Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place
Page 40
and Julie are stubborn sometimes, but they're not stupid, and I'd expect
them to let go of this, now that they've seen it's a job big enough for
God, not a private detective. But here we are."
BOBBY AND JULIE huddled with Lee Chen at the desk, while he shared with
them the information he had thus far obtained.
"The money might be stolen, but it's spendable," Lee said.
"I can't find those serial numbers on any currency hot sheets federal,
state, or local."
Bobby had already thought of several sources from which Frank might have
obtained the six hundred thousand now in the office safe.
"Find a business with a high cash flow, where they don't always get to a
bank with the receipts at the end of the day, and you've got a potential
target. Say it's a super market, stays open till midnight, and it's not
a good idea for a manager to tote a lot of cash to a bank for automatic
deposit. so there's a safe in the market. After the place closes, you
trans port inside, if you're Frank, and use whatever other power you
have to open that safe, put the day's receipts in a grocery bag, and
vanish. You're not going to find big chunks of cash, a couple hundred
thousand at a time, but you hit three or for markets in an hour, and
you've got your haul."
Evidently Julie had been pondering the same question, she said,
"Casinos. They all have accounting rooms you!" find on the blueprints,
the ones the IRS gets into with a little effort. But they've got hidden
rooms, too, where the skim goes Like big walk-in safes. Fort Knox would
envy them. You use whatever minor psychic abilities you have to figure
the location of one of those hidden rooms, teleport in when it's
deserted and just take what you want."
"Frank lived in Vegas for a while,"
Bobby said. "Remember I told you about the vacant lot he took me to,
where he'd had ù a house."
"He wouldn't be limited to Vegas," Julie said.
"Reno, Tahoe, Atlantic City, the Caribbean, Macao, France, England,
Monte Carlo-anywhere there's big-time gambling." This talk of easy
access to unlimited amounts of cash excited Bobby, though he was not
sure why. After all, it was Frank who could teleport, not him, and he
was ninety-five-percent sure they were never going to see Frank again.
Spreading a sheaf of printouts across the desktop, Lee Chen said,
"The money's the least interesting thing. You remember you wanted me to
find out if the cops are on to Mr. Blue
"Candy," Bobby said.
"We have a name for him now." Lee scowled.
"I liked Mr. Blue better. It had more style."
Entering the room, Hal Yamataka said, "I don't think you can trust the
style judgment of a guy who wears red sneakers and yellow socks."
Lee shook his head. "We Chinese spend thousands of years working up an
intimidating image for all Asians, so we can keep these hapless
Westerners off balance, and you people in Japan blow it all by making
those Godzilla movies. You can't be inscrutable and make Godzilla
movies."
"Yeah? You show me anybody who understands a Godzilla movie after the
first one."
They made an interesting pair, these two: one slender, modish, with
delicate features, an enthusiastic child of the silicon age; the other
squat, broad, with a face as blunt as a hammer, a guy who was about as
high-tech as a rock.
But to Bobby the most interesting thing was that, until this moment, he
had never thought about the fact that a disproportionately large
percentage of Dakota & Dakota's small staff was Asian-American. There
were two more-Nguyen Tuan Phu and Jamie Quang, both Vietnamese. Four
out of eleven people. Though he and Hal once in a while made East-West
jokes, Bobby never thought of Lee and Hal and Nguyen and Jamie as
composing any subset of employees; they were just themselves, as
different from one another as apples are different from pears and
oranges and peaches. But Bobby realized that this predilection for
Asian-American co-workers revealed something about himself, something
more than just an obvious and admirable racial blindness, but he could
not figure out what it was.
Hal said,
"And nothing gets more inscrutable than the whole concept of Mother. By
the way, Bobby, Clint's gone home to comfort Felina. We should all be
so lucky."
"Lee was telling us about Mr. Blue," Julie said.
"Candy,"
Bobby said.
Indicating the data he had extracted from various police records
nationwide, Lee said,
"Most police agencies began to be computerized and interlinked only
about nine years ago-in any sophisticated way, that is. So that's all
the further back a lot of electronically accessible files go. But
during that time, there have been seventy-eight brutal murders, in nine
states, that have enough similarities to raise the possibility of a
single perp- Just the possibility, mind you. But FBI got interested
enough last year to put a three-man team on it, one in the office and
two in the field, to coordinate local and stat& investigations."
"Three men?" Hal said.
"Doesn't sound like high priority."
"The Bureau's always been overextended," Julie said.
"And over the last thirty years, since it's been unfashionable for
judges to hand out long criminal sentences, the bad guys outnumber them
worse than ever. Three men, full time-that's a serious commitment at
this stage." Extracting a printout from the pile on the desk, Lee
summarized the essential data on it.
"All of the killings have the points in common. First-the victims were
all bitten, most the throat, but virtually no part of the body is sacred
to the guy. Second-many of them were beaten, suffered head injuries.
But loss of blood, from the bites-usually the jugular vein and carotid
artery in the throat-was a substantial contributing factor to the death
in virtually every instance, regardless of other injuries."
"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 ass. 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 goin
g 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
shivered.
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 damned good at this mysterious
oriental crap." 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 buttons 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 buttons, 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 space movie where spacemen in space suits were poking around in
some spooky place. Derek made happy sigh and said,
"This is good. I like their hats."
"Helmets," Thomas said.
"Space 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 spacemen were
in an even spookier place poking around, which was one of the things
spacemen did most, even though something ugly-nasty was usually in those
spooky places just waiting for them. Spacemen 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 pushing buttons 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 spaceman'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
spaceman 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