Goodlow's Ghosts (20 page)

Ryerson glanced about.

Stevie Lutz was within arm's reach, her gaze outward, beyond him, lost.

"Mrs. Lutz?" he said.

He got no response.

He reached, got hold of her hand, tugged.

"No!" she screamed. "Let me be!" And her gaze leveled on him.

"My God," he whispered. She
wanted
to stay here, had wanted to come here in the first place. "Mrs. Lutz," he shouted, "come with me. Please." And he pulled hard.

But she slipped away, ran off, and was absorbed.

And, at once, Ryerson found himself again in Hanna Beckford's cellar, and she was looking openmouthed at him, the same way she had when he had walked into the cement wall and bloodied his nose.

~ * ~

The note from Matthew Peters was taped on a mirror above the telephone stand. "Call Captain Willis. Urgent."

Ryerson called.

"Rye," Willis said, "I thought you should know; this woman, Violet
McCartle
—Big Mama, remember—was found dead in some woods just outside Boston."

"How long had she been dead, Bill?"

"The coroner's not certain, but he says at least ten days, perhaps longer."

"Thanks. I'll get back to you."

He hung up, went out to the Woody, and started driving to Violet
McCartle's
home.

~ * ~

From the backseat, Sam
Goodlow
said, "You're leaving her there?"

Ryerson lurched. Sam had startled him. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him as a patchwork of pink skin, eyebrows, hair, eyes, nose, as if he were made from errant bits of fabric. "Leaving who where?"

"The asshole's wife," Sam answered. "Are you leaving her there? In that place she's in."

Ryerson felt as if he'd been put on the spot. He squirmed, didn't know how to answer.

"Lily liver," Sam said.

Ryerson glanced at him again, then at the road. "You're right, Sam."

"Of course I am. What do you want? I
know
." He made a shivering noise. "Jesus. Someone danced on my grave. That happens all the time, now."

Ryerson came to a stop sign, looked quickly right and left, saw nothing, started into the intersection.

"Gnats!" Sam screamed, and Ryerson hit the brake pedal hard. "Gnats!" Sam screamed again.

Ryerson turned his head and looked at Sam, who seemed terrified. "I hate them. Gnats. Everywhere."

"What are you talking about? Gnats?"

"Gnats? Who said gnats?"

"You did."

"I did? Who knows what I say or what I mean? And when I die, they'll be all over me, I think—"

"Sam, you
are
dead!"

Sam looked blankly at him a moment. "Am I? Really? Can you prove it?"

"Sam, we've been over this before."

"We have? I don't remember."

A horn sounded. Sam said, "Get a move on there, you're holding up traffic."

~ * ~

The big man at the gate to Violet
McCartle's
house remembered Ryerson. He said, "I'm sorry, Mr.
Biergarten
, but I have orders to keep you from entering." He grinned strangely. "Unless, of course, you have a compelling reason.
Do
you have a compelling reason, Mr.
Biergarten
?"

"As compelling as they come, my friend. Perhaps you could simply tell Mrs.
McCartle
that I have information she'll find quite useful."

"Don't we all," said the big man. He was still grinning strangely, and Ryerson easily read violence in it.

Ryerson said, "And I'm sure the police will find the
infor-mation
I have useful, too."

The big man's grin did not alter. "I must warn you, Mr.
Biergarten
, that if I let you into this estate, you will find it very hard indeed to leave."

"That's a chance I'll have to take," Ryerson said.

"Suit yourself," the big man said, and he went and called the house. Moments later, the gates opened, and Ryerson drove through.

~ * ~

As she had on their first visit, the woman who called herself Violet
McCartle
greeted Ryerson at the top of the long flight of steps. She was smiling cordially, but Ryerson read from her the same sort of malice and violence that he had read from the man at the gate. He glanced quickly about; there was no sign of Sam
Goodlow
.

"Won't you come in, Mr.
Biergarten
," the woman said, and gestured toward the open door behind her.

Ryerson followed her inside.

~ * ~

They went into the same expansive living room, crowded with rococo furnishings, that they had used before. Ryerson sat on a white rococo couch. The woman who called herself Violet
McCartle
sat nearby, on a green settee. Sunlight—seldom seen in the past two weeks—coming in through a pair of large windows in front of her made the woman's face look unnaturally white and smooth.

She said, "My man told me you had some information I might find useful." She smiled, again cordially, invitingly.

Ryerson nodded and smiled back. He felt like he was playing a game with the woman, and he wasn't sure that this was wise. "I thought you should know that a woman named Violet
McCartle
was found dead yesterday."

The woman's cordial smile did not slip as she said, "Mr.
Biergarten
, you realize of course that you have done a very, very foolish thing coming here? I think my man actually told you that what you were doing was unwise, isn't that right?"

Ryerson nodded and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep his smile from faltering. "Perhaps you could tell me who you are."

"That turns out to be a philosophical question, Mr.
Biergarten
. If Violet
McCartle
no longer exists, and if I appear to
be
her, and if I act for her in her business dealings—as I was hired to do—and if everyone I deal with
believes
that I am Violet
McCartle
, then that is indeed who I am. We are judged by the world around us, so for all intents and purposes—all that matter, at any rate—I am the person I was hired to be. And if, at one time, I was known by some other name, then that woman no longer exists either. The philosophical and
physical
conundrum is satisfied."

"That's bullshit," Ryerson said. "And it's not even
good
bullshit."

"Quite," the woman said, and stopped smiling abruptly. "I am not a kind or generous person, Mr.
Biergarten
.
You
of all people should have sensed that."

"I did."

"And yet you have come here—"

"There are people who know I'm here."

She waved this announcement away. "Oh, Mr.
Biergarten
, do you think that that is of any significance to me? It isn't. I'm not going to be staying here for long. A half hour, at most. Then I'm gone, and I assure you that no one is going to be able to find me. Money can accomplish miracles, Mr.
Biergarten
." She paused. Her smile reappeared, but it was grim. "You, however, are going to be staying here, in this house, just as your friend Mr.
Goodlow
has."

Ryerson sensed someone behind him. He turned his head, looked. The big man who had been tending the gate stood ten feet away. The man nodded and said, "I did warn you, Mr.
Biergarten
."

"So you did," Ryerson said.

He thought that he could run. He'd done a fair amount of running in college, and had been jogging for ten years. He was in good shape and certainly could outsprint the man behind him, who was clearly built more for strength than speed.

The man withdrew a revolver from his jacket pocket and leveled it at Ryerson's head.

Ryerson attempted a smile and said to the woman, "Perhaps you could tell me why you had Sam
Goodlow
killed."

The woman did not smile back. She grimaced, as if in annoyance. "Oh, my dear Mr.
Biergarten
, do you think this is some made-for-TV movie, and all the answers are going to be given to you before the villain does you in?" She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. I'm sorry. Even if I did answer your question, it wouldn't do you, or me, or my man there any good whatever."

Ryerson shrugged. "I simply thought—"

"Photographs," the woman cut in smilingly. "A damning pair of photographs of me and the woman I have since become. Your friend, Mr.
Goodlow
, had possession of these photographs, and now I do. He became something of a complication, which is why he was killed." Her smile faded. "And I'm afraid, sir, that that is all I'm going to say." She nodded at the big man, then stood, and stepped away.

Ryerson knew why she had stepped away—she was getting out of the big man's line of fire.

Ryerson rolled forward, off the rococo couch, heard the clap of the revolver going off, and felt a millisecond of intense pain at the back of his head.

~ * ~

Rats are true omnivores. They will eat whatever is available, and their digestive systems are fully capable of handling anything they can chew and swallow.

They are scavengers as well as predators and will attack creatures many times their size. They are as fearless as badgers, as stealthy as cats, nearly as intelligent as dogs, as adaptive and resilient as human beings themselves, and they are found in virtually every country on earth.

Several families of rats lived a contented existence in the three attics in the house that had belonged to the late Violet
McCartle
. The place they had claimed as their own was warm, relatively dry—except in the largest attic space—and food was plentiful. Squirrels often made the mistake of coming into the attic spaces from one of the large oak and willow trees that crowded the house, and when a squirrel did show up, a half dozen of the rats—which had grown large and fat from their carefree lifestyle—cornered the hapless creature and tore it apart.

The body that was dressed in a gray suit lay on its back.

The suit was wet because the roof leaked badly and rain in the last seven days had been nearly continuous.

The body was only a pale shadow of what it had been barely two weeks earlier. The rats had gone first for its substantial gut, then the eyes and the genitals, and were now working their way contentedly and noisily through what remained.

Ryerson
Biergarten
lay on his stomach beside the body. Several rats were already tentatively sniffing around Ryerson's feet and hands, and they liked what they smelled.

~ * ~

Sam
Goodlow
thought he recognized the body in the gray suit. It was certainly not much of a body, he thought. It lacked . . . definition. Mass. Stature. It looked like a chunky inflatable doll that had lost air in strange places.

He bent over, reached out, and touched the body at the shoulder. He felt nothing for a moment.

Then his arm tingled and he realized that it had not tingled that way—had not felt
alive
—for quite some time, and he thought it was proof of what he had been telling Ryerson
Biergarten
this past week. He wasn't dead! How could he be dead and have a tingling arm?

His arm stopped tingling.

The big attic space vanished.

Another space took its place.

It was a large, white space, harshly lit, and it had lots of reflective surfaces. He smelled antiseptic and blood.

And there was a face. A mask covered the mouth. Big, horn-rimmed glasses. These words came from the mouth beneath the mask: "That's good, Mrs.
Goodlow
, there he is—"

Sam lurched back from the body. The big, dimly lit attic space returned at once.

And he thought,
I recognize the body in the gray suit
.

He grew afraid. He had never before in his life been so very afraid.

~ * ~

Stevie Lutz was afraid, too.

This man standing so close by was the same man who had caught hold of her and had tried to pull her from this place, and he was going to try and do that again. She knew it. He had that look about him. That look of resolve and tenacity.

That pity.

Damn him!
She had no need of his pity.

"Go away!" she screamed.

He held his hand out to her.

"No. I don't
want
to go back!" she screamed.

"But you have a life to live," he told her.

She laughed. "A
life
to live? You've got to be kidding. My life is a joke."