She whispered, “No.” Then, louder: “Hell, no! What kind of joke is this, man?”
“He’s got blond hair. Kind of tall and slim,” Travis said. “Like me. Oh, yeah: he rides around on a ten-speed.”
Debbie stared out at Travis for a moment. Her mouth worked, would release no words. Nothing she could consider saying would express what she was feeling: a war between tears and hysterical laughter. The Cathedral of St. Francis was where she’d gone to ask a priest to pray for Janey McCullough. And the priest in the confessional…
“Oh, no,” she said softly, as if slapped by a feather. “Oh, no.”
She remembered now: Please don’t curse. That had been said to her in the confessional, and repeated in her apartment while she was in the kitchen with a frozen dinner in each hand.
“Oh…” It was a pained, stunned, world-crashing gasp. “…no.”
“Open up. I’ll tell you everythin’,” Travis said.
Her hand drifted to the latch. Hung there, as Debbie shook her head and tried to make the room stop spinning.
She turned the latch, opened the door, and the cowboy boots clumped across the threshold.
A hill rose before him. It had never seemed so large, so damned monstrous, before. The earth was playing with him, he thought. Hills were rising to block his way. He shifted down to low gear, and fought the bicycle up it, his legs screaming for relief but the fresh pain cleaning all the haze out of his head. Her building was just a couple of blocks to the east now, and when he got up this hill he would take a sharp right and…
God, help me! he begged. Tears had filled his eyes. God, help me!
“A priest,” Debbie whispered. That word made her throat feel raw. “I talked to him when I went to the church. He was in the confession booth. Right there, beside me. And I never knew. I never knew.”
“Now you know,” Travis said. “It’s a hell of a kick, huh? You got any beer?”
“Beer? No. I’ve got wine. Oh, Jesus.” She felt faint, had to grasp hold of the kitchen counter. “I’ve got wine. I think I need a drink myself.” She turned toward the refrigerator, and that was when he came up behind her, slipping the rope out from around his arm, and clutched it around her throat.
She grasped his hands as the rope tightened, and she started to let out a scream, but his face got up right against her ear and the mouth whispered, “I love you, Debra. Even better than I loved Cheri and Easee.”
The scream faltered and stopped on a choke. The impact of what he’d just said, coupled with the realization that her lucky charm—her soul mate—was and always had been a Catholic priest, made her knees buckle.
His right hand left her throat. She heard the rustle of his canvas coat, and her body arched to wrench away from him, to reach the knife drawer and sink a dagger into his black heart. But she didn’t have time, because in the next second something slammed against the back of her skull and the kitchen floor came up like a bad dream.
John reached the top of the hill. And a police car sped past him, descending in the opposite direction. He started to lift his arms, but the car was going somewhere fast and he had no voice to make the officers understand. He looked away, his face grim and determined, and kept pedaling. It was up to him now. Up to him. God was in his heaven, and the angels were abed. It was up to him.
He took the sharp right, misjudged, and ran up over the curb with a spine-jarring bump. The handlebars shivered out of his one-handed grip, and the frame made a noise like guitar strings snapping. Suddenly he had no traction; his pedals were slipping, without engaging the tires. The chain, he realized with an inner shriek, had come off the gear wheels. Without hesitation he threw the bicycle aside in front of a Vietnamese restaurant and ran for Raphael Street.
Debbie opened her eyes. She was in a world of white, and her stomach muscles had cramped with tension. Pain throbbed, a dull bruise, at the back of her head. She trembled, about to throw up, and that was when she realized she was roped.
Not just roped. Bound and hog-tied, with expert knots. She was still in her white robe, but it was open and had ridden up over her hips. Her hands were tied at the wrists behind her, and the tough rope came up around her throat and head and was knotted above her face to…
She moaned; there was a washrag jammed into her mouth.
…to the bathtub’s faucet. She was lying in the bathtub, her face about six inches under the waterflow.
“Now we’re all ready,” Travis said, coming into view above her. He knelt down beside the tub, as Debbie thrashed and tried to get her ankles hooked around the towel rack. No use, she knew after a couple of tries. No use…
“Remember, in Super Slick?” Travis asked her excitedly. “You and Cheri did that scene in the tub with the two guys? That was hot, Debra. I couldn’t get that scene out of my mind, it was so hot. It was…like…it was just branded right in there. I put Cheri in a tub too. I’m kind of like a director, huh?”
She thrashed on, knowing it was useless but not ready to give up. Her head remained tautly secured under the faucet.
“Easee’s best scene was when she was on her knees doin’ that black guy. I did the best I could with that one.” His hand went to the hot-water tap. “I loved you. I loved all of you. And I knew the music was for me. It called me to California.” His hand twisted, and Debbie thrashed anew but she wasn’t going anywhere. He added cold water to the flow so it wouldn’t burn her, and now the water was streaming forcefully into her face. She was able to turn her head maybe a half-inch or so, but the pain killed her neck and the water was still going up her nostrils. The washcloth soaked through and seemed to expand in her mouth. Gonna drown me, she knew. Oh, sweet Jesus…he’s gonna drown me! She blew water out of her nostrils and fought for a breath; she got a gulp of air, but the water was too strong. It went up her nostrils and down her throat.
“There you go,” Travis said. “We’ll wait a couple of minutes now.”
The door’s buzzer went off.
Travis stood up fast.
The door’s buzzer went off again. Then again. Then somebody was leaning on it.
“I don’t like that sound,” Travis told her, as water burst from her nostrils and she battled desperately for a breath. He walked into the front room, his hand going to the holstered Colt.
Outside, John took his finger off the buzzer. She should’ve answered by now. Her Fiat was at the curb. If she could have answered, she would have. He braced himself and kicked at the door, just below the knob. It was sturdy.
Travis started to ease the gun out, his eyes narrowing and his tongue flicking across his lower lip.
John kicked the door again, aiming at the exact same spot.
It burst inward, and he barreled through.
And there he stood, the blond man in the long canvas coat. Something was coming up, gripped in his hand in a blue-steel blur, and John saw the man’s face tighten with shock. John didn’t hesitate; the pistol was rising fast. He lunged across the threshold and right at the maniac.
The gun cracked, and the bullet zipped over John’s shoulder and took a chunk out of the doorframe. But then John’s left hand had gripped the gun-arm wrist, and his momentum took them both crashing over the coffee table and to the floor.
Travis clawed at John’s face, almost getting his fingers hooked in the priest’s eyes, but John averted his face and drove a knee hard into the man’s groin. Air whistled between Travis’ teeth. John’s fingers tightened on the gun-arm wrist, trying to keep it pinned to the floor, knowing if that gun got free, he was dead.
He heard water running, back in the bathroom.
Oh, no. Oh, God, no!
A fist slammed into the side of his head and knocked him off. John kept his grip on the wrist, stars wheeling through his brain. And then another blow hit him on the forehead, as Travis roared with rage, and this time John fell backward and lost his hold.
The Colt came up, started to take aim into John’s face.
John kicked the man’s inner elbow
. The gun went off, smashing a cactus pot, and then the man’s fingers spasmed open and the Colt sailed out, slamming against the wall and landing on the carpet.
Travis twisted like a snake, crawling madly after his gun.
John landed on his back, bellowing the wind out of him and hooking his left arm around the man’s throat, trying to keep him from reaching the Colt. Travis thrashed and strained, fingers grasping, the gun’s barrel carpeted inches away.
As the two figures struggled, so did Debbie Stoner. Water was gushing up her nostrils now, and coming through the washrag into her mouth. She was gasping, searching for air in the torrent. She blew water from her nose, but more of it came back. She was filling up with water, and there was no escape from the flood.
Travis reared back and slammed his elbow into John’s ribs. John, teeth clenched, hung on and squeezed, but Travis was thrashing again, wildly, and John couldn’t keep his grip. Travis lunged forward, and his right hand grasped the Colt’s barrel. He drew it to him like a true love.
John released the man’s throat and smashed him in the face with his left fist, a blow with the strength of near-madness behind it. Travis’s upper lip exploded, and two teeth went into his mouth. But Travis was twisting around again, throwing John off him, and the gun was coming up in a quick, deadly arc.
John leapt for the wrist, got his fingers around it as the Colt fired. The hot flash of the bullet seared his face. There was a noise like a hammer knocking the wall, and plaster dust bloomed beside the picture of a Malibu sunset.
Travis grabbed John’s hair, yanking his head back, trying to wrench the priest off his gun hand. But John hung on doggedly, and when the gun went off again it blew a hole through the bay window’s glass.
They struggled at close quarters. Travis’s fingers twitched on the Colt’s handle, and four inches of gleaming, serrated blue steel slid out in front of John’s face.
Travis slammed his fist into John’s stomach. Then again. John’s fingers weakened, his eyes going glassy and sweat glistening on his face. The knife blade slowly descended toward John’s bleeding throat.
John got a leg between them, and lodged his knee into the maniac’s chest. Travis was on top of him now, his weight bearing down.
John knew there was no other way. In seconds either the knife would go into his neck or the barrel would fire a bullet into his brain. He arched his body upward and cracked his skull into the man’s nose.
Travis howled and fell back, blowing blood. John scrambled away, his grip lost and his strength almost gone. Travis shook his head violently, blood dripping from his chin, and then he brought the Colt around to take aim and blow the priest to hell.
John saw the gun coming. There was no way to stop it. No way.
His gaze ticked to a thorny cactus in a small clay pot on his left. He grasped the pot and lifted the cactus off the floor.
Travis’ head had almost turned, eyes glittering. The Colt was about to find its target.
John swung out with the cactus.
And raked it across the other man’s eyes.
Travis screamed and recoiled, blinded. He rolled away, the bridge of his nose and his cheeks scoured with thorn gashes, his eyes punctured and oozing. He got up on his knees, screaming, and then to his feet. John saw Unicorn racing around the room, madly searching for cover in the frenzy. Travis lurched to right and left, the Colt extended and finger on the trigger. The barrel stared into John’s face for a second, then veered away about two feet and fired into the wall. John lay flat, his heart hammering, as Travis screamed, “Where are you! Where are you!” and took a backward step, the Colt swinging to the left again.
He stepped on the crab as it sped across the room under his feet.
Travis went backward, off-balance. The Colt fired a sixth time, the bullet breaking glass in the kitchen, and its recoil sealed the man’s fate.
He went back, back, over the sill, and into the bay windows.
The glass shattered behind him, and his mouth opened in a panicked zero. His fingers caught at broken edges and left smears of red, and then he was going out the window and his scream went down with him all the way.
There was a wham! and the scream stopped.
John got up, staggering to the smashed window, and looked down. The man lay on the dented roof of a car, belly-up, and his head had snapped backward through the windshield. He still gripped the Colt. A death grip.
Lights were coming on across the street. People were peering out their own windows. Someone screamed out there. And then a man wearing glasses and a terry-cloth robe came into Debbie’s apartment, followed by a young blond woman, and both of them stopped dead at the splintered doorway.
Debbie! John thought. Oh, dear Lord!
He ran to the bathroom, as Unicorn started burying itself in the sand from an overturned cactus pot.
She was still alive, and still fighting for life. John got the taps turned off, and she blew and gurgled water and sobbed hysterically around the sopping gag. He wrenched at the rope with his left hand, got a crucial knot loosened from around the faucet. She saw him then, her eyes bloodshot and half-drowned, and she saw the bloody collar around Lucky’s neck.
He lifted her up, out of the white tomb, and crushed her to him, getting the rag out of her mouth so she could draw a full breath. Her head pressed against his shoulder, and he held her as she moaned and cried.
“Shhhhh, Debbie,” he told her in his mangled voice, as he rocked her shivering body. Whether she understood any of it, he didn’t know. “It’s all right, Debbie. It’s all right, my child. Shhhhhh. It’s all right. Shhhhhh, my child.”
He held her until the police came.
25
THERE WERE MANY DAYS when San Francisco might be called the most beautiful city on earth, and this was one of them. The bay glittered in the golden sunlight of late October, and sailboats advanced before the wind. In the blue sky, airplanes brought some people here, and also took some people home.
That was Debbie Stoner’s destination.
Father John Lancaster waited with her at her gate for the plane to New Orleans. They sat side by side, and as the bustle of a busy airport went on around them their movements were slow and precise, the movements of two people who have already arrived.
She wore her traveling clothes: jeans, a pale blue blouse, and a white sweater that really accented her tan and the clear gray of her eyes. It was a light sweater, one that could be worn in a Southern climate. She wore no sunglasses, and the stripe of light that lay across her hands did not hurt her sight.
John wore his own traveling clothes; he was continuing his journey, and his white collar was fresh and not starched quite so stiffly. Around his right hand were the wrappings of bandages, and another small bandage covered the bullet crease at his throat.
Debbie sighed; her first sound in more than a minute. She looked up at him and then away, quickly. He waited, and he realized he was dreading something: the call that would be coming any minute, the call that would take her out of his life forever.
“I still don’t know what Uncle Joey’s gonna do,” she said quietly. “I left a message on his machine, but…well, you never know about Uncle Joey.”
“I’m sure Uncle Joey can take care of himself.” His voice was still a little croaky.
“You sound like a frog,” she said, and gave him a quick nervous smile. He returned it, and then they both looked away from each other again.
“I’ve got a long way to go,” she said, finally.
“Not so far. New Orleans, first. Then you can rent a car to—”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “I’ve got a long way. I don’t know if I can go the distance.”
“You won’t know unless you try.”
“Right.” She nodded, and looked at her hands. She’d taken off her false red fingernails. “I’m scared,” she said softly. “I… I’m not the same as I used to be. I mean…going home…it’s scary.”
“I guess that’s part of going
home, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. But I don’t know where I fit in anymore. I mean, my ma sounded glad to hear from me, and she says she’s tryin’ to kick the bottle, but…it’s not gonna be easy.”
“No,” John agreed, watching her beautiful face. There were many questions behind it; they were questions that Debra Rocks wouldn’t have asked herself. “Nothing worth a damn is easy.”
“Guess not.” She was silent for a while longer. The loudspeaker paged somebody, and she jumped a little bit, all needles and pins. “I’ve got to kick the cocaine,” she said. “I know that. That place in New Orleans—”
“It’s a good place,” John told her. That face, that face! Oh, how it hurt his eyes to look at her. “They’ll take good care of you. But that won’t be easy either. They’ve got the facility, but you’ll have to work at it.”
“I always worked,” Debbie said. “I’m not afraid of a little work.” She smiled, and he thought it was a different smile; part of her was already facing southeast, maybe looking from the edge of the blue world, about to pass into day.
The loudspeaker’s metallic voice announced, “United’s flight 1714 to Dallas, Memphis, and New Orleans will soon begin boarding. All passengers with small children or who need extra care…”
“That ought to be me,” Debbie said nervously. “I feel like a little kid who needs a lot of extra care.”
John stood up. It was almost time. Debbie stood up too, and they walked together toward the gate.
“I might not stay there. Home, I mean,” she told him. She glanced at him, looked away again because she thought his face was like a blaze, and if she looked too long she’d start to cry. “It’s a small town, and I think I’ve outgrown it. But…it seems to me that that’s where I’ve got to go. To find out what happened to Debbie Stoner. I think I left her back there, a long time ago, and she’s due her chance too, don’t you think?”
“I do think,” he agreed. His throat caught. The wound was still hurting, that was it.
“Well, I… I’ve got to give it my best shot. Got to—” Her eyes saw something behind John, and they widened with stunned surprise.