“‘Mid pleasures and palaces,” Fain said, steering into the parking lot of the Horizon Motel, “there’s no place like home.”
“Golly, Toto,” said Jillian, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
As they walked past the office, the desk man tapped on the window with a quarter and beckoned Fain inside.
“With you in a minute,” he told Jillian, and entered the office.
Through the grill in the Plexiglas shield the clerk said, “You didn’t sleep here last night.”
“So?”
“So that don’t mean it was free. If you’re stayin’ another day, it’s another thirty dollars.”
Fain peeled the money off his thin sheaf of bills and paid.
The clerk rolled his eyes toward Jillian, who waited just outside. “You didn’t like the local stuff?”
“Nothing personal,” Fain said, “but I haven’t had all my shots.”
In the room Fain tested the window to be sure it could not be opened, then pointed out the bolt lock and chain to Jillian. “As soon as I’m out, lock everything. Don’t open the door until you’re sure it’s me.”
“How long will you be, Mac?” The artificial banter of the parking lot was gone now. “I’m scared.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He kissed her. “And if you want to know the truth, I’m scared, too. But I’ll get us out of this. You watch.”
“By magic?”
“A little magic,” he told her, “couldn’t hurt.”
• • •
The People’s Sunshine Clinic looked exactly as it had on Fain’s last visit. Fain did not bother with his disguise. No one here would be looking for him. The leftover hippies in the waiting room wore the same outdated sixties clothes and spaced-out expressions. Giving them a casual once-over, Fain diagnosed two drug overdoses, a probable herpes, and one case of what looked like terminal acne. He felt like an old-timer here as he walked on through the NO ADMITTANCE door to where the young woman with the enormous eyes worked at a makeshift desk.
“You’re not supposed to come back here,” she said.
“I’m not a patient,” Fain told her. “I have business with Le Docteur.”
Her eyes narrowed. She started to rise.
Fain held up his hands, palms out. “Please don’t call the two goons this time. I’ve been all through it with them. Just tell Le Docteur that McAllister Fain is here.”
The young woman looked him over carefully and apparently decided he was no immediate threat. She said, “I’ll tell him, but he won’t like it.”
“Thank you,” Fain said. “I’ll risk it.”
The woman went out the back way. Fain stood impatiently around the desk and listened to the howling of one of the ODs in the waiting room.
In a few minutes she came back, wearing a surprised look. “Le Docteur remembers you,” she said. “He’s out in the back. You know where that is?”
“I know,” Fain told her. “Thanks.”
He went out and picked his way through the weed-grown patch of dirt to the corrugated metal shed. The door was closed, but the padlock was hanging open. Fain knocked, bruising his knuckles.
“Come,” said the high, clear voice he remembered.
• • •
Fain pulled open the door and stepped into the shed. The air was hot and humid. The enormous black man sat in the same chair he had taken before. He wore a tentlike caftan into which were woven geometric patterns. His body seemed to fill the cramped little building.
“Close the door,” Le Docteur ordered.
Fain obeyed. A flickering illumination came from two sputtering candles on the rickety folding table. There was no visible opening for ventilation.
“Sit,” the black man said.
Fain eased himself into the second chair across the table from Le Docteur.
“I was expecting you before this.”
“Then you know why I’m here?” Fain said.
“It is not difficult to guess, but I would like you to tell me.”
“I want to know how to send back the people I called up from the dead.”
“Of course you do. The ceremony is very simple, but I told you the last time it would be costly.”
“I haven’t much money, but I can get more.”
Le Docteur made a wheezing sound that might have been a laugh or a growl. “Keep your money. I told you it is of no use to me. Your cost for this secret will be something much dearer than money.”
Fain waited. The huge black man sat motionless, watching him. Waiting for him to ask. So he did. “What is the cost?”
“Your life’s blood,” said Le Docteur.
The stale air in the shed seemed to thicken as they sat in silence for several seconds. As before, Fain had the sense of things mystical and forbidden writhing on the walls.
To break the spell, he said, “You don’t mean that literally?”
“I do not speak in metaphors. Your blood is the essential ingredient in the formula I will give you.” He reached into the folds of the caftan and brought out two crumpled slips of paper. “This,” he said, handing Fain the first, “is the formula. And these are the words.”
Fain squinted, trying to make out the smudged handwriting.
“The formula is not difficult. The ingredients are easily purchased except for the most essential one, which you must supply. The mixture is to be splashed on the dead ones as you say the words. In this way, and only in this way, will you send them back.”
Fain looked up from the formula sheet. “Am I misreading this, or does it say here three liters of blood?”
“You read it correctly.”
“If I remember my basic anatomy, a man my size has about twelve pints, or five-and-a-half liters, of blood in his body. You drain more than half of that away and the man dies.”
“I told you the cost was high.”
Fain’s mind spun, searching for a way out. “What if I had the blood taken a little at a time and stored it?”
“Not acceptable. In combination with the formula and the words, the dead ones you would send back must see the blood flow from your body.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Then return my papers and go.”
“No,” Fain said quickly, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I guess I didn’t expect the cost would be so … so final.”
“No one ever does.”
Fain peered at the two slips of paper again. “These words are French?”
“Mostly. You must say them exactly as written when you perform the ceremony.”
“I see a flaw here,” Fain said. “How am I supposed to be able to splash this mess around if I’m in a coma from blood loss?”
“That is a problem I cannot solve for you.”
“And what’s to keep these people from ripping me apart while I’m doing the mixing? I’ve met a couple of them recently, and they are not patient.”
“That I can help you with.” Le Docteur shifted his bulk and plucked something from a hook on the wall behind him. He handed it to Fain.
It was a coil of finely braided rope, silky soft to the touch.
“It feels like human hair,” said Fain.
“Yes,” said Le Docteur. “It is plucked from … special heads. Place it full length on the ground between you and the dead ones. They will be unable to cross it while you prepare the formula. But do not delay. The power of the rope is limited.”
“Like my blood supply,” said Fain, shivering despite the stifling heat.
“Just so.” Le Docteur reached out with a sausage thumb and forefinger to snuff out one of the candles. “Now go. Because you carry the power of the gangan I have given you secrets beyond a man’s rightful knowledge. My business with you is finished. Do not come back to me. Ever.”
“No,” said Fain, still reading the formula. “I don’t suppose I will.”
He stood up, feeling suddenly giddy in the airless shed. As he opened the door and went out, the last candle died.
Fain sat in his car out in front of the clinic, oblivious to the hostile stares from the patrons of Big Mary’s and the motorcycle shop. He read and reread the two slips of paper Le Docteur had given him. He refigured the amount of his fresh blood called for in the formula against the quantity of his body and came out with the same deadly result.
What the hell good would it do him to dispatch the dead souls if it left him a dry, dead man? But was there another choice? Run. But there had to be an end to running. And there was Jillian to consider. Come on, magic man, he told himself. It’s time to pull off your greatest escape ever.
He looked at his watch and was surprised to see it was already past noon. As on his first visit, the time he spent with Le Docteur was squeezed out of proportion. If he was to be ready by the time night came again, he had to move. He made his decision and drove away.
Before returning to Jillian at the motel, Fain made four stops: a big chain drugstore, a medical-supply house, a meat packer in Vernon, and the Bekins warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. At the warehouse he spent twenty more of his dwindling dollars to reclaim part of his property.
When he returned to the Horizon Motel, Jillian was in a high state of nerves, and the sun was low in the west.