The Devouring

by T. M. Wright

  Ryerson hesitated; something cold and threatening had just passed through him. He shook his head, tried to get it back because he wanted to look at it, wanted to examine it, and find its focus. But it was gone. He grinned at Joan, feigned a casual shrug, and said, "Well, I really wasn't intimating anything at all—"

  "Oh, c'mon, Rye—you were too. Now, I know that you're going to take Creosote to the vet. But I don't know where you're going after that."

  Ryerson sighed. "To a bar called Frank's Place," he answered.

  "Okay," she said. "I could use a drink."

  An hour later Ryerson had, reluctantly, given Creosote over for the night to Dr. Craig Gibson, D.V.M. "I'll run some tests on him, Mr. Biergarten," Gibson explained. "I suspect an allergy."

  "Do what you feel is necessary," Ryerson had said, then, after assuring Creosote that he wasn't abandoning him, that he'd be back the next day, he went, with Joan, to Frank's Place.

  Chapter Twenty

  Officer Leonard McGuire appeared from within the Janus kitchen and motioned to Guy Mallory, standing in the foyer with the woman from the Medical Examiner's Office. The woman said to Mallory, whose attention was on her, "I think, that cop wants to talk to you," and nodded at McGuire.

  Mallory looked over at him. "Yeah, what is it, McGuire?"

  "There's some trouble at the hospital, Sergeant," McGuire answered.

  "What hospital?"

  "Buffalo Memorial, sir."

  "What kind of trouble?"

  McGuire looked mystified. "What kind of trouble, sir?" He paused; his look of mystification grew stronger. "I don't know, sir. All I know is they've got trouble there. I don't know what kind of trouble it is."

  Two morgue attendants came down the stairs carrying the body of Frank Janus on a stretcher. "Step aside, please," said the lead man, and Mallory and the woman from the M.E.'s office moved out of the foyer, closer to McGuire. McGuire backed quickly away from them.

  Mallory asked him, "What are you—nervous?"

  "No, sir," he answered.

  "Well, you look nervous; you look like you've got ants in your pants."

  "No, sir. I'm only doing my job, sir."

  Mallory grimaced. "I asked you before not to call me 'sir.' "

  McGuire nodded quickly, stiffly. "Yes. Certainly."

  Mallory studied McGuire's face closely, then said, "Listen, I think you're having a rough time of it here. Why don't you go back to the station, fill out your report, and call it a day."

  McGuire clicked his heel on the floor. "Yes, sir." He saluted.

  Mallory shook his head resignedly. "Go on now," he said, "get outta here. And take the long way back if you want; collar a few jaywalkers, run down a few speeders. I think you could use a break from all this crap, Officer McGuire."

  "Yes, sir," McGuire barked, and with another click of the heel, and another salute, he moved quickly past them, through the foyer, around the men bearing the stretcher down the sidewalk, to his squad car. He got in, slammed the door, fired up the engine, and roared away from the curb.

  Mallory turned to the woman from the M.E.'s office. "Jesus," he said, "that man's on a ragged edge for sure."

  And the woman from the M.E.'s office said, "That man should be given an immediate leave of absence, Detective. If you ask me, he's on the verge of a breakdown."

  ~ * ~

  All his life Leonard McGuire wanted only to do what he was told to do because that made life easier for him. At home his father took all of Leonard's decision-making on his own shoulders because, he assured Leonard, "you certainly can't make decisions yourself." And in school Leonard, who was not at all stupid, did precisely what he was told by his teachers and made it through twelve grades with hassles to no one. Then, several years after getting out of the Marines, he was hired by the Buffalo Police Department. And, much to his surprise, he found that he could make decisions. Most of them were right; some of them weren't. And after a while, the ones that weren't began to turn the tide, began to convince him yet again that, as his father said, he didn't have the brains that God gave geese. Then his decisions became momentous and nerve-jarring, and he longed to have them made for him.

  Then he was there in "The District" when Detective Third Grade Andrew Spurling launched himself into the abandoned tank tread factory, there at the ready with a flashlight, there when the beam of the flashlight fell on that incredibly beautiful and hungry woman.

  There when she put her mouth first on Spurling, then on Mathilde, then on him. There when she stepped back from them and proclaimed, "You have so much life in you, so much life in you!"

  And that's when he began to change. When he began to revert to what he knew, deep in his heart, was the only thing he could be—a programmable cop.

  Collar a jaywalker, he'd been told. Run down a speeder, he'd been told.

  ~ * ~

  The middle-aged woman on Greeley Place glanced at her speedometer; it read thirty-five. Wasn't that the speed limit? She glanced about, saw a speed limit sign. It read thirty. "Oh, heavens," she muttered, and realized sinkingly that the cop behind her was indeed stopping her, not someone else, not, for instance, those awful motorcycle hoodlums who'd passed her a few minutes before.

  She pulled her Dodge Diplomat over to the curb, brought it to a jarring halt because she was nervous—it was the first time she'd been stopped in nearly forty years of driving, a fact she intended to share quite vocally with the policeman who'd stopped her.

  She glanced around at the patrol car parked a good two car lengths behind her, saw the cop sitting behind the wheel, and stared at him a few moments. She decided he was probably "running a make" (as they said on the TV cop shows) on her license number and would be getting out of his car momentarily. She opened her purse, dug around in her Kleenex mini-tissues, her lipsticks, compacts, receipts, loose change, and other assorted odds and ends until she came up with her wallet. She got her license from it, studied it closely to be sure it hadn't expired. It hadn't. She sighed, relieved, opened the glove box, and poked around in the profusion of junk in there until she found her insurance card. Then, happy that all her paperwork seemed to be in order, she glanced out her side window, thinking that surely the cop would be standing next to the car by now. But he wasn't. She glanced back at his car, saw that he was still behind the wheel, and that there was a strange fixed stare in his eyes. She put her hand on the door handle. She hesitated, sensed that something was not quite right. Then she opened her door and stepped out onto the pavement.

  The last sound she heard was the roar of the patrol car's big V-8 as it sprang to life.

  ~ * ~

  The bartender at Frank's Place said to Ryerson Biergarten, "I see you traded in your little dog for a better model," and nodded to indicate Joan.

  Ryerson said, "I don't understand."

  The bartender shrugged. "What's to understand? I was making a joke."

  "Oh," Ryerson said, pretending a smile, "a joke. I see. You were drawing some parallel between my dog and this woman? Is that what you were doing?"

  "Rye," Joan said, "it's okay. Forget it."

  The bartender shook his head. "No. Like the lady says, forget it. What'll you have?"

  "What I'll have first is an apology," Ryerson said.

  And Joan said, "It's not necessary. Really. It was just a joke. You don't have to protect me."

  "Okay," warned the bartender, "if you came in here to make trouble, mister—"

  Ryerson cut in, "Why did you break your sister's arm?"

  "Huh?" said the bartender, flabbergasted.

  "It was a clear enough question," Ryerson said. "When you were fifteen, you broke your little sister's arm. Why?"

  "You fucking lousy bastard—"

  "Where's Jack Lucas?"

  "Jack Lucas? I don't know no Jack Lucas. I told you that before."

  "You were lying."

  The bartender bristled. "No one calls me a liar—"

  "Jack ain't here," said a voice from the opposite end of the
bar. Ryerson looked over. He saw the woman, Doreen, who'd been there the last time he'd been in Frank's Place. He started for her; Joan took his arm, stopped him. "What in the hell are you doing, Rye?"

  He glanced at her; she saw confusion, frustration, and anger in his eyes. He said, "I'm not sure, Joan. I've got to find Jack Lucas. I don't know why, but I've got to find him. And please don't ask me to explain my actions. I don't think I could—I do what I have to do." And with that, he went to the end of the bar to talk to the woman who called herself Doreen. Joan sat at a table nearby.

  The woman said, as Ryerson sat on a barstool next to her, "We got trouble in this city, don't we, Mr. Biergarten?"

  It was a question he had not anticipated.

  ~ * ~

  Benny Bloom had very vague memories of coming here—wherever here was. He saw himself standing over Carlotta Scotti, heard himself talking to her, telling her how much he loved her and how much he needed her.

  He remembered the sensuous woman who had glided over to him across Carlotta's room, remembered that she had put her hands on him, and he had put his hands on her, that she had made him feel very, very good.

  And he remembered coming here. Remembered being put in the backseat of a big black car, remembered something cagelike about that backseat, remembered the wail of sirens.

  Then he was put here. In this big, damp cement-block building whose windows were high on the walls, where girders snaked about and the smell of urine and feces was heavy in the air.

  And now as he looked about he could see that there were others here, too. Some of them were still, as if sleeping, and others moaned pitifully, and still others stood as he watched, and shivered as if from cold.

  ~ * ~

  "That's what I hear, Mr. Biergarten," Doreen said, and took a long slug of her water glass full of whiskey. She put the glass down hard on the bar as if for emphasis. "I hear we got big trouble in this city."

  Ryerson asked, "What did you say your name was?"

  She smiled, revealing a mouth full of gleaming white teeth behind full red lips. "My name's Doreen, Mr. Biergarten—"

  Ryerson cut in, "How did you know my name?"

  Two men came into the bar. One was big and surly-looking; the other was smaller, balding, but somehow just as surly-looking. They sat at the opposite end of the bar. Doreen said, "I know lots of things, Mr. Biergarten. Besides, I read the papers like everyone else."

  "Good for you," Ryerson said.

  "Ryerson H. Biergarten," Doreen announced. "Psychic Detective! I'm very impressed. We're all of us here very, very impressed." She drained what was left in the glass of whiskey, held it up for the bartender to see, nodded at it. He came over, filled it again from a nearly empty bottle of Five Star. "What's the H stand for, Mr. Biergarten? 'Hell-raiser'?" She hooted suddenly with a strange, low-pitched masculine kind of laughter that crept under Ryerson's skin and made him shiver.

  And when he shivered, and as she laughed, the field of blue that had been with him these past five days, like a summer rash altered, grew indistinct, and for barely a moment was gone.

  A hive took its place. A hive made up of a thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand bees—workers and drones, all moving furiously in attendance to the queen, who sat huge and resplendent at the center of the living, moving mass of bees. Then the image was gone, the field of blue returned, and Doreen said, "You look like you been seein' things, Mr. Biergarten." The ghost of a grin passed across her mouth. "You been seein' things, have you?" Another small grin flickered, and was gone.

  "Queen bee," Ryerson said to no one in particular.

  And at the table nearby, Joan echoed him: "Queen bee."

  ~ * ~

  Detective Andrew Spurling thought he had never felt so good. He wished, vaguely, that he knew why he felt so good, that he could put a finger on it and say Yes, I feel good because . . . But he couldn't. Not that it mattered much, he decided—simply feeling good was enough:

  He knocked on the door of Room 12 at the Do-Right Motel, off Route 16, three miles north of Buffalo. From within the room a female voice answered, "Yes? Who is it?"

  "Police, ma'am," Spurling answered.

  There was silence.

  "Open up, please," Spurling called.

  "Can you tell me why?" the woman called back.

  "Yes, ma'am. It's about a bad check."

  "Bad check? I didn't write any bad check. What in the hell are you talking about?"

  "Whether you know—" Spurling began, and put his hand to his stomach against the surge of pain there. "Whether you know what I'm talking about or not—" Another surge of pain; it came and went quickly. He looked down at his feet, smiled; his pants cuffs were inching toward the tips of his shoes. "Whether you know or not—"

  The woman called, "You're not a cop. Who the hell are you?"

  Spurling looked at the window to his left. He saw that the woman was holding the mauve curtain aside and peering out at him, stark confusion on her face. As he watched, her look of confusion became one of fear and bewilderment. He pulled his .45 from his shoulder holster, saw the woman look agape at it, saw the window shatter as the bullet tore through it, saw the right side of the woman's neck disintegrate, saw the woman fall backward. Then the mauve curtain hid her.

  And from behind him, he heard, "What in the name of God—"

  His eleven-year-old frame turned very quickly, despite the fact that it was swimming around inside a suit five sizes too large for it. He trained the .45 on a tall, gray-haired man wearing a blue vest and cream-colored pants. He said, "No one messes with Andy Spurling no more!" He fired. The man crumpled to the pavement. And as he crumpled, Spurling lifted the barrel of the .45 and blew away the smoke curling raggedly from it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Benny Bloom said to a thin, dark-haired woman in her early twenties who was seated near him on the cold cement floor, her legs straight, arms hanging loosely, head back, "What is this place? Where are we?"

  The woman, dressed as if for gardening, in bib overalls and a ragged long-sleeved shirt, turned her head slowly toward him. The barest whisper of a smile creased her face; it was a face that spoke eloquently of weariness and resignation. She said, "You're new. You don't know. This is where she keeps us."

  "She?"

  "When we're ourselves," the woman said, "this is where she keeps us."

  Benny shook his head. "No, please, you don't understand—who is 'she'? Who are you talking about?"

  "The woman."

  "The woman? What woman?"

  A piercing scream, a scream of incredible pain, filled the huge room, and a grunt of surprise escaped Benny. He turned his head quickly toward the source of the scream. He saw little, only the half-dozen or so people in the room, a few of them, like this woman, seated wearily against the wall, one, a young man, was walking aimlessly about; at the far end of the room, another young man lay flat on his back, arms wide, legs together, as if he were on a cross—asleep, Benny assumed. He turned anxiously to the young woman seated near him. "What was that scream?" he asked.

  "That is what happens to some of us," she answered. "It will happen to me before long; I can feel it." She said this with no particular emotion, as if she were telling him that eventually she'd need glasses, or that eventually she'd get liver spots.

  Benny shook his head briskly, in disbelief and fear. "What is this place?" he pleaded.

  "It's where she keeps us," the woman answered. "When we're ourselves, it's where she keeps us."

  ~ * ~

  Ryerson wasn't sure how long Joan had been staring fixedly at the woman who called herself Doreen. He had sensed fear from her the moment they'd entered Frank's Place, so when he turned toward her and saw that fixed stare, and saw that her whole body was trembling, he supposed she could have been that way for quite some time, because his attention for the last ten minutes or so had been on Doreen.

  He went over to Joan and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Joan?" he coaxed. "Are you all ri
ght?"

  She shook her head. "No. I'm scared, Rye." A nod at Doreen. "She scares me."

  "How? Tell me how she scares you, Joan."

  Joan shook her head again. "I can't," she whispered, as if fearful Doreen would hear her. "I don't know—it's the same kind of fear that some people have when they turn a rock over and see a strange-looking insect underneath." She smiled quiveringly. "Rye, I've turned this particular rock over before."

  Ryerson glanced quickly at Doreen, who was smiling in their direction, then back at Joan. "Joan," he said, "I'm supposed to be so damned psychic, but I haven't got the foggiest idea what you're talking about. Are you saying that you know this woman?"

  "No. I don't know her. I've never seen her before." She took Ryerson's arm, coaxed him closer to her. "But Rye," she said, voice low, "she knows me. And she scares the hell out of me."

  ~ * ~

  In the Buffalo Police Department Records Division

  "We have to have a damned warrant," Irene Sabitch grumbled as she hung up the telephone receiver.

  "Well, Jesus," Glen said, "I could have told you that."

  She gave him a weary look. "I'm sure you could tell me quite a few things, Glen."

  He held his hands up, palms out. "Don't shoot, don't shoot!" He smiled. She rolled her eyes. He went on. "So what are you going to do now?"

  She sighed. "What can I do? Getting a warrant to look into a precinct captain's Greyhound Express locker would be like ... like ..." She was stumped.

  Glen offered, "Like saying yes to going out with me, Irene?"

  She nodded enthusiastically. "It would be at least that hard."

  He looked crestfallen, though only for a moment. He smiled. "Can't blame me for trying."

  "Uh-huh." A pause. "You know, Glen, Captain Lucas put those numbers there"—she nodded at her monitor—"for a reason. Hell, he told me not to meddle for a reason." She shrugged. "It's only a theory, but I think he wants to be caught, Glen.'