Walkers. Part 17

"No," said Ynez abruptly. "My grandmother will not talk to you tonight."

"But why?"

"That I cannot tell you. She has strange ways, and I never question them."

The disappointment Joana felt was all out of proportion. She struggled for control. "When can I see her, then?"

*Tomorrow will suit my grandmother. After sundown. That is when she agreed to talk to you, and no other time."

"Tomorrow," Joana repeated. "Must I go alone, or is it all right to take somebody along?"

"She said nothing about that. I think it will be all right to take Glen."

"Did you tell her what it is I want to see her about?" Joana said.

"I told her nothing. My grandmother needs no one to tell her things like that."

"I see. Well, thank you again, Ynez. I'm really grateful."

"I hope you still feel that way after you have talked to my grandmother."

There was a click on the line and the telephone went dead in Joana's hand. Thoughtfully she cradled the instrument. For a moment she wanted to laugh out loud at the crazy scenario she was acting out. Here she was sitting at her everyday desk in her familiar office, talking on her own business phone, and making an appointment to visit a witch.

After sundown. Marvelous. Why not make it at midnight with a full moon? Better yet, with an electrical storm booming and cras.h.i.+ng around the witch's old house on a craggy mountain top.

With an effort Joana got hold of herself. The urge to laugh was uncomfortably close to hysteria. She immersed herself in her work and managed to get through the next two hours. At five o'clock she called Glen and told him what Ynez had said.

"What the h.e.l.l is wrong with seeing the old lady today?" he demanded. "Why do we have to wait till tomorrow?"

"I don't know," Joana said. "Ynez says that's the way her grandmother wants it, and she's the one making the rules."

"Yeah, I suppose she is," Glen conceded. "It's just that I hate knowing you may be in danger and not being able to do something about it."

"I know," Joana said, "I'm frustrated too, but we're doing all we can."

"I'm still not happy about it. What about tonight? Do you want to come to my place?"

"What I'd really like to do tonight is go out," Joana said. "I don't like the feeling of hiding away behind locked doors."

"Do you think it's safe?"

"I was home Sunday night. How safe was that?"

"You've got a point," Glen admitted. "Where would you like to go?"

"Tell you what, I'll take you out. It will be your birthday dinner. We can go to Seacliff. You always liked the lobster there."

"My birthday isn't until next month."

"So what? I feel like celebrating it tonight. You may not get another offer, so what do you say?"

"You're on," Glen said.

Three hours later they were driving north on Pacific Coast Highway. They pa.s.sed the funky beach houses of Topanga and the moneyed colony of Malibu, and climbed the cliffs above Pepperdine University where the mountains marched right down to the sea. They drove by the blackened skeleton of an unfinished condominium, victim of one of the devastating brush fires that sweep annually through the California hills. A group of scruffy young people now lived in the burned-out sh.e.l.l. Throwbacks to an earlier decade, the last of the flower children.

Sitting erect in the bucket seat, both hands on the wheel, Glen did not have much to say. Although he had made adjustments to his thinking to accommodate the changing times, he was still not comfortable with a woman taking him out to dinner, instead of the other way around. Joana knew this, and she knew that taking her car too would be crowding him, so she agreed to ride with him in the Camaro. In truth, she did not much like driving, so it was an easy compromise to make.

The Seacliff Restaurant was perched on a rocky promontory where the winds converged and turned the sea below into a foaming caldron. The Seacliff was famous for its huge lobsters, for which they charged outrageous prices, and for serving the best margaritas north of Puerto Vallarta. The building was gray stone and driftwood to match the cliff, the view on a clear day was spectacular. Geologists issued periodic warnings that sooner or later the point on which the restaurant stood would break away from the land and send the Seacliff tumbling fifty feet to the rocks and smas.h.i.+ng surf below. Californians, however, living in a land undercut by earthquake faults, pay little attention to the doom prophets. The restaurant enjoyed a booming business.

A little before nine o'clock Glen and Joana pulled into the Seacliff parking lot. They left the car with a red-jacketed attendant and went inside. The table they were given was away from the long window that overlooked the ocean, but tonight they did not care. They had seen the view before, and there were other things on their minds.

Glen ordered a broiled lobster tail, Joana decided on the succulent red snapper. They each sipped on one of the famous margaritas while waiting for the food.

Glen maintained a kind of petulant silence. He frowned more openly than usual when Joana lit a cigarette. She heard herself talking too loud and too fast, to compensate.

Finally she said, "Glen, this is supposed to be for your birthday. Couldn't you try to celebrate a little?"

"Sorry. It's not easy to be a barrel of fun just three days after bas.h.i.+ng a man's brains out."

"Come on, we made a deal we weren't going to talk about that tonight."

"Sure. Keep it light and frivolous, right? Pretend everything is fun-fun-fun, and we don't have to give a thought to when the next walker is going to come out of the crowd and go for you."

"Cut it out" Joana said. It came out more sharply than she had intended. Glen blinked and said no more.

They ate their salads, crisp greens with a wine-vinegar dressing, in any uneasy silence. The waiter appeared promptly to remove their empty salad plates and to serve the main course with an appropriate flourish. When he was gone, Glen reached across the table and touched Joana's hand.

"Honey, I'm a drag tonight, and I'm sorry. This is a terrific birthday, even a month ahead of time, and from here on I am going to enjoy the h.e.l.l out of it. Okay?"

She smiled at him, but her eyes were troubled. "I understand, darling. There's no use pretending the strain isn't there, because it is. Maybe coming here tonight was a bad idea."

"No way. It was a wonderful idea, and we are going to have a wonderful time. Tomorrow we can deal with the walkers. We'll go see the witch lady and get exorcised, or whatever it takes. Tonight we have fun."

They shared a bottle of Pinot Chardonnay with their dinners, and by the time the waiter came with coffee they were laughing together easily and naturally. Glen even managed a small joke when Joana took out her Master Charge to pay for the dinner.

They walked out to the parking lot holding hands like teen-agers.

"Honey, this was really a sweet idea," Glen said. "I do love you a lot."

"Still want to marry me?"

"More than ever."

Joana squeezed his hand and felt a rush of tenderness for the young engineer. Somehow his moodiness earlier in the evening, the evidence that he was less than perfect, made her love him all the more. She did not want to spend her life with a flawless hero, she wanted a flesh-and-blood man who could be wrong, and who could admit it.

Out over the ocean the clouds rearranged themselves and the moon came into view. It was fat and orange as a harvest-time pumpkin.

"Oh, Glen, look at that," she said.

"Spectacular," he agreed.

"Let's walk over for a minute and look."

Glen told the parking attendant to hold the car, and he and Joana walked over close to the edge of the cliff and stood by the guard rail looking at the moon.

"What is it that makes the moon so romantic?" Joana wondered aloud.

"Maybe because it rhymes with so many words in romantic songs. June, spoon, soon, lagoon."

"Buffoon," Joana offered, laughing.

"Macaroon."

"Baboon."

"Spittoon."

By now they were both laughing and holding onto each other. Suddenly Joana pulled back and gave a little sigh of exasperation.

"What is it?" Glen asked.

"I just thought of something." She opened her little clutch bag and looked inside. "Yes, I did, d.a.m.n it, I left my credit card back there in the restaurant."

"I'll go get it," Glen said. "You wait here and think-up some more moon rhymes."

Glen left her with a kiss and walked on hack toward the entrance to the restaurant. Joana turned again toward the sea. Standing there alone, she saw the moon differently than when Glen was there to share it. The bland, expressionless face seemed somehow menacing. There was something about it that made her uncomfortable. Something dead.

She was about to go after Glen when there was a wild, high-pitched scream from the direction of the parking lot. Joana spun around and froze. Running toward her, bare feet slapping the asphalt, was a tall, thin girl in a filmy white dress. In the moonlight, Joana could see clearly the dead white face, the gaping mouth, the glittering eyes.

Seized by panic, Joana turned and ran along the cliff by the guard rail, away from the restaurant. Behind her she could hear the slap-slap of the girl's feet and a high, tragic-sounding wail. It was like a familiar nightmare. Running, Joana fought to get her breath. Behind her, the girl in the white dress gained.

Joana stole a look over her shoulder. She could see the moonlight reflected in the girl's staring eyes. The clawed fingers reached toward her. In an instant of flashback Joana saw the people who stood in the shadows along the walls of the frightful tunnel, reaching for her, reaching to pull her back.

"No!" Joana cried. "Oh, no! G.o.d, no!" She ran, stumbling, past the spot where the guard rail ended, and along the unprotected lip of the cliff. Far behind her, shouts came from the direction of the restaurant. She thought she recognized Glen's voice, but it was too late. They would never catch up in time to help her. Too late, too late.

Something gave way beneath her foot. A heel had broken off her shoe. Forced into a limping, staggering gait, Joana could no longer keep ahead of her pursuer. She turned and braced herself as best she could to meet the a.s.sault of the wild-eyed girl.

With a cry that was like nothing human, the girl was upon her, grasping, scratching, tearing. Joana fought back, las.h.i.+ng out with her fists, but the blows she landed had no effect. The girl possessed unnatural strength.

Despite her struggles, Joana felt herself being forced step by step closer to the cliff. The girl's face, white and damp, was pressed close to hers. Joana could smell her fetid breath.

With a desperate effort, Joana wrenched herself free for a moment. Something tore. The girl rocked for a moment off balance, holding the front panel of Joana's silk blouse in her two clenched hands. The sound of shouts and running feet was suddenly loud as Glen and others from the restaurant pounded up to where Joana and the girl stood.

For an endless moment the girl swayed on the lip of the cliff, then in ghastly slow motion she went over.

Instinctively Joana turned away, but she could not shut out the fading, wailing cry and the thudding impact as the girl's body hit the rocks below and bounced lifeless into the roiling sea.

Glen was with her then, holding her tightly. He stripped off his jacket and put it over her shoulders to cover the torn blouse.

"G.o.d, Joana," he said, "another one."

This time there were no tears to shed. Joana's eyes were dry, her emotions numb. She nodded her head slowly. "Another one."

Chapter 19.

The Boyle Heights district to the east of downtown Los Angeles was in its third or fourth incarnation of the past fifty years. First there had been the original old families who grew rich when Los Angles was young. They moved on in the 1920s to Bel Air in the north and the Palos Verdes peninsula in the south. Then came the Jewish immigrants. They worked hard, prospered, and left for the greener lawns of the San Fernando Valley and Beverly Hills. The middle-cla.s.s Mexican-Americans were next, and after World War II they migrated east to the suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley. The once-proud Boyle Heights district now decayed under the sun, populated by poor Cubans, recent immigrants from Mexico, and uncounted illegal aliens.

Glen and Joana rode down a pleasant-seeming residential street in the Camaro. In the twilight of the June evening, the stucco houses, with their red tile roofs and arched windows, looked comfortable enough. The lawns in front of the houses had bare brown patches, but they were not piled with trash. The pavement was in good repair, and the small stores were brightly painted with the off-beat pastels typical of Mexican buildings. With the palm trees lining the street rustled by the soft summer wind, it was hard to visualize the grinding poverty of the people who lived here.

Glen stopped at the corner of Brooklyn Avenue and checked the number written on a slip of paper against the street addresses. "That should be it," he said.

He pointed across the street to a two-story wooden frame building painted burnt orange on the side that faced the street. On an enameled metal sign advertising Coca Cola were printed the words Perez Liquor.

"A liquor store?" Joana said.

"That's the address you got from the nurse."

Glen parked the car and they got out. Up the street, under a sputtering mercury-vapor light, a group of young Mexicans was gathered around a Plymouth Fury with stylized flames painted on the hood. They watched silently as Joana and Glen crossed the street to the small liquor store.

The store's one large window had been boarded over with plywood, which now carried the multicolored graffiti of the neighborhood gangs. Los Avenidas, Gato Negro, Hombres Locos, Calle XVIII. There were the lists of names in the distinctive angular printing style of the barrio, some of them X'ed out and scrawled over with the heavy insult, puto. For those who knew how to read it, it could serve as a bulletin board of community activities, telling who was on the street, who was moving into what territory, and who was likely to be in trouble.

Joana and Glen walked into the cramped little store. Shelves were lined with bottles of liquor and wine. There was a big refrigerator for beer and soft drinks, and a few canned goods, potato chips, and candy bars. The proprietor, a balding man with an overhanging stomach, was talking in rapid Spanish with a single customer, a stocky man with a white scar on his nose. They fell silent as the anglo couple entered.

"Hi," Glen said.

There was no response.

"This is 2500 Charles Street?"

The customer gathered up his purchase, a six-pack of Miller's, and edged away along the counter. The proprietor eyed Glen from behind lowered lids.

*No se."

He had another exhange in Spanish with the customer. Joana picked out the word migras.

"No, no," she said, "we're not with the immigration service."

The proprietor studied them suspiciously. "You sure?"

"Absolutely," Joana said. "We're looking for the grandmother of a friend."

"That's right," Glen confirmed. - The proprietor said something else to the customer, who kept as much distance as possible between him and the young couple and hurried out the door.