Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place
Page 48
"Sometimes they do."
"No. They never came true for my mom or dad. Never cam true for Thomas,
did they? Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they
say. You ask George Farris's family if they think being slaughtered by
a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams."
"Ask the Phans," Bobby said quietly.
"They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and
little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod
two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those
terrific kids."
"Sooner or later, they'll get it in the neck too," she said, unsettled
by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a
whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up. But she could not
stop the churning.
"Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were
thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream
about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death
of his wife. Nasty bugger name Candy got in the way of that one. Ask
all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages,
cancer. Ask those who get Alzheimer's in their fifties, just when their
goide years are supposed to start. Ask the little kids in wheelchair
from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids
down there in Cielo Vista how Down's syndrom fits in with their dreams.
Ask-" She cut herself off. She was losing control, and she could not
afford to do so tonight.
She said,
"Come on, let's go."
"Where?"
"First, we find the house where that bitch raised him. Cruis by, get
the lay of it. Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.'
"I've seen it."
"I haven't."
"All right." From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory
for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and
other surrounding communi ties. He brought it with him to the door.
She said,
"What do you want th he asked.
"For now, I have to be. Later, I want to talk about Thomas, how brave
he was about being different, how he never complained, how sweet he was.
I want to talk about all of it, you and me, and I don't want us to
forget. Nobody's ever going to build a monument to Thomas, he wasn't
famous, he was, just a little guy who never did anything great except be
the best person he knew how, and the only monument he's ever going to
have is our memories. So we'll keep him alive,-won't we?"
"Yes."
"We'll keep him alive... until we're gone. But that's for later, when
there's time. Now we have to keep ourselves alive, because that son of
a bitch will be coming for us, won't he?"
"I think he will," Bobby said.
He rose from his knees and pulled her up from the chair.
He was wearing his dark brown Ultraseude jacket with the shoulder
holster under it. She'd taken off her corduroy blazer and her holster;
she put both of them on again. The weight of the revolver, against her
left side, felt good. She hoped she'd have a chance to use it.
Her vision had cleared; her eyes were dry. She said,
"One' thing for sure-no more dreams for me. What good is it, haing
dreams, when they never come true?"
"Sometimes they do."
"No. They never came true for my mom or dad. Never cam true for Thomas,
did they? Ask Clint and Felina if their dream came true, see what they
say. You ask George Farris's family if they think being slaughtered by
a maniac was the fulfillme of their dreams."
"Ask the Phans," Bobby said quietly.
"They were boat people on the South China Sea, with hardly any food and
little money, and now they own dry-cleaning shops and remod
two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses for resale, and they have those
terrific kids."
"Sooner or later, they'll get it in the neck too," she said, unsettled
by the bitterness in her voice and the black despair that churned like a
whirlpool within her, threatening to swallo her up. But she could not
stop the churning.
"Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were
thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream
about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death
of his wife. Nasty bugger name Candy got in the way of that one. Ask
all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages,
cancer. Ask those who get Alzheimer's in their fifties, just when their
goide years are supposed to start. Ask the little kids in wheelchair
from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids
down there in Cielo Vista how Down's syndrom fits in with their dreams.
Ask-" She cut herself off. She was losing control, and she could not
afford to do so tonight.
She said,
"Come on, let's go."
"Where?"
"First, we find the house where that bitch raised him. Cruis by, get
the lay of it. Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.'
"I've seen it."
"I haven't."
"All right." From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory
for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and
other surrounding communi ties. He brought it with him to the door.
She said,
"What do you want that for?"
"We'll need it later. I'll explain in the car." Sprinkles of rain were
falling again. The Toyota's engine was still so hot from the drive
north that in spite of the cool night air, steam rose from its hood as
the beads of rainwater evaporated. Far away a brief, low peal of
thunder rolled across the sky. Thomas was dead.
HE RECEIVED images as faint and distorted as reflections on the
wind-rippled surface of a pond. They came repeatedly as he touched the
faucets, the rim of the sink, the mirror, the medicine cabinet and its
contents, the light switch, the controls for the shower. But none of
his visions was detailed, and none provided a clue as to where the
Dakotas had gone.
Twice he was jolted by vivid images, but they were related to disgusting
sexual episodes between the Dakotas. A tube of vaginal lubricant and a
box of Kleenex were contaminated with older psychic residue that had
inexplicably lingered beyond its time, making him privy to sinful
practices that he had no desire to witness. He quickly snatched his
hands away from those surfaces and waited for his nausea to pass. He
was incensed that the need to track Frank through these decadent people
had forced him into a situation where his senses had been so brutally
affronted.
Infuriated by his lack of success and by the unclean contact with images
of their sin (which he seemed unable to expel from his mind), he decided
that he must burn the evil out of this house in the name of God. Burn
it out. Incinerate'it. So that maybe his mind would be cleansed again
as well.
He stepped out of the bathroom, raised his hands, and sent an immensely
destructive w
ave of power across the bedroom. The wooden headboard of
the big bed disintegrated, flames leaped from the quilted spread and
blankets, the nightstands flew apart, and every drawer in the dresser
shot out and dumped its contents on the floor, where they instantly
caught fire. The drapes were consumed as if made from magicians'
flashpaper, and the two windows in the far wall burst, letting in a
draft that fanned the blaze.
Candy often wished the mysterious light that came from him could affect
people and animals, rather than just inanim things, plants, and a few
insects. There were times when would have gone into a city and melted
the flesh from the bow of ten thousand sinners in a single night, a
hundred thousand it didn't matter which city, they were all festering
sewers iniquity, populated by depraved masses who worshipede and
practice( every repu sive degeneracy. He had never seen anyone in any
of them, not a single person, who seemed to have to live in God's grace.
He would have made them run screaing in terror, would have tracked them
down in their sec places, would have splintered their bones with his
power, had mered their flesh to pulp, made their heads explode, and to
off the offensive sex things that preoccupied them. If he had been that
gifted, he would not have shown them any ofmercy with which their
Creator always treated them, so they would have realized, then, how
grateful and obedient they should have been to their God, who always so
patiently tolerated even their worst transgressions.
Only God and Candy's mother had such unlimited compunsion. He did not
share it.
The smoke alarm went off in the hall. He walked out the pointed a
finger at it, and blew it to bits.
This part of his gift seemed more powerful tonight than ever. He was a
great engine of destruction.
The Lord must be rewarding his purity by increasing power.
He thanked God that his own saintly mother had never scended into the
pits of depravity in which so much of hum ity swam. No man had ever
touched her that way, so children were born without the stain of
original sin. He knew this to be true, for she had told him-and had
shown himit was.
He descended to the first floor and set the living-room carpet on fire
with a bolt from his left hand.
Frank and the twins had never appreciated the immacul aspect of their
conceptions, and in fact had thrown away incomparable state of grace to
embrace sin and do the devi work. Candy would never make that mistake.
Overhead he heard the roar of flames, the crash of a partition. In the
morning, when the sun revealed a smolderingof blackened rubble, the
remains of this nest of corruption would be a testament to the ultimate
perdition of all sinners.
Candy felt cleansed. The psychic images of the Dakotas' fevered
degeneracy had been expunged from his mind.
He returned to the offices of Dakota & Dakota to continue his search for
them.
BOBBY DROVE, for he didn't think Julie ought to be behind the wheel any
more tonight. She had been awake for more than nineteen hours, not a
marathon all-nighter yet, but she was exhausted; and her bottled-up
grief over Thomas's death could not help but cloud her judgment and dull
her reflexes. At least he had napped a couple of times since Hal's call
from the hospital had awakened them last night.
He crossed most of Santa Barbara and entered Goleta before bothering to
look for a service station where they could ask for directions to
Pacific Hill Road.
At his request, Julie opened the telephone directory on her lap, and
with the assistance of a small flashlight taken from the glove
compartment, she looked under the Fs for Fogarty. He didn't know the
first name, but he was only interested in a male Fogarty who carried the
title of doctor.
"He might not live in this area," Bobby said,
"but I have a hunch he does."
"Who is he?"
"When Frank and I were traveling, we stopped in this guy's study,
twice." He told her about both brief visits.
"How come you didn't mention him before?"
"At the office, when I told you what happened to me, where Frank and I
had gone, I had to condense some of it, and this Fogarty seemed
comparatively uninteresting, so I left him out. But the longer I've had
time to think about it, the more it seems to me that he might be a key
player in this. See, Frank popped us out of there so fast because he
seemed especially reluctant to endanger Fogarty by leading Candy to him.
If Frank's especially concerned about the man, then we ought to have a
talk with him." She hunched over the directory, studying it closely.
"Fogarty, James. Fogarty, Jennifer. Fogarty, Kevin..
What if he's not a medical doctor and doesn't use the title MD or if
'Doc' is a nickname, we're in trouble. Even if he is a medical doctor,
don't bother looking in the Yellow Pages under 'physicians,' because
this guy is up in years, got to be retire
"Here!" she said.
"Fogarty, Dr. Lawrence J."
"There's an address?",Yes." She tore the page out of the book.
"Great. As soon as you've seen the infamous Pollard pla we'll pay
Fogarty a visit." Though Bobby had visited the house three times, he
traveled there with Frank, and he had not known the pre location of 1458
Pacific Hill Road any more than he known exactly what flank of Mount
Fuji that trail had ascended. They found it easily, however, by
following the directions they received from a long-haired guy with a
handle mustache at a Union 76 station.
Though the houses along Pacific Hill Road enjoyed an Encanto Heights
address, they were actually neither insuburb nor in Goleta-which
separated El Encanto from Santa Barbara-but in a narrow band of county
land that lay tween the two and that led east into a wilderness preserve
mesquite, chapparal, desert brush, and pockets of Califor live oaks and
other hardy trees.
The Pollard house was near the end of Pacific Hill, on edge of developed
land, with few neighbors. Orientedsouthwest, it overlooked the charmed
Pacific-facing commu ties so beautifully sited on the terraced hills
below. At ni the view was spectacular-a sea of lights leading to a real
cloaked in darkness-and no doubt the immediate neighb hood remained
rural and free of expensive new houseshecause of development
restrictions related to the proxim of the preserve.
Bobby recognized the Pollard place at once. The headlig revealed little
more than the Eugenia hedge and the rusted ir gate between two tall
stone pilasters. He slowed as theyby it. The ground floor was dark. In
one upstairs room a light was on; a pale glow leaked around the edges of
a drawn bli Leaning over to look past Bobby, Julie said,
"Can't much."
"There isn't much to see. It's a crumbling pile." They drove over a
quarter of a mile to the end of the road turned, and went back. Coming
downhill, the house was on Julie's side, and she insisted he slow to a
crawl, to allow her more time to study it.
As they eased past the gate, Bobby saw a light on at the back of the
house, too, on the first floor. He couldn't actually see a lighted
window, just the glow that fell through it and painted a pale, frosty
rectangle on the side yard.
"It's all hidden in shadows,"
Julie said at last, turning to look back at the property as it fell
behind them.
"But I can see enough to know that it's a bad place."
"Very," Bobby said.
VIOLET LAY on her back on the bed in her dark robe with her sister,
warmed by the cats, which were draped over them and huddled around them.
Verbina lay on her right side, cuddled against Violet, one hand on
Violet's breasts, her lips against Violet's bare shoulder, her warm
breath spilling across Violet's smooth skin.
They were not settling down to sleep. Neither of them cared to sleep at
night, for that was the wild time, when a greater number and variety of
nature's hunters were on the prowl and life was more exciting. At that
moment they were not merely in each other and in all of the cats that
shared the bed with them, but in a hungry owl that soared the night,
scanning the earth for mice that weren't wise enough to fear the gloom
and remain in burrows. No creature had night vision as sharp as the
owl, and its claws and beak were even sharper.