Live Girls (31 page)

Davey spun around and the look on his face cut off Beth's words. His lips were pulled back tightly, his teeth clenched. His nostrils flared and his head was craned forward slightly, as if he were sniffing the air.

“You should go,” he said quietly in a tone she'd never heard before. Not angry, not hurt, but threatening.

“Okay,” she said, “I will, but I just want you to know that
—
"

“Go,” he whispered.

“Jesus, Davey, what's wrong, you look like you're gonna pass out.” She stepped toward him, expecting him to collapse at any moment, but Davey took a quick step back.

“
Please
, Beth,” he said, and for an instant the old Davey was back, the little-boy eyes looked at her softly.

But only for an instant.

The softness left his face, and his mouth opened wide as he turned away from her. For a half second, she thought she saw something different about his teeth, but his back was to her now and he was walking stiffly toward the bedroom.

“Please, just go away
now
, Beth!” he snapped. He slammed the bedroom door and she thought she heard him sob on the other side.

Beth rolled up the opening of the bag and left the apartment. In the corridor, she fought to hold back her own tears, to ignore the nasty bite of guilt in her stomach.

“I'm sorry, Davey,” she breathed as she headed for the stairs.

Walter Benedek was not anxious to leave the comfort of his dreamless sleep, so when the mattress beneath him stirred slightly, he rolled over and drifted off again.

It had not been easy convincing Jackie of his story, but he'd kept at it. Having nothing she could see, or perhaps touch, had not made it any easier; Jackie was stubborn and reluctant to be convinced of anything without solid proof. She was finally swayed by the fact that Benedek possessed the very same skepticism she did. Then her disbelief turned slowly to fear. They'd sat on the bed as Benedek told her of the past three days’ events. As he went on, they moved closer and closer together, until they were leaning against the headboard in one another's arms.

“You're shaking, Walter,” she'd said.

“That's because I'm terrified. I'm sure they've found Vernon by now. They'll know I did it to him, and they'll come after me. And you."

She'd looked at him then with the stern expression she took on whenever there was too much of anything for her to handle: too much pain, work, information.

“Then let's keep them out of here,” she said to him. “I'll help you."

Together, they'd spread the garlic around all the windows and even around the outside of the apartment door.

Afterward, sick of the smell of garlic, Jackie had taken a bubble bath. Benedek had joined her. They'd sat in the warm water for nearly an hour, their legs intertwined, Benedek smoking leisurely, Jackie drinking a bit more brandy than usual. When they got out, they'd gently dried one another off then gone to bed, where they'd made long slow love for the first time in far too long.

Lying close, they'd drifted into a deep, solid sleep.

Until the mattress had moved and Benedek had stirred, trying to fall back to sleep.

Until the whispers...

Benedek grunted, swimming gradually to the surface of his sleep.

It was Jackie's voice.

Something was making a heavy sliding sound.

Benedek opened his eyes and squinted.

Jackie was sliding the window open.

“What, hon,” he mumbled thickly. “Whasamatter?"

There were two hands pressing against the windowpane as Jackie lifted it, but something was wrong, because they were on the
outside
of the window, and that simply could not be because their apartment was on the eighteenth floor.

Jackie stood stiffly at the window wearing her short, thin nightgown.

“Jackie?” Benedek snapped, his sleepiness leaving him quickly as he sat up on the bed.

Then he saw the face outside the window, a smiling face that seemed to bob up and down slightly in the mist, its eyes lost in deep shadows:

Cedric Palacios.

Perhaps it was a nightmare, because he suddenly found it nearly impossible to move, as if he were wading waist-deep in honey.

“Jackie, get away from the window!” he shouted, but she seemed not to hear him.

Jackie pushed the window up all the way and Cedric Palacios's arms moved forward as if to embrace her...

“Christ, Jackie,
mooove!
” His legs were thick and stiff and numb, two tree trunks attached to the bottom of his body.

But then they pulled back suddenly and Palacios made a painful groaning sound and retched as he backed away from the window but did not take his gaze from Jackie.

The garlic
, Benedek thought,
it's working thank God it's working!

She did not move from the window, no matter how loud Benedek shouted, “Jackie, get
away
, get
away!
” and Benedek knew that she
couldn't
hear him, she was hearing something else, something Cedric Palacios was telling her,
sending
to her without words, because Benedek knew she would not be standing at that window if she knew what she was doing.

He tried to lunge toward her, to throw her away from those long powerful arms that were reaching through the window, that slid under Jackie's arms and began to pull her out of the room until her feet dangled from the window, and the thing that bothered Benedek the most, the thing he knew he would remember most vividly about that moment for the rest of his life, was that her legs did not kick, they just hung from the sill limply, slipping away like ropes over the side of a boat being pulled downward by the anchor as it dropped to the deep dark bottom, and Benedek threw himself forward hard with his arms outstretched and his fingers clawed to grab her ankles, but the legs kept moving and his knuckles only grazed Jackie's calves, they just touched for a moment her skin, feeling the slight hint of bristle that had not been shaved, such a good feeling, a safe, familiar feeling he knew he would never know again except in his memory, the
last
feeling he would ever have of Jackie Laslo because she was gone, she was in the arms of Cedric Palacios eighteen stories in the air and Palacios was smiling as he held her tightly to his chest, and as her arms wrapped around him, he said in a voice as smooth as the movement of a snake, “Garlic. You
are
a very clever man."

Still on the floor, Benedek wanted to scream Jackie's name, to make her snap out of whatever stupor she was in, but he couldn't, his throat had closed with rage and horror at the knowledge that Cedric Palacios would probably be the last person
—
the last creature
—
ever to hold Jackie in her life, and he could only watch as they were swallowed by the night.

“Maybe
too
clever, huh?” Palacios sneered.

And they were gone.

There was a sound in the otherwise silent room and it took Benedek a moment to realize it was coming from him. It was a pitiful babbling sound, childlike and helpless. He clambered to his feet and went to the window. Clutching the sill, he leaned out.

Crisp air hit his face and speckled it with tiny beads of chilly moisture.

“Jackie,” he wheezed, “Jackie, sweet Jesus, Jackie.” Tears rolled unnoticed down his cheeks.

Where would Palacios take her? The club? Probably. How long would they let her live?

He hoped it would be long enough for him to help her.

It was time to tell Riley. The detective was the only one prepared to believe the story.

Benedek knew he had Riley's home number around the house somewhere but hadn't the patience to look for it. He went to the phone and punched out the number of the police department, trying to forget the image of her acquiescent form being pulled away from him.

He shifted from his right foot to his left, rubbing his eyes and forehead with a big hand as he waited for an answer on the other end of the line.

“Yes,” he said when he finally heard a voice, “I'm, uh, my name is Walter, uh, Benedek, I'm a friend of Kenneth Riley, and I need to speak to him right now, it's an emergency."

The woman on the line hesitated for a long moment. “Who did you say you are?"

“Walter Benedek. I'm a reporter for the
Times.
” He made an effort to speak coherently, steadily. “Is he in?"

“No, no, he isn't in. How well do you know Detective Riley?"

“What do you mean, how well do I...” Benedek suddenly had to lean against the wall so he wouldn't collapse, because he knew she was holding something back. “What's happened?” he asked, his voice gravelly.

“Detective Riley is dead."

Benedek slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.

“He and
”—
the officious-sounding woman cleared her throat
—“
his family were found murdered a little over an hour ago."

The receiver clattered to the floor. Benedek felt as if everything were ready to shut down: his body, his mind, his control. He could almost hear the seams splitting in the fabric of his life.

“Hello?” the woman said. “Hello? Are you all right? Are you there?"

Benedek didn't hear her. He heard nothing but the slowly building rumble of fear in his skull.

He should have told Riley what he knew when he had the chance. Too late now:
they'd
gotten to him first. And Benedek was certain they wouldn't rest until
he
was dead, too.

That left Davey Owen as his only remaining source of help, and if Davey was unwilling to work with him, he would have to go public with the story sooner than he'd planned.

Benedek lifted the receiver to his ear.

“I'm ... I'm sorry to hear that,” he said tremulously.

“Is there anything I can do for you?"

“No. Thank you. I just wanted to talk to ... him.” Benedek slowly lifted himself to his feet and hung up the phone.

He would call Davey. But not yet. He needed just a little time to pull himself together. Just a little time.

Davey sat on the bus staring out the window, trying to focus his attention on the passing lights outside. His mind kept returning, however, to Beth.

Why did she have to come over that night? Why couldn't she have just
left
the Goddamned shoes and mirror at his place?

He kept thinking about the cut on her lip.

He closed his eyes at the memory of how desperately he'd wanted to kiss her, to put his mouth over that cut.

Two young girls sat in the seat ahead of him, laughing and whispering to one another. The girl directly before him had platinum hair and exquisitely smooth flesh.

Davey couldn't stop thinking about what was beneath that flesh. He couldn't ignore the burning emptiness in his gut, the trembling of his hands. The bus was not moving fast enough; he wondered if he would get to the club in time.

The bus stopped and several more people boarded. There were no more seats, so they stood, swaying with the bus's movement, hanging on to the rails.

At the next stop, a few more got on.

The girl ahead of him lit a cigarette and turned toward the window to exhale the smoke, laughing at something her friend had said. Davey looked at her throat. The cords in her neck tightened when she turned, and he could see the pulsing of her jugular vein just beneath her skin.

Davey jerked his head away, looked out the window.

But he could
smell
them all, crowded into the bus, their hearts pounding...

When the bus stopped again, Davey stood quickly, pushed down the aisle, and went through the rear exit.

The cold air made him feel better. He began walking fast, head bowed, trying to ignore the few people he passed on the sidewalk. He wasn't far from the Midnight Club, only a few blocks.

When he pushed through the door of the club, Malcolm smiled broadly at him.

“Mr. Owen,” he said quietly, “how are you this evening?"

He nodded distractedly. “Fine, thanks. I'm here to see Shideh."

Malcolm cocked a brow. “I don't know if she's here, Mr. Owen. Why don't you go in and ask for her.” He pushed the button on the pedestal and the double doors swung silently open. A flood of sound poured through: loud music, laughter, glasses clinking together in toasts.