Dragon Tears Part 28

Imported from England a few years ago, the rave phenomenon appealed to teenagers and those in their early twenties who wanted to party nonstop until dawn, beyond the eye of all authorities.

"Smart place to hide?" Connie wondered.

"As smart as any, I guess, and smarter than some."

Rave promoters rented warehouses and industrial buildings for a night or two, moving the event from one spot to another to avoid police detection. Locations of upcoming raves were advertised in underground newspapers and in fliers handed out at record stores, nightclubs, and schools, all written in the code of the subculture, using phrases like "The Mickey Mouse X-press," "American X-press," "Double-Hit Mickey," "Get X-rayed," "Dental Surgery Explained," and "Free Balloons for the Kiddies." Mickey Mouse and X were nicknames for a potent drug more commonly known as Ecstasy, while references to dentistry and balloons meant that nitrous oxide-or laughing gas- would be for sale.

Avoidance of police detection was essential. The theme of every illegal rave party-as opposed to tamer imitations in the legitimate rave nightclubs-was s.e.x, drugs, and anarchy. Harry and Connie walked past the bouncers, through the door, and into the heart of chaos, but a chaos to which the Pause had brought a tenuous and artificial order.

The cavernous room was lit by half a dozen red and green lasers, perhaps a dozen yellow and red spots, and strobes, all of which had been blinking and sweeping over the crowd until the Pause stilled them. Now lances of colorful, fixed light found some partiers and left others in shadows. Four or five hundred people, mostly between eighteen and twenty-five, but some as young as fifteen, were frozen in either the act of dancing or just hanging out. Because the disc jockeys at raves invariably played highly energized techno dance music with a rapidly pounding ba.s.s that could shake walls, many of the young celebrants had been Paused in bizarre poses of flailing and gyrating abandon, bodies contorted, hair flying. The men and boys were for the most part dressed in jeans or chinos with flannel shirts and baseball caps worn backward, or with preppy sportcoats over T-shirts, though some were decked out all in black. The girls and young women wore a wider variety of clothes, but every outfit was provocative- tight, short, low-cut, translucent, revealing; raves were, after all, celebrations of the carnal. The silence of graves had replaced the booming music, as well as the screams and shouts of the partiers; the eerie light combined with the stillness to impart an anti-erotic cadaverous quality to the exposed curves of calves, thighs, and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. As he and Connie moved through the crowd, Harry noticed that the dancers' faces were stretched in grotesque expressions which probably had conveyed excitement and hopped-up gaiety when they were animated. In freeze-frame, however, they were eerily transformed into masks of rage, hatred, and agony.

In the fiery glow produced by the lasers and spots, and by the psychedelic images that film projectors beamed onto two huge walls, it was easy to imagine that this was no party, after all, but a diorama of h.e.l.l, with the d.a.m.ned writhing in pain and wailing for release from their excruciating torment.

By seining out the rave's noise and movement, the Pause might have captured the truth of the event in its net. Perhaps the ugly secret, beneath the flash and thunder, was that these revelers, in their obsessive search for sensation, were not truly having fun on any fundamental level, but were suffering private miseries from which they frantically sought relief that eluded them. Harry led Connie out of the dancers into the spectators who were gathered around the perimeter of the enormous vaulted chamber. A few had been caught by the Pause in small groups, in the midst of shouted conversations and exaggerated laughter, faces strained and muscles corded in their necks as they had struggled to compete with the thunderous music.

But most seemed to be alone, disengaged from those around them. Some were slack-faced and staring vacuously into the crowd. Others were as taut as stretched wire, with unnervingly feverish stares. Perhaps it was the Halloween lighting and the stark shadows, but in either case, whether hollow-eyed or glaring, the petrified ravers on the sidelines reminded Harry of movie zombies paralyzed in the middle of some murderous task.

"It's a regular creepshow," Connie said uneasily, evidently also perceiving a quality of menace in the scene that might not have been so obvious if they had wandered into it before the Pause.

"Welcome to the nineties."

A number of the zombies on the periphery of the dance floor were holding balloons in an array of bright colors, though not attached to strings or sticks. Here was a red-haired, freckled boy of seventeen or eighteen, who had stretched the neck of a canary-yellow balloon and wrapped it around his index finger to prevent deflation. And here was a young man with a Pancho Villa mustache, firmly pinching the neck of a green balloon between thumb and forefinger, as was a blond girl with empty blue eyes. Those who didn't use their fingers seemed to employ the type of hinged binder clips that could be bought by the box at stationery stores. A few ravers had the necks of their balloons between their lips, taking hits of nitrous oxide, which they had bought from a vendor who was no doubt working out of a van behind the building. With all the vacant or intense stares and the bright balloons, it was as if a pack of the walking dead had wandered into a children's birthday party.

Although the scene was made infinitely strange and fascinating by the Pause, it was still drearily familiar to Harry. He was, after all, a homicide detective, and sudden deaths occasionally occurred at raves.

Sometimes they were drug overdoses. No dentist would sedate a patient with a concentration of nitrous oxide higher than eighty percent, but the gas available at raves was often pure, with no oxygen mixed in. Take too many hits of the pure stuff in too short a time, or suck too long on one toke, you might not merely make a giggling spectacle of yourself but induce a stroke that killed you; or, worse, one that was not fatal but caused irreparable brain damage and left you flopping like a fish on the floor, or catatonic.

Harry spotted a loft overhanging the entire width of the back of the warehouse, twenty feet above the main floor, with wooden steps leading to it from both ends.

"Up there," he told Connie, pointing.

They would be able to see the entire warehouse from that high deck-and quickly spot Ticktock if they heard him enter, no matter which door he used. The two staircases ensured an escape route regardless of the direction from which he came at them.

Moving deeper into the building, they pa.s.sed two bos-omy young women in tight T-shirts on which was printed "Just Say NO," a rave joke on Nancy Reagan's anti-drug campaign, which meant these two said yes yes to nitrous oxide, NO, if not to anything else. They had to step around three girls lying on the floor near the wall, two of them holding halfdeflated balloons and Paused in fits of red-faced giggles. The third was unconscious, mouth open, a fully deflated balloon on her chest. to nitrous oxide, NO, if not to anything else. They had to step around three girls lying on the floor near the wall, two of them holding halfdeflated balloons and Paused in fits of red-faced giggles. The third was unconscious, mouth open, a fully deflated balloon on her chest.

Near the back, not far from the right-hand stairs, an enormous white X was painted on the wall, large enough to be visible from every corner of the warehouse. Two guys in Mickey Mouse sweatshirts-and one of them in a mouse-ear hat-had been frozen in the middle of bustling commerce, taking twenty-dollar bills from customers in return for capsules of Ecstasy or for dis...o...b..scuits saturated with the same stuff.

They came to a teenager, no more than fifteen, with guileless eyes and a face as innocent as that of a young nun. She was wearing a black T-shirt with a picture of a shotgun under the words PUMP ACTION. She had Paused in the process of putting a dis...o...b..scuit into her mouth. Connie plucked the cookie from the girl's stiff fingers and slipped it out from between her parted lips. She threw it to the floor. The cookie didn't have quite enough momentum to carry it all the way down, halting inches above the concrete. Connie pushed it the rest of the way with the toe of her shoe and crushed it underfoot. "Stupid kid."

"This isn't like you," Harry said.

"What?"

"Being a stuffy adult."

"Maybe someone's got to."

Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or Ecstasy, an amphetamine with hallucinogenic effects, could radically energize the user and induce euphoria. It could also generate a false sense of profound intimacy with any strangers in whose company the user happened to be when high. Although other drugs sometimes appeared at raves, NO and Ecstasy were far and away predominant. NO was just nonaddictive giggle juice-wasn't it?-and Ecstasy could bring you into harmony with your fellow human beings and put you in tune with Mother Nature. Right? That was its rep. The chosen drug of ecologically minded peace advocates, well consumed at rallies to save the planet. Sure, it was dangerous for people with heart conditions, but there was no recorded death from its use in the entire United States. True, scientists had recently discovered that Ecstasy caused pin-size holes in the brain, hundreds or even thousands of them from continued use, but there was no proof that these holes resulted in diminished mental capacity, so what they probably did, see, was let the cosmic rays shine in better and a.s.sist enlightenment. Right?

Climbing to the loft, Harry could look down between the steps, which had treads but no risers, and see couples frozen in makeout postures in the shadows under the staircase. All the s.e.x education in the world, all the graphic pamphlets on condom use, could be swept aside by one tab of Ecstasy if the user experienced an erotic response, as so many did. How could you remain concerned about disease when the stranger you'd just met was such a soulmate, the yin to your yang, radiant and pure to your third eye, so in tune to your every need and desire?

When he and Connie reached the loft, the light was dimmer than on the main level, but Harry could see couples lying on the floor or sitting together with their backs against the rear wall. They were making out more aggressively than those beneath the stairs, Paused in tongue duels, blouses unb.u.t.toned, jeans unzipped, hands seeking within.

Two or three of the couples, in an Ecstasy rush, might even have lost such complete touch with where they were and with common propriety that they were actually doing doing it in one fashion or another, when the Pause hit. it in one fashion or another, when the Pause hit.

Harry had no desire to confirm that suspicion. Like the sad circus on the main floor, the scene in the loft was only depressing. It was not in the least erotic to any voyeur with minimum standards, but provoked as many somber thoughts as any Hieronymus Bosch painting of h.e.l.lacious realms and creatures.

As Harry and Connie moved between the couples toward the loft railing where they could look down on the main floor, he said, "Be careful what you step in."

"You're disgusting."

"Only trying to be a gentleman."

"Well, that's unique in this place."

From the railing, they had a good view of the frozen throng below, partying eternally. Connie said, "G.o.d, I'm cold."

"Me, too."

Standing side by side, they put their arms around each other at the waist, ostensibly sharing body heat.

Harry had rarely in his life felt as close to anyone as he felt to her at that moment. Not close in an amorous sense. The stoned and groping couples on the floor behind them were sufficiently antiromantic to a.s.sure against any romantic feelings rising in him just then. The atmosphere wasn't right for it. What he felt, instead, was the platonic closeness of friend to friend, of partners who had been pushed to their limits and then beyond, who were very probably going to die together before dawn-and this was the important part-without either of them ever having decided what he really wanted out of life or what it all meant.

She said, "Tell me not all kids these days go to places like this, saturate their brains with chemicals."

"They don't. Not all of them. Not even most of them. Most kids are reasonably together."

"Because I wouldn't want to think this crowd is typical of 'our next generation of leaders,' as they say."

"It isn't."

"If it is," she said, "then the post post-millennium cotillion is going to be even nastier than what we've been living through these last few years."

"Ecstasy causes pin-size holes in the brain," he said.

"I know. Just imagine how much more inept the government would be if the Congress was full of boys and girls who like to ride the X-press."

"What makes you think it isn't already?"

She laughed sourly. "That would explain a lot."

The air was neither cold nor warm, but they were shivering worse than ever. The warehouse remained deathly still.

"I'm sorry about your condo," she said.

"What?"

"It burned down, remember?"

"Well." He shrugged.

"I know how much you loved it."

"There's insurance."

"Still, it was so nice, cozy, everything in its place."

"Oh? The one time you were there, you said it was 'the perfect self-constructed prison' and that I was 'a shining example to every a.n.a.l-retentive nutcase fussbudget from Boston to San Diego.' "

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"Really?"

"Well, you were angry with me."

"I must have been. About what?"

He said, "That was the day we arrested Norton Lewis, he gave us a little run for our money, and I wouldn't let you shoot him."

"That's right. I really really wanted to shoot him." wanted to shoot him."

"Wasn't necessary."

She sighed. "I was really up for it."

"We nailed him anyway."

"Could've gone bad, though. You were lucky. Anyway, the son of a b.i.t.c.h deserved shooting."

"No argument there," he said.

"Well, I didn't mean it-about your condo."

"Yes, you did."

"Okay, I did, but I have a different take on it now. It's a screwed-up world, and we all need to have a way of coping. Yours is better than most. Better than mine, in fact."

"You know what I think's happening here? I think maybe this is what the psychologists call 'bonding.' "

"G.o.d, I hope not."

"I think it is."

She smiled. "I suspect that already happened weeks or months ago, but we're just getting around to admitting it."

They stood in companionable silence for a while.

He wondered how much time had pa.s.sed since they'd fled from the counting golem on Pacific Coast Highway. He felt as if he had surely been on the run for an hour, but it was difficult to tell real time when you were not living in it.

The longer they were stuck in the Pause, the more inclined Harry was to believe their enemy's promise that the ordeal would only last one hour. He had a feeling, perhaps at least partly cop instinct rather than entirely wishful thinking, that Ticktock was not as all-powerful as he seemed, that there were limits to even his phenomenal abilities, and that engineering the Pause was so draining, he could not long sustain it.

The growing inner cold that troubled both him and Connie might be a sign that Ticktock was finding it increasingly difficult to exempt them from the enchantment that had stilled the rest of the world. In spite of their tormentor's attempt to control the altered reality that he had created, perhaps Harry and Connie were gradually being transformed from movable game pieces to permanent fixtures on the game board itself.

He remembered the shock of hearing the gravelly voice speak to him out of his car radio last evening, when he had been speeding between his burning condo in Irvine and Connie's apartment in Costa Mesa. But until now he had not realized the importance of the words the golem-vagrant had spoken: Gotta rest now, hero . . . gotta rest . . . tired . . . a little nap. . . . Gotta rest now, hero . . . gotta rest . . . tired . . . a little nap. . . . More had been said, mostly threats, the raspy voice gradually fading into static, silence. However, Harry suddenly understood that the most important thing about the incident was not the fact that Ticktock could somehow control the ether and speak to him out of a radio, but the revelation that even this being of G.o.dlike abilities had limits and needed periodic rest like any ordinary mortal. More had been said, mostly threats, the raspy voice gradually fading into static, silence. However, Harry suddenly understood that the most important thing about the incident was not the fact that Ticktock could somehow control the ether and speak to him out of a radio, but the revelation that even this being of G.o.dlike abilities had limits and needed periodic rest like any ordinary mortal.

When Harry thought about it, he realized that each of Ticktock's more flamboyant manifestations was always followed by a period of an hour or longer when he didn't come around to continue his torments.

Gotta rest, hero . . . tired . . . a . . . a little nap. . . . little nap. . . .

He remembered telling Connie, earlier at her apartment, that even a sociopath with enormous paranormal powers was certain to have weaknesses, points of vulnerability. During the intervening hours, as he had seen Ticktock perform a series of tricks each of which was more amazing than the one before it, he had grown more pessimistic about their chances. Now optimism blossomed again. Gotta rest, hero . . . tired Gotta rest, hero . . . tired . . . a . . . a little nap. . . . little nap. . . .

He was about to share these hopeful thoughts with Connie when she suddenly stiffened. His arm was still around her waist, so he also felt her shivering abruptly stop. For an instant he was afraid that she had been too deeply chilled, surrendered to entropy, and become part of the Pause. Then he saw that she had tilted her head in response to some faint sound that he, in his woolgathering, had not heard.

It came again. A click.

Then a low sc.r.a.pe.

A much louder clatter.

The sounds were all flat, truncated, like those they themselves had made during their long run from the coast highway.

Alarmed, Connie slipped her arm from around Harry's waist, and he let go of her as well. Down on the main floor of the warehouse, the golem-vagrant moved through iron shadows and revealing shafts of frozen light, between the zombie spectators and among the petrified dancers. Ticktock had entered through the same door they had used, following their trail.

4.

Connie's instinct was to step back from the loft railing, so the golem would not look up and see her, but she overcame that reflexive urge and remained motionless. In the fathomless stillness of the Pause, even the whispery friction of shoe sole against floor, or the softest creak of a board, would instantly draw the creature's unwanted attention.

Harry was also quick enough to slam a lock on his instinctual reaction, remaining almost as still as any of the ravers caught in the Pause. Thank G.o.d.

If the thing looked up, it probably would not see them. Most of the light was below, and the loft hung in shadows.

She realized she was clinging to the stupid hope that Ticktock really was trailing them only with ordinary senses, keeping his promise. As if any sociopathic serial killer, paranormally empowered or not, could be trusted to keep a promise. Stupid, not worthy of her, but she clung to the possibility anyway. If the world could fall under an enchantment as profound as any in a fairy tale, who was to say that her own hopes and wishes did not also have at least some power?

And wasn't that that an odd idea coming from her of all people, who had given up hope as a child, who had never in memory wished for any gift or blessing or surcease? an odd idea coming from her of all people, who had given up hope as a child, who had never in memory wished for any gift or blessing or surcease?

Everyone can change, they said. She had never believed it. For most of her life, she had been unchanging, expecting nothing from the world that she did not earn twice over, taking perverse solace from the fact that her expectations were never exceeded.

Life can be as bitter as dragon tears. But whether dragon tears are bitter or sweet depends entirely on how each man perceives the taste. entirely on how each man perceives the taste.

Or woman.