Martel looked smug. “Should have let me assign numbers after all, huh?”
“He went into Wally’s room,” Jeryline said. Brayker eyed her for a brief second, wondering. She looked as if she’d stuck a finger into a light socket, all windblown and disoriented.
“I’ll check it,” Martel said, and hurried out.
Brayker rubbed his forehead as if to massage the troubling thoughts away. The need for sleep was wooing him again with promises of needed rest and dreams that would not be remembered. The shotgun felt slick and oily in his hand, reminding him that most men who go to war do not have to carry guns after the war is over. He had been given the gift of an extended life, but at a terrible price.
Martel, the dirtiest deputy in the west, charged back in with a grin and eyes that spoke of late-breaking news. “I know where he’s at,” he said. “Irene, you’re gonna shit about eighteen bricks. There’s a big trapdoor in the ceiling of that room. It must go up to the attic, and that’s where old Willie went.”
Irene frowned and moved her head slowly from side to side. “I know how to get into the attic,” she said. “There’s a panel at the end of the hall that you push up. I thought about getting insulation blown up there and decided not to. It never gets very cold, and air conditioning is out of the question.”
“You better think again,” Martel said, and smacked his hands together. “This old place is just plain stuffed with trick doors. Come on, everybody.”
The two tromped out. Brayker ran a hand through his hair, which contained no hint of gray at all. At his age, he often thought, and with what he’d been through in his life, he should be gray to the roots and bald as an egg, both at the same time. Not to mention being in an insane asylum.
Jeryline had decided not to follow and sat instead on the bed, visibly weirding out. “You okay?” he asked her. “I’ve seen you better.”
She turned her head. “How does the Salesman do what he did to Cordelia? How does he take over a soul?”
Brayker moved closer to her, hovering at the edge of sitting down beside her, deciding not to. “He seduces the person. It’s kind of like mental rape, I guess, but gentle in its own way. He makes a proposal, and you either accept it, or you don’t. If that doesn’t work, he scares you. Shows you scenes from your family, threatens to hurt them if you don’t accept his offer.”
She brightened a tone or two. “So it’s all bluff? He really wouldn’t do something like that?”
Brayker did sit beside her. “Oh, no bluff at all. He can do anything he wants to do, and usually does.”
She faced him. “Then why hasn’t he gotten you yet? For the key he could offer anything you want.”
“True,” Brayker said. In spite of the dismal hour of the night, in spite of the crazy series of events, he was entranced by the smell of her. She had worked in the kitchen untold hours, had cooked a supper for him—and a pretty damned strange one, pudding for supper—had run around with him as they fought to stay alive, and still she smelled nice, although she did look like a piece of warmed-over dogshit right now.
“Have you ever just listened to him?” she asked. “Listened to his pitch, I guess you’d call it. He’s a salesman, and he has a good pitch.”
Brayker laid the shotgun on the bed and touched her hand. “What did he pitch to you?”
She rubbed her eyes, then dragged her fingers down to her chin, making monster faces on the way. “Paris. I would kill to go to Paris.”
Brayker bobbed his head up and down. “It is a very nice city.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Yep. Been there, seen it, moved on.”
“To Wormwood, New Mexico.”
“An undiscovered tourist haven. Why else would Irene open a hotel in the middle of Cactustown? She’s a very shrewd businesswoman.”
Jeryline drew back from him. “You have got to be kidding.”
He drew away from her, and blinked both eyes at once. “You’re right, I have got to be kidding. What was I thinking?”
She laughed. When she leaned back toward him their shoulders touched, but she did not draw away; instead, she seemed to lean on him slightly. Unusual thoughts buzzed through his mind, but he stamped them out. “So he was in your room just now? You erased the blood seal for him?”
“Are you nuts? No way—at least not on purpose. The drop of blood dried up and scraped off on my shoe when I walked in.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s gotten too old,” he said. “Fresh hot blood soaks in, you can’t get rid of it without a knife or some scrubbing. The old stuff just sits there and hardens like a scab, it comes off too easy.”
“Exactly,” she said.
Silence fell between them. Brayker let his eyes slide shut, thinking of sleep, thinking of Jeryline, thinking of the things that would never happen between them because an oversized key made out of iron and silver and quartz stood in the way. And his age, don’t forget that. It was a mismatch made in heaven.
He touched his throat. “Uh, Jeryline?”
Her response was delayed, as if she were drowsing as well. “Yeah?”
“You and I, um, it’s too bad that we, um . . .”
It was no use. He had spent his life on the run and his time was drawing to an end; this he could feel.
“Never mind,” he said softly.
She rested her head on his shoulder, and took his big clumsy hand in her small, calloused one. “It’s always that way,” she murmured. “Everybody I hate at first, winds up being a really good person.”
He smiled. “We did have a rocky start, didn’t we?”
“Two hardheads with an attitude.”
“Sorry. Really.”
It occurred to him to kiss her. Simply lift a hand and use a curled finger to slowly raise her head, gaze deeply into her eyes, find the permission that surely was inside them, and press his lips to hers. Nothing could be easier.
Or harder. He groaned inside. He was ninety-seven years old. She was young—worse than young, she was a minor. But somehow, he felt, somehow, he was still the same nineteen years old he had been when Harrison passed the key to him.
The point became unimportant as Martel appeared in the doorway. “It’s a pull-down stairway up to the attic. Me and Irene’s going up now, and I’ll need the shotgun.”
Brayker picked it up. “I don’t see how anything could get up there,” he said. “Besides, we’ll all be safe in here.” He looked down at the deputy’s scuffed and dirty boots, but he was standing outside the perimeter of the door—a use, finally, for his favorite word and thing, the perimeter-minded fool. “Why don’t you step in here first, Deputy?”
Martel scowled and started to tap his foot. “Our mission at this point is to save the kid, Brayker, and sitting around isn’t going to make it happen.” He motioned with a finger whose nail was still crusted with dry mud. “The shotgun, and I mean now.”
Brayker growled under his breath. Since the war he had not liked taking orders from anyone, especially young officers who thought themselves duty-bound to send soldiers to die in hopeless battles. “Deputy,” he said evenly, “if you insist on roving around in the attic you may have this weapon with all my blessings, but please be careful not to blow your own stupid ass off. Now come in and get it yourself.”
Martel stepped inside, chuckling into his own throat. “Mister,” he said as he pulled the shotgun into his hands, “you can forget the easy treatment in my official police report. From this point on, consider yourself a wanted man.”
He stalked away, grabbed the edge of the door, and slammed it hard on the way out. Brayker hung his head, shook it. “Dipshit,” he said softly. “Such a small world, so many dipshits. At least he made it through the door without sizzling.”
“Actually,” Jeryline said, “he’s better than most cops. Stupider, but better.”
Brayker could only shrug.
“I wonder if Danny made it back to his mom and dad,” she said. She was silent for a time, then sighed and to
uched her forehead. “What am I thinking? They’re no better than the guys in the cheap rubber monster suits.”
Brayker raised his head. “Huh?”
“The demons. At first I thought they were just some jerks in costumes. Then I realized they were actors in costumes. Things became so real, I decided they were demons in fake costumes. Eventually, though, I had to recognize the truth.”
“It does take a while.”
“It does. Now I realize what they really, really are. Has-been TV stars from the Seventies. Criminals never booked by Dan-O on ‘Hawaii Five-O.’ Unloved passengers on ‘The Love Boat.’ Ugly girls who never made it to ‘Charlie’s Angels.’ That’s the daytime shows they piped in for us to watch in prison.”
He found himself on the verge of laughing. His life had been hell, this night was hell, Jeryline looked like hell just now, and so did he. About eight minutes ago he had laughed like a hyena when Martel broke all the jars of jelly and preserves on the floor in his attempt to keep the trapdoor to the basement closed. Now Martel was about to investigate the attic armed with a gun that was probably empty, an attitude that was overblown, and a burning desire to be a hero. He would not make it much farther into the night.
Jeryline stood up. “I’m going to see what all the whoop-de-doo’s really about. Maybe Danny got up into the attic somehow.”
Brayker eyed her. “Do you really think so?”
She rubbed her face again. “Not really. But it’s better than sitting around while he’s out there all alone.”
Brayker stood up as well. “You’re right. As long as I’ve got the key, you and I should be safe enough.” He patted the pouch under his shirt. “Let the others check the attic. You and I can check other places. But there’s something you need to be ready for.”
She spread her hands. “Try me.”
“If we find Danny, he’s most likely going to be dead. Can you deal with that?”
She took a long breath. “I think I can. Tonight I’ve had to deal with all kinds of horrible things.”
“Okay, then,” he said and took her arm. “Let’s do it.”
18
“You sniveling, lying son of a bitch!” Irene Galvin shouted. “How long have you been staying up here behind my back? Six months? A whole year?”
Willie shot to his feet. He had only drunk about half the bottle of Thunderbird and here she was ready to ruin the rest of his night. The hammering rain that had sounded so pleasant as he sat among the mailbags now sounded like a hail of firing-squad bullets. “This is the first time I was ever up here,” he bleated.
Martel was clomping up the steps behind her, a shape in the dark. “What’s old Willie gone and done now?” he asked Irene. “And jeez—this ain’t no attic.”
She ignored him. “So I guess you just now shit that bottle of booze, eh? How the hell did you find out about this place?”
“ ’Twas Wally Enfield that told me,” he said.
“Nosy little pecker.” She took a step toward him, reaching out. He jerked the bottle closer to his chest, knowing that she would do as women have done all through the centuries: dump out his booze. In his mind that was alcohol abuse of the most sinister kind.
Instead she poked at the mailbags. “Holy hula hoops,” she breathed. “Bob, where the hell did that flashlight go?”
“Dunno,” Martel said.
“Well, go find it. I think there’s a side to Wally Enfield that none of us knew about.”
He failed to move, fidgeting instead. She turned. “Going deaf, Deputy?”
“Well,” he said, “I’m kind of in charge of this mission now, so I’ll be giving the orders. I am an officer of the law, you know.”
“Officer this,” she said, and Willie did not need a singing telegram to inform him which finger she was exercising. “Move it!”
He shuffled unhappily around and tromped downward, muttering things.
“I haven’t been up in this old belfry for years,” she said, turning to Willie. “Wally had all his posters covering the fold-down, and I figured he didn’t know it was here.” She poked at the bags some more. “The post office was right. He was stealing the mail.”
Willie kept silent, taking advantage of the moment to sneak a drink.
“Crazy little shit. Gimme that.”
She plucked the bottle out of his hands. Rather than dump it overboard, though, she plugged it in and sucked on it. Willie felt genuine pity for her, if this was her first experience with Thunderchicken. It wasn’t as deadly as Aqua-Net, but close.
She lowered the bottle. “That brings back some memories. My late husband used to mix this with root beer.” She smacked her lips and went for more.
Willie’s stomach jumped with fright. For the first time in months he felt ill.
Martel was back, this time preceded by a sharp white beam of light. “Had it stuck in my holster the whole time,” he said. “Must have put it there while we were running out of the basement. Funny, huh?”
“Funny.” Irene gave Willie his bottle back. “Okay, Beavis, let’s see what we’ve got.”
He fanned the light around. It showed several things: a small wooden floor white with pigeon shit, dirty canvas mailbags heaped all over each other, sparkling rain dripping off the steeple overhead, piles of empty envelopes, discarded letters and junk mail. “That son of a bitch,” Irene murmured. “The whole time he was reading the town’s mail.”
“More than just this town,” Martel said. The flashlight was shaking in his hand. “This is a federal offense, people. This is FBI material.”
Irene shoved some bags aside. “Wally’s dead, so don’t shit your pants. What the hell is this?”
She dragged an army-green canvas bag into the light. Things inside poked in odd directions. Things clanked. Stenciled on the sides were black letters: GI Joe’s Army /Navy Surplus.
“More light,” she said, and untied the drawstring. Willie watched this, remembering again that clanking bag Wally had been dragging around. Irene took hold of the bottom and flapped the bag out.
Guns sluiced across the floor. Willie recognized an AK-47, an M-16 with a collapsible stock, a sawed-off shotgun, a huge and nasty-looking automatic pistol with a perforated black shroud around the barrel. Several smaller pistols, too. Best of all, an old army field jacket with half a dozen old-style pineapple hand grenades stuck to it with safety pins.
“Well, what do you suppose?” Irene said wonderingly.
“The post office,” Martel said. “He was gonna take out the post office in Junction City.”
Irene wagged her head. “Mad as a hatter, he was. Going to show Cordelia the depth of his love, maybe.”
Martel kicked at the bag. “No ammo? All these guns and no ammo?”
Irene nodded. “There’s Wally Enfield for you. A day late and a dollar short.”
“Shit.” Martel prodded the bags with the business end of his shotgun; nothing but mail. “One thing’s for sure,” he said, and went into a squat. “Wally’s better off dead.” He put the flashlight on the floor and scooped up the field jacket. Grunting and straining, he put it on.
Irene snorted. His arms stuck out six inches below the sleeves. Zipping it would be impossible. He tore one of the grenades off and handed it to Willie. “Know how to operate these?”
Willie shrugged. “I’ve seen a billion war movies.”
“Good enough. Let’s go.”
Irene grabbed his arm. “What about me, Roscoe? I get to walk around defenseless?”
He deliberated. “Irene, you’re a woman. Women can’t do these things.”
She took a handful of his hair and jerked him down to the level of her mouth. “When you were crawling around in shitty diapers I was working graveyard at an iron foundry in Pennsylvania, mister hot shot lawman.” She ripped a grenade from his new jacket and stuck a finger through the ring of the pin. “I pull this, throw it, and people-parts go flying. Right?”
He was grimacing. “Right.”
She released him. �
��Now we shall go. Don’t forget the flashlight.”
“Roger,” he said, and picked it up.
“Now march. Come on, Willie, we have to stick together.”
“Right behind you,” Willie said, but when they were out of sight he sank back down on the mailbags, wiped the nervous sweat from his brow, and went back to work on the bottle. The wind gusted coldly and the night was soggy with rain, but he was dry and off his feet, and most important, getting drunk all over again.
Despite the general view that Roach was dead, he was far from it. He was, in fact, feeling better right now than he had felt since this whole nasty night started. Doing the bumpo-grindo on Cordelia had been fun, except for the fact that she had been a flabby bitch who thought men adored her, and who in reality had been old enough to be his grandmother, by the way he reckoned it. He was feeling good because he was smarter than Brayker, and on top of being smarter he was slicker than Brayker, as evidenced by the fact that Roach now had the key, and Brayker had it not. During the push-and-shove confrontation in the room, during which that dumbfuck deputy Martel had performed like a trained seal, Roach had executed a quick presto-chango. As he careened into Brayker, he swapped him his key for a substitute item that Roach certainly would not need anymore. In the pouch there now resided, instead of Brayker’s dopey key, a surprise that would do no more damage to the Salesman or his revolting cronies than a powder puff. Too bad Roach wouldn’t be there to see the expression on his face.
At this moment he was standing at the front door with wind and traces of rain whipping through the doorway. He did not know how to get in touch with the Salesman, but figured it wouldn’t take long for the news to leak out that a pow-wow was in order. As he had come out of the room upstairs like a suicidal maniac, he had not been suicidal at all. He had seen what the key did to those stupid-looking, slow-moving rejects from a horror show. With it in his hand, he had pretty much stabbed his way through to the stairway. As they clawed his shirt and tore it from his body, he wondered if even the key was no match for these clowns; but they had suddenly begun to fall away like a flock of crows scared out of a cornfield. The Salesman knew which side of his toast to butter, and had somehow called them off, by means unknown. Telepathy? Mind control? Roach did not care if the message had come to them via Pony Express; all he knew was that they had vanished.
Tales from the Crypt - Demon Knight Page 19