Carrion

by Gary Brandner

  “We gotta take it somewhere, buddy,” the driver said, licking the point of his pencil.

  “Can you put it in storage?”

  “Sure. You gotta sign.”

  “I’ll sign,” Fain said.

  Ten minutes later, he watched all his worldly goods except two suitcases of clothes and personal things roll away from Eagle’s Roost and down the hill.

  He felt he ought to say good-bye to somebody, but there was no one left on the grounds that he knew. Warner Echols had disappeared right after giving him the news. He never really knew any of the staff by name. Debbie or Sandi was gone. Only the cleanup crew sent by F-A was on the grounds, and they kept throwing sidelong glances at Fain as though they wished he’d leave.

  • • •

  Coming out of Eagle’s Roost was more of a shock than Fain had anticipated. Up there he had been surrounded by people who flattered him, agreed with him, protected him. The gate was closed to anybody who might upset him. News from the outside world came to him filtered through the agency. When he left the old stone house and drove down the hill into Hollywood, it was like a bucket of ice water in his face.

  Dean Gooch’s series was continuing in the Times. He had covered the three original people Fain had brought back and was now into the bizarre stories of the later ones. Other newspapers had picked up the story and were playing it big, along with television and radio.

  There was talk of an official investigation of his activities as soon as it was decided which governmental bureau had jurisdiction. The religious community, unusually silent during the weeks Fain was a hero, were now after him like a pack of hounds. Editorials from all points of the political compass were unanimous in condemning the man they hailed as a near Messiah a couple of weeks earlier.

  Fain parked on Hollywood Boulevard and wandered the tacky street like a drugged alien. He bought a Times, a Herald, and a USA Today and read of the disintegration of his people and the calls for his own punishment. He began to feel as though he might be seized at any moment and dragged off to some dank dungeon.

  He returned to his car and drove up near La Cienega to a small, expensive hotel where celebrities stayed who did not want their pictures taken. It was done in California mission style with a central patio containing outdoor tables and a small sparkling pool. Fain parked on the street out in front and went into the small, tasteful lobby to register.

  The clerk read the card he filled out and looked up at him in surprise. “McAllister Fain?”

  “Yes. You do have a room?”

  Still staring, the clerk nodded and handed him a key. “It’s number fourteen, through the patio and on the right. Do you have luggage, Mr. Fain?”

  “I’ll bring it in later. Right now I just want to relax.” He took the key and headed for the glass doors leading out to the patio. He could feel the eyes of the hotel staff on him. He went outside and crossed the small patio to reenter the hotel on the far side. His room was the first one off the hallway on his right.

  The furniture was in soft earth tones and of excellent quality. Restful framed prints hung on the walls. A sliding glass door gave out on the patio and pool area. This was now curtained by heavy drapery.

  Fain double-locked the door, peeled off his jacket, and dropped into a chair. It was still early afternoon, but he was bone-weary. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and let his mind drift.

  Some fifteen minutes later, he jolted out of a light doze to the sound of a disturbance in the courtyard. It was a subdued babble of voices and the rustle of people moving around. He got up to part the draperies and look outside.

  He recoiled at the sudden sight of faces looking at him. A crowd of maybe twenty people had gathered outside his room on the patio. When Fain pulled back the curtain, they surged toward him, pointing and calling out to one another. Their words came clearly to him through the glass.

  “There he is.”

  “Is that really him?”

  “Sure, he looks just like his picture.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Is somebody dead in there?”

  “If he’s staying here, I’m leaving.”

  For a frightening moment he thought they were coming right in through the glass after him. He whipped the drapery back across the window and backed away. The voices were louder outside now; there were shouts and heavy footsteps as more people came to see what the excitement was.

  Fain snatched up his jacket and bolted from the room. He dashed up the hallway and sprinted across the courtyard to the hotel’s lobby. He ignored the goggling clerk as shouts rose behind him, and he heard the sound of running feet. The sound of the crowd had changed from curiosity to anger. For the first time in years he knew cold physical fear.

  Out in front of the hotel he leaped into his car, fired the engine, and peeled away as the crowd spilled out under the canvas marquee and pointed toward him. Not until he had made half a dozen fast turns and was sure no one followed did he slow down and relax.

  He pulled into the lot of a Thrifty Drug Store on Western Avenue and sat in his car for several minutes while his heartbeat returned to normal. He pushed down the panic and began to make plans. With an idea at last of what he was going to do, he went into the store and bought a Dodger baseball cap and a pair of nearly opaque sunglasses. Outside he put them on and checked his reflection in the plate-glass show window. With the cap pulled low and the glasses concealing his eyes, he was not so recognizable.

  He drove off again and this time chose a seedy motel near Western Avenue. He paid the bored clerk in advance for a room and was relieved when his Dodger cap and shades drew no more than a passing glance.

  The bed was narrow, with a ragged brown spread over what appeared to be army blankets. The vinyl furniture was spotted with cigarette burns, and the whole place smelled of deodorizer. But at least for the moment he was secure.

  He knew it would not last. Too many people in Los Angeles knew him on sight, and the cap and glasses would not hide him for long. The best move, he decided, would be to get out of town and let things cool down. For that he would need money, but that was something he had plenty of. It was time to collect some of his earnings. He used a pay telephone in the tiny lobby to call Federated Artists.

  When he got past the switchboard, a familiar voice said, “Mr. Echols’s office.”

  “Hi, Victoria,” he said. “Put Warner on.”

  “May I say who’s calling?”

  “For Christ’s sake, it’s Mac Fain.”

  “One moment, Mr. Fain. I’ll see if he’s in.”

  Soft tinkly music came out of the telephone. Fain ground his teeth.

  Victoria returned. “Mr. Echols is out of the office. May I take a message?”

  “Oh, for — No, forget it.”

  He slammed the receiver back into the cradle. A week ago a call from the star client would have had the agency falling all over itself to accommodate him. So much for fame.

  He returned to his seedy room, put on the cap and shades, and left for the Sunset and Cahuenga branch of the Bank of California, where the agency had opened an account for him. He took out the leather-covered virgin checkbook and wrote his first check. He made it out for a thousand dollars and took it to one of the tellers. She looked at the check, smiled at Fain, and excused herself. She went away with the check and returned a minute later with a smooth-faced Oriental man.

  He showed no surprise at the baseball cap and dark glasses. This was, after all, Hollywood. “I’m Benson Kano, Mr. Fain, operations officer. May I help you?”

  “Yes, you can cash my check.”

  The operations officer clicked a professional smile on and off. “I’ll be glad to, Mr. Fain, as soon as you get the other signature.”

  “What other signature? It’s my account. I’ve got more than a hundred thousand dollars in the account.”

  “Yes, sir, it’s all in order, but the account was set up so that in addition to yours we require the signature of Mr. Nolan Dix of Federated
Artists.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Fain said. “Is there someone else here I can talk to?”

  “Of course, sir,” Kano said politely. “I can take you in to see our manager, but I assure you — ”

  “Ah, never mind.” Fain was already drawing curious looks from the bank employees. He did not have time to get into an argument with the manager. It would be easier to get the agency attorney to sign the required check, or several of them.

  The offices of Federated Artists were housed in an English Tudor-style building along the most fashionable stretch of Sunset. Fain left his disguise in the car this time and entered the building.

  He breezed past the Miss Universe receptionist and strode to Warner Echols’s office. Victoria Clifford sat at a desk outside his door, talking on the telephone. She flicked her eyes up at Fain with no sign of recognition. He waited a full minute for her to hang up.

  “Tell Warner I’m here,” he said.

  “Mr. Echols is still not in, Mr. Fain,” she said with icy courtesy.

  “When will he be in?”

  “I really couldn’t say. Probably not for the rest of the day.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  He stepped past Victoria’s desk, ignoring her protests, and pushed open the door to Echols’s office. It was empty.

  “I told you,” Victoria said, arching one of her perfectly shaped brows.

  “So you did.”

  He left the plush suite of offices where the agents entertained clients and entered the more conservative legal department. Nolan Dix’s secretary, unlike those in the rest of the suite, looked as though she could really type. She smiled at Fain, apparently not recognizing him.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Dix,” he said.

  “May I say who’s — ” she began.

  “Never mind,” he cut her off. He understood by now that his name would not get him past any doors here. He walked unannounced into the attorney’s office and found Dix at his desk, studying a boating magazine.

  “Well, hello, Fain,” he said, seeming not terribly surprised.

  “I just came from the bank,” Fain said.

  “Yes?”

  “I was told I need your signature on my checks to draw out any of my money.”

  “That’s customary,” Dix said smoothly. “It’s done primarily for the protection of our clients.”

  “I fail to see how that protects me,” Fain said, “but don’t bother to explain.” He lay the checkbook on the glass desktop in front of Dix. “Just sign half a dozen of those for me and I’ll be on my way.”

  Nolan Dix ran his manicured fingertips across the leather checkbook as though savoring the texture. He said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  Fain stifled an impulse to pound the desk and yell at the smug attorney. In a tightly controlled voice he said, “Why … not?”

  Dix looked up at him. His small eyes were cold under the heavy lids. “There is litigation involved here.”

  “What’s the bottom line, Nolan?”

  “Just this — I have been informed this morning that you, and by implication Federated Artists, have been named in two lawsuits, with others imminent.”

  “Somebody is suing me? Who? Why?”

  The attorney slid out a desk drawer and produced a folder. He opened it and read from the top sheet. “The family of Sharon Isaacs is charging misrepresentation, fraud, practicing medicine without a license, and causing great pain and suffering to their daughter.”

  “Pain and suffering? She was dead, for Christ’s sake. A suicide. Those people begged me to do something for her.”

  Nolan Dix went on as though Fain had not spoken. “Mr. and Mrs. Alberto Ledo have contacted the Latino Legal Assistance League and filed essentially the same charges on behalf of their son, Miguel, now missing.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “So it may be, but I have advance information that the families of Ada Dempsey, the hit-run victim, and Barney Quail are preparing similar suits.”

  “Barney Quail was a goddamn transient,” Fain said. “A bum. He didn’t have a family.”

  “It seems one turned up,” Dix said. “And I very much doubt that these will be the last. “So you see, it’s really impossible to free up your funds at the present times, considering the upcoming legal problems.”

  Fain started at him as the words sank in. “Nolan, I have exactly” — he took out his wallet and counted the bills — “exactly a hundred and forty dollars. I can’t show my face anywhere in town without inciting a lynch mob. I need money to get away.”

  Nolan Dix spread his hands. “I’d like to help you, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  The intercom unit on his desk beeped electronically. The attorney touched a key and said, “Yes, Miriam?”

  “There are reporters out here, Mr. Dix. And a television cameraman. They heard somewhere that Mr. Fain is with you.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Fain.

  Dix pointed to a door at the rear of the office. “There’s a hallway out there that will lead you to the rear entrance,” he said. “I don’t suppose you feel like dealing with the media just now.”

  Fain gave him a long look but, with the rising clamor in the outer office, swallowed his anger and slipped out the back way.

  Chapter 26

  Fain lay on his back on the narrow motel bed and followed a crack in the ceiling with his eyes. It roughly outlined the shape of a scorpion, its stinging tail poised to strike at the light fixture.

  He imagined the tail jabbing forward into the light bulb and through it into the socket. A shower of sparks sprayed out and drifted to the floor.

  His fantasy was interrupted by sounds coming from the adjoining room. Through the wall he could hear a woman squeal in feigned ecstasy. A man laughed through phlegmy lungs. The Horizon Motel, he had discovered, was a favorite of the down-scale hookers of Western Avenue.

  He closed his eyes and willed his other senses inward as he concentrated on his predicament. It all seemed so unfair. He had not set out to hurt anyone or to profit off the misery of others. All he wanted to do was help people, make them happy. If he could get rich doing that, why not?

  Rich. Hah. What did all those contracts and TV shows and personal appearances add up to? One hundred and forty dollars and a bed in a hot-sheet motel. And that hundred and forty would shrink fast. He had better get his brain working.

  A sound gradually intruded on his concentration. A staccato percussive sound. Someone was knocking at his door.

  Fain rolled off the bed and moved cautiously over to stand next to the door. Another crowd of hostile curiosity seekers? Process server? Police?

  Shit, he was getting paranoid.

  “Who is it?”

  “Let me in.” The voice was female, low and vibrant. Something in the tone compelled him to obey.

  He unbolted the door and opened it.

  The woman who stood outside was nearly as tall as he. The skin was dark and smooth across wide cheekbones. Her mouth, full and firm, was not smiling. The thick hair that fell loose to her shoulders was midnight black with strands of silver, giving it a lively sheen. The woman looked at him with eyes of pale gray that were a startling contrast to the dark face.

  “Hello, McAllister Fain.” She stepped past him and seemed to flow into the room. She wore a long, colorful dress that moved with her body.

  Fain stared at her. He knew at once who she was even though he had not seen her in almost thirty years. It took the logical portion of his brain several moments to catch up with the intuitive.

  “Darcia?”

  “Yes.”

  A hundred questions pushed forward in his mind. He asked one of them. “How did you find me?”

  “That was not so hard. I have known where you were since I called you at your apartment many weeks ago.”

  Fain thought back to Echo Park and when all his troubles began. A telephone voice registered on his memory. He said, “A woman asked if I was the McAllister F
ain from Michigan, then hung up.”

  “I was that woman. When I read in the paper what you had done, I knew it must be you and that you had discovered your power. But I had to be sure.”

  He shook his head as though to clear it. “Darcia, why are you here?”

  “I have many things to tell you. May we sit down?”

  “Yes. Sure.” He pulled the room’s one comfortable chair over for her, and he sat on the bed.

  “What did you mean when you said I had discovered my power?”

  “The power to make the dead walk.”

  “That was as big a surprise to me as to anybody.”

  Darcia shook her head. “You always had it locked deep within you, but you needed the key. You must have found someone to give you the key.”

  Fain could not take his eyes off the woman. Her gaze held him like a physical bond. He said, “I went to an old shaman called Le Docteur. He told me what to do. I thought I was just fooling around. Later, I found it was all for real, and I didn’t even need most of the rigmarole he gave me.”

  “Ah, yes. All you needed was the key. It would have been so much better if you had never learned what you could do. No matter what happens now, you must never, never use this terrible power again.”

  “I already decided that,” Fain said. “I’ve got nothing but trouble now because of it.”

  “That is always the way, but it was inevitable that one day you would learn about yourself and would have to try.”

  “How do you know all this?” Fain said. “What is this power, and where does it come from? Why me?”

  “I will come to that,” said the woman. “Listen to me carefully now as I tell you of the danger you are in and what you must do.”

  “What danger?” he said.

  “Desperate danger of life and death. Those you brought back understand by now what has been done to them. They have one common goal, and that is to destroy you.”

  “Are you kidding?” He looked into the luminous gray eyes. “No, you’re not kidding.”

  Darcia continued. “They will come at night, and they will come very soon.”