Wildest Dreams (12 page)

PART THREE:

FUNERAL IN THE RAIN

And we are here on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

—Matthew Arnold

Dover
Beach

1

I slept by the fire.

Long enough for my clothes to dry. Two hours, maybe three. Not good sleep. Sleep haunted by too many dreams. Apart from a few vague and troubling images, I couldn’t remember most of them. But I remembered the last one all too well, the one that had brought me sharply awake.

In that dream Circe Whistler strode the grounds of her father’s estate, dragging the little girl she’d once been behind her—one hand fisted in the little girl’s hair, the other clutching a wrought-iron hammer with a bristling claw that looked like a monster’s fang.

The little girl screamed in pain and in horror of the woman she’d become. But dark-haired Circe did not slow her pace. She did not spare her younger self a glance as they crossed a wide lawn, empty and still, like a cemetery without headstones.

No headstones, but a freshly dug grave waited there. Open and deep, with Spider Ripley at the bottom shoveling dark earth at the very blue sky above.

Circe grabbed Ripley’s shovel and left his big hands empty and useless. She laughed at the crucifix hanging around his neck, and Spider shrank away to nothing. His neck narrowed, his muscled shoulders drooped. The crucifix slipped down the length of his body, knifing the turned soil like a miniature grave marker, and all that remained of Ripley was a white carrion grub snared in a tangled rawhide necklace, writhing to be free.

Circe brought the girl to her knees at the foot of an open coffin that waited at the lip of that grave. “We’re all alone,” Circe said. “Just like Hansel and Gretel.” The child screamed and struggled, but Circe was too strong for her. She forced the little girl into the coffin, slammed the lid, and drove spiked nails deep into the wood with the claw hammer. Then she slid the coffin into the grave and took up the shovel. Earth rained down, smothering boxed screams that didn’t end until I opened my eyes.

By the time I awoke, the embers in the fireplace glowed a dim yellow. Blackened ribs of wood crackled and collapsed as the fire slowly died. I didn’t want to think about the dream, or what it might mean. What was important was saving the little girl. To do that, I had to give Diabolos Whistler what he wanted. I already had his head, though he didn’t know it. I had to find his body, and join the two.

That was the deal I’d made with a dead man. His mortal remains for a little girl’s ghost, a ghost I still couldn’t explain. But I’d keep my part of the bargain. It was my only chance to rescue the little girl. I could only hope that Whistler would do the same.

If answers were to come, they would have to come later. I knew that much, just as I knew that those answers would come from the lips of a woman who boxed and buried a little girl’s screams in a nightmare I couldn’t escape.

I clicked on Janice Ravenwood’s flashlight and stepped outside. There wasn’t a star in sight, but at least the rain had slacked off. I made my way along the beach and into the forest. I saw no one—living or dead—at the bridge, so I kept moving.

Janice’s Ford Explorer was just where I’d left it. That wasn’t a surprise. I had the keys. Even if Janice were still alive, I didn’t think she was the type who’d know how to hotwire a truck.

I slipped behind the wheel and drove to the vacant lot and got Diabolos Whistler’s head. Next stop, the Cliffside Motor Court.

The
NO VACANCY
sign shone like a beacon, and the office door was locked. I knocked and kept on knocking until I roused the night clerk.

He wasn’t exactly fast on his feet. I said my name was Clifford Rakes, and that I’d lost my key.

He looked me up and down. My clothes were dry, but that was the only positive thing I could say about my appearance. Obviously I’d seen better days.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Ain’t everything.” He shrugged and gave me another key. I apologized for waking him and slipped him a twenty from Clifford’s wallet, which improved his mood considerably.

A pot of complimentary coffee sat steaming on the counter. I poured myself a cup.

“You don’t want to drink that stuff, Mr. Rakes,” the clerk said. “Let me make a fresh pot for you.”

I told him he didn’t need to go to all that trouble.

“As long as it’s black and hot,” I said. “I’m sure it’ll do the job.”

* * *

I used the key and entered Room 21 without a sound. Clifford Rakes was fast asleep. He didn’t look quite so pinched that way. I turned on the lights, but Rakes didn’t open his eyes.

He rolled over on his back and the waterbed kicked up a rippling wave. Rakes rode it with a satisfied smile curdling on his face, clutching a pillow in his spindly arms. Obviously, he wasn’t having a nightmare. I wondered who the lucky dream girl was tonight—Jackie Collins or Danielle Steel or Jacqueline Susann…or maybe Barbara Cartland.

Whoever she was, Clifford’s dream date had planted a tent pole under his blanket. I was surprised the little bastard had the energy—I imagined he’d had one hell of a day. Contract negotiations in the afternoon, no doubt accompanied by an instant advance from his publisher via Western Union to make up for his missing wallet. Larry King in the evening. Dinner and drinks for the whole damn house after that, with his publisher eating the bill.

Yep. Clifford Rakes had definitely earned a good night’s sleep. It was probably a good thing I’d thought to bring the coffee.

I slipped the plastic lid off the cup and chucked the steaming black contents in the little bastard’s face. Clifford screamed and sat up too fast. A sloshing tsunami surged beneath him, and the ensuing wake that rebounded off the footboard threw him back. His head cracked hollowly against the waterbed headboard, but I’m sure he didn’t even feel it. He was too busy pawing at his singed cheeks.

“Oh, no…” Clifford said, and, “Oh, God…” and, “My face! Oh, my face! Oh, Jesus! You’ve burned my face!”

“Calm down,” I said.

“But my face! You burned—”

It was definitely time to cool the boy off. I pulled the K-Bar and eviscerated the waterbed. Water burbled up from the wound. I grabbed Clifford by the hair and gave him a good dunking.

He was spluttering stale water when I finally pulled him out. In a second he got his eyes open, and I knew right away that Clifford wished he’d kept them closed because he was trying to scream and hyperventilate at the same time.

I dangled the iron box before him. Diabolos Whistler smiled through the bars, his dead grin alive with ants.

“This should cut short the introductions,” I said.

“Please,” Clifford said, and, “Oh, God—”

“Don’t start that again. Unless you want to look like our friend here, you’d better shut up until I tell you different.”

I gave the iron box a little shake as punctuation, and Whistler’s head seemed to nod in agreement. Rakes retreated to the far corner of the gutted bed, gasping like a hyena on nitrous oxide.

I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to cut him a bit of slack. He’d compared me to Charles Manson. He’d accused me of bedwetting and animal mutilation. And he’d done it on national television.

“Please,” he said, one more time, and I came around the bed and hit him hard with the pommel of the knife.

“I told you to shut up.” I dropped Whistler’s head on the night table. “It won’t do you any good to talk to me, anyway. You said so yourself—there’s no reasoning with a sociopathic religious avenger. That was the profile, right? You can’t talk sense to a human juggernaut. You can’t cut a deal with Charlie Manson.”

Clifford’s lips quivered. He opened his mouth. He couldn’t help himself. He wanted to try.

“No, Clifford,” I warned. “I make the deals. You go along with them, or else I’ll use the other end of my knife. I’ll add your head to my trophy case. I’ve always got room for another Philistine journalist, you know.”

That did it. A sour stench rose from the waterbed as fear emptied Clifford’s bladder and bowels. He pursed his lips tightly, his face flushed with embarrassment, and didn’t say a word.

“You’ve got to calm down now,” I said. “I mean, really. What would Barbara Cartland say if she saw you like this?”

He gasped. “How do you know about that?”

“I did a little profiling of my own, Clifford.”

I tossed his wallet at him, and recognition flared in his eyes. “You’re the guy from the pay phone—”

“Now you know me.”

Clifford stared at me for a long moment. He’d screamed and carried on. He’d even shit himself, but now he was getting a little bit of a handle on the situation. The wheels were turning upstairs. After all, he was starting to think of money. If he looked at it right, a situation like this could mean a cash bonanza. Crime writer faces down serial killer…like that. He’d be set for several weeks on
Geraldo
,
if nothing else.

“But why come here,” he asked. “Why—”

“No, Clifford. It’s my turn to ask the questions. I only have one for you, really. For your sake, I hope you can answer it. Do you want to try?”

He nodded.

“Good.” I lifted Whistler’s head off the night table and stared at it. “I got to thinking about what you said on television. About trophies…and completion.”

Clifford nodded some more. Hell, he hadn’t stopped nodding.

“I’ve decided that you’re right,” I went on. “About completion, I mean.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Whistler’s head isn’t enough. I won’t be happy until I have the full set. That’s why I want you to tell me where they’re keeping the old man’s body.”

Clifford sighed in relief. This was obviously a question he could answer. “None of the local mortuaries would handle it,” he blurted. “Their reputations, you know. They thought that they’d lose business and—”

“Don’t give me the
MacNeil-Lehrer
version. Keep it short, like
Headline News
.”

Now I was speaking his language. “Okay,” Clifford said. “There’s a guy south of here in a little town called Owl’s Roost. Whistler’s people really twisted his arm, and he took the job. He told a stringer for the
Enquirer
that he was going to hit them for a good chunk of change and—”

“How far is Owl’s Roost?”

“About thirty miles south. Maybe thirty-five.”

“Good boy.” I smiled. “Now, there’s just one other thing we need to talk about.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t like the things you’ve been saying about me, Clifford. It’s as simple as that. You hurt my feelings. I think you need to develop a lower profile.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Just this—if I ever see your face on television again, I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you.”

“You can’t be serious—”

“I’m dead serious. Remember that, Clifford.”

I hit him again, and this time he went out like a light.

He splashed down in the gutted bed. Water poured from the frame. The carpet was already a soggy mess. Soon the bed would be empty, and the floor would be a swamp.

I stood over Clifford. Killing him would be easy.

If I hurried, I could drown him in the gashed mattress…or I could simply cut his throat.

But if I did that, Clifford Rakes might come back to haunt me.

Literally.

It wasn’t much of a decision. I tied him up instead.

2

Through midnight drizzle, I pushed Janice’s Explorer for all it was worth. The coastal roads were narrow and wet, and when I came to the inevitable landslide I punched the gas pedal and tore past a knot of traffic and a shivering highway patrolman who was flagging for a late-night road crew.

If the cop tried to follow me I never knew about it. As it was, I didn’t care about anything in the rearview mirror. What I wanted lay ahead of me, and anyone who tried to keep me from it was going to end up dead.

I was buckled in tight. Diabolos Whistler wasn’t—the Explorer’s seatbelts weren’t designed for severed heads. Whistler’s mortal remains bounced around in the padlocked iron box as I tore over potholes and hugged hairpin curves, but the old man didn’t seem to care.

“Still dead and quiet as an empty grave,” I said. “That’s the way I like you best.”

And that was the way he was going to stay, if I’d read the situation correctly.

Owl’s Roost Road came up without warning, and I nearly spun out trying to make the turn. But make it I did, with a quick footwork duet on the brake and the gas that sent Whistler’s iron prison tumbling to the floor, and when I was on the road and racing into the dark redwoods beyond I stuck to the gas.

Whistler’s teeth clacked against the iron bars as I took curves too wide and too fast, but caution wasn’t in my vocabulary. Speed was. Because speed was what I needed. I had no idea when Circe had scheduled her father’s funeral, or where she might take his remains for burial. Hell, maybe the bitch was planning on cremating the old man’s body, just to be on the safe side. Whatever her plan, I was sure she’d carry it out as soon as possible. No matter what she believed or didn’t believe, Circe wasn’t the kind to leave loose ends untied. The way I saw it, Whistler’s body would be on the road and traveling fast as soon as the undertaker did whatever undertakers do to headless corpses.

A sign flashed by on my right:

ENTERING OWL’S ROOST

PLEASE DRIVE SAFELY

I did the former but ignored the latter, passing a post office and a mini-mall, a couple of sad bed-and-breakfasts, and a burger joint nearly hidden by a trio of logging trucks.

Another quarter mile and I hit the outskirts of town. Another sign on the right informed me that I was leaving Owl’s Roost and should continue to drive safely.

Next came a sign for the Owl’s Roost Mortuary. I turned down the gravel drive, my headlights washing a Cadillac hearse that waited near the front entrance.

An elderly man stood near the rear door of the hearse. It was open, as was the door to the mortuary. Bright light spilled from the interior of the building, back-lighting four pallbearers as they carried a coffin through the stained glass doors.

I couldn’t see the pallbearer’s faces, of course. But I saw their silhouettes.

One in particular.

A silhouette that was at least seven feet tall.

Spider Ripley, carrying Diabolos Whistler’s coffin. As far as I was concerned, that coffin was mine. No one was going to take it, and pray over it, and bury it in the ground.

It was mine, and I meant to have it.

I stomped the gas pedal to the floor.

Rocketing forward, the Explorer kicked up a gravel hailstorm.

The seven-footer was the first to rabbit. He dropped his corner of the coffin, and his three companions were stupid enough to try to compensate. They tottered under the load as I crossed the parking lot, and the guy in back lost it and jumped clear just in time, and the two in front looked up just as my bumper fractured their kneecaps.

One went under the tires and the other went over the hood, splintering the windshield with his head as the Ford rammed Whistler’s coffin. Whistler’s severed head slammed against the bars of its iron cage on impact, and then the big metal box that held the rest of him shot forward like a silver bullet through the open mortuary doors, scything carpet as red as sacramental wine as it went.

Ten feet ahead of the coffin and running hard, Spider Ripley glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t know what to do. The corridor was only twenty feet long and the stained glass doors at the other end were closed, and the coffin was coming and I was coming behind it, and both were coming fast.

But the coffin was in the lead. It clipped Ripley’s right ankle and he went down hard against the lid, twisting as he fell, his eyes trained on my headlights as he landed on his belly. He held onto the big metal box for dear life, grabbing the handles, riding the coffin as it skidded across burgundy carpet and smashed through the stained glass doors.

The doors exploded in a hail of flying glass—a rainbow smashed with a hammer—but the coffin didn’t stop.

Neither did I. The Explorer ripped through the entranceway, splintering wood molding and kicking the oak doors to the side. The doors slapped against the walls with a sound like thunder and stained glass blood spit from a dozen little vertical windows that looked like bleeding gashes.

Gashes like those on the face of Spider Ripley. He stared at me as the coffin continued its wild ride into a chapel beyond the hallway. Roses and lilies eclipsed Spider Ripley as Whistler’s coffin crashed through a floral display and into a platform that held another casket.

Which tumbled into the bed of flowers, spilling a corpse on top of Spider Ripley.

A fat woman that pinned him to the chapel floor.

My left foot mashed the brakes as Spider wrestled with the corpse. Roses and lilies spilled off him as he sat up. He stared at me as I stepped out of the Explorer, his eyes brimming with fear.

I pulled one of the .45s as a shot rang out behind me.

The bullet skinned my left forearm.

Sharp pain jolted me and I dropped the gun.

Before it hit the ground I’d pulled my other pistol. I whirled with it, firing, and the bullets caught the last pallbearer in the belly. He went down screaming and rolled around on the ground, his blood the same shade of burgundy as the carpet.

His screams were horrible. Only death would stop them, but I hoped the pallbearer wouldn’t die. The others, too, the ones I’d hit with the Explorer. I wanted them to live. Not out of mercy. It was just that I didn’t want to hear their ghostly screams.

Those kinds of screams never stopped.

I advanced on Spider Ripley. He tried to rise from his flowery nest but his ankle was broken, so he writhed there like a wounded bug among the flowers.

I could finish him now, but something kept me from doing it. Spider scrambled away from me, crawling backwards until his elbow sank into the fat corpse’s belly. A little deathgasp parted the woman’s prim lips, and the scarred bodyguard grunted in surprise, and I laughed.

Just a dead husk, but she had scared a big scuttling Spider.

Scared him so badly that he couldn’t move another inch.

I said, “If you’ve got a gun, get rid of it.”

Ripley looked at me like he didn’t quite understand. He didn’t say a word. He just sat there and bled. If his buddy hadn’t been screaming so loud, I might have heard Spider’s blood pattering against the dead woman’s corpse.

I pointed my pistol at his face. I was about to let it speak for me when Spider’s hand slipped under his latex coat and came out with a .45, gripped gingerly by the butt like it was something that might bite him.

I took the gun away from him and tossed it behind me. It clattered among the pews and was lost in the shadows.

“What now?” Spider asked.

I stared at Circe’s bodyguard. His shirt was torn open, and it was plain to see that he was still covering all the bases. As before, a crucifix eclipsed the scarred ankh on his chest.

The silver gleamed in the Explorer’s headlights. I noticed that the upper part of the vertical bar was worn, notched like a key.

I reached for Spider’s throat.

He closed his eyes.

My fingers closed on the rawhide chain, and I tore the crucifix from around his neck.

* * *

The pallbearer died. The one I’d shot. His corpse coughed up an oily shade that slipped between his lips and pooled on the carpet with his blood.

Just for a second. And then it slipped through a tear in the carpet and was gone.

I walked down the hall, my boots crunching over stained glass shards as I returned to the Explorer.

In the doorway—now somewhat bigger than it had been a few minutes before—stood the man who had opened the hearse for the pallbearers. Black suit, white hair and neatly trimmed whiskers, and a professionally stern expression that rivaled Diabolos Whistler’s. He was obviously the undertaker.

He said, “Those men outside are dead.”

I glanced past the prone bodies, happy to see their crippled shades stumbling into the woods beyond the parking lot. At the same time the undertaker peered over my shoulder, investigating his own concerns—namely the battered doorway, the shattered stained glass doors, and the wrecked coffins in the chapel beyond.

“I suppose a discussion of payment for damages is out of the question,” he said.

“You might say that.”

He stepped past me and entered the chapel. Seeing his back, I was surprised to see that the old codger had a crisp white ponytail.

The fashion statement amused me, but it didn’t do much for Spider Ripley. He was too busy to notice—wiping his slashed face with a length of funeral bunting from one of the floral displays. The undertaker stepped over him like he wasn’t there and knelt before the woman’s corpse.

She wasn’t exactly looking her best. Her wig had slipped to one side, and gray patches of dead flesh were visible beneath her smeared makeup. Her mouth had been jarred open by the collision, and her dentures lay in a bed of pale pink roses.

The undertaker wiped them with a handkerchief. “Poor Mrs. Cavendish,” he sighed. “We’ve already gone through so much, and it seems more trials lay ahead.”

“She can get in line,” I said.

The undertaker’s brows wrinkled. “Meaning?”

I reached into the Explorer and grabbed the iron box that held Whistler’s head. I inserted the notched bar of Spider’s crucifix into the lock. A twist and the lock popped open. The barred door opened next, and then I had Whistler’s head by his long white hair.

Whistler’s goatee was peppered with ants. I brushed them off as best I could and raised the dead man’s head for the undertaker’s inspection. “This,” I said, motioning toward Whistler’s coffin, “goes with that.”

“Very well.” The undertaker smiled knowingly. “Very well, indeed.”

* * *

The undertaker’s name was Albert Parsons. I didn’t like the smell of Parsons’s work room any better than I liked his company. I didn’t like show tunes either, but that was what blared from Parsons’s stereo. Specifically, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s
Phantom of the Opera
.

The music of the night.

There was no use complaining. I wasn’t setting the soundtrack for this scene, no matter what I thought. The man in the black suit was.

Parsons bent over Whistler’s coffin, tsking and tasking over the dead man’s remains. I ignored the undertaker’s running commentary. I didn’t want to know what he was doing or how he was doing it, as long as Whistler’s head ended up attached to his body.

I turned my attention elsewhere. Spider Ripley lay on a stainless steel worktable, his hands and legs bound with black funeral bunting. The satin pillow from Mrs. Cavendish’s casket was jammed under his head. Fear shone in his eyes, black pupils pulsing as he watched the undertaker going about his work.

I imagined that Diabolos Whistler’s tortured gospel was racing through the bodyguard’s head. Ripley struggled as the undertaker fussed and fidgeted. I glanced at Parsons out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t look long—the stainless steel instruments that filled his hands made my gut churn.

But disgust was quite different from fear. I was convinced that there would be no twisted miracle in Whistler’s coffin. As far as I was concerned, I’d tested the tenets of Whistler’s faith at the bottle house. The result amounted to nothing. It would be the same with his corpse once head and body were reunited.

I was sure of that. Soon enough Ripley would feel the hard slap of reality, and I knew I had to get to him before that happened. I had to find out what he knew about Circe Whistler while he was still afraid.

Parsons came toward me, gore on his rubber gloves. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need an instrument from the cabinet behind you. Can I get it myself, or would you like to do the honors?”

“Get it yourself,” I said, and as he stepped behind me I asked, “How much longer to finish the job?”

“You say it doesn’t have to be perfect?”

“Or pretty.”

“Then I’d say about five minutes should do the trick.”