The Lost (15 page)

She sat down on the bed and considered calling Ed but thought it might be a bad idea. Ed might be mad enough to do something that could get them all into trouble. It was better to come up with some other reason for quitting the job when she talked to him, something simple like
Ray just gives me the creeps, that’s all
and then ask him to see if Charlie Schilling could try to make good on his promise to find her some other kind of work as soon as possible. For now she decided to let the whole thing rest. Let
herself
rest. Maybe she’d phone him later.

She turned on the reading lamp beside her bed and leaned back and took her copy of
The Magic Mountain
off the bedside table. She looked at the bookmark with satisfaction. She was nearly halfway through. She held it to her nose and smelled the good musty scent of print and paper. She opened it and began to read. She found that it was indeed possible to read, to lose herself, and then she had to laugh.

Kahlil Gibran
, she thought.

Jesus
.

Chapter Sixteen

Ray

It was time to seriously party.

Screw Sally Richmond.

He set it all up from the desk, no problem. There were interruptions. Three pairs of guests checking in, three families and a couple checking out. His mother all in a huff about Sally, who had disappeared after lunch without so much as a word. Ray faking phone calls to her house to “check up” on her while in fact he was doing no such thing, then locating a temp replacement. In the meantime he dialed his own numbers and assembled his admirers.

Telling Sally he was throwing a party had been nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment inspiration. Now, even though it hadn’t worked on her it seemed like a good idea. He needed a lift. Hell, he deserved one.

By five he’d reached pretty much everybody. He’d tried to get Kath in on the thing but she was being sly and mysterious, telling him to wait for the weekend, he should be patient,
it would be worth it
. He thought he heard a distinct promise there and decided that sure, he could do that. The phone call excited him and took the edge off that other shit earlier.

He tried all day to purge Sally Richmond from his mind. You couldn’t have everybody, that was what he told himself. She was probably frigid anyway. But it bothered him that she seemed to see through him so easily. So he hadn’t read the goddamn book. He’d just heard about it. Heard everybody was reading it in college so he went out and bought a copy. He’d thought it would impress her.

The snotty little bitch.

He was doing just fine without her. The party was going to prove it.

His father relieved him at five-thirty. He decided a little nap would be in order. Nobody was expected till ten so he could catch up on his beauty sleep. He lay down on his bed and set the clock and picked up the day-old edition of the Newark
Star Ledger
folded open to the article about that girl Elise Hanlon finally dropping dead and recapping the four-year-old murder of Lisa Steiner. The article wasn’t real long. He read it over and over the same as he had yesterday. It scared him. Also thrilled him.

He was reading about himself again.

What he’d done.

He was practically famous in a sort of way.

Like Jack the Ripper was famous. Nobody knew who he was but they sure knew what he did.

He fell asleep with the paper on his lap. When the alarm woke him at seven-thirty it was getting close to dark.

He wanted a couple hours to get ready.

Chapter Seventeen

Schilling/Ray

It was about quarter after eight when the phone rang. By then Schilling was already into this week’s episode of
The Virginian
so he almost didn’t answer. But there was a Marlboro commercial on when the phone started ringing and he hated the Marlboro man. Some phony Mad Ave cowpoke with a smoke in his mouth. So he got up to take the call. Turned out he was glad he did.

It was Ed Anderson.

“Listen, Charlie, I just talked to Sally.”

“Yeah?”

“She quit the job.”

“Good. Good for her.”

“Yeah. She said just being around Pye was getting to her. So I guess I got to thank you again for putting the fear of god into her.”

“My pleasure.”

“You said something about trying to find her work, Charlie?”

“I did, yeah. I forgot to ask her, though, any special skills I should know of?”

“She can type.”

“Good again. That makes it easier. You think she’d have any objection to working for the department?”

“I doubt it.” He laughed. “She doesn’t exactly seem to mind cops.”

“No, I guess she doesn’t. She’d need to pass the civil service exam.”

“She’ll pass.”

“Okay. I’ll ask around tomorrow and see if I can come up with something.”

“That’d be great. One other thing. She told me Pye invited her to a party he’s throwing tonight.”

“Persistent little bastard, isn’t he.”

“So are you. That’s probably the only thing you’ve got in common. Anyway she told me he said there’d be a lot of people there. Drinks, music. And I got to thinking.”

“You did, huh?”

“Yeah.”

He knew exactly where Ed was going. And he liked it.

He liked it very much.

“Pye hangs around with a pretty young crowd usually. Might be minors there. Might even be drugs.”

“And I know you
do
hate the corruption of minors, Charlie.”

“I hate it worse than taxes, Ed. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. You have a good night, now.”

“I’m having one already. I’ll be in touch.”

When he hung up the show was on again so he sat down to see how things were going at Shiloh Ranch. Trampas was in trouble again. What else was new. During the next commercial he got up and got himself a beer from the refrigerator. He figured one wouldn’t hurt. He nursed it until the show was over at nine-thirty, turned off the set and headed for his car.

He drove through the hills to the Starlight Motel and parked across the street and waited. He smoked a few Winstons. Around ten o’clock cars started pulling into the lot, parking around back. He saw kids get out and counted heads as best he could from that distance and when he made it to twenty it was still only ten-thirty. By eleven he’d counted at least thirty. Pye’s apartment wasn’t very big. At this rate the party would be crowded.

Perfect.

He started the car and drove a few blocks to the all-night diner and ordered a large cup of coffee to go, black, from a sad-eyed girl with frizzy hair, overweight, a mouth-breather, clearly not one of those elect who’d be favored for Ray’s party. He drove back and found the same spot vacant so he parked again and smoked some more cigarettes and sipped the coffee. More cars pulled in. Nobody left. He waited until just after midnight and then drove back to the diner and got out of the car.

There was a pay phone just outside the diner and he used that. He dialed the department. He recognized Evanson as the dispatcher but didn’t let on, simply filed his noise complaint like any ordinary citizen and when Evanson asked his name, told him that his name was Robert Hall, which went completely over Evanson’s head, that he was staying at the motel on the ground floor in Room 2A and that he’d already called the desk but the desk wasn’t answering. He was a businessman trying to get some sleep but with all that racket, hell, he couldn’t.

When he got back to the motel his space was gone so he parked a half block down and waited. Fifteen minutes later he saw a green-and-white cruiser pull into the motel lot. It paused a moment in front of the office and he saw the uniforms inside take note of Harold Pye sitting at the desk and then move on toward the back. The moving on by was critical. If they chose to just register the complaint with Pye’s old man this wasn’t going to happen. But either it was a slow night for the department or the uniforms were eager beavers. He waited until they got out of the cruiser and then drove slowly in behind them.

Just happened to be passing by, guys. Saw you fellas pull in. Thought maybe I could lend a hand
.

He was going to enjoy this completely.

Six girls
, thought Ray,
I’ve fucked
six
of the girls in this room and still they come around. Because I got the juice, that’s why, I got the animal magnetism, I got them all coming in their fucking pants to get fucked
again
one of these nights and they don’t even care about the others being there too. They keep coming back for more of old Ray. Can’t help it
.

He watched Judy hand her beer to Roger, his sometime drummer in his sometime band Silver Web, they were sitting on the sofa and she was flirting with Roger, but that was fine. Roger knew enough not to fuck with any of the girls he’d fucked, knew that Judy was private territory whether Ray particularly wanted her or not that night or any other night. She was strictly off-limits. Cross him and no more pot, no more hash, no more speed, no more parties, no more getting into bars. They all knew it. Jennifer was his and Judy was his and Cheryl and Sylvia and Rachel and Linda.

The party was jamming. His parties were
always
jamming. He was doling out a sufficiency of dope and they had enough beer to float a cruiser. The place was wall-to-wall kids. Mostly high-school kids but
his
kids. Smoking
his
dope if they were lucky and he favored them with a hit and eating
his
cheese spread. They were there because he called them. He was toastmaster. He was the glue. Sally Richardson could go fuck herself with a plunger. He felt very happy. Very content. That may have had to do with the fact that his own dope was Panama Red and not the Jersey homegrown he was handing around to the others or that Ray was drinking Chivas, not Schlitz. But mostly it was just the party. The Magnavox was cranked. Tom Jones was belting out “Delilah.” Suds were flowing.

The only thing that slightly bummed him was Jennifer over by the window with Tim, standoffish from the others. What the fuck was it with those two? They were acting like the party was some sort of personal betrayal, as though he didn’t have the
right
to party, as though they owned
him
and not the other way around.

So what that he’d canceled on yet another dumb movie that night in favor of the party? He had them in his fucking pocket and always would, and they should be remembering that and doing what he wanted them to do, having fun, having a good time. Not sulking.

Especially fucking Jennifer. Jennifer was acting like her goddamn mother died. Which was pretty funny since Jennifer’s mother was already dead, she was a foster-home brat and as far as he could see the only family she
did
have aside from some sister somewhere was good old Ray. He was the only one looking out for her.

So she comes here and acts like this. Ungrateful little bitch
.

You could always go to a movie for chrissake.

Well he was not going to let her spoil things. For sure not while Dee Dee was around. Dee Dee was definitely in love with him. When he asked her at the Sugar Bowl if she wanted to come to the party she’d damn near wet her panties. He could do without those zits on her chin and she could stand to lose a pound or two of baby fat around the waist but otherwise she was a looker. Big tits and not-too-big ass and a long pale neck that just begged you to give it a hickey. He had his hand on that nice firm ass right now, moving her through the noisy crowded living room toward the kitchen to get her another beer from the fridge and fill his glass of Chivas.

He thought maybe he’d send Jennifer back to the Griffiths’ place tonight and fuck Dee Dee instead, zits and all. Who cared if she was underage? Half the girls he fucked were underage and he liked it that way. Already she was a little drunk. Couple more brews and she’d fuck a three-toothed Georgia nigger.

He got the beer for her and popped it and handed it over to her and turned back to the crowd, to
his
crowd and that was when he saw Tim running to the Magnavox, a worried look on his face and suddenly the Magnavox went silent. Tim hissed
Cops!
at him and Ray thought
Shit!
but didn’t miss a beat, he went right into action. He grabbed the beer out of Dee Dee’s hand and set it on the counter.
No goddamn underage kids with booze
.

“Everybody! You got a roach, swallow it. Dump the beers. Timmy, handle the door.
Ashtrays! Toilet! Now
!”

He was the first one in there, fishing the bulk of a dime bag of prime Panama Red and over half a lid of homegrown out of his jeans and emptying them into the bowl, glad he’d thought to sift off the twigs and seeds because twigs and seeds floated and were fucking hard to flush and at the same time pissed that he was flushing good dope in the first place especially the Red. He heard the doorbell ring and whispering and feet moving across the floor and the windows in back thrown open and then the music was up again a little—somebody, probably Tim, had the sense to make things seem nice and normal out there and then there were kids behind him dumping ashtrays into the water swirling down the toilet, watching with scared excited fascination.