Darkborn (28 page)

He draped an arm over her.

He shut his eyes.

He opened them.

He thought of the dream. The screams. The bodies. And then the strange part. Whalen .
 
.
 
. Kiff.

And he knew something.

He knew that he’d call Jim Kiff in the morning. Maybe even go see him.

I owe it to him, Will thought uneasily.

For now, he forced his eyes shut .
 
.
 
. and tried to keep all the thoughts away.

* * *

24

Jim Kiff crawled closer to the piece of green linoleum.

The green square sat there, right over the hole, just a thin piece of linoleum.

But he was afraid to move it.

Always was. Every day, every morning. But it had to be done.

No way around it.

He felt safe in the apartment. Of course, he had put things all around the apartment, things that would alert him .
 
.
 
. things to protect him.

There were bells. All kinds of bells: a Christmas ornament and a tiny bell from the top of a Smurf pencil. An old doorbell. A cowbell that clunked more than rang.

They were all over.

A porcelain bell that he stole from a Hallmark store.

Bells in front of the door leading down. At all the windows. At all the entrances.

He didn’t know whether they’d work or not.

The experts were divided on that subject.

They weren’t sure.

But he wasn’t taking any chances.

The door was locked — little good that would do. He also had a chair, a cheap ratty chair with the stuffing ripped out of its plastic-covered seat — wedged tightly against the door.

The window
was
a problem. He had a bar crossing the top pane, locking it. But the glass could still be broken.

But I’d hear that, Kiff thought. Sure I would. I don’t sleep too soundly. Not anymore. Not in years.

Only sleep a few hours a night.

If you can call what I do sleep.

I close my eyes. Then in a few hours I wake up. Like now. Thirsty, ready to go to work.

Even though it’s too early.

Even though there’s no one downstairs. Even though the bar is empty — will be empty for a long time.

He couldn’t wait until Jimmie came, and the gin mill opened and they came. People. I’m safe when there are people around.

At least Kiff thought he was.

His hand reached out to the piece of loose linoleum.

He licked his lips.

Then he backed up.

Another shot first, he told himself. Something quick.

He sprung to his feet. Backing up into a table. A little bell rang.

He nodded. Took a breath. I did that, he told himself. He turned to make sure that the bell, a tiny hand bell he found in Caldor’s, was still hidden under the shoe box.

It was.

He snorted. Always so mucusy in the morning. Always a damn cold, or the flu, or something. Until he got a few under his belt. A few eye-openers.

He walked to the table. The tabletop was a cracked, red Formica. There were stains on it that looked as though they had always been there.

But he guessed that he had probably made them .
 
.
 
. and just never cleaned them.

He unscrewed the top of the bottle. He picked it up.

Don’t need a glass, he thought. Just having a sip. That’s all.

He took a chug, then another. Then another.

The Seagram’s felt soothing going down. But then — feeling that the bottle had passed the halfway point — he was disappointed. Jimmie doesn’t like me going through so many bottles, he thought.

“Take it easy, Kiff,” Jimmie joked. “Leave some for the customers.”

But Jimmie liked Kiff. Liked the way he got the place all swept up in the morning.

It was a good job. Got this small apartment right above the bar — so damn convenient. And drinks on the house.

Shit, it was a great job.

He put the bottle down. Then he picked it up again and took another swig.

This was breakfast.

He never got drunk anymore. Couldn’t remember when he got drunk last. No matter how much he drank. And he drank a lot. Had to. Or he didn’t feel so good.

He bled, all right. From his asshole. Sometimes from his nose. Now, why the fuck did that happen? And he coughed all the time, even when he wasn’t smoking.

And sometimes his muscles, his legs, felt funny when he walked, as if they didn’t have any strength anymore, as if they were ready to pack it in. But he didn’t get drunk.

I can hold my liquor, he thought.

No problem.

He put the bottle down.

He saw the books on the battered bookcase .
 
.
 
. something he found on the sidewalk on trash day. Must be fifty books on the shelves, most of them ripped off from the library. They used to be in alphabetical order. But he kept digging them out all the time, checking stuff, reading things, so that they were all mixed up now.

The books told him what happened.

Told him about the bells.

Probably saved my life, Kiff thought.

He had some pages ripped out and taped to the wall. Things he wanted to remember. There was a prayer used by St. Etienne. Maybe it worked, Kiff thought. Maybe it didn’t.

And lots of pictures of crosses. Russian crosses, and Greek crosses, and Catholic crucifixes with Jesus in agony. And even some plain, boring Protestant crosses, silver and gold.

He had two real crucifix crosses. One hung right on the door. Another at the window. They were blessed. He got a priest to do that. With holy water — the priest convinced him that the water had definitely been blessed too.

They might work.

Or they might not.

Jimmie said he didn’t want any crosses in the bar.

The customers wouldn’t like it.

“This ain’t church that they come to.” He laughed, talking to Kiff. “They come here to get away from all that shit.”

Kiff nodded.

But he hid a small crucifix under the bar, off in a comer where Jimmie’s meaty hand would never discover it.

All this, thought Kiff.

All this, and I know I’m not safe.

Never have been.

That’s why I called Whalen. He can call the others. They can get some help, some real help.

He looked at his bedroom, more of a closet, all dark, with the window facing an alleyway, away from the morning sun.

The other pictures were in there.

The photos of the girls, the headlines. The articles describing the way it was done.

Just like in the books.

Kiff chewed his lip. He looked back at the hole in his floor.

I should get down there, he thought.

He walked back to the loose piece of linoleum. He knelt down. His bones creaked, and his muscles let him land hard on the floor. He knelt next to the linoleum.

It made him pat the pockets of his pants. He felt the rosaries. One in each pocket.

He reached out and took the cracked square of linoleum away.

Underneath, there was a hole. A ragged hole girded by splintery shafts of wood.

As if a giant rat had chewed right through the floor. It was the size of a softball.

But it hadn’t been a rat.

Jimmie said someone once fired a gun. Another time he told Kiff that this guy had killed himself in the apartment.

Heh-heh. Don’t go getting any ideas, Jimmie said.

Just never got it fixed.

Kiff pushed the linoleum to the side. And slowly, breathing hard, excited, thirsty — always thirsty — he leaned closer to the hole.

I have to do this, he told himself. Otherwise, how can I be sure?

He cautiously brought his face down to the hole so that he could look with his left eye.

He saw the bar.

Barely lit by the few neon signs that Jimmie left on all night long.
The Silver Bullet. Miller Lite. The King of Beers.

He didn’t smell anything.

That was good.

Just the smell of the bar, the deep, sweet smell of beer and booze, filled his apartment. That smell was his life. There was no difference between the smell of the bar and his apartment.

But he didn’t smell anything else.

He knew from the books that was a good sign.

So he always sniffed before he looked.

Don’t want to get tricked .
 
.
 
.

He heard a creaking noise behind him. At the window.

He shot up.

It came from his bedroom.

He turned. Suddenly cold. He snorted at the air.

He heard it again. But Kiff could see the window, see it, and he knew that it was just the wind, pressing against the window.

He went back to the hole. To finish his survey. He checked behind the bar, studying each shadow, each dark corner that could hide something. He looked at the booths, the few tables. Then up to the rest rooms.

Someone could always be hiding in there, he thought. But he had an answer for that problem.

As soon as he got down, he locked the doors with sticks, old broom handles. He locked the cellar door too.

If someone was hiding, they would be locked up.

They’d have to make a hell of a racket to get out.

He laughed at his choice of words.

Hell of a racket.

He did one more survey, knowing that he couldn’t see every spot, every dark corner.

There was some unavoidable risk involved.

He knew that.

But then, satisfied — as satisfied as he could be — he pushed the square of linoleum back into place and stood up.

Kiff took another swig of Seagram’s, marveling once again at just how fast a full bottle turns into half a bottle.

And how half a bottle begins an inexorable march to empty.

Until it was time to start all over again.

“Okay,” he said to himself, screwing the cap back on.

It was time to go to work.

And he went to his door, the heavy wooden crucifix on the back. He opened it and went downstairs.

Kiff heard traffic outside. Cars gunning past the bar.

Soon Jimmie would come with a paper under his arm and a bag of rolls.

“Roll. Kiff?” he’d ask. And Kiff would smile and say no. Not hungry this morning, Jimmie.

He used the big broom to push together the piles of dirt and cigarette butts, catching stuff he missed last night. Then he’d wipe down the bar and the tables with soapy water. And if there was time — and he was sure that the basement was quiet — he’d bring up a new keg, though they got harder to lift. Maybe restock the bottom shelf, the Four Roses, the Seagram’s. The stuff that moved.

The radio was on, just noise, in the background.

He pushed the broom.

The phone rang.

Once. Kiff stopped.

The phone rang again. He stood still.

For a strange reason, Kiff thought it might actually be for him.

And when he went and picked it up, he discovered — thank God, thank sweet Jesus! — that he was right.

* * *

25

Brooklyn has changed.

But I knew that, Will told himself. Brooklyn changed, the world changed. Everyone’s run away. To Long Island. To Westchester. To the wasteland of New Jersey.

He looked at the neon above the bar.

Jimmie’s Bar & Grill.

It was open. Through the smeary window, Will saw some men slumped over on stools, staring into their beers. The tube was on, glowing an iridescent blue and green.

The place was completely uninviting.

To get here, to free up this day, Will had to call in some favors to get his cases moved to another day on the docket. There was nothing major pending, a few DWls, a small possession rap. A guy who likes to take out his frustrations by beating his wife.

Nice citizens in trouble with the law.

It was cloudy. The warm glow of yesterday’s picnic, the flash of Indian Summer, had been replaced today with an almost icy chill. His leather jacket offered little protection from the nipping wind.