Hymn (26 page)

Holding his breath, he tiptoed along the corridor until he reached the half-open bathroom door. Cautiously, he put his eye to the crack in the door. The whole room was foggy with rose-smelling steam, and from where he was standing he could see only the edge of a large white enameled bathtub, a bottle of Vidal Sassoon shampoo, and a glistening pink curve which he took to be Helmwige's shoulder. Helmwige was sitting with her back to him, so he took the risk of leaning across the doorway and peering right into the room.

Franklin was kneeling beside the bathtub wearing nothing but white Fruit-of-the-Loom shorts. He was facing the door and he saw Lloyd at once. He frowned, and mouthed the word. ‘Wha . . .?' but Lloyd gave him a quick wave to reassure him that everything was fine, and that he wasn't trying to escape just yet.

There was nothing that Franklin could do, in any case. Helmwige was watching him too intently. He was massaging her shoulders with soap, while she ran her hands up and down his muscular forearms, and kept saying,'Mmmmmmm, that's better . . . gently, gently.'

Lloyd watched as Franklin rubbed more soap on his hands, and then began to lather Helmwige's enormous breasts. Her wet skin squeaked as he grasped her breasts tightly, and rolled her nipples between finger and thumb. She continued to murmur, and to splash, and to run her hands up and down his arms.

‘Harder, you can do that harder. Pinch me! I like to be pinched! Ohhh . . .'

Franklin rinsed her breasts with a huge natural sponge. Then he scooped his arm into the bath, so that his hand was right underneath her bottom, and he raised her hips right out of the water. She had heavy thighs, and a rounded stomach, but she was still in voluptuous shape for a woman who must have been immortalized when she was well into her forties.

‘You must make sure that I am completely clean,' she told Franklin.

‘Yes,' said Franklin. His voice was flat. He glanced at Lloyd but Lloyd remained where he was, not moving. Downstairs the Valkyries continued to thrash and to tumble, although it sounded as if this part of the record had suffered from years of being played almost every evening.

Helmwige reached down with both hands into her dark blonde pubic hair, and opened her vulva as wide as she could, so that Franklin could soap his finger and slip it inside. ‘Ohhh, höchst erfreulich,' she murmured.

Franklin slid his finger in and out of her, and she threw back her head and moaned and warbled like a dove. Then he slid in a second finger, and a third. Helmwige gasped and splashed, and pulled herself even wider open. At last, panting, his muscular chest glistening with perspiration, Franklin worked his entire soapy hand up into her, right up to the wrist.

Helmwige made an extraordinary growling deep-breathing noise that reminded Lloyd of a sea-lioness. She gripped Franklin's wrist fiercely in both hands. Then she suddenly shuddered, and shook, and screamed out loud. The bathwater churned as wildly as if it were full of piranha fish. Fascinated and horrified by what he had seen, but strangely aroused, too, Lloyd turned quickly away. He tiptoed back along the corridor until he reached the door of Kathleen's room. Franklin had left the key in the lock, so all he had to do was quickly to turn it, open the door, and slip inside.

Kathleen was awake and sitting up in bed. When he came in, she switched on the bedside lamp, a cheap clip-on with a broken plastic shade. ‘Lloyd? What's happening? How did you get out? Somebody's screaming!'

‘Don't worry about that—that's Helmwige, having a little bathtime fun. Listen—that boy came into my room a few minutes ago. It seems like he's had it up to here with Otto and Helmwige, and he wants us all to make a break for it.'

‘You mean escape? Do you think you can trust him?'

‘I don't see any reason not to. He's not exactly Albert Einstein, but he seems willing enough. And he doesn't have any reason to double-cross us, does he?'

‘But what if Otto catches us? He'll burn us alive!'

‘I wouldn't be too sure that he's not planning on doing that anyway. He's determined to start where Hitler left off, and, believe me, he's not going to let anybody stand in his way.'

Kathleen brushed back her hair with her hand. ‘He'll never manage it, though, will he? The police are bound to track him down sooner or later.'

Lloyd shrugged. ‘I'm not so sure. He's got people who can burn you as soon as look at you—people who can live for ever. How are you going to stand up against people like that? And how many other people are going to be tempted to join him, once they realize that they really could be immortal? Besides, you've got Otto himself to contend with. You heard what he did to Sergeant Houk. He could do that to anybody who tries to stop him. One glance and you're humanburger.'

He heard water emptying out of the bathtub, and the sound of voices. ‘Listen—I'd better get back to my room. The plan is that we sneak out of the house at three o'clock in the morning, when Otto and Helmwige are really out of it. Franklin is going to wake us up, if we're asleep.'

‘Franklin? I thought he didn't have a name.'

‘I christened him. He was as pleased as a dog with two tails.'

‘Lloyd . . . do you really believe that we're going to be able to get away? I mean, safely? If anything should happen to me . . . well, I don't know what Thomas would do.'

‘Do you want to stay?' Lloyd asked her.

Kathleen shook her head. ‘I guess it's just that I never felt frightened before. Not like this.'

‘Franklin told me that Otto wouldn't harm Celia at all, if I escaped. I guess he wouldn't harm your husband, either.'

Kathleen said, ‘That man lying out in the garage, Lloyd—that isn't Mike Kerwin. Leastways, it's not the Mike Kerwin I married. The Mike Kerwin I married was burned to death on that bus in the desert.'

Lloyd saw the tears glisten in her eyes. He couldn't help admiring her bravery and her realism. He hadn't yet accepted that he had lost Celia for ever. Somehow, with a Disneylike optimism, he had kept on believing that the Celia he had hoped to marry was still there; that she would reappear just as she was before and say, ‘Fooled you!'

But he knew now that he was going to have face the truth. Celia had been burned, Celia was gone. The creature that had taken her place was a creature of fire and sorcery, a creature that he would never be able to accept back into his life. He could understand why Celia had chosen youthful immortality over a gradually worsening disability and an early death. But the more he learned about Otto and his Salamanders, the more difficult he found it to come to terms with the fact that Celia had embraced his idea of a master race. The Celia that Lloyd had loved would never have accepted a single minute of life that had been bought at the price of thousands of innocent people being deliberately incinerated.

He had lost Celia now, lost her for good. The world had had enough of camps, enough of gas-chambers, enough of ovens.

Kathleen must have sensed what he was feeling, because she put her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. Tears slid down his cheeks and dropped into her hair like warm pearls.

‘Ssh, it's over,' she said.

Lloyd wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘Thanks,' he said. ‘I guess I've been the victim of my own bravado.'

She kissed his cheek. ‘I'll see you at three.'

Lloyd went to the door, listened, then opened it. He returned to his room, quietly closed the door behind him, and lay back down on his mattress.

He hadn't expected to be able to sleep, so he had recited the lyrics of all the rock songs that he could think of, then all the poems that he could remember (By the shore of Gitche Gume . . . by the shining Big Sea Water . . .); then the address section of his Filofax, with the full telephone numbers and zip codes of all of his friends; then the Padres' batting averages for the past three seasons.

He was only aware that it was three o'clock when he felt Franklin shaking his shoulder and whispering, ‘Mr Denman? Mr Denman? Wake up, Mr Denman, it's time to go.'

He stared into the darkness. ‘Is it three o'clock already?' he asked, his mouth thick and woolly. He sat up, and rubbed his eyes. ‘Jesus, I dreamed I was having dinner at Mr A's.'

‘Come on,' breathed Franklin. ‘as quietly as you can. Otto is so deeply asleep that he's practically dead, but Helmwige is very jumpy.'

Lloyd cleared his throat. ‘I'm not surprised, the way she was playing in the tub tonight.'

‘She will do anything and everything,' said Franklin. ‘What does she care, she's going to live for ever? She's a morphine addict, Hermann Goering got her on to morphine during the war. But she takes every kind of drug you can imagine. She has sex with anybody she feels like it. She doesn't have to care about AIDS. She will perform any kind of sex act you can imagine, and some that you can't. I've seen her have sex with two dogs, while Otto watched her and ate flies.'

‘Let's go,' said Lloyd. He didn't particularly want to hear any more. He stood up, and caught his head on the sharply sloping ceiling. He swore more foully than he had sworn for years, not so much because it hurt but because he was tense and tired and frightened. In some ways, Helmwige frightened him more than Otto. At least Otto was mortal, at least Otto could be killed. But how could you fight against somebody who had no regard for their own life whatsoever?

Franklin opened the door, and crept out into the corridor, with Lloyd following closely behind. They crossed to Kathleen's room, and Franklin quietly turned the key. Kathleen must have heard them whispering, because she was waiting for them right behind the door.

‘Are they asleep?' she breathed. Lloyd nodded, and took hold of her hand.

Quickly and silently they tiptoed along the corridor, past the half-open bathroom, and then past Helmwige's bedroom, which was wide open. By the light of a flickering black-and-white television movie, they could see Helmwige sprawled naked on her frilled four-poster bed, her legs wide apart, her mouth open. She was breathing coarsely and irregularly, as if she were having a nightmare. The movie was The Thin Man, with William Powell and Myrna Loy.

‘I read you were shot five times in the tabloid.'

‘It's not true. He didn't come near my tabloid.'

With infinite care, they went downstairs. Franklin was so heavy that the treads squeaked whenever he put his weight on them, and Lloyd winced. But at last they reached the darkened hallway, and the house remained silent.

Franklin beckoned Lloyd and Kathleen to come closer. ‘All we have to do now is get out of the front door, head for the car, get into it, and go.' He held up the car keys. ‘I lifted these from Helmwige's purse this afternoon.'

‘What about the other cars?' asked Lloyd.

‘Only the coupé works, and I let down the tyres.'

‘Where does Otto sleep?' Lloyd whispered. ‘Will he hear us leave?'

‘Oh, he'll hear us leave all right. He works in the living-room every night till one or two o'clock, playing his records and drinking brandy. Then he goes to sleep on the couch, fully dressed. He doesn't even bother to wash.'

‘Thanks a lot,' Lloyd replied. ‘He's already won the Lloyd Denman Award for the Man Most Likely to Make You Barf On Sight.'

‘Okay, let's go,' Franklin told them. ‘But let's make it real quick.'

He released the security chain, and then silently slid back the bolts. He opened the latch, and the front door swung open with the faintest of creaks. Outside, the night was as black as only a Southern California night can be. They could barely distinguish the faint gleam on the roof of Otto's Mercedes sedan.

‘Okay, go!' whispered Franklin. Together, they ran across the porch, into the drive, and quarter-backed their way between the parked Mercedes. Kathleen caught her knee against the rear bumper of the 380SL, and hissed, ‘Shit!' but they reached the sedan, wrenched open the doors, and threw themselves into the leather-upholstered seats. Franklin pushed the key into the ignition, roared the car into life, and switched on the headlights.

‘Oh, God, no!' said Kathleen, in panic.

The headlights had instantly illuminated the thin uncompromising figure of Otto, standing in front of them in a short-sleeved shirt and grey slacks, his arms folded, his withered mouth puckered with anger.

‘Run the bastard down!' Lloyd shouted at Franklin. But Franklin sat in the driver's seat staring at Otto in complete paralysis. Franklin had been bred by Otto and raised by Otto. Franklin's will had been subjugated by Otto from the moment he was born.

Otto walked up to the side of the car and held out his hand. ‘The keys, please,' he demanded.

‘Franklin, go!' yelled Lloyd, and yanked the Mercedes' gearshift into drive.

Franklin stared at him as if he didn't recognize him. ‘I. . . what . . .?'

‘Go, Franklin, go for Christ's sake!'

Otto snapped, ‘Don't you dare!'

But at that critical instant, Lloyd had one call on Franklin's loyalty that Otto couldn't match. He had given Franklin a name.

‘Go, Franklin, go!' he shouted at him, almost screaming.

Franklin slammed his foot on to the Mercedes' gas pedal, and the huge sedan swerved and snaked, its rear tyres blasting out pebbles and dust. Otto made a desperate bid to snatch the keys out of the ignition, but he couldn't quite reach them. However, he seized hold of the steering-wheel and wouldn't release his grip, and as the Mercedes roared out of the driveway, and bucked on to the road, he was still clutching it, running at first, then allowing himself to be dragged.

His white face glared into the window of the moving car like a nightmare. They had reached over twenty miles an hour on the curve toward Rancho Santa Fe, and they were still accelerating. ‘Du bist ein Verräter!' he shrieked at Franklin. ‘Wo ist deine Dankbarkeit?'

Franklin whimpered in terror, but Lloyd continued to shout at him, ‘Keep going! Keep going! He can't hurt you now!'

‘Verräter!' cried Otto. ‘Schon bist du Tot!'

Franklin frantically twisted the steering-wheel from side to side, trying to dislodge Otto's grip, and the car rolled and dipped from one side of the road to the other, its tyres giving out a chorus of continuous howls. But Otto hung on, his shoes dragging and scrabbling on the tarmac, showers of sparks flying from his heels.

They slewed into the brightly lit streets of Rancho Santa Fe, with Otto still holding on.

‘Stop the car, you traitor!' he panted at Franklin. ‘Stop the car or I'll kill you now!'

But Kathleen, from the back seat, shouted out, ‘Lloyd! Here!' and passed over one of the car's cigarette-lighters. The spiral tip was glowing red-hot.

Without hesitation, Lloyd pressed the cigarette-lighter on to the back of Otto's hand. There was a sizzle of puckering skin, and Otto let out a deep, outraged roar. Just as they skidded past the entrance to the inn at Rancho Santa Fe, he released his hold on the steering-wheel, and Lloyd twisted around in his seat to see him flying and tumbling across the triangular green, arms and legs, over and over, a malevolent cartwheel, the long-legged scissorman from Struwwelpeter.

‘We did it!' Franklin whooped. ‘We did it! We did it! Hot dog, hot dog!'

Lloyd kept his eyes on Otto as they sped around the next curve and headed toward the coast. A second before the green disappeared from view, Lloyd saw him climbing on to his feet. With a sense of dread and disappointment, he realized that Otto obviously hadn't been badly hurt. Kathleen had seen him, too, because she turned to Lloyd and her expression was grim.

‘He's not going to forgive us for that,' she said.

‘Hot dog!' Franklin kept repeating, with that odd deaf-school pronunciation. It came out more like ‘Hudduh, hudduh!'

‘You did good, Franklin,' Lloyd praised him.

‘The question is, where do we go now?' Kathleen wanted to know. ‘We may have got away, but Otto's going to come after us, for sure.'

Lloyd said, ‘I just want to lie low till Wednesday, till they've completed their Transformation. Then at least we'll have a chance of getting Celia and your husband back. I know they'll have changed. I know we may not even be able to love them any more. Maybe they won't be able to love us any more. But we have to give them that one chance. They can't stay as Salamanders. You heard what Otto said, they're really volatile. They're as much of a danger to themselves as they are to other people.'

‘Maybe we should drive up the coast, and find ourselves a quiet hotel,' Kathleen suggested.

‘Well, that sounds romantic, but I've got a better idea. Let's drive out to that Indian place in the Anza Borrego. They had trailers to rent out there, and that's just about the last place that Otto would think of looking for us. Then as soon as the Transformation's over, we can take that young Indian boy to the police.'

‘What for?'

‘He's our only witness that Otto was chanting when the bus was burning, that's what for. What other witnesses do we have?'

Kathleen shrugged. ‘I guess you're right.'

Franklin said, ‘I can't believe it. We did it, we got away!'

‘It's all thanks to you, buddy,' Lloyd told him.

‘I never saw Otto so angry,' Franklin grinned.

‘Oh good, that makes me feel a whole lot better. As if he isn't frightening enough when he isn't angry.'

Kathleen said, ‘We could call the police now, you know. They'd find the Salamanders, at least.'

Lloyd shook his head. ‘There'd be a massacre, no doubt about it. And you'd blow any chance of seeing Mike again.'

Kathleen stared at her own reflection in the black-tinted window. ‘I'm not too sure that I want to.'

‘Well,' said Lloyd. He suddenly realized he was still holding the cigarette-lighter, and he handed it back to Kathleen with a wry grin. ‘It's a damned hard life, so long as you don't weaken.'

‘Weaken?' she said, and he could see in the window that she was crying. ‘No, I'm not going to weaken. I'm just a little tired.'

‘Were things okay between you and Mike?' Lloyd asked her.

She wiped her eyes with her fingers, ‘Not particularly, even before he went for his medical.'

‘Now you feel guilty because you don't care for him as much as you think you should?'

She nodded. ‘The trouble is, how can I explain that to Tom? He worshipped Mike, really worshipped him. Half the time I don't know whether I'm really feeling grief-stricken, or whether I'm acting it for Tom's sake. That makes me feel so bad.'

Lloyd said, ‘I guess that everybody feels the same way, when they lose somebody close. I remember when my grandfather died. I was really upset, but at the same time I had this peculiar sense of relief that I didn't have to worry about him any more. I was almost happy for him. We all get born, we all have to die. I guess there really isn't any reason why we shouldn't be happy at both events.'

Franklin said, ‘Helmwige will never die.'

‘That's a creepy thought, isn't it?' said Lloyd. ‘That woman's still going to be forty-something when we're dead and gone.'

Kathleen asked, ‘Will she really never die? Never, ever? Can't anybody kill her? What happens if she's involved in an auto accident, or somebody shoots her, or something like that?'

They were driving down toward Solana Beach, under the interstate. Lloyd said, ‘Take a left here, on to the freeway. I want to take a flying look at my house, before we head out for the desert, and maybe check with Waldo, if I can.'

Franklin swerved on to the entry ramp with squealing tyres. Lloyd glanced behind them. ‘It's okay, you can slow down now. I don't want to get pulled over by the cops for a traffic violation, not now.'

‘Sorry,' said Franklin, although it sounded more like ‘howwy'. But as they joined the almost-deserted I–5, he said, ‘They can be killed by Him.'

‘Who?' asked Lloyd. ‘Who can be killed by whom?'

‘The ones who live for ever. Helmwige, any of them. They can be killed by Him.'

‘Him? Who's He, when He's at home? Did Otto say?'

Franklin shook his head. ‘But I heard him talking to Helmwige one night. That was when Celia first came. He said, “She doesn't know about Him, does she? Even you can be killed by Him, and so can all of our master race.”'

Lloyd gave Kathleen a quick, excited look. ‘Did Otto come out with any clues about who He might be?'

‘No,' said Franklin. ‘But the reason I remember what he said was because he kept talking about it, over and over, like he was really worried about it.'

Lloyd sat back. Otto had half suggested that Hitler might have been Transformed, burned and immortalized. Maybe ‘He' was Hitler. Maybe Der Führer still held absolute sway over all of his followers, just as he had during World War Two.

‘Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' he asked Kathleen.

‘I don't know. What are you thinking?'

He explained, but he could see that she found it difficult to believe. ‘I'm sure Hitler's dead,' she said. ‘Didn't they identify his dental records?'

‘It doesn't matter if they did. His original body's dead, for certain. Just like Celia was dead and Mike was dead. But what happened to the smoke and the soul that rose right out of that body? It's hard to believe that Hitler could have seen Helmwige turn into a Salamander, without wanting to try to do the same thing for himself'

‘It doesn't bear thinking about,' said Kathleen.

‘No, it doesn't. But it could be true.'

It was still two hours before dawn when Franklin drove the Mercedes quietly through North Torrey, so that Lloyd could inspect his house. Lloyd climbed out of the car and walked up the sloping driveway, then circled the house to the back. The kitchen doors and windows had been boarded up, and plastic sheeting had been draped over the kitchen roof. There was a strong noxious reek of smoke, and when he peered in through one of the side windows, Lloyd could tell that, apart from rebuilding the kitchen, he was going to have to redecorate almost the entire house. Still, having once been an insurance salesman, he had made sure that his fire policy was comprehensive and up-to-date. For the money he was going to get, he could afford almost to tear down this house and build another one, from scratch. In a way, he found that a very tempting thought. This house reminded him so strongly of Celia, and the life they had been planning to live together. They had even thought of filling in the grave-like conversation-pit, in case baby fell into it.

Lloyd rattled the front door to make sure it was locked. The house seemed to be reasonably secure, and around here the neighbours were too nosey to make burglary much of a practical proposition. Jesus, the Kazowskis even noticed when he put out the trash in new pyjamas. ‘Noticed your new pyjamas, Lloyd. The Ascot shop?'

Lloyd left the house and walked back to the car. Kathleen said, ‘Is there any place we can get some coffee and something to eat? I think I'm just about to pass out. I keep tasting Helmwige's sauerkraut.'

‘Sure, we can go to the restaurant,' said Lloyd. ‘I can ask Waldo to meet us there.'

The sky was beginning to lighten as they drove toward La Jolla. Lloyd was feeling tired, but strangely changed. Stronger, somehow, as if he had at last accepted the burning of his house and the burning of the woman he loved, and was preparing to face what a new day was going to bring him. He looked around at Kathleen and she managed to summon a smile.

Waldo was delighted to see him, but horrified by his appearance.

‘You look like you won first prize in a Mickey Rourke look-alike contest,' he said, bringing over a large white jug of espresso coffee and a stack of steaming baguettes. ‘Why don't I call Louis, and have him come over and cook you a proper breakfast?'

‘We don't have time for that,' Lloyd told him. ‘Listen—we have to keep our heads down for a few days. We won't be too far away, but I'm not going to tell you where we're going to go, in case you get asked by somebody who won't take no for an answer.'

‘Mr Denman, my lips are sealed,' Waldo assured him.

‘How's business?' Lloyd asked him. He looked around at the restaurant, at the neatly laid tables, the neatly folded napkins and the shining wine-glasses, and for some reason he didn't find it enchanting any more. Instead, it looked prissy and claustrophobic, the kind of place where people were more concerned about foie gras chaud poêlé aux blancs de poireaux than they were about life, and the struggle that most of the world went through daily, simply to stay free.

Waldo offered Franklin some more baguettes. ‘Business is fine. Do you want to see the books? Maybe levelling out a little, but nothing to worry about. People will always demand good fish, cooked good. Do you know what I read yesterday? The reason human beings got such big brains, they always ate fish. People who don't eat fish, they're going backward, like evolution in reverse. You don't eat fish, you're going to wind up like Barney Rubble.'

Kathleen gave a tired smile. ‘You've got yourself a wonderful maitre d' here, Lloyd. I never knew any restaurauteur who worried about Darwin as well as Paul Bocuse.'

‘Where'd you read that stuff, Waldo?' Lloyd demanded.

‘It's true,' Waldo insisted. ‘Same with birds. They used to be land creatures, but then they started eating shellfish that didn't contain hardly no calcium. Their bones got lighter and lighter, and in the end they literally blew away into the air.'

‘This is true?' asked Franklin, fascinated. Waldo glanced at Lloyd, alarmed by Franklin's loudness. ‘Hithith hroo?' Franklin had demanded, as far as Waldo could tell.

They talked for almost an hour. Outside, the sun had risen, and La Jolla cove shone golden and pale in the early-morning fog. Lloyd went to the men's room for a wash and a shave, while Kathleen called Lucy and asked after Tom, and Franklin unashamedly devoured more baguettes.

‘Your friend has an appetite,' smiled Waldo, taking hold of Lloyd's hand.

Lloyd smiled, and nodded.

‘Listen,' said Waldo, ‘I don't know what you've got yourself into here. Maybe you want me to call the cops about it?'

‘Not yet,' Lloyd told him. ‘I have to get my revenge first.'

‘Revenge?' sniffed Waldo. ‘I don't know. I used to think about revenge. I used to think about going back to Europe, and looking for the people who killed my family. I could have been like those Nazi-hunters, you know? I could have brought them all to trial. But what's it worth, in the end, this wonderful revenge? It doesn't achieve nothing. It doesn't make you feel any better. It ends up making you worse than the people you're trying to punish.'