Charles Grant - Night Songs

"I tried," Garve said. Two gone; two more. "Goddamn it, I tried."

He waited for an explanation, and when none came he sipped from his last drink and looked in the mirror rising behind the bottles opposite his seat. It was obvious the man needed something, and that something wasn't liquor. Garve was, in fact, very much like himself twenty years ago. He had practiced on the mainland, was successful (except with women), and didn't quite know what the hell was wrong with his life. Then a friend had called, and would Hugh mind covering his office while he was in Barbados? Hugh asked where, asked where again, and decided what the hell. He came, he saw, the island conquered and his friend gladly stayed away because Haven's End was no place to make a million.

Fate, perhaps, but Hugh never questioned it. If he was, as his father had put it just before he died, a rabbit afraid of a little hard living, then this was the perfect burrow for his soul.

Garve groaned, and his elbow slipped off the bar.

"My friend," Hugh said, "I'm going to write you a prescription."

Garve nodded slowly, as if his head were threatening to come loose.

"In fact, I'm even going to fill it for you."

Garve nodded again and glowered at his reflection.

Hugh gripped the leather edge of the bar and slipped himself off the stool. When he was positive the door wouldn't move away, he headed for it, heard Garve shout behind him and ignored him. Outside, he shivered, angled to his left and aimed straight for Annalee Covey's.

Five minutes later Garve realized he was alone. He squinted at the stool beside him, rubbed the heel of his right hand over his eyes, and squinted again. Son of a bitch, he thought, the doc's a magician. Wish to hell I could make myself disappear.

He hadn't been kidding about "one of those nights."

He'd found Lombard at Cameron's house out at the Estates and had come on like some simpleminded refugee from the worst episode of "Dragnet." Warren Harcourt's had his throat slit just down the road and all I want is the facts. Just the facts, mac, and don't give me no crap. And they hadn't. They'd sat there in that cushy living room at least as big as his own place, and offered him Glenlivet neat or on the rocks, and smiled and talked and just about got him down on his knees so they could pat his head and call him a good dog.

Well, maybe not that bad. Cameron had had the sense to be scared out of his mind. Lombard, however, was oily and smooth and quiet and maddening, and when neither of them admitted to knowing where Theo Vincent was, he'd actually lost his temper. Something inside burst like a stoppered pipe, filling him with a bile he could only get rid of by yelling. He reared up and read them his own version of the riot act and stormed out as if he'd just whipped them to within an inch of their miserable lives. The door had slammed behind him. He had driven away so recklessly fast he'd jounced over three curbs before he regained control.

And he knew as he headed back into town that he'd made an absolute jackass of himself. After that speech to Colin and Peg in Hugh's office, after all he'd tried to teach Eliot about the difference between the law and justice and the tightrope between them, he'd forgotten himself.

"You're an Indian, Chief?" Lombard had asked, as casually as if he'd been wondering if it were dark outside. "No. No, I'm wrong, and I'm sorry. Part Indian, right? A grandmother, as I recall."

So carefully phrased, so gently put, and it sounded to Garve as if he'd just been called a half-breed.

That was when his temper went, and that was when he stormed out and roared into the Anchor Inn's parking lot and thundered into the bar and began drinking himself to death.

Suddenly a blast of damp, cold air washed over the bar. His untouched paper napkin fluttered, the collar of his shirt jumped to cover his neck. He lowered his glass slowly, turned, and stared a long moment at Annalee before he finally nodded.

"Hugh wants to give you a prescription," she said. She was wearing a plaid shirt open two buttons down and pulled out of her jeans, sandals on her bare feet, a cardigan cloaked over her shoulders.

"Hugh," he said, stifling a belch, "is a noisy twerp."

She sat and folded her arms on the bar. "You're drunk."

"Not yet, but I'm working on it." He raised a finger to signal the bartender, and she grabbed it, held it until he turned to face her. "Lee, I'm not…" He was going to say, I'm not in the mood, but the look of her, and the touch of her hand, stopped him. He shrugged with a lift of an eyebrow and lowered his hand; she did not let go.

"Where's Hugh?" he asked, trying not to let the smell of her hair penetrate the sharp odor of the bourbon.

"On his way home, I hope," she said, her hand shifting from one finger to the whole hand. "A little wobbly, but I think he'll make it."

"He's a good man."

"You said he was a noisy twerp."

He grinned lopsidedly. "I speak with forked tongue."

"You drink another one of those and you won't be able to speak at all."

He managed a barking laugh, picked up his glass, emptied it, and slammed it onto the counter so hard he made himself wince. There was no taste to the liquor at all; he'd burned out his tongue, and the fire in his stomach was rapidly turning to acid.

Ten minutes passed while they stared at each other in the mirror. Garve licked his lips. Her eyes, that hair-damn, but she was making him nervous.

"Hugh said you had a bad night."

"Hugh talks too much."

"You, uh, want to talk?"

Yes, he thought, Lord, yes.

"No," he said. Then he smiled. "I don't… I don't think I can."

"Okay," she said. "Maybe later."

Later? he thought. Jesus Christ, Hugh, what did you say to her?

"C'mon," she said then, standing and taking his arm.

"What?"

She pulled him to his feet, and grabbed his waist when he discovered that someone had substituted rubber for his knees. It wasn't right, he thought as she lead him carefully to the door, I can walk, damn it. She doesn't have to carry me.

The door opened, and the fresh air smacked his cheeks, dried his throat. "Oh God," he groaned, "I think I'm dying."

"You're impossible, you know that, don't you," she said, guiding him across the parking lot toward her house.

"Where are we going?"

She looked at him sideways. "Are you really that drunk?"

He felt stupid and helpless, and was amazed to realize that he didn't mind at all. As long as she was there to hang on and keep him from falling, as long as she was there, period, he decided he would survive.

At the end of the parking lot he stumbled over a raised section of curbing, laughed self-consciously, and looked up to the small house. Fog had drifted in from the woods behind it, pooling in the yard, clinging to his face and pulling his skin tight. He stopped when they were halfway there, turned and stared at the street. The bourbon was numbing him, fuzzing his mind, but he still didn't like the way the street looked.

He thought he heard footsteps on the grass, beside the house, in the dark.

"Lee?"

She was hugging his arm now. "Yes," she said. "I know. C'mon, let's hurry."

They almost ran the last few steps to the porch, and he was grateful she had not locked the door, that the lights witch was right at hand, that she did not stop but led him straight to the bedroom.

"Lee?"

"Garve," she said, pulling at his shirt while he sagged onto the bed. "Garve, don't worry. I'm here. It's all right."

He rubbed at his eyes, felt the mattress on his back, and knew that she was lying. Whoever was out there, whatever was out there, it wasn't all right at all. It wasn't all right.

Eliot decided to check on the Estates, to try to rid his system of its inexplicable nervousness-they weren't Gran's prints, damn it-and to see if anyone needed help boarding windows, loading cars. He nearly braked when he reached the Sunrise Motel and thought he saw a light behind one of the drawn curtains. The hell with it, he thought, speeding up again; if Cart wanted to take himself some tail that was no concern of his. With luck the storm would blow the creep away.

Just beyond Mayfair's he swung left, wincing at the tires' high-pitched protest against the tarmac, slowing as he entered Dunecrest Estates. The homes began on his left, dark for the most part, a few lighted as they swung left with the road. He parked at the curve and switched off the ignition, and with a glance to his right remember that Lilla was supposedly still in Gran's shack.

He hesitated, then thought, why not. Save a crazy-with-grief girl and make yourself a hero. It was certainly better than scaring himself to death.

This print, patrolman, belongs to Gran D'Grou.

He shuddered and slid out of her car.

The sand was cold beneath his shoes, the sawgrass slapping harshly against his legs. The ocean grumbled, a giant turning in its sleep, and he slipped once, going down on one knee before he was able to right himself again.

"Hell."

He dusted off his trousers, slapped his palms together, and grunted when the sand flattened and hardened and he could see the shack, just barely, just black.

He stopped.

He should turn around right now and try to find Garve, to give him the information and take the temper tossed into his lap. Even while he stood here the chief was probably ringing his house, cussing a blue streak and hitching at his belt. He may not have called Flocks, but he knew El was due back, and he needed to know what they'd found on the card. A disgusted grunt, and he started forward, There was a light on in the shack. He could see it wavering in the cracks in the walls, sec it leaking from beneath the poorly-hung front door. He glanced around and scratched at the side of his neck, looked around again and lifted his hand to knock.

The door swung open.

He stared at his fist, at the door, at the darkened room beyond and the light in the back-a red-gold light that refused to remain still. Firelight. Candlelight. And with it a faint stench that finally registered and pursed his lips. He swallowed.

"Lilla?" Softly, as though he would frighten her if he used his normal voice.

"Hey, Lil, it's Eliot."

A foot over the threshold cautiously, one hand out to grip the door's frame. "Lil? Lilla, it's El Nichols." The light.

A board creaked sharply when he stepped inside, and he was back on the sand in a single nervous jump. He gnawed on his lower lip, pulled at the side of his neck. This was stupid. He should walk right in, calling her name, and tell her he was going to take her back to her home. Simple as that.

But the front room was dark, and the light was red-gold.

And the stench made him think of damp open graves.

He listened then, shunting the sound of the ocean to one side, thinking he might have heard the sound of her weeping. A moment later he gave up; there was nothing. His imagination. The shack was empty, except for that damned light.

And the beach was empty, except for the footsteps behind him.

He wanted to spin around with his gun in his hand. The night, the storm, and Gran's fingerprints, had spooked him. Instead, he turned slowly, a smile waiting to spread in case it was Lilla.

There was a shadow in the trees.

He relaxed.

"Lilla, for God's sake."

The light flared behind him, rushed past him, and stretched his shadow along the sand until its tip reached the feet of the shadow in the trees. Instinctively, his hand cupped the butt of his revolver, his fingers automatically unsnapping the flap. At the same time he began to sidle toward the dunes.