The Bad Place Part 34

"On top of everything else, the guy's a vampire?" Hal asked Taking the question seriously-as, indeed, they had to consider every possibility in this bizarre case, regardless of how outlandish it seemed-Julie 'said, "Not a vampire in the supernatural sense. From what we've learned, the Pollard family for some reason generously gifted. You know that magician on TV, The Amazing Randier, who offers to pay a hundred thousand bucks to anyone who proves they have psychic power. This Pollard clan would bankrupt his a.s.s. But that doesn't mean there's anything SUPERNATURAL about them. They're demons, or possessed, or the children of the devil-nothing like that."

"It's just some extra bit of genetic material," Bobby said "Exactly. If Candy acts like a vampire, biting people in the throat, that's just a manifestation of psychological illness, Julie said.

"It doesn't mean he's one of the living dead." Bobby vividly remembered the blond giant charging him and Frank on the rain swept black beach at Punaluu. The ground was as formidable as a locomotive. If Bobby had a choice going up against either Candy Pollard or Dracula, he'd choose the undead Count. Nothing as simple as a clove of garlic, a crucifix, or a well-placed wooden stake would effectively deter Frank's brother.

Lee said, "Another similarity. In those instances where victims didn't leave doors or windows unlocked, there was no indication of how the killer gained entrance. And in man instances police found doors dead-bolted from the inside, windows locked from the inside, as if the murderer had gone down the chimney when he was done," Seventy-eight," Julie said, and s.h.i.+vered.

Lee dropped the paper onto the desk.

"They figure there're more, maybe a lot more, because sometimes this guy has a tempted to cover his trail-the bite marks-by further mutilating or even burning the bodies. Though the cops weren't fooled in these cases, you can figure they were fooled in others. So the count's higher than seventy-eight, and that's just the last nine years." e," Julie said, and Bobby seconded that.

"Good job, Lee "I'm not done yet," Lee said.

"I'm going to order in a pizza, do some more digging."

"You've been here more than ten hours today," Bobby said.

"That's already above and beyond the call. Got to have down time, Lee."

"If you believe, as I do, that time is subjective, then you've got an infinite supply. Later, at home, I'll stretch a few hours into a couple of weeks and return tomorrow quite rested." Hal Yamataka shook his head and sighed.

"Hate to admit it, Lee, but you're d.a.m.ned good at this mysterious oriental c.r.a.p." Lee smiled enigmatically.

"Thank you."

After BOBBY and Julie went home to pack an OVERNIGHT bag for the trip to Santa Barbara, and after Lee returned to the computer room, Hal settled on the sofa in the bosses' office, slipped off his shoes, and put his feet up on the coffee table. He still had the paperback of The Last One Left, which he'd read twice before, and which he had started to reread last night in the hospital. If Bobby was right when he said they might never see Frank again, Hal was in for an uneventful evening and would probably get half the book read.

Maybe his happiness at Dakota & Dakota had nothing to do with the prospect of excitement, avoiding a stereotypical job as a gardener, and having the admittedly slim chance to be a hero. Maybe the thing that most affected his career decision was the realization that he simply could not ow a lawn or trim a hedge or plant fifty flats of flowers and read a book at the same time.

DEREK SAT in his chair. Pointed the raygun at the TV and made it be on.

He said, "You don't want to watch news?"

"No," Thomas said. He was on his bed, propped up with pillows, looking at the night being dark outside the window "Good. Me neither." Derek pushed b.u.t.tons on the raygun A new picture came on the screen.

"You don't want to wat a game show?"

"No." All Thomas wanted to do WaS snoop on the Bad Thing.

"Good." Derek pushed b.u.t.tons, and the invisible rays from the screen show a new picture.

"You don't want to watch Three Stooges pretending to be funny?"

"No."

"What you want to watch?"

"Don't matter. Whatever you want to watch."

"Really?"

"Whatever you want to watch," Thomas repeated.

"Gee, that's nice." He made lots of pictures on the screen until he found a s.p.a.ce movie where s.p.a.cemen in s.p.a.ce suits were poking around in some spooky place. Derek made happy sigh and said, "This is good. I like their hats."

"Helmets," Thomas said.

"s.p.a.ce helmets."

"I wish I had a hat like that." When he reached out into the big dark again, Thomas decided not to picture a mind-string unraveling toward the Bad Thing. Instead he Pictured a raygun, shooting some invisible rays.

Boy, did that work better! Wham, he was right there wit the Bad Thing in a flash, and he felt it stronger, too, so strong he got scared and clicked off the raygun and got all of himself back into his room with the rest of himself right away.

"They got telephones in their hats," Derek said.

"See they're talking through their hats." On the TV, the s.p.a.cemen were in an even spookier place poking around, which was one of the things s.p.a.cemen did most, even though something ugly-nasty was usually in those spooky places just waiting for them. s.p.a.cemen never learned. Thomas looked away from the screen.

At the window.

The dark.

Bobby was scared for Julie. Bobby knew stuff Thomas didn't know. If Bobby was scared for Julie, Thomas had to be brave and do What Was Right.

The raygun idea worked such a lot better it scared him, but he figured it was really good because he could easier snoop on the Bad Thing. He could get to the Bad Thing faster and get away from it faster, too, so he could snoop on it more often and not be scared about it maybe grabbing the mind-string and coming back to The Home with him. Grabbing an invisible raygun ray was harder, even for a thing as fast and smart and mean as the Bad Thing.

So he pictured pus.h.i.+ng b.u.t.tons on a raygun again, and a part of him went through the dark-wham!-and to the Bad Thing right away. He felt how mad the Bad Thing was, madder than ever, and thinking lots of thoughts about blood that made Thomas half sick. Thomas wanted to come right back to The Home. The Bad Thing felt him, you could tell. He didn't like the Bad Thing feeling him, knowing he was there with it, but he stayed just a couple clock ticks longer, trying to see any thoughts about Julie in all those thoughts about blood. If the Bad Thing had thoughts about Julie, Thomas would TV a warning right away to Bobby. He was happy he couldn't find Julie in the Bad Thing's mind, and he quick raygunned back to The Home.

"Where you think I could get a hat like that?" Derek asked.

"Helmet."

"Even has a light on it, see?" Rising up a little from his pillows, Thomas said, "You know what kind of a story this is?" Derek shook his head.

"What kind of story?"

"It's the kind where any second something ugly-nasty jumps up and sucks off a s.p.a.ceman's face or maybe crawls in his mouth and down his belly and makes a nest in there." Derek made a disgusted face.

"Yuck. I don't like that kind of stories."

"I know," Thomas said.

"That's why I warned you." While Derek made a lot of different pictures come on the screen, one quick after the other, to get far away from the s.p.a.ceman who was going to get his face sucked off, Thomas tried to think how long he should wait before he snooped on the Bad Thing again. Bobby was real worried, you could tell, even if he tried to hide it, and Bobby was not a Dumb Person, so it was a good idea to check on the Bad Thing pretty regular, in case maybe it all of a sudden thought about Julie and got up and went after her.

"You want to watch this?" Derek asked.

On the screen was a picture of this guy in a hockey uniform with a big knife in his hand, going quiet-like across a room where a girl was asleep in a bed.

"Better raygun up another picture," Thomas said.

BECAUSE THE rush hour was past, because Julie knew all the best shortcuts, but mainly because she was not in a moo be cautious or respect the traffic laws, they made great time from the office to their home on the east end of Orange.

On the way Bobby told her about the Calcutta roach that had been part of his shoe when he and Frank had arrived that red bridge in the garden in Kyoto.

"But when we pop to Mount Fuji, my shoe was okay, the roach was gone."

She slowed at an intersection, but she was the only traffic in sight, so she didn't obey the four-way stop.

"Why didn't tell me about this at the office?"

"Wasn't time for every detail."

"What do you think happened to the roach?"

"I don't know. That's what bothers me." They were on Newport Avenue, just past Crawford Cany Sodium-vapor street lamps cast a queer light on the road Atop the steep hills to the left, several huge English and French houses, blazing like giant luxury liners, looked wildly out of place, partly because the insanely high value such upscale real estate ensured the construction of immense houses out of proportion to the tiny lots they stood on, partly because Tudor and French architectural styles clashed with the semitropical landscape. It was all part of the Cali nia circus, some of which he hated, most of which he loved. Those houses never bothered him before, and given the serious problems he and Julie faced, he couldn't figure why they bothered him now. Maybe he was so jumpy that even these misharmonies reminded him of the chaos that had almost engulfed him during his travels with Frank.

He said, "Do you have to drive so fast)"

"Yes," she said curtly.

"I want to get home, get packed, to Santa Barbara, learn what we can about the Pollard family, get finished with this whole d.a.m.n creepy case."

"If you feel that way, why don't we just drop it here? Frank comes back, we give him his money, his jar of red diamonds, tell him we're sorry, we think he's a prince of a guy, but we're out of it."

"We can't," she said.

He chewed on his lower lip, then said, "I know. But I can't figure why we're compelled to hang in there with this one." They crested the hill and speeded north, past the entrance to Rocking Horse Ridge. Their own development was only a couple of streets ahead, on the left. As she finally began to brake for the turn, she glanced at him and said, "You really don't know why we can't bug out of it?"

"No. You saying you do?"

"I know."

"Tell me."

"You'll figure it out eventually."

"Don't be mysterious. That's not like you." She swung the company Toyota into their development, then onto their street.

"I tell you what I think, it'll upset you. You'll deny it, we'll argue, and I don't want to argue with you."

"Why will we argue?" She pulled into their driveway, put the car in park, switched off the lights and engine, and turned to him. Her eyes shone in the dark.

"When you understand why we can't let go, you won't like what it says about us, and you'll argue that I'm wrong, that we're just a couple of sweet kids, really. You like to see us as a couple of sweet kids, savvy but basically innocent at the same time, like a young Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. I really love you for that, for being such a dreamer about the world and us, and it'll hurt me when you want to argue." He almost started to argue with her about whether he would argue with her. Then he stared at her for a moment and finally said, "I've had this feeling that I'm not facing up to something, that when this is all over and I realize why I was so determined to see this through to the end, my motivations won't be as n.o.ble as I think they are now. It's a weird d.a.m.n feeling. As if I don't really know myself."

"Maybe we spend all our lives learning to know ourselves.

And maybe we never really will completely." She kissed him lightly, quickly, and got out of the car.

As he followed her up the sidewalk to the front door, glanced at the sky. The clarity of the day had been short-lived A pall of clouds concealed the moon and stars. The sky very dark, and he was gripped by the curious certainty great and terrible weight was falling toward them, bright against the black heavens and therefore invisible, but falling fast, faster....

CANDY KEPT a choke hold on his fury, which reacted its leash. strained like an attack dog trying to!" He rocked and rocked, and gradually the shy visitor grew bolder. Repeatedly he felt the invisible hand on his head. Initially it lay upon him as lightly as an empty silk glove, and it stayed only briefly before flitting away. But as he pretended to be disinterested in both the hand and the person to whom it belonged, the visitor grew more daring, the hand heavier and less nervous.

Though Candy made no effort to probe at the mind of the intruder, for fear of scaring him away, some of the stranger's thoughts came to him nonetheless. He did not think the visitor was aware that images and words from his own mind were slipping into Candy's; they were just leaking out of him as if they were trickles of water seeping from pin-size holes in a rusty bucket.

The name "Julie" came several times. And once an image floated along with the name-an attractive woman with brown hair and dark eyes. Candy wasn't sure if it was the visitor's face or the face of someone the visitor knew even if it was the face of anyone who really existed. There were aspects that made it seem unreal: a pale light radiated from it, and the features were so kind and serene that it looked like the holy countenance of a saint in an ill.u.s.trated Bible.

The word "flutterby" leaked out of the visitor's mind more than once, sometimes with other words, like "remember the flutterby" or "don't be a flutterby." And each time that word flitted through his mind, the visitor quickly withdrew.

But he kept coming back. Because Candy did nothing to make him feel unwelcome.

Candy rocked and rocked. The chair made a soft sound creak... creak...

creak... creak.

He waited.

He kept an open mind.

... creak... creak... creak...

Twice the name "Bobby" seeped from the visitor's mind and the second time a fuzzy image of a face was linked to another very kind face. It was idealized, like Julie's face. Recognition stirred in Candy, but Bobby's visage was not as clear or detailed as Julie's, and Candy did not want to concentrate on it because the visitor might notice his interest and be frightened off.

During his long and patient courts.h.i.+p of the shy introvert many other words and images came to Candy, but he didn't know what to make of them: -men in s.p.a.cesuits "Bad Thing"-a guy in a hockey mask-"The Home"-"Dumb People"-a bathrobe, a half-eaten Hershey's bar, and a sudden frantic thought: Draw Bugs, no good, Draw Bugs, got to Be Not More than ten minutes pa.s.sed without contact, and Can started to worry that the intruder had gone away for good. But suddenly he was back. This time the contact was strong, more intimate than ever.

When Candy sensed that the visitor was more confident, knew the time had come to act. He pictured his mind as a steel trap, the visitor as an inquisitive mouse, and he pictured a trap springing, the bar pinning the visitor to the kill plate.

Shocked, the visitor tried to pull away. Candy held him a pushed across the telepathic bridge between them, trying storm his adversary's mind to find out who he was, where was, and what he wanted.

Candy had no telepathic power of his own, nothing to equal; even the weak telepathic gifts of the intruder; he had never re anyone's mind before, and he did not know how to go about it. As it turned out, he did not need to do anything except stop himself and receive what the visitor gave him. Thomas was name, and he was terrified of Candy, of having Done Some thing Really Dumb, and of putting Julie in danger; that kind of terrors shattered his mental defenses and caused him to disgorge a flood of information.

in fact, there was too much information for Candy to make sense of it, a babble of words and images. He tried desperately to sort through it for clues to Thomas's ident.i.ty and location.

Dumb People, Cielo Vista, The Home, everybody here has bad eye cues, Care Home, good food, TV The Best Place For Us, Cielo Vista, the aides are nice, we watch the humming birds, the world is bad out there, too bad for us out there, Cielo Vista Care Home...

With some astonishment, Candy realized that the visitor was someone with a subnormal intellect-he even picked up the term "Down's syndrome"-and he was afraid that he was not going to be able to sort enough meaningful thoughts from the babble to get a fix on Thomas's location. Depending on the size of his IQ, Thomas might not know where Cielo Vista Care Home was, even though he apparently lived there.

Then a series of images spun out of Thomas's mind, a well linked chain of serial memories that still caused him some emotional pain: the trip to Cielo Vista in a car with Julie and Bobby, on the day they first checked him into the place. This was different from most of Thomas's other thoughts and memories, in that it was richly detailed and so clearly retained that it unreeled like a length of motion-picture film, giving Candy all he needed to know. He saw the highways over which they had driven that day, saw the route markers flas.h.i.+ng past the car window, saw every landmark at every turn, all of which Thomas had struggled mightily to memorize because all through the trip he kept thinking, if I don't like it there, if people are mean there, if it's too scary there, if it's too much being alone there, I got to know how I find the way back to Bobby and Julie anytime I want, remember this, remember all of this, turn there at the I, right there at the 7-11, don't forget that 7-11, and now go past those three palm trees. What if they don't come visit me? No, that's a bad thing to think, they love me, they said they would come. But what if they don't? Look there, remember that house, you go past that house, remember that house with the blue roof Candy got it all, as precisely a fix as he could have obtained from a geographer who would have spoken precisely in degrees and minutes of longitude and lat.i.tude. It was more than he needed to know to make use of his gift.

He opened the trap and let Thomas go.

He got up from the rocker.

He pictured Cielo Vista Care Home as it appeared so exquisitely detailed in Thomas's memory.

He pictured Thomas's room on the first floor of the no wing, at the northwest corner.

Darkness, billions of hot sparks spinning in the void, velocity.

BECAUSE JULIE was in a let's-move-and-get-it-done mood they had stopped at the house only fifteen minutes, long enough to throw toiletries and a change of clothes in an over night bag. At McDonald's, on Chapman Avenue in Orange she swung by the drive-through window and got dinner to on the way: Big Macs, fries, diet colas. Before they reach the Costa Mesa Freeway, while Bobby was still divvying the extra packets of mustard and opening the containers that held the Big Macs, Julie had clipped the radar detector to the rear view mirror, plugged it in the Toyota's cigarette lighter and switched it on. Bobby had never before eaten fast food high speed, but he figured they averaged eighty-five miles hour north on the Costa Mesa to the Riverside Freeway to the Orange Freeway north, and he was still finis.h.i.+ng french fries when they were only a couple of exits away from the Foothill Freeway east of Los Angeles. Though the rush hour was well past and the traffic unusually light, maintaining that pace required a lot of lane changing and nerve.