The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks - lanyon Josh - Страница 6

“I’m twenty-three.”

The dark eyebrows rose skeptically. Nick looked about thirty. He had smooth olive skin and short, dark hair. And those navy blue eyes. He was very good-looking in a stern no trespassing way. About the same height as Perry, but built for action. Key word: muscles.

Perry swallowed a mouthful of beer, the faint skunky taste marking it an import.

He couldn’t decide if he liked Nick Reno, but he felt safe with him. He couldn’t imagine anything happening that Nick Reno couldn’t handle.

Nick left the kitchen and disappeared down the hall. Perry drank some more beer.

Pinpricks of rain against the ink black windows had a mournful sound. He remembered that just a few hours ago he had been in San Francisco. He couldn’t handle that memory now. Not with dead men appearing and disappearing like the middle reel of a slasher movie. He swallowed another musky mouthful of beer.

“How long have you lived here?” Nick’s voice inquired from the other room.

“A year next month.”

“And nothing like this has ever happened before?”

“No, of course not.”

“Anything suspicious?”

Perry thought it over. “No.”

“You don’t sound convinced.” Nick appeared in the doorway with a couple of folded wool blankets.

“It’s an old house,” Perry said reluctantly. “It’s got…atmosphere.”

Nick’s expression indicated he hoped “atmosphere” wasn’t catching. “What, floorboards creaking? Whispering voices?”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m being watched,” Perry said. “Sometimes it seems like my stuff has been moved. Like somebody’s been in my rooms. Sometimes it seems like the house is…listening.”

Nick considered him for a long moment. “I’d say you were nutty as a fruitcake, except someone scrubbed down that tub and switched those shoes. I sure as hell didn’t imagine it. And I sure as hell can’t think of any innocent reason someone would do something like that.”

It was a huge relief to be believed. Perry volunteered, “I was supposed to be gone all this week. I came back early.”

“Who knew that?”

Perry rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I don’t know. It wasn’t a secret. Janie -- Ms. Bridger -- knew. Mrs. Mac.” It was all beginning to catch up with him. Swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat, he said, “I’d been planning the trip to San Francisco for weeks. I guess anyone could have known.”

Whatever Nick read in his face caused him to say brusquely, “Yeah, well, it would be helpful to narrow it down. Get some sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

Sleep sounded like a good idea. Perry hadn’t eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours, and the beer was hitting him hard. Or maybe it was exhaustion. He hadn’t closed his eyes last night -- and the night before that he had been too keyed up to sleep. The drive from the airport had taken everything he had; he had been sputtering along on empty for hours now.

“Thanks.” He dropped down on the sofa. Nick tossed him the folded blankets. He caught them against his chest.

He opened his mouth to thank Nick one more time, but Nick, had already disappeared down the hallway to the room Perry couldn’t see. The door closed with finality.

The closed door was a relief. Perry hadn’t realized how nervous the older man made him. Nervous and self-conscious. Nick Reno, man of action, clearly despised the wuss from across the hall.

Perry opened his suitcase, found flannel pajamas and a clean pair of socks. It was going to be a cold night. Nick’s thermostat was set on sixty, and the window casements leaked.

Hands shaking with sudden exhaustion, Perry changed into the pajamas, pulled on the socks, and rolled himself in the blankets. The couch was about a foot too short. It didn’t matter; a bed of nails would be preferable to sleeping in his own silent rooms.

He vaguely considered brushing his teeth but somehow just couldn’t convince himself to make the effort. Instead, he buried his face in the cool pillowcase and got a shock. The pillow smelled of Nick Reno. It smelled masculine: long-ago aftershave and some kind of herbal soap.

In some indefinable way it reminded him of Marcel, although Marcel had smelled nothing like Nick Reno. Perry’s sense of loneliness and loss returned in force, crashing over him like a wave, dragging him out to sea on an emotional riptide. His eyes prickled, his face flushed. He pressed closer to the pillow that smelled like Nick Reno to muffle the sob that threatened to tear out of his throat.

Truly the last fucking straw if he finished this weekend crying himself to sleep on Nick Reno’s sofa. He pictured Reno coming out to find him sobbing into the upholstery and surprised himself with a watery chuckle. He could imagine the horror on Reno’s face so clearly.

Listening to the rain thundering down, he closed his eyes and let it wash him away.

* * * * *

Thirty minutes, Nick thought, slapping the magazine into the MK23. Thirty minutes tops and the kid would be in dreamland.

He waited, stretched out on the bed, arms folded behind his head, at ease, waiting.

He liked the sound of the rain battering down against the walls and roof; it reminded him of the sea. He missed the sea.

When the clock clicked over the thirtieth minute, he rose soundlessly and went to the door to ease it open.

All quiet in the living room. The light was still on, though, so he waited, listening. He focused hard, tuning out the rain, tuning out the clock, the branches scraping the house. He could hear the kid breathing softly, evenly, asleep.

Opening the door wide, he stole down the hallway. His houseguest was curled up uncomfortably on the sofa. His suitcase was open, his inhaler was propped on the coffee table in grabbing reach. His keys were on the floor. Nick took a second look. Foster wore some kind of striped PJs and a wristwatch.

Nick picked up the keys, pausing when a floorboard creaked. The kid sighed and buried his face deeper in the pillow.

Nick continued toward the door. Unlocking it, he slipped out into the dim hall. He relocked the door.

Cautiously he made his way down the hall. There was a walk-in linen cupboard at one end. Doubtful, but he wanted to check it out.

A steamer trunk beneath one of the grimy windows caught his attention. Talk about your long shots, but Nick had learned a long time ago never to assume anything. He turned his flashlight on.

The trunk was locked, but he picked the old lock without much trouble. Lifting the lid, he was greeted by the scent of mothballs. The interior was stuffed with junk: a couple of battered photo albums, old Life magazines, a black doll missing an arm, draperies that looked like shrouds. He shut the trunk, snapped off his flashlight, and headed for the linen closet.

A relic of more genteel times, the walk-in closet opened with a lugubrious screech of unused hinges. Nick waited for the sounds of alarm, ready to abort.

Nothing. He pulled the chain of the overhead light bulb. Tired light flooded empty, dirty shelves and cobwebs big enough to accommodate a Jules Verne spider. Dust carpeted the floor; Nick didn’t need to get down on hands and knees to verify that no one, dead or alive, had been in this room for years.

Strike two.

The kid -- or maybe it had been the Bridger woman -- had mentioned a laundry chute. Nick ran the flashlight beam along the wall. He had a vague memory of laundry chutes in hotels. Usually they opened out into the basement. Shoving it down a laundry chute might be a good way to get rid of a corpse, but there didn’t seem to be a chute door on this floor. The two tower rooms mirrored each other, and since there was no laundry chute in Nick’s room, he was pretty sure the kid didn’t have one, either.

That meant someone would have to lug the corpse down to the second level and stuff the body into the laundry chute there. Most of the chutes Nick had seen weren’t that big. It might be a good way to dispose of a child or a midget; an adult-sized corpse was liable to get stuck in place.