They Thirst Part 2

You're telling me she ran away after four years?"

"So maybe somebody stole her? I've heard of that before. Dognapping. They like to get Dobermans."

"Dognapping my a.s.s! Mitzi would've chewed the f.u.c.kin' arms off anybody who tried to throw her into a car! It's just not safe in this f.u.c.kin' city anymore!

Burglars breakin' into houses all up and down the canyon, nuts like the Roach runnin' around; the cops don't know which way to turn!" His eyes darkened.

"And you remember what happened up at the Kronsteen place."

"That was eleven years ago," she reminded him.

"Eleven years or eleven minutes, it still happened, didn't it? Christ, I should know! I saw the old man's body ... what was left of it." There was a thick dryness at the back of his throat and a taste similar to the smell of embalming fluid. He wished he hadn't broken that shot gla.s.s, because he badly needed another sip of Chivas. He resisted the impulse to turn his head and, like a man transfixed, stared off into the night, toward that huge pile of stone and concrete two miles away. If there was any other place that had a better view of L.A. than mine, Mitch thought, then the castle was it. "The cops never found the maniacs who did it either. Probably never will."

"That's California for you," Estelle said quietly. "The land of nuts and fruits."

"The land of maniacs and murderers. I don't know, babe, I'm feeling awful d.a.m.ned strange these days. Spooked or somethin'. Scared." He ran a hand over his forehead; his fingertips were numb, like in that old game Dead Man's Hand, where you squeezed a thumb until the blood drained out of it and it became so cold and alien that it hardly felt human at all. "Somethin' like what happened to old man Kronsteen could happen to us. It could happen to anybody."

"He was a loony," she said, and s.h.i.+vered. "That was one loony killing another loony. Let's get in out of this wind."

"Mitzi," Gideon whispered. "What the f.u.c.k happened to my dog?"

"You can buy yourself another one." She reached out and took his arm. "Come on, let's go to bed."

Her hand felt deliciously warm against his. He looked at her, started to open his mouth to tell her about the strange feelings he was having lately-the weird visions of himself working on a conveyor belt where the caskets just kept coming one after the other as far as you could see-to tell her about how he thought he heard his name whispered in the wind when it came roaring through the canyon in the late hours of the night, to tell her that even during the day at any one of his six mortuaries scattered across the city he would find himself standing at a window, looking up into the hills where the horror actor's castle stood silent and impa.s.sive to sun or wind or rain. He wanted to tell her he was more afraid than he'd ever been in his entire life. But Estelle's eyes were glazing, the lids already coming down like fleshy curtains. She smiled sleepily, and the mouth in that whitish-green face said, "Come on, hon. Beddy-bye time."

"Yeah," he said, and nodded. "Okay." As he stepped into the house and turned to lock the sliding gla.s.s door, he thought, Imagine me, Mitch Gideon the Mortuary King, ruining good merchandise by throwing in shovelfuls of dirt. Christ, what a sin! He drew the curtains and followed his wife into the house, the golden chains around his neck clicking together like the rattle of dry bones.

And the dark shape that had been crouched on the roof just above Mitch Gideon's terrace took to the air on widespread, gleaming black wings.

FOUR

"Ohhhhhhhhh," Gayle Clarke said, staring up at the apartment ceiling, sweet fire bubbling in her veins. "That feels sooooooo nice."

"Knew you'd like it," the man who lay at the V of her thighs said softly. He caressed her stomach with slow swirls for a moment, then leaned forward to continue what he was doing. His tongue darted and teased; she gripped his shoulders tight, tighter, fingers digging into the flesh. He finished her off with an excruciatingly slow figure eight, and she shuddered with pure delight as the third o.r.g.a.s.m of the night rolled like a tidal wave through her body.

"Oh G.o.d," she said, "it's . . . it's . . ." And then she couldn't say any more because the weakness had spread to her tongue, and she felt like a leaf that had been blown to this bed by the force of a hurricane.

After a moment more Jack Kidd came up beside her and held her in his strong, lean arms. Gayle nuzzled his chest, drawing closer to him as she always did in the warmth aftermath of their lovemaking. The dark hairs tickled her nose. Jack kissed her forehead and then leaned over for the bottle of Chablis in the plastic cooler beside the bed. The ice was all melted now. He poured wine into a gla.s.s and sipped at it, then licked softly at Gayle's ear until she stirred and said, 'What do you think you're doing?"

"Wine and earlobes. Great combination."

"I'm sure." She reached up, took the gla.s.s, and sipped. "Wow, I'm tired. Thanks to you."

"You're welcome. Always willing to be of service."

"Pun noted, recorded, and rejected." She yawned and stretched until her joints popped. Her body was lithe and supple, though she was a small woman-only about five feet tall-who sometimes gave in to overwhelming urges for Oreo cookies and Mars candy bars. She played a lot of tennis, jogged infrequently, and spent time listening to Jefferson Stars.h.i.+p and reading Franz Kafka when she was alone. She had turned twenty-two in September, and if she wasn't exactly a California beauty because of an overly wide mouth and dark brown eyes that always seemed to hold a hint of anger, she might be called, at the very least, vivacious. Long chestnut-brown hair, s.h.i.+mmering with auburn highlights, curled around her shoulders and was cut in bangs at her forehead. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Not midnight, yet," Jack said.

"Yeah, but eight comes awfully early."

They were silent for a long time, their bodies side by side, then Jack said quietly, "It was important to me that you liked the whale flick. Really." She lifted her head and ran a finger along his dark beard and mustache. "I do. The editing's tight, the narration's terrific ... you're not worried about it, are you?"

"No, but... if I can get national distribution on this one, maybe it will be the break I've been looking for. h.e.l.l, if I could sell it to the networks, I'd be happy!" He frowned slightly. "No, cancel that. They'd make it look like the Greenpeace people are fanatics or something. I don't want anybody else s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with my film."

"So what's to worry about? Friedman can get some immediate campus bookings, can't he?"

"Yeah."

"The national angle will take care of itself. Besides, the film's hardly out of the can. And speaking of film, have you taken care of the a.s.signment that Trace gave you?"

Jack grunted. "Finis.h.i.+ng it up tomorrow. I hope. Got some nice shots of Clifton Webb's old house today. In the morning I'm heading out to Hollywood Memorial, and I hope that'll be the end of it."

"I can see Trace's headline for that piece right now." Gayle held up two fingers as if straightening the type across a front-page layout. "'Does Clifton Webb Haunt Hollywood Cemetery?' And maybe a teaser line, 'Only the L.A. Tattler Knows!' Catchy, huh?"

"Like the plague." He was silent for a moment, and Gayle could almost hear the gears clicking in his head. "You know what I've been thinking of doing next? A film on the homes of old movie stars. Not the new houses, but the mansions with history, you know what I mean? Webb's is one; you can feel Old Hollywood oozing out of those walls. Flynn's is another. Valentine's, Barrymore, and ... oh G.o.d, yes! . . . the Kronsteen castle! That would be a h.e.l.l of a place for atmosphere!"

"What's so special about it?"

"Unsolved murder, babe. Old Kronsteen got his head chopped off up there a few years back, the place has been empty ever since. It's a real medieval castle, walls and towers and everything. High school kids go parking up there now. Jesus, I could do a whole film on that place alone!"

"Never heard of it," Gayle said.

"Before your time, babe. Mine too, but I drove up there once with a friend and a couple of chicks from Hollywood High. Many moons ago, that is, so don't get your feathers ruffled."

"Don't worry."

"Chuck knew the place, I didn't. Seems we went a h.e.l.l of a long way up Outpost Drive and turned off onto a narrow road that went right up to the sky. Blacktree, Blackwood, something like that. Spooky as h.e.l.l. I did some acid up there, and I swore I could hear that Bald Mountain thing from Fantasia, thought I saw demons flying around, all kinds of incredible colors. Strange trip."

"I'll bet. Before you start playing young Coppola again, you'd better wrap up those pictures for Trace. I've got a feeling he doesn't think the Tattler should arrange its deadlines around your film-making sessions."

"Why does he always give me the s.h.i.+t detail?" Jack frowned. "Last week it was a stunning photo-piece on vandalism out at the Wax Museum. Somebody carved his initials on Farrah's t.i.ts, knocked Elizabeth Taylor's head off, and played tic-tac-toe on Yul Brynner's skull. Christ! If I could just get a little bit ahead, maybe get somebody interested in my films or ... I need a break, that's all. It'll happen, I know it will."

"I know it will, too, but a little patience wouldn't hurt. So that's all this junk about Cliff Webb's ghost being seen roaming around the cemetery?"

"Oh, every year a few people say they see somebody who looks like Webb strolling around Hollywood Memorial. It's nothing new. Last week a watchman thought he saw him ... or it ... in the cemetery after midnight . . ."

"Of course," Gayle said. "What ghost would be out before the witching hour?"

"Right. Well, Trace gets a wild hair and wants me to do the pictures for Sandy's story. The h.e.l.l if I know what the story's going to say; I'm just clicking the shutter."

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what about the ghost? What happened after that watchman saw it?" Jack shrugged. "I suppose it did what all ghosts do. It melted away or broke up into a thousand s.h.i.+mmering lights or ... h.e.l.l h.e.l.l h.e.l.l . .. turned toward the watchman's flashlight with a cold red glare in its eyes. You don't really believe in that stuff, do you?"

"No, not at all. Now can we change the subject, please?" He smiled and licked her arm, sending up a rash of goose b.u.mps. "Gladly, Miss Clarke ..." He lifted the sheets slightly and began to nibble on her right breast. The nipple hardened quickly; and Gayle began to breath faster. "Better than earlobes any old day," Jack managed to say.

Then suddenly from beyond the closed bedroom door came the sound of frenzied clawing.

Jack lifted his head from Gayle's breast and stared at the door for a few seconds. He said loudly, "Cut it out, Conan!" The clawing went on and with it an occasional low whining.

"He's jealous," Gayle said. "He wants to come in."

"No, he's been acting crazy for a couple of days now." Jack stood up from the bed, took his bathrobe from where he'd laid it over a chair, and put it on.

"He's clawing at the front door," Jack told her. "Maybe he's got a girlfriend of his own. Back in a minute." He crossed the room, opened the door, and pa.s.sed through a short hallway decorated with some of his framed photographs. In the small living room furnished with a brown sofa and a couple of wicker chairs, Jack found his three-year-old boxer clawing hunks out of the front door. The dog, large enough to place his paws on his master's chest when he stood on his powerful back legs, looked as if he were trying to burrow through the wood.

Splinters were flying around the dog's head.

"Hey!" Jack said, and swatted at Conan's rump. "Stop that!" The dog didn't even look back. The frantic clawing continued.

"d.a.m.n it, what's wrong with you?" He reached down to pull Conan away from the door, and it was then that the dog whirled around, growling very softly, showing his teeth. Jack froze, his heart skipping a beat. Conan had always been a gentle dog, and lately Jack had been teaching him to catch a Frisbee out in the courtyard of the Sandalwood Apartments. Now Jack stared at those teeth and felt a cold fear roiling in his stomach. The dog's eyes were unblinking, challenging the man to move.

"It's me," Jack said softly. "Conan? It's me, boy. I'm not going to hurt you." The dog turned again, claws gouging at the door. The wood looked like a scarred battlefield.

Quickly Jack reached out and unbolted the door. Conan heard the click and stepped back, panting. When the door came open, the dog slipped through noiselessly and ran off across the courtyard toward Lexington Avenue. Jack stared after him, unable to believe that his pet had actually turned and snarled at him. Outside, the fronds of palm trees stirred in the wind like lazy fans. At the base of the trees were multicolored lamps, and it was by the green light of one of these that Jack saw Conan's running shape, lengthened by its powerful strides, disappear from sight.

Gayle, now dressed in her tight Jordache jeans and checked blouse, stepped out of the hallway shadows and said, "Jack? What was that all about?"

"I don't really know. Conan just . . . went wild. He snarled at me. Actually showed his teeth! He's gotten fiesty before, but he's never acted like this." She stepped beside him and peered through the door. The rest of the apartment complex was utterly quiet. "Maybe it's the mating season or something. He'll be back."

"I don't know. You think I should go looking for him?"

"Not at this time of night." She glanced quickly at her wrist.w.a.tch and made a face. "I've got to be getting home, Jack. Ace Tattler reporter has to have her head on straight in the morning when she goes to see the cops." Jack stared out into the courtyard for another moment, hoping to see Conan bounding back, and then turned toward her. "Why don't you stay? I'll spring for breakfast."

"The last time I stayed for breakfast, I ended up burning the eggs. No thanks."

"Well, wait a minute while I get dressed. I'll drive you."

"What, and leave my car here overnight? Mr. Kidd, what would your neighbors think?"

"Screw 'em." He took Gayle in his arms and closed the door with his foot. "Who do you have to see tomorrow?"

"My favorite homicide squad captain-Palatazin. I imagine it'll be the same old 'no comment' session." She traced a line in Jack's forehead with a finger; she could feel his body beginning to respond beneath his thin robe and her own answering. "I have the feeling he thinks the Tattler's stories are a little on the sensational side."

"Imagine that." Jack nuzzled her neck and began to lick the base of her throat in slow circles. "Long live yellow journalism."

She made a noise between a grunt and a sigh and felt the feather of need tickling at her thighs. It's soooooo chilly outside, she thought. And soooooo dark. Oh, that feels good. Jack took her hand to lead her back to the bedroom, and she said softly, "Breakfast at eight?"

FIVE.

Leaking blue exhaust fumes, a gray Volkswagen Beetle with a crumpled rear fender moved along Outpost Drive and up into the stark dun-colored hills above Hollywood. As the road steepened, the Volkswagen's engine began to rattle with a faint, evil, metallic chuckling. The headlights, slightly cross-eyed, threw wild shadows behind wind-stirred pines and granite boulders with edges as sharp as butcher's knives. Low, rambling, gla.s.s and redwood houses on each side of the road lay in darkness, and only occasionally did a car pa.s.s on its way down to the city. The Volkswagen turned off Outpost Drive onto a narrow road of broken concrete that curved like a snake's spine and climbed upward at a forty-degree angle. Forbidding heaps of cracked granite loomed on the right-hand side of the road; on the left, where the road fell off abruptly into a series of ravines, stood a few hundred gnarled, dwarfish, dead trees. Though there was no sign or road marker, the driver had made the correct turn onto Blackwood Road.

His name was Walter Benefield, and on the seat beside him, head lolling with every lurch of the car, was a twenty-year-old Chicano girl named Angela Pavion.

Her eyes were half-open, the whites showing, and every once in a while she whimpered softly. Benefield wondered what she was dreaming about. Wafting through the car's interior was a thick, almondy, slightly medicinal odor. Beneath Benefield's seat was a wadded cloth that had turned brown after being soaked in a solution of chemicals that he'd stolen from work. His eyes, behind thick black-framed gla.s.ses, were watering slightly, though he'd rolled down the window only seconds after the girl had gone to sleep. At least this had been better than those first few times, he told himself. The first time the girl had died because the mixture wasn't diluted enough, and the second time he had to lean out of the car to throw up, and his head ached all the next day. He was getting faster with it, though he missed using his hands. They were large, fleshy clamps that he exercised with stiff-springed handgrips. He often thought that he could squeeze those grips forever as he lay on his back in bed, staring at the pictures of posed musclemen with rippling backs and chests and arms taped to the walls, scissored from the pages of Muscle and Fitness and Strongman magazines. And across the room the c.o.c.kroaches scuttled in their wire-mesh cages, mating and fighting and sleeping. At the last count there'd been over a hundred, and some immense, cannibalistic bulls that had grown to three inches long.

He'd picked this girl up on the lower end of Sunset Boulevard thirty minutes ago. At first she'd been skittish about getting in the car, but he'd flashed a well-worn fifty dollar bill-kept just for the occasion-and she'd slid in as if her a.s.s had been greased. She didn't speak or understand English very well, but that hardly mattered to him. She was pretty in a hard, coa.r.s.e way; she was also one of the few desperate women who still walked the streets these days. Too bad for her. Benefield thought, she should read the papers. He had taken her to a deserted supermarket parking lot and unzipped his trousers. When the girl had leaned forward to do what he'd asked, he'd struck, too quickly for her to scream or evade him. The chemical-soaked rag was out from under the seat and pressed tightly against the girl's face. Benefield's other hand like a vise at the back of her neck. It would be so easy, so easy, so easy, he thought. I could just squeeze a little bit-hardly an effect-and watch her eyes pop out of their sockets, like Bev's had. But no. That was not what the Master wanted done, was it?

Her thras.h.i.+ng was over in a few more seconds. He'd put the cloth away, positioned the girl so she wouldn't slide down onto the floorboard, and then drove north toward the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, the high crests that split L.A. in two. He-was breathing hard with exhilaration. The girl had managed to scratch his right hand, and two lines of blood welled from the flesh.

He was following the Voice of G.o.d, the holy will of his Lord and Master, and now Benefield peered into the darkness beyond the range of the headlights and told himself, "Hurry. You've got to hurry, he doesn't like to wait." His voice was small and breathless, as excited as a child's at the prospect of a reward for a deed well done.

The road had leveled a few degrees but still took the Volks higher. Occasionally Benefield could see the city below, glittering off toward the horizon, where the half-dirt, half-broken-concrete road wandered close to a drop-off. He had driven this way many times before in the last two weeks, but it was a tricky, treacherous way; the first time, when he'd brought a pretty, red-haired girl who couldn't have been over sixteen, he'd gotten lost and had driven in circles until the Voice of G.o.d had guided him back to the path. Now the Voice was speaking to him again, whispering softly in the rush of the wind, calling his name. Benefield smiled, tears of joy in his eyes. "I'm coming!" he called out. "I'm coming!" A gust of wind hit the car's side and rocked it slightly. The girl whimpered once, something in Spanish, and then was silent.

The car's headlights glinted off a new chain strung across the road from tree to tree. There was a metal sign: PRIVATE PROPERTY-NO TRESPa.s.sING. Benefield, his heart pounding, pulled the car to the side of the road, cut the headlights and waited. The Voice was like a cooling balm on the fever blister of his brain; it came to him almost every night now as he lay in that gray place between sleep and wakefulness on the mattress of his efficiency apartment near MacArthur Park.

On those terrible anguished nights when he dreamed of his mother lifting her head from that man's lap, the throbbing p.e.n.i.s as big as a python in her grip, her mouth opening to shout drunkenly, "YOU GET OUTTA HERE!" the Voice whispered like a sea breeze around his head, enveloping him, protecting him. But some nights even the Voice of G.o.d couldn't stop the garish unreeling of the nightmare through his brain: the stranger grinning and saying, "The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d wants to watch, Bev. Come 'ere, Waltie, look what I got!" And the child Walter, standing transfixed in the doorway as if nailed there by hands and feet, his head thras.h.i.+ng in agony while the stranger pushed his mother's face down until her laughter was m.u.f.fled. He had watched it all, his stomach and groin tied into one huge knot, and when they were through his mother-Good old Bev never says no, never says no, never says no-swigged from the bottle of Four Roses that sat on the floor beside the sofa and, hugging the stranger, said in a thick slur, "Now you take care of me, honey." Her dress, the one with the white dots on it, had been pushed up over her large, pale thighs, and she wore no underwear. The child Walter could not tear his gaze away from the secret place that seemed to wink like a wicked eye. His hands had dropped to his crotch, and after another moment the stranger laughed like a snorting bull. "The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d's got a hard-on!

Little Waltie's carryin' a load! Come 'ere, Waltie. COME HERE, I SAID!" His mother had lifted her head and smiled through swollen, glazed eyes.

"Whozzat? Frank? Is it Frank?" His father's name, old Frank. Out the door and gone so long ago all Waltie could remember of him was how hard he swung his belt. "Frank?" she said, smiling. "You come home, baby? Come gimme a great big kiss..."

The stranger's eyes had glittered like dark bits of gla.s.s. "Come 'ere, Waltie. No. Frank. Come 'ere, Frank. It's Frank, baby. It's your man come home." He laughed softly, his gaze bloodshot and mean. "Drop your drawers, Frank."

"Honey?" his mother had whispered, grinning at him. "I got something needs you soooooo bad . . ."

"Come give your baby a great big kiss, Frank," the stranger had said quietly.

"Oh, Jesus, this I gotta see!"

When those dreams came, even the Voice of G.o.d couldn't calm the fever. And he was grateful, so grateful, when the Voice told him it was all right for him to go out into the night in search of another laughing Bev, to take her away from the dark-grinning strangers and bring her to the holy mountain. He winced as those bad things danced through his head. His temples were aching, and he wished he had a Bufferin. Sometimes when the Voice spoke to him he felt as if a cauldron was being stirred in his brain, a thick mixture of magic that had changed his life into something with real purpose and meaning-service in the Master's name. Turning his head to the left, Benefield could look down upon the s.h.i.+mmering city. He wondered if there were any others down there who were part of the cauldron brew, who were ingredients in the magic that now rippled through his soul and his being and set him aflame with sweet, cold fire. Of course, it was magic-the way of G.o.d is righteous, and He shall brighten the City of Night with magic and kill all the Bevs in that bubbling cauldron brew-because what else could it be?

A car was coming. Benefield could see the flicker of headlights off in the distance, coming down the mountain toward him. He got out of his car, went around to the other side, and opened the pa.s.senger door. The dazed girl almost tumbled out, but Benefield reached down and picked her up in his arms like so much deadwood. Then he turned to face the approaching car. It was a long black Lincoln polished so highly the sides and hood shone like gla.s.s. It stopped ten feet from the chain, its headlights centered like greedy eyes on Benefield and the offering he held in his arms.

He smiled, his eyes filling with tears.

The driver left the limousine and approached him, followed by a young girl that Benefield immediately recognized. Her long hair was blond and wind-tossed, and her dress was dirty. Benefield saw that the driver was the Servant of G.o.d-an old man in a brown suit and white s.h.i.+rt, his long white hair flowing in the wind, his darting, ferret eyes sunken deep in a pale, wrinkled face. He limped as he walked and was slightly stooped, as if shouldering a backbreaking burden. When he reached the chain, he said to Benefield in a halting, weary voice, "Hand her over."

Benefield lifted her up. The blond-haired girl grinned and took her effortlessly, crooning like a mother to her child.

"Go home," the old man told Benefield. "Your work is done for tonight." Suddenly the blond girl's eyes flashed. She stared at Benefield's injured hand, then lifted her gaze to his face. His smile cracked like a mirror. He blinked and started to lift his hand toward her.

"NO!" the old man said, and held his arm back as if about to strike her. She flinched and scurried toward the car with her prize. "Go home," he told Benefield and turned away.

The limousine backed up to a wide spot, made a tight turn, and disappeared up the mountain.