When Jindal still stood, frozen in indecision, Plath spun on her heel and marched for the elevator. “I’ve been there before. I know the way.”
Four security men trained their guns on her. Plath, without turning around said, “I’m Sadie McLure. Now, you may be too gutless or stupid to make a decision, Mr. Jindal, but you know as well as I do that your bosses would throw you out of that window if you deprived them of a chance to deal with me themselves. So I’m getting on the elevator, and I’m going upstairs.”
Wilkes put on a falsely cheery smile and said to Keats, “I think she’s back.”
Caligula had seated the jack. It was in an awkward position, and he had to turn the screw using a crowbar that could be moved only a few degrees at a time.
His vision had not deteriorated further. Which meant whoever was running the biot in his head had moved on in search of a faster way to stop him. And his hand hurt like hell. He’d used the do-rag as a makeshift bandage, but the blood had soaked through almost instantly.
Well. At this point death was a certainty. Death by brain hemorrhage or death by natural gas explosion. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, you pays your money, you takes your chances.
Remembering the old carnival barker cant made him smile. They had not been so bad, those days. He turned the crowbar. It had been lonely a lot of the time, especially after he gave up his daughter. But he couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t.
When he’d caught his wife in bed with another man, he killed the man and then, much to his own surprise, let his wife live. He’d even forgiven her.
He had forgiven her. Their daughter had not.
His phone buzzed softly. He closed his eyes and leaned back from the jack. There was only one person who could possibly be calling him, only one person who had ever had the number.
He pulled the phone from his pocket with his good hand.
“Yes, baby,” Caligula said.
“Call me Lear. How many times do I have to tell you that? Call me Lear!”
Caligula said nothing, just closed his eyes.
“Why hasn’t the Tulip been blown up?”
“Well, I’m working on it,” he said, feeling very weary.
“You’re ruining the timing!”
“Listen, baby … Lear. Listen to me. This will be the last time we have a chance to talk.”
“Are you arguing with me? Are you failing me? Again?”
Caligula sighed. “They tried to stop me. Plath, Keats … I can’t get out of here. I’m going to die.”
At least there was a moment of hesitation. At least there was that much. Maybe she didn’t really care, but the news at least made her pause. Made her blink, perhaps, at the other end of the line.
“I guess it’s karma,” Lear said at last.
“What?”
“For you killing Mom. It’s karma. Cosmic justice.”
Caligula hung his head and for a minute could not go on. Could not speak. “Lystra. Baby. You have to know—”
“Goddamn it, you old piece of shit, call me—”
“I didn’t kill her. You know I—”
“Blow it up! Blow it up!”
“—didn’t take your mother’s life.”
“Shut up! Just shut the hell up and do it!”
“You did, Lystra. You killed your mother.”
Heavy breathing at the other end of the line. Then, a weird, distorted voice, like a child trying to sound grown-up. A whining, almost singsong voice. “No, I didn’t.”
“Lystra …”
“You did. You killed her. Yeah, you killed my mother and then you gave me away.”
“Baby …” Caligula’s voice broke. He felt a sharp pain in his head. Any other time he would have thought it was just the beginning of a headache.
“How could I? I was just a little girl.”
How long did he have? Minutes or seconds?
“You’re right,” he said at last. “You’re right, ba—Lear. I did it.”
“Hah! I told you so. Now, do this. Do it and all is forgiven.”
He managed a slight laugh, a hoarse sound. “I don’t think even God can forgive me all I’ve done.”
“Then it’s no problem, Daddy. I am god now.”
She hung up the phone. Caligula knew it was true. Not about his poor, mad daughter being god. But yes, he had killed his wife, her mother. A week after they’d reconciled, he’d been drunk and angry at what he thought was a flirtation with the carny who ran the Mad Mouse ride. He’d punched her. He’d punched her hard, right in the jaw. She had fallen, unconscious, to the floor of their shabby trailer.
He’d left her there.
When he woke, raging with thirst from all the drink, filled with remorse, he’d found her still on the floor. But with her throat cut.
The bloody meat cleaver was on the floor beside her.
He had roused a sleeping Lystra from her bed and washed the red stain from her hands. Burned her bloody clothing in the fifty-five-gallon drum where the carnies burned trash and kept their hands warm on cold nights.
It was his fault she had done it. Who had taught her violence? Who had revealed his rage to the impressionable ears of a young girl?
And then, cowardly, unable to face Lystra, unable to cope with the madness that was already a part of her, he had shipped her off.
Caligula did not believe in karma. He believed in damnation. His own, and hers as well. And the damnation of the world.