try.”
11
FRANK POLLARD —alias James Roman, alias George Farris—looked in the trunk of the stolen Chevy and found a small bundle of tools wrapped in a felt pouch and tucked in the wheel well. He used a screwdriver to take the plates off the car.
Half an hour later, after cruising some of the higher and even more quiet neighborhoods in fogbound Laguna, he parked on a dark side street and exchanged the Chevy’s plates for those on an Oldsmobile. With luck, the owner of the Olds would not notice the new plates for a couple of days, maybe even a week or longer; until he reported the switch, the Chevy would not match anything on a police hot sheet and would, therefore, be relatively safe to drive. In any case, Frank intended to get rid of the car by tomorrow night and either boost a new one or use some of the cash in the flight bag to buy legal wheels.
Though he was exhausted, he didn’t think it wise to check into a motel. Four-thirty in the morning was a damned odd hour for anyone to be wanting a room. Furthermore, he was unshaven, and his thick hair was matted and oily, and both his jeans and checkered blue flannel shirt were dirty and rumpled from his recent adventures. The last thing he wanted to do was call attention to himself, so he decided to catch a few hours of sleep in the car.
He drove farther south, into Laguna Niguel, where he parked on a quiet residential street, under the immense boughs of a date palm. He stretched out on the backseat, as comfortably as possible without benefit of sufficient legroom or pillows, and closed his eyes.
For the moment he was not afraid of his unknown pursuer, because he felt that the man was no longer nearby. Temporarily, at least, he had given his enemy the shake, and had no need to lie awake in fear of a hostile face suddenly appearing at the window. He was also able to put out of his mind all questions about his identity and the money in the flight bag; he was so tired—and his thought processes were so fuzzy—that any attempt to puzzle out solutions to those mysteries would be fruitless.
He was kept awake, however, by the memory of how strange the events in Anaheim had been, a few hours ago. The foreboding gusts of wind. The eerie flutelike music. Imploding windows, exploding tires, failed brakes, failed steering ...
Who had come into that apartment behind the blue light? Was “who” the right word ... or would it be more accurate to ask what had been searching for him?
During his urgent flight from Anaheim to Laguna, he’d not had the leisure to reflect upon those bizarre incidents, but now he could not turn his mind from them. He sensed that he had survived an encounter with something unnatural. Worse, he sensed that he knew what it was—and that his amnesia was self-induced by a deep desire to forget.
After a while, even the memory of those preternatural events wasn’t enough to keep him awake. The last thing that crossed his waking mind, as he slipped off on a tide of sleep, was that four-word phrase that had come to him when he had first awakened in the deserted alleyway: Fireflies in a windstorm. . . .
12
BY THE time they had cooperated with the police at the scene, made arrangements for their disabled vehicles, and talked with the three corporate officers who showed up at Decodyne, Bobby and Julie did not get home until shortly before dawn. They were dropped at their door by a police cruiser, and Bobby was glad to see the place.
They lived on the east side of Orange, in a three-bedroom, sort-of-ersatz-Spanish tract house, which they had bought new two years ago, largely for its investment potential. Even at night the relative youth of the neighborhood was apparent in the landscaping: None of the shrubbery had reached full size; the trees were still too immature to loom higher than the rain gutters on the houses.
Bobby unlocked the door. Julie went in, and he followed. The sound of their footsteps on the parquet floor of the foyer, echoing hollowly
11
FRANK POLLARD —alias James Roman, alias George Farris—looked in the trunk of the stolen Chevy and found a small bundle of tools wrapped in a felt pouch and tucked in the wheel well. He used a screwdriver to take the plates off the car.
Half an hour later, after cruising some of the higher and even more quiet neighborhoods in fogbound Laguna, he parked on a dark side street and exchanged the Chevy’s plates for those on an Oldsmobile. With luck, the owner of the Olds would not notice the new plates for a couple of days, maybe even a week or longer; until he reported the switch, the Chevy would not match anything on a police hot sheet and would, therefore, be relatively safe to drive. In any case, Frank intended to get rid of the car by tomorrow night and either boost a new one or use some of the cash in the flight bag to buy legal wheels.
Though he was exhausted, he didn’t think it wise to check into a motel. Four-thirty in the morning was a damned odd hour for anyone to be wanting a room. Furthermore, he was unshaven, and his thick hair was matted and oily, and both his jeans and checkered blue flannel shirt were dirty and rumpled from his recent adventures. The last thing he wanted to do was call attention to himself, so he decided to catch a few hours of sleep in the car.
He drove farther south, into Laguna Niguel, where he parked on a quiet residential street, under the immense boughs of a date palm. He stretched out on the backseat, as comfortably as possible without benefit of sufficient legroom or pillows, and closed his eyes.
For the moment he was not afraid of his unknown pursuer, because he felt that the man was no longer nearby. Temporarily, at least, he had given his enemy the shake, and had no need to lie awake in fear of a hostile face suddenly appearing at the window. He was also able to put out of his mind all questions about his identity and the money in the flight bag; he was so tired—and his thought processes were so fuzzy—that any attempt to puzzle out solutions to those mysteries would be fruitless.
He was kept awake, however, by the memory of how strange the events in Anaheim had been, a few hours ago. The foreboding gusts of wind. The eerie flutelike music. Imploding windows, exploding tires, failed brakes, failed steering ...
Who had come into that apartment behind the blue light? Was “who” the right word ... or would it be more accurate to ask what had been searching for him?
During his urgent flight from Anaheim to Laguna, he’d not had the leisure to reflect upon those bizarre incidents, but now he could not turn his mind from them. He sensed that he had survived an encounter with something unnatural. Worse, he sensed that he knew what it was—and that his amnesia was self-induced by a deep desire to forget.
After a while, even the memory of those preternatural events wasn’t enough to keep him awake. The last thing that crossed his waking mind, as he slipped off on a tide of sleep, was that four-word phrase that had come to him when he had first awakened in the deserted alleyway: Fireflies in a windstorm. . . .
12
BY THE time they had cooperated with the police at the scene, made arrangements for their disabled vehicles, and talked with the three corporate officers who showed up at Decodyne, Bobby and Julie did not get home until shortly before dawn. They were dropped at their door by a police cruiser, and Bobby was glad to see the place.
They lived on the east side of Orange, in a three-bedroom, sort-of-ersatz-Spanish tract house, which they had bought new two years ago, largely for its investment potential. Even at night the relative youth of the neighborhood was apparent in the landscaping: None of the shrubbery had reached full size; the trees were still too immature to loom higher than the rain gutters on the houses.
Bobby unlocked the door. Julie went in, and he followed. The sound of their footsteps on the parquet floor of the foyer, echoing hollowly
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