When everything was ready, toast and orange juice and coffee, the three of them ate breakfast, following Ricky's lead. He seemed vibrant, sitting at the table in his blue dressing gown; almost elated. And he had obviously been thinking a great deal about the Hollow and Anna Mostyn.
"It's the one part of town we don't know well," Ricky said. "And that's why she's there. She doesn't want us to find her yet. Presumably she knows that her creatures are dead. For the moment, her plans have been delayed. She'll want reinforcements, either more like the Bates or more like herself. Stella got rid of the only other one around with a hatpin."
"How do you know he was the only other one?" Peter asked.
"Because I think we would have encountered any others, if they were here."
They ate in silence for a moment.
"So I think she's just holed up-in a vacant building, most likely-until more of them arrive. She won't be expecting us. She'll think we won't be able to move, in this snow."
"And she'll be vengeful," Don said.
"She might also be afraid."
Peter snapped his head up. "Why do you say that?"
"Because I helped kill her once before. And I'll tell you something else. If we don't find her soon, everything we have done will be wasted. Stella and the three of us bought time for the whole town, but as soon as outside traffic gets in…" Ricky bit into a piece of toast. "Things will be even worse than before. She won't just be vengeful, she'll be rabid. Twice we've blocked her. So we'd better lay out everything we can come up with about the Hollow. And we'd better do it now."
"Wasn't it originally the place where the servants lived?" Peter asked. "Back when everybody had servants?"
"Yes," Ricky said, "but there has to be more. I'm thinking of what she said on Don's tape. 'In the places of your dreams.' We found one of those places, but I'm thinking that there must be another one, someplace where we could have been lured if we hadn't found Gregory and Fenny at the Rialto. But I just can't think…"
"Do you know anybody who lives there?" Don asked.
"Of course I do. I've lived here all my life. But I can't for the life of me see the connection…"
"What did the Hollow used to be like?" Peter asked. "In the old days."
"In the old days? Back when I was a boy, you mean?
Oh, much different-much nicer. It was a lot cleaner than it is now. A bit raffish. We used to think of it as the Bohemian section of town. There was a painter who lived in Milburn then-did magazine covers. He lived there, and he had a splendid white beard and wore a cape-he looked just the way we thought painters should look. Oh, we used to spend a lot of time down there. Used to be a bar with a jazz band. Lewis liked to go there-had a little dancehall. Like Humphrey's place, but smaller and nicer."
"A band?" Peter asked, and Don too lifted his head.
"Oh, yes," Ricky said, not noticing their excitement. "Only a little six-eight piece band, pretty good for anything you'd hear out here in the sticks…" He picked up the plates and took them to the sink; ran hot water over them. "Oh, Milburn was lovely in those days. We all used to walk for miles-down to the Hollow and back, hear some music, have a beer or two, take a hike out into the country…" His arms deep in soapy water, Ricky abruptly ceased all movement. "Good Lord. I know. I know." Still holding a soapy plate, he turned toward them. "It was Edward. It was Edward, you see. We used to go down to see Edward in the Hollow. That was where he moved when he wanted his own apartment. I was in YPSL, my father hated that-" Ricky dropped the plate, and stepped unseeing over the shattered pieces-"and the owner was one of our first black clients. The building's still there! The town council condemned it last spring, and it's supposed to be demolished next year. We got Edward that apartment-Sears and I." He wiped his hands on his dressing gown. "That's it. I know that's it. Edward's apartment. The place of your dreams."
"Because Edward's apartment…" Don began, knowing that the old man was right.
"Was where Eva Galli died and our dreams began," Ricky said. "By God, we've got her."
16
They dressed in all the warm clothing Ricky had, putting on several layers of underclothes and two shirts- Ricky's shirts couldn't be buttoned over the other two, but they meant two more layers of trapped air-and then sweaters. Two pairs of socks; even Don managed to slide his feet into an old pair of Ricky's lace-up boots. For once, Ricky had a reason to be grateful for his attachment to his clothes. "We have to live long enough to get there," he said, sorting through a box of old wool scarves. "We'll wrap some of these around our faces. It must be about three-fourths of a mile from here to the Hollow. Good thing this is a small town. When we were all in our twenties, we used to walk from this part of town down to Edward's apartment and back two or three times in one day."
"So you're sure you can find the place?" Peter asked.
"I'm reasonably sure," Ricky said. "Now, let's have a look at ourselves." They looked like three snowmen, padded out with so many layers of clothing. "Ah, hats. Well, I have a lot of hats." He fitted a high fur hat over Peter's head, put a red hunting cap that must have been half a century old on his own head, and told Don, "This one was always a little big on me." It was a soft green tweed, and it fitted Don perfectly. "Got it to go fishing with John Jaffrey. Wore it once. Hated fishing." He sneezed and wiped his nose with a peach tissue from his coat pocket. "In those days, I always preferred hunting."
At first Ricky's clothing kept them warm, and as they went through lightly falling snow in a hard bright light, they walked past a few men attacking their driveways with shovels and snow blowers. Children in bright snowsuits played on the drifts, active blots of color in the dazzle of light from the snow. It was five degrees above zero, and the cold attacked the exposed sections of their faces, but they might have been three normal men out on a conventional errand-hunting strayed children or an open store.
But even before the weather changed, walking was difficult for them. Their feet began to feel the cold first, and their legs tired from the effort of wading through the deep snow. They soon gave up the luxury of speech -it took too much energy. Their breath condensed on the heavy wool scarves, and the moisture turned cold and froze. Don knew that the temperature was dropping faster than he'd ever seen it: the snow came down harder, his fingers tingled in the gloves, even his legs began to feel the cold.
And sometimes, when they turned a corner and looked down a street hidden by a long wide drift peaked up fifteen feet high, he thought the three of them resembled photographs of polar explorers-doomed driven men with blackened lips and frozen skin, small figures in a rippling white landscape.
Halfway to the Hollow, Don was sure that the temperature had reached several degrees below zero. His scarf had become a stiff mask over his face, varnished by his breath. Cold bit at his hands and feet. He and Peter and Ricky were just straggling past the square; lifting their feet out of deep snow and leaning forward to get distance on the next step. The tree the mayor and the deputies had set up in the square was visible only as scattered green branches protruding through a mountain of white. Clearing Main Street and Wheat Row, Omar Norris had buried it.
By the time they reached the traffic lights, the brightness had left the air and the piled snow no longer sparkled: it seemed as gray as the air. Don looked up and saw thousands of flakes swirling between dense clouds. They were alone. Down Main Street, the tops of a few cars sat like inverted saucers on the drifts. All the buildings were closed. New snow spun around them: the air was darkening to black.
"Ricky?" he asked. He tasted frozen wooclass="underline" his cheekbones, open to the air, burned.