by Ed Gorman
$200,000.
Fuck.
"Hey, Bethel, shit. C'mon, okay, at leas' gimme a little head, okay?" It was Charlie Toothpick. She called him that because he weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and was six-two. "Jes' a little head out back, okay?"
So it was Charlie Toothpick who finally forced her to get off the stool and say, "I gotta make a phone call."
"Aw."
"Aw, yourself."
Several of the guys started laughing and one of them said, "She's mean tonight, Charlie, you better watch yourself."
And then they all laughed again and Bethel said, "You're goddamn right I'm mean tonight." Then she kind of sashayed back to the little alcove by the restrooms, wiggling her ass in her red jersey miniskirt the way she knew they liked her to wiggle it, and then there she was, poking out the digits on her cell phone and then it was ringing and then—
And then he came on the phone, and she disconnected it so fast and cursed so that everybody in the tavern looked to the back where she was and then looked at each other, wondering what the fuck was going on with their favorite paid-for piece of ass.
But she didn't return to her seat at the bar. She just stood there, tapping her foot angrily. It was herself she was pissed at.
Here she had all this info—info that could put him in the electric chair—and she was maybe twenty-four hours from a quarter-million cash (she knew all about his inheritance; locally, it was legendary), and then when she dialed the phone, she couldn't even speak his goddamned name. . .
It took her two more times, but the third time she was so mad at herself that she just blurted it right out when he came on the line.
"I've got something of yours."
He tried to play it nonchalant, the hot shot.
"What's that?"
"Oh, just a little ole book."
There was a silence.
"What kind of book?"
"Diary, I guess you'd say. At least that's the word on the front of it. Diary."
More silence.
She had to speak finally. "Know what I want to do with it?"
He had to clear his voice. He was hers now: tight, scared. Just where she wanted him. "What?" he said.
"Want to take it to Chief Stevens."
"I see."
"Show him some of the more interesting parts." She giggled. She was surprised at her self-confidence now. She thought of her years of poverty: of the old man drinking himself to death on cough syrup and disappointment; of the old lady in the nursing home, just waiting for the knife or the gun or the poison capsule—just some goddamn thing to get her out of her pain and fear. Bethel thought of it all, and she wanted to punish somebody because the world was such a shitty, filthy place.
And he was just as good to punish as anybody. Better, because he had a quarter of a million dollars.
"You better want to talk to me and fast, you asshole. Or I go to Chief Stevens."
He made a pass at sounding calm again. "Of course I want to talk to you."
"Of course," she said, mincing her words. "Of course." Then, "When?"
So he told her.
"Quarter of a million," she said.
"What?" He sounded truly astonished.
"Quarter of a million," she laughed.
Then she hung up.
2
Her daughter was gone.
Sally drifted out of a depressed sleep, her circumstances all the more real.
Her daughter was gone.
Not even the death of her husband had caused her such numbing, blinding pain.
She listened to the faint noises of the hospital and tried to force herself to be calm.
But the memory of yesterday afternoon—when Jamie hadn't wanted to go into the Royal Hotel—intruded on her thoughts.
It was her fault—Sally's fault. She should never have taken her into the hotel.
Then none of this would have happened. None of it . . .
As if seeing it clearly for the first time, she saw the hotel door leading to the attic. In her thoughts now, the door assumed an aspect of hell-glowing red, with smoke escaping from all sides of it, screams of the eternal dead filling the air like obscene laughter.
And somewhere beyond that door was Jamie . . . Sally shook her head, forcing the image from her mind. She had started to hallucinate—from exhaustion, nerves, guilt, and God knew what else.
There was only one thing she could do to help her daughter.
Searching through the night would do no good because she was unfamiliar with Haversham . . .
But there was one thing.
She threw back the blanket Dr. Gonzalez had thrown over her, eased from bed, and found the closet.
As soon as she was dressed, she pressed herself to the doorway, where dim light gave the empty, shining hospital corridor the look of an endless tunnel.
Her depression had abated somewhat. Finally she had a plan. Even if it was a stupid plan, maybe it would help turn up Jamie. She carried her shoes so she'd make the least noise possible then slipped down the corridor toward the EXIT door.
She froze once, hearing a patient cough, then cry out for a nurse, but then she started moving again and got all the way to the door and down the concrete steps. Then she was outside.
The trees whipped in the black and windy night and the fine cold mist that chilled her face felt strangely good.
The hospital parking lot looked empty and lonely in the mercury vapor lights. The town beyond the glow of the lot seemed vast and frightening. But then she thought of Jamie.
She walked across the parking lot, litter tumbling across her path in the wind, her trench coat flapping open, determination glazing her eyes.
She had only one thought now.
The attic of the Royal Hotel.
3
Cletus Olsen put his beer down and said, "Why you asking me all these questions?"
"Just kind of following up what we talked about yesterday."
They sat in a back booth at THE PALMS, a local bowling alley. Olsen, Hanratty had found out from one of Olsen's friend, was a fanatical bowler, and this was league night. Olsen wore an electric-blue shirt with GIFFORD'S HARDWARE in glittering letters on the back. Bowling pins exploded; beery laughter burst out all over; one young woman, fetching in designer jeans and bowling shirt, had a virtual gallery of onlookers, gray-haired men who wanted not only the reality of her body but the memory of their youth.
Hanratty and Olsen sat at a table above the lanes. A jukebox played "My Kind of Town" by Sinatra for the fifth time since Hanratty had come here. Hanratty was thinking of giving the bartender five dollars to unplug the damn thing.
Olsen shrugged. He was one of those men whose manner gives the impression of surliness; in fact, he was just being cooperative. "Hell; I just mentioned it. I mean I don't have no proof or nothing."
"But tell me again. Maybe I missed something yesterday."
"'Bout the money, you mean?"
"Right. About the money."
Olsen shrugged again. "Well, one day he just come into some money, One Eye did."
"'One day.' I'm not sure what that means."
Olsen grinned as if he thought Hanratty wasn't too bright. "One day he just come into some money, is all. I mean, before that, he'd never ask you for money, but he'd never turn you down if you tried to help him out, either—you know, give him a little food, or offer to let him sleep in your garage or something. But one day—well, one day he just come into money. 'Cause then when you'd ask him if he needed help, he'd always shake his head no and he'd seem all right."
"But you don't know where this money came from?"
"Uh-uh."
"Nobody died—no aunt or anything—left him an inheritance?"
"Don't think so." He poured some more beer from the golden pitcher. "Figure he must've picked up something on his travels."
"His travels?"
"Yeah." Olsen laughed, with real affection in his voice. "That's what he always called them—his travels. He had
real bad dreams from his days in the Viet Nam War, so instead of sleeping, he walked around a lot—a real lot, all night sometimes. I figure maybe he found something one time."
"Like what?"
"Oh, I don't know, some cash from a bank robbery. Something like that."
Hanratty helped himself to some beer, too. He looked down at the lanes and saw the fun people were having, serious fun, of course. Writing down bowling scores with great care, jumping up and down when they'd rolled a good one, cursing themselves when they failed. It all made Hanratty wonder whatever had happened to his life. Before cocaine he'd had a wife and a family; he'd done things like go on picnics and to movies and bowling and then it all went to shit. He made himself the silly promise to go bowling at the first possible opportunity.
Then he looked back at Olsen and the word was just waiting for him.
The word he should have figured out when he talked to Olsen earlier.
Blackmail.
Of course. Somewhere on his "travels," One Eye had seen something that had proved very valuable to him.
"Did One Eye always go alone on his travels?"
"I guess. Why?"
"I mean, you didn't ever go with him?"
"Aw, once or twice I did, I guess. I was out late—probably at the lanes when they were still up on Summit Street—and I'd see him and I'd decide to walk myself sober, so I'd sort of follow him around."
"Did he have any special places to go?"
"He liked the dam in the summertime. He liked to hear the water roar and watch it in the moonlight. It's really pretty and there's a big fucking hydroelectric dam, so there's some real power there."
"Anyplace else?"
Olsen thought a moment. "The old Catholic church out on the edge of town. The Catholics built a new one when this young pastor came here oh, '63 or so, right around the time JFK got shot—and he pushed real hard for a new church here in town, so then the old one got deserted. One Eye liked to stand in the belfry and look out over the valley. On a starry night it was real beautiful."
"Anyplace else?"
Olsen had some more beer and thought back. "The cabin."
"What cabin?"
"Carleton Edmonds's cabin."
"Carleton, Jr. the one who runs the hotel now?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Just curious. Tell me about the cabin."
Olsen shrugged. "Don't know that there's a hell of a lot to tell."
But instinctively Hanratty sensed that this conversation was about to pay off. He tried to seem easy by putting a smile on his face. "Tell me anyway."
So Olsen told him.
4
The truth was, Jamie scared Bobby just as much as Bobby scared Jamie.
Bobby pressed his face against the front window of the cabin and peered inside.
At first, all he'd been able to see were the familiar shadowy shapes of furniture and the angle of the living room wall that gave way to the dining area. It was like looking at a DVD when you put it in freeze-frame (the way Bobby did sometimes to see the special effects better in horror movies).
Then something moved.
And Bobby, who knew in his most secret heart that he would never be brave, jumped the way he did when kids used to goose him with their school rulers. He even yelped, the sound comic on the cool night air. And then, except for the turmoil of his heart—the goddamn thing sounded like it was going to rip right through his chest—there was no sound.
Bobby hung back to the side of the window so that whoever was inside couldn't see him.
Because definitely somebody was in there.
It was while he was cowering there that he realized his whole night had been wasted. Briefly his mind recreated the three hours he'd spent with Bethel. The sights, sounds, and thoughts of it all. At the end he had felt like an adult. He had thought that when kids made fun of him he would have the secret knowledge that even if they thought otherwise, he knew he was a man.
But as soon as he awakened he'd begun to have doubts. If he was such a man, why did he wake up alone? If he was such a man, wouldn't Bethel have wanted to spend more time with him, kiss him all over, fix him a huge breakfast of bacon and eggs and hash browns, the way grateful whores always did?
But Bethel had been gone. And so had the diary. The diary . . .
That's what the whole night had been about, of course. She didn't care about him. She'd just wanted the diary. And now that she had it . . .
As if he'd needed any more proof that he was still the same old Bobby, there was now the matter of looking in the window and getting the shit scared out of him.
He hadn't changed at all.
For her part, Jamie hid behind the couch, afraid to move, afraid the moonlight splattered on the living room floor would expose her. She'd gotten no more than a glimpse of the boy but he was terrifying. He had the look of someone—retarded, somehow—but more ominous because there was a sad intelligence burning in the eyes.
She was stooped behind the couch, panting, sweating, waiting. But for what, she thought. For somebody to come along and rescue her? Not out here. People just didn't walk around in the woods at night looking for little girls to rescue.
He will help you.
Startling as the voice was, she didn't wonder where it came from.
It was Anne.
Don't be afraid of him. He will help you.
Help me with what? Jamie wondered.
But there was no specific answer. Only Go to him. He is more afraid of you than you are of him.
Jamie was afraid she was going to vomit. Contact with the little girl had come to confuse and terrify her. She still wasn't certain if she was imagining it or not.
Then she saw Bobby's shoulder appear in the window. Obviously he was inching forward, ready to take another look inside.
What was it Anne Edmonds had said? He's more afraid of you than you are of him.
Jamie slowly stood up.
The earth smelled fresh in the misty night. Moonlight burned silver through the trees as Jamie skirted the house along the windbreak of firs, circling wide so that the kid wouldn't see her coming.
After only a few minutes, her Nikes were soaked. Her breath came in ragged bursts. Despite the dead girl's reassurance, Jamie was scared.
When she reached the woods in front of the house, she crouched behind a tree and watched the kid.
He wore a yellow ZZ Top t-shirt you could spot even in the gloom; his gut slopped over the beltline of his Levis, and he had a sort of twitchy way of moving.
She just had a hard time believing that this kid was going to be a help to her. She was barely five feet tall and weighed less than a hundred pounds, and he had to weigh in at closer to one hundred eighty or ninety—yet he was afraid of her. But she shrugged and decided to carry out the second part of her plan.
She left the cover of woods and came into the clearing in front of the cabin and just stood there getting her nerve up. He was so preoccupied with looking in the window that he didn't notice her. Not until she said, loudly and boldly, "I like them, too."
He spun around as if he'd just been shot in the chest. From a hundred feet away she could see his eyes go wild, as if they didn't know what to do with themselves, one going kind of left, one going kind of right.
She walked slowly, carefully toward him, the way she would toward a spooked animal. She came out of the darkness and the mist and stood where the moonlight spilled on a fraction of the porch,
He kept backing up from her.
"God," she said, not being able to help herself, "you really looked ridiculous."
Then she laughed.
"W-what?" he said.
"I should be afraid of you. You shouldn't be afraid of me. I'm just a thirteen-year-old girl." It seemed to calm him down some.
He quit edging backward along the wall to the porch railing. He squinted closer at her with his myopic eyes He wiped his long, greasy hair from his face.
"You're that girl, aren't you?"
"Wh
at girl?"
"The girl who killed One Eye."
"No," she said.
"You are too," he said, sounding to Jamie younger and stupider than ever. "I saw a drawing of you on TV tonight."
She frowned. "I didn't say I wasn't the girl they're looking for. I said I wasn't the girl who killed that man—One Eye, I guess his name was."
"Then who did?"
"How would I know? I'm not a detective."
"But they said you were up in the attic and that you had the ax in your hand and . . . It was on every radio station in the area. I heard it. Personally, I mean."
She said, "Anne told me you were going to help me."
Some of the old fear was back in his eyes again. "Anne? Anne who?"
She guessed then why he was so afraid. "She talks to you, too, doesn't she?"
"No." But he'd denied it too quickly.
"You're going to have to explain a lot of things to me, and then I'm going to have to explain some things to you."
He was backing up again, terrified. "Just leave me alone." But there was no strength in his voice. He was pleading. "Please."
"I need your help."
"If I told people she talked to me, they'd put me away. They'd put me where they put you, because they already think I'm crazy."
"You don't have to tell them; you just have to tell me."
"No. Please." He was starting to cry.
"She needs us both. And you know that."
He started to put a hand on the porch railing, flailing behind him blindly so he could jump off the porch and flee into the woods, but she startled him by putting out her own hand and touching him.
Now he really was crying. "They make fun of me. They call me names. If I ever told them I talked to a dead girl . . ."
She only reached about where the ZZ Top logo was on his T-shirt, but she pressed her head against him and she could feel his quivering gradually stop.
"I can't help it if I'm slow," he said.
"I know. It's all right."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1
After midnight, most of the hospital windows were dark, giving the square building an air of desertion. Hanratty went in through the emergency entrance. He was sweating. He had jogged over here from the bowling alley.
