In the Mood - [Millennium Quartet 02]

by Charles L. Grant

  First, he and Mag had had a hell of a row after her mother had left for work. He didn’t want her anywhere around Sharon Gillespie until Rod was caught. Mag as much as told him to go to hell, Sharon was her best friend and she wasn’t about to let her down at this awful time, and if he was so damn worried about her, why hadn’t he made her go to Chicago with her mother? He had explained, she had sneered, the heat in the kitchen filled the air as if the oven had been on all night, and suddenly she had grabbed her jacket and books and marched out, slamming the door behind her.

  Then, while his temper was still near to boiling, he had to stand in front of the mayor and listen while he was told how to do his job, protecting Vallor from the coming scourge and, at the same time, keeping any more people from going absolutely nuts. Besides which, they had an important dignitary in town, Reverend Lanyon Trask, and there had better not be any trouble—protesters and the like—that would make the mayor, the police, or anyone else look like hicks and rubes.

  By the time that was done, Arn was ready to quit, head out to Les’s place, and muck out stables for the rest of his life.

  Just before noon, he got a call from Carl Bergman, out at Cornman.

  “Give me good news, Doc,” he’d said. “I sure could use it.”

  “What I have for you, Chief, is chaos.”

  That’s when he heard the noise in the background. “Jeez, Carl, what the hell’s that? Mrs. Grauer gone off again?”

  It had been meant as a joke.

  What he was told was that they all had. Every single one of them still at the hospital. Screaming, singing, dancing, and more screaming. It had started the other day, just a stirring that had finally built up one beaut of a head of steam.

  “So you sedate them, right?”

  “Arn, if I give them any more, they’ll be dead. Nothing’s working. Nothing. Five have already broken their restraints, Mrs. Grauer among them.”

  “That old lady? Come on, Doc, she couldn’t tear paper in half without someone giving her a head start.”

  “Twice,” was all Bergman said.

  Arn glanced at the drawer where the flask lay, waiting. “So why did you feel you had to tell me this, Carl?”

  “Because three more have come in during the past hour, that’s why.”

  “Well, why the hell wasn’t I told?”

  “Their families brought them in, that’s why. I know you’re keeping track, so ...” He gave Arn the names, the ages ranging between twenty-eight and seventy-two. “And guess, Chief, what was on their TVs.”

  Arn thanked him, hung up, sat back, and stared at the ceiling for almost ten minutes before deciding it was time to get himself some lunch.

  Which, he thought sourly as he tried to will the newspaper dispenser to give up the paper or give him back his four bits, was a joke because today, of all days, there was no bread, and the meat loaf was, of all things, mostly that soy stuff that didn’t taste like anything God meant Man to put in his mouth.

  Maybe Carl’s right, he thought as he crossed the street; maybe it is the damn Millennium.

  Why not?

  It can’t get any worse.

  He was halfway to the door when he stopped, frowned, and looked up.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Just great.”

  * * * *

  9

  Once over the bridge, John pulled onto the shoulder, knuckles white on the steering wheel, breath caught on barbs in his lungs. “My sister-in-law,” he said when Lisse asked. “Former sister-in-law. Dorina Castro. I don’t know who the little guy was. Probably a friend of Garza’s.”

  He stared straight ahead. Wishing he had a drink. No water, no ice; straight from the bottle. His arms began to tremble with tension. He could feel himself swallowing, and couldn’t stop.

  “Well,” he said. And swallowed. “I guess that’s that.” And swallowed. “So much for bearding the lion.” And swallowed.

  Two cool fingers drifted across his throat. “You’ll strangle yourself,” she said.

  “Old wive’s tale.”

  But he didn’t swallow.

  Lisse waved a hand in front of her face. “Wooo, mercy, what’s that smell?”

  He jerked his head to the left. “The ranch, remember?’’ He inhaled. “It’s not bad.”

  “Not bad? Lord, it’s worse than I don’t know what.”

  One last swallow, and his hand over his eyes to clear them. Instead, he only blurred their vision, and the road and trees ahead lost their focus for a moment.

  A breeze stirred off the road and into the car.

  “Momma,” Lisse said, “would switch me good if she knew I was thinking about confronting a preacher. Holy and all that, you know? That smell reminded me. Horses, see?” She laughed silently at his confusion and pointed at the ranch entrance. “Momma used to say, if I wasn’t careful, one of them Horsemen guys from the Bible was going to ride straight into my bedroom one night, scoop me up, and wouldn’t I be in a peck of trouble then, Lisse Gayle Montgomery.”

  Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head toward her.

  “Even those guys on television, pompadours and slick-back, zillion-dollar suits ...” A sigh. “ ‘Til the day she died, I couldn’t say a word against them. She didn’t go to church a whole lot, but those men were—what on earth are you looking at, John? I say something wrong?”

  “There was a man,” he said, raising a finger, focusing her attention. “One of those revivalists I told you about. My mother took to him because he was kinder than the others. Not a lot of fire and brimstone. But it was the same message—prepare to meet thy doom, the heavens were going to open, God was going to judge, and we’re all damned unless we repent.

  “It wasn’t the message that kept people going to him, it was his manner. Quiet. Sorrowful, I guess. Some of those men, and a couple of women, as I remember, seemed glad it was going to happen. They were so convinced they wouldn’t be damned because of who they were that they were actually glad. Their method was terror. Still is, I suppose. Scare the living hell, literally, out of their congregations.

  “But this other man, he didn’t want to scare us into heaven, he wanted us to be glad to be going. The others, they aimed for relief, you know? Relief you were the one chosen. This man, he didn’t want us relieved, he wanted us happy.

  “Mom eventually got tired of him, too, just like all the others. She wanted answers, see. She wanted to know why my father had walked out on us after they’d dumped him from the state police in Nebraska. She wanted to know why he’d been tempted by bribe money in spite of the good home we had. Look the other way, Officer, no one will know. He got caught in a sting, was fired, and five months later disappeared.

  “That’s when she started dragging me to the tents. The corner churches. The streetfronts. She didn’t want to be happy, she wanted answers, and she never got them.”

  The finger curled into his palm, and he lowered the hand to the seat, stared at his knuckles as if seeing them for the first time.

  “I work with numbers.”

  “Cold,” she said. “No soul.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “You could say that. A lot of things you can do with them, but they’re not on the same level of imagination as, say, working with oils or sculptures.”

  “You’ve been trying to turn all this stuff into numbers.”

  He nodded, tentatively. “Two plus two. I accept they equal four. Screw around with them all you want, you still get four, one way or another.” He looked back at the road, blew out a slow breath. “If I were an imaginative man ... if I were to forget about numbers and look at...” His eyelids fluttered, and closed.

  The breeze quickened.

  “Chilly,” Lisse said. “John, I don’t see no clouds up there, but it feels like—”

  * * * *

  Joey looks at his mother. “Hang on tight, Mommy.”

  “Honey, what—”

  “Here we go,” he sings. “Here we go.”

  * * * *

  With his eyes
closed the rumbling sounded like the distant echo of cannon fire, moving toward him, keeping louder.

  John’s eyes snapped open.

  Thunder exploded so loudly, so sharply, Lisse screamed and he gasped, and in the instant before the wind began, the rear window exploded inward, the windshield outward.

  She screamed again, and he yelled, shoulders hunched as he threw himself at her, grabbing her arm and yanking her down while glass in fragments and beads and bee-stinger darts filled the car, swarming as the wind swept through, rocking the car, shifting it slightly forward. Grit struck the outside, hailstone loud. Dust made them choke as if it were smoke. A dead branch slammed onto the trunk. A dead leaf clawed at his cheek, drawing a drop of blood before he could dash it away.

  Ten seconds, no more, and everything stopped.

  * * * *

  He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. His head was pressed into Lisse’s lap, and she lay awkwardly across his back, clutching his belt as if that would keep her from being blown away. When he grunted to let her know he was still alive, she pushed against him to sit up, took his shoulders and pushed gently until he was up as well.

  They didn’t bother to go through the questions, because there were no answers. All he could do was breathe heavily, almost panting, and wince at the tiny scratches he saw on her left cheek. Her hair was tangled, glints of glass caught inside. When she reached up to touch it, he said, “No, you’ll cut yourself.’’

  She stared, numb.

  Once he was sure he could move without falling apart, he opened the door and stepped onto the road. Dust hung faintly in the air, but the sky was still clear, the road littered with leaves and twigs, with pebbles and stones blown off the shoulder.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’ll get you to the ranch, take care of that glass.”

  It took her a long time before she moved, longer before she left the car, staring at it in amazement. She touched her cheek, and shuddered when the tips of her fingers came away speckled with blood.

  “You’re all right,” he said, holding out his hand as she came around the front.

  “Easy for you to say,” she said, swaying, unsteady.

  They walked hand-in-hand under the arch and up the drive, bumping into each other every few steps, not letting go even when they had to maneuver around a patrol car and Les’s old Jeep at the top of the drive.

  “I think I’m going deaf,” she said shakily.

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t hear the wind.”

  “Neither did I.”

  As they approached the main house, he saw beyond the pines at the side three people slowly rising from the crouch they’d obviously dropped into when the thunder hit. Behind them two more came out of the near stable.

  “John,” she said, leaning heavily against him, “what was it?”

  “You want me to guess?” he said as he waved to Les Burgoyne.

  “No number’s, okay? This ain’t the time for numbers.”

  He knew that. He didn’t like it, but he knew it.

  “You remember what you told me? What your mother told you?”

  “I. . . yes, I think so, but—no. No.”

  “Yes.” He touched his chest near his heart. “No numbers, Lisse. I think he’s here.”

  * * * *

  3

  1

  T

  he municipal parking lot on Seventeenth Street is only half full, and there had been no problem finding a space near the exit. Thirty minutes ago that was, yet Rod still sits behind the wheel, the glare of the sun off the windshield hiding his anger from the passersby. That freak storm had almost killed him. Halfway to Annette’s insurance office, the thunder nearly knocked him to his feet, and a sign ripped off a small camera store had come this close to taking off his head.

  Shaken, he’d retreated to the car.

  Furious at the delay, he watches the pedestrians stepping around broken glass, kicking at wings of newspaper scattered along the pavement to get them out of the way. They talk to each other and exclaim, and he reckons it’s the most excitement this damn burg has seen in decades.

  No.

  Since he had scared them all half out of their freaking little minds.

  He wants to be out of here by dinnertime. He doesn’t want to give anyone a chance to recognize him. As it was, he’d dodged what seemed like half the cops in the country just getting across the Mississippi; and once here, every time he turned a damn corner, he saw a patrol car or a beat cop. He has no doubt there’s someone with Annette right now. Some big tough-looking son of a bitch playing at hero. Don’t worry, ma’am, you’re safe with us.

  Goddamn Arn Baer. Sneering at him during the trial. Hovering around Annette like he was her macho Superman protector. Has probably been screwing her blind and laughing at him the whole time he’s been away.

  “Calm,” he whispers. “Cool. Collected.”

  In his lap lies a gun. He touches it with his palm, breathes slowly and deeply, ticking off the plan’s points as he waits.

  Annette first; in and out, a bullet through her head. No torture, no lingering, no accusations. One bullet, maybe two. Gone before they know he’s there.

  Out to the house, then. Probably some kind of guard there, too. Take the guard, take whoever’s there. No way the brat’s going to be in school. Stay home, she was probably told; stay home, he’s close, we’ll protect you. Take her in more ways than one.

  In and out, and gone again.

  Phil last. Wimp Phil. Pussy Phil. No son of his, he can’t be. No son of his would have testified against his own father at that miserable excuse for a trial.

  Phil last.

  And this time there’ll be torture.

  He grins, rubs the back of his hand against the pale stubble on his jaw and decides to give it another five minutes, let these idiots calm down a little more.

  Then ... he snickered ... if they think that freak storm had been bad ...

  * * * *

  2

  Lanyon Trask stood nervously on the grass, leaning over, peering through the limousine’s open back door. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Alonse Paytrice nodded cautiously. In the driver’s seat, his brother nodded as well. The rear window had been shattered, the stump of a branch had dented the left side passenger door, but otherwise the vehicle seemed to be in good shape.

  He wished he could say the same for himself.

  His hair was slightly mussed, just enough to make him appear disheveled, or wild eyed, and what was left of the hanging dust settled on the three-piece suit that matched the soft gray of his car.

  He didn’t care about that; he didn’t even care about the explosive thunder.

  What he cared about was that wind—it had made no sound. Wind has to make a sound, but it had made no sound.

  What he cared about was the mother and child.

  Alonse eased out, stretched, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “What happened, Reverend?”

  “I wish I knew, son. I wish I knew.”

  The giant looked down at him skeptically, saying nothing. It wasn’t his place to say anything, but Trask had known both these boys since they were less than swamp-snake high and a single glance told him Alonse believed he was lying. He still hadn’t recovered from that incident behind the Royal Cajun, that much was clear. When Trask had questioned him about it, all he’d said was, “Some kind of army move, that’s all. Took me by surprise.”

  Which was a lie in itself.

  Alonse had been terrified, and in no hurry to pursue Bannock. Once they had lost him and the waitress in Baton Rouge, he’d had Sebastian drive directly to Vallor. Sooner or later Bannock would show up; sooner or later Trask knew in his heart he would learn what connection the man cad with the End.

  The irony was, or the sad thing, or the frightening thing, the thing was, he didn’t need Bannock now.

  He knew.

  He had seen the mother and the child.

  He knew.

  �
�Hey,” Tony Garza called from the porch. “Your boys okay there, Reverend?”

  “Fine, Mr. Garza, thank you, sir,” he called back with a wave. “Just a little taken aback, that’s all.”

  “God’s pissed,” Garza called with a raucous laugh. “Somebody didn’t say their prayers.” Then he turned to the little man sitting on a chair, said something, and laughed again.