Blood Rush
Chapter Fourteen: Banter
"How did your interview go?" Deedee asked Jerome once they entered their trailer and the door closed behind her.
"I'd say it went well," Jerome shrugged. "Gordon asked about Mother's sex life, responded appropriately."
He frowned, "Why? How did yours go?"
"Detective Bullock," Deedee explained irritably, "He pushed me."
"Pushed you? All you had to say is what any loyal, devoted grieving daughter would say about their dead mother." Jerome said.
"I was fine up until he mentioned the possibility of a lover trying to get in on Mom," said Deedee, throwing a hand up.
"Mom was banging guys all the fuckin' time, we didn't give a shit about any of them—" Jerome began incredulously, however Deedee cut him off, approaching him quickly with teeth bared tightly against her lips, suddenly agitated just as she had been with Detective Harvey Bullock:
"I'm not talking about Mom's sex partners, Brother." She hesitated. "Bullock hypothesized about one of yours."
Jerome blinked. "Really, Deedee? Jealousy?"
"I didn't even know I reacted until Bullock pointed it out." Deedee remarked, side-stepping him to enter the kitchen.
"You don't always have to react, Deedee; all you had to do was act!" Jerome retorted, following her.
"I can't always control it, Jerome!" Deedee shot back, glancing over her shoulder at him hotly.
"Mother always did say that you've got no self-control when it comes to your temper—" Jerome began to jest in cynical amusement, but Deedee cut him off again,
"Yeah, well, I haven't shoved you down a flight of steps yet, have I? How about that for self-control," Deedee quipped. She opened the door to the liquor cabinet. "But whether or not I didn't act the right way, the detectives will find out that we"—she gestured with a hand to the physical distance between them— "aren't just loving siblings, yeah—Mr. Cicero, he was talking to Gordon and the pretty doctor as I was escorted out of the building…"
"Bit of reach," Jerome said. "So what if the ol' man tells them about our dirty little secret…"
"So what? If dear old Daddy tells the cops that we're fucking, it mounts to motive, Jerome," said Deedee.
"You're my sister, it's okay to be protective—"
"—I will be the main suspect—" reasoned Deedee.
"—Cops are dumb, Deedee—" reasoned Jerome.
"—And they'll put the pieces together—"
Jerome came to stand beside her, slammed a hand over the door to the liquor cabinet, closing off Deedee's reach for one very strong drink. "Honey. Sweetie. Doll…" he breathed. "You're not listening…again. Did you say anything that would incriminate either of us that would lead Gordon or Bullock to think that we, as Lila's grieving children, would have killed her?"
"No," Deedee answered.
Jerome nodded. "Did you mention Jeremiah, where Gordon or Bullock would want to investigate further into the little shit's white lies?"
"No," said Deedee defensively, growing mildly offended.
"Did you mention that Mr. Cicero is your dad?"
"Of course not—"
Jerome held his hands up in the air nonchalantly, smiling at her. "Then we've got nothing to worry about unless either Mr. Cicero, you, or me just spontaneously confess to something, yeah? Quit worrying, stop thinking. You're getting paranoid again and honestly—Honey"—he gave her a pointed look— "You're annoying me a bit when you get like this."
Deedee frowned in turn. She removed his hand from the liquor cabinet, irked but still listening to him.
Jerome said with a sigh, "Even if the cops learned that we're 'fucking'—" Deedee's brow raised as he air-quoted the word with a wink— "they'll probably just cringe and accept it that it's part of the Circus. Who cares? 'Oh, no, the fire dancer and that stagehand who handles the snake are brother and sister and they shared the same bed for eighteen years, oh god, who knew'…" He mocked shock and disgust, then he chuckled. "As long as they don't think we stuck an axe in her head, that's really all that matters."
"If that's all that matters, Jerome, why did you push so hard for them to investigate further instead of letting them think that Mom just disappeared for a few days? 'She didn't bring her hat, her coat, her purse'…" Deedee air-quoted Jerome's testimony to Gordon. "Even our Ringmaster was going to go for that crackpot story. He knew she was dead before the cops showed up and he wasn't going to tell them."
Jerome watched Deedee pour a glass of wine curiously, noted her clenched jaw.
"Exactly why are you upset, Sister?" asked Jerome. "It's all part of the fun to keep up the charade."
"It's not exactly the fun I was anticipating, Brother," returned Deedee, sipping the wine glass. "I thought we'd get out of Gotham with the Circus, live the life that we've wanted—"
"Oh, you're still thinking that Circus is what we want." Jerome uttered a slow, disappointed sigh.
"I enjoy what I do," Deedee said curtly, leaning toward him intently. "I don't want to stop doing that, I just wanted Lila off our backs."
"You have a one-track mind—I have vision," said Jerome. He framed Deedee's face in front of four fingers to pan her face inside an invisible camera. "You could be a real celebrity, not a Circus freak—not a sideshow. A real fire starter." He patted Deedee's face. "You're not thinking about the bigger picture." A beat. "A better life is what we wanted; simply taking Mother out isn't going to do it either. Have to improve that quality of life, too, Deedee."
"If the cops catch us, when and if, they'll put us in a cell in Arkham Asylum. We'll never see daylight," said Deedee.
"Or we'll get away scot-free," said Jerome, amused. "Wouldn't you like to find out what happens? Consider it like Russian Roulette, you remember that game, don't you?"
Deedee rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I played that game with you when we were kids."
Jerome gave an off-handed chuckle, "That's a hard game to lose…"
"Especially when both players want to lose. We could have just loaded the whole clip, called it a day," said Deedee darkly.
Jerome nudged a finger into her chest, "See, Deedee? That's the spirit! But that's not how you play by the rules!" He made a mocking sound of Tsk, tsk, tsk. "It's just like playing Russian Roulette. I mean, whatever happens, it's going to be funny: either we walk, or we get locked up. Gotta look at the positives, Deedee."
"I don't really want to be locked in a cage, Brother," whispered Deedee sardonically, as she poured another glass of wine.
"Locked up in the same room as me? Oh, how would we cope?" Jerome said sarcastically.
Their back-and-forth banter gave them pause for a few minutes of silence with Deedee silently drinking from her wine glass thoughtfully and Jerome shaking his head in his sister's misunderstanding of the joke entirely. Jerome could understand his sister's apprehension about being sent into an asylum—Gotham was infamous for its prison for the mentally insane. The only time she really lost control was for Jerome's sake—she'd intervene when Lila would beat the crap out of him; and then she took the chance of giving away everything when that burly detective started to pry into her brother's dirty secrets. He actually didn't think that she was that attached to him—in such a possessive (obsessive?) way…
Deedee glanced up at Jerome from her glass.
"I might pay Dad a visit…" she muttered.
"That's just eating you up inside, isn't it?" said Jerome.
"I wanna know what he told the cops." Deedee said as she got to her feet.
"What, Deedee, you're going to go now?"
"He ought to be done talking to them." Deedee said.
"One track mind, like I said," said Jerome.
"Shut up, Brother, I can't—"
"Help it," he finished the sentence for her, smiling anyway, "I know, I know." He grabbed her wine glass and refilled it. "I'll finish this off for you while you're interrogating him."
"I'm not interrogating him."
"Of course not," said Jerome passively. "What are you going to say?"
"I'm gonna ask him what he said and why he was at the station to begin with."
"Yeah, interrogating him, that's what I said." Jerome chuckled. Before Deedee could remark, he waved at her, "Go on."
Deedee rolled her eyes, grabbed her coat. She leaned forward as Jerome sipped from the glass, pecking him swiftly on the cheek, shot him a quick smirk and then she was out the door.