Zod Wallop (22 page)

Harry heard voices and turned to see Emily and Rene off to his left. Rene had wheeled Emily underneath a white gazebo and was combing Emily’s unruly hair.

Harry smiled at the two women. They were framed by the white, vine-entwined lattice and seemed complete, an artist’s rendition of sisterhood and its intimate rituals.

Rene’s voice, oddly musical, was carried by the breeze. “I can’t wait to get to the beach,” she said. “I’ve got a thing for beaches.”

Rene leaned forward, saying something into Emily’s ear that Harry could not hear, and, like some optical illusion waiting slyly for just the right focus or frame of mind, the brooding mountain-sized silhouette of Castle Grimfast loomed up behind the two women.

Harry almost lost his balance as he stood, forgetting the tentative nature of swings. This vision of Lord Draining’s dark kingdom was accompanied by an ominous roaring sound.

Then Harry heard a wild shriek and turned to see Arbus disappearing into a black pool. The monkey was clutching hysterically at the weeds. Popcorn kernels lay scattered on the ground like stuffing exploded from a ragdoll. The monkey’s screams of panic filled Harry’s mind and seemed to affect his vision. The world canted oddly as he ran toward the monkey.

Harry’s feet caught in the soft, clinging mud, and he fell, hands sinking deep into foul goo. He righted himself, lumbered forward, and watched the top of Arbus’s head disappear under black water.

He leaned down, thrust his hands into the tepid, evil-smelling waters, and he felt wet fabric brush his left hand, closed on it, a fist of slippery, synthetic cloth, and found the squirming, child-sized waist with his other hand.

He howled to call down strength, leaned back, heaved. The water erupted and a great, scaled tail shattered the pool’s surface.

A Swamp Grendel, vile familiar of the Less-Than, poisonous stalker—and coward waiting for dark, preying on children!

“My Lord, we cannot go into that wood.”

“Pray, why not?”

“It is infested with Swamp Grendels.”

We have heard of these beasts, my Duke. They are skulkers and carrion eaters and have an appetite for the defenseless. One brave heart should route them.”

“Such hearts are rare.”

“What? We have two here already.”

“Sonofabitch!” Harry shouted.

Harry floundered backward, his knees skidding in the mud, no traction, nothing but a frenzy of determination and rage. He held the monkey, a firm grip now, hands locked under the animals arms. Arbus was inert, shocked insensible—dead?—the rope in a tug of war. Harry dragged Arbus out of the water.

The creature’s head surfaced, rising in the water like some miniature, grotesque submarine. The leathery flesh seemed fake; Hollywood’s high-tech special effects had accustomed Harry to more realistic ogres.

One of Arbus’s legs was half-lost in the long, ragged mouth. The creature’s cat’s eye pupils caught the starlight, emotionless, stubborn, no flicker of intelligence. Grim appetite ruled the monster.

Harry saw what he needed and risked it, released his right hand from its grip on the monkey, grabbed the jagged rock and threw himself forward, swinging wide, striking his target, the baleful eye. Instantly the pool turned into writhing water; mud splattered Harry’s forehead and hair.

And then it was gone. That easy.

Raymond came running, shouting, as Harry backed still farther from the sinister waters. Arbus was already stirring, chattering pathetically.

“It’s okay,” Harry said.

“My Lord, what happened?”

Harry laughed then. “It’s okay, Raymond. I thought…oh, I let my imagination get the best of me.”

Raymond was bending down now, studying the monkey’s bleeding leg.

“I forgot we were in Georgia,” Harry said. “I thought we were somewhere far worse.” Saying that, he turned and looked behind him. Emily and Rene were no longer in the gazebo; they were coming quickly down the path toward the playground. And Castle Grimfast had resolved itself into clouds that threatened only rain.

“What happened?”

“Arbus had a little run-in with an alligator,” Harry said. “That’s all. Nothing but an alligator.”

Later that night, lying in bed, Harry reflected on the fears that all men conjured, how powerful that darkness was, and thought that not everyone, perhaps, would find an encounter with an alligator reassuring. Perspective was everything in life.

Gabriel entered Peake’s office and began coughing; the room was filled with smoke.

Peake smiled at her out of the smoke. His features seemed sharper since she had last seen him. There were three cigarettes in his mouth, two more burning in the ashtray.

“What can I do for you, Gabriel?” he said, indicating a chair.

“I thought you were quitting,” she said, fanning the smoke from her face. Her eyes had begun to water.

Peake raised a hand to his mouth and captured all three cigarettes between his spread fingers—a curiously elegant feat—and smiled. His teeth seemed larger in his head.

“I
am
quitting,” he said. “I am in the aversive stage, overindulging my vice. The theory, of course, is that once one sickens of a thing it is easier to leave it behind.”

“I’ve come—”

Peake frowned. “Actually, I seem to be enjoying this excess so far. There is a perverse pleasure in pushing the limits, you now.”

“I’ve come about Allan,” Gabriel said.

“A delightful young man. Makes me wish I had children.”

“Where is he?”

“Why, he’s residing with you, isn’t he?”

“No. He’s run away. Do you know where he is?”

Peake shook his head, sadly. “I would love to help you, Gabriel. You know how happy I was to assist with that unpleasantness surrounding Dr. Lavin. But you give me too much credit. I am not clairvoyant. He could be anywhere.”

Gabriel stood up. “He’s gone to find them,” she said. “I’m certain of that. I thought you might be able to tell me where they are.”

Peake nodded. “No doubt you are right. By ‘they’ you refer, of course, to Harold Gainesborough, Raymond Story, and the others. I am afraid, however, that all my efforts to locate them have come to nothing. And I expect the case will be the same with your son’s attempts and that he will tire of the search and return to you.”

“No, Allan is not likely—”

A high-pitched electronic wail emanated from the outer office and Peake stood up and quickly moved past Gabriel.

“Smoke alarm,” he said in passing. “You’ve got to keep this door closed or—”

He was out the door. She heard him speaking quickly to the receptionist.

Gabriel darted behind the desk and pulled open the drawer. The man was not candid; honesty was not a reflex with him. Perhaps there would be something, some clue…

The drawer was filled to the top with loose cigarettes. Gabriel heard Peake’s voice in the other room, shouting above the escalating whine of the smoke alarm.

She thrust her hands into the white mass of cigarettes, felt something, brushed away cigarettes, saw revealed a painting of a long-haired little girl holding a very unpleasant-looking doll. The girl was facing away, looking toward sinister mountains. A yellow road wound across a barren plain, losing itself in the ragged horizon. It was this bright ribbon that seemed, irrationally, fraught with significance. It was, Gabriel thought, the road down which her son had fled.

Her hand grasped the illustration. She retrieved it, discovering that she held a book, remembering clearly then Theo Lavin’s frightened delirium and this same book.

She shoved it into her handbag, closed the drawer, and was back in her seat before the alarm shut off and Roald Peake returned.

The truck driver dropped him at the on ramp. Allan watched the big diesel slowly accelerate, pulling away. The driver’s arm appeared in the cab window, waved. Allan waved back.

“Some people,” the driver had said, “might not be inclined to stop for a guy like you. I mean, you’re a big sonofabitch. It’s one thing to stop for some runty little hitchhiker, but it’s another thing to stop for a goddamn giant. But the way I see it…Charlie Manson was a little guy, you know. I been in a lot of bars, and when a brawl breaks out it’s generally some sawed-off twerp started it, took offense over nothing. It’s those short ones that have the tempers.”

Allan had nodded, glad that the rage within him didn’t color his flesh red or make his hair stand up straight or show itself in any visible way or else the man wouldn’t have picked him up and driven him the first three hundred miles of his journey.

The anger inside Allan was restless in its prison, wanted to come out and make itself known. He wanted to smash something, fight, hurt and be hurt.

He thought no articulate thought, however, and was aware only that he must keep the violence in until he found them, until he was within striking distance of Harry Gainesborough, until he had Rene’s throat in his hands. His energies were directed at holding these forces at bay until then. His will kept his arms folded, kept reopening his hands when they turned to fists, kept directing his thoughts to his destination.

He thought, perhaps every seventh second, of the photograph that was folded in his back pocket. It was the photo he had pulled out of the manila envelope, and his first sight of it had hit him hard, as though someone had taken a baseball bat and slammed him in the gut with it.

He had been sitting on the bed in his room. He had decided to throw the envelope away without opening it, because, he reasoned, nothing good could come from the man who looked like Lord Draining. And then, that willfulness that was his enemy took control of his hands. He bent the metal clasp back, opened the envelope, and stared at the eight-by-ten photograph of Rene Gold and Harry Gainesborough.

The two were sitting by the side of a swimming pool, Rene in a black-checkered bikini, Harry Gainesborough in nerdy red trunks that emphasized the whiteness of his flesh. They were sitting on a blanket, torsos twisted toward each other, embracing, sharing a shameless kiss so passionate that any guardian of morality would have summoned the police. The photo was overexposed, the colors faded by the glare of the sun, and Allan thought he could smell the chlorine and suntan oil rising from the glossy surface. The photo was painfully sharp, filled with headachy detail: a small, pale green cactus in a clay pot behind them against a cinder-block wall, black hairs on the back of Harry Gainesborough’s hand (the one that lay flat against Rene’s ribs), beads of water on Rene’s bare shoulder.

Allan had stared at the photo until its impression was stamped on his soul. He continued to stare until his mother knocked on the door, pushed it open, and said, “Allan, Dr. Peake says he needs to speak to you.”

Allan, still in shock, had lifted the hall phone’s receiver. And the smooth, hateful voice had said, “They wanted you out of the way, Allan. The lovers wanted to be shed of you. You don’t owe them anything. Tell me where they are.”

And Allan had hung up, gone back to his room, folded the photograph, stuck it in his back pocket, and walked downstairs and out of the house.

The funny thing was, he hadn’t known then where they were. He knew that Raymond had talked about going to find the Duke, but Allan could not remember where the Duke was supposed to be or even if Raymond had said where.

And then the rage welled up, and, as was often the case, it brought with it other powers. The rage faced his memory down, stormed the corridors of recall, and came back with the answer: St. Petersburg, Florida. Raymond Story had said they were going to St. Petersburg, Florida.

And that’s where Allan was going, so that he could let the terrible dark thing out, the whirlwind born out of this revelation of betrayal.

It was almost dark when a car stopped. It was a long, black car and the overhead light went on when Allan opened the door, and a fat man with gray, stringy hair, a goatee, yellow teeth, and a black scar on the bridge of his nose studied him. “This car got a big-ass appetite,” he said. “You reckon you can pitch in on the gas? You got any money for gas?”

Allan nodded, climbed in. “Where are you going?”

“Atlanta. I woke up with Georgia on my mind.” He sang a few bars, doing a Ray Charles imitation that consisted of closing his eyes, shaking his head, and howling, breaking the word Georgia into long, wavering syllables.

He stopped, grinned at Allan. “My name’s John Jackson,” he said.

Two hours later, the car pulled over to the side of the road, sending gravel flying, and stopped. Allan got out and jumped the ditch and unzipped his fly and urinated, studying the stars and the flat, silent farmland.

He was finishing up when something pricked the base of his neck, and he heard the man speak behind him. “Don’t go turning around,” the man said. “I spend a lot of time sharpening this knife. It’s a nervous habit, passes the time when things are slow. I decided I’d just as soon travel alone, but I’m gonna need that gas money. I’ll be sliding your wallet out of your back pocket there, and my advice is you stay real still while I’m doing it.”