Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place

by The Bad Place(Lit)

  lawyers." The quiet, gentle tone in which she spoke was at odds with

  the anger she was expressing, but that contradiction added to the sweet,

  hypnotic quality of her message.

  "I've tried for years to get part of the fee returned to me, like I

  deserve. I've gone to other lawyers, but they all say his fee was

  reasonable, they all stick up for each other, they're alike, peas in a

  pod, rotten little peas in rotten little pods. Took him to court, but

  judges are nothing except lawyers in black robes, they make me sick, the

  greedy lot of them. I've worried at this for years, little Candy, can't

  get it out of my mind. That Donald Salfont, living in his big house in

  Montecito, overcharging people, overcharging me, he ought to have to pay

  for that. Don't you think so, little Candy? Don't you think he ought

  to pay?"

  He was five years old and not yet big for his age, as he would be from

  the time he was nine or ten. Even if he could teleport into Salfont's

  bedroom, the advantage of surprise might not be sufficient to ensure

  success. If either Salfont or his wife happened to be awake when Candy

  arrived, or if the first slash of the knife failed to kill the lawyer

  and brought him awake in a defensive panic, Candy would not be able to

  overpower him. He wouldn't be in danger of getting caught or harmed,

  for he could teleport home in a wink; but he would risk being

  recognized. Police would believe a man like Salfont, even as regarded

  such a fantastic accusation as murder lodged against a five-year-old

  boy. They would visit the Pollard place, as questions, poking around,

  and God knew what they might or come to suspect.

  "So you can't kill him, though he deserves it," Roselle pered as she

  rocked her favorite child. She stared down intently into his eyes as he

  looked up from her exposed breast.

  "Instead what you have to do is take something from him as revenge for

  the money he took from me, something precious to them. There's a new

  baby in the Salfont house. I read about it in the paper a few months

  ago, a little girl baby they called Reb Elizabeth. What kind of name is

  that for a girl, I ask you. Sounds highfalutin' to me, the kind of name

  a fancy lawyer and his wife would give a baby 'cause they think them and

  theirs are better than other people. Elizabeth is a queen's name, and

  you just look up what Rebekah is in the Bible, see if you don't think

  they think way too much of themselves and their little Rebekah... she's

  almost six months now, they've had her long enough to miss her when

  she's gone, miss her bad. I'll drive you past their house tomorrow, my

  precious little Candy let you see where it is, and tomorrow night you'll

  go there visit the Lord's vengeance on them, my vengeance. They'll think

  a rat got into the room, or something of the sort, and they'll blame

  themselves until the day they're dead too."

  The throat of Rebekah Salfont had been tender, her blood salty. Candy

  enjoyed the adventure of it, the thrill of being in the house of

  strangers without their permission or knowledge Killing the girl while

  grownups slept in the adjoining room unaware, filled him with a sense of

  power. He was just a kid, yet he slipped past their defenses and struck

  a blow for mother, which in a way made him the man of the Pollard house.

  That heady feeling added an element of glory to the excitement of the

  kill.

  His mother's requests for vengeance were thereafter irrevocable.

  For the first few years of his mission, infants and very young children

  were his only prey. Sometimes, in order not to create a pattern to the

  police, he did not bite them but disposed of them in other ways, and

  occasionally he took hold of them teleported out of the house with them,

  so no body was found.

  An so, if Roselle's enemies had all been from in and around Santa

  Barbara, the pattern could not have been hidden. But often she required

  vengeance against people in far places, about whom she read in

  newspapers and magazines.

  He remembered, in particular, a family in New York State, who won

  millions of dollars in the lottery. His mother had felt that their good

  fortune had been at the expense of the Pollard family, and that they

  were too greedy to be permitted to live. Candy had been fourteen at the

  time, and he had not understood his mother's reasoning-but he had not

  questioned it, either. She was the only source of truth to him, and the

  thought of disobedience had never crossed his mind. He had killed all

  five members of that family in New York, then burned their house to the

  ground with their bodies in it.

  His mother's thirst for vengeance followed a predictable cycle.

  Immediately after Candy killed someone for her, she was happy, filled

  with plans for the future; she would bake special treats for him and

  sing melodically while she worked in the kitchen, and she would begin a

  new quilt or an elaborate needlepoint project. But over the next four

  weeks her happiness would dim like a light bulb on a rheostat, and

  almost one month to the day after the killing, having lost interest in

  baking and crafts, she would begin to talk about other people who had

  wronged her and, by extension, the Pollard family. Within two to four

  more weeks, she would have settled on a target, and Candy would be

  dispatched to fulfill his mission. Consequently, he killed on only six

  or seven occasions each year.

  That frequency satisfied Roselle, but the older Candy got, the less it

  satisfied him. He had not merely acquired a thirst for blood but a

  craving that occasionally overwhelmed him. The thrill of the hunt also

  intoxicated him, and he longed for it was an alcoholic longed for the

  bottle. Not least of all, the mindless hostility of the world toward

  his blessed mother motivated him to kill more often. Sometimes it

  seemed that virtually everyone was against her, scheming to harm her

  physically or to take money that was rightfully hers. She had no dearth

  of enemies. He remembered days when fear oppressed her; then at her

  direction all the blinds and drapes were drawn, the doors locked and

  sometimes even barricaded with chairs and other furniture, against the

  onslaught of adversaries who never came but who might have. On those

  bad days she became despondent and told him that so many people were out

  to hurt her that even he could not protect her forever. When he begged

  her to turn him loose, she refused and only said,

  "It's useless." Then, as now, he tried to supplement the approved

  murders with his forays into the canyons in search of small animals But

  those blood feasts, rich as they sometimes were, never quenched his

  thirst as thoroughly as when the vessel was human.

  Saddened by too many memories, Candy rose from the rocking chair and

  nervously paced the room. The blinds were drawn as he glanced with

  increasing interest at the night beyond the window.

  After failing to catch Frank and the stranger who had telaported into

  the backyard with him, after the confrontation with Violet had taken

  that unexpected turn and left h
im filled with undissipated rage, he was

  smoldering, hot to kill, but in need of a target. With no enemy of the

  family in sight, he would have to slaughter either innocent people or

  the small creature that lived in the canyons. The problem was-he

  dreaded evoking his sainted mother's disappointment, up there in heaven

  yet he had no appetite for the blood of timid beasts.

  His frustration and need built by the minute. He knew he was going to

  do something he would later regret, something that would make Roselle

  turn her face from him for a time Then, just when he felt he might

  explode, he was saved by the intrusion of a genuine enemy.

  A hand touched the back of his head.

  He whirled around, feeling the hand withdraw as he turned. It had been

  a phantom hand. No one was there.

  But he knew it was the same presence that he had sensed in the canyon

  last night. Someone out there, not of the Pollard family, had psychic

  ability of his own, and the very fact that Roselle was not his mother

  made him an enemy to be found and eliminated. The same person had

  visited Candy several times earlier in the afternoon, reaching out

  tentatively, probing at him but not making full contact.

  Candy returned to the rocking chair. If a real enemy is going to put in

  an appearance, it would be worth waiting for him.

  A few minutes later, he felt the touch again. Light, hesitant, quickly

  withdrawn.

  He smiled. He started rocking. He even hummed softly- one of his

  mother's favorite songs.

  Banking the coals of rage eventually made them burn brighter. By the

  time the shy visitor grew bolder, the fire would be white hot, and the

  flames would consume him.

  AT TEN minutes to seven, the doorbell rang. Felina Karaghiosis did not

  hear it, of course. But each room of the house had a small red signal

  lamp in one corner or another, and she could not miss the flashing light

  that was activated by the bell.

  She went into the foyer and looked through the sidelight next to the

  front door. When she saw Alice Kasper, a neighbor from three doors down

  the street, she switched off the dead bolt, removed the security chain

  from its slot, and let her in.

  "Hi, kid. How ya doing'?"

  I like your hair, Felina signed.

  "Do ya really? Just got it cut, and the girl said that I was the same

  old same old, or did I want to catch up with the time and I thought what

  the hell. I'm not too old to be sexy, ya think?"

  Alice was only thirty-three, five years older than Felina. She had

  exchanged her trademark blond curls for a more mode cut that would

  require a new source of income just to pay for all the makeup she was

  going to use, but she looked great.

  Come in. Want a drink?

  "I'd love a drink, kid, and right now I could use six of ''em but I

  gotta say no. My in-laws came over, and we're about thinking about

  either playing cards with ''em or shooting ''em. It depends on their

  attitude." Of all the people Felina knew in her day-to-day life, Alice

  was the only one, other than Clint, who understood sign language. Given

  the fact that most people harbored a prejudice against the deaf, to

  which they could not admit but on what they acted, Alice was her only

  girlfriend. But Felina was happy and would have given up their

  friendship if Mark Kasper-Alicson, for whom she had learned sign

  language-had not been born deaf

  "Why I came over, we got a call from Clint, asking me to tell ya he's

  not on his way home yet, but he expects to get here soon."

  "So late?"

  "maybe by eight. "Since when does he work so late?"

  "They've got a big case. That always means some overtime.

  "ya it's

  "He's going to take ya out to dinner, and says it's been an incredible

  day. I guess that's about the case, huh? Must be fascinating, married

  to a detective. And he's sweet, too. You're lucky, kid."

  "Yes. But so is he.

  Alice laughed.

  "Right on! And if he comes home this late another night, don't settle

  for dinner. Make him buy ya diamonds."

  Felina thought of the red gem he had brought home yesterday, and she

  wished she could tell Alice about it. But Dakota & Dakota business,

  especially concerning an ongoing case in which the client was in

  jeopardy, was as sacred in their house as the privacies of the marriage

  bed.

  "Saturday, our place, six-thirty? Jack'll cook up a mess of his chili,

  and we'll play pinochle and eat chili and drink beer and fart till we

  pass out. Okay?"

  "Yes."

  "And tell Clint, it's okay-we won't expect him to talk."

  Felina laughed, then signed: He's getting better.

  "That's 'cause you're civilizing him, kid."

  They hugged again, and Alice left.

  Felina closed the door, looked at her wristwatch, and saw that it was

  seven o'clock. She had only an hour to get ready for dinner, and she

  wanted to look especially good for Clint, not because this was a special

  occasion, but because she always wanted to look good for him. She

  headed for the bedroom, then realized that only the automatic lock was

  engaged on the front door. She returned to the foyer, twisted the thumb

  screw that slid the dead bolt home, and slipped the security chain in

  place.

  Clint worried about her too much. If he came home and found that she

  hadn't remembered the dead bolt, he'd age a year in a minute, right

  before her eyes.

  so AFTER BEING off duty all day, Hal Yamataka responded to a call from

  Clint and came to the offices at 6: Tuesday night, to stand a watch in

  case Frank returned after the rest of them had left. Clint met him in

  the reception lounge and briefed him there over a cup of coffee. He had

  to be brought up to date on what had happened during his absence and

  after he heard what had gone down, he again wistfully considered a

  career in gardening.

  Nearly everyone in his family either had a gardening business or owned a

  little nursery, and all of them did well, most of them better than what

  Hal made working for Dakota & Dakota, some of them a great deal better.

  His folks, his three brothers, and various well-meaning uncles tried

  repeatedly to persuade him that he should work for them or come into

  business with them, but he resisted. It was not that he had anything

  against running a nursery, selling gardening supplies, land scape

  planning, tree pruning, or even gardening itself But southern California

  was not the place.

  the term "Japanese gardener" was a cliche not a career, and he couldn't

  abide the thought of being a kind of stereotype.

  He had been a heavy reader of adventure and suspense novels all his

  life, and he yearned to be a character like one of those he read about,

  especially a character worthy of being a lead in a John D. MacDonald

  novel, because John D's lead characters were as rich in insight as they

  were in courage, even as sensitive as they were tough. In his heart Hal

  knew that work at Dakota & Dakota was usually as mundane as the day

  grind of a gardener, and that the opport
unities for heroism in the

  security industry were far fewer than they appeared to to outsiders. But

  selling a bag of mulch or a can of Specticide or a flat of marigolds,

  you couldn't kid yourself that you were a romantic figure or had any

  chance of being one. And, after all, self-image was often the better

  part of reality.

  "If Frank shows up here," Hal said,

  "what do I do with him?"

  "Pack him in a car and take him to Bobby and Julie."

  "You mean their house?"

  "No. Santa Barbara. They're driving up there tonight, staying at the

  Red Lion Inn, so tomorrow they can start digging into the Pollard

  family's background."

  Frowning, Hal leaned forward on the reception-lounge sofa.

  "Thought you said they don't figure ever to see Frank again."

  "Bobby says he thinks Frank is coming apart, won't last through this

  latest series of travels. That's just his feeling."

  "So then who's their client?"

  "Until he fires them, Frank is."

  "Sounds iffy to me. Be straight with me, Clint. What's really got them

  so committed to this one, especially considering how crazy-dangerous it

  seems to get, hour by hour?"

  "They like Frank. I like Frank."

  "I said be straight." Clint sighed.

  "Damned if I know. Bobby came back here spooked out of his mind. But

  he won't let go of it. You'd think they'd pull in their homes, at least

  until Frank shows up again if he does. This brother of his, this Candy,

  he sounds like the devil himself, too much for anyone to handle. Bobby