The Fading (37 page)

He’d been trapped in here for almost twenty-four hours. Door dead-bolted, chain in the slot, chair wedged under the handle.
Excessive? He might have thought so yesterday, even after the horror of Dalton’s revelation.

But things had changed.

*

After running from Dalton’s condominium, he’d holed up at the same nameless motorcourt motel where he’d taken his shower after
his mind-rape in the Bagley residence. Too frightened to do anything other than shower again, washing away the young man’s
blood, he’d spent the longest night of his life trying to wrap his mind around what he’d gotten himself into. The guilt of
what he hadn’t seen coming, what he could have prevented had he acted sooner. The sheer terror of realizing his fingerprints
were on the knife, the young man, all over Dalton’s condo. He’d wanted to curl into a ball and die.

Eventually daylight returned and he knew he had to move. After hailing a cab at the aging Stardust, his first stop was the
guest house. Figured he would pack a small bag, take the shovel back to the saguaro and dig up his cash. He was visible now,
ten weeks of missing mobility options slamming back into the realm of possible, easy. He would suitcase as much of the cash
as he could carry to the nearest cab line, pay a fare to the rental car agencies at McCarran International, pay cash for something
nondescript and drive for two days straight. Florida, West Virginia, Canada, Mexico. It didn’t matter, so long as it was far
from Las Vegas and Theodore Dalton. Somewhere along the way he would call Julie from the road, tip off the police, convince
them to send her round-the-clock protection.

He told the driver to leave him at the corner, two blocks away. When he reached the cul-de-sac on foot, the scene before him
zoom-leaped and distorted with its
own Hitchcock score. Three police units – two sedans in the driveway and a hulking SUV slanting across the lawn. Sirens and
cherries off, but no fewer than four officers circling the premises – windbreakers on, evidence bags in gloved hands. And
who might that woman be? Why, it’s Nora the Missing Realtor, a lady he hadn’t seen since she had rented the place to him and
Julie almost two years ago. But here she was, summoned for a matter far more serious than a delinquent rent check, standing
beside a deep green BMW, pacing with a cellphone stuck to her ear.

Dalton had called them.

Want to locate millions of dollars in missing funds from that spate of casino muggings? Want to know who killed the guy in
my condo last night? I know the address and he’s a bad, bad boy.

LVPD scouring his residence, taking fingerprints, dusting his toothbrush and flipping through his sock drawer, sifting through
trash.

And yet they were still working on the house. What if they hadn’t yet found exactly where X marks the spot?

Noel backed off casually, as if he had been waiting for a ride who hadn’t showed, glanced at his imaginary watch, and walked
away. Four blocks north through the subdivision, another six east, into the desert, circling in a wide arc, shuffling low
to the sand and scrub. He got lost for twenty minutes, so frightened was he of walking up on uniforms with shovels. He doubled
back, closed in. The backyard was clear, no sign of the police. Hope – Dalton had known where he lived, but maybe
he hadn’t been there to see Noel burying his stolen funds. It took him another ten minutes to find the courage creep up and
locate the saguaro, his marker.

At its base was a raw hole more than seven feet deep and four feet wide. Empty as vampire’s grave. They’d already found it.
Six million and point-three change, the future he’d risked his life for, was at this minute bouncing downtown to an evidence
locker. He was flat busted, poorer than he had been on the morning of his birthday. The gutting horror of it was so grand
and complete, there was nothing to feel. His entire nervous system had been surgically removed in one swift yank. Dalton could
be following him right now, he realized, and it mattered not at all.

Noel turned and wandered deeper into the desert, a mortar blast victim. He got lost for three hours before the sun’s descent
finally scared him back toward civilization.

Julie
.

Dalton had struck back with one anonymous phone call, but would it be enough? Would tattle-telling about the money satisfy
someone as deranged and compulsive as Theodore Dalton? No, not even close. Because this wasn’t about anger, hurt feelings,
or even the fact that Noel knew what Dalton was. This was how the former teacher and minister from Wisconsin had his fun.
This was sport to him, his calling. If he’d wanted to merely to kill Noel, he could have faded at the condo and found a way.
But instead he had run, so that the game could continue. Dalton would go after
Julie next because that would inflict the most pain on his rebellious almost-disciple, and because he could, because using
his power to take inferior life forms made him feel like a god.

Noel needed to find a phone. He needed to call Julie at her mother’s house, hear her voice, warn her of what was coming. Then
he needed to get to Calabasas, California, as soon as possible, because, against a killer with Dalton’s powers, Julie would
never stand a chance. The police might have just become an option out of necessity, meaning discovery and capture for Noel.
But that was of minor concern when weighed against the possibility of Dalton. His father John, her mother Lisa – they couldn’t
protect her. Julie first, everything else later.

But the Strip was blown for him, he realized within the first two blocks. Looking for a payphone, scanning the streets and
sidewalks for his enemy, Noel realized he wasn’t safe out here. Dalton could be anywhere. In this car, in that cab, inside
that store, around the next corner, right behind him, one hand over his grinning mouth. The far bigger problem was almost
laughable – Noel didn’t have any change in his pockets. He’d left his wallet in the guest house, a habit whenever he went
out during one of his spells. The risk of blinking back, in the presence of others, of being trapped and ID’d, was not worth
the value he got from carrying an ID, cash, credit cards. These were things he couldn’t very well use while faded anyway.

Once again he was forced to return to the only other environment that afforded him the advantage of
familiarity – Caesars Palace. That it was the one and same place where Dalton had found him to begin with only seemed to confirm
the crazy logic of the choice. It was a move the killer might very well least expect.

Only when he strolled through the revolving doors and spotted the front desk did he remember that stealing a key and checking
himself into a stolen room would not prove so easy now that he was just like everybody else. Dalton knew how to control it.
In time Noel might learn to, but it wasn’t working now. He’d tried a hundred times today, concentrating, wishing it so, trying
to bounce it off random strangers, but his Goddess of Light was on hiatus. He needed a room, the phone, a tab he could run
up for as long as it took to reach Julie. To hell with it, I’ll follow a maid on her rounds and slip in when she’s not looking.
But when he was only a few paces from the casino parlor, a woman called his name.

‘Noel Shaker! Hey, hey you!’

He cringed, but the voice was friendly enough. He turned to see Tilly, his former cocktail waitress milf crush, standing behind
the front desk. Gone were the ruffle skirt and stockings and push-up bra. At some point in the past ten weeks the woman had
gone corporate, with a new fashionably chopped hairdo, the blazer, white blouse and tie. She’d even ditched the clown paint
in favor of clean make-up that showed her true age but made her look more beautiful than ever.

Noel approached the front desk sheepishly. ‘Tilly? Wow, I love what you’ve done with your …’

‘Career. I’m an assistant manager,’ Tilly beamed. ‘I have a 401K.’

‘You look amazing.’

‘Thanks. You don’t. What are you doing here? I thought you got smart and moved away.’

‘I’m leaving soon. Just have one or two more things to take care of.’

Tilly cocked her head with condescending sympathy. ‘How is Julie?’

‘Back to California. Staying with her parents. But I’m going after her. In fact, I need to call her. Something important came
up and I lost my cell.’

‘Do you want to use one of our phones?’ Tilly gestured to her right.

‘I do, but a little privacy would go a long way. We need to have one of those talks, you know?’

‘Okay. Sure. Want me to check you in?’

Dalton couldn’t return to the condo now. He’d stayed at Caesars before.

Noel inhaled, glanced around. ‘Tilly. I need a favor. Two, actually. One is small, the other, well, I don’t want to get you
in trouble.’

‘I don’t want you to get me in trouble either.’

‘I won’t. But I need to know about a guest. He’s a creep. He’s been following her, and me, and he’s dangerous. Extremely.’

‘Oh, shit. Not again. Is his name Randall?’

‘No. Why?’

‘We get a lot of stalkers here. Complaints you wouldn’t believe. Last week it was Randall from
Missouri, shooting upskirt footage. They raided his room and found, like, hundreds of hours’ worth.’

‘Awful,’ Noel said.

‘Yeah, he’s going to get something worse than a camera up his skirt in prison.’

‘My guy’s worse,’ Noel said. ‘Way worse. Can you poke around in your system, see if he’s checked in or out recently?’

Tilly bit her lip. ‘I’m really not supposed to.’

But in the end she did. Because Tilly had been a cocktail waitress for nine years and she had been forced to rebuff her share
of creeps.

‘Nothing under Theodore,’ Tilly said, and Noel didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. ‘But we’ve had two Daltons
in the past week.’

Noel perked up.

‘One is a woman, so I’m not giving her your name. No offense.’

‘None taken.’

Tilly drummed her nails on the keyboard. ‘Hmmm.’

‘What?’

‘The other is just an initial. T.’

It seemed crazy the professor would use his real name, even an initial. But, then, Dalton would be that smug, cocky in his
abilities.

‘That’s him. His room number?’

Tilly stared at him.

‘I’m not going to cause trouble, I swear.’

‘That’s what everyone says.’

‘Tell me this. Is he still here?’

‘He’s listed as checked in since the first of May, checking out … let’s see … well, he was booked for another week, but his
reservation was changed this afternoon. He’s checking out tomorrow.’

‘Tilly, it’s for Julie.’

‘But you said Julie’s gone, right? If he’s here and she’s not … maybe you should leave whatever this is alone?’

‘He threatened to kill her. He’s broke into our place. He’s got a track record.’

Tilly’s eyes widened. ‘Well, Jesus, Noel. Call the cops.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not – oh, Noel. What did you do?’

‘Nothing.’ Tilly crossed her arms. ‘Okay, I shoved him. I knocked him down after he threatened her, and me. That’s it, I swear
to God.’

‘You swear to Julie? Swear on her life?’

Noel crossed his heart and pleaded with his eyes.

‘If shit goes down,’ Tilly said. ‘You didn’t get this from me.’

‘Absolutely, I promise.’

She gave him the room number. ‘Go away now.’

‘Wait. The other favor.’

Tilly rolled her eyes.

‘I have to call her,’ Noel said. ‘I need a room. For thirty minutes. In and out.’

Tilly sighed. Noel begged. She slipped him a key in an envelope, jotting the number at the top.

‘If you make me regret this, Noel. If I lose my job? I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself.’

‘You just saved a life, Tilly.’

She shooed him away. He restrained himself from sprinting to the elevators. This was good, this was better. After burning
Noel at the guest house, Dalton would expect him to be on the run by now. If Noel could stop him from leaving Las Vegas, Julie
would be safe.

But even though Dalton was still here, the smart thing to do would be to call Julie first, prepare her in the event Noel did
not make it out of here alive. He meant to go to his room first, to make the call. But the one Tilly had left open for him
was on the fourteenth floor and the number she had given for Dalton’s was on six. Riding in the elevator, watching the numbers
light up, the temptation was too strong.

Dalton first.

Confirm he’s here, then you’ll know Julie’s in a different state, safe.

Noel got off on six and walked quietly to room 622, which was just around the first corner, almost within view of the elevator
bank. He leaned his ear to the door. The television was on. He idled a few minutes, acting like he was waiting on a friend.
A couple who appeared to have retired while still in platinum health, decked out in their in tennis-club whites, exited the
room across the hall. Noel nodded hello and they smiled, trailing Mentholatum fumes. Noel wandered to the end of the wing,
dallied around the soda machine, came back when the coast was clear.

When he pressed his ear to the door a second time,
the TV volume was lower and a man was speaking. To someone on the phone, most likely, because there were no responses during
the pauses. He couldn’t make out the words but he knew the obsequious tone. Theodore Dalton.

Noel had the killer cornered.

Shall we knock? Play room service?

No, Dalton would sniff out the ruse, check the peephole, drop out if he hadn’t already, and the advantage would be lost. Better
to wait for the door to open, then pounce. All that money, gone. Noel could taste it now. He wanted to deliver Dalton an equally
shocking blow. One hard shot to the throat, subdue, overcome before the fucker knew what hit him. Hell, maybe disable both
knees, poke an eye out, blind him for life, canceling the threat for good and leave him bleeding on the ground for the police.

For Julie. To keep her safe.

Forty minutes passed, then an hour, and Dalton did not exit his room. People came and went, and Noel kept up his charade of
whistling along like any other dumb tourist, fumbling for his key in the little envelope Tilly had provided, hovering near
the elevators. Ducking under the peephole every time he passed the door.