FIFTEEN

ROUTE 66 BAR AND GRILL, YUMA, ARIZONA. 19 JUNE 2011. 10 P.M.

Since saying goodbye to Conway, Kyle’s anxious swings between belief and disbelief accelerated towards panic. The volume of the music sped up his thoughts when they needed to slow down. He felt nauseous and tense from smoking too much during the heat of the day, was dehydrated and his head was on spin cycle. He felt a temptation to hold onto the table.

It just wasn’t possible, any of it; just wasn’t possible that ‘beings’ and ‘presences’ were part of The Last Gathering and The Temple of the Last Days menagerie. But there it was: on the walls in Normandy, in Caen, in London, including his own, and now a copper mine in Arizona. Kyle closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing. He desperately wanted the answers to two questions: what the fuck was going on? And were they in danger?

‘Dude, you’re missing this.’

Kyle glanced up from the tabletop. ‘What?’ Behind Dan’s bulk, the bar-room returned to focus. A place half lit with subdued orange lamps, shielded behind scallop shades, tinting the entire space the hue of beer held up to a light. On the panelled walls, sports pennants and photographs fought for space with hockey and baseball memorabilia. A jukebox flashed. Strip lights hovered over a pool table in the back.

Dan’s mouth and chin shone with grease from devouring the heap of chicken wings in a wooden basket that had not long been placed before him. A deep slug of Samuel Adams draught made his eyes water. ‘Man, this is so cold. My hand’s stuck to the glass.’ Dan looked at the ceiling and smiled. ‘George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers. Haven’t heard this since we were at college. Before that, they played the Georgia Satellites. You’d never get that in a pub back home. Oh, oh, what’s this? I know this . . . Motley Crue. “Home Sweet Home”.’

Kyle attempted a smile to complement Dan’s enthusiasm; Dan had never been out West in the States before, only New York. Everything fascinated his friend: the road signs, the food, the motel, the cars, the advertisements beside the highways, the strip malls and street lights, the buildings, the mountains; and he’d never seen a desert before. He was like an overstimulated child. ‘You’ll sleep well tonight.’

‘Hope so. After a few more of these. You want that salad?’

The bowl of Caesar salad with Texan toast covered half the table. There must have been a kilo of bacon and two lettuces bigger than his head inside the bowl. Kyle pushed it towards Dan. ‘You keep eating like Elvis and we’re going to have to get you a leisure suit to go home in.’

‘Piss off,’ Dan said, around a mouthful of croutons.

‘You’re supposed to eat the leaves too. Not just the crunchy carbs.’

Dan raised his middle finger. ‘You look shattered. The driving?’

Kyle shrugged. ‘Yes and no.’

‘This is some seriously disturbing shit for sure.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘I mean, all sat beside each other with their throats cut. In that room. I went cold, mate. And the others torn up by the fence. They shot those poor bastards when they ran, then let the dogs savage them.’ Dan shook his head and wiped at his mouth with a napkin the size of a towel. ‘And the kids. The dirty kids in the shed. In that terrible place. Why’d they go to these . . .’ The animation, even the life, seemed to slip from Dan’s face and Kyle knew his friend had thought of the farm in Normandy. ‘At least no one lost a leg this time.’

They stared at each other. And then they were holding each other around the shoulders and laughing. Laughing so hard Kyle thought he might start crying. The waitress came over and joined in, though she had no idea what amused them. But she was easy on the eyes, had a sweet laugh and Kyle was glad to have her close. She took an order for another two beers from Dan. Over the PA, Cinderella started playing ‘Gypsy Road’.

Kyle mopped at his eyes with a clean napkin. ‘I needed that.’

Dan nodded. ‘Me too. But it’s not funny about Gabriel. Just so you know. I have no idea why I’m laughing.’

They exchanged another smile. ‘You’re sick. But I’ve said it before, this is dynamite. We’re making a great film. I mean it, a great film. I know this is hardcore. Upsetting. But you do know that this is really something? Tell me you know that.’ Kyle wondered who he was trying to reassure.

Dan nodded. ‘Shit, yes.’

‘Been saying it all along.’ The brief rise in his spirits faltered when he silently acknowledged he’d actually been saying it for his own sake.

Dan sat back in his chair. ‘But that was only the first shoot out here, mate. I’m kinda bricking it about what we might end up with.’

Kyle looked at the sauce bottles instead of Dan. ‘So far so good. Another decent interview but nothing . . . nothing else. You finished the Levine book?’

‘Not yet. I started to think the less I know about this shit the safer I’ll be.’

‘You need to read it. I learned things today that weren’t in there. The dogs. Again with the dogs. Conway said they were in the air. The air. Levine says they ran away, frightened. It’s what the police said at the time. But we have canine sounds on the audio track from London. The tenants in the Clarendon Road house heard them too. In Normandy dogs feared the farm. And the footprints at the mine? In Last Days, Levine makes a big deal about the footprints, because he reckoned some of the killers got away. The police never disclosed what the footprints looked like. Levine claimed they were prints from bare feet. Crazy hippy bare feet. But Conway said they were all bone. Bone. My wall, mate. Bones. The bathroom in Caen. Bones. The temple in Normandy. Bones. Figures of bone. Bone. You making a connection here? We have a whole new story I never anticipated. It’s priceless.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it. But can you stop now, please? I’ve got my own room and none of those lights Max gave us.’

‘I have one. A visor. But no bloody spare adaptor.’

‘You think they are some kind of protection?’

Kyle shrugged. ‘A hunch. Max’s whole flat is lit up with them. His bathroom stank of paint. Like it had been redecorated. Think about that. The daylight simulator made that mark disappear in my kitchen. And he insisted we use them.’

‘So what about me?’

‘You’re all right. You haven’t had any dreams. And anyway, let’s just say these stains . . . whatever, are unnatural. I sound friggin’ ridiculous for even suggesting it. I know it. But a stain, and some stupid dreams, can’t hurt you, right?’

‘You can use the adaptor from the camera.’

‘You big beauty. And three more shoots. Then you’re free of this. You won’t have to think about it again. So go easy on the sauce. We got an early start tomorrow and I want to do the rough cut before I turn in.’

‘Lot can happen in three days.’

Kyle didn’t take the bait.

‘What time we off in the morning?’ Dan asked.

‘About eight, so the alarm will be set for seven. We go back to the Fortuna Foothills to meet the rancher’s son. He’s coming down especially for us. Max wants the record straightened about what the current owner’s dad knew about the cult. We drive up to Phoenix the day after for the homicide cop. Red-eye from Phoenix to Seattle night after that for Martha Lake.’

‘What about outside Sister Katherine’s house? You said Chet Regal lives there. That could be cool. His private life was a bigger box office than Michael Jackson’s.’

‘No time. Screen shots of the mansion, voice-over.’

‘Packs it in, doesn’t he? This should be spread over a week with those two ten-hour flights either end. It’s not like Max is short of cash.’

‘He wants the shoot done fast. Took him ages to coax all of these people out for interviews. He’s scared they’ll change their minds. Get cold feet.’

Dan played with a French fry that had escaped his mouth. ‘That’s what he says.’

And now Dan had mentioned it, this additional doubt about their producer’s intentions behind the tight schedule added itself to his own nauseating mix of uncertainty and confusion.

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