Shadowfires

few of the ceiling lights were burned out or broken, so a greater number of shadows populated the huge room than had darkened the basement, and they seemed deeper as well, better suited for the complete concealment of an attacker, though perhaps her imagination painted them blacker than they really were.
    Following her out of the elevator, Benny said, “Rachael, who are
you afraid of?”
    “Later. Right now let's just get the hell out of here.”
    “But-”
    “Later.”
    Their footsteps echoed and reechoed hollowly off the concrete, and
she felt as if they were walking not through an ordinary parking
garage in Santa Ana but through the chambers of an alien temple,
under the eye of an unimaginably strange deity.
    At that late hour, her red 560 SL was one of only three cars
parked on the entire floor. It stood alone, gleaming, a hundred feet
from the elevator. She walked directly toward it, circled it warily.
No one crouched on the far side. Through the windows, she could see
that no one was inside, either. She opened the door, got in quickly.
As soon as Benny climbed in and closed his door, she hit the master
lock switch, started the engine, threw the car in gear, popped the
emergency brake, and drove too fast toward the exit ramp.
    As she drove, she engaged the safeties on her pistol and, with one
hand, returned it to her purse.
    When they reached the street, Benny said, “Okay, now tell me what
this cloak-and-dagger stuff is all about.”
    She hesitated, wishing she had not brought him this far into it.
She should have come to the morgue alone.
She'd been weak, needed to lean on him, but now if she didn't break
her dependency on him, if she drew him further into it, she would
without doubt be putting his life in jeopardy. She had no right to
endanger him.
    “Rachael?”
    She stopped at a red traffic light at the intersection of Main
Street and Fourth, where a hot summer wind blew a few scraps of
litter into the center of the crossroads and spun them around for a
moment before sweeping them away.
    “Rachael?” Benny persisted.
    A shabbily dressed derelict stood at the corner, only a few feet
away. He was filthy, unshaven, and drunk. His nose was gnarled and
hideous, half eaten away by melanoma. In his left hand he held a wine
bottle imperfectly concealed in a paper bag. In his grubby right paw
he gripped a broken alarm clock-no glass covering the face of it, the
minute hand missing-as if he thought he possessed a great treasure.
He stooped down, peered in at her. His eyes were fevered, blasted.
    Ignoring the derelict, Benny said,
“Don't withdraw from me, Rachael. What's wrong? Tell me. I can
help.”
    “I don't want to get you involved,” she said.
    “I'm already involved.”
    “No. Right now you don't know anything. And I really think that's
best.”
    “You promised-”
    The traffic light changed, and she tramped the accelerator so
suddenly that Benny was thrown against his seat belt and cut off in
mid-sentence.
    Behind them, the drunk with the clock shouted: “ I'm Father Time!”
    Rachael said, “Listen, Benny, I'll take you back to my place so you can get your car.”
    “Like hell.”
    “Please let me handle this myself.”
    “Handle what? What's going on?”
    “Benny, don't interrogate me. Just please don't do that. I've got a lot to think about, a lot to do…”
    “Sounds like you're going somewhere else tonight.”
    “It doesn't concern you,” she said.
    “Where are you going?”
    “There're things I've got to… check out. Never mind.”
    Getting angry now, he said, “You going to shoot someone?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Then why're you packing a gun?”
    She didn't answer.
    He said, “You got a permit for a concealed weapon?”
    She shook her head. “A permit, but just for home use.”
    He glanced behind to see if anyone was near them, then leaned over
from his seat, grabbed the steering wheel, and jerked it hard to the
right.
    The car whipped around with a screech of tires, and she hit the
brakes, and they slid sideways six or eight yards, and when she tried
to straighten the wheel he grabbed it again, and she shouted at him
to stop it, and he let go of the wheel, which spun through her hands
for a moment, but then she was firmly in control once more, pulled to
the curb, stopped, looked at him, said, “What are you-crazy?”
    “Just angry.”
    “Let it be,” she said, staring out at the street.
    “I want to help you.”
    “You can't.”
    “Try me. Where do you have to go?”
    She sighed. “Just