A Passing Curse (2011) (51 page)

He heard engines and watched the top of several long cars go through the gate.

He grabbed a manzanita branch and pulled. When it broke and he slid down another five feet, he grabbed another. By crawling through the chaparral, breaking the branches, choking on the dust and flying ticks, he made the road in twenty minutes.

He heaved himself over the edge and lay on his back. Where was his car? He remembered now. The shock, the blue flame. The hunchback kicking him down the hill. Flying through the air. The blast of the Mustang’s pipes as Ted, that was his name, drove down the hill.

He stood, got dizzy, spun away inside his head, fell down. He stood again and tried to walk off the pain. He groaned and cussed. He swatted at dust and leaves on his clothes. He licked his lips and spit out the dirt. His head spun. He sat down. Rusty was on the other side of the gate, but he couldn’t take the shock again. He had to regroup. Rethink. Ajax’s house was lit up like a birthday cake. The governor’s party? He remembered, now. Would Ajax hurt her with that many people around? He couldn’t chance it.

He forced himself up and stumbled down the road toward town. Get to the apartment, get cleaned up. Get another plan. Had she left him for Ajax? Had he ever really had her?

He looked at his watch in the moonlight. The crystal was gone, the hands torn off. He staggered down the road, letting gravity carry him down.

He hobbled along. He sat down again. He was shaking. He was spinning. When his head cleared, he had trouble getting up. He hadn’t realized the road was so long. He heard birds, something, chirping and ducked his head. Lights snapping on and a large figure coming at him and rough hands. A car door opened. The interior light revealing the Chief manhandling him into the passenger’s seat.

The Chief grumbled, “You look like shit.”

He checked himself in the rearview mirror. He blinked swollen eyes. “I do at that.”

The Chief slammed his door and walked to the driver’s side. “I’m taking you to the hospital.” The car tilted when the Chief sat. He wheeled the station wagon down the steep road, the tires squealing as they picked up speed. “What happened?”

“I touched the fence.”

The Chief nodded. “Ajax said you climbed his security gate. He wanted me to charge you with trespassing. He has the videotapes to prove it.”

“I’ll bet he does,” he said. “He also has Rusty.”

“I sent a man to check five hours ago, but he didn’t see you. He didn’t see anybody. I called Ajax back. He said you’d left, that I shouldn’t worry myself further, his words, that was this afternoon.”

He’d left, alright. Left consciousness. “He kidnapped her.”

“Kidnapped? She called my office not an hour ago, just after seven. She was worried about you, your mental state, but she was fine.”

“And you believed it?”

“I talked to her. She sounded happy.” The Chief leered. “Kidnap victims never sound that happy. A word to think of would be ebullient. Something made her happy.”

“Ajax faked her voice.”

“He’s a ventriloquist, now?” he asked with a sneer. “She’s with him. Get over it. She’s got herself a rich one. I’ll tell you that. Nothing to be ashamed about, Reese.”

“Get a warrant. Ram the gate. He has her. He kidnapped her. He’s the killer. I’m a retired police officer. That will carry some weight on the warrant. Even in this town.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” the Chief said, then concentrated on the road, wrestling with the steering wheel, it wedging against his belly on the sharper turns. “Who’d he kill?

“He’s a vampire.”

“Yeah? I’ll tell the judge, and when he finds out that the man who got him reelected is not only a ventriloquist but also a serial killer and vampire to boot, well, he’ll make the search warrant out that much quicker.” The Chief eyed him. “I think you got a harder jolt than you thought. You sure you ain’t still thinking about Richard Lamb? I know you killed the Anaheim Vampire, you’re a real hero, but it’s time to drop it. Get over yourself, man.”

“When did you start spying on Ajax?” Reese asked. “What are you doing up here?”

“Watching my beat, that’s all. They found your car behind Cheevy’s. I had them turn the engine off and put the keys under the front seat. I figured I’d find you.”

“Ted dumped it. After he dumped me off the cliff.”

The Chief drove for a moment. “After I check you into the hospital, I’ll have someone bring your car. And I want my shotgun and night goggles back. Your days of vampire hunting are over.”

“I need a ride to my car. Or I can walk.” He grabbed the door handle, ready to jerk it open. They were off the hill now and doing thirty. He opened the door. The wind whistled in.

“Hold on,” the Chief said and grabbed him, pulling him back inside. “I’ll take you to your car, but if I hear from Ajax about you again, I’ll throw you under the jail. I do not want you fucking with Ajax while the governor is up there.”

“I’m going home. That’s all.”

The Chief nodded but said, “Suit yourself. I damn sure wouldn’t be cooling my heels at home, not in this situation. I damn sure wouldn’t be leaving my girl with Ajax.”

He didn’t say another word until the Chief stopped in front of his car. “You afraid to do it yourself? You afraid to do the dirty work. That’s what you get paid for.”

“We can’t all be heroes,” the Chief said. “And you were custom made for the part. A natural born hero.” He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket. “That’s you.”

“He’ll be dead tonight,” Reese said. “One of us.”

The Chief unwrapped the cigar. “I never heard you say it. Remember that,” the Chief said and watched him as he crawled out, slammed the door, and looked back through the open window.

“Stay out of my way.”

“Take care,” the Chief said airily and added, “Like I said, I’d love to help, but sometimes a man has to look out for his future.” He put the cigar in his mouth and drove off.

He gingerly got into the Mustang. His leg hurt, a deep bone pain, and he could barely depress the clutch. He managed to grind the gears all the way to the apartment. Inside, he stripped off the holster and his clothes and struggled to the bathroom. In the mirror he saw the red welt where the electrified rim of the shoulder holster had burned him. It looked like a question mark.

Ajax sighed. Now his boredom was manageable. He washed his hands in the downstairs kitchen and marveled at how wonderful the water felt. He dried his hands and examined them as if for the first time. They were so normal they frightened him. Priest’s hands. Innocent hands.

Things were going nicely. And to think that only last week he’d been supremely bored. Immortality does tend to go on forever.

He could hear the band playing and the laughing. It was time to make an entrance.

When he walked into the living room, Governor Bill Smith smiled and walked toward him with his hand out, always that. A hand shake and a smile. Grip and grin. The Willy Loman of politics.

Ajax shook the warm hand. “I’m glad you could make it.” The musicians from Peru played guitars and a sort of wood flute, a thin, airy sound, like heaven itself.

The governor was so tanned that he took on a faint purple glow. His wife was slightly bow-legged and equally tanned but with more of an orange tint. She bussed him lightly on the cheek, a look on her face like she smelled something bad. The fucking cunt.

“We just returned from Jamaica,” she said. “We stopped at your new medical building, Sangre de Jamaica, it’s so clean. Everyone is so excited. The people, I mean, are joyous, all the jobs you’ve provided.” She stuffed caviar in her mouth. A few black eggs gathered at the corners.

“I assured the Jamaican governor-general that you were one of the most generous men I know,” the governor said and shook his hand again. “He seems very happy with you.”

And so he should, thought Ajax. The man was nearly two million dollars richer and had already ordered a Bentley. “They’re wonderful people,” Ajax said. “The Jamaicans are such a loving people.” A nation of dope fiends and thieves who would soon become an island of zombies. While Mrs. Smith spoke blithely about the mission school she’d visited outside of Trinidad and the lovely, just so adorable children, Ajax took in the room. Everyone was here. The money men, the political hacks, the lawyers, the hangers-on. There was Paul Stanton, the Silicon Valley chip maker. There was Morris Fine, the man behind the man who now occupied the White House. He’d like to see how they were coping in a few weeks.

The governor pulled him aside. “I want to thank you personally for all the help, Ajax, and I want to assure you that I’m getting the new bill ready.”

But he was thinking of her, only fifty feet away if you walked through stone, thinking of her, thinking of the future and thinking of her. “The new bill?”

“Yes,” the governor said, a bit miffed. “The bill that opens California to medical imports? You know. ‘The Bill.’ To free all limitations and restrictions on imported blood.”

Ajax stared at this man and his smile. His teeth an incredible white, a bleached fluorescence against the purple face. “I have to see to the other guests,” Ajax said and walked into the sunken living room.

He shook hands with Alec Klum, one of the richest in Silicon Valley. Alec was slightly obese, a taste for chocolate, and his slim wife smelled of tangerines. Others had noticed him and were walking over.

In an hour they would be asking him for money. Their real gift was in the champagne that would be served later and in the chocolate liqueurs nested among jars of caviar and foie gras.

She watched Ted bring in a tray. She saw a steaming plate with a T-bone steak, broccoli, and potato. Iron-rich food, she thought, blood food. The same thing she’d had for lunch. She’d forced lunch down, but only because she needed the strength. He now unfastened her right wrist and set the tray across her stomach. There was a fork on the tray. For lunch she’d used her fingers. They were trusting her.

She held on to the sight of Ted kicking Reese off the cliff. She held the anger inside of her. She watched Ted, but stayed cool. His time would come. Her time would come.

She ate. Ted drooled and stared between her legs, a crazed suitor, as if she didn’t have enough to worry about. Ted wouldn’t hurt her out of fear of Ajax. He now had a new dressing on the head wound. He tried to touch her knee and she raised the fork. He slunk back.

Where was Ajax? She had a free hand, she had a weapon, but if she couldn’t kill Ted with the first blow, she wouldn’t get another chance.

The whistle. It was still in her pocket and after what she’d just seen with Ajax - he actually believed he was a vampire - she decided that blowing the whistle might work, but only because Ajax believed it would. He certainly wanted it back.

When she finished eating, Ted took the fork, re-clamped her wrist, and scuttled out with the tray. Ajax walked in carrying his doctor’s bag.

“Reese needs help,” she said. “Call the ambulance, get him up the hill and to a hospital.” And, she promised herself, if Reese did die, she’d find a way to kill Ajax.

“Reese?” He sat on the bed and stroked her hair. “Reese is fine. Don’t worry about him. And how are you? Are we treating you well?”

“If it was any better I couldn’t stand it,” she said. Reese is fine? Ajax’s eyes were sweaty black. His skin was loose, the once tight chin fell in folds down his neck. He had slicked his hair back with some kind of grease and his lips were more red, as if he’d applied lipstick. He seemed dazed, a careless smile on his face. He was changing. Could she believe him about Reese?

She wasn’t sure whether Reese was fine or not, but she was sure about one thing, and saw it now as clearly as she had seen anything: Ajax was going to kill her. He was turning into something. Whatever Ajax had become, vampire or psycho, she was dead. It was only a matter of time unless she could get close to him. “I’d like to go to the party,” she said.

Ajax nodded, seemingly in agreement. “Your dress has arrived and if you promise to compose yourself, I’ll introduce you to some very powerful people.” He laughed and murmured, as if sharing a secret with her, “Powerful for the moment, at least.”

She could hear the flutes. High notes of faraway music. “I’d love to.” Play along. She’d meet the governor and start screaming. She’d tell them a man was dying outside the gate.

Ajax looked at her quizzically as if having second thoughts. “I’m not so sure,” he said.

“Sure of what? I’d love to go to your party. Meet the governor.”

His smile tightened. “You can meet the governor later. Soon, the both of you are going to have a lot in common.” He grinned and played with the handle of the bag. “I regret using you as a staked goat, but, as they say, the end justifies the means. I suspect Reese will be coming shortly.”

“What are you talking about? Ted kicked him off the cliff. He’s hurt.”

“He’s fine. I told you. He’s already back in town. He made it down the road and into the arms of the Chief.”

“He’s with the Chief?” If Reese was alive it improved her chances. He’d come back for her. But she couldn’t count on him. Ajax might be lying. “Why did you let him go?”

“I want to see if he really wants you.”

“Wants me? I’m not the one you should be worrying about.”

He patted her hand. “Exactly, my dear. Exactly. I was wondering,” he said casually. “Could I take a bit more?”

He was careful to wipe her blood off his mouth and face. He neatly folded his scarlet handkerchief, a quarter-inch showing at his breast pocket, before sweeping into the party. He felt like a returning prince.

They were already eating.

In addition to several waitresses dressed in flower print dresses, Rene” was eagerly gliding around attending to them all. The food had arrived in insulated tureens, ready to eat, fresh from Rene’s restaurant.

The musicians circulated around the main dining table, forty feet long, playing a jaunty tune and jumping in rhythm to it. The dancers, five of them dressed in festive and bright colors, twirled in a circle. The various colors were hypnotic to him. The festiveness took his breath away.

The governor looked at him, and his fork, piled high with asparagus, stopped midway to his white gaping teeth, staring for a second before filling his mouth. A few of the other guests gave him strange looks, but they, Ajax reflected, were merely excited.