"I'd like to meet one of your ghosts."
Cat looked wistful. "I wish there was a way that I could arrange that. I've been thinking of Tiddy Mun off and on all day. I wonder where he went?" She looked through the screen to the hedge, and goose bumps lifted on her arms. "I think there's something about my house that scares him now."
"Nobody's going to get into the house tonight, Cat. That's why I'm here."
"But what if someone
does
come? What if he's got a gun or something?"
"Then we call the police."
Cat thought about last night's visit to the Otherword, of what Tiddy Mun had told her about the evil thing that was hunting them— her and him and all the ghosts.
"What if it's something worse still?" she asked. "Like… like some kind of monster?"
God, that sounded stupid, she thought. But she couldn't shake the creeping feeling from her. Last night, when that malevolent presence came swooping down at her in the Otherworld…
"It's a monster all right," Peter said. "But a very human one. Someone who likes to harass women who live alone in big houses."
"I want to go inside," Cat said.
The night no longer seemed friendly. It gathered beyond the spill of the living room's lights, which were all that lit the porch, throwing shadows that were dark and impenetrable. Cat picked up their mugs. Before Peter could protest, she had already slipped inside.
Farley was cold sober and on the edge. Ever since that moment in Central Park this afternoon… Reality seemed to have taken a long step to one side, leaving him behind. He had a constant buzz between his ears, a feeling that hovered between a hangover and a headache. But the worst thing was this inescapable sensation of living on borrowed time. A feeling of impending doom.
"You're nuts," Ron said when Farley had tried to explain it to him. "What you need is a bellyful of hard juice, my man. Nothing else will do. The whole world loves a drunk. Or at least it loves a drink. I forget which."
Farley left Ron somewhere down on Rideau Street and went off to look for someplace safe. He was hunched down in the alley that ran through the four-story apartment building at the corner of Laurier and Bank. It was an old building, and it was dark in the alley. He didn't know if it was a safe place or not because he didn't know what he was hiding from. From himself, he might have said had anyone been there to ask.
He clutched his suitcase tightly to his chest. There was no one in the alley to ask him questions or keep him company. He was all alone, and how did you hide from yourself anyway?
Christ, he could use a drink.
"You don't understand," Rick said.
Bill took a sip from his second cappuccino. The coffee was rich and foamy, and it almost made up for the turn the conversation had taken. In one corner of the restaurant a man who looked like he'd stepped right off the set of some Italian extravaganza, complete with striped shirt and thick mustache, was playing sentimental music on an accordian.
"No,
you
don't understand," Bill said.
The argument had started after they'd finished their main course. While the waitress was serving their zabaglione— a custard and egg yolk mix, laced with marsala wine— Rick had begun his pitch.
"It's just another three, four thousand," Rick was saying now. "With the Christmas season coming up…"
Bill shook his head. He glanced at Debbie who, whatever other plans she might have for Rick tonight, was sensibly keeping out of this discussion.
"I know you, Rick," he said. "The only reason I went along with the first loan— against Emile's better judgement, I might add— was because I knew that if you did screw up like I expected you to, I could always write the whole thing off on my tax return. Why the hell do you think I had our contract drawn up the way I did? You might own Captain Computer in name, but on paper and
until
you make good your debt to me, I've got a piece of your business. I'm not liable to any other debts you might accrue, but when you go under you can bet your ass
I
won't be screwed. In fact, as things stand now, your going bankrupt right now would stand me in far better stead than if we let things go on as they were."
"Bill. We're old friends…."
"We
were
friends, Rick. But I haven't any more patience for your get-rich schemes. Not when you won't work at them yourself. I'll tell you this: if I thought you'd clean up your act and give it an honest go, I'd help you out. But the way things are going—"
"The way things are going? You sanctimonious bastard. What the hell do
you
know about how things are going?"
His voice was loud, and people at the neighboring tables were starting to turn their way. Bill stood up.
"You can think what you want, Rick. I've never tried to hurt you. The only person that's standing in your way is yourself."
With that he nodded brusquely to Debbie, who gave him a wry grin, and left the restaurant.
"The cheap fucker," Rick muttered. "He even stiffed me for the tab."
"Hey," Debbie said, laying a hand on his arm. "Take it easy."
"Take it…" For a moment there was a coldness in his eyes that made Debbie wish she'd left with Bill, then Rick shrugged and smiled. "What the fuck," he said. "Easy come, easy go. It's the story of my life."
"Why don't we go down to the Market?" Debbie said. "There's some nice bars down there. We could talk, have a few drinks, and then… see where the evening takes us."
Rick regarded her wolfishly. "Hey, hey," he said. "All of a sudden the night's bright and things're looking good."
He knew Stella was waiting for him at his place, but there was no way he wanted to see her right now— not go home and have to listen to her go on about something or other on top of the shit Worthington had just laid on him. And besides, he thought as he studied Debbie's cleavage, he had a point or two he wanted to work out with his present company. Stella could wait. Hell, she liked waiting, and it'd give her something else to moan about when he saw her.
Something moved at the end of the alley, and Farley looked up. The night had gotten cooler and he was in the middle of taking a jacket out of his suitcase when he sensed the motion. He saw a shadow blocking the mouth of the alleyway. A tall figure. Squinting, he tried to make out who it was.
"Hey, Ron," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. "That you?"
The figure moved toward him, blue eyes glittering like a cat's in the dim light. Evil flowed from those eyes like blood from a fresh wound.
"Oh, Jesus fuck," Farley moaned. "Don't hurt me, mister."
The suitcase fell from his lap and clunked on the ground. He put a hand out to the wall, seeking purchase, but he was shaking too much to stand. The eyes closed in on his own, demanding, overpowering him.
Please… leave me alone… don't hurt… snake-headed
Farley tried to say the words, but they froze in his throat. He couldn't move. He couldn't even shake anymore.
The stranger bent down low, face inches from Farley's unshaven features. Suddenly Farley remembered the man and the man in the park. His bladder gave way and urine soaked his pants. He saw a glint of bright metal in the man's hand. The blue eyes swallowed him. He felt the snakes from his nightmare crawling down his throat, in through his ears and nose, right up his asshole.
Darkness came up and swallowed him.
Lysistratus leaned forward. He laid a hand against Farley's cheek, felt the coarse stubble under his palm. The reek of sweat, alcohol, and urine filled the air, but he ignored it. He touched his forehead to that of his victim's, willed him to dream, then drew the dreams out of him, wine-sodden but still nourishing. And then, just as they weakened, just before their last essence spilled into him, he plunged his knife into the wino's throat and gave a small cry of pleasure as the life spark leapt from the dying mind into his own.
He moved back before the blood could fountain over him. Stepping over the growing puddle, he paused long enough to wipe his knife blade clean on the dead man's shirt, then slipped on through the alleyway, took its right turn, and found himself in a parking lot. The knife vanished into his gym bag.
The dreams he'd stolen tonight set the blood to pounding through his veins. He lifted his head to the sky and almost wailed like the wolf the Inuit shaman named him. He bared his teeth in a grin instead and started for home.
And then there was one, he thought.
"This is weird, you know that?" Mick said.
He and Ben were sitting in Ben's cab. It was parked where Cameron met Riverdale— about five houses down the block from Cat's place. They slouched low in their seats, rearview and side mirrors adjusted so that they could see the street behind them without having to show themselves.
"He might not even show up again," Ben said. "He almost got caught last night."
Mick shook his head. "Nah. Those kinds of guys always come back. The more risk there is, the better they like it. What I'm wondering is whether maybe one of us should be watching the back."
"Peter said Cat saw him standing in the shadow of that house on the corner. If he does show up tonight, I think it'll be to look around, not to break in."
"Maybe." Mick hooked his hands around his knees and leaned his head back. "I tell you," he added, "if we catch this sucker tonight, he's going to be sorry he ever messed around with this kind of shit. It's gonna be one, two, three." He smacked his hands lightly against his knees. "And that'll be all she wrote. You got the time, Ben?"
"Quarter past two."
"If he's coming, he'll be coming soon."
By the time Houlihan's was closing and Rick and Debbie hit the street, neither one of them was exactly sober. They made their way down York Street to where they'd left Rick's car, managing to get into their respective seats without undue mishap. Rick stared blankly at the keys in his hand.
"Where do these go?" he asked.
Debbie giggled. "Don't you
know?"
"Ish a joke— get it?"
Debbie didn't, but it didn't really seem to matter. Rick fiddled around with the keys until he finally fit the proper one into its slot and turned the motor over. It caught with a roar as he gave it too much gas.
"My… place or yours?" Debbie asked.
Her head felt too dizzy to keep upright, so she leaned it against Rick's shoulder. He dropped his hand down to her thigh and she closed her legs, trapping it.
"We'll go to… mine," Rick announced. "I want you to meet Shtella. You'll like her. She humps like a bunny."
Debbie regarded him with drunken worry. "But I don't do it with women."
"Thash okay. Neither does she."
He pulled away from the curb in a series of stops and starts, steered the car around the block until they wove their way out onto Sussex Drive. They cruised down Colonel By Drive, deaked up through the parking lot at Defense Headquarters and headed south on Nicholas Street. Rick began to whistle through his teeth while Debbie dozed contentedly on his shoulder.
Cat and Peter sat in the darkened study. Though a bed had been made up on the couch for Peter downstairs, neither of them was ready to try to sleep. Once they'd come inside, Cat's nervousness had stolen into Peter, so that by the time midnight arrived, they were both starting at every sound.
They didn't speak much. Cat sat in her thinking chair by the window, Peter in the rocker they'd brought in from her bedroom. When Cat started to doze around two o'clock, Peter chose a cassette at random from the twenty or so stacked up beside Cat's Aiwa. The one he picked was a homemade collection labeled "Misc. Classical." Returning to the rocker, he half dozed along with Cat as the solemn organ and strings of Albinoni's "Adagio" whispered through the room.
Ten-thirty rolled by without Rick showing up, and Stella wondered why she was surprised. She looked around his living room, mad enough to trash something. Like the picture window. His Sony Trinatron would go nicely through it. Or maybe his stereo, one component at a time.
She didn't know why she had ever expected him to change, didn't know why she should even care. They were so obviously mismatched that only she and a blind man could have missed it. All that kept her from leaving right now was that she wanted to confront him when he came in, to find out just what he had wanted out of this relationship. The money she'd invested in Captain Computer? Well, he could kiss that goodbye. She'd see her lawyer about it first thing in the morning and have that money out of the company so fast it'd make his head spin.
She got up to pace the living room and caught her reflection in the big picture window. Was it her body? She wasn't exactly Bo Derek, but she wasn't ugly either. Before she started seeing Rick, she'd never had any trouble getting dates. The trouble she did have was trying to find a meaningful relationship in a world that had turned its back on commitments.
So how did she go about meeting someone nice? Someone that cared. Who was willing to give as much of himself as she had to give him. How the hell did she make sure she didn't end up with someone like Rick again? She was tired of being ragged. When it came to men, she always seemed to pick the wrong ones. If they didn't need mothering, they were like Rick and didn't really give a shit about anyone but themselves. What they wanted were whores— there when they needed a fuck, gone when they didn't want to see them.
She glanced at her watch. They were running
The Playboy and the Bobby-Soxer
on Channel 11 in ten minutes— Shirley Temple as a teenager, but sounding just the same as she did in
The Good Ship Lollipop—
with Cary Grant, handsome as ever. She'd seen it before, but maybe it'd be just the thing to calm her down.
Where were the guys like Cary Grant in her life? Why did she have to get stuck with the Ricks? If he'd been with another woman tonight, she was going to kill him. She was going to kill him anyway, but if he'd been out playing Hot-cock Kirkby, she was going to
really
kill him. It wouldn't do anything to help their own relationship— because that was finished as of tonight— but if it made him think twice about the next woman he dragged into his life…