A Coldness in the Blood Page 20

  Night came hurrying from east to west, advancing at a pace much faster than any train could move, and presently it had engulfed them. By that time, Chicago was hundreds of miles behind, and their train had crossed the Mississippi into Iowa.

  Pulling down the window’s wide shade, Dolores murmured: “I never used to be afraid of the dark. I never used to be afraid of falling asleep.”

  Somehow it had vaguely boosted Andy’s fragile sense of security to learn that all meals were included in the first-class price. When the time came, he signed the bill, as required, in the name of Nicolas Flamel.

  Privacy at table, they soon discovered, was not the norm in dining cars. A cheerful attendant led them to a table for four, which they shared with a fiftyish couple who said they were going to visit their children in California.

  After a round of self-introductions—Dolly for some reason adopted the name Miranda Flamel—the conversation limped along.

  The man sitting across from Andy asked: “Been married long?”

  “No, actually.”

  The lady sitting across from Dolly murmured with sly approval that she thought a long train ride a romantic way to begin a honeymoon. Dolly looked appropriately embarrassed, and Andy was sure he looked the same.

  Soon the two of them were back in their snug compartment, with the curtained door securely locked. One of the efficient attendants had evidently been in while they were dining, for the short, built-in sofa had been converted into a lower berth, neatly made up with pillow, sheets and blankets. Its upper counterpart had been pulled out from the wall and similarly made up.

  Andy puffed out breath, sitting down on the lower berth. “I think we’ve left them all behind.”

  Dolly sat in the chair. “Including your Uncle Matt?”

  Andy shook his head. “All bets are off where he’s concerned.”

  “When it comes time for nighty-night, I’m taking the upper berth,” Dolly announced, in businesslike tones. “You can have the lower. Looks like you’re established there.”

  “I’m ready for some sleep.” But he did not lie down, and after a moment he added: “All I’m taking off is my shoes.” He still felt the need to be ready for anything at a moment’s notice.

  Presently Dolly began to nod, gripped by her natural need to sleep. She slumped and twisted in the chair, trying to keep herself awake, while Andy retained his place on one end of the lower berth and tried to comfort her.

  “Talk to me, Andy, help me keep awake.”

  This was craziness, he thought; she was going to have to sleep sometime, and he told her so.

  “Sure, all right, I admit that. But I want to get really tired first.”

  “Okay,” he said. “If you want talk, I’ll try.”

  He told her how he was, or had been, enrolled at TMU as a student, taking some math along with computer science and related subjects.

  Conversation sputtered and lagged. Dolly decided suddenly to get up and walk about the train a little. Andy didn’t want to let her go alone, and put his shoes back on.

  The club car held no great attraction, and they made their swaying way to the observation car, which was no better. The walking around really didn’t seem to help, and Andy feared that Dolly was well on her way to a second night of sleep-deprivation and terror. Only now, watching his companion blink and stumble, did he begin to realize how much afraid of going to sleep she really was.

  Back in the compartment, she once again clung chastely to him, and pleaded: “Talk to me, Andy. Give me something else to think about.”

  This unnatural strain was going on too long, he thought. He was beginning to be seriously worried about her mental state.

  Whenever Andy momentarily ran out of things to say, Dolly took over, talking steadily in an effort to stay awake and to distract herself. Now she was babbling about going back to her home in Albuquerque.

  “’Course it was never really my home, it was Grandpa’s. There’ll still be some of his stuff there I’ll have to dispose of somehow. When I’m sure there’s no more legal stuff to do, regarding his death.

  “And if the landlord hasn’t thrown all of Gramp’s stuff out of the house by this time. If that’s happened, we’re evicted, I don’t know where I’m going to stay when I get to Albuquerque.”

  Andy tried to be reassuring. “Not a problem. We’ll work something out.” He still had his own credit card with him, and he would use it if necessary, for a hotel room or whatever. Forget about trying to keep his location a secret; it seemed the cops weren’t interested in finding him, not yet anyway.

  Besides, his father knew where he was, which was more comforting the more he thought about it. Andy didn’t mention it to his companion, but he wasn’t going to be surprised if he saw his Dad waiting for them when they got off the train.

  Dolly was going on again about the last conversation she’d had with her grandpa, on the day he died.

  “Though on that last day I think he really was delirious about half the time. So I can’t really be sure of anything he told me.”

  “Except the list.”

  She didn’t answer. Outside the shaded window, outer darkness held dominion. The train swayed and rumbled through the night, dozens of wheels chattering their way over a million joinings of the rails. Stretches of rough track made the carriage lurch and sway with sudden violence, evoked new noises. Still this train was vastly quieter than the subway.

  “I’m going to give it a try,” Dolly decided suddenly, and climbed nimbly into the upper, where she stretched out with a kind of gasp. It sounded to Andy like she might be going right to sleep. But she had not been in her berth for more than a few minutes before she started talking in her sleep. For a time, Andy tried to listen, but it didn’t make much sense.

  “ … crocodile … a stone … worth more … more than anything …”

  He had to slide out of his berth and stand in the swaying little space. “Dolores? Dolly, wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”

  But it seemed she was awake already. “Oh God, Andy. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He thought he heard the barrel of the shotgun click on something hard as she rolled over on the narrow, padded shelf.

  It was not yet quite ten o’clock, Chicago time. Dolly tried again to let her weary body sleep, and once more jerked awake babbling something more about a crocodile.

  This time she sought out Andy in his swaying, narrow bunk, and clung to him fiercely. But plainly sex was still about the farthest thing from her mind—and also from his. Andy’s own private nightmare was still very much with him, effectively quenching carnality.

  Dolly was extremely cold, shivering despite the fact that she had wrapped herself in all the blankets she could gather.

  Andy was getting worried that she was really ill. “It’s not that cold in here. You got a fever?”

  “It’s no fever, I’m just cold.”

  “After what happened in Old Town—what almost happened to us—you’re bound to have some kind of a reaction.”

  She shook her head savagely. “Not to that, to my damn dreams! And I tell you I’m freezing. Like all the cold of all the Arctic rivers in Siberia running through. Just hold me, Andy. Hold me, damn it, and don’t let me go to sleep again.”

  He did the best he could. But before he was aware of it, she had somehow drifted off.

  “A crocodile inside a statue? Then a stone in a crocodile?” Dolly’s voice went up in an anguished squeal. Andy was starting to worry about the people in the adjoining compartments. “Gramp, are you going nuts on me?

  “In the crate … six crocodiles … in one of them …”

  In spite of everything, Andy too eventually drifted off, into his own bad dream, having to do with a woman with huge earrings, and fangs to match.

  ~ 14 ~

  When Joe Keogh answered the phone in his downtown Chicago office on Friday afternoon, John Southerland was on the other end of the line, reporting from Union Station. Dolores Flamel and Andy Keogh had just boarde
d the Southwest Chief. It was the word Joe had been waiting for.

  John added: “They were both still on the train when it pulled out. We made sure of that.” Then there was a hesitation on the phone. “They won’t do anything stupid, will they? Like getting off before they get to Albuquerque?”

  Joe’s small traveling bag was resting at his feet, all packed, ready to make a quick start as soon as he was sure about his son and the girl. “I don’t know why they would. But my kid does crazy things sometimes. Or probably he wouldn’t be in this mess.” Reaching for another stick of chewing gum, he had half-consciously unwrapped it before he remembered that he had one in his mouth already. A moment later he had two. “See you at Meigs, soon as we both can get there.”

  “Right.”

  Descending from his office and grabbing a cab for the short trip to the small lakeshore airfield, he put his cell phone to use again, making sure to keep Kate informed as well as he could.

  Meigs had been built, decades ago, on a thin tongue of filled-in land extending into the lake, broadened enough at the base to accommodate the Adler Planetarium and the 12th Street Beach. The peninsula and its single runway projected more than half a mile south along the lakefront east of McCormick Place.

  It hadn’t taken Joe long, thanks to certain connections, to arrange for a quick charter of the fast sweptwing jet, much smaller than a commercial airliner, whose door now stood open and ready for him and John to climb on in. The passenger compartment, comfortably furnished and sealed off by a bulkhead from the crew cabin forward, had eight uncrowded seats, only two of which were occupied this afternoon.

  Minutes later the thrust of the twin engines pressed them both back in their seats with the acceleration of takeoff.

  Joe thanked God that he was able to afford leasing the jet. Very rarely had he found it necessary to call on the reserve of power represented by the Southerland money; but fortunately it was there when needed. There would be no need to strain the resources of his own small company.

  There were several reasons why Joe Keogh had abandoned all thought of using commercial aviation in this case. One was, of course, the sheer need for speed and efficiency. A second reason was less obvious. Having on previous occasions tried his best to defend himself against some of Maule’s exotic enemies, Joe felt strongly disinclined to go another round without the aid of firearms—properly loaded ones, of course.

  The regrettable necessity of sometimes carrying a gun was rendered a little easier in some of the western states, where a man—or woman—could still strap on a six-gun and cartridge belt, and walk the streets in perfect legality. Of course staying legal was about the least of his worries at the moment.

  As the small chartered jet rose into the air, he got a good look at the afternoon sun glinting on some of the city’s most impressive towers, including the one housing Maule’s apartment, less than three miles away. If all was going according to plan, those rooms would be empty now.

  The first destination of the private jet was Albuquerque, and it was there in a few hours, outracing the Southwest Chief by almost a full day.

  John Southerland was dropped off in the clear sunlight of a New Mexican summer afternoon. In less than half an hour Joe’s aircraft was airborne again, this time with himself as its sole passenger.

  Now the small plane gave the sun a good race westward. The time was still sunlit early evening when Keogh’s aircraft landed at the small but busy airfield serving California’s Monterey peninsula. Joe Keogh took note of the fact that his chartered small jet, which usually drew some interest when it landed, attracted none at all at the little airport near Monterey. This, compared to other airports he had seen, was not exactly your lowrent district; a small line of similar aircraft already stood waiting on the ramp, like taxis in front of some ordinary hotel.

  A glance at a railroad timetable assured him that the Southwest Chief, if still on schedule, ought at that moment to be approaching Kansas City—if Maule was proceeding on his own chosen schedule, he should be getting aboard the train quite soon.

  Maule had sounded confident of making the connection—but then he almost always sounded confident. The vampire had made his own arrangements for some kind of flight west out of Chicago, and Joe didn’t know the details, or particularly want to know them. He had no doubt that after dark the man he knew as Matthew Maule could easily enough board any grounded aircraft, guarded or unguarded, that happened to be scheduled for a flight in some convenient direction. Efforts to maintain security were all virtually meaningless where Uncle Matt was concerned.

  One difficulty that might slow him down a bit was that in June, at the latitude of Chicago, empowering night came late to vampires. If forced by circumstances to depart before sunset, Maule might have been compelled to buy a ticket.

  On the ground in the mild California evening, Joe made arrangements for the plane to be held in readiness. Then he got himself and his small traveling bag into a rented vehicle, consulted a necessary map, and started to drive the winding roads of the peninsula toward the coastal village of Carmel.

  Carmel, on the southern coast of the peninsula, seemed to have won a resounding victory in the war on poverty, but was a little short of parking spaces. The address that Joe Keogh wanted turned out to be that of a small house, on a lot overgrown with trees and shrubs and flowers, in varieties that Joe had never seen anywhere but California, within smell of the ocean. It ought to be an easy walk to the beach, though Joe hadn’t actually seen the water yet. Only the well-to-do lived in houses like this one—or like any of the others on the narrow, almost countrified street, on the fringe of what here passed for a downtown district.

  If there were only a minimum of sidewalks, it was certainly not because the population could not afford them. They tended to park their Mercedes and Jaguars where the sidewalks would have been, had there been any room for sidewalks beside the narrow roads, under the overhanging, exotic-looking trees and shrubs.

  Joe managed to park his modest rental vehicle only about a block from the address he wanted, got out of the car and stretched his legs. The sun was down now, and mellow streetlights had come on. It wasn’t raining, and didn’t really look like it was going to rain, but the sky before sunset had been faintly tinged with gray, and there was a heaviness in the air that smelled and felt like seawater.

  The building he now approached on foot was of one story, and only modest size. It seemed to have its living quarters in the rear, while the front had been somewhat remodeled to house one of the many local upscale antique shops on one of the side streets just off Ocean Avenue.

  Foot traffic here on the fringe of the business district was fairly brisk. It was the time of day when you might expect some retailers to close, but Joe saw to his relief that the door of the shop was standing open.

  Most of the building’s front, remodeled for business purposes, was taken up by a broad window. The window’s protective steel cagework had been mostly rolled aside, allowing the eye of the tourist access to a somewhat exotic display. Gazing into it, Joe had the feeling that this time he had hit paydirt. If his eyes were not tricking his hopeful imagination, there were not just one but two small plaster statues on display, each portraying a somewhat crocodilish figure standing upright on its hind legs. As far as he could tell, they matched Maule’s rather detailed description exactly, and were absolutely identical. They stood facing each other across a display of trinkets, curios, and oddments, most of which were probably assessed at vastly greater worth.

  Neither of the statues bore a visible price tag, but then nothing else in the window did either.

  Two statues, out of a diminished number that still remained unbroken. The odds ought to be very good indeed that one of the pair before him held the grand prize.

  Joe drew a deep breath, and tried without much success for a moment of calm, of something as close as he could get to meditation. Then he went into the shop.

  The interior was crowded with a wild assortment of stuff, everything
from clocks to stuffed animals, as seemed appropriate for this kind of business. The lighting, mostly from small, pink-shaded lamps, could have been better. In the rear, a curtained doorway led off to what must be living quarters.

  The man behind the small and antique counter was alone in the shop, and his black T-shirt and large size did not fit Joe’s preconceived image of an antique dealer. Tattoos on his massive forearms rather suggested the renegade biker.

  But he spoke up courteously enough. “Can I help your?”

  It took Joe perhaps half a minute to feel absolutely sure, but then he did. This fellow was no vampire.

  Joe had already decided that in this case there was no use being coy, pretending at first to be interested in some other object. He said: “The pair of little white statues in the window. They look interesting.”

  The man appeared suddenly to take a keener interest in his customer. “Was kind of hoping somebody might recognize ’em.”

  Moving slowly, the owner went to get one of the statues out of the display, and with a faint smile held it up for Joe’s inspection. But he made no move to hand the statue over.

  Still carrying it, he moved back behind his counter. “Actually, I picked ’em up more for decoration than anything else. Strange little buggers, and at first I didn’t think they were worth much.”

  “And now you do?”

  The man was going to get around to that in his own way. “This one I’m holding is slightly damaged—see the little chip here in the back?”

  Joe said: “I didn’t notice.” Down near the feet, a little spot of something dark was showing through the white. “You think that makes it more valuable?”