The Wolfen (7 page)

Wilson looked at her in surprise. “Why, the noise, of course. It wasn’t human.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? It sounded perfectly human to me.” Or had it? Becky remembered it now like something that had taken place in a dream, a child’s voice or… something else. Every few seconds it was as if she woke up and heard it again— horrible, inhuman parody full of snarling menace… then child again, soft, wounded, dying.

“Look out!”

She slammed on the brakes. She had been about to glide broadside into the traffic of Third Avenue. “Sorry. Sorry, George, I—”

“Pull over. You’re not in good shape.”

She obeyed him. Despite the. fact that she felt fine, there was no denying what she had almost done. Like the little cries were still taking place, but in a dream. “I feel OK, I don’t know what came over me.”

“You acted hypnotized,” he said.

She heard the noises again, feral, snarling, monstrous. Sweat popped out all over her. She felt cold, her flesh crawling. Her mind turned back to the stair, to the terrible danger that had been waiting for her, the same as the torn, bloodied corpses, the jagged bones and skulls.

With her hands over her mouth she fought not to scream, to give up completely to the terror.

Wilson came across the seat as if he had been waiting for this. He took her in his arms; her body rattled against his thick shoulders; she pressed her face into the warm, scruffy smell of his ancient white shirt, distantly she felt him kissing her hair, her ear, her neck, and felt waves of comfort and surprise overcoming and pushing back the panic. She wanted to pull away from him but she also wanted to do what she did, which was lift her face. He kissed her hard and she accepted it, passively at first, then giving in to the relief of it, and kissed him back.

Then they separated, propelled apart by the fact that they were in a car recognizable to any policeman. Becky put her hands on the steering wheel. She felt sick and sad, as if something had just been lost.

“I’ve been wanting to get that out of my system,” Wilson said gruffly. “I’ve been—” Then his voice died away. He clutched the dashboard and laid his head on his arm. “Oh, hell, I love you, dammit.” She started to talk. “No, don’t say it. I know what you’ll say. But just let it be known and leave it like that. We go on like we were. Unrequited love won’t kill me.”

She looked at him, amazed that he could bring up something so… extraneous. She had always wondered if he loved her. She loved him in a way. But that wasn’t important, it had been accepted a long time ago. And their relationship was established. Certainly it shouldn’t intrude now. When he turned his face toward her he registered shock. She knew her mascara must be running with the tears, she knew her face must be twisted in fear. “What happened to me?” she asked. Her voice was not her own, so distorted was it by the rush of emotions. “What was going on back there?”

“Becky, I don’t know. But I think we’d better find out.”

She laughed. “Oh, that’s for sure! I just don’t know if I can handle it. We’ve really got some problems here.”

“Yeah. One of them is you. I don’t mean that harshly, but I’m going to have to break my cardinal rule at this time. Let’s change sides, I’m going to drive.”

She hid her amazement. In all the years they had worked together, this was an absolute first. “I must be falling apart,” she said as she sank into Wilson’s usual seat. “This is really a big deal.”

“It’s no big deal. You’re rattled. But you know you shouldn’t be. I mean, you weren’t the one in danger. It was me.”

“You! I was being lured upstairs.”

“To get you away from me.”

“Why do you even say that? You’re a man, a lot heavier than me, not an obvious target.”

“I heard noises on the stairs at the other end of the hall. Breathing noises, like something hungry slavering over its food.” The tone of his voice frightened her. She laughed nervously in self defense, the sound pealing out so suddenly that it startled Wilson visibly. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye but kept the car moving.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re the last person I’d think of as one of their victims.”

“Why?”

“Well, they eat them, don’t they? Isn’t that what it’s all about? Everybody they’ve hit has been eaten.”

“Old men, junkies, two cops in a hell of a lonely place. The weak and the isolated. I fitted two key criteria in that house—older man, isolated from all except you. And they damn near lured you away upstairs. You ever go hunting?”

“I don’t like it. I’ve never been.”

“When I was a kid I hunted with my father. We went after moose up north. We used to track for days sometimes. One summer we tracked for a week. And finally we got on to our moose, a big old bull that moved with a slanty track. A wounded bull. Weak, ready for the slaughter. I’ll never forget it. There we were just getting ready to take a shot when wolves stole out of the shadows all around us. They went right past us into the clearing where the moose was grazing. My dad cursed under his breath—those wolves were going to scare our trophy away. But they didn’t. That big bull moose looked down at those scrawny wolves and just snorted. They moved in closer and he stopped grazing and stared at them. You’d never believe it. The damn wolves wagged their tails! And the moose let out a great roar and they jumped him. They tore at him, bled him to death. We were fascinated, we were rooted to the spot. But it was like they agreed together that the killing be done. The wolves and the moose agreed. He couldn’t make it anymore, they needed meat. So he let them take him. And those timber wolves are scrawny. They’re like German shepherds. They look like they’d never be able to bring down a full-grown bull moose. And they wouldn’t, unless he agreed to let them try.” He was watching her again, barely keeping an eye on traffic. He was no better a driver today than she was.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m the bull moose in this version of the story. I wasn’t scared, but I knew they were coming down those stairs. If they had gotten any closer to me, I think I would have been a goner.”

“But you didn’t want them to kill you! We’re not like animals, we want to survive.”

“I don’t know what was going on in my mind,” he said. By the choked gruffness of his voice she knew that if he hadn’t been Wilson he would be sobbing. “All I know is, if they had come any closer I’m not so sure I could have even tried to stop them.”

Becky Neff awoke suddenly out of a restless sleep. She felt that there had been a noise, yet now there was no sound except the wind, and a little snow whispering on the windowpane. The glow from the streetlights far below shone on the ceiling. In the distance a truck clattered its way down Second Avenue. The hands of the clock showed three forty-five. She had been asleep four hours. She remembered a hint of dream—a flash of blood, a sickly feeling of menace. Perhaps that had awakened her. Dick’s steady breathing in the bed beside her was a reassurance. If there had been an unusual noise he would be awake too. Gently she touched him, thinking as she did of how things had been between them such a short time ago, and of how change seeps into even the strongest love. She became sad and afraid. The apartment was cold, the morning heat not yet up. “Dick,” she said softly.

There was no response. She hadn’t really said it loud enough to wake him; she didn’t say it again. Then she leaned over to get her cigarettes from the night table and froze. There was a shadow on the ceiling. She watched it move slowly along, a low lump like something crawling on its belly across the bedroom terrace. Her mind raced to the sliding doors— locked? She had no idea.

Then the shadow was gone and she found she was still lying on her back, not reaching across the bed at all. In the manner of bad nightmares this one had continued even after she seemed to be awake. With the thought her heart stopped pounding. Of course it had been a dream. Nothing could climb sixteen stories to an apartment terrace. And nothing could have followed her. Yet she couldn’t quite overcome the feeling that something was out there. Something, after all, must have sparked the dream. Something must have waked her up.

The mutilated faces of DiFalco and Houlihan flickered in her mind’s eye. She thought of them staring up from the muddy ground. And she thought of Mike O’Donnell, the old blind man dying in his own darkness.

How did the killers look? She had assumed that they would look like wolves, but maybe not. Wolves, she knew, have never been implicated in a human killing. They are generally no more dangerous to man than are dogs. Wolves were interested in moose and deer. Man probably frightened them more than they did him.

A little sound from the terrace made her mind go blank, a shivering coldness pass through her body. It was a growl, very low and indistinct. They were here! Somehow they had done the impossible, had followed her here. They must have scented her at the house in the Bronx and followed the trail. They were hunting her, down! She felt frozen, as if she could neither speak nor move. This was fear, she knew, so intense that it left her mind floating in a strange, precise world of its own, looking from a distance at her body. Her hand moved across the bed and began shaking her husband’s shoulder. She heard her voice saying his name again and again with urgent, whispered intensity.

“What—”

“Don’t make a sound. Something’s outside.”

He slipped his service revolver out of his night-table drawer. Only then did it occur to her to do the same. Her own gun felt good in her hand. “On the terrace,” she said.

Very quietly he got up and went to the door. He moved fast then, pulling back the curtains and stepping outside. The terrace was empty. He turned toward her, his shadow shrugging. “Nothing’s here.”

“There was something.” The conviction grew in her when she said it. A few moments ago she had seen the shadow, heard the growl—and they were certainly real.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of an animal.”

“A cat?”

“I don’t think so.”

He came back to bed, crawling in beside her. “You’re really wound up in this case, aren’t you, honey?” The gentleness in his voice cut into her, making her feel more lonely than ever. Despite the urge she felt to embrace him, she stayed on her side of the bed.

“It’s a strange case, Dick.”

“Don’t get overinvolved, honey. It’s just another case.”

That statement caused anger to replace fear. “Don’t criticize me, Dick. If you were working on murders like these you’d feel exactly the same way— if you were honest with yourself.”

“I wouldn’t get worked up.”

“I’m not worked up!”

He laughed, a condescending chuckle. The great stone policeman with his tender bride. “You take it easy kid,” he said, pulling the quilt up over his head. “Take a Valium if you’re upset.”

The man was infuriating.

“I’m telling you, George, I know what the hell I saw!”

He stared across the room toward the bleary window. They had been given an office belonging to the Manhattan South Detective Division despite the fact that they were still not officially assigned to it. “It’s pretty hard to believe,” Wilson said. “Sixteen stories is a long way up.” His eyes were pleading when he looked at her—she had to be wrong or else they would be dealing with a force of completely unmanageable proportions.

“All I can say is, it happened. And even if you don’t believe me it wouldn’t hurt to take precautions.”

“Maybe and maybe not. We’ll know better what we’re up against when we talk to the guy we’re supposed to see.”

“What guy?”

“A guy that Tom Rilker gave some of those pawprint casts to. You remember Tom Rilker?”

“Sure, the kook with the dogs.”

“Well, he gave the prints we left behind in his office to another kook who wants us to go interview him. So maybe he’ll tell us what you saw.”

“Goddamn it, you have the sneakiest way of slipping things in. When do we see this genius?”

“Ten-thirty, up at the Museum of Natural History. He’s an animal stuffer or something.”

They drove up in silence. The fact that they were even trying this angle testified to their increasing desperation. But at least it meant doing something on the case instead of letting more time slip by. And time seemed to be terribly important.

“At least they aren’t throwing other assignments at us these days,” Becky said to break the silence. Since this case has been “closed” she and Wilson hadn’t exactly been getting more big jobs. Sooner or later they would be transferred somewhere definite instead of remaining in the limbo of reporting directly to the Chief of Detectives. Probably go back to Brooklyn for all the difference it made. At least out there they wouldn’t be victimized by high-level departmental politics.

“Underwood knows what we’re doing.”

“You think so?”

“Of course. Why do you think we’re not getting other cases? Underwood’s playing it by ear. If we turn up something he can use, OK. If we foul things up, we can always be reprimanded for insubordination.” He laughed. “He knows exactly what we’re doing.”

“Evans told him, I suppose.”

Wilson smiled. “Sure. He probably called up and told Underwood he’d better leave us alone if he knew what was good for him. Underwood might not like it since he closed the DiFalco case himself but he’s afraid of Evans, so the result is we end up in a vacuum. Damned if we do and et cetera.”

“Here’s the Goddamn museum.”

They went up the wide stone steps past the statue of Teddy Roosevelt and into the immense dim hall that formed the lobby.

“We’re here to see a Doctor Ferguson,” Wilson said to the woman sitting behind the information counter. She picked up a telephone and spoke into it for a moment, then smiled up at them.

The workrooms of the museum were a shock. There were stacks of bones, boxes of feathers, beaks, skulls, animals and birds in various states of reconstruction on tables and in cases. The chaos was total, a welter of glue and paint and equipment and bones. A tall young man in a dirty gray smock appeared from behind a box of stuffed owls. “I’m Carl Ferguson,” he said in a powerful, cheery voice. “We’re preparing the Birds of North America, but that’s obviously not why I called you.” For an instant Becky saw something chill cross his face, then it was replaced again by the smile. “Let’s go into my office, such as it is. I’ve got something to show you.”

It sat on the desk in the office on a piece of plastic. “Ever seen anything like it?”

“What the hell is it?”

“A composite I constructed from the pawprint casts Tom Rilker gave me. Whatever made those prints has paws very much like this one.”

“My God. It looks so—”

“Lethal. And that’s exactly what it is. An efficient weapon. One of the best I’ve ever seen in nature, as a matter of fact.” He picked it up. “These long, jointed toes can grasp, I think, quite well. And the claw retracts. Very beautifully and very strange.” He shook his head. “Only one thing wrong with it.”

“Which is?”

“It can’t exist. Too perfect a mutation. No defects at all. Plus it’s at least three steps ahead of its canine ancestors. Maybe if it was a single mutation it would be acceptable, but there are the prints of five or six different animals in here. There must be a pack of these things.” He turned the plaster model in his hand. “The odds against this are billions—trillions— to one.”

“But not impossible?”

He held the model out to Wilson, who stared but didn’t touch. “We have the evidence right here. And I want to know more about the creatures that made these prints. Rilker couldn’t give me a damn bit of information. That’s why I called you. I didn’t want to get involved, but frankly I’m curious.”

Wilson put on a sickly smile. “You’re curious,” he said. “That’s very nice. We’re all curious. But we can’t help you. You’ve just told us a lot more than we knew. You’re the one who can answer questions.”

The scientist looked puzzled and a little sad. He took his glasses off, then dropped into his chair and put the plaster model back on the desk. “I’m sorry to hear that. I had hoped you’d have more information for me. But I don’t think you realize how little I know. Where did the prints come from—can you tell me that?”

“The scene of a crime.”

“Oh come on, George, don’t be so close-mouthed. They came from the scene of the DiFalco-Houlihan murders out in Brooklyn.”

“The two policemen?”

“Right. They were found all around the bodies.”

“What’s being done about this?”

“Exactly nothing,” Wilson snapped. “At the moment the case is officially closed.”

“But what about these prints? I mean, here’s clear evidence that something out of the ordinary is at work. This is no dog or wolf paw, you realize that? Surely somebody must be doing something about it.”

Wilson shot Becky a glance and kept staring as if surprised. The feeling that she experienced confused and pleased her—not because of what the look communicated but because of the way his eyes lingered. “Nobody’s doing anything about it, Doctor,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. We are the only two police officers in New York on this case and we’re about to be reassigned.”

“You understand that this claw belongs to a fearsome killer.” He said it like it was a revelation.

“We know,” Becky replied patiently. In her mind’s eye she once again saw the faces of the dead.

Doctor Ferguson seemed to withdraw into himself. His hands hung down at his sides, his head bowed. Becky had seen this kind of reaction to stress before, usually in those who have been unexpectedly close to murderers. “How many have died?” he asked.

“Five so far that we know about,” Wilson replied.

“There’ve probably been more,” Ferguson said faintly, “maybe many more, if what I suspect is right.”

“Which is?”

He frowned. “I can’t say right now. I’m not sure about it. If I’m wrong it could harm my career. We could be dealing with some kind of murderers hoax. I don’t want to get taken in by a hoax.”

Wilson sighed. “You got any cigarettes?” he asked. Ferguson produced a pack. Wilson took one, tore off the filter and lit up. He did this all very quickly so that Becky wouldn’t have a chance to stop him. “You know, you shouldn’t clam up on us. If you don’t tell us what you think we aren’t going to be able to help you.”

The scientist stared at them. “Look, if I get tripped up by a hoax—if I go out on a limb about this thing and it turns out to be a fake—I would lose my reputation. I don’t know what would become of me. Or I guess I do. Teaching at some backwoods college and never quite reaching tenure.” He shook his head. “It’s not much of a career.”

“You’re not presenting a paper here. You’re talking confidentially to two New York City policemen. There’s a difference.”

“True enough. Maybe I’m exaggerating.”

“So tell us your theory. For God’s sake help us!” The words came out of Wilson like a bark, causing a sudden pause in the bustle of the workroom beyond the little office. “I’m sorry,” he said more softly, “I guess I’m a little upset. Me and my partner here, we’re the only ones who even suspect what we’re up against. And we’ve had some bad experiences.”

Becky broke in. “These things don’t just kill. They hunt. They nearly got us in a house up in the Bronx a few days ago. They hid on an upper floor. One of them tried to lure me with the cries of a baby while the others—”

“Stalked me. They tried to separate us.”

“And I think they might have been outside my apartment last night.”

The words had come in a rush out of both of them, driven by their rising sense of isolation. Now Ferguson was looking at them with unabashed horror, almost as if they themselves bore some loathsome mark.

“You must be mistaken. They can’t be as intelligent as all that.”

Becky blinked with surprise—she had never realized that. Not only were they deadly, they were smart! They had to be damn smart to lure her and Wilson into that stairway, and to seek out her apartment. They had to understand who the enemy was, and know the importance of destroying him before he revealed their presence to the world.

Wilson moved like a man in a dream, his hand gliding up to touch his cheek, the fingers running down the rough line of the throat, down to the seedy brown necktie and back to his lap. As the realization grew also in him his eyes hooded in a deep frown, his mouth opened almost sensually, as if he had fallen asleep and was dreaming of love. “I was beginning to suspect that they were intelligent, too. No matter what you say, Doctor Ferguson, what happened is what happened. You know something—I’ll bet they didn’t pop out of the ground yesterday either. If they’re that smart, they know how to stay well hidden—and they know how important that is, too. That’s my thought.”