Violet shivered in anticipation of the moment when a mouse or other
small creature would be seen below, slipping through tall grass that it
believed offered concealment. From past experience she knew the terror
and pain of the prey, the savage glee of the hunter, and she yearned now
to experience both again, simultaneously.
At her side Verbina murmured dreamily.
Swooping high, gliding, spiraling down, swooping up again, the owl had
not yet seen its dinner when the car came up the hill and slowed almost
to a stop in front of the Pollard house. It drew Violet's attention, of
course, and through her the attention of the owl, but she lost interest
when the car speeded again and drove on. Seconds later, however, her
interest renewed when it returned and coasted almost to a stop,more, at
the front gate.
She directed the owl to circle the vehicle at a height of a sixty feet.
Then she sent it out ahead of the car and brought it even lower, to
about twenty feet, before guiding it around again to approach the
curious motorist head-on.
From an altitude of only twenty feet, the vision of the hawk was more
than acute enough to see the driver and the passenger in the front seat.
There was a woman Violet had never seen before-but the driver was
familiar. A moment later she realized that he was the man who had
appeared with Frank in the back yard, at twilight that very same day!
Frank had killed their precious Samantha, for which Frank must die, and
now here was a man who knew Frank,might lead them to Frank, and on the
bed around Violet,other cats stirred and made low growling sounds as her
passion for vengeance was transmitted to them. A tailless Manx a a
black mongrel leaped from the bed, raced through the open bedroom door,
down the steps, into the kitchen, out the door, around the house, and
into the street. The car was moving away, gaining speed, heading
downhill, and Violet wanted to pursue it not only by air but on foot, to
ensure that she would not lose track of it.
CANDY ARRIVED in the reception lounge at Dakota & Dakota Cool
cross-drafts circulated from the broken window in the next room and two
open doors in this one, setting up oppose currents. The faint sounds
announcing his arrival had evidently been masked by the bursts of static
and harsh voices coming from the portable police radios that the cops
had clipped to their belts. One policeman stood in the entrance Julie
and Bobby's private office, and the other was at the door to the
sixth-floor corridor. Each of them was talking someone out of sight,
and both had their backs turned Candy, which Candy knew was a sign that
God was still looking out for him.
Though he was angered by this obstacle to his search the Dakotas, he got
out of there at once, materializing in bedroom, nearly a hundred and
fifty miles to the north. He needed time to think if there was some way
that he could pick up their trail again, a place where they had been
tonight-besides their office and their house-at which he could seek more
visions of them.
WHEN they backtracked to the Union 76 station, the longhaired,
mustachioed man who had given them directions to Pacific Hill Road was
able to tell them how to find the street on which Fogarty lived. He
even knew the man.
"Nice old guy. Stops by here for gas now and then." :,Is he a medical
doctor?"
Bobby asked.
'Used to be. Been retired quite a while." Shortly after ten o'clock,
Bobby parked at the curb in front of Lawrence Fogarty's house. It was a
quaint Spanish two story with the style of French windows that had been
featured in the study to which Bobby and Frank had twice traveled, and
lights were on throughout the first floor. The glass in the many panes
was beveled, at least on the front of the house, and the lamplight
inside was warmly refracted by those cut edges. When Bobby and Julie
got out of the car, he smelled woodsmoke, and saw a homey white curl
rising from a chimney into the still, cool, humid pre-storm air. In the
odd and vaguely purple, crepuscular glow of a nearby street lamp, a few
pink flowers were visible on the azaleas, but the bushes were not as
laden with early blooms as those farther south in Orange County. An
ancient tree with a multiple trunk and enormous branches loomed over
more than half the house, so it seemed like a wonderfully cozy and
sheltered haven in some Spanish version of a Hobbity fantasy world.
As they followed the front walkway, something dashed between two low
Malibu lights, crossed their path, and startled Julie. It stopped on
the lawn after passing them, and studied them with radiant green eyes.
"Just a cat," Bobby said.
Usually he liked cats, but when he saw this one, he shivered.
It moved again, vanishing into shadows and shrubs at the side of the
house.
What spooked him was not this particular creature, but the memory of the
feline horde at the Pollard house, which raced to attack him and Frank,
in eerie silence initially then with the shrill single-voiced squeal of
a banshee regime and with a most uncatlike unanimity of purpose. On the
prowl alone, swift and curious, this cat was quite ordinary, posses only
of the mystery and haughtiness common to every remember of his species.
At the end of the walk, three front steps led up to an archway, through
which they entered a small veranda.
Julie rang the bell, which was soft and musical, and no one answered
after half a minute, she rang it again.
As the second set of chimes faded, the stillness was disturb by the
rustle of feathered wings, as some night bird settled on the veranda
roof above them.
When Julie was about to reach for the bell push again, porch light came
on, and Bobby sensed they were being scrutinized through the security
lens. After a moment the door opened, and Dr. Fogarty stood before them
in an outfall light from the hall behind him.
He looked the same as Bobby remembered him, and he recognized Bobby as
well.
"Come in," he said, stepping aside to admit them.
"I half expected you. Come in-not that an you is welcome."
"IN THE library," Fogarty said, leading them back through the hall to a
room on the left.
The library, where Frank had taken him during their travels, was the
place Bobby had referred to as the study when he had described it to
Julie. As the exterior of the house had a Hobbity-fantasy coziness in
spite of its Spanish style, so this room seemed exactly the sort of
place where one imagined that Tolkien, on many a long Oxford evening,
had taken pen to paper to create the adventures of Frodo. That warm and
welcoming space was gently illuminated by a brass floor lamp and a
stained-glass table lamp that was either a genuine Tiffany or an
excellent imitation. Books lined the walls under a deeply coffered
ceiling, and a thick Chinese carpet dark green and beige around the
border, mostly pale green in the middlegraced a dark tongue-and-groove
oak floor. The water-clear finish on the large mahogany des
k had a deep
luster; oil the green felt blotter, the elements of a gold-plated,
bone-handled desk set-including a letter opener, magnifying glass, and
scissors-were lined up neatly behind a gold fountain pen in a square
marble holder. The Queen Anne sofa was upholstered in a tapestry that
perfectly complemented the carpet, and when Bobby turned to look at the
wing-backed chair where he'd first seen Fogarty earlier in the day-he
twitched with astonishment at the sight of Frank.
"Something's happened to him," Fogarty said, pointing to Frank. He was
unaware of Bobby's and Julie's surprise, apparently operating under the
assumption that they had come to his house specifically because they had
known they would find Frank there.
Frank's physical appearance had deteriorated since Bobby had last seen
him at 5:26 that afternoon, in the office in Newport Beach. If his eyes
had been sunken then, they were as dark as pits now; the dark rings
around them had widened, too, some of the blackness seemed to have
leeched out of the bruises to impart a deathly gray tint to the rest of
his face.
previous pallor had looked healthy by comparison.
The worst thing about him, however, was the blank expression with which
he regarded them. No recognition lit his eyes he seemed to be staring
through them. His facial muscles were slack. His mouth hung open about
an inch, as if he had star to speak a long time ago but had not yet
managed to remember the first word of what he had wanted to say. At
Cielo Vista Care Home, Bobby had seen only a few patients with face
empty as this, but they had been among the most severely retarded,
several steps-down the ladder from Thomas.
"How long has he been here?" Bobby asked, moving tow Frank.
Julie seized his arm and held him back.
"Don't!"
"He arrived shortly before seven o'clock," Fogarty said So Frank had
traveled for nearly another hour and a after he had returned Bobby to
the office.
Fogarty said,
"He's been here over three hours, and I do know what the blazing hell
I'm supposed to do with him. N and then he comes around a little bit,
looks at you when talk to him, even responds more or less to what you
say. Though sometimes he's positively garrulous, runs on and on, won't
swear your questions but sure wants to talk at a person, couldn't shut
him up with a two-by-four. He's told me a lot about you, for instance,
more than I care to know." frowned and shook his head.
"You two may be crazy enough to get involved in this nightmare, but I'm
not, and I resent being dragged into it." At first glance, the
impression that Dr. Lawrence, Foga made was that of a kindly grandfather
who, in his day, been the type of devoted and selfless physician who
became revered by his community, known and beloved by one and He was
still wearing the slippers, gray slacks, white shirt, a blue cardigan in
which Bobby had first seen him earlier, a the image was completed by a
pair of half-lens reading glasses over which he regarded them. With his
thick white hair, eyes, and gentle rounded features, he would have made
an effective Santa Claus if he had been fifty or sixty pounds heavier
But on a second and closer look, his blue eyes were steely, not warm.
His rounded features were too soft, and revealed not gentility so much
as lack of character, as though they had been acquired through a
lifetime of self-indulgence. His wide mouth would have given kindly old
Doc Fogarty a winning smile, but its generous dimension served equally
well to lend the look of a predator to the real Doc Fogarty.
"So Frank's told you about us," Bobby said.
"But we don't know anything about you, and I think we need to." Fogarty
scowled.
"Better that you don't know about me.
Better by far for me. Just get him out of here, take him away."
"You want us to take Frank off your hands," Julie said coldly,
"then you've got to tell us who you are, how you fit into this, what you
know about it." Meeting Julie's gaze, then Bobby's, the old man said,
"He's not been here in five years. Today, when he came with you,
Dakota, I was shocked, I'd thRoselle's father. Supposedly her father
was so itinerant who knocked up her mother, but I always knew it was a
lie. Her father was Yarnell Pollard, her mother's brother Roselle was a
child of rape and incest." A look of distress must have crossed Bobby's
face or Julie for Fogarty let out another bark of cold laughter, clearly
amused by their sympathetic response.
The old physician said,
"Oh, that's nothing. That's the least of it."
THE TALLLESS MANX- Zitha by name-took up sentry duty in the concealment
of an azalea shrub near the front door.
The old Spanish house had exterior window ledges, and the second cat-as
black as midnight, and named Darkless-sprang to another one in search of
the room to which the old man had taken the younger man and woman.
Darkle put his nose to the glass. A set of interior shutters inhibited
snooping, but the wide louvres were only half closed, and Darkle was
able to see several cross-sections of the room by raising or lowering
his head.
Hearing Frank's name spoken, the cat stiffened, because Violet had
stiffened in her bed high on Pacific Hill.
The old man was there, among the books, and the couple as well. When
everyone sat down, Darkle had to lower his head to peer between another
pair of tilted louvres. Then he saw that Frank was not only one of the
subjects of their conversation but actually present in a high-backed
chair that stood at just enough of an angle to the window to reveal part
of his face, and one hand lying limply on the wide, maroon-leather arm.
LEANING OVER his desk and smiling humorlessly as he talked, Doc Fogarty
resembled a troll that had crawled out from its lair beneath a bridge,
not content to wait for unsuspecting children to pass by, prepared to
forage for his grisly dinner.
Bobby reminded himself not to let his imagination run away with him. He
needed to keep an unbiased perspective on Fogarty, in order to determine
the truthfulness and value of what the old man had to tell them. Their
lives might depend on it.
"The house was built in the thirties by Deeter and Elizabeth Pollard.
He'd made some money in Hollywood, producing a bunch of cheap Westerns,
other junk. Not a fortune, but enough that he was fairly sure he could
give up films and Los Angeles, which he hated, move up here, get into
some small businesses, and do all right for the rest of his life. They
had two children. Yarnell was fifteen when they came here in 1938, and
Cynthia was only six years old. In forty-five, when Deeter and
Elizabeth were killed in a car crash-hit head-on by drunk driving a
truck full of cabbages down from the Saint Ynez valley, if you can
believe it-Yarnell became the head of the house at the age of
twenty-two, and the legal guard of his thirteen-year-old sister." Julie
said,
"And... forced himself on her, you said?" Fogarty nodded.
<
br /> "I'm sure of it. Because over the next year Cynthia became withdrawn,
weepy. People attributed it to death of her folks, but it was Yarnell
using her, I think.
just because he wanted the sex-though she was a pretty little thing, and
you could hardly fault his taste-but because being man of the house
appealed to him, he liked authority. And was the type who wasn't happy
until his authority was absolute, his dominance complete." Bobby was
horrified by the words
"You could hardly fault his taste" and what they implied about the depth
of the abyss in which Fogarty lived.
Oblivious of the disgust with which his visitors were regarding him,
Fogarty continued:
"Yarnell was strong-willed, re less, caused his folks a lot of heartache
before they died, kinds of heartache but mostly related to drugs. He
was an acid head before they had a name for it, before they even had LSD
Peyote, mescaline... all of the natural hallucinogens you can distill
from certain cactuses, mushrooms and other fun Wasn't the drug culture
back then that we have now, but!" was around. He got into
hallucinogens through a relations he had with a character actor who
appeared in a lot of his father's movies, got started when he was
fifteen, and I tellall this because my theory is it's the key to
everything youneed to know."
"The fact that Yarnell was an acidhead," Julie said.
"That the key?"
"That and the fact he impregnated his own sister. The cheicals probably
did genetic damage, and a lot of it, by the time he was twenty-two. They
Koontz, Dean R. - The Bad Place Page 49