A light rain began to fall again, rain mixed with little pellets that I figured was snow but maybe I had some Volkswagen-sized hail coming my way. I looked at the Christmas lights on the lawns, distorted by the wet glass of the car window, blurry-edged and dreamlike, and I remembered my “catch Santa” phase when I was a kid in Ohio. I was nine and determined to get a look at the jolly ol’ elf with my own eyes. I drank four cans of Coke in an hour, and I really had no idea that caffeine was a laxative as well as a stimulant. I spent half the night on the john, doubled over in pain, afraid to call Mom for help, because I’d have to reveal my scheme.
The rain started coming down harder, and the ice pellets pinged on the roof and tapped on the windows. How long had he been gone? I could hardly see the house anymore for the rain. I began to imagine all sorts of horrible things happening to him in there. Had Mike anticipated this move (Op Nine had said he would) and was he waiting inside, crouched in the dark? Maybe Op Nine was already dead and Mike was sneaking up behind the car . . . I jerked around in my seat and peered out the back window, one hand gripping the gun, the other clutching the OIPEP communicator. I didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything, so I hit the red button and said loudly, because I didn’t know where the mike was on the thing, “Op Nine, Op Nine, this is Alfred Kropp. Come back.” I released the button, realized I made a mistake, and pressed it again. “Uh, Op Nine, this is Alfred again. ‘Come back’ means ‘please answer,’ not literally ‘come back.’ Sorry about that. Come back. I mean, over.”
Silence. I examined the sleek metal body of the communicator, but didn’t see any controls besides the two buttons, no on/off switch and no volume control. Maybe there was a wireless earpiece that went with it and Op Nine forgot to give me that one little bit of essential equipment. Whatever was wrong, no sound came from the communicator.
Now what do I do? Wait here for him? I didn’t think it had been fifteen minutes. Ten, tops. Maybe twelve. Twelve and a half, no more than that. Do I go in? And do what? If Mike was in that house, he’d take me out easily, probably much more easily than he took out Op Nine. Okay, so I stay in the car. Thirteen minutes now. Maybe. I could just hit the blue button. If Op Nine didn’t come out, that meant something really bad had happened. If he did, I’d just apologize and say I hit the button on accident. He’d believe that after all the accidents I was responsible for. If Op Nine got killed in this operation, it would be my fault for losing my head in that battle and trying to take on those demons myself. I thought of Carl, or rather Carl’s animated corpse in the morgue, the empty eye sockets and the hole where his heart should have been, and that was my fault too . . . but no, that really wasn’t my fault; why did I think that was my fault? Carl got demon-fried before I laid hands on the ring. So I wasn’t to blame for that, was I? All that happened before I got the Seal, didn’t it? I tried to remember, but my memory was as fuzzy as the Christmas lights through the wet windows. Again I caught a whiff of that odd rotten smell, distinct as when you eat too much garlic and a half hour later you can smell it oozing from your pores.
I pressed the red button again. “Op Nine, Op Nine, this is Alfred. Answer if you can hear me. It’s raining. Over.”
I counted to five, and then tried again. “Op Nine, really need to talk to you. This is Alfred, over.”
Nothing. Not even static. Maybe it was defective or maybe the batteries were dead. You would think highly specialized operatives—particularly a SPA like Op Nine—would check their equipment before a covert op like this one.
There was only one way to test it. Technically, I wasn’t in a panic—not yet—but I was about as close as you can get. I decided I could always tell him I hit it accidentally.
I pressed the blue button.
I counted to ten. Nothing happened. He didn’t come bursting through the hedges, gun drawn, to my rescue. He didn’t come at all, even after I reached sixty and then gave up counting, slipped the mini-3XD into my coat pocket, and eased out the door that faced away from the street, so the mother of the saucer-eyed kids wouldn’t see me. I ran bent over to the hedge, then ducked around it, putting it between me and the road. Now maybe if I stood up and walked casually toward the front door she might mistake me for Op Nine—or Detective Bruce Givens—though that seemed unlikely, since he was about three inches taller and twenty pounds lighter. Sometimes you have to go with all that’s left, even if all that’s left is foolish hope.
I sauntered up the walkway to the front door. I didn’t see how Op Nine got in, but I figured I’d start with the door. The concrete was slick with ice and I had to walk very slowly. At the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch was a flower bed filled with leafless shrubs and a small figure standing guard, just to my left.
A yard gnome. I had a thing about yard gnomes, like I told Dr. Benderhall; I’m not sure why. I put them in the same class as clowns: something that’s supposed to be funny but really is kind of scary. This particular yard gnome had seen his share of winters. The paint on the face was flecking off and the paint that remained had faded to various hues of gray.
I dropped to a crouch and shuffled to the door—I wasn’t sure if I could be seen over the top of the hedge. I could hear the neighbor now: Quick, call the cops! It’s that huge-headed hooligan!
So how did he get in? The front door was locked and the two windows on either side were closed and latched down. Maybe he could melt through walls, like a phantom. First I had him pegged as a cyborg; now he could melt through walls.
So I froze up again and tried the blue button one more time while I leaned against the front door.
At that moment, I heard the dead bolt slowly pull back. I scrambled to my feet, turned, and watched as the front door creaked open about two inches.
“Op Nine?” I whispered.
Nothing. So I took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and stepped inside my own personal house of horrors.
37
The first thing I noticed was the smell of cat. It’s an unmistakable odor and also unavoidable, no matter how often you change the litter box. If this was a movie, the cat would leap out of the dark at me, I would scream, the audience would jump, and then both of us would go “whew!” right before the slasher came barreling out of the shadows with the butcher knife. I should probably neutralize the cat before proceeding.