Tea Cups & Tiger Claws

by Timothy Patrick

  In home after home, both up the hill and down, the good people clucked their tongues and said, “Better for Judith Newfield to be dead than to witness such horror.”

  For Veronica the reality of the marriage began to sink in the next morning when she saw something staring at her from her bedroom nightstand. She raised her head from the pillow, brushed the matted hair from her face, and looked closer. On the nightstand stood an elephant figurine, about ten inches tall, with a raised trunk and something sticking out of its mouth. She pulled on the thing in its mouth and out came a tiny spoon with white powder on it. She sat up, looked intently at the elephant, and poked around until she discovered that it had a hinged skull, which, by lifting up on its trunk, revealed a secret compartment. This secret compartment had more coke packed into it then she’d ever seen at one time.

  Without a second thought, she drove the tiny spoon into the top of the figurine, took out a scoop of white powder, and put it to her nose.

  There’d be no rationing bullshit this week, or trying to fool her raging body with booze and sleeping pills, thanks to Dorthea’s little wedding present. And that’s what it was, because, unless her brain had gone completely faloupoo, she’d married Ernest Dodd last night. And she didn’t care. Creepy Dorthea had come through again. She should’ve moved in a long time ago.

  Chapter 28

  The man with the scarred face had killed before. Dorthea had given the order, and he’d stabbed someone in the heart. And as soon as Dorthea tickled his ear with another royal command, he’d come back to the dungeon and kill again. Sarah knew it without a doubt. She needed to make a plan.

  A few anemic particles of light sifted down into the dungeon from the ramp, and her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but only enough to turn nearby objects into semi defined shadows. She reached out for one of those shadows, a wooden bucket, and hoisted it by its handle. Maybe she could bash him on the head with it, she thought. It seemed heavy enough. But what if she missed, or didn’t knock him out? And honestly, what chance did she really have of being able to take him down with a bucket? She needed something better, something deadly but easy, like a knife. If she stabbed him before he stabbed her, if he fell dead by her feet, and if he had keys in his pocket, she just might be able to set herself free. Even though this plan had way too many “ifs” attached to it, she didn’t see a better one coming her way anytime soon.

  She ran her fingernails along the side of the bucket to feel for the individual slats, which seemed to be only an inch or two wide. If she broke the bucket apart, and sharpened one of the slats on the concrete floor, she’d have the knife she needed.

  She rose to her knees, held the bucket by the handle with her right hand, and slammed it sideways onto the floor. Nothing happened, except a jolt of pain shot up the length of her scraped up arm. She wound up and bashed it again and again and again, becoming a robot, methodically slamming the bucket to the ground, only stopping periodically to inspect it. When the burning in one arm and shoulder got too hot, she switched to the other, although her left arm, not as strong as the right, and hindered by the manacle and chain, proved less effective. When her knees started bleeding, she crouched from her feet instead. On and on she went in this manner until she finally ran out of strength and slumped against the wall, head drenched in sweat, hair clumped to her face like slithering worms.

  With a spastic yank she jerked the bucket upright and inspected it one more time by running her fingers up and down the outside. Rock solid. What kind of bucket was this anyway, she wondered. Probably some kind of Shaker masterpiece made to withstand Armageddon.

  Without the strength to go on, she knew her plan had more holes in it than she’d ever be able to make in the bucket, but she liked the essence of it: find something simple, any little thing, and sharpen it enough to do the job. She just needed to find the right thing to sharpen.

  That’s when she saw Bob, her bashful cellmate. She saw him for his true worth. And say what you will about his shortcomings, Sarah had to admit that he never looked so good.

  Chapter 29

  If good times could be plucked like flowers, Veronica would’ve had them tucked between her toes, bunched behind her ears, and daisy-chained around her neck. Nobody chased the fun like she did. Unfortunately, good times can sometimes be more like smoke rings than daisies: pleasant, entertaining, and then gone. No matter how tightly she gripped, the fun always seemed to disappear. Of course that didn’t stop her from chasing the next fluffy wonder that blew her way, and which would surely satisfy forever. For a while she thought she’d found such a thing in cocaine.

  Veronica brimmed with arrogance and conceit and other prerequisites of a spoiled heiress. Coke made her superiority even more absolute. Now she didn’t just star at the parties she attended, she owned them. She owned the people with nothing more than a glance, and she owned the conversation, which she shredded like a machine, if she wanted, or rode away with like a motorcycle daredevil. Even alone, in her quarters at Sunny Slope, coke turned her into super-girl, kicking the shit out of boredom and scaring the hell out of sleep. Coke was fun…for a while.

  The first small sign, the thinning of the smoke ring, came a few months before her mother died when her heart started squeaking. It literally squeaked every time she snorted. Of course it freaked her out, but, after a while, when nothing worse happened, she ignored it. Besides, it stopped when she stopped snorting, and since crazy Dorthea had her on rations, the squeaking stayed off almost as much as it stayed on.

  Now things had changed. Dorthea had moved in, the rationing had stopped, and Veronica became best friends with a cokehead pachyderm. Now, besides a heart that squeaked, she had a numb face, fingers that twitched incessantly, and arms that shook spastically if given an ounce of freedom. Instead of sleeping at night, she sat up with wide eyes and waited for secret enemies to crash through her bedroom door. She had lungs so abused by a wildly beating heart that it became almost impossible to get a decent breath of air.

  ~~~

  Nanny paced her fourth floor bedroom, waited for the phone to ring, and repeatedly looked out the window. In all directions buzzing, crackling work lights hung from rusted hoists and leaning poles. They blanketed the grounds in glaring light. With no regard for the late hour, pounding hammers echoed nonstop from every corner, regularly interrupted by screeching power saws and barking, cursing foremen. Under Dorthea’s orders, construction crews worked around the clock building security posts at the two gates and a security center adjacent to the house. On top of all this, a newly hired army of security guards now patrolled the property, trying to look intimidating, if not competent. Sunny Slope Manor had taken on the appearance of a frontline military camp after a midnight attack.

  And Nanny felt shell-shocked. Without warning, Dorthea had taken away the two most important people in Nanny’s world. First Dorthea had chased Sarah off the property under threat of arrest, and since then, two days and nights, nobody had seen or heard from her. Then, the same day she moved on Sarah, she posted an armed guard outside Veronica’s bedroom door. All visitors had been barred and not a peep had been heard from her quarters for the same two days. Nobody could say if Veronica was even alive.

  Perkins, for his part, hid behind doors and whispered about biding his time and striking when the iron was hot. Well, Nanny knew Perkins, and she told him to his face that she’d bet on the next ice age arriving before she’d bet on him striking anything. That got him off his duff.

  The phone rang. Nanny quickly answered it. She listened, whispered a response, and hung up. For the umpteenth time she reached into her apron pocket to feel for her house keys, and then quickly left the room. The elevator made too much noise so she took the stairway down to the third floor, where she stopped on the landing, short of the hallway. Soon Perkins appeared from below carrying a tray of food up the stairs. Without word or smile they passed each other on the landing. Perkins continued on into the hallway, while Nanny hugged the wall and inched closer, careful n
ot to show herself to the guard stationed around the corner, outside Veronica’s apartment.

  “I’ve brought you some refreshment, Mr. Hunter,” said Perkins to the guard.

  “Oh. Ok.”

  “Perhaps you can assist me by getting the folding stand from the room to your right.”

  “Naw, don’t bother. I’ll just put the tray on my lap.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hunter, I must insist. These rugs are very rare.”

  “Ok.”

  Nanny heard shuffling and peeked around the corner to see the guard disappear into the other room. She ran on her toes toward Veronica’s room as bug-eyed Perkins looked on.

  “I don’t see it in here,” said the guard.

  “I believe it’s in the wardrobe.”

  Nanny jabbed a key at the keyhole but missed the mark, causing the whole assortment of keys to fall loudly onto the wooden floor between the hallway runner and the wall. She stiffened and held her breath while Perkins did an agitated jig.

  “What was that?” asked the guard.

  “I…I was looking for my key to the wardrobe…just in case you need it,” said Perkins, as he slid over to block the guard from re-entering the hallway.

  Nanny tried again. This time she used both hands to steady her nerves and she found the keyhole. The lock clicked twice, she turned the knob, and disappeared into Veronica’s darkened apartment. She reflexively reached for the sitting room light switch and then thought better of it; no sense arousing the guard’s curiosity with light under the doorway.

  She continued into the bedroom, where she quietly closed the door and turned on the light.

  The sight of Veronica’s sickly body spilled out across the bed, with her legs hanging over the side, stopped her in her tracks. She looked for signs of life, which she thankfully found, then she looked some more. She didn’t see Veronica the delinquent or Veronica the heartbreaker. She saw Veronica the little girl who used to call her “Souwy”; Veronica who used to hide her face in Nanny’s apron when she got embarrassed; Veronica who had her mother’s shrewdness and her father’s beautiful eyes. She saw her Veronica, because, whether anyone admitted it or not, that innocent Veronica, as well as this troubled one, was as much her child as anyone’s.

  She pulled a folded paper from her apron pocket, stepped over to the desk, and grabbed some tape. Her eyes scanned the room until they settled on a cute little elephant figurine, which she’d never seen before. She taped the paper, an old, browning page from a coloring book, to the elephant. Veronica couldn’t miss it.

  “Am I going to die, Nanny?”

  Veronica’s unexpected waking, as well as the question, which she asked calmly, almost serenely, caught Nanny off guard.

  “Oh mo chroí,” said Nanny, using her Irish pet name for Veronica, “don’t be talking like that.”

  Veronica pulled up her legs and positioned her body normally on the bed. “I’m cold, Nanny,” she said as she rolled onto her side. “Lay down next to me.”

  Nanny grabbed a quilt from the trunk at the foot of the bed, draped it over Veronica, slipped off her shoes, and lay down next to Veronica, wrapping her up with her free arm.

  “Why are you here, Nanny?”

  “To see my little girl, but it’s not so easy as it used to be. Dorthea has a guard with a gun outside your door and nobody’s allowed to be seeing or talking to you.”

  “Then how’d you get in?”

  “Perkins tricked the guard, and I slipped in behind his back.”

  “Perkins did that? I guess your sneaky ways are rubbing off on him.”

  “Yes, Lord help us, underneath all that starch and shoe polish there might just be a human being after all.”

  “I miss you Nanny. And Perkins, too. I miss everyone.”

  “We’re still here mo chroí, we’re still here…except Sarah. Dorthea called the police and had Sarah taken away from Sunny Slope Manor.” Veronica didn’t respond. Nanny continued. “And then she went and had Mack Brimwahl arrested. She said he kidnapped you. He’s in jail now, you know.” Nanny waited again for a response, but it didn’t come. Finally she blurted, “What is it this lady has hanging over your head, Veronica? I want you to tell me.”

  “It’s too late, Nanny.”

  “No it’s not!” said Nanny, as she propped herself up on an elbow to look at Veronica. “That lady is full of nothing good and the sooner you get rid of her the better off you’ll be. Are you hearing me, Veronica?”

  “It’s too late because most the time I don’t care. And even when I do care, I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll tell you what to do! I can tell you right now! Do you want your nanny to do that for you?”

  “I don’t know, Nanny.”

  “You just take a single step. That’s all there is to it. Don’t be looking at how far you have to go, just take a step in the right direction. Then, when you’re ready, take another one, and another one, and before you know it, you’ll be seeing that you’ve come quite a way.” Nanny rested, not wanting to push too hard.

  “What does it mean to have a marriage annulled?”

  “That means you sign a paper and the marriage goes away,” said Nanny, careful not to sound too excited by the question.

  Veronica said, “Oh,” and then no more.

  “When did you eat last?” asked Nanny.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re going to eat now. Do you hear me?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “If you don’t go down to the kitchen and take that guard with you, there’s no way for me to get out of here. And he’ll shoot me. You wouldn’t want that to be happening now would you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Perkins is down there waiting for you. Now look at me, mo chroí. I’ve got one more thing to say.” She gently placed her hand under Veronica’s cheek and turned her head. “It’s time for you to stop acting like your mother didn’t love you. Nobody ever said she was a great mother, or even a good one, but she did love you, and everyone seems to be knowing it except for you. You can stop trying to punish her now because it’s not doing any good at all.”

  Nanny reached across and took the crayon artwork from the elephant and held it up to Veronica’s eyes. “What does it say across the top?” she asked.

  “For my supermom who can do everything.”

  “Who wrote that and who colored the supermom?”

  “Me.”

  “And what’s it say at the bottom?”

  “For my super girl who can do even more.”

  “And who wrote that and drew the picture and colored it?”

  “Mother.”

  “That’s right. Your mother. And she believed it. She still believes it. She’s pulling for you Veronica, pulling for you to take that first step.”

  ~~~

  Veronica took that first wobbly step later that same night when Dorthea escorted her down to the parlor to meet with Chief Bolton of the Prospect Park Police Department. With Dorthea looking on, the chief said that all details of the kidnapping had been provided and that Veronica only needed to sign her name at the bottom of the statement. Without the slightest inhibition, Veronica said that Mack hadn’t kidnapped her and that she wouldn’t be signing anything. That took the wind out of Chief Bolton but not out of Dorthea, who asked the chief to wait in the hall while she spoke with the “poor, traumatized child.”

  Dorthea then unloaded everything she had on Veronica but had somehow forgotten that seals perform for fish and, when they’ve had their fill, they stop the performance and become seals once again; Veronica had had her fill, thanks to the pachyderm with the big head. She told Dorthea to take a hike and then she sashayed right out the door and back up to her room.

  Chapter 30

  With no choice but to wait out the forty-eight hours until his arraignment, Mack stayed just this side of crazy by concentrating on his next move instead of on the endless loop of what-ifs that flickered in his head. He talked out loud to himself,
scribbled ideas onto a notepad, and made collect phone calls by the dozen in an effort to keep tabs on Millington, and anyone else who might’ve heard from Sarah.

  The hardest phone call went all the way to Montana, on the outside chance that Sarah, or someone who knew Sarah, had tried to pass a message to him through his parents. As a young hotshot, Mack had entertained silly daydreams about returning home like a hero. Instead, he called collect as a prisoner in county jail. He told his mom the whole story, from beginning to end, and, no surprise, she started crying. The surprise came when his dad got on the phone and said, “Mack, you’re a good man and I know you did right from beginning to end.” If Mack never remembered another word from his dad, he knew that he’d remember those words forever; they meant a lot to him. They didn’t, however, bring Sarah back home; so he said his goodbyes and got back to business.

  Sometimes people just want to get lost, he knew that, but Sarah had told Millington to meet her at the jail and then she never arrived. She’d just dropped out of sight. Even if she’d decided to chuck everything and skip town, she would’ve at least called.

  This thought soon led him in a different direction. What if she’d gotten into trouble and had had the chance to make only one quick phone call? She hadn’t called the fiancé or the lawyer or Mr. Perkins, he knew that much, but what about his own number? Maybe she’d left a message for him on the answering machine at the Sunny Slope wrangler house. She used it all the time to capture the odd detail that escaped mentioning in person: “Oh yeah, Gitanto threw a shoe, if you give me a dollar I’ll tell you which one,” or “Flash took another midnight stroll through Aunt Judy’s flowerbed. She wants him executed at dawn but I think a sturdier latch will do.” She had the number memorized and knew if she didn’t reach him in person, he’d at least get the message. The more he thought about it, the more he saw Sarah calling that number if she’d gotten into a scrape. It became the starting point for the plan he intended to pursue after he got out of jail.