Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013)

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “Can Reilly’s people enhance the driver?”

  “The prints are being messengered over right now.”

  “Talk to Joe. Tell him what’s coming in and we need a rush on it. If we can get an enhancement for Aguilar and the girl to work from, it might make things a whole lot more convincing.”

  “Can do.”

  In the doorway I literally ran into Rick Zant.

  “I finally got the Bright Tomorrows attorney to come around,” he said. “They ID’d him from the press conference composite. He was there, shooting video for members. David Lumsden—home address in Capistrano. Dawn Christie was kind enough to follow suit if we’d offer a specific name. Bingo—he shot videos for them, too. Same name and address. Woolton has four men out of the Capo substation on the house.”

  “There won’t be a house.”

  The old fury surged through me as I stood there, realizing that cracking an alias hadn’t helped us much at all. He was still out there—The Horridus, I. R. Shroud, Gene Vonn, David Lumsden, Warren Witt, David Webb, John Q. Public, what did it goddamned matter—and we were still in here, waiting for him to make the next move. I felt like a fly caught in a web, trapped by the silk and knowing that the spider was moving in.

  So I kicked the wall of the hallway. My foot went through the plasterboard. When I brought out my shoe it was covered in white dust.

  “That hurts,” I said.

  “I can see that it might, Terry. Maybe if you smash up your other foot too, it will help us catch this guy. You can’t expect him to go around town using his real name, can you?”

  I kicked another hole in the wall.

  “Nice to have you back, Terry!” someone piped from Room Horrible.

  “Get to work!” I yelled back, already dialing the home number for Sam Welborn on my cell phone. I told him I was back in the hunt. He said he was happy to hear that, and I told him we had two more aka’s and bad addresses, a botched abduction and a murder. What I needed now was anything he could give me on Collette Loach.

  He was silent. Then, “Who in hell’s that, Terry?”

  “One of Wanda’s daughters or sisters, I’m hoping.”

  “Well, I’ve already got the sisters checked out and Collette ain’t one of them. But her daughters, those girls were grown and gone by the time Wanda bought that place in Hopkin. All’s they did was visit sometimes.”

  “Ask around, Sam.”

  “I have been. That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “Maybe someone out in Hopkin remembers her. Forget the phone company—we’ve already struck out with them.”

  “What is it you want to know about her?”

  “If she’s related to Wanda. And if so, exactly where she is. I need a phone number and an address and I need it soon.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Within the next fifteen minutes, CNB, all three networks and two L.A. stations had reporters and camera crews set up in the conference room, along with writers and photographers from the Times and the Register. Amanda Aguilar and the animal control officer had completed their collaboration and a blown-up version of the sketch now sat on an easel beside the podium. He looked like one of those hot new actors—a smartass with a Vandyke and a wispy mustache. I stood at the back of the room with hope in my heart, a hard glance at Ishmael and a secret smile for Donna, who didn’t notice me as she stood on the dais and completed a sound check with her shooter.

  Everybody else noticed me, however. Their heads turned as if my name had been announced when I came in. They stared hard, disbelieving that the accused perv was back on Sheriff Department soil. Then they started toward me.

  I held out my hands toward them, palms up, shaking my head.

  “Talk to him,” I said, nodding over at Jordan Ishmael. “He’ll have the story for you. Part of it, anyway.”

  With that, I retreated to Room Horrible.

  Louis stood and faced me as I walked in. “The deputies just made the Capistrano address for Lumsden,” he said. “It’s the public library.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Hypok walked across the parking lot toward his van, Ruth and Loretta out in front of him, the lot filled with the bright bodies of expensive cars and the clean beams of their headlights. We’re quite the family unit, he thought—beautiful daughter, protective father, happy pup. He stole another glance over his shoulder: all clear.

  “Here, I’ll unlock the back—the box is too big to take out the side doors.”

  “How many again?”

  “Three brothers and three sisters.”

  “Before you said five.”

  “No, it’s six. They’re unbelievably cute.”

  He swung open the back door of the van. Luckily, the interior light was weak and unrevealing. He deliberately blocked its view with his body as he climbed in. He reached down into the console next to the tequila and brought out a Mag-Lite, the heavy aluminum, four-battery job with the adjustable beam. Shining the light in front of him, he looked over his shoulder at the Item: two feet from the doors, Loretta in its arms, trying to see past him to the desired box of puppy delight.

  “Oh, wow, they’re all sleeping now! You’ve got to see them.” He knocked the flashlight against the seat back, reached forward and tugged at the console with one hand, then made a soft grunting sound. “Oh darn, I can’t get the whole box past this thing here. Just climb in and take a look.”

  “Kind of dark in there.”

  “I’ve got the flashlight, no problem. Come on up, but watch your knees on the cabinets—they’re hard. Here, I’ll take Loretta and you can climb in.”

  Hypok kept the light trained in front of him, but he pivoted at the waist and held out one hand, palm up, for Loretta. He smiled at the Item and looked past it, toward the mall, but nothing at all seemed out of order.

  Come on … hand the puppy to her master …

  The Item hesitated. He could feel the doubt coming off of it in quiet, uncertain waves. The way a mouse looks before a viper hits it

  Loretta whined.

  “Oh, here, honey,” he said, reaching further, his voice filled with sympathy and accusation.

  Then Ruth gave in, leaned into the van and lifted the puppy toward him. Hypok reached just past Loretta and caught the Item by its wrist, yanking hard. The dog hit the floor. The Item sailed over the transom toward him. It yelped. It was midair and starting to scream when Hypok slammed the flashlight into its oncoming head. A sharp and heavy crack and it landed on the van floor, limp and silent as a dropped blanket He hurtled over it and landed in the parking lot He looked once more over his shoulder as he slammed the van doors shut, then walked around to the driver’s side slapping his hands together like a carpenter dusting off, and got in.

  Two minutes later he was half a mile away, at a stoplight down on Jamboree, waiting for the light to turn, plotting the quickest course back to Wytton Street, Loretta on the seat beside his.

  The Item was completely silent. He got out his bottle and took three nice long gulps—almost gone. He didn’t bother to turn on the radio because the chorus of voices singing in his head now was more beautiful, deep and resonant than anything he’d heard in a long, long time.

  Down Jamboree in the comforting darkness, to Redhill Avenue heading toward Tustin, past the old blimp hangars of the Marine Corps Air Station looming in outrageous bulk against the sky—largest wooden structures on earth, Hypok had heard—then into the fringes of Tustin, a quiet little town for the most part, middle America, familyville, good schools and churches, the kind of place where young people bought the homes their folks and neighbors used to own and settled in to give their own children lives remarkably similar to the ones they had had, the kind of place where a Lumsden, Webb, Shroud, Horridus or even Hypok could quietly lose himself with appropriate behavior and never so much as raise an eyebrow, but could hunt a delicious young Item or two or three when it became necessary and still remain safe against the world in his little walled home, his nerve center, his headquarters, hi
s lair—was Item #4 stirring?

  He looked behind him for just a second, training the Mag-Lite beam on its jiggling head. Nice, the way the hair and blood shined in the light. Far out in dreamland. Not too far out, Hypok hoped: both he and Moloch preferred live prey. He tapped the light against his crotch then, listening to the solid thump of it against his risen self. Clunk, clunk clunk. Funny. It was going to happen tonight, he knew, the complete act, the full circle of desire and satisfaction and the transformation of one strong human into an organizing God, another lowly human into a lofty angel; the human molt; the private pageant symbolizing the power of life over death, immortality over sin, need over shame. He checked his speedometer against the 35 mph sign whisking by on his right, and let off the gas a little. No time to be careless now, he thought, not on this warm night in May, blessed, bountiful May, when all reptiles move in earnest to eat and mate and assert themselves in the private darkness away from man.

  Onto First Street, follow it into old town. Past Wytton once, and quick look down toward his house to be sure there was no trouble, then an assertive cruise past it once again. He made a quiet U-turn at the intersection and reached up for the garage door opener—deluxe model, a two-hundred-foot response radius—and pressed the open button. He saw the towering sycamore beside his garage accept the softly growing light from below. He used the gate opener and timed it perfectly so the gate had just slid to its furthest point when the nose of the van slipped past and before he was even through he hit the close button. He rolled slowly into the garage, then pressed the control again and brought the front tires to rest against the railroad tie he had bolted into the cement to keep him from cracking into the wall, keeping as far away from the Saturn as he reasonably could. There. The door closed behind him and Item #4 stirred very quietly—just a dreamy whimper—and Hypok knew that all of his preparation, his versatility, his conviction and confidence had paid off again. He wiped a tear of gratitude and happiness from the corner of his eye as he swung himself into the back of the van, lifted Item #4’s head by its warm, damp hair and shined the flashlight at its face. Beauty, he thought, a true angel’s beauty, once you get the blood wiped off. Its eyes opened slowly and it whimpered again.

  “There, there,” he said sweetly. “The worst is already over.” He got Loretta and put her down by Item #4 and Loretta licked its sticky face. “Ohhhh . . . let’s get you inside and cleaned up!”

  Hypok sat in the chair by the old bed and ate the ravioli out of the pan. The Item lay on the bed with the black hood over its freshly washed head and face, and one of Collette’s old sundresses—a pale blue background with clouds and cowgirls atop white bucking broncos. He had taped its hands together in front of it, and its ankles, too, and of course, its mouth. Loretta lay beside it. Moloch knew something was up; he watched Hypok from inside the big dollhouse, his head visible through the “dormer” window that protruded from the roof. Tongue out; wobble in the air; tongue in. Motionless silver eyes with the black vertical cut of pupil; armored head; scales, bone, muscle.

  He took a neat gulp of cactus juice and looked to the bed again. Item #4 wasn’t a fighter. Either that, or it wasn’t scared. It didn’t struggle like the others, though maybe the flashlight conk had something to do with that. All it did was moan “Hmm-mmm-MMM!” every once in a while, and quiver some. He’d cleansed the wound and blotted most of the blood out of its hair, and it was a nasty cut all right—an inch long and deep, and widened out like a smile from the tautness against the skull. Other than that though, it was in near mint condition.

  Time now to daydream a little, as he always did when he had an Item in place and ready. A sense of accomplishment overtook him, coupled with a rising frazzle of anticipation. Have to keep the two in balance, he thought—a little reward after work well done, and a little something to look forward to in the next hours. A working man’s Friday night. He couldn’t help but think about his first full human transformation, the Item back in Hopkin, and how he was so nervous he hardly knew what to do. Stage fright. He wasn’t sure if Moloch would even be interested, though withholding food for two months probably helped. The next time, when he offered up his mother, things didn’t go smoothly at all: sophomore jinx. He thought back, fondly now, on the rigorous diet he’d enforced upon wretched Wanda, the Ultra Slim Fast shakes and no-salt, no-fat crackers, the way he had to gag and tie her in the basement for the last week while he made sure she was edible. Then, Moloch still wasn’t sure what to make of the naked, trembling old crone released into his Eden, hungry though he was. Moloch had watched her for a long while, then manifested himself next to her, his big shoebox-sized head across from hers, looking her right in the face. Must have terrified him, tasting the scent she gave off. She had backed into a corner, for what good it might do. But Moloch swerved away and redistributed himself into the playhouse, looking somewhat morose, Hypok believed, at the prospect of an edible item smelling so bad. But his mother’s bad smell hadn’t thrown him for more than a second, no: he went to the freezer, got out some frozen rats he used for his big horridus and microwaved up a couple of large ones until they were piping hot. A pair of scissors and off with their feet Click, click, click, into the wastebasket Then he’d entered Moloch’s realm—very warily—and smeared his dismal shrew of a mom with warm rat blood. It came out like ketchup from a plastic packet, except thinner, and steaming. Then he retreated outside and watched as Moloch, keen to the smell of rodent, slid his four hundred pounds of appetite over to gagged and bloody Wanda, then grabbed her by the shoulder, looped three times around her skinny little body and did the tighten-up. Hypok would never forget her bug-eyed stare. Of course, she seemed to be blaming him for her fate, but that was hardly a surprise. You could predict that. He couldn’t be sure exactly when she died, because her face was purple and her eyes popping with blood but her superfluous white fingers strained against Moloch’s armored bulk for a full five minutes or so. Then Moloch let go of her shoulder and nosed around his catch for a long lazy while, tongue berserk, finally deciding to start with her head, as big constrictors usually do. She stuck in his throat for a second, quite literally. It figured. Then Moloch unhinged his jaws and loosened up his neck—the narrowest part—and the plates of his pale mouth crept methodically down, and the next thing you knew Wanda was gone up to the shoulders. Hypok remembered standing there on the other side of the glass, intrigued by the spectacle, noting the way Moloch’s throat widened even more as he started in on the shoulders, his dark green scales parting widely against the pale pliant grout of underskin, the way they looked like counter tiles set casually apart. To be honest, Moloch had looked pretty funny with Wanda’s shoulders inside his neck, like he had these wings inside that were trying to press through a wall of gristle to get out. After that, it was fairly routine: the slow mechanical advance of unhinged jaws, half an inch of Wanda at a time, no hurry, an occasional rest, then another effort. Her head and shoulders started out as a dramatic lump inside him, but they eventually blended into Moloch’s massive bulk. There was a moment—Hypok’s favorite—when the snake’s mouth had advanced all the way to his mother’s white, drippy little rump and Moloch raised his head and Wanda’s ass and legs lifted skyward in the cage, scissoring apart rather lewdly, and Hypok wondered if Moloch was concerned about the lack of a tail. Apparently not, because Moloch stayed like that—his head upright, probably six feet off the cage bottom—while Wanda’s shriveled butt disappeared and her legs slowly came together like in water ballet and a moment later her ankles and up-pointed toes were going down in the slowest of motions, like a diver disappearing into a pool of pink tar.

  You could just lose yourself in the past, thinking about good times like that.

  “Hmm-mmm-MMM!”

  “True,” he said.

  Time now to change into the good skin. Hop to.

  He stripped down, then got the shimmering, scaly suit out of the bedroom drawer. Cotton backing; polyester/acrylic overlay. He’d hand-washed it in an expensive detergent
for wool products since his last shed, and it smelled fresh. He glanced just once at his sores—festering now, always giving him fits at times like this—but he chose to ignore them and just try to be the best he could be, like in the army. Legs and arms, squeeze in and close the big zipper up the front. Booties and gloves. Hood. Blue, silver, white of pearl, indigo, violet. Oil on water, abalone polish, faceted, changing, shifting always. For a while he stood in front of the mirror in the darkened room, only the lamp to illuminate his new self, and admired his transformation. Gone the frail, blistered man, gone the human cursed by God, gone the reeking mortal meat of Hypok. Look now, though—at the shine of scales, at the glimmer of limb, at the svelte metallic repto-hominid poised here at the peak of evolution. Look now, he thought. Here I am—Future Man But More Than Man: Homo hypokithicus.

  Give me my mate.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I retreated to Room Horrible while Ishmael began the conference in the press room. Strange, to sit in the eye of that hurricane and feel the reach of my senses—the eyes of the choppers flashing through the county skies, the men and women on the ground, the voices of our people gathering information from all points in the universe—but to know I was still waiting, still looking, still hunting in the dark.

  Then it happened.

  Johnny turned to me from his desk, holding the telephone down at his side.

  “He took a girl up in Newport twenty minutes ago,” he said. “Used a puppy to get her away from the parents. Dark-haired suspect, facial hair, white van.”

  “Get there.”

  “Gone.”

  And he was gone, while I got Dispatch to send out the word to all units, praying the van was still on the road. I called the helos myself and told them to concentrate on west Newport and inland of Fashion Island.