“If you don’t know, then who does know?” Larry asked him. “How about this George Menzel character?”
“Died last fall. You’ll find him in the Jewish cemetery.”
“Maybe you can raise him for me.”
Wilbert said, “No, I can do better than that.” He stood up, and walked unsteadily across to his desk. He dragged out his chair, unscrewed his fountain-pen, and wrote a name and address on an index-card. Flapping it between finger and thumb to dry it, he brought it back and handed it to Larry as if he were handing him a business-card.
“Tara Gordon,” he said. “She runs the Waxing Moon on Jessie Street. It’s a what-d’you-call-it, an occult store. She knows everybody and everything when it comes to the fey and the far-out. If the Black Brotherhood are back, she’s your woman. She’ll help you.”
“Thanks,” said Larry. Then, more quietly, “Can you get rid of this moving hand for me?”
Wilbert blew out his cheeks a little. “I guess I could try.”
“You did it for Shetland Piper.”
“Shetland Piper got her hand burned. Shetland Piper was never the same again.”
“All the same… could you get rid of it for me?”
“Okay… I’ll think about it. I can’t do it tonight. It needs full-scale psychic energy; and a whole lot of balls; and quite frankly those are two commodities I’m kind of short on tonight.”
Larry stood up. “Thanks for everything,” he told Wilbert. “I appreciate it.”
“Just be careful,” Wilbert warned him. “And just remember that Belial will never tell you the truth, ever. The only thing you can rely on is that everything he says to you will be a lie.”
“Goodnight, Wilbert,” said Larry, and shook his hand. It was just as clammy as it had been before. Wilbert came to the door with him and watched him hobble his way down the steps. A taxi passed by almost immediately, and Larry hailed it. As he drove away, he could see Wilbert standing in the lighted doorway, his arms by his sides, looking defeated and tired. He had been exploring the world beyond the veil so often that he was probably ready to go there himself. Larry could remember his grandmother sitting in her sunlit morning-room, saying that she was ready to die. “Every time I travel to the spirit-world, I leave a little of myself behind. Soon there will be more of me on the other side than there is on this side; and that is when I shall leave you.”
6
Linda was waiting up for him. Without a word, she held him tight and hugged him, and he could feel her tears through his shirt.
“I’m okay,” he reassured her. “It hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
“Oh, but Larry! Your poor mother!”
“I don’t think she really knew what hit her.”
“What were you doing on Van Ness? I don’t understand it.”
Larry went through to the kitchen, took down a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard and poured himself half a glassful. He swallowed almost all of it in three large gulps.
Linda said, “Larry! You’re going to have such a hangover.”
“Thank you for your consideration, my mother died tonight and I have a hangover already.”
“Are they going to charge the truck-driver?” asked Linda.
“What with? It wasn’t his fault. She ran out in front of him.”
“Oh, Larry, I’m so sorry.”
“Sure. Me, too.”
“I haven’t told the boys yet. I thought it would be better, coming from you.”
Larry nodded. He didn’t want to discuss his mother any more. He had thought that—when he got home—he would be able to tell Linda everything that had happened, talk it all out. At least if he started to talk about it, he could begin to absolve himself of some of the guilt. But now he was here, he felt strangely secretive about it; strangely defensive. He still had to work it out inside his own mind before he could tell Linda about it. He believed it himself because he had seen it with his own eyes, but he didn’t feel like persuading Linda to believe it.
He could see everything that had happened tonight in the sharpest of detail. The little girl with pondwater gouting out of her mouth. His mother’s life, vomited up in front of him. His mother’s black coat, dropping empty to the floor. The tractor-trailer, desperately trying to brake. His mother’s blood, his mother’s lungs. Two yellowish balloons, glued to the pavement; like jester’s bladders.
“The best thing you can do is get some sleep,” said Linda, laying her hand on his arm.
“Sure thing,” he told her. He finished the last of his whiskey, and she took the glass away from him and kissed him.
He went to the bathroom and stood on the scales. One hundred and seventy-three. He’d lost thirteen pounds. Samantha Bacon had been right. Lose Weight With The World Beyond.
He washed his teeth. Afterwards, he hesitated, then picked up the nailbrush and scrubbed at the palm of his left hand until it was sore. He stared at it closely. Unless the shadows started moving across it, there was no way of telling whether he had managed to erase the moving pictures or not. Just for good measure, he chafed his hand with a pumice stone, until he had abraded a whole layer of skin, and his hand felt as if it were on fire. Then he went to bed and switched off the light. But he couldn’t sleep. He kept hearing Linda in the kitchen, clearing up the dishes, and the sad lost sounds of foghorns in the Golden Gate. His hand kept burning. Tomorrow he was going to have to start hunting again—trying to track down whoever it was who was trying to bring Belial back from the other side.
The trouble was, the idea of somebody resurrecting an Old Testament angel in San Francisco in 1988 seemed so Goddammned preposterous. Why here? And why now? And how?
He felt Linda climbing in to bed next to him. She put her arm around him and cuddled close and kissed his cheek.
“Are you still awake?” she whispered.
“Sure.”
“Are you okay? You’re terribly quiet.”
“I’m okay.”
“How was the seance? Did you manage to find out anything?”
“Not too much.” (Tell her, why don’t you?)
“So Wilbert Fraser’s not much of a medium?”
“Not much.” (Tell her, for Christ’s sake. Tell her about Roberta Snow. Tell her about the coat. Tell her about the ectoplasm.)
A long silence. Then Linda said, “How about a couple of Nytol?”
“No, thanks. I’m okay. My brain’s racing, that’s all.”
He switched on his bedside lamp and took yesterday’s Chron out of his side-table. Ten minutes of cryptic-crossword-solving would relax him. While Linda turned over and wrapped herself up in the quilt, he looked through the clues and tapped his ballpen against his teeth.
7 Across: Doesn’t stand for deception (4). Larry wrote in LIES.
3 Down: He commands sailing-vessel (6). Larry wrote in MASTER.
11 Across: Iron rations Edward has for lunch (4). Larry thought for a moment and then realized the answer was a combination of Fe for Ferrous and Ed for Edward. FEED.
21 Down: Fill out muscle (5). FLESH.
Larry stared at the crossword in slowly-growing apprehension. LIES, MASTER, FEED, FLESH. This was too much a coincidence to be true. Something mischievous was at work here: something deceitful. But how could a spirit change the crossword in a newspaper? Were the clues the same in every copy, or just in his? Maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was still back at his mother’s house, in the dark, and none of this was happening.
Linda turned over and frowned at him from out of her nest of quilt. “What’s the matter? You keep jumping around.”
“It’s nothing. I think I have to make a phone call.”
“What, now?”
“Yes, now, or else I won’t be able to sleep.”
He went through to his study and punched out Houston Brough’s number. The phone rang and rang but Houston wasn’t at home. Eventually Houston’s answer-phone picked up “You have reached the home of Houston and Annelise Brough…”and Larry
left a message. Then—still sleepless, still frustrated—he rang the Chron.
It took almost five minutes for the switchboard to find him a cross and sleepy reporter. It took another two minutes for the cross and sleepy reporter to find the crossword for him. “I want the clues for 7 across, 3 down, 11 across, 21 down,” Larry told him.
There was a lengthy pause. Then the reporter said, “Seven across is ‘dispose of that hut’. Three down is ‘down for the night’. Guess that’s ‘bedded’. Eleven across is—let me see here—”
“Don’t worry, that’s enough,” said Larry.
“Are you sure? Eleven across is ‘sounds as if it’s required when making bread.’ That could be ‘need’, yes?”
“Yes,” said Larry. “That could be ‘need’.”
He hung up. He felt as if the whole of his life were sliding away from underneath his feet. Same paper, same day, different crossword. A crossword that had been changed especially for him. LIES, MASTER, FEED, FLESH. The beast was aware of him, no doubt about that. It was mocking him, too. I can shrivel your mother. I can shrivel anybody I want. I can change your newspaper, right in front of your eyes. And you think that you can catch me?
He sat in the dark in his study for nearly twenty minutes. Then he returned to the bedroom and eased himself back into bed. Linda was sleeping. She was used to him coming and going in the night. A man needed a disturbed mind to be a good detective; and Larry was a good detective; and his mind was disturbed. All day long, all night long, his mind was churning like a concrete-mixer. LIES, MASTER, FEED, FLESH.
He curved his hand around Linda’s bare hip and closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time that they had made love. Either she was too tired or he was too tired or they were both too drunk; or else the grisly events of his day’s work made it impossible for him to think of anything but blood and intestines and eyes that stared in the last desperation of death. They were dead, but their faces were still pleading, Please don’t kill me.
And, after tonight, he didn’t even have the consolation of knowing that they were safe and happy with God.
He pressed his face against Linda’s smooth warm back. He loved her so much that he felt like waking her up just to tell her. I love you. I love you. I always will. But it was almost 2:00 am now, and she needed her sleep. He let his hand stray down, and gently wind the curls of her pubic hair around his finger. How was it possible to love anybody so much?
He slept from sheer exhaustion. Then he opened his eyes again, because he thought he heard a rustling noise on the opposite side of the bedroom, and for one heart-stopping moment he imagined his robe was beginning to fill and ripple and rise up from the chair.
He stared at it, holding his breath, but it stayed where it was, where he had left it, one sleeve hanging, the collar twisted open.
He lay back on the pillow again, as carefully as he could, trying not to wake Linda. Now he knew why he hadn’t told her about the seance; and what had really happened to his mother. The horror of it ran too deep, and roused too many primitive fears. It was like being a child again, terrified of the dark. Larry knew that he would never forget that coat as long as he lived, and he didn’t want Linda to experience that fear even half as starkly as he had.
He tried to sleep some more, but sleep had deserted him now. He eased himself out of bed and went to the study, and switched on his desklamp. All Arne’s dossiers and photographs lay spread out in front of him. The Tesslers, whose legs were sawn off. The Wursters, whose tongues were cut out. The Yees, whose forearms were chopped off. The McGuires, whose ears were severed. The Ramirez’, who were blinded. Then the Berrys, who had been nailed down hand and foot.
He supposed there was some kind of pattern to all these killings, in that a different part of the body had been mutilated in each. But it wasn’t a pattern that appeared to relate to anything in particular.
It could have something to do with “hear no evil, see no evil, say no evil.” But where did the legs and the arms come into it?
He thought about Wilbert Fraser and the Black Brotherhood. He thought about the faces that people had been seeing in windows and mirrors. He thought about Edna-Mae Lickerman; and his mother, too. He thought about everything that had happened since he had taken over this investigation, and his thoughts hurt. It was like a jelly-jar, smashed on a supermarket floor. Sticky and messy and full of vicious fragments of broken glass.
He held out his hand, palm upward, and stared at it. Somehow, he came into this investigation, too. He had the moving hand, although he didn’t understand what that really meant, or how dangerous it might be, or how he was ever going to get rid of it.
He thought about Belial. Was there really such a beast as the Master of Lies?
LIES, MASTER, FEED, FLESH. The proof, as far as Larry was concerned, was incontrovertible. Only his paper had carried that message. It had been meant especially for him. The beast was not only powerful enough to steal his ectoplasm, it was sentient, too. It knew him, and it had him marked.
As he stared at the palm of his hand, he saw the clouds beginning to glide across it. He remembered what Houston had said, and he crossed the study to the closet, opened the louvred doors, and took out his Sony video camera. He sat back at his desk, focused the camera manually, so that he could get pin-sharp focus, and switched it on.
The clouds swirled and snagged and began to form a picture. That face again, smiling and unruffled. And then that voice, tiny but clearly distinguishable.
Almost time to feed, my friend. Almost time!
“Feed on what?” Larry demanded.
There was a very long silence, as if the face were surprised that Larry had answered it back. But eventually it said, On that which was promised. On my earthly reward.
“What was your earthly reward?”
A thousand thousand, that was what was promised.
“You mean people? A thousand thousand people?”
That was my earthly reward.
“Who promised you this reward?”
Those who called me.
“But who were they?”
If you hear a voice in the darkness, do you care whose voice it is? Besides, their names are nothing to me. I would feed on them, too, if I could.
“Why did they call you? Did they say why? Did they say what they wanted?”
“What does any man want? Power over other men; wealth; and immunity from guilt.”
“When did this happen? When did they call you?”
Much longer ago than you could ever remember, my friend. And I’ve been waiting ever since. Not patiently, either. But now my time has come. Now it’s time for me to feed.
Larry crushed his fist tight shut, and kept it shut. All he wanted to do was to squeeze the life out of the creature that had marked his hand. Asphyxiate, break its bones. He kept his fist so tight for so long that he began to tremble with the effort.
Blood slid out between his knuckles, three darkly-glistening runnels of blood, and dripped on to the photograph of the Tessler family on the desk.
“Bastard bastard bastard,” Larry grimaced. “I’m going to do to you what you did to them, what you did to all of them, but to you I’m going to do it twice as slow.”
“Larry!” said Linda.
Larry looked up. Linda was standing in the study doorway naked. Her hair was fluffed up and she looked sleepy and startled.
“Larry, what are you doing? Look at your hand!”
Slowly, Larry opened his fingers. His palm was filled with blood. But there were no clouds, no pictures, no faces.
“I guess I—” he began. But then he realized that there was no way of explaining what he was doing without telling Linda everything; and right now he didn’t want to tell her everything.
“I guess I was trying to get a grip on myself,” he added, weakly.
Linda came over and took hold of his hand. She reached across the desk, tugged out several kleenex, and mopped up the blood.
“You were filming yours
elf, too!” she said.
Larry gave her an awkward shrug. “I don’t quite know what I was doing. It’s the shock of momma’s death, I suppose. I was just trying to understand what pain was like.”
“I would have thought you knew that already, in your job.”
“I mean, what pain feels like.”
She kissed his forehead. “Come wash your hand in the bathroom. There’s no cut or anything. If you can’t sleep I’ll make us some tea.”
Larry switched off the video camera and wearily rose from his chair. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Sometimes it must be like living with a crazy person.”
She kissed him again. “What do you mean ‘sometimes’?”
He woke Frankie and Mikey at seven o’clock and made them breakfast, pancakes and crispy bacon and maple syrup. They sat at the breakfast bar in their Fred Flintstone pajamas swinging their bare feet. Frankie was trying to teach Mikey the Declaration of Independence, without much success.
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people—” Mikey began; then stopped and said, “That’s wrong!”
“What do you mean it’s wrong?” asked Frankie.
“You can’t say one people. It’s one person.”
“But it’s people like in millions of people.”
“It’s still wrong,” Mikey insisted.
“It’s in the Declaration of Independence, it can’t be wrong.”
“Go on, Mikey,” Larry coaxed him. “Frankie’s right.”
“Okay, okay. For one people to dissolve. How can people dissolve? That’s silly! How can people dissolve?”
Larry drove them in Linda’s wagon to their Cub Scout gathering on Lombard Street, where already most of their troop had assembled, ready for the bus.
“You take care, you guys,” Larry told them, and kissed them goodbye. The streets were filled with hazy sunshine, and although he hadn’t slept for most of the night, Larry was beginning to feel more optimistic. The events of yesterday evening hadn’t lost any of their rawness or strangeness, but at least he had some idea who he was looking for, and what he was up against.
Black Angel Page 20
