Halloween III - Season of the Witch (12 page)

“Don’t do this to me! He was my father. I have a right to know who killed—”

“All right. He said there was a mistake of some kind. The body of that man who burned up in the parking lot? They examined the wrong specimen. There wasn’t much left. Got him mixed up with the dashboard or something. All they had was a big pile of plastic.”

Challis eyed her for a reaction.

She had the kind of face that would never give her away, not unless she wanted it to. But her spine was rigid as a ramrod.

“Want to leave?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Ellie intensely. “Very much. But not until I find out what happened when my father went to that factory.”

You can run, thought Challis. But you can’t hide.

FINAL
PROCESSING

C H A P T E R
9

The morning sun was a white-hot eye in the sky over Santa Mira.

The early mist burned out of the fields, a fine gauze of steam unwinding from the vines and rutted irrigation beds. Challis divided the curtains and saw a jury of black crows disarranging the yellow-green creepers of a pumpkin bed that had been neglected in the harvesting. The largest of the melons were cracked open like fiery skulls, with shriveled features pecked into their faces to reveal decay within.

He let go of the curtains and the room was a haven once more.

Ellie stirred on the bed.

She stretched her arms up and curved her hands by the soft oval of her face. Her dark curls were tangled on the pillow.

She had not fallen asleep till the moon was low. That she had slept at all was a very special dispensation. She had clung to him through the night with a fierceness he had never known. It both frightened and exhilarated him. But it was a precarious edge he could not maintain much longer. Shortly before dawn he had felt the abyss opening beneath him. Shadows on the wall had taken on form and the dripping faucet in the bathroom had become a clock ticking away the minutes of his life. The fevered sleep that followed for him was worse than no sleep at all.

A car rumbled past on its way to the factory, and the Kupfers were already singing in the shower and flushing their toilet repeatedly.

Challis fingered one of the instant coffee service packets left in the rooms for guests of the motel. But his body was too near the breaking point to handle a dose of caffeine nerves now.

The smell of fresh coffee, though, would not hurt. Linda used to wake him with it every morning as soon as the children were up . . .

But that was years ago. Years and years; another lifetime.

It was not until some time later, when the sun was past its zenith and slanting in through the curtains, that Ellie sat up in the battlefield of sheets.

“Hi,” she said, and yawned.

“Hi.”

“You let me sleep.”

“You needed it.”

“What time is it?”

“Afternoon.”

She shook her head clear and the curls fell into place. Just like that. She thought for a few seconds. Then it all came back to her. It was like a physical blow forcing her out of bed.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she told him, and reached for her jeans. “We have to get over there.”

Her breasts were high and firm. She paused once, with her blouse halfway buttoned.

“I want you to know something,” she said.

“Yeah?” He was afraid to hear it, but wrote that off to paranoia.

She tucked in her blouse and said with great solemnity, “I wouldn’t have tried all this if you hadn’t come along. You know that, don’t you?”

He wasn’t sure how to take it.

She came over to him. When he didn’t touch her at once, she leaned into his chest and held his lapels. Her hair smelled impossibly sweet.

“So thanks,” she said.

He breathed again and closed his arms around her.

Don’t thank me, he thought. Not yet.

The factory was humming with activity. Overheated trailer trucks arrived empty and departed with their mudguards dragging in the dirt. Challis parked Ellie’s Oldsmobile at the south side.

Without any trouble they soon found their way to a door marked
OFFICE.

The first thing they saw inside was a Silver Shamrock trademark dominating one wall like an expanding map of the world. Above it in the reception area hung a fatherly portrait of their founder, Conal Cochran, all silver hair and stylish benevolence.

Challis wondered if the employees were required to genuflect on their way in and out.

A short hall led to a central receiving counter, where a dedicated hive of office workers made busy with bills of lading. The most Irish-looking was clearly in charge. Of course. Challis made a sound to get her attention.

“May I help you?”

“Yes,” said Ellie. “I—my father put in an order last week. Something’s gone wrong. We never received it.”

The secretary’s rosy cheeks inflated in a pleasant smile. “What firm do you represent?”

“Grimbridge’s, Sierra Mesa.”

“Just a moment,” lilted the secretary.

She sorted through a desk piled high with orders. Challis heard typewriters and telephones chiming from all directions. Office personnel puttered between desks and files. Yet the ambience was not entirely convincing.

It’s the voices, thought Challis.
There are none.
No one else has spoken a word except into a telephone since we walked in.

He put his mouth over Ellie’s ear. “Have you noticed . . . ?” he began.

“There must be some mistake, dearie,” said the secretary. Nothing would furrow that brow of hers. She proffered a yellow form. “Mr. Grimbridge himself picked up that order on the twenty-first. Here’s his signature.”

Ellie relieved her of the form. “Hmm. Well. Er—thank you. Do you remember the transaction?”

“No,” said the secretary, unruffled, “but you can talk to someone who might.”

She rang a button on the counter.

Immediately a broad-shouldered man with red hair entered from the back. Again, something was off-center. The timing was too pat. He would almost have had to be standing on the other side of the door, waiting for a signal to come in.

“Red? These people lost an order.” She took the bill back. “Did you load this one?”

“Sure did,” he said promptly. “Last week. Man in an old green station wagon.”

Ellie gasped. “That’s right! Did he say where he was going?”

“No, ma’am. He headed out to the north, though. I remember that.”

Ellie’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you.”

“Are you going to place another order?” said the secretary.

“No.” That was that. Ellie took Challis’s arm.

“Let’s go.”

Before they could get back up the hall, heavy footsteps plodded around the bend and the Kupfers arrived, blocking the way. Challis drew Ellis aside.

Big Kupfer planted himself flat-footed before the counter.

“Well!” he said. “How you doin’?” He held out his meaty hands and attracted his clan to him. He announced proudly, “Buddy Kupfer and family to see Mr. Cochran!”

The secretary had the same rosy smile for them, too. “Yes, Mr. Kupfer. Welcome! I’ll tell Mr. Cochran you’re here.”

Little Buddy tugged at his father’s doubleknit leisure suit. “When do we get to see ’em makin’ the masks?”

“Real soon, Little Buddy, real soon.”

The child wandered off, sat restlessly and took a pocket computer game out of his high-water pants. The game produced a volley of blipping noises.

Betty Kupfer was having trouble with something under her skirt. She wrinkled her powdered face. “Buddy,” she confided, “I’m bushed already.”

Big Buddy’s face fell. He set his bulk stubbornly. “C’mon! The fun’s just starting.”

Ellie said behind her hand, “I’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here.”

There was a new agitation at the back of the office.

The typewriters silenced. Only the ringing of a telephone and Little Buddy’s battery-powered war-gaming broke the tension.

“Wait one more minute,” said Challis.

A door opened and Cochran himself sauntered in, a living picture of health and goodwill. He had on a dark blue suit that fit his tall frame like a glove, and a spectacular tie blossomed on his white silk shirt.

He held out his hands.

“So
this
is Buddy Kupfer and his lovely family! My friends, Mr. Kupfer has sold more Silver Shamrock masks this year, by far, than anyone else in the country.”

He clasped his hands together in praise.

The office workers broke into a tattoo of applause.

Cochran took possession of Buddy’s hand and beamed until the champion salesman was ready to bust his buttons.

Betty flushed.

“If she cries,” whispered Ellie, “I’ll throw up.”

Little Buddy picked his nose.

Cochran would not let go of Buddy’s paw. “Silver Shamrock likes to do something special for its champion each year, and that’s why you’ve been invited here. I hope your stay is a merry one, so I do!”

The milk of human kindness was dripping oleaginously from his lips.

Buddy pumped Cochran’s hand in return. He would not quit. He blushed beet-red. “Thank you! Thank you, sir!”

At this point he would have polished Cochran’s shoes with the oil on his nose if asked.

“Do you think this is a little off-the-wall?” whispered Ellie. “Or is it just me?”

The applause died down and the workers returned to their papers. On cue.

Cochran repossessed his hand. He fastened his penetrating gaze on the two unscheduled spectators.

“And to my other friends, Mr. and Mrs.—?”

“Smith,” Challis deadpanned.

“Smith.”
Cochran’s eyes embraced them. “Of course. My apologies for last night’s disturbance. I want you both to know that Miss Guttman is going to be fine. She’s been flown to a hospital in San Francisco.”

Right, thought Challis. And chickens have lips. Sure they do.

“And as to the confusion over your order—” Had he been listening at the door? “—Let me simply say that a replacement is being prepared for you at this very moment, absolutely free. It’s on me.”

Buddy was falling all over himself. “Is he incredible, or what?” he wanted to know.

“And now, Mr. Kupfer, a guided tour for you and your family.” Cochran spread his hands, about to lead them on a pilgrimage. “And for our other friends, of course, if they would like to come.”

Challis and Ellie traded uneasy glances.

Cochran’s smile nailed them where they stood. It was so broad it was mocking.

Ellie threw an impudent smile back at him.

“By all means!” she said.

“I don’t think I trust that guy,” whispered Challis, imitating her brand of dry understatement, as they followed the procession through a high door.

Ellie tried on her most cheerful expression. “Me neither,” she said through her sparkling teeth.

Cochran took the lead.

“The latex is heated and poured in, then cooled and poured off. Then it’s all trimming, painting and packaging . . .”

The maskworks was a long, spacious room sectioned by benches and presided over by unspeaking production-line workers. The tables and floor were a pearly gray from the dusting and powdering of the molds and masks. The lighting was indirect and perpetual; it could have been high noon or the middle of the night. That and the fact that there were no clocks reminded Challis of one of the small casinos in downtown Las Vegas.

The staff in their green smocks labored without complaint, humorless sleepwalkers treading back and forth to redistribute stacks of flesh-colored rubber between the tables. One tall worker with deepset eyes and curly hair removed an intermediate stage of a witch’s head as if turning a surgical glove inside out. The material popped into shape, revealing deepset eye sockets and a prognathic brow not unlike those of its handler.

Challis steered Ellie forward.

Where’s the Muzak? he wondered. Without it, what keeps them so contented? They act like they’re hypnotized. Or drugged.

That, he thought, might not be so far out of the question . . .

“And now I’d like to take you all one level deeper,” said Cochran. “This way, please.”

He unlocked a door marked
PRIVATE
and descended a steep stairway.

They saw his manicured hand beckoning them deeper.

For a few steps he was out of their sight. The light clarified; Challis concentrated on what lay ahead.

They were entering a portion of Cochran’s own quarters.

It was a low-ceilinged cellar which had been remade into a compact museum of the company’s best models, the secret sanctum of a lifetime collector.

One entire wall was inset with false heads of the most elaborate and imaginative designs. Here a sculpted ghoul so real its eyes might have been following Little Buddy on his mad dash down the aisle; there a cobra head large enough to swallow a man whole; and there a withered crone, meticulously detailed right down to glued hairs and stippled pores, with a homuncular second face attached unborn to its left cheek.

“Oh, wow!” said Buddy Senior, whistling low. “This is it! This is really it. Hall of Fame time . . .”

“What’s famous?” said Challis.

“You really don’t know? Conal Cochran? The all-time genius of the practical joke? He invented sticky toilet paper!”

“Oh.”

Challis kept an eye on Ellie. She was too preoccupied to be impressed by the displays. Pretending interest, she wandered placidly among cast-iron clockwork animations from the nineteenth century, each ticking to its own inner mechanism. Yet she hung back, waiting to see what Cochran’s next move would be.

Little Buddy ran ahead to the end of the room. There a wide glass case protected the most valuable pieces, arranged on velvet pads and lighted as if they were examples of the finest jewelers’ art.

Buddy zeroed in on this ultimate display and led Challis to it.

“You
must
know the Dead Dwarf gag? The Soft Chainsaw? All his!”

“Gee,” said Challis, “I didn’t know . . .”

Buddy took over as if he had been promoted to second in command.

“He manufactured the best Boomer Cushion in the business! Made a great sound!” A flatulent Bronx cheer escaped his lips. “Really loud and convincing. The man has always paid attention to detail. Mechanical toys, masks . . .”