The Nighttime is the Right Time Page 13

  Oh, sure, I do a lot of roaming around when I'm Changed, but when I'm in human form, I don't like to develop close relationships. It's sort of hard to explain to anyone about what happens to me when it's my time of the month. So I just stay from people as much as I can. It's never bothered me.

  "What made you think of me?" I asked after taking a sip of my drink. After all, Red knew my proclivities. As far as I knew, she was the only human who did.

  "I think you might have some special talents that would come in handy," she said.

  "I've only got one special talent," I told her. It wasn't something I liked talking about.

  Red took a handful of the little goldfish crackers from a bowl in the middle of the table. "That's the talent I mean," she said, and then popped the crackers into her mouth.

  I shook my head. "I don't think I want to hear about it." But to tell the truth I was curious.

  "All right," she said. She took a drink. "I suppose it's time for me to go."

  "I'll walk you to your car," I offered.

  The sun was down by now, and downtown Houston can be a pretty strange place after dark. I should know.

  Her car was a new Toyota Camry, and I observed that she must be doing all right for herself in the private snoop business.

  "I am. But I could use a little help on a certain case. It's too bad that I don't have a friend who'll listen to what I have to say about it."

  My curiosity got the better of me. "All right, I give in. Do you want to have dinner and tell me all about it?"

  She smiled. She had a much nicer smile than I do. Mine's a little toothy.

  "Let's go to Cafe Adobe," she said. "My car or yours?"

  I asked her where it was, and she gave me directions. "I'll meet you there," I said.

  ~ * ~

  Cafe Adobe turned out to be on Westheimer and Shepherd, not far from a gigantic bookstore that used to be a movie theater. The marquee is still outside, but now it advertises book signings instead of features filmed in Cinemascope.

  Red had beat me to the restaurant. I found a spot in the parking lot not far from her Camry and walked across the street. She was waiting for me outside the door. She was very pretty, I thought, and that was probably the real reason I'd agreed to hear her story. I don't usually eat at trendy cafes, or any cafes. I prefer to stay at home and eat alone.

  I guess I should tell you that Red's name is really Marie Grayson. And I didn't actually save her old granny from a psychopathic woodchopper, but that's close enough to the truth to do. It happened during a full moon, and I just happened to be in the neighborhood, cruising for schnauzers. Red told the newspapers that it was a big dog that saved her and her grandmother, but she knew the truth. I'd had to Change to help her call 911. She was too upset to do it herself. She was very young, after all, and there was a dead and very bloody maniac lying in the floor.

  The way the papers told the story, the "big dog" didn't really save anyone. He'd been a killer German Shepherd out to slaughter everyone in his path all and savage the bodies. According to the news reports, Red and her grandmother had just gotten lucky. Like I said, the media never get it right.

  "Do you want to sit inside or on the patio?" Red asked me. I'll always think of her as Red, no matter what her name is.

  "Inside. Got to watch out for mosquitoes." I didn't like mosquitoes any more than I liked fleas.

  We went in and got seated in the No Smoking section, not that it mattered to me. My sense of smell is so good that my nose gets irritated no matter where I sit if someone lights up.

  Chuck was our server. I know, not because I cared but because he told me his name. As I think I mentioned, I don't particularly like relationships with humans, much less humans I'm never going to see again.

  I ordered the spinach enchiladas. Red got a chile relleno. We sat there and ate chips and red sauce until we were served. Then, while we ate, Red told me her problem.

  As it turned out, maybe she was right. Maybe I could help her. Just this once.

  "It's a missing persons case," she said. "I don't get many of those."

  I could see why. The police were better equipped for that kind of thing.

  "Not really," she said when I expressed my opinion. "I have access to a lot of information through my computer, and I have more time to devote to it than they do. But this is someone they've already written off."

  Probably with good reason, I thought, taking a bite of spinach enchilada. I wished for a second I'd gotten one with some meat in it, but I prefer my meat uncooked. I didn't think they served enchiladas like that.

  "Why have the cops written it off?" I asked.

  "They tried," she said, excusing them. "They tried hard, too, because Nathan Chronister has, or had, a lot of money. But they have so many cases it's hard for them to keep up with all of them. After they haven't found someone for a few weeks, they have to move on to something else. And this is an adult we're talking about. Adults can disappear if they want to; it's not against the law. If it were a kid, it would be different."

  I could see how that might be, though it seemed a little odd that the cops would stop looking for a man with a lot of money. They work pretty hard for that kind of person.

  "So how did you wind up with this one after the police wrote it off?"

  "Because someone saw the missing man."

  "Oh. Who saw him?"

  "His wife."

  I sighed. "OK. Tell me all about it. But start from the beginning this time."

  She did, but we had to go elsewhere for me to get the story. Just as she was about to launch into it, Chuck and his fellow servers descended on the table of some hapless man who was having a birthday. The members of his party had informed Chuck on the sly, so the poor man was being treated to a very loud, off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday." I could see Red's lips moving, but I couldn't hear her talking, so we got out of there.

  ~ * ~

  The story that Red told me was this.

  Nathan Chronister had been a very successful man at a time when real estate was the business to be in if you wanted to get rich quick in Houston. It wasn't that way now, but Chronister had seen the boom years drawing to an end and gotten out of the game while he was ahead. Way ahead, to the tune of millions. No one was sure how many.

  I remembered reading a few things about Chronister in the newspapers. He was a good man to know, a man with money who didn't mind spreading it around for what he considered the right reasons. For him the right reasons were pretty strange. He supported some ESP research and the paranormal.

  And then one day he disappeared. He didn't take a thing with him, except for what he had on him. Not a spare shirt or tie, not an extra shoe or a safety razor. Not even a checkbook or a few dollars in cash from an automated teller machine.

  He was just gone.

  "And the cops couldn't find him?" I asked.

  We were in Red's apartment, which was really the first floor of an old house just off Greenbriar, not far from the restaurant where we'd eaten. There was some Kevin Costner movie on the TV, but we weren't watching it. I don't much like Costner, not since he killed off the title character in his screenplay for Dances with Wolves.

  "No one could find him," Red told me. "The police had no luck at all, and his wife's hired other private eyes before me. If you're going to find a missing person, you need a little help, a paper trail, an informant, something. But there was nothing. Chronister hasn't used a credit card or cashed a check, and he hasn't gotten in touch with anyone, at least not anyone who's admitted it."

  "But his wife saw him."

  "That's right. She called me yesterday."

  "Why did he disappear?"

  I figured there had to be a reason, and maybe there was, but Red didn't know.

  "His wife was a little vague about that," she said.

  "Vague?"

  "She said he had his reasons. I got the impression that he was afraid of something."

  "Like what?"

  "That's what she d
idn't tell me."

  That seemed fishy to me. A man just ups and leaves for no reason at all? I wasn't sure I believed it, but I wasn't a trained private investigator and Red was.

  So I said, "All right. Where did she see him?"

  "Not far from downtown. She was going to get on the Gulf Freeway late yesterday and drove under the Pierce Elevated."

  The Elevated, in case you're lucky enough never to have driven on it, is an unbelievably congested section of Interstate 45 that passes right by downtown, about on a level with the eighth or ninth story of the buildings that seem almost close enough to touch from your car window.

  But Mrs. Chronister had passed under the Elevated, which meant that her husband probably hadn't been in a car. It meant something else entirely.

  "Is he living under the Elevated?" I asked.

  Red nodded. Her red hair caught the light and turned almost gold. For a second I almost wished she were a schnauzer.

  "Not a bad place to hide, if you're a rich man," I said. "No one would look there, and you wouldn't have to answer a lot of questions."

  Lots of the city's homeless congregated under the Elevated. It wouldn't be comfortable, but you'd be anonymous. You'd also be pretty unkempt.

  "She's sure it was him?"

  "She's sure. And she wants me to check it out."

  "But you don't want to go roaming around under the Elevated at night."

  "True."

  I didn't blame her, and it wasn't likely that Chronister would stay there in the daylight. No one did. Everyone was out scrabbling for aluminum cans, in spite of the fact that the market was depressed right now because of an influx of aluminum from Russia; or diving in dumpsters; or working whatever street hustle they ran to stay alive.

  In the evenings they started to congregate under the Elevated in their cardboard boxes, wrapping in their blankets if the night was cool, which wasn't likely at this time of year, listening to their radios if they had any batteries, and staying out of each other's way.

  Red wouldn't really be in danger, though. I hadn't heard of any muggings there. Of course I hadn't heard of any young women who'd gone roaming around there after dark, either.

  "I might not be able to recognize him," Red said. "His wife says he's changed. A lot."

  "But you think I can recognize him."

  "Well , . . . " She paused. "I don't want to offend you."

  "Don't worry. I'm pretty thick skinned."

  "Well, . . . "

  "Go ahead. I can take it."

  "OK. You're a wolf, right?"

  I couldn't deny it, but it did make me a little defensive. "Only at certain times," I said.

  "We've never talked about this, but -- "

  "I've never talked about it with anybody."

  "I'm sorry. If you'd rather we didn't go on -- "

  "Never mind. Obviously it has something to do with finding Chronister. Go ahead and say it."

  "Well, I was wondering if you had any . . . doggy abilities."

  "Doggy abilities? What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You know. Like being able to track someone by smelling of his old clothing."

  "Oh. That."

  "Yes. I didn't mean to embarrass you."

  I wasn't really embarrassed. As a matter of fact, I could do exactly what she was talking about. Among other things. It's just that, like everything else related to my secret life, it wasn't anything I'd ever talked about.

  "So you want me to locate him?"

  "If you can. If you would."

  For the last few years I'd been making a living as a free-lance writer. Nature articles. Editors said that I had an uncanny insight into certain aspects of animal life. Little did they know.

  Anyway, it was a perfect way for me to live. I could deal with everyone by mail or modem. I could do my research the same way, except for some of the things that gave me my uncanny insights, and those didn't call for involvement with other human beings. In fact, I'd been around more people in the last few hours than I had in the last few years.

  I still went out to restaurants and stores, but I didn't have to deal with people there except on a commercial basis. I could handle that. It was involvement that I didn't want. But maybe it was time I gave it a try. Looking at Red certainly made the idea seem attractive.

  "I can do it," I said. "It might be fun."

  I was right about the first part, but not about the second.

  ~ * ~

  Chronister's wife lived in River Oaks, in a gigantic house that sat on a plot of land not much bigger than Rhode Island and probably not much more expensive to maintain. The trees were ancient, but The flowers appeared to have sprung up fresh that very afternoon, and the front lawn looked as if an army of manicurists had been at it with trimming scissors. I knew Chronister had been rich, but I didn't know he'd been this rich. I didn't know anybody was.

  We walked several miles of sidewalk to the front door and rang the bell. I was surprised that we weren't met by a butler in full livery, but instead the door was answered by a woman in her middle thirties, wearing a pants suit that had probably set her back about half a grand a Neiman's. She had long blond hair and very blue eyes. I couldn't see why anyone married to her would want to disappear, but then I didn't know her very well.

  Red introduced me to Mrs. Jane Chronister, who took us to a living room that the Houston Symphony could have rehearsed in if it hadn't been furnished like a photo from Better Homes and Gardens, and we sat on chairs that cost more than I made in a year of writing nature articles. Red didn't seem a bit intimidated by the opulence, so I tried to appear nonchalant. In those surroundings, it wasn't easy.

  I was so busy getting adjusted that I missed the opening of the conversation, but I snapped to it when I heard my name mentioned.

  "I'm so glad you think you can help," Mrs. Chronister said to me.

  "I'll have to see something your husband owned," I told her. "Preferably something he wore that hasn't been washed."

  She looked puzzled, so I told her I was a kind of psychic. "I can sense the person's vibrations in his clothing," I explained.

  She glanced over at Red as if to ask whether I was some kind of nut, and I thought for a minute about telling her the truth: "I'm a werewolf, lady, and I want to get your husband's scent." Somehow I managed to restrain myself.

  Red shrugged apologetically. "It's the way he does things. I know it's strange, but it seems to work."

  "If you say so." Mrs. Chronister rose gracefully from the couch. "I'll be right back."

  When she was gone, Red turned to me. "Vibrations?"

  "Hey, it was the only thing I could think of."

  Mrs. Chronister wasn't gone long. She came back with a denim shirt that was nearly unwrinkled.

  "He put this on to wear to a movie a day or two before he disappeared," she said, handing it to me. "Then he took it off and hung it in the closet because he didn't like the color. He didn't wear it long, but it's the only thing he wore that hasn't been washed."

  "It'll do," I said. "We'll take it with us."

  "Are you sure it will do?" she asked. I could tell she didn't think she was getting her money's worth.

  "He's very good at what he does," Red assured her.

  That was true. I'd like to see Mrs. Chronister try turning into a wolf.

  "Why did your husband disappear?" I asked.

  For a minute I thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she said, "I don't see why that matters."

  "Maybe it doesn't. But you never know. Why are you afraid to tell us?"

  "I'm not afraid," she said, but I could smell the fear on her.

  As a matter of fact, I'd smelled it earlier, but it had been partially masked by the odor of her perfume. Poison, if it matters. She was more afraid now than she had been earlier, for some reason.

  "You might as well tell us," I said. "It can't hurt, and it might even help."

  She looked at Red.

  "He's right," Red said. "Besides, if you don't tell us, we real
ly can't carry this any farther. We deserve to know what we're getting into."

  Mrs. Chronister slumped in her expensive chair. "It was the phone calls," she said. "He'd been getting them for weeks, but he wouldn't tell me about them. One night I listened in on an extension. A man was threatening him, telling him that he was going to kill him." She shuddered. "The voice was cold and matter of fact. I believed the man absolutely."

  "And did you ask your husband about the call?" Red wanted to know.

  "I did, but he wouldn't discuss it. He told me to stop worrying and leave him alone. The next day, he was gone."

  "Did you tell the police about the calls?"

  "No. I was afraid that if I did, the caller might come after me."

  That didn't exactly follow, and I wondered if she was lying. And if she was, why. But I didn't ask. I wanted to know about Chronister's enemies.

  "He didn't have any. He never hurt anyone. He was honest to a fault, and he hated lying. He couldn't abide liars."

  "He sold real estate, didn't he?" I asked.

  She didn't see the connection, or pretended that she didn't, and I didn't push it. The fear smell was still on her and getting stronger all the time. She was the one who was lying, but I didn't know about what.

  Red asked a few more questions that didn't do much to clear things up, and we left.

  "I don't trust her," I said. "She's lying."

  "Maybe she's just nervous." Red didn't want to talk about it. "Can you find her husband or not?"

  "If he's there, I can smell him out. But I'm not sure I want to."

  "It's what we're being paid for," she reminded me.

  So I told her I'd give it a shot.

  ~ * ~

  I had to do it Changed. I can smell better than most humans even when I'm in their form, but for the really tough jobs I have to be a wolf.

  That meant we had to wait a couple of days. Red called me twice a day, exactly the same number of times Mrs. Chronister called her, or so she said. I knew they were in a hurry, but I couldn't help that. I had to wait for the moon.

  I don't know why. That's just the way it is. No one ever explained it to me. I don't know any other werewolves.