Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place

by The Bad Place(Lit)

  eyes were sore not heavy; she could not possibly have slept. The events

  of the day had murdered sleep, and alertness was assured by thinking

  about what might lie ahead, not just on the highway behind them but in

  El Encanto Heights.

  Ever since he'd been awakened by what he called the "wordburst," Bobby

  had been moody. She could tell he was worried about something, but he

  didn't seem to want to talk about it yet.

  After a while, in an obvious attempt to take his mind off wordburst and

  whatever gloomy ruminations it had inspired he tried to strike up a

  conversation about something different. He lowered the volume on the

  stereo, thereby trating the intended effect of Glenn Miller's "American

  trol," and said, "You ever stop to think, four out of our eleven

  employees are Asian-Americans?" She didn't glance away from the road.

  "So?"

  "So why is that, do you think?"

  "Because we hire only first-rate people, and it so happens that four of

  the first-rate people who wanted to work for us were Chinese, Japanese,

  and Vietnamese."

  "That's part of it."

  "Just part?" she said. "So what's the other part? You think maybe the

  wicked FuManchu turned a mind-control ray us from his secret fortress in

  the Tibetan mountains and made us hire ''em?"

  "That's part of it too," he said. "But another part of it is I'm

  attracted to the Asian personality. Or to what people think of when

  they think of the Asian personality: intelligence, a high degree of

  self-discipline, neatness, a strong sense of tradition and order."

  "Those are pretty much traits of everyone who works for us, not just

  Jamie, Nguyen, Hal, and Lee.

  "I know. But what makes me so comfortable with Asian Americans is that

  I buy into the stereotype of them, I feel everything will go along in an

  orderly, stable fashion when I'm working with them, and I need to buy

  into the stereotype because... well, I'm not the kind of guy I've

  always thought I was. You ready to hear something shocking?"

  "Always," Julie said.

  OFTEN, WHEN Lee Chen was laboring in the computer room, he popped a CD

  in his Sony Discman and listened to music through earphones. He always

  kept the door closed to avoid distraction, and no doubt some of his

  fellow employees thought he was somewhat antisocial; however, when he

  was engaged in the penetration of a complex and well-protected data

  network, like the array of police systems he was still plundering, he

  needed to concentrate. Occasionally music distracted him as much as

  anything, depending on his mood, but most of the time it was conducive

  to his work. The minimalist New Age piano solos of George Winston were

  sometimes just the thing, but more often he needed rock-'n'-roll.

  Tonight it was Huey Lewis and The News: "Hip to Be Square" and "The

  Power of Love,"

  "The Heart of Rock & Roll" and "You Crack Me Up." Focused intently on

  the terminal screen (his window on the mesmerizing world of cyberspace),

  with

  "Bad Is Bad" pouring into his ears through the headset, he might not

  have heard a thing if, in the world outside, God had peeled back the sky

  and announced the imminent destruction of the human race.

  A COOL DRAFT circulated through the room from the broken window, but

  growing frustration generated a compensate heat in Candy. He moved

  slowly around the spacious handling various objects, touching the

  furniture, trying to get a vision that would reveal the whereabouts of

  Frank. Thus far he'd had no luck.

  He could have pored through the contents of the desk drawers and filing

  cabinets, but that would have taken hours,he didn't know where they

  might have filed the information he was seeking. He also realized he

  might not recognize right stuff when he found it, for it might be in a

  folder ore lope bearing a case name or code that was meaningless to And

  though his mother had taught him to read and write, though he had been a

  voracious reader just like her-until lost interest in books upon her

  death-teaching himself subjects as well as any university could have

  done, he never less trusted what his special gifts could reveal to him

  more than anything he might find on paper, Besides, he had already

  stepped into the lounge, obtain the Dakotas' home address and phone

  number, and called to see if they were there. An answering machine had

  picked on the third ring, and he had left no message. He didn't want to

  know where the Dakotas lived, where they might up in time; he needed to

  know where they were now, this minute, because he was in a fever to get

  at them and wring ans from them.

  He picked up a third Scotch-and-soda glass. They were over the room.

  The psychic residue on the tumbler gave an instant, vivid image of a man

  named Jackie Jaxx, and pitched it waside in anger. It bounced off the

  sofa, onto the carpet, without shattering.

  This Jaxx person left a colorful and noisy psychic impress everywhere in

  his wake, the way a dog with poor bladder control would mark each step

  on his route with a dribble of stiing urine. Candy sensed that Jaxx was

  currently with a large number of people, at a party in Newport Beach,

  and he sensed that trying to find Frank or the Dakotas through i would

  be wasted effort. Even so, if Jaxx had been alone easily taken, Candy

  would have gone straight to him slaughtered him, just because the guy's

  lingering aura was brassy and annoying.

  Either he had not yet found an object that one of the Dakotas had

  touched long enough to leave an imprint, or neither of them was the type

  who left a rich, lingering psychic residue in his wake. For reasons

  Candy could not fathom, some people were harder to trace than others.

  He had always found tracing Frank to be of medium difficulty, but

  tonight catching that scent was harder than usual. Repeatedly he sensed

  that Frank had been in the room, but at first he could locate nothing in

  which the aura of his brother was coagulated.

  Next he turned to the four chairs, beginning with the largest. When he

  skimmed his sensitive fingertips lightly over the upholstery, he

  quivered with excitement, for he knew at once that Frank had sat there

  recently. A small tear marred the vinyl on one arm, and when Candy put

  his thumb upon the rent, particularly vivid visions of Frank assaulted

  him.

  Too many visions. He was rewarded with a whole series of place images,

  where Frank had traveled after rising from the chair: the High Sierras;

  the apartment in San Diego in which he had lived briefly four years ago;

  the rusted front gate of their mother's house on Pacific Hill Road; a

  graveyard; a book-lined study in which he'd stayed such a short time

  that Candy could get only the vaguest impression of it; Punaluu Beach,

  where Candy had nearly caught him.... There were so many images, from

  so many travels, layered one atop another, that he could not clearly see

  the later stops.

  Disgusted, he pushed the chair out of his way and turned to the coffee

  table, where two more tumblers stood. Both contained melted ice and


  Scotch. He picked one up and, had a vision of Julie Dakota.

  WHILE JULIE drove toward Santa Barbara as if they were competing in time

  trials for the Indianapolis 500, Bobby told her the shocking thing: that

  he was not, at heart, the laid-back guy he appeared to be on the

  surface; that during his hectic travels with Frank-especially during the

  moments when he had been reduced to a disembodied mind and a frantic

  whirl of disconnected atoms-he'd discovered within himself a rich vein

  of love for stability and order that ran deeper than he could ever have

  imagined, a motherlode of stick-in-the-mudness; than delight in swing

  music arose more from an appreciation the meticulosity of its structures

  than from the dizzyingcal freedom embodied in jazz; that he was not half

  the spirited man he'd thought he was... and far more of a conservative

  embracer of tradition that he would have hoped.

  "In short," he said,

  "all this time when you thought were married to an easy-going

  young-James-Gamer you've actually been wed to an any-age-Charles-Bronson

  type.

  "

  "I can live with you anyway, Charlie."

  "This is serious. Sort of I've tipped into my late thirties, no child.

  I should've known this about myself a long time a

  "You!" I id."

  "Huh?'

  "You love order, reason, logic-that's why you got in line.of work where

  you could right wrongs, help the innoc punish the bad. That's why you

  share The Dream withso we can get our little family in order, step out

  of the!" of the world as it is these days and buy into some peace

  quiet. That's why you won't let me have the Wurlitzer 95 those bubble

  tubes and leaping gazelles are just a little too otic for you." He was

  silent a moment, surprised by her answer.

  The lightless vastness of the sea lay to the west.

  He said,

  "Maybe you're right. Maybe I've always knew what I am, deep down. But

  then isn't it unnerving that fooled myself with my own act for so long?"

  "You haven't. You're easy-going and a bit of Charles Bronson, which is

  a good thing. Otherwise we probably could communicate at all, since

  I've got more Bronson in meanyone but Bronson."

  "God, that's true!"

  he said, and they both laughed.

  The Toyota's speed had declined to under seventy. She it UP to eighty

  and said,

  "BObby... what's really onmind?"

  "Thomas." She glanced at him.

  "What about Thomas?"

  "Since that wordburst, I can't shake the feeling he's in danger."

  "What did that have to do with him?"

  "I don't know. But I'd feel better if we could find a phone and put in

  a call to Cielo Vista. Just to be... sure." She let their speed fall

  dramatically. Within three miles they exited the freeway and pulled

  into a service station. There was a full-service lane. While the

  attendant washed their windows, checked the oil, and filled the tank

  with premium unleaded, they went inside and used the pay phone.

  It was a modern electronic version allowing everything from coin to

  credit calls, on the wall next to a rack of snack crackers, candy bars,

  and packages of beer nuts. A condom machine was there, too, right out

  in the open, thanks to the social chaos wrought by AIDS. Using their

  AT&T credit card, Bobby called Cielo Vista Care Home in Newport.

  It didn't ring or give a busy signal. He heard an odd series of

  electronic sounds, then a recording informed him that the number he had

  dialed was temporarily out of service as a result of unspecified line

  problems. The droning voice suggested that he try later.

  He dialed the operator, who tried the same number, with the same

  results. She said,

  "I'm sorry, sir. Please call your party later."

  "What line problems could they be having?"

  "I wouldn't know, sir, but I'm sure service'll be restored soon." He

  had tilted the phone away from his ear, so Julie could lean in and hear

  both sides of the exchange. When he hung UP, he looked at her. "Let's

  go back. I got this hunch Thomas needs us."

  "Go back? We're little more than half an hour from Santa Barbara now.

  Much further to go home."

  "He may need us. It's not a strong hunch, I admit, but it's persistent

  and... weird."

  "If he needs help urgently," she said,

  "then we'd never get to him in time, anyway. And if it's not so urgent,

  it'll be okay if we go on to Santa Barbara, call again from the motel.

  If he's sick or been hurt or something, the extra driving from here to

  Santa Barbara and back will only add about an hour."

  "Well...

  "He's my brother, Bobby. I care about him as much as you do, and I say

  it'll be all right. I love you, but you've never shown enough talent as

  a psychic to make me hysterical a this." He nodded.

  "You're right. I'm just... jumpy. My knees haven't settled down since

  all that traveling with Frank." Back on the highway, a few thing

  tendrils of fog were creep in from the sea. Sprinkles of rain fell

  again, then stopped a less than a minute. The heaviness of the air, and

  an indefina but undeniable quality of oppressiveness in the utterly blue

  night sky, portended a major storm.

  When they had gone a couple of miles, Bobby said, should've called Hal

  at the office. While he's sitting around there waiting for Frank, he

  could use some of our contactsthe phone company, the cops, make sure

  everything's jake Cielo Vista."

  "If the lines are still out when you make the call from motel," Julie

  said,

  "then you can bother Hal about it." FROM THE weak psychic residue on

  the drinking glass, Can received an image of Julie Dakota that was

  recognizablysame face that had seeped from Thomas's mind earlier

  inevening-except that it was not as idealized as it had been Thomas's

  memory. With his sixth sense he saw that she had gone home from the

  office, to the address he had obtained earlier from the secret's

  Rolodex. She hadthere a she ry bee time, then had gone somewhere in a

  car with another pers most likely the man named Bobby. He could see no

  more, a he wished that the traces she left behind had been as stro as

  those of Jaxx.

  He put down the tumbler and decided to go to her hou Though she and

  Bobby were not there now, he might be a to find an object that would,

  like the liquor glass, lead him a other step or two along their trail.

  If he found nothing, could return here and continue his search, assuming

  the police had not arrived in response to the discovery of the dead m

  outside.

  mw LEE SWITCHED off the computer, then cut off the CD player too-Huey

  Lewis and The News were in the middle of

  "Walking On a Thin Line"-and removed the earphones.

  Happy after a long and productive session in the land of silicon and

  gallium arsenide, he stood, stretched, yawned, and checked his watch. A

  little after nine. He'd been at work for twelve hours.

  He should have wanted nothing more than to flop in bed and sleep half a

  day. But he figured he'd zip back to his condo, which was ten minutes

  from the office,
freshen up, and catch some nightlife. Last week he'd

  found a new club, Nuclear Grin, where the music was loud and hard-edgd,

  the drinks unwatered, the crowd's politics unconsciously libertarian,

  and the women hot. He wanted to dance a little, drink a little, and

  find someone who wanted to screw her brains out.

  In this age of new diseases, sex was risky; it sometimes seemed that

  drinking from the same glass as someone else was suicidal. But after a

  day in the painstakingly logical microchip universe, you had to get a

  little wild, take some risks, dance on the edge of chaos, to get some

  balance in your life.

  Then he remembered how Frank and Bobby had vanished in front of his

  eyes. He wondered if maybe he hadn't already had enough wildness for

  one day.

  He picked up the latest printouts. It was more stuff that he had

  gleaned from police records, regarding the decidedly weird behavior of

  Mr Blue, who would never need to get a little wild for balance, since he

  was already chaos walking around in shoes. Lee opened the door,

  switcfied off the lights, went down the hall and through another door

  into the lounge, intending to leave the printouts on Julie's desk and

  say goodnight to Hal before splitting.

  When he walked into Bobby and Julie's office, it looked like the

  National Wrestling Federation had sanctioned a match there between tag

  teams of three-hundred-pound hulks. Furniture was overturned, and

  Scotch glasses, some of them broken, were scattered over the floor.