She doesn’t answer. I can see the resemblance now. She and Elvira don’t look alike, but I can see how they would be sisters.
“If you’re trying to decide if you can trust me,” I say, “I can tell you, you can’t trust anyone. Not here.” Still she says nothing. I have no choice but to change my tactic. “That dog was Margo’s life. . . .”
“It wasn’t me.” She grips the table. The gun hums in its silver plate. “It was the man downstairs, Michael.”
“Michael?”
“The man you saw in the courtyard. He’s living with the woman downstairs. He gets high and goes into the gardens. He’s the one who broke the gate. He’s been robbing houses up and down this street. He killed the dog. He was in Margo’s garden and the dog found him, was barking at him. He said it was the dog or him. He broke its neck. He put the body in your courtyard to scare you.”
“Sorry—I’m still . . . There’s a man living downstairs?” I’m going to need more Mo?t.
She shakes her head. “You don’t know anything that happens. None of you pays any attention to anyone else.”
“I have a lot on my plate right now. This party.” I sigh. It’s not important now.
“I want things to be fair,” she insists. “I want there to be consequences.”
I grip my glass. “These people can’t give you fair. They can only give you money.”
She looks down at the gun and then, cautiously, like she can’t quite believe she is doing it herself, she picks it up. She points it at me. “What happened to my sister? I don’t believe she killed herself.”
It’s more depressing than I would have expected, being held at gunpoint. It’s disappointing. Maybe because I know, by the fear in her eyes, by the way she doesn’t even touch the trigger, that she would never, ever shoot me.
“Tell me.” Her voice shakes.
The truth throbs in my throat: You’re right. She didn’t kill herself. Graham killed her. If I tell her, what will she do? Kill me? Kill him? Go to the police? She couldn’t kill him. And the police won’t help her. The house always wins. That’s why I play for the house.
“You should leave this place. It’s not . . .”
I try to organize my thoughts, but the gun is distracting. I stand up. I cross the room toward her. I take the gun from her hands. She lets me. The safety is still on. I am inches away from her. I can smell her breath. It smells like Elvira’s. The scent damages me. It tricks me into believing she’s here in the room with us. The star around her neck winks. I sigh all through my bones and I tell her, “If you’re looking for fair, you won’t find it here. If you’re looking for peace or happiness or some kind of resolution, you won’t find it with these people. The only thing rich people have is money.”
She sets her jaw. “I’m not leaving.” I see myself on my wedding day. The gown with lace all the way to my chin. The train that dragged along the floor. My still, determined face.
“What’s your number?” She says nothing. “I can’t give you back what you’ve lost. I can’t bring Elvira back. I would if I could. For you, for me, I would give everything back. But I can’t do that. All I can do is make a transfer. And make sure you never have to worry about these things again.”
She tells me her number.
* * *
AS I WALK down the stairs to the guesthouse, I consider how lucky Astrid is to get to walk away. I gave her that. My one good deed. If I could go back to my wedding day, back to that room and that question, would my answer be different?
I think of Elvira and the answer is yes. I would take the money. I would leave the life. If I could, I would.
But it’s too late now. I knock on the door, but no one answers. I have a key. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the guesthouse. It wasn’t like this. There’s a tent in one corner, a cardboard rug, a stack of penis collages.
What the fuck is Demi playing at? Who is Michael? Her boyfriend? Her patsy? Her strategy?
I don’t have time to figure it out. I have to plan. I have a party to attend and a person to kill, and what does it matter who she is or what she’s done? It doesn’t change the game. I have to win so I can keep playing. If I lose, no amount of money will bring me back. I have to win, or the game will end for me for good.
LYLA
Every rich person has at least one Versailles-themed room. Margo’s is the ballroom. It’s where she hosts her most important parties and it’s where I host Graham’s birthday dinner. The dinner party guests are reflected again and again in Margo’s Ballroom of Mirrors. And because it’s Margo, it’s done with a twist—emphasis on “twisted.” Hung among the mirrors are macabre works of art: Judith Beheading Holofernes, The Massacre of Standing Creek and a larger-than-life portrait of Marie Antoinette dressed in her most frothy, flounced pastel gown, holding her own bloody head on her lap.
Normally I find this room a little gauche. But tonight, it’s perfect. Normally, I would serve Graham’s favorites, but because I respect his perverse streak, I make a meal of everything he hates: caviar, truffles, brussels sprouts. I make sure that everything tastes divine.
He doesn’t seem to notice. I placed seating cards, but Graham ignored his and sat next to Demi. He leans over to whisper something in her ear. She blushes. Her neck twists in his direction and I see Elvira’s neck. How did he kill her? Did he plan all along to make it look like an accident?
Posey moves her place card next to me.
“I’m excited for the game!” she says too loud.
I don’t want Graham to hear. I want it to be a surprise. Not that he’s paying any attention to me. He caught my eye on the way in. His face was a persistent blank, so I know he remembers what he told me last night. Knowing this scares me.
Graham is sick but he doesn’t like to be seen that way. He doesn’t like to be seen for what he is, which is possibly the only human thing about him. Maybe that’s why he’s turned on me, turned away from me. Not because he’s bored with me but because he doesn’t want to be known, especially not to himself.
Demi’s already wearing the black dress I bought her, even though we were supposed to change after dinner. There’s a little tracking device sewn between her breasts that connects to an app on my phone. I don’t want to kill her. But I don’t have a choice. It’s her or me. There’s no other way out.
I turn to Posey. “You’re not playing. Only the men are.”
“You’re playing.” She stabs a truffle. “And Demi is.”
“Shut up.” I elbow her. “You’re going to spoil the surprise.”
“I’m just saying.” She gulps her Mo?t. “Equal rights.”
Mitsi and Peaches and Grenadine and Margarita are all sitting together, gossiping like this is any other party. Their husbands, who are mirror images of them, are talking loudly in their section, swearing and making inappropriate jokes, competing to see who can say the most outrageous thing.
“That Marie Antionette is fit. Would you fuck her?”
“Head off or on?”
“Wherever you want it.”
Watching them, I feel the fluttering of anticipation. I can’t wait for them all to get shot.
“Fine,” I snap at Posey. “You can play if you want to, but you’d better not shoot me.”
“A game’s a game.” She shrugs and tops off her glass.
* * *