"You're wanted," he said, snatching her. She stepped back to avoid him, her legs giving out as she did so. Before she hit the floor two arms were there to catch her, and she heard Lobo say: "You should come with us."
She tried to protest, but her mouth wouldn't make the words between gasps. She was half-carried to the door, trying to explain that she couldn't go, couldn't leave Grillo, but unable to make her point clear. She saw Rochelle's face swim past her, then the night air was cold on her face, its shock merely worsening her disorientation.
"Help her...help her..." she heard Lobo saying, and before she knew it she was inside his limo, stretched out on the fake fur seat. He followed her in.
"Grillo—" she managed to say as the door was slammed. Her pursuer was at the step, but the limo was already moving off, down towards the gate.
"Weirdest fucking party I ever went to," Lobo said. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
Sorry, Grillo, she thought as she passed out. Be well.
At the gate Clark waved Lobo's limo off, and turned to look back at the house.
"How many more to go?" he asked Rab.
"Another forty maybe," Rab replied, scanning the list. "We won't be here all night."
The cars that were waiting for the remaining guests had no room to park on the Hill, so were in the Grove below, circling, awaiting radio orders to come back up and collect their passengers. It was a routine they were well used to, its boredom usually broken by a stream of banter between cars. But tonight there was no gossip about the sex-lives of the passengers, or horny talk about what the drivers were going to do when the job was finished. Most of the time the airwaves were silent, as if the drivers didn't want to advertise their locations. When it was broken, it was by someone making a would-be casual remark about the town.
"Deadwood Gulch," one of them called it. "It's like a fucking cemetery."
It was Rab who silenced the man. "If you've got nothing worth saying, don't say it," he remarked.
"What's your problem?" the man said. "Getting spooked?"
The reply was interrupted by a call from another car.
"You there, Clark?"
"Yeah. Who is this?"
"Are you there?"
Contact was bad, and worsening, the voice from the car breaking up into static.
"There's a fucking dust storm blowing up down here—" the driver was saying. "I don't know if you can hear me, but it's just come out of nowhere."
"Tell him to get out of there," Rab said. "Clark! Tell him!"
"I hear you! Driver? Back off! Back off!"
"Can anybody hear me?" the man yelled, the message almost drowned out by a spiralling howl of wind.
"Driver! Get the fuck out of there!"
"Can anybody—"
In place of the question the sound of the car coming to grief, the driver's voice cut off in the din of wreckage.
"Shit!" Clark said. "Any of you out there know who that was? Or where he was?"
There was silence from the other cars. Even if any of them knew, nobody was volunteering to go help. Rab stared through the trees lining the toad, down towards the town.
"That's it," he said. "Enough of this shit. I'm out of here."
"There's only us left," Clark reminded him.
"If you've got any sense you'll get out too," Rab said, pulling on his tie to unknot it. "I don't know what's going on here, but let the rich folks sort it out."
"We're on duty."
"I just came off!" Rab said. "I ain't being paid enough to take this shit! Catch!" He tossed his radio to Clark. It spat white noise. "Hear that?" he said. "Chaos. That's what's coming."
In the town below Tommy-Ray slowed his car to get a look at the wrecked limo. The ghosts had simply picked it up, and thrown it over. Now they were dragging the driver from his seat. If he wasn't already primed to be one of their number they were quick to put that right, their violence reducing his uniform to tatters and the body beneath it the same.
He'd led the ghost-train away from the Hill to give himself space to plot his way into the house. He didn't want a repeat of the humiliation at the bar, with the guards bruising him then all hell breaking loose. When his father saw him in his new incarnation as the Death-Boy, he wanted to be in control. But that hope was fading fast. The longer he delayed his return the more unruly they became. They'd already demolished the Lutheran Prince of Peace Church, proving, as if any proof were needed, that stone was as ripe for undoing as flesh. A part of him, the part that hated Palomo Grove to its foundations, wanted to let them rampage. Let them level the whole town. But if he gave in to that urge he knew he'd lose power over them completely. Besides, somewhere in the Grove was the one human being he wanted to preserve from harm: Jo-Beth. Once loosed the storm would make no distinctions. Her life would be forfeit, along with every other.
Knowing he had only a short time left before their impatience got the better of them, and they destroyed the Grove anyway, he drove to his mother's house. If Jo-Beth was in town, she'd be here; and if worst came to worst he'd snatch her, and take her back up to the Jaff, who would know how best to subdue the storm.
Momma's house, like most of the houses in the street, indeed in the Grove, was in darkness. He parked and got out of the car. The storm, no longer content to tag along behind, came to meet him, buffeting him.
"Back off," he told the gaping faces that flew in front of him. "You'll get what you want. Everything you want. But you leave this house, and everyone in it, alone. Understand me?"
They sensed the force of his feelings. He heard their laughter, mocking such pitiful sensibilities. But he was still the Death-Boy. They owed him a dwindling devotion. The storm receded down the street a little way, and waited.
He slammed the car door and went up to the house, glancing back down the street to be certain his army was not going to cheat him. It stayed at bay. He knocked at the door.
"Momma?" he shouted. "It's Tommy-Ray, Momma. I got my key but I'm not coming in 'less you ask me. Can you hear me, Momma? Nothing to be afraid of. I'm not going to hurt you." He heard a sound on the other side of the door. "Is that you, Momma? Please answer me."
"What do you want?"
"Just let me see you, please. Let me see you."
The door was unbolted, and opened. Momma Was dressed in black, her hair unbraided. "I was praying," she said.
"For me?" said Tommy-Ray.
Momma didn't answer.
"You weren't, were you?" he said.
"You shouldn't have come back, Tommy-Ray."
"This is home," he said. The sight of her hurt him more than he'd thought possible. After the revelations of the trip to the Mission (the dog and the woman), then events at the Mission and the horrors of his return trip, he'd thought himself beyond what he was feeling now: a choking sorrow.
"I want to come in," he said, knowing even as he said it that there was no way back. The family bosom had never been a place he'd much wanted to lay his head. Jo-Beth's had. It was her his thoughts went to now. "Where is she?" he said.
"Who?"
"Jo-Beth?"
"She's not here," Momma replied.
"Where then?"
"I don't know where."
"Don't tell me lies. Jo-Beth!" he started yelling. "Jo-Beth!"
"Even if she were—"
Tommy-Ray didn't let her finish. He pushed past her and stepped over the threshold. "Jo-Beth! It's Tommy-Ray! I need you, Jo-Beth! I need you, baby!"
It didn't matter any longer if he called her baby, told her he wanted to kiss her and lick her cunt: that was OK. It was love, and love was the only defense he had, or anyone had, against the dust and the wind and all that howled in it: he needed her more than ever. Ignoring Momma's shouts he started through the house from room to room in search of her. Each had a scent of its own, and with the scent a sum of memories—things he'd said, done or felt in this place or that—which flooded over him as he stood in the doorways.