Tales from the Crypt - Demon Knight (6 page)

The man took a slow, purposeful breath. Across the room, Jeryline was already writing the whole episode off and mentally preparing herself to tackle the cleaning of the stove. Irene had chased one-nighters away before. It was nothing new.

“Here,” she heard the stranger say. “You want what, fifty? Two-fifty? Ten thousand goddamn fifty?
Here!”

He raked a hand in and out of his jeans pocket as fast as a gunslinger unlimbering a Colt .45. The wad of bills he pulled out was very round and very fat. Jeryline almost gasped. The visible ones were fifties, a couple others looked like hundreds as they lazily uncoiled from the roll in his open hand. She had never seen a thousand dollar bill, but guessed there might be a few at the core of such a treasure.

Irene, acting as if this took place every single day, remained prim: “One-hundred dollars per night will be fine, sir.” She plucked at the sheaf of bills, her bony little fingers tweezing and pecking like the beak of a chicken. “Jeryline!” she barked when she was done. “Show this gentleman to the available room.”

Jeryline propped her hands on her hips. “I thought cleaning the stove was a matter of life and death.”

Irene swept the man toward the front desk, produced for him a guest register—which had never seen the light of day at all during the entire five months Jeryline had worked here—and produced enough verbal syrup to coax him into signing it. When he laid the pen down, Irene raised a hand over her head and began snapping her fingers. “Jeryline? Jeryline dear? Show Mr. Brayker to his room, please. Number Five should be perfect.”

Jeryline put the Lemon Pledge down on the table, wiped the palms of her hands on the sides of her jeans, and became the Mission Inn bellboy, which she had not known, until now, was part of her work-release/probation agreement. Amazing how varied and sundry such programs were, and how they could expand themselves into a bit of everything. In a few years she could head the Wormwood city council as the local work-release mayor—as if Wormwood
had
a city council, har-har.

“This way to the presidential suite,” she groused. “Any carry-on luggage for this flight, Mr. Brayker?”

Irene clicked her tongue. “Jeryline, loose lips sink work-release ships. Keep your smart-mouth to yourself. And see to it that Mr. Brayker gets some supper.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jeryline said curtly. “Mr. Brayker? Walk this way.”

She turned and goose-stepped a couple paces. Looking back for a grin from Brayker, she got only a cold, dead stare. “Mr. Congeniality he ain’t,” she muttered under her breath, and hiked up the stairs.

Room Five was down the short hallway to the right. She whisked the door open and snapped on the light. Brayker pushed past her and stalked to the window. He studied the night for a moment.

“Let’s see,” Jeryline said, tapping her chin. “Breakfast starts at seven, maybe later if I oversleep. The bathroom’s just down the hall.”

“What am I looking at here?” Brayker said to the glass. He tapped at it. “Which direction is the highway?”

“Uh, forty-seven? Or sixteen east-west?”

“Forty-seven.”

She walked up beside him and pointed, squatting a few inches to see. “Couple of miles that way. But notice the fine view? This elegant suite features a splendid morning view of nothing. Ditto for afternoons, and the evening view is especially nothing.”

He looked at her as if puzzled. She reddened; no sense of humor whatsoever, the jerk.

“Why are you here?” he asked suddenly.

She arched her eyebrows. “Why? To show you the room.”

Brayker reached and clamped a cold hand around her forearm. “Not that. Why the hell are you here? What’s here for you?”

“Just a job,” she said, shying away.

“You were in jail,” he said. His dark eyes were shiny and emotionless. “What did you do?”

Jeryline frowned at him, the nosy bastard. “Felonious bed-wetting. Why are
you
here?”

He looked back to the window, where the wind was kicking raindrops past the eaves to speckle the glass. “I think,” he stated wearily, “that I am here for the same reason you are.”

She snorted. “Bed-wetting? Simply rampant these days.”

He waved her away with a flick of his hand. “Get out of here and make me some supper. I want a beer with it, too. Got that?”

She strode to the door. “Got that. And by the way, you can go to hell.”

“Been there,” he said.

She slammed the door.

Suppertime.

The usual crew had eaten hours before, large cube steaks, steamed potatoes, gravy, asparagus, dinner rolls, lemon meringue pie for dessert. The leftovers were pretty skimpy, and Jeryline wanted to make sure Mr. Brayker got enough, so she added a cup of flour to the blender while it churned his entire supper into pudding. She located a large bowl, filled it with the beige-colored Jeryline Special, and poked a sprig of fresh parsley into the middle. “Superb,” she crooned, sniffing it.

Mr. Brayker was already at the table. He had washed up and tamed his hair a little, but his clothes were unchanged and his beard stubble was still stubbly. Jeryline breezed out of the kitchen and dropped the bowl and a spoon in front of him. When she cruised back with a glass of water, he was eating, slowly and deliberately, his eyes fixed on an invisible spot on the table. She parked the water at his elbow. She curtsied.

“Is everything satisfactory, Mr. Brayker?”

He cranked his head to look at her. “I wanted a beer,” he said.

She smiled. “And you got water. Enjoy.”

She joined Uncle Willie and Cordelia at the two sofas aimed at the television, where a black-and-white rerun of “The Fugitive” was soundlessly airing. Willie and Cordelia were staring at Brayker as if he were the most interesting thing within a hundred miles. He noticed and lifted his bowl. “You two want some, or what?” he said flatly.

Cordelia turned her attention back to the television. Uncle Willie winked. “No thanks, not me. I was just thinking about how much better that stuff looked when it was roadkill.”

Jeryline covered her mouth with her hands and laughed into them. Mr. Brayker was a weird character and if he thought the two of them had some kind of common bond, that their meeting here was dictated by fate, well then, he was weird
and
crazy.

Though the wind outside was hooting and groaning around the building, and the rain was noisily pattering against the roof and windows, Jeryline heard a car crunch its way over the gravel parking area, and stop. It had the peculiar squeak-rattle of a Volkswagen, she thought. One door thumped shut. One of the roomers back from wherever-the-hell? Or a customer for Cordelia’s bedroom talents?

Brayker had heard it too. She watched as he tensed up, saw a hand go into the pocket of his dirty jacket. His gaze welded itself to the front door. This man, she realized without surprise, was a man of many secrets. Maybe even an escaped mental patient from the cuckoo house over in Cactus Flowers.

Something black blurred through the bottom of her vision without warning. It zipped up onto the table beside Brayker, froze in place, and became Irene’s cat Cleo.

Brayker burst up from his chair in a wild scramble, knocking it over and nearly upsetting the table. His bowl of Jeryline Special wobbled near the edge but, thankfully, did not fall off. With one enormous sweep of his arm Brayker shoved the cat off the table, his face twisted up with revulsion and alarm.

Irene appeared out of nowhere in time to witness this. She aimed her eyes at Jeryline. “Didn’t I tell you to put the cat out? Didn’t I?”

Jeryline snapped right back at her: “I did. I don’t know how she keeps getting back in. Besides, she’s your stupid cat, not mine.”

“Just get her out of here.” Irene turned to Brayker and attached a smile to her mouth. “No harm done, Mr. Brayker? I’m sorry about the cat.”

He set the chair back on its feet and sat down. His hands were visibly shaking. Jeryline wondered why. Allergic to cats? Or just afraid of his own shadow?

The doorbell chimed and Brayker leapt to his feet again, shoving his hand into his pocket where, no doubt, a small pistol was housed. Irene eyed him momentarily, then went to the door. It burst open before she could touch it. Wind and fog marched in along with a man wearing a yellow rain slicker. He had a wet paper bag in one hand with the top of a bottle sticking up. “She here?” he brayed. “Still up?”

Cordelia grinned. “Roach?” She jumped up from the couch and scurried to the door. “Roachie!” she wailed, and dumped herself into his arms. “You kept me waiting,” she chided him after a couple of soupy kisses.

He handed the bag to her. “The meter ain’t running already, is it? Asides, this champagne ought to make it up.”

She winked at him and pulled the bottle out. Jeryline smirked. A four-dollar bottle of off-brand rotgut. Cordelia unscrewed the top and sniffed. “I get all bubbly,” she twittered.

“That’s just how I like you,” Roach said, and kissed her again. “Anyhows, the reason I’m late is a’cause somebody tried stealing Homer’s Bronco down at the cafe.”

Cordelia frowned, capping the bottle. “That old pile of shit?”

“Right from the parking lot. The sheriff is there right now, swear to God.”

“Mercy.” Jeryline saw Cordelia’s eyes shift over to Brayker and back. He had recovered and was going at supper again with his eyes cast down, watching nothing. Cordelia twitched her eyebrows at Roach and nodded slightly.

“Oh,” Roach said softly. He took her hand and urged her toward the stairway. “Let’s get us some privacy.”

Wally Enfield trudged in from the basement door toting a basket of folded sheets. He opened his mouth to say something to Cordelia, then saw that she was headed to the stairway with Roach. His face fell so fast Jeryline was afraid it might drop to the floor. Oh, the scourge of unrequited love.

“Well, come on, Wally,” Cordelia said, motioning to him. “Get those sheets on the bed like a dear boy.”

Wally uttered a great sigh and followed them up. Only a moment later Roach came down alone. “Hey, Irene?” he said, doing funny things with his eyes. “I gots to make a phone call.”

“Phone’s behind the desk,” she said.

“Not that one. This is personal business.”

Irene snorted. “As if walking up the stairs with the town hooker ain’t personal?”

Roach gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes.

“All right, use the one in the office.”

“Swell.” He headed away.

“Just don’t go getting it all smelled up with your booze breath,” she called after him, and plopped down on the sofa beside Jeryline. “Ever notice,” she said conversationally, “that everybody who meets the fugitive winds up helping him hide out?”

Jeryline looked again to Brayker. Hunched and silent, he seemed oblivious to everything but his Jeryline Special. He was, she knew now with fair certainty, a fugitive himself. But it would be a cold day in hell before she ever helped him more than to just drive him to the city limits, say goodbye, and boot his rude ass out of the car.

5

I
t was only ten minutes later that the doorbell chimed again. In the kitchen, on her knees, wearing a pair of orange rubber gloves with her hair falling across her eyes, Jeryline was performing step one of the oven-cleaning task Irene had demanded earlier. She had hauled the racks out and hosed down the insides of the old Kenmore four-burner with oven cleaner, which smelled, she supposed, no different than the goop at the bottom of a toxic waste dump. Now, with the fumes making her blink and squint, she was scraping off the hideous yellow foam with a broad putty knife. Fun? She was ecstatic.

The Mission Inn’s doorbell donged out a bit of clangy Beethoven music. Glad for any diversion, Jeryline used it as an excuse to leave the kitchen, as well as to give her lungs a reprieve from the chemical mix that was frying them. Irene was at the door already, and standing out under the awning with their clothes getting whipped into crazy shapes by the wind were County Sheriff Tupper, a deputy she did not know, and a cowboy wearing an ankle-length yellow duster that flapped in the storm.

Irene ushered them in and pressed the door shut. Brayker was already on his feet with his hand in his pocket. It was then that Jeryline got the whole picture: Roach had called the cops, for this Brayker man was the would-be car thief. It softened her opinion of him somewhat; she wasn’t the only one here with a record. She stepped closer to the table to pick up the bowl and glass before a fight could break out, because if Brayker was anything like herself, he would not be taken easily. Sheriff Tupper said his hi’s and howdy’s to Irene and Uncle Willie and little Wally, included Jeryline at the end, and wiped the congenial smile off his pudgy face. He frowned and looked at the ceiling. So did everyone else. Overhead, Cordelia’s bed was bouncing and squeaking at a steady pace, interspersed by an occasional, breathy moan.

“Sounds like Cordelia’s hard at work,” he grunted.

The cowboy took off his big hat and dropped it on the empty flowerpot by the door. His face was hard and wooden as he locked eyes with Brayker. In his eyes Jeryline saw contempt and hatred that had probably festered there for a long, long time. Brayker matched his stare, but a tinge of uncertainty colored his expression. She guessed a federal marshall and a big-time crook.

“Would you be Mr. Brayker?” Tupper asked, hooking his thumbs under his Sam Browne belt.

The cowboy nodded. “He would most definitely be Mr. Brayker.”

Brayker whipped his hand out of his jacket. Something clicked metallically. Presto, he had an open butterfly knife in his hand, and another presto, he had jumped at Jeryline and hooked an arm around her neck. God he moves fast, she thought dazedly, and felt the tip of his knife press against the soft area under her chin. The bowl and glass fell from her hands and shattered on the floor like two small bombs. Irene let out a shriek and backed into a corner with her fists mashed against her mouth.

“No guns or she dies,” he barked in Jeryline’s ear. “Get them out of your belts. Now!”

“Now you looky here,” Tupper said calmly, “nobody needs to be doing any shooting. Brayker, let Jeryline go and it won’t be mentioned anymore. You’re in enough trouble already, if what we’ve heard is true.”