Sunglasses After Dark Read online

  When I got up off the floor, all I saw was a bunch of shattered Dr Pepper bottles. No dead girl. No blood. The stickup man's gun was on top of the counter, wrapped in a plastic bag. The cop that found me said it had been on the floor. I couldn't figure it out. Then I saw the doors.

  You see, the store's got these swinging glass doors.

  During the day both of them are unlocked, but after midnight I lock one side so's I can keep better track of who's coming in and going out, see? Both them doors were hanging off their hinges and there was busted glass all over the parking lot! Looked like someone rode a motorcycle through them… from inside the store!

  I don't know what the hell she was on, but judging from them doors, I'm glad I didn't get in her way. That's all I can tell you about what went on, save that I never saw her before and I hope I'll never see her again. I'm quitting this chicken-shit job.

  Officer Golson: Mr. Burdette, what exactly was stolen from your store?

  Burdette: Well, the money the holdup guy took from the till was scattered on the floor, near the gun. So the only thing I know for sure was taken from the store was a pair of RayBan sunglasses. The mirrored kind. And that's only because I saw her wearing them just before she plowed into the asshole.

  Officer Golson: You're sure that's all that was stolen? A pair of mirrored sunglasses?

  Burdette: You got it.

  Irma Clesi opened the door to her apartment. She was dressed in a shapeless housecoat and fluffy house shoes, her head lumpy with rollers.

  Four-thirty in the god-damned morning! Every day for twelve years she woke up at four-thirty so she could fix that lazy slob's breakfast. And what thanks did she get for sending him off to the factory with something beside cold cereal in his gut? A kiss? A hug? A simple "Thanks, honey"? No fucking way. The bastard didn't even have the common decency to offer to take out the garbage.

  Irma Clesi struggled down the front stairs, cursing her husband, Stan, under her breath, the shiny black bag bouncing against her thighs with each step. Metal cans and glass bottles clanked in the predawn quiet.

  The trash cans for their apartment complex were set flush with the pavement, the lids opened by foot pedals. It was an old, uniquely urban form of trash collection. Irma wasn't sure how the garbage men got the cans in and out; Stan claimed they used special hooks to lift the aluminum containers out of their dens. Irma didn't really care, just as long as it kept the neighborhood dogs from scattering trash all over the sidewalk.

  Irma's left house shoe, a wad of pink synthetic cotton candy, slammed down on the pedal and the trash can's lid popped up. Irma caught the lip of the cover with her free hand and opened it further, leaning over to drop the plastic bag full of coffee grounds, beer bottles, and chili cans into the hole in the sidewalk.

  There was someone looking up at her from inside the trash can.

  A man in his early thirties, his long hair bunched around his face, lay crumpled in the Clesis' rubbish bin. Whatever it was that killed him had stuffed his corpse into the garbage bin a few hours earlier, for now his limbs were stiffened into obtuse angles, like those of an abstract sculpture.

  Irma dropped the lid and her bag of garbage. Her screams were short but explosive as she ran back to the safety of her apartment.

  The neighborhood dogs, drawn by the aroma of chili, tore at the plastic bag, spilling garbage all over the sidewalk.

  Claude Hagerty sat in his booth at the Cup 'n' Saucer, a greasy spoon specializing in the early breakfast trade. He'd been taking his breakfast there for twelve years and the waitresses knew him on sight. A plate with two eggs sunny-side-up, biscuits, and hash browns with country gravy appeared before him without Claude having to order.

  The morning newspaper was unfolded before him, the updated edition having hit the stands just after he got off work. He stared at the front page while his eggs congealed, searching for traces of her passing. He found it on page three: MAN SOUGHT IN CONNECTION WITH ARMED ROBBERY FOUND DEAD IN TRASH CAN.

  Claude shut the newspaper, resting his brow on the heel of his palm. His stomach roiled and the sight of breakfast made him even queasier. He was back at Elysian Fields, listening to Dr. Wexler have hysterics.

  Wexler was a tall, tanned, conventionally handsome man in his late fifties who looked like his dust jackets. Except when he was angry. And he'd been real angry at four o'clock in the morning. Angry enough to fire Claude for "not doing his job."

  Tired as he was, Hagerty couldn't bring himself to go home and sleep. Something was eating at him. He couldn't help feel that he'd been given a clue, but he was too stupid to recognize it. His dream had faded during the excitement and recriminations following Blue, S.'s escape, and his attempts to recall the details met with frustration. As he sat and stared at the columns of newsprint, Claude's vision blurred and his mind began to drift.

  "Denise Thorne."

  The voice sounded as if someone had spoken in his ear. Claude started awake with a muffled shout. Several of the Cup 'n' Saucer's patrons stared at him. He pulled himself out of the booth and left a ten-dollar bill next to his untouched meal.

  His mother, bless her, had tried her best to get him to use his brains and not just rely on his brawn. And, to a certain extent, she had succeeded. Claude was a voracious reader, and he was familiar with the public library.

  He was the first one through the library doors. He'd had to wait an hour before they opened, but he used the time to read the newspaper from front to back, attempting to find further evidence of her activities. He'd even scrutinized the want ads and lost-dog notices. Except for the dead man stuffed in the trash, he could not find anything he could link to her. That made him feel a little better.

  He checked in the subject catalog and found a single entry for Thorne, Denise. It was a nonfiction book called The Vanishing Heiress. When he had no luck locating it in the stacks, he asked one of the librarians where it might be. The woman checked her computer terminal and scowled.

  "I'm sorry, sir. That book was checked out over six months ago and it's never been returned. People can be so thoughtless. The computer says it's an out-of-print book, so there's no chance of us being able to reorder it…"

  "There aren't any other books on Denise Thorne?"

  "No. That's the only one I've ever heard of."

  Hagerty's hands curled into fists. It was all he could do to keep from smashing them against the countertop.

  "However, you could check our newspaper morgue. Everything's on microfiche. I'm afraid I couldn't give you the exact date. Late 60s, early 70s. That's all I can recall."

  "You know something about her?"

  The librarian, an older woman, nodded. "I remember when it happened. I had a daughter the same age, so I guess that's why. Those things have a way of making you stop and thank God it wasn't you."

  "What happened to her?"

  The librarian shrugged. "No one knows."

  Wexler was shaking. He moved to the wet bar and fixed himself a Scotch on the rocks, eyeing his surroundings with distaste.

  He'd never liked the house. She'd bought it after her husband's death. It was a twenty-room mansion, decorated like a boudoir and filled with icons of Zebulon Wheele.

  Images of the deceased televangelist covered every wall; a tasteful if unexceptional portrait in oils hung alongside a picture composed of 125 varieties of pasta. A charcoal study commissioned from Andrew Wyeth was displayed next to a life-sized Zeb executed in Day-Glo colors on a black velvet background.

  Catherine Wheele's personal study—the one she used to receive visitors—had to be the worst example of kitsch iconography in the entire house, and that was saying something. The walls were covered by murals depicting the life and career of Zebulon Wheele.

  The "story" began with a cherubic, barefoot urchin in ragged overalls holding a bible to his narrow chest, his Keane-ish eyes cast heavenward. It ended with the silver-haired Zebulon, attired in his trademark powder-blue three-piece suit, mounting a celestial stairway. The Pearly
Gates sat atop the stairs. Two robed, Aryan-looking men bedecked with halos stood on the steps, welcoming Zebulon with open arms. Zebulon was looking over his shoulder at the woman standing at the foot of the stairs. Although weeping, Catherine Wheele's likeness somehow kept its makeup dry.

  Wexler remembered how feverishly she had spoken of Zebulon's "crusade" that night. He recalled how bright her eyes had been, the pupils large and unfocused. She'd spoken unceasingly of her late husband, the words blurring into one another to form a tapestry of sound, until she pushed him onto the love seat and fellated him. Wexler found himself staring at the same love seat and shuddered.

  That was the first night he'd been in the house and the night he'd been made aware that one of her dummy companies controlled the board of directors at Elysian Fields. That was the night she'd told him she knew about the money he was embezzling from the hospital and how she was willing to "overlook the whole thing" if he simply agreed to take on a special patient. No questions asked.

  Raymond Wexler stared at the love seat and contemplated the unraveling of his life. He finished his drink and was starting on his second when she entered the room. He started guiltily, slopping liquor onto the polished surface of the bar.

  "Raymond," she said frostily.

  Abandoning his drink, Wexler tried to smile and look concerned at the same time. It didn't work. Catherine Wheele was not a woman who took bad news graciously.

  She was dressed in a peach chiffon negligee, its décolletage and hem lined with ostrich feathers. Her wig showed signs of having been put on in a hurry. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and the feral intelligence he saw in her eyes disturbed him. Wexler realized that he'd never seen her real face before, even during their brief sexual tussles.

  "You must have your reasons for waking me at this hour, Raymond." She walked toward her desk, her body moving like a ghost underneath the opaque chiffon. Wexler tried to recall what she looked like naked and failed. "You could have at least phoned…"

  "She's escaped." He grimaced after he'd said it. He hadn't meant to blurt it out like that, but he was afraid she would look into his mind. Anything was better than that.

  Her back stiffened but she did not turn to look at him. Wexler felt a sharp twinge in his forebrain, but could not tell if it was her doing or simply a nervous headache. She was studying the large framed photograph of Zebulon that rested on the comer of her desk. Zebulon was standing next to the governor, smiling into the camera as they pumped each other's arms. Catherine stood behind and to one side of her husband, watching him with coon-dog devotion.

  "I see. Does anyone know?"

  "She's killed someone already, Catherine. It's in the papers!"

  "That's not what I asked."

  Wexler was sweating. His skin felt cold. "The orderly on duty at the time, name of Hagerty. But I've already had him dismissed."

  She swung around to face him. He knew it was going to be bad, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad. The rage gave her eyes a weird shine, like those of an animal. "I'm afraid that won't do, Raymond. I'll have my boys… take care of it."

  Wexler opened his mouth to protest, but she closed the distance between them, pressing her body against his. Her perfume was overpowering. He could feel a cold pressure in his head as she reached inside. He wondered if she would tell him to stop breathing.

  "I'm afraid you've failed me, Raymond. Failed me in a big way."

  She lifted a hand to his face. Her fingertips stroked his cheek, then dipped beneath the surface of his skin. She traced the tilt of bone and sweep of muscle as if trailing her fingers through the waters of a still pond. The ripple that went through him in ever increasing circles was pain. Wexler tried to scream, but nothing would come out of his distorted, gaping mouth.

  When it was over, his face was unmarred, although fierce muscle contractions threatened to grind his teeth to chalk. Catherine Wheele's fingers were stained bright red.

  Hagerty passed a hand over his eyes, gently massaging them in their sockets. After hours of searching the microfiche archives, scanning the front pages of the nation's major newspapers for a face he'd glimpsed in a dream, he'd finally found what he was looking for.

  The face smiled at him from a news item dated 1969. Now he realized why she'd looked familiar.

  Denise Thorne.

  That Denise Thorne.

  She was the daughter and only child of Jacob Thorne, founder of Thorne Industries. Her net worth was estimated between ten and fifteen million, making her one of the world's richest teenagers at the time of her disappearance. She'd been educated in exclusive schools and vacationed in exotic locales. Her entry into Vassar was assured. Then she vanished from the face of the earth.

  Every year or so one of the news services would do an article on missing celebrities, and certain names were sure to pop up. Names like Judge Crater, Jimmy Hoffa, Ambrose Bierce, D. B. Cooper… and Denise Thorne.

  Along with some schoolfriends and a hired traveling companion, she had jetted to London in the summer of '69. They were rich young Americans out to sample the forbidden pleasures of "Swinging London." Three days after arriving at Heathrow, the group decided to investigate the discotheques in the Chelsea district. They may have been underage, but they were wealthy and that made all the difference.

  Denise Thorne was last seen talking to an older, aristocratic-looking gentleman. When questioned later, her companions could not recall his name but were under the impression he was of the ruling class. No one saw either of them leave. That was August 3, 1969.

  Kidnapping was a natural assumption, and suspicion automatically fell on the hired companion. As he read the news accounts—weeks condensed onto a single fiche—Hagerty could feel the mounting frustration as the authorities ran out of leads. After a week they dropped all lines of inquiry involving the companion and focused their suspicion on radical political groups—the IRA in particular. But the persistent absence of a ransom note or a statement claiming responsibility for the crime forced Scotland Yard to abandon that line of questioning as well.

  By the end of 1969 the case was still open. Some optimistic souls speculated she had run off to India with a band of hippies. The general consensus, however, was that Denise Thorne was lying dead in a ditch or, more likely, moldering in a shallow grave out on some lonely moor. By New Year of 1970 she was old news and the papers had more than their fair share of new atrocities to report.

  Hagerty sat in the dark and stared at the face of a girl missing and believed dead for over eighteen years. The face of his dream intruder. She had been a pretty girl, with a strong jawline and high cheekbones. She wore her hair in the fashion of the day: long, parted down the middle, and straight as a board. He tried to superimpose the features of Sonja Blue. His mind rebelled. She couldn't be the same woman. Denise Thorne—if she were alive today—would be close to thirty-five, and Sonja Blue couldn't be more than twenty-four.

  Claude vaguely recalled the newspapers reporting the case when it first happened. He'd been nineteen at the time, and the bum knee that'd kept him from being a college draft pick had also kept him out of Vietnam. He'd been working nights at the state hospital when the Thorne disappearance made the papers, over eighteen years ago. So what was the connection?

  Maybe if he rested his eyes he could think better.

  The librarian shook his shoulder, waking Claude from the first decent sleep he'd enjoyed in over forty-eight hours.

  "Sir… sir? I'm afraid you'll have to leave. The library closes in ten minutes."

  Hagerty stumbled from the library and entered the parking lot, fumbling for his keys. He was suffering from the disorientation that accompanies sleeping while sitting upright; his mouth felt like a ball of damp cotton and his back ached from his hours in the chair. He had the car door open before he realized he was no longer alone.

  There were two of them, dressed in conservative dark suits with narrow lapels and even narrower ties. Their hair was short and brushed away from their foreheads. They were wea
ring sunglasses after dark. They had come up from behind and were now flanking him. Hagerty felt his scalp tighten as he realized his was the only car left in the parking lot.

  One of them spoke. It didn't matter which. "Claude Hagerty?"

  Cops. That was it. They were police. They'd found out about the escape and were asking questions. Nothing to be worried about.

  Smiling his relief, Hagerty turned to face them. "Yes? Can I be of some help?"

  The air in his lungs escaped in one agonized gasp as a fist sank up to its wrist in his stomach. The blow knocked Claude against the car door, slamming it shut. His hands opened in reflex, dropping his car keys to the pavement.

  The man who sucker-punched him withdrew his fist from Claude's gut. Light glinted dully off the brass knuckles. He drew back to deliver another blow, but Claude's instincts were in gear. He lashed out with his right arm, catching his attacker across the chin with a closed fist.

  The stranger staggered backward, his sunglasses askew. Blood dribbled down his chin. The second man drew a blackjack from his coat pocket.

  "Wexler didn't say nothing about no linebacker," growled the man with the blackjack.

  The recognition was sharp, like a needle jabbed in a boil. The last time he had seen these men they were grasping the ankles of Archie Kalish. There was only a moment for Claude to realize that they meant to kill him, then the back of his head exploded.

  Claude fell to the pavement. He did not see which one kicked him in the ribs or who dealt the blow to his kidneys.