Читать книгу Frankenstein: The Complete 5-Book Collection - Dean Koontz - Страница 93

AS WHEN SHE had been to the Luxe the previous evening, Carson found one of the front doors unlocked. This time, no one waited in the lobby.

A set of double doors stood open between the lobby and the theater.

Surveying the refreshment stand as they passed it, Michael said, “When you buy popcorn here, I wonder if you can ask for it without the cockroaches.”

The theater itself proved to be large, with both a balcony and a mezzanine. Age, grime, and chipped plaster diminished the Art Deco glamour but did not defeat it altogether.

A fat man in white slacks, white shirt, and white Panama hat stood in front of the tattered red-velvet drapes that covered the giant screen. He looked like Sidney Greenstreet just stepped out of Casablanca.

The Greenstreet type gazed toward the ceiling, transfixed by something not immediately evident to Carson.

Deucalion stood halfway down the center aisle, facing the screen. Head tipped back, he slowly scanned the ornate architecture overhead.

The strangeness of the moment was shattered with the silence when a sudden flapping of wings revealed a trapped bird swooping through the vaults above, from one roost in the cornice to another.

As Carson and Michael approached Deucalion, she heard him say, “Come to me, little one. No fear.”

The bird flew again, swooped wildly, swooped … and alighted on Deucalion’s extended arm. Seen close and still, it proved to be a dove.

With a laugh of delight, the fat man came forward from the screen. “I’ll be damned. We ever get a lion in here, you’re my man.”

Gently stroking the bird, Deucalion turned as Carson and Michael approached him.

Carson said, “I thought only St. Francis and Dr. Doolittle talked to animals.”

“Just a little trick.”

“You seem to be full of tricks, little and big,” she said.

The fat man proved to have a sweet voice. “The poor thing’s been trapped here a couple days, living off stale popcorn. Couldn’t get it to go for the exit doors when I opened them.”

Deucalion cupped the bird in one immense hand, and it appeared to be without fear, almost in a trance.

With both pudgy hands, the man in white accepted the dove from Deucalion and moved away, toward the front of the theater. “I’ll set it free.”

“This is my partner, Detective Maddison,” Carson told Deucalion. “Michael Maddison.”

They nodded to each other, and Michael – pretending not to be impressed by the size and appearance of Deucalion – said, “I’ve gotta be straight with you. I’ll be the first to admit we’re in weird woods on this one, but I still don’t buy the Transylvania thing.”

“That’s movies. In real life,” Deucalion said, “it was Austria.”

“We need your help,” Carson told him. ‘As it turns out, there were two killers.”

“Yes. It’s on the news.”

“Yeah. Well, only one of them seems to have been … the kind that you warned me about.”

“And he’s a detective,” Deucalion said.

“Right. He’s still loose. But we’ve found his … playroom. If he’s really one of Victor’s people, you’ll be able to read his place better than we can.”

Michael shook his head. “Carson, he’s not a psychologist. He’s not a profiler.”

In a matter-of-fact tone, arresting precisely because of its lack of drama, Deucalion said, “I understand murderers. I am one.”

Those words and an accompanying throb of light through the giant’s eyes left Michael briefly speechless.

“In my early days,” Deucalion said, “I was a different beast. Uncivilized. Full of rage. I murdered a few men … and a woman. The woman was my maker’s wife. On their wedding day.”

Obviously sensing the same convincing gravitas in Deucalion that had impressed Carson, Michael searched for words and found these: “I know that story, too.”

“But I lived it,” said Deucalion. He turned to Carson. “I don’t choose to go out in daylight.”

“We’ll take you. It’s an unmarked car. Inconspicuous.”

“I know the place. I saw it on the news. I’d rather meet you there.”

“When?” she asked.

“Go now,” he said. “I’ll be there when you are.”

“Not the way she drives,” said Michael.

“I’ll be there.”

Toward the front of the theater, the fat man shouldered open an emergency-exit door to the waning afternoon. He released the dove, and it flew to freedom in the somber pre-storm light.