Part 6 (1/2)
”I won't have to stay around?”
”You won't even have to see her, Demerit, if you don't want to. She will be in hiding, a virtual prisoner. But that's better than being dead, I think. You should proceed about your business exactly as before, arousing no suspicion. Your life-style should change very little.” She glanced at him. ”But you know, it might not hurt you to get to know her. She's not an aggressive sort, and I suspect she's lonely. Her husband is having an almost open affair with another woman, and her child is dead. You may not need any support from the opposite s.e.x, but she does.”
He was nonplussed. ”Women-I don't-”
”For G.o.d's sake, you don't have to sleep with her!” she snapped. ”Just talk to her, show her a bit of sympathy. She's like a person recovering from a serious injury, only it's emotional, not physical. I think she will need to talk to somebody. Someone nonthreatening. You are ideal. Just sit there and listen. You might learn something.”
”Listening I can do,” he agreed.
”Good. Now I don't know when I'll bring her, but it could be as early as tomorrow. I'll have to see about covering her tracks. If I can, I'll spirit her out of that house, and her husband will return to find a message that she's gone to Timbuktu with her son. He'll hardly miss her; he's usually elsewhere. The monster won't find any more prey at that house, and if we're lucky it will move on to another region, or Mid's exterminator will catch it and kill it.”
She moved on out the door. ”I'll try to bring groceries today; when will you be in?”
”Dusk.”
”Good enough.” She braced herself, and opened the door to the heat. She hoped she was doing the right thing. If something went wrong with the Brown woman, May's job would be on the line, and she would pay heavily for her sentimentality.
* 9 - GEODE SHOOK HIS head as the Flowers woman drove away. Suddenly she had foisted on him a house-guest, and if that guest did any harm to the premises, he would be the one in trouble. Yet there was also an unholy temptation in the notion. He did not relate well to women, but neither did he relate well to men. He didn't understand normal people, and they didn't understand him. The Flowers woman, pushy as she was, related to him about as well as anybody ever had, except for Mid, whom he had never met. If this other woman was just an ordinary person who was willing to talk to him without getting impatient, and just wanted someone to listen, he would listen and like it. Listening made few demands. If the woman was lonely-well, so was he. He stayed clear of other people because interactions always got awkward, not because he wasn't interested. If the woman didn't want to talk to him, then he could just ignore her, as suggested; his daily rounds did take time.
He wondered if the Flowers woman knew that he wanted someone to talk to. She seemed pretty sharp, in her uncompromising way. She was intent on her job, certainly, but maybe she did see some around the edges of it.
Also, he had heard what she told Mid: ”I feel for her.” The professional coldness of the woman had been cloven asunder with those words. Sympathy moved her. Then she had said, ”I suspect she's lonely.” And that she needed someone nonthreatening to talk to, to have listen to her, and that he was ideal for that.
That animated him. The notion that he could actually be good for someone else, for a woman. No one had ever suggested that before. For whom was May Flowers actually doing the favor-the woman, or him? Did it matter?
He closed up the house, armed the alarm, and set off on his rounds on the bike. He had a lot to think about, and this activity was an excellent time in which to think.
At dusk the Flowers woman did come with several bags of groceries, which she stored in the main refrigerator-the one that Geode didn't use. ”If anyone asks, these are yours,” she told him. But of course no one would ask; no one should be here to see it, other than those who already knew. ”Tomorrow I'll ask her.”
Geode, normally a good sleeper, had a restless night. He kept thinking about the visiting woman, imagining her already there in the spare room, going about her business, watching TV, eating, sleeping. He had been so long without company, it was hard getting used to it-even though he knew it hadn't happened yet. What was her name? What did she look like? He knew only that she was ”no young beauty.” But she was married and had a young son, so she couldn't be too old. About his own age, perhaps. Did it matter? Not really. She would be company; that was all that counted. For a week or two he would have company. He would try not to turn her off. In the early days he had not understood what made others avoid him, but after the mental hospital it had been clear. He had a fair idea what not to say or do now. She might accept him as a normal person.
In the morning the deputy sheriff came again. ”Any news?” The Flowers woman had told him about the monster, and the man had agreed to keep it quiet. Geode would not be in trouble for moving the truck and the body. Indeed, he had had to move the body again, to the bushes near where he had left the hunter's truck (it wasn't there anymore), so that another deputy could find it. There had been no news report; as far as the authorities were concerned, the hunter had died in some freak accident, and the ants and vermin had had time to pick his bones clean. Maybe later the story would come out, but for now it was under wraps because they were still investigating.
”Did the Flowers woman tell you about the boy?” Geode asked.
”Yeah, she called.”
”She wants to hide the woman here.”
”Now, that she didn't tell me! What woman? Why?”
”The boy's mother. Flowers is afraid she'll be next, so she wants her here until it's safe.”
The deputy nodded. ”Makes sense. That makes three times the monster's struck at her place. Just plain luck her window was closed, maybe, or it would've taken her too. If Middleberry-you call him Mid?-if he sends an exterminator, maybe it'll be over soon, and you, me, the Brown woman, and Flowers'll be out of trouble, and no harm done to any of us.” He paused, reconsidering. ”Well, except for her son. Too bad about that. But who would've thought it would come right in the house and take a kid?”
”This house is better guarded.”
”It sure is! Well, if it's okay with Mid, it's okay with me. You take care of her, Demerit.” The officer seemed to find something humorous.
”What-what is she like?”
”The Brown woman? She's a mouse. A bedraggled housewife. Mid-thirties, sort of worn down. I guess a bad marriage will do that to you. Quiet. But I'll say this for her, she had the guts to bury her son and keep her mouth shut. Must be more to her than shows. Maybe you'll find out, eh?”
Geode didn't know what was meant by that. ”I probably won't see her much. She'll hide inside, and I'll be out on my rounds most of the time.”
”Sure.” The sheriffs deputy shrugged. ”Well, keep me posted. When that exterminator man gets here, I want to see him. And if the monster takes any more meals here, sing out.”
Geode nodded. But his mind was less on the monster than on the mouse. He liked mice, as he did all wild things. A woman like a mouse-he could like her too.
The deputy started his car and moved on around the loop. Geode watched him go, glad to be rid of him.
* 10 - FRANK SHOOK HIS head as he left the loop behind. Funny man, that Demerit! There seemed to be a blankness about him, as if he were halfway in some other world even when directly talking to a person. But harmless.
Then, stretched across the pebbled asphalt of the drive, he saw something that wasn't harmless. He screeched to a stop before running over it. It was a rattlesnake, about five feet long and so thick through the body it reminded him of a python. Sure, he'd heard tales of much bigger rattlers, but this one was plenty big enough!
He waited, but the reptile just lay there, not coiled. It was taking in the sun. The pattern was bright enough, but not truly diamond; it was more like a series of brownish patches. The rattles were plain too, but dull. The fact was, this creature was neither resplendent nor aggressive; it was in its drab housecoat, relaxing.
Frank turned his wheels sharply and pulled slowly around the snake. He had to ride on the weeds and dirt at the edge to do it, and he knocked down a few dog fennel and a pokeberry plant in the process, but he made it. Then, after he was safely past, the snake moved. It brought its head about and glided slowly off the other side of the drive. It was as if the d.a.m.ned thing had dared him to run it over and now was contemptuously departing, having proved its point. Well, so be it; Frank wasn't much for killing anyway, and he knew that all wildlife except maybe stinging flies was protected on the Middle Kingdom Ranch. So it was a poisonous snake; so it wasn't menacing him, and he didn't have to menace it. What would be the point of squis.h.i.+ng it under his tire and losing all cooperation from the Middle Kingdom folk? What would be the point even if this wasn't a wildlife sanctuary?
He drove on, and his chain of thought resumed. That was a good notion the Flowers woman had, to hide the Brown woman there. The security system was intended to discourage human intruders, but it was so tight that it should give the monster pause too. If the monster even knew she was there.
What Flowers surely had in mind was to clear the woman out and lay a trap for the monster. Why the monster hung around there no one could guess, but since it did, that was the place to catch it. Maybe they could wrap this whole thing up in the next two days. Then Frank could make his report and get some credit, and everything would settle down.
What was causing the trouble? They called it the monster, but that was just a name for something unknown. Could it be a deranged man with some kind of hypodermic that dissolved flesh? What did he do with the flesh? Did he trundle a tank along and save it up for some mad experiment? It would be nice to catch him at it!
But Frank couldn't dwell on the matter. There was a lot of small business crowding his schedule, and this monster investigation was still off the record. The authorities didn't want to know about it. That set of bones by the river was bad enough; they hadn't liked that at all, but had agreed that it wasn't enough to make a commotion over.
For now, Frank wanted the monster kept quiet. It was his baby, as it were; he wanted to see it through on his own, and that wouldn't happen if it suddenly started making headlines. It was intriguing as h.e.l.l, this business of sucking bodies bone-dry; he'd never heard of anything like that before. He intended to be on the scene when they caught the monster, whoever or whatever it was.
But meanwhile he had to carry on with the routine.
”That woman called again, Frank,” his wife announced. ”She says there's been another feeding at the first house.”
Frank, about to sit down to breakfast, changed his mind. He grabbed his hat. ”d.a.m.n!”
”What's this all about?” his wife asked.
”Nothing you'd want to know!” he said, hurrying out. He'd been busy for three days, and forgotten to check on the Brown woman. Now it had happened!
He careened his car onto the street and turned north. Why hadn't Flowers gotten that fool woman out of there? Now it had hit the fan, for sure!
But the Brown woman was standing outside her house when he screeched in. ”G.o.d!” he exclaimed. ”I thought you'd-”
”Not me,” she said. ”My-”
”Don't say anything!” Because what he knew for certain he'd have to report. ”Let me check around, see what I can see.” Because now he realized that it was her husband who'd been taken. How would they cover that up?