The Changing (The Biergarten Series) (22 page)

McCabe shook his head incredulously. "That's a damned wild theory, Rye."

Ryerson shrugged. "It's the only theory I've got, Tom." He paused to change subjects, went on, "When are they going to let you out of here?"

"A week, ten days," McCabe answered wearily. "I was lucky, Rye. I guess that thing was . . . on its last legs when it got around to me."

Ryerson nodded. "George Dixon and Jack Youngman weren't quite so lucky." A pause. "And I'd say that poor Doug Miller was on his last legs, sure. I'd say he'd just about had it when he got to me." And Ryerson, like McCabe, wished fervently then that he could forget what he'd seen in the Church of St.
Januarius
. When he had stopped and looked back after hearing that awful, liquid-sounding
Phump
!
behind him—just seconds, he knew, before he and Creosote were due to become one with the carrier pigeon and the dodo bird. That terrible, liquid-sounding
Phump
!,
like a plastic bag full of wet laundry falling to the pavement. That pitiful
Phump
!
of a once-strong-and-athletic body that's been all but turned inside out, gobbled up, and discarded—vomited, really—by an entity that, in Ryerson's "special brain," had revealed itself only as an amorphous, dirty-cream-colored tide. He finished, "So I'd say, Tom, that we've seen the last of Douglas Miller, anyway."

"Meaning?"

"Whatever you want it to mean." He nodded at McCabe's arm. "Does that bite still hurt?"

McCabe rubbed it; it was heavily bandaged. "No. It never did, really; the thing didn't have any teeth to speak of." He shuddered, remembering the face of his attacker—
Like an orange that's sat around too long and some little kid has painted eyes on it, and a nose, and a mouth; but none of it fits, he'd told Ryerson. Like some fuzzy, ten-day-old, dried-up jack-o'-lantern, for Christ's sake!

"And how about the stomach?" Ryerson went on.

McCabe glanced at it; Ryerson thought he smiled a little, pleased, perhaps, that his previously round belly had deflated a bit during his hospital stay. "Ah, it gives me some pain now and again, Rye. Nothing I can't handle. If I'm lucky, it'll mean I can stay out of work for a while."

"Uh-huh," Ryerson said, "that'll be the day." He stood, took a breath. "They're keeping what's left of Miller's body on ice for you, Tom. I guess they're hoping you can identify him as the man who attacked you."

McCabe grimaced. "Jesus, I don't want to look at him—"

"We've all got jobs to do, Tom," Ryerson said, smiling. He started for the door, stopped. "I'll be back up this way in a week or two. I'll drop in."

"I'll probably be right here, Rye," McCabe said, again wearily. "Where are you going? Vacation?"

"Don't I wish. No. Creosote and I are going back to Edgewater. I've got to find this woman named 'Joan,' Tom." He paused, continued, "And if I can't, well, maybe I'll find something else."

"Rye," McCabe quipped, "I hope that whatever you find, it feels good."

Ryerson smiled, nodded, went to the door, opened it, stepped out. He stopped, looked back in, "Uh, Tom?"

McCabe had already started to nod off. He snapped awake, blinked a few times, as if to get his bearings, and said, "Yes? Something wrong, Rye?"

Ryerson nodded. "I didn't get paid, Tom. They won't pay me."

"What do you mean, they won't pay you? Just tell them that I said to pay you—"

"Yes, I told them that. They want to hear from you personally. Heck, Tom,"—Ryerson smiled feebly, "I wouldn't even mention it, but I really do like to keep these things on the up and up. Besides, I'm afraid the Ford's having some transmission work done, and the garage doesn't take cards—"

McCabe cut in, waving away Ryerson's concern, "I'll call them, now, Rye. No problem." He grabbed the phone on a nightstand near his bed, began to dial, hesitated; "You sure that bucket of bolts will take you to Pennsylvania, Rye?"

Ryerson nodded, "It has once; it will again."

"I hope so, Rye. Hate to see you get stuck down there." And he finished dialing.

~ * ~

In Erie, Joan Mott-Evans, twenty-three, single, attractive in a willowy, sixties-flower-child way, was feeling good for the first time in months, ever since her friend, Lila Curtis, had killed herself. Joan knew that she wouldn't feel good for long, that a lot of it, anyway, was due to the Valium she'd started taking on the advice of her doctor after Lila's suicide. But at least for now, for the next several hours, she could enjoy herself. Maybe she'd do some shopping. Buy a sweater. A hat. A record album. Buying things had always helped keep her spirits up.

Poor Lila, she thought. Poor, poor Lila. At least she was at rest now. At peace. At least the frenzy, the need, the
thing
inside her was gone—Joan had seen to that—and her soul could fly.

The eyes
, Joan maintained,
are the mirror of the soul
. Lila had proved that. Because, Joan remembered, looking into Lila's eyes had been like looking into a pit filled with oil. It was a pair of eyes she thanked God she would never see again.

But she was wrong about that. Because when she bought her twice-weekly copy of
The Midnight Examiner
, and she saw the eyes of Larry Wilde staring back at her—under the bold black headline, "BOY SAYS `JASON' KILLED HIS MOM"—her mouth dropped open, she sputtered a string of incoherent curses, threw the paper down, and ran in terror and disbelief the full mile and a half to her home.