Alarums (2 page)

    The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner grinned and nodded sagely as his remark brought a few chuckles and moans from his audience. Pen looked around. The dapper little oriental, a cross between Quincy and Charlie Chan, had his listeners spellbound. They were eating it up.

    She was glad she'd finally worked up the courage to come to one of these meetings. Even though she had sold only one story so far, she felt special to be sitting among so many mystery writers.

    Gary Beatty leaned sideways on his seat, shoulder brushing against her. He took a thin cigar from his mouth. 'The man's got good patter,' he said, twitching his lip like Sam Spade. 'Too bad he don't talk English.'

    Gary was the first person she'd met here tonight. She had arrived early, found a parking place on a sidestreet beside the Greater Los Angeles Press Club, rushed with her umbrella through the rain, and barely gotten seated at the Press Club bar before he climbed onto the stool beside her.

    'Heyyy, Allen,' he greeted the bartender.

    ' Gary, how are you?' Allen, an oriental, spoke with a voice like Paul McCartney. 'What can I get you, eh? Coors or Bud?'

    'Make it a Coors.'

    Allen finished preparing Pen's vodka-tonic and set it in front of her. Pen unsnapped her handbag. Gary shook his head. 'It's on me,' he said.

    'No, really…'

    'Never look a gift-drink in the mouth.'

    'Well…'

    'Don't make me twist your arm, babe. We both might enjoy it too much.'

    She'd stayed with Gary, talking and drinking, for twenty minutes. Then he'd led her up to the meeting room.

    This'll separate the men from the sissies,' Gary said as the overhead lights went out.

    'Do you think he'll show bodies?' Pen asked.

    Gary tipped back his head and blew out a smoke ring. 'I wouldn't be at all surprised.'

    The first slides showed the Los Angeles Medical Examiner's headquarters building and fleet of golden vans. As they appeared on the screen, the coroner gave statistics about the size of his department, its annual budget, the number of bodies handled during the previous year, the previous month. Gary, Pen noticed, was taking notes. 'We do booming business,' the coroner said. Rather gleefully.

    Then it started getting bad.

    A slide of the autopsy room. Stainless steel operating tables. Trays of surgical instruments. Scales for weighing excised organs. Slanted tables with drains at their lower ends to catch the run-off.

    Pen realized she was holding her breath. She let it out, inhaled deeply, and took a drink of the vodka-tonic she'd brought up with her from the bar.

    The next slide showed a sunlit field. One of the golden vans was near a couple of police cars. Several men stood in knee-high weeds near the top of the picture. 'Nice spot for picnic, but we have customer.' The projector clicked and hummed. The customer appeared.

    A woman. She was sprawled face-down. Her skin looked bluish-gray and puffy. The bottoms of her feet were dirty. Surrounding her were the shoes and ankles of men from the previous shot. 'She not be here long. Overnight, maybe.'

    A close-up of her buttocks. What had looked in the longer view like a dark smudge was now obviously the contusion surrounding a bite. 'Our killer make big mistake. Love bites. Teeth marks not fingerprints, but almost. Good for us, bad for him. Maybe we get saliva sample. If he secreter, we get blood type from saliva. Pin him down good.'

    The picture changed.

    A different naked woman. Heavier than the other one. She was face-down on a table in the autopsy room. The little man stepped close to the screen and pointed a finger at her rump. Both buttocks were a deep, grayish purple. 'Post-mortem lividity. When heart stop pumping, gravity act on blood. Blood sink.' He pointed out other blotches on her shoulder-blades and the backs of her legs. 'Look like world's worst hickey. But we know she supine after death. Can't fool Mother Nature.'

    Gary groaned. 'What a wit,' he muttered.

    Pen took a deep, shaky breath. She felt light-headed and a little weak. Something's wrong, she thought. Too much vodka? She wanted to take another sip, but she didn't dare.

    The next slide showed a man.

    He was stretched out on a table. A blue cloth covered his face. He was naked. His skin was red. 'This not post-mortem lividity, this not sunburn, this cyanosis.' He went on. Pen kept glancing at the corpse's limp penis, and forcing her eyes away from it, and looking again.

    She shut her eyes. Her face felt cold and numb. She rubbed it with her hand. It was wet.

    
This,
she thought,
is what they call a cold sweat.

    
Christ.

    
What am I doing here?

    Then came a close-up of a gaunt, dead face. A man with whiskers. And a white speck of something in the hair of his left nostril. 'Nature always at work,' said the chipper coroner.

    Pen's ears were ringing.

    He pointed at the speck. 'Fly eggs. Fly eggs like little clocks, very handy. We know they left after death, so…'

    Pen set her drink on the floor and picked up her umbrella and handbag. She rose on wobbly legs, sidestepped past Gary 's knees, and made her way along the side of the room until she reached the head of the stairs. The narrow staircase looked steep. She paused, wondering if she dare try to descend. Damn well better, she thought. Gotta get out of here before I toss my cookies.

    Hooking the umbrella handle over her left wrist, she clutched the wooden hand-rail and started down.

    Her mouth kept filling with saliva. The staircase looked darker than it should. When she blinked, it had an electric blue aura. She clung to the railing, sliding her hand down it, prepared to grip it firmly if her legs should give out.

    
You're gonna faint or barf,
she thought.
One or the other.

    
God, what a disaster.

    
Fly eggs.

    She gagged, her throat straining and tears coming to her eyes.

    Then she was at the bottom of the staircase, breathing deeply of the fresh, cool breeze. It helped. The rain sounded pleasant spattering the courtyard in front of her. It seemed to be coming down harder than before.

    She still felt shaky, but her vision was better and the cold tightness in her stomach seemed to be easing. She pursed her lips and stretched her mouth wide. The numbness had left her cheeks.

    Opening her umbrella, she wondered what to do. One thing was certain, she couldn't go back upstairs. That left two alternatives: either cross the courtyard to the Press Club bar and wait there for the meeting to end, or go home.

    Gary might stop by the bar after the meeting ended. But there was no guarantee of that. And if he should show up, it might lead to trouble.

    Probably end up trying to fend him off.

    Better just leave.

    She stepped out of the entryway. The rain drummed on her umbrella as she hurried through the courtyard and down the concrete steps to the parking lot.

    

    

    Twenty minutes later, she closed the apartment door behind her and hooked the dripping umbrella over its knob. Rump against the door to steady herself, she pulled off her boots. She carried them into the bedroom, turning on lights as she went.

    It felt good to get out of her clothes. She hung up the damp skirt in the closet, slipped her feet into an old pair of moccasins, and put on her robe. The robe was soft against her skin.

    In the bathroom, she switched on the heat light. Then she went to the kitchen and removed a bottle of Burgundy from the refrigerator.

    A glass of wine, a good book, a long hot bath - the life of luxury. Worth coming home for.

    The cork came out with a low, ringing pop.

    She carried the bottle into the dining area and took a crystal glass from the cabinet. Back in the bathroom, she filled the glass. She took a drink, the wine cool and tart in her mouth, warm after she swallowed. Its heat flowed downward, spreading.

    
Nice,
she thought.

    This will be very nice, far superior to sitting in the Press Club bar.

    
Something might have developed with Gary
.

    
Forget it.

    
He just would've tried to pull something. They all do. If you don't come across, they try to force you. The hell with them.

    She set down the glass and bottle beside the tub - near the far end so they would be easy to reach once she was in. Kneeling, she stoppered the drain and turned the water on. She got the temperature right, almost too hot to bear, then dried her hands and went to get a book.

    Her loosely belted robe hung open. She left it that way, feeling too lazy and comfortable to bother closing it.

    She switched on the light in the spare bedroom, her office. Resting on the corner of her desk was the new Dean R. Koontz book. It was getting good, but it was a hardbound. No risking a hardbound in the bath.

    She started toward her bookshelves and yelped in pain as a corner of the desk gouged her thigh. Clutching herself, she whirled around and dropped onto the chair.

    'Jesus,' she hissed.

    When the pain subsided, she lifted her hand. No blood on her leg, but a layer of skin was peeled back, ruffled and white, leaving a patch of shiny pink flesh.

    She let out a trembling breath.

    
Damn it, why didn't I look where I was going? It'll feel great when the hot water hits it.

    From where she sat, she could hear the bath water.

    She started to stand up.

    And noticed the telephone answering machine beside her typewriter. Its red light was on. She looked more closely.

    Four calls while she was gone? A busy night.

    She rewound the tape, pressed the playback button, then turned away and headed for the bookshelves.

    'Hello, honey.' Pen didn't recognize the man's voice. 'Sorry you're away. I wanted to talk to you about my big hard cock and your hot juicy cunt.'

    The words pounded her breath away. She spun around, stared at the brown plastic recorder.

    'How'd you like me to fuck your brains out, huh? Yeah, I'll stick it right up…'

    She lunged at the desk, arm out, stiff finger set to jab the voice to silence. The machine beat her to it, a quiet beep signaling the end of the message.

    Pen's legs felt weak. She braced herself over the desk, elbows locked, hands flat on the cool wood.

    Second message.

    Same voice.

    'How'd you like it if I stuck my tongue up…'

    She stabbed the stop button.

    Shut her eyes. Lowered her head. Took deep breaths as her heart slammed.

    
Goddamn demented sicko. Good thing I wasn't home. Better fly eggs than…

    Pen opened her eyes. Glimpsed the blond tuft between her legs. Jerked the robe shut and pulled its belt tight. Looked at the machine.

    Maybe the bastard quit after two calls.

    She pressed the fast forward button, watching the counter turn. Okay, third message. '… come in your mouth. I want to shoot my load down…'

    She shoved the eject control. The cassette flipped up. She tore it from the machine and threw it.

    

    

    They were heading west on Highway 10, an hour out of Phoenix, the headbeams of the VW van pushing ahead of them through the darkness and lighting more than Bodie cared to see beyond the breakdown lane.

    The fencing over there had snagged a lot of tumbleweed. That seemed to be its sole purpose.

    Beyond the fence was nothing.

    Nada.

    
Hell, there's plenty out there,
he thought.
Plenty of rocks and sand and cacti and tarantulas and scorpions. And tumbleweed.

    He remembered an old episode of
Thriller
or
Outer Limits
(hard to keep the two shows straight) where a couple got stuck in an area very much like this and the goddamn tumbleweeds got them. Surrounded them, closed in, and…

    A pale shape the size of a trashcan scooted into the path of his headlights. Bodie's foot jumped to the brake pedal. Before he could ram it down, the thing had already blown past his lane.

    A tumbleweed, must've hopped the fence.

    It looked like a giant hairball of dead sticks.

    The back of his neck tingled.

    'It's coming for us,' he said - quoting his favorite line from
The Night of the Living Dead
. He tried to smile.

    Melanie turned toward him. Her face was a pale oval with dark smudges for eyes and lips. 'Just a joke,' he said. She didn't answer. 'Remember that old
Thriller
? Maybe it was
The Outer Limits
. This couple was… Hey, would you say something?'

    'I was so awful to him. I never stopped blaming him for… what happened to Mom. I know it wasn't his fault, but he was right there in the house. If he'd only heard her fall… If I'd been there, instead of away at camp.'

    'Who sent you to the camp?' Bodie asked.

    'They did. Mom and Dad. I didn't even want to go, but they said it would be a growth experience. They felt I was too dependent and introverted, that camp would help "bring me out". I didn't have any choice about going. I know I shouldn't hold myself responsible for Mom's accident. Dad either. It wasn't his fault any more than mine. But what you know and what you feel don't always match up. So things were never right between Dad and me after that. I tried… I just couldn't forgive him, or myself. Then he went and remarried.'