Masques

by J N Williamson

  “Well, that’s different. In that case, I’m certain I don’t want to meet him.”

  Dennis winced. “Oh, you’re a cruel woman! That’s what smokin’ banana peels does to you—turns you mean. Anybody readin’ this rag?” He reached over for the newspaper.

  “Waitin’ here just for you,” I said. Thunder rumbled, closer to the diner. The lights flickered briefly once . . . then again before they returned to normal. Cheryl busied herself by fixing a fresh pot of coffee, and I watched the rain whipping against the windows. When the lightning flashed, I could see the trees swaying so hard they looked about to snap.

  Dennis read and ate his hamburger. “Boy,” he said after a few minutes, “the world’s in some shape, huh? Those A-rab pig-stickers are itchin’ for war. Mobile metro boys had a little gunplay last night. Good for them.” He paused and frowned, then tapped the paper with one thick finger. “This I can’t figure.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Thing in Florida couple of nights ago. Six people killed at the Pines Haven Motor Inn, near Daytona Beach. Motel was set off in the woods. Only a couple of cinderblock houses in the area, and nobody heard any gunshots. Says here one old man saw what he thought was a bright white star falling over the motel, and that was it. Funny, huh?”

  “A UFO,” Cheryl offered. “Maybe he saw a UFO.”

  “Yeah, and I’m a little green man from Mars,” Dennis scoffed. “I’m serious. This is weird. The motel was so blown full of holes it looked like a war had been going on. Everybody was dead—even a dog and a canary that belonged to the manager. The cars out in front of the rooms were blasted to pieces. The sound of one of them explodin’ was what woke up the people in those houses, I reckon.” He skimmed the story again. “Two bodies were out in the parkin’-lot, one was holed up in a bathroom, one had crawled under a bed, and two had dragged every piece of furniture in the room over to block the door. Didn’t seem to help ’em any, though.”

  I grunted. “Guess not.”

  “No motive, no witnesses. You better believe those Florida cops are shakin’ the bushes for some kind of dangerous maniac—or maybe more than one, it says here.” He shoved the paper away and patted the service revolver holstered at his hip. “If I ever got hold of him—or them—he’d find out not to mess with a ’Bama trooper.” He glanced quickly over at Cheryl and smiled mischievously. “Probably some crazy hippie who’d been smokin’ his tennis shoes.”

  “Don’t knock it,” she said sweetly, “until you’ve tried it.” She looked past him, out the window into the storm. “Car’s pullin’ in, Bobby.”

  Headlights glared briefly off the wet windows. It was a station-wagon with wood-grained panels on the sides; it veered around the gas pumps and parked next to Dennis’ trooper car. On the front bumper was a personalized license plate that said: Ray & Lindy. The headlights died, and all the doors opened at once. Out of the wagon came a whole family: a man and a woman, a little girl and boy about eight or nine. Dennis got up and opened the diner door as they hurried inside from the rain.

  All of them had gotten pretty well soaked between the station wagon and the diner, and they wore the dazed expressions of people who’d been on the road a long time. The man wore glasses and had curly gray hair, the woman was slim and dark-haired and pretty. The kids were sleepy-eyed. All of them were well-dressed, the man in a yellow sweater with one of those alligators on the chest. They had vacation tans, and I figured they were tourists heading north from the beach after spring break.

  “Come on in and take a seat,” I said.

  “Thank you,” the man said. They squeezed into one of the booths near the windows. “We saw your sign from the interstate.”

  “Bad night to be on the highway,” Dennis told them. “Tornado warnings are out all over the place.”

  “We heard it on the radio,” the woman—Lindy, if the license was right—said. “We’re on our way to Birmingham, and we thought we could drive right through the storm. We should’ve stopped at that Holiday Inn we passed about fifteen miles ago.”

  “That would’ve been smart,” Dennis agreed. “No sense in pushin’ your luck.” He returned to his stool.

  The new arrivals ordered hamburgers, fries and Cokes. Cheryl and I went to work. Lightning made the diner’s lights flicker again, and the sound of thunder caused the kids to jump. When the food was ready and Cheryl served them, Dennis said, “Tell you what. You folks finish your dinners and I’ll escort you back to the Holiday Inn. Then you can head out in the morning. How about that?”

  “Fine,” Ray said gratefully. “I don’t think we could’ve gotten very much further, anyway.” He turned his attention to his food.

  “Well,” Cheryl said quietly, standing beside me, “I don’t guess we get home early, do we?”

  “I guess not. Sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Goes with the job, right? Anyway, I can think of worse places to be stuck.”

  I figured that Alma might be worried about me, so I went over to the payphone to call her. I dropped a quarter in—and the dial tone sounded like a cat being stepped on. I hung up and tried again. The cat-scream continued. “Damn!” I muttered. “Lines must be screwed up.”

  “Ought to get yourself a place closer to town, Bobby,” Dennis said. “Never could figure out why you wanted a joint in the sticks. At least you’d get better phone service and good lights if you were nearer to Mo—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of wet and shrieking brakes, and he swivelled around on his stool.

  I looked up as a car hurtled into the parking-lot, the tires swerving, throwing up plumes of water. For a few seconds I thought it was going to keep coming, right through the window into the diner—but then the brakes caught and the car almost grazed the side of my pickup as it jerked to a stop. In the neon’s red glow I could tell it was a beatup old Ford Fairlane, either gray or a dingy beige. Steam was rising off the crumpled hood. The headlights stayed on for perhaps a minute before they winked off. A figure got out of the car and walked slowly—with a limp—toward the diner.

  We watched the figure approach. Dennis’ body looked like a coiled spring, ready to be triggered. “We got us a live one, Bobby boy,” he said.

  The door opened, and in a stinging gust of wind and rain a man who looked like walking death stepped into my diner.

  III

  He was so wet he might well have been driving with his windows down. He was a skinny guy, maybe weighed all of a hundred and twenty pounds, even soaking wet. His unruly dark hair was plastered to his head, and he had gone a week or more without a shave. In his gaunt, pallid face his eyes were startlingly blue; his gaze flicked around the diner, lingered for a few seconds on Dennis. Then he limped on down to the far end of the counter and took a seat. He wiped the rain out of his eyes as Cheryl took a menu to him.

  Dennis stared at the man. When he spoke, his voice bristled with authority. “Hey, fella.” The man didn’t look up from the menu. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you”

  The man pushed the menu away and pulled a damp packet of Kools out of the breast pocket of his patched Army fatigue jacket. “I can hear you,” he said; his voice was deep and husky, and didn’t go with his less-than-robust physical appearance. “Drivin’ kinda fast in this weather, don’t you think?”

  The man flicked a cigarette lighter a few times before he got a flame, then he lit one of his smokes and inhaled deeply. “Yeah,” he replied. “I was. Sorry. I saw the sign, and I was in a hurry to get here. Miss? I’d just like a cup of coffee, please. Hot and real strong, okay?”

  Cheryl nodded and turned away from him, almost bumping into me as I strolled down behind the counter to check him out. “That kind of hurry’ll get you killed,” Dennis cautioned. “Right. Sorry.” He shivered and pushed the tangled hair back from his forehead with one hand. Up close, I could see deep cracks around his mouth and the corners of his eyes and I figured him to be in his late thirties or early forties. His wrists were as thin as a woman’s; he looked like he h
adn’t eaten a good meal for more than a month. He stared at his hands through bloodshot eyes. Probably on drugs, I thought. The fella gave me the creeps. Then he looked at me with those eyes—so pale blue they were almost white—and I felt like I’d been nailed to the floor. “Something wrong?” he asked—not rudely, just curiously.

  “Nope.” I shook my head. Cheryl gave him his coffee and then went over to give Ray and Lindy their check. The man didn’t use either cream or sugar. The coffee was steaming, but he drank half of it down like mother’s milk. “That’s good,” he said. “Keep me awake, won’t it?”

  “More than likely.” Over the breast pocket of his jacket was the faint outline of the name that had been sewn there once. I think it was Price, but I could’ve been wrong.

  “That’s what I want. To stay awake, as long as I can.” He finished the coffee. “Can I have another cup, please?”

  I poured it for him. He drank that one down just as fast, then he rubbed his eyes wearily.

  “Been on the road a long time, huh?”

  Price nodded. “Day and night. I don’t know which is more tired, my mind or my butt.” He lifted his gaze to me again. “Have you got anything else to drink? How about beer?”

  “No, sorry. Couldn’t get a liquor license.”

  He sighed. “Just as well. It might make me sleepy. But I sure could go for a beer right now. One sip, to clean my mouth out.”

  He picked up his coffee cup, and I smiled and started to turn away.

  But then he wasn’t holding a cup. He was holding a Budweiser can, and for an instant I could smell the tang of a newly-popped beer.

  The mirage was only there for maybe two seconds. I blinked, and Price was holding a cup again. “Just as well,” he said, and put it down.

  I glanced over at Cheryl, then at Dennis. Neither one was paying attention. Damn! I thought. I’m too young to be either losin’ my eyesight or my senses! “Uh . . .” I said, or some other stupid noise.

  “One more cup?” Price asked. “Then I’d better hit the road again.”

  My hand was shaking as I picked it up, but if Price noticed he didn’t say anything.

  “Want anything to eat?” Cheryl asked him. “How about a bowl of beef stew?”

  He shook his head. “No, thanks. The sooner I get back on the road, the better it’ll be.”

  Suddenly Dennis swivelled toward him, giving him a cold stare that only cops and drill sergeants can muster. “Back on the road?” He snorted. “Fella, you ever been in a tornado before? I’m gonna escort those nice people to the Holiday Inn about fifteen miles back. If you’re smart, that’s where you’ll spend the night, too. No use tryin’ to—”

  “Wo.” Price’s voice was rock-steady. “I’ll be spending the night behind the wheel.”

  Dennis’ eyes narrowed. “How come you’re in such a hurry? Not runnin’ from anybody, are you?”

  “Nightcrawlers,” Cheryl said.

  Price turned toward her like he’d been slapped across the face, and I saw what might’ve been a spark of fear in his eyes.

  Cheryl motioned toward the lighter Price had laid on the counter, beside the pack of Kools. It was a beat-up silver Zippo, and inscribed across it was Nightcrawlers with the symbol of two crossed rifles beneath it. “Sorry,” she said. “I just noticed that, and I wondered what it was.”

  Price put the lighter away. “I was in ’Nam,” he told her. “Everybody in my unit got one.”

  “Hey.” There was suddenly new respect in Dennis’ voice. “You a vet?”

  Price paused so long I didn’t think he was going to answer. In the quiet, I heard the little girl tell her mother that the fries were “ucky.” Price said, “Yes.”

  “How about that! Hey, I wanted to go myself, but I got a high number and things were windin’ down about that time, anyway. Did you see any action?”

  A faint, bitter smile passed over Price’s mouth. “Too much.”

  “What? Infantry? Marines? Rangers?”

  Price picked up his third cup of coffee, swallowed some and put it down. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when they opened they were vacant and fixed on nothing. “Nightcrawlers,” he said quietly. “Special unit. Deployed to recon Charlie positions in questionable villages.” He said it like he was reciting from a manual. “We did a lot of crawling through rice paddies and jungles in the dark.”

  “Bet you laid a few of them Vietcong out, didn’t you?” Dennis got up and came over to sit a few places away from the man. “Man, I was behind you guys all the way. I wanted you to stay in there and fight it out!”

  Price was silent. Thunder echoed over the diner. The lights weakened for a few seconds; when they came back on, they seemed to have lost some of their wattage. The place was dimmer than before. Price’s head slowly turned toward Dennis, with the inexorable motion of a machine. I was thankful I didn’t have to take the full force of Price’s dead blue eyes, and I saw Dennis wince. “I should’ve stayed,” he said. “I should be there right now, buried in the mud of a rice paddy with the eight other men in my patrol.”

  “Oh,” Dennis blinked. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I came home,” Price continued calmly, “by stepping on the bodies of my friends. Do you want to know what that’s like, Mr. Trooper?”

  “The war’s over,” I told him. “No need to bring it back.” Price smiled grimly, but his gaze remained fixed on Dennis. “Some say it’s over. I say it came back with the men who were there. Like me. Especially like me.” Price paused. The wind howled around the door, and the lightning illuminated for an instant the thrashing woods across the highway. “The mud was up to our knees, Mr. Trooper,” he said. “We were moving across a rice paddy in the dark, being real careful not to step on the bamboo stakes we figured were planted there. Then the first shots started: pop pop pop—like firecrackers going off. One of the Nightcrawlers fired off a flare, and we saw the Cong ringing us. We’d walked right into hell, Mr. Trooper. Somebody shouted, ‘Charlie’s in the light!’ and we started firing, trying to punch a hole through them. But they were everywhere. As soon as one went down, three more took his place. Grenades were going off, and more flares, and people were screaming as they got hit. I took a bullet in the thigh and another through the hand. I lost my rifle, and somebody fell on top of me with half his head missing.”

  “Uh . . . listen,” I said. “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to, friend.” He glanced quickly at me, then back to Dennis. I think I cringed when his gaze pierced me. “I want to tell it all. They were fighting and screaming and dying all around me, and I felt the bullets tug at my clothes as they passed through. I know I was screaming, too, but what was coming out of my mouth sounded bestial. I ran. The only way I could save my own life was to step on their bodies and drive them down into the mud. I heard some of them choke and blubber as I put my boot on their faces. I knew all those guys like brothers . . . but at that moment they were only pieces of meat. I ran. A gunship chopper came over the paddy and laid down some fire, and that’s how I got out. Alone.” He bent his face closer toward the other man’s. “And you’d better believe I’m in that rice paddy in ’Nam every time I close my eyes. You’d better believe the men I left back there don’t rest easy. So you keep your opinions about ’Nam and being ‘behind you guys’ to yourself, Mr. Trooper. I don’t want to hear that bullshit. Got it?”

  Dennis sat very still. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that, not even from a ’Nam vet, and I saw the shadow of anger pass over his face.

  Price’s hands were trembling as he brought a little bottle out of his jeans pocket. He shook two blue-and-orange capsules out onto the counter, took them both with a swallow of coffee and then recapped the bottle and put it away. The flesh of his face looked almost ashen in the dim light.

  “I know you boys had a rough time,” Dennis said, “but that’s no call to show disrespect to the law.”

  “The law,” Price repeated. “Yeah. Right. Bulls?”

/>   “There are women and children present,” I reminded him. “Watch your language.”

  Price rose from his seat. He looked like a skeleton with just a little extra skin on the bones. “Mister, I haven’t slept for more than thirty-six hours. My nerves are shot. I don’t mean to cause trouble, but when some fool says he understands, I feel like kicking his teeth down his throat—because no one who wasn’t there can pretend to understand.” He glanced at Ray, Lindy, and the kids. “Sorry, folks. Don’t mean to disturb you. Friend, how much do I owe?” He started digging for his wallet.

  Dennis slid slowly from his seat and stood with his hands on his hips. “Hold it.” He used his trooper’s voice again. “If you think I’m lettin’ you walk out of here high on pills and needin’ sleep, you’re crazy. I don’t want to be scrapin’ you off the highway.”

  Price paid him no attention. He took a couple of dollars from his wallet and put them on the counter. I didn’t touch them. “Those pills will help keep me awake,” Price said finally. “Once I get on the road, I’ll be fine.”

  “Fella, I wouldn’t let you go if it was high noon and not a cloud in the sky. I sure as hell don’t want to clean up after the accident you’re gonna have. Now why don’t you come along to the Holiday Inn and—”

  Price laughed grimly. “Mister Trooper, the last place you want me staying is at a motel.” He cocked his head to one side. “I was in a motel in Florida a couple of nights ago, and I think I left my room a little untidy. Step aside and let me pass.”

  “A motel in Florida?” Dennis nervously licked his lower lip. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”

  “Nightmares and reality, Mr. Trooper. The point where they cross. A couple of nights ago, they crossed at a motel. I wasn’t going to let myself sleep. I was just going to rest for a little while, but I didn’t know they’d come so fast” A mocking smile played at the edges of his mouth, but his eyes were tortured. “You don’t want me staying at that Holiday Inn, Mr. Trooper. You really don’t. Now step aside.”