The Sorcerer's House (25 page)

I rose. "That I will not tolerate. You beat me once. If you believe you can beat me again. I'm entirely willing to let you try."

He shook his head. "Can't you see . . ."

"Can't
you
? Open your eyes, Ieuan! If you want me for an ally, you'll have to treat me like one. There are paper towels in the kitchen. Go back there, get one, and clean this up. Then we can talk."

He rose and went out, George, and to be truthful, I thought I had seen the last of him. Much to my surprise he was back in a few minutes with a paper towel. He knelt and mopped up his saliva, doing a thorough job. "May I throw this in the fireplace?"

I nodded and thanked him for collecting firewood.

"You knew it was me? Your fool of a servant didn't."

"My fool of a servant did. He told me you had helped him. He praised you for it."

"No, he didn't!" Ieuan did not actually stamp his foot, but I could see that he wanted to.

"Have it your way; it's not worth arguing about. Why did you come here?"

"I told you!"

"The werewolf, but that was while you were playing your brother. Why did you really come?"

Another interruption. I am beginning to wonder whether I shall ever finish this, George. Yet I am determined. I will win through in the end.

After reading it over, I think I made a major mistake when I left my narrative to explain Ieuan's interruption. With your permission, I will change hands and retrace my steps.

When I returned to the car, Doris was speaking with a tiny old woman. "Here he is! We'll take you, Kiki. Don't worry. He's a very kind man."

"I try to be." I introduced myself.

"She's been walking a long way, Bax, and she's awfully tired. Her home is down this road, just a few miles. I said we'd give her a lift."

I nodded. "Certainly."

"Is it near the road, Kiki? Will we see it?"

"Well away. Well away." The old woman looked frightened.

"Then you'd better ride up here with Bax, so you can tell him where to stop. I'll ride in back until you get out."

The driver and his companion (should he have one) sit quite high up. There is a running board--already lofty--and an iron step above it. Essentially, Doris and I had to lift Kiki into the car.

"Rode in a cart twice," she said. "Twice in a cart's all I've ever rode. Uncanny thing, though, ain't it? Ain't it a uncanny thing?"

I agreed.

"Hope you ain't hopin' to be paid. Not hoping to be paid, are you?"

She was barefoot, and her clothes were rags; I assured her that we were not.

"You do a kindness, and your kindness pays you."

"Often," I said, "and perhaps always."

"It does that. That's what it does. This goes fast, don't it?"

"Not really."

"Don't it go fast though! Not far from my house now. Slower, 'cause the house ain't far. . . ."

I slowed, not only because she had spoken, but because there was a car with large, bleary yellow headlights at the side of the road. As we passed it, I saw Doris on the high front seat, and myself standing beside it with pistols in my belt.

"Slower . . . Now my house ain't real far."

Doris opened a hatch (or small window) behind us. "This tilts up, so the boss can talk to his driver. How are you two getting along?"

I said, "Fine. I like her."

And she: "I like him, m'lady. We gets along fine. Doin' fine, m'lady. I like him."

"You must've walked a long way."

The old woman cackled. "Way home's never long. Never a long way home. T'other one, he back there with you? You have t'other one in back there, settin' with you in the dark?"

"There are only the two of us," Doris said.

"T'other's back there, settin' in the dark, thinkin' I can't see him. I kin see him back there, dark or no." She pointed. "There 'tis! 'Tis my path right there."

I thought I could make it out in the headlights, though I may have been mistaken. I stopped.

She leaped down like a monkey, a feat that astounds me still. "Back there somewhere's t'other, m'lord." She was looking up at me; her small face, made hideous by countless years, was somehow captivating. "He's waitin'. M'lord, he's settin' in the dark. Waitin' . . . Wary. Be you wary."

Then she was gone. As Doris clambered back into the seat next to me, I said, "We ought to have asked her about the restaurant."

"I did. She'd never heard of it, but I said it was on Brompton Lake, and she said Brompton Lake was right up ahead, just follow the road. She said it was where she washes--where she washes . . ."

"Her face?" It had stuck in my mind, and certainly it had looked dirty.

A wolf howled. I had heard the sound on television and in films, George, but never in reality. It howled and it could not have been far away. I knew then an ancient fear that the first settlers knew, and wished mightily that I had brought my knife.

"Bax . . ." Doris grasped my arm.

"Yes?"

"I'm scared, Bax. She said she washed her shroud. I wish Ted were here with us."

I nodded. "We could certainly use another man."

There had been a faint knocking when I spoke. Doris asked, "What was that?"

"The engine, I suppose. I'm probably in too high a gear." I usually make a mess of downshifting, George, but that time I got it nearly right.

"I've been thinking. . . ."

I nodded. "Probably a good thing."

"Who do I know that I'd like to have here with you and me right now, because of the wolf? Ted, but he's dead."

I said, "I'd like to have him, too. Anyone else?"

"No. That's just it. I've got girlfriends and they'd be company. Good company, some of them. We'd hug each other and tell each other not to be scared, which would be great until the wolf came."

"The old woman said we had somebody else with us."

"Kiki? Yeah, she did. Somebody sitting in the dark. Tell him to stand up. We might need him."

"I'd rather not. If I--"

"What is it, Bax?"

"Water. I thought I saw the sheen of water through the trees."

"Go faster. It might be the lake."

Because of the age of the car and the roughness of the road, I did
not. We descended into a tiny valley, losing all the stars; but when the road rose again, as it did, we went through a thick stand of trees and saw the lake spread before us.

"She was right," Doris said. "Kiki was. It wasn't far at all. Look over there."

I looked. There were lights, remote but real. As I watched, the headlights of a distant car came on, two more pinpoints of light. It turned its back, showing faint red taillights, then vanished as it pulled away. "It's a long way over," I said. "The other side of the lake."

"But the road goes that way."

It did, though it had become no more than rutted dirt. We bounced along it for about a mile, which took a quarter hour or so.

And we were there. The asphalt of the parking lot was under our tires, and the building no more than fifty yards away.

"It didn't look this close," Doris murmured.

I got the dueling pistols out from under the seat.

"Are you going to bring those inside?"

"Yes. I haven't had a good look at them. We can look them over while we wait for our food."

"Let's hope we don't scare people."

"I won't even take them out of the case," I promised.

Inside, a discreet sign read
OPEN UNTIL MIDNIGHT
. Doris glanced at her watch. "We'll have plenty of time. It's only ten."

We asked for and got a booth. There were more dirty tables than diners in the dining area.

"I want fish chowder," Doris told the waitress. "You going to have fish chowder, Bax?"

I shook my head, looking down at the case and wishing the waitress would leave so I might open it.

"Appetizer, sir?" That was she.

"Thank you, but no."

"The special tonight is Salmon Rangoon. That's grilled salmon with Rangoon sauce, garnished with crabmeat, tomatoes, diced peppers, and hard-boiled eggs."

"Nine ninety-five," I said.

"No, sir. Eleven ninety-five, only the kitchen may be out of it already. I can see."

"I'll have steak, medium-rare."

"Yes, sir. New York strip or filet mignon?"

"Filet mignon, medium-rare."

"Six ounce or ten ounce?"

Doris said, "Ten."

"For him?"

"Yes. He wants the ten. Medium-rare."

The waitress wrote. "How would you like that cooked, sir?"

I said, "Rare."

Doris said, "I want a whiskey sour."

"Yes, ma'am. With your appetizer?"

I said, "Now."

"Yes, sir. One for you, too, sir?"

I shook my head.

"Tossed or Caesar?"

"Tossed."

"We have blue cheese, ranch . . ."

I omit the rest, George. Doubtless you are ready to kill if you've read this far. For myself, I can only say I had two antique pistols which I would at that moment gladly have traded for a sawed-off shotgun.

"You must be hungry," Doris said when the waitress had left us at last.

"I wasn't before that began. Now I'm famished. It's ten o'clock--"

"Ten fifteen."

"I stand corrected."

"You like that case, don't you? You've been caressing it."

"I do. When my fingers glide along the leather, it tells me oh so softly that Charles Dickens has not yet been born."

"He wrote that thing about Scrooge, didn't he?"

"Yes.
A Christmas Carol
. He wrote it in eighteen forty-three. He'd have been thirty-one or thereabout."

"There are ghosts, aren't there, Bax?"

I nodded. "More than I've ever seen in the Black House. The Victorians
loved ghosts." I glanced at the plump young woman coming toward our booth. "Can we do something for you?"

"I certainly hope so!" She was blond, and a large pimple was ripening on her right cheek. "That's a nice bruise you've got."

Rising, I said, "I fell. I'm Baxter Dunn, and this lady is Doris Griffin."

"I thought so!" The blonde was producing a business card. "She called you Bax and then you mentioned the Black House."

Doris said, "While you eavesdropped."

"I couldn't help it. It's gotten very quiet in here." The blonde turned back to me. "I spoke to you on the phone, remember? I'm Cathy Ruth. I'm on the
Sentinel
, and I'm a friend of Martha Murrey's. Remember?"

Doris said, "She writes restaurant reviews."

"And lots of other things. Do you want to tell me about the Black House?"

I said, "There's really nothing to tell. It is a quiet, comfortable house not far from the river. I like it, and I've been furnishing it with antiques. I'll let you come in and look them over when I'm finished. You probably write that sort of article, too."

Cathy shook her head.

"That's a shame. Perhaps you will by the time I'm finished, but meanwhile your food's getting cold."

"Cold food . . ." Doris pantomimed writing a note.

"Oh, I'm not reviewing this place. We're just having dinner."

"In which case, your dinner companions--"

"What's in that box?"

Doris snapped, "None of your business!"

Cathy laid a plump hand on my shoulder. "I've been nice, Mr. Dunn. Very, very nice. You've got the Black House, and you've given me next to nothing. I could print rumors. Heck, I could make up my own rumors. Confidential sources in the Department of Public Safety tell us . . . All that stuff. We do it all the time, and I'll bet you know that already."

"Yes. I do."

"All I'm asking is a little cooperation. A tiny li'l bitty bit, see? Believe me, it would be smart to give it to me. I've done the other thing, Mr. Dunn. I know how to do it, and I know what happens when I do."