by T. M. Wright
Today, a Wednesday, the same day that Ryerson Biergarten was sitting down with Tom McCabe, Larry was feeling deathly ill, as if, he told his mother, "Little bugs had got inside me and were scratching away at my insides, Mom."
It sounded to Mrs. Wilde like food poisoning. The day before, they'd gone to a picnic sponsored by the company where Mr. Wilde worked, and there were complaints all around that the macaroni salad was "slimy,”“greasy,”“sour tasting," and "alcoholic." And indeed a few of the people who ate it got nauseous several hours later.
"How much of that salad did you have yesterday, Larry?" Mrs. Wilde asked.
"None of it," he answered. "It tasted like shit."
She thought of telling him that "shit" was not a proper word for a sixteen-year-old to use, decided that maybe it was-considering the times-and told him to go up to bed. Maybe, she decided, when he got to feeling really sick he'd tell her the truth about why his hand was bandaged up, too-"Slammed it in the car door, Mom," just seemed too much like a lie, for some reason.
"Let me ask you something," Ryerson said to Tom McCabe.
"Shoot," McCabe said.
And Ryerson said, "What did you believe in as a kid, Tom?"
"Sorry?"
"It's not a trick question. I just want you to tell me what you believed in when you were a kid. You know-did you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, gnomes under the bed?"
McCabe nodded. "Yes," he said.
"You believed in all those things?"
"Uh-huh. Especially the gnomes under the bed, except they weren't gnomes, they were little wrinkled, naked men who pulled at your skin all night-" He stopped and looked embarrassed. Ryerson read, momentarily, something very strange in him, something cockeyed and off key; it was, he knew, the same sort of strange, cockeyed, off-key thing that most people harbored deep within themselves. The only difference with McCabe was that it was closer to the surface. "You mean," Ryerson coaxed, "if you let something dangle over the bed, these little men-"
McCabe held his hand up, cut in, "No. You didn't have to let anything dangle over the bed. These little men just came out at night and sat on you and pulled at your skin."
Ryerson, needing some time to think about this, leaned over in the chair and picked up Creosote, who'd been sleeping contentedly for a quarter of an hour. The dog awoke with a start and immediately began grunting. Ryerson stroked the dog for a few moments, gaze lowered because he didn't want to look at McCabe. Then he said, looking at him at last, "And do you still believe in these little naked men, Tom?"
McCabe chuckled shortly. "That's a hell of a question to ask a chief of detectives, Rye."
"You're being evasive."
"You should be a detective."
"I am a detective. Sort of."
"Yes. I still believe in them."
"Thanks for your honesty."
"Around you, Rye, I'd be foolish to lie, isn't that right?"
Ryerson shrugged humbly. "I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes."
"And do you think I'm… childish, Rye, for believing in these little naked men?"
"Only if you let that belief interfere with your sleep, Tom."
He shook his head. "I don't. I've grown used to them. They're even a kind of comfort; I've slept alone for a long time, Rye." He grinned sadly. "If you follow me."
In Edgewater, Larry Wilde wanted desperately to puke but realized, in agony, that he wasn't going to. He got up, went to the top of the stairs, yelled down to his mother, "Mom? Mom? We got any of that-" He stopped to let a particularly dizzying wave of nausea pass over him, then continued, "Any of that stuff. That I-pak-ik."
She appeared at the bottom of the stairs, knitting in hand. "Ipecac, you mean, Larry?"
"Yeah." He put his hand on his stomach. "Yeah. That stuff. The stuff that makes you throw up. I need it bad, Mom."
"I'm sorry, son, but we used the last of it the day after New Year's."
"Shit!" Larry said, and went back to his room.
"But you don't believe in werewolves, do you?" Ryerson asked McCabe. "Or in vampires, or zombies, or demons-"
"I kind of believe in demons, Rye."
"Do you?"
"Well, yes. These little wrinkled, naked men are demons; I'd say they're demons-I guess they're the damned closest things to demons I've come in contact with."
"But you don't believe in zombies, vampires, or werewolves-the big three of the world of the supernatural; as far as you're concerned they're Saturday-matinee stuff, right?"
McCabe nodded. "Right."
"Your fascination is with little wrinkled naked men?"
"Well, I don't know if 'fascination' is the right word-"
"Your nighttime preoccupation, then."
"Yes. I guess so." He paused only a moment. "What about ghosts, Rye?"
"What about them?"
"You said vampires, werewolves, and zombies were the big three of the world of the supernatural. What about ghosts?"
Ryerson shook his head; he was aware that he was slowly assuming an air of superiority, and he didn't like it. "They're benign. They're not physical enough."
"For what?"
Ryerson scratched behind Creosote's ears, which caused the dog to make a noise that was disconcertingly close to a ragged purr because, as usual, he had his treasured soft plastic duck in his mouth. "For murder. In our hearts, I think most of us are murderers. I think we're very, very taken with the idea of death. And with power."
McCabe eyed him suspiciously; "You think my little wrinkled naked men have something to do with death?"
Ryerson grinned knowingly. "Maybe, Tom." He heard the clearly superior tone in his voice. He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry; yes, Tom. I think they do. I think they have to do with sex, and with death, and, damnit, this theory I'm trying to develop here for you is so damned slippery, every time I try to get hold of it, it slithers away." He had been leaning forward; now he leaned back, sighed, his eyes on the ceiling, hand draped over the top of Creosote's head, which he knew the dog enjoyed. "I saw her; I saw Lila-"
"Good Lord, you mean today-"
"Yes." He touched the side of his head. "Here. I saw her, and I felt such agony around her, as if she were being eaten alive from within-" He stopped, shook his head. "I don't know, Tom. I don't know." He was suddenly very weary. "Maybe it doesn't have to be vampires, or werewolves, or zombies at all. Maybe it can be anything. Maybe it can be tigers. Or hyenas. Maybe it can be Jack The Ripper, or Gengis Khan, or Charles Manson. I don't know. I'm sorry, Tom, but I'm stumped."
McCabe stood. "Drink?" he asked.
Ryerson said, "Tomato juice, okay?" He nodded at Creosote. And some water for him, if possible.”
“Sure."
Larry Wilde vomited at last. Not that it did him any good. The nausea returned seconds later with a vengeance, and, panic-stricken, he ran again to the top of the stairs; "Mom!" he yelled down. "Mom!" And he collapsed in a heap, his head dangling over the top stair.
Mrs. Wilde, her knitting still in hand, appeared at the bottom of the stairs moments later, saw her son, and ran up to him. She bent over and lifted his head.
"Larry?" she asked, confused, because what she saw there on her son's face wasn't Larry at all; it was something else, something hateful and murderous, something that was the very soul and spirit of evil. "Larry?" she said again, her voice trembling.
And it was Larry who answered, "Yes, mother?" But it was a Larry who had been in hiding for sixteen years; a Larry she had never known.
And then he began to change. The nose first, then the eyes, the cheeks, the forehead…
"Larry?" his mother whispered, not certain at all that she was seeing correctly-believing, in fact, that she wasn't, that she was seeing only her son in the throes of his illness, her son about to puke again. So she smiled tremblingly and said, "Can I get you something, Larry? Can I get you a bucket?"
"No," he answered, his voice lower, sharper, with a weird kind of warbling intensity to it. "I don't n
eed a bucket, Mom."
And she watched as a boy she had never known, a strange, round-headed boy who looked for all the world as if he'd just been pulled dead from a river pushed himself to a standing position over her on the stairway, watched as a huge, empty smile full of a hollow, desperate, and murderous expectation spread over a face she'd seen only on movie posters.
She shook her head slowly, in terror. She whispered, "No. Please."
And the boy above her held his water-smoothed hand out. "Give me those." He nodded at the knitting needles she clutched in her hand. "Give me those, now."
And obediently, as if under hypnosis, she gave him the knitting needles.
"Or Bonnie and Clyde, or The Phantom of the Opera," Ryerson rattled on, trying hard to reach into his own subconscious and find out just what in the hell he was talking about. Creosote was on the floor lapping contentedly at a saucer full of water that McCabe had gotten for him. Ryerson glanced down at the dog, continued, "Or a Boston bull terrier, Tom."
McCabe was shaking his head in confusion and disagreement. "No, Rye. No. We can't just change, I mean there really is no such thing as 'shape shifting'; it's all just a bunch of… fun-"
Ryerson catapulted forward in the chair, face shaking with enthusiasm. "And yet… and yet, Tom… you can say that, and yet, you still believe in those… demons of yours-"
"I didn't say I believed in them, Rye."
"You did." Ryerson felt himself growing suddenly petulant. "You did!" he repeated, with emphasis.
McCabe let a self-accusing grin play on his lips, then fade. "Yes, I do believe in them. Of course I believe in them. I believe in my dreams, too. My dreams are real; my thoughts are real. But all by themselves they're not going to get up and go out and have a root beer. They're real, Rye-these little naked men are real, sure. In my world they're real. But not anywhere else."
Now Ryerson grinned. "Are you sure, Tom?"
And that's when Creosote latched onto the argyle sock Ryerson was wearing, taking him by surprise, which caused him to kick out and knock over the saucerful of water. Ryerson cursed, McCabe hooted. And Creosote trotted triumphantly off toward the kitchen with a piece of Ryerson's sock dangling from his mouth.
The round-headed boy shoved the knitting needle in very hard; it slid against a rib, then sank with a phump into the heart.
Joanna Wilde wanted to die then. But she didn't. It was shock, mostly, that was keeping her alive, lowering her blood pressure, bringing her oxygen requirements down. She stared stiffly into the sunken oval dark eyes of the thing on the landing. She cooed, "Oooh, nooo!" and watched expectantly, hopefully-knowing that blessed death was very near now-as the other knitting needle plummeted into her.
Chapter Sixteen
"I'm sorry, Mr. Miller," said the admitting nurse at Strong Memorial Hospital, "but Ms. Lynch has slipped into a coma, her listed condition has been returned to critical, and I'm afraid under those circumstances, no visitors are allowed." She saw the hurt in Miller's eyes. "I really am sorry, Mr. Miller."
"Yes," Miller said, "of course you are," then turned to go, head lowered.
"Mr. Ashland?" he heard.
He looked up. "Sorry?" he said, because the face before him didn't register immediately.
"How are you, Mr. Ashland?" Ryerson Biergarten said.
Miller shook his head confusedly; something about this man was familiar, if only he could place him. "Forgive me, I believe you have the wrong-"
Ryerson, sans Creosote, who had been left in the reluctant hands of Loren Samuelson, cut in, seeing that Miller really was confused. "My name's Biergarten. You came to see me a couple of weeks ago."
Miller looked momentarily stunned. He whispered something that sounded for all the world like "Ida is a member!" and then ran for the automatic exit doors. Ryerson turned, saw a beefy security guard step in front of Miller and stop him with both hands at Miller's chest. "No running, please; this is a hospital, not a gymnasium."
"Get out of my way!" Miller screeched, and pushed the security guard aside. The guard's hand went to his gun.
"Don't be a fool!" Ryerson screamed. The security guard turned toward him. Ryerson ran for the exit door; as he passed the security guard he hissed, with ill-disguised contempt, "What the hell were you going to do? Shoot him?"
The security guard looked confused. He took his hand off his gun and fell in behind Ryerson in pursuit of Douglas Miller. "What are you running for?" Ryerson called to Miller. "Don't run, there's no need to run!"
He watched Miller clamber over the hood of a car that had screeched to a halt to avoid him, watched him move-with incredible swiftness, Ryerson thought, for a man so clearly muscle-bound-into the main hospital parking lot where still another car had to screech to a halt to avoid him, and another and another, until at last one rolled slowly into him and sent him spinning into a parked Chevy van. For several seconds he staggered around as if drunk. Then he collapsed.
When Ryerson got to him, Miller was muttering Greta's name with a deep and almost embarrassing affection. Not too long after that there were several doctors standing around him, barking orders to the crowd that had gathered; the doctors were followed by nurses from admitting and emergency, one with a clipboard in hand and an admittance form to fill out; she was told by one of the other nurses that "it can probably wait, Emma," so she turned around and went back inside. Not too long after that, Miller was carried on a stretcher back into the hospital through the same doors he'd run out of minutes earlier and was taken up to radiology for X-rays. Ryerson Biergarten-who'd been asking repeatedly when he could talk to Miller, whom he knew only as "Mr. Ashland"-was told, "It doesn't look serious, but let us do our jobs first, please."
While all this was happening, Greta Lynch, lying in a coma in Room 1077, was reliving over and over again the blood guilt from her childhood-the guilt that had followed her into adulthood and sat on her shoulders night and day and babbled at her that she really was no good after all. How could anyone who was good have done something like that?
That was crushing her seven-week-old kitten, Leopard, underfoot in the middle of the night, in the dark, on her way back from pestering her parents for another glass of water (the fifth glass of water that evening). She'd tried to hide the fact of the kitten's death, of course, because she felt sure she'd murdered it in a fit of temper after her father had yelled "Go back to bed, for Christ's sake!" So, trying hard to keep her whimpering at whisper level, she had taken the kitten's limp body down to the garage, found a small cardboard box, put the kitten in it, taken the box to the side of the garage, where the ground was soft from rain splattering over the gutterless edge of the roof, and had buried it, using her hands as a shovel.
With the passage of time, the kitten's death had indeed, in her mind, become a murder.
The dirt that had caked her hands and fingernails had become the kitten's blood.
Its burial-which was discovered several years later, by a later owner of the house-became her "awful secret." And if someone had asked her-Greta Lynch, twenty-six-years-old, vivacious, intelligent-what that awful secret really was, she would have been stumped for the details. She would only have mumbled the catchwords of her guilt: murder, blood, deception.
Ryerson Biergarten was getting angry. He didn't like it when he got angry, both for the usual reasons that people dislike their own anger-because they often say and do things that make them look like fools, and because anger is a very wearying emotion-and also because when he got angry, his mind opened up wide and hungrily, and a flood of psychic garbage rushed in from whomever happened to be near him.
That's what was happening to him now, as he tried-so far in vain-to get the admitting nurse to tell him who the man he knew only as "Mr. Ashland" really was.
"Listen, Miss"-he checked her nametag again-"Belgetti, the man may be a suspect in the Kodak Park murders-"
"Sir, I've told you a half dozen times that whether or not he is a suspect in anything is not at issue here. Unless you can show m
e some authority-" And as Ryerson listened to her he heard, as a kind of whispered, psychic backdrop from the small crowd that had gathered: Well, who the hell does he think he is? and What's that dog smell? and Nurse has got big tits; huh, huh! and Hospitals, hate 'em, hospitals! and Like a virgin, virgin, virgin… And that mass of input-some of it coherent, some of it not, but all of it as distracting as a bad traffic accident-made it almost impossible, Ryerson knew, for him to appear as anything other than a lunatic bystander.
"Have you found out his name yet, Miss Belgetti? Please-can you tell me that, at least?"
Wouldn't mind pushin' on those honkers, yeah, huh, huh!… Doctors earn too much, anyway… What the hell is that smell of dog?
"Sir, I'm afraid there are other people waiting to be taken care of, so if you don't mind-"
Yeah, I'll knock your freakin' block off, fella!
Ryerson turned his head quickly, saw a tall, muscular, middle-aged man wearing a shit-eating grin. Yeah, you! He turned back to Nurse Belgetti. "Just his name. Please. Can you tell me his name?" His voice was quivering with anger now. "All I want is his name, Nurse Belgetti. Do you think you can handle that?" And he felt a hand on his shoulder. Don't give me no… Don't give me any trouble… I don't want no
… any trouble! He heard, "Don't give me no trouble here. We don't want any trouble, Mister." He turned, saw the same security guard that had run after "Mr. Ashland." The security guard reiterated, "We don't want no more trouble, sir. This is a hospital, not a gymnasium."