The Reality Conspiracy (39 page)

Hobston, Vermont

T
he strange redheaded man snatched Alton through the open doorway, then threw him to the floor. With the impact, dishes rattled on the shelves of Daisy's old oak hutch. Some tumbled, shattered on the linoleum floor.

In spite of the familiar voice that had summoned him, Daisy was nowhere around. Waxy brown smudges beside him on the floor suggested something bad had happened here.

"Where's Daisy?" Alton said to the man, who towered over him, looking down with his red military crew cut and his toothy smart-ass grin.

Alton waited for an answer that didn't come. When he started to pick himself up, the man kicked him. Air fired from his lungs and he made a puking sound. Again he sprawled on the floor, overturning one of the kitchen chairs. He puffed and panted, the wind knocked out of him. But hell, he'd suffered worse beatings than this. Even that feisty little nip in Korea hadn't been able to make him talk. That tiny oriental—Christ, he couldn't have been over five feet two—had given Alton the worst beating of his life. That karate shit was nothing to mess with. After the war eight years of training insured that Alton would never suffer similar indignities again.

So maybe Alton was a little rusty, and a whole lot older now, but he could tell just by the way this guy moved, he didn't know anything about fighting. Bulk and muscle were all he had to show for himself.

The grinning man said, "Now, Alton, you jest settle down and behave. Like I was sayin', I got somethin' I need you to help me with."

It was a perfect imitation of Daisy's voice. Alton's flesh crawled as he listened; he found it difficult to believe his ears. "Who the hell are you?" he forced his voice to a commanding firmness, hoping to sound intimidating.

"I'm whoever you want me to be, Alton." This time it was Stuart Dubois's voice. For emphasis, the man spat from the side of his mouth, exactly as Stu used to spit his chewing tobacco. Thick saliva clung to Alton's shirtfront. He felt an immobilizing coldness in his gut. This was way too strange. It was unearthly in its strangeness. This guy was some kind of first-class fruitcake.

Sizing up his attacker, Alton steadied himself before he tried a second time to get to his feet.

"Alton, you jest don't never learn, do ya?" It was Stu's voice again. The grinning man's right foot rose like the bucket of a steam shovel. This time Alton was on his feet and ready. With a slight shift of position, he sidestepped the kick. Catching the ankle between his hand and thigh, Alton pivoted, raising his right leg. With all the force and muscle power of his full two hundred pounds, Alton brought his left foot down on the man's outstretched leg, just above the kneecap.

The kneecap slid when the attacker's foot hit the floor. The leg broke with, a crack like splitting timber. Together the men tumbled onto the floor. The grinning man howled, his right leg bent backward like a stork's.

Alton rolled away and sprang to his feet.

"Now you son of a bitch, you're gonna tell me what's going on here. Too much weird shit's happenin', and I don't like none of it."

The roles had reversed; now Alton towered over the whimpering man, who, oddly, was still grinning. With the toe of his boot, Alton jabbed the wounded leg. The man shrieked in agony.

"Feel good, ya bastard? Now you tell me what ya done with Daisy before I bust that damn leg clean off."

The man was trying to sit perfectly still. Alton knew any motion would result in tremendous pain. He lifted his foot, let it hover over the demolished knee.

"No," the man pleaded, grinning. "Not no more." This time it was Alton's own voice issuing from the man on the floor. He was whining, just exactly the way Alton had whined on the floor of that nip prison. "No. Please. Not no more."

Alton bristled with an embarrassed dread. He fought the brutal urge to tromp the splintered leg, turned away, took a couple of steps toward the living room. "Daisy!" he called. "Daisy, you around here someplace?"

There was no sound but the wracked breathing of the wounded man.

"Daisy, you all right? Can you answer me?"

Silence.

Alton whirled on the man. "I ain't gonna ask you again, you son of a bitch. You tell me what you done to Daisy."

The man began to shake violently. Alton thought he might go into convulsions. He didn't care. "Where is she, ya bastard?"

Then a strange transformation began. Although his facial features were contorted in pain, the man's teeth were still set in that hideous grin. Suddenly the muscles below his skin twitched, moved, seemed somehow to shift. The skin, a moment ago taut as the head of a drum, slackened and wrinkled. The grin faded; lips covered teeth. It was not just that the man's expression was changing, his whole face was transforming. When he looked down at his misshapen leg an expression of helpless terror altered his features even more. In a moment, fearful puzzled eyes looked up at Alton Barnes.

Alton held his gaze, staring him down.

The man looked away, glanced around the kitchen as though his surroundings were completely unfamiliar. "My God," he said in tones unfamiliar to Alton, "oh my God, what's happened here? What have I done?"

Then he screamed. The hysterical sound quickly rose to a pain-filled demented wail.

A gunshot sounded.

The fallen man's head jerked back, split, sprayed bloody particles onto the wall behind it.

Alton whirled.

Another redheaded man, this one wearing tan pants and a pin-striped jacket, stood at the doorway. He was not smiling. The barrel of a small automatic poked from his fist. "You're full of surprises, Mr. Barnes."

Shaken by the killing, Alton looked from the gunman to the corpse and back again. "I'd sure like to know what's going on around here," his voice cracked.

The gunman clicked his tongue as if he were chastising a misbehaving schoolboy "We have a great deal of work to do, Mr. Barnes, and unless I can persuade you to help us, I'm afraid you'll have to join the fallen Mr. Gold."

Seething silently, Alton waited. When it seemed the gunman wouldn't continue, Alton asked quietly, "Who are you?" He almost followed it with and what do you want, but all of a sudden he really didn't want to know.

"My name's McCurdy," the man answered pleasantly.

"Is Daisy all right?"

"Oh yes, very much so. She has given herself to the Lord."

"What do you mean? You mean she's dead?"

"She has . . . passed on. Just like our friend Mr. Gold. But that's good. No one really dies, Mr. Barnes."

"Where is she? What have you done with her?"

"Please, take a seat in one of those chairs." McCurdy gestured with the weapon.

Alton sat.

Just then he heard a commotion in the next room, as if a dog were coming across the floor. A filthy, pink-colored animal entered the room, moving awkwardly on all fours. It looked like some deformed ape that had shed its body hair. Only a greasy, matted mane remained, swept back on its bulbous head. Drooping, blackened lips hung limp like a boneless jaw. Alton needed a moment to realize the creature was human. A female. A little girl.

Again he shivered in the stark chill of unreality.

Without being spoken to, the girl lunged, dragged herself across the room. Rearing back on her knees, she pulled cords from the venetian blinds on two kitchen windows. Dust rose in clouds from the horizontal slats. Grunting and drooling as she worked, she used the cord to tie Alton to the chair. He watched her unskilled fingers move clumsily.

When she was done, she squatted beside the table, eyeing Alton keenly, as if she were a well-trained guard dog.

Burlington, Vermont

"W
e can't go to the police," Jeff raged, slapping his palm against the top of Karen's baby grand piano. She cringed as the strings rumbled and whined.

Taking a cautious step toward him, Karen held out her hand, attempting a comforting contact. Jeff pulled away. Ghastly pale, as if the blood had drained from his face, body rigid as a marionette's, he paced around the living room. His eyes blazed. Sweat glistened on his forehead like rainwater.

"Jeff, listen—"

"I was wrong to come here, I was wrong to bring Casey with me. I was wrong to drag you into this—"

"You didn't drag me—"

"God, Karen, now they know you're involved; they know where you live."

"Jeff—"

"I've put you in danger. Real danger. Y-you . . . God, Karen, you could be next!"

"Jeff, please, try to calm down. Whether you were wrong or right doesn't matter now. What matters is that Casey's gone and we've got to deal with it."

"I know she's gone, damn it. You don't have to tell me that. You don't have to talk to me like one of your goddamn patients! You love this sort of thing, don't you? Tell everybody how to fix their lives. Bury yourself in everybody else's problems so you don't have to deal with your own. You—"

He cut himself off, turned away. "I'm sorry," he said, almost in a whisper.

Karen bit her lip, wrestling with defenses that had sprung up like steel bars between them. Of course Jeff was devastated; he was scared, angry, and he didn't know what to do with it. So he lashed out. At her. Because . . . because Casey was gone.

Together they had searched the grounds of Colonial Condominiums. They'd checked the observation deck, the beach, they'd even knocked on doors and questioned Karen's neighbors. She was gone all right, and no one had even seen her leave. How could anyone not see a girl in a wheelchair?

Now Karen felt so useless. What help could she hope to offer? This was no counseling practice session, no role-playing exercise at a training seminar. How effectively could she expect to handle this real-life crisis? Above all, she hoped she wouldn't freeze up. She knew she might. If she did, she'd be no good to anybody.

Jeff stood looking out the window toward the parking lot. He was quiet now, but no less tense. Was this a good time to push for police involvement? Or would that make him fly utterly off the handle? He seemed so dangerously close to some kind of explosion.

Karen summoned all the authority she could muster. "Darn it, Jeff, you listen to me now. You came here and you asked for my help, remember? And I agreed. So for better or for worse, now you're stuck with me. And by gosh I'm going to help you, like it or not."

Jeff turned and stared at her; she had his attention.

"Think about it; you said it yourself: somehow the Academy located you, and now they've taken Casey. Okay, if they've got her it's probably to use her as some kind of a lever against you, right? So they'll keep her safe, won't they? I mean, they can't all be cold-blooded killers and psychopaths. They'll keep her safe so they can use her to bargain with you."

"But we've got to find her!"

"It's a job for the police, Jeff. I don't know what makes you think you can help her all by yourself. I don't mean to insult you, but you really didn't make a very successful fugitive, remember? What makes you think you'll do any better as a detective?"

Jeff turned from the window and glared at her, his eyes like lasers. "Jesus. Karen, wake up, will you. We're not talking about Officer Friendly here. The police could be in on this. Maybe they're the ones who took Casey."

"Jeff, you can't believe—"

"Believe? Hell, I'm in a position to know. You aren't. We're talking big government bucks here. Covert activities. Top-secret defense operations. Christ, I could be accused of treason!"

"Jeff—"

"If I call the police, they'll call the Academy; simple as that. Then they'll send a cruiser, pick me up, and deliver me in person."

She couldn't find a rebuttal. Could he possibly be right about all this? Could she have blundered, wide-eyed and innocent, into some vast and mysterious conspiracy? No. No way; it sounded too much like a Hitchcock movie.

At the same time she knew Jeff wasn't lying. And he wasn't delusional. In fact, if she had to, she could honestly testify under oath that he was perfectly sane and rational. But wow, the whole situation was crazy, inconceivable. Absurd.

She watched Jeff, undecided.

No. She had to believe him. Just because things were unbelievable didn't mean he was lying,