Daughter of Darkness (37 page)

    "Turn around and spread 'em," Guard said. The way he savored these particular words told Coffey that he was probably a cop wanna-be who'd failed the psychological test. Under "Hobbies," the phrase "Killing people" almost always failed to impress.

    This was Coffey's one and only chance and he took it. As he started to turn to his car so he could get himself in the position Guard wanted him in, Coffey raised his right hand and let Guard have some industrial-strength mace right in the face.

    Guard screamed. Guard cursed. Guard started waving blindly with his formidable rifle.

    Coffey kicked him in the nuts.

    It was a good kick, too, a lot better than the kicks the Bears had been delivering these past two weeks.

    Guard sank to his knees and as he sank, Coffey kicked him upside the head. This kick put Guard out.

    Coffey opened the trunk, dragged Guard around, hefted him inside, and then bound and gagged him with various odds and ends and shut the trunk. But not before relieving Guard of all his keys.

    Coffey got in the cab and drove to the far side of the building, the point from which the Guard had come. A few minutes later, Coffey was inside. He knew he didn't have long. Priscilla Bowman would be calling soon to see how Guard had done with Coffey.

    The thing he hadn't counted on was how dissimilar all the keys looked to the lock in the door he'd chosen. It took him longer than he'd hoped to get inside, and then, once inside, he realized that he had no idea where he was going or what he was looking for.

    The logical place to start, he figured, was the building maintenance staff supervisor. Guarded have floor plans for the whole places plus the names belonging to the various offices. Priscilla's would probably be the best place to start.

    He went looking for the building supervisor's office.

    

    

    She used the john at a convenience store to clean herself up some. Finding the freeway hadn't been as easy as Gretchen had promised. A lot of brambly terrain had had to be traversed. Jenny was a sweaty mess.

    The restroom was relatively clean as these places went. There were plenty of paper towels, the H faucet actually dispensed hot water, the air smelled pleasantly if artificially of pine-scented freshener, and no brown little things were to be found floating in the toilet bowl. Almost like home.

    She stayed a long time in the john, just sitting on the closed toilet lid after doing all her business. Instead of a claustrophobic feeling, the john inspired a peaceful feeling. Nobody could get her in here. She was safe at last.

    The knock on the door took her feeling of security away. "I got a little girl here, she really needs to use the can," a female voice said. "You been in there a long time."

    Jenny felt guilty, embarrassed, keeping a little girl waiting. She got up, splashed cold water on her face and then went to the door.

    She was all ready to say "Sorry," when the teenage clerk who'd given her the john key shouted, "That's her!"

    In a moment, Jenny took it all in. The hefty woman in the Western clothes standing in front of her was a cohort of the clerk's. She looked very spiffy, the woman, in her white cowboy shirt with red piping, her white Stetson and her Levis and lizard cowboy boots. She'd lied about having a little girl in bad need of a john, just so she could lure Jenny out and the clerk could be satisfied that Jenny hadn't escaped out the john window or something.

    "Grab her!" the clerk shouted.

    The way her face had been on TV and in the newspapers, she was bound to be recognized eventually. And eventually was now.

    The woman made a grab for Jenny. She had thick arms and thicker hands. She would have made a good professional wrestler. She gripped Jenny's arm and then slammed her back into the john.

    She wanted to have a little fun, the lady wrestler. She slapped Jenny hard across the face a couple of times and then flung her into the wall. Jenny cracked the back of her head against a female napkin machine.

    The clerk was in the doorway now. "Hey, take it easy, Merla! I already called the cops! They won't want you to rough her up!"

    
The cops
, Jenny thought, as she ducked a slap. Everything pointed to her guilt. They wouldn't listen. Nor would the press. A rich girl made the best copy of all. Especially when two murders were attached to her name.

    Then Jenny remembered Gretchen's knife in her pocket. At the same time she reached for it, she made a quick assessment of the two people in the john with her. The clerk was skinny and pale and looked extremely nervous about this whole thing. Not even the small gold rings he wore in his nostrils seemed to give him much courage. He'd be a lot easier to deal with than the lady wrestler.

    Jenny subtly reversed positions, moving backward to the door. The woman put her arms out. Flexed her hands. "Rich bitch," she said. Then, to the clerk, "I spotted her, Mikey. That means I get seventy-five, you get twenty-five."

    "Hell, the reward's only $10,000, Merla. My mom'll make me pay taxes on it, and I won't have hardly nothin' left." Mikey sounded as if he was about to cry.

    She grabbed him. She felt a weird sort of pride. She just grabbed him, got him around the neck and dragged him half-out the door. She took Gretchen's knife out of her pocket and put it to the kid's throat.

    "Do you have a car?"

    "Oh, God, please put that knife away."

    "Do you have a car, I said?"

    "Yes'm."

    "Good. Then take me to it."

    "Yes'm."

    "You leave that boy alone, you rich bitch," Merla said.

    "C'mon, Merla," Mikey said. "Don't go pissin' her off."

    "That's right, Merla," Jenny said. "Don't go pissin' me off."

    In the distance, she could hear sirens. Mikey had said he'd called the cops. Apparently, he hadn't been lying.

    She dragged him down an aisle. On one side were soaps and sundries. On the facing aisle were cookies and candies. She kept her arm good and tight around his neck. She also kept the knife point very close to his throat. Merla stalked them, three, four feet back, constantly looking for her chance to snatch Mikey away from Jenny. But Jenny didn't give her the chance.

    As they came abreast of the cash register, Jenny said, "Grab me some money."

    "The boss'll be real mad if I do, ma'am."

    "I'll be real mad if you don't."

    He managed to glance at her. "You're so pretty and high-class and all. I sure don't know why you're doin' this."

    "The money, Mikey," she said, jabbing him a bit with the point of the knife. "The money."

    When they got out on the drive, Mikey said, "It's over there."

    Jenny almost laughed. This
would
have to be Mikey's car, a beat-up junker that had been painted a crude red with the word SATAN painted with equal crudity on the driver's door. There was also a small painting of a horned Satan on the back end of the car. Just in case you missed the point. "The keys," she said.

    He gave her the keys.

    Merla was still with them, standing nearby, glowering. She looked like the world's most forlorn cowgirl.

    Jenny dragged Mikey back with her to the car. She had to move fast. The sirens were only a few blocks away now. And Merla would want one more shot at her.

    Jenny moved. And at that instant, Merla moved, too.

    Jenny pushed Mikey into Merla just as the cowgirl leaped for Jenny. This gave Jenny time to get into the car and get it started. It had a pair of thunderous mufflers.

    Then, somehow, Merla's hands were on Jenny's throat and she was quickly choking Jenny into unconsciousness.

    All Jenny's breeding, all Jenny's self-doubts, all Jenny's temerity, said she shouldn't able to do it-too many social and psychological forces working against it.

    Yet she did it. As soon as she saw that there was only one way she could escape, she raised the knife, the knife that Merla had apparently forgotten about, and dragged the point of it halfway down Merla's arm. Not enough to do any real damage. But enough to make a shocked and stung Merla jerk her hands away from Jenny's neck.

    Jenny peeled backward at maybe fifty miles per hour, the smell of burning rubber tart on the chill night.

    Merla flung herself at the car but missed by a half foot and went sprawling facedown onto the drive. Mikey bent over to help her up but Merla angrily refused his help.

    Jenny knew she wouldn't get far driving a red car with SATAN painted on the door. People tend to notice cars like that. But she needed to escape the sirens. And then find a cab.

    She took alleys. The cops were never far behind. Other cop cars joined in. The sounds of the sirens swelled. When she was halfway down one alley, she saw a cop car starting to turn in to the alley.

    Fortunately, she found an ancient, open garage. She'd kept her lights off, so pulling inside wasn't exactly easy. As soon she was parked in the garage, she jumped out and dragged down the old-fashioned rope-pull door. The cop car was slowly working its way up the alley. The cop riding shotgun was flashing a big-beam flashlight on both sides of the alley. She crouched in a shadowy corner, hunched into herself, all sweat and fear and confusion and hope and despair and determination to persevere.

    The cop car paused in front of the alley where Jenny hid, its big tires crunching gravel as it stopped.

    The light played all over the face of the garage. Up, down, left, right. She kept waiting for the shotgun cop to get out and take a look inside. That would be the end. She might be able to get the jump on Mikey but never on an armed cop.

    Then they drove on.

    She sat there, shaking. For a moment, she seemed to lose all i control of herself. And then the sharp, stabbing headache. The one she knew now that Quinlan and Priscilla Bowman had put there. The mind-control headache.

    For a terrible moment, she thought she might lose it all, just collapse into a heap here until somebody found her and turned her over to the cops. It took so much to fight back sometimes. She knew why people just gave in. Because giving in was easier, even if it meant your own death.

    Then, thank God, the anger came. The anger at Quinlan, mostly, his cynicism, his manipulative skills. She had to expose him. not just for her sake but for others. She'd seen so many sad and helpless people in the psychiatric hospital that time, just the sort of people Quinlan preyed on. She couldn't let him go on.
Wouldn't
let him go on.

    After a time, when she hoped it was safe, she slipped out of the garage, and headed to a diner she knew of where cabbies drank coffee every night about this time.

    She knew where she could hide now. She knew who would help her.

    

    

    Coffey found the building supervisor's office in the basement. The trouble was getting in. Guard had carried at least twenty-five keys on his big silver ring. Coffey, like a manic quiz show contestant, had to try each one. Number seventeen did the trick.

    In the soft light from the hallway, the supervisor's office looked small and tidy. A thermos and lunch pail stood on a table in the corner. A lot of supers worked their way up from janitorial ranks and never quite cut their blue-collar ties. But he couldn't have been too humble. He had his own little john. His desk was orderly. Coffey sat down in the tall leather chair behind the desk and went to work. He found the plans he wanted in a notebook in the second drawer on the left. Priscilla's office was on the second floor, 225-B as it was designated on the flooring plans.

    He took the stairs instead of the elevator. The silence of the place unnerved him. He walked in and out of light, indirect ceiling light that didn't so much illuminate as glow. The second floor reminded him of the interior of a flying saucer as he'd always imagined one to be-vast, dark, mysterious, with subtle and strange noises playing constantly on the ear. A maze of hallways; heavy, plush carpeting the color of tarnished gold; and office furnishings half-glimpsed behind smoky glass. Easy to imagine ghostly Boomer executives sitting in their chairs all night, continuing their push, even beyond the grave, to take over the universe.

    He went through the key routine again. This time, things went faster. The right key was number six.

    Apparently what they did. the folks at Sigma, was have the cleaning crew come in at night and throw everything on their desks away. If anything, Priscilla's desk was even
more
orderly and neat than the super's had been. Hers was also better appointed and far more expensively appointed, amber leather armchairs, amber leather couch, and an expansive glass desk. There was also a huge dark video viewing screen built into the paneled east wall.

    He started going through the drawers. They were as barren as the surface of the desk. Nothing incriminating, nothing embarrassingly personal.

    When he was finished, he sat in her chair and looked around the office. All her files were apparently kept elsewhere. He hadn't been able to find any here. He found himself continuing to stare at the viewing screen. There was a small door built into the paneled wall to the right of the screen. He decided to check it out.

    It looked unpromising. There was a video player and stacks of VHS tapes in their cases. He was mindful of the time. It wouldn't take long for Priscilla to figure out that something had gone wrong out here, that the super was in some kind of trouble.

    But for some reason-hunch-Coffey couldn't resist firing up the video player and sampling a few of the tapes.

    He kept the sound low and watched as the screen began to fill up with human images.