Body Rides (20 page)

The address was typed:

LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT

West Los Angeles Station

1663 Butler Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90066

Marta sealed the note inside the envelope.

‘When do you think they’ll get it?’ Neal asked.

‘I’ll mail it on my way to the airport. Maybe in Inglewood. So it’ll probably go out tomorrow morning. The cops should have it on Wednesday.’

‘Good enough,’ Neal said.

Shortly after eleven o’clock that night, Marta left for work with the envelope in her purse.

After walking her down to her car, Neal returned to her apartment and let himself in with the key she’d given him. He sat down on the sofa. He felt shaky, and his heart beat fast.

Okay, he told himself. She’s gone.

What’ll I do?

He had two choices: either return to his own apartment in the flesh, or go there with the help of the bracelet.

If he went over in person, he would wait in the darkness, maybe sitting in a corner of the living room, the pistol in his hand. Sometime during the night, the killer might show up.

He
will
show up, Neal told himself. For all he knows, I can identify him. Besides, he’ll want to pay me back for shooting him. He’ll want to kill me.

Torture me first?

Strip me and tie me up, stick a bar of soap in my mouth so I can’t scream?

Do me the way he did Elise?

Going cold inside, Neal told himself that the guy probably wouldn’t work on him the way he’d worked on Elise. That had been a sex thing. Elise had been a beautiful woman.

It won’t get him off, doing that stuff to me
.

Don’t count on it, Neal thought. What if he isn’t particular – goes both ways? Or maybe he’ll torture me just for the hell of it. For revenge. I hurt him; he’ll hurt me worse.

Have to get me first
.

I’ll empty my gun into the bastard, Neal thought. Won’t matter how much he wants to torture me, he’s sprawled out dead with six slugs in his face.

Neal knew, however, that something could always go wrong.

He might get taken by surprise – jumped from behind. What if he drifted off to sleep while waiting for the killer to arrive? What if something went wrong with his pistol?

What if I empty it into him and he keeps on coming?

The idea seemed ridiculous, but sent tiny cold fingers scurrying up Neal’s spine. The nape of his neck went prickly with gooseflesh. His scalp crawled.

What if he isn’t human? Something immortal. A vampire, or something
.

That’s crazy, Neal told himself. Of course he’s human. He bled, didn’t he? Vampires don’t bleed.

‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘The bastard isn’t any vampire.’

Didn’t drink her blood, he thought.

How do you know? He bit her. He bit off pieces. God knows what kind of monster he is
.

‘A man,’ Neal said.

A Jeffrey Dahmer sort of guy, he thought. Mad as a hatter, but die-able.

‘Ultimately die-able,’ Neal said. He smiled. He liked the sound of it.

Maybe use it in a script sometime, he thought.

‘Ultimately die-able,’ he repeated. ‘Bullet-resistant, but die-able.’

Diabolical.

Rasputin, Neal thought. But give him a shave and he’ll look like Nosferatu.

I’m not going over there, he decided.

Neal carried his overnight bag into Marta’s bedroom and set it on top of her dresser. He took out only the bracelet.

In the lamplight, the gold gleamed with a deep, rich lustre. The emerald eyes of the snake sparkled brilliant green. He turned the bracelet, inspecting it closely. The details were intricate.

A gorgeous piece of jewelry, he thought. Too bad it has to be a snake.

Snakes bite
.

He shook his head.

He supposed that the snake design was probably symbolic of something.

How about the serpent in the Garden of Eden? Which was Satan, right?

It had been quite a few years since Neal had studied
Paradise Lost
, probably even longer since he’d read Genesis in
The Bible
. But it seemed to him that the serpent had led Adam and Eve ‘down the garden path’ by offering them forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge – knowledge of good and evil.

Which is pretty much what the bracelet does, he thought.

Probably no accident that it was made in the form of a serpent.

A warning? A promise of forbidden knowledge?

He wondered if the bracelet, itself, might be evil.

No. That didn’t make sense. From what he’d seen of Elise, she had been a wonderful person – not a hint of meanness, dishonesty, or cruelty about her. She wouldn’t have used the bracelet, time and time again, if there’d been anything sinister about it.

Besides, Neal had already used it three times. He’d noticed nothing evil about the bracelet or its effects.

He only wished it had a different design, something less ominous than a snake.

Don’t worry about it, he told himself.

And slipped it onto his wrist.

Leaving the lamp on, he stepped over to Marta’s bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress and pulled off his shoes. Then he stretched
out. He removed the pistol from his pocket, and placed it near his right hip.

As he raised his arm, he shut his eyes and tried to imagine Elise kissing the bracelet.

But he pictured her dead on the edge of the bathtub, naked and bloody and mutilated, her arms out, the bar of soap in her mouth. He could almost taste the soap.

Groaning, he kissed the gold head of the serpent.

My place, he thought as if giving directions to a cabby.

He felt himself rise out of his body, leaving behind its weight and aches. A moment later, he was outside the bedroom window. He glimpsed the balcony below him. Then he was above the dark swimming pool. He passed the far side of the apartment building as he climbed into the night. The moon was full, and very bright.

Suddenly too high for a good view of landmarks, he willed himself to descend. At treetop height, he prowled above the streets until he was able to orient himself. Then he headed straight for his own building.

He approached it from the front and swooped in through the wrought-iron bars of the closed gate. As he made a pass above the swimming pool, he scanned the area. Nobody in the pool. Nobody wandering outside, either on the ground level or on the balcony. Many of the apartment windows were dark, but some glowed with light from lamps or televisions on the other side of their curtains.

Maybe it’s still too early, Neal thought. Not even 11:30 yet. The bastard might not make his try till two or three in the morning, just to make sure nobody’ll be up and around.

Neal wondered if he would be able to remain that long.

He had no idea.

Gotta just play it by ear, he told himself.

And glided through the picture window and curtains of his living room.

The lights were off. He went to a wall switch and reached for it. No arm, however, appeared in his vision. He let out a small laugh, but didn’t hear it.

Who needs light, anyway? he thought. It’s not as if I’m going to crash into the furniture and hurt myself.

This is so damn odd!

Ought to be used to it by now, he told himself.

But the first trip last night, from the sofa to Elise and back, had started and ended very quickly. During the two trips that followed, he’d been preoccupied with worries about the killer and Elise, and hadn’t focused much attention on the wild, fabulous magic of his flying.

Now, he suddenly found himself marveling at it.

He could hardly believe that he was actually floating through his apartment five feet above the floor – actually able to see the dim shapes of everything, actually able to hear various sounds such as the motor of his refrigerator – though he had no eyes or ears. He had no body at all. He
shouldn’t
have any sensations at all.

For that matter, he shouldn’t even
be
here.

None
of this should be happening. Every bit of common sense told him that he was in the midst of an impossible experience. You can’t leave your body behind and go on a flying trip like an odd patchwork of Peter Pan, the Invisible Man, and Casper the Friendly Ghost. It defied reality.

Only one way to accomplish such a feat – by dreaming it.

Maybe I’m asleep back at Marta’s place, he thought, and this is nothing but a dream. I had to be dreaming last night, too, when I thought I was taking those bracelet trips.

I
imagined
going into Elise? Hearing her thoughts? Feeling everything she felt?

We talked about it later
.

Had he imagined that, too? Where did it all stop? When did the dream begin? Did he ever really meet Elise? Maybe he’d crashed on the way to Video City, and he’d been in a coma ever since.

Or dead.

‘Bullshit,’ he muttered.

I’m alive, he told himself. Alive and awake. This is not a dream.

Whatever’s going on, it’s happening. Who knows why? Just accept it.

For now.

While pondering the strangeness of the situation, Neal had somehow roamed out of his apartment. He found himself drifting over the pool, moving toward the front gate.

As if being pulled by a subtle force.

He supposed it must be the same force that he’d experienced so strongly last night – the imaginary elastic strip connecting him to
his body. Tonight, he hadn’t noticed it until now. Its pull felt very weak, barely noticeable.

Let’s check the alley, he thought.

He willed himself toward the rear gate.

The pull didn’t hold him back. He couldn’t even feel it as he jetted in silence past the end of the pool, past the laundry room and out the gate to the alley.

I’ll just make a quick run in both directions, he thought, then go back and wait in my . . .

Off to his right, far down the alley, a dark figure shambled toward him. He felt a quick lurch of fear.

Is it him?

Neal couldn’t tell. The stranger’s head was out of sight beneath a slouch-brimmed hat. A long, dark coat concealed the shape of his body.

Might even be a woman, Neal thought.

Or it might be the bastard coming for me
.

One way to find out.

Even as he began to consider approaching for a closer look, he found himself suddenly rushing over the pavement, heading straight toward the stranger.

Who wore a cape, not a coat.

A cape?

Nobody wears a cape! What’s going on?

Neal gazed into the darkness under the slouch hat.

Is it him?

The gray of a narrow, beardless face.

I don’t know, Neal thought. Could’ve shaved, or . . .

Uh-oh!

Neal was suddenly inside the stranger.

No wounds.

The man seemed young and healthy and excited. He was sweaty inside the cape, but he kept it shut in spite of the warm night. The lining, where it rubbed him, felt like satin. He seemed to be wearing trunks, but no other clothes. From the calves down, he was encased in hot leather. The boots felt slimy inside, and his feet slid around in them as he limped through the alley.

A fake limp, Neal realized.

While taking a quick inventory of the body, he’d ignored
the man’s mind. Now, he tuned in on it.

‘
Yes yes yes. I am the creeper, creep-creep-creeping. All those who see me piss their pants. Where is everyone? Come out, come out, wherever you are. Here comes the creeper, creep-creep-creeping. Nightmare man. Who knows what evil lurks in my heart?
’

Neal felt his glee, his anticipation.

What sort of nut
is
this guy? he wondered.

Not
my
nut.

‘
Yes, yes, yes. Here I come, creeping down the alley. Come one, come all. Behold the creeper. I am the black heart of the night. I’m coming for you
.’

Jesus H. Christ, Neal thought.

This is the sort of guy you find roaming down the alleys at night?