Full Dark, No Stars, Page 20

  Downstairs, she pushed the Play button on her answering machine, thinking the call had probably been from Ramona Norville, doing the obligatory day-after follow-up: we had fun, hope you had fun, the feedback was great, please come again (not bloody likely), blah-blah-blah. But it wasn't Ramona. The message was from a woman who identified herself as Betsy Neal. She said she was calling from The Stagger Inn.

  "As part of our effort to discourage drinking and driving, our policy is to courtesy-call people who leave their cars in our lot after closing," Betsy Neal said. "Your Ford Expedition, Connecticut license plate 775 NSD, will be available for pickup until five PM this evening. After five it will be towed to Excellent Auto Repair, 1500 John Higgins Road, North Colewich, at your expense. Please note that we don't have your keys, ma'am. You must have taken them with you." Betsy Neal paused. "We have other property of yours, so please come to the office. Remember that I'll need to see some ID. Thank you and have a nice day."

  Tess sat down on her sofa and laughed. Before listening to the Neal woman's canned speech, she had been planning to drive her Expedition to the mall. She didn't have her purse, she didn't have her key-ring, she didn't have her damn car, but she had still planned to just walk out to the driveway, climb in, and--

  She sat back against the cushion, whooping and pounding a fist on her thigh. Fritzy was under the easy chair on the other side of the room, looking at her as if she were mad. We're all mad here, so have another cup of tea, she thought, and laughed harder than ever.

  When she finally stopped (only it felt more like running down), she played the message again. This time what she focused on was the Neal woman saying they had other property of hers. Her purse? Perhaps even her diamond earrings? But that would be too good to be true. Wouldn't it?

  Arriving at The Stagger Inn in a black car from Royal Limo might be a little too memorable, so she called Stoke Village Taxi. The dispatcher said they'd be glad to run her out to what he called "The Stagger" for a flat fifty-dollar fee. "Sorry to charge you so much," he said, "but the driver's got to come back empty."

  "How do you know that?" Tess asked, bemused.

  "Left your car, right? Happens all the time, specially on weekends. Although we also get calls after karaoke nights. Your cab'll be there in fifteen minutes or less."

  Tess ate a Pop-Tart (swallowing hurt, but she had lost her first try at breakfast and was hungry), then stood at the living-room window, watching for the taxi and bouncing her spare Expedition key on her palm. She decided on a change of plan. Never mind Stoke Village Mall; once she'd collected her car (and whatever other property Betsy Neal was holding), she would drive the half a mile or so to the Gas & Dash and call the police from there.

  It seemed only fitting.

  - 23 -

  When her cab turned onto Stagg Road, Tess's pulse began to rise. By the time they reached The Stagger Inn, it was flying along at what felt like a hundred and thirty beats a minute. The cabbie must have seen something in his rearview mirror... or maybe it was just the visible signs of the beating that prompted his question.

  "Everything okay, ma'am?"

  "Peachy," she said. "It's just that I didn't plan on coming back here this morning."

  "Few do," the cabbie said. He was sucking on a toothpick, which made a slow and philosophical journey from one side of his mouth to the other. "They got your keys, I suppose? Left em with the bartender?"

  "Oh, no trouble there," she said brightly. "But they're holding other property for me--the lady who called wouldn't say what, and I can't for the life of me think what it could be." Good God, I sound like one of my old lady detectives.

  The cabbie rolled his toothpick back to its starting point. It was his only reply.

  "I'll pay you an extra ten dollars to wait until I come out," Tess said, nodding at the roadhouse. "I want to make sure my car starts."

  "No problem-o," the cabbie said.

  And if I scream because he's in there, waiting for me, come on the run, okay?

  But she wouldn't have said that even if she could have done so without sounding absolutely bonkers. The cabdriver was fat, fifty, and wheezy. He'd be no match for the giant if this was a setup... which in a horror movie, it would be.

  Lured back, Tess thought dismally. Lured back by a phone call from the giant's girlfriend, who's just as crazy as he is.

  Foolish, paranoid idea, but the walk to The Stagger Inn's door seemed long, and the hard-packed dirt made her walking shoes seem very loud: clump-clud-clump. The parking lot that had been a sea of cars last night was now deserted save for four automotive islands, one of which was her Expedition. It was at the very back of the lot--sure, he would not have wanted to be observed putting it there--and she could see the left front tire. It was a plain old blackwall that didn't match the other three, but otherwise it looked fine. He had changed her tire. Of course he had. How else could he have moved it away from his... his...

  His recreational facility. His kill-zone. He drove it down here, parked, walked back to the deserted store, and then off he went in his old F-150. Good thing I didn't come to sooner; he'd have found me wandering around in a daze and I wouldn't be here now.

  She looked back over her shoulder. In one of the movies she now could not stop thinking about, she surely would have seen the cab speeding away (leaving me to my fate), but it was still right there. She lifted a hand to the driver, and he lifted his in return. She was fine. Her car was here and the giant wasn't. The giant was at his house (his lair), quite possibly still sleeping off the previous evening's exertions.

  The sign on the door said WE ARE CLOSED. Tess knocked and got no response. She tried the knob and when it turned, sinister movie plots returned to her mind. The really stupid plots where the knob always turns and the heroine calls out (in a tremulous voice), "Is anybody there?" Everyone knows she's crazy to go in, but she does anyway.

  Tess looked back at the cab again, saw it was still right there, reminded herself that she was carrying a loaded gun in her spare purse, and went in anyway.

  - 24 -

  She entered a foyer that ran the length of the building on the parking lot side. The walls were decorated with publicity stills: bands in leather, bands in jeans, an all-girl band in miniskirts. An auxiliary bar stretched out beyond the coatracks; no stools, just a rail where you could have a drink while you waited for someone or because the bar inside was too packed. A single red sign glowed above the ranked bottles: BUDWEISER.

  You like Bud, Bud likes you, Tess thought.

  She took off her dark glasses so she could walk without stumbling into something and crossed the foyer to peep into the main room. It was vast and redolent of beer. There was a disco ball, now dark and still. The wooden floor reminded her of the roller-skating rink where she and her girlfriends had all but lived during the summer between eighth grade and high school. The instruments were still up on the bandstand, suggesting that The Zombie Bakers would be back tonight for another heaping bowl of rock n roll.

  "Hello?" Her voice echoed.

  "I'm right here," a voice replied softly from behind her.

  - 25 -

  If it had been a man's voice, Tess would have shrieked. She managed to avoid that, but she still whirled around so quickly that she stumbled a little. The woman standing in the coat alcove--a skinny breath of a thing, no more than five feet three--blinked in surprise and took a step back. "Whoa, easy."

  "You startled me," Tess said.

  "I see I did." The woman's tiny, perfect oval of a face was surrounded by a cloud of teased black hair. A pencil peeked from it. She had piquant blue eyes that didn't quite match. A Picasso girl, Tess thought. "I was in the office. Are you the Expedition lady or the Honda lady?"

  "Expedition."

  "Have ID?"

  "Yes, two pieces, but only one with my picture on it. My passport. The other stuff was in my purse. My other purse. I thought that was what you might have."

  "No, sorry. Maybe you stashed it under the seat, or something? We
only look in the glove compartments, and of course we can't even do that if the car is locked. Yours wasn't, and your phone number was on the insurance card. But probably you know that. Maybe you'll find your purse at home." Neal's voice suggested that this wasn't likely. "One photo ID will be okay if it looks like you, I guess."

  Neal led Tess to a door at the back of the coat area, then down a narrow curving corridor that skirted the main room. There were more band photos on the walls. At one point they passed through a fume of chlorine that stung Tess's eyes and tender throat.

  "If you think the johns smell now, you should be here when the joint is going full tilt," Neal said, then added, "Oh, I forgot--you were."

  Tess made no comment.

  At the end of the hallway was a door marked OFFICE STAFF ONLY. The room beyond was large, pleasant, and filled with morning sunshine. A framed picture of Barack Obama hung on the wall, above a bumper sticker bearing the YES WE CAN slogan. Tess couldn't see her cab--the building was in the way--but she could see its shadow.

  That's good. Stay right there and get your ten bucks. And if I don't come out, don't come in. Just call the police.

  Neal went to the desk in the corner and sat down. "Let's see your ID."

  Tess opened her purse, fumbled past the .38, and brought out her passport and her Authors Guild card. Neal gave the passport photo only a cursory glance, but when she saw the Guild card, her eyes widened. "You're the Willow Grove lady!"

  Tess smiled gamely. It hurt her lips. "Guilty as charged." Her voice sounded foggy, as though she were getting over a bad cold.

  "My gran loves those books!"

  "Many grans do," Tess said. "When the affection finally filters down to the next generation--the one not currently living on fixed incomes--I'm going to buy myself a chateau in France."

  Sometimes this earned her a smile. Not from Ms. Neal, however. "I hope that didn't happen here." She wasn't more specific and didn't have to be. Tess knew what she was talking about, and Betsy Neal knew she knew.

  Tess thought of revisiting the story she'd already told Patsy--the beeping smoke detector alarm, the cat under her feet, the collision with the newel post--and didn't bother. This woman had a look of daytime efficiency about her and probably visited The Stagger Inn as infrequently as possible during its hours of operation, but she was clearly under no illusions about what sometimes happened here when the hour grew late and the guests grew drunk. She was, after all, the one who came in early on Saturday mornings to make the courtesy calls. She had probably heard her share of morning-after stories featuring midnight stumbles, slips in the shower, etc., etc.

  "Not here," Tess said. "Don't worry."

  "Not even in the parking lot? If you ran into trouble there, I'll have to have Mr. Rumble talk with the security staff. Mr. Rumble's the boss, and security's supposed to check the video monitors regularly on busy nights."

  "It happened after I left."

  I really do have to make the report anonymously now, if I mean to report it at all. Because I'm lying, and she'll remember.

  If she meant to report it at all? Of course she did. Right?

  "I'm very sorry." Neal paused, seeming to debate with herself. Then she said, "I don't mean to offend you, but you probably don't have any business in a place like this to begin with. It didn't turn out so well for you, and if it got into the papers... well, my gran would be very disappointed."

  Tess agreed. And because she could embellish convincingly (it was the talent that paid the bills, after all), she did. "A bad boyfriend is sharper than a serpent's tooth. I think the Bible says that. Or maybe it's Dr. Phil. In any case, I've broken up with him."

  "A lot of women say that, then weaken. And a guy who does it once--"

  "Will do it again. Yes, I know, I was very foolish. If you don't have my purse, what property of mine do you have?"

  Ms. Neal turned in her swivel chair (the sun licked across her face, momentarily highlighting those unusual blue eyes), opened one of her file cabinets, and brought out Tom the Tomtom. Tess was delighted to see her old traveling buddy. It didn't make things all better, but it was a step in the right direction.

  "We're not supposed to remove anything from patrons' cars, just get the address and the phone number if we can, then lock it up, but I didn't like to leave this. Thieves don't mind breaking a window to get a particularly tasty item, and it was sitting right there on your dashboard."

  "Thank you." Tess felt tears springing into her eyes behind her dark glasses and willed them back. "That was very thoughtful."

  Betsy Neal smiled, which transformed her stern Ms. Taking Care of Business face to radiant in an instant. "Very welcome. And when that boyfriend of yours comes crawling back, asking for a second chance, think of my gran and all your other loyal readers and tell him no way Jose." She considered. "But do it with the chain on your door. Because a bad boyfriend really is sharper than a serpent's tooth."

  "That's good advice. Listen, I have to go. I told the cab to wait while I made sure I was really going to get my car."

  And that might have been all--it really might have been--but then Neal asked, with becoming diffidence, if Tess would mind signing an autograph for her grandmother. Tess told her of course not, and in spite of all that had happened, watched with real amusement as Neal found a piece of business stationery and used a ruler to tear off the Stagger Inn logo at the top before handing it across the desk.

  "Make it 'To Mary, a true fan.' Can you do that?"

  Tess could. And as she was adding the date, a fresh confabulation came to mind. "A man helped me when my boyfriend and I were... you know, tussling. If not for him, I might have been hurt a lot worse." Yes! Raped, even! "I'd like to thank him, but I don't know his name."

  "I doubt if I could do you much good there. I'm just the office help."

  "But you're local, right?"

  "Yes..."

  "I met him at the little store down the road."

  "The Gas & Dash?"

  "I think that's the name. It's where my boyfriend and I had our argument. It was about the car. I didn't want to drive and I wouldn't let him. We were arguing about it all the time we walked down the road... staggered down the road... staggered down Stagg Road..."

  Neal smiled as people do when they've heard a joke many times before.

  "Anyway, this guy came along in an old blue pickup truck with that plastic stuff for rust around the headlights--"

  "Bondo?"

  "I think that's what it's called." Knowing damn well that was what it was called. Her father had supported the company almost single-handed. "Anyway, I remember thinking when he got out that he wasn't really riding in that truck, he was wearing it."

  When she handed the signed sheet of paper back across the desk, she saw that Betsy Neal was now actually grinning. "Oh my God, I might actually know who he was."

  "Really?"

  "Was he big or was he real big?"

  "Real big," Tess said. She felt a peculiar watchful happiness that seemed located not in her head but in the center of her chest. It was the way she felt when the strings of some outlandish plot actually started to come together, pulling tight like the top of a nicely crafted tote-bag. She always felt both surprised and not surprised when this happened. There was no satisfaction like it.

  "Did you happen to notice if he was wearing a ring on his little finger? Red stone?"

  "Yes! Like a ruby! Only too big to be real. And a brown hat--"

  Neal was nodding. "With white splatters on it. He's been wearing the damn thing for ten years. That's Big Driver you're talking about. I don't know where he lives, but he's local, either Colewich or Nestor Falls. I see him around--supermarket, hardware store, Walmart, places like that. And once you see him, you don't forget him. His real name is Al Something-Polish. You know, one of those hard-to-pronounce names. Strelkowicz, Stancowitz, something like that. I bet I could find him in the phone book, because he and his brother own a trucking company. Hawkline, I think it's called. Or maybe Eag
le Line. Something with a bird in it, anyway. Want me to look him up?"

  "No, thanks," Tess said pleasantly. "You've been helpful enough, and my cabdriver's waiting."

  "Okay. Just do yourself a favor and stay away from that boyfriend of yours. And stay away from The Stagger. Of course, if you tell anyone I said that, I'll have to find you and kill you."

  "Fair enough," Tess said, smiling. "I'd deserve it." At the doorway, she turned back. "A favor?"

  "If I can."

  "If you happen to see Al Something-Polish around town, don't mention that you talked to me." She smiled more widely. It hurt her lips, but she did it. "I want to surprise him. Give him a little gift, or something."

  "Not a problem."

  Tess lingered a bit longer. "I love your eyes."

  Neal shrugged and smiled. "Thanks. They don't quite match, do they? It used to make me self-conscious, but now..."

  "Now it works for you," Tess said. "You grew into them."

  "I guess I did. I even picked up some work modeling in my twenties. But sometimes, you know what? It's better to grow out of things. Like a taste for bad-tempered men."

  To that there seemed to be nothing to say.

  - 26 -

  She made sure her Expedition would start, then tipped the cabdriver twenty instead of ten. He thanked her with feeling, then drove away toward the I-84. Tess followed, but not until she'd plugged Tom back into the cigarette lighter receptacle and powered him up.

  "Hello, Tess," Tom said. "I see we're taking a trip."

  "Just home, Tommy-boy," she said, and pulled out of the parking lot, very aware she was riding on a tire that had been mounted by the man who had almost killed her. Al Something-Polish. A truck-driving son of a gun. "One stop on the way."

  "I don't know what you're thinking, Tess, but you should be careful."

  If she had been home instead of in her car, Fritzy would have been the one to say this, and Tess would have been equally unsurprised. She had been making up voices and conversations since childhood, although at the age of eight or nine, she'd quit doing it around other people, unless it was for comic effect.