T. Wright - The Devouring

The last sound she heard was the roar of the patrol car's big V-8 as it sprang to life.

~ * ~

The bartender at Frank's Place said to Ryerson Biergarten, "I see you traded in your little dog for a better model," and nodded to indicate Joan.

Ryerson said, "I don't understand."

The bartender shrugged. "What's to understand? I was making a joke."

"Oh," Ryerson said, pretending a smile, "a joke. I see. You were drawing some parallel between my dog and this woman? Is that what you were doing?"

"Rye," Joan said, "it's okay. Forget it."

The bartender shook his head. "No. Like the lady says, forget it. What'll you have?"

"What I'll have first is an apology," Ryerson said.

And Joan said, "It's not necessary. Really. It was just a joke. You don't have to protect me."

"Okay," warned the bartender, "if you came in here to make trouble, mister-"

Ryerson cut in, "Why did you break your sister's arm?"

"Huh?" said the bartender, flabbergasted.

"It was a clear enough question," Ryerson said. "When you were fifteen, you broke your little sister's arm. Why?"

"You fucking lousy bastard-"

"Where's Jack Lucas?"

"Jack Lucas? I don't know no Jack Lucas. I told you that before."

"You were lying."

The bartender bristled. "No one calls me a liar-"

"Jack ain't here," said a voice from the opposite end of the bar. Ryerson looked over. He saw the woman, Doreen, who'd been there the last time he'd been in Frank's Place. He started for her; Joan took his arm, stopped him. "What in the hell are you doing, Rye?"

He glanced at her; she saw confusion, frustration, and anger in his eyes. He said, "I'm not sure, Joan. I've got to find Jack Lucas. I don't know why, but I've got to find him. And please don't ask me to explain my actions. I don't think I could-I do what I have to do." And with that, he went to the end of the bar to talk to the woman who called herself Doreen. Joan sat at a table nearby.

The woman said, as Ryerson sat on a barstool next to her, "We got trouble in this city, don't we, Mr. Biergarten?"

It was a question he had not anticipated.

~ * ~

Benny Bloom had very vague memories of coming here-wherever here was. He saw himself standing over Carlotta Scotti, heard himself talking to her, telling her how much he loved her and how much he needed her.

He remembered the sensuous woman who had glided over to him across Carlotta's room, remembered that she had put her hands on him, and he had put his hands on her, that she had made him feel very, very good.

And he remembered coming here. Remembered being put in the backseat of a big black car, remembered something cagelike about that backseat, remembered the wail of sirens.

Then he was put here. In this big, damp cement-block building whose windows were high on the walls, where girders snaked about and the smell of urine and feces was heavy in the air.

And now as he looked about he could see that there were others here, too. Some of them were still, as if sleeping, and others moaned pitifully, and still others stood as he watched, and shivered as if from cold.

~ * ~

"That's what I hear, Mr. Biergarten," Doreen said, and took a long slug of her water glass full of whiskey. She put the glass down hard on the bar as if for emphasis. "I hear we got big trouble in this city."

Ryerson asked, "What did you say your name was?"

She smiled, revealing a mouth full of gleaming white teeth behind full red lips. "My name's Doreen, Mr. Biergarten-"

Ryerson cut in, "How did you know my name?"

Two men came into the bar. One was big and surly-looking; the other was smaller, balding, but somehow just as surly-looking. They sat at the opposite end of the bar. Doreen said, "I know lots of things, Mr. Biergarten. Besides, I read the papers like everyone else."

"Good for you," Ryerson said.

"Ryerson H. Biergarten," Doreen announced. "Psychic Detective! I'm very impressed. We're all of us here very, very impressed." She drained what was left in the glass of whiskey, held it up for the bartender to see, nodded at it. He came over, filled it again from a nearly empty bottle of Five Star. "What's the H stand for, Mr. Biergarten? 'Hell-raiser'?" She hooted suddenly with a strange, low-pitched masculine kind of laughter that crept under Ryerson's skin and made him shiver.

And when he shivered, and as she laughed, the field of blue that had been with him these past five days, like a summer rash altered, grew indistinct, and for barely a moment was gone.

A hive took its place. A hive made up of a thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand bees-workers and drones, all moving furiously in attendance to the queen, who sat huge and resplendent at the center of the living, moving mass of bees. Then the image was gone, the field of blue returned, and Doreen said, "You look like you been seein' things, Mr. Biergarten." The ghost of a grin passed across her mouth. "You been seein' things, have you?" Another small grin flickered, and was gone.

"Queen bee," Ryerson said to no one in particular.

And at the table nearby, Joan echoed him: "Queen bee."

~ * ~

Detective Andrew Spurling thought he had never felt so good. He wished, vaguely, that he knew why he felt so good, that he could put a finger on it and say Yes, I feel good because . . . But he couldn't. Not that it mattered much, he decided-simply feeling good was enough:

He knocked on the door of Room 12 at the Do-Right Motel, off Route 16, three miles north of Buffalo. From within the room a female voice answered, "Yes? Who is it?"

"Police, ma'am," Spurling answered.

There was silence.

"Open up, please," Spurling called.

"Can you tell me why?" the woman called back.

"Yes, ma'am. It's about a bad check."

"Bad check? I didn't write any bad check. What in the hell are you talking about?"

"Whether you know-" Spurling began, and put his hand to his stomach against the surge of pain there. "Whether you know what I'm talking about or not-" Another surge of pain; it came and went quickly. He looked down at his feet, smiled; his pants cuffs were inching toward the tips of his shoes. "Whether you know or not-"

The woman called, "You're not a cop. Who the hell are you?"

Spurling looked at the window to his left. He saw that the woman was holding the mauve curtain aside and peering out at him, stark confusion on her face. As he watched, her look of confusion became one of fear and bewilderment. He pulled his .45 from his shoulder holster, saw the woman look agape at it, saw the window shatter as the bullet tore through it, saw the right side of the woman's neck disintegrate, saw the woman fall backward. Then the mauve curtain hid her.

And from behind him, he heard, "What in the name of God-"

His eleven-year-old frame turned very quickly, despite the fact that it was swimming around inside a suit five sizes too large for it. He trained the .45 on a tall, gray-haired man wearing a blue vest and cream-colored pants. He said, "No one messes with Andy Spurling no more!" He fired. The man crumpled to the pavement. And as he crumpled, Spurling lifted the barrel of the .45 and blew away the smoke curling raggedly from it.

Benny Bloom said to a thin, dark-haired woman in her early twenties who was seated near him on the cold cement floor, her legs straight, arms hanging loosely, head back, "What is this place? Where are we?"

The woman, dressed as if for gardening, in bib overalls and a ragged long-sleeved shirt, turned her head slowly toward him. The barest whisper of a smile creased her face; it was a face that spoke eloquently of weariness and resignation. She said, "You're new. You don't know. This is where she keeps us."