“I thought Bertha seemed . . .” What had he thought? He hadn’t really looked at Bertha with any interest. She was the maid.

“Seemed what? Grabby? Possessive? Fertile?” He spat out the last word.

“She didn’t seem anything,” Manfred said slowly. “She seemed like the background.”

“Right! Right!” Confirmed in his judgment, Lewis crowed in triumph. “Always there. Always at Daddy’s right hand. Waiting. Whispering. Always with John skulking around.”

“John?” That was all Manfred could think of to say.

“Yes, John.” Lewis sneered. “Couldn’t name him Juan, I guess. Wanted to be American.”

“She’s not American?”

“Bertha? Oh, I guess, technically she is.”

Manfred sighed. “So why are you upset that Bertha’s son, John, came into the house?”

“Because she wanted my dad to love him. Because she wanted my dad to love him more than he loved me. And after my dad died, she started to work on my mother. But not telling my mom the big thing! No, waiting for the lawyers on that!”

Manfred had followed Lewis’s narrative until that moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“John is Dad’s son!”

“Are you kidding?” Manfred’s amazement was genuine and complete.

Never ask a madman if he’s kidding. For the next five minutes Manfred had to listen to an account of the affair between Bertha and Morton Goldthorpe. And the worst part was, Manfred couldn’t tell if this was fact or fiction, because Lewis believed it absolutely. He thought that Bertha’s son, John, was the product of that long-ago liaison.

“When my dad died,” Lewis said, “his will said his estate was to go to Mother during her lifetime. And afterward it was to be divided among the heirs of his body. See? Of his body? Which includes John. But my mom didn’t know about John. And maybe she could have changed the will.”

“Is that why you put the pills in her water?”

“I did not.” Lewis sounded definite and almost sane when he said that. “I did not poison my mother.”

“Are you saying Bertha did?”

“That is what I am saying.”

“Then why did you drag me into this?”

“You and Bertha worked together. She put the pills in Mama’s water the only time Mama had gone out of the house in a couple of weeks. She thought Mama would have a car wreck on her way to see you, and that either you or I would be blamed.”

“And how do you know this? And why on earth do you think I knew about it ahead of time?”

“I know it because Mama told me so. She’s been whispering in my ear. She told me all this.”

“That is total bullshit and you know it. Your mother is at peace with your father. She is not whispering in your ear.” Manfred shook his head. “I’m willing to believe you have some kind of delusional situation going on here. But you can leave me out of it. I wished your mother nothing but good.”

Lewis, amazingly, had no response to that. He struggled to his feet. Manfred offered no help. He didn’t want to get that close to Lewis. He was wondering how to clean the wood floor, which was wet where Lewis had landed. Maybe one of those Swiffer things?

“So what do we do now?” Manfred asked. “Are you ready to run back to your car and get out of here?”

“I still think you conspired with Bertha,” Lewis said. He was as tenacious as a pit bull but with half the brainpower and none of the looks.

Manfred sighed, and he made it gusty and obvious. “You’re a jerk, and I don’t know why your mother didn’t put you in a straightjacket,” he said, and then realized that had crossed the border into cruel. Did he mind? Not at this exact moment.

“There’s someone outside,” Lewis said. He was staring at the window. Skeptically, Manfred glanced in the same direction. There was a face at the window for real. Manfred gasped. But once the shock was over, he thought he knew who he’d glimpsed.

“Was that Bertha?” he said, astonished. She must have followed Lewis all the way to Midnight. “You weren’t lying,” he said, and there was a lot of wonder in his voice. “She really does have it in for you.”

Manfred had a choice at that moment. (Afterward, he thought of it as his “The Lady, or the Tiger?” moment.) He could try to warn Bertha, grab her, and bring her into his house, just as he had Lewis—or he could leave her to the mercy of the tigers.

He felt something very like relief when the choice was taken out of his hands.

34

Outside, with the moon radiating a gentle glow—intermittently, since clouds were drifting through the sky—Olivia felt more alive than she had since Lemuel had left for New York. She’d been atop Manfred’s roof since he’d left for Home Cookin with the lawyer. Since sunset, she’d been watching the tigers prowl through Midnight.

Olivia was almost certain she’d seen three. But like Fiji, she couldn’t tell them apart, and they’d never been all together.

Only one of the big cats was in sight now, and it was right below her. The woman who’d been looking through Manfred’s window had backed against the wall, and Olivia could hear her breathing—ragged, uneven breaths, almost like crying. Olivia hadn’t been able to get a good look at the woman, but she was fairly certain it was Bertha, and she was delighted at Bertha’s appearance here in Midnight.