End Time (44 page)

“Doan you fret, Prissy,” Rachel chuckled. “We ain't gonna send you back to Tara. The only one wearing a white sheet in dis joint is gonna be me.”

Cheryl held her tongue; keep it up, Girlie.

Beside the saloon door stood a freestanding chalkboard for the daily specials. The management had drawn Felix the Cat's grinning face on the slate chalkboard. Only
this
cat face was boldly augmented with a bright red circle and a slash, the universal
No
sign.

No Felix. No Felix allowed.

“Yeah well, this place can't be all bad,” Cheryl said to nobody in particular.

Bhakti held the door for her with a raised eyebrow. The saloon enveloped them, dark and cavernous, with spot lamps that hardly shed any light over the tables. From a large booth they could see most of the watering hole at a glance. Rachel's apparition found a perch on an inch of wainscoting where she could hover.

So this is where Webster Chargrove's confessions from that dingy underground office were emanating? This is where he blabbed the secrets of national insemination gone wrong, spontaneous mutation and sickness run wild?

The barmaid, a big brassy woman with cropped gray hair, finished polishing a beer mug, slapped open the swing flap, and plucked a walking cane off the bar. She wore a black plastic knee brace over her jeans and tied her work shirt in a knot. When the woman reached the table she unconsciously hitched up her bra strap; you could see a small red scar under her ear. The words
gunshot
and
frag wound
leapt into Cheryl's mind. The woman's breast pocket embroidered with the name of a local brewery:
Butch Beer.
A Ford Torino key chain dangled from the other pocket. Ah, the Daughter of the Old South.

“Hi, folks. I'm Beatrice, Big Bea. The kitchen's about to close, but Chaffy will fix you something if it's not too fancy. What can I get you?”

“Coke with lemon, no ice,” Bhakti said. His companions rolled their eyes. Fussbudget. Big Bea nodded. “We have that.”

Billy looked around the empty place. “Everybody at the penny social?”

The large barmaid shrugged. “You got me, Handsome. Feels like the whole town went to church.” She turned her eyes on Cheryl, eyes measuring the lady cop right down to the last inch. “What about you, Gorgeous?”

“Go ahead, say ‘Diet Pepsi,'” Rachel clucked from her perch, “Say ‘Diet Pepsi.' Dare yah, double-dare yah—”
Stop nudging,
Cheryl almost growled.

“I'm thinking,” Cheryl said.

“No problem.”

The place fell silent except for the whisper of the wide flat-screen television and the soft gurgle of the soft drink hose. Big Bea put Bhakti's drink in front of him and then stolidly limped toward a secluded booth in the rear. She wedged herself in, put a pair of James Joyce eyeglasses on her nose, and grimaced at a laptop screen. The glasses made her look intelligent and innocent at the same time. Then suddenly, piercing Cheryl boldly from across the room, “Just let me know when you want something. I'm right here.”

“Well, Prissy,” Rachel said softly. “Maybe we found your Scarlet.” And that made Cheryl think about when her and Rachel used to cuddle like nesting dolls. Two honeys without the bee. And a band of loneliness twisted around her heart.
I miss you too,
Rachel whispered inside her head.

As for the older woman in the booth, you could see the lines of concern in the saloonkeeper's face, especially around her eyes. Her face clouded over with strain and worry as she stared at the laptop screen. Safe bet Beatrice had seen a lot in her time—maybe too much.

“Looks like part of her is scared as hell and the other part just trying to cope,” Rachel said. “This Svetlana isn't looking for a quickie on a stack of canned tomatoes in the pantry. Not today, anyway.” Cheryl almost hissed at Rachel to stop babbling.

Bhakti swirled his soda straw. “Did you say something?”

Billy Shadow suddenly stared at the secluded booth over his own laptop screen. “We've come to the right place. This is the Zmail lady. Jasper says that's Big Sis all right; real name Beatrice Chargrove. Big Bea. Webster's
big sister
. She's a postal cop, on leave from the United States Postal Service. Had some kind of trouble investigating mail fraud in APOs overseas, wounded in the line of duty. She just got out of Walter Reed eight months ago.”

A sister,
Cheryl thought. Okay, that made sense. That eager beaver with the unruly mop
would
have an older sister.

Billy chewed his cud for a moment. “Kinda makes me wonder what this gal
really
did for a living. People in witness protection have backgrounds like this, and so do retired intelligence types. That big dame sure as hell didn't sort envelopes in the Dead Letter Office.”

So what now? Chat about cosmic dust and summer snowstorms? Raise the subject of Little Brother's hand in spreading the wandering sickness? Or the Gaunt Man who snatched the Chen girl from the Stuka Crew? How about godly DNA?

Billy didn't know where to begin.

He didn't have to. Bhakti saved them.

Or maybe the TV over the bar did it.

One moment Bhakti was sitting quietly in the booth, stirring his lemon Coke with a damp straw, and the next moment he sprang from his seat like he'd been jabbed with a cattle prod. He flung himself against the bar, staring wildly up at the screen.

“It's Lila! It's her!” Bhakti exclaimed, slightly unhinged. “She's on
Deal or No Deal.
Eleanor and I used to watch it all the time!” And it became clear why the fuss. Bhakti had finally found Lila Chen on a television game show.

The Chen girl—Contestant.

Everyone gravitated to the bar. Big Bea left the booth, poured a round of sodas on the house, and Cheryl got her Diet Pepsi without asking for it. Back on the TV, a silver metal briefcase possibly stuffed with half a mil sat on the show's translucent table. The host of
Deal or No Deal
stood on the dais, a preppy black kid. The young man had outgrown his clothes, the arms of his blue blazer short and his pressed khakis about two inches north of his ankles. The lanky preppy grinned, addressing everyone in TV land:

“Well, I'm here with my two foster sisters. The younger, Little Maria—”

The camera zoomed onto a pale scamp of about nine with bright coal eyes. Her own cute crepe party dress raised a couple of inches above her knees; she fruitlessly tried to tug it down. A caption card read
WOULD YOU DO HER?

“And the other girl up here is my older sister, Lila Chen.” The camera closed on the young Asian lady. Lila was tarted up as an adult schoolgirl: plaid skirt, knee socks, and black patent leather Capezio Piccadilly dance heels, just this side of do-me pumps. Lila's caption card read
DEFINITE SLUT.

Lila Chen demurely brushed the side of her head, inadvertently showing her missing ear and a livid ear hole visible to millions. Kid leered knowingly. “Obviously, Lila has come to California in the hope of a little cosmetic surgery, providing she scores the big dough. What you may not know is that doctors have to grow the ear on a mouse and then graft it to the side of her head. What I want to know is, what happens to the mouse?”

The audience rippled with laughter.

“And what about today's Banker?” the young man asked, introducing the “heavy” of the game show. “We call him Top Hat for obvious reasons.” The camera rose to a darkened booth overlooking the game arena. Behind the glass you could see a tall man wreathed in shadow and the outline of a top hat. He touched the brim, acknowledging the introduction. With a sudden jerk his long hand snatched a telephone receiver. The whole stage set changed from cool blue to lurid red. Time to make a deal. The contestant's phone down below flashed like a strobe.

Kid picked up the receiver. “Talk to me.”

The gaunt man silently gesticulated in the shadowed box overhead.

“Uh-huh. Right. Okay.” The preppy dangled the receiver by the cord, offering it to the younger of the two girls. “Think you can handle this?”

Maria cautiously put the phone to her ear and listened for a moment; her eyes widened with every passing second. Finally piping up, she said, “Top Hat says a new ear ain't in your fortune cookie, Lila. Instead, come on over to his Manhattan apartment in the San Remo. You'll get twenty bucks to bend over and grab your ankles. Then he'll drive you home.”

The audience exploded in glee, chanting,
“Top Hat! Top Hat!”

Lila Chen glanced up at the darkened booth; the gaunt man was tense as a violin string, as though he couldn't wait to blow his wad. She coyly tugged at her pleated skirt and rubbed the dark gash on her head where her ear used to be. The camera closed on the silver briefcase. Maybe the big money was in there, maybe not. Kid smiled indulgently. “So what's your choice, Lila? Open the case? Or as Little Maria says, let Top Hat drive you home? Deal or no deal?”

Lila fretted, twirling a lock of hair, doing the schoolgirl thing. “Well, that's a very nice offer, Kid. Can I think about it for a second?”

The audience held its collective breath, building to a gasp—

Everyone watching the TV from the bar gawked in disbelief, the show a total disgrace. Suddenly the picture froze, then pixelated. Lila Chen broke into a thousand colored bits. The five spectators at the bar started in surprise. The words
POOR SIGNAL
came on the screen.

Bhakti still clenched the bar, but he felt something jiggling in his jacket pocket like a Mexican jumping bean. He fished among the coins and pocket lint, knowing exactly what it was. Lila's hematite earring from her bedroom dresser, the match to the one dangling from her burnt ear in the frozen baggie. God, he hadn't looked at it in ages; dancing around inside his pocket just like it had at Senora Malvedos' place.

Like the earring knew the girl was on TV. He clenched it tight, deeply reluctant to take it out or show anyone. The earring was his private connection to Lila and his daughter Janet, to their bodies, to their souls—to wherever they'd been taken. For Janet taken to the bosom of God, for Lila to a twisted game show on TV.

“You know this girl?” Beatrice asked, slightly aghast.

“Chen, her last name is Chen,” Bhakti repeated. “She lived across the street from me in Van Horn. Then they took her with my daughter, and now she's the only one left.”

Cheryl put a serious hand on Bhakti's arm to keep him from levitating, explaining, “The girls from Van Horn disappeared together. Kidnapped. I found Bhakti's daughter Janet in LA. Too late. We've been searching for this one, Lila, since then. We think a certain facility not far from here wants to get their hands on her, for…” She paused.

Big Bea's cool eyes gazed back at her. “For experiments,” Big Sis said darkly. Everyone nodded silently—
for experiments
.

Outside in the night came a rumble of thunder. The lights over the bar flickered. Along the flat television screen a scroll in red:
TORNADO WARNING FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTIES:
DARKE, PREBLE, MONTGOMERY—

The lights flickered again, and the television went totally blank. Thunder, closer this time. A long silence engulfed everyone.

“So how the heck did you find me?” Beatrice finally asked. “You must have snagged my brother's feed from our e-mail thread.”

Billy nodded. “I found the remains of Lila's missing ear in an evidence locker in an abandoned sheriff's station back in Texas,” he said with a touch of trepidation. “I kept it in a refrigerator in my van. We've been using it as … uh…” He paused to show he knew how weird the next bit sounded. “Using it as a kind of compass. The three of us hooked up outside of Salt Lake and tracked Lila as far as Lexington, Nebraska. Then we lost the Chen girl's trail. I guess Lila doubled back on us to Los Angeles.” He stared at the rising soda bubbles in his cola.

“You sure she's back in LA?” Beatrice said doubtfully. “I'm not even sure this, this Top Hat guy or these kids are actually in LA.”

This stopped everyone cold.
Not in LA?

Big Bea saw their doubt. “I know this show well. Been watching it for years, watched it in the hospital while I was laid up. I can't remember any black preppy kid. No nine-year-old scamp. No cute, grown-up Chinese schoolgirl. And that Top Hat creep has never been the Banker. I'm starting to think that guy in the dark booth is gaming the system—”

“Gaming the system?” Cheryl asked incredulously.

Beatrice shrugged. “You haven't noticed weird things on TV lately? Somebody is messing with our heads. Tweaking the video. Rewriting the episodes. Pick any channel, it's like some ass-clown is playing a prank or a practical joke. Next thing you know, Snooki will file for child support from Roseanne Barr.”

Billy choked on his Coke, blowing soda out his nose.

But Big Sis wasn't smiling.

“I'm guessing at least one of you met Webster when he went for the comet dust. Snow delayed the recovery until he arrived. Like some power really wanted him there. Wanted it enough to create an anomalous event in order to guarantee his presence. Don't you find this curious?”

She spun her laptop around so everyone could see the screen: a paused image of young Dr. Webster Chargrove in his hideout. Big Bea hit Play. Her brother, young Webster Chargrove, came alive, grimly confessing from that dingy forgotten office:

“Yes, I finally got to Dugway. Wish I'd gone anywhere else. We set the wandering sickness loose, and there's no way to stop it. Kill every mosquito? The kill-switch in the Skeeterbug software won't respond. Inoculate the world? But with
what
?” The young man held his head in his hands, a wave of despair overcoming him: regret, irreparable harm. “What did we do?
What did we do?
”