Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  "No it ain't, nothin' like '41, and how the hell would you remember what '41 was like anyway, wisenheimer? Your head was so full of suds back then you wouldn't know that crack in the sidewalk from your mama's—" another said.

  "I tell ya," the first continued, not listening to his interrupter, "if anything comes down like '41, it's bound to mean trouble."

  "Jenny's gallstones're givin' her trouble," said an older man in a blue baseball cap with the letters USA printed across the brim.

  "Yeah?" someone asked.

  "She says she didn't get a wink of sleep last night and she was dreamin' about her mama again, and whenever she dreams about the old cow, it's her gallstones."

  "Didn't get much sleep myself last night," the man trying to read the clouds said.

  Tom Mackenzie, Sr., and his son Tommy were changing the plastic letters on the marquee down at the Key Theater—from Disney's SLEEPING BEAUTY ("Damn videocassettes have ruined my business," father grumbled to son) to NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, PART III. Tom, Sr., stood on the sidewalk with a mug of coffee in one hand while he gripped the ladder with the other. To help keep the aluminum ladder steady, he pressed his gut up against it, too.

  "Not like that shit! now you got all the letters well, they're crooked, Tommy, can't you see not like—" Tom, Sr.'s words whistled out of his mouth like a string of spit. "I don't know how you're ever going to make it in the world, son, unless you—"

  Maude Dunwoody's Ham Biscuit Haven was practically empty at lunch hour; none of her regulars had come in. Maude, her grease-stained apron drawn tight across her broad hips like the top of a drum, stood in the doorway shivering from the cold, telling her cook, Billy Fine, about the scary dream she had the night before. The Columns restaurant didn't even open on Tuesday. A hand-scrawled sign on the door said, Closed Due To Weather.

  All those folks on their way to lunch, or running errands while the sun was still shining, or just looking out their windows at the gritty snow, all had one thing in common. They looked tired, as if someone was robbing them of sleep.

  3

  George Connally had spent the night at the Westbridge Medical Center in Newton. He sat in the lobby even after his wife had been given a painkiller and was asleep in her room. He had never been so frightened in his whole career as he was when he finally understood the word his wife repeated weakly over and over.

  "Oooweef, Oooweef "

  And the only name George could come up with, no matter how he figured it, was "Louise."

  4

  Lyle Holroyd was left in charge while George remained at the medical center, and it seemed like it was going to be a slow day as he looked out the window of the sheriff's office (imagining what it would be like when George retired or was fired, and Lyle was, himself, occupying this particular office) when someone came up behind him. The surprise attack made him spill his coffee on the front of his shirt.

  "Say, Lyle," Detective Hank Firestone said, slapping Lyle on the shoulder so hard it almost stung, but in a friendly way, "let's you and me go and take a ride around town."

  5

  Ten minutes later, Lyle Holroyd and Hank Firestone were sitting in Lyle's cruiser in front of the Marlowe-Houston House.

  Firestone reached over and turned off the police radio.

  "I'm very confused, Mr. Firestone," Lyle said, glancing from the radio up to Firestone's face.

  "Call me Hank, Lyle." Firestone seemed sure of what he was doing. "I think we can talk here. I know what small towns are like. Why, I'm from a small town, myself. Gossip travels like, well, like seeds on the wind, and where it lands, well, it takes root you see, and grows."

  Lyle scratched his head beneath his deputy's hat. "I don't follow."

  "Well, it all goes back to this missing little girl, Lyle. Do you know the one I mean?" Hank patted the dashboard in imitation of a drum roll. "The Amory girl, Teddy Amory. We have cause to believe she is somewhere in this very town, Lyle. Kidnapped. She has an illness, Lyle, a disease, and we need to help her. You'd be quite the hero rescuing a little girl from a kidnapper, wouldn't you? "

  "Gawd, that's what George thought, too—kidnapped." Lyle said this last word in a pregnant whisper.

  "Did he? Interesting. It's under investigation with the FBI. But there is a deviate in this town, Lyle, an aberrant personality who is keeping that poor little girl in agony. We think we know who."

  "Why didn't George tell me any of this?"

  "Let's just say your sheriff is considered a risk with regards to his mental state. He hasn't told you because we've chosen not to tell him of our involvement. But we have chosen you, Lyle. And we need your help. You know this town, don't you, Lyle?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "We believe we can draw out the perpetrator of this crime this very evening. Now, our main goal is to not endanger the little girl. We are well aware of who this man is, and we don't want to alarm him. He's a dangerous personality type. Our aim is to follow him, find out where he's keeping the girl, and when we've made sure he's clear of the place, we want you to go in and get her. And bring her out to us."

  "What if—" Lyle interrupted.

  "Leave the 'what ifs' to us, Lyle, we'll keep your back covered. You're a bright young man, Lyle, everyone I've interviewed has said it."

  "They have?" Lyle raised his eyebrows.

  "A go-getter." Hank Firestone grinned and patted Lyle on the shoulder. Firestone opened his car door. "Come on, some of the other undercover boys are inside, I want you to meet who you'll be working with tonight."

  6

  On the wire:

  Georgia Stetson called up Patsy Campbell as soon as she'd remembered where she'd heard that name: Coffey. "And Patsy," Georgia said, "I am truly surprised you didn't remember yourself that boy the one who was involved in that tragedy with your nephew Bart—that's right, dear, right under your own roof I should say so, and I would do that right now if I were you "

  7

  When the housekeeper was not able to send Dr. Nagle and Cup away from Gower Lowry's door ("Mrs. Saunders," Prescott said, removing his red knit cap in deference to the lady, "we will pitch tent if we must."), Gower Lowry finally shouted from upstairs that he would be down momentarily to speak personally with the two callers. He came down several minutes later dressed in a heavy tweed overcoat, his shoulders hunched, clutching a cane, wearing galoshes. "I was just on my way out," he said, coming to the door and simultaneously shooing Mrs. Saunders away. "Saunders, to market, to market, I must have more fruit and vegetables with my meals "

  Looking confused, Mrs. Saunders took her coat from the rack by the front door and squeezed past Prescott and Cup as they entered the house.

  Gower led them to what he referred to as his "chamber of horrors"; Cup glanced apprehensively at Prescott upon hearing this, but the "horrors" turned out to be nothing more than a series of floor-to-ceiling portraits of Lowrys and Houstons, going as far back as the late 1700s. As he glanced from portrait to portrait, Cup wondered which painting was of Worthy Houston, or his father, Stephen, or the sister, Virginia. "The only ones missing are over at the ancestral home," Gower said proudly, meaning the Marlowe-Houston House. He pointed out a portrait of himself as a young man on horseback.

  "At eighteen. Quite the equestrian in those days," Gower said, and then paused, searching Prescott's face for some reaction.

  There was none. Prescott nodded and said, "Yes, your father kept the finest stables in the county. I should know, I bought the barn, didn't I?"

  Gower's mood darkened. He looked over at Cup, who had just taken a seat near the window. "I remember you very well, Mr. Coffey. But what's past is past. We are all capable of mistakes I am happy to see you've obviously made something of yourself."

  Cup smiled pleasantly, ignoring the awkwardness of this ass backwards compliment. Gower Lowry hadn't changed a bit in twelve years. He still liked to stick it to people.

  "We're here about the diary," Prescott said firmly.

  "Yes," Gower said, "you are.
I haven't for a moment entertained the notion that this is a social visit."

  Prescott proceeded to explain about the bones and the dig, and the whole time he was talking, Cup watched Gower's face for some expression. There was none forthcoming. Gower sat listening with a slightly bemused look, occasionally turning to Cup in sympathy. Cup burned with the implication of Gower's nods to him—that Cup, too, was thinking what Gower Lowry apparently thought: Prescott Nagle is an old hack, an academic fuddy-duddy who has lost too many boxcars from his train of thought.

  "Ghosts?" Gower finally interrupted Prescott with a wave of his cane. "Is that what this is all about? Ghosts? Oh, dear, Prescott," his voice faded. He winked at Cup. "And you've been the willing accomplice through all this, have you, Mr. Coffey?"

  Cup felt his embarrassment, his shame at not speaking up, but he remained silent. He felt as if he lay suspended in a block of ice, unable to break out. What in God's name do I believe, anyway? In this room, it seems so far away, a dream I had last night. It's just a story I've been suckered into. A logical explanation, a physical reality. Got to be. Bart Kinter is dead. Lily Cammack is dead. I am not insane. This room has four walls, there is snow outside, Dr. Nagle is holding a red cap. That's reality. That's sense.

  Cup watched as Prescott's face went from one set in its determination to a face that was losing all its muscle tone; without saying it, Cup felt that sinking disappointment communicated from the older man to himself.

  No, Cup thought, this is real. He knows and I know, and whatever this is won't cease to exist just because I won't bear witness to it.

  Cup broke through the ice that had formed around his mind.

  "No, Mr. Lowry," Cup said, feeling stronger than he had felt in years, finally telling the truth as he saw it, not as he thought other people would want to hear it. But as it was. "I don't know for sure what it is, but I believe there's a threat—just as Prescott says—to this town, and I believe I am involved somehow, and Prescott, also, and that somewhere in those missing pages is the key to what's going on, be it rational or irrational. And yes, even ghosts, sir, or maybe something worse."

  8

  "Thank you, Cup, for coming through for me," Prescott said afterwards as they walked back to his car.

  "Fat lot of good it did. What's his problem, anyway?"

  "Couldn't you tell?"

  "Other than just plain meanness?"

  "Cup, over the years you learn how to read people the way you do books. And the book that Gower Lowry was scribbling in with all those nervous chuckles and asides to you about old men and their wild imaginations can only point to one thing. Himself. He was trying to use you as a sounding board, someone to reassure him that this is all some sort of elderly disease like Alzheimer's. Because he must have had his own encounter with "

  "The Eater of Souls," Cup said to himself quietly.

  9

  Patsy Campbell, nursing an RC Cola, pushed the door to Cup's room open slowly. She wasn't entirely sure that he had not returned since the morning. "Hello? Mr. Coffey?"

  She counted to twenty and then went inside the room. Patsy wandered around the room, scanning the surfaces of desk and dresser, daintily stepping over her empty RC Cola bottles trying to find something that would confirm her worst suspicions about this man.

  She found it, tucked beneath one of the pillows on the bed.

  A thick black notebook. She opened it.

  "'The Nightmare Book, Volume Three,'" she said, and began reading.

  Within ten minutes she was "on the wire," and this is how the news filtered down:

  From Patsy Campbell to Georgia Stetson:

  "The man is psychotic, I am telling you, Georgia, he possesses a messed-up brain from too much drink. Do you know that man who killed all those boys? Gacy, yes, well this man Coffey talks about him like they are best friends, and about butchering innocent children with lawn mowers—no, dear, I don't, the Miller boy brings his own mower when he cuts the lawn—you don't think he'd try something like that here, do you?"

  From Georgia Stetson to Maude Dunwoody:

  " And he is thought to have murdered several children in cold blood and he is staying right there at Patsy's Yes, Maude, a cult of some kind, well, yes, he probably is at the bottom of the Whalen killing "

  From Maude Dunwoody to Cappie Hartstone:

  "It's true, he's part of the Manson family, and you know they were all devil worshippers—well, goodness, Cappie, I don't believe in any of that, but that doesn't matter to a psycho, does it? All that's important is that he believes it "

  And, finally, to Bonnie Holroyd from Cappie Hartstone:

  " I didn't want to bother you about this, but I'm a little worried about Mrs. Campbell, and if the sheriff could just go check on her to see how she's Well, I understand there's a psycho boarding with her, and he's already wanted for murder and kidnapping. I understand he's a dead ringer for Ted Bundy. That's right. I thought you should know Thank you so much, Bonnie."

  Bonnie Holroyd radioed Officer Dave Petty, who was writing up a parking ticket for the station wagon that remained double parked next to the blue van on Main Street.

  "Look, Dave, I can't get hold of Lyle, so could you head on over to Patsy Campbell's—she's got some kind of problem with—yeah, if you're real busy I think it can wait "

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE BOY-EATING SPIDER

  1

  Tommy Mackenzie, Jr., had been chewed out by his dad for abandoning his post at the Key Theater last Friday night when he'd walked Clare Terry home. That was what he'd told his friends, anyway. "It was only ten minutes," Tommy protested. Tommy told his friends that his dad had pounded a wall with his fist; his father had actually thrown Tommy up against the wall. "In that ten minutes, somebody could've robbed me blind!" Tommy, almost sixteen, was taller than his father by six inches. He could easily have pushed his dad away. But whenever his father got in one of his rages, Tommy still felt like a little kid. Tommy didn't know for sure that other fathers didn't behave this way; he rarely shared his feelings on the subject with anyone.

  Tommy dreaded the three weeks of vacation around Christmastime more than any of the year. Not only did he have to put in a full day's work at the theater, but in the morning and early afternoon before the first matinee he usually just hung out in his room to avoid any confrontations with his dad.

  But after Friday night, his dad had grounded him to the house for his two nights off a week, Tuesday and Wednesday, when there wasn't much business at the theater. "You can just sit in your room, young man, and not waste your time playing videos or running around with your idiot friends." Tommy knew that his father wasn't angry so much at him for his leaving his post last Friday as he was trying to hang on to something in the family. Tommy's mother had gone to her sister's in Roanoke again, and Tom, Sr., was always on edge whenever she did. His mother took these little trips usually after his dad had hit her, too, and it was not untypical of her to stay away a week or more. Tommy didn't consider this very unusual, either; he figured most families probably did such things. Moms left their families when they got hit, Dads threw their kids against walls, and the kids themselves stayed in their rooms as often as possible.

  And that was just what he was doing Tuesday night when somebody scared him half to death.

  He was sitting at his desk doodling a caricature of just how he felt; the picture was of a boy whose brows pushed his eyes down almost to his mouth, and underneath it he scrawled: Grrrrr. He twisted his gold class ring on his hand—it was too loose for his finger, but he'd never complain to his dad about it. Tommy had bought the ring with money saved from his running the concession stand at the movie theater, but even so it had been drilled into him that it was essentially out of his father's pocket. Tommy had mislaid the ring around the house a few times since he'd gotten it in September, and his dad had hit the roof and given him a lecture on responsibility and the value of things. Tommy grew to dislike the ring because of that; but he tried to have it on him
at all times lest Tom, Sr., notice that it was missing. But, in the relative safety of his own bedroom, Tommy took the ring off and set it down beside his sketch pad.

  Occasionally he would look out his bedroom window. He couldn't see much in the dark, but there was the streetlamp shining down on Main Street through the alley behind their house, and sometimes he caught a glimpse of couples making out near the dumpster. Once he saw a guy beat another guy up. The streetlamp light was also a fairly good indicator of snowfall. Tommy was hoping for more.

  As Tommy sat drawing, he thought he heard something outside the window and looked up. There was a face pushed up against the glass on the other side, a piggish nose, bloated lips, eyes shut.

  "Here comes the Boy-Eating Spider!" it cried out, and for a moment Tommy thought it might just be the Boy-Eating Spider.

  "Jee-sus," Tommy gasped, realizing halfway into his terror that it was Rick Stetson. How could he not have recognized immediately that bozo red hair and toothy grin?

  Rick pulled his face away from the glass and tapped on the window. "Knock, knock," he said.

  Tommy reached over and lifted the window up so his friend could come in. "What the hell are you doing out there? I'm still pissed off at you for that shitty thing you did to that albino."

  "I just thought I'd scare the shit out of you," Rick said, crawling across the sill, and then onto Tommy's desk, shoving books and papers onto the floor. He wriggled like a snake to get his legs in, while Tommy, finding it necessary to stand beside his desk so that Rick could have more room to get in, pulled on his arms to help. "Cold as a witch's tittie in a brass bra." Rick shivered as he swiveled around on the desk, more or less righting himself.