Twice Dying (18 page)

“I care about
her.
I’m making her dream come true.”

“You can’t believe that. You’re forcing her.”

“She’s just contused. Quite understandable.”

Monks swallowed tightly and waited.

“You’re her lover?”

“We were close.”

“She lied to me about you, the little bitch,” the voice, but sounding amused now.

“It’s over between us.”

The car sounds diminished, as if the vehicle was slowing, pulling to the roadside.

“Why did it end? If I’m not being too personal.”

“She was—exploring. In ways that became unsettling to me.”

“Because of what you saw in her?”

“No,” Monks said. “In myself.”

“Very perceptive. Very honest,” the voice said, thoughtful now.

“You know, I really don’t meet that many interesting people these days.”

He said, “I’m not opposed to your work.”

The ignition sounds died off. There came the clicks of an opening car door.

“She’s going to be missed, soon,” Monks said. “You can’t just make someone like her disappear.”

“I don’t intend to make her disappear. I intend to make her understand something.”

Another metallic sound: creaking. A trunk opening.

“I can have every police unit in California looking for her in sixty seconds.”

“Really. It pains me to be taken for an amateur.”

“Nobody knew about you until now. Somewhere, you left tracks.”

A weary exhalation. “Hold on just a minute, will you?”

A murmur in the background, away from the phone: “Here we go, dear.”

Shuffling, rustling, the sounds of something heavy being moved. Monks gripped the phone, fearing he had lost contact. He strained to hear, willed the line to stay open. Ten seconds. Twenty.

The background murmur again:

“Whoops, almost forgot your present.”

Then, the unmistakable
whump
of a closing trunk.

“Don’t crowd me, Monks,” the voice said, cold and edged now. “No official involvement. Believe me, I have ears in many places.

“Oh, yes. I left you something in her house, just by way of insurance.”

“What do you mean,
insurance?”

The line went dead.

Instantly, Monks punched Star-69. There came static, a pause, and then a woman’s stern voice, sounding as if she was scolding a child:

“That number cannot be traced. Hang up now.”

For seconds longer, his finger stayed poised to punch the numbers 911.

He slammed his open hand down on the nightstand, pulled on jeans and shirt, and ran for the Bronco. Omar darted in and out between his feet, something Monks had never known him to do. He swore and swept the cat aside with his ankle, then looked up and stopped hard.

There was just enough moonlight through the clouds to illuminate the two other cats, on top of the vehicles hood, facing the windshield. Like worshippers in some witchy rite, they crouched belly low, then leaped high into the air, hunched, ears flat and tails stiff. Low, menacing wails erupted into sudden screams and spitting.

Monks stepped forward carefully.

Something was moving in the front seat: a slim, upright shadow that weaved from side to side with alarming swiftness.

His mouth opened. He stepped closer.

The shadow lunged forward in a dark blur, sending both cats howling and leaping. There was a thump against the windshield, then a slimy stain dripping down.

The regal hooded shape of a cobra’s head remained poised, weaving furiously.

Monks walked away, dropped to his knees, and vomited. He remained there for perhaps three minutes, head in hands, body jerking in random shivers. Then he returned, crouching, to the cats.

“Come on, you guys,” he said quietly. “This is mine now. Come on, you’ve done your job.” He encircled them with his outstretched arms, drawing them in, flinching as the cobra attacked the windshield when his hands got close. The cats struggled, but allowed themselves to be gripped.

Inside the house, he blocked the cat door and spooned out large portions of fresh food. He brushed his teeth and rinsed his face, and went to the safe for his shotgun.

Monks gathered a powerful flashlight and several white bedsheets, and walked back outside, remembering things he had read about cobras. They were fearless and aggressive; the word “insolent” was frequently used. One description from an Englishman in India spoke of a released snake entering a house “like an arrow from a bow.” Some species could spit blinding venom at a victim’s eyes, ten or fifteen feet with pinpoint accuracy. Bites not treated immediately usually brought death, in agony, within hours. Monks had seen a couple in captivity in Asia himself, and the overwhelming impression was that they were made to kill, and they knew it.

He circled the Bronco again, with the flashlight close to the windows. The cobra followed,
upright head lunging to stay with the light. There seemed to be only the one; no other shapes came into view.

He spread the bedsheets on the ground outside the driver’s door, giving him a twenty-foot radius of light-colored surface. He positioned the flashlight on the ground to illuminate it. He jacked a round into the shotgun’s chamber and clicked off the safety. He hyperventilated three times.

Then he stepped in, yanked open the door, and leaped back.

The snake came out like a dark streak, moving in a rippling line of impossible swiftness. It had almost reached the cover of night when Monks fired. It reared up, head twisting, then flopped down, writhing.

He stepped closer and aimed carefully. The second shot flopped it over again. This time it lay still except for the eerie squirming of muscles triggered by nerves that did not yet know their brain was dead.

He walked around the Bronco again, thumping and kicking, then opened the other door and tailgate and searched with the flashlight. There was nothing visible.

Monks gathered up the still jerking snake in the bedsheets, careful to avoid the fangs, and put it in a closed garbage can. It was at least five feet long, with a dense rubbery weight. He got surgical
goggles and gloves and a bottle of ammonia, and swabbed the streaked venom off windows and dash.

Was that what Jephson had been doing with a rattlesnake when he was bitten?

Was he the phony detective who called himself Stryker?

Trying to catch it?

Practicing snake-handling?

Monks drove as fast as he could to Bolinas, shoulders tensed against the sight or sound of another weaving head mat might have been lying hidden.

Monks arrived at Alison’s house at 6:27
A.M.
He sat in the Bronco for half a minute, grasping for the fantasy that this was all a dream or malarial hallucination, that this was all, he would ring the doorbell and she would answer, sweet with sleep, surprised but not displeased.

Gone to stay with a friend, she’d said.

And he had believed her.

It was still night, the house dimly lit. With flashlight and shotgun, he scanned the ground for twisting shapes in the grass.
Insurance.

There was no alarm system. Years ago, he had lobbied to get her to put one in, but she was convinced that she could not be touched.

He tried the front doorknob cautiously. It was unlocked.

An invitation to him, from Naia.

He shoved the door open, gun ready. The kitchen area was still, with a single light on over the counter. Nothing seemed out of place.

He walked down the hall, checking the empty rooms. Her bedroom was the last. On a chair, he recognized the clothes she had worn yesterday, with the torn blouse trailing to the floor. The bed was neatly made, and Monks almost missed the tiny face that smiled up from a pillow.

He stepped forward, staring. It was an antique china doll, with hand-painted porcelain face and real blond hair, tucked into the bed like a child.

Recognition hit his heart like a hammer. A doll that had belonged to his ex-wife’s great-grandmother, passed down through the generations of women to his daughter Stephanie.

Monks turned, sweeping the room slowly with his shotgun, finger on the trigger, about to shoot at something, anything in futile rage.

He put the weapon down and, with shaking hands, phoned his ex-wife’s home in Davis. His eyes went damp with relief when Stephanie answered. In the background, he could hear the sounds of breakfast.

“Daddy, what are you doing calling so early?”

“Stef, this is very important. Where do you keep Grandma Annie’s china doll?”

Pause. “In my bedroom. In the closet. Why?”

“I’m afraid somebody took it.”

“What?”

Monks listened helplessly to her sharp breathing as she hurried down the hall to check. A door banging. The sounds of rustling cloth. And then, Stephanie’s panicked voice:

“She’s
gone.”

“Here’s what I need you to do, baby. You and your mom get some clothes together, enough for a few days, and get to another city. Vegas, L.A., someplace not around here. Find a nice hotel, go shopping, whatever you want. I’m going to pick up the bill.”

“Daddy, I can’t just leave in the middle of the semester—”

“Stef, I’ll work this out with your teachers. You’ve got to do this and you’ve got to do it
right now.
Remember Dr. Kasmarek? When you get there, call him and tell him where you are.
Don’t
call my phone for any reason. Okay?”

“What
is
this?”

“I’m dealing with somebody dangerous. I can’t believe it’s spilled over onto you, but it’s a fact. We’ve got to get you safe, and then we’ll worry about the rest.”

“Why
me?”

“I know some things about this person. He’s trying to keep me from going to the police.”

“Daddy, how long is this going to last?” Her voice was breaking with panic now. “If they don’t catch him, does that mean—”

Monks squeezed his temples with his fingers,
weighing the value of lying to lessen her fear, but gave it up.

“You’d better put your mom on.”

In the background, he could hear Stephanie trying to explain to her mother, and Gail’s questions rising in quantum leaps from incredulity to fury, along with the harrumphing of her new husband, Barry.

Gail’s voice cut into the phone. “Carroll, what in the
hell
have you gotten us into now?”

“There’s no time to argue, Gail. I’ll explain as soon as I can, but right now you’ve got to get out of there. Take Barry too, if you want.”

“Is this for real? You’ve got someone stalking us? Who’s been in my
house?”

Monks started to say,
For Christ’s sake, I didn’t
ask for it,
but remained silent.

“This is our
life,
dammit,” she said. He could hear her anger giving way to tears. “That’s all I ever wanted; a normal life. What do I have to
do?”

The line went dead.

Monks walked to the French doors and pulled back a curtain. The sky was turning faintly lighter with the dawn.

For the first time in his life, he wanted to kill.

He picked up the phone and called Stover Larrabee.

The weight of consciousness was returning to Alison, a reluctant awakening from a long dream
that could not be recalled. At some point she realized that her eyes were open, but trying to move was too much effort. Her mind absorbed what she saw, without supplying emotions or logic, She was lying in a semidark room. There were several stuffed animals on the bed with her. The walls were papered in a pastel blue pattern, with a shelf of dolls and another of old LP records.

“Are we awake?” a familiar high-pitched voice said. It was soft now, soothing. A hand stroked her hair. “We’ll have to let this grow out, like it used to be.”

Then the hand tightened, vanking a fistful of hair, making her inhale sharply with pain.

“What
got into you? This was all going so beautifully.”

The grip tightened further, making her gasp again, then let go. The bed shifted, releasing the weight of the person who had been sitting by her head.

“Let’s get you dressed properly,” the voice said. “There’s someone coming to see you. Someone who’s going to make you feel very different.”

The hands pulled her bathrobe away, off her arms, out from under her. Then a nightgown came to replace it, pulled down over her head and neck. It was fine white linen trimmed with pink, with a little girl’s bow at the bosom.

When it reached her hips, there was a pause. One of the hands touched her hesitantly between the thighs, a timid gesture that was not even a caress. It rested there, unmoving, for several seconds. She was aware of slow, controlled breathing. Then the hand withdrew, and pulled the gown on down to her ankles.

“Now,” the voice whispered. “Tell me all about the games you like to play.”

M
onks waited for Larrabee in a shopping center parking lot in Orinda, sipping bad convenience store coffee. The gray morning had dawned, and the sky was heavy with rolling clouds that threatened more rain. On the seat beside him rested a Clevinger Hospital directory that he had taken from Alison’s desk, with Francis Jephson’s unlisted address. He had circled the location on a map. It was about a mile away.

A few minutes after eight
A.M.
, an older van, dented and long unwashed, pulled in. It carried lengths of copper and PVC pipe on the rack, and bore the logo:
“ON THE SPOT” PLUMBING.
Larrabee walked to the Bronco, wearing a brown duck jacket, baseball cap, and coveralls. Like Monks, he needed a shave.

Larrabee leaned against the Bronco and folded his arms.

“A fucking
cobra?”

“It would have gotten me for sure, except for the cats.”

“Carroll. This has changed. You’re out of your league, way out.”

“I know that, Stover. But I’m afraid to make the wrong phone call. And I have no idea which call that is. If Naia gets wind the police are after her, my family might have to stay in hiding.”

Larrabee was watching him, a look Monks had seen before, grim and disconcerting, and he knew Larrabee was thinking the same thing: How long could you hide from someone like Naia?