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the mad doctor's arms and this whole thing would be over.
Two bullets: one for him, one for the girl. Maybe three. "One
for you," he said.
"What was that? Grace?"
But Stephen Grace hung the telephone up. He
stood inside the phone booth for a few seconds while
he lit a cigarette and took a few puffs. A middle-aged
woman in a raincoat, with a scarf wrapped around
her hair, was waiting to use the phone. She was hold-
ing the hand of a boy about eight years old who was
tapping on the glass of the booth with his free hand
tightened into a small fist. Grace opened the booth
door, and stepped out. The woman eagerly went in
and dropped a coin in the slot while the boy kept star-
ing at Grace.
"You're a bad man," the boy whispered.
Although Stephen Grace had heard him, he said,
"Huh, kid?"
"I said you're a bad man." The boy had wise,
haunted eyes, and Grace felt an unnatural wave of
something eerie about him. The boy's mother was
still speaking on the phone, not noticing her son
or Grace.
"Why would a nice kid like you say something
like that?"
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douglas clegg
The boy was adamant. "You're a bad man." And
then he pointed at him, but Stephen Grace noticed
that the boy was pointing at his mouth. "You're a bad
man: you smoke. You're gonna die from those. You're
gonna make other people die, too."
Stephen Grace drew the cigarette from his mouth,
glanced at it, and then grinned, shivering. "You live
long enough, kid, you make a few people die. Trust
me on that one."
He flicked an ash and then turned away from the
boy. Fucking San Francisco. Jesus, he wished he was
back in the jungle with the bugs and the endless
steam, back in the place where dreams had form,
where nightmare had logic. Not in these man-made
places where it was all puzzles and games. He crossed
the dark rain-slicked street to the Torino. He leaned
against it, reaching onto the driver's seat for the pho-
tos that Rebecca had mailed from her lab. In the glow
of the streetlight, he could make out her note:
"Stephen" — and she never called him Stephen unless
she was freaking out about something — "Don't go
after this girl. She's carrying something more than
just a virus. I don't want to lose you to this. I mean it.
You are worth something to me. I love you, even if
that means shit to you. Don't fuck my life up by dying
— Rebecca."
He'd look at the pictures later — they were just
autopsy pix. He could wait another hour or two to
digest his dinner before going through them.
90
dark of the eye
"Rebecca," he whispered to the night, "don't fuck
your life up for me." He tossed his cigarette onto the
street, stepping on it. The kid was right: people are
gonna die 'cause of me.
He counted up the floors on the side of the build-
ing that he faced. It was an old building, dark brick
with small balconies, too small to stand on, but each
stuffed with plants or flower boxes. When he got to
seven, he stopped and watched the seventh floor
apartment, hoping that the man who lived up there,
the old boyfriend, the confidant, would finally do
something, because nobody the fuck else was doing a
goddamn thing. No flowers or green ivy on that bal-
cony — just a clear view to the large window behind
the low rail. The light was on, and if Grace wasn't
mistaken, someone was moving back and forth near
the window.
Don't you ever leave your house? Grace thought. Lead
me to her, Farrell. Just help me save the world, and you can
write all you want and win the damn Nobel Peace Prize for
all I care, and you can make damn sure I get the chair. Just
take me to the girl. I want her out. No dancing the
Armageddon Boogie with a teenybopper whose breath is
gonna spread like fire across all creatures great and small.
He remembered the mad doctor's tape, the words:
"Like any mechanism, it's a matter of triggering the
mind, and if it goes, it goes big, and the trigger's
already there, just a matter of it being set off. When
six and seven connect, it's Fourth of July time."
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douglas clegg
Stephen Grace was tired of sitting in his car, but
what could he do? Until they let him go after Stewart
himself, or until the mother turned up, he only had
one lead.
Just give me the girl, Farrell, and then all your dreams
can come true. After I pull my own trigger.
After I put the bullet in her head.
92
chapter 13
In the seventh floor apartment in San Francisco, a
man in his early thirties heard the phone ring and
then listened to his own voice on the answering
machine, followed by an electronic beep.
He was about to pick the phone up, but it was
someone he was afraid to speak to.
Especially now.
"Ben?" the man on the phone said. "Ben? Are you
there? This is Robert. Robert Stewart. Answer the
phone, Ben. Now. Kate and Hope are in danger.
You've got to help us. Kate is not herself. She's on
medication. She's capable of murder. All right, Ben,
I'll call back. I'll try later. Call me."
The answering machine clicked and beeped.
The man in the apartment walked over to the liv-
ing room window, keeping to the side. He saw the
brown car below, and the man standing beside it.
Waiting.
"Where the hell are you, Katy?" he whispered, look-
ing out over the city, as if he could wish her there beside
him. "What in God's name is happening to you?"
93
chapter 14
the boonies
8:00 P.M.
The sign said, Empire, pop. 673, but even this had a
slash through the number, and someone had painted
next to it, "pop. 200." Hope giggled when she saw it.
The city she'd been born in, Devon, Nevada, had a
population of nearly 80,000 and climbing. She didn't
think places like this really existed except on TV
shows. After they drove by the sign, she expected to
see a town, but she saw only an old gas station that
didn't seem to be operating, although its fluorescent
light still nickered and was stormy with moths and
flies escaping the damp night. The rain was spatter-
ing on the windshield, and only one wiper seemed to
be working at all. So even while they passed some
buildings, neither she nor her mother had a good
idea of what the town looked like, although it
revealed itself with porch lights. Empire, California,
appeared to be all in a line on one side of the road.
94
dark of the eye
The few houses she saw weren't like the big modern
ones in her neighborhood in Devon. But there was
something that reminded her of the kind of place
where she imagined grandparents would live. Or
what her father would call "the boonies." She had
been to a few places like this with her friend Missy,
and Missy's mom had called these towns in the
Southwest "cow towns."
"It's a cow town," Hope said, liking that word the
best.
"California doesn't have cow towns. It's barely a
town at all," Kate's speech came out slurred, and
Hope knew her mother was running on fumes. They
were both exhausted, despite what sleep they'd got-
ten the night before. Hope felt like the mother some-
times, having to remind Mom when to eat, when to
sleep, when to calm down.
"Let's stay here tonight," Hope said. They'd
come to what was undoubtedly the only stoplight in
town. To the right was darkness, probably an alfalfa [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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