Hollywood Gothic by Thomas Gifford Page B

coverage had only been a starter. The manhunt would be carried out on another scale altogether, and his face would be everywhere. … He spit out the toothpaste, wiped his mouth, and went back to lie down on the bed, scrunching pillows behind him. He glanced at the bedside table. Death of a Ghost, Smallbone Deceased, The Locked Room, The Schirmer Inheritance, Death Under Sail. He shook his head.
    Ralph came in, minus his cigar. He came with the confidence of a natural take-charge guy, dark, bouncing, hyperactive.
    “Sit down, stop jiggling, and listen to me.” Challis waited while Ralph calmed down, with only one foot still nervously tapping the floor. “Now, look, Ralph, you’ve saved my life—if you hadn’t found me out there, I’d have gone into shock, either frozen to death or gotten pneumonia and died from that … I owe you a lot, I owe you everything, Ralph.” He watched Ralph stir uncomfortably, half-smiling, eyes downcast. “Now, you know who I am and you know I know you know …” Challis chuckled. “Right? Okay. I’m going to try to escape, because I didn’t do what they say I did. And I’m going to depend on you to keep the kids from talking about me to anyone. Anyone. Can you do that? Can you keep them from talking about Bandersnatch? No matter who asks them?”
    “Sure, they’ll do whatever I tell ’em. They’re not the brightest kids in the world, see, but they know me, the guy who takes care of them when things are going against them. And if I tell ’em they dreamed there was a Bandersnatch, then it was a dream, see.”
    “Shake on it,” Challis said, taking the boy’s hand.
    “If I don’t see you again …”
    “You’ll see me again.”
    “Yeah, but if I don’t … well, good luck, okay?”
    “Okay, Ralph.”
    Without a backward glance, Ralph jumped off the bed and bolted. Morgan reappeared in the doorway with a huge mug of coffee. “Is everything all right?” Challis nodded. “You never existed at all, is that it? Edward G. does seem to have a slightly hypnotic effect on them.” Challis nodded again. She put the mug down on the table. He smelled the coffee, remembered the cave and the warmth of that fire, the pages of Penthouse curling as the flames licked at the naked girls. He didn’t think about that other coffee smell, the day he got back to Malibu ahead of schedule.
    An hour later he watched from behind the bedroom curtains as the sheriff from the tiny mountain resort town of Cresta Vista arrived in a light blue police van with the departmental crest on the doors. The sheriff was a tall man wearing a blue fur-collared jacket and a fur hat and aviator shades. He stretched to something near six and a half feet once he was properly unfolded, and he walked with a slight limp, as if he’d long ago gotten used to a football knee. There were damp spots all over the driveway where snow had melted. For a while the sheriff stood looking at the lake, then the house, which was when Challis caught sight of the disaster in the snow.
    From where he stood, the footprints in the snow made perfect, unmistakable sense. Strung out in a ramshackle row were the small footprints of the children, just spread out enough to be identifiable. Beside them, deeper and larger, were the tracks of a man. The sheriff reached back into the car and brought out a two-way radio’s microphone. Cupping it in his hand, he began talking, his eyes raking the house, the snow-covered lawn, the lake, which glared feverishly in the sunlight. How could he miss the footprints? They were so obvious. … The windows in the village of Puma Point glared in the sun at the far end of the lake.
    Below, Morgan opened the front door. “Jeff,” she called, “what are you waiting for?” Challis saw her step outside, hugging herself in the cold. “I’ve got a house full of people who need rescuing. Come on in—I’m so glad you were in the office when I called. …” The sheriff’s hard face broke into a broad grin,