Beware

by Richard Laymon

  BEWARE

  RICHARD

  LAYMON

  LEISURE BOOKS

  NEW YORK CITY

  Had you been rags or wood

  I could have stuffed you and burned you.

  But you were some bad breed of blood and bone

  With arms that stretched an entire room,

  Eyes without end and a heart of stone.

  from “The Bogeyman”

  by R. S. Stewart

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Praise

  Other Leisure books by Richard Laymon

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  On the night it began, Frank and Joan Bessler left the stifling heat of their home and walked four blocks to Hoffman’s Market. Frank wanted a sixpack.

  “Doesn’t look open,” Joan said.

  “It has to be.” Frank checked his wristwatch. “I’ve got nine fifteen.”

  “Why aren’t the lights on?”

  “Maybe she’s saving on electricity,” he said. He hoped he was right, but didn’t believe it. For as far back as he could remember—and he’d spent all of his twenty-nine years in Oasis—the market had remained brightly lighted until closing time.

  Closing time was ten o’clock to keep an edge on the Safeway that shut at nine. When Elsie Hoffman’s husband died, three years ago, there’d been talk she might sell out, or at least close down earlier. But she’d held onto the tiny market and kept it open till the usual hour.

  “I do think it’s closed,” Joan said as they stopped by its deserted parking lot.

  The store sign was dark. The only light in the windows was a dim glow from the bulb Elsie always left on overnight.

  “I can’t believe it,” Frank muttered.

  “She must’ve had a reason.”

  “Maybe she changed hours on us.”

  Joan waited on the sidewalk, and Frank stepped up to the wooden door. Crouching, he squinted at the window sticker. Not enough light for him to read the times.

  He tried the knob.

  No go.

  He peered through the window, and saw no one. “Damn,” he muttered. He knocked on the glass. Couldn’t hurt. Maybe Elsie was in the back someplace, out of sight.

  “Come on, Frank. She’s closed.”

  “I’m thirsty.” He rapped harder on the window.

  “We’ll go over to the Golden Oasis. I’d rather have a margarita, anyway.”

  “Yeah, well, okay.”

  He took a final look into the dimly lighted store, then turned away. Behind him, the door banged and shook.

  Frank jumped. Whirling around, he stared at the door, at its four glass panes.

  “What was that?” Joan asked in a whisper.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  He backed away, staring at the windows, and decided he would have a heart attack, then and there, if a face should suddenly appear. He turned away fast before it could happen.

  “Who’s minding the mint?” Red asked.

  Elsie sipped her whisky sour. It was sweet and tart. Nobody could make whisky sours like Red. “I closed up a little early,” she said.

  “Must get lonely in there.”

  “I tell you, Red, I’m not as young as I used to be, not by a long shot, but I’ve still got my senses. I haven’t gone mush-brained. Not yet. Wouldn’t you say so?”

  “You’re sharp as a tack, Elsie. Always have been.”

  “Now, I went through pure hell when Herb passed on. Miserable old skinflint that he was, I did love the man. But that was three years ago, come October. I’ve perked up pretty well, since then. Even at my worst, though—right after I lost him—I never cracked up.”

  “You were solid as a rock, Elsie.” He glanced down the bar. “Right back,” he said, and went away to serve a new customer.

  Elsie sipped her drink. She looked both ways. To her left was Beck Ramsey, his arm around the Walters girl. A pity on her, Elsie thought. Beck would bring her nothing but trouble. To her right, separated from Elsie by an empty stool, sat the newspaper gal, Lacey Allen. A pretty thing. The men say she’s a cold fish, but they’ll say that about any gal who won’t drop her pants first time you smile at her. She always seemed pleasant enough in the store. A pity to see her sitting all alone at the bar like she didn’t have a friend in the world.

  “You’re an educated lady.”

  Lacey looked over at her. “Me?”

  “Sure. Went to Stanford and all. You’re a doctor of something.”

  “English lit.”

  “Right. Probably one of the best educated folks in town. So you tell me something, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  She shrugged. “All right. I’d be happy to try.”

  “Is there such a thing as ghosts?”

  “Ghosts?”

  “You know. Ghosts, spirits of dead folks, haunts.”

  Lacey shook her head. “You’ve got me. I’ve never seen one. All through history, though, people have claimed they exist.” She looked away from Elsie, picked up her wineglass, and raised it to her lips. But she didn’t drink. Her eyes suddenly opened wide. She gazed at Elsie, and set down her glass. “Did you see one?”

  “Don’t know what I saw. Not sure I saw anything.”

  “Mind if I…?” Lacey looked at the empty stool between them.

  “Help yourself.”

  She slid off her stool and climbed onto the one beside Elsie.

  “This is just between us. I don’t want to be written up in the Trib, everyone in town saying Elsie’s got cards gone.”

  “I promise.”

  “Okay then.”

  A hand from behind patted her shoulder. She jumped, splashing her dress.

  “Jeez, I’m sorry!”

  “Lord!” She looked around. “Frank, you scared the daylights out a me!”

  “I’m really sorry. Gosh, I…”

  “Well, that’s all right.”

  “Let me get you another drink.”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  He nodded a greeting to Lacey, then smiled at Elsie. “I guess I owed you a scare, though, after the one I just got at your store.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you got a watchdog in there, or something?”

  “What happened?”

  “We were over at your place a few minutes ago. I looked in the door, you know, to see if you were in, and something gave it a bash you wouldn’t believe. Scared the socks off me.”

  “Did you see what it was?” Lacey asked.

 
“I didn’t see anything. It sure gave me a start, though. Did you get yourself a dog, Elsie?”

  “I don’t keep animals. All they do is die on you.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “I wish I knew,” Elsie said. “Heard something, myself, around nine. Sounded like someone walking. I looked everywhere—up and down the aisles, back in the storage room. I even checked the meat locker. No one in the store but yours truly. Then the cash register opened on its own accord, and that did it. I closed up.”

  “Maybe you’ve got a ghost,” Frank said, half grinning.

  “That’s what I wonder,” Elsie said. “What do you think, Lacey?”

  “I think we should drive over to your store and take a look.”

  Lacey swung her car into the parking lot of Hoffman’s Market.

  “Why don’t you wait here,” Frank told his wife.

  “And miss the fun?” She flung open a rear door, climbed out, and smiled at Lacey. “You think we’ll make the paper?”

  “That depends on what’s inside,” she said, and followed Elsie to the door.

  “We’ll make the paper for sure,” said Frank, “if we all get slaughtered in there.”

  Elsie frowned over her shoulder. “You do talk, Frank.”

  “If you’re so ner vous,” Joan told him, “maybe you should wait in the car.”

  “And let you get slaughtered without me? How would that look?”

  Elsie peered through a window. “I don’t see anything. Course, I didn’t before.”

  “Let’s go in,” Lacey whispered. She rubbed her arms. In spite of the night’s heat, she had goose bumps. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, she decided as Elsie pushed the key into the lock. But it had been her idea. She could hardly back out now. Besides, she did want to find out what had caused the trouble.

  Elsie pushed open the door and entered. Lacey followed her in. The hardwood floor creaked under their footsteps. They stopped near the counter. Except for the light from a ceiling fixture near the door, the store was dark. Lacey could see only a short distance up the aisles.

  “Maybe you could turn on some…”

  “Holy shit!”

  She swung around. Frank’s hand was still on the door. He’d stopped in the midst of shutting it. He and Joan stood motionless, staring.

  “I’ll be…” said Elsie.

  Lacey walked to the door and crouched. “Wickedlooking thing,” she said. The meat cleaver was buried deep in the wood only inches beneath the lower windows.

  “A little higher…” Frank muttered.

  “That’s what hit the door!” Joan cried.

  “That’s right.”

  “God, you could’ve been killed!”

  Lacey stood up. “I think we’d better get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “And quick. Whoever threw that sucker isn’t fooling around.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police?” Elsie asked.

  “From the bar. Come on.”

  Oasis Tribune Saturday, July 12

  BURGLAR ATTACKS LOCAL MAN

  Frank Bessler, local T.V. repairman, narrowly escaped injury last night when he interrupted a burglary in progress at Hoffman’s Market.

  Bessler and his wife, Joan, arrived at the market shortly after it was closed for the night by its proprietor, Elsie Hoffman. As Bessler peered inside, the front door was shaken by a cleaver thrown by an unseen assailant.

  Police were summoned after Bessler notified Mrs. Hoffman of the occurrence. The responding patrolman, Ralph Lewis, searched the market and determined that the assailant had fled.

  No signs of forced entry were found. According to mrs. Hoffman, no money was taken. The empty wrappers of two T-bone steaks were discovered behind the meat counter, along with an empty bottle of wine.

  Elsie Hoffman, who has operated the market alone since the demise of her husband, admits she is troubled by the burglary and the assault on Bessler, but has no plans to change the store’s hours of operation. “Fear can run your life if you let it,” she states. “I won’t let it run mine.”

  Says Bessler, “I went in for a beer and almost bought a farm.”

  Oasis Tribune Tuesday, July 15

  MARKET HIT AGAIN

  Hoffman’s Market, over the weekend, was again the target of an unknown vandal. Opening her store for business, Monday morning, proprietor Elsie Hoffman found the empty wrappings of beef, potato chips, and other edibles scattered about the floor.

  “Looks like someone had another feast,” commented Mrs. Hoffman, whose store was the scene of a similar invasion on Friday night. On that occasion, local T.V. repairman Frank Bessler barely escaped serious injury when the surprised vandal hurled a meat cleaver at his head.

  Police believe that both incidents are the work of the same individual. To date, nobody has seen the perpetrator. Nor is it known how he gains entry to the store.

  Red Peterson, bartender at the Golden Oasis and a longstanding friend of Mrs. Hoffman, has offered his German shepherd, Rusty, to guard the market’s premises. “I’ll put Rusty up against any ten hooligans, and we’ll just see who takes a bite out of what,” says Red.

  Mrs. Hoffman has agreed to use the dog in hopes of preventing further losses.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dusk settled over Bayou Lafourche, and the participants began to arrive. They came in dinghies and skiffs and canoes, silently paddling or poling their way around the bend, landing on the high ground and dragging their vessels ashore.

  The man’s black, sweaty face looked grim in the telescopic sight of Matthew Dukane’s rifle. “Smile,” Dukane said. Though his whisper seemed loud, he doubted anyone would hear him. He was sitting astraddle a branch high in the tree. Even in total silence, those below would be unlikely to catch his whisper; in all this din, they didn’t stand a chance.

  A Chicago boy, Dukane didn’t know what the hell was causing such a racket. The place sounded like the Brookfield Zoo gone manic. Or the jungles of Vietnam.

  He sighted in an old, white crone. A teenaged girl with corn rows. A fat white man who looked like a good ol’ boy. A bony red-haired gal. A strikingly beautiful mulatto woman. A black fellow with the build of a Sumo wrestler.

  Quite a congregation, Dukane thought. But then, Laveda was quite a woman. Hard to imagine anyone so beautiful could be so damned evil.

  She hadn’t shown herself yet. That was her style, though. Like most ladies who thought too highly of themselves, she had a fondness for dramatic entrances.

  The drums began. Dukane glanced at the three drummers. They were all black men, naked to the waist, squatting at the edge of the clearing with their drums between their legs. They thumped the skins with their open hands.

  Dukane looked away, and saw another skiff land. Its lone occupant climbed out. A white girl in cutoffs and a T-shirt. Quite attractive. He found her in the scope. The girl was Alice Donovan, no doubt about it. Though her hair was longer now, she still bore a striking resemblance to the graduation photo given to Dukane by her parents when they hired him.

  Even as she walked toward the clearing, she began to sway with the low throb of the drumbeats.

  The ceremonial fire was lighted.

  The drumbeats quickened, and the dancing began.

  Resting the weapon across his lap, he watched. The tempo was picking up, the drummers pounding out a frenzied beat. The dancers twirled and leapt in the firelight. Several were already naked. As he watched, Alice skinned off her T-shirt. She whirled, waving it like a banner while her other hand opened her cutoffs. She didn’t pull the shorts down. She danced as if forgetting them. They hung in place, at first, then slowly slipped lower and lower until they were halfway down her bare rump. They suddenly dropped. Dukane thought they might hobble the girl and trip her, but she jumped gracefully free. He turned his gaze to the mulatto woman with skin the color of tea. She was glossy with sweat, writhing as she rubbed her breasts.

  Plenty of guys, Dukane thought, would pay through the nose
for a show like this. He was slightly aroused, himself, but frightened. He’d heard people say fear is an aphrodisiac. Maybe it was, for them. In Dukane’s experience, he’d found fear to be a great shrinker of erections.

  Erections. Plenty of them down there. No coupling, though. Not yet. Nobody was even touching—not each other, anyway. They danced alone, jerking to the wild race of the drums, stroking themselves as if no one else existed.

  Suddenly, the drums stopped. The dancers dropped to their knees.

  A single, low voice said, “Laveda.” Other voices joined it in a slow chant. “Laveda, Laveda, Laveda…”

  Dukane flinched as something dropped onto his head. It moved in his hair, scurried down his forehead. He brushed it away. Probably a goddamn spider. The swamp was full of them.

  The group kneeling around the fire continued to chant.

  Out of the darkness behind the drummers stepped Laveda. Dukane had kept her under surveillance for two weeks in New Orleans hoping she would lead him to Alice—but he’d never seen her like this. He stared.

  She wore a sheathed dagger at her side, suspended from a belt of gold chain. She wore a gold band on each upper arm. She wore a necklace of claws. And nothing else.

  Her thick, blonde hair hung past her shoulders. Her skin glistened as if rubbed with oil. Dukane couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was sixfootone of the most stunning woman he had ever seen.

  The chanting stopped as she walked among her congregation.

  “The river flows,” she said.

  In unison, the others chanted, “The river is red.”

  “The river flows.”

  “Flows from the heart.”

  “The river flows.”

  “All powerful is the river.”

  “Its water is the water of life,” she said.

  “All powerful is he who drinks at its shore.”

  “Who, among us, would be all powerful?”

  “I,” answered the chorus.

  Dukane spotted Alice. She looked ecstatic.

  Laveda drew out her dagger. Standing near the fire, she raised it high and slowly turned in a circle. “Who, among us, would drink at the river?”