The Changing (The Biergarten Series) (19 page)

And in the semi-darkness, as the rain pelted the windows, he didn't see the hint of a shadow on the hallway wall opposite the bedroom door. Didn't see it because he wasn't looking at it. He was looking disbelievingly, angrily at the phone.

It continued to ring. McCabe mouthed at it, "
Shut
up
,
Goddamnit
!"

And realized in that instant that he was allowing himself to become distracted, that he had stopped paying attention to the problem at hand, that
here
and
now
he had to work with what little he had—the failing light, the continuous rushing noise of the rain, the heavy dragging sound of the thing in the hallway

The phone stopped ringing.

He caught his breath. He whispered a tight, vicious curse, one that had fear in it. Because he couldn't hear that dragging sound anymore. He could hear only the rain and the quick, thumping sound of his pulse in his ears, which was itself too loud, he thought frantically, too fucking loud . . .

And he could hear something else. Something breathing in a slow and labored way. Something that had as much pain, he knew, as he had fear. He could hear that pain; it was so clear in the ragged, labored breathing. Then, abruptly, it stopped, too.

And he could see what he supposed was the shadow of a tall chest of drawers he kept in the hallway with various odds and ends on it—shaving stuff, a broken lamp, a photograph in an eight-by-ten frame . . .

The phone started to ring again.

And McCabe imagined someone at the other end of the line repeating again and again,
Answer it, answer it, answer it
--

And with the quickness of light, moved by its own incredible pain and its soul-tearing
need
, the thing that had invaded McCabe's home reached around the doorway and grabbed McCabe's protruding belly and ripped desperately at it.

When Ryerson
Biergarten
got to Tom McCabe's house, he saw what he had expected to see; the line of police cars, the ambulance, the drone of people responding to an emergency with practiced and skillful efficiency. Because when he had listened to McCabe's phone ring over and over again, he had felt the low rumble of panic starting, the eruption of pain, the frenzy, the frenzy . . . And even ten miles away he had felt McCabe's pain, McCabe's agonized scream had erupted from
his
throat—and then he had pushed a startled Ira Cole to the top of the stairway and almost down it, though he'd caught himself in time; "Reese's Pieces!" Cole had muttered, which was his own way of cursing. So Ryerson wasted no time being startled by what he saw at McCabe's house. Instead he moved immediately toward the ambulance, which was just then receiving the stretcher with McCabe on it. A cop stopped him. "That's far enough," the cop said.

Ryerson decided not to argue with him. He asked, "Just tell me this; is he dead or is he alive?”

“Who are you?"

Ryerson felt his temper flaring, fought it back. "I'm a friend. And that's all I want to know; is he dead or is he—"

"He's alive. Barely."

The ambulance pulled away, siren blaring.

"Thank God," Ryerson breathed. And he over-heard from nearby a woman who was apparently one of McCabe's neighbors talking to a detective. "He just came running out of that house with this, this . . . thing chasing after him, and he fell down, right there"—she pointed at a spot on the lawn midway from the house to the street—"and he just . . . twitched."

"What hospital?" Ryerson asked the cop. "Highland," said the cop. "Who'd you say you were again?"

"A friend," Ryerson answered, hoping it was enough. "A good friend." And he went back to his old Ford, hesitated briefly, trying to decide what exactly he wanted to do, and drove back to the Samuelson Guest House.

~ * ~

It was not confusion that made Douglas Miller sit so stiffly, as if paralyzed, hands gripping the arms of the hard plastic seat at the
Trailways
Bus Station half a mile north of downtown Rochester. It was not confusion. It was stark and terrifying knowledge. Self-knowledge. Awareness:
God in heaven—this is what I am! I'm not human at all! This is what I am!

He was fighting that knowledge, of course. He'd fought it for two months now, as the thing inside him—the thing that poor, damned Lila Curtis had unwittingly shared with him, the thing that had weight and substance—as that thing had
grown
inside him, had gained
strength
inside him until now he, Douglas Miller, didn't need the rationale, the mythical excuse, of the image of the full moon to let it loose. To give it the control it wanted. To give it himself, when it wanted.

And there was another realization hitting him. Another bit of awful knowledge to push back.

He was dying.

His young life would soon come to a close, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

So after not too many minutes sitting in the
Trailways
terminal, hands clutching the arms of the hard plastic seat, he handled this knowledge—the knowledge of the thing inside him; the knowledge of his death—in the only way possible. He denied it. He cocked his head confusedly and he whispered to himself—surprising a Chicano woman sitting beside him, who had been planning to move to another seat anyway because Miller's smell was something less than pleasant—' What in the hell am I doing here?" And he got up and walked quickly out of the terminal and into the night.

The rain had stopped.

He walked in the city's neon darkness with one horrible bit of knowledge pushing him: That he possessed a secret so awesome and so terrible that he could share it with no one at all. Not even himself.

~ * ~

"Peed on my rug, Mr.
Biergarten
," Loren Samuelson said tightly. "And if I know one thing about
dog
pee it's that it sticks in a rug forever."

"I'll pay for cleaning it; thanks for watching him," Ryerson said, taking Creosote and scratching him idly around the ears, which, because he had his treasured soft plastic duck in his mouth, caused his weird, ragged purring sound to start.

"It's an Oriental rug, Mr.
Biergarten
," Samuelson said peevishly. "And it costs good money to clean an Oriental rug. Got it from Sears twenty-five years ago. `Kismet Classic,' they called it. Seventy-nine dollars and ninety-five cents, plus two percent
salestax
. 'Course it's appreciated some since then, like all Orientals do—"

"I'll pay for it," Ryerson said wearily. "Whatever it costs to clean it, I'll pay for it. If you have to buy a
new
rug, I'll pay for it."

"No need to get all tied up in knots, Mr.
Biergarten
."

"I'm sorry. I've had a rough day." He stepped backward out of Samuelson's apartment, glanced toward the stairs that led up to his own apartment, looked back at Samuelson. "The police might call," he said. "I left them your number. If I don't answer your knock, it's probably because I'll be asleep, but please keep knocking—"

Samuelson eyed him suspiciously. "You in some kinda trouble, Mr.
Biergarten
?"

Ryerson thought,
He doesn't read the newspapers; he has no idea who I am
. He said, "No. I've got a message ... a very urgent message into a Detective Bill Andrews. If he calls, please wake me." And he turned and went quickly to his room.

~ * ~

Damn you, McCabe!
he thought.
Damn you! Why couldn't you have given me some authority, for Christ's sake?! I do your legwork and your brain work, and I've got to pussyfoot around when I come up with something.

But what, he wondered, what really had he come up with at Miller's apartment? That Douglas Miller was a neat freak? That he kept his studio apartment scrupulously clean, which to most people would have seemed merely odd, but to Ryerson had been like a scream in the dark:
A human being lives here!
it protested.
A human being lives here!

What kind of evidence was that?

Sure, the areas around the wall plates, where fingerprints usually collected, had been scrubbed down to the plaster. Sure, the bathtub had been cleaned so furiously that much of the enamel was missing. Sure, even the
lightbulbs
had been dusted, and the hard-wood floors stripped of their sheen in spots, and the windows cleaned so thoroughly that even the frames, where grit usually collected for years, were spotless.

And sure the man's
effects
had been arranged with precise, geometrical, almost military precision; the snapshots just so; the papers on the desk arranged so no edges below the top sheet showed, all the shirts in the closet hung a precise two fingers apart.

So what?
Ryerson thought. So he was a neat freak. Lots of people are neat freaks. That doesn't mean they're killers; just odd. "The world's full of odd people, Ryerson," he told himself. "Heck,
you're
as odd as they come!"

And thank God for that, his thoughts continued. Because that's what had told him what Douglas Miller was trying to tell him—what Douglas Miller had been trying to tell anyone who happened to come into his scrupulously clean, obsessively clean apartment:
A human being lives here. Not a monster! A human being!

Ryerson heard a knock at his door; then, "Mr.
Biergarten
? You awake? Mr.
Biergarten
?"

"Yes," he called back, and went to the door, opened it.

Samuelson tried to look over Ryerson's shoulder into the apartment.

"Yes?" Ryerson coaxed.

Samuelson seemed to realize what he was doing and appeared embarrassed by it. He grinned an apology. "Call for you. It's that detective."

~ * ~

Detective Andrews, Ryerson thought, was once again into his Dirty Harry act. "Make it quick,
Biergarten
," he said brusquely. "I got lots of work to do tonight; this fuckin' paperwork—"

"You've heard about Chief McCabe?" Ryerson asked.

"Sure I have."

"And?"

"And. . ." He paused, continued, "And I'm sorry, I guess—what do you want from me—"

"Good Lord, I want you to give me a report on him, if you can. How's he doing? What's his condition?"

Another pause. "Oh. Yeah. I guess he's okay; I guess he lost lots of blood, but—"

"His condition, Detective. What is his condition?”

“You mean officially? What does the hospital say?"

"That's right, Detective. I assumed you'd be keeping track of that."

"Oh. Sure. I guess his condition is good. I don't know. I guess it's good—"

Ryerson interrupted; "What do you need to get an arrest warrant, Detective?"

"Sorry?" It was clear to Ryerson that the change of conversational direction had confused Detective Andrews. "Arrest warrant for who?"

"Douglas Miller. He's a Kodak employee.”

“Why do you want him arrested?"

Ryerson sighed. This was going to be very difficult, he realized. "I want him arrested because I suspect him in the case I'm investigating with Tom McCabe," he said, trying to put all the facts together in one sentence for the detective.

"Does Chief McCabe know this?" Andrews asked.

"No. Not yet. I was trying to call him when—"

"And what sort of evidence do you have, Mr.
Biergarten
? We need evidence before we can get an arrest warrant."

This is it
, Ryerson thought.

"Mr.
Biergarten
?" Andrews coaxed. "You there?"

"Yes. I'm here." He paused again, again thought,
This is it
, and continued, "I'm sorry. I have no evidence." And he hung up.

~ * ~

Douglas Miller was furious. "You let someone
in
here, into my
apartment
?! You fool, you idiot, you goddamned, lame-brained--" He stopped. He could see the hurt in Ira Cole's eyes. He inhaled deeply. "Who?" he asked.

Ira Cole stammered, "I . . . I don't remember.”

“Who was it?"

"I'm. . . sorry, Douglas. He said he was with the police."

Miller froze.

Ira Cole said again, "I'm sorry, Douglas."

Miller said, "Did you watch him? Did he touch anything? Did he put his
fingers
on anything?"

"No, Douglas. I don't think so." Ira Cole was loosening up because Miller's anger seemed to be abating. "You keep a very neat apartment, Douglas. I've never seen anyone keep such a neat apartment—I wish
all
of my tenants kept such neat apartments—"

"I'm not an animal," Miller said, his voice a ragged, hoarse whisper that surprised Ira Cole. "So I won't live like one. I'm clean." He said this almost reverently. "I'm human, and I'm clean!"

Ira Cole said, "I'm glad," and meant it. He smiled quickly; "I remember his name now, Douglas. His name was Mr.
Biergarten
. He was a foreigner, I think. He didn't talk like a foreigner—"