They continued down the gloomy road to its end, where a path led toward a small, green-painted cottage with a screened porch.
‘That must be it,’ Nora said.
Tyler’s heart pounded hard. ‘I don’t see a car anywhere.’
‘Maybe he’s not home yet.’
They walked down the path. Tyler followed Nora up the porch steps. Nora knocked on the door, then pulled it open. Except for a swing suspended from its ceiling, the porch was empty. That seemed odd to Tyler. Similar cottages she’d known as a child while vacationing with her parents always had porches cluttered with gear: fishing rods, a tackle box and minnow bucket, a fishnet, an old Coleman lantern, a refrigerator well stocked with soda and beer, hooks on the walls draped with rain slickers and beach towels. There was none of that.
‘No doorbell,’ Nora whispered. ‘I’ll let you do the knocking.’ She stepped away from the door and sat on the swing. Its chains creaked and groaned as she pushed it into motion.
Tyler rapped lightly on the door. She waited, then struck harder. ‘I don’t think he’s home.’
‘It’s only about four thirty,’ Nora said from the swing.
Tyler cupped her hands to a glass pane in the door, and peered inside. She could see no more than the kitchen. ‘Maybe Barbie Doll gave us the wrong address,’ she said.
‘I doubt it. She was flaky, but not stupid.’
‘Well, nobody’s home.’
‘Shall we wait, or try again some other time?’
Tyler shrugged. Though disappointed, she also felt relieved; her eagerness to meet Dan was mixed with such anxiety that she was almost glad they had failed. ‘It might be a long wait,’ she said. ‘Cops have weird hours. He could’ve just started a shift, or something.’
‘Then you want to leave?’
‘We don’t want to keep you from the Happy Hour.’
‘I’m perfectly willing to wait.’
‘No, let’s go.’
They left the porch and walked up the path to the dirt road.
‘Maybe,’ Nora said, ‘we can check a phone directory when we get back, make sure we do have the right address. You might even give him a ring, unless you’re intent on making a surprise appearance.’
‘Yeah, that’s an idea.’ A phone call, she thought, would be much easier on the nerves. That way, at least, she might find out how he stood. They could arrange to meet, regardless. Even if he was married or engaged or there was some other reason not to renew their relationship, she still would like to see him again.
‘Ahoy there!’ a man called.
Seated on a lawn chair atop the strangely painted bus, a beer can raised in greeting, was a white-bearded man. He wore a ragged straw hat, a Hawaiian shirt, and plaid Bermuda shorts.
‘Captain Frank?’ Nora asked.
‘At your service, mateys.’
‘We’re looking for Dan Jenson,’ Tyler called up to him. ‘He lives at the end of the road?’
‘Not anymore.’ Captain Frank chuckled softly. ‘No indeed.’
‘He moved?’
‘You might say that.’
‘Do you know where we can find him?’
‘Can’t find him anywhere tonight. Try tomorrow, if you’re of a mind.’
‘Where?’
He tilted the beer can to his mouth, then crumpled it and tossed it down. It landed on the layer of pine needles beside his bus. ‘Oh, Dan’s not far off. No, indeed. Just down the road a spell. Can’t miss it. A place called Beast House.’
‘He lives there?’ Tyler asked.
‘I wouldn’t say that, not exactly. Go on by in the morning. Tell him Captain Frank sent you, and give Danny boy my regards.’ He waved them away.
‘Thanks,’ Tyler called.
They started walking.
‘He must work as a guard there,’ Nora said.
‘Yeah. I suppose. But he must live someplace.’
Nora shrugged. ‘You can ask him all about it tomorrow.’
‘I guess this means we’ll have to take the tour.’
‘You’ll love it. Tacky tacky.’
‘I can’t wait,’ she muttered.
‘Let’s get back to the inn and get tanked.’
8
Tyler pulled to a stop in front of their bungalow at the Welcome Inn. ‘It’ll take me a while to get cleaned up and changed,’ she said. ‘You can go on ahead to the restaurant, if you’d like.’
‘Fine,’ Nora said. ‘Meet you there.’
They climbed from the car.
Alone in her room, Tyler checked a drawer of the night stand between the beds. She found a Gideon Bible and a telephone book. She looked up Jenson, Daniel in the directory. The address listed after his name was 10 Seaside Lane.
According to Captain Frank, he didn’t live there now. Not anymore. No indeed.
She flipped the directory shut. The date on its cover was February 1978, making the book more than a year and a half old.
She considered dialing information.
Maybe later. Right now, she had neither the energy nor the desire. She sat motionless on the edge of the bed, the phone book resting on her thigh, and stared into space. She felt weary. Her mind seemed out of focus. In the pit of her stomach was a tiny knot of fear.
She wished that she was home in her own apartment, her life untouched by Barbie Doll, the horrible man on the highway, the leering Bix, the man who stared out like a specter from his cottage on Seaside, or Captain Frank on top of his grimly painted bus. Give Danny boy my regards.
And then she thought, Why not leave in the morning? First thing. As Nora pointed out, there’s no law you have to go looking for Dan.
Just get in the car, tomorrow, and bid farewell to all this. Tyler suddenly felt better, as if realizing she could leave had lifted an oppressive weight from her spirits. The knot of fear in her stomach loosened. She could leave. Nobody would force her to seek out Dan. Nobody would force her to take the Beast House tour.
If I don’t want to, she thought, I won’t.
She put away the telephone directory, pulled the curtains across the windows, and took off her clothes. Inspecting her bra in the dim light, she doubted she could ever remove the bloodstains entirely. Even if she succeeded, she would never forget this was the bra she had worn when the man attacked her. It would always be a reminder. So she took it into the bathroom and dropped it into the waste basket.
Standing by the road, she had cleaned most of the blood from her skin. But she hadn’t taken off her bra. Some blood had soaked through it, leaving faint rust-colored blotches on her breasts.
In the shower, she lathered her body with a thin bar of motel soap and used a washcloth to scrub her face and neck, her shoulders, her arms, her breasts – every inch of skin that had been touched by the man or his blood. She rinsed. She turned her back to the spray and looked down. Her breasts were tawny to the tan line, then creamy white to the darker flesh of her nipples. No trace of the blood stains remained. Nevertheless, she soaped the washcloth and scoured herself once more before leaving the tub.
The bath towel was threadbare and half the size of her towels at home. After drying herself, she wrapped it around her waist and left the steamy bathroom. She turned on a lamp. The towel pulled loose as she sat down at the dressing table. She left it draping her lap and brushed her hair. Only the fringes at her neck were damp from the shower. With the short length, she had no trouble fixing her hair up enough to look presentable.
Leaning against the table’s edge, she studied her face in the mirror. Her eyes needed help. Definitely. They looked haggard and slightly dazed. With a conceal stick from her makeup bag, she covered the smudges under each eye. She darkened her feathery lashes with mascara, then brushed her lids with light blue shadow. A vast improvement.
As she put on lipstick, she wondered why she hadn’t bothered to do all this before driving out to look for Dan. Well, she’d been in a hurry. And nervous. Maybe it was something else, though. Maybe it was simply that she thought he wouldn’t mind her
scruffy appearance. Or maybe, deep down, she had somehow known she wouldn’t find him.
She got up from the table. Its edge had left a crease like a long red scar just below her rib cage. She rubbed it as she carried the towel into the bathroom.
She had already decided what to wear. Though she would have preferred slacks because of the chill outside, she’d made up her mind to wear a skirt instead. Rummaging through her suitcase, she took out what she needed. She stepped into fresh panties, hooked her garter belt around her hips, and sat on the bed to put on her nylons. She’d selected a blue tweed skirt. It wasn’t very summery but then, neither was the weather. Not at night, anyway. With the skirt on, she slipped into a wispy bra. Its silken feel made her nipples rigid. She drew a white cashmere sweater down over her head. It wasn’t thick enough to hide the jut of her nipples completely, but her only other white bra was in the bathroom waste basket. A black one might show through the sweater.
‘What the hell,’ she muttered.
With Nora at the same table, who would be looking at her anyway?
Abe, that’s who.
She felt a rather pleasant, nervous tremor. It stayed with her as she stepped into her heels, put a few necessities into a clutch purse – including her room key – and approached the connecting door.
‘Nora?’ she called. ‘Left yet?’
‘Five minutes ago,’ came the answering voice, followed by a guffaw. ‘Want to come through? My side’s already open.’
Tyler pulled open her door. The room was a twin of her own. Nora was seated at the dressing table, changing her earrings. ‘I’m just about set,’ she said. She had on the same green gown she had worn to last night’s banquet. With her low neckline and spaghetti straps, she looked considerably more formal than Tyler.
‘Going to a prom?’ Tyler asked.
Nora eyed her, grinning. ‘My, don’t you look preppy. Going to a frat dance?’
‘Call me Muffin.’
‘I just figured I might as well give the boys something to look at.’
‘Where’s Jack going to pin your corsage?’
‘To my boobie, darling.’ Finished with her earrings, she took a white, cable-knit shawl off the bed, wrapped it around her shoulders, and picked up a purse that matched her gown. ‘Shall we be off?’
Outside, the breeze was mild. The sun felt much warmer than Tyler had expected. It hung above the distant tree-tops, blazing into her eyes. She lowered her head and watched her shoes move over the courtyard’s asphalt. ‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘About five thirty. The tail end of the Happy Hour.’
‘I hope Abe and Jack are the patient type.’
‘We’re well worth waiting for.’
‘Right.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not sure about all this business . . . looking for Dan, digging up the past. Maybe it’d be better to call it off.’
‘Getting the jitters?’
‘I’ve had the jitters all along. But nothing’s been going right, you know? It’s almost as if I’m not meant to find him.’
‘Meant? That’s a cop-out.’
‘And if I do find him, and if he’s not married or something, who’s to say we’re still . . . I don’t know, the same people? I know I’m not. He’s probably changed, too.’
‘No harm in giving it a shot.’
‘Isn’t there? I don’t know.’
Nora frowned at her, looking concerned. ‘What is it?’
‘I just . . . it didn’t seem like such a bad idea, last night. But after everything today . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I have this kind of sick feeling about it.’
‘Just nerves.’
‘No, it’s more than that. I have this feeling that if I do find Dan, I’m going to be very sorry. I’m going to wish I hadn’t.’
They crossed the entry drive to a shaded walkway.
‘It has been one hell of a day,’ Nora agreed. ‘I can’t blame you for feeling a bit down. But maybe you’ll feel different in the morning.’
‘Maybe,’ Tyler said.
Nora pulled open one of the double doors, and they entered the restaurant. The hostess’s desk, with a gooseneck lamp shining down on the reservation list, was deserted. No one was seated in the dining area to the right, but the tables were set. A woman in an ankle-length dress was bent over one, lighting the chimney candle of its centrepiece. From the left came the sounds of quiet conversation and clinking glass.
They stepped past the desk, past the partition behind it, and entered the cocktail lounge. Several people were seated at the bar: a lone man joking with the bartender, a middle-aged redhead with her hand on the thigh of the man beside her, a husky gray-haired man sitting with a blond fellow. Tyler turned her eyes to the tables. She spotted Abe and Jack in a corner booth, and Jack waved. ‘They’re over . . .’
‘That’s Gorman Hardy,’ Nora said. She was leaning sideways as if to get a better look at someone down the bar.
‘The one with the other guy?’
‘That “other guy” is Brian Blake.’
Tyler could only see the back of the older man, but the blond one was talking, head turned enough to show the side of his face. ‘You might be right,’ she said.
‘Of course I’m right. Let’s go over and say hi.’
‘Must we?’
‘He’s not such an asshole.’
‘I never said he was.’
‘Effete, arrogant, and slimy – same difference. Come on, don’t abandon me.’
‘What the hell.’
Nora waved at Abe and Jack, then lifted a forefinger to signal they would be over in a minute. Tyler, smiling toward Abe, shrugged and shook her head like an unwilling accomplice. She followed Nora down the bar.
The younger man looked over his shoulder as they approached. He was indeed Brian Blake, whose ghastly experiences had been the subject of Hardy’s bestseller. He didn’t appear to recognize either Tyler or Nora, but then, his eyes had barely settled on their faces before sliding down to check out the rest. Apparently pleased by what he found, he bestowed a smile.
Hardy swiveled himself sideways. ‘Ladies?’
‘Mr Hardy,’ Nora said. ‘We met you at the NLA.’
For just an instant, he looked wary. He covered it quickly with a smile. ‘Oh, yes. Certainly.’ His gaze shifted from Nora to Tyler. ‘We spoke briefly at the cocktail party, I believe.’
‘I didn’t have the pleasure,’ Blake said.
‘I’m Nora Branson. This is Tyler Morgan.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, and shook hands with both of them. ‘I didn’t attend the party, but I suppose you caught my talk.’
‘It was fascinating,’ Nora said. ‘Horrifying.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You almost made a believer out of me.’
He looked amused. ‘Almost?’
‘I don’t think I’ll ever quite believe in ghosties till one goes bump into me.’
‘Touché,’ said Hardy. He laughed and picked up his martini. ‘I suppose you were also skeptical of the book. You did read the book?’
‘I don’t know anyone who hasn’t.’
‘Neither do I, my dear, neither do I.’
‘Could we buy you ladies a drink?’ Blake asked.
‘No, thank you,’ Tyler said. ‘We’re with some others. In fact, we shouldn’t keep them waiting.’
Nora snapped her fingers. ‘You’re the Mercedes, I’ll bet. We’re neighbors.’
‘In that case, perhaps we’ll be seeing you again.’
‘Are you just passing through, or . . .’ Her eyes suddenly widened. ‘You’re here for Beast House! You’re going to do a book on it. That’s the “secret project” you referred to at the party.’
‘Oh, no,’ Hardy said. ‘Not at all. We’re on our way up to Portland for another speaking engagement.’
‘We do plan to take a look at the place,’ Blake added. ‘Of course. We could hardly pass
through this area without stopping in for the famous Beast House tour.’
‘When’ll you be doing it – tomorrow?’
‘First thing in the morning,’ Blake said.
Nora grinned. ‘Maybe we’ll see you there.’
Tyler’s stomach tightened. ‘We’d better get going,’ she said.
‘Yeah, we’d better.’
‘Our loss,’ Blake said, and winked at Nora. Winked.
‘Ciao,’ Hardy said.
Tyler winced. ‘Bye,’ she said.
‘See you later,’ said Nora.
Finally, they were heading for the corner booth. ‘Isn’t that incredible!’ Nora said in a hushed voice.
‘Brian Blake?’
‘Him, too. No, I mean that they’re gonna be doing Beast House.’
‘They aren’t.’
‘That’s what he said, but that doesn’t make it true. They just don’t want word getting out, or some damn rip-off artist will beat them to the punch with a Beast House book.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe? I’d bet on it. And we can be there when they take the tour. It’ll be like being part of literary history. We were there when Gorman Hardy first stepped inside Beast House!’
‘You were there.’
‘Aw, you’ll . . .’
‘Sorry we kept you waiting,’ Tyler interrupted.
‘No problem,’ Abe said, rising to his feet. He had changed into gray slacks and a blue blazer. He wore no tie. His yellow shirt was open at the throat. ‘Did you run into some friends?’
‘Not friends,’ Tyler said. She slipped into the booth and sat down beside him.
Nora sat across the table. She patted Jack’s forearm through the sleeve of his flashy plaid sport jacket. ‘Those two at the bar,’ she explained, ‘are Gorman Hardy and Brian Blake.’
‘Brian Blake?’ Jack asked. He looked at Nora with the eagerness of an enthralled child. ‘Sure. The middleweight contender out of Pittsburg.’
‘No,’ Abe said. ‘That’s Byron Blake.’
‘Well, who’s this guy?’
Abe signaled to the barmaid. As she approached, Nora said, ‘Do you know that book, Horror at Black River Falls?’
‘Saw the show.’ He looked at Abe. ‘They ran it at the post last month. That haunted house flick where blood came out of the faucets and the gal ended up opening her wrists.’