Waiting (20 page)

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Authors: Frank M. Robinson

BOOK: Waiting
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She suddenly caught him in the throat with the side of her hand. He couldn’t scream now if he wanted to; he couldn’t make a sound.
thought you would be better
…
She threw him against the side of a car just as he was trying to fumble out the automatic. He realized with sudden shock that he had lost his peripheral vision, that his sight was dimming and within a second or two he’d be blind. He was fighting for his life and he was losing.
He was struggling in total blackness now, knowing where she was only by her scent and her breathing and the sudden puffs of warm air between them. It was like it had been in ’Nam when he’d been ambushed at night. He’d learned how to fight in the dark then and hadn’t forgotten how. Then she had her fingers on his throat, her nails pressing into his windpipe, and he grasped his hands together and thrust them up to break her grip.
She whispered in his ear, “You’re an asshole,” but he wasn’t sure it was really her. She drove her elbow into his ribs and he went down, the gun he’d never gotten to use flying from his coat pocket. He was helpless, crumpled against a car wheel, curled into a ball, his arms over his face to protect it from the stiletto heels of her shoes.
There was a pause and a sense of surprise in the air around him and the feeling that somebody else was in the parking lot. Artie was suddenly terrified more than he already was. He had stumbled into a whole group of them.
what
…
He heard Adrienne get into her Taurus and gun the motor, then squeal toward the exit.
A snarl of rage in his mind.
next time, monkey
…
His sight returned abruptly. He was sitting on the ground near the flagstone plaza, his back against a pickup, blood covering his face and the front of his coat. How the hell long had it been? And where the hell were
they?
There had been two of them, he was sure of that. He moved slightly, groaning with the effort, and glanced toward the rear door of the station. The clouds had parted just enough for the moon to peep through. Pan’s face was staring down at him, its plaster lips curled in a smirk.
“Jesus Christ, Artie, what the hell happened to you?” Levin was leaning over him, reaching for his hand to help him up. “You look like you got hit by a truck.”
He didn’t want to admit whom he had lost to, but he knew he was going to have to tell Mitch everything. Most importantly what Mary had told him and why.
He went cold thinking how fortunate it was for Mitch to show up right then, for Mitch to save his life.
“I got your call when I checked in with the office,” Mitch said, pulling him to his feet. “I came over as soon as I could break free.”
And just in time, Artie thought. He must have seen something; he must have seen Adrienne and the other two.
“I guess I got here a minute too late,” Mitch said.
And that was funny as hell because without even meaning to, Mitch was reading his mind.
 
They sat in Artie’s
car, the heater turned on, and Artie dabbed at the blood on his face with his handkerchief and filled Mitch in on everything Mary had told him. But the only enemy he had seen so far was a heavyset, matronly woman for whom he had once had a thing and a woman news reporter who had tried to kill him in the station parking lot. He told Mitch about the deadly game of Hare-and-Hounds with himself and Mitch and the others as hares and out there, somewhere, the unseen Hound.
After he had finished, Mitch fished out a cigarette and reached for the car lighter, then thought better of it.
“You don’t believe me,” Artie said.
“Two days ago I almost swallowed half a bottle of Valium and two fingers of lousy scotch. Why shouldn’t. I believe you?” Mitch glanced out the window at the parking lot, searching for figures in the shadows. “But there’s no proof of anything. All you know is what Mary told you.”
“You must have seen something when you drove in.”
“I told you—I didn’t see a damned thing. You were sitting on the ground looking like you wanted to puke your guts out and there was a lot of blood.” He hesitated. “You sure you don’t want to go to Emergency?”
“We’d probably never get there,” Artie said bitterly. “And if we did, how could we be sure the doctor was who he claimed he was? Goddammit, there were two of them besides Adrienne, I could
feel
them!”
Mitch was silent for a moment. “I almost got hit by your lady friend’s car barreling out of here and there you were. That’s all I saw, Artie.”
“We could go to the government,” Artie said sullenly, and the moment he said it he regretted it. If Mary was right about who her people were, then she was also right about genocide. What would happen when you really couldn’t tell friend from foe? It wouldn’t be like the Serbs and the Muslims or the Tutsis and the Hutus, who’d known each other all their lives. In this case you didn’t know who was who; your next-door neighbor could be the enemy, the guy who sat next to you at the office. It would start with suspicion and accusation and end up with … what? Burning people at the stake?
“We’ve got nothing to take to them, Artie. We don’t have the diskette, we don’t have the printout, all we have is Mary’s crazy story. We believe it, but who the hell else would?”
Artie’s ribs ached, but most of all he felt angry and embarrassed. He had been handled so easily. Not alone by Adrienne but by … somebody else. He could have been killed, probably would have been if Mitch hadn’t showed up. And Adrienne would have said that she’d been attacked in the parking lot, that he’d come on to her the last day or so and she’d turned him down.
Behind his granny glasses, Mitch’s eyes were bright and speculative.
“Who knows besides us, Artie?”
“Cathy Shea and whoever killed Larry—or had Larry killed. And Paschelke and Hall and they’re dead as well.”
“Somebody else believes, somebody else knows. And that somebody is somebody we know.”
“Hardly anybody ever really keeps a secret,” Artie said after a moment. “Larry probably talked to Cathy. He might also have talked to ten or twenty other people that we never heard of. He couldn’t have kept it to himself. Christ, people even talk in their sleep.”
Mitch shook his head. “Sorry, Artie, I don’t agree. He had too much riding on this one. Larry wouldn’t have wanted to share it with anybody. It might have made his reputation.” He looked at Artie, taking in his battered face again. “If you don’t want to spend the night alone, you can bunk over at my place.” Artie had a sudden image of himself alone in the house without Susan working in the kitchen or Mark studying in his room, the music turned up loud. He’d be alone … and he’d be vulnerable. Somehow he’d forget and walk out on his balcony and the next morning they’d find him splattered on the sidewalk below.
But worst of all, he’d be alone.
“I’d be putting you out.”
“Big deal.”
 
It was quiet on
Telegraph Hill, Mitch’s small cottage peaceful. Mitch gave him sheets and blankets for the couch, plus a monogrammed towel and washrag. Artie stripped to his shorts and started placing the contents of his shirt pocket on the coffee table. Mark’s earring was still wrapped in its napkin, and he unfolded it and held the ring in his hand for a moment. Mitch noticed it and said, “Can I see that?”
Artie gave him the ring. “It belongs to Mark—gift from Susan. Family heirloom, I guess.”
Mitch turned it over in the light.
“Looks Mayan. Let me borrow it for a day. I’d like a friend of mine to take a look at it.”
“Go ahead. Just don’t lose it. Mark would never forgive me.” He reached for the phone on the table. “Mind if I make a call?”
There were no messages on his answering machine at home. Artie called the new number Susan had given him and a tape recorder repeated that the line had been disconnected. It didn’t say when and there was no forwarding number. Artie dialed Information and. asked for the number of the hospital in Willow and was startled when she said there was no hospital but she would connect him to the only medical clinic in town. Artie felt the sweat start when the puzzled voice at the other end of the line told him Susan’s father wasn’t there, that he never had been.
He was still sitting there holding the phone when Mitch walked through on his way to the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?”
“Susan’s gone.”
“I thought you said she was in Willow, that her father was in the hospital there?”
“That’s what she told me. He isn’t, never was.”
Mitch stared, not understanding.
“Susan’s not in Willow.” Artie was suddenly afraid his voice was going to break. “I don’t think she ever went there.”
 
Artie lay on the
couch staring out at the darkness through the front windows. It was a chill night with no overcast and the stars were bright, the moon a thin crescent above the streetlight at the top of the Filbert Street steps. By his watch it was almost two in the morning and he hadn’t slept a wink; he was still sore and bruised from his fight with Adrienne. Mitch had knocked off about fifteen minutes after hitting the sack, he could tell by the snoring.
Not a worry in the world, Artie thought with envy. But then, in ’Nam Mitch had the reputation for being able to sleep through even the worst of the shelling.
Vietnam …
If he had to choose being here and being there, he wasn’t sure which he would pick. You never knew who the enemy was over there: the little old lady hoeing her garden, the waiter at your table when you went to Saigon for R&R, the whore you slept with … You didn’t know who the enemy might be here, either, but in both cases you knew what the enemy wanted. They wanted you out.
What the hell were the Old People planning? They were sure as hell plotting something. But he had only seen two of the enemy. There must be … what? Hundreds of them in the city? He probably ran into them evéry day and had no idea who they really were. They were in deep cover, had to be. It would cost them their lives and the lives of their families and friends if anybody found them out. It would probably cost the lives of their entire species except for a few who would end up in jails or zoos. And that was a lousy thing to think. My country, right or wrong. Who’d said that? Stephen Decatur? Patrick Henry?
He turned his pillow over and fluffed it for the twentieth time, then lay there trying to make up his mind whether to hit the john or get a drink of water. Telegraph Hill was quiet at night—at least during the middle of the week when the kids weren’t cruising around Coit Tower—much more so than the Castro. When he and Susan had first moved to Noe Street, it was partying every night until two in the morning. It had slacked off some since, but hardly completely.
Susan …
He’d tried to wall her off in his mind; it hurt too much to think about her. She’d walked out on him, with Mark due to follow—except, for the moment, Mark apparently had other plans. He’d call the bank in the morning and see how much money Susan had taken with her. Walking out on him was the one thing he’d always dreaded, was always afraid that she might do. But he’d also thought she would discuss it in advance.
Try to forget it—for the moment. Too much of his world had collapsed all at once and there was little he could do about any of it.
Mitch …
Mitch had gotten to the station’s outdoor parking lot just in time. Another few minutes and he would have been a dead man. It was hard to think it was coincidence but like Mitch said, you had to trust somebody. Everybody he met now would be suspect, from the postman to the taxi driver to the waitress at Welcome Home, where he sometimes ate breakfast.
Or would they congregate in the professions? Like they said most hairdressers and actors were supposed to be gay? Bullshit, but maybe most of the Old People were professors or accountants or … psychiatrists like Mitch or lawyers like Mary. All of them would be great ways of getting to know the enemy.
There was a rustle in the shrubbery outside and Artie suddenly tensed, waiting for the plucking at his mind, the little thoughts that weren’t his, the suggestion to slash his wrists or swallow a can of Drano.
There was something out there, he knew it for sure, and then he slowly relaxed. Jesus, he was dreaming; he had finally slipped off. A lucid dream in which you know you’re dreaming, like the first one he’d ever had about the Tribe when Susan was in bed with him. He turned and glanced around at the shadowy outlines of the furniture in the room. Everything seemed slightly fuzzy and out of focus, like you might expect in a dream. And he didn’t feel a chill just beyond the margin of the blankets. If anything, it was almost a cocoonlike feeling of warmth and safety.
But why just lie there—why not walk around in it? He sat up and slowly started to put on his clothes, taking care not to make any noise. Which was silly—how could he wake up Mitch in a dream? He started to struggle into his shoes, then gave up and slipped his feet into the fancy leather slippers Mitch had lent him.
He let himself out, closing the door quietly behind him. He floated up the wooden steps to Montgomery, then left past the little corner grocery store and down the hill to Broadway. There weren’t many people on the street and those few he passed were silent, huddled in their coats against the chill. The advantage of a dream, Artie thought: You didn’t feel cold, you didn’t feel heat. He’d put on his coat but hadn’t buttoned it; he didn’t feel the need to.
There was an all-night hamburger joint on Broadway and he stopped to stare through the windows. The night people were out in full force, the stools by the counter almost filled. Artie grinned to himself. Why not? When was the last time he’d had a burger and fries in a dream? He pushed in through the door and found himself a vacant stool.
An old man in dirty white pants and T-shirt with a stub of a pencil behind his ear moved down the counter taking orders. He stopped in front of Artie and mouthed something at him. Artie couldn’t hear a word he was saying but made a guess and ordered a double cheeseburger with fries and a Coke.
A man sat down next to Artie and leaned over to pick up a menu.
“What would you do with us, Banks?”
He was big, heavyset, but Artie couldn’t quite make out his features. They were blurry, like almost everything else in his dream.
“You’re the first person I can hear,” Artie said, marveling.
The big man nodded.
“You can only hear the Old People. You’ve listened to
sapiens
long enough, it’s time you listened to us. Like I said, what would you do with us?”
Artie stared at him blankly.
“What do you mean?”
The big man frowned.
“Put us in concentration camps? Feed us to the ovens?”
Artie suddenly wanted to wake up.
“We don’t put people in concentration camps.”
“Sure you do. You did once before.”
It took Artie a moment to remember. He changed the subject. “What do you do? For a living.”
“Construction. Dry wall, like the character used to do on
Roseanne.
How about yourself?”
“Newswriter for KXAM.” Artie concentrated on his cheeseburger.
“You’re ruining the world,” the big man said, reaching for the napkin dispenser. “Did you know there’s a sanitarium near Krakow, Poland, that has its patients sleep underground in salt mines because the air outside is so polluted?”
“You’re an eco-nut,” Artie said.
“Everybody talks about the weather and now you’re doing something about it,” the big man said. He stood up to go to the cash register. “It’s your world. But it’s ours, too.”
The busboy came up to clear away the plates.
“The customer’s always right,” he said to Artie. “I mean the other one.” He disappeared with his tray of dirty dishes into the kitchen.
Artie frowned and stared around the inside of the diner. Some faces he could make out, others were fuzzy and blurred. Deep cover, he thought. The Old People were all in deep cover. But Jesus, there were a lot of them. Maybe they all worked at night.
For a moment, outside the diner, he couldn’t get his bearings. Which way back to Montgomery? There was a blurry-faced cop sitting in a patrol car on the corner and Artie drifted over to ask directions.
“They used helicopter gunships to kill the hippos in Mozambique,” the cop said. “Carved the teeth and sold them for decorations in Asia.”
Artie stared.
“Which way to Montgomery Street?” he asked.
“You can travel for miles in Mozambique today and not see anything larger than a bird.” The cop jerked a thumb behind him. “Montgomery’s that way.”
Artie started back up the hill. There was a strip joint still open on the corner, the barker, a skinny, middle-aged man in a checkered sport coat, lounging out in front having a cigarette.
“Too bad about the frogs,” he said.
Artie turned. “What?”
“The frogs,” the barker repeated. “Billions of them. If the ultraviolet didn’t get them the pollution probably did—they use their skin to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, you know. The air’s going to kill you, too. Eventually.” He took a final drag on his cigarette and ground the butt beneath his heel.
“Which way’s Montgomery?” Artie asked.
“Bet you didn’t know when fisheries net sharks with other fish they cut the fins off and dump the live sharks back in the ocean. The fins are worth ten bucks a pound for soup. Montgomery’s next street up.”
Artie tried to fix the barker’s features in his mind and couldn’t. His face was a blur, a hint of pocked cheeks, a suggestion of deep-set eyes and a nose that might have been broken, and that was it. Deep cover.
Artie turned toward Montgomery. At the corner, a cab slowed and the woman driver cranked down the window. “Need a lift, buddy?”
“I’m just going to the Filbert steps,” Artie said, then hesitated. Another one; he could hear her but couldn’t quite make out her face.
“I’ll take you, on me. Hop in.”
Artie climbed in and the cabbie drove up Montgomery in silence.
“You’re too quiet,” Artie said after a minute. “I thought you’d be an eco-fanatic, too.”
“You’re a self-endangered species,” she said casually. “Why waste my breath?”
Artie let himself back into the house and closed the door quietly behind him. He took off his clothes and slipped between the blankets on the couch, surprised to realize that he was suddenly freezing cold and the blankets were a welcome patch of warmth. Something wasn’t right, and then the thought drifted out of his mind and he could sense his breathing becoming deep and regular.
He wasn’t aware at all of the first tendrils of smoke that drifted in from the back of the house.
 
 
It was the sound
of the fire engines that finally woke him. He coughed for a minute, then was suddenly wide awake. Somebody was hammering at the front door, shouting, and there were sounds of several men around in back. Mitch burst out of the bedroom, bleary-eyed, struggling into his bathrobe and fumbling with his glasses.
“What the hell’s going on—Oh, Christ, fire!” He ran toward the rear of the cottage while Artie opened the front door. Several firemen crowded in lugging a hose, and one of them shouted, “Get your clothes and get out!” Artie could hear another engine drive up. Outside, he could see the lights turning on in the other cottages that lined the steps.
An hour later it was all over. Smoke damage and the wooden steps out back were the main casualties. One of Mitch’s neighbors had seen the first flames and turned in the alarm. He thought he’d seen somebody at the back of the cottage but the fire chief had shrugged and said it was probably raccoons chewing on one of the hoses to the outdoor propane tank. Fast response time had saved the house. They probably had the fastest in the Bay Area, he said, otherwise the whole city would have burned down a dozen times. San Francisco had the highest percentage of wooden houses in the country this side of Baltimore.
After they’d left, Mitch made some coffee and he and Artie sat in the kitchen and stared at each other.
“I’ve never had raccoons before, Artie.”
“It was two for the price of one, Mitch. Too good for them to pass up.”
“What the hell do we do? Sleep in hotel lobbies?”
“Maybe.” Artie got up to pour himself another cup.
“It’s getting personal,” Mitch said, thoughtful.
Artie raised an eyebrow. “The scotch and the Valium weren’t personal enough? They want you dead too, you know.”
Mitch looked frustrated. “The trouble is, neither one of us can prove a goddamned thing.” He was quiet for a moment, the lines in his face gradually smoothing out. “It’s a process of elimination, Artie. Mary and Jenny have left town, or so Mary said, right? Apparently she didn’t want to be around for the kill. Charlie’s not involved—at least we don’t think he is.”
“You
don’t think he is,” Artie said. “I’m not so sure.”
“Which leaves Lyle Pace—”
Artie shook his head. “Not Lyle. I saw him the other night; if he’d wanted to do me damage, he had plenty of opportunity.”
Mitch didn’t look convinced. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. What excuse could Pace offer if something happened to you in his own home? Even Schuler wouldn’t believe him, no matter what the story.”
“Dave Chandler,” Artie said, turning the thought over in his head. Dave, the airhead of the Club. Nice guy, innocuous, deep cover at its very best. “Or maybe Cathy Shea. She’s the one we know for sure who knew too much.”

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