Winter Tides

by James P. Blaylock

  And that was it. He crawled out from under the tent, leaving his bag and his tools behind, and untacked the bunched plastic, arranging it around the acetone and the bulb. The acetone fumes were already heavy in the air, and he crawled away from the area hastily, suppressing the need to cough, and crept out from beneath the stage into the night-dark theatre. It was still an hour before dawn, and he was dead tired, having been up for what must have been two days. Haunting the theatre at night like the famous Phantom of the Opera had been perfectly safe. The police simply hadn’t thought to look for him there. And why would they?

  He went down the stairs into the basement, through the basement corridors and into the costume room, where he let himself out the basement door, locking it behind him and making his way through the dark alley between the theatre and the warehouse, carrying what was now the only remaining key to the basement door. He had dropped the other two keys down a gopher hole in the vacant lot an hour ago.

  Collier had blocked the hole under the jasmine bush with a sheet of plywood, and Edmund slid the plywood out of its niche quietly now and crawled in under the porch, pulling the plywood back into place behind him. The lattice had already been replaced along the front of the porch, and he could smell both the freshly cut redwood and the charred post where the dolls had been consumed by the magical flames. He lay down on his sleeping bag, staring above him at the porch floor, communing silently with the darkness and cheered by the idea of Collier and Jenny sleeping obliviously just a few feet away. It would be a long day, lying there under the house, but he would sleep through most of it, and tonight would be more than mildly entertaining.

  63

  DAVE HAD DISCOVERED YEARS AGO THAT TECH WEEK IN the world of the theatre was always completely crazy, no matter how much you thought you were prepared. There was always one last prop or set piece that had to be built although the show went up in two days. The director, even Collier—perhaps especially Collier—wasn’t happy unless he was changing his mind one more time. On every night of the week, getting out of the theatre early inevitably turned into getting out at midnight, and midnight turned into one and two and three o’clock in the morning, until it began to look utterly hopeless that the show would open at all on Friday night. But it was always like that, and yet the show always opened. That’s how this week was shaping up. Although it was only Sunday night, and the play didn’t open until Friday, the impossible problems and complications were stacking up. Collier used Dave as a gopher, and Dave found himself running back and forth between the warehouse and the theatre, chasing tools and supplies.

  It was only about eight o’clock now, and already he was tired, having been at the Earl’s since dawn. Anne was due at any moment—in fact, she was past due—having run back up to Laguna Beach earlier in the evening, something about the gallery. He had figured on her returning sometime in the last half hour, and as he crossed the theatre parking lot toward the back of the warehouse, he thought about who he would call if she didn’t show up soon. Jane Potter? Jane at least would know the time that Anne had left Laguna for her drive back down the Highway. With the fog and the late hour, she might not have started out at all.

  It was socked in worse than it had been for weeks, and although he could hear the creaking of the oil well out in the lot, no more than thirty feet away, he couldn’t see it. The windows of Collier’s bungalow glowed through the fog, and he could make out the ghostly outline of the front porch railing and misty light from the porch lamp, but the house itself was merely an angular shadow. Fog like this would kill the size of the house on opening night. He rounded the corner, heading up the dirt path, the dark clapboard wall of the Earl’s towering above him.

  There had been no word of Edmund. Nobody had caught him at the border. If he showed himself now, they would nail him for Mayhew’s murder and for trafficking in pornography. Probably they’d find evidence that he had murdered the women he’d filmed. They’d already found Mifflin the notary, who had fled to Mexico, and so now they knew enough about Edmund’s real estate frauds to convict him on that, too, although in the light of all the rest, the fraud was hardly worth bothering about. And Mifflin, it turned out, had dual citizenship. He had made it clear that he wasn’t coming back to the States to testify against anyone, and there was no way he could be extradited for his part in Edmund’s schemes.

  So far the Earl didn’t know about any of it. In the last few days he had been nearly crippled with angina, and he was under observation in the same hospital where Casey was recovering. Jolene was running the Earl’s pretty much single-handedly. Dave thought suddenly about how much of the world had changed in the last couple of weeks, how the Earl’s safe little corner of things had been shaken apart, how he and Anne had been thrown together, how so many lives had been altered or destroyed. Like Humpty Dumpty, none of it could be put back together again. Edmund was a small-time megalomaniac, but he was every bit as possessed as a Hitler or a Stalin, and, in his small way, every bit as successful….

  But the show was going up in under a week, and to hell with how the world had changed. Car wrecks, murders, arson, bad hearts—nothing got in the way of opening night except the end of the world or a power failure.

  Dave reached the end of the path and stepped over the curb and up onto the asphalt. There was a car in the lot, and even through the fog he could see that it was Anne’s Saturn. He picked up his pace, anxious to talk to her, to have some company … to have some help. Collier needed two sheets of luan painted black—“right now,” he had said, forgetting apparently that the paint took a couple of hours to dry. And there was a mushy spot in the stage, and Jim Parsons, who was playing Lear, refused to act on a stage that he might fall through, so Dave had to shore it up tonight, just as soon as he’d put a coat of paint on the luan.

  Dave opened the warehouse door and stepped inside. The night lights were on, but none of the other lights, and there was no sign of anyone in the dim interior. “Hello!” he shouted.

  There was no answer. The warehouse was silent. He listened to the scrabbling of mice behind the newspaper bin, and to the slow creaking of the oil well from the lot beyond the open window. Then he heard something else—the sound of voices, low and urgent, almost like a radio playing.

  “Hello!” Again there was no answer. The voices rose in volume, or at least one of the voices did—a woman’s voice. Her words were indistinct, but the tone sounded like pleading. It was suddenly silent, and then the man’s voice erupted in laughter, fell silent, and the talking started up again.

  It occurred to him that perhaps the talking came from outside somewhere, modulated by the fog. Maybe it was Collier’s television. Except that Collier and Jenny were both in the theatre.

  “Anne!” He shouted her name, but got no response. Clearly she had parked in the lot, found the warehouse empty, and headed around to the theatre by the front sidewalk at the same time that he was coming around the back. Momentarily relieved by the idea, he turned back toward the door, more anxious than ever to find her.

  Then the woman’s voice rose again against the backdrop of silence. She spoke in a breathy, trembling cry that sent a chill down his spine. The talking continued, slightly louder now, more adamant, and he knew absolutely that this was no television. The voices came from somewhere in the back of the warehouse. He was suddenly certain of it. He looked around for a weapon, and, thinking about his framing hammer, he turned to where his toolbox stood open on the ground. He stepped toward it, but then instantly stopped dead, his heart suddenly slamming in his chest. One of Elinor’s dolls sat in the open toolbox, its legs thrust out, its hands positioned on the edge as if it were holding on. Its clothes, if it had ever had any, had been removed, and someone had discolored its nylon flesh, its eyes and its breasts, with finger-painted lines of bloodred paint.

  It had to be paint. He steeled himself, bent over, touched it. It was wet, fresh, his fingertips stained red.

  He sniffed the red ooze, realizing that he was faint and sick.
>
  Paint. It was just paint. He turned quickly around, wiping his hand on his jeans, and grabbed the wall phone, glancing at the listed numbers inked onto the wall and punching the first three buttons of the police substation number before he realized that the phone was dead.

  The woman’s voice rose in a shriek now, and Dave dropped the phone and headed toward the rear of the warehouse looking around, his eyes wide to see through the darkness, wishing to heaven that he had flipped on all the breakers in the switch box. No time to go back. The place was too damned dark, too full of shadows. He stepped quietly out into the aisle that ran around the under-loft storage, and walked up past a lumber of piled junk—stacked facades and staircases and polystyrene rocks. Recently returned circus props stood in disarray, spilling out into the aisle. There were a hundred places for a person to hide, and he glanced over his shoulder every couple of seconds, half expecting Edmund to step out from behind something, his face distorted by his trademark grin.

  And all the time there was the continuing low murmur of the man’s voice from somewhere up ahead, the woman’s voice interjecting a moan or a brief gasping scream. An enormous clown’s head blocked half the aisle, and Dave edged past it, searching the shadows with his eyes. On the floor dead ahead there was a splash of red, a trail of glistening drops. More paint. Edmund was fooling with him, luring him back there. Paint or blood, Dave would have to come. He would have to find Anne. Edmund knew it.

  The talking stopped abruptly, and then after two long seconds of silence, the man’s voice spat out the single word “bitch.” There was rapid, heavy breathing, obviously magnified, followed by Edmund’s unmistakable laughter. Dave could see a dim and dusty light shining from one of the tiny storeroom windows. It was Jolene’s storage closet, full of boxed records and receipts dating back years, old paper junk that the Earl had decided to keep forever. A pile of debris stood at Dave’s left, broken pieces of wood and metal and trash that were splashed with more red paint. He stooped to grab up a foot-long length of galvanized iron pipe that lay on top of the litter, wiping the paint on his jeans.

  He gripped the pipe tightly and held it at his side, edging forward toward the storage room door, which was cocked open. There was more red paint splashed on the wall, bloody handprints on the window glass, a pool of paint on the floor. Dave approached the door carefully, hefting the pipe in his hand, holding it ready. The sound of Edmund’s voice came from within the room, droning along unceasingly now, as if he were making some kind of lunatic lecture to a child. Dave kicked the door open with his foot and stepped inside, holding his breath, ready to hit Edmund first and ask questions afterward.

  But the room was empty of people—nothing but cardboard boxes and a cassette tape player that sat in the middle of the floor, the player’s power light glowing red, the voice coming from the speaker.

  “Hello, Dave.”

  Edmund’s voice came from behind him now. Dave steeled himself, turned slowly, the truth dawning on him too late. Edmund stood grinning a foot or two beyond the doorway, his cheek smeared with red paint, more paint on his shirt. He held a pistol, which he pointed at Dave’s chest.

  “Put the pipe down,” Edmund told him. He cocked the pistol.

  Dave held onto the pipe. He had learned enough about Edmund in the last few days to know that Edmund would kill him, whether he put the pipe down or not. “You might as well shoot me,” Dave said, but his voice was a nervous croak. His heart hammered.

  Edmund winked at him. “You look frightened, Dave. Are you?”

  Dave stared at him.

  “Fear is one of the most potent emotions, Dave. You’ve only touched the surface of it here.”

  “Where’s Anne?” Dave asked.

  Edmund shook his head sadly. “Anne’s safe,” he said. “I haven’t hurt her. I was just funnin’ ya, with the red paint and all. Very theatrical, don’t you think?” He grinned widely. The pistol was rock-steady in his hand. Abruptly he laughed out loud. “Drop the pipe,” he said again. Dave tried to stare him down, but there was nothing behind Edmund’s eyes but a leaden emptiness. Edmund’s cheek twitched. He clamped his eyes shut and then opened them wide. He was a mess, unshaven, his clothes dirty as if he’d been sleeping in a ditch. “If you make me shoot you now, Anne will be alone. Think about it.”

  Dave tossed the pipe to the floor and held up his hands in resignation. Mistake, he thought immediately, listening to the pipe clatter on the concrete floor.

  “Good,” Edmund told him. “You’re going to have to cooperate with me, Dave, if you want to help Anne. And I know you do. We don’t have much time. Nobody has much time.” His voice was scratchy and pitched high, as if he were strung out by some terrible stress, as close as he could come to the edge without snapping. “Walk on down the aisle now, toward the deep woods. That’s where I’ve got Anne. She’s bound with duct tape, but she’s unhurt.” He gestured with the gun, hurrying Dave forward.

  Someone—certainly Edmund—had cleared away a broad area along the east wall of the warehouse near where they stored what the Earl called Snow White’s forest. Edmund had pulled the trees out into the cleared area and set them around two and three deep in a rough circle, their branches entangled. Anne sat on a piece of fake granite built of wood and papier-mâché. She was apparently unhurt. Her wrists and ankles were bound with tape, and there was a strip of tape over her mouth.

  “Sorry,” Dave said to her, and she shrugged and widened her eyes as if to say that she was taking it all in stride. Dave watched Edmund. The man was stark staring crazy. There was no question if Dave would make his move, only a question of when. If he let Edmund tie him up with the duct tape, it was over. It would be enormously better to be shot dead trying than to give Edmund his way.

  There were other rocks next to Anne, randomly positioned, and in among the rocks sat a dozen of Elinor’s dolls, carefully situated like an audience of deformed gnomes. The largest doll, a female with trailing, coarse black hair, sat next to Anne, dressed in a grossly oversized red coat. Edmund waved, taking in the entire scene. “I give you the Day Girl and the Night Girl,” he said, talking like a television announcer. “Or at least a facsimile of the Night Girl. The creature herself is nearby, awaiting my summons.” Dave saw that there was a video camera set up on a tripod fifteen feet or so back, far enough away for the camera to capture the entire scene.

  “It took me a little over an hour to set all of this up, although I’ll admit that I spent some time in here last night working everything out, moving junk out of the way, getting things prepared so that we could move swiftly tonight. No one noticed a thing! Everybody’s in the theatre working like busy little beavers, and so it was entirely simple forme to arrange my own little production right here. It’s almost funny, how easy it was. It’s always been easy. That’s a mark of genius, Dave. The best work comes easy to a real artist. Effort is the mark of an amateur.”

  The lights dimmed just then, and there was the sound of an electrical buzzing. As if someone had opened a refrigerator door, the air in the old warehouse grew suddenly cool, and Dave could hear, way out on the edge of his consciousness, the dreamlike sound of slow pacing. Anne heard it too. He could see it in her eyes. She turned her head upward, looking at the lights. There was the smell of burning on the air, like the smoke from distant pruning fires I carried on the wind. Elinor. He knew it was she. This time he simply was certain of it.

  The lights went up again, and the sound of pacing stopped abruptly. Edmund stood with his head cocked, listening, a smile on his face. “Visitors,” he said. “My guess I is that she’ll return. There might be fireworks tonight, folks. I Hold onto your hats and keep your arms and hands inside I the car at all times.” He waved his hand at the video camera. “Remote controlled,” he said, and he pulled a remote I box out of his pants pocket with his free hand, pointed it I at the camera, and clicked it on. “I sometimes play a starring role in my films. Sadly, I won’t be able to this time. I’ll never even see the result of this one, n
ot on film, anyway. Other people will see it, though—the police. A jury, maybe. A judge in his chambers. I wouldn’t be surprised if copies got out. People pay a lot of money for the kind of thing I’m talking about, Dave—enough even to tempt a judge. You’d be surprised. And they’ll get their money’s worth, too. That judge will watch the film more than once in the privacy of his chambers, and then he’ll come out into the courtroom and act as if he’s positively outraged. During his lunch hour he’ll watch it again. I’ll change the quality of his dreams, Dave. How many artists can say that?”

  Voices still sounded from the distant tape recorder, and now there was the sound of a woman’s shriek, a sharp, high wail that was cut off in mid-voice. Again the tape fell silent. Anne shut her eyes, and Edmund laughed out loud. “That, my friends, was the plaintive cry of the highway hippie, reacting to the bite of the nasty big spider who gave her a ride to his lair one sunny spring morning. I’ve got photos, which I unhappily won’t be able to show you. I’d love to air the film for you, but the police confiscated it. I’m certain they enjoyed watching it nearly as much as I enjoyed making it.

  “Sit,” he said abruptly to Dave, nodding his head to underscore it. He gestured at a rock, and Dave stepped toward it, glancing at the pistol, hesitating for a split second. Edmund shook his head and grinned at him. “Bad doggy,” he said. “Don’t even think about it. You might find something entertaining in my little production anyway, Dave.” He stood smiling for a moment, as if waiting for Dave to agree with him. Then he shook his head, as if he couldn’t be fooled. “Dave, Dave, Dave,” he said. “I know exactly what you’re wondering, deep down in that dense head of yours. You’re wondering what I’m going to do with Anne. What her fate will be. Whether it will be worth watching. I’ve piqued your interest with my tape recording. Your imagination’s running with indelicate questions. There are shadows down there, Dave, and the shadows have shapes that you’ve never dared to look at, until now. You’re really no different from me or from any other man. One man’s perversions are another man’s perversions, my friend. Priest or poet or postmaster, our deepest and darkest desires all take the same shapes.”