What? Did you see something?
I saw cops. Some ambulances. They said it was a gang brawl, that three guys got hurt real bad. Was one Claudio?
No. The kid’s fine. Just a little knocked-around is all. Did they say—did you hear if anybody died?
She pivots on her heels, still hiccupping quietly. The curtain’s draped like a toga over her shoulder, her left breast. She shakes her head no.
Stanley looks at her. Then he looks at the floor. Then he sighs. Okay, he says. Step back. I’m gonna shut the door.
They want me to have a kid, Cynthia says. Did Claudio tell you?
Stanley stops. His left hand rests on the smooth black wood near the doorknob. The heavy door sways easily with his touch. Is that a fact, he says.
If I do it, she says, they’ll get me my own pad. They’ll pay the rent, for six whole years. They’ll pay my tuition to UCLA if I want to go. I just have to have the kid, and give it to them. Do you think I should do it?
Stanley feels dizzy again, feverish. His vision is tunneling. What the hell do they want a kid for? he says.
Beats me, man. You’re asking the wrong chick. I don’t know what anybody would want a kid for. But I guess it’s all part of their—
She waggles her fingers in the air, jerks her head toward the candlelit room over her shoulder. You know, she says. She hiccups again.
Cold sweat drips down Stanley’s temple, along his stubbly jaw. What are they gonna do with it? he says.
Cynthia shrugs. She fans the black curtain before her like a lacy petticoat, or a Dracula cape. Her huge-pupiled eyes lock on his. Do you think I should do it? she says.
Stanley looks at her. Then he looks at his hand, pale against the door’s black edge, its veins too clear under the skin. It seems detached, lifeless. Nothing to do with him. Surfaces seem flat and static, equidistant. Like this room is just a painting of a room. He’s getting sick again, passing out.
So, he says—his voice hollow in his ears, too loud—who’s the proud poppa gonna be? Your dear old Daddy Warbucks, right?
Now she has the curtains pulled tight against both sides of her face, bunched in her hidden hands. She’s a talking mask, afloat in a void. I guess that depends on who you ask, she says. And what you believe.
Stanley blinks hard, shaking his head, trying to regain his bearings. Cynthia’s disembodied face seems to rise, to advance toward him, a cold moon in starless dark. The sight of it already feels like a bad dream, one that he’ll have many more times.
Well, Stanley says, good luck to you, Cynthia.
He swings the door shut on her cute button nose and slides the big bolt home. Then he sinks to the floor—gulping air, trying to get blood back to his brain—and presses his forehead to the smooth wood.
From the other side comes the girl’s muffled voice. Hey, she shouts. My name isn’t really Cynthia, you know.
Stanley swallows, moving a trickle of spit around his cottony throat. Yeah? he says. Well, get a load of this. My name ain’t Stanley, neither.
A few seconds of silence. Outside, the rain has stopped, or nearly stopped. She speaks again, quieter. Okay, she says. I guess I’m pleased not to meet you, then.
Stanley closes his eyes, smiles. His lips feel numb and rubbery, like he’s drunk. He presses his nose to the crack between the door and the jamb. Sweetheart, he hisses, I couldn’t even tell you that I’m pleased.
He grabs the doorknob, hoists himself to his feet. The room disappears. He sees red, then white, then wild explosions of color, then black, and he grips the knob and grits his teeth and doesn’t move and waits for the vertigo to pass.
Eventually it does. The first thing that comes into focus is The Mirror Thief. It sits on an eye-level shelf an inch from his nose, as if Welles set it down while unlocking the door and forgot about it. Stanley puts out a hand to touch it, then stops.