Blue World (53 page)

“There you go,” Travis said. “We’ll wait a couple of minutes now.”

The door’s buzzer went off.

Travis stood up fast.

The door’s buzzer went off again. Then again. Then somebody was leaning on it.

“I don’t like that sound,” Travis told her, as water burst from her nostrils and she battled desperately for a breath. He walked into the front room, his hand going to the holstered Colt.

Outside, John took his finger off the buzzer. She should’ve answered by now. Her Fiat was at the curb. If she could have answered, she would have. He braced himself and kicked at the door, just below the knob. It was sturdy.

Travis started to ease the gun out, his eyes narrowing and his tongue flicking across his lower lip.

John kicked the door again, aiming at the exact same spot.

It burst inward, and he barreled through.

And there he stood, the blond man in the long canvas coat. Something was coming up, gripped in his hand in a blue-steel blur, and John saw the man’s face tighten with shock. John didn’t hesitate; the pistol was rising fast. He lunged across the threshold and right at the maniac.

The gun cracked, and the bullet zipped over John’s shoulder and took a chunk out of the doorframe. But then John’s left hand had gripped the gun-arm wrist, and his momentum took them both crashing over the coffee table and to the floor.

Travis clawed at John’s face, almost getting his fingers hooked in the priest’s eyes, but John averted his face and drove a knee hard into the man’s groin. Air whistled between Travis’ teeth. John’s fingers tightened on the gun arm wrist, trying to keep it pinned to the floor, knowing if that gun got free, he was dead.

He heard water running, back in the bathroom.

Oh, no. Oh, God, no!

A fist slammed into the side of his head and knocked him off. John kept his grip on the wrist, stars wheeling through his brain. And then another blow hit him on the forehead, as Travis roared with rage, and this time John fell backward and lost his hold.

The Colt came up, started to take aim into John’s face.

John kicked the man’s inner elbow. The gun went off, smashing a cactus pot, and then the man’s fingers spasmed open and the Colt sailed out, slamming against the wall and landing on the carpet.

Travis twisted like a snake, crawling madly after his gun.

John landed on his back, bellowing the wind out of him and hooking his left arm around the man’s throat, trying to keep him from reaching the Colt. Travis thrashed and strained, fingers grasping, the gun’s barrel carpeted inches away.

As the two figures struggled, so did Debbie Stoner. Water was gushing up her nostrils now, and coming through the washrag into her mouth. She was gasping, searching for air in the torrent. She blew water from her nose, but more of it came back. She was filling up with water, and there was no escape from the flood.

Travis reared back and slammed his elbow into John’s ribs. John, teeth clenched, hung on and squeezed, but Travis was thrashing again, wildly, and John couldn’t keep his grip. Travis lunged forward, and his right hand grasped the Colt’s barrel. He drew it to him like a true love.

John released the man’s throat and smashed him in the face with his left fist, a blow with the strength of near-madness behind it. Travis’s upper lip exploded, and two teeth went into his mouth. But Travis was twisting around again, throwing John off him, and the gun was coming up in a quick, deadly arc.

John leapt for the wrist, got his fingers around it as the Colt fired. The hot flash of the bullet seared his face. There was a noise like a hammer knocking the wall, and plaster dust bloomed beside the picture of a Malibu sunset.

Travis grabbed John’s hair, yanking his head back, trying to wrench the priest off his gun hand. But John hung on doggedly, and when the gun went off again it blew a hole through the bay window’s glass.

They struggled at close quarters. Travis’s fingers twitched on the Colt’s handle, and four inches of gleaming, serrated blue steel slid out in front of John’s face.

Travis slammed his fist into John’s stomach. Then again. John’s fingers weakened, his eyes going glassy and sweat glistening on his face. The knife blade slowly descended toward John’s bleeding throat.

John got a leg between them, and lodged his knee into the maniac’s chest. Travis was on top of him now, his weight bearing down.

John knew there was no other way. In seconds either the knife would go into his neck or the barrel would fire a bullet into his brain. He arched his body upward and cracked his skull into the man’s nose.

Travis howled and fell back, blowing blood. John scrambled away, his grip lost and his strength almost gone. Travis shook his head violently, blood dripping from his chin, and then he brought the Colt around to take aim and blow the priest to hell.

John saw the gun coming. There was no way to stop it. No way.

His gaze ticked to a thorny cactus in a small clay pot on his left. He grasped the pot and lifted the cactus off the floor.

Travis’ head had almost turned, eyes glittering. The Colt was about to find its target.

John swung out with the cactus.

And raked it across the other man’s eyes.

Travis screamed and recoiled, blinded. He rolled away, the bridge of his nose and his cheeks scoured with thorn gashes, his eyes punctured and oozing. He got up on his knees, screaming, and then to his feet. John saw Unicorn racing around the room, madly searching for cover in the frenzy. Travis lurched to right and left, the Colt extended and finger on the trigger. The barrel stared into John’s face for a second, then veered away about two feet and fired into the wall. John lay flat, his heart hammering, as Travis screamed, “Where are you! Where are you!” and took a backward step, the Colt swinging to the left again.

He stepped on the crab as it sped across the room under his feet.

Travis went backward, off-balance. The Colt fired a sixth time, the bullet breaking glass in the kitchen, and its recoil sealed the man’s fate.

He went back, back, over the sill, and into the bay windows.

The glass shattered behind him, and his mouth opened in a panicked zero. His fingers caught at broken edges and left smears of red, and then he was going out the window and his scream went down with him all the way.

There was a wham!

and the scream stopped.

John got up, staggering to the smashed window, and looked down. The man lay on the dented roof of a car, belly-up, and his head had snapped backward through the windshield. He still gripped the Colt. A death grip.

Lights were coming on across the street. People were peering out their own windows. Someone screamed out there. And then a man wearing glasses and a terry-cloth robe came into Debbie’s apartment, followed by a young blond woman, and both of them stopped dead at the splintered doorway.

Debbie! John thought. Oh, dear Lord!

He ran to the bathroom, as Unicorn started burying itself in the sand from an overturned cactus pot.

She was still alive, and still fighting for life. John got the taps turned off, and she blew and gurgled water and sobbed hysterically around the sopping gag. He wrenched at the rope with his left hand, got a crucial knot loosened from around the faucet. She saw him then, her eyes bloodshot and half-drowned, and she saw the bloody collar around Lucky’s neck.

He lifted her up, out of the white tomb, and crushed her to him, getting the rag out of her mouth so she could draw a full breath. Her head pressed against his shoulder, and he held her as she moaned and cried.

“Shhhhh, Debbie,” he told her in his mangled voice, as he rocked her shivering body. Whether she understood any of it, he didn’t know. “It’s all right, Debbie. It’s all right, my child. Shhhhhh. It’s all right. Shhhhhh, my child.”

He held her until the police came.

There were many days when San Francisco might be called the most beautiful city on earth, and this was one of them. The bay glittered in the golden sunlight of late October, and sailboats advanced before the wind. In the blue sky, airplanes brought some people here, and also took some people home.

That was Debbie Stoner’s destination.

Father John Lancaster waited with her at her gate for the plane to New Orleans. They sat side by side, and as the bustle of a busy airport went on around them their movements were slow and precise, the movements of two people who have already arrived.

She wore her traveling clothes: jeans, a pale blue blouse, and a white sweater that really accented her tan and the clear gray of her eyes. It was a light sweater, one that could be worn in a Southern climate. She wore no sunglasses, and the stripe of light that lay across her hands did not hurt her sight.

John wore his own traveling clothes; he was continuing his journey, and his white collar was fresh and not starched quite so stiffly. Around his right hand were the wrappings of bandages, and another small bandage covered the bullet crease at his throat.

Debbie sighed; her first sound in more than a minute. She looked up at him and then away, quickly. He waited, and he realized he was dreading something: the call that would be coming any minute, the call that would take her out of his life forever.

“I still don’t know what Uncle Joey’s gonna do,” she said quietly. “I left a message on his machine, but… well, you never know about Uncle Joey.”

“I’m sure Uncle Joey can take care of himself.” His voice was still a little croaky.

“You sound like a frog,” she said, and gave him a quick nervous smile. He returned it, and then they both looked away from each other again.

“I’ve got a long way to go,” she said finally.

“Not so far. New Orleans, first. Then you can rent a car to--”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “I’ve got a long way. I don’t know if I can go the distance.”

“You won’t know unless you try.”

“Right.” She nodded, and looked at her hands. She’d taken off her false red fingernails. “I’m scared,” she said softly. “I… I’m not the same as I used to be. I mean… going home… it’s scary.”

“I guess that’s part of going home, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. But I don’t know where I fit in anymore. I mean, my ma sounded glad to hear from me, and she says she’s tryin‘ to kick the bottle, but… it’s not gonna be easy.”

“No,” John agreed, watching her beautiful face. There were many questions behind it; they were questions that Debra Rocks wouldn’t have asked herself. “Nothing worth a damn is easy.”

“Guess not.” She was silent for a while longer. The loudspeaker paged somebody, and she jumped a little bit, all needles and pins. “I’ve got to kick the cocaine,” she said. “I know that. That place in New Orleans--”

“It’s a good place,” John told her. That face, that face! Oh, how it hurt his eyes to look at her. “They’ll take good care of you. But that won’t be easy either. They’ve got the facility, but you’ll have to work at it.”

“I always worked,” Debbie said. “I’m not afraid of a little work.” She smiled, and he thought it was a different smile; part of her was already facing southeast, maybe looking from the edge of the blue world, about to pass into day.

The loudspeaker’s metallic voice announced, “United’s flight 1714 to Dallas, Memphis, and New Orleans will soon begin boarding. All passengers with small children or who need extra care…”

“That ought to be me,” Debbie said nervously. “I feel like a little kid who needs a lot of extra care.”

John stood up. It was almost time. Debbie stood up too, and they walked together toward the gate.

“I might not stay there. Home, I mean,” she told him. She glanced at him, looked away again because she thought his face was like a blaze, and if she looked too long she’d start to cry. “It’s a small town, and I think I’ve outgrown it. But… it seems to me that that’s where I’ve got to go. To find out what happened to Debbie Stoner. I think I left her back there, a long time ago, and she’s due her chance too, don’t you think?”

“I do think,” he agreed. His throat caught. The wound was still hurting, that was it.

“Well, I… I’ve got to give it my best shot. Got to--” Her eyes saw something behind John, and they widened with stunned surprise.

“You fuckhead!” Joey Sinclair’s voice growled. “Hey,

Lucky! I’m talkin‘ to you! I got your message, Debra! What the hell kinda shit is--“ He grabbed John’s arm roughly and twisted him around.

“Hello, Uncle Joey,” John said calmly, and saw the man stare at his collar.

Joey Sinclair was flanked by his sons, two slabs of tough beef. But suddenly Sinclair himself was shrinking, as if he were melting into his suit, and his face took on the color of spoiled cheese. He took a backward step, slamming so hard into one of his sons he almost toppled the boy.

“You’re a…

priest,“

Sinclair whispered, strangling. “When did you become a priest?”

“I’ve always been a priest.”

“Always? Always?” He had shriveled, and John thought the man was going to become a gnarled little dwarf right there in front of his eyes. “Always?” He seemed to have that word caught in his throat. “Like… always?”

“Like always,” John told him.

“You mean… I called a priest a fu…” He stopped, diminished, and his eyes bulged with inner pressure.

“Miss Stoner is going home,” John said, and put his hand firmly on Joey Sinclair’s shoulder. “Is that all right with you?”

“Oh, yeah! It’s fine! You got the ticket yet? I’ll buy the ticket! First class!”

“Economy is good enough,” Debbie said.

Sinclair choked a little more, and then his gaze--softer now, and still frightened--fixed on Debbie. “You’re… you’ve always been a good kid. A hard worker. Star quality!”

“Stars burn out,” Debbie told him in a quiet and reasoned voice. “I think I want to just be a person now.”

“Oh, yeah! Just be a person! That’s fine enough!” His scared gaze skittered to John. Then back to Debbie, and it lingered. “Listen… Debbie. You… be the best person. You hear me?”

“I hear you, Uncle Joey.”

“Yeah, and you tell anybody gives you trouble that you’ve got high connections! Understand?”

She smiled, and nodded.

Then Sinclair regarded John again, still astonished, still cheese-faced.