Thinner(32)

'Very rational. But if you add Cary Rossington with his alligator skin and William J. Halleck with his case of involuntary anorexia nervosa into the equation, it starts to sound a little like Stephen King again, wouldn't you say?'

Patiently Houston said: 'You've got a metabolic problem, Bill. Cary ... I don't know. I've seen some -'

'Strange things, yes, I know,' Billy said. Had this cocaine-sniffing gasbag really been his family doctor for ten years? Dear God, was that the truth? 'Have you seen Lars Arncaster lately?'

'No,' Houston said impatiently. 'He's not my patient. I thought you said you only had one question.'

Of course he's not your patient, Billy thought giddily, he doesn't pay his bills on time, does he? And a fellow like you, a fellow with expensive tastes, really can't afford to wait, can he?

'This really is the last one,' Billy said. 'When did you last see Duncan Hopley?'

'Two weeks ago.'

'Thank you.'

'Make an appointment next time, Billy,' Houston said in an unfriendly voice, and hung up.

Hopley did not, of course, live on Lantern Drive, but the police chief's job paid well, and he had a trim New England saltbox on Ribbonmaker Lane.

Billy parked in the driveway at dusk, went to the door, and rang the bell. There was no answer. He rang again. No answer. He leaned on the bell. Still no answer. He went to the garage, cupped his hands around his face, and peered in. Hopley's car, a conservative cordovan-colored Volvo, was parked in there. FVW 1, the license plate read. There was no second car. Hopley was a bachelor. Billy went back to the door and began hammering on it. He hammered for nearly three minutes and his arm was getting tired when a hoarse voice yelled: 'Go away! Fuck off!'

'Let me in!' Billy shouted back. 'I have to talk to you!'

There was no answer. After a minute, Billy began to hammer again. There was no response at all this time ... but when he stopped suddenly, he heard a whisper of movement on the other side of the door. He could suddenly picture Hopley standing there - crouching there - waiting for the unwelcome, insistent visitor to go away and leave him in peace. Peace, or whatever passed for it in Duncan Hopley's world these days. Billy uncurled his throbbing fist.

'Hopley, I think you're there,' he said quietly. 'You don't have to say anything; just listen to me. It's Billy Halleck. Two months ago I was involved in an accident. There was an old Gypsy woman who was jaywalking -'

Movement behind the door; definite now. A shuffle rustle.

'I hit her and killed her. Now I'm losing weight. I'm not on a diet or anything like that; I'm just losing weight. About seventy-five pounds so far. If it doesn't stop soon, I'm going to look like the Human Skeleton in a carny sideshow.

'Cary Rossington - Judge Rossington - presided at the preliminary hearing and declared that there was no case. He's developed some weird skin disease -'

Billy thought he heard a low gasp of surprise.

and he's gone out to the Mayo Clinic. The doctors have told him it isn't cancer, but they don't know what it is. Rossington would rather believe it is cancer than what he knows it really is.'

Billy swallowed. There was a painful click in his throat.

'It's a Gypsy curse, Hopley. I know how crazy that sounds, but it's the truth. There was an old man. He touched me when I came out of the hearing. He touched Rossington when he and his wife were at a flea market in Raintree. Did he touch you, Hopley?'

There was a long, long silence ... and then one word drifted to Billy's ears through the mail slot, like a letter full of bad news from home:

'Yes . . .'

'When? Where?'

No answer.

'Hopley, where did the Gypsies go when they left Raintree? Do you know?'

No answer.

'I have to talk to you!' Billy said desperately. 'I've got an idea, Hopley. I think -'

'You can't do anything,' Hopley whispered. 'It's gone too far. You understand, Halleck? Too ... far.'

That sigh again - papery, dreadful.

'It's a chance!' Halleck said furiously. 'Are you so far gone that doesn't mean anything to you?'

No answer. Billy waited, hunting inside himself for more words, other arguments. He could find none. Hopley simply wasn't going to let him in. He had begun to turn away when the door clicked open.

Billy looked at the black crack between the door and the jamb. He heard those rustling movements again, now going away, back down the darkened front hall. He felt goose flesh scutter down his back and sides and arms, and for a moment he almost went away anyhow - Never mind Hopley, he thought, if anyone can find those Gypsies, Kirk Penschley can, so never mind Hopley, you don't need him, you don't need to see what he's turned into.

Pushing the voice back, Billy grasped the knob of the police chief's front door, opened it, and stepped inside.

He saw a dim shape at the far end of the hall. A door on the left opened; the shape went in. A dim light glowed, and for a moment a shadow stretched long and gaunt across the hall floor, bending to go halfway up the far wall, where there was a framed photograph of Hopley receiving an award from the Fairview Rotary Club, The shadow's misshapen head lay on the photograph like an omen.

Billy walked down the hall, spooked now - no use kidding himself. He half-expected the door behind him to slam shut and lock ... and then the Gypsy will dart out of the shadows and grab me from behind, just like the big scare scene in a cheap horror movie. Sure. Come on, ass**le, get your act together! But his triphammering heartbeat did not slow.