Holly almost laughed with relief. "Yes, Bear Paw. A funny name that I can never remember. That's the place."
"Not much of a town, from what I hear," said the helpful Schaeffer. "Gets a few skiers in the winter is about it. Anyway, they've got a post office and your Dr. Pastory's clinic."
Holly stood up. "Thank you so much, Mr. Schaeffer. I can't tell you how helpful you've been."
The salesman scrambled to his feet. "But the equipment. Didn't you want to go over the list?"
"Why don't you run off that printout and send it to me in care of La Reina County Hospital? I look forward to doing business with you."
Holly made her second hasty exit of the morning, leaving a befuddled Olan Schaeffer wondering whether his commission had just sailed out the door.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
While Holly Lang took hasty leave of the offices of Landrud & Co. in Ventura, Abe Craddock was draining a can of Coors in the old Whitaker place. It was a falling-down cabin set well back in the trees at the south end of Pinyon, and had not been used since old George Whitaker's Dodge had slipped off a jack while he was under it down at Art Moore's Exxon station.
The cabin had been rented from old George Whitaker's widow by a smart-talking writer fella from Los Angeles who was doing a story for one of the scandal sheets they sold where you paid for your groceries, over at the Safeway. This so-called writer had bailed Abe Craddock out of jail and promised him a cool thousand dollars just for telling him the story of what happened in the woods that day with Curly Vane and the wolf thing. The catch was that Craddock would tell his story to no one else.
Abe figured he flat had it made. Not only was he living fairly comfortable in the cabin with Betty out of his hair; he was taking this smartass L.A. writer for all the booze he could drink, and figured he could probably up the dollar price on him, too. As for the manslaughter charge against him for blowing up Jones, that was no sweat anymore. With the kid gone and Curly nothing but raw meat, there were no witnesses. It was an accident, pure and simple. Yes, things were surely going old Abe Craddock's way for a change.
The L.A. writer, Louis Zeno by name, was hammering away at the old typewriter he'd brought with him like he was trying to set the thing on fire. Abe had never in his life seen a man who could type so fast.
Zeno ripped out the page he was working on and handed it over to Craddock. "All right, Abe, I want you to take a look at this and see if it sounds all right. Remember, this is supposed to be you telling the story, and I want to be sure the facts are reasonably close to what really happened."
Craddock took the page, set aside the Coors can, wiped his mouth, cleared his throat. He began to read in a labored schoolboy manner:
"When Curly Vane and I entered the dense, dripping forest outside Pinyon on that fateful afternoon, perhaps we should have sensed..."
Abe stopped reading and looked up, frowning.
"Something the matter?" Zeno said impatiently.
"It's that dripping forest business. The forest don't drip. Least, I don't remember no dripping that particular day."
"That's alliteration for effect," Zeno told him.
"Huh?"
"Don't worry about it. Read the rest."
Craddock went through his preliminary mouth-wiping and throat-clearing again and continued:
"...should have sensed a certain foreboding, an ominous presence lurking unseen in the shadows. But in our innocent good spirits, neither of us could foresee the unspeakable fate that would befall one of us before we would see the sun again..."
Abe stopped again, shaking his head.
"What now?" the writer said wearily.
"Uh, I ain't sure I get that business about the sun. I mean, it was up there all the time. We weren't in no cave, you know."
"Never mind that," Zeno told him. "That's just for atmosphere. All I want you to do is make sure that what I say you say happened is more or less what happened. So if anybody asks you about it after the story comes out you can tell them, sure, that's the way it was. Okay?"
"Yeah, okay. I get it." Craddock sucked noisily at the empty beer can. "Reading this stuff is mighty thirsty work, and damn if I don't think this is the last of the Coors."
"Jesus, Abe, it isn't even noon yet, and you've put away a whole six-pack and part of another."
"Hell, that's nothin'. You should of seen me and Curly when we really got down to some serious drinking. Hell, we wouldn't leave no bottle untapped in three counties."
"I'll bet," Zeno said unhappily.
"An' you did say you'd provide the drinking stuff as long as I gave my story to you and nobody else. Ain't that right?"
"That's right, Abe," Zeno said. "Let's just finish this part where you walk into the woods and first see the Wolfman."
Craddock coughed loudly. "Damn, Lou, I just don't think I can rightly concentrate anymore without something to cool down my throat."
"All right," the writer snapped. "I'll go get some more beer. Do you think a twelve-pack will hold you till lunchtime?"
"Might be," Craddock said. "If you get the sixteen ounce cans; it'll go farther."
"Yeah, yeah, sixteen-ounce." Louis Zeno lowered the cover onto his precious portable Royal and stood up.
Someday, some blessed day, Louis Zeno would finish the book that was finally going to make him some real money and free him forever from writing trash for the supermarket tabloids and dealing with scum like this foul-smelling Abe Craddock. He had the outline tucked away in his apartment in West Hollywood. All he needed was a free month or so to get it down on paper and off to a publisher.
In the meantime, he would just have to keep turning out stories about mothers who stuffed their babies into microwave ovens and country girls fucked by green men from outer space and assholes like Abe Craddock and his imaginary werewolf. He could look forward to one small victory when Craddock tried to collect the imaginary thousand dollars Zeno had promised him. The writer crossed the cabin's single room to where his jacket hung from a bent nail.
"You might pick up some Fritos while you're at the store," Craddock suggested. "One of the big bags."
"Big bag. Sure."
"When you get back I'll tell you the part where I took on that wolf thing with my bare hands after I seen what he done to Curly. I mean, I was holdin' my own, too, maybe gettin' the best of things. If only I hadn't of caught my boot there in them bushes and tripped myself up it might of been a whole 'nother story."
"Yeah, Abe, swell, but let's just stick to the story we've got. I'll ask the questions and you tell me what happened in your own halting words. I'm the professional. I know how to put these things together."
"I guess that's right," Abe said slyly, "but without me you wouldn't have nothing to put together. Ain't that so?"
Fuck you, you stinking ignorant redneck bastard! is what Louis Zeno thought. What he said was, "Yeah, that's so, Abe. Without you I'd be standing in the unemployment line."
"Well, don't you worry, Lou buddy, you and me are going to make us a whole shitpot full of money with this before we're through."
Zeno shrugged into his jacket and headed for the door.
Neither man looked toward the dusty windowpane at the side of the cabin. If they had, they might have seen the eyes that watched them. Eyes that gradually changed color until they seemed to glow an unearthly green.
Derak watched the man from the city leave the cabin and stalk down the trail to the clearing where he had parked the little orange car. The engine fired and the city man drove off. Derak looked back through the window at the gross, murdering hunter. The smoldering hatred inside him kindled to a flame. Derak moved a short distance away from the cabin and carefully removed his clothes so they would not be shredded as the transformation began.