldn’t discuss it. Her face went dark, brooding.

I had to wonder if maybe Bianca did something even worse to her, but I figured she would have told me by now. Khalika was always the rebellious one. And she could never hide her contempt for them—almost inviting their abuse. But early on, they seemed to be intimidated by her, by her unblinking stare.

Once we started crawling, the bitch liked to keep us separated. She hated it when we’d put our heads together and communicate in our special baby language. What she didn’t count on was that thing twins sometimes do—conspire almost telepathically. Sometimes, when Bianca was particularly cruel, I’d just start screaming, non-stop. After a while, I could feel Khalika’s presence and calm myself until JeanLuc arrived, sometimes with Khalika in his arms. He would set her down beside me, and all was well for a while as we held hands and went to sleep.

Another hazy memory, like the recollection of a dream: I was maybe three or four. I must have found some matches, managed to strike one and light the drapes in their bedroom on fire. I sat there watching the butter-yellow silk sheers go up in flames before my father ran in, grabbed me, took me outside, then put out the flames with a fire extinguisher. He brought Khalika, who’d been screaming, to me. I vaguely remember her little face, all contorted and red. Maybe, in my infant mind, I was trying to find a way to rid my father, rid all of us, of the virulent hag. Can a baby hate? I don’t know, but it seems that was always the emotion I felt whenever I saw, or even thought of, Bianca and, later, Dick, and it only pulsed hotter and stronger as time passed.

Those warring twins—love and hate—don’t they sometimes become inseparable—conjoined—if things get bad enough? It’s the same with Khalika, except its pulse is stronger, more insistent, more demanding of action. Mine simmered on a low flame, lodged in my throat, and made it hard to swallow anything much except liquids. It’s a blessing, we decided, that the two of them never created a dichotomy in us—that there wasn’t even a shred of warped and twisted love to get in the way of the loathing—to obscure the narrow and fragile border that separated them.

Longing, or some kind of love, I suppose, is what I feel when I think of JeanLuc or Oceane—the father I hardly knew and the mother I never did. I know that after a time, the hatred and longing intertwined in me, like the vines on the south side of JeanLuc’s old studio, a beautiful, beckoning structure, seemingly made of light. Entirely glass enclosed under a canopy of green. It sat about twenty-five yards from the main house. After the massacre, JeanLuc’s artwork was confiscated by the bank and auctioned off. We didn’t get to keep any of it. He was gifted, and I’m sure he was the source of Khalika’s talent. She is, as he was, adept at transferring her anger and grief onto canvas, to give it the color and depth that time bleeds out of it.

It was in the studio that Khalika found the long-buried photograph of JeanLuc and Oceane’s garden wedding ceremony; she put it with the other stuff we kept up in the hayloft. The photograph radiated happiness and hope—JeanLuc in his suit from some earlier era; Oceane in a white slip of a gown, holding a small bouquet of pale-pink Moon River peonies and baby’s breath from the garden.

I tried to focus on DB, but it was getting more difficult. She asked if I was OK.

“Yeah. Anyway, Bianca, with Dick’s help, long-conned our father into marrying her after she’d been our nanny for a couple of years. I know—that tired, old daddy-gets it-on-with-nanny cliché. I’m guessing my father was in a very vulnerable state after losing Oceane.”

I really was mystified about how Bianca managed to pull that one off. JeanLuc must have wanted to believe her act, that even if she wasn’t Oceane, she’d do right by us. Bianca certainly polished her acting skills to reel him in, probably watched real mothers in the park. As I said, it’s what psychopaths do—study actual humans to learn how they behave. All that money was a mighty motivator for Lady MacB—and her slimy accomplice. It took a bit of doing by her and Dicky boy to pull off, but their ravenous eyes were fixed on the prize. Khalika always claimed she had her figured out early on, maybe even before she was aware of it herself.

Bianca, saccharine-sweet when required, was a raptor. She watched us like one too. She cooed and fussed over me when JeanLuc was around. She cooked for him—all his favorites, took gourmet courses. Khalika found an old certificate in Bianca’s bureau drawer.

“She managed to snare our still-grieving father, pulled it off like the merciless pro that she is… um, was. After Oceane died and they—um, allegedly—disposed of my father, Bianca waited what she thought was a decent interval before she and Dick got hitched in a sleazy Las Vegas chapel. There’s a photo of them, smiling like possums eating poop, the succubus flashing the five-carat, emerald-cut rock, probably my mother’s, but at least JeanLuc set up a trust fund for us. Then Dick slithered right in, and the rest is, well, what it is.”

DB pursed her lips and shook her head sympathetically, scribbled on.

“All neat and tidy, huh? Except Dad never would have killed himself, even if he was grieving. He never would have left me, his art, his horses. He likely regretted what he’d done, even before he was murdered. Bianca started the devaluation process—you know—the standard thing narcissists do after they love bomb you. By that time, it was too late.”

I glanced at DB. She wasn’t bothering to look up anymore unless I paused.

“I do remember her tone changing with him, that he could never do anything right. Soon, the cooking stopped too. It was all takeout, until a cook-housekeeper was hired.”

I got up, belched loudly, shrugged apologetically, and went to the bathroom. I was getting tired of this trip down Memory Lane, tired of talking. I hadn’t talked this much since the last time Khalika showed up. Even if I spoke to my dad in my head, or to my mother, I didn’t like to talk about them to anybody but Khalika. When I came back into the room, DB was still writing. I popped another beer, drank half of it in one go, and continued. I think DB was surprised at my tolerance for the stuff.

“I was just about to turn five when they did it. I think they decided they needed to do it before JeanLuc got a chance to change his will or start divorce proceedings.”

They have your stuff, Daddy, but I don’t care about that. If you hadn’t provided for us, we would have found a way. Because we contain the DNA of you and Oceane—because that, above all else, is what is precious and irreplaceable.

My voice dripped with a hatred I could hardly contain anymore.

“I stand to inherit a tidy sum when I turn twenty-one. Of course, the two grifters knew this. They never adopted me, not legally. My name is DeLoache. As JeanLuc’s widow, Bianca got legal guardianship—through the infinite wisdom of the state—when it was determined there were no other relatives. Neither one would have made the cut in the adoption process—too much incriminating junk in the metaphorical trunk to be ferreted out. There was plenty of loot to take care of me, practically speaking. That’s pretty much all the authorities care about.”

Khalika showed me your painting, Daddy, behind a screen in your studio. The bride decked out in her tacky designer wedding dress. The bride is Bianca. Except in place of her conniving face, beneath a sheer white veil, is a skull—a smiling death’s head. Bianca’s big white teeth are tinged with blood that has dripped and splattered her gown. Did you know what was coming? Did you sense it? Did your need to join Oceane triumph over your love for us?

I watched DB trying to keep up. She should have taken shorthand in high school.

“Case closed. Even with that juicy trust fund looming ever closer. Even with all the wildly flapping red flags.”

I paused, reached automatically for the empty cigarette pack.

“Glad I don’t have to go through life saddled with the Danzinger name, though. Now, even my parents’ house is gone—everything except what my father provided for me—all squandered by two douches who outsmarted themselves. That greed thing, it’s like shooting up—you need ever-increasing quantities, until nothing is enough. It’s the same with porn, with any vice, with all the things people use to keep their minds off death, to keep the shadow at bay. You can never fill an empty vessel with a hole in the bottom.”

All this was having its effect. I could hear her intake of breath when I added that, considering both of them were already dead, they’d be denied their guided tour through the court system for all their crimes, including the ones long dead and buried. I always liked to imagine them eating canned ravioli at prison canteen tables, being jeered at by their fellow diners. Especially satisfying were daydreams of Dick being ass-raped by gang bangers, his head held down in a filthy crapper.

But it’s only one execution per bag of blood and guts, and this kind of justice seemed fair enough. Take them out before they find Jesus, get a mail-order law degree, marry a fan, fuck her against a wall while the guards look the other way, and knock her up.

Violet and Khalika DeLoache. Us against the dirty old retrograde world. And soon, there’ll be enough money to navigate it, maybe do a little good out there before the fade to black.