The Night Church Part 30

Max joined him.

Mike had to talk. "They buried Quist alive. Jesus, they buried him alive!" buried him alive!" Now it all came pouring out. Now it all came pouring out.

"In all my career I've never seen that. I mean, he was just a small-time jerkoff reporter. Nothin'! What'd they do it for? Fun?"

"Rough, Mike. Real rough. But we're gonna get 'em now. Because of this."

"Don't be too sure, Lieutenant. We got a long hard ways to go yet."

"It seems to me," said Max's a.s.sistant, "that we need to physically find this alias. Apple's the key."

"His name is probably Franklin t.i.tus."

"How'd you get there, Mike?"

"Never mind, Max. I been burnin' the midnight oil." * "Well, if we have a name, we ought to be able to find our man easily enough."

"Okay, Sarge, you go do that. Go do it!"

"Relax, Mike, she's as committed as you are."

"Oh, h.e.l.l, I'm sorry. Just think it out. Obviously t.i.tus is the best thing we could get. But he's the last thing we're gonna gonna get. You can put money on that. He's king of the mountain. We won't find him till all the people in front of him have been knocked aside." get. You can put money on that. He's king of the mountain. We won't find him till all the people in front of him have been knocked aside."

Silence followed these remarks. Sitting there in his car, listening to the rain on the roof, Mike realized what he had to do. It was simple enough. He got out, said his goodbyes to his people, pa.s.sed out the promised scotch, and returned alone to the car.

He was going to stay real cozy with Mary from now on. She was the ticket in the front door. His own lovely wife. Serves you right, marrying for looks.

d.a.m.n you, Mary, I'm gonna fry you!

Okay, Mr. Detective, fry her hot but move cool. Move very cool. She's one dangerous lady, Mary t.i.tus Banion.

He drove along the old boulevard, past Farrell's, past the skating rink that had been a disco and before that a ballroom, and way long ago a movie theater. Before that, in the dimness of Mike's boyhood, it had been a gra.s.sy field, the kind of place where kids went to smoke and drink, and explore one another's bodies in the summer night.

"Death always sneaks up on us," Father Goodwin said. "Death is the greatest surprise of all."

Mike felt exhausted. The old body was yearning for its supper. Mary would have a meal waiting. First there would be a nice cold martini, the kind of drink that worked. Mary would stand in the doorway to the kitchen, smoking one of her Benson & Hedges cigarettes and talking softly to him. Mary was so extremely s.e.xy. He thought of the places she was curved, and how astonishingly smooth her skin was, the way there was a sound like the whisper of snow when he moved his hands along her thighs. He liked how she smelled at the end of the day, Lanvin powder mixed with a sugges-tion of sweat. Were women really as innocent as they seemed of the fact that they carried the world? Even the b.i.t.c.hes and the wrong ones.

By the time he arrived home the rain had become a deluge. He operated the garage-door opener and parked his car beside Mary's Audi. The woman had style; she looked great in that automobile.

"Mike?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

The door creaked. Footsteps clattered on the paved floor of the garage. She appeared, her dress softly dotted pink, her chestnut hair flowing down to her shoulders. He got out of the car.

He put his big, hot paw into her cool fingers.

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if a blow had pa.s.sed close.

He realized as he followed her into the house that she wasn't going to ask how he was, or even kiss him.

She was afraid of her husband. Behind the s.e.x and the habits of living together, she must feel him an absolute stranger, close only in the way people on a bus are close.

"Jonathan's not here yet. I called him an hour ago."

"Why?"

"You wanted to see him tonight. You wanted to talk about the wedding."

"Hard to believe." He felt heavier, let out a tired sigh. There was a wedding planned. He had once wanted to give Jonathan some pointers about how to handle a wife. Funny.

"Forget it. He doesn't need advice from me. Relax me, girl."

She handed Mike his martini. It was exactly right, as usual. Thank G.o.d for alcohol.

"I got another break on the case," he heard himself say. He hardly even glanced at her, but he made it count.

Inside there was a smell of steak broiling with onions. Despite everything, he felt for her a pa.s.sion so beyond his ability to suppress that it seemed a kind of tragedy.

"I'm glad you came back. I need you." She came to him, nestled against his chest. Then she kissed his cheek, sought his lips. "Can you forget about the case for a while, do you think?"

Never, you witch. Beautiful, beautiful witch.

"Is anything going on downstairs, Michael Banion?"

"Find out for yourself."

She brushed her hand against the front of his trousers. "Shall I get ready for you?"

He kissed her neck. It smelled just as he had thought it would, of Lanvin powder and sweat. Sweet and sour. She stroked him. "I'd better go cut off supper. I'll follow you up."

While she was in the kitchen he went up the narrow stairway to their bedroom and with fumbling, shaking hands took off his clothes. He arranged them so that his pistol was just under a fold of his jacket, ready to grab.

He looked at his nakedness in the mirror, his powerful shoulders and neck, the suggestion of dignity offered by his graying temples, the bulging swoop of his gut.

Mary opened the door suddenly, light flowing in behind her, tripping softly and soft in her own nakedness, her thatch swimming in shadow between ghostly thighs, her arms sur-rounding him and pressing him back toward the bed, her hair tickling his chest.

But when he closed his eyes he saw coffins and b.l.o.o.d.y clawmarks, and heard a man howling in his grave. He almost lost it. He opened his eyes quickly.

Mary worked on him dutifully, he had to give her that. She fondled and kissed and rubbed. He closed his eyes again, remembering all the girls he had known who had turned him on. The best was Beth because she was so sweet and innocent except in the bedroom, where she was wild.

Mary looked down at him, trembling to a fine internal rhythm. Only all was not right: this time Mike was waiting for something, and he found it. That familiar faraway look she got in her eyes at moments of seeming pa.s.sion was not ecstasy, it was detachment.

She began to act, biting her lips and moaning a little. Her tempo increased. Suddenly, still pounding, she bent down to to him and began kissing his face. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders. him and began kissing his face. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders.

A week ago he would have interpreted this as extreme excitement, but this time he understood the truth: she was trying to get him to reach climax as quickly as she could.

No doubt that was always why she wanted the topside position-so she could control the tempo and get it over with as fast as possible.

But, Lord, she knew how to make it feel good. He began seeing her through the haze of higher pleasure; she was as pretty as a picture. "Mike," she gasped, "Mike, oh, Mike!"

He came and she shook and trembled and fell down on him whispering, "Thank you, thank you, you beautiful man," and then became still. Her thanks were sincere too, he knew. He had been quick.

After it was over they lay as usual side by side. Then she sat up and lit a cigarette, drawing her knees up to her chin. There was in her face something scary that he did not want to see, something that looked like suppressed glee.

"Jonathan must be at Patricia's apartment," she said. "I guess he'll stay the night."

Mike did not answer her. She had not failed herself this night. She was a very skillful deceiver-so good that her skill itself gave her away. She had not provided him with so much as a hint, not even a flicker of light on the way to the truth.

When she went down to complete their dinner his mind began drifting back and forth among the elements of the case. Terry Quist. Franklin t.i.tus. Those wicked, insane books in t.i.tus's house.

The anti-man to come . . . and his father, the monstrum. monstrum. And beautiful, sensual Mary. And beautiful, sensual Mary.

Somewhere between them was his answer, his whole picture, his truth. Somewhere between the woman and the grave and h.e.l.l.

Chapter Twenty.

JONATHAN WOULD HAVE clawed out through the sides of the van if he had been able. "It's a d.a.m.n cage! They've caged us like a couple of chimps." He prowled the luxurious interior, checking the door, the walls, feeling for some opening, some weakness.

They accelerated, decelerated, turned corners, until he lost all sense of direction.

"Sit down, Jonathan."

"If I could get this door open we might be able to jump when they slow down."

"There'll be a car following. They're very well orga-nized."

He went to her. "We have to try."

"We have to think about what's happening to us, about What might happen when they open the door."

A sudden change in the tire sounds told Jonathan some-thing. "We're crossing the Fifty-Ninth Street bridge, going into Manhattan."

"Jonathan, you and I are vulnerable. We feel like ordinary people, and I doubt if we have the resources to deal with whatever we're facing. We could even be brainwashed."

"They picked the wrong man for brainwashing. I can't be be brainwashed-I know too much about the brain." brainwashed-I know too much about the brain."

The van slowed, turned another corner.

"We're liable to stop soon, Jonathan. Whether you can be brainwashed or not, I want you to-"

He hated that idea. "I can't can't be!" be!"

"Just listen. I want you to remember one thing at all costs. We may be mutated in a thousand different ways, but we can live ordinary lives if we try. We love each other, and we want as normal and human a life as we can have." She put her arms around him. "If we forget that, they win!"

"What's the game, though? What do they win?"

She sobbed. "Just remember what we we want." want."

The van stopped. He found her lips with his own. A cheerful young man opened the doors and with firm, gentle hands drew them apart. "We're home now," he said. "Please come inside."

"The h.e.l.l I will," Jonathan replied. He broke away, leaping down from the van and managing about ten feet along the sidewalk before he was surrounded by more of them than he could resist. The most pleasant of them, a smiling, pin-neat man in a crisp linen suit, showed Jonathan a vicious little knife.

"There is also the way of pain," he said affably, shoulder-ing Jonathan between two of his friends.

"You're best off cooperating."

The house was shockingly familiar. He stood looking up at the aged brownstone edifice, decorated by rows of glaring gargoyles. He had always a.s.sumed that it housed university data storage. To his knowledge, he had never been beyond the bas.e.m.e.nt labs.

To the east little golden clouds floated above the skyline. Dawn was coming. The house itself was subtly transformed. The wide bay windows, which had been backed by dark curtains, now stood open.

A bell rang, and sleepy children's voices filtered out.

This was the t.i.tus School, the secret training-ground of the Night Church. Jonathan and Patricia had grown up here.

He was hustled into the foyer where Patricia was being ushered along by one of the most fantastic creatures Jona-than had ever beheld.

Instead of the usual black broadcloth this nun wore a rich maroon silk habit. Her wimple was starched and gleaming, black instead of white. She was beautifully made up with eyeshadow and lipstick. The small foyer was filled with the scent of musky perfume.

She supported Patricia, who dragged along the floor as if fainting. When she saw Jonathan, though, she made a visible effort to pull herself together. She looked at him through haunted, tear-streaked eyes. "Don't you remember her, Jonathan?" she shouted. The nun began hurrying Patricia toward the rear of the foyer.

"She's Sister Saint John, the one I put up in my apartment, the one who raised raised me from the time I was thirteen!" Her voice echoed, desolate. me from the time I was thirteen!" Her voice echoed, desolate.

"Patricia!" Strong hands grabbed his arms. He kicked. He had to get to her. "Let me go!"

"I remember now! She was at the Spirit too! She was there with Mary! Oh, G.o.d, help me! Help me!"

His ears roared, his blood thundered in his veins. "Patricia!" "Patricia!"

A great clang. An iron door had closed on her. great clang. An iron door had closed on her.

He had not counted on them being separated. The sudden, irrevocable fact of it brought a new wave of effort, and he struggled against the men who were holding him, screaming into the silence that had followed the clang of the door. "I love you! I love you!" I love you!"

His own shouts were absorbed by the cavernous hall. "Jonathan," a voice said when he stopped, "we're going to take you up to your room now."

They didn't release their grip even a little as they walked him across the marble floor. He could see that the hall was circular, with fluted columns supporting a small interior dome. Dim light glowed through round windows in the dome. At the rear was a sweeping horseshoe staircase that embraced a tiny, wire-enclosed elevator.

The car was waiting behind its bra.s.s grill. Two of the men pushed Jonathan in. The three of them filled the small s.p.a.ce.

They rose in smooth silence, pa.s.sing up in the cage until the floor of the lobby seemed seventy feet below. There was a click and it stopped. The men opened a door on the far side. Beyond was a corridor, softly lit with lamps in wall sconces. The walls were cream; the floor was thickly car-peted in tan.

"You'll remember the senior men's floor," said one of the men as the three of them left the elevator.