Whispers. Part 12

Miguel, the stocky man, charged, and Frye waited motionless, as if he didn't see him coming. Miguel rushed in with his head down, his fists up, his arms tucked close to his sides. He threw two quick and powerful punches at Frye's iron-muscled midsection. The brown man's granite hands made sharp hard slapping sounds as they landed, but Frye took both blows without flinching. By design, he was still holding the beer bottle, and he smashed it against the side of Miguel's head. Gla.s.s exploded and rained down on the parking lot in dissonant musical notes. Beer and beer foam splashed over both men. Miguel dropped to his knees with a horrible groan, as if he had been poleaxed. "Pablo," he called pleadingly to his friend. Grabbing the injured man's head with both hands, Frye held him steady long enough to ram a knee into the underside of his chin. Miguel's teeth clacked together with an ugly noise. As Frye let go of him, the man fell sideways, unconscious, his breath bubbling noisily through b.l.o.o.d.y nostrils.

Even as Miguel crumpled onto the fog-damp pavement, Pablo came after Frye. He had a knife. It was a long thin weapon, probably a switchblade, probably sharpened into cutting edges on both sides, certain to be as wickedly dangerous as a razor. The slim man was not a charger as Miguel had been. He moved swiftly but gracefully, almost like a dancer, gliding around to Frye's right side, searching for an opening, making an opening by virtue of his speed and agility, striking with the lightning moves of a snake. The knife flashed in, from left to right, and if Frye had not jumped back, it would have torn open his stomach, spilling his guts. Crooning eerily to himself, Pablo pressed steadily forward, slas.h.i.+ng at Frye again and again, from left to right, from right to left. As Frye retreated, he studied the way Pablo used the knife, and by the time he backed up against the rear end of the Dodge van, he saw how to handle him. Pablo made long sweeping pa.s.ses with the knife instead of the short vicious arcs employed by skilled knife fighters; therefore, on the outward half of each swing, after the blade had pa.s.sed Frye but before it started coming back again, there was a second or two when the weapon was moving away from him, posing no threat whatsoever, a moment when Pablo was vulnerable. As the slim man edged in for the kill, confident that his prey had nowhere to run, Frye timed one of the arcs and sprang forward at precisely the right instant. As the blade swung away from him, Frye seized Pablo's wrist, squeezing and twisting it, bending it back against the joint. The slim man cried out in agony. The knife flew out of his slender fingers. Frye stepped behind him, got a hammerlock on him, and ran him face-first into the rear end of the van. He twisted Pablo's arm even farther, got the hand all the way up between the shoulder blades, until it seemed something would have to snap. With his free hand, Frye gripped the seat of the man's trousers, literally lifted him off his feet, all hundred and forty pounds of him, and slammed him into the van a second time, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, until the screaming stopped. When he let go of Pablo, the slim man went down like a sack of rags.

Miguel was on his hands and knees. He spit blood and s.h.i.+ny white bits of teeth onto the black macadam.

Frye went to him.

"Trying to get up, friend?"

Laughing softly, Frye stepped on his fingers. He ground his heel on the man's hand, then stepped back.

Miguel squealed, fell on his side.

Frye kicked him in the thigh.

Miguel did not lose consciousness, but he closed his eyes, hoping Frye would just go away.

Frye felt as if electricity was coursing through him, a million-billion volts, bursting from synapse to synapse, hot and crackling and sparking within him, not a painful feeling, but a wild and exciting experience, as if he had just been touched by the Lord G.o.d Almighty and filled up with the most beautiful and bright and holy light.

Miguel opened his swollen dark eyes.

"All the fight gone out of you?" Frye asked.

"Please," Miguel said around broken teeth and split lips.

Exhilarated, Frye put a foot against Miguel's throat and forced him to roll onto his back.

"Please."

Frye took his foot off the man's throat.

"Please."

High with a sense of his own power, floating, flying, soaring, Frye kicked Miguel in the ribs.

Miguel choked on his own scream.

Laughing exuberantly, Frye kicked him repeatedly, until a couple of ribs gave way with an audible crunch.

Miguel began to do something he had struggled manfully not to do for the past few minutes. He began to cry.

Frye returned to the van.

Pablo was on the ground by the rear wheels, flat on his back, unconscious.

Saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," over and over again, Frye circled Pablo, kicking him in the calves and knees and thighs and hips and ribs.

A car started to pull into the lot from the street, but the driver saw what was happening and wanted no part of it. He put the car in reverse, backed out of there, and sped off with a screech of tires.

Frye dragged Pablo over to Miguel, lined them up side by side, out of the way of the van. He didn't want to run over anyone. He didn't want to kill either of them, for too many people in the bar had gotten a good look at him. The authorities wouldn't have much desire to pursue the winner of an ordinary street fight, especially when the losers had intended to gang up on a lone man. But the police would look for a killer, so Frye made sure that both Miguel and Pablo were safe.

Whistling happily, he drove back toward Marina Del Rey and stopped at the first open service station on the right-hand side of the street. While the attendant filled the tank, checked the oil, and washed the winds.h.i.+eld, Frye went to the men's room. He took a shaving kit with him and spent ten minutes freshening up.

When he traveled, he slept in the van, and it was not as convenient as a camper; it did not have running water. On the other hand, it was more maneuverable, less visible, and far more anonymous than a camper. To take full advantage of the many luxuries of a completely equipped motor home, he would have to stop over at a campground every night, hooking up to sewer and water and electric lines, leaving his name and address wherever he went. That was too risky. In a motor home, he would leave a trail that even a noseless bloodhound could follow, and the same would be true if he stayed at motels where, if the police asked about him later, desk clerks would surely remember the tall and extravagantly muscled man with the penetrating blue eyes.

In the men's room at the service station, he stripped out of his gloves and yellow sweater, washed his torso and underarms with wet paper towels and liquid soap, sprayed himself with deodorant, and dressed again. He was always concerned about cleanliness; he liked to be clean and neat at all times.

When he felt dirty, he was not only uncomfortable but deeply depressed as well--and somewhat fearful. It was as if being dirty stirred up vague recollections of some intolerable experience long forgotten, brought back hideous memories to the edge of his awareness, where he could sense but not see them, perceive but not understand them. Those few nights when he had fallen into bed without bothering to wash up, his repeating nightmare had been far worse than usual, expelling him from sleep in a screaming flailing terror. And although he had awakened on those occasions, as always, with no clear memory of what the dreams had been about, he had felt as if he'd just clawed his way out of a sickeningly filthy place, a dark and close and foul hole in the ground.

Rather than risk intensifying the nightmare that was sure to come, he washed himself there in the men's room, shaved quickly with an electric razor, patted his face with aftershave lotion, brushed his teeth, and used the toilet. In the morning, he would go to another service station and repeat the routine, and he would also change into fresh clothes at that time.

He paid the attendant for the gasoline and drove back to Marina Del Rey through ever-thickening fog. He parked the van in the same dockside lot from which he had made the call to his house in Napa County. He got out of the Dodge and walked to the public phone booth and called the same number again.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"It's me," Frye said.

"The heat's off."

"The police called?"

"Yeah."

They talked for a minute or two, and then Frye returned to the Dodge.

He stretched out on the mattress in the back of the van and switched on a flashlight he kept there. He could not tolerate totally dark places. He could not sleep unless there was at least a thread of illumination under a door or a night light burning dimly in a corner. In perfect darkness, he began to imagine that strange things were crawling on him, skittering over his face, squirming under his clothes. Without light, he was a.s.saulted by the threatening but wordless whispers that he sometimes heard for a minute or two after he awakened from his nightmare, the blood-freezing whispers that loosened his bowels and made his heart skip.

If he could ever identify the source of those whispers or finally hear what they were trying to tell him, he would know what the nightmare was about. He would know what caused the recurring dream, the icy fear, and he might finally be able to free himself from it.

The problem was that whenever he woke and heard the whispers, that tailend of the dream, he was in no state of mind to listen closely and to a.n.a.lyze them; he was always in a panic, wanting nothing more than to have the whispers fade away and leave him in peace.

He tried to sleep in the indirect glow of the flashlight, but he could not. He tossed and turned. His mind raced. He was wide awake.

He realized that it was the unfinished business with the woman that was keeping him from sleep. He had been primed for the kill, and it had been denied him. He was edgy. He felt hollow, incomplete.

He had tried to satisfy his hunger for the woman by feeding his stomach. When that had not worked, he had tried to take his mind off her by provoking a fight with those two Chicanos. Food and enormous physical exertion were the two things he had always used to stifle his s.e.xual urges, and to divert his thoughts from the secret blood l.u.s.t that sometimes burned fiercely within him. He wanted s.e.x, a brutal and bruising kind of s.e.x that no woman would willingly provide, so he gorged himself instead. He wanted to kill, so he spent four or five hard hours lifting progressive weights until his muscles cooked into pudding and the violence steamed out of him. The psychiatrists called it sublimation. Lately, it had been less and less effective in dissipating his unholy cravings.

The woman was still on his mind.

The sleekness of her.

The swell of hips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Hilary Thomas.

No. That was just a disguise.

Katherine.

That was who she really was.

Katherine. Katherine the b.i.t.c.h. In a new body.

He could close his eyes and picture her naked upon a bed, pinned under him, thighs spread, squirming, writhing, quivering like a rabbit that sees the muzzle of a gun. He could envision his hand moving over her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s and taut belly, over her thighs and the mound of her s.e.x ... and then his other hand raising the knife, plunging it down. jamming the silvered blade into her, all the way into her softness, her flesh yielding to him, the blood springing up in bright wet promise. He could see the stark terror and excruciating pain in her eyes as he smashed through her chest and dug for her living heart, trying to rip it out while it was still beating. He could almost feel her slick warm blood and smell the slightly bitter coppery odor of it. As the vision filled his mind and took command of all his senses, he felt his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es draw tight, felt his p.e.n.i.s twitch and grow stiff--another knife--and he wanted to plunge it into her, all the way into her marvelous body, first his thick pulsing p.e.n.i.s and then the blade, spurting his fear and weakness into her with one weapon, drawing out her strength and vitality with the other.

He opened his eyes.

He was sweating.

Katherine. The b.i.t.c.h.

For thirty-five years, he had lived in her shadow, had existed miserably in constant fear of her. Five years ago, she had died of heart disease, and he had tasted freedom for the first time in his life. But she kept coming back from the dead, pretending to be other women, looking for a way to take control of him again.

He wanted to use her and kill her to show her that she did not scare him. She had no power over him any more. He was now stronger than she was.

He reached for the bundle of chamois cloths that lay beside the mattress, untied them, unwrapped his spare knife.

He wouldn't be able to sleep until he killed her.

Tonight.

She wouldn't be expecting him back so soon.

He looked at his watch. Midnight.

People would still be returning home from the theater, late dinner, parties. Later, the streets would be deserted, the houses lightless and quiet, and there would be less chance of being spotted and reported to the police.

He decided that he would leave for Westwood at two o'clock.

Three.

THE LOCKSMITH came and changed the locks on the front and back doors, then went on to another job in Hanc.o.c.k Park.

Officers Farmer and Whitlock left.

Hilary was alone.

She didn't think she could sleep, but she knew for sure she couldn't spend the night in her own bed. When she stood in that room, her mind's eye filled with vivid images of terror: Frye smas.h.i.+ng through the door, stalking her, grinning demoniacally, moving inexorably toward the bed and suddenly leaping onto it, rus.h.i.+ng across the mattress with the knife raised high.... As before, in a curious dreamlike flux, the memory of Frye became a memory of her father, so that for an instant she had the crazy notion that it had been Earl Thomas, raised from the dead, who had tried to kill her tonight. But it was not merely the residual vibrations of evil in the room that put it off limits. She was also unwilling to sleep there until the ruined door had been removed and a new one hung, a job that couldn't be taken care of until she could get hold of a carpenter tomorrow. The flimsy door that had been there had not held long against Frye's a.s.sault, and she had decided to have it replaced with a solid-core hardwood door and a bra.s.s deadbolt. But if Frye came back and somehow got into the house tonight, he would be able to walk right into her room while she slept--if she slept.

And sooner or later he would come back. She was as certain of that as she ever had been about anything.

She could go to a hotel, but that didn't appeal to her. It would be like hiding from him. Running away. She was quietly proud of her courage. She never ran away from anyone or anything; she fought back with all of her ingenuity and strength. She hadn't run away from her violent and unloving parents. She had not even sought psychological escape from the searing memory of the final monstrous and b.l.o.o.d.y events in that small Chicago apartment, had not accepted the kind of peace that could be found in madness or convenient amnesia, which were two ways out that most people would have taken if they'd been through the same ordeal. She had never backed away from the endless series of challenges she had encountered while struggling to build a career in Hollywood, first as an actress, then as a screenwriter. She had gotten knocked down plenty of times, but she had picked herself up again. And again. She persevered, fought back, and won. She would also win this bizarre battle with Bruno Frye, even though she would have to fight it alone.

d.a.m.n the police!

She decided to sleep in one of the guest rooms, where there was a door she could lock and barricade. She put sheets and a blanket on the queen-size bed, hung towels in the adjoining guest bathroom.

Downstairs, she rummaged through the kitchen drawers, taking out a variety of knives and testing each for balance and sharpness. The large butcher's knife looked deadlier than any of the others, but to her small hand it was unwieldy. It would be of little use in close quarters fighting, for she needed room to swing it. It might be an excellent weapon for attack, but it was not so good for self-defense. Instead, she chose an ordinary utility knife with a four-inch blade, small enough to fit in a pocket of her robe, large enough to do considerable damage if she had to use it.

The thought of plunging a knife into another human being filled her with revulsion, but she knew that she could do it if her life was threatened. At various times during her childhood, she had hidden a knife in her bedroom, under the mattress. It had been insurance against her father's unpredictable fits of mindless violence. She had used it only once, that last day, when Earl had begun to hallucinate from a combination of delirium tremens and just plain lunacy. He had seen giant worms coming out of the walls and huge crabs trying to get in through the windows. In a paranoid schizophrenic fury, he had transformed that small apartment into a reeking charnel house, and she had saved herself only because she'd had a knife.

Of course, a knife was inferior to a gun. She wouldn't be able to use it against Frye until he was on top of her, and then it might be too late. But the knife was all she had. The uniformed patrolmen had taken her .32 pistol with them when they left right behind the locksmith.

d.a.m.n them to h.e.l.l!

After Detectives Clemenza and Howard had gone, Hilary and Officer Farmer had had a maddening conversation about the gun laws. She became furious every time she thought of it.

"Miss Thomas, about this pistol...."

"What about it?"

"You need a permit to keep a handgun in your house."

"I know that. I've got one."

"Could I see the registration?"

"Its in the nightstand drawer. I keep it with the gun."

"May Officer Whitlock go upstairs and get it?"

"Go ahead."

And a minute or two later: "Miss Thomas, I gather you once lived in San Francisco."

"For about eight months. I did some theater work up there when I was trying to break in as an actress."

"This registration bears a San Francisco address."

"I was renting a North Beach apartment because it was cheap, and I didn't have much money in those days. A woman alone in that neighborhood sure needs a gun."

"Miss Thomas, aren't you aware that you're required to fill out a new registration form when you move from one county to another?"

"No."

"You really aren't aware of that?"

"Look, I just write movies. Guns aren't my business."

"If you keep a handgun in your house, you're obliged to know the laws governing its registration and use."

"Okay, okay. I'll register it as soon as I can."