Night Kills (17 page)

    There on the glass coffee table was a press book for a Betty Grable movie called Mother Wore Tights. Next to that was a colour postcard that showed the Cathay Circle Theatre in Beverly Hills on the night of April 4, 1936. How beautiful and sleek the fancy cars looked; how beautiful and sleek the movie stars themselves looked. The beams of floodlights criss-crossed against the soft silver night. Hundreds of people stood swooning as movie stars emerged from limousines to the bursting intensity of flashbulbs. "Boy," Denise said. "You've got a neat place here."

    "Thank you."

    "And I've never seen so many tapes." She nodded to his videotapes. "Do you have Ginger Rogers?"

    He smiled possessively at his tape collection. "Do you prefer Ginger Rogers the singer-dancer in
Shall We Dance
?-or do you prefer Ginger Rogers the serious actress in
Kitty Foyle
?"

    "She was a serious actress?"

    "Yes, and a good one."

    "Really?"

    He smiled again. She got the feeling that he thought she was kind of naive, but that he found it endearing. He wasn't like a john. She wasn't trying to please, but she seemed to be pleasing him anyway. "Really," he said.

    As he arranged himself in his chair once more, getting comfortable, she said, "Would you mind if I asked you about-you know, why you're in the wheelchair and all."

    "Be my guest."

    "I'm not trying to be rude."

    "I know."

    "Were you born that way?"

    "Yes. And I was lucky."

    "Lucky?"

    He laughed. "Well, not lucky-lucky but luckier than the people who had spina bifida before I did. People like me didn't used to live very long. Not until thirty years ago."

    "What happened then?"

    "Somebody was kind enough to invent the brain shunt, which drains the cerebral spinal fluid. It allowed us to be reasonably self-sufficient and to live a lot longer."

    "I'm glad they invented that, then."

    He shook his head. "I keep thinking about Brolan."

    "You really like him, huh?"

    "Yeah. He seems like a real nice guy-and he's in a lot of trouble. Somebody's really trying to make him look guilty." He sounded as if he wanted to go on, say more, but he didn't.

    She said, "You really don't think it was him last night?"

    "Who tried to kill you? No."

    "But why would somebody do that, then? Pretend to be him, I mean?"

    "I'm not sure. Neither is Brolan."

    Unable to help herself, she yawned. The warmth of the place, the comfort of the recliner in which she sat, had made her tired after such a long day of tension.

    He said, "Would you like to watch a movie?"

    "Right now?"

    "Sure. We're waiting for Brolan to contact me. We may as well have some fun doing it. What kind of movie would you like to see?"

    "You want me to choose it?"

    "Why not? You're my guest, aren't you?"

    "Then you're not mad at me-for being on your back porch?"

    "Not anymore. I was. But not anymore." He nodded to the tape library. "Why don't you go pick one?"

    "God, you're really nice."

    "So are you."

    She got up and went over to the tapes. You could tell by the way that he had everything alphabetized and colour coded that these movies were his life. He was a lot more than just a guy in a wheelchair. He was warm, and he was funny, and he was smart, and he was generous. Somehow, being in this place was like being in a retreat of some sort, a place where people couldn't get to you and hassle you and hustle you. And it was because of him-because of the careful, loving way he'd put this place together, layer after layer of things he loved, to protect him from a world that saw him as a freak. Having always felt like a freak herself, she knew just what he was doing.

    "Hey, you've got
Cat People
," she said.

    "You like that?"

    "Yeah. It's really spooky. I saw it on cable."

    "The man who produced it was named Val Lewton. He made some great horror pictures."

    "Could we see that,
Cat People
, I mean?"

    "Simone Simon? You bet."

    "How come she had the same first name and last name?"

    He laughed loudly at that one. "I'm afraid that's one of those great Hollywood mysteries that we mere mortals will never know."

    She took down Cat People and handed it over to him. He flipped across the hardwood floor and put the tape in. "They really screwed it up when they remade it," he said. "Lots of blood and guts. And for no good reason. Did you ever see it?"

    "I wanted to. This was back when I still living at home. But my dad wouldn't let me. He thought it would be too sexy." Greg Wagner looked at her, hitting the pause button on the VCR. "When's the last time you saw your sister?"

    Denise felt sad. Whenever she thought of her sister, all she could imagine were stark white walls and bars on the windows and long, long hypodermic needles and people in small rooms lying on beds and sobbing and sobbing.

    "They took her to a mental hospital. I've only been there a couple of times."

    "How come?"

    "Rochester's a long way away, I guess."

    "Would you like to see her?"

    "Sure."

    "Good. Why don't we go up there next week?"

    "Are you serious?"

    "Sure, I've got this friend who's got spina bifida, too, except he's got this big Buick specially laid out so he can drive it. He loves to drive. He'll give us a ride. How would that be?"

    "That would be great!"

    "Good, consider it done." He turned back to the VCR and punched up the tape. "And now," he said, "for the mysteriously-named Simone Simon."

    Denise plopped herself down in the recliner again and prepared herself to watch one good movie.

    

    

    THE MOTEL WAS out past the University, where Washington Avenue intersects with University Avenue. It was modern and brick, with more than a hundred units, and designed to resemble an apartment house. On the west side was a small bar where a sing-along piano (which told you something about the age and

    the inclination of the clientele) was played five nights a week by a chunky woman in a sequinned gown and at least five huge costume jewellery rings. She preferred songs of the forties (having always had a mad crush on Dick Haymes), but usually relented and played stuff from the fifties, Fats Domino ballads such as "Blueberry Hill" being the most popular.

    He knew all this because he'd been inside a few times himself.

    That night, however, he was standing in the shadows beneath the overhang by the parking lot. In the blowing snow, the red neon sign over the bar's door was blood red. He had been there fifteen minutes, waiting for her, the hooker who came there on the nights when she wasn't working. The people inside didn't know she was a hooker, of course. They were too respectable even to think about things like that except in a joking way. No, they spent more time contemplating dentures and trusses and support hose than they ever did hookers.

    Around nine-thirty she came out. She was tall, and she was drunk, which made for an interesting combination, because instead of just walking, she tottered, like a too-tall building that was soon going to fall over. She'd be just the kind of driver you'd want on slippery roads. She'd probably kill half a dozen people, including herself. Hell, he wasn't going to commit murder. He was going to perform a public service.

    He left the shadows of the overhang and fell into step with her. "Slippery out here, isn't it?" he said, taking her elbow.

    She had tried dutifully to cover her age with makeup, but the eye pouches were getting too pouchy, and the cheeks too cheeky for that. For somebody as drunk as she was, she sure looked sad. What the hell had ever happened to happy drunks anyway, the sort who wore lampshades and kissed everybody in sight?

    "Am I s'posed to know you?"

    "I'm just a gentleman trying to help a lady."

    She stopped, sliding a little before coming to a complete stop in the icy parking lot. He knew which car was hers, the ten-year-old Ford over in the east corner beneath the purple glow of the sodium lamp.

    "I'd like you to take your hand off me," she said. "Like you said, I'm a lady."

    "Oh, yes, you are. A lady. A very special lady. A lady for hire."

    "Wha's tha s'posa mean?"

    From inside his coat he took the crisp new hundred-dollar bill. Even in the blowing snow-which was now beginning to freeze on both their face-she could see what it was. If you drove a car like hers, you obviously weren't used to seeing crisp new hundred-dollar bills very often.

    With a gloved hand she made a pass at the hundred. "I get the money first."

    "Of course." He nodded to her car. "Why don't we walk over there?"

    She eased up a little. Apparently knowing what he actually wanted made her more trusting. "You shoulda come inside."

    "Oh, why's that?"

    "Doris was playin' a buncha Hawaiian songs. You know, like a lotta songs Elvis sang in Blue Hawaii. Stuff like that. You like Elvis?"

    "Very much."

    They reached her car. Even from there you could hear the piano bar. From this distance the red neon sign looked even bloodier through the tumbling snow.

    She leaned over to open the door, and once again she almost slipped and fell.

    He grabbed her by the hips. By now his face was frozen. He had the sniffles.

    "Why don't you let me do that?" he said.

    " 'S my car."

    He didn't pay any attention; He put his hand on the door handle and opened up the car. "Why don't you sit down? I'll clean off the windows for you."

    "I ain't knockin' nothin' off. Full price."

    She was such a dignified woman. "I wouldn't expect you to knock anything off."

    She glared at him and got inside, cracking her head on the door frame as she did so.

    He smiled to himself. Maybe he wouldn't have to kill her.

    Maybe she'd kill herself.

    At first he tried to scrape her windows off with just his glove, but that didn't work because the snow was freezing into clumps of ice.

    "Excuse me," he said, leaning in past her and grabbing a scraper-brush she had on the back seat.

    He went back to work. It took him five minutes to do all the windows. When he was done, he was breathless and freezing.

    He went around and got in on the passenger side of the car. She had the heater going. It was as loud as a B-52. She had Jerry Vale on the radio. She was smoking a cigarette. Despite the freezing temperature the car smelled damp and mildewy. He suspected it had been burned once and then tricked up to sell on the used car market.

    "This is some beast," he said.

    "You don't like it, you can always get out."

    "Just making a joke."

    "Well maybe I don' fin' your jokes so funny."

    "My apologies."

    "You wan' me to blow you or what?"

    "Just like that, huh?"

    "You wanna fall in love or somethin'?"

    "Here."

    He guided her hand to his crotch. Or almost did.

    She put out her hand, palm up. "Cash, buster."

    He stared at her for a long moment. Cash, buster. Jesus. Did people still really say stuff like that? He reached into his coat and took out a ten.

    "Hey," she said. "That was a hunnerd when we were outside."

    "Inflation."

    The interior of the car was dark. He couldn't see anybody anywhere in the parking lot. The wind was a pisser. It was like being on the tundra. He wished he was with somebody he really wanted to hump. It would be fun to snuggle up and do it with your clothes on and then get really sweltering from body heat.

    He came up very quickly with the knife and put it exactly in I he centre of her right eye.

    She cried out and writhed as if she were a madwoman that no number of men could hold down. When he jerked the knife out, she covered her eyes with her hands but blood was gushing so fast and hot that it ran through her fingers.

    He next put the knife where he judged her heart to be, twisting the blade as he put it in her. His gloves were already soaked. A smell of hot metal-the taint of dark red-brown human blood-filled the car. He thought she might also have already started evacuating her bowels, too. This was no fun at all. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

    She grabbed him by the shoulder and sank her teeth into his neck, shrieking as she did so.

    My God, he wondered as he turned around to get some leverage and push her away, what was this bitch anyway, a vampire?

    She broke the skin.

    He knew this right away.

    Broke the skin. My God. He thought of all the diseases he could get.

    He grabbed her by the hair and tried to yank her head back, get her teeth out of his flesh. But no matter how hard he yanked, her teeth were still in there.

    Pain now started radiating from his neck down through his shoulder and into his arm.

    Frigging bitch.

    It was difficult to get any purchase in the cramped car but after wriggling around, he was able to cock his arm and then land a strong one right on the side of her head.

    She slumped over instantly, and he knew she was dead. Biting him had taken all her waning life force.

    The stench was incredible.