Mystery Walk

glass of orange juice. Bring it up to his room.'

Wayne pushed the oxygen mask away from his face. 'She was here in the pool and she grabbed me and wanted me to die she's waiting for me she said she wanted me to know what death was like. . . .' His voice cracked, and he clung to Niles like a little boy.

'Help me with him,' he told Dorn. 'He's got to be ready to leave in the morning.'

'No don't make me go back,' Wayne moaned. 'Please don't make me go back she's waiting for me in the lake she wants me to come back. ...'

'He's flipped his fucking lid!' Dorn picked up the pajamas, his wet shoes squeaking.

'So what else is new? Come on, let's get him upstairs.'

'Don't make me go back!' Wayne blubbered. 'I want to stay with Mr Krepsin, I want to stay and I'll be a good boy, I'll be good I swear I swear it. ...'

As they reached the glass partition, Niles looked over his shoulder at the pool and thought he saw a shadow—a huge shadow, maybe seven feet tall, that might have been some kind of animal standing on its hind legs—in the corner where there should have been no shadows. He blinked; the shadow was gone.

'What is it?' Dorn asked.

'Nothing. Damn it, this door should've been locked!'

'I thought it was.'

'Forever,' Wayne said, the tears dripping down his face. 'I want to stay here forever Don't make me leave . . . please don't. ...'

Niles turned off the pool's light. For an instant the rippling of disturbed water sounded like a high, inhuman giggle.

TWELVE

Inferno

59

Lizards scampered over rocks baking in the sun. A distant line of sharp-edged mountains shimmered in the midday Mexican heat. As Niles came out of the air-conditioned interior of Krepsin's concrete bunker twenty-five miles north of Torreon, he slipped on his sunglasses to keep from being blinded by a world of burning white.

Niles, immaculate in a khaki suit, walked past Thomas Alvarado's copper Lincoln Continental toward the concrete garage where a few electric carts were kept. Under a brightly striped canvas awning, Wayne Falconer was hitting golf balls out into the desert, where pipe-organ cactus and palmetto grew like a natural barbed-wire fence. Wayne had been urged to find something to do while Krepsin went over business matters with Alvarado, Ten High's Mexican connection.

Wayne hit a ball and shielded his eyes from the glare, watching it bounce across the rocky terrain. It came to rest about twenty yards from one of the observation towers, where a bored Mexican security man dreamt of a cold margarita.

'Nice shot,' Niles observed.

Wayne looked up. His eyes were drugged from the extra Valium in his system, his movements slow and heavy. Since the incident at the swimming pool several days before, Wayne had needed careful watching. He fawned over Mr. Krepsin at every opportunity, and Niles was sick of him. Wayne's face was puffy with sunburn.

'I'm almost through with this bucket of balls,' he told Niles, his speech slurring. 'Get another one.'

'Mr Krepsin says my church is going to be the biggest one in the world.'

'That's fine.' Niles walked past him, in a hurry.

'Are you going out there again?' Wayne asked, motioning with his golf club toward the little white concrete structure about a mile away from the main house. 'I saw Lucinda go out there with some food this morning. I saw her come back. Who's out there, Mr Niles?'

The man paid no attention to him. Suddenly there was the whoosh of the golf club, and a ball cracked off the garage wall and ricocheted dangerously close to Niles. He tensed and turned toward Wayne.

Wayne was smiling, but his face was slack and Niles sensed his belligerence. Niles had realized in the last few days that Wayne was jealous of his closeness to Mr. Krepsin. 'You thought you could fool me, didn't you?' Wayne asked. 'You thought you could put him right under my nose and I wouldn't know.'

'No one's trying to fool you.'

'Oh yes you are. I know who's over there. I've known all along!'

'Who, Wayne?'

'Henry Bragg.' Wayne's smile stretched wider 'He's resting, isn't he? And that's why I'm not supposed to go over there.'

'That's right.'

'When can I see him? I want to tell him I'm sorry he got hurt.'

'You'll see him soon.'

'Good.' Wayne nodded. He wanted to see Henry very much, to let him know what he was doing for Mr. Krepsin. Last night Krepsin had asked him to feel a lump in his neck because he was afraid it might be a cancer. Wayne hadn't been able to feel any lump at all, but said he did anyway, and that Mr Krepsin would be just fine. 'I've been having that nightmare again, Mr Niles.'

'Which one?'

'The one I have all the time. I thought I wouldn't have nightmares anymore, after she was dead. The snake and the eagle are trying to kill each other, and last night the snake bit the eagle in the neck and pulled it to the ground.' He blinked, staring out at the horizon. 'The snake's winning. I don't want it to win. But I can't stop it.'

'It doesn't mean anything. It's just a dream.'

'No sir. It's more. I know it is. Because . . . when the eagle dies, I'm scared something inside me—something important—is going to die too.'

'Let's see you hit another ball,' Niles said. 'Go ahead, tee it up.'

Wayne moved like an obedient machine. The ball sailed out toward another observation tower.

Niles continued to the garage, got in one of the electric carts, and drove out toward the white structure. A fly buzzed around his head in the heat, and the air smelled like scorched metal.

Niles rapped on the door. Lucinda, a short squat Mexican woman with gray hair and a seamed, kindly face, opened it at once. He stepped into a sparsely furnished living room where a fan blew the heavy air around. 'How is he?' he asked in Spanish.

She shrugged. 'Still sleeps. I gave him another shot about an hour ago.'

'Was he coming out of it?'

'Enough to be talking. He spoke a girl's name: Bonnie. After this morning when he threw his breakfast all over the wall, I wanted to take no chances.'

'Good. Mr. Krepsin wants to see him tonight. Until then, we'll just keep him under.' Niles unlocked a slatted door across the room and stepped into a darkened, windowless bedroom with cinder-block walls. The boy was lying on the bed with a strap across his chest, though the precaution was hardly necessary; he was deeply asleep from the drug Lucinda had injected. The boy had been kept drugged since he'd been brought in on the private airstrip behind Krepsin's bunker several days before. Niles stood over him, felt the boy's pulse, hooked up an eyelid and then let it fall. This was the boy Wayne feared so much? Niles wondered. Why? What hold did this boy and his mother have on Wayne?

Niles said, 'I'll call before I come to get him tonight. You might want to give him some sodium pentothal around nine o'clock. Just enough to keep him settled down for Mr Krepsin. Okay?'

Lucinda nodded in agreement. She was as familiar with drugs as she was with fried tortillas.

Satisfied with Billy's condition, Niles left the white house and drove back to the bunker. Wayne had started on a new bucket of balls, chopping them in all directions.

The bunker's front door was metal covered with oak, and it fit into the concrete wall like the entrance to a