The Door To December Part 27

Before Laura could respond, the back door blew open with shocking force. The security chain ripped out of the doorjamb, and wood cracked with a hard splintering sound.

The first click had been the dead-bolt lock snapping open. All by itself.

Earl had jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair.

From the patio behind the house, out of the darkness and wind, something came through the door.

At 9:15, after talking to the owner of the shop next door to the Sign of the Pentagram and learning nothing of interest, Dan stopped at a McDonald's for dinner. He bought two cheeseburgers, a large order of fries, and a diet cola, and he ate in the car while he used the unmarked sedan's datalink to try to locate Regine Savannah.

The video display terminal was in the dashboard, mounted at a slant, facing up, so he didn't have to bend over to read it. The programmer's keyboard nearly filled the console between the seats. All LAPD patrol cars and half the unmarked sedans had been fitted with new computer terminals over the past two years. The mobile VDT was linked by microwave transmissions to the underground, high-security, bombproof police communications command center, which in turn had access, via modem, to a variety of government and private-industry data banks.

Taking a bite of a cheeseburger, Dan started the sedan's engine, switched on the VDT, punched in his personal code, and accessed the telephone-company records. He requested a number for Regine Savannah at any address in the Greater Los Angeles area.

In a few seconds, glowing green letters appeared on the screen:

NO LISTING:.

SAVANNAH, REGINE.

NO LISTING:.

SAVANNAH, R.

He typed in a request for any unlisted numbers being billed to an R. or Regine Savannah, but that was a dead end too. He ate a few french fries.

The screen glowed softly, patiently.

He accessed the Department of Motor Vehicles' license files and requested a search for Regine Savannah. That, too, was negative.

As he mulled over another approach, he finished his first cheeseburger and watched the traffic pa.s.sing on the windswept street. Then he tapped into the DMV files again and requested a search for a driver's license issued to anyone whose first name was Regine and whose middle name was Savannah. Perhaps she had been married and had not abandoned her maiden name altogether.

Pay dirt. The screen flashed up the answer.

REGINE SAVANNAH HOFFRITZ.

Dan stared in disbelief. Hoffritz?

Marge Gelkenshettle hadn't said anything about this. Had the girl actually married the man who had beaten her senseless and put her in the hospital?

No. As far as he knew, Wilhelm Hoffritz had been unmarried. Dan hadn't been to Hoffritz's house yet, but he had read over the available background information, which contained no reference to a wife or family. Others had tracked down the next of kin: a sister who was flying in from somewhere - Detroit or Chicago, someplace like that - to handle the funeral arrangements.

Marge Gelkenshettle would have told him if Regine and Hoffritz had married. Unless she didn't know about it. According to the DMV files, Regine Savannah Hoffritz was female, with black hair and brown eyes. She was five-six, one hundred and twenty-five pounds. She had been born on July 3, 1971. That was about the right age for the woman about whom Marge had spoken. The address on her driver's license was in Hollywood, in the hills, and Dan jotted it down in his notebook.

Wilhelm Hoffritz had lived in Westwood. If he had been married to Regine Savannah, why would they have kept two houses?

Divorce. That was a possibility.

However, even if it had ended in divorce, the very fact of the marriage was nonetheless bizarre. What kind of life could it have been for her, married to a vicious s.a.d.i.s.t who had brainwashed her, who could completely control her, and who had once beaten her so severely that she had wound up in the hospital? If Hoffritz had savagely abused Regine when she was a student of his - at a time when he had his entire career to lose by indulging in such perverse urges - then, how much worse might he have treated her when she was his wife, when they were alone in the privacy and sanct.i.ty of their own home?

Thinking about that gave Dan the creeps.

Earl Benton had his gun in his hand, but what came into the kitchen from the darkness outside wasn't something that he could blow away with a few well-placed rounds from his .38. With a resounding crash, the door was thrown against the wall, and a cold whirlwind surged into the kitchen, a wind like a living beast, hissing and growling, sniffing and capering. And if the substance of the beast was wind, then its coat was made of flowers, for the air was suddenly filled with flowers, yellow and red and white roses, stalky impatiens of every hue, scores of blossoms from the garden behind the house, some with stems attached and some without, some that had been snapped off and some that had been torn out by the roots. The wind-beast shook itself; its coat of flowers flapped and, as if shedding loose hairs, threw off torn leaves, bright petals, crushed stems, clumps of moist earth that had been adhering to the roots. The calendar leaped off the wall and darted halfway around the room on wings of paper before settling to the floor. With a soft rustle not unlike the flutter of feathers, the curtains flew up from the windows and fought to free themselves from the anchoring rods, eager to join this demonic dance of the inanimate. Dirt spattered over Earl, and a rose struck his face; he was aware of a thorn lightly nicking his throat as the flower rebounded from him, and he raised one arm to protect himself. He saw Laura McCaffrey s.h.i.+elding her daughter, and he felt helpless and stupid in the face of this amorphous threat.

The door slammed shut as abruptly as it had been forced open. But the churning column of flowers continued to spin, as if this wind was not part of that greater wind which scoured the night outside but was, instead, a self-sustaining offspring. That was impossible, of course. Crazy. But real. The whirling turbulence whined, hissed, spat out more leaves and blossoms and broken stems, shook off more dirt and buds and bright petals. In its many-windowed, ragtag coat of roiling vegetation, the wind-creature stopped just inside the door (though its breath could be felt in every corner) and remained there, as if watching them, as if deciding what it would do next - and then it simply expired. The wind didn't die slowly; it stopped all at once. The remaining flowers, which it hadn't yet cast off, dropped to the kitchen tiles in a heap, with a soft thump and rustle and whoosh. Then silence, stillness.

In the unmarked police sedan in the McDonald's parking lot, Dan terminated the link with the DMV computer and accessed the telephone-company data banks once more. He got a number and address for Regine Hoffritz. It was the same address the DMV had provided.

He glanced at his watch: 9:32. He had been working with the VDT for about ten minutes. In the bad old days, before the advent of the mobile computer, he would have wasted at least two hours gathering this information. He switched off the screen, and a deeper darkness crept into the car.

As he finished his second cheeseburger and sipped his cola, he thought about the rapidly changing world in which he lived. A new world, a science-fictional society, was growing up around him with disconcerting speed and vigor. It was both exhilarating and frightening to be alive in these times. Mankind had acquired the ability to reach the stars, to take a giant leap off this world and spread out through the universe, but the species had also acquired the ability to destroy itself before the inevitable emigration could begin. New technology - like the computer - freed men and women from all kinds of drudgery, saved them vast amounts of time. And yet ... And yet the time saved did not seem to mean additional leisure or greater opportunities for meditation and reflection. Instead, with each new wave of technology, the pace of life increased; there was more to do, more choices to make, more things to experience, and people eagerly seized upon those experiences and filled the hours that had only moments ago become empty. Each year life seemed to be flitting past with far greater speed than the year before, as if G.o.d had cranked up the control k.n.o.b on the flow of time. But that wasn't right, either, because to many people, even the concept of G.o.d seemed dated in an age in which the universe was being forced to let go of its mysteries on a daily basis. Science, technology, and change were the only G.o.ds now, the new Trinity; and while they were not consciously cruel and judgmental, as some of the old G.o.ds had been, they were too coldly indifferent to offer any comfort to the sick, the lonely, and the lost.

How could a shop like the Sign of the Pentagram flourish in a world of computers, miracle drugs, and s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps? Who could turn to the occult, seeking answers, when physicists and biochemists and geneticists were providing more answers, day by day, than all the Ouija boards and seances and spiritualists since the dawn of history? Why would men of science, like Dylan McCaffrey and Wilhelm Hoffritz, a.s.sociate with a purveyor of bat s.h.i.+t and bunk.u.m?

Well, clearly, they hadn't believed it was all bunk.u.m. Some aspect of the occult, some paranormal phenomena, must have been of interest to McCaffrey and Hoffritz and must have seemed, to them, to have a bearing or an application in their own research. Somehow, they had wanted to join science and magic. But how? And why?

As he finished his diet cola, Dan remembered a fragment of rhyme:

We'll plunge into darkness, into the hands of harm, when Science and the Devil go walking arm in arm.

He couldn't recall where he had heard it, but he thought it was part of a song, an old rock-'n'-roll number perhaps, from the days when he had regularly listened to rock. He tried hard to remember, almost had it, thought maybe it was from a protest song about nuclear war and destruction, but he couldn't quite seize the memory.

Science and the Devil, walking arm in arm.

It was a naive image, even simpleminded. The song had probably been nothing but propaganda for the New Luddites who yearned to dismantle civilization and go back to living in tents or caves. Dan had no sympathy for that point of view. He knew that tents were drafty and damp. But for some reason the image of 'Science and the Devil, walking arm in arm, had a powerful effect on him, and a chill spread through his bones.

Suddenly he was no longer in the mood to visit Regine Savannah Hoffritz. He'd put in a long day. Time to go home. His forehead hurt where he'd been hit, and a score of bruises throbbed all over his body. His joints felt as if they were on fire. His eyes were burning, watering, itching. He needed a beer or two - and ten hours of sleep.

But he still had work to do.

Laura looked around in shock and disbelief.

Dirt, flowers, leaves, and other debris were scattered across the kitchen table and through the uneaten portions of their dinners. Battered roses littered the floor and the counters. Gnarled, broken bunches of red and purple impatiens bristled out of the sink. One white rose hung through the handle of the refrigerator door, and bits of greenery and hundreds of detached petals were stuck to the curtains, the walls, and the doors of the cabinets. On the floor, a mound of limp, ragged greenery and wind-burned blossoms marked the spot where the whirlwind had died.

'Let's get out of here,' Earl said, the gun still in his hand.

'But this mess,' Laura began.

'Later,' he said, going to Melanie, pulling the somnolent child up from her chair.

Dazed, Laura said, 'But I've got to clean up-'

'Come on, come on,' Earl said impatiently. His ruddy, country-boy complexion had vanished. He was now pallid and waxy. 'Into the living room.'

She hesitated, surveying the tangled debris.

'Come on,' Earl said, 'before something worse comes through that door!'

23.

Regine Savannah Hoffritz lived on one of the less expensive streets in the Hollywood hills. Her house was a prime example of the eclectic-anachronistic-madcap architecture which was actually rare in California but which chauvinistic New Yorkers pointed to as an example of typical West Coast tastelessness. Judging by its use of brick and exposed exterior wall beams, Dan supposed that the house was intended to be English Tudor, though there were elaborate carved Victorian eaves, American colonial shutters - and big bra.s.s carriage lamps, of no discernible period or style, flanking the front door and the garage. The two pilasters framing the entrance to the walk were stucco with Mexican-tile trim, bearing heavy wrought-iron lamps utterly different from - yet no nearer the Tudor ideal than - the bra.s.s fixtures employed elsewhere.

A black Porsche was parked in the driveway. In the ghostly white radiance of the various and clas.h.i.+ng lamps, the curvature and sheen of the car's long hood was reminiscent of a beetle's carapace.

Dan rang the doorbell, withdrew his police ID, waited with his shoulders hunched in the chilly wind, and then rang the bell again.

When the door finally opened, it was on a security chain. Half of a lovely face peered out at him: l.u.s.trous black hair, porcelain skin, one large and clear brown eye, half a precisely sculpted nose in which the one visible nostril was as delicately formed as if it had been made from blown gla.s.s, and one-half of a ripe and alluring mouth.

She said, 'Yes?'

Her voice was soft, breathy. Although it might have been her G.o.d-given voice, completely unaffected, it nevertheless sounded phony, calculated.

Dan said, 'Regine Hoffritz?'

'Yes.'

'Lieutenant Haldane. Police. I'd like to talk with you. About your husband.'

She squinted at his identification. 'What husband?'

He heard another quality in her voice: a pliancy, a meekness, a tremulous and yielding weakness. She seemed to be waiting only for a command that would reduce her to unquestioning obedience.

He didn't think her tone had anything to do with his being a cop. He suspected that she was always like this, with everyone. Or, rather, she had always been like this since w.i.l.l.y Hoffritz had changed her.

'Your husband,' he said. 'Wilhelm Hoffritz.'

'Oh. Just a minute.'

She closed the door, and it stayed closed for ten seconds, twenty, half a minute, longer. Dan was just about to ring the bell again when he heard the security chain being disengaged.

The door opened. She stepped back, and Dan entered past three pieces of luggage that stood to one side. In the living room, he sat in an armchair, and she chose the rust-brown sofa. Her posture and manner were demure, yet her primary effect was powerfully seductive.

Although she was a striking woman, something about her was not quite right. Her considerable femininity seemed studied, exaggerated. Her hair was so perfectly coiffed and her makeup was so exactingly and faultlessly applied that she looked as if she were about to step before the cameras to film a Revlon commercial. She wore a floor-length, cream-colored silk robe cinched tightly at the waist to emphasize her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, flat belly, and flaring hips. The robe was excessively frilly as well, with silk ruffles up the lapels, at the collar and cuffs and hem. At her tender throat she wore a gold mesh dog collar; it was one of those close-fitting necklaces that had been popular years ago. These days, among the general population, where such jewelry had no significance beyond mere decoration, dog collars could be seen only occasionally, though among sadom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic couples, such items remained in demand, because they were seen as a symbol of s.e.xual subservience. And though Dan had met Regine only a minute ago, he knew that she wore her collar with that submissive and m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic intent, for a crushed and obedient spirit was evident in the way she averted her face, in the graceful and yet humbled way she moved (as if antic.i.p.ating and perversely welcoming a blow, a slap, a cruel pinch), and in her avoidance of eye contact.

She waited for him to begin.

For a moment he said nothing, listened to the house. Her delay in removing the security chain from the door led him to suspect that she was not alone. She had hurriedly consulted with someone and had obtained permission before letting Dan in. But the rest of the house was quiet and apparently deserted.

Half a dozen photographs were arranged on the coffee table, and all were of w.i.l.l.y Hoffritz. Or at least the three facing Dan were of Hoffritz, and he imagined that the others were too. It was the same unremarkable face, the same wideset eyes, the same slightly plump cheeks and piggish nose that Dan had seen in the driver's license photo in the wallet of one of the dead men in Studio City, the previous night.

He finally said, 'I'm sure you know that your husband is dead.'

'w.i.l.l.y, you mean?'

'Yes, w.i.l.l.y.'

'I know.'

I'd like to ask you some questions.'

'I'm sure I can't help you,' she said softly, meekly, looking at her hands.

'When was the last time you saw w.i.l.l.y?'

'More than a year ago.'