With a little luck, the Toyota's owner wouldn't notice that his plates were missing until tomorrow, perhaps later. Once he did notice, he might not bother reporting the incident to the police, at least not immediately. Anyway, the police wouldn't put stolen plates on the hot sheet the way they would if the entire car was stolen, wouldn't have every cop in the state looking for just a pair of tags, and wouldn't be likely to connect this small crime with the bigger theft of the LTD. They'd treat the plate-nabbing report as just a case of vandalism. Meanwhile, the stolen LTD would have new tags and a new identity, and it would, in effect, cease to be a hot car.
They left Ventura, heading north, and reached Santa Barbara at 9:50 Thesday night.
Santa Barbara was one of Charlie's favorite getaway places when the pressures of work became overwhelming. He usually stayed at either the Biltmore or the Montecito Inn. This time, however, he chose a slightly shabby motel, The Wile-Away Lodge, at the east end of State Street. Considering his well known taste for the finer things in life, this was about the last place anyone would look for him.
There was a kitchenette unit available, and Charlie took it for a week, signing the name Enoch Flint to the register and paying cash in advance, so he wouldn't have to show the clerk a credit card.
The room had turquoise draperies, burnt-orange carpet, and
bedspreads in a loud purple and yellow pattern; either the decorator had been limited by a tight budget and had bought whatever was available within a certain price range-or he had been a blind beneficiary of the Equal Opportunity Employment Act .
The pair of queen-size beds had mattresses that were too soft and lumpy. A couch converted into a third bed, which looked even less comfortable. The furniture was mismatched and well used. The bathroom had an age-yellowed mirror, lots of cracked floor tiles, and a vent fan that wheezed asthmatically. In the kitchen alcove, out of sight from the bedroom, there were four chairs and a table, a sink with a leaky faucet, a battered refrigerator, a stove, cheap plates and cheaper silverware, and an electric percolator with complimentary packets of coffee, Sanka, sugar, and non-dairy creamer. It wasn't much, but it was cleaner than they had expected.
While Christine put Joey to bed, Charlie brewed a pot of Sanka.
When she came into the kitchenette a few minutes later, Christine said, "Mmmmm, that smells heavenly."
He poured two cups for them ." How's Joey?"
"He was asleep before I finished tucking him in. The dog's on the bed with him, and I usually don't allow that, but, what the hell, I figure any day that starts out with a bomb attack and goes downhill from there is a day you should be allowed to have your dog on your bed."
They sat at the kitchen table, by a window that presented a view of one end of the motel parking lot and a small swimming pool ringed by a wrought-iron fence in need of paint. The wet macadam and the parked cars were splashed with orange neon light from the motel's sign. The storm was winding down again.
The coffee was good, and the conversation was better. They talked about everything that came to mind-politics, movies, books, favorite vacation spots, work, music, Mexican foodeverything but Grace Spivey and the Twilight. They seemed to have an unspoken agreement to ignore their current circumstances. They desperately needed a respite.
But, to Charlie, their conversation was much more than that; it was a chance to learn about Christine. With the obsessive curiosity of a man in love, he wanted to know every detail of
her existence, every thought and opinion, no matter how mundane.
Maybe he was only flattering himself, but he suspected that his romantic interest in her was matched by her interest in him .
He hoped that was the case. More than anything, he wanted her to want him.
By midnight, he found himself telling her things he had never told anyone before, things he had long wanted to forget. They were events he thought had lost the power to hurt him, but as he spoke of them he realized the pain had been there all the while.
He talked about being poor in Indianapolis, when there wasn't always enough food or enough heat in the winter because the welfare checks were used first for wine, beer, and whiskey. He spoke of being unable to sleep for fear that the rats infesting their tumble-down shack would get up on the bed with him and start chewing on his face.
He told her about his drunken, violent father, who had beaten his mother as regularly as if that were a husband's duty. Sometimes the old man had beaten his son, too, usually when he was too drunk and unsteady to do much damage. Charlie's mother had been weak and foolish, with her own taste for booze; she hadn't wanted a child in the first place, and she had never interfered when her husband struck Charlie.
"Are your mother and father still alive?" Christine asked.
"Thank God, no! Now that I've done well, they'd be camping on my doorstep, pretending they'd been the best parents a kid ever had. But there was never any love in that house, never any affection ." "You've come a long way up the ladder," Christine said.
"Yeah. Especially considering I didn't expect to live long."
She was looking out at the parking lot and swimming pool .
He turned his eyes to the window, too. The world was so quiet and motionless that they might have been the only people in it.
He said, "I always thought my father would kill me sooner or later. The funny thing is, even way back then, I wanted to be a private detective because I saw them on TV-Richard Diamond and Peter Gunn-and I knew they were never afraid of anything.
Iwas always afraid of everything, and more than anything else Iwanted not to be afraid."
"And now, of course, you're fearless," she said with irony.
He smiled ." How simple it seems when you're just a kid."
A car pulled into the lot, and both of them stared at it until the doors opened and a young couple got out with two small children.
Charlie poured more Sanka for both of them and said, "I used to lie in bed, listening to the rats, praying that both my parents would die before they got a chance to kill me, and I became real angry with God because He didn't answer that prayer. I couldn't understand why He would let those two go on victimizing a little kid like me. I couldn't defend myself. Why wouldn't God protect the defenseless? Then, when I got a little older, I decided God couldn't answer my prayers because God was good and wouldn't ever kill anyone, not even moral rejects like my folks. So I started praying just to get out of that place. 'Dear God, this is Charlie, and all I want is to some day get out of here and live in a decent house and have money and not be scared all the time." "
He suddenly recalled a darkly comic episode he hadn't thought about in years, and he laughed sharply at the bizarre memory.
She said, "How can you laugh about it? Even though I know things turned out pretty well for him, I still feel terrible for that little boy back there in Indianapolis. As if he's still there."
"No, no. It's just . . . I remembered something else, something that is funny in a grim sort of way. After a while, after I'd been praying to God for maybe a year, I got tired of how long it took for a prayer to be answered, and I went over to the other side for a while."
" Other side?"
Staring out the window as a squall of rain whirled through the darkness, he said, "I read this story about a man who sold his soul to the devil. He just one day wished for something he really needed, said that he'd sell his soul for it, and poof, the devil showed up with a contract to sign. I decided the devil was much more prompt and efficient than God, so I started praying to the devil at night."
"I assume he never showed up with a contract."
"Nope. He turned out to be as inefficient as God. But then one night it occurred to me that my parents were sure to wind up in Hell, and if I sold my soul to the devil I'd wind up in Hell, too, right there with my folks, for all eternity, and I was so frightened I got out of bed in the dark, and I prayed with all my might for God to save me. I told Him I understood he had a big backlog of prayers to answer, and I said I
realized it might take awhile to get around to mine, and I groveled and begged and pleaded for Him to forgive m e for doubting Him. I guess I made some noise because my mother came in my room to see what was up. She was as drunk as I'd ever seen her. When I told her I was talking to God, she said, 'Yeah? Well, tell God your daddy's out with a whore somewhere again, and ask Him to make the bastard's cock fall off." "
"Good heavens," Christine said, laughing but shocked. He knew she wasn't shocked by the word or by his decision to tell her this story; she was shaken, instead, by what his mother's casual crudity revealed about the house in which he'd been raised.
Charlie said, "Now, I was only ten years old, but I'd lived all my life in the worst part of town, and my parents would never be mistaken for Ozzie and Harriet, so even then I knew what she was talking about, and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. Every night after that, when I'd be saying my prayers, sooner or later I'd think of what my mother had wanted God to do to my father, and I'd start to laugh. I couldn't finish a prayer without laughing. After a while, I just stopped talking to God altogether, and by the time I was twelve or thirteen I knew there probably wasn't any God or devil and that, even if there was, you have to make your own good fortune in this life."
She told him more about her mother, the convent, the work that had gone into Wine & Dine. Some of her stories were almost as sad as parts of his youth, and others were funny, and all of them were the most fascinating stories he had ever heard because they were her stories.
Once in a while, one of them would say they ought to be getting some sleep, and they both really were exhausted, but they kept talking anyway, through two pots of Sanka. By I:30 in the morning, Charlie realized that a compelling desire to know
each other better was not the only reason they didn't want to go to bed. They were also afraid to sleep. They often glanced out the window, and he realized they both expected to see a white Ford van pull into the motel parking lot.
Finally he said, "Look, we can't stay up all night. They can't find us here. No way. Let's go to bed. We need to be rested for what's ahead."
She looked out the window. She said, "If we sleep in shifts, one of us will always be awake to keep a guard."
"It's not necessary. There's no way they could have followed US.,$
She said, "I'll take the first shift. You go sleep, and I'll wake you at . . . say four-thirty ." He sighed ." No. I'm wide awake. You sleep."
"You'll wake me at four-thirty, so I can take over?"
"All right."
They took their dirty coffee cups to the sink, rinsed themthen were somehow holding each other and kissing gently, softly .
His hands moved over her, lightly caressing, and he was stirred by the exquisite shape and texture of her. If Joey had not been in the same room, Charlie would have made love to her, and it would have been the best either of them had ever known. But all they could do was cling to each other in the kitchenette, until at last the frustration outweighed the pleasure. Then she kissed him three times, once deeply and twice lightly on the corners of his mouth, and she went to bed.
When all the lights were out, he sat at the table by the window and watched the parking lot.
He had no intention of waking Christine at four-thirty. Half an hour after she joined Joey in bed, when Charlie was sure she was asleep, he went silently to the other bed.
Waiting for sleep to overtake him, he thought again of what he'd told Christine about his childhood, and for the first time in more than twenty-five years, he said a prayer. As before, he prayed for the safety and deliverance of a little boy, though this time it was not the boy in Indianapolis, whom he had once been, but a boy in Santa Barbara who by chance had become the focus of a crazy old woman's hatred.
Don't let Grace Spivey do this, God. Don't let her kill an
innocent child in Your name. There can be no greater blavphei?(V than that. If You really exist, if You realty care, then surely this is the time to do one of Your miracles. Send a flock, of ravens to pluck out the old woman's eyes. Send a migh(vflood to ash her away. Something. At least a heart attack, a stroke, so"iething to stop her.
As he listened to himself pray, he realized why he had broken the silence between God and himself after all these years. It was because, for the first time in a long time, on the run from the old woman and her fanatics, he felt like a child, unable to cope, in need of help.
In Kyle Barlowe.s dream he was being murdered, a faceless adversary was stabbing him repeatedly, and he knew he was dying.
yet it didn't hurt and he wasn't afraid. He didn't fi lit back, just surrendered, and in that acquiescence he discovered the most pro('ound sense of peace he had ever known. Although he was being killed, it was a pleasant dream, not a ni yhtmare, and a p;irt of him somehow knew that not all of him was being killed.
just the bad part of him, just the old Kyle who had hated the world, and when that part of him was finally disposed of. he would be like everyone else, which is the only thing he had ever wanted in life. To be like everyone else . . .
The telephone woke him. He fumbled for it in the darkness.
"Hello?"
"Kyle'?" Mother Grace.
"It's me," he said, sleep instantly dispelled.
"Much has been happening," she said.
He looked at the illuminated dial of the clock. It was 4:06 in the morning.
He said, "What? What's been happening?"
"We've been burning out the infidels," she said cryptically .
"I wanted to be there if anything was going to happen."
"We've burned them out and salted the earth so they can't return," she said, her voice rising.
"You promised me. I wanted to be there."
"I haven't needed you-until now," Mother Grace said.
He threw off the covers, sat up on the edge of the bed, grinning at the darkness ." What do you want me to do?"
"They've taken the boy away. They're trying to hide him from us until his powers increase, until he's untouchable."
"Where have they taken him?" Kyle asked.
"I don't know for sure. As far as Ventura. I know that much .
I'm waiting for more news or for a vision that'll clarify the situation. Meanwhile, we're going north."
"Who?"
"You, me, Edna, six or eight of the others."
"After the boy?"
"Yes. You must pack some clothes and come to the church.
We're leaving within the hour."
"I'll be there right away," he said.
"God bless you," she said, and she hung up.
Barlowe was scared. He remembered the dream, remembered how good it had felt in that dream, and he thought he knew what it meant: He was losing his taste for violence, his thirst for blood. But that was no good because, now, for the first time in his life, he had an opportunity to use that talent for violence in a good cause. In fact his salvation depended upon it.
He must kill the boy. It was the right thing. He must not entirely lose the bitter hatred that had motivated him all his life.
The hour was late; Twilight drew near. And now Grace needed him to be the hammer of God.
Wednesday morning, rain was no longer falling, and the sky was only half obscured by clouds.
Charlie got up first, showered, and was making coffee by the time Christine and Joey woke.
Christine seemed surprised that they were still alive. She didn't have a robe, so she wrapped a blanket around herself and came into the kitchen looking like an Indian squaw. A beautiful Indian squaw ." You didn't wake me for guard duty," she said.
"This isn't the marines," Charlie said, smiling, determined to avoid the panic that had infected them yesterday.
When they were too keyed up, they didn't act; they only reacted. And that was the kind of behavior that would eventually get them killed.
He had to think; he had to plan. He couldn't do either if he spent all his time looking nervously over his shoulder. They were safe here in San
ta Barbara, as long as they were just a little cautious.
"But we were all asleep at the same time," Christine said.
"We needed our rest."
"But I was sleeping so deeply . . . they could've broken in here, and the first thing I would've known about it was when the shooting started
."
Charlie looked around, frowning ." Where's the camera? Are we filming a Sominex commercial?"
She sighed, smiled ." You think we're safe?"
"Yes."
"Really?"
" We made it through the night, didn't we?"
Joey came into the kitchen, barefoot, in his underpants, his hair tousled, his face still heavy with sleep. He said, "I dreamed about the witch."
Charlie said, "Dreams can't hurt you."
The boy was solemn this morning. There was no sparkle in his bright blue eyes ." I dreamed she used her magic to turn you into a bug, and then she just stepped on you."
"Dreams don't mean anything," Charlie said ." I once dreamed I was President of the United States. But you don't see any Secret Service men hanging around me, do you?"
"She killed . . . in the dream she killed my mom, too," Joey said.
Christine hugged him ." Charlie's right, honey. Dreams don't mean anything."
"Nothing I've ever dreamed about has ever happened," Charlie said.
The boy went to the window. He stared out at the parking lot .
He said, "She's out there somewheres."
Christine looked at Charlie. He knew what she was thinking .
The boy had thus far been amazingly resilient, bouncing back from every shock, recovering from every horror, always able to smile one more time. But maybe he had exhausted his resources; maybe he wasn't going to bounce back very well any more.
Chewbacca padded into the kitchenette, stopped at the boy's side, and growled softly.
"See?" Joey said ." Chewbacca knows. Chewbacca knows s he's out there somewheres."
Dean Koontz - (1984) Page 23
