Night Show (8 page)

Confusion rolled through Linda’s mind. She knew only that she had to get out. Covering her ears against the cries from above, she raced up the passageway to the kitchen, and outside.

She was a block away when the alarm began wailing to wake the volunteer firemen. She ducked into an alley, no longer afraid of the shambling creature with the shopping cart, no longer afraid of whatever else might lurk in the shadows.

She had burnt the Freeman house, burnt the naked specter that had haunted her nightmares.

It had to be him. He’d looked different, but it had to be him.

The woman’s scream?

One of Sheila’s ghosts?

No such thing. Nothing to be afraid of.

Not even the empty darkness of the alley. Nothing could touch her.

D
ANI ROLLED
over and opened one eye. Jack was missing. She smelled coffee, and smiled. Turning onto her belly, she pushed her face into the pillow and snuggled against the sheet.

There was no hurry. She wasn’t needed at the studio today.

She writhed, stretching her stiff muscles, remembering how they got that way. Last night had been wonderful in spite of the creep.

Maybe she should thank the guy. He’d provided a certain excitement . . .

Excitement, my ass.

He’d scared the hell out of her. He ought to be caged, the damned degenerate.

She thought of him at the window, watching her with Jack, and her skin turned hot. The bed was no longer comfortable. She tossed aside the single sheet and climbed off. Taking her satin robe from the closet, she headed for the open door.

She found Jack at the bar, a coffee mug at his elbow, his fingers probing the mouth of the artificial head. He
grinned
around at her. ‘Amateur night,’ he said. Swiveling his stool, he rested the head on his lap. He flicked its red hair. ‘Cheap wig. The eyes were marbles.’ He pulled the tongue from its gaping mouth. ‘A slab of liver.’

‘Yuck.’

Jack flung it onto the counter. ‘The guy has, at least, got a certain macabre ingenuity.’

He tossed the head to Dani. She inspected its waxy flesh, its eye sockets and mouth.

‘Mortician’s wax,’ Jack said, ‘on one of those plastic skulls you can buy at a hobby shop.’

Dani inserted her forefinger in an eye hole. It pushed against a soft, rubbery substance. She pulled it out, glanced at the gray crescent under her nail, sniffed it. ‘Modeling clay.’

‘To give it some weight, I suppose.’

‘Well, Al obviously wasn’t involved. No one with any knowledge of the business would turn out this kind of work.’

Jack raised a forefinger. ‘Unless, Sherlock, he did it that way to throw off suspicion.’

‘Or as a joke,’ Dani added. She set the head down on the counter, and kissed Jack. ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning,’ he whispered. ‘Excuse me if I don’t touch.’

‘Me too,’ Dani picked up the slab of liver and eyed it critically. ‘Not enough for both of us. Would you rather have bacon?’

‘I think so.’

She carried the liver into the kitchen, holding her breath against the stench, and put it down the disposal. Then she washed her hands.

Jack washed up while she took the foil-wrapped bacon from the freezer. She unwrapped the rigid strips, dropped them into a skillet, and turned on a burner.

Jack came up behind her. He stroked her hair away, and she squirmed as he kissed the side of her neck. He rubbed her belly. A hand slipped inside her robe. It glided up her ribs, closed over her breast. His other hand loosened the cloth belt. He spread the robe open. He held both breasts, squeezing gently. Then his big hands moved lower, touching her skin like a warm breeze as they drifted down her ribs and belly, caressed her hips, brushed over her thighs. She quivered as the hands curved upward between her legs. They stirred her tuft of hair. She waited, but they didn’t seek deeper.

Turning around, she embraced Jack and kissed his open mouth. He held her tightly. Then his arms loosened and Dani stepped back. She stood motionless while he closed her robe and adjusted the belt.

‘You have a nice way of saying good morning,’ she whispered.

‘When my hands are clean.’

‘Two eggs?’

He nodded.

‘Will you stay?’

‘Let’s see how well you cook.’

‘No, really. I . . . I mean, aside from just plain wanting you here, I . . . I guess I’m chicken. That guy worries me.’

‘I’ll stay. At least for a while. We’ll see how it goes.’

Jack swabbed up the last of his egg yellow with a chunk of toast. As he finished chewing, he rubbed his mouth and whiskers with a napkin. ‘Well, that was real good. I’d better get going, now. Want to come along?’

‘No, you go ahead. I’ll try to finish the machete work, and then we can have the rest of the day free.’

She gave him a key to the front door, and kissed him good-bye. When he was gone, she cleaned up the kitchen. Then she returned to her bedroom. Her chest tightened as she reached for the curtain cord. She hesitated, then pulled. The curtains skidded open, letting sunlight fill the room, and she quickly looked out.

Nobody there.

Of course not.

The back yard was deserted, the pool’s surface pale blue and motionless, nothing on the diving board. Breathing more easily, she made the bed. She hung her robe on the closet door, cleaned herself up in the master bathroom, then got dressed in cut-off jeans and a baggy, sleeveless sweatshirt. She slipped into thongs, and made her way through the silent house.

The aroma of bacon lingered in the kitchen. She glanced out the window. Her Rabbit stood alone on the driveway, as if abandoned. Other cars were parked on the street.

No hearse.

She stepped to the side door, entered her garage, and
turned
on the overhead light. Shutting the door, she wished for a way to lock it from this side.

If he broke into the house . . .

She realised that none of her doors locked from both sides. You could lock someone out of the house, but not inside. You might secure yourself within a bathroom or bedroom, but there was no way to seal the doors from the other side.

Dani saw the workings of a benevolent, misguided hand.

No, no, no, thou shalt not lock thy child in his bedroom.

And thou shalt not take refuge in thy garage.

Probably a goddamn law against it. Probably in the building code.

Screw it, she thought. I’m gonna put a bolt on that sucker.

She would have to buy one, first.

Today.

But not just now. The first priority was business. Dani stepped over to her workbench and picked up the foam latex face of Bill Washington. He was to be the second victim, nonchalantly drinking a beer when the maniac leaped from the porch roof and whacked him across the forehead with a machete.

Jack would be wielding the machete, swinging it with enough force to penetrate the forehead of the appliance. The catcher’s mask beneath would cushion the blow for Bill.

Dani pulled up a stool. The glass eyes seemed to watch
her
, as if mildly curious, as she fitted the face over the metal cage of the catcher’s mask. She determined where it needed more padding. With an Exacto knife, she cut pieces from a mat of foam rubber. She glued them inside the chin, the cheeks, behind the eyes. She pushed blood-bags behind the forehead, then glued a patch of rubber over them. When the face fit snug against the tubing of the mask, she glued it in place.

With calipers, she measured the width of the forehead at the angle they’d decided the machete would strike. She marked off the distance on a sheet of poster board, and snipped out a crescent. She tried the cut-away cardboard on the face. The cut was too shallow. She took off another quarter inch, and again pressed it to Bill’s brow.

Fine.

Stretching over the workbench, she picked up the two machetes. They looked identical, vicious weapons with worn wooden handles. But one weighed only a few ounces while the other dragged her arm down. Except for the handle, taken from a real machete, the lighter of the pair was constructed of balsa wood. Jack had done a good job. The paint gleamed like steel, shiny in the same places as the other, mottled with rust near the hilt, a few nicks on the edge.

A work of art.

Dani hated to tamper with it.

But if she didn’t, Jack would have to take time when he returned. He’d be glad to have it done.

So she pressed the cardboard cut-out against the
blade
, and traced its crescent with a pencil. Carefully, she whittled down to the line. The machete looked as if a large bite had been taken out of it.

She pressed it, at an angle, against the mask’s forehead.

It fit well.

After the real blow, the mask would be removed, the balsa machete glued to Bill’s own forehead, and makeup applied. Cameras rolling again, he’d quiver and shake and slump.

End of effect.

With the proper camera angles, lighting and editing, it should look like poor Bill actually caught a blade in the face.

Smiling, Dani brushed the balsa curls off her sweatshirt.

She was out by the pool, stretched on a chaise longue with the sun pressing warm on her back, when the sliding door from the bedroom rumbled open. Her stomach jumped. She raised her head and saw Jack come out.

‘Sorry it took so long.’

‘That’s all right.’

He walked forward, his swimming trunks hanging low on his hips, a towel under one arm. ‘Had a couple of errands to run.’

‘I just got out here. Finished up with Bill and the machete.’

‘How do they look?’

‘Just great.’

‘So we’re all set for tomorrow?’

‘All set. The rest of the day is for play.’

With a grin, he flopped his towel onto the patio chair beside Dani. ‘How’s the water?’

‘Let’s find out.’

‘B
LESS MY
soul! How are you, honey?’

‘Just fine,’ Linda said, nodding pleasantly to the buxom, grinning woman behind the counter.

‘Mighty good to see you up and around.’

‘Thank you, Elsie.’ She turned to the paperback rack, scanning the covers.

‘You look real good. How’s the leg?’

‘Good as new, almost.’

‘We were all just worried to death about you. ’Specially when we heard you was in one of them comas. I read me a book about a fella in a coma. He was dead to the world, oh, ’bout ten years.’ Elsie leaned over the counter, her eyes widening. ‘When he come to, he could see in the future. Gave him no end of trouble.’

‘I wouldn’t mind that,’ Linda said.

‘More a curse than a gift, you ask me.’

‘Well, it didn’t happen to me, so I guess I’ll never know.’ She slipped a book from the rack and carried it to the counter.

Elsie picked it up. ‘Oh dear, that’s a scary one. Did you read the other?’

‘I sure did.’

‘Them Bradleys, they had no end of trouble.’ Elsie rang it up. ‘You hear the news about our own haunted house?’

‘The Freeman place?’

‘Got burnt to the ground last night. Elwood Jones was in for his
Post
, told me all ’bout it. He’s on the volunteers, you know.’

Linda nodded. She put a hand on the counter to steady herself.

‘Yessir, burnt to the ground. That’s three seventy-eight, with tax.’

Linda opened her purse. Her hands trembled as she took out her billfold.

In a hushed voice, Elsie said, ‘There was two bodies in it, burnt to a crisp.’

‘My God,’ Linda muttered.

‘They figure one’s Ben Leland’s boy, Charles. Couldn’t tell by looking, but he’s turned up missing and they say he takes his girlfriends in there for some foolishness – though, Lord knows, you wouldn’t catch
me
in there after dark. Nor in broad daylight, neither.’ She took the bills from Linda and counted out the change. ‘Elwood, he says they don’t know who the gal is yet. Larson, down by the morgue, he’s gonna have to go by her teeth.’ Elsie slipped the book and receipt into a bag. ‘Real bad business, but that’s what comes of fooling where you don’t belong. Least the Freeman place is gone, now. That’s a blessing.’

‘Yes it is,’ Linda said.

‘You have a good day, now, and don’t make yourself a stranger.’

‘Thanks, Elsie,’ She took the bag. With a wave, she turned away and headed for the door.

Outside, the heat wrapped her like a blanket. She stayed close to the store fronts, welcoming the shade of their awnings as she walked up the block.

Charles Leland. He’d been two years ahead of her in school, and she knew him only slightly. He wasn’t the one who’d come after her with the ax, though. Not unless he’d been wearing weird makeup or a mask. That was too bad. She would’ve liked to burn up that man along with the house.