Moon Music (45 page)

Weinberg said, "We'll type it, but I'd be surprised if it was Steve's. The doctors I talked to didn't say anything about large wounds. Just a few nicks and cuts here and there." He regarded Poe. "And don't jump to any conclusion about Alison. She could be alive and well."

"I think she is alive and well."

Weinberg was taken aback. "So you don't think the blood is hers?"

"No." Poe applied lip balm to his desiccated mouth. "I think the blood either belongs to Gretchen Wiler—"

"The body in the attic?" Patricia asked.

Poe nodded.

"Steve's former mistress."

"Yes." Poe hesitated. "Or just maybe the blood isn't even human."

Again Weinberg made a face. "Why do you say that?"

"I think Alison is into weird stuff. Which is clear if she killed her husband's mistress and stuffed her husband into a car trunk."

Weinberg made a face. "You think Alison did it."

"I'm not discounting it."

"And the blood in the Buick?" Patricia asked.

"Maybe some kind of animal sacrifice…just a feeling." Poe downed his coffee. "So what do the doctors think about Steve's waking up?"

"They're cautiously hopeful."

Patricia frowned. "What does that mean? Thirty percent, forty percent, fifty percent? Doesn't anybody believe in statistics?"

"Doctors aren't about to go out on limbs," Poe said. "Not their fault. Expectations take on a whole new meaning when you're talking about life and death."

Patricia said, "Anyone want to talk about Honey Kramer's admission?"

Poe glanced at Weinberg. "Any more complaints?"

"I haven't called in for my phone messages," Weinberg answered. "Has anyone paged you?"

"Not yet."

"Then you're probably safe for the moment, Sergeant. Just keep your nose clean."

"And Lewiston walks—"

"Don't guilt-trip me when
you
fucked up," Weinberg scolded. "You have anyone else besides Lamar Larue puts

Honey Kramer and Sarah Yarlborough together?"

"There was A. A. Williams," Poe said. "But he's dead."

"So you know what you've got to do, Rom. You've got to find someone else who saw them walking into Lewiston's hotel. Where does he keep his main office? The Lady Slipper or the Laredo?"

"The Laredo."

"You need another witness. Start hunting."

"Breakfast time," Myra chirped. She laid down a platter of eggs and onions, a basket of fresh kaiser rolls. "Don't tell me that this doesn't look good."

"It looks like heaven," Poe said, meaning every word.

"Well, dig in!"

Myra gave her husband a Weinberg yarmulke. The lieutenant used it to cover his bald head. He scooped some eggs onto his plate. "Are you gonna join us, Myra?"

"I've got some kugel in the oven and soup on the burners. You eat."

Patricia sank her teeth into a kaiser roll. "Man, this is great!"

"Isn't it?" Myra said. "I've got an order for six dozen. I'm catering a bris in two days. You know what a bris is?"

"Yeah," Patricia answered. "They lop off the foreskin."

Poe winced. "Another tribal rite of passage."

Myra hit his shoulder. "The baby doesn't feel a thing."

"Has anyone ever asked the baby his opinion?"

Again, Myra hit his shoulder. Laughing, she disappeared into the back of the restaurant.

Weinberg adjusted his yarmulke as he bit into his roll. "We've got to establish two things if we want to make Honey Kramer's off-the-record confession work. First, we've got to establish a definite relationship between Honey and Sarah Yarlborough. That's your job, Poe—"

"You're repeating yourself, sir."

"Shut up and listen." Weinberg sipped coffee. "Deluca, I want you to keep an eye on Honey. See how often she visits the Lady Slipper or the Laredo or any of his other places."

"She isn't going to visit Lewiston," Poe said. "He's going to keep her away from him."

"Well, see if you can establish a relationship between Honey and one of Lewiston's lackeys. Keep a camera on you. Snap pictures." Weinberg's beeper went off. He checked the number. "It's the hospital!"

Patricia put down the roll. Suddenly her stomach felt like lead. "Please make it be good news."

Weinberg called. After five minutes of being transferred, he finally was put through to the right place. He identified himself, listened for a moment, then sat back in his chair. "Great!"

"He's conscious?" Poe asked.

Weinberg nodded. "He's talking."

"All right!" Poe gave his hands a loud clap. "Yes!"

Patricia brought her hand to her chest. "Thank God!"

"Shhh!" Weinberg scolded. He nodded as he listened to the doctor on the other end of the line. "Yeah, he's right here." To Poe, Weinberg said, "Doc wants to talk to you."

"Me?"

Weinberg handed him the phone. "That's what he says."

Poe took the cellular. "This is Sergeant Romulus Poe." He listened, then said, "Not a problem. I'll need directions."

"To the hospital?" Weinberg asked.

Poe nodded.

"I'll give them to you. We'll go together."

Poe said, "I'm coming down with Lieutenant Weinberg. We should be able to make it in around an hour…hour and a half."

Weinberg said, "Deluca, you check impound, find out if the techs have discovered anything new with the Buick."

"Will do," she answered. "Then should I follow Honey? Just in case?"

"Yeah, do that," Weinberg said. "What could it hurt?"

Poe said, "I'll be there as soon as I can. Thanks. Bye." He stood. "Steve's asking for me."

"For
you
?" Patricia said. "What about?"

"He wouldn't say." To Weinberg, he said, "I think we should take a couple of gallons of bottled water with us." He pocketed a couple of rolls. "And some nutrition while we're at it." He took out a twenty, laid it on the table. In answer to Weinberg's quizzical look, he said, "A tip."

"You don't have to do that."

"I'm not giving it to you, sir. I'm giving it to your wife."

FORTY-TWO

T
WO DAYS
since the kill for fresh meat.

The craving was getting stronger. Moist, tender meat, rich in blood and protein. A necessary part of a balanced diet. All the requisites for healthy eyes, strong teeth, and a gleaming coat.

Resting in the cave with the head nestled in the crook of the forelegs. Cool and dark. The bright sun was streaming past the entrance. Bright sun hurt the eyes.

So did the tears.

Once she had been normal. Once she had lived and laughed and loved. Once the craving was satisfied with a cup of coffee or a pint of cottage cheese. Eating meat meant barbecuing a steak on the Fourth of July.

How had she gotten into this state? How, how,
how?

She knew how. It was all there in her research. Once she had been interested in the research. Now even that didn't matter. Only meat.

Raw
meat.

Her fur drying out from the intense desert rays, brittle from dehydration. So parched her haunches looked as bare as regular thighs. Her hocks resembled her former calves. Her chest was sunken and bony. She felt junkyard-mean. A wild, mangy animal with red eyes and sharp teeth.

But it hadn't always been like this. Once she had eaten to live. Now she lived to eat. Needing to gorge herself on recent kill. A requirement of her new body. Steve didn't understand, though she had tried to explain it. He couldn't see past his blind eyes, never examining what was underneath until it was too late.

And it was too late.

So she'd done what she'd had to do.

Anyway, she
really
didn't want him to raise the children, turning the boys into dolts like him. Better she should raise them and turn them into what she was. Legitimate beasts driven by instincts—blameless in all they did and how they acted.

Better still was to let the old man do the job. He would teach them about the beauty and wisdom of God. Because that was the only difference between what she had been in her former life and what she was now. Because once she had stopped her instincts because God said.

God said it was wrong to steal.

God said it was wrong to commit adultery.

God said it was wrong to kill.

God said it was wrong to eat live animals.

But all these "God saids" applied to humans,
not
to animals. And now that she was one of them, all the "God saids" didn't matter. Animals could steal and mate with whoever and kill and eat and didn't have to feel guilty about anything. That's what animals were. That's what animals did. Everyone accepted them and their needs because all they were was animals. And it was well known that carnivores needed fresh kill to survive.

The only question that remained in her mind: how had she actually become one? She knew it was all there in the green book. The official government pamphlet on the initial bomb drops. In all those boxes and papers. Her research.

If she had just looked a little harder…

She shifted position and closed her tired eyes.

It was good to be an animal…completely unaccountable for your behavior…instinct-driven instead of conscience-driven.

If only the
tears
would go away.

The tears were the last vestiges of her old world. That horrible transitional phase of her living in two worlds—one as a human with morals and ethics, the other bestial, dictated by drives, acting with acuity and wiles.

There were times she felt like returning to what she had been. If she could figure out how to do it…to go back and forth between the two worlds, making the transition with ease and finesse.

She knew it could be done. Something to do with atomic and anatomical structures. Manipulating the particles, conserving the mass but rearranging the molecular alignment. And then there was entropy and enthalpy and the physical concepts. If she just knew, then
maybe
she could transform.

It was all there in the research…the way to go back and forth. But right now the research seemed very far away.

More important was her need for fresh meat.

The smell in the hospital was making Poe sick—that dizzying combo of antiseptic sprays and death. His heartbeat sped as he walked down the endless hallway, his armpits drenched and his forehead wet and clammy. Abruptly, dots of light danced in front of his eyes. He stopped and leaned against the wall, covering his face with his palm.

Weinberg halted in his tracks. "Are you all right?"

"I'm—"

"Hold on." The lieutenant looked around for a chair. Finding a spare one in an empty, open hospital room, he dragged it out and placed it on the floor. "Have a seat."

"I'm okay—"

"
Sit!"

Poe didn't argue as a black screen slowly closed off his line of vision. He sank into the chair and dropped his head between his knees.

"You need a doctor, Rom?" Weinberg asked.

He mumbled through his hand, "More like a psychiatrist."

Weinberg found another chair and sat beside him. "Nah, you're fine. Just take a couple of deep breaths."

Poe said nothing, ashamed by his physical weakness. Weinberg seemed to sense his embarrassment.

"It's nothing, Rom. You've just been to too many hospitals, that's all. I remember when my mother was dying of cancer. Right before I came out here…to Vegas. I was still in Chicago, working CAPS. Whenever I had a spare moment—which wasn't too often—I rushed over to visit her. See, my mother and I were real close. My old man died in World War Two, so she raised me and my sister by herself. She and the rabbis. They wanted me to be a rabbi. Can you imagine me as a rabbi?"

Gingerly, Poe lifted his head. The room undulated, but he managed not to pass out. "I could imagine more absurd things."

Weinberg laughed. "Right in the middle of that whole ordeal, I thought I had a heart attack. I was hospitalized and the docs couldn't find anything wrong. When they sent in the shrink, I knew I had to pull myself together. Even so, for years, I couldn't look at a doctor's stethoscope without breaking into a cold sweat. You're looking better already. Can you stand up?"

Poe got to his feet, wiped his face. "Yeah." He rotated his shoulder and bounced on his feet. "I'm fine now. Let's go."

The two men walked in silence until they found Jensen's room. Weinberg tiptoed in first, Poe followed on his heels. At his bedside, they observed Steve's sleeping form. He wore hospital pajamas open in the front. His head was thrown back, blond hair strewn all over his face. He was emitting deep snores. An IV had invaded his arm, and his head was replete with electrodes. A monitor continuously read out his brain waves from an EEG machine.

Weinberg whispered, "Get us some coffee and the newspaper. Who knows how long he'll be sleeping?"

Poe studied Jensen's sickly pink complexion—a miracle he had survived. "Be back in a minute."

An hour later, after they both had polished off two Nevada dailies and a couple of car magazines, Jensen stirred. His eyes fluttered and the EEG's needles started spiking as if his cerebral cortex were having an earthquake. Weinberg and Poe stared at each other, wondering if he needed medical attention. But Jensen opened his eyes and the needles settled down.

"Hey there, Detective," Weinberg said softly. "Recognize me?"

Jensen slowly rotated his head in the direction of the sound. He blinked a couple of times, staring at Weinberg for several seconds. Then he nodded.

"Do you need anything, Stevie?"

A large hand crawled out from under the hospital cover. It inched its way to a cup on the nightstand and grasped the paper receptacle. Jensen brought it to his mouth, and water dribbled down his chin.

Weinberg wiped him, but Jensen moved his head away. The big man said, "Ice."

Poe stood, then returned with a cube wrapped in a napkin. He put it in Steve's hand. The big man sucked until the napkin was soaked with cold water, then placed the wet paper on his head.

"Do you want a cold compress, Steve?" Poe asked.

Jensen shook his head no.

"More ice?"