SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (8 page)

Half an hour later Houston's skyline emerged from a smog-shrouded distance. He took the South Loop and exited onto a feeder road. Random chance landed him in Willie DeShane's neighborhood. He cruised the streets familiarizing himself with them until twilight descended. As the sun sank behind red clouds, he parked his car and began his search for a victim.

#

Willie should not have been roaming the streets at sunset. His father forbade it, and Mrs. Lawrence strictly enforced Jack's rules. But Willie had wandered too far from home, and though he raced against approaching night, he knew when he got home he would be in serious trouble.

His friends had caused his delay. Willie tried to discourage the four boys tagging along behind him because he intended to go to a secret place. But it was not so easy to get free from boys who had selected him as a leader.

"Why can't we go with you?" Marv asked in exasperation.

"Yeah , can't we go too? Where you going so special anyway?" Jo-Jo added, skipping into place beside Willie and grabbing his arm. "I bet you're up to somethin' and you don't want us to know."

Willie frowned at how close Jo-Jo had come to the truth. But he had found the block of old houses that were being demolished to make way for a new Safeway store, and he had not finished exploring the area yet. He did not want to share his adventure. The others did not have to do everything with him. Sometimes he felt he was hobbled with five pairs of arms and legs.

For several minutes the other boys speculated on Willie's reason for shunning them. Everyone knew if your father was a policeman you had a duty to prove that you were just as normal as the son of a baker, a machinist, or a dock-worker. Otherwise you would be called names, if anyone bothered to play with you at all.

"He's gonna take to stealing Hersheys from the Totem store," one boy guessed.

"Nah, uh-uh. He'd get skinned alive if he was caught. He's probably doin' crazy stuff like peeking in old ladies' windows."

"Bet he's got a hideout he don't want us to find," ventured Randolph, the youngest of their group. "You got a hide-out, Willie?"

"What's he supposed to hide from, dummy?" asked Jo-Jo.

During the jeering Willie kept his mouth shut. He knew if he tried to defend himself it would only get worse.

"Leave off,” he muttered. "I think I'll go home."

Marv sneered. "Aw, let's leave him alone. We don't need this aggravation." That's what his mom always said. Who needs this aggravation?

"Marv's right." Jo-Jo slowed and the other three boys automatically fell out of step with Willie. They looked at one another reluctantly. Giving up on any pursuit was thought cowardly. They looked to Marv to take the blame. He had given up first.

"We can go jump on my trampoline. Willie won't get to." Jo-Jo raised his voice so that Willie would be sure to hear him. "He might not get to jump on my trampoline ever again."

Willie dug his hands deeper into his jeans' pockets and turned a corner without a backward glance. "Nerds," he whispered. "Buncha stupid nerds."

He liked the boys all right. They had played together for years and they were friends, but a person needed to explore some things by himself.

Besides, Marv would get destructive in the old houses being torn down. He would start breaking windows and then what would happen? They would get run off. And Jo-Jo would not want to go in. Randolph would no doubt get hurt. He would be the only one to fall through a rotting floor and bust his leg. He was always getting hurt. And Brucey, the silent studious follower who dogged their steps, would get that look in his eyes that said,
"Hey, we're gonna get in real bad trouble for this, you know."
Then they'd all feel guilty and have no fun at all.

Long shadows were moving across the brick-and-board littered yards by the time Willie got to them. The entire block was deserted, and two houses had already been destroyed. Willie thought of a movie he had seen on TV about the bombing raids on London during World War II. That's what this place looked like.

Willie ran a zigzag pattern, dodging imaginary falling bombs that whistled through the air.
Ka-boom!
The three-story got it right through the roof. Willie threw up his arms to protect his face. Boards, chunks of brick, and dust filled the air. The ground trembled. Helpless screams rose and drowned out the concussion.

Willie saw a soft bare spot ahead in a vacant backyard and he aimed for it, his body a hurtling bullet. He took the roll, head ducked, knees brought up to his chest. He rolled like a basketball. He slammed against a hidden retaining wall made of oddly shaped stone that used to be a garden. He scrambled to his feet, rubbing the hurt shoulder. That would be a bruise for sure. "Got it dodging bombs, " he would say, and smile without explanation.

The shadows were deepening. Willie eyed the nearest house, knowing he either had to check it out right away or else wait until the next day. And on Sundays there was church service, dinner in the dining room with his father, and very little free time left over for exploration. It was do or die. Brave the heavy, ominous shadows or lose face.

The last time he had come here he had found treasure--a galvanized metal box full of rusting hand tools. The wrench and the pliers worked wonders on his ten-speed Schwinn after they had been oiled and cleaned. True, two screwdrivers were broken-ended, but still he had his own tools now and did not have to borrow his dad's. What might he find today? Next week whatever discarded treasure he could find in the rooms might be buried under a ton of wreckage, never to be rescued. Could he take the chance even though the sun was going quickly and the light was fading?

Quickly Willie crossed the yard and mounted the rickety unpainted steps. He paused briefly on the threshold to let his eyes adjust to the murky interior. One of the walls in the room was gone, exposing studs that looked naked and raw. The floor was piled with plaster, wine and beer bottles, and a piece of tin with blackened lumps of burned wood in its center.

Willie pulled his brown corduroy jacket closer. It was much cooler inside than it had been in the yard.

It was when Willie hunkered down to open a low cabinet door that he realized he was not in the house alone. He caught his breath. He had not heard a telling sound or smelled an unusual scent. It was just there.

The idea that eyes were watching his every move. He tensed and held his breath.

He stood slowly. Taking a deep breath now, he turned from the door. He did not call himself a coward or try to shake off the dread. Willie knew there was someone lurking in the shadows and that someone did not want him to get away from the abandoned house.

Suddenly Willie was running. He was a supersonic jet, his body sharp and pointed, his head plowing through space. He cleared the doorway, and the steps barely shook from the touch of the soles of his tennis shoes. The yard and the old garden wall vanished. At the overgrown driveway he had to make a split-second decision: run down it to the street, or cross it into another yard strewn with fallen brick and shattered boards. He took the yard, his instinct telling him if he was being followed, it would be harder for a grown-up to maneuver the obstacle than it would be for him with his boy's natural agility. And he knew whoever was there was an adult. Kids had never made him feel so creeped out.

Halfway across the yard he looked back. Looking back did two things. It confirmed the thoughts he had had inside the old house. There was a man behind him, and the man did not intend to lose him. Looking back also caused Willie to catch the toe of his right sneaker on a brick hidden in the grass. He stumbled and spun around, his arms flailing in the air for balance. Even as he desperately tried to get up, Willie saw the man closing on him, his wide shoulders blocking the sky.

"No," the boy whispered. "No, no, no, no..."

He scrambled to his feet.
Run, Run, Run
, his mind screamed at his legs.
Faster, lose him, faster, lose him!

The man's running footsteps grew closer. The air Willie gasped into his lungs was full of ashes and dust.

Tears streaked his cheeks. The tendons behind his knees throbbed with pain. In one sudden, terrible flash of knowledge, Willie knew that he was losing the race and forfeiting his fife. He could not outrun the man. He could not out-jump him or outmaneuver him.

"Dad...please Dad, help me..." he panted.

Willie was grabbed from behind and lifted off his feet in one motion. His legs, still pumping, began to kick.

His fists beat on the man who held him tightly. Willie was rolled into spongy dew-wet grass. A tremendous weight rolled him over, then covered him. He screamed but a fleshy palm broke it off. His nose was and mouth were covered. He tried to scuttle away, but the palm held him, and the weight holding him threatened to burst his chest open.

He could not see his attacker in the near dark, but he felt hairy masculine arms around him.

The man flipped onto his back, bringing Willie up into the air and onto his chest. The boy kicked frantically. His fingernails clawed at the hand on his face, finally getting his nose free, and he sucked in air that burned as it filled his chest.

The arm around Willie's chest moved swiftly to his throat. For a second the boy was free. He gasped, jerked forward, and tried to roll away. But a wire sank into his throat.

One tender, spicing cut. Closing off his breath. Stars flying, bursting crazily inside his head, plummeting into endless black space. A snap. The heart fluttering, a weak bird against the constriction of a cage.

Willie DeShane fought to the final second, and then he gave up his life, his body shuddering delicately in the arms of a killer, his green eyes filming over, reflecting the cold, merciless light of the stars as they began to twinkle in the growing darkness.

IT WAS EARLY EVENING at the Ringer house and the three people living there were tense and morose.

Nick was in an especially bad mood. For months he had insisted Madra, this "handmaiden to a Paris fag," this " bride of Dracula," this "poor little peasant girl with the starry eyes," had to be disposed of--let go, run off, sent away. Daley ignored the verbal abuse when he could, but lately his own temper erupted more often, and he found himself out-shouting his brother simply to be heard.

Madra, on the other hand, was coming close to imitating an incoherent babbler. The seizures that surfaced soon after she moved in and grew steadily worse as the emotional atmosphere in the house grew more tense.

For a long time Daley did not know what was wrong. For a while he thought her merely dreamy, preoccupied, perhaps absentminded. But when the dazed looks came so frequently they frightened him, he searched the college library for medical books to pinpoint the problem. It did not take long. Madra's symptoms were more blatant than ever. Five-second trances grew to a full minute. There were times when she was absolutely unaware of her surroundings.

Epilepsy. Mild form that resulted in lost of consciousness.
Petit mal
.

Daley worried, but he did not tell Madra what he had discovered. She called it daydreaming, and she was close enough. If only Nick would leave her alone. Couldn't he see Madra was a woman with troubles?

Perhaps Daley would speak to his brother after dinner. This constant bickering was too hard on all of them.

Madra had cooked pasta. The spaghetti sauce had simmered all day, and the delicious smell of garlic, onion, and oregano permeated the house. It smelled wonderfully homey, unlike anything the brothers were used to. At the table, however, Nick looked up from his place and gave Daley a nasty grin. Daley knew what was coming.

"Too much tomato paste," Nick commented dryly, sampling a forkful of steaming spaghetti, the sauce dripping onto his plate. "Tastes like an acid bath."

Madra quietly stood and wrapped the cape over her shoulders. She tied it at the neck, then sat down stiffly.

Nick grinned, and at that moment Daley hated him. Why did his brother work so hard at being disagreeable?

"Too much salt too. Did you dump the Morton's box in it, Madra?" Nick asked conversationally.

"Nick. Drop it," Daley saw Madra's eyelids fluttering. She had not looked at either man.

"I ought to drop it. Right on the goddamn floor."

"Don't pay him any attention, Madra. It's delicious," Daley said as he patted her hand.

"It fucking stinks. I think you should go back to cooking, Daley. I don't like wop food anyway. Gives me heartburn."

"You don't have to eat it," Madra said softly, her eyes still staring at the table.

"What choice do I have? What am I gonna fucking eat around here, peanut butter?" Nick asked.

With a sudden flourish that took both men by surprise, Madra stood up and threw back the sides of her cape, her chair falling to the floor several feet behind her.

"Oh, what now, another dramatic crying fit? Gonna rush from the room, baby? Huh? Huh? Quick, I can't wait." Nick clapped his hands in glee.

Madra marched into the kitchen and sank to the floor in front of the sink. Daley got to his feet, afraid she had fainted or was having a convulsion. But she had the lower cabinet doors open and was searching for something inside.

Nick turned around in his chair. "What the fuck's she doing?"

"Can it, Nick. You're going too far," Daley warned.

She stood up, the folds of the cape closed in front of her. She was rigid and ghostly coming toward them without a hint of expression on her face. She walked to Nick's place at the table and halted. While Daley watched in fascination, and Nick watched in horror, Madra slowly withdrew her hand from the cape--and with it a tiny gray mouse, its head flattened and bloody from the mousetrap it had been caught in. Carefully Madra laid the mouse crossways on Nick's plate of food.

"This is probably more to your liking," she said softly, and left the room, the cape thrown back and trailing behind her.

"Jesus Fuckin' Christ!" Nick screamed as he overturned his chair trying to get away from the dead mouse in his plate. "Bitch!" He hurled his plate at the wall where the spaghetti dribbled to the floor. The dead mouse bounced back to lie at his feet. "Not in my food!" he shrieked, slamming both his fists to the table, overturning the glasses. "Not in my...not in my..."