“Do that. Lionel, it looks like you’re off art-store duty for good. Now you’re doing service-station duty. Make the rounds of the neighborhood gas stations and auto-repair shops. Ask the attendants and mechanics if they remember ever seeing the Ford. If any of them do, find out if the car has any identifiable features not found in the standard model-customized chrome or grillwork, dents, rust spots, special tires.”
“Maybe the sucker’s got steer horns on the hood and Old Glory flapping from the radio antenna,” Robertson said. “I sure hope so.”
“So do I.”
Delgado left two uniforms to watch the apartment in case Rood returned, then walked back to his car, rubbing his head. Tired. He was so tired.
He tried to be an optimist. The ‘63 Falcon was a distinctive automobile, far easier to spot than one of the lookalike models produced by contemporary car manufacturers. The APB could yield results. Sure it could.
But he knew there was no substance to his hopes. L.A. was a city of cars, millions of them, crowding every street and freeway. The chances of finding any one vehicle, no matter how unusual, were remote.
In his fourteen years on the force, he had faced frustration many times; it went with the job. But he could not recall ever feeling this abjectly helpless.
Despite his best efforts, the Gryphon continued to elude him; and if Wendy was still alive, whatever time she might have left was rapidly slipping away.
30
In a corner of the trailer, the Gryphon was pouring Pepsi-Cola into two Styrofoam cups. He was still whistling cheerily. Wendy recognized the tune. It was that old Eagles song, the one that had been such a big hit for Linda Ronstadt. “Desperado.”
Abruptly the whistling stopped. A moment later the Styrofoam cups were set down on the checkered tablecloth, followed by a handful of paper napkins and two picnic plates with sandwiches on them. Wendy tried not to look past the plates at the two jars, their contents lit by the candles’ flickering glow.
The Gryphon settled into one of the folding chairs, facing her from across the table. Candlelight shimmered on his glasses. His eyes behind the lenses, flat and dead, reminded her oddly of the eyes of the two women in the jars.
“Lunch is served,” he announced with a melodramatic flourish.
She gazed down at her sandwich. Two slices of white bread with some kind of brown goop overspilling the edges. Peanut butter, she realized. No jelly. Her eyes flicked to the cup of Pepsi. It had gone flat.
“Gee, this looks good,” she said with whatever conviction she could muster. Then she had an idea. Casually she added, “But, you know, I need my hands free in order to eat.”
He merely smiled indulgently, the smile of a sage parent who has seen through a small child’s pitifully obvious ploy.
“No, you don’t, Wendy. I’ll feed you myself.” He picked up her sandwich and raised it to her mouth. “Open wide.”
“Really, I don’t think I-”
He wedged the sandwich between her jaws, silencing her. Reluctantly she took a bite. The peanut butter tasted like glue; the untoasted bread, slightly stale, had the texture and consistency of a sheaf of newsprint. The gluey, flavorless mixture turned to papier-mache as she chewed.
“How about something to wash it down with?” he asked.
Without waiting for a reply, he lifted a cup and pressed it to her lips. Warm Pepsi flowed into her mouth. She tried to swallow, but the wet pulp of bread and peanut butter got in the way. She coughed, spitting soda on the floor.
“Can’t,” she gasped. “Can’t do it.”
He shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to. That’s what you get for being such a naughtykins. Now, come on, eat some more of your sandwich.”
She looked at the jars again. The pale dead faces. The bloodless flesh.
“I guess I don’t have much of an appetite right now,” she said softly.
The Gryphon brushed aside the comment with an irritated wave of his hand. “Not long ago you told me you were starved. Anyway, I went to all the trouble of fixing you a nice lunch, and you wouldn’t want me to think of you as ungrateful. Would you?”
“No.” She sighed. “No, of course not.”
“All right, then. So let’s stop being stubborn and eat our nice lunch. Here, I’ll show you the way.” He lifted her sandwich. “This is the train.” With his other hand he gently pried her lips apart. “And this is the tunnel.” Slowly he guided the sandwich toward her mouth. “Choo-choo. Choo-choo.”
Somehow she managed to consume the rest of the sandwich. When she was done, the Gryphon set to work on his own lunch. He ate quickly and sloppily, smacking his lips, gulping when he swallowed, draining his cup of Pepsi in a series of slurps and gasps. Bread crumbs and droplets of soda spotted the blue uniform. He didn’t notice.
“You know,” he said suddenly, speaking through a last mouthful of Wonder Bread, “this is nice, Wendy. It’s a genuine pleasure sharing a meal with a beautiful woman. I could get used to it.”
I couldn’t, she thought. She said nothing.
“You’ve still got a little soda left. Want it?”
She didn’t dare refuse. “Sure.”
Again he tipped the cup to her mouth, but he was clumsy this time; Pepsi spilled down her chin, splashing the front of her blouse.
His tongue clucked. “Oh, dear.”
He grabbed one of the paper napkins and began mopping up the mess. His hand moved over her chest, scrubbing briskly, then reached her left breast and stopped there, motionless, like some pale scorpion frozen in the instant before its strike. Wendy sat rigid in her chair, watching as his thick, meaty fingers slowly curled into a half-fist. Through the blouse’s thin fabric, he gripped the cup of her bra.
She felt a scream welling at the bottom of her throat. Her heart pounded in her ears, its beat so loud and insistent she was certain he could hear it too.
His fingers twitched. She thought of a corpse’s hand, jolted by an electric shock. He began squeezing her breast with a slow, mechanical motion that was not a caress.
“I want you, Wendy,” he breathed, his voice blurred.
The scream tugged at her vocal cords, fighting for release. She let out a long shuddering breath and tried to stay in control. Somehow she had to stay in control.
His hand went on contracting rhythmically, the fingers digging in, then relaxing, then digging in again. A farmer milking a cow.
“I told you we’d be lovers. Now we will be. And it will be good. So good.”
Say something, she ordered herself. Say something now, dammit, or else he’s going to do it-oh, my God-he’s really going to do it.
When she spoke, her voice was flat and almost normal.
“Before we… go any further, don’t you think we ought to… get to know each other better?”
“I already know everything I need to know about you.”
“But I hardly know anything about you.”
“There’ll be time for that. Later.”
The binding on her wrists seemed tighter than before. She couldn’t feel her hands at all. Her head hummed. The sticky sweet residue of the peanut butter rose in her throat. She was going to be sick.
“But I wasn’t expecting this to happen so soon,” she said desperately. “You said… tonight.”
“It’s night somewhere in the world. I don’t want to wait any longer, not another second. And deep down, neither do you.”
She whimpered and tried not to lose her mind.
His hand released her breast. He gazed at her for a long moment, his expression blank and unreadable, and she looked back at him, past the two jars with their white staring faces.
Then slowly he smiled. An ugly humorless smile.
He rose from his chair and circled the table, closing in on her.
Help me, she thought. Help me, somebody. Don’t let him do this. I’d rather be dead. Oh, God, I’d rather be dead.
He reached her side. His right hand snaked under her buttocks; his left hand crawled up her back, spider-quick. The chair dropped away as he lifted her in his arms.