Uda blinked, lizardlike. “Is that wise? We can cope with him, we’re two against one,” she said, but not in English.
“Our unknown friend has let us down, and what should have been simple has turned into a mess. We must find another way.”
“He will make allegations, Vina.”
“That I, a very successful model, engaged in fraud and confidence tricks that I will try to blame on him — yes, we both know that,” Davina said. “It is ludicrous.”
Uda let Alexis’s hands fall. “Chez is stupid, Vina, and life has gone too well for him. If you feel the time is not right, we should get in first. I know the Holloman police have taken his fingerprints, but have they thought to check them with the NYPD? This country is very much organized as states, his printing was routine. Let us anonymously inform the Holloman police that this Chester Malcuzinski was once Chester Derzinsky and had a record in New York City years ago. It can’t hurt us, but it can switch Lieutenant Goldberg’s attention to him.”
“An excellent idea!” Davina stretched. “Yes, Uda, do it by the telephone, with one of your American accents.”
Uda went back to the baby, blowing bubbles to attract an admiring audience.
“You have disposed of the paraphernalia?” Davina asked, still not in English.
The black currant eyes flashed scorn. “It is safe.”
“You did not destroy it.”
“No one will find my bits and pieces, sister.” Uda took the baby from Davina and held him against her meager chest. “It is time for his bottle, and my turn to give it.”
Tonight there were no private moments with Desdemona; Carmine sat with his younger son on his lap, the cat wedged into the chair alongside him, while his elder son was marching up and down the little sitting room in imitation of a wooden soldier. Their house had been one of the first in East Holloman to get cable television; Desdemona wanted to search the channels for those she felt would not put ideas in Julian’s head about guns and shoot-’em-deads.
But the British children’s programs she had located had failed her; wooden soldiers in bearskin helmets marching up and down, wooden rifles over their shoulders.
“Julian, pipe down and read a book,” Carmine said when the performance grew irritating.
He could read. Emilia Delmonico had been a famous kindergarten teacher with a genuine skill for teaching children to read, and on Julian’s second birthday Desdemona had crumbled, asked her mother-in-law to teach Julian. Who was too bright, too busy, too much of a handful.
What annoyed Desdemona was Julian’s tendency to obey his father as if he always obeyed every instruction or request given him: far from the truth. Though she had regained her ascendancy over him somewhat, Julian hadn’t forgotten how easy it had been to bully Mommy during his defense attorney phase. So now the kid smiled angelically and went to his bean bag with his book, curled up there and did as he was told.
“He never does that for me!” she snapped, and could have bitten off her tongue. Carmine’s amber eyes flew to her face, startled; he frowned.
“Desdemona, are you well?”
A question that made her even crosser. “Yes, yes, yes, of course I’m well!” she said angrily, sipping at her gin and tonic. “It’s just that Julian has the knack of getting under Mummy’s skin. He’s too clever for his own good, and I find it difficult to manage him.” Her hand flew out, the drink almost spilled. “It’s not right!” she exclaimed. “I should be managing better — I ran a whole research facility, for heaven’s sake! Now I can’t even run a house where someone else does the cleaning. I could spit chips!”
The cat went flying, Alex was lifted effortlessly as Carmine rose to his feet. “You, my son, are going to bed.” And off he went to the nursery, Alex looking a little stunned. At nine months he was crawling and jabbering; Desdemona was looking at life with another Julian to join the original model.
“Little pitchers have ears,” he said when he returned, and pointing at Julian. The cat had taken all of his chair, fat body sprawled belly-up with paws sticking up. “Winston, go annoy Julian for a change,” he said, dispossessing the cat with one scoop of his hand. “Go on, shoo! Where’s Frankie?”
“In disgrace. Rolled in dead raccoon — I walloped him with a hollow tube and cleaned him off in cold water. Sooner or later he’ll get the message that the ecstasy is not worth the icy torment afterward.”
“My poor girl!” Carmine sat, his chair all to himself.
“It’s early days for this case, so cheer up,” she said, her own mood inexplicably lightened.