Westlake, Donald E - Novel 51

by Humans (v1. 1)

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was no door to the bathroom, of course. The cop gestured for Pami to bring the lamp over and carry it into the little ruined room. He followed, standing in the doorway, wrinkling his nose. “How do you live like this?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Come back outside.”

  Still carrying the kerosene lamp, Pami followed the cop to the outer room, where he sat at the table—in her chair, not Rush’s—and sprawled there, legs wide, thumbs hooked in belt. “Where’d Brother Rush go?”

  “I truly don’t know, sir.” Pami had given up trying to sound like an American; whatever was going to happen would happen.

  “You stupid little bitch,” the cop said, but without any heat, just weariness. “Don’t you know I can help you, if I want?”

  Pami’s twisted jaw worked. He was offering her salvation— short-term salvation, it’s true, but that’s all she could hope for—he was showing her an open doorway, and she couldn’t step through it. “I don’t know!” she wailed. “I don’t know where Rush is! I gotta go back to Africa because that Rush don’t tell me—nobody ever told me nothing my whole life! Why anybody like you be so stupid come ask me questions? I don’t know nothing!”

  The cop was unimpressed. With a jaundiced look, he said, “I bet you know what’s gonna happen if you raise your voice to me again.”

  She blinked. The glass chimney rattled as she held the lamp. She kept quiet.

  The cop nodded. “Put the lamp down on this table,” he said. “Before you catch yourself on fire.”

  “Yes, sir.” Putting the lamp down, growing calmer because of the calm in his voice, she began to think at last, and said, “Maybe... maybe he went to see that woman.”

  The cop raised an eyebrow. “Woman? You mean he got himself another whore?”

  “No, sir. I don’t know, sir. Not a name like that, sir.”

  “Not a name like that?” The cop glared at her, angry because she was confusing him. “What do you mean, not a name like that? What name?”

  Panic leaped up in her again. She couldn’t remember the name! Shaking both closed fists in front of herself, she tried desperately to think. “Oh! It’s—it’s—oh, please, oh, wait, it’s—Susan!”

  The cop’s thumbs leaped out of his belt. He sat forward, meaty palms slapping on the table. “Susan? Susan what?”

  “I don’t know! He just said it, and then he went, and I don’t know these names here!”

  “All right, all right,” the cop said, with less agitation, and raised a hand to make her stop. He stared at her very intendy. “The last name. Was it Carrigan?”

  That was it! “Yes, sir!” she cried, in great relief. “You know it, then! You know everything!”

  “Do I?” The cop sat back. One hand flopped down limply into his lap, the other lifted to rub his chin. He was thinking it over. “Okay, Pami,” he said at last. “Go in and get dressed.”

  She stared at him. “Why?”

  “Because I’m taking you downtown, what else you think?”

  “I helped you!”

  “Not a lot, Pami.” He shrugged. “Don’t make it tough on yourself. Come on, get dressed.”

  She knew what she was going to do before she knew she was going to do it. She pointed at the lamp. “Can I take that in with me?”

  “Sure.”

  He was sprawled again, across the table from her. She stepped forward, picked up the kerosene lamp, flung it in his face. His hands jolted up, but too late. Glass shattered, liquid fire splashed across the front of him, and Pami ran to the door and out.

  Leaping down the stairs, in her mind’s eye she saw him sitting there, not even moving, the kerosene burning all over his face and chest. Almost as though he knew she was going to do it. Knew it when she did. Knew it and didn’t know it when she knew it and didn’t know it.

  Barefoot, dressed in the T-shirt, without her clothes and her shoulder bag and her money and her spring knife, Pami fled down 121st Street, as the fire spread behind her.

  Ananayel

  Susan!

  As the fire burns this body, this table, this floor, I continue to sit here, trying to decide what this means. I’ve been spending so much of my time near Susan, one of that creature’s fellow demons must have found me and reported. And now he’s gone to see what he can learn about my plans from Susan.

  What will he do? He didn’t hurt Pami, just stayed close to her, waiting for me to find her useful. Will he do the same with Susan? Or will he decide it’s time to take action?

  I must remind myself of the situation here. Susan is nothing to do with the plan. Susan was the bait only, to bring Grigor Basmyonov into play. If the bait is useful twice, how much better, of course. Of course. If Susan will now draw that devil off, distract him while I get on with my work, how much better. Of course.

  I must remind myself of the situation here. At the best of circumstances, Susan Carrigan will survive no longer than one long inhalation of my life; and these, for Susan, are not the best of circumstances. Her life expectancy is now that of the planet: weeks, at most. What does it matter if her life is even briefer than that? What does it matter, between brevities?

  I must remind myself of the situation here, as the fire burns through this floor and the living creatures in this fiery shell flee for their fleeting lives and this body falls with this chair and this table through the rotted smoldering boards through two levels of smoky heated air and the fire department sirens are heard in the night.

  I must remind myself of the situation here.

  X

  She sleeps. I sit on her chest, almost weightless, scratching my upraised knees with my claws, and I smell the smells of her breath and her body She has had sex, she is comfortable in her body and her bed and her mind. I touch her dreams with my thoughts, and she whimpers. She feels my touch, she feels my feather weight on her chest, and she is afraid.

  This is no Pami. I’ll tear this one into narrow strips and it will tell me everything in its mind. Everything. And that god-dung creature will never use it again.

  I knead her chest with my toes. She opens her eyes. She sees me. She screams.

  23

  I should have stayed in New Jersey, Frank thought. The police car was still there in his rearview mirror, pacing him, not doing anything yet, just pacing him.

  I shouldn’t have driven into the city at five in the morning, Frank told himself. I should have waited and come in at rush hour, disappear in the crowd.

  The damn thing of it was, he’d decided to avoid the rush hour. Here he was, still in the Chevy from Weir Cook Airport in Indianapolis, driving across New Jersey in the middle of the night, and he’d figured the hell with it, get the trip over with, drive on into New York and ditch the car tonight and get a hotel room and start fresh tomorrow.

  So he’d pushed it across New Jersey, and then the tollbooth guy at the George Washington Bridge looked at him funny; he knew it, he felt it at the time. There was just something about Frank or the car or something that alerted the guy, Frank knew it. He’d spent a lifetime knowing things like that.

  And then, on the Manhattan side, he was almost alone on the Henry Hudson Parkway as he drove down the west side, and at 158th Street a police car was just pulling up onto the highway.

  He slowed down to maybe three miles over the limit, and the blue and white police car tucked in at the same speed about six car lengths back, and here they both were.

  The tollbooth guy turned me up, Frank thought. He knew there was something wrong, and he got the word to the NYPD, and right now those guys behind me are running this license plate through the computer at Motor Vehicle. Has it been reported stolen yet? Has the Indianapolan returned from his flight and taken the courtesy bus to the spot where his car used to be?

  Even if not, even if not, if the cops back there decide anyway to just check out this guy in the Chevy on general principles and because it’s a slow night tonight, Frank is without papers; not on himself a
nd most especially not on the car. “Who is this car registered to?”

  “John Doe, Officer.”

  125th Street; the next exit. Driving smoothly, without fuss, even managing to look casual though no one in the world would be able to see his face at this moment, Frank steered for the exit, flowed smoothly down and around the curve, and the police car followed!

  Damn! Damn damn damn! The first traffic light Frank came to was green and he went straight and the cops came right along in his wake, half a block back. The second light was just turning yellow; he pressed the accelerator and zipped through, then eased off again. Now would tell; either the police car stops, or its red and white flashers come on and start revolving and the cops come straight on through the intersection and right up Frank’s tailpipe.

  I’ll have to try to outrun them, Frank thought, knowing how hopeless that would be but knowing also that he had no other choice. Take turns, cut back and forth in all these streets, try to lose them. He kept staring at the rearview mirror, not breathing, mouth open in fear, and back there the police car.. .stopped.

  Green light ahead. Frank took the right turn, then the next left, then another right. Bobbing and weaving, losing them any way he could. He kept going, switching back and switching back, all on empty streets in that darkest time of night just before the dawn, no traffic, no pedestrians. Stay off the highway, that was the thing, find the direction to go downtown, get undercover some—

  Sirens, off a ways. Looking for me!

  A skinny little black girl in a huge bloodred T-shirt ran out of nowhere into the glare of his headlights, waving her arms at him, showing him her tear-streaked terrified face. She was barefoot, and at first he thought she was ten years old, some little kid, attacked, gang-raped, something, and he instinctively hit the brakes, but without completely stopping.

  She grabbed the passenger door handle as it went by her at about five miles an hour, snatched it open, leaped headfirst into the car with the door banging against her legs, and Frank, startled, tromped the accelerator again. She pulled herself in and up, knees on the floor, arms on the seat, her pleading wide-eyed broken-jawed face staring up at him, the door imperfecdy closed and rattling as he accelerated, fleetingly afraid of an ambush situation, and he saw she wasn’t what he’d thought. She’s a grown-up woman, he realized, staring down at her, ugliest thing I ever seen in my life.

  “Mister, take me away from here!” she cried, with some kind of click-clack accent in her words; not like a spade at all; those mushmouth brothers on the inside. “I’ll do anything you want,” she begged, “but take me away from here!”

  24

  Susan woke from a nightmare to a worse nightmare, sitting on her chest, its claws puncturing her breasts, its red eyes gleaming at her as she screamed. It opened that hooked mustardy beak, and its breath was so foul that even in her terror she had to consciously try not to be sick.

  “Susan,” it said, in a husky croak, like a dog that had learned how to talk, and its narrow tongue, forked at the tip, flashed out and back, as though already tasting her blood.

  I’m dreaming! But she knew she wasn’t.

  A forepaw reached out, one gray-green talon touched her nose as though in play, and fire seared through her body from the touch. She shrieked, her own breath as hot as sulphur in her lungs.

  “Suuuu-san,” it crooned, and increased its weight, suddenly and terribly; then was almost weighdess again. “Who have you met recently, Suuuuu-san?” it asked, the red eyes sparkling as though it hoped she would refuse to answer. Would refuse at first to answer. Would refuse for as long as possible to answer. “Who have you met? What are you doing together?”

  Andy! she thought, but didn’t say, and thought again, it’s a dream, and the thing suddenly looked up, as though startled, and bolts of white light shot out of its eyes.

  No; into its eyes. From everywhere, from nowhere, the white light made two long thin cones, stilettos, two narrow blades plunging into the demon through its open eyes, filling it like milk, the white glow inside pulsing through the scales and fur of its body, swelling it, the demon’s mouth yawping wide, dislocating its own jaw, the forked tongue frantically flapping as though caught in a springe and trying to escape desperately from that mouth, that body.

  The white light seared the body of the demon from the center, burning and charring, and the monster writhed in furious pain, pressing down on Susan’s body and then leaping into the air. Great huge gray-black wings sprang from it, filling the room, beating wildly, stripping the walls of pictures and mirror—the mirror showing nothing—the demon curling in on itself in the midst of its thumping wings, trying to bite through itself to that tormenting light that slashed and destroyed deep within.

  Count Dracula sat quiedy in the wooden chair beside the window, right leg crossed over left, hands crossed calmly in lap as he watched the batde proceed in the middle of the room. Susan, battered by terror and pain, roused herself half upward, blood seeping from the long claw-tears on her breasts, and stared at this new horror.

  Dracula turned his head, faint sparks of static electricity springing from him as he moved, and smiled at Susan, showing her his blood-smeared fangs. “So you are that important to him,” he said amiably, in no particular accent. “You are the very linchpin of his plan.”

  The words made no sense, it was as though they were a part of the torture. Susan stared at her tormentor in this new guise, and he turned his attention back to the madness in the air, where the fury of the wings had slowed, the struggle had been decided. The demon sagged from its wings, which fitfully shook, creaking like old leather.

  No, not the demon; the husk of the demon. Susan understood that all at once; the demon itself had fled from that battlefield and now sat calmly watching from the sidelines, amusing itself.

  But so did the opponent understand, whoever or whatever that might be. Abrupdy, the chest of that ghoul-gryphon tore open and light poured into the room, blinding Susan, who, as she flung her hands to her face, saw the Count Dracula apparition cease to be. Gone.

  In the semi-darkness behind her hands, eyes squeezed shut but nevertheless seeing through her lids and her hands, seeing the bones in her hands from the intensity of that light, Susan felt it all change. A great billowing tenderness enfolded her. The light lost its terrifying incandescence, became soft, soothed her, setded and calmed her in the bed, removed all pain and fear, caressed her brain, and she slept, dreamless and full.

  The alarm sounded. Her eyes snapped open. What a horrible dream! But it was so real!

  She sat up, unable to believe anything, neither that it had been real nor a dream. There were no wounds on her breasts. The pictures and mirror were in place on the walls. A faint scent, like burning tires, hung in the air.

  25

  Jurisdiction was the word they used. They talked over Li Kwan’s head, or past his ears, as though he didn’t speak English, or it didn’t matter if he did. They used the word jurisdiction, and they smiled and smacked their lips and raised their jaws at one another, as though he were a juicy steak that only one of them could enjoy.

  For four days they moved him around, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The Star Voyager's crew had turned him over to uniformed men from the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, who took him in a car across New York—so familiar, from all the photos, all the films, but so desperately foreign—to an office building and upstairs to a large room with a mesh cage in it. They put him in the cage, and fed him one meal, and then New York City policemen came and took him away to a recognizable prison and put him in an isolation cell, and there he spent the night. Next morning the Federal Bureau of Investigation had a turn at him—and another cell, in another location—and then the Secret Service, and then the New York City police again. And back to Immigration. And occasional brief incomprehensible appearances before various judges, who muttered at the officials and paid him no attention at all. And so on.

  For the first two days, Kwan kept trying to ma
ke his case, make it with somebody, anybody, but no one would listen, no one cared, not the judges, not the people in uniform who led him from place to place, not anybody. Men in shabby suits, carrying highly polished attache cases, would occasionally appear and claim to be attorneys and say they had been assigned to “represent” him, and he tried to tell his story to them, but none of them was interested. That was the point, finally, if there was one: no one in the world was even interested.

  One attorney, the most honest of them—the only one honest of them—said it straight out: “Never mind that, Kwan. You aren’t political, so forget all that. You aren’t political because it would be too goddamn awkward if you were political, so you’re not. You’re, let’s see, you’re”—studying the papers he’d taken from the gleaming attache case—“you’re a stowaway, an illegal immigrant, an accused thief—”

  “Thief! Who says I’m a thief?”

  “You’ll have your day in court, Kwan. That’s the name, right? Li Kwan? Your last name’s Kwan?”

  “My family name is Li,” Kwan answered. “My given name is Kwan.”

  “Oh.” The man frowned some more at the papers. “They got it backward here.”

  “Li Kwan. That’s correct.”

  The man smiled in sudden understanding. “I get it! You do it backward! Is that a Chinese thing, or is it just you?”

  “It is Chinese.”

  “So you’re Mr. Li, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like the guy does my shirts,” the man said, and grinned in a sloppy friendly way and said, “I’m here to do what I can for you, Mr. Kwan. Mr. Li. I’ll get it. And I’ll do what I can.” Kwan never saw him again.

  But the worst was the women. Several of the functionaries who passed Kwan through their hands like worry beads were women, and Kwan simply didn’t matter to them. They were in uniform or otherwise severely dressed, and their eyes were cold or indifferent or distracted. Most of them had muscle bunches beneath their mean mouths. They met Kwan in small bare rooms with hard metal furniture, they carried their attache cases or manila folders, they clicked their ballpoint pens, they met him alone or they were accompanied by others, and at no time did he matter.