stop the churning.
“Ask Park Ham stead, down there in El Toro, whether he and his wife were
thrilled when she developed terminal cancer, and ask him how his dream
about him and Maralee Roman worked after he finally got over the death
of his wife. Nasty bugger name Candy got in the way of that one. Ask
all the poor suckers lyin in the hospital with cerebral hemorrhages,
cancer. Ask those who get Alzheimer’s in their fifties, just when their
goide years are supposed to start. Ask the little kids in wheelchair
from muscular dystrophy, and ask all the parents of those other kids
down there in Cielo Vista how Down’s syndrom fits in with their dreams.
Ask-” She cut herself off. She was losing control, and she could not
afford to do so tonight.
She said,
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Where?”
“First, we find the house where that bitch raised him. Cruis by, get
the lay of it. Maybe just seeing it will give us ideas.’
“I’ve seen it.”
“I haven’t.”
“All right.” From a nightstand drawer he removed a tele phone directory
for Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Hop Ranch, El Encanto Heights, and
other surrounding communi ties. He brought it with him to the door.
She said,
“What do you want that for?”
“We’ll need it later. I’ll explain in the car.” Sprinkles of rain were
falling again. The Toyota’s engine was still so hot from the drive
north that in spite of the cool night air, steam rose from its hood as
the beads of rainwater evaporated. Far away a brief, low peal of
thunder rolled across the sky. Thomas was dead.
HE RECEIVED images as faint and distorted as reflections on the
wind-rippled surface of a pond. They came repeatedly as he touched the
faucets, the rim of the sink, the mirror, the medicine cabinet and its
contents, the light switch, the controls for the shower. But none of
his visions was detailed, and none provided a clue as to where the
Dakotas had gone.
Twice he was jolted by vivid images, but they were related to disgusting
sexual episodes between the Dakotas. A tube of vaginal lubricant and a
box of Kleenex were contaminated with older psychic residue that had
inexplicably lingered beyond its time, making him privy to sinful
practices that he had no desire to witness. He quickly snatched his
hands away from those surfaces and waited for his nausea to pass. He
was incensed that the need to track Frank through these decadent people
had forced him into a situation where his senses had been so brutally
affronted.
Infuriated by his lack of success and by the unclean contact with images
of their sin (which he seemed unable to expel from his mind), he decided
that he must burn the evil out of this house in the name of God. Burn
it out. Incinerate’it. So that maybe his mind would be cleansed again
as well.
He stepped out of the bathroom, raised his hands, and sent an immensely
destructive wave of power across the bedroom. The wooden headboard of
the big bed disintegrated, flames leaped from the quilted spread and
blankets, the nightstands flew apart, and every drawer in the dresser
shot out and dumped its contents on the floor, where they instantly
caught fire. The drapes were consumed as if made from magicians’
flashpaper, and the two windows in the far wall burst, letting in a
draft that fanned the blaze.
Candy often wished the mysterious light that came from him could affect
people and animals, rather than just inanim things, plants, and a few
insects. There were times when would have gone into a city and melted
the flesh from the bow of ten thousand sinners in a single night, a
hundred thousand it didn’t matter which city, they were all festering
sewers iniquity, populated by depraved masses who worshipede and
practice( every repu sive degeneracy. He had never seen anyone in any
of them, not a single person, who seemed to have to live in God’s grace.
He would have made them run screaing in terror, would have tracked them
down in their sec places, would have splintered their bones with his