A wasteland of strangers (14 page)

"Yeah? What you want to defend him for?"

"What you want to condemn him for?"

"You like his looks, Lori?"

"Better than yours," she said. "His personality, too." And she stormed back inside.

The guy said, "Women." He laid a hand on my arm. "You read the paper tonight? Kent's right. Stranger's up to no good, else what's he hanging around town for?"

I shrugged his hand off and didn't answer. I was feeling crappy about the whole business, thinking that I shouldn't've chased after Faith the way I did, should've talked to Trisha first. It all left a bad taste in my mouth. Right then it did, anyway.

But as I was driving home I got to thinking that it wasn't all my fault. Faith had some blame coming, too. He shouldn't've been hanging around up on the Bluffs at night, not for any reason. He shouldn't be hanging around Pomo, either. Hell, he shouldn't've come here in the first place. Maybe Kent and the mouthy guy were right after all. Maybe this Faith was up to no good. Nasty-looking type like him, with his linebacker eyes ... yeah.

What else except up to no damn good?

Storm Carey

ALL EVENING I'VE had the strangest feeling. I can't quite define it, except as a kind of . . . waiting. The kind you feel when you know someone is coming to see you, someone you've been expecting for a long time and the arrival is imminent. Anticipation. Not really intense, lacking eagerness, and yet... I don't know, I can't describe it. I can only feel it, sense the immediacy.

It isn't John Faith I'm waiting for. At least I don't believe it is. The feeling started after six, after the deadline for his call, and I've heard nothing from him since then. Not coming. Changed his mind. The Hunger and I were disappointed at first, but not as much as we would have been on another night. Now it seems not to matter at all.

Who is it we're waiting for?

One of the other surrogates, incubuses? But none of them have called; there were no casual meetings today, not a word or a smile in the past few days that could be mistaken for invitation or encouragement. And I'm almost always the one to take the initiative, make the arrangements. The Hunger doesn't permit unannounced drop-ins. Anticipation, enough time for the mouth and tongue to indulge their maddening foreplay, is an essential part of its need.

But the anticipation tonight is different. The mouth is closed, the tongue hidden, the lips still. Different and asexual, this waiting. For what, then?

Soon. The word seems to sing in my mind. Soon.

I wander through the house, aimlessly. I haven't eaten since noon, but I have no appetite. Or any interest in alcohol. The house is quiet, almost breathlessly so, as if it, too, is waiting, yet I also have no interest in music or radio or television noise. I prefer the silence. I turn on lights and turn them off again; I prefer the shadows.

Such a strange feeling . ..

In Neal's study I gently run my fingers over the glass-smooth surface of his cherrywood desk, his leather "thinking" chair. I look at the Brueghel prints on the walls, the cabinets filled with his collection of antique snuffboxes and bottles. All just the same as it was when he was here. Carefully preserved: I could never bring myself to change or remove any of it. A kind of shrine—memories of his life. Memento mori— reminders of his death.

I go upstairs to the bedroom we shared, and standing in the darkness I look at the bed I've shared with so many others. Faceless, all of them; it's Neal I see lying there, arms outstretched, beckoning to me. I want to cry, but there are no tears left. I turn away.

Outside in the night, there is the sound of a car. Light flashes across the window curtains as it comes uphill fast.

I hurry to the window, peer out. The car stops in that moment, in the shadow of the big cedar that towers above the garage. Its headlights wink out. No moon tonight, and restless clouds hiding the stars: I can't tell whose car it is, or even if it's one I've seen before. Nor can I quite make out the person who slips quickly through the driver's door.

But I know who it is.

All at once my mind seems to open up like a night flower, and clearly, as if I've been gifted with second sight, I know who is out there and why I've felt so strange and what it is the Hunger and I have been waiting for, not just tonight but the two thousand previous nights. I know exactly what will happen in just a little while. I see the face close to mine, I hear the exchange of harsh words, I feel the outsurge of violent anger wash over me. An arm rises, something glints in soft light, the arm whips down—

Sharp knocking on the front door.

Inside me the mouth is active again, nibbling, licking downward in what quickly grows into a frenzy. More urgent than ever before, with a

need so great it is unbearable. But the need is not for sex. The Hunger has never really been sexual at all; I understand that, too, now. From the first it was searching for another kind of release, another kind of fulfillment— I've been searching for them, yearning for them ever since Neal left me. Everything I've done in the past six years has been motivated by a single desire that I could neither admit to nor consummate on my own.

I yearn to go where Neal has gone. I ache to join him in the darkness or the light.

The knocking grows louder, more insistent. But I am not afraid; a feeling of peace seems to be settling into me. I smile as I move away from the window. Face the truth, embrace it, and it will set you free.

I make my way downstairs, not quite hurrying, and unlock the door. And I face Death standing there on the other side. And I say, smiling, "Come in."

Richard Novak

I WAS HALFWAY up the drive when John Faith came running out through the front door of Storm's house.

The cruiser's headlights picked out his car first, parked under the tree near the garage, and then him as he tore across the porch and off the stairs in one leap. The lights pinned him as he hit the path. His stride broke and he threw up an arm against the glare, took another couple of faltering steps. I jabbed the switch for the bar flashers, and when they came on, smearing the darkness with swirls of clotted red, he froze in a crouch with one leg bent and his eyes wide and shining, like a trapped animal's.

I put the cruiser into a sliding half turn, jammed on the brakes; the rear end stopped a few inches from the Porsche's, blocking it. My service revolver was in my hand as I got out. He stayed put; the only move he made was to lower the one arm to his side. Past him I could see the front door of the house flung wide open, light spilling out from inside. My stomach kicked over; I could taste bile in the back of my throat.

Storm.

I halted a few paces from Faith, the revolver on him belt high. "What's going on? What're you doing up here?"

"This isn't what it looks like." Eyes flicking from the weapon to my face and back to the weapon. "I've only been here a couple of minutes—"

"Not what I asked you. Why were you running?"

"On my way to call for help. I didn't want to touch anything in there."

"Where's Mrs. Carey?"

"Inside. Better look for yourself."

"Show me. And don't make any funny moves on the way."

The hallway lights were on; so were the lights in the front parlor. Faith went in there and off to one side, and when I saw her lying sprawled across the arm of the couch, broken and limp, the silky fan of her hair matted and dark red with blood, the sickness rose hot into my throat; I had to swallow three or four times to keep it down. Storm! Her name, this time, was like a scream in my mind.

"I didn't do it," Faith said. "I found her just the way you see her."

Just the way I saw her. The deep wounds in the back of her skull... white and gray and red, bone and brain tissue and blood. And the thing beside her, flung down and half-hidden by the flare of her skirt, the goddamn thing that had done it. . . round and heavy, the glass surface all smeared with gore, like an organ that had been torn from inside her body and then cast aside. I tried to make myself go to her, check for a pulse, but it would be futile and I couldn't bear to touch her like that. I dragged my gaze away, kept it tight on Faith.

He said, "It's the truth—I found her like that. Not two minutes before you showed up."

"What're you doing here?" My voice had a wounded sound, hard and scraped raw.

"I was invited."

"She invited you?"

"This afternoon. She came out to the place where I'm staying."

"Just showed up at the Lakeside Resort and invited you to her home."

"I met her at Gunderson's last night. She was drunk and she tried to pick me up."

"Tried?"

"I turned her down."

"Woman like Storm Carey? Why?"

"I like my bed partners sober. The bartender there can vouch for

the way it was." No expression on his battered face as he spoke. Blood-scabbed cut on his cheek, I noticed then, and it hadn't been there long. "She came out to the resort to apologize. Her initiative, not mine."

"And then she invited you to her home."

"That's right."

"At ten-thirty at night."

"No, she wanted me to come earlier. For dinner, she said."

"Why would she invite a stranger to dinner?"

"Why do you think? I told you she tried to pick me up last night. You must know the kind of woman she was—"

"Shut up about that. You didn't know her, you don't have any idea what kind of woman she was."

His eyes kept flicking between my face and the revolver. He didn't like guns pointed at him, that was plain. Afraid of me, the law? "All right," he said.

"You didn't come for dinner—why not?"

"Figured she was trouble and I'd be smart not to get involved with her." His mouth quirked in that non-smile of his. "Looks like I figured right."

"Why'd you change your mind?"

"I had it changed for me."

"Yeah? How'd you get that cut on your cheek?"

"Part of what changed my mind. Hassle at the Northlake Cafe a little while ago, not my fault."

"What kind of hassle?"

"The misunderstanding kind. I did somebody a favor and it got taken the wrong way and I got jumped for it. So I said the hell with it, I might as well get laid before I quit this lousy town. I drove here to see if she was still interested."

"And?"

"Found her dead just like I said. I passed a car on the road, not far from her driveway. It could've come from up here."

"What kind of car?"

"No idea. I didn't pay much attention."

"What color? New or old?"

"I told you—"

"Yeah, you told me," I said. "I don't think there was any car. I think you're trying to throw up a smoke screen, divert suspicion. She was alive when you got here."

"The hell she was."

"What'd she do, Faith? Turn you down this time? Tell you she changed her mind, go away and leave her alone?"

"No. She was dead when I—"

"You got mad, you saw red, you picked up the big glass paperweight off the end table there—"

"No."

"—and hit her with it. Hit her again, crushed her skull, and then threw the paperweight down and ran out in a panic—"

"Look at her, man, she's been dead longer than a couple of minutes—"

"—and if I hadn't shown up when I did, you'd've been halfway to the Oregon border by now. Isn't that the way it really went down, Faith?"

"No! You're not railroading me for this."

"Nobody's railroading anybody. All right, let's go."

"Go where?"

"Out to the cruiser."

"You're arresting me, is that it?"

"Move."

"You've had it in for me ever since I got to this paradise of yours. You and two thirds of the people I've run into. I've taken as much as I can stand, Novak. I won't be your fall guy for this."

"You'll do as I say, or I swear I'll put a bullet in your leg and add resisting arrest to the charges. Move!"

His eyes flashed at me a couple of seconds longer, flicked again to my revolver, and then he moved—jerkily, his arms flat against his sides. I backed around to keep a distance between us as he passed through the doorway into the hall. I made myself glance once more at Storm; the image of her was like a burning thing in my mind as I followed Faith outside. I felt sick and torn up inside and half crazy. I loved her, I knew that now. Not the way I loved Eva, but still a fire-in-the-blood kind of love. And now her blood was all over the room in there ...

The bar flashers on the cruiser were still going, painting the night and the dark lake water with streaks and glints of red, as if the night were also bleeding. I watched Faith's back and the palm of my hand began to sweat around the revolver's handle. No! Not that way! My head ached and there was a grittiness in my eyes; the lids felt stuck down at the corners.

"Stand there in the headlights," I said to him.

When he obeyed I circled around behind him, transferring the revolver to my left hand, and leaned in through the driver's window to unhook the radio handset. Verne Erickson had arrived early to relieve Delia Feldman; I said when he came on, "I'm at Storm Carey's house. She's dead, murdered. Skull crushed, two blows with a glass paperweight. Suspect in custody—John Faith." My voice still had that wounded sound; it cracked a little once or twice.

Verne said he'd have a backup unit and an ambulance there in a hurry. Calm, professional—and why shouldn't he be? Nothing personal in it for him.

I replaced the handset and said to Faith, "Come around here, lean against the hood. Weight on your hands, legs back and spread."

He did what he was told. I patted him down with my free hand. No weapon of any kind.

"All right. Left hand behind your back."

He did that, too, without hesitation or argument. The revolver was still in my left hand; I reached around with my right to take the handcuffs off my belt.

That was when he made his move.

He shouldn't have gotten away with it; I knew all the tricks and how to counteract them. But I wasn't as alert as I should have been—too badly shaken, the image of Storm's crushed and bloody head still searing my brain. So when he kicked back with his foot he managed to hook my ankle, even though I hopped and sidestepped the way you're supposed to. Before I could fire he jerked the foot, spinning off the cruiser, and I spun and staggered the other way, off balance but not getting my feet tangled, staying upright.