“That won’t last. Once he talks to Darla, he’ll be calling back.”
26
AT THREE IN the morning, Center Street was nearly dark. The streetlamps were off for some reason, and only a couple of houses had front porch lights on. Argyle nearly turned up the alley toward Grand, but then he noticed that Christmas lights were shining on a house near the end of the block, and instead of turning he killed the headlights, eased the car into the curb, and put the shift lever in park, letting the motor idle. He was tired, worn out, and he sat there for a moment undecided. He shivered in the dark. There was a hint of sulphur on the air, and his head was full of insects. He saw his own face reflected in the glass circle over the speedometer along with the foggy colors of the Christmas lights. It was the face of a corpse, milky-white, the eyes dead and staring. He licked his lips and looked away, hearing something now, above the droning noise that rose in his ears—a sound like iron doors slamming shut and distant human voices.
Fear prodded him into movement, and he turned and reached behind the seat. From the floor he picked up a broomstick with a coat hanger hook on the end, then took a quick look up and down the street before he opened the door and stepped out onto the curb. He trotted silently across the lawn, stopping beneath the lowest point of the eaves. Swiftly he slipped the hook over the string of lights and yanked on it, pulling the entire length down onto the bushes without a sound. The falling lights filled him with a sudden glee, and he grasped the cord between the hot bulbs and yanked on it. There was a snapping sound and the pop of a bulb breaking, and then the lights went dark. He dropped the cord, stomped on three or four bulbs, turned around, and trotted back to the car, climbing in and pulling away.
Thirty seconds! For a moment he felt invigorated, drunk with success as he turned the corner and gunned away up Palm Avenue. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, his stomach abruptly churned with fear again, and he looked into the rearview mirror half expecting to see an outraged homeowner running after him down the street, shaking his fist.
Nine houses that night; surely that was enough! Nine houses full of potential witnesses; nine times that he might have been caught; nine paths to utter ruination….
Would he kill to avoid it?
“Murder.” He mouthed the word, feeling the shape of it with his lips.
It had a ring to it, a certain … thrill. On the instant he was gleeful again, full of desire. The noises in his head were gone. One more house. He would make it an even ten, tonight. He thought of the lighted Christmas star that he’d pulled down at the first house he’d visited, and he laughed out loud, turning up past the Holy Spirit Catholic Church for the third time that night. He fought the urge to pull over, to pay the bells a small visit, but instead he drove on up the quiet street, making aimless right and left turns, letting his mind run until he found himself on Oak Street, drifting to a quiet stop in front of the Stebbinses’ house.
Coming to himself again he was filled with a sudden panic, and he sped away. This was too much. They’d left their Christmas lights on! The fools! It was like an invitation to a dance. He turned left at the corner and circled the block, driving slowly past again. One last time. An even ten houses. Whatever power had been leading him around tonight, sniffing out lights, had led him here at last!
He wavered, caught between desire and fear. What an incredible blunder to be caught pulling down Christmas decorations at the Stebbinses’ house! It would end it all—everything. Ivy would despise him. If he were accused of murder, of treason, of nearly anything, he could look her in the eye and imply that he’d had his reasons. But this—lurking in the neighborhood after midnight, committing the sins of a monster like Murray LeRoy—it would fill her with horror and loathing.
His hands shook on the steering wheel. His mouth was dry. His mind spun in an idiot whirl, empty now of argument. He turned up an alley and pulled into the deserted parking lot of a medical center, parking where he’d be invisible from the street. He got out of the car, carrying the pole, feeling the wind through his black wool sweater. Abruptly he realized that his mouth was working, as if he were talking to someone, to himself, and the idea of it terrified him.
And then, an instant later, he stood among the shadows at the edge of the Stebbinses’ front porch. He scarcely knew how he’d gotten there. Hadn’t he turned back to the car? For a moment he looked around blankly, horrified. His car was gone, the street empty.
He had parked in the alley! Of course. His teeth chattered, and he clamped them shut, fighting to control himself. The bushes and trees and front-porch furniture were charged with secret meaning, with some kind of horrible, mocking vitality. Across the street a rooftop Santa Claus stood like a sentinel, watching him through eyes painted on plywood. The Christmas lights on the eaves overhead shone like little pools of warmth and color on the lawn and on the concrete porch.
His mind lurched, suddenly rioting with ideas—what a man could do with a pruning saw, a can of paint, a hedge clippers, a can opener, something nasty to smear across stucco walls! The neighborhood was a vast canvas, a block of marble. Defilement! He tasted the word. And inside the houses—families asleep, children in their beds. Why not give them a face at the window, a sudden shriek and then away like a highwayman? Who would suspect him? If only he had a mask! They said that Murray LeRoy wore a goat’s mask when he terrorized the old priest….
He had a vision of himself wearing such a mask, the chin and ears tufted with stiff hair, the tongue lolling out. Perhaps a costume out of stiff goatskin, something he could be sewn into…. Full of a murky passion, he reached into his pocket and found a piece of a fat brown crayon that he’d taken from one of his own classrooms. Holding it in his fist, he scrawled an obscenity on the wall of the house, careful not to click the crayon against the wooden siding. Then he stepped up onto the porch and peered in through the front window, at the old furniture, the bits and pieces of their hateful, pitiful lives.
At that moment, like the tip of a knife blade, it occurred to him that Ivy lay somewhere inside, sound asleep. His head spun, and he staggered from the porch, still clutching the crayon. The pole lay on the lawn in the moonlight. Had he dropped it? His mind was murky again, and he realized that he was drooling. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and then, in obedience to whatever dark urges filled him like black water in a well, he picked up the pole and raised the hook toward the strand of lights.
Yank them down and get out! He leaped, hooking the strand, his weight tearing it loose from the eaves. He ran farther along the side of the house and yanked again. The lights swung, clattering against the siding, and he pulled again, throwing his weight into it. The cord snapped, and he sprawled backward, the lights blacking out.
He crouched on his hands and knees in the wet grass, panting like a dog. A light blinked on in the motor home parked in the driveway. He scuttled forward, out of view, crouching behind an overgrown camellia. There was the creak of the motor home door opening and the shuffling of bedroom slippers on concrete. Carefully, he parted the limbs and looked through the camellia. An old man stood on the sidewalk, wearing a bathrobe, looking around warily. He came along a few steps, then started up the neighbor’s driveway, adjacent to the row of shrubbery. Argyle stood very still. He was deep in the shadows, dressed in dark clothing, well hidden. The old man wouldn’t see him. He licked his lips, reaching slowly into his coat and putting his hand on the can of pepper spray in the inside pocket.
The old man looked straight at him—at the camellia, at the string of lights lying along the ground, draped across the shrubbery. He stepped gingerly across the wet lawn, toward the fallen pole. Argyle held his breath, slowly removing the can of spray from his coat. He licked his lips, anticipating the old man’s reaction, the doubling up, the wheezing, the grunt of surprise when it blinded him….
The old man stood looking down at the pole, then nudged it with his foot, as if it were a snake. He looked again at the torn-down lights, figuring things out. Argyle carefully slid h
is hand through the branches, leaning forward and holding onto the trunk as the old man bent over to pick up the pole. There was a clear shot with the spray, straight into his eyes.
But just then the old man noticed the crayon writing on the wall. He stood up and stepped back, then turned around and hurried out to the sidewalk, disappearing past the corner of the house. Argyle stepped out of the bushes and peered toward the driveway, watching as the old man headed toward the backyard—toward an unlocked back door! He was going to waken the house!
Argyle grabbed the pole and ran, as quietly as he could, glancing back at the windows of the motor home for the telltale movement of curtains. He felt exposed, as if the dark windows of the houses were eyes watching him lope away, and again he was swept with the knowledge that he had risked everything, chanced Hell itself. He was suddenly nauseated, and he turned his head, twisting over, unable to prevent himself from being sick on his own pants and shoe. He dodged past the hedge, into the mouth of the alley, out of sight now, sick again—wildly, uncontrollably sick.
He ripped the car door open, falling onto the seat and starting the engine, backing wildly out of the parking stall and looking hard back toward the Stebbinses’ house. A light was on in an upstairs room. They were awake. Were they calling the police?
He shifted into drive and moved away up the alley, turning right onto the first street, finally calming down, taking possession of himself again. Abruptly he recalled that he had nearly hosed the old man down with pepper spray. Why? Purely for pleasure, he thought. For fun. An unaccountable urge.
He passed slowly across the end of the block where the Stebbins house lay. The old man stood looking at the crayon mark, gesturing at the fallen lights. Stebbins stood next to him, his hands on his hips. Argyle’s mood shifted again, and he smiled. At that instant Stebbins swiveled around and looked toward the corner, straight at him. Stebbins pointed, cocking his head. Argyle half expected him to take off running, to pursue him on foot, in which case …
He’d knock him down and run over his head!
He burst into laughter, unable to contain himself. Stebbins just stood there, wearing an idiotic nightshirt, his mouth open in disbelief. Argyle swung around onto his own street. Still laughing, he pushed the switch on his garage door opener and pulled into the dark garage, the door swishing closed behind the car.
27
THE REVEREND BENTLEY drove slowly past St. Anthony’s Church, where the bell tower was still cordoned off. They would apparently have to get a crane to hoist the fallen bell back up into place, and that would require pulling the top of the tower apart. And none of it could be done until after probes by police and insurance investigators, who couldn’t have the slightest idea who or what to look for. The bells might be out of commission for months, which left the single bell over at Holy Spirit to chase out all the demons in Old Towne. At least Mahoney knew what he was up against. Desecrating Mahoney’s sacristy had been one thing—almost infantile, really, the work of a madman. But this business at St. Anthony’s, the murder of poor Simms—and now the damned jars—all that was something else entirely.
“You might as well have murdered Simms yourself,” he said out loud.
This time he didn’t contradict himself. It didn’t do any good anyway. He’d gone round and round with it for years. He’d rationalized it. He’d wrestled with guilt, trying to deny that what was coming to pass was his fault. And now he had Argyle’s check in the church safe. What would he do if Argyle combusted tonight, was simply gone out of the world? Would his money be too dirty to use? He had already committed a sin by taking it; how, exactly, would it compound things to spend it once Argyle had gone to Hell? It occurred to him that he might have held out for twice what he’d asked, but he pushed the idea out of his mind.
He turned left at the light on Cambridge, driving slowly, watching the houses along the east side of the street, looking for signs of anybody out and about. It was just past four in the morning—nearly the same hour that the bastards had gotten to Father Mahoney.
He pulled up to the curb and cut the engine, then sat in the dark car and waited, watching clouds boil across the sky. In the light of the streetlamp, raindrops swooped down toward the windshield. Bentley had spent the last two hours loading sandwiches into Ziploc bags for the church’s Backdoor Lunch—one hundred and thirty-four of them, made out of bread donated by the local day-old shop. Each bagged sandwich went into a paper sack along with an apple and a foil packet of pretzels—lunch for the homeless. It was nearly the end of the pretzels. He’d have to go around to the Elks on Friday night and ask them to ante up another couple of cases. The sliced deli ham had come out of pitiful cash, as he liked to call it, and so had the apples. Usually Mrs. Hepplewhite made the sandwiches, but she’d spent the night with Mrs. Simms….
Argyle’s front porch light was on. Bentley decided to sit there for a few moments and scope things out. He that hasteth with his feet sinneth, he told himself, but actually he simply felt monumentally tired, and it seemed to him that he could easily lie down in bed and simply never get up again.
Last night, after his chat with Mahoney, he had spent two hours going over the books at the church. Doing good works wasn’t cheap. Mahoney had understood that part of it. He was locked into a mortgage that had looked pretty reasonable just a few years ago, but now it was a buyer’s market again, and you could find comparable buildings all over town for two-thirds the money. And besides that, the place was falling apart. It needed paint, plumbing; the electrical wiring was like an illustration out of a fire-prevention manual.
The rain came down in a deluge, and he switched off the wipers, listening to it beat against the roof of the car. That did it. Between the rain and the porch light and very nearly no sleep at all last night, it just wasn’t a good morning for the business of spying on Argyle. Bentley was too damned tired to get wet. He reached for the ignition key, but just then, as if it were a message, a light blinked on inside the house.
Argyle was up before dawn again, like a man who had desperately important work to do. Bentley slid across the seat, eased the passenger door open, and slid out, shutting the door as silently as he could before jogging toward the side of the house in a crouch. He ducked in among the hibiscus and tree ferns, pushing his way through them until he was well hidden from the street.
Rain dripped from the brim of his hat as he crept forward, edging past a gas meter, pushing in among the rain-heavy fronds of a fern. The window shade was up a good inch, and the window itself was open. He could see the entirety of the room inside: books, stuffed chairs, an old table scattered with junk. On the floor lay what looked for all the world like a cross between a packing crate and a coffin. It was empty. Argyle was sitting in a chair, dressed in a pair of red pajamas, his back toward the window. He was utterly still, as if he’d just gotten out of bed to fall asleep in the chair. But there was something rigid and grotesque about his posture, as if he was a lifelike wooden puppet.
The moments passed. Bentley turned up his collar against the rain. This was worthless. He would catch pneumonia watching Argyle asleep in a chair….
Argyle moved. His arm jerked upward spastically, like the arm of a man snatching at a fly, then flopped down again, the palm slapping against the arm of the chair with a sort of limp-wristed determination. He repeated the movement, started to rise, then slumped back down, his head lolling forward now so that his chin pressed against his chest. His neck was a grotesque, almost larval white against the red of the pajamas, and his hair, mussed up with sleep, seemed to sprout from the white scalp in tufts. The head bobbed, as if he were listening to inaudible music.
He’s drunk, Bentley thought—and at four in the morning! Argyle’s head swiveled from side to side then, unnaturally again, as if he had a crick in his neck that he was trying to work out, but couldn’t. No, he wasn’t drunk. He was in the grip of some kind of fit. A grand mal seizure? He tried to stand, but sat back down hard, and Bentley could hear the sound of gibbering now. A
rush of laughter followed the gibbering, and then a low moaning, almost like a foghorn.
In a frightful rush, Bentley understood the truth. What he had feared had finally come to pass: like Murray LeRoy had been, Argyle was possessed, inhabited, manipulated by demons. “Lord have mercy,” Bentley whispered.
Argyle stood up now, swaying on his feet like a marionette. Shakily, slowly, he reached up and jerked out a fistful of his own hair. Clutching it in his hand, he shuffled across the carpet, making a noise like flies buzzing against a window, one hesitant step at a time, until he slammed his foot into the wooden box on the floor and pitched forward across it like a stuffed dummy, where he lay heaving, his face mashed into the carpet, ghastly noises wheezing out of him. Then abruptly he fell still, apparently dead or comatose.
Bentley crouched there speechless, nearly unable to move. Rain swept in under the house eaves, thudding against his shoulders. He shivered in the chill air, certain that he had just witnessed a man’s damnation, that Argyle had quite simply gone to Hell.
What did this require of Bentley? He was a minister, a man of God. Had he been led to this window merely to witness Argyle’s descent into damnation? He felt tiny, exposed to the wind and rain and cold, and the darkness settled around him pitilessly, like an accusation.
He saw something then, dimly through the nearly closed door at the opposite side of the room—a shadow approaching, as if along a hallway. Someone else was in the house! He ducked out of sight, then peered up over the sill at the very corner of the window, keeping well back out of the way. His hands shook against the wooden sill as the door to the room swung open slowly, as if the intruder were doubtful, wondering what he might find. Whoever it was paused there in the shadows, then stepped forward into the room. Light from the ceiling lamp fell across his face….
All the Bells on Earth Page 15