by Dean Koontz
Blentz might not frequent his own tavern, of course, though he would be an exception to the rule if that were the case. Most saloon keepers like not only to hang around to keep a watchful eye on the till, but to bask in the status of a minor celebrity which they acquire with their most regular customers.
Chase realized that he was tense, leaning away from the back of the booth, his hands on top of the table and curled into hard, angular fists. That was no good. He settled back and forced himself to rest, since it was likely that the wait might last hours. He knew his capacity would permit him to drink for that long or longer, all night if necessary, without suffering a lessening of his perceptions. He had had a good deal of practice, after all.
After the second whisky sour, he asked for a menu and ordered a large meal, surprised at his renewed hunger after having consumed a meal at the drive-in only five or six hours earlier. He was sure his eyes were, as predicted by the proverb, bigger than his stomach. But when the food came, he took it in like a man starved and finished every bite of it.
Five drinks after dinner, shortly after nine o'clock, Chase asked the waitress if Mr Blentz would be in this evening.
She looked across the now crowded room and pointed at a heavy-set man on a stool at the bar. ‘That's him,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
The man was around fifty years of age, weighed well over two hundred pounds and was four or five inches shorter than Brown's description.
‘I've worked for him for two years,’ the blonde said.
‘I was told he was tall and slender. Blond hair, sharp dresser.’
‘Maybe twenty years ago he was slender and a sharp dresser,’ she said. ‘But he couldn't ever have been tall or blond.’
‘I guess not,’ Chase said. ‘I guess I must be looking for another Blentz.’ He smiled at the girl, trying not to look down her ample cleavage, and said, ‘Could I have the bill, please?’
The bill totalled nearly sixteen dollars for the seven drinks and the filet mignon. Chase handed the barmaid a twenty and told her she could keep the change.
Outside, the parking lot was all but deserted, for the majority of the stores in the mall had closed twenty minutes before. The night air was muggy after the air-conditioned tavern and seemed to settle on the macadam like a blanket.
Chase felt perspiration on his forehead, and he wiped at it absent-mindedly as he walked toward the Mustang, thinking about Eric Blentz. He had stepped around the front fender and was only a few feet from the driver's door when the swelling sound of an engine, close behind, caught his attention. Trained to react first and think a split second later, he did not turn to see what was behind him, but placed his hands on the fender and vaulted onto the hood of the Mustang.
An instant later the left front fender of a red Volkswagen struck the black sports car and scraped noisily along the door, only breaking free with a lurch a foot or two from the rear bumper. Sparks hissed up like fireworks and left behind a faint smell of hot metal and scorched paint. Though the car rocked hard when it was struck, Chase held on by curling his fingers over the edge of the trough that housed the recessed windshield wipers. He felt certain that if he fell off, the Volkswagen would change direction and come back at him.
Twenty feet away, the driver of the other car shifted gears with little finesse.
Chase stood up on the hood of the Mustang and stared after the retreating Volkswagen, trying to see the licence number or at least a portion of it. Even if he had been close enough to read the dark numerals, nothing would have been gained, for Judge had twisted a large piece of burlap sacking over the plate. It waved at Chase, almost as if it had been meant to mock him.
The VW reached the exit lane from the mall lot, jolted against the low, curved kerb so hard it looked as if it might shoot across the sidewalk and strike one of the mercury arc standards at the perimeter of the lawn. Then Judge regained control, accelerated, went through the flashing amber traffic light at the intersection, turned right onto the main highway toward the heart of the city. In another fifteen seconds it passed over the brow of the nearest hill and was out of sight.
Chase looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the short, violent confrontation, and he saw that he was alone.
He got down from the hood and walked the length of the Mustang, examining the damage. The anterior third of the fender was jammed back toward the cut of the driver's door, though it had not been crushed against the tyre and should not present any major problems. Two other grooves, as deep as the diameter of a pencil, with all or nearly all the paint peeled off in a three-inch swathe between them, ran parallel until they reached the point near the back bumper where the VW had been wrenched away. All of it was body work that could be hammered out, though the bill could easily exceed five hundred dollars.
He didn't care.
Money was the least of his worries.
He opened the driver's door and found that it only protested meekly, sat down behind the wheel, closed the door, opened his notebook and reread his list. His hand trembled when he added the ninth, tenth and eleventh items:
9. Third alias - Eric Blentz
10. Given to rash action in the face of previous failures
11. Driving damaged car, left front fender
Even before Judge had made the latest murder attempt, it had been a rough day all around, and he had not got much of anywhere. He sat in the car, staring at the empty lot, until his hands had stopped shaking. Weary, he drove home, wondering where Judge would be waiting for him the next time and whether he had been using the day to practice with his pistol.
The telephone woke him Saturday morning.
He reached for it, and having placed a hand on the cold, hard plastic, realized who might be calling. Judge hadn't phoned since early Wednesday night- unless he had tried to reach Chase on Friday when he was out -but that was not necessarily indicative of any permanent change in his method of operation.
Chase picked up the phone and said. ‘Hello?’
‘Ben?’
‘Yes?’
‘Dr Cauvel here.’
It was the first time he had ever heard the psychiatrist on the phone, and he thought the man sounded too nasal, somewhat silly.
‘What do you want?’ Chase asked. The name had fully awakened him and had overcome the residue of his nightmares.
‘I wondered why you hadn't kept your Friday appointment.’
‘I didn't feel like it.’
Cauvel said, ‘If it was because I talked to the police so frankly, you must understand that -’
‘That's only part of it,’ Chase said.
‘Should we get together this afternoon and talk about it, all of it?’ Cauvel asked, adopting his fatherly tone. Even in that role, his underlying smug superiority came through.
‘No,’ Chase said.
‘When should we, then?’
Chase said, ‘I'm not coming in again.’
‘But you have to!’ Cauvel said.
‘I don't believe I do. The psychiatric care was not a condition of my hospital discharge, only a benefit I could avail myself of.’
Cauvel thought a moment, abandoned any thought of using implied threats, and said, ‘And you still can avail yourself of it, Ben. I'm here, waiting to see you-’
‘It's no longer a benefit,’ Chase said. He realized that he was beginning to enjoy this. For the first time he had Cauvel on the defensive for more than a brief moment, and the switch in positions had a delightful quality of triumph to it.
‘Ben, you are angry about what I said to the police. That is the whole thing, isn't it?’ He was certain that he had the situation analyzed now, all carefully broken down into neat compartments by his clever reasoning powers.
‘Partly,’ Chase said. ‘But there are two other reasons.’
‘What?’
‘Your articles, for a start.’
‘Articles?’ Cauvel asked, playing the idiot either consciously or out of confusion.
‘You
surely did glorify the treatment you gave me, didn't you? In your piece for Therapy Journal, you come off like a Sigmund Freud or even a Jesus Christ.’
‘You read my articles?’
‘All of them,’ Chase said. He had almost said five of them before he realized that two of the articles had not yet seen print but were only rough drafts in Cauvel's files.
‘How did you know they were concerned with your case? I didn't use any real names.’
‘A colleague of yours tipped me off,’ Chase lied.
‘Of mine? A fellow professional?’
‘Yes,’ Chase said. He thought: That's really not too far off base, though. He was a colleague of yours, in a sense - another madman.
‘Look, Ben, I'm sure we can talk about this and reach some sort of understanding -’
‘You forgot the third reason,’ Chase said. ‘I told you there were three reasons why I won't be coming back.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ Chase said. ‘The third reason is the best of the lot, Dr Cauvel. You are an egotist, a sonofabitch and a monumentally petty man. I can't stand to be around you, and I find you disgustingly immature.’
He hung up on Cauvel, convinced that he had begun the day in the best manner imaginable.
Later, he was not so sure of that. He genuinely believed all those things he had said about and to Cauvel, and he actually did find the man disgusting. But making the break with his psychiatrist was, in some way he could not clearly define, more of a definite rejection of his more recent life style than anything else he had done. He told himself that when Judge was located and the police received the conclusive proof that he, Chase, would compile against the killer, he could resume his sheltered existence on the third floor of Mrs Fiedling's house. Now he had decided to cease psychiatric treatment, an admission that he was not the same man he had once been and that the burden of guilt he bore was growing distinctly less heavy. He was a bit disconcerted by that.
To make matters worse, once he had shaved and bathed and exercised some of the stiffness out of himself, he found that he had no leads to follow in his investigation. So far as he could think, he had been everywhere that Judge had been, and yet he had gained nothing for his trouble except a fairly accurate description of the man, something that would do him no concrete good unless he could connect a name with it or could think of a place where the description might be recognized. He could hardly tramp through the entire city asking everyone he met if one of them had seen a man with those particular characteristics. And short of that, he did not see what he was going to do with the long day ahead.
Once he had taken breakfast at a pancake house on Galasio Boulevard, however, he was able to think more clearly and more optimistically. He still had two possible sources, no matter how slim a chance might ride on them. He could return to the Gateway Mall Tavern and talk to the real Eric Blentz to see if the man could put a name to Judge's description. It seemed likely that Judge had not just chosen Blentz's name out of the phone book when he used it with Brown. Perhaps he knew Blentz or even more likely, had once worked for him. And even if Blentz could provide no new lead, Chase could go back to Glenda Kleaver, the girl at the Press-Dispatch morgue room, and question her about anyone who had come into her office the previous Tuesday - something he had not done right off, for fear of making a fool of himself or arousing the interest of the reporters in the room.
He began with a call to the newspaper morgue, but he found it was not open for business, as he had suspected might be the case. In the phone book he found a listing under the girl's name and dialled that, received an answer on the fourth ring.
‘Hello?’ she said.
He had forgotten how tiny and soft and feminine her voice was, so breathless that it almost seemed contrived.
He said, ‘Miss Kleaver, you probably don't remember me. I was in your office yesterday. My name's Chase. I had to leave while you were out of the room getting information for one of your reporters.’
‘I remember you quite well,’ she said.
He said, ‘My name's Chase, Benjamin Chase, and I'd like to see you again, today, if that's at all possible.’
She hesitated a minute and said, ‘Are you asking for a date?’
He said, ‘Yes,’ though he had not been aware that such a thought was even part of his motive.
She laughed pleasantly. ‘Well, you certainly are business-like about it, aren't you?’
‘I guess so,’ he said, afraid that she would turn him down - and at the same time frightened that she would accept.
‘When were you thinking of?’ she asked.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘actually, I was thinking about today. This evening. But now I realize that isn't much notice -’
‘It's fine,’ she said.
‘Really?’ His throat was tight and his voice sounded a bit higher than usual.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘One problem, though.’
‘What's that?’
‘I was planning fondue for supper, and I cut all the meat and seasoned it. I've got everything set out for the rest of the dishes too.’
‘Perhaps we could go somewhere after dinner,’ he said.
She said, ‘I like to eat late. What I was thinking -could you come here for supper? I've more than enough beef for two.’
‘That sounds fine,’ he said.
She gave him the complete address and said, ‘Dress casually, please. And I'll see you at seven.’
‘At seven,’ he repeated.
When the connection was broken, he stood in the booth, trembling. In the back of his mind, swelling ever larger, was the memory of Operation Jules Verne, the tunnel, the descent, the terrible darkness, the fear, the grate, the women, the guns and, last of all, the blood. His knees felt very weak and his heart beat much faster than it should have done. When he felt dangerously close to being overcome, he leaned back against the glass of the booth and forced himself to reason it out. Accepting a date with Glenda Kleaver was in no way a rejection of his responsibility in the deaths of those Vietnamese women. A long time had passed, after all, and a great deal of penitence had been suffered. And suffered alone. Besides, this was to be only little more than an innocent business meeting, an attempt to learn more about Judge. If Judge could be swiftly located and disposed of, Chase would be able to return to his former hermetic existence much sooner than he had anticipated. Instead of behaving wrongly, therefore, he was taking the surest move toward an end to his present condition and a return to his former, respectable retreat from a way of life that he felt he no longer deserved.
He left the booth.
The day was terribly warm and humid. The back of his shirt stuck to him like Saran Wrap.
Driving to the Gateway Mall Tavern, he almost slammed into the rear of three separate automobiles, distracted by the ugly memories which had for a long time been given vent only in his nightmares. The fear of hurting another motorist in an accident and thereby acquiring an even heavier load of guilt had quickly served to sober him and drive the distracting memories down, beyond the veil of recognition.
At the shopping mall, Chase browsed in the bookstore until shortly after noon, then walked up the carpeted slope of the main promenade to the tavern. The barmaid who waited on him said that Blentz was expected in at two o'clock. Chase sat in a corner booth, watching the door, and nursed his drink while he waited.
It was all for nothing. When Blentz arrived at a quarter to three, wearing a white linen suit and a blue shirt that looked slept-in, he was quite willing to accept a drink from Chase and to talk, but he had never employed anyone who fit Judge's description and could not, offhand, think of a friend or regular customer who might be Chase's man.
‘You know how it is,’ he said. ‘Different people every night. Even the regulars change every six months or so.’
‘I guess,’ Chase said, unable to hide his disappointment. He finished his drink and got up.
‘What do you want him for?’ Blentz asked. ‘He owe you some money?�
�
‘Just the opposite,’ Chase said. ‘I owe him.’
‘How much?’
Twenty bucks,’ Chase lied. ‘You still don't know him?’
‘I said I didn't.’ Blentz turned around on his stool. He said, ‘How did you go about borrowing twenty bucks from him without learning his name?’
Chase said, ‘We were both drunk. If either of us had been a bit more sober, I wouldn't have forgotten that.’
‘And if he'd been sober, maybe he wouldn't have loaned the money,’ Blentz said. He laughed at his own joke and picked his drink up from the bar.
‘Perhaps,’ Chase said.
As he walked across the tavern and out the door into the mall, he knew that Eric Blentz was still twisted away from the bar on his stool and was watching him.
He supposed that Blentz might know someone who matched the description but was simply not going to talk about it until he understood a bit more of the situation. Whatever Blentz's background was prior to his ownership of the tavern, it was not the sort of mundane existence most people had. He was not naive and gullible like everyone else Chase had questioned, and he had a canny sense of the law. However, even if Blentz were concealing something, there was no way for Chase to squeeze the information out of him, for Blentz was a private citizen, and Chase was in no way a licenced authority.
He started the car and drove home.
He was not shot at.
In his room, he turned on the television, watched it for fifteen minutes, turned it off before the programme was finished, opened a paperback book, which he found he could not concentrate on, and spent a good deal of time pacing from one wall to the other. Instinctively, he stayed away from his window.
At six-thirty Chase left the house to keep his date with Glenda Kleaver. When he unlocked the door of the Mustang, he discovered that Judge had been around and had left a message behind for him. The content of the message was clear, though it was wordless. Judge had taken a knife to the smooth vinyl upholstery of the driver's seat, had slashed it so many times that the white stuffing poured out like foam.