by Brian Hodge
That wasn't the only appetite that needed filling. He thought briefly of calling Laura and asking her to join him, but he dismissed it. He wanted to be alone during this meal, and afterward. Alone to think.
Before he switched the light off, he looked once more into the mirror and saw, behind him from the window, Junior's face staring in at him. The old man grinned, showing his stained and broken teeth, and he laughed, a high, wheezing noise.
He whirled.
No one looked in through the window
Nerves, he told himself.
He'd have a drink at dinner. Maybe two. Or even three. Knock himself out. Sleep a long time. Get up early in the morning and go from there. And try not to dream.
He pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and a cream velour shirt he'd recently bought, then pulled his boots back on. He slipped his wallet in his back pocket and was heading toward the door when someone knocked.
He wasn't expecting anyone, and the only person who knew he was there was Laura. And it was unlikely that she would drop in on him. Not without calling first.
He flattened himself against the wall and tried to peer out the window without moving the curtain, but he couldn't see anyone. Shrugging, he gave up. It was probably the manager or someone visiting who'd come to the wrong room. He pulled the chain off, grasped the knob, opened the door.
The shadow creature stared at him, its yellow eyes glinting from the light of the neon motel sign. He shrieked once, fell back and tried to push the door shut before it could get in. Something thudded against the door, and he was knocked away. The door flew open and the shade slipped across the floor. Its claws ripped into the thin carpet, and it whispered his name.
He tried to rise, but its evil eyes pinned him in place and he was paralyzed. He opened his mouth and screamed and screamed, hoping someone would hear him, but he made no sound. It leaped onto his chest, knocked him onto his back, and his head hit against the floor. With one wide swing of its claws it tore open his new shirt, leaving the soft material in shreds. Talons flexed scant inches above his face, and the creature stared at him. He knew it laughed; it whispered his name again, and as it reached down to gouge out his eyes with its terrible claws, the phone rang.
He raised his head. His cheek was sore from resting on the rough bedspread and one hand was numb from his lying on it.
The phone kept ringing, and rubbing the other hand across his face, he reached over to answer it.
"Hello?" His voice was a little shaky.
"Chato? Laura here. Can we get together sometime tonight?"
"Sure." The sound of her voice brushed away the last fragments of his sleep. "What's up?"
"Nothing really. I just thought we could have dinner together."
"Fine with me. I haven't eaten yet."
"Are you all right? Your voice sounds strange."
"Yeah. I just woke up out of a doubly bad nightmare. The eyes from the mountains." She didn't say anything, but he could hear the unspoken sympathy. "Let me shower and I'll pick you up. Or we can meet, if you like." He didn't want her to think he was putting the make on her. He wanted to, but not right now, not after his near brush with death in his dreams.
"Come get me, if you wouldn't mind the drive. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Yeah. Just fine. I've got a few interesting things to tell you, too. Give me—" he glanced at his watch—"thirty minutes and I'll be there to pick you up."
He jotted her address down on the pad of paper by the phone, and after they hung up, he stared around at the room. Shadows leaned in the corners. Furniture cast dark shadows that stretched toward the bed. Shadows hunkered in the half-opened closet. He ran his hand through his tangled hair. He was afraid to look too, closely, afraid of what he might find.
He went into the bathroom, stared for a moment at the shower curtain, then quickly crossed the floor and pulled the curtain back. The tub was bare. He washed up, changed clothes, looked somewhat ruefully at the cream velour shirt in the closer and headed for the door. He reached his pickup without incident.
As he pulled away from the motel, he glanced into the side mirror. A black car eased out into the traffic behind him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Her apartment faced Montgomery, where so many apartment complexes had sprung up in the mid-70s, The eastern United States had experienced the gasoline shortage and a series of extremely harsh winters; Albuquerque experienced an influx of cold and disillusioned Easterners , and the apartments, usually high-priced and shoddily built, became the answer to the housing boom. The complex was huge, and he drove around for a few minutes, easing over the unpainted speed bumps until he found the right building. Her apartment was on the second floor, and when he knocked twice, she promptly answered the door.
Laura's home consisted of an entryway, a pullman kitchen, a living room, and a bath between two bedrooms. She was a little nervous, he noticed, as she politely showed him around. She wasn't a collector and didn't have many knickknacks standing around. A few posters, of the Santa Fe Opera and art galleries in Taos, adorned the walls in the living room and one bedroom. Otherwise the white walls were left bare. Her, bathroom counter was orderly; no nylons adorned the shower rod. He had to admit the furnishings were in perfect taste, but somehow it left something to be desired. He couldn't live here. It was too perfect, too well-kept, and it was almost as if she'd decorated the place after seeing a photo in a magazine.
The second bedroom contained two large, unfinished bookcases, a small student desk, a black metal typewriter stand with an IBM typewriter on it, a four-drawer filing cabinet. On the walls he noted her diploma from the University and several certificates of merit for reporting.
The desk was not as orderly as he'd expected, with papers scattered across the top, books piled here and there, and pencils and pens and erasers within easy reach.
"Writing a novel?" he asked, looking with interest at the one stack of orderly papers.
She shook her head, her hair fanning out. "No. Journalism essays. I'd like to do a column sometime. So I'm trying my hand at some freelance assignments." She brushed a hand against a typed paper. "It's difficult, though, to come home after work at the paper and try to write."
"Maybe you should take up stamp collecting instead."
She shot him a strange look, as if puzzled by his attempt at humor. She was so serious, and he was uncomfortable with that. He liked Laura. He really did. But…. That intangible "but" stayed in his mind.
Once they were back in the entry hall, he helped her on with her light jacket, then paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"I think I'm being followed now."
"What?” she asked sharply.
"This black Buick's been on my tail since I left the motel. Can't be a coincidence."
"What are you going to do?"
He shrugged. "What can I do? Just go on as I had been."
"How did they find you?"
"Probably through the Sheriff's Department. I had to let the cops know where I was staying." He shrugged, and they left.
As they drove up Montgomery he checked for the black Buick. But it was hard to see in the darkness with all the lights, and he couldn't tell.
They decided to get dinner at Carrow's, an all-night restaurant that served fairly complete meals for little money. It was just a few blocks east of her apartment. They didn't talk much while they ate, he steadily attacking a plate of huevos rancheros. He watched her closely as he mopped up the chili with a torn bit of flour tortilla. She kept her eyes down, concentrating wholly on her meal. She tended to nibble a little, then pushed her food around with a fork. When they were finished, after the waitress had taken their plates and they were sipping coffee and Laura had lit a cigarette, he leaned back in the booth.
"I've got a little more information." He nodded to the waitress when she came by with a coffee pot. He watched her pour more coffee. "You want to hear it?"
"Sure." She pushed back a strand of hair from her eyes, sipped her coffee.
>
He glanced out the window and thought he saw a black Buick turn into the parking lot.
"I called the San Carlos Retreat in the Sandias, then the Archbishop's office. Both were remarkably tight-lipped about that priest's death. Sheriff Daltry, I was informed by one of his colleagues, had just gone on vacation, and no one seems to know when he'll be back. Also the anthropologist just went out into the field. Damned odd timing, I think."
He signaled the waitress. As he was talking, he watched the door of the restaurant. A couple, laughing and kissing, entered, then five teen-age boys in El Dorado High School letter jackets, an old man with a brown cane, two women in shorts and halter tops, a middle-aged man in a plaid shirt and dirty jeans.
Was one of these the occupant of the mysterious car? He studied them. But beyond a few cursory looks, except for the two young women who grinned at him, no one seemed interested in him.
Maybe the driver was here—he couldn't tell—or maybe the driver was waiting outside for him. And what then?
Would the car's engine be turned on, and would the driver try to run him down? Or would it simply slide into the lane behind his pickup and follow him?
It would follow, he thought. Nothing more sinister than that.
They sipped their coffee in silence for a few minutes; then Laura looked up. She frowned a little, her brows drawing together, then pushed her hair back. For the first time he noticed her ears were pierced and she wore tiny diamond studs.
Fancy. And he began to suspect she might well be out of his league.
"It just doesn't make sense," she said. "I mean, I don't know where all of this is headed."
"You and me both, sister," he said. And regretted the words as soon as they were out. This wasn't a woman he could joke with. "Look, Laura, it's not going to proceed nice and neat. I guess we just play it by ear. I hope neither of us proves to be tone-deaf," he added in an undertone.
He stood, slapped down a tip and then briskly walked to the cash register.
Outside the warm night air smelled of cars and dust. Across the street the Los Altos Twin Theatre was just letting out, and half a dozen teen-agers stood around laughing about the newest Burt Reynolds comedy they'd just seen.
Laughing, he thought, when there's been so much death. But they didn't know, didn't understand. He shivered as a cool breeze touched the back of his neck, forced the suggestion of the whisper from his mind.
"What now, Laura?"
Her voice was deceptively calm. "Oh, I didn't have anything really planned. I just thought we could talk some more. You know. Maybe have some drinks."
He grinned. Yeah. He knew.
"But what about—"
With a sharp gesture of his hand the tall man cautioned the other to silence, and the three men waited until Maria, the serving woman, set the glasses and decanter in front of them and left the room. She didn't speak English, but it, was good policy not to discuss too much in front of the servants.
Senator Robinson Kent smiled amiably at his two guests. Across from him sat Douglas Griffen, Mayor of Albuquerque, and Richard de Vargas, Archbishop of Santa Fe. They sat in the den of his retreat, on the back road to Santa Fe, behind the Sandias. The house was a traditional adobe with vigas and an interior courtyard. Colorful Navajo blankets decorated the whitewashed walls and brick floors. The furniture was Spanish colonial, dark and heavily made and expensive by all accounts, and on a table not far from the fireplace sat a fetish;
Kent tossed a piñon log on the fire and watched as the sparks flared up. He turned around to the others and eased his long frame down into a comfortable chair not far from the fire.
"Now, what were you saying, Doug?"
"But what are we going to do about this Yellow Colt character? He'll be there Friday when you officially arrive."
Kent smiled his politician's smile, the smile that had won him many votes in, the last election. He had arrived just a few hours ago from Denver, where he had been attending a Western States' Governors' Conference. He'd landed his Lear jet on the private airstrip in back of the house, and as soon as this clandestine meeting was finished, he would be getting back into the jet to return to Denver and in two days time would be publicly arriving at the Albuquerque airport, and no one would be the wiser for his quick trip back here.
"Sure, he'll be there. I expect that, Doug. He's been making noise for a long time, but that's all it is—noise. When was the last time anyone listened to him?"
He took a long swallow of his bourbon and water.
"I don't know," de Vargas said doubtfully in his soft voice. He toyed with the ice in his drink. "This time he could do more than make noise. I don't trust him. And then there's that other Indian as well, the one I'm having watched."
Kent chuckled. "You worry too much. From all you've told me he's a nobody, a bum who can't make up his mind whether he wants to hide on the reservation, teach, or drink himself blind like the rest of those Indians."
Griffen glanced over at the fetish on the table. "It's just that we've come so far…."
Kent followed his gaze. "And we'll be going farther, Doug, I guarantee it. Fifteen years hasn't been all that long to wait, considering the rewards. Everything," he said with a glance to de Vargas, "except for that damned priest, has gone just right. We can't lose now. Nothing can go wrong. In two days time you give me that—" he nodded toward the fetish—"and I'll smile and thank you from the bottom of the taxpayer's heart, and I'll take it back to Washington and give it to the Smithsonian and make New Mexico look like a real good guy.
"And then—" he paused to take a sip of his bourbon, and his eyes strayed back to the fetish—"my friend at the museum will see to it that it quietly disappears one night. And after that, my friends … well, after that we have nothing to worry about. It will give me the power to do whatever the hell I want, and, gentlemen, when it puts me in the White House, whatever I want is … whatever I want."
Griffen squirmed at the dark look on Kent's face, and Kent caught him.
"You afraid?"
Griffen shook his head, too fast.
Kent laughed without mirth. "Doug, you have no ambition, you know that? All you want is to be governor of this sand hole and rake in the loot as fast as you can open your pockets. Well, it and I are going to give you that, you know it, and you'd better get used to it."
When there was no contradiction, the smile broadened and he raised his glass. "A toast, gentlemen, to power even the damned Russians will wish they'd never seen."
Griffen drank deeply, refilled his glass and drank again, ignoring the looks the other two gave him. Courage was what he was after, and when he'd found it, he shook his head. "That damned priest. He could have spoiled everything."
"Father Lopez has been taken care of," de Vargas said with a slight twist of his lips.
"Indeed," said the senator, "indeed." He leaned over and took the heavy iron poker in his hand and jabbed at a log that had fallen off the others. He chuckled again. "I understand that the monastery he's been sent to discourage stalking."
"Yes, and they believe in heavy penance. I think he'll do well there."
Griffen glanced over at the fetish, dark and squat, and shuddered.
They would use it for their purposes, but that didn't mean he liked the thing. It was ugly … and alien, the creation of a mind he neither tried nor wanted, ever, to understand. Fifteen years ago they'd made the discovery, and for fifteen years they had lived with the knowledge of the thing's existence, and even after that time, it still made him uneasy, fearful. Rob laughed at his fears; he couldn't.
Of course, it had been Rob who'd first discovered that the thing contained some sort of power. Kent had been working on a law case and had to talk to an archeology professor at the University. The professor had been sorting through various objects. found at some half-forgotten pueblo.
While the man was out of the room, Kent had examined the fetish and had accidentally dropped it. Nothing had happened—it hadn't even chipped. Intrigued, he
'd slipped it into his pocket. The professor had never noticed, and he'd left.
That night he showed the statuette to his two friends. He told them what had happened earlier in the day, and then he'd gone out to his kitchen to get a hammer. He battered at the thing for almost an hour. And still it remained unscarred.
It's special, he had said, his hands cupping the black stone, and he'd stared, awed by it. De Vargas had nodded, saying he knew many Indians still believed in the powers of fetishes, but Griffen had said nothing. Those old Indian religions had long ago gone the way of the buffalo, he thought. The fetish didn't mean a damned thing, and didn't contain one bit of power. It was just stone.
But you're wrong, Rob had said, as though reading Griffen's thoughts. It does have the power, and he had held it out to Griffen, who had taken it reluctantly. And then he knew. Ice-cold pricklings had shot through his hands and his arm to his chest, and his hands had begun to sweat, and he could scarcely breathe, and even as he held the damned thing, he could feel it pulsing through him. The power. The raw, untapped power of the fetish. Panicked, he'd flung the stone at Rob, who'd deftly caught it with one hand and who'd laughed at his friend's dismay.
That night they had begun to make their long-range plans. The fetish had been given into the hands of their priest friend for safekeeping. And it had gone with de Vargas as he climbed up the ecclesiastical ladder to his present position. But then the damned priest, one of de Vargas' many assistants, had found the fetish in its box, and had gone to the press and made the stone public. Thinking quickly, de Vargas had announced that he'd uncovered the fetish in one of his trips to Albuquerque and that he planned to present it to Mayor Griffen, and Griffen had said he planned to give it to their senator for the nation.
It was the only choice they had alter the fetish became known.