Laura could see why Dan and Earl were friends. They shared a devotion to their work, a strong sense of duty, and a tendency to be excessively self-critical. Those were qualities seldom found in a world that seemed daily to put more stock in cynicism, selfishness, and self-indulgence.
To Earl, Dan said, ‘I’ll find a motel, get a room, and hole up there with Laura and Melanie the rest of the night. I thought of taking them back to my place, but someone might be expecting me to do just that.’
‘And tomorrow?’ Earl asked.
‘There’re several people I want to see—’
‘Can I help?’
‘If you feel up to it when you get out of bed in the morning.’
‘I’ll feel up to it,’ Earl assured him.
Dan said, ‘There’s a woman named Mary Katherine O’Hara, in Burbank. She’s secretary of an organization called Freedom Now.’ He gave Earl the address and outlined the information he wanted from O’Hara. ‘I also need to find out about a company called John Wilkes Enterprises. Who are its officers, majority stockholders?’
‘Is it a California corporation?’ Earl asked.
‘Most likely,’ Dan said. ‘I need to know when the incorporation papers were filed, by whom, what business they’re supposed to be in.’
‘How’s this John Wilkes outfit come into it?’ Earl asked, which was something Laura wondered about too.
‘It’ll take a while to explain,’ Dan said. ‘I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. Let’s get together for a late lunch, say one o’clock, and try to make something out of the information we’ve gathered.’
‘Yeah, I should have dug up what you want by then,’ Earl said. He suggested a coffee shop in Van Nuys because, he said, it was a place in which he had never seen anyone from Paladin.
‘It’s not a cop hangout, either,’ Dan said. ‘Sounds good.’
‘Here’s your cab,’ Laura said as headlights swept across the glass doors and briefly sparkled in the raindrops that quivered on those panes.
Earl looked down at Melanie and said, ‘Well, princess, can you give me a smile before I go?’
The girl peered up at him, but Laura saw that her eyes were still strange, distant.
‘I’m warning you,’ Earl said, ‘I’m going to hang around and bother you until you finally give me a smile.’
Melanie just stared.
To Laura, Earl said, ‘Keep your chin up. Okay? It’s going to work out.’
Laura nodded. ‘And thanks for—’
‘For nothing,’ Earl said. ‘I opened the door for them. I’ve got to make up for that. Wait until I make up for that before you start thanking me for anything.’ He stepped to the lobby doors, started to push one open, then glanced back at Dan and said, ‘By the way, what the hell happened to you?’
‘What?’ Dan asked.
‘Your forehead.’
‘Oh.’ Dan glanced at Laura, and she could tell by his expression that he’d come by his injury while working on the case, and she could also tell that he didn’t want to say as much and make her feel at all responsible. He said, ‘There was this little old lady … she hit me with her cane.’
‘Oh?’ Earl said.
‘I helped her across the street.’
‘Then why would she hit you?’
‘She didn’t want to cross the street,’ Dan said.
Earl grinned — it was a macabre expression on his battered face — pushed the door open, ran through the rain, and disappeared into the waiting taxi.
Laura zipped up Melanie’s jacket. She and Dan kept the girl between them as they hurried out to his unmarked department sedan.
The air was chilly.
The rain was cold.
The darkness seemed to breathe with malevolent life.
Out there, somewhere, It waited.
* * *
The motel room had two queen-size beds with purple-and-green spreads that clashed with the garish orange-and-blue drapes that, in turn, clashed with the loud yellow-and-brown wallpaper. There was a certain kind of eye-searing decor to be found in about one-fourth of the hotels and motels in every state of the union, from Alaska to Florida, an unmistakable bizarre decor of such a particular nature that it seemed, to Dan, that the same grossly incompetent interior decorator must be traveling frantically from one end of the country to the other, papering walls and upholstering furniture and draping windows with factory-rejected patterns and materials.