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"I won’t," Hilary said without hesitation "But thanks forbeing kind"
She thought he seeone, and she was alone in the study
For a et out of the armchair She felt as if she had stepped into a vast pool of quicksand and had expended every bit of her strength in a frantic and futile atteot up, went to the desk, picked up the telephone She thought of ringing the winery in Napa County, but she realized that would acco She knew only the business office nu Even if his private nuhly unlikely--she would not gain any satisfaction by dialing it If she tried calling his could happen One, he wouldn’t anshich would neither prove her story nor disprove what Sheriff Laurenski had said Two, Frye would answer, surprising her And then what? She would have to reevaluate the events of the night, face the fact that the ht was someone who only resembled Bruno Frye Or perhaps he didn’t look like Frye at all Maybe her perceptions were so askew that she had perceived a resemblance where there was none How could you tell when you were losing your grip on reality? How did in? Did it creep up on you, or did it seize you in an instant, without warning? She had to consider the possibility that she was losing her mind because, after all, there was a history of insanity in her family For more than a decade, one of her fears had been that she would die as her father had died; wild-eyed, raving, incoherent, waving a gun and trying to hold off hter?
"I saw hiht I didn’t iine or hallucinate it I saw hies and called a twenty-four-hour-a-day locksmith service
After he fled Hilary Thoe van out of Westwood He est and south to Marina Del Rey, a se of the city, a place of expensive garden apartments, even more expensive condominiums, shops, and unexceptional but lushly decorated restaurants, most with unobstructed views of the sea and the thousands of pleasure boats docked along thethe coast, as if a great cold fire burned upon the ocean It was thick in so denser all the ti lot near one of the docks, and for ahis failure The police would be looking for him, but only for a short while, only until they found out that he had been at his place in Napa County all evening
And even while they were looking for hier, for they wouldn’t knohat sort of vehicle he was driving He was sure Hilary Thomas had not seen the van when he left because it was parked three blocks from her house
Hilary Thomas
Not her real name, of course
Katherine That’s who she really was Katherine
"Stinking bitch," he said aloud
She scared him In the past five years, he had killed her more than twenty ti back to life, in a new body, with a new naround, but he never failed to recognize Katherine hiding in each new persona He had encountered her and killed her again and again, but she would not stay dead She kne to coe terrified hihtened of her, but he couldn’t let her see that fear, for if she became aware of it, she’d overwhelm and destroy him
But she can he killed, Frye told himself I’ve done it I’ve killed her raves I’ll kill her again, too And maybe this time she won’t be able to come back
As soon as it was safe for him to return to her house in Westwood, he would try to kill her again
And this time he planned to perform a number of rituals that he hoped would cancel out her supernatural power of regeneration He had been reading books about the living dead--vah she was not really any of those things, although she was horrifyingly unique, he believed that soainst vaht work on her as well Cut out her heart while it was still beating Drive a wooden stake through it Cut off her head Stuff her arlic It would work Oh, God, it had to work
He left the van and went to a public phone close by The dauely of salt, seaweed, and s and the hulls of the slas walls of the booth, rank upon rank of masts rose fro out of the nightthe police, Frye phoned his own house in Napa County and gave an account of his failed attack on the woman
The man on the other end of the line listened without interruption, then said, "I’ll handle the police"
They spoke for a fewout of the booth, he looked around suspiciously at the darkness and swirling fog Katherine could not possibly have followed hiloo man
He should not have been afraid of a woman But he was He was afraid of the one ould not die, the one who now called herself Hilary Thomas
He returned to the van and sat behind the wheel for a fewHis stomach ruh with Marina Del Rey to know there was not a suitable restaurant in the neighborhood He drove south on the Pacific Coast Highway to Culver Boulevard, then west, then south again on Vista Del Mar He had to proceed slowly, for the fog was heavy along that route; it threw the van’s headlight beams back at him and reduced visibility to thirty feet, so that he felt as if he was driving underwater in a murky phosphorescent sea Almost twenty minutes after he completed the telephone call to Napa County (and about the sa into the case up there in behalf of the LA police), Frye found an interesting restaurant on the northern edge of El Segundo The red and yellow neon sign cut through the fog: GARRIDO’S It was a Mexican place, but not one of those norte-a imitation comida; it appeared to be authentically Mexican He pulled off the road and parked between two hotrods that were equipped with the hydraulic lifts so popular with young Chicano drivers As he walked around to the entrance, he passed a car bearing a bumper sticker that proclaimed CHICANO POWER Another one advised everyone to SUPPORT THE FARM WORKERS’ UNION Frye could already taste the enchiladas
Inside, Garrido’s looked more like a bar than a restaurant, but the close warood Mexican kitchen On the left, a stained and scarred wooden bar ran the length of the big rectangular roo señoritas sat on stools or leaned against the bar,in rapid Spanish The center of the roo parallel to the bar, each covered with a red tablecloth All of the tables were occupied by hed and drank a lot as they ate On the right, against the wall, there were booths with red leatherette upholstery and high backs; Frye sat down in one of them
The waitress who hustled up to his table was a short woman, ally pretty face Raising her voice above Freddie Fender’s sweet and plaintive singing, which came from the jukebox, she asked Frye what he wanted and took his order: a double platter of chili verde and two cold bottles of Dos Equis
He was still wearing leather gloves He took them off and flexed his hands
Except for a blonde in a low-cut sweater, ith a mustachioed Chicano stud, Frye was the only one in Garrido’s who didn’t have Mexican blood in his veins He knew so at hiht away Frye didn’t bother with the glass He put the bottle to his lips, closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and chugged it down In less than a minute, he had drained it He drank the second beer with less haste than he had consuht his dinner He ordered two more bottles of Dos Equis
Bruno Frye ate with voracity and total concentration, unwilling or unable to look away from his plate, oblivious of everyone around him, head lowered to receive the food in the feveredsoft aniht, he forked the chili verde into hisbites of the stuff, one after the other, chewed hard and fast, his cheeks bulging A plate of warm tortillas was served on the side, and he used those togulps of icy beer
He was already two-thirds finished when the waitress stopped by to ask if the ht, and she quickly realized the question was unnecessary He looked up at her with eyes that were slightly out of focus In a thick voice that seemed to come from a distance, he asked for two beef tacos, a couple of cheese enchiladas, rice, refried beans, and two more bottles of beer Her eyes ide, but she was too polite to comment on his appetite
He ate the last of the chili verde before she brought his second order, but he did not rise out of his trance when the plate was clean Every table had a bowl of taco chips, and he pulled his in front of him He dipped the chips into the cup of hot sauce that came with them, popped them into his mouth whole, crunched them up with enormous pleasure and a lot of noise When the waitress arrived with an shoveling cheese enchiladas into his h the tacos and the side dishes A pulse thumped visibly in his bull neck Veins stood out boldly across his forehead A filan to trickle down from his hairline At last he sed the final mouthful of refried beans and chased it with beer and pushed the eh, one hand wrapped around a bottle, staring across the booth at nothing in particular Gradually, the sweat dried on his face, and he becaain; another Freddie Fender tune was playing