The Wolf Gift

by Anne Rice

  Reuben couldn’t get that out of his mind. Didn’t it stand to reason that the kidnappers could not have transported those forty-five victims very far at all?

  Some talk show hosts were thoroughly disgusted that anybody was focusing on anything other than the Goldenwood kidnapping. And one parent had broken with the FBI and the sheriff’s office to publicly condemn both for not paying the ransom on demand.

  The power Reuben had enjoyed last night, and make no mistake, he had enjoyed it, was nothing when he thought of the missing children, and those parents sobbing behind closed doors at the Goldenwood Academy. What if? But how exactly? Should he simply drive the back roads in the vicinity of the kidnapping, listening with his new acute hearing for the victims’ cries?

  The trouble was, his hearing wasn’t very acute early in the day. It sharpened as night came on, and that would be hours from now.

  The rain came down heavier as he pushed north. For long stretches, people drove with their headlamps on. When the traffic slowed to a crawl in Sonoma County, Reuben realized he’d never make it to Nideck Point and back before dark. Hell, it was twilight now at 2:00 p.m.

  He pulled off in Santa Rosa, tapped his iPhone for the address of the nearest Big Man XL clothing store, and quickly bought two of the largest and longest raincoats they had, including a tolerable-looking brown trench coat that he actually liked, several pairs of superbig sweatpants, and three hooded sweatshirts, and then found a ski store for ski masks and the largest ski mittens they carried. He threw in five brown cashmere scarves that would be good for hiding his face right up to a pair of giant sunglasses, if the ski masks didn’t work or were too frightening, and the giant sunglasses he found in the drugstore.

  Walmart had giant rain boots.

  All this was powerfully exciting.

  He went back to the news as soon as he was on the road again. The rain was almost torrential. The traffic moved sluggishly and sometimes not at all. He would definitely be spending the night in Mendocino County.

  Around four o’clock, he reached the forest road leading directly to Marchent’s house—well, our house, that is. The news sang on.

  On the Man Wolf front, the coroner’s office had now confirmed that the dead woman of Buena Vista Hill had been only distantly related to the old couple she’d been torturing. And the woman’s own mother had died in mysterious circumstances two years before. As for the dead men in Golden Gate Park, both were now linked by fingerprint evidence to two baseball bat murders of homeless men in the Los Angeles area. The victim in Golden Gate Park had been identified as a missing Fresno man, and his family had been overjoyed to be reunited with him. The would-be rapist of North Beach was a convicted killer, just released from prison after serving less than ten years for a rape-murder.

  “So whoever this mad avenger is,” the police spokesman said, “he has an uncanny knack for intervening in the right situations and in the nick of time, and that’s all very commendable, but his methods have now made him the target of the largest manhunt in San Francisco history.”

  “Make no mistake,” he went on to say when the frenzy of questions had been allowed to crest, “we are dealing here with a dangerous and obviously psychotic individual.”

  “Is he a man wearing some kind of animal costume?”

  “We’ll address this question when we’ve had more time to process the evidence.”

  So tell them about the abundant lysozyme in the saliva, Reuben thought, but of course you won’t. That would only exacerbate the hysteria. And he’d left no saliva evidence last night, just whatever might have come from the claws with which he’d slashed his victims.

  One thing was clear. People weren’t fearing for their lives with the Man Wolf. But nobody, or so the radio call-ins seemed to indicate, believed the Man Wolf had actually spoken words to the North Beach victim and witness.

  Reuben was about to shut the radio off when the news came in that the body of one little eight-year-old Goldenwood Academy student had been found two hours ago in the surf at Muir Beach. Cause of death: blunt force trauma.

  There was a press conference in progress at the sheriff’s headquarters in San Rafael. It sounded like a lynching.

  “Until we have a concrete plan for the return of the children and the teachers,” said the sheriff, “we cannot accede to the kidnappers’ demands.”

  Enough. Reuben couldn’t take any more. He turned off the radio. A little girl dead on Muir Beach. So these “tech geniuses” had done that, had they? Simply murdered one of their numerous victims to show they meant business? Of course. When you have forty-five potential victims, why not?

  He was in a fury.

  It was five o’clock, and dark, and the rain showed no sign of slacking. And the voices of the world were very far away. In fact, he heard no voices. That meant, obviously, that he could no more hear over an infinite distance than an animal. But what were the actual limits of his powers? He had no idea.

  Little girl found dead in the surf.

  That was all the more reason, wasn’t it, to conclude that the other victims were not very far away at all.

  Abruptly, he came to the top of the final rise, and in the beam of his headlamps he saw the enormous house looming ahead of him, a giant phantom of itself in the rain, far more grand than memory had allowed him to envision it. There were lights in its windows.

  He was awed by the sight of it, awed by the moment.

  But he was also miserable. He couldn’t stop thinking about the children—about that little girl on that cold beach.

  As he pulled up to the front door, the outside lamps went on, illuminating not only the steps and the door itself, but flashing upwards on the façade at least as far as the top of the second-floor windows. What a glorious place it was.

  Oh, how very far he was from the innocent young guy who’d first crossed that threshold with Marchent Nideck.

  The door opened and the handyman appeared in a yellow rain slicker and came down to help Reuben with his bundles and suitcase.

  The big room already had a roaring fire. And Reuben could smell the rich aroma of coffee.

  “I’ve got some supper for you on the stove,” said the handyman, a tall lean gray-eyed person, very weathered and wrinkled, with sparse iron-colored hair and a colorless but agreeable smile. He had one of those pleasant, accentless California voices that gave no hint of his home base or origins. “My wife brought that up here for you. She didn’t cook herself, of course. She got it at the local Redwood House down in the town. And some groceries, too. She took the liberty—.”

  “I’m so pleased,” said Reuben at once. “I thought of everything but food, thank you. And I was absolutely crazy to think I could get here by four o’clock. I am so sorry.”

  “No bother,” the man said. “My name’s Leroy Galton and everybody calls me Galton. My wife is Bess. My wife’s lived here all her life, used to cook and clean up here now and then when there were parties.” He took the suitcase from Reuben, and hefting the bundles in one hand he headed back the hallway towards the stairs.

  Reuben felt the breath go out of him. They were nearing the spot where he’d struggled with Marchent’s attackers, the spot where he’d nearly died.

  He hadn’t remembered the dark oak wainscoting. No bloodstains were visible. But some seven feet of carpet stretching from the stairs to the kitchen door was obviously brand-new. It did not match the wide Oriental runner on the stairs.

  “You’d never know it even happened!” declared Galton triumphantly. “We scrubbed those floorboards. There must have been two inches of old wax on them anyway. You would just never know.”

  Reuben stopped. No memory attached itself to the spot. All he remembered was darkness, and he slipped into the darkness, compulsively reliving the attack, as though he was making the Stations of the Cross in St. Francis at Gubbio Church on Good Friday. Teeth like needles driving into his neck and skull.

  Did you know what would happen to me when you let me live?

&nb
sp; Galton let loose with a long, truly awe-inspiring string of clichés and platitudes to the effect that life goes on, life belongs to the living, these things happen, nobody’s safe, you know, you never knew why things happened, one day you would know why things happened, and even the best boys can go bad these days with the dope the way it is, and we just have to get over these things and move on.

  “I’ll tell you this much,” he said suddenly in a low, confidential voice. “I know what did it. I know what got you. And it’s a miracle it let you live.”

  The hair stood up on the back of Reuben’s neck. His heart was thudding in his ears. “You know what did it?” he asked.

  “Mountain lion,” said Galton, narrowing his eyes and lifting his chin. “And I know which mountain lion too. She’s been in these parts too long.”

  Reuben shook his head. He felt a surge of relief. Back to the old mystery. “It couldn’t have been,” he said.

  “Oh, son, we all know it was that mountain lion. She’s out there somewhere now with her litter. Three times I’ve gotten a clear shot at her and missed. She took my dog from me, young man. Now you never knew my dog. But my dog was no ordinary dog.”

  Reuben felt a surge of relief at all this, because it was utterly off the mark.

  “My dog was the most beautiful German shepherd I ever saw. Panzer was his name, and I reared that dog from a six-week-old pup myself and trained him never to take a morsel of food except from my hand, gave him all the commands in German, and he was the finest dog I ever had.”

  “And the mountain lion got him,” Reuben murmured.

  The old man lifted his chin again and nodded solemnly. “Dragged him off, right out of my yard down there and into the woods, and there was hardly anything left of him when I found him. She did that. She and her litter, and that litter’s almost grown. I went after her, went after the brood. I’ll get her, permit or no permit! They can’t stop me. Just a matter of time. But you be careful if you go walking in these woods. She’s got her young cats with her. I know she has, she’s teaching them to hunt, and you have to be careful at sundown and at dawn.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Reuben said. “But it really wasn’t a mountain lion.”

  “And how do you know that, son?” the man asked.

  Why was he arguing? Why was he even saying a word? Let the old man believe what he wanted to believe. Isn’t that what everybody was doing?

  “Because I would have smelled it if it had been a mountain lion,” he confessed, “and the scent would have been on the dead men and on me.”

  The man pondered that for a moment, reluctantly, but seemingly honestly. He shook his head. “Well, she got my dog,” he confessed, “and I’m going to kill her just the same.”

  Reuben nodded.

  The old man started up the broad oak stairway.

  “Did you hear about that poor little girl in Marin County?” Galton asked over his shoulder.

  Reuben murmured that indeed he had.

  He could scarce breathe. But he wanted to see everything, yes, every single thing.

  The place looked so clean, polished floorboards gleaming on either side of the old Oriental carpet. The little candlelike sconces were all lighted as they had been that first night.

  “You can put me in that last bedroom back there,” he said. This was the last one at the end of the western hall, Felix’s old room.

  “You don’t want the master bedroom on the front of the house? Gets a lot more sun, that front room. Beautiful front room.”

  “Not sure yet. This is fine for now.”

  The man led the way, snapping on the light quickly enough as though he was entirely familiar with the house.

  The bed was freshly made up with a cheap flowered polyester bedspread. But Reuben found fresh sheets and pillowcases underneath and some very old but clean towels in the bathroom.

  “My wife did the best she could,” said Galton. “The bank wanted the place decent, they said, soon as the police released the crime scene.”

  “Gotcha,” said Reuben.

  The man was cheerful and kind, but Reuben wanted this part of it all to be over.

  They walked through a number of the rooms, chatted, talked about simple repairs, a doorknob here, a window painted shut there, some Sheetrock crumbling in a bathroom.

  The master bedroom was indeed impressive, with its original brilliant flowered William Morris wallpaper, and the best bedroom on the front of the house.

  It occupied the southwest corner, had windows on two sides and a very spacious marble bathroom with a windowed shower. The fire had been lighted there especially for Reuben, in the big deep stone hearth beneath the scrollwork mantel.

  “In the old days, there was an iron stairs in that left corner,” said Galton, “that went up to the attic room above. But Felix couldn’t have that. He had to be private up there and he made his nephew and his nephew’s wife take out that stairs.” Galton enjoyed the role of tour guide. “All this is the original furniture, you know.” He pointed to the huge walnut bed. “That’s Renaissance Revival, broken-arch style. You see those urn finials? That headboard’s nine feet, solid walnut. Those are burl panels.” He gestured to the marble-top dresser. “Broken-arch style,” he said pointing to the high mirror. “And that’s the original washstand too. Berkey and Gay made this furniture in Grand Rapids. Same with that table. Don’t know where the big leather chair came from. Marchent’s father loved that chair. Had his breakfast up here every morning, with the papers. Somebody had to go get the papers. Nobody would deliver them out here. These are real American antiques. This house was built for furniture like this. It was Felix who brought in all the European furniture in the library and great room downstairs. That Felix was a Renaissance man.”

  “That I can see,” said Reuben.

  “We fixed up this room special for you with the best sheets. Everything you need is in the bathroom. Those flowers on the table came from my garden,” he said.

  Reuben was grateful, and he said so. “I’ll make my way here eventually,” he said. “It’s surely the best room in the house.”

  “It’s the best view of the sea, from here,” Galton said. “Of course Marchent never used it. It was always her parents’ room to her. Her bedroom’s just down the hall.”

  Shades of Mrs. Danvers, thought Reuben quietly. He felt one of those delicious chills to which he was becoming all the more susceptible. This is my house now, my house.

  He wanted so badly for Phil to see this place, but he couldn’t bring Phil up here just now. That was simply out of the question.

  The southeast bedroom of the house was just as quaint as the master, and so were the two central front bedrooms that faced south. These three had the heavy impressive Grand Rapids furnishings and the dazzling floral William Morris paper, but the paper was coming down in places and moldy in others, badly in need of repair. None of these bedrooms had been renovated yet, confessed Galton. Didn’t have enough electric outlets, and the fireplaces needed work. And charming as the old bathrooms were, with old pedestal sinks and claw-foot tubs, they would have been uncomfortable to use. “Felix would have gotten to all this,” said Galton, shaking his head.

  Even the long wide front hallway had a neglected aspect to it with threadbare carpet.

  They moved on to several other eastern bedrooms that had the American antiques as well—sometimes massive bedsteads and scatterings of old Renaissance Revival chairs.

  “Now all this here is renovated,” Galton said proudly, “and all this is wired for cable, every bedroom in the place. You’ve got central heat in these rooms and working fireplaces. Felix saw to that. But Marchent never installed televisions. And the old televisions are long gone. Marchent wasn’t much of a one for television, and, well, after the boys were banned from the place, there just was no point. She brought friends here all the time, of course. Why, she brought a whole club of people here one time from South America. But they didn’t care about television. She said it was just fine.” />
  “You think you could mount a good flat screen for me in that master bedroom, with full cable service?” asked Reuben. “I’m a news junkie. Get the top of the line. Wouldn’t mind a good flat screen in the library downstairs either. And maybe something small in the kitchen. As I said I cook for myself.”

  “No problem, I’ll get right on it,” said Galton with obvious glee.

  They went back down the oak stairs, and through the vestibule of death.

  “Now, you do know I have two other fellas working with me,” said Galton, “and so they’d be in and out of here too, but one’s my cousin and one’s my stepson. It’s the same as having me. We can do just about anything you want done.”

  They went back downstairs, and Galton showed Reuben proudly how the broken dining room windows had been “restored” so you could hardly tell they were not the originals. And that was no easy thing to do what with diamond-pane leaded glass like this.

  Those miserable brothers had raided the little silver pantries on both sides of the broad door to the great room, dragging out silver platters and teapots and leaving them strewn all over the alcove, just to make it look like a robbery, as if anyone was stupid enough to fall for that.

  “Well, all of that has been put right,” he said. He opened the doors on either side for Reuben to see. “You have plenty enough pantries in this house,” he said, “what with those two pantries, and the butler’s pantry right there before you go into the kitchen. Hope you’re looking forward to a big family and lots of kids. There’s a closet down at that other end off the hallway and that’s full of china and silver, too.”

  Bracing himself Reuben followed the man into the kitchen. Very slowly, he turned to survey the floor, and discovered that the white marble had been covered by a series of oval braided throw rugs. Somewhere under all that was Marchent’s blood, probably visible in the grouting if not in the marble. He had no idea where she had fallen. He knew with all his heart he did not want to be in the room, and the idea of ladling up stew from the steaming pot on the stove was revolting to him. Revolting.