Part 49 (1/2)

Duke shook his head. He looked puzzled and suddenly a little uncomfortable . . . but maybe not as uncomfortable as Pearson felt.

'Okay, Mac's got a point,' Delray said. 'I guess I got carried away, but it feels like a historic occasion to me. On with the show.'

He paused for effect, and then whipped aside the blue cloth on the easel. His audience sat forward on their folding chairs, prepared to be amazed, then sat back with a small collective whoosh of disappointment. It was a black-and-white photograph of what looked to be an abandoned warehouse. It had been enlarged enough so that the eye could easily sort through the litter of papers, condoms, and empty wine-bottles in the loading bays, and read the tangle of spray-painted wit and wisdom on the wall. The biggest of these said RIOT GRRRLS RULE.

A whispered babble of murmurs went through the room.

'Five weeks ago,' Delray said impressively, 'Lester, Kendra, and I trailed two batmen to this abandoned warehouse in the Clark Bay section of Revere.'

The dark-haired woman in the round rimless gla.s.ses sitting next to Lester Olson looked around self-importantly . . . and then Pearson was d.a.m.ned if she didn't glance down at her watch.

'They were met at this point' - Delray tapped one of the trash-littered loading bays - 'by three more batmen and two batwomen. They went inside. Since then, six or seven of us have set up a rotating watch on this place. We have established - '

Pearson glanced around at Duke's hurt, incredulous face. He might as well have had WHY WASN'T I PICKED? tattooed on his forehead.

' - that this is some sort of meeting ground for the bats in the Boston metro area - '

The Boston Bats, Pearson thought, great name for a baseball team. And then it came back again, the doubt: Is this me, sitting here and listening to this craziness? Is it really?

In the wake of this thought, as if the memory had somehow been triggered by his momentary doubt, he again heard Delray telling the a.s.sembled Fearless Bat Hunters that their newest recruit was Brandon Pearson, from deepest, darkest Medford.

He turned back to Duke and spoke quietly into his ear.

'When you spoke to Janet on the phone - back in Gallagher's - you told her you were bringing me, right?'

Duke gave him an impatient I'm-trying-to-listen look in which there was still a trace of hurt. 'Sure,' he said.

'Did you tell her I was from Medford?'

'No,' Duke said. 'How would I know where you're from? Let me listen, Brand!' And he turned back.

'We have logged over thirty-five vehicles - luxury cars and limos, for the most part - visiting this abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere,' Delray said. He paused to let this sink in, s.n.a.t.c.hed another quick peek at his watch, and hurried on. 'Many of these have visited the site ten or a dozen times. The bats have undoubtedly congratulated themselves on having picked such an out-of-the-way spot for their meeting-hall or social club or whatever it is, but I think they're going to find they've painted themselves into a corner instead. Because . . . pardon me just a sec, guys . . . '

He turned and began a quiet conversation with Lester Olson. The woman named Kendra joined them, her head going back and forth like someone watching a Ping-Pong match. The seated audience watched the whispered conference with expressions of bewilderment and perplexity.

Pearson knew how they felt. Something big, Duke had promised, and from the feel of the place when they'd come in, everyone else had been promised the same. 'Something big' had turned out to be a single black-and-white photo showing nothing but an abandoned warehouse wallowing in a sea of trash, discarded underwear, and used rubbers. What the f.u.c.k is wrong with this picture?

The big deal's got to be in the trunk, Pearson thought. And by the way, Freckles, how did you know I came from Medford? That's one I'm saving for the Q-and-A after the speech, believe me.

That feeling - flushed face, pounding heart, above all else the desire for another cigarette - was stronger than ever. Like the anxiety attacks he'd sometimes had back in college. What was it? If it wasn't fear, what was it?

Oh, it's fear, all right - it's just not fear of being the only sane man in the snake-pit. You know the bats are real; you 're not crazy and neither is Duke and neither is Moira or Cam Stevens or Janet Brightwood. But something is wrong with this picture just the same . . . really wrong. And I think it's him. Robbie Delray, housepainter and Savior of His Race. He knew where I was from. Brightwood called him and told him Duke was bringing someone from the First Merc, Brandon Pearson's his name, and Robbie checked on me. Why would he do that? And how did he do it?

In his mind he suddenly heard Duke Rhinemann saying, They're smart . . . they've got friends in high places. h.e.l.l, high places is what they're all about.

If you had friends in high places, you could check on a fellow in a hurry, couldn't you? Yes. People in high places had access to all the right computer pa.s.swords, all the right records, all the numbers that made up all the right vital statistics . . .

Pearson jerked in his seat like a man waking from a terrible dream. He kicked his foot out involuntarily and it struck the base of the window-pole. It started to slide. Meanwhile, the whispering at the front of the room broke up with nods all around.

'Les?' Delray asked. 'Would you and Kendra give me another little helping hand?'

Pearson reached to grab the window-pole before it could fall and brain someone - maybe even slice someone's scalp open withthe wicked little hook on top. He caught it, started to place it back against the wall, and saw the goblin-face peering in the bas.e.m.e.nt window. The black eyes, like the eyes of a Raggedy Ann doll abandoned under a bed, stared into Pearson's wide blue ones. Strips of flesh rotated like bands of atmosphere around one of the planets astronomers called gas giants. The black snakes of vein under the lumpy, naked skull pulsed. The teeth glimmered in its gaping mouth.

'Just help me with the snaps on this darned thing,' Delray was saying from the other end of the galaxy. He gave a friendly little chuckle. 'They're a little sticky, I guess.'

For Brandon Pearson, it was as if time had doubled back on itself to that morning: once again he tried to scream and once again shock robbed his voice and he was able to produce only a low, choked whuffling - the sound of a man moaning in his sleep.

The rambling speech.

The meaningless photograph.

The constant little peeks at the wrist.w.a.tch.

Does it make you nervous? Having so many of your people in the same place? he had asked, and Duke had replied, smiling: No. Robbie can smell bats.

This time there was no one to stop him, and this time Pearson's second effort was a total success.

'IT'S A SET-UP!' he screamed, leaping to his feet. 'IT'S A SET-UP, WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!'

Startled faces craned around to look at him . . . but there were three that didn't have to crane. These belonged to Delray, Olson, and the dark-haired woman named Kendra. They had just solved the latches and opened the trunk. Their faces were full of shock and guilt . . . but no surprise. That particular emotion was absent.

'Siddown, Iman!' Duke hissed. 'Have you gone era - '

Upstairs, the door crashed open. Bootheels clumped across the floor toward the stairwell.

'What's happening?' Janet Brightwood asked. She spoke directly to Duke. Her eyes were wide and frightened. 'What's he talking about?'

'GET OUT!' Pearson roared. 'GET THE f.u.c.k OUT OF HERE! HE TOLD IT TO YOU BACKWARD! WE'RE THE ONES IN THE TRAP!'

The door at the head of the narrow staircase leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt crashed open, and from the shadows up there came the most appalling sounds Pearson had ever heard - it was like listening to a pack of pit-bulls baying over a live baby thrown into their midst.

'Who's that?' Janet screamed. 'Who's that up there?' Yet there was no question on her face; her face knew perfectly well who was up there. What was up there.

'Calm down!' Robbie Delray shouted to the confused group of people, most of whom were still sitting on their folding chairs. 'They've promised amnesty! Do you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying? They've given me their solemn - '

At that moment the cellar window to the left of the one through which Pearson had seen the first batface shattered inward, spraying gla.s.s across the stunned men and women in the first row along the wall. An Armani-clad arm snaked through the jagged opening and seized Moira Richardson by the hair. She screamed and beat at the hand holding her . . . which was not really a hand at all, but a bundle of talons tipped with long, chitinous nails.

Without thinking, Pearson seized the window-pole, darted forward, and launched the hook at the pulsing batlike face peering in through the broken window. The hook drove into one of the thing's eyes. A thick, faintly astringent ink pattered down on Pearson's upthrust hands. The batman uttered a baying, savage sound - it didn't sound like a scream of pain to Pearson, but he supposed he was allowed to hope - and then it fell backward, pulling the window-pole out of Pearson's hands and into the drizzly night. Before the creature disappeared from view entirely, Pearson saw white mist begin to drift off its tumorous skin, and smelled a whiff of (dust urine hot chili-peppers) something unpleasant.

Cam Stevens pulled Moira into his arms and looked at Pearson with shocked, disbelieving eyes. All around them were men and women wearing that same blank look, men and women frozen like a herd of deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

They don't look much like resistance fighters to me, Pearson thought. They look like sheep caught in a shearing-pen . . . and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a judas goat who led them in is standing up there at the front of the room with his co-conspirators.

The savage baying upstairs was getting closer, but not as fast as Pearson might have expected. Then he remembered how narrow the staircase was - too narrow for two men to walk abreast - and said a little prayer of thanks as he shoved forward. He I grabbed Duke by the tie and hauled him to his feet. 'Come on,' he said. 'We're blowing this joint. Is there a back door?'

'I . . . don't know.' Duke was rubbing one temple slowly and forcefully, like a man who has a bad headache. 'Robbie did this? Robbie? Can't be, man . . . can it?' He looked at Pearson with pitiful, stunned intensity.

'I'm afraid so, Duke. Come on.'

He got two steps toward the aisle, still holding onto Duke's tie, then stopped. Delray, Olson, and Kendra had been rooting in the trunk, and now they flashed pistol-sized automatic weapons equipped with ridiculous-looking long wire stocks. Pearson had never seen an Uzi outside of the movies and TV, but he supposed that was what these were. Uzis or close relatives, and what the f.u.c.k did it matter, anyway? They were guns.