"Yes sir."
The orderly stood beside Billy, leaning against the piano. "I always wanted to play an instrument. Tried the bass fiddle once, but I wasn't no good. My hands are too big, I guess. What's your name?"
"Billy Creekmore."
"Well, Billy . . . why don't you play something else? Go on. For me."
He shrugged. "I don't know what else to play."
"Anything. I've always liked piano music. Do you know any jazz?"
"No sir. I just play what I feel."
"Is that so?" He whistled appreciatively. "I sure wish I could do that. Go ahead, okay?" He motioned toward the keyboard, a smile fixed to his broad face.
Billy started playing, picking out a few chords, as the man nodded and moved around behind so he could watch the way Billy's hands worked. "I'm not really very good," Billy said. "I haven't practiced like I ought . . ." Suddenly he was aware of a sharp, medicinal aroma. He started to turn his head, but a hand clamped around the back of his neck. A wet cloth was pressed to his mouth and nose, stifling his cry.
"I like music," the man said. "Always have."
It only took a minute or two for the chloroform solution to work. He would've preferred to use a needle on him, but he didn't want it breaking off in the boy's skin. Anybody who could play a piano like that deserved some respect.
The Mexican orderly who'd been guarding the doors wheeled in a clothes hamper filled with dirty laundry. Billy was stuffed into the bottom, covered over with sheets and towels. Then the hamper was taken out and rolled along the corridor to a service elevator. A car was waiting outside, and a plane was waiting at an airstrip south of the city. Within ten minutes, Billy was asleep in the car's trunk. At the airport he would be given an injection that ensured he would sleep all the way to Mexico.
58
Moonlight shimmered on the swimming pool's surface. In his pajamas, Wayne switched on the underwater light, then slid the glass partition open and stepped into the poolhouse. He was trembling, and there were dark blue circles under his eyes. He'd tried to sleep, but what the woman had told him this morning had driven him crazy with doubts. He hadn't taken his sleeping pill before bedtime, and his nerves jangled like fire alarms; instead, he'd flushed the pill down the toilet because he'd wanted his mind clear, to think about what Cammy had told him.
The pool glowed a rich aquamarine. Wayne sat on the edge; he twitched with nervous energy, and his brain seemed to be working so fast he could smell the cells burning up. Why would Cammy have said that if it wasn't true? To hurt him? She was jealous of his power and stature, that was it. Yes. She was jealous.
His head ached. But hadn't he loved his "mother" at one time? he asked himself. What had made things change? How had they gotten so out of control? He raised up his healing hands and stared at them. Where was Henry Bragg? Waiting for them in Mexico?
All that blood, he thought. All that awful blood.
It hadn't been right to hurt Henry Bragg like that. Henry was a good man. But what kind of man was Mr. Krepsin, if he'd ordered that Henry be hurt?
His daddy had visited him in the night, and told him to trust Mr. Krepsin completely. But, Wayne thought, his daddy had tricked him because if he wasn't of J.J. Falconer's blood, then whose blood ran in his veins? And if his daddy had tricked him about that, if he'd failed to tell Wayne the whole truth, then could he be tricking him about Mr. Krepsin too?
A sudden clear thought rang in Wayne's head, a sharp peal of pain: My daddy is dead. I tried to raise him and couldn't, and I saw the coffin go into the ground. He's dead.
Then what came in the night, wearing his father's skin and yellow suit?
He was confused, his head a ball of pain breeding black thoughts. The witch was dead, and the demon boy would be dead soon ... so why did he still feel Evil in the air, all around him, like one of the plagues Mr Krepsin talked about? He trembled, clasping his arms around himself for warmth.
The witch was dead. There was no need to fear going home anymore. And Cammy was right; there was so much to be done to keep the Crusade going, just as his daddy—if J.J. had been his daddy—had wanted him to do. And only by returning to Fayette, Wayne realized, would he ever find out who his parents actually were. He stared blankly out across the water. So many decisions to be made; it was so safe here in Palm Springs, and what about the church to be built?
God help me, he prayed. Please help me decide what I should do.
The answer came to him with electric, painful clarity: he would not go with Mr. Krepsin to Mexico in the morning. He would return to Fayette, first to find out if that woman had been lying or not, and then to make sure the Crusade was in good shape because, no matter who had given him birth, he was a child of the Crusade as well, and now he must in turn take care of it.
And perhaps, he thought, in finding out who his parents were he would learn more about himself and the healing power that had shaped his life.
Yes. He would go back to Fayette in the morning.
He trembled and jittered, his nerves sputtering like raw fuses. He needed a Valium, he thought. No, no—his mind had to be sharp and clear when he went back home, so he could deal with all the problems. He was going to have to sweat all the Valiums, Dalmanes, and Tuinals out of his system. But fear throbbed through him, and he didn't know if he was strong enough to leave Mr Krepsin and go back to that place where he would have to work and pray and preach and heal. It seemed there were so many problems, and so many people in the world who wanted his healing touch. And if he really healed them, if he reached down deep inside and brought up the cleansing power instead of prancing on a stage and pretending, in time the pain would tear him apart.
The voice came drifting into his head like a distant whisper: Do you know what you're doing, son?
"No," Wayne said, and shivered. "Oh God help me, I don't. ..."
He leaned forward and put his hand into the water; it was comfortably warm. He sat for a moment listening to the noise of the desert wind outside the poolhouse, and a slight movement pulled his gaze toward a far corner He thought something had shifted over there, like a haze of dark smoke, but now there was nothing. He stood up, took off his pajamas, and eased himself into the pool.
He slowly swam the pool's length. He was winded when he reached the deep end, and he treaded water beneath the diving board; then he reached up and gripped the board's edge, letting his body relax.
Water gurgled softly behind him.
A pair of purplish brown, rotting arms wound around his neck, like a lover's embrace. The foul odor of lake mud bubbled up. Black fingernails on skeletal hands playfully scratched at Wayne's cheeks.
He screamed, lost his grip on the board, and sank. Water flooded his mouth; he flailed and kicked, trying to get away from the thing that clutched at him. In the glare of the underwater light he saw a misshapen form with long black hair. Its bony arms reached for him, its purple rotten face pressed close, the lips seeking his. The thing kissed him, trying to plunge its bloated tongue into his mouth.
Wayne got his knee up against its chest and pushed it away. As he fought wildly to the surface, air exploded from his lungs. He swam frantically, tried to scream. Then he felt concrete underneath and he stood in water up to his waist; he turned toward the deep end, wiping hair and water out of his eyes, to see what had attacked him.
Water sloshed against the pool's sides. There was nothing in the deep end; nothing between him and the underwater light.
He whimpered softly, the breath burning in his lungs. Nothing there, he thought. Nothing. . . .