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  Charlie shook a cramp from his hand, letting the whore’s photo fall as he did. It landed on top of the others. Yesterday, the picture had been new. Exciting. Her clean-scrubbed face and innocent expression had fueled his fantasies. In his mind, he’d taken her in just about every way a man could have a woman. Now her tired eyes mocked him. She was just another dirty whore lying in a pack of them.

  But in the end, they were all dirty whores, every single last daughter of Eve. God had put them on earth to serve men. To please men. Charlie was a man, but still they looked on him like he was nothing more than trash. Even the waitress at the diner, the one with the wide, pockmarked face whom he thought of as “Bucktoothed Betty,” though he knew Betty wasn’t her real name. He took another sip of the moonshine, the smell of the corn liquor like sweet, hot garbage in his nostrils as he struggled to remember her name. It failed to come to him, but what the hell, it didn’t really matter what she called herself. To him, she’d always be Bucktoothed Betty.

  Betty would linger around the tables of the other men she served, leaning in toward her customers, inviting them to reach out and place their clean, smooth hands on her, maybe on the small of her back, or if she was lucky, lower. But she always took her time finding his table, and hurried away as soon as she laid his coffee and eggs before him. She tried never to look at him, and when it could not be avoided, she focused on the cataract that clouded his bad eye. Still, his good eye undressed her until she stood before him as naked as any of the women who splayed their legs on his postcards.

  Another sip of liquor turned his mind from the waitress to that smart-mouthed girl he’d delivered out to the Dunne farm. He remembered her name, which had been drilled into his mind by Mrs. Dunne. A beauty compared to Betty, but still a plain girl when he considered her against the naked French girls looking up at him from his table. Even so, that Corinne was a healthy girl, a girl with a sturdy frame. The kind of woman who could struggle up against a man’s weight, not just lie pinned beneath it. Still, after Ruby, she was a step down for young Elijah.

  Charlie felt himself stiffening at the thought of Ruby. She’d been so beautiful. So proud. She never would have considered giving herself to him in life, but in death she’d looked so sweet and cool and willing. He’d gotten to see what she had to offer, all right. As he dressed her, he even got to let his hand run along her breast, down her stomach, clean down to just above her secret place. The Judge would have hanged him if he’d even suspected the thought had entered Charlie’s head, but Charlie would’ve liked to hike her skirt right back up and mount her before he laid her out in her shiny steel coffin. If he could’ve found more than a moment alone with her, he might’ve done just that.

  As the fantasy insinuated itself in his mind, Charlie’s breath grew heavier, and he pushed his hand against the tabletop to force himself up. His hand shook as he dimmed the lamp’s flame, extinguishing it. Light, dark, it didn’t matter to his eyes, not when his vision was blurred with need. It was the need itself that called for darkness, that cried to be hidden. His gnarled fingers struggled with the buckle of his belt. He tugged the leather strap from its loops and swung it with such ferocity that it cut through the air with a whistle. The metal buckle swooped down and bit into his skin. A sharp intake of breath. He let the sting linger, then swung the strap against his back again and again.

  Sweat formed on his brow, then his chest as the rhythm of the strap and the pain carried him away, raising welts, which were the price of his pleasure. His left hand lowered itself beneath the band of his trousers. At his own touch, he gritted his teeth and raised his head. Through his narrowed eyes, he saw a face on the other side of the window, watching, mirroring his own pleasure. Charlie quickly freed his hand and fell back from the table.

  “What are you?” Anger overtook him. Anger at having been caught, at having been interrupted after he had already paid his price. “Watching a man like that? Some kind of pervert?” His passion was washed away by a hot flash of shame. His heart felt like it would explode. In the next instant, he realized the face must have been his own reflection, and he very nearly smiled until he noticed the blue light that shone from the other’s eyes. Then the blue light was gone, and the face along with it. Charlie took a few careful steps toward the window, drawing near the glass. He leaned forward, his stomach pressing into the sink’s cold porcelain, his hand grasping hold of the manual pump that fed water into it. The windowpane suddenly shattered inward, and Charlie fell backward onto the floor, raising his arm to shelter his eyes from the shards of glass. When he looked up at the broken window, he saw that it had been smashed by the force of his own dog’s muzzle. The dog, Tic, pulled back, then lunged again, weakening the wood between the panes.

  “Ask me in.” A woman’s voice, a familiar voice, came from the dog’s mouth. Tic then growled and backed away.

  “What the hell?” Charlie asked no one in particular, as he struggled to place the voice. Somebody was fucking with him. This had to be some kind of damned joke. He’d seen a man talking with a doll in his lap at that vaudeville show in Tupelo. This was the same trick, nothing more.

  Tic made another angry lunge at the window, and Charlie twisted around on the floor, pushing up to his knees. This time the animal made its way through, but a broken pane nearly severed its right front leg as it tumbled to the floor. Unable to stand, the beast wailed in agony, but then it began to drag itself across the kitchen floor, growling and snapping. Charlie whipped at it with his belt, but the dog caught the strap in its mouth midair and yanked it from his hand. Charlie pushed himself back in quick and jagged movements until he felt the pain of the welts on his back make contact with the wall. He couldn’t risk taking his eyes off the dog, so he moved sideways, feeling behind himself until he found the open threshold leading to the main room.

  Tic strained and tried again to stand, but the floor was wet and slippery from the dog’s own blood, so much blood that Charlie wondered how it could still be alive. Something, a quiet voice at the back of his own mind, told him that the dog wasn’t really alive. Tic whined as he continued his slow slide toward Charlie, not from pain but from the frustration of not being able to reach his prey. Tic’s head turned at an angle. “Ask me in,” the voice said once more. The dog’s eyes shone blue with the same haunted, fiery hate Charlie had seen in the eyes of the watcher from the window, then Tic’s head fell flat.

  Charlie’s bare feet pumped against the kitchen floor as he forced his way through the doorway. He carried on, moving backward, crossing the whole of his main room, stopping only when his back thumped against the wood of his front door. He reached back over his shoulder, feeling around until he found the brass doorknob. He was almost ready to turn it, to open the door and make a run for his truck, when he heard a woman’s laughter coming from its other side. He froze as a banging began, fists pounding, shaking the door. The pounding stopped, only to be replaced by something worse: the scratching of desperate—no, hungry—animals. A whining he well knew, the sound of another one of his dogs. It was the bitch, Tac. She was young and willful. He’d had to take a strap to her more than once, and he knew the sound she made when she was scared. But this time she wasn’t scared of him.

  His own whimpering reached his ears, and he hated himself for it.

  A pane of the window in his front room shattered, and a hot breeze blew through. “Open the door, Charlie,” the woman’s voice called through the opening. Charlie forced his eyes closed so that he could concentrate. He knew this voice. But it was impossible.

  Charlie’s breath came in hard gasps now, and his heart was pounding like it wanted out of his chest. He fought until he could remember how to make a sound. “You done had your fun now,” he said, his voice breaking. “Get on out of here. Go on,” he called out as loud as his failing lungs would let him. “Get on home now.”

  Again he heard the woman’s shrill laughter. “One last chance, Charlie,” she said. “Ask me in, and I might let you keep your balls.” His mind tri
ed to deny what his gut knew—who she was—but his body couldn’t. He pissed himself. His whimpers grew to sobs.

  The door began to shake again behind him, causing his sweaty palm to lose its grasp of the knob. Now he could hear the howling of both his remaining dogs behind the door, feel each jarring of the wood as they took turns slamming their weight into it and clawing it. He spun around, calculating the distance back to the kitchen. He knew the woods around this place better than anyone. Could he get out the back and make it past the tree line? The front door was weakening, a bulge forming behind his back, and it wouldn’t be long before his animals broke through . . . and turned on him. He forced himself into a crouching position, then rose to his feet. The dogs seemed to have stopped their assault, but then the door burst out of its frame, large splinters scattering across the room.

  His dogs, Tac and Toe, padded through the ruined door, each stopping a few feet before him, waiting obediently for their mistress’s command. “You should’ve asked me in, Charlie.” Her voice came from the bitch’s muzzle. “I might have gone easier on you then.” Now her voice came out of the remaining male. “I might have let you serve me.”

  Then, just beyond the splintered opening that had once held his front door, he saw Ruby, her eyes beckoning to him, erasing any fear, any thought of resisting. He shuddered at the sight, not in fear, but in desire. For the briefest of moments there was no sound, only stillness.

  Quicker than his eyes could register the movement, Ruby pulled back, away from the opening, away from his house. She stopped when she reached the middle of the field, nearly glowing in the darkness. He stood and walked to the gaping opening of the door so he could get a better look at her. She was beautiful, perfect. She wasn’t a whore like all the others. For the first time in his life, Charlie knew what it felt like to be in love. He took a deep breath, a sense of peace rising up in him. Then the dogs fell on him, snarling, biting, knocking him down. The bitch sunk her teeth into his leg, gushing blood all over the denim of his pants. The young male took his other leg. They spun him around and pulled him facedown from the house and onto the porch. His face banged again and again and again against the concrete steps, knocking out the few front teeth he had. Blood filled his mouth as the dogs dragged him away from any hope of safety and into the woods.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Frank had polished off the bottle pretty much on his own, but the alcohol wasn’t working. True, it had dulled his senses and messed with his memory, but what was forgotten and what was remembered didn’t follow Frank’s preference. He had made his way from Nola’s bar to her bed without remembering how, but for the life of him, he couldn’t shake the memory of that trip he and Bayard had made to retrieve Ruby. Eyes open, eyes closed, his thoughts kept returning to a day best forgotten.

  They had made their way from the train station and traveled miles down the straight then winding Sunset Boulevard. “There it is,” Crane, the detective, had said right before pulling his fake delivery truck into the drive leading to Myrna King’s house. “Keep low,” Crane ordered, but Frank couldn’t help but lean out the window to take it all in. The house was huge, with a rough white plaster exterior. It had one of those red tile roofs, the likes of which he’d never seen before arriving in California. Naked lady statues and bright flowers lined the drive, and he knew without looking there had to be a pool in back. This was exactly the kind of place where a movie star should live. This was exactly the kind of place Frank would have liked for himself.

  Frank knew he was a good-looking guy. Definitely for Conroy. But he was also as handsome as many of the faces that ended up on the big screen. For a moment, Frank let himself imagine letting Bayard take Ruby home on his own. Staying here in Hollywood, maybe seeing if he could make it in the movies.

  Crane killed the engine, and, with it, Frank’s daydream. “I’ve got a box of groceries in the back. I’ll take it around to the delivery entrance. See if they’ll let me in. If so, I’ll try to find an excuse to get further into the house. Figure out the lay of the place and see if I can spot your Ruby.” He swung his door open. “Stay here, and stay out of sight.”

  “How long you gonna be?” Bayard asked, his voice thinner and more high-pitched than usual.

  “As long as it takes,” Crane responded, but then stopped, as if he’d suddenly thought of something. “You both armed?”

  Frank patted his coat, and Bayard said, “Of course,” like it was the dumbest question in the world.

  Crane ignored Bayard’s tone. “If I’m not out in fifteen, you come in after me.” He shut the driver’s door and opened the back of truck.

  “You sure you want to work it this way?” Frank called back over his shoulder in a hushed but audible voice. “Maybe we should just push our way in and pull her out?”

  “No. Let me take a look first.” He leaned over Frank and Bayard’s borrowed suitcase and lifted up the box of groceries. He slammed the door closed, and began whistling as he carried the box toward the delivery entrance of the house.

  Frank looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes.

  “I don’t like this,” Bayard said. “He said these people are witches.”

  “No,” Frank said, trying to keep his partner calm. “He said they’re ‘occultists.’ And they aren’t very good ones or their boss wouldn’t have blown himself up. There’s nothing to worry about. These are just plain regular people. Crazier than shithouse rats maybe, but still nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing this”—he flipped open his jacket to reveal his holster—“won’t take care of.”

  Bayard’s face relaxed, but the dark circles under his watery blue eyes were a reminder that he hadn’t felt at ease since leaving Conroy. “What about the boy? Do we take him back, too, if we find him, or do we kill him?”

  “The Judge ain’t said nothing about the boy,” Frank continued. “He only said he wants us to bring Ruby home. And this ain’t Conroy. If you get your sorry ass thrown into jail out here for hurting the boy, ain’t gonna be much the Judge can do to help us. And we will have failed the Judge by not bringing Ruby home.”

  Bayard’s jaw moved side to side as he considered Frank’s words. “How much longer?”

  “Fourteen minutes,” Frank said, shaking his wristwatch, then holding it up to his ear to make sure the damned thing was still running. He lowered his wrist and began tracking the curves of one of the statues with his eyes. Bayard shifted in his seat, clearly impatient to get in and get the job done. He opened his mouth to say something when the sound of a gunshot caused them both to startle and stare at each other.

  Frank flung his door open, ran to the front of the house, and tried to open the massive handle, only to find it locked. Always the slower of the two, Bayard only reached the door as Frank was releasing the handle. “You go that way”—Frank pointed right—“and meet me at the back.” After glancing around to see if anyone was headed in their direction, he tore around the house’s left. He arrived at the back to find the door to the service entrance wide open. He moved toward it with caution, keeping close to the wall and ducking as he passed a window. He slid up near the open entrance as Bayard came puffing and red faced around the corner. Frank held up his hand to signal that they should move forward with caution.

  Leading the way, Frank peered through the door, which opened into a large kitchen. There was no movement, no sign of life. He rounded the doorway with his back toward the jamb. He stopped short when he noticed the box Crane had been carrying. It had been flung to the floor, its contents scattered in a nearly straight line toward the far side of the room, but there was no sign of Crane himself. Bayard arrived at the entrance, nearly stumbling over the threshold and into the room. He’d already drawn his gun, and in his other hand he held his favorite knife, the one with the serrated blade. Frank nodded toward the door at the far side of the kitchen, and made his way across the room with the softest steps his leather-soled shoes allowed. Bayard plodded heavily behind him, causing Frank to turn and hold his finger up to his lips. Hi
s partner clearly didn’t understand, so he pointed down at Bayard’s feet and mimicked taking a step.

  The sound of a woman’s laughter rang out all around them like a pealing bell. “Really,” a voice came from a darkened corner, “you two are positively delightful. Now put away your toys.” She pointed at Bayard’s weapons, and watched until he obeyed.

  Frank squinted to make out the figure he’d somehow missed. He instantly recognized her from the matinees he’d seen as a boy. It was Myrna King herself. She laughed again, gliding with a practiced grace across the floor and toward the open door. “If you wanted an autograph, there are easier ways to go about it than breaking and entering.”

  “We didn’t break nothing, lady,” Bayard said, a quiver in his voice. He gave Frank a look that begged him to figure out what was happening, to take the lead.

  “Perhaps not,” Myrna said, closing the door and turning the lock with a pronounced click. “But you did enter.” She stopped and struck a dramatic pose. “‘Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will,’” she said looking at them with expectation in her eyes. She tilted her head to the side, and in spite of the uneasiness Frank felt gnawing at his guts, he liked what he saw when he looked at her. Crane was right. She looked a hell of a lot better than a woman her age had any right to look. She had a waist he could put his hands around, and her bottom reminded Frank of a sweet, ripe peach. She had tits for days, and they still hung high and perky. Her blue eyes sparkled. Her curly blonde hair felt softly around her face. More than that, though, this lady had class. She gave her curls a slight shake. “No?” she asked, seemingly disappointed by their failure to react. “Okay, not the literary type, I see. How may I help you gentlemen?”