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there were a large number of people around them. They had been at the
center of a highly organized net all the time.
She threw the pistol to the ground. The pressure of steel against her neck
diminished.
"Come with us, please."
Jonathan started off ahead of her. He was pushed roughly. Behind them
flashlights bobbed in the path and voices were raised. They were trying to
help the one Jonathan had beaten.
Patricia allowed herself a moment to be proud of him. He had tried hard; that
meant a great deal.
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Soon more of the search party met them. There were easily twenty
people around, all in black turtlenecks and jeans. Occasional flashes of
lightning revealed them to be utterly ordinary young men and women, clean-cut,
even pleasant-looking.
Nobody had scales, nobody had reptile eyes.
Patricia had visualized the Night Church in terms of batwing soup and gnarled
old wizards. These men probably worked in law offices and insurance
agencies by day, and the women raised kids in pretty Kew
Gardens homes.
When the back door of the van was opened slightly, a shaft of yellow light
leaked out. The door opened all the way. "Come," said a pleasantly modulated
voice.
Although the door was locked behind them, this luxurious interior hardly
seemed a prison. Jonathan sat back in one of the deep leather seats. "I
can't grasp this." His voice was like ashes.
"I know."
The van had no windows, and the walls were covered with padding.
There was a well-stocked bar, complete with ice, glasses, potato chips,
and pretzels.
"Don't eat or drink any of that stuff, Jonathan."
"Of course not." He slumped forward, bowed his head into his hands. She sat
down in the seat beside him and put her arm around him.
The van started off. Patricia experienced what seemed an almost primordial
urge to escape, as if she had been trapped in a cave-in or locked in a coffin.
The van gathered speed, driving on deep into the night.
Chapter Nineteen
MIKE HAD TO exhume Franklin Apple's coffin. The way the Night
Church operated there could be anything in there or anybody. He might not
like it, but he had to go through the whole official drill to make
it happen.
It was late afternoon before he could make all the bu-reaucracies involved
agree. Finally the paperwork was com-plete and Mike sat waiting in his old
Dodge at the entrance to All Souls Cemetery. Night was coming, he was
tired and uncomfortable, and he wished he could go home. He rubbed his palms
along his cheeks, which itched like fire. Either he had shaved sloppily at his
office or he was allergic to the cologne
Mary had given him. His whole face was sensitive. Too bad. He liked the
cologne a lot. Time to change, probably. The older you get the more allergic
you become. Allergic to life, finally. Then you pack it in.
It had been a rotten day, beginning when he woke up at eight on the couch in
his office feeling like he had been cared for by a Mack truck, and proceeding
through contact with a smarmy assistant DA who could not understand why Apple
should be exhumed on so "minor" a matter as an alias, and going from there to
miserable dealings with the Board of Health and the Cemeteries Department,
getting the exhuma-tion order initialed by the right department heads.
It had started raining just before dawn and hadn't stopped all day. The
graveyard was going to be a mess.
Mike considered himself a careful, patient detective. He had learned that
cases were cracked either by persistence or luck, and he was not the lucky
type. He was no longer even close to buying the fact that
"Mr. Apple" was dead. No way was a coincidence like that going to happen. No
way. Especially since his real name was very prob-ably Titus.
Mike was pretty sure he was going to turn up a load of cinder blocks or
bricks, or maybe just a coffin full of sand. It was no big deal to get a
burial like that done. The Dexter Funeral Home over on Metro Avenue did
fakeouts for the Mafia all the time. Two thousand bucks could get
a box of bricks buried, priest's honorarium included.
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