Rage Factor

by Chris Rogers

  Mud licked them away.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Friday, February 14

  Technically, with Joanna’s stalker gone, Dixie was relieved of Sarina duty. But she didn’t relish spending the day alone. She called Belle just after dawn.

  “Any reason I shouldn’t pick up the kid, spend today kicking around town as usual?”

  “At your rates? Eggert’s on a plane headed for Australia. The job’s finished.”

  “But Joanna’s film won’t finish shooting until tonight. And Sarina’s bright enough to get in trouble on her own.” Dixie had already decided to stay on the job, with or without pay. But if Richards, Blackmon & Drake could be pressed into paying the freight, why not let them?

  Belle’s pen tapped a steady rhythm as she considered it.

  “Okay. I haven’t had a chance yet to tell Joanna about Eggert. But keep Sarina away from Duncan’s studio until Marty Ahrens has a chance to soften Joanna up on the subject of her apprenticeship.”

  “Would I do otherwise?” Not with the Illusions festival starting today.

  Dixie carried the phone to the bathroom. Her eyes looked like two burn holes in a mattress, and her body felt as if she’d been holding up the house all night. A few good SF films might just take her mind off her miseries. Besides, Rashly had ordered her to stay out of his way while he followed up on the Avenging Angels suspect list.

  There was no answer at the Four Seasons Hotel suite. Sarina had probably slipped out early, determined to attend the festival and expecting Dixie to argue. Pointing the Porsche toward Rice University campus, where Illusions was being held, Dixie placed a call to Rashly.

  “Any news on the names I gave you? The Foxworths? The Thomases? Regan Salles?”

  “If you’d turned over that information earlier, Flannigan, we’d already have checked them out.”

  And maybe Brenda wouldn’t be dead. “I didn’t have any information. I was just poking around.”

  “You knew Coombs threatened Benson.”

  “Defendants threaten prosecutors, Rash. And Brenda wasn’t sexually violated. Did he have an alibi for last night?”

  “He was settled in with a tall whiskey and an X-rated video when we picked him up for questioning.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Yeah. ‘Talk to my lawyer.’”

  “Nobody ever said Coombs was stupid, just mean as a cold snake.”

  “Doesn’t mean he murdered your friend.”

  “No.” But she’d rather suspect Lawrence Coombs than anyone else on her list. That cigarette could’ve been dropped anytime.

  “What about the scarf she was strangled with? It had a distinctive pattern.” Red apples on pale green silk. “And Brenda doesn’t wear scarves.” But the scarf had seemed familiar.

  “Maybe it was the sister’s. Haven’t located her yet.” Dixie heard the clunk of Rashly’s pipe on an ashtray. “But your friend Benson was in this vigilante business up to her eyebrows, Flannigan.”

  “Okay. I can picture Brenda going after Coombs. Even Carrera—if that’s what happened with Carrera—but the Ingles murder, no way.”

  “The ME said the blows didn’t kill Ingles. Had a weak heart.”

  “Not weak enough to keep him from beating Ramirez to death and raping his niece.” Dixie had reached the campus. “Gotta go, Rash.”

  She disconnected and scanned a sea of cars. Not a chance of parking close to the Media Center.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Sarina stood at the open door of the Media Center Theater, frowning at the crush of students inside. Codswallop! Not even standing room. She’d expected the early showing of Night Freaks to be prime-seat, center-center, enveloped in sounds and effects, alone at last with the best. Uncredible that so many people jumped bed at dawn to see an obscure flick. This festival had drawn more film students than any L.A. seminar she’d attended.

  Now what? Most of the booths weren’t set up yet. After the check-in and opening speeches, the movie was it, the only game going until the ten o’clock panels started.

  “Looks like we’ll have to hike over to Hamman Hall, pretty lady,” drawled a sexy male voice behind her. “Hear they’re setting up to show some outtakes from the X-Files.”

  An old guy, maybe thirty-five, forty, but with eyes like the deep Pacific on a clear day. Actor, probably.

  Sarina examined the list of presentations. “X-Files is not listed on the schedule until tonight.”

  “The folks producing this shindig must’ve scrambled around after realizing what a turnout they had. Usually, Hamman Hall is reserved for live theater and chamber music, but it handles film all right in a pinch. Don’t know about you, but I’m not standing around twiddling my thumbs for two hours.”

  He strolled toward the door.

  “Wait! I’ll walk with you.” The map showed Hamman Hall as a tiny block all the way across the campus. This guy seemed to know where he was going.

  He wasn’t dressed like an actor, at least not an out-of-work actor. More GQ—cashmere pants, blue turtleneck sweater, tweed blazer, and the shiniest black shoes Sarina had ever seen. Producer? Agent? Too important to wear a name tag. Talent scout, maybe. Whatever, introducing him to Alroy Duncan might make her some points.

  “You’re Southern,” she guessed. “Does that make you from around here?” South Carolina had its own film culture taking shape. He could be South Carolina gentry, the way he carried himself, slow-talking, easy-walking.

  “Born and bred, as they say, right here in Houston.”

  “Is there as much filmmaking going on in Texas as we hear about on the coast?”

  “At least.”

  He took her arm to lead her around the curb. His touch sent a shiver of expectation through her. She’d never been heavy into dating, too busy carving a niche. Boys usually fell into two categories, super-stud melonheads and gifted gay-cats. Neither was date-mate status. An older man might be interesting.

  They came to a student cafeteria, and she suggested they grab a muffin. She’d missed breakfast again.

  “No time, if we want to catch the opening credits.”

  “On X-Files? Show me five minutes, any episode, I’ll quote the credits. Verbatim.”

  He smiled and veered toward the cafeteria, his hand on her elbow. The tingle stayed when he dropped his hand.

  She scooped up a muffin and bottled water.

  “Never watched it, myself,” he said.

  “Unpossible. You’re missing the Twilight Zone of the nineties. Low on effects, but high on story.”

  He insisted on paying, even though he hadn’t picked up anything for himself. Guy her age would not have paid. Dating an older man could be interesting, all right.

  They’d crossed half the campus, according to her map. Not many students wandering around. Classes already in progress.

  “What’s your take on crash-and-burn? I’m past that, myself, but pyrotechnics is its own trip. Set the string just right, perfect combo of pop and sizzle. Stand back, flick the Bic, and glory in the fireworks. Can anything be more intense?”

  “You, pretty lady, are intense. Ten minutes we’ve been talking, and I’ve felt more heat than from my fireplace on a cold night.”

  “Isn’t fire what it’s all about? You start out, you don’t know quite what to do or how to do it, but you must perform. And that’s when the sweetest work is done. When the fire goes out, that’s when you start mimicking what’s gone before. That’s when I hope I have guts enough to quit.”

  They’d reached a quiet brick building. Sarina didn’t see any students, unless they were all inside taking up the good seats.

  He opened the glass door for her. Old guys did things like that. The lobby was empty.

  “Where is everyone? Are you sure this is the right building?”

  “Absolutely. They’re probably still sorting out the equipment downstairs. Come on.”

  He led the way down a stairwell to a door marked REHEARSAL ROOM A. Sarina could hear
the hum of a furnace but little else.

  He opened the rehearsal-room door. When she looked in—nobody there, a sofa, some chairs—his hand clamped the back of her neck like a vise.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  A canopy of ancient live oaks shuddered in a brisk, cold wind blowing from the north. A fine February day ahead, the weatherman promised. Yet already a fresh bank of rain clouds the color of mold were rolling in from the north, looking as ill-natured as Dixie felt after the previous night’s tragedy.

  Pushing through the Media Center door with her cane, she instantly entered an alien world: colorful, noisy, smelling of urethane and crackling with activity. Every square inch was crawling with life, workshop organizers attending to last-minute details, vendors setting up displays. Dixie was glad not to have the stalker to worry about.

  From the look of the crowd, every movie enthusiast within a hundred miles had attended the festival, many of them cloaked in anonymity provided by elaborate costumes. A nine-foot silver-skinned humanoid, hairless head skimming the ceiling, picked his way through the crowd. If Sarina were inside such a garb, Dixie would never find her. Mesmerized, she bumped into a tentacled green blob with six eyes.

  Belle had once talked Dixie into dressing for a Halloween party. At a rental agency, she’d found racks of Scarlett O’Hara, Raggedy Ann, and Wicked Witch of the West trappings, but nothing to compare with what she saw here.

  Muscling through the line, she bought a day pass and received a six-page listing of vendors, films, workshops, locations of off-campus screenings, events planned for the three-day weekend, and a map of the campus.

  She noticed a sign announcing a showing of Night Freaks. The auditorium door was shut, the feature already in progress. Sarina would likely be inside.

  Stepping into the darkened theater, Dixie blinked, disoriented, then waited by the entrance for her eyes to adjust. On the screen, opening credits rolled across grainy black-and-white images. Splashes of green suggested someone had filmed the action through an infrared lens. Disco music established the period as the seventies.

  Dixie searched the throng of furred, feathered, scaly creatures for a thatch of strawberry-frosted blond hair, but the lighting was inadequate to distinguish color even a few seats away. She fished out her penlight and played its meager beam down the aisle and across the rows. Receiving only minor curses, she muttered “Sorry” after each, and knew five minutes later that Sarina wasn’t in the audience.

  Gimping outside again, her leg already aching, she eyed the maze of vendor tables and pushed on. With a start, she recognized ahead of her the silver hair and hesitant gait of Alan Kemp. As she watched, Kemp stopped at a vendor table and addressed a woman sitting behind it. Plump, sprightly, about fifty years old, she was reading a document. At Kemp’s approach, the woman removed her reading glasses, laid aside the document, and stood up to shake hands.

  Dixie sauntered up to Kemp’s side. “You’re the last person I’d expect to find at this conference.”

  Kemp frowned, obviously as surprised as she was.

  “Ms. Flannigan?” His eyes flickered to the manuscript lying on the table.

  Dixie strained to make out the words printed on the cover.

  “Mr. Kemps screenplay,” the woman said, gesturing at the manuscript. “A good one, as far as I’ve read.”

  “Actually, I came to Houston to attend this conference,” Kemp said, invoking his phony European accent. “Professor Pendercall has been kind enough to entertain the possibility of helping me obtain the interest of a Hollywood producer. Joanna would play the lead.”

  The plump woman’s eyebrows shot up. “With your cousin in the tide role, you’d stand a better chance of finding backers.”

  “So far I haven’t found the right moment to ask her,” Kemp admitted.

  Meaning he hadn’t found the guts, Dixie thought. But that cleared up the nagging question of why he was in town.

  “Have you seen Sarina here this morning? We were supposed to meet at the hotel. I guess she got impatient.”

  “No,” Kemp said. “If I run into her, I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

  Dixie excused herself and hobbled back into the main aisle. According to the map, the Stoned Toad Productions booth was on the far side of the lobby. Sarina would certainly hook up with Alroy Duncan. Dixie melted into a crowd heading in that direction.

  She found the effects tech seated in front of a computer, surrounded by costumed spectators. As he tapped a keyboard, images on a giant, wall-mounted monitor mutated, multiplied, and shattered into molten chrome.

  “Every creature we’ve ever created,” Duncan was saying, “is stored on disk in interchangeable parts.”

  Dixie wedged between two spectators and positioned herself at his elbow.

  “Seen Sarina yet?” she asked, just loud enough for Duncan to hear.

  He glanced up. “Sarina? No—” Then he amended, “Yes! I was carrying in boxes, and she was going out the other door.”

  “Out? Where?”

  Duncan scratched his beard and shrugged, his attention back on his work. “Can’t say. Had a guy with her.”

  “What guy? What did he look like?”

  “Tall, good-looking. Too old to be a student.” He tapped the keyboard, working magic on the screen for his spectators.

  Dixie stepped away from the booth and studied the schedule. Everything seemed to be happening right here in the Media Center or in off-campus theaters. Nothing else looked promising, except a student cafeteria. Eating was one of Sarina’s favorite pastimes.

  But after dragging her heavy cast halfway across the campus, she found Sarina was not at the cafeteria. The cashier recalled seeing a girl with reddish-blond hair, though.

  “Came in with a guy—” He looked at his watch. “About thirty-five, forty minutes ago. Bought a cranberry muffin.”

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Scuffling, whimpering noises came from behind a sofa. An animal?

  Sarina didn’t know, but it was part of whatever bad was going to happen, not in any shocker film, but real-life bad, feel it, touch it, smell it bad.

  Mouth, wrists, and ankles taped, she couldn’t stop shaking.

  Uncool. Totally uncool. Even tied up in the dark, didn’t the heroine always figure a way out? She should do something.

  The door opened. He came in again, with another silk tree. What was the deal with all the fake plants? He’d lugged in five—from the theater prop room, Sarina figured. Trees, shrubs, flowers. Grouped around a bench in a corner.

  He caught her staring and smiled. When he smiled, it was hard to believe this was all for real. Except for tying her up, he’d been nice, really, really nice. Apologized for taping her mouth. “Can’t risk any noise,” he’d said, “when the other guest arrives.” What other guest?

  Think! Why was she here? Was this a joke? College kids harassing the out-of-town dweeb?

  “Hey, pretty lady.” He knelt beside her. Stroked her cheek.

  He had a good voice, a good, kind voice, and a soft touch. Whatever he was up to, it couldn’t be anything really bad. A gag to get a producer’s attention, maybe. Actors pulled all kinds of crazy stunts to get producers to notice them. Screenwriters, too. If he’d just asked, she could’ve told him she had connections. Producers, directors—her mother was Joanna Francis, her father John Page—

  “How do you like the decor?”

  He meant the bench and trees. A baseball bat leaned against a potted shrub. Looked like a day in the park.

  Sarina tried to answer, tried to tell him about her righteous connections.

  “Amazing what can be thrown together in a pinch. But it’s … not quite right … yet.” He stood, pondering the scene he’d created. “Lighting. Yes, we need the proper mood, before your friend arrives.”

  Friend?

  Did he mean Dixie? She was her only friend in Houston. Except Duncan, but who would know about Duncan, unless they’d been followed—

  Oh! Oh, no. This guy could
n’t be the stalker. Mother’s stalkers were never really dangerous. Never.

  Was that the deal? Was he using her as bait to trick her mother into coming?

  He went out, but this time he left the door open a crack. If she could crawl to the door, hide before he returned—

  She scooted her hips and feet, hip-walking, inching like a worm as fast as she could across the floor—and made it. Turning sideways to the door, she elbowed it open and scooted through, squirming backward now, and down the hall—which way, dammit? Right! Opposite the way they came in. Inching, inching, inching—yards to go and she could only get there in pissy little inches—

  “darlin’, is this how you repay my hospitality?”

  He caught a handful of her collar.

  Sarina screamed behind the tape. She wriggled and kicked the wall with both feet.

  Yanking her away from the wall, he set down the lamp he was carrying, then dragged her back into the room. She yelped and shrieked, straining to pull free.

  “You disappoint me, Sarina.” He shoved her against the wall. She fell on her side, and he grabbed her hair to jerk her erect. Slapped her.

  She cried out with the pain. Her eyes filled with tears. She shrank away from him, whimpering behind the tape.

  “Sorry, pretty lady. Can’t have you wandering off before the show starts.”

  He kissed her face where he’d struck her.

  “Don’t make me hurt you.” With a thumb, he stroked a tear off her cheek. “Rest up, darlin’. You’re the star player today.”

  Sarina shivered.

  Star player? What did that mean?

  He brought the lamp in, an old-fashioned street lamp, white globes on a wrought-iron base, like in that old Gene Kelly movie. He positioned it near the bench, turned it on, then turned off the overhead light. Only his “stage” was lit now, the rest of the room dark.

  Someone would come. The building had been wide open. They’d walked right in. Drama classes, rehearsals, something had to be going on today, or why leave the doors unlocked?