Serpent's Kiss (2 page)

    The white panel truck had just pulled between the open gates when Frank had glimpsed the man's face. Instantly Frank had flashed on what most likely happened. A patient had climbed into one of the laundry carts the driver loaded up and somehow managed to get into the truck without being detected.

    Just as the truck had been leaving the grounds, the patient had sat up and peeked through the window.

    Right at Frank.

    Frank had wanted to do the right thing, of course, but just as he'd seen the guy, Heather had gone into her sly story about the cute new guy at the insurance office where she worked. This was obviously the guy Heather planned to start dating anytime now. If she wasn't already.

    So there you had it. Frank should have hung up right away and called Andy Todd pronto.

    But he'd been so pissed at Heather, so intent on finding out this cute guy's name that...

    So now he sat in the guardhouse sipping decaf and listening to tales of alien abductions.

    If only he could be so lucky to have an alien ship swoop down and pick him up and take him somewhere out among the stars. No more worries about Heather or cute new guys at the office. Or the kind of mistake he'd made by not calling Andy Todd at once.

    The time was 9:31 P.M.

    

    

    Andy Todd had guards on the respective floors walk him around. They searched everything, including toilet stalls, closets, stairwells, and nursing offices. Nothing.

    It was at this point that Ames, one of the guards whom Todd had taken into his confidence, said the unthinkable. "You checked the floor below, right, Andy?"

    "Right."

    "And the floor above?"

    "Right."

    "Where the hell could he be?"

    They were having diet Pepsis in the staff lounge. Andy was also gnawing on a Clark bar from one of the lounge's seven vending machines.

    "He couldn't have got out of this building," Andy Todd said. "It's locked up tight. That leaves me no place else to look." He frowned. "That leaves me picking up the phone and calling Bellamy and telling him Dobyns is missing."

    "Uh-uh."

    "Uh-uh? If Dobyns isn't on the first floor and isn't on the second and isn't on the third, then just where the hell could he be?"

    "The tower."

    "The tower?" Andy Todd looked at the other man as if he'd just suggested that George Bush owned a complete collection of Liberace records. "The tower? Nobody goes into the tower. Not you; not me. Hell, I've never even seen Bellamy himself go into the tower."

    "It's a thought. It's the only likely place left."

    
The tower. Jesus God.
Hastings had been built in Victorian times, when the architecture ran to sprawling estate houses with turrets and spires and widow's walks. Off the east end of the building rose a four-storey tower that, so far as Andy Todd knew, had been shut down. The windows were boarded up, the elevator that led to it had long ago been closed, and the door to the interior stairs was bolted closed and padlocked with a Yale the size of a catcher's mitt. Among the staff there was, of course, great speculation about what had once been in the tower-there was even the kind of urban campfire talk that passed for ghost stories, tales of lights shining in the windows and horrifying screams being heard on the wind.

    "No way he's in the tower," Andy Todd said, polishing off his Clark bar.

    "Then where the hell is he?" Ames said.

    "By now he could be back in his room. Lemme check."

    Just as Todd got up to grab the receiver from the wall phone, the thing surprised him by ringing.

    "Todd here."

    "Andy, this is Frank at the front gate."

    "Right, Frank. I know where you are. I assigned you there, remember?" Dvorak had an irritating way of belabouring the obvious and with one of Bellamy's prize fruitcakes strolling around somewhere, Andy Todd was in no mood. "So what can I do for you?"

    "Wondered if we could talk a little."

    Todd sighed. "You still want May off for vacation?"

    "This time it ain't about vacation."

    "I'm real busy, Frank. Could it wait till tomorrow?"

    There was a pained pause. "One of the patients got free, didn't he, Andy?"

    "How'd you know about that?"

    Another pained pause. "Something kind of happened earlier tonight, Andy."

    "Oh, yeah?" Andy Todd was preparing himself to get violently, explosively angry, high blood pressure or no high blood pressure. "Like what?"

    "Well, maybe I saw something."

    "Such as?"

    "This face."

    "Yeah?"

    "Yeah, Andy. I can tell you're gettin' pissed. I can feel it over the phone." Right now Frank Dvorak sounded as if he were about six years old.

    "You screwed up, didn't you, Frank?"

    "I'm real sorry, Andy. I was arguin' with Heather and-"

    "What happened, Frank? About this face you mentioned?"

    Pause. "I know you're gonna get even more pissed off when I tell you, Andy. I mean, I know how you are."

    Andy had to hold in the rage or Dvorak would take all night getting it out. "Tell me, Frank. Tell me fast. That way maybe I won't get so pissed."

    "I saw somebody in the back of the laundry truck. You know what I'm saying, Andy? Like the patient hid in the laundry cart and stowed away inside the truck and rode right out to freedom. You know?"

    "The laundry truck left here about six o'clock."

    "Yeah, 'bout six."

    "You waited three hours to call me?"

    "I'm afraid I did, Andy."

    Andy Todd then gave himself permission to slip into warp drive. He called Frank Dvorak so many names so fast and so loud that neither man could be sure of what was being shouted. All both of them knew was that it was awful, awful stuff. And Andy knew it was not exactly what the doctor had in mind when he said Andy should take things easier and not get so excited.

    Andy Todd hung up by slamming the receiver back onto the cradle three or four times and so hard the whole phone started to tear from the wall.

    "He got out in the fucking laundry truck," Todd said to Ames who was sitting there watching the show his boss was putting on. "The fucking goddamn laundry truck."

    The time was 9:46 P.M.

    

    

    THE JOCK ON KFAB had just pronounced it 10:07 A.M. -"ready with more of the hits you want to hear"-when the man in the back seat of the Yellow cab realised that he had no idea who he was.

    No idea whatsoever.

    He leaned forward, trying not to show the least trace of panic, and said, "Excuse me."

    "Yeah?" the cabbie said, his brown eyes suddenly filling the rear-view mirror.

    And then the man realised:
How can I say it?

    
Excuse me, sir, but I don't happen to remember my name. Do you happen to know who lam?

    And realising this, all he could say, his voice nervous now, was, "I was just wondering if you had the time."

    "Like the guy on the radio said, 10:07."

    "Oh. Right. Thanks."

    And slumped back into the seat that smelled vaguely of vomit and slightly more so of disinfectant.

    This was impossible.

    Impossible.

    He was merely a man-a nice normal man-riding along in the back seat of a taxicab and he'd merely forgotten his name.

    But only temporarily. The way you forgot who you were dialling sometimes. Or the date of your birthday.

    Or-

    "Here you go," the cabbie said.

    "Pardon me?"

    "I said here you go."

    "Go?"

    "This was the address you gave me."

    "It is?"

    This time the cabbie turned around. He was this little guy in a blue Windbreaker and a white shirt. Shiny bald with freckles along the ridge of scalp bone. "This is where you said you wanted to be left off."

    "Oh."

    The cabbie stared at him. "You all right?"

    "Yes. Sure."

    "Because you don't look too good."

    "I don't?"

    "Kinda pale."

    "No, really, I-"

    "Maybe you got a touch of the bug that's goin' around. My old lady's got it and-" The cabbie shook his head miserably. Then he put his hand out. "Ten bucks, please."

    "Oh. Right."

    For a terrible moment, he thought he might reach inside his pocket and find it empty.

    But there was a small fold of crisp green new bills. He counted out twelve dollars and gave it to the cabbie.

    "You take care of yourself," the cabbie said.

    "Thanks."

    He was halfway out of the rear door of the cab when he realised that he didn't remember giving the cabbie this address. But he had to have given him this address or else why would the cabbie have stopped here?

    He said, "May I ask you a question?"

    The cabbie regarded him in the rear-view again. "Sure."

    "This address."

    "Uh-huh?"

    "This is the address I gave you?"

    "Sure thing, chief. I always write 'em down. And I wrote this one down same as always."

    "I see."

    "4835. Ain't that right?"

    "Uh, yes."

    "So anyway, like I say, you take care of yourself."

    
And get the fuck outta my cab, asshole. I got other fares to worry about now.

    So he got out.

    And the cab went away.

    And here he stood, sniffing.

    Actually, it was a perfect morning for sniffing, and enjoying. This was the Midwest at its most perfect apple blossom weather, the temperature in the seventies even though it was still morning, and the wind at ten miles per hour and redolent of newly blooming lilacs and dogwood. Girls and women were already wearing shorts and T-shirts with no bras, breasts bouncing merrily beneath the cotton. Dogs appeared in profusion, tugging masters behind them; everything from Pekinese to wolf hounds were on parade this morning. Babies in strollers waved little pink hands up at him and a couple of college girls in an ancient VW convertible gave him mildly interested glances.

    At one time the Italian Renaissance buildings of this area had been beautiful. This was back in the days when the neighbourhood had been largely populated with young middle class families who couldn't yet afford houses. These apartment buildings had shone with respectability, the pedimented windows and arcaded entryways not only fashionable but elegant.

    Now the neighbourhood was given over to student housing, serving the sprawling university several blocks north. Middle class aspirations had long since fled, replaced now not only by students but by those who preyed on students-drug pushers, hookers, muggers, and merchants who automatically marked everything up 20 percent more for the college kids.

    From open windows came a true cacophony of musical styles-heavy metal, salsa, jazz, and even country western. Students today were much more eclectic than his generation of the sixties had been when the official music had run to the up-against-the-wall lyrics of the Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, and the Stones.

    If he couldn't remember his name, how did he remember music he'd listened to over twenty years ago?

    Trembling, he started across the street.

    He stood in front of the place, looking up at the arched entranceway and remembering… nothing.

    He knew he'd never seen this place before.

    Then why had he given the cabbie this address?

    The front door opened. A young black woman, pretty, slender, came down the stairs carrying an infant. "Hi," she said.

    "Hi," he said.

    She saw the way he was looking at the entrance and said, "May I help you with something?"

    He shrugged. "I just want to make sure I've got the right place."

    She laughed. "It's the right place unless you're selling something." She pointed to a discreet sign, black letters on white cardboard, NO SOLICITORS.

    "Oh, no," he said. "I'm not selling anything."

    She laughed again. "Then this is probably the right place."

    She hefted the infant and walked on, looking eager to be caught up in the green flow of the perfect day.

    He stood there a few more moments and then went up the stairs.

    The vestibule smelled of cigarette smoke and fresh paint. The hallway had been done in a nice new baby blue.

    He went over to the line of mailboxes. He checked the names carefully. None looked familiar.

    He tried once again-it seemed pretty ridiculous, when you thought of it:
What's my name?

    He dug his hand into his right pocket. He felt two quarters and a dime. He also felt a key.

    When the key was in his fingers, and his fingers in front of his face, he saw the number 106 imprinted on one side of the golden key.

    He looked at the mailbox marked 106:
Mr. Sauerbry.

    Who was Mr. Sauerbry? Was he Mr. Sauerbry? If he was, why didn't he remember?

    The inner door opened. A fat man in lime-green Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt that read OLD FART came downstairs leading a pretty collie on a leash.

    "Morning," the fat man said.

    "Morning."

    He could tell that the fat man was suspicious. "Help you with something, pal?"

    He wasn't sure why, but it irritated him to be called pal. "No. Just looking for my friend's apartment."