The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,414

jars. You have to let the air in and take stock. You don’t have to go through this place, examining every speck of dust and dirt and ugliness. It’s an inheritance but it isn’t a curse. At least it doesn’t have to be.”

“I know,” she said.

Noise at the front door.

The two young black men who had come to collect Grandma Eugenia were now standing in the hallway. Michael went upstairs to help her. Ryan and then Pierce swept down to kiss Rowan on the cheek. Rather like kissing the corpse, it seemed to her suddenly. Then she realized it was the other way around. They kissed the dead people here the way they kissed the living.

Warm hands, and the parting flash of Pierce’s smile in the dark. Tomorrow, phone, lunch, talk, et cetera.

Sound of the elevator making its hellish descent. People did go to hell in elevators in the movies.

“And you have your key, Eugenia, you just come on over tomorrow, you come in as you always did, if you need or want anything. Now, honey, do you need any money?”

“I got my pay, Mr. Mike. Thank you, Mr. Mike.”

“Thank you, Mr. Curry,” said the younger black man. Smooth, educated voice.

The older policeman came back. He must have been in the very front hall because she could barely hear him. “Yeah, Townsend.”

“ … passport, wallet, everything right there in the shirt.”

Doors closed. Darkness. Quiet.

Michael coming back the hallway.

And now we are two, and the house is empty. He stood in the dining room doorway looking at her.

Silence. He drew a cigarette out of his pocket, mashing the pack back into it. Couldn’t be easy with the gloves, but they did not seem to slow him down.

“What do you say?” he asked. “Let’s get the hell out of here for tonight.” He packed his cigarette on the face of his watch. Explosion of a match, and the flash of light in his blue eyes as he looked up, taking in the dining room again, taking in the murals.

There are blue eyes and blue eyes. Could his black hair have grown so much in such a short time? Or was it just the moisture in the warm air that made it so thick and curly?

The silence rang in her ears. They were actually all gone.

And the whole place lay empty and vulnerable to Rowan’s touch, with its many drawers and cabinets and closets and jars and boxes. Yet the idea of touching anything was repugnant. It wasn’t hers, it was the old woman’s, all of it. Dank and stale, and awful, like the old woman. And Rowan had no spirit to move, no spirit to climb the stairs again, or to see anything at all.

“His name was Townsend?” she asked.

“Yeah. Stuart Townsend.”

“Who the hell was he, do they have any idea?”

Michael thought for a moment, flicked a tiny bit of tobacco off his lip, shifted his weight from one hip to another. Pure beefcake, she thought. Downright pornographic.

“I know who he was,” he said with a sigh. “Aaron Lightner, you remember him? He knows all about him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You want to talk here?” His eyes moved over the ceiling again, like antennae. “I’ve got Aaron’s car outside. We could go back to the hotel, or downtown somewhere.”

His eyes lingered lovingly on the plaster medallion, on the chandelier. There was something furtive and guilty about the way he was admiring it in the middle of this crisis. But he didn’t have to hide it from her.

“This is the house, isn’t it?” she asked. “The one you told me about in California.”

His eyes homed to her, locked.

“Yeah, it’s the one.” He gave a little sad smile and a shake of his head. “It’s the one all right.” He tapped the ash into his cupped hand, and then moved slowly away from the table towards the fireplace. The heavy shift of his hips, the movement of his thick leather belt, all distractingly erotic. She watched him tip the ashes into the empty grate, the invisible little ashes that probably would have made no difference at all, had they been allowed to drift to the dusty floor.

“What do you mean, Mr. Lightner knows who that man was?”

He looked uncomfortable. Extremely sexy and very uncomfortable. He took another drag off the cigarette, and looked around, figuring.

“Lightner belongs to an organization,” he said. He fished in his shirt pocket, and drew out a little card. He placed it on the table. “They call it an order.