They Thirst (34 page)

I think the best thing for you to do is simply stay in your room. All right? If you hear Benefield come in, don't leave your room to be friendly."

"You going to arrest him? What's he done?"

"We just want to ask him a few questions. Thank you for showing us his room, Mr. Pietro. We'll take care of the rest."

And now Palatazin sat in his car, waiting. Several times he thought he saw a Volkswagen approaching down Coronado, but it never was. The faint odor of that liquid in the bottle stayed with him—bitter and almondy, slightly medicinal. In a rag, pressed up tightly against the nostrils, that stuff would probably act like a kind of chloroform; it was evidently some substance or mix of solutions that Benefield used at work. If he was the Roach—and those caged roaches indicated more than anything that he was— he had found a darker kind of work. But if he was the Roach, why had he changed his MO? He hoped that if Benefield was- given enough rope, he might hang himself with it, or at least trip himself up.

The minutes crept into hours. Soon there were no more cars moving along Coronado, and the only movement at all was the quick flicker of a match as Farris lit another cigarette.
I can wait,
Palatazin said mentally.
You'll have to come home sometime. And when you do, Mr. Benefield, I'll be right here . . .

Wes Richer woke up in the darkness, his head buzzing with Chablis and his stomach full of Scandia's Danish sole. At once he knew that Solange wasn't lying beside him, and when he looked up, he could see her figure outlined in moonlight, naked and chocolate brown, holding a curtain aside as she looked out of the window onto Charing Cross Road.

He watched her sleepily, the events of the night happily jumbling together in his head—the calls and congratulations from the ABC brass over "Sheer Luck"; a call from his father in Winter Hill, North Dakota, telling him how proud his mother would have been if only she were alive; Jimmy Kline calling to tell him that Arista was biting on the record contract hook and that the "Tonight Show" people were inquiring to see if Wes might guest-host after the first of November; a congratulatory call from Cher, whom Wes had met at a party for Gene Simmons; and then the dinner that evening with Jimmy, Mel Brooks, and Brooks's screenwriter, Al Kaplan. The part was being rewritten for him with a couple of added scenes to spotlight some of that "Goyem Klutz," as Brooks called it, that he showed in "Sheer Luck." At the end of the evening, Brooks had squeezed his cheek and said, "I love that face!" Which meant for Wes, as far as
Quattlebaum's
was concerned, money in the bank.

He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and said huskily, "Solange? What is it?"

She didn't move from the window. Her head was cocked to one side, a black statue, listening. Wes let his gaze roam appreciatively down her back, along the smooth curving spine, to the firm roundness of the buttocks and the swelling of her upper thighs. He'd been between those thighs less than an hour before; the sheets were still bunched at the bottom of the bed, the room filled with the peppery scent of desire. He could feel himself responding again, and he sat up, supporting his head on one arm. "Solange?" he said. "Come back to bed."

When she turned toward him, he saw her eyes—they were hollow pits in her fine skull. "I heard a scream, Wes," she whispered. "From across the street."

"A scream? You were probably dreaming."

"No," she said, her voice like velvet and steel. "I wasn't dreaming. I heard a scream. Who lives across the street?"

Wes struggled up out of bed and stood beside her, peering out into the night and feeling pretty stupid about going along with her even this far. "Uh . . . I think Dick Clark lives over there . . . no, wait a minute. It's Dick Marx. He produced the
Sea Wolf
remake with Richard Gere last year. I think." He couldn't really see the house, just the tops of trees and a chimney perched over a high brick wall. "I don't hear anything," he said after another moment.

"I think we should call the police."

"The police? Why? Listen, Dick Marx has a reputation for . . . you know . . . a little S&M thrills? Maybe he just got carried away with his latest girl friend. Calling the cops would be a
faux pas,
right?"

"I don't agree. What I heard was not a scream of pleasure. Will you call the police or shall I?"

"Okay, okay. Christ, when you get something on your mind, you hang onto it until Hell freezes, don't you?" He stepped over to the phone beside the bed and dialed 911. When the operator answered, he said simply, "Somebody screamed in Bel Air," then he gave the address, and hung up. "There," he said to Solange. "Did I do my duty?"

"Come here, Wes," Solange said. "Hurry!"

He did. She gripped his arm. "I saw someone crawl over the wall. Look! Did you see that?"

"I don't see a thing."

"Someone's in our yard, Wes!" she said, her voice rising as she gripped his arm tighter. "Call back. Tell the police to hurry!"

"Oh, shit! I'm not calling them again!" He leaned closer to the glass and tried to make out a figure moving, but it was pitch black; the arms of trees waved in the wind. "There's nobody outside. Come on back to bed . . ."

He was about to turn away from the window when he heard it. At first he thought it was the high wailing of wind, but then the sound became higher and stronger, the wail of a human voice—a little girl's voice—that ended in a cascade of silvery laughter like water bubbling in a fountain. "I seeeeeeee youuuuuuuu," the voice said. "There at the winnnnnndowwwwwww." More childlike laughter, and now Wes thought he
could
see a figure standing down there on the neatly manicured lawn beside a thin pine tree. He was almost sure he saw a white gown being whipped by the wind, a long mane of reddish-blond hair, a grinning moon-face staring up at him. But he heard the voice again, and it seemed to be coming from a different glace entirely. "Come outside!" it called sweetly. "Won't you come out and be my playmate?"

Wes narrowed his eyes. He was only marginally aware that Solange's fingernails were digging into his arm. Something moved beside that pine tree, and now Wes was sure he could see a little girl down there. She was barefoot and carrying what looked like a Raggedy Ann doll. "Mister!" she called out. "Please come outside and play with me!"

There was something in her voice that made Wes want to go to that little girl. That voice was so sweet, so compelling, so innocent. It rang in his head like Christmas bells in the church at Winter Hill, and suddenly there were six inches of new snow on the ground, and he was ten-year-old Wesley Richer, stuck in his room with a head cold the day after Christmas while all the other kids were playing in the snow with their new sleds. He could see the bundled figures of the big kids way out on the frozen, milky surface of Massey Pond; they picked on him because he was sickly and skinny, but he'd memorized a lot of jokes from a couple of books at the library, and now even Brad Orr was beginning to laugh at them and call him Funnyman. From his window he could see them skating around the pond, turning slow circles and figure eights like people from those Currier and Ives pictures Mom liked. And the sleds had already left a hundred runner trails on Frosty Slope; ice glittered there in the weak, gray sunlight like the dust of crushed diamonds, and a distant figure raised a mittened hand to wave at him.

There was a pretty girl he didn't know, standing underneath his window. "Come outside!" she called, grinning up at him. "Let's play!"

"Can't!" he called back. "Mom says no. I gotta cold!"

"I can make you all better!" the little girl said. "Come on! You can jump right through the window!"

Wes smiled. "Aww, you're foolin'!" She was barefoot in the snow, and maybe she was so pale because she was really cold.

"No, I'm not! Your friends are waiting for you." She gestured vaguely in the direction of Massey Pond. "I can take you to them."

"Oh . . ." He was tired of staying in the house, he wanted to get out and run in the cold wind with the snow crunching underfoot, and maybe he wouldn't even need any shoes either. Sure would be nice to do a belly-flop down the Slope. "Okay," he said excitedly. "Okay! I'll come out!"

The girl nodded. "Hurry!" she said.

And suddenly a strange thing happened. There was
a
pretty chocolate-colored lady standing beside him, gripping his arm. She leaned forward and blew on the window, instantly fogging it. Then she drew a Cross in the fogged part with her forefinger and mumbled something:
"Nsambi kuna ezulu, nsambi kuna ntoto!"

Wesley Richer said, "Huh?"

The little girl beneath the window screamed piercingly, her face contorting into a gray mask of horror. Instantly it all changed—Massey Pond and Frosty Slope and all the distant figures skating and sledding whirled out of Wes's brain like cobwebs caught in a high wind. The little girl staggered backward, gnashing her teeth. Solange shouted, "GET AWAY!" and fogged the window again, drawing another Cross and repeating the incantation again, but this time in English, "God is in Heaven, God is in Earth!"

The little girl hissed and spat, her back arching like a cat's. Then she ran across the lawn toward the wall. When she reached it, she turned and screamed, "I'll get you for that! I'll make you pay for hurting me!" And then she scrambled over the wall, her bare legs the last thing to disappear.

Wes's knees sagged. Solange caught him and helped him back to the bed. "What is it?" he said. "What happened?" He looked up at her through glazed eyes. "Gonna go skate," he said. "Snow fell last night,"

She put the sheet over him and smoothed it down. She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. "No, no," she said softly. "You had a dream, that's all."

"A dream?" He looked at her and blinked. "Dick Marx lives across the street, that's who."

"Go to sleep," Solange told him, and in another moment his eyes closed. She stood over him until his breathing was even and deep, and then she returned to the window. The pine trees moved fitfully, as if the dull terror that gripped at her soul gripped the soul of Nature as well. She wasn't certain what the thing had been, but she knew from its violent reaction to the Cross and the name of God—a powerful talisman in all languages—that it was something terribly evil. She recalled with a shudder the messages from the spirit world as spoken through the Ouija board. Evil. They thirst. Evil. They thirst. She drew a chair up before the window and sat down to meditate. She did not move again before daylight.

"You want another cup of coffee, Miss Clarke?"

Gayle looked up. She was huddled on a bench in the main corridor of the Hollywood police precinct building where she'd been brought hours before, after she'd crumbled in hysterics in front of the officer who'd stopped her for reckless driving. She thought she might have fallen asleep for a few minutes or passed out because she hadn't heard the patient desk sergeant named Branson come up behind her. She didn't want to sleep; she was afraid of it because she knew she'd see Jack coming for her in her nightmares, those burning eyes set in a bleached skull, the fangs in his mouth making him look like some strange hybrid between man and dog. She shook her head, refusing the coffee, and hugged her knees to her chin. Her hand had been cleaned and bandaged, but the fingers still throbbed, and she wondered if she would have to get rabies shots.

"Uh . . . Miss Clarke, I don't think you have to stick around here anymore," the desk sergeant said. "I mean, I appreciate the company and all, but you can't stay here all night."

"Why not?"

"Well, why should you? You've got a place to live, don't you? I mean, it's quiet in here right now, but later on we're going to have hookers, hustlers, pimps, junkies, all kinds of low-life stumbling in here. You don't want to be around all that, now do you?"

"I don't want to go home," she said weakly. "Not yet."

"Yeah, well . . ." He shrugged and sat down on the bench beside her, making a big deal out of checking a scuff mark on his shoe. "It's safe for you to go home," he said finally without looking at her. "Nothing's going to get you."

"You don't believe me either, do you? That first dumb clod didn't believe me, neither did your lieutenant, and you don't either."

He smiled faintly. "What's to believe or not believe? You told us what you saw, and it was checked out. The officers found a lot of empty apartments and a couple of dogs running around . . ."

"But you'll admit it was goddamned strange that all those apartments were unlocked at eleven o'clock at night, won't you? That's not common in Hollywood, is it?"

"Who knows what's common or uncommon in Hollywood?" Branson said quietly. "The rules change every day. But this stuff about your boyfriend being some kind of . . . what did you say he was? Vampire or werewolf?"

She was silent.

"Vampire, didn't you say? Well, couldn't he have been wearing a Halloween mask maybe?"

"It was no mask. You people have overlooked the most important point—what happened to all those people in that apartment complex? Did they all step off into the Twilight Zone or something?
Where are they?"

"That I wouldn't know anything about." Branson said, getting to his feet. "But I'd suggest you go on home now, huh?" He moved back toward his desk, feeling her stare boring into the back of his neck. Of course, he hadn't told her that Lieutenant Wylie was over at the Sandalwood Apartments right now with a team of officers, going over every room with vacuum cleaners and roping the place off from the street. Branson could tell that Wylie was more than a little worried. When Wylie's left eyebrow started to tick, that was a sure sign something was cooking. This Clarke woman had answered all the questions she could, and she'd put some questions of her own to the officers, who of course couldn't come up with any decent answers. Wylie had told him emphatically to get rid of her since she was a real thorn in the ass. Branson sat behind his desk, shuffled papers, and stared at the telephone, wishing it would ring with a good old-fashioned robbery or mugging. This vampire shit was for the birds.
No,
he decided,
make that for the bats.