Last Call (Last Call 1)

There was motion out in the night. A figure was dancing on one of the remote cliffs; it seemed to be as far away as the stars, but with the clear vision of nightmare Scott could see that the person carried a long stick and that a dog was leaping around its ankles. The dancing figure was smiling up into the dark sky, apparently careless of the wavy-edged precipice at its feet.

And though Scott couldn't see him, he knew that there was another giant out there, in the lake, under the black water, and that like Scott he had only one eye.

Seized with vertigo, Scott looked down. His own body, and Leroy's, were looking up at him, their faces broad as clouds and absolutely identical.

One of the faces—he couldn't any longer tell which—opened the canyon of its mouth and inhaled, and the smoky wisp that was Scott's consciousness spiraled rapidly down toward the black chasm.

"Scott," Susan was saying. "Scott, you're just dreaming, I'm here. This is me, you're in your own bedroom."

"Oh, Sue," he gasped. He tried to hold her, but she slid away across her side of the mattress.

"Not yet, Scott," she said with a yearning tone in her voice. "Soon, but not quite now. Go have a beer, you'll feel better."

Scott climbed out of bed on his side. He noticed that he had slept in his clothes, and his Poker winnings were still a bulk in his pants pocket. Even his shoes were still on. "Coffee right now," he said. "Go back to sleep."

He blundered down the hall to the dark, stove-warmed kitchen and put a coffee cup full of tap water into the microwave oven and punched full power for two minutes. Then he went to the window and wiped out a clear patch in the condensation.

Main Street was quiet. Only a few cars and trucks murmured past under the streetlights, and the solitary figure walking across the parking lot had an air of virtuous purpose, as if he were going to the early shift at Norm's and not away from the scene of some shabby crime. Dawn was still an hour or so away, but already some birds were cheeping in the big old carob trees along the sidewalk.

Susan's not really in there, he thought dully. She's dead. I know that.

I'm forty-seven.

I never should have lived this long.

It's like sitting in the jungle, changing your bandages and eating canned C-rations or whatever soldiers eat, and watching the skies: There should have been choppers by now.

Or like riding a bicycle with your feet wired to the pedals. You can do it, for a very long time, but eventually you start to wonder when somebody's going to come along and stop the bike and clip your feet loose so you can get off.

Am I supposed to just keep on doing this?

He thought he could hear someone breathing softly in the bed.

No good could come of thinking about it.

He thought about the six or eight beers in the refrigerator. He had laid them out on the cold rack before he went to bed, like an artilleryman laying out the shells that would be needed for tomorrow's siege.

The microwave binged softly five times, and he opened its door and took out the cup and stirred a spoonful of instant coffee into the heated water, then cooled it with a dribble of water from the tap.

Back at the window with the coffee, he abruptly remembered singing a snatch of "Sonny Boy" in front of Arky. What else had he done or said? He couldn't remember. He never worried about anything he said or did when sober, but he had not been sober last night. Or any night recently.

He walked to the back door and looked through the window at Mavranos's apartment across the alley. The lights were all out. Arky would probably sleep past noon, as always. God knew how the man made a living.

Scott's .357 revolver was lying on the shelf that held all the cookbooks. He remembered laying it there a couple of hours ago when he had had to bend over to pick up the half-full carton of beers.

Rebar. Arky had noticed the shot-out windshield. And Scott remembered that Ozzie had always registered his car with a P.O. box address, in case someone took down his license plate number.

Scott had stopped bothering with that in '80, when he quit Poker and married Susan. His current registration listed this address.

He put the coffee down.

Suddenly he was certain that the gunman had written down his license plate number and had found the address and was now waiting outside in the Porsche, or in another car, watching this house. Perhaps he had planted a bomb under the foundations. That would be the easiest way.

The death panic of his dream was all at once back on him, and he grabbed the gun, thankful that he had not turned on the kitchen light. He took a few deep breaths—and then slowly, silently, with trembling fingers unhooked the chain and carefully forced the warped old door open.