And in a flurry of green-and-red silk, he was gone. The old man's concern was infectious. Feeling a pang of unaccustomed disquiet, Remo raced out into the night after the elderly Korean.
Chapter 16
The girl had gotten into the Roadkill Tavern with fake ID. Had to have. There was absolutely no way she was the legal limit. Fake ID and maybe a pretty smile had gotten her through the door.
She was seventeen at best. Maybe a year or two younger. No amount of booze or makeup could hide the truth from the eyes of the shadowy figure who sat in the corner booth. After all, he was an expert.
A warm beer sat on the table before him. Not too stale that the waitress would get annoyed at him for taking up valuable real estate. He knew how to pace his drinking while remaining inconspicuous. Afterward, when the police started asking the inevitable questions, people might remember there was someone sitting there for a few hours-maybe even come up with a vague physical description-but they wouldn't be able to pin down any specifics.
It was a talent honed from years of experience. As he sat alone watching the girl at the bar, he tapped a single index finger on the dirty tabletop. A smile above a halter top. Maybe she had a face, maybe not. It didn't really matter. He'd known it the moment she stepped through the door. She would be the next.
Click-click-click.
The metal pad recessed in his fingertip drummed a relentless staccato on the table.
He alone heard the noise. The jukebox was so loud no one else could hear the sound of Elizu Roote's tapping finger.
A faint reddish blush of anticipation brushed the flesh of his otherwise pale cheeks as he watched the boozy young face of the girl he intended to murder tonight.
IN THE PARKING LOT outside the Roadkill, Clark Beemer hunched behind the steering wheel of the black NASA van. He was trying desperately not to be noticed.
When someone passed by the van, Beemer's eyes grew wide behind his dark sunglasses. He fumbled with the radio, tugged at the upturned collar of his trench coat-anything to distract, to give the appearance that he belonged here.
This wasn't fair. Just because he happened to be in on the big, bad secret at NASA, why did he get tapped to chauffeur around the scary robot?
Clark had been standing right there when Zipp Codwin asked Mr. Gordons to drum up some more operating capital. Even after the thing had turned himself into something that looked human. Even after Gordons had threatened Codwin and all of NASA. One thing about Zipp-he had guts.
Codwin's earlier argument held true. NASA needed the money, and Gordons had needed NASA for repairs in the past. But now there was the additional problem that Gordons had created. With the clues he had left behind, the authorities might already be zeroing in on the space agency.
"Safer from a survival standpoint for you to minimize your time here, son," Zipp had insisted. "Let the brains like me and Graham figure out how to solve your problem. Ol' Clark here'll take you on your rounds tonight."
So that was it. Clark Beemer wasn't the brains. While the only other men with knowledge of who and what Mr. Gordons was stayed back in the wellguarded safety of the Kennedy Space Center, Clark was forced to take to the road with that creepy, emotionless tin can.
He heard a shuffling in the rear of the van.
Since that afternoon at NASA, Mr. Gordons had retained his human form. Like a regular person, he had ridden to the bar in the front of the van with Clark. Once Beemer had parked at the very distant edge of the lot, the android had gotten up and slipped into the back of the van.
More shuffling. A soft grinding of metal.
"Why didn't they let you go alone?" Clark muttered to himself as he sank further into his own shoulders.
A cool mechanical voice answered his question. "There is a fifty-six percent probability that Administrator Codwin did not want you in his vicinity. That, coupled with the eighty-five percent probability of his not wanting me there, either, made his decision to send you with me a reasonable one."
When Clark turned a peeved eye to Gordons, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
The android had reverted to his spider form. This time the not quite smiling face that jutted from the body of the creature was flesh colored.
"Why do you look like that again?" Clark asked, panting with sudden fright. One hand was pressed to his chest to steady his rapidly beating heart.
"In order to mask my true features," Mr. Gordons said. The flatness of his tone never varied. "Necessity forced me to maintain the shape of the Virgil probe throughout the assimilation process. Even though I am now operating at one hundred percent efficiency, I have found that this shape is effective as camouflage. Humans who might otherwise be curious about me are frightened into submission when they see me in this guise. I believe this is due to the fact that most human beings harbor a visceral fear of insects in general and arachnids in particular, would you not agree?"
Not waiting for a response, the Gordons spider scurried around on clattering metal feet. Displaying its furry rear end, the massive creature rapidly crawled to the rear of the van. It popped the door.
Clark felt the van rise on its shocks as the heavy android slipped down to the parking lot.
There was a skittering of feet that seemed to fade in the distance. Clark allowed himself a relieved exhale that lasted only until the huge creature sprang up beside his open window. Gordons leaned his face in close.
"Do not leave," the android instructed. "I'll be back."
With that he sank back onto his metal legs and began scurrying to the bar. Clark watched Gordons crawl quickly through the shadows between the many parked cars. He disappeared around the side of the building.
Clark didn't even realize that he had placed his hand back over his thudding heart.
"I don't know what visceral means," Clark whispered, "but you sure as hell got the fear thing down cold."
Pulling his trench coat collar higher, he hunched farther behind the wheel.
THE FLIGHT Stewart McQueen had taken from Maine to Florida had been as pleasant as it could be for the most famous novelist in America. Only ten people in the first-class cabin approached him to say they were interested in becoming writers, too. A miraculously small number considering how many usually pestered him.
It never failed to amaze McQueen. Young, old, educated, morons. Everyone he ever met swore that they could be writers just because they knew a few English words and could-when pressed-actually spell some of them. None of them realized that few professional writers stumbled into the job as a lark or a second career. Writing was an obsession that started young and, more than likely, never panned out.
On his way off the plane, the pilot bounded from the cockpit to pitch him an idea. McQueen brushed him off. The same went for three hopeful flight attendants.
As he walked through the airport, McQueen pulled his Red Sox baseball cap low over his eyes. Even so a handful of people spied him as he made his way through the terminal. Some asked him questions about agents and publishers. Most were autograph seekers who shoved dog-eared copies of some of his own thick paperbacks under his sharp nose.
McQueen dodged them all and hightailed it outside. The woman who rented him his car made him autograph her copy of The Gas Mileage, a terrifying sixteen-part serial thriller he'd written a few years before. It was all about prison inmates, supernatural powers and an evil cadre of killer cars that got only eight miles to the gallon.
In the farthest airport parking lot, McQueen stopped his rental car. Fishing in his luggage, he pulled out a police scanner he'd brought from home. Hooking it up, he latched it to the dashboard with a pair of roach clips.
Most of the sightings of the creature had taken place east of Orlando. He struck off in that direction. By the time he began prowling the streets, night had long taken hold of the Florida peninsula.
McQueen didn't believe in God. Satan, however, was another story. Given the content of his books, the Prince of Darkness buttered his daily bread.
As he rode along through the enveloping black night, eyes peeled for signs of strange movement, ears alert to the staticky squawk of the scanner, Stewart McQueen found himself uttering a soft prayer to the king of all that was unholy.
"Dear Angel of the Bottomless Pit, your Satanic Majesty and Father of Lies. Hi. It's me again. I know there's not much left of my eternal soul, but whatever's there is yours. Just give an old pal a break here, would you?"
Hoping that would be enough to kick start Old Bendy into lending a scaly hand in ending his current bout of writer's block, McQueen raised his penitent head. The instant he did so, a horrifying thought suddenly occurred to him.
His head snapped back down so fast, he smacked it off the steering wheel.
"But when I finally do die, just don't stick me in the same pit as John Grisham," he pleaded. "I know he has to have the same deal with you as me. Hail Satan, and amen."
THROUGH THE SLIDING peephole in the storage room behind the bar, Juan Jiminez peered at the shadowy figure.
The stranger had picked the darkest booth in the Roadkill. According to the bartender, he'd been there for more than two hours. Just sitting and staring.