The Graveyard Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

they were gone.”
    “You’re sure they were really there in the first place?”
    “No,” Joseph admitted. “Except . . . their wine was still there, on the table. And the terrace door was open.”
    “Where are you going?” shouted the busboy from the phone, putting his hand over the mouthpiece.
    Where indeed? wondered Lewis.
    “Sausalito,” shouted Joseph.
    They sat looking at each other.
    “We must find her,” Joseph said.
    “I was hoping you’d say that.” Lewis began to smile.
    “It’s impossible she managed to escape from wherever they stashed her, but what if she did? She might need help. And I have to know whether or not she was really there.”
    “We couldn’t get into trouble, could we, just making a few discreet inquiries?”
    “It might take us years to find out anything.”
    “So much the better.” Lewis held out his hands. “We’ll be less obvious that way.”
    “What was it the man said about the free French garrison, Louie?” Joseph began to giggle again, reaching for Lewis’s half-finished drink.
    At that moment another immortal entered the room. He was a security tech. He was dressed as a sport cyclist, in the bright tight-fitting cycling ensemble of that era, and carried his helmet and sunglasses under his arm. He swept the room once with a cold gray stare and acquired the two businessmen sitting at the little table under the time clock. He closed on them at once.
    “Operatives? You stopped transmitting three hours ago. Are youin need of assistance?” he inquired in a low voice. They stared up at him, momentarily sobered. Someone must have been monitoring their data transmissions.
    “Oh, gee, I’m sorry!” Joseph said. “You know what it was? We were in this arcade, and one of the damn electronic games fritzed. We were standing too close to it. Happens every now and then. We’re okay, really.”
    “Honest,” Lewis said.
    The security tech scanned them and recoiled slightly at the level of Theobromos in their systems. He surveyed the litter of foil wrappers and empty cups, regarded the cocoa powder in Joseph’s beard, and sighed. Two old professionals on a sloppy bender. And it was true that there were occasional inexplicable flares and shortings-out in San Francisco, which was as weird in its way as Laurel Canyon, not because of any geologic anomaly but because the place seemed to attract Crome-generating mortals in droves. It made his job more complicated than that of most security personnel.
    “All right,” he said. “I don’t really need to report this, if you two senile delinquents will promise me you won’t try to drive in your condition.”
    “We’ve already sent for a taxi,” Lewis assured him.
    “Gonna go home and order a pizza and sleep it off. Trust me, kid.” Joseph reached up and patted the security tech’s white helmet. He left cocoa-powdered fingerprints.
    Lewis sat up abruptly and stared around, wishing he hadn’t. He had a terrible headache, and his skin was crawling. He was ravenously hungry, too. At least he remembered where he was: a houseboat in Sausalito. Rank wind off the tidal flats and the cry of sea birds confirmed his memory.
    He remained on the couch for a moment, surveying the litter of the dimly recalled previous evening. Five pizza boxes and two empty five-liter bottles of Coca-Cola. Lewis lifted the lid on the nearest box, hoping there was some crust left. There wasn’t. How sad. He needed carbohydrates terribly just now.
    Resting his head in his hands, he tried to remember his dream, but it was fading so quickly: Mendoza laughing with him at one of the base administrator’s parties, over some ridiculous costume Houbert had worn. They hadn’t been able to stop giggling. He’d master himself, fix all his features in a look of prim attention, and she’d take one look at him and go into fresh gales of laughter, which would set him off again. They’d had to stagger outside at last, leaning on each other.
    Mendoza looked young