“Suit yourself,” Maggie says like I just refused a poison antidote.
“If we’re done with the fashion show, can I see Thivierge now?”
“Ms. Lawton is in the back room by the garden. Follow me.”
The rooms I walk through remind me of Danny Gentry’s place, only a lot richer and a lot classier. Movie posters on the walls. Awards on the bookshelves. Lots of photos with lots of important people. What’s funny, though, is that there’s a light coat of dust on everything, like no one’s set foot in these rooms in a long time.
By the time we get to the back, where Thivierge is waiting, I’m beginning to regret not taking the parka. My hands are going numb and I can see my breath.
Finally, Maggie stops by a room sealed like something you’d see on a space station. The wall around the door is covered floor to ceiling in heavy, silver-backed insulation. The door itself is sealed with a kind of airlock, so that nothing that’s going on out here is going to contaminate what’s going on in the next room.
I touch my cheek and realize I can’t feel my face anymore.
Maggie smiles at that and says, “Please don’t upset her. She’s fragile.”
“I’ll be like cotton-candy kisses.”
Maggie gives me a look and opens the door. An even deeper winter blast smacks me and I can’t help but shudder.
The crap I do to make a living.
I wait by the door and listen as Maggie seals it up behind me.
Across the room is an old woman in a wheelchair who looks like she was carved out of a glacier. A living ice sculpture for some billionaire’s New Year’s party. We stare at each other for over a minute.
Finally, I say, “Thanks for seeing me, Ms. Thivierge.”
“All of a sudden you’re polite. Did your mother teach you to be nice to old ladies?”
“No, ma’am. She taught me how to make her martinis.”
That gets me a brittle laugh. She points to a sofa that’s covered in puffy insulated material. I sink six inches when I sit down.
“So, you found me out and tracked me here,” Thivierge says. “Big deal. If it’s money you want, I don’t have any. Every cent is sunk into this house and the electric bills.”
“I had a feeling they’re pretty hefty.”
“It’d make your balls shrivel up if you saw it.”
“My balls are pretty shriveled anyway.”
Another brittle laugh, followed by a hacking cough. I get up to help her, but she waves me back onto the sofa.
She says, “I can’t stand being touched. Feeling another person’s body heat is agony.”
I’m tired of beating around the bush.
“Tell me, Ms. Thivierge, who cursed you?”
She sits back and eyes me for a minute, so I go on.
“I couldn’t help noticing all the protections you had on your place. Are you afraid of someone? The person who did this to you?”
This time when she laughs it isn’t brittle. It comes from deep in her throat. It’s the most human sound she’s made so far.
She says, “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? You’re part of the Hollywood magic set, aren’t you? Well, kiddo, I’ll tell you exactly who cursed me: me.”
It all makes a kind of sense. All of those Hollywood parties with stoned garbage wizards like Kenny; something was bound to go wrong.