The first new day, she thought, of the rest of. . what?
“Whatever happens,” she finished, “things are not going to be the same.”
Chapter Sixteen
NEW YORK
Patrick Francis listened to the night.
It was silent outside now, which was a relief, considering the crescendo of shattering and screams earlier. He hadn’t even ventured to look through the window, just hunkered in the darkness, cradling Oreo as the little black-and-white terrier trembled and whined, stroking him and assuring him that it would all be okay.
Not that Patrick felt any such assurance himself.
He’d been up when the earthquake, or whatever it was, had struck, had been up all night, in fact, working on the De Vries documentary, running the tapes. This latest stuff was terrific. Patrick had begun the questions innocently enough, something on Crime Boss, then had led the elderly director into the more sensitive area of his marriage to Velinda Lane, the greatest of his leading ladies, and the most tragic. And incredibly, Anton had opened up, revealed details he’d never told anyone before.
It was all so incredibly rewarding, this journey he’d embarked on a year and a half ago, set in motion by a chance meeting at a dinner party. The one-eyed old man in his wheelchair had been so taciturn at first, so glitteringly acid. But as they had come to know each other, as trust had been painstakingly built, Anton had opened to him like a puzzle box, revealing mystery upon mystery. The great noir director, unspooling his visions of a world in chaos, a universe of random, cruel coincidence. Chance meetings that led to anguish and death.
He wondered what Anton would have to say about today’s events. Thank God he was at that festival honoring him in Lausanne. Patrick hoped and trusted that it was out of the danger zone, but, thanks to the phones being out, he had not been able to confirm it.
But Anton was a survivor, as the Nazis had discovered before he’d ventured to Hollywood and nine wives had learned since. He could hear that familiar, Hungarian-accented croak now, chiding him, “Worry about your own ass.”
Okay, he’d do that and tell himself the current situation was just a speed bump on the road, nothing to get too bent out of shape about. Thankfully, he’d had the computer off when it had hit, lost none of his notes or transcripts.
Oreo was staring up at him now, an acute, querying look in his eye. It had been hours since they’d ventured outside, and the little dog was long past due. Patrick cocked an ear toward the door. All quiet on the western front.
Quickly, he leashed Oreo up, threw open the door and stepped out into the warm night air. Instantly, the terrier pulled to the nearest minute square of grass and let go. Blissful relief. Dogs were so simple, they brought things down to the basics-love and need, hunger and fear. Pure primal emotions, the same as in Anton’s films. Black and white simplicity.
Oreo continued, intent, inquisitive, drawn by the panoply of scents. Patrick grew nervous as they drew near a familiar gingerbread grotesquerie, its windows black fathomless eyes. Sam Lungo was the last thing they needed tonight, erupting like some demented figure from a cuckoo clock, ranting and cursing.
Patrick drew Oreo to the far side of the street, breathed a sigh as they cleared the property. The little dog paused at a railing, seemingly magnetized, again lifted his leg.
He stopped abruptly. Hackles rising, he began barking wildly.
“Sign says curb your dog,” a voice behind Patrick purred, husky as a semi engine. “But I guess it’s too dark to read.”
Startled, Patrick turned and found himself craning his neck up at a dark, angular face. He gasped and stepped back. At first, he thought it might be a mask; no face could truly look like that.
But as he peered closer-Oreo pulling madly on the leash, barking crazily-Patrick saw it was real, indisputably so, even in the moonlight.
And God, it looked evil. The bones of the man’s face were spiking out from under the skin, and the skin itself erupted from eyes and nose and mouth in reptilian patterns like bizarre, relief-map tattoos. His shiny black hair flared in a wild spray off his head, scales interspersing it like the devil’s own cornrow.
Patrick began edging back toward his apartment, dragging Oreo. The dog kept up an insistent growling, barking and baring of teeth at the other, who broke into an easy stride behind them.
“This your regular route?” he asked in an offhand tone.
“Yeah,” Patrick fought to keep his voice even, not stopping. Oreo was ballistic, a wolverine. Primal emotions, pure simplicity.
“Good,” the other said ominously. “I just wanted to be sure.”
A world of chaos. A universe of random, cruel coincidence.
Patrick stopped and turned, facing the nightmare. “Listen,” he said over the ear-ringing, staccato yelps. “I live right over there. I just want to go home.”
“Who doesn’t?” the other’s voice was affable. He gestured toward the flat. “Be my guest.”
Hauling Oreo, Patrick hurried toward the brownstone, his eyes fixed on the other, who stood motionless. Finally, he reached the building, turned to the door.
There was a rush of sound behind him, Oreo screeched in frenzy and fear, and Patrick felt a wet agony in his back, a slashing that severed skin and meat. He heard the crack of bone and gave a truncated cry, fell crashing onto the pavement.
It’s like a movie, he thought, and felt the absurdity of it, and the truth. Oreo’s cries sounded distant now, muffled, as sensation faded, the last frame threaded through, the projector light damped. And then his mind and heart were stilled.
Stern rose from his work, exultant. To begin a thing and end it, to conceive and execute. It was delightfully straightforward, elegantly simple. And best of all, it was just the beginning.
The little dog was howling mournfully, backed against the doorframe. Stern stepped over the broken, wet form on the concrete and approached it. Its eyes grew huge, and it pressed itself back into the wood, dropped its voice to a whimper. Stern extended one long, clawed hand, dripping glistening red.
“Nice boy,” he said and patted the dog’s head.
Colleen Brooks gripped the rough iron railing on the fire-escape landing across from Doc’s warehouse, glaring out at the night. Below, the shadowed street angled off toward the faint sheen of the Hudson, and everything was so still it was as if she were in a model of the city, not real at all.
“Why’d you tell me this? Why the hell are you telling me this?”
Cal Griffin stood behind her, saying nothing. But then he had said enough.
The Magnet Man. Bullets falling like little turds. .
She wheeled suddenly, reaching toward his head. He caught her wrist, stopping her.
“I want to see how hard that guy hit you,” she said.
He released her, scowling. “Not that hard.”
“Yeah, well, maybe we oughtta have Doc Moscow be the judge. . Jeez, Cal, don’t you know how this sounds?”
He nodded somberly, and somehow his very seriousness made her all the more angry.
“Shit.” She turned from him again, considered the night. Dawn was coming on soon, the sky was inching lighter. She caught a silhouette of movement, discerned a hawk hanging in the air, its wings spread like great fingers. Did it see a changed world, or the same one, as far as its needs were concerned?
All that had happened today tumbled through Colleen’s mind, the stalled elevators and blackened stairwells; the long trek past the miles of dead cars and trucks; hearing that cop’s bellows in the night and wading swinging into that mob; that weird, dark clump of odd-shaped kids-who-might-not-have-been-kids moving fast down shrouded streets. .