Green Eyes Page 0,81

woman swept into the room, Papa and a heavy-set black man at her heels. 'It was a pretty vision,' she said. 'I incorporated it into my decorating scheme. But his talent failed him shortly thereafter, and we never did learn what it meant.' She walked over to Donnell; she was wearing a cocktail dress of a silky red material that seemed to touch every part of her body when she moved. 'I'm Otille Rigaud.' She gave her name the full French treatment, as if it were a rare vintage. 'I see you've been getting to know my pets.' Then she frowned. 'Baron!' she snapped. 'Where's Dularde?'

'Beats me,' said the black man.

'Find him,' she said, shooing them off with flicks of her fingers. 'All of you. Go on!'

She gestured for Donnell to sit beside Jocundra, and after he had taken a chair, she perched on the desk in front of him. Her dress slid up over her knees, and he found that if he did not meet her stare or turn his head at a drastic angle, he would be looking directly at the shadowy division between her thighs. She was a remarkably beautiful woman, and though according to Papa's story she must be nearly forty, Donnell would have guessed her age at a decade less. Her hair fell to her shoulders in serpentine curls; her upper lip was shorter and fuller than the lower, giving her a permanently dissatisfied expression; her skin was pale, translucent, a tracery of blue veins showing at the throat. Delicate bones, black eyes aswim with lights that did not appear to be reflections. A cameo face, one which bespoke subtle understandings and passions. But her overall delicacy, not any single feature of it, was Otille's most striking aspect. Against the backdrop of her pets, she had seemed fashioned by a more skillful hand, and when she had entered the office, Donnell had felt that an invisible finger had nudged her from the ranks of pawns into an attacking position: the tiny ivory queen of a priceless chess set.

'You have a wonderful presence, Donnell,' she said after a long silence.'Wonderful.'

'Compared to what?' he said, annoyed at being judged. 'The rest of your remaindered freaks?'

'Oh, no. You're quite incomparable. Don't you think so, Ms Verret? Jocundra.' She smiled chummily at Joc-undra. 'What an awful name to saddle a child with! So large and cumbersome. But you have grown into it.'

Jocundra registered surprise on being addressed, but she was not caught without a reply. 'I'm really not interested in trading insults,' she said. She opened her purse and pulled out a manila folder. 'These are our cost estimates. Shouldn't we get down to business?'

Otille laughed, but took the folder. She carried it back to the desk, sat, and began to examine it.

A tap on the door, and Papa leaned in. 'Otille? They spotted Dularde in the ballroom, but there's so damn many people, we can't catch up with him.'

'All right. Don't do anything. I'll be down in a minute.' She waved him away. 'These don't seem out of line,' she said, closing the folder. 'And I'm quite impressed with you, Donnell. But I think we should both sleep on it and see how we feel in the morning. Then we can talk. Agreed?'

'Fine by me,' he said. 'Jocundra?'

She nodded.

'I apologize for getting off on the wrong foot,' said Otille, scraping back her chair and standing. 'I have to deal with so much falsity, I end up being false myself. And I suppose my theatrical background has affected me badly.' She tipped her head to one side, considering an idea. 'Would you like to hear something from my play? Danse Calinda?'

Donnell shrugged; Jocundra said nothing.

Otille adopted a distracted pose behind her chair. 'I'll do a brief passage,' she said, 'and then we'll find Dularde.' As she spoke the lines, she darted about the room, her hands fidgeting with her dress, papers on the desk, straightening furniture, and all her movements had the electrified inconsistency of someone prone to flashes of otherworldly vision.

'"... And then coming back from Brooklyn Heights, the cabbie was talking, looking at me in the rear view mirror, winking. He was very friendly, you know how they are when they think you're from out of town. But anyway as he was talking, the skin started dissolving around his eye, melting, rotting away, until there was just this huge globe surrounded by shreds of green flesh staring at me in the mirror. And I was afraid! Anyone