“What if somebody sees us!” she cried, almost panting with fright and excitement.
“We’ll hide in the water,” Howard said, taking her arm and running her headlong into the surf. “Ahhhhh! Good lord, that’s cold!” Althea was cold too, but she was laughing too hard to scream. They dashed out of the water until they were chilled by the breeze blowing on their wet naked bodies, and then ran back in. This time the water felt warmer and more inviting. They did their best to warm each other up as well, clutching onto each other in the brine, only their heads sticking up above the tide, like seals.
Howard and Althea made weightless love upright in the water. When they finally climaxed, it was with such intensity that they both let go of each other and fell under the surface, floating in baptismal ecstasy. Althea surfaced first, and shouted out in surprise and glee, as an otter popped its head up and snorted spray not ten yards away from her. When Howard’s head emerged from the water, the creature looked at him quizzically, and then dove down and sped away.
“You’d better get gone if you know what’s good for you,” Howard called to the otter. Then to Althea, he said: “From now on, Pookie, this is our beach. Only ours.” They laughed and held each other until the sun noticeably moved lower in the sky, then, after looking around carefully to make sure no one else had shown up, charged out of the water and raced back on the sand to the spot on which they had dropped their clothes, and quickly dressed, which was not easy, given their wetness and salt-stickiness. Then they walked slowly, combing the beach for treasures, munching on the pemmican and fruit they’d bought in town, talking of futures, until the warming sun began to weaken and cool, and then decided to retrieve the bicycles and head back to the village.
Howard and Althea were in no hurry to get back—at least not until they heard the fire engine bell and siren and became curious. Peddling hard back toward the town, they could now see a plume of black smoke rising from the business district. “What could be burning?” Althea wondered, stepping up the pace. As they approached the main street, they saw more and more of the townspeople poring out to see the conflagration as well. Up ahead was an ancient fire truck, doing its best to pump enough water to douse the raging fire.
“My heavens,” Althea said, “it looks like the hotel!”
It was the hotel. A plume of black smoke rose up from its top floor, and flames jetted out from every window. They pedaled up the main street, which was increasingly filling up with people and smoke. Leaping off his bike, Howard shoved his way through the crowd and ran up to the front of the building, where he was stopped by a fireman. “You can’t go any closer, mac,” he told him. “Get a move on, let the men work.”
“My friend was in there,” Howard said. “I want to make sure he’s all right.”
“Either he got out or he’s beyond help, now move along,” the fireman said, this time shoving him back as the fire hoses futilely sprayed against the roaring flames.
Of course Fergus got out, Howard thought. Fergus is the kind of guy who always gets out.
Althea now joined him. “It’s a good thing we were gone,” she said.
“But all your stuff is probably going up.”
“I really didn’t have that much anyway.” All she had brought with her was a change of clothing and a few personal items, which could easily be replaced.
To the side of the building, Howard spotted Charity, who was looking up at the burning top floors with an expression of resigned horror. Her hands covered her mouth, perhaps an effort to keep from breathing the smoke that was beginning to become oppressive. Seated on the ground beside her was Fergus Randall. “There is he,” Howard said, “come on.” The two of them fought their way over to them.
“Christ, lad, where the hell have you been?” Fergus cried when he saw Howard, and pulled himself to his feet, coughing mightily. “I managed to save all our gear.”
“I wasn’t as worried about the gear as I was about you,” Howard said, clapping his hands on the man’s shoulders.
“I’ll tell you, this might convince me to give up smoking,” Fergus said, coughing again.
“What the hell happened?”
“It started in one of the second-floor rooms.”
“That’s the floor I was on,” Althea said, afraid that the blaze had somehow broken out in her room. It didn’t make any sense; she had not left anything behind that might have started a fire, not a lit candle or burning lamp. Althea knew none of this was her fault, but for some reason she could not shake the feeling of dread that had suddenly blanketed her.
“Charity was leading me up there to look at a room and while we were there the first sign of smoke appeared from down the hall,” Fergus said. “Then...hell, I don’t know what happened after that.”
Howard saw his friend shudder, which was not like Fergus at all. Something was upsetting him beyond having to flee from a burning building. “I need to get away from this smoke.”
Howard picked up as much of his and Fergus’ gear as he could carry and with the two of them fought his way through the ever-growing crowd. They made their way down the street to a tiny diner with an outside table.
“I need a drink,” Fergus said, but all the place had were soft drinks. He settled on water.
“Okay, Fergus, what’s the rest of the story?” Howard asked, once they were seated and somewhat settled at the canopied table.
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s something you haven’t said, something you don’t seem to want to say.”
Fergus Randall took a deep breath and coughed again, then drained his glass of water. “As soon as we smelled the smoke Charity and I went running from door to door, pounding on each one and rousing whoever was in there. She ran up to the third floor and I stayed on the second.”
“Then you helped save everybody,” Althea said.
“I suppose so. The thing is, when I got to the room that appeared to be the source of the smoke I pounded on the door for half-a-minute, but no one seemed to be inside. I was about to leave when the door cracked open and there he was: Louis Norman goddamned Igee—pardon my language—standing there in a bathrobe like he didn’t have a care in the world. There was a woman behind him to, and she wasn’t wearing a bathrobe, if you know what I mean. The two of them acted like I was interrupting something important by trying to save them from a fire. I started shouting for them to get the hell out of there, but Igee only laughed. ‘We’ll get out our own way,’ he said, and then slammed the door in my face.”
“That’s crazy,” Althea said.
“It gets better,” Fergus said. “Through the door I heard a sound I couldn’t quite identify, almost like a small explosion, and then more smoke came out from under the door. I started kicking the door and it finally gave way.” Fergus Randall stopped as though trying to collect his thoughts and then started shaking his head.
“Come on, Fergus, you can’t stop now,” Howard said. “What happened? Did you get them out?”
Fergus looked up at his friend with reddened, smoky eyes. “They weren’t there, lad. The room was empty.”
“Maybe they went through the window,” Althea suggested.
“It would have been a two-storey drop, straight down.”
“Maybe there was some kind of secret exit,” Howard said.
“Believe me, lad, I’ve gone over and over it in my mind. The hotel room had four walls. I was standing in front of one. The wall opposite me had a window that led to a ten-foot fall. You can survive a ten-foot drop, surely, but why would you risk it when you could just run through the door to safety? The two walls on the sides were adjoined by other rooms. Even if there had been a door in one of those walls, I would have seen them emerge from the next room. But they didn’t.”
“A trap door doesn’t make sense either,” Howard said, “not on an upper floor.”
“Nothing makes sense, lad. Least of all the odor I caught.”
“What kind of odor?” Althea asked.
F
ergus forced a tiny smile. “Today it would be called sulfur,” he said. “But old-timers would have another name for it.” He spoke the word and Howard and Althea looked at him with shocked expressions.
“You asked, and I told you,” Fergus went on, grimly amused by their reactions. “The last thing I experienced before fleeing for my life out of burning building was the smell of fire and brimstone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TODAY
“When’re we gonna get to my Daddy?” Robynn cried. “I want my Daddy.”
Marcus Broarty wanted to deliver a karate chop to the brat’s throat. The night’s sleep had done absolutely nothing to dim her whine function. She’d been at it ever since they woke up this morning at the motel. He would have given anything to be able to pull the car over to the shoulder and shove the scarfaced little monkey out the door, and then drive away. But that was not part of the plan. Still, going through another entire day of this might just be the deal breaker.
“I want my Daddy,” she said again, this time in a pouty voice.
“Would you just shut up?” Marcus growled.
“Daddy says saying ‘shut up’ is not nice.”
“Yeah, well, Daddy’s a frigging asshole, isn’t he?”
Robynn frowned. “Frigging assle? Is that anything like a muverfucker?”
Marcus Broarty was at first shocked and then started laughing in that high-pitched girlish way that he normally tried to keep others from hearing. “Kid, maybe you’re all right after all,” he said. Maybe that’s why the God of Wood City, who had first revealed Himself to Marcus in the Holy Painting and then had returned to him last night more clearly in a dream, wanted the girl so badly. The kid could be annoying as hell, but it any five year old who could toss off the word motherfucker in casual conversation was likely someone even a god would want to know. Beyond that, it really wasn’t any of his business why the God of Wood City wanted the girl, no more than it was why He had demanded the life of Emac. Having at long last found a spiritual center to his life, Marcus Broarty was only too happy to comply with the wishes of his new Lord and Master.
There was a ding coming from somewhere in the rental car’s dashboard, and Broarty muttered, “What the hell is that?” A quick inspection proved that he was nearly out of gas. Jesus, this rental drank like a goddamned Indian, and at nearly four frigging bucks a gallon, it as probably going to bankrupt him before they get to Wood City! “Look, kid, I’m going to have to pull off at the next exit and get gas, so if you have to go to the bathroom, let me know.”
“I’m okay,” Robynn answered.
“You sure?”
“Mm-hmmm.”
“’Cause if you pee in Uncle Marc’s car, he’s going to be mad.”
“Gina Shaloob wets the bed, but I don’t.”
“Yeah, well, that’s great.”
An exit was coming up and Broarty pulled off and headed into the first station he saw, a Chevron. He slid up to a pump and stopped the car, rolled down the window and shut the ignition off, and waited. After about two minutes, he swore and got out of the car. “Doesn’t anybody work here?” he demanded of no one.
“Gotta go inside if you want something, mister,” said another customer, a black man who was cleaning his windshield on the other side of the pump island.
“Don’t tell me this is self-serve?”
“Don’t know any other kind.”
“I don’t pump my own gas back in Beverly Hills!”
“Must be nice, brother,” the other customer commented.
“Hey, tell you what, you fill me up and I’ll give you a buck.”
The man stopped what he was doing and looked at Broarty. Then he spat on the ground. “You need assistance, you go inside and get someone there to help you.”
“Look, help me out and I’ll put in a good word for you with the True God, the God of Wood City, who’s going to kill everybody he doesn’t like.”
Now the man’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, that’s fine, brother, you do that.” He wasted no time getting into his car with its sparkling windows and pulling away.
Must be nice, brother. Sure. What did that doomed boofer know anyway? Broarty had a condo in Beverly Hills, as he deserved to, and he didn’t have to pump his own gas, but what about all the other shit in his former life? Having to go into the office every day, where he was disrespected by everyone including the janitorial staff; having to deal with the Egon McMenamins of the world; having to constantly prove to everyone that he really was capable of managing a company. Well, they’d learn their mistakes, and soon. They’d all learn that messing with Marcus Broarty now was a real bad idea. He had friends in High places.
But for the time being, he had to get the goddamned gasoline in the goddamned rental car. Sticking his head back in the car to tell Robynn not to go anywhere, he walked into the station office, which was manned by a dikey looking woman with short-cropped blonde hair. “Hey, miss, I need some help out here,” he said.
“Sorry, got no one to spare today,” the clerk said. “Half my crew called in sick.”
“Well how am I supposed to get gas, then?”
The clerk sized him up and down. “You either pay me here or swipe your credit card out at the pump, and then you take the pump and stick it in your gas tank, then you squeeze the handle until it shuts off automatically. It ain’t rocket science.”
“Where’s the opening to the gas tank?”
“It’s not my car, fella, I don’t know. Gotta be on one side or the other, or maybe in the back under the license plate.”
“You’ve been a great help, thank you,” Broarty said sarcastically and walked back out.
The gas opening turned out to be on the driver’s side, which was good, since that was the side facing the pump. He knew he really should be paying cash, but time was of the essence, so he pulled out his Visa and slipped into the slot, took it back, and then for the first time since college eased the metal pump nozzle into the gas pipe and squeezed. Broarty’s attention remained fixed on the pump, which was just about to top fifty dollars (Christ almighty!) when a voice behind him said, “Excuse me, sir.” Turning he saw a young dark-haired woman standing by the side of the car, smiling at him. “Hi, I couldn’t help but notice that your little girl isn’t in a car seat,” she said.
“She’s not my little girl,” Broarty told her.
“Well, it’s still not safe to have her buckled straight into the seat like that, and it’s really not safe to have her in the front seat, where the air bags are.”
The pump shut off and Broarty quickly pulled it out and wrestled it back into its place. “The only air bag around here is you, lady,” he said. “Mind your own frigging business.”
Broarty got back into the car, fired up the ignition and roared away from the pump island, leaving the woman standing there, her mouth agape. Now his hands smelled like gasoline. Jesus. The things he had to endure for his spiritual awakening.
They were less than five miles down the road when Robynn said: “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Aw, shoot me, kid! We were just at a gas station! Why didn’t you go then?”
“I didn’t have to then.”
“Well there aren’t any more exits for miles. Can you hold it?”
“No.”
“Shit!”
“I really gotta go.” Her voice was hesitant and whimpery, like she was trying hard not to make him mad.
Broarty emitted a low growl of frustration, then said, “Okay, look: I’ll find a spot with a lot of bushes along the highway and you get out and pee there.”
“Outside?”
“Yes, outside! People do it all the time. It’s either that or hold it, because if you piss in this car, I’ll kill you.”
“Okay.” Now Robynn’s voice was the size of a baby mouse.
After driving another mile on the highway, Broarty found a spot that looked suitable and pulled over onto the shoulder. “Get out and go over behind that tree and piss!”
“By myself?”
“Oh, good god, you don’t need help going at home, do you?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t believe it,” he muttered as he got out of the car and slammed the door behind him, then stormed his way over the gravel to the passenger side and yanked Robynn’s door open. Fumbling off her seat belt, he pulled her out and marched her down to the tree. “Now hurry up!”
She was whimpering. “I...don’t know if...I can....”
“Do you want me to squeeze it out of you?”
“No. But don’t look.”
“Fine.” Broarty turned away while Robynn fumbled with her elastic-topped pants. As soon as he heard the sound of running liquid, he was alternately relieved and annoyed; relieved because the frigging little she-demon was finally getting to it, and annoyed because now he had the sudden urge to go. Without looking back he said, “I’m going to go over here for a moment. When you’re done, stay right where you are.” When he got no response, he barked: “You hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Broarty walked a few yards to a waist-high bush. It wasn’t a great screen, but it would partially cloak him from the cars that were zooming past on the highway. Unzipping his fly, he pulled his tool out and let go. This was the first time he had peed outside since that disastrous camping trip he had been convinced to go on by an old college friend about fifteen years ago. The strange thing was, he was actually enjoying it, until a voice called out from the other side of the bush: “Hey, watch that shit, will you?”
Startled, Broarty tried to stop peeing but discovered that he couldn’t. Then a face appeared over the top of the bush, a striking face enveloped in long, lush, slightly wild red hair. The woman was not classically beautiful—certainly not like Janelle back at the office—but there was something about her, a sexual magnetism that Broarty breathed in like oxygen. “I’m, uh...I...sorry, but I didn’t know you were there,” he stammered, unable to stop peeing. “I didn’t see you.”
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