Night Freight

by Pronzini, Bill

Hannigan told him. After that neither of them had anything more to say.

  The creek wound away to the right after fifty yards, into a tangle of scrub brush, sage, and tule grass; to the left and straight ahead were low rolling sand dunes, and behind them the earth became hard-packed and rose sharply into the bluff on which the house had been built. Hannigan took Vickery onto the worn path between two of the dunes. Fog massed around them in wet gray swirls, shredding as they passed through it, reknitting again at their backs. Even with the lantern, visibility was less than thirty yards in any direction, although as they neared the bluff the house lights threw a progressively brighter illumination against the screen of mist.

  They were halfway up the winding path before the house itself loomed into view—a huge redwood-and-glass structure with a balcony facing the sea. The path ended at a terraced patio, and there were wooden steps at the far end that led up alongside the house.

  When they reached the steps Hannigan gestured for Vickery to go up first. The big man did not argue; but he ascended sideways, looking back down at Hannigan, neither of his hands touching the railing. Hannigan followed by four of the wood runners.

  At the top, in front of the house, was a parking area and a small garden. The access road that came in from the Coast Highway and the highway itself were invisible in the misty darkness. The light over the door burned dully, and as Vickery moved toward it Hannigan shut off the lantern and put it and the shovel down against the wall. Then he started after the big man.

  He was about to tell Vickery that the door was unlocked and to go on in when another man came out of the fog.

  Hannigan saw him immediately, over on the access road, and stopped with the back of his neck prickling again. This newcomer was about the same size as Vickery, and Hannigan himself; thick through the body, dressed in a rumpled suit but without a tie. He had wildly unkempt hair and an air of either agitation or harried intent. He hesitated when he saw Hannigan and Vickery, then he came toward them holding his right hand against his hip at a spot covered by his suit jacket.

  Vickery had seen him by this time and he was up on the balls of his feet again, nervously watchful. The third man halted opposite the door and looked back and forth between Hannigan and Vickery. He said, "One of you the owner of this house?"

  "I am," Hannigan said. He gave his name. "Who are you?"

  "Lieutenant McLain, Highway Patrol. You been here all evening, Mr. Hannigan?"

  "Yes."

  "No trouble of any kind?"

  "No. Why?"

  "We're looking for a man who escaped from the hospital at Tescadero this afternoon," McLain said. "Maybe you've heard about that?"

  Hannigan nodded.

  "Well, I don't want to alarm you, but we've had word that he may be in this vicinity."

  Hannigan wet his lips and glanced at Vickery.

  "If you're with the Highway Patrol," Vickery said to McLain, "how come you're not in uniform?"

  "I'm in Investigation. Plainclothes."

  "Why would you be on foot? And alone? I thought the police always traveled in pairs."

  McLain frowned and studied Vickery for a long moment, penetratingly. His eyes were wide and dark and did not blink much. At length he said, "I'm alone because we've had to spread ourselves thin in order to cover this whole area, and I'm on foot because my damned car came up with a broken fan belt. I radioed for assistance, and then I came down here because I didn't see any sense in sitting around waiting and doing nothing."

  Hannigan remembered Vickery's words on the beach: I could give you a story about my car breaking down. He wiped again at the dampness on his face.

  Vickery said, "You mind if we see some identification?"

  McLain took his hand away from his hip and produced a leather folder from his inside jacket pocket. He held it out so Hannigan and Vickery could read it. "That satisfy you?"

  The folder corroborated what McLain had told them about himself; but it did not contain a picture of him. Vickery said nothing.

  Hannigan asked, "Have you got a photo of this lunatic?"

  "None that will do us any good. He destroyed his file before he escaped from the asylum, and he's been in there sixteen years. The only pictures we could dig up are so old, and he's apparently changed so much, the people at Tescadero tell us there's almost no likeness anymore."

  "What about a description?"

  "Big, dark-haired, regular features, no deformities or identifying marks. That could fit any one of a hundred thousand men or more in Northern California."

  "It could fit any of the three of us," Vickery said.

  McLain studied him again. "That's right, it could."

  "Is there anything else about him?" Hannigan asked. "I mean, could he pretend to be sane and get away with it?"

  "The people at the hospital say yes."

  "That makes it even worse, doesn't it?"

  "You bet it does," McLain said. He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Look, why don't we talk inside? It's pretty cold out here."

  Hannigan hesitated. He wondered if McLain had some other reason for wanting to go inside, and when he looked at Vickery it seemed to him the other man was wondering the same thing. But he could see no way to refuse without making trouble.

  He said, "I guess so. The door's open."

  For a moment all three of them stood motionless, McLain still watching Vickery intently. Vickery had begun to fidget under the scrutiny. Finally, since he was closest to the door, he jerked his head away, opened it, and went in sideways, the same way he had climbed the steps from the patio. McLain kept on waiting, which left Hannigan no choice except to follow Vickery. When they were both inside, McLain entered and shut the door.

  The three of them went down the short hallway into the big beam-ceilinged family room. McLain glanced around at the fieldstone fireplace, the good reproductions on the walls, the tasteful modern furnishings. "Nice place," he said. "You live here alone, Mr. Hannigan?"

  "No, with my wife."

  "Is she here now?"

  "She's in Vegas. She likes to gamble and I don't."

  "I see."

  "Can I get you something? A drink?"

  "Thanks, no. Nothing while I'm on duty."

  "I wouldn't mind having one," Vickery said. He was still fidgeting because McLain was still watching him and had been the entire time he was talking to Hannigan.

  Near the picture window that took up the entire wall facing the ocean was a leather-topped standing bar; Hannigan crossed to it. The drapes were open and wisps of the gray fog outside pressed against the glass like skeletal fingers. He put his back to the window and lifted a bottle of bourbon from one of the shelves inside the bar.

  "I didn't get your name," McLain said to Vickery.

  "Art Vickery. Look, why do you keep staring at me?"

  McLain ignored that. "You a friend of Mr. Hannigan's?"

  "No," Hannigan said from the bar. "I just met him tonight, a few minutes ago. He wanted to use my phone."

  McLain's eyes glittered. "Is that right?" he said. "Then you don't live around here, Mr. Vickery?"

  "No, I don't live around here."

  "Your car happened to break down too, is that it?"

  "Not exactly."

  "What then—exactly?"

  "I was with a woman, a married woman, and her husband showed up unexpectedly." There was sweat on Vickery's face now. "You know how that is."

  "No," McLain said, "I don't. Who is this woman?"

  "Listen, if you're with the Highway Patrol as you say, I don't want to give you a name."

  "What do you mean, if I'm with the Highway Patrol as I say? I told you I was, didn't I? I showed you my identification, didn't I?"

  "Just because you're carrying it doesn't make it yours."

  McLain's lips thinned and his eyes did not blink at all now. "You trying to get at something, mister? If so, maybe you'd better just spit it out."

  "I'm not trying to get at anything," Vickery said. "There's an unidentified lu
natic running around loose in this damned fog."

  "So you're not even trustful of a law officer."

  "I'm just being careful."

  "That's a good way to be," McLain said. "I'm that way myself. Where do you live, Vickery?"

  "In San Francisco."

  "How were you planning to get home tonight?"

  "I'm going to call a friend to come pick me up."

  "Another lady friend?"

  "No."

  "All right. Tell you what. You come with me up to where my car is, and when the tow truck shows up with a new fan belt I'll drive you down to Bodega. You can make your call from the patrol station there?"

  A muscle throbbed in Vickery's temple. He tried to match McLain's stare, but it was only seconds before he averted his eyes.

  "What's the matter?" McLain said. "Something you don't like about my suggestion?"

  "I can make my call from right here."

  "Sure, but then you'd be inconveniencing Mr. Hannigan. You wouldn't want to do that to a total stranger, would you?"

  "You're a total stranger," Vickery said. "I'm not going out in that fog with you, not alone and on foot."

  "I think maybe you are."

  "No. I don't like those eyes of yours, the way you keep staring at me."

  "And I don't like the way you're acting, or your story, or the way you look," McLain said. His voice had got very soft, but there was a hardness underneath that made Hannigan—standing immobile now at the bar—feel ripples of cold along his back. "We'll just be going, Vickery. Right now."

  Vickery took a step toward him, and Hannigan could not tell if it was involuntary or menacing. Immediately McLain swept the tail of his suit jacket back and slid a gun out of a holster on his hip, centered it on Vickery's chest. The coldness on Hannigan's back deepened; he found himself holding his breath.

  "Outside, mister," McLain said.

  Vickery had gone pale and the sweat had begun to run on his face. He shook his head and kept on shaking it as McLain advanced on him, as he himself started to back away. "Don't let him do it," Vickery said desperately. He was talking to Hannigan but looking at the gun. "Don't let him take me out of here!"

  Hannigan spread his hands. "There's nothing I can do."

  "That's right, Mr. Hannigan," McLain said, "you just let me handle things. Either way it goes with this one, I'll be in touch."

  A little dazedly, Hannigan watched McLain prod Vickery into the hall, to the door; heard Vickery shout something. Then they were gone and the door slammed shut behind them.

  Hannigan got a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his forehead. He poured himself a drink, swallowed it, poured and drank a second. Then he went to the door.

  Outside, the night was silent except for the rhythmic hammering of the breakers in the distance. There was no sign of Vickery or McLain. Hannigan picked up the shovel and the lantern from where he had put them at the house wall and made his way down the steps to the patio, down the fogbound path toward the tule marsh.

  He thought about the two men as he went. Was Vickery the lunatic? Or could it be McLain? Well, it didn't really matter; all that mattered now was that Vickery might say something to somebody about the grave. Which meant that Hannigan had to dig up the body and bury it again in some other place.

  He hadn't intended the marsh to be a permanent burial spot anyway; he would find a better means of disposal later on. Once that task was taken care of, he could relax and make a few definite plans for the future. Money was made to be spent, particularly if you had a lot of it. It was too bad he had never been able to convince Karen of that.

  At the gravesite Hannigan set the lantern down and began to unearth the strangled body of his wife.

  And that was when the third man, a stranger carrying a long sharp kitchen knife, crept stealthily out of the fog. . . .

  Probably my best-known horror story, "Peekaboo" was written for a Charles Grant–edited anthology called Nightmares. Written backward, in a sense, because the plot evolved from the last line, which magically appeared one morning in my overheated brain, rather than devolved to it as is usually the case. It's one of those exercises in cauld grue that depends for its effects not so much on the author's imagination as on the reader's. The real horror here lies in what happens after the last line—and I'll bet that in nine out of ten cases, the reader's version is nastier and more terrifying than my own would be.

  Peekaboo

  Roper came awake with the feeling that he wasn't alone in the house.

  He sat up in bed, tense and wary, a crawling sensation on the back of his scalp. The night was dark, moonless; warm clotted black surrounded him. He rubbed sleep mucus from his eyes, blinking, until he could make out the vague grayish outlines of the open window in one wall, the curtains fluttering in the hot summer breeze.

  Ears straining, he listened. But there wasn't anything to hear. The house seemed almost graveyard-still, void of even the faintest of night sounds.

  What was it that had woken him up? A noise of some kind? An intuition of danger? It might only have been a bad dream, except that he couldn't remember dreaming. And it might only have been imagination, except that the feeling of not being alone was strong, urgent.

  There's somebody in the house, he thought.

  Or some thing in the house?

  In spite of himself Roper remembered the story the nervous real estate agent in Whitehall had told him about this place. It had been built in the early 1900s by a local family, and when the last of them died off a generation later it was sold to a man named Lavolle who had lived in it for forty years. Lavolle had been a recluse whom the locals considered strange and probably evil; they hadn't had anything to do with him. But then he'd died five years ago, of natural causes, and evidence had been found by county officials that he'd been "some kind of devil worshiper" who had "practiced all sorts of dark rites." That was all the real estate agent would say about it.

  Word had got out about that and a lot of people seemed to believe the house was haunted or cursed or something. For that reason, and because it was isolated and in ramshackle condition, it had stayed empty until a couple of years ago. Then a man called Garber, who was an amateur parapsychologist, leased the place and lived here for ten days. At the end of that time somebody came out from Whitehall to deliver groceries and found Garber dead. Murdered. The real estate agent wouldn't talk about how he'd been killed; nobody else would talk about it either.

  Some people thought it was ghosts or demons that had murdered Garber. Others figured it was a lunatic—maybe the same one who'd killed half a dozen people in this part of New England over the past couple of years. Roper didn't believe in ghosts or demons or things that went bump in the night; that kind of supernatural stuff was for rural types like the ones in Whitehall. He believed in psychotic killers, all right, but he wasn't afraid of them; he wasn't afraid of anybody or anything. He'd made his living with a gun too long for that. And the way things were for him now, since the bank job in Boston had gone sour two weeks ago, an isolated backcountry place like this was just what he needed for a few months.

  So he'd leased the house under a fake name, claiming to be a writer, and he'd been here for eight days. Nothing had happened in that time: no ghosts, no demons, no strange lights or wailings or rattling chains—and no lunatics or burglars or visitors of any kind. Nothing at all.

  Until now.

  Well, if he wasn't alone in the house, it was because somebody human had come in. And he sure as hell knew how to deal with a human intruder. He pushed the blankets aside, swung his feet out of bed, and eased open the nightstand drawer. His fingers groped inside, found his .38 revolver and the flashlight he kept in there with it; he took them out. Then he stood, made his way carefully across to the bedroom door, opened it a crack, and listened again.

  The same heavy silence.

  Roper pulled the door wide, switched on the flash, and probed the hallway with its beam. No one there. He stepped out, moving on the balls of his bare f
eet. There were four other doors along the hallway: two more bedrooms, a bathroom, and an upstairs sitting room. He opened each of the doors in turn, swept the rooms with the flash, then put on the overhead lights.

  Empty, all of them.

  He came back to the stairs. Shadows clung to them, filled the wide foyer below. He threw the light down there from the landing. Bare mahogany walls, the lumpish shapes of furniture, more shadows crouching inside the arched entrances to the parlor and the library. But that was all: no sign of anybody, still no sounds anywhere in the warm dark.

  He went down the stairs, swinging the light from side to side. At the bottom he stopped next to the newel post and used the beam to slice into the blackness in the center hall. Deserted. He arced it around into the parlor, followed it with his body turned sideways to within a pace of the archway. More furniture, the big fieldstone fireplace at the far wall, the parlor windows reflecting glints of light from the flash. He glanced back at the heavy darkness inside the library, didn't see or hear any movement over that way, and reached out with his gun hand to flick the switch on the wall inside the parlor.

  Nothing happened when the electric bulbs in the old-fashioned chandelier came on; there wasn't anybody lurking in there.

  Roper turned and crossed to the library arch and scanned the interior with the flash. Empty bookshelves, empty furniture; He put on the chandelier. Empty room.

  He swung the cone of light past the staircase, into the center hall—and then brought it back to the stairs and held it there. The area beneath them had been walled on both sides, as it was in a lot of these old houses, to form a coat or storage closet; he'd found that out when he first moved in and opened the small door that was set into the staircase on this side. But it was just an empty space now, full of dust—

  The back of his scalp tingled again. And a phrase from when he was a kid playing hide-and-seek games popped into his mind.

  Peekaboo, I see you. Hiding under the stair.

  His finger tightened around the butt of the .38. He padded forward cautiously, stopped in front of the door. And reached out with the hand holding the flash, turned the knob, jerked the door open, and aimed the light and the gun inside.