'Victor Davis,' I said abstractly, cigarette dangling unlit from my mouth. 'Did you know him?'
'Oh, he was someone Julie met while I was away. Never did meet him. He worked for, what was it, a pharmaceutical operation of some kind. I think he delivered prescriptions.'
'Can you remember the name of his employer?'
'What was it?' Hawksbridge rubbed his chin. 'Something ridiculous. Sprint Prescriptions, or Speedy Prescriptions, something like that. I can only remember that there was something fast-foody about the name.'
'And you've never heard of him again?'
'No.' Hawksbridge leaned forward on his elbows. 'He never turned up?'
'Grey couldn't find him. I don't know what happened to him.' I lit my cigarette. 'Among Julie's things, did you ever find a picture of him or anything? A clue to go by.'
'No, I assumed Mr. Grey would have looked at anything of interest. Father said he went through her belongings…Borden took a look as well.' He paused. 'I don't suppose it would do any harm if you looked through her things. Her room is exactly as I found it.'
'Thank you, again, Mr. Hawksbridge. If I could have your permission to call again, if I have a question, I would be grateful.' I stood up.
'Oh certainly, and I'll get you Dr. Forrester's address. But please, you must forgive my manners. I have been quite ungracious. Would you let me offer you a drink now, unless matters are pressing.' He seemed genuinely embarrassed.
'Nothing's that pressing.' I envisioned an expensive imported Scotch whisky. Hawksbridge summoned Johnson and in moments we were both sipping a fine single malt, neat. Hawksbridge talked a great deal about his late Uncle Henry after I asked him about the stuffed animals. 'Hank loved hunting, he had the real blood in the family.' I accepted another drink and then another before I frisked Julie's room. She was certainly a clean freak. A shoebox full of birthday cards had titillated me at first, but left me cold-just aunts and uncles, and a granny in Wales. It was obvious that Julie Hawksbridge had wanted to keep her affair with Davis a secret. Not a Valentine, or a birthday card, nothing. Of course, Grey may have taken anything pertinent, I know I would have. I shared another drink with Hawksbridge before I left. I found it a pleasant diversion to hear about someone bagging a lion on the Serengeti, or spearing a hippopotamus on the Nile. I believe Uncle Hank and I had something in common. We were both hunters.
In Hank's case, his prey had been dangerous and difficult to find, but he knew what he was looking for when he set out. In my case the prey had chameleon qualities. It could coalesce out of nothing, or leap out of a friendly face. I might accidentally offer it my throat. No, you had to be careful who you trusted when hunting murderers. Any dark alley you pass could swallow you up forever.
Chapter 51
I looked into a pair of beautiful blue eyes. They sat in a long face, almost too thin to be gorgeous, but somehow making up for physical substance with a naive essence that brought into mind the seductive image of tussling on a couch after school, around four-thirty, just before the parents got home. A lengthy straight nose, with the right nostril curving up just a hair more than the left; a narrow mouth with delicate pink lips, the type that look thin until they kiss you; and dark arched eyebrows like wayward question marks-all this framed by straight light- brown hair. Hawksbridge had told me that Julie colored her hair when the mood hit her-but what I saw in the picture was her natural shade. He had given me the photograph of his sister moments before I left. I looked into its celluloid eyes as Elmo drove us toward Dr. Forrester's residence. I was surprised to hear that Forrester was still in one piece. I had expected to find out that he had had an accident with a high-speed blender, or had cut his head off while shaving. Whoever else was looking for Cotton's Regenerics secret was doing a real butcher job in the detective department. They were killing, mutilating, and burning everything. Maybe dead was good enough to keep Forrester out of the picture. He was a minor player after all. So I knew he couldn't tell me much. If there had been a court existent that I thought was legitimate, I knew my lack of evidence would leave me making my case with shadow puppets and shoulder shrugging.
It was about eight-fifteen in the evening. I was hungry, and a little light-headed from Hawksbridge's friendly scotch bottle, or it could have been the half-pint of whiskey I had consumed at Grey's office. I certainly attributed the blame to Hawksbridge. I hated to start so early in the day, but once started… After returning to Grey's, I had put a call through to Forrester. He was skittish at first, but relaxed noticeably when I assured him I had absolutely nothing to do with Authority. He was busy though, and had asked me to come over at eight-thirty.
The Chrysler's headlights counted trees as we turned onto Comte Avenue. It was strange when one stumbled upon streets with names that had lived on past the Change. The majority of them had slowly melted and dissolved into something stickier and nastier. All the better to fit into Greasetown. What was Greasetown's pre-Change name? It didn't matter. All cities had become Greasetowns if what the news said was true. My stomach grumbled and burned hungrily, but the way this case was shaping up, supper could wait. I knew that the more time I let pass the better my chances of turning around and finding myself dead.
We drove along Comte Avenue until we found 1675. Comte Avenue was in one of the besieged and embittered neighborhoods huddled just outside the border of New Garden District. Nice little place, but decay was setting in, and the residents didn't have the money for denial. Forrester's was a large, red brick house with warm orange windows. I told Elmo to park the car under the long, low boughs of a maple tree whose roots had slowly lifted the sidewalk at its base into a mound. I got out, smiled at Elmo, told him to wait, and then walked up to the front door. A record was playing. I heard that plain enough. The song was sad. Whoever sang it was wondering what she would do when someone, I supposed her lover, was far away. I disregarded the sympathetic wave it generated in me. Overhead, a porch light designed to resemble a coach and four was hung from a heavy brass chain near the door. I pulled my collar up, and my hat down, then knocked once, twice, three times, and waited. I heard the distant creaks and groans of movement come from inside. I waited. The door slowly opened on a chain. A thin slice of a person appeared at the crack. A cutting of eyebrow leapt up and away from a piece of eye. A sliver of mouth opened.
'What the…' The voice was thin enough to slip through. 'Who?'
I held my license up. 'Wildclown, I'm a private investigator. I called earlier. Dr. Avery Forrester?'
The fragment of eyebrow lowered over the eye then leapt up again. 'Why are you dressed like that?'
'Well, it's a, a…' I started to reply, but it suddenly seemed as though my tongue was screw-nailed to my jaw. 'I'm, uh…' I stopped talking and worked my mouth. My hands suddenly achieved independent life, the right one whipped out and pushed at the door. 'A, a!' The chain banged tight. Someone had cut the power off to my mouth, like it hadn't been paying its bill. Tommy had staged a mutiny. My vision doubled, I groaned in a very unprofessional manner. My left hand whipped down below my gun and grabbed the swollen bulge that was growing there. I seemed to retain some control of my right because with it I grappled my left away from my groin.
'N-n-not, n-o! T-T-T…' I twisted inside; my thoughts took on eight dimensions. I saw the face at the door, then, it disappeared. I reeled back and slid into a garden rake and broom, we fell in a clattering pile. 'I-I-I!' was all I could manage, like a wiener dog half-crushed by a car. The left hand now made a grab for the gun; I tackled it with the right. The left whipped the gun out and turned it to my face. I pushed with all my strength against it. I felt veins popping out of my neck. My breath went out of me. I choked, and gagged, fighting for control. The gun wrenched around, the barrel gaped at me, I pushed, but it seemed the right lost impetus. The hand dropped suddenly. I squirreled my head away from the barrel of the gun. I heard three things: an enormous boom, a terrified voice screaming 'No!' and a deafening roar of silence as a black vacuum engulfed me.
Chapter 52
A Maruichi band was playing a frenetic song in my head. Funny, instead of guitars and maraca's everybody played drums. Oh there was some joker playing the xylophone but he was using the bones that covered my temples to strike the notes. I realized the band grew louder, the closer I came to consciousness, so for a moment, I stopped
