Creepers (24 page)

Corelli immediately recognized Louise's hysteria. He'd seen it in subway passengers forced to remain between stations in hot, overcrowded trains. It was a slow process to transform a rational human being into a terrified animal. Goddammit, why had he let Louise talk him into tagging along? It was crazy. Now he was going to pay for it; the guard was still nosing around in the outer office, and as his flashlight swept the glass of the connecting door, it briefly illuminated the morgue and Louise's terrified face.

"It's okay. He'll be gone in a second," he said as reassuringly as he could. "Then we can leave."

"They've got Lisa," Louise whimpered. "You knew all along." She had to get out and save her baby. Just a few steps more and she'd be at the door, then out into the hall, then out into the arms of the dark, inviting night... and finally into the subway. Only a few steps more...

Something poked Louise in the back. She whirled around. The arm of the corpse on the gurney had slipped from under its covering and jutted out over the edge of the stretcher. Its hand touched the front of Louise's skirt. She opened her mouth to scream, but only a hissing sound escaped. She drew in a deep breath and attempted to scream once again, but something clamped itself over her mouth from behind. The picture of a risen corpse holding her in its arms crowded her mind, and she fainted, falling backward into Corelli's arms.

The weight of Louise's fall caught him off balance. He sagged, letting his legs take the weight, but she began slipping through his arms. He twisted, vainly trying to keep her from falling. Their downward motion caught the edge of the gurney and sent it spinning across the room, where it stopped with a thud against the far wall. As Corelli laid Louise down on the floor, he watched with horrified fascination as the sheeting covering the body fluttered to the floor.

The door to the outer office closed and was locked once again. The guard walked away without bothering to check the morgue. He's no fool, Corelli thought as he rubbed Louise's wrists. She stirred, then suddenly sat bolt upright.

"Get me out of here, Frank," she said weakly. "Please."

"You'll be all right. Trust me." He helped her to her feet.

"Trusting you has gotten me interrogated by the police, thrown out of my home and into the morgue in the middle of the night," she said angrily. "Trust you? You must be joking. Now, can we please leave?"

"I've got one more thing to do." He wanted to leave the room just as he'd found it, and that meant covering the corpse and returning the gurney to its original place. Whoever was behind the creeper cover-up--and that certainly was the right name--knew their business. Leaving anything out of place was to signpost that Frank Corelli had trespassed and was becoming even more dangerous than they suspected. And that might just mean taking extra precautions to find and to silence him.

He picked up the sheet from the floor and began draping it over the body without looking at the corpse. But his policeman's curiosity got the better of him and his eyes finally settled on the dead man's face. Corelli gasped. To be sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, he shone his flashlight on the face of the dead man.

It was Lester Baker.

Twenty minutes later Louise had calmed down somewhat. Being away from that dreadful hospital morgue in Corelli's car driving through the twinkling, darkened city allowed her to think more clearly. She had no right to resent Corelli for believing what he did about creatures in the subway or, for that matter, about what had happened to Lisa. For a while he'd even convinced her that these things existed, but now, as the cool night air whistled past the window, she saw the story for what it was--just a story.

She looked at Corelli and smiled, feeling almost motherly toward him now. Like he was a kid who wanted desperately to believe that he'd seen a flying saucer. His grim conviction that monsters truly existed had shaken Louise's belief that Lisa had been kidnapped by an ordinary mortal. For a while she'd been drawn into his terror story, but now she was free of it. And what was the point of holding his beliefs against him? There was none. Especially now that they'd made love and she was beginning to fall in love with him. If it were essential to Frank Corelli right now that he chase creatures of the night through the subway, she could live with it. In the meantime, she had her own beliefs: Lisa was kidnapped, plain and simple. The idea that she might still be in the subway wasn't totally illogical--after all, Frank had said there were many places to hide--but that she was a captive of the monsters was ridiculous!

"Frank? Frank? Remember me? I'm the girl you took on the date to the morgue?"

He looked at her absentmindedly, smiled, then returned his attention to the road. Louise wasn't exactly worried about Corelli's silence. She didn't know him well enough to know if it was part of the rhythm of his personality or if it was still the upset of discovering the identity of the body in the morgue. She guessed it was the latter, although he wouldn't answer her questions. After he'd recovered the corpse and replaced the stretcher, he'd led her silently out of the hospital and into the cold night.

Since then his only response to her string of questions was a string of wordless grunts. Finally she'd given up. But one thing was clear: Frank Corelli was scared. As they drove back downtown to the Village, Louise had the distinct feeling that Frank planned to desert her in that awful apartment and disappear into the night to chase his ghosts. Well, she could hardly blame him. However had she allowed herself to faint?

At Fourteenth Street they turned off Fifth Avenue and a few minutes later turned down Ninth Avenue, slowing as they approached Abingdon Square and Quinn's apartment house. Ever since leaving the hospital, Corelli's mind had been hopscotching from Lester Baker to Louise. El Bee had been very much alive that afternoon, and now he was dead. Frank kept wondering if Baker had died from natural causes or if he'd just been another open door in the creeper cover-up that someone had decided to shut permanently. Chances were he'd never know for sure, and that bugged the hell out of him.

Louise was easier to psych out; she was teetering on the edge of emotional collapse, and that scared him. Her terror in the morgue, followed minutes later by her jovial offhand chatter, was an indication that she was caught in a mood swing of cosmic proportions. Corelli only hoped that if--when, probably--the final break came, he'd be able to keep her from doing any lasting damage to herself and to him. With a game as dangerous as the one they were involved in, a hysterical woman was a one-way ticket to oblivion.

As they slowed to turn the corner into Bethune Street, movement in a parked car off to Frank's left caught his eyes. He slowed and peered out the rearview mirror. It was a black car--the black car--and it was parked opposite the small triangular park opposite their destination. The car now looked empty, but Corelli suspected it was very much occupied. Shit, they'd found where he and Louise were staying. And there was only one way that could have happened: Quinn had spilled his guts. For a moment Corelli's anger flared at this betrayal, but it cooled almost immediately. Nothing short of the rubber-hose treatment could get Quinn to reveal Frank's whereabouts; he just hoped they hadn't been too rough with his pal.

Frank eased the car past the apartment-house entrance and his suspicions were confirmed. The night doorman was different from the one they'd said good night to earlier. The replacement was in a doorman's uniform and he was helping a slightly intoxicated tenant into the elevator, but the guy was a cop. Corelli had been around uniformed men too long not to recognize the stance and the watchfulness. The whole apartment house was probably crawling with cops right now.

He swung the car back out onto Hudson Street, then sped up Eighth Avenue. They may have thought they were closing in on Frank and Louise, but he had other ideas.

"Mind if I ask where we're going now?" Louise had given up on trying to outthink Corelli. She wasn't at all surprised that he'd abandoned Quinn's apartment. "Maybe there's a cemetery you want to visit?"

"You ever been uptown? I mean way uptown?"

Louise shook her head. "With you around, I'm beginning to think I've never been anywhere." She rested back against the seat, realizing how tired she was. Her wild-goose chase had begun only that afternoon, but she hadn't stopped running since. It was well after two already, and there was no sign that they'd ever come to a rest. She was more tired than she'd been in years, yet at that moment she wouldn't have traded places with any other woman in the world.

At Ninety-sixth Street and Broadway Corelli stopped to make a phone call. After seven rings the phone was answered.

"Who the hell is it at this hour?" The male voice was clouded with sleep.

"It's Corelli."

"Mr. Detective, you're getting to be a regular pain in the ass." Now Willie Hoyte's voice was beginning to snap to.

"Listen, Willie, I don't have time for your jive talk. I need your help. You got someplace a friend and I can crash for the night?" For half a minute there was silence. "Well?"

"I live with my momma," he admitted reluctantly to stall for time. Trusting Corelli was one thing; inviting him into his home was another. It just wasn't done. Not where Willie Hoyte lived.

"Then do you have a friend? I'm in big trouble," Frank quickly admitted.

That did it. "You can stay here. My momma's off visiting her sister." Willie gave him the address and hung up. He then threw on a pair of pants and a sweater and washed two days' worth of dirty dishes in the sink, guiltily looking at his father's photograph. Hell, if Ralph Hoyte knew Willie was having the law, the white law, staying under his roof, he'd bust outta jail and personally strangle him. Willie sneered at the picture. "What the hell did that kinda attitude ever get you, Daddy?" He turned the photo to the wall and strolled into the living room, beginning to wonder if he'd lost his senses inviting that dude into his house.

He probably shouldn't have asked Corelli over. But the man said he was in trouble with a capital T. Just like Willie'd been in trouble earlier at the hospital when Corelli rescued him. Shit, he and the cop were so busy swapping favors they might just as well become partners. Willie smiled at the idea, then turned his attention to an old Japanese horror film on television that he'd already seen five times before.

When Corelli arrived ten minutes later and was ushered into the Hoyte living room, Willie didn't immediately see Louise. But when he did, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He pulled Corelli aside. "You didn't say nothin' 'bout this, Corelli. You want to go catting around, that's fine by me, but not in my momma's house you don't. This kinda trouble I want no part of." Shit, all along Corelli was playing him for a sucker.

"Willie, this is Louise Hill. Louise, Willie Hoyte." He stepped aside and left the two of them staring at each other. "You might have read about Louise. Her daughter was kidnapped off the Seventy-second Street subway platform on Labor Day."

"That's you?" Willie asked in amazement. "I been readin' about you and your daughter all week. Have they found her yet?"

"No, not yet." Louise dropped her eyes. "May I please sit down?"

"Sure. Sure thing." He led them into the living room and turned off the television. "How's about something cold to drink? A beer? A Coke?"

They both requested beers, and while Willie was out of the room Corelli caught Louise's eyes and smiled. There was nothing to say...yet. He'd be talking soon enough. And what he had to tell them both wasn't going to be easy. The main problem would be convincing the two that the creepers really existed. Willie'd gotten a dose of fear from El Bee's story, but he still suspected the whole thing was drug-induced. Telling Willie that Lester was dead might change his mind about that. Inwardly Corelli sighed; how do you make the unbelievable sound believable? This was the twentieth century, not the fourteenth. Ghosts and goblins and monsters eating people for dinner were out of style; the real beasts that walked the city streets had made fairy tales obsolete.

Half an hour later Corelli finished talking. It had been more difficult than he'd anticipated and as he pieced together the history of the underground horrors, Frank felt the cold touch of fear. He'd felt many things since this nightmare began, but fear was never one of them. It worried him momentarily. Being afraid was dangerous. It made you an easy target, made you prone to make mistakes, too often fatal ones. Frank had been afraid before, but he'd never let it interfere; this time would be no different. But what about Willie? More importantly, what about Louise?

Willie had remained untouched by Corelli's recitation until he learned that Lester Baker was dead. He hadn't flinched at the gruesome memory of finding Ted Slade's body, and the historical evidence of the creepers supplied by the ancient newspaper articles only bored him. Willie Hoyte already knew evil existed in the city, above the ground and below it. Hell, he'd formed Dogs of Hell to counteract it No, it wasn't the creepers that bothered Willie, it was Lester's death. El Bee had died mysteriously in protective custody. And Willie smelled a rat, a rat dressed in a blue uniform with a shiny badge pinned to it. And that made him angry, angrier than he'd ever been in his life. But Willie Hoyte wasn't about to show his feelings to no one and, had it not been for a nervous twitch of his hands, he appeared as passive as someone watching a police drama on television.

Louise was a different story. At first, as Corelli detailed the long list of missing persons, her brows furrowed and she. began to personalize the information. And as he went over the details of Ted Slade's death and wove in the story Lester Baker had told of his attack in the car yard, Louise began to squirm obviously, finally believing there was a connection between this terror and Lisa. But she was strong right until the end, when he revealed the results of the autopsy saliva test. Then Louise uttered a little cry and closed her eyes. He'd put his arms around her, and she melted against his body.