Part 55 (1/2)
”I have to speak with you,” he said. ”You're Grillo, right?”
”Yeah. And you?”
”My name's Witt. I used to have offices in the Mall. And friends here at the hotel. They told me about you.”
”What do you want?” Tesla said.
”I was up at Coney Eye,” he said. ”When you came out. I wanted to speak to you then but I was hiding...I couldn't move myself.” He glanced down at the front of his trousers, which were damp.
”What's going on up there?”
”I suggest you get out of the Grove as quickly as possible,” Tesla advised. ”There's worse on the way.”
”There's no Grove to leave,” Witt replied. ”The Grove's gone. Finished. People have left on vacations and I don't think they're going to come back. But I'm not leaving. I've got nowhere to go. Besides-” he looked close to tears as he spoke ”-this is my town. If it's going to get swallowed up somehow, then I want to be here when it goes. Even if the Jaff-”
”Wait!” said Tesla. ”What do you know about the Jaff?”
”I...met him. Tommy-Ray McGuire's his son, you know that?” Tesla nodded. ”Well, McGuire introduced me to the Jaff.”
”Here in the Grove?”
”Sure.”
”Where?”
”In Cherry Tree Glade.”
”Then that's where we start,” said Tesla. ”Can you take us there?”
”Of course.”
”You think he'll have just gone back there?” Grillo said.
”You saw his condition,” Tesla replied. ”I think he'll go looking for someplace familiar, where he feels reasonably safe.”
”Makes sense,” said Grillo.
”If it does,” said Witt, ”it's the first thing tonight that has.”
Dawn showed them what William Witt had already described: a town practically deserted, its occupants fled. A pack of domestic dogs roved the streets, having either been turned loose or escaped from owners whose minds were on the business of panicked departure. In the s.p.a.ce of a day or two they'd become a small scavenging band. Witt recognized the dogs. Mrs. Duffin's poodles were in the pack; so were two dachshunds belonging to Blaze Hebbard, the pups of the pups of the pups of dogs owned by a Grover who'd died when Witt was a boy, one Edgar Lott. Died and left his money to be used to put up a memorial to the League of Virgins.
Besides the dogs there were other, perhaps more distressing signs of hurried exits. Garage doors left open; toys dropped on the front path or in the driveway as sleepy children were put into cars in the middle of the night.
”Everybody knew,” Witt said as they drove. ”They knew all along but n.o.body said anything. That's why most of them just slipped away in the middle of the night. They thought they were the only ones who were losing their minds. They all thought they were the only ones.”
”You worked here, you said.”
”Yeah,” Witt told Grillo, ”real estate.”
”Looks like business may be booming tomorrow. Plenty of properties for sale.”
”And who's going to buy?” Witt said. ”This is going to be cursed ground.”
”It's not the Grove's fault that all this happened,” Tesla put in. ”It's an accident.”
”It is?”
”Of course. Fletcher and the Jaff ended up here because they ran out of power, not because the Grove was somehow chosen.”
”I still think it'll be cursed ground,” Witt began, breaking off to instruct Grillo: ”This next turning's Cherry Tree Glade. And Mrs. Lloyd's house is the fourth or fifth on the right.”
From the outside at least it looked unoccupied. When they broke in, that was confirmed. The Jaff hadn't been in the house since he'd taunted Witt in the upper room.
”It was worth a try,” Tesla said. ”I guess we just have to keep looking. The town's not that big. We just go from street to street till we get a sniff of him. Anybody got any better ideas?” She looked at Grillo, whose gaze and concentration were elsewhere. ”What is it?” she said.
”Huh?”
”Somebody left water running,” Witt said, following the direction of Grillo's gaze.
Water was indeed running out from under the front door of a house opposite the Lloyd house, a steady stream which made its way down the incline of the driveway, across the sidewalk and into the gutter.
”What's so interesting?” Tesla said.
”I just realized...” Grillo said.
”What?”
He kept staring at the water, disappearing down the sewer. ”I think I know where he's gone.”
He turned and looked at Tesla.
”A familiar place, you said. The place he knows best in the Grove isn't above ground, it's below. ”
Tesla's face brightened. ”The caves. Yeah. That makes perfect sense.”
They got back into the car, and with Witt directing them by the fastest route, drove back through the town-in defiance of red lights and one-way streets-towards Deerdell.
”It's not going to be long before the police start to arrive,” Grillo remarked. ”Looking for lost movie stars.”
”I should go up to the house and warn them away,” Tesla said.
”You can't be in two places at one time,” Grillo said. ”Unless that's another talent I don't know about.”
”Ha f.u.c.king ha.”
”They'll have to find out the hard way. We've got more urgent stuff to do.”
”True,” Tesla conceded.