by Dean Koontz
Earl said, “Hey, listen, there’s been a serious mistake here.”
The phone rang.
Dan had clipped the detachable emergency beacon to the edge of the sedan’s roof. Although the car was unmarked, there was a siren too, and he used it and the flashing beacon to command the roadway ahead. Traffic pulled obediently out of his path. Considering the weather, he drove with too little regard for his own safety and for that of everyone else on the streets, plunging toward Westwood with uncharacteristic recklessness.
If someone had corrupted Ross Mondale—and that possibility was far from unthinkable—and had arranged for him to betray Melanie, Mondale would have had no difficulty whatsoever persuading Wexlersh and Manuello to cooperate in the scheme. They could go to the safe house, gain admission with their police ID, and take the child. They would probably have to kill Laura and Earl to cover up the treachery, but the more Dan thought about it, the more certain he became that they wouldn’t have any qualms about murder if they stood to gain enough from it. And they weren’t taking much of a risk because they could always say that they’d found the bodies when they had arrived and that the child had already been missing when they got there.
He came to a place where the street passed beneath a freeway, and the depression in the pavement at the underpass was flooded, barring further progress. One car was stuck out in the middle of the whirling torrent, with water halfway up its doors, and several other vehicles were halted at the edge of the flood zone. A truck from the city’s department of streets had just arrived. Workers in reflective orange safety vests were setting up a pump and erecting barriers and starting to get traffic turned away and redirected, but for a minute or more Dan was caught in the jam-up, in spite of the flashing beacon on the roof of his sedan.
As he sat there, furious, cursing, blocked in by a car in front and a truck behind, rain drummed a monotonous rhythm on the roof and hood. The beat of each drop was like the tick of a precious second cast off by a clock, time raining away, valuable minutes streaming over him and pouring down the gutters.
The phone rang ten times, and each ring increased the tension in the room.
Earl knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t quite figure it out. He had met Wexlersh and Manuello before, and he’d heard stories about them, so he knew that they weren’t two of the sharpest men on the city’s payroll. They could be expected to make mistakes. And this was surely a mistake. Lonnie Beamer had said they were coming to put Laura and Melanie under police protection; he’d said nothing about a warrant for Earl’s arrest, and there couldn’t be a warrant because Earl hadn’t done anything illegal. From what Earl had heard of Wexlersh and Manuello, it would be like them to screw up, to come charging in here misinformed, confused, operating under the gross misapprehension that they had not merely been sent to protect the McCaffreys but to arrest him as well.
But why wouldn’t they answer the telephone? The call might be—probably was—for them. He couldn’t figure it.
The phone finally stopped ringing. Briefly, the silence seemed as absolute as that in a vacuum. Then Earl again became aware of the pounding of rain on the roof and in the courtyard.
To his partner, Wexlersh said, “Cuff him.”
Earl said, “What the hell is this? You still haven’t told me what I’m being arrested for?”
As Manuello produced a pair of flexible and disposable plastic handcuffs from one of his jacket pockets, Wexlersh said, “We’ll read the charges when we get you to the stationhouse.”
They both seemed nervous, eager to get this over with. Why were they in such a hurry?
Dan swung hard off Wilshire Boulevard, onto Westwood Boulevard, heading south. He passed through a foot-deep puddle, and on both sides water plumed up as if vaguely phosphorescent wings had suddenly sprouted from the car.
As he squinted through the rain-smeared windshield the wet black pavement appeared to roll and squirm under the scintillant reflections of streetlights and neon signs. His eyes, already weary and burning, began to sting even worse. His battered head throbbed, but there was another pain as well, an inner pain that grew from unwanted thoughts of failure, from unwelcome and unavoidable premonitions of death and despair.
Holding the plastic handcuffs, Manuello came toward Earl and said, “Turn around and put your hands together behind your back.”
Earl hesitated. He looked at Laura and Melanie. He looked at Wexlersh, holding the Smith & Wesson Police Special. These guys were cops, but Earl suddenly was not sure that he should have done what they told him to, wasn’t sure that he should have given up his gun, and he damned sure didn’t like being handcuffed.
“Are you going to resist arrest?” Manuello demanded.
Wexlersh said, “Yeah, Benton, for Christ’s sake, you realize resisting arrest will be the end of your PI license?”
Reluctantly, Earl turned and put his hands behind his back. “Aren’t you going to read me my rights?”
“Plenty of time for that in the car,” Manuello said as he slipped the plastic handcuffs around Earl’s wrists and drew them tight.
To Laura and Melanie, Wexlersh said, “Better get your coats.”
Earl said, “What about my coat? You should have let me put it on before you cuffed me.”
“You’ll manage without a coat,” Wexlersh said.
“It’s raining out there.”
“You won’t melt,” Manuello said.
The phone began to ring again.
As before, the detectives ignored it.
The siren failed.
Dan tapped the control switch with his foot, clicked it on and off and on again, but the siren refused to come back to life. He was left with only the flashing red emergency beacon and his horn to get him through the rain-slowed traffic.
He was going to be too late. Again. As with Cindy Lakey. Too late. Whipping and weaving from lane to lane, cutting dangerously in and out of traffic, blasting the horn, he was increasingly sure that they were dead, all dead, that he had lost a friend, and the innocent child he had hoped to protect, and the woman whose impact on him—admit it—had been somewhere in the hundred-megaton range. All dead.
Laura picked up Melanie’s coat and dressed her first. It was a slower procedure than it might have been because the girl didn’t help at all.
Manuello said, “What is she—a retard or something?”
Astonished and angry, Laura said, “I can’t believe you actually said that.”
“Well, she don’t act normal,” Manuello said.
“Oh, don’t she?” Laura said scathingly. “Jesus. She’s a very sick little girl. What’s your excuse?”
While Laura got Melanie into the coat, Earl was directed to sit on the sofa. He perched on the edge. His arms were cuffed behind him.
When Laura finished buttoning her daughter’s raincoat, she picked up her own coat.
Wexlersh said, “Never mind that. You sit there on the sofa beside Benton.”
“But—”
“Sit!” Wexlersh said, pointing at the sofa with his gun.
His ice-gray eyes were unreadable.
Or maybe Laura simply didn’t want to read what was evident in them.
She looked at Detective Manuello. He was smirking.
Turning to Earl for guidance, Laura saw that he looked more uneasy than ever.
“Sit,” Wexlersh repeated, not stressing the word this time, almost speaking in a whisper, yet somehow conveying more authority—and a greater potential for violence—with that soft tone than he had when he’d spoken more harshly.
Laura’s stomach clenched and twisted. A sickening wave of dread swept through her.
When Laura sat down, Wexlersh went to Melanie, took the girl by the hand, and led her away from the sofa, brought her to where he had been standing, and kept her between himself and Manuello.
“No,” Laura said miserably, but the two detectives ignored her.
Looking at Wexlersh, Manuello said, “Now?”
“Now,�
� Wexlersh said.
Manuello reached under his coat and brought out a pistol. It wasn’t the weapon that he had taken off Earl, and Laura didn’t think that it was the detective’s own service weapon either, because she was pretty sure policemen usually used revolvers. That was what Wexlersh was holding: a revolver. The moment she saw the new pistol in Manuello’s hand, she had a sharper sense that something was amiss.
Then Manuello took a burnished metal tube from his coat pocket and began to screw it onto the barrel of the pistol. It was a silencer.
Earl said, “What the hell are you doing?”
Neither Wexlersh nor Manuello answered him.
“Jesus Christ!” Earl said in shock and horror as a sudden and unacceptable realization dawned upon him.
“No shouting,” Wexlersh said. “No screaming.”
Earl thrust off the sofa, to his feet, uselessly struggling to free himself of the handcuffs.
Wexlersh rushed at him, clubbed him with the revolver, once on the shoulder, once alongside the face.
Earl fell backward onto the sofa.
Manuello had gotten the threads of the silencer misaligned with those that had been machined into the barrel of the pistol, and he had to unscrew it and try again.
Still looming over Earl, Wexlersh looked at his partner and said, “Will you hurry up?”
“I’m trying, I’m trying,” Manuello said, wrestling with the stubborn attachment to the pistol.
“You crazy bastards are going to kill us,” Earl said through split and bleeding lips.
When Laura heard their fate put into blunt words, she wasn’t surprised. She realized that she had known, if only subconsciously, what was coming, had sensed it when the detectives had first entered the room, had felt it even more strongly when they had handcuffed Earl, and had been convinced of it when Wexlersh had taken Melanie away from her, but hadn’t wanted to accept the truth.
Manuello had misthreaded the silencer again. “This thing’s a piece of shit.”
“It’ll fit if you start it right,” Wexlersh said.
Laura understood that they didn’t want to use their own revolvers for fear the murders would be traced to them. And they didn’t want to fire the pistol without a silencer, if they could avoid it, because the gunshots would bring neighbors to windows in other apartments, and then someone would see them leaving with Melanie.
Melanie. She was standing near Manuello, whimpering. Her eyes were closed, her head bowed, and she was making small, lost, pathetic sounds. Did she know what was about to happen in this room, that her mother was about to die, or was she whimpering about something else, something in her private inner fantasy world?
In a tone that was part disbelief but mostly rage, Earl said, “You’re cops, for God’s sake.”
Wexlersh said, “You just sit there and be quiet.”
Laura’s gaze had settled on a heavy glass ashtray on the coffee table. If she grabbed it, threw it at Wexlersh, and managed to hit him in the head, it might knock him unconscious or cause him to drop his gun, and if he dropped his gun, she might be able to reach it before either he or Manuello could react. But she needed a diversion. She was desperately trying to think of something to distract Wexlersh when Earl evidently decided they had nothing to lose by resisting; he distracted both detectives at exactly the right moment.
As Manuello continued to struggle with the poorly fitted silencer, Earl looked at Wexlersh and said, “No matter what we do, no matter how loud we scream, you’re not going to use your own gun or mine.” Then, shouting for help at the top of his voice, Earl launched himself up toward Wexlersh, using his head as a ram.
Wexlersh stumbled back two steps as Earl butted him in the stomach. But the detective didn’t fall. In fact, he struck down with the gun, clubbing the bodyguard to the floor, putting an abrupt end to the attack and to the shouting.
In the brief confusion, Laura snatched up the ashtray even as Wexlersh struck Earl. Manuello saw her and said, “Hey,” just as she heaved the object at Wexlersh, which was sufficient warning for the detective, who ducked and let the ashtray sail past him. It thudded into the wall, thumped to the floor.
Wexlersh pointed his service revolver straight at Laura, and within the muzzle was the deepest blackness that she had ever seen. “Listen, you bitch, if you don’t sit down right now and keep your trap shut, we’ll make this a lot harder on you than it has to be.”
Melanie was mewling softly now, in increasing distress. Her head was still bowed, her eyes closed, but her mouth was open and slack as the pitiful sounds issued from her.
Flopping onto his back, pulling himself up against the sofa, streaming blood from a scalp wound, Earl glared at Wexlersh. “Yeah? Is that so? Make it harder on us, huh? What the hell could be worse than what you’re already planning to do?”
Wexlersh smiled. It was a singularly unsettling expression on his bloodless lips and moon-pale face. “We could tape your mouth shut and torture you for a while. Then torture this bitch here.”
Shuddering, Laura looked away from his gray eyes.
The room seemed cold, colder than it had been.
“She’s a nice piece of ass,” Manuello observed.
“Yeah, we could screw her,” Wexlersh said.
“Screw the kid too,” Manuello said.
“Yeah,” Wexlersh said, still smiling. “That’s right. We could screw the kid.”
“Even though she is a retard,” Manuello said, then cursed the pistol and silencer that wouldn’t fit together properly.
Wexlersh said, “So if you don’t just sit there quiet like, we’ll tape your mouths shut and screw the kid right in front of you—and then kill you, anyway.”
Gagging, choking down the vomit that rose into her throat, Laura settled back on the sofa, subdued by this crudest of all threats.
Earl had been silenced too.
“Good,” Wexlersh said, massaging his stomach with one hand, where Earl had butted him. “Much better.”
Melanie’s mewling had grown louder and was punctuated with a few words—“open . . . door . . . open . . . no”—and with deep, quavering gasps.
“Shut up, kid,” Wexlersh said, lightly slapping her face.
Her whimpering subsided, but she wasn’t silenced altogether.
Laura wanted to go to the girl, hug her, hold her close, but for her own sake, and Melanie’s, she had to stay where she was.
The room was definitely cold and getting colder.
Laura remembered how the kitchen had grown frigid just before the radio had come to life. And again just before the wind-thing had thrown open the door and surged in from the darkness....
Wexlersh said, “Don’t they have heat in this damned place?”
“There!” Manuello said, finally screwing the silencer onto the barrel of the gun.
Colder . . .
Holstering his own revolver now that his partner was at last ready to do the deed, grabbing Melanie by one arm and pulling her out of the way, Wexlersh edged backward toward the front door of the apartment.
Colder . . .
Laura was electrified, charged with tension and anticipation. Something was about to happen. Something strange.
Manuello stepped closer to Earl, who regarded him with more contempt than terror.
The temperature of the room plunged precipitously now, and behind Wexlersh and Melanie, the apartment door flew open with a crash—
But nothing supernatural burst into the room. It was Dan Haldane. He came through the door fast, even as he opened it. He took in the situation with remarkable alacrity and jammed his revolver into Wexlersh’s back as that detective was starting to swing toward the door.
Manuello spun around, but Haldane said, “Drop it! Drop it, you bastard, or I’ll blow you away.”
Manuello hesitated, probably not because he was worried about his partner getting killed, but because it was clear that Wexlersh’s body would stop the first bullet meant for Dan, and because it was equally clear that Manuello
wouldn’t have a chance to fire twice before Dan took his head off. He glanced at Melanie too, as though calculating the chances of leaping toward her, grabbing her. But when Dan shouted at him again—“Drop it!”—Manuello finally conceded the game and let the silencer-equipped pistol fall to the floor.
“He’s got Earl’s gun,” Laura warned Dan.
“And his own service revolver too,” Earl added.
Keeping a grip on Wexlersh’s coat, the revolver still jammed hard in the man’s back, Dan said, “Okay, Manuello, get rid of the other two pieces, slow and easy. No funny stuff.”
One at a time, Manuello rid himself of the weapons, then backed across the room and stood against the wall, as Dan directed.
Laura came forth to gather up the three firearms while Dan relieved Wexlersh of his service revolver.
“Why the hell is it so cold in here?” Dan asked.
But even as he voiced the question, the air grew warm again as swiftly as it had turned frigid.
Something almost happened, Laura thought. Something like what happened in the kitchen at our house earlier.
But she didn’t think that they had been about to get just another warning. Not this time. No, this would have been worse. She had the unsettling feeling that It had been within seconds of making an appearance.
Dan was looking at her strangely, as if he knew that she had an answer for him.
But she couldn’t speak. She didn’t know how to put it into words that would make any sense at all to him. She knew only that, if It had come, the slaughter here would have been far worse than any that the two corrupt detectives had been planning. If It had come, would they all have wound up like the battered, torn, and mangled bodies in the house in Studio City?
chapter twenty-nine
In the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center, Earl was admitted for immediate treatment of his scalp wound and split lips.
Laura and Melanie waited in the lounge adjacent to the emergency admitting desk while Dan went to the nearest pay phone. He called the East Valley Division number and got Ross Mondale’s extension.
“Working late, aren’t you, Ross?”
“Haldane?”
“Didn’t know you were so industrious.”
“What do you want, Haldane?”
“World peace would be nice.”
“I’m not in the mood for—”
“But I guess I’d settle for a solution to this case.”
“Listen, Haldane, I’m busy here, and I—”
“You’re going to be even busier, ’cause you’re going to have to spend a lot of time thinking up alibis.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Wexlersh and Manuello.”
