The Devouring b-2 Page 3

  He hadn't yet asked her the reason for her visit, not, she thought, because he was baiting her with friendliness, waiting to spring it on her-to surprise some sort of confession out of her-but because he genuinely wanted to get to know her a little better.

  So she was at ease when he asked, "Can you tell me about Lila?" He was sitting in a big brown wing chair facing her at the other side of the small, cluttered room. Books composed most of the clutter. There were also loose manuscript pages here and there around his huge roll top desk, various doggy chew toys scattered about, most of them in perfect condition, because Creosote's favorite chew toys were Ryerson's argyle socks. And there was a raft of unopened mail on a small cherry table near the door. Ryerson had Creosote in his arms, and his legs loosely crossed. He put Creosote on the floor, leaned forward, and added, "Were you and Lila friends?"

  Joan answered at once, nodding vigorously, "Yes, we were friends. We were the best of friends, Rye." The name flowed freely from her lips, as if she had been calling him "Rye" for years. ("Mr. Biergarten," he'd told her, "kind of stumbles around in the mouth, doesn't it? And Ryerson doesn't fit me at all, I hope. So please call me Rye.") Joan went on, sighing first, happy to be on the verge of letting some of her awful secret out at last. "She was like a sister to me. A little sister." She leaned over, picked her coffee cup up from the hardwood floor-there were no tables near the love seat, and she'd noticed, anyway, a profusion of condensation rings on the floor from other cups-sipped the coffee, set the cup on the floor again, continued. "We were not nearly the same age, as you know. She was sixteen. I'm twenty-three. So I guess you could call it a big sister/little sister relationship."

  Ryerson cut in gently, "It was nothing more than that, Joan?"

  If anyone else had asked such a question, she'd have stalked from the room. But she knew that no one else could have glimpsed in her past those few hours during her sophomore year in college when she'd given herself over to what had seemed like real and honest impulses. But when those few hours were done, she had realized that although those impulses had indeed been real, and probably still were, the act itself had all but sickened her. And that was a fact she couldn't dodge. A fact she was still grappling with. She said to Ryerson, ''I loved Lila. She was my friend, my confidante, and I was her friend and confidante. It went no further. It couldn't have."

  To which Ryerson replied, "I'm sorry. I had to ask. I won't mention it again."

  Joan hurried on. "When she died, I didn't know what to do. She wasn't my only friend, of course. I have friends; both men and women. People I go out with. But none of those friendships are like what I had with Lila. What I had with Lila was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing." Her voice was trembling now. "The sort of thing that friendships are supposed to be, I guess. Like the friendships a lot of people have only with their pets."

  She stopped, looked at Creosote, then at Ryerson, went on. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

  Ryerson said, "Pardon me, Joan, but you seem to apologize a lot more than you need to."

  She grinned wryly. "You're right. It's just that I run off at the mouth from time to time." She realized that anxiety was creeping up on her again because she was on the brink of saying more, much more, than she wanted to. And on top of it all, she had little idea how much Ryerson knew. She went on. "Just how psychic are you, Rye?"

  "Very," he answered simply. It was the first bit of cat and mouse he'd played with her, she thought. He added, "And you?"

  "And me what?" She sounded surprised.

  He said, settling back and crossing his legs again, "I'd say you have the gift, Joan."

  She opened her mouth, closed it. Then, just as he was about to speak, she blurted out, "It's not a gift, dammit! How can you call it a gift? It's a disease, it's a damned disease-" She stopped, shook her head, sighed heavily, and reiterated, forcing steadiness into her voice, "It's not a gift, Rye. It's not a gift!"

  He stared silently at her for several seconds. Then he said, "Why did Lila kill herself?"

  She said nothing.

  "Were you there with her," Ryerson said, "when she-"

  Joan cut in, "I was wrong about you."

  Ryerson said nothing.

  Joan added, "I thought you were going to play fair. But you're not playing fair. You're setting me up, dammit, and I don't like it." She paused to give him a chance to respond. Still he said nothing. She went on tightly. "I told myself, 'Now, here's a man who's easy to be with. Here's a man who's not going to try to dominate me, who's not going to try to trick me.' But it was all an act, wasn't it?" Still he said nothing. "Wasn't it?!" she demanded.

  "Yes," he said. "I'm sorry."

  She pushed herself quickly to her feet. "Where'd you put my jacket, dammit!"

  He stood. Creosote reappeared from the bedroom with a well-chewed argyle sock hanging from his mouth. Ryerson glanced at the dog, then looked apologetically at Joan. "Please, don't leave. No more tricks, I promise. But please, don't leave. We've got to talk."

  She looked fixedly at him. "It's too late, Mr. Biergarten. Much too late!"

  "It's never too late to talk, Joan."

  "And what's that? Profound utterance of the hour?" She glanced quickly about. "Where is my damned jacket?!"

  Ryerson sighed. "I'll get it," he said, and went into the bedroom; he'd put her jacket on the bed. But when he went into the bedroom, he stopped and whispered, "Creosote, you little-"

  The jacket was in shreds.

  He sensed Joan behind him, turned his head, and again looked apologetically at her. He said lamely, "He likes people's clothes, I'm afraid."

  Joan said nothing. She moved stiffly past him to the bed, picked up what was left of her jacket, and stalked from the room. Ryerson followed her downstairs to the front door. When she was about to open it, he said, "Where are you staying in Boston?"

  She pursed her lips. "Do I have to tell you?"

  He shook his head quickly. "No," he said, "you don't."

  ~ * ~

  In Buffalo

  Laurie Drake was in a very foul mood. She wasn't sure why; if she stopped to think about it, she'd probably have to admit that her bad stomach had something to do with it, and her lingering headache, and her two weeks now without much sleep. And the dreams. The lousy, crazy, stupid dreams. The dreams that-as lousy and crazy and stupid as they were-made her feel so very good. (And if only that good feeling could last!)

  Her mother, Margaret Drake-a thin, fussy, nervous woman in her early thirties whose days were composed of cleaning, cooking, eating, watching "her stories," cooking, more cleaning, complaining, and still more cleaning, wagged a finger at Laurie. "And I don't ever want to hear you use that word again, young lady! Is that very clear?"

  Sighing, Laurie said, "Yes, Mother."

  "And don't you sigh at me, either. You're not old enough to sigh-is that understood?"

  Laurie, after a heroic and successful effort to keep herself from sighing again, said, "Yes, I understand, Mother."

  "Good." Margaret Drake put her wagging finger away. "Now you have to tell me where it was that you heard that awful word."

  Laurie looked at her mother in amazement. She wanted to say, How would that make any difference? Are you going to go and give the word back so I won't have it anymore and I won't be able to say it again? But she knew her mother wouldn't understand that, so she said, "My stomach hurts."

  Margaret Drake looked disconcerted. Then, apparently deciding that her daughter was simply evading the issue-as she often did-said, "That is not what we're talking about, Laurie. We are talking about the fact that you have heard the 'F' word somewhere, and that you have used it in this house. If your father were alive, he'd thrash the living daylights out of you."

  Laurie sighed again, caught herself in the middle of it, put her hand to her mouth, burped.

  Margaret Drake was mortified.

  Laurie burped again, louder.

  Margaret Drake grew red with anger and embarrassment.

  Laurie burped ag
ain, even louder, and longer, as if she'd had a half-dozen bottles of beer.

  Margaret Drake slapped her. "That is not," she screeched, "a proper thing"-another slap-"for a young lady"-another slap-"to do!"

  Laurie opened her mouth to burp again. But a belch-long and rolling and resonant-came out instead. And it stank, too, which astonished Margaret. It smelled like the little tins of potted meat she used to buy, until she learned what went into them. And simply as a reflex, because she had never known of any other way to control her precocious daughter, she slapped her again, then again, and again. Until, at last, Laurie reached up and caught her wrist. For the second time that morning, Margaret Drake was astonished, so astonished, in fact, that for several seconds she let Laurie hold her there, with her open hand quivering an inch or so from Laurie's face. At least she told herself that that was what she was doing-letting her daughter hold her wrist. It wasn't because Laurie had an incredibly strong grip on it. Not at all.

  Margaret Drake whispered tremblingly, "You let go of me now!"

  And Laurie Drake hissed back, "If you lay a hand on me again, bitch, I'll tear your eyes out!" Then she let go of her.

  Margaret stared wide-eyed at her daughter for a few seconds, then quickly left the room.

  ~ * ~

  Stephen Brownleigh looked away from the viewing window in the basement of the Buffalo County Medical Examiner's Office and nodded grimly. "Yes," he said to the detective standing with him, "that's my mother. That's Vera Brownleigh."

  Sergeant Guy Mallory, recently promoted, neat, pleasant-looking, put his hand comfortingly on Stephen Brownleigh's arm. "I'm very sorry," he said.

  "Yes," Stephen sighed, "thank you-"

  "But I must ask you to identify the other body," Sergeant Mallory interrupted.

  Stephen sighed yet again, nodded, and turned back to the viewing window. On the other side of the window, a grim-faced, white-coated female lab technician lifted the sheet from the face of the second corpse. Stephen gasped and turned quickly away. There was a row of black plastic chairs nearby; he sat in one, put his face in his hands. Sergeant Mallory again laid his hand comfortingly on Stephen's arm. "Mr. Brownleigh, are you all right?"

  Stephen said nothing.

  The sergeant coaxed gently, "Mr. Brownleigh, are you all right? Can I get you something?"

  Stephen's head, face still buried in his hands, nodded a trifle.

  Mallory asked, "Is that your father, sir?" Stephen answered into his hands, "I think so."

  Mallory sat down beside him. "You think so?" His voice still was gentle. "Could it be someone else, sir?"

  Stephen looked quickly at him, in astonishment. "Good Lord, Sergeant, it could be anyone, couldn't it? It could be . . . it could be anyone! How am I supposed to identify him? How can I identify what looks like a slab of meat, for Christ's sake!"

  "Sir, it's actually just a formality-"

  "A formality? My father is just a formality? What the hell are you-" He stopped, took a deep breath, turned his head again, planted his elbows on his thighs, clasped his hands in front of his knees. "Yes, then," he whispered, voice quaking. "Yes! It's my father-that thing in there is my father!"

  "Thank you, sir." Mallory patted Stephen's arm. "Thank you. And you have our very sincere condolences."

  ~ * ~

  "Dear Ann Landers," wrote Margaret Drake, "this is the first time I've written to you, although I've been reading your column"-She stopped, crossed out the word "column," and wrote instead "wonderful column for years." She thought a moment, the pen point stuck into her mouth, her tongue working idly at it. She went on. "But I have a problem that only a person of your credentials can help me with." She stopped, thought again, rewrote the sentence as, "But I have a problem with which only a person of your marvelous credentials can help." She liked that. She smiled, continued writing. "The problem is my daughter, whom we shall call Loretta, whom is eight"-she crossed out "eight," wrote "ten" instead-"and who is using very bad language and is also resorting to physical types of acts." She reread the letter and decided that it was going well. She wrote on. "I think you will agree with me, Ann, if I may be so bold as to call you Ann, that twelve-year-old girls"- She stopped, hurriedly crossed out the phrase "twelve-year-old girls," wrote "ten-year-old girls," and continued, "have no right whatsoever to use foul language with their mothers or to resort to physical acts against them. It is not as if they are boys, which is bad enough …" She reread the letter and decided that it sounded pretty good so far. Maybe it could stand some polishing here and there, some tightening, but it was going nicely.

  She was in her bedroom, at her pink vanity table. Laurie's bedroom was right next to hers, and since the walls of the late-60s-style ranch house-in the late-60s-style subdevelopment near Orchard Park, five miles west of Buffalo-were wafer-thin, she could easily hear through them. She could hear now a string of vicious obscenities from Laurie's bedroom. She paid little attention to it; Laurie had been cursing all morning. She thought only that some of the words she was hearing had to be foreign words because she'd never heard them before.

  She continued writing. "The tried and true method of stopping girls from using obscenities is to wash their little mouths out with soap, and this I have done to Laurie." She hurriedly crossed out "Laurie," wrote "Loreen," thought a moment, crossed that out, wrote "Loretta," and continued writing: "But she is still swearing 'like a trooper' as the saying goes. And there is another thing too which I think is the start of it all, and that is that she has gotten an interest in things that are supernatural, in vampires especially. I don't know why. With all this horror stuff in the movies and on TV, etcetera, I suppose it was bound to happen. My own theory, however, is that it has something to do with her father who is dead and whom she misses. She is so taken with this vampire thing that I said to her No, you may not wear a vampire costume out trick or treating this year (her last time out, of course, since she is going to be thirteen next year). I told her I thought vampires were unhealthy. So she wore a skeleton costume instead and of course when she came back to the house it was in shreds, and I had made it myself too." She stopped writing. The tone of the obscenities ushering through the wall from Laurie's room had changed. It was no longer the high whine of a twelve-year-old girl; it was a velvet drizzle tinged with hate. And by itself it was a million times more communicative than what she had been hearing before. It was communicative of murder.

  She dropped her pen; it rolled to the edge of the desk and then to the pale blue shag carpet. She raised her head in nervous little fits and starts, so she was looking in the vanity's oval mirror. She saw that the bedroom door was closed, but as she watched, it opened very slowly, so slowly, in fact, that it was a good quarter minute before the naked woman who had pushed it open was revealed in the doorway.

  Margaret Drake's mouth fell open. At the Level of a high breathless whisper, these words escaped her: "I don't have any money."

  And the naked woman said in that voice which was at once murderous and velvet and drizzly, like a razor-edge sword slicing through a melon, "You idiot, I don't want any money!" Then her mouth opened very wide-revealing the deadly, gleaming canines within-so she could consume as much of Margaret Drake as possible in the first bite.

  But then her mouth closed partway, as if she had suddenly lost her appetite. And the electrifying aura of murder that hung about her lost some of its intensity, as if the blush of passion were leaving her, and these words, in the high pleading voice of a twelve-year-old girl vaulted across the room: "Mommy? Help me, Mommy!"

  Margaret Drake's thoughts turned very briefly-more briefly than the instant necessary to blow out a candle-back to the time when her husband was alive and Laurie was a cute and bouncy toddler. Margaret remembered hearing those same words then, when the Laurie she loved most was still with her: "Mommy?" she had said in her halting, lispy toddler's voice, her little hands holding the two ends of her shoelaces, "Help me, Mommy!"

  Then the instant was over and the naked woman flew ac
ross the bedroom. And because the twelve-year-old that dwelt within her had her own ideas about vampires, ideas which said that there was nothing subtle or slow or strangely loving in what they did, her wide-open mouth latched savagely onto Margaret Drake's throat and she tore a huge and quivering chunk of flesh from it.

  ~ * ~

  "Whatchoo smilin' at like that for?" Hap asked the woman. "Why you smilin' like that?" He couldn't see her face well, he could see only that she was smiling, and that her eyes seemed to be on something far beyond his small stinking room.

  She was naked beneath him on the lumpy mattress, and the only light in the place was from a streetlamp on the edge of what was known as "The District," an area which, forty-five years earlier, had been alive with industrial activity, manufacturing thousands of tons of war materiel, from shoes to rotor blades to toothbrushes. But when the war ended, the hub of industrial activity became merely redundant-the shoes and rotor blades and toothbrushes manufactured here, in these dozens of big square cement block buildings, were no longer needed, or were manufactured more cheaply elsewhere. So, within a couple of years, the area fell into disuse. Eventually, some of the buildings were bought by entrepreneurs, who saw them as perfect places for indoor malls, or-with major renovation-for low-cost housing. But these efforts were doomed to failure for one very good reason; the air was bad. On Buffalo's southwest side, a little more than two miles away, a hundred acres worth of smelters were kept going night and day, and since the prevailing winds were to the northeast, "The District" got the brunt of the foul air.

  So now the area was all but abandoned, except for the occasional transient, bag lady, hooker, or runaway. Ironically, it was not a dangerous area to walk in because it was so desolate-even the muggers knew that the chances of making a score here were slim indeed.