Suddenly the cloak was in the kitchen with Grant, flapping and moving directly in front of him. Grant felt a coldness unlike any he had ever felt.
The eyes, which were emptiness, the opposite of light, bored into him. When Samhain opened his mouth again Grant felt an ice-blue freeze in the words. “The one I serve is worse than death, detective. He is the opposite of life. When he drives through my domain into this one, he will obliterate every atom of every living thing on this world. He detests life. And I serve him because I must. “
For a moment the voice became almost bitter: “Because I must. For me, it will be something of a rest I suppose …”
The cloak, the face, came even closer. The words were even colder, like being in the back of a freezer with the door locked in front of you. “Do nothing. Stay away from Corrie Phaeder. Watch Marvin Soames, if you like. With him, I will show you what I can do. One other, also, if you persist.
“Do nothing, detective.”
The cloak, the face, the unfathomable cold, were gone in a finger snap.
Grant looked at the kitchen door, which was closed.
He slowly turned back to the table.
The Dewar’s bottle was nearly empty, the spilled liquor vanished, fresh ice in the glass.
The books he had borrowed from the library were burned, a pile of ashes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
To Gina, the world was now like a roller coaster.
Sometimes she saw Mr. Phaeder in her dreams. Her dreams were the only part of her life that was real, now. When she saw Mr. Phaeder he was painting his porch, or pulling weeds, or fixing the door on his shed. In her dreams Mom and Dad took her to buy shoes, or to the video store, or they all went to lunch.
Awake, she was in wonderland. The Playmates were gone, but, Mr. Phaeder had started to appear in wonderland, too. It was as if, awake, they were having the same dreams, the same adventures. They would be in a plane, sometimes with Mr. Phaeder piloting and sometimes Gina, and the plane would fly high over a dark landscape without trees or rivers or houses. Sometimes strange figures would move below, but they could never get a good look at them and the plane wouldn’t fly lower. Sometimes they were in a balloon or a blimp, but always they would be too high to see anything but the dark landscape and the strange moving shapes.
Lately, she and Mr. Phaeder had been able to talk a little during these adventures, but never for long, as if someone had told them to hush.
Mr. Phaeder didn’t look too good, and Gina wondered how she looked herself. Mr. Phaeder had bruises all over his arms and his face, and his hair had gotten thinner, and turned gray; when Gina tried to look at her own arms she found that she could not look directly at herself, as if her sight slid off her body and made her look a little to the side. But she didn’t feel too bad, and ate some of the food that Mom left for her in her room.
She hadn’t left her room in a long time, as far as she knew.
She remembered two trips, one to the doctor and one over a bridge, but they were at least a week ago, probably longer, and she remembered a lot of yelling in the car after they went through the bridge toll and then Dad turned around and they came back. After that she stayed in her room. It was just about then that wonderland had started for real, with only a little sleeping each day which let her remember things like Mom and Dad buying groceries, or Dad mowing the lawn. Even these brief reality dreams were getting shorter, as wonderland began to take over.
That’s what Mr. Phaeder had told her during one of their short conversations while they were in the blimp: “Reggie, soon it will be Halloween, and then we’re going on a trip.”
Gina wondered if they were going to wonderland, or somewhere even stranger.
Gina remembered Halloween — she vaguely recalled that she was going to dress up like a princess this year. Or was that last year? Even the reality dreams were getting mixed up lately, but she had no doubt that, this year, Halloween would be an event.
Later, when she and Mr. Phaeder were in a helicopter, he had assured her that it certainly would, though he wasn’t smiling when he said it.
Right now Gina was in a balloon alone — or rather she was in a chair to which hundreds of party balloons, red, green, blue, yellow, filled with helium were attached, and she was floating above the dark landscape. Off in the distance she saw another figure in a chair supported by twice as many balloons, and she imagined that must be Mr. Phaeder. They were slowly drifting toward each other.
Somewhere out of wonderland, Gina heard a door open and close, and then her mother crying. It must be time for lunch or dinner. Very faintly, she thought she felt her mother’s hands touch her, but it was more like someone breathing on your skin than grabbing you. Then the weeping stopped and the door was opened and closed again.
Mr. Phaeder was within hailing distance now, and Gina waved to him.
“Hello, Reggie!” he called, making a cup of his hands. Then he waved back.
Gina tried to yell back at him, but nothing came out of her mouth.
Mr. Phaeder pointed down, and Gina looked to see that the landscape below had changed. Or maybe it had just gotten closer, because she could see the strange figures a little more clearly. There were cubes and wheels that rolled along by themselves, and wriggly strings that looked like snakes and balls of fluff like cotton. They were all moving in the same direction, and now Mr. Phaeder was yelling at her again to get her attention and pointing to the horizon in the direction in which all the strange shapes were moving.
Gina looked that way, and saw a brightening, and that the ground wasn’t so dark down there. It seemed crowded with figures, thousands and thousands of roiling weird shapes. And there was a wide tall building made of stone. Then Mr. Phaeder was pointing the other way, and Gina saw that the other horizon was as black as night and that there was a ragged tear across the sky which got bigger as she watched it. There were rumbling sounds like the ones she had heard in her room, and hoots and whistles and faraway crashes.
Mr. Phaeder was moving away from her again, rising. He was waving his hands excitedly. Gina saw that she was sinking as Mr. Phaeder rose, making it seem like she was moving twice as fast.
The ground was rushing up at her.
There was a circle of strange shapes — a long sliver of puffy smoke, a flat figure that looked like a Halloween cutout, and some others, looking up at her and reaching out arms (if they had them) to break her fall or to help her down. But she stopped in midair just out of their reach.
There was much noise, a loud ripping sound and crashes like waves slamming into a sandy beach, and the figures themselves made sounds, other ones she had heard in her room.
For a second it looked like she was going to fall into their arms. The cardboard cutout leaped up, and nearly touched her foot, but missed. He fell back down with a crackly sound like crumpled cellophane.
But she stayed where she was, and then was yanked up a little higher, out of their reach. And Mr. Phaeder suddenly dropped down out of the sky, some of his balloons popped but still enough to keep him from falling. He came to a stop just next to Gina, and his mouth was working, but no words came out.
Then suddenly, as if someone had pushed a mute button off on a radio which was on but you couldn’t hear, his words came booming out of his mouth. He was very excited, and looked very afraid.
It occurred to Gina that perhaps she should be very afraid, too.
“Tomorrow is Halloween,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Marvin Soames was mightily pissed off.
Not only that: he was thirsty. Real thirsty. Thirsty as he’d ever been.
And now they went and stuck him in the basement.
The drunk tank had been fine; the holding cell they’d put him in after that had been fine, too. At least they’d both been on the first floor. There had been the occasional other guest of the town to hob-nob with — briefly, before they moved him to the holding cell, he’d shared the drunk tank with Jelly Gomez and Brenda Whats-
her-name, drinking buddies from way back. He hadn’t seen Jelly in two years, and Brenda didn’t look so good, either. Of course they both said the same thing about him, and gave him big eyes.
“You really a cop killer, Marvin?” Jelly had said in disbelief.
“That’s what they tell me,” Marvin had answered, and for a moment he felt important, because Jelly and Brenda moved to the other side of the cell, like they were afraid of him. Then he felt lonely.
But not as lonely as when that crazy bastard Grant came barging in and had him moved to the basement. That was two days ago. Grant didn’t look so good himself, these days; had that bender look to him that Marvin knew so well, a little flaked around the edges, eyes dull and too alert at the same time. ’Course he’d just lost his wife, which must be tough, and Marvin had told him that, which didn’t stop Grant from having him moved to the cellar.
“For your own protection,” Grant had said, when asked.
“From who?” Marvin asked. “How ’bout a drink?”
When he thought about who, when he wasn’t thinking about his next drink, which didn’t seem to be on the way, and made him very nervous, he had a couple of possibilities, neither of which he was comfortable with.
Here came one of them now.
That fat sonofabitch Prohman was waddling towards him with a tray in his paws. Soames liked him about as much as he enjoyed hemorrhoids. He’d heard stories about Prohman, from guys like Jelly and Fritz Breamer, about years ago when Prohman had been a beat cop. Not so fat then, but the story was he liked to use the stick. Soames had always avoided him like the plague.
“Mr. Soames, dinner time!” Prohman announced, sliding the tray under the bars — clumsy bastard didn’t even notice that he’d knocked the soda over doing it. Now the chips and sandwich were soaked.
Marvin grunted.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Soames — ain’t hungry?”
Prohman’s tone had altered subtly: lower, a hint of meanness.
Marvin grunted again, looking at the soaked tray.
When he looked up, Prohman was unlocking the door. His piggy eyes were bright and Marvin’s attention was drawn to the billy club in the fat cop’s hand.
Prohman took a step in — and then froze as detective Grant appeared at the bottom of the basement steps.
“Chip, what the hell are you doing?” Grant growled.
Prohman immediately shoved the billy down into the front of his pants and bent down to the tray.
“Goddam cop killing drunk messed up his dinner,” Prohman stammered, picking up the tray and turning around to face Grant.
The detective studied him closely. “Take the tray upstairs and get him another one.”
Prohman tried to smile but lost it.
“And get that stick out of your pants,” Grant added. “Makes you look like you’ve got something going on down there.”
As the fat sergeant passed Grant, the detective said, “You’ll be on the desk for the rest of your life.”
Prohman hurried away and stomped up the stairs.
Grant slowly swung the cell door closed and locked it from the outside. He stared in at Soames.
“How you doing, Marvin? We’re going to move you tomorrow to the state prison.”
Marvin looked at the floor. The need and jitters were back. “Could use a drink.”
“Couldn’t we all. You know it’ll pass.”
Soames harrumphed. “Hasn’t ever.”
“How long you been like this?” the detective asked.
Marvin shrugged. “Long time, I guess. Troubles, you know.”
“When did you first meet Samhain?”
Marvin was studying his hands, which were moving one over the other in front of him. “While ago. Fritz Beamer and some of the others, they made me move on. Can’t blame them much, I wasn’t bringing in much in the way of trade. Used to be you could get enough empties to bring to the mart for a bottle, but all the younger guys and the kids seem to snap them up ’fore I got to ’em. Don’t know …” He studied his hands, forgot Grant’s question.
“What did Samhain say to you, Marvin?”
Soames’s attention focused on the tone in Grant’s voice. He looked up to see the detective’s tired eyes intently on him.
“Say, detective, how ’bout we share a drink along with our troubles? I surely am sorry about your wife. I know you can get a bottle if you want.”
“Not now, Marvin. What about Samhain?”
Marvin shrugged. “He just sort of came to me one day. I was pretty down and out and then, boom, there’s a bottle of zin just waiting for me when I wake up. And he talked to me, first in my head and then I saw the cloak.”
“When was that?”
Another shrug. “Don’t know. A year, maybe more.” He seemed trying to concentrate. “One winter, two winters.”
“And he took care of you all that time?”
“Bottle every day.” He smiled, looking down at his moving hands again. “Asked him for two on Christmas, but he said that wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“And what was your end of the bargain?”
“Nothing much. Sort of like that undertaker, you know.”
“I don’t get it, Marvin.”
Soames showed impatience. “That undertaker. In that movie. When the Godfather does him a favor, and says he may ask him for one later. And then later comes when his son gets shot up, and he asks the undertaker to make him look good again. Sure about that drink, detective?”
“Sorry, Marvin. Like I said, we’ll be sending you to the state prison tomorrow morning.”
“Think it will help me?”
“What?”
“What I did to Riley Gates and all. I still say he wasn’t a bad guy. Just did what he had to. But I was the undertaker. Think if I explain to them that Samhain was the Godfather, it’ll help me?”
“It might. Good-night, Marvin.”
There was a series of loud snapping bangs somewhere far off, muffled by the basement walls.
“What’s that?” Marvin asked.
“Just firecrackers. Pre-Halloween fun. There’s a kid named Lenny who sets them off in front of the station every year the night before Halloween. He’ll be in a cell upstairs in fifteen minutes.”
Chip Prohman clumped back down the stairs holding a tray with a new dinner on it.
“Make sure he eats it,” Grant ordered. “And if you open that cell I’ll know.”
Grant glared at the fat man and went upstairs.
Prohman looked after him and said something under his breath.
“I didn’t hear that, but I know what it was,” Grant called back.
More firecrackers. At least that’s what it sounded like. Or someone snapping his fingers.
Marvin woke up in darkness. There was a rustling sound, and he thought the fat cop might be in the cell. He called out. But there was only a snoring sound.
A flapping rustle, and Samhain appeared.
He rose out of the darkness like a lamp coming out of fog. His cape moved, outlined at the edges with light, and his face was like a glowing gray balloon with black holes for eyes and a mouth like a knife blade edged with blood. Marvin had never noticed just how frightening he looked.
“Are you thirsty, Marvin?”
“I’ll say,” Soames answered carefully.
The weird red mouth opened and a chuckle came out. “Good. I brought you a bottle.”
Out in the darkness, the snoring turned into a snort.
“What about the fat cop?” Marvin whispered.
Samhain said, “He’ll sleep through this party.”
The cape moved aside, and there was a bottle there, label turned toward Samhain. The cork had already been removed.
“White zin?” Marvin asked expectantly.
“Something better. A celebration. You deserve it.”
Hungrily, Marvin reached out and turned the bottle around.
“Chateau …” he puzzled.
“It’s French champa
gne. Better than Dom Perignon. As I said, a celebration.”
“Of what?”
“Of your final task for me. You helped me once, and did very well, and now you’ll do one more thing that I ask.”
“Anything you want, Godfather,” Marvin assured him, lifting the bottle to his lips. “Hey, this is good! And it tickles!”
“Those are the bubbles. Enjoy it, Marvin.”
Soames guzzled the champagne, tittered as the carbonation ran down his cheeks. “Better than Cold Duck. Fritz had a bottle of Tattingers one New Year’s Eve, we took it from a college kid who passed out—”
He continued to guzzle, holding the bottle with both hands. “And this has a kick!”
“I should say so, Marvin. It’s very good champagne.”
“Whoa,” Soames exclaimed, holding the bottle out to examine it. He shook it. There was a little left. “Haven’t had a fast kick like this in a while.”
Samhain waited patiently while Marvin finished the champagne.
“Now what?” Marvin asked. His sight was a little skewed. He stared at the swirling cloak, hoping that perhaps a second bottle would appear. When he looked at Samhain’s face it didn’t look quite so horrible now, the sharp edges blurred, the smiling mouth more friendly.
“Any chance—”
“I think that bottle was sufficient. Now I’d like you to perform that task for me.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Samhain smiled. “Have you ever heard of Renfield, Marvin?”
Soames pretended to think, because that’s what Samhain seemed to want. Finally he said, “Never been there.”
“It wasn’t a place. It was a person. Renfield was a character in a book called Dracula. Pity you never read it.”
“Read a good porno once—sure you don’t have a second bottle?”
“We won’t need it. Here’s what I want you to do, Marvin …”
Grant came in to the station on Halloween morning and found Chip Prohman asleep on a makeshift cot in the basement. In the gloom, and from where Grant stood some twenty feet from it, it looked as though Marvin’s Soames’s cell was empty.
The Orangefield Cycle Omnibus Page 33