Davidian Report Read Online Free

raincoat, a shapeless, colorless hat pulled over his eyebrows. He might have been asleep, but his knees were placed together too neatly, his hands crossed over them in peace. Steve didn’t touch him. He tilted the man’s hat brim with one careful finger, but he had known before that. He walked away, returning to the lighted, busy terminal by the far door.
    No one seemed to notice his re-entrance. He lit a cigarette, steadying it with cold fingers. The immediate move was to get a cab into Hollywood. He was heading for the street exit when the soldier emerged from Men’s. Reuben’s face had grown old again from fatigue or disappointment. From both. He said, “Your friends not wait either?”
    “Looks like they didn’t,” Steve admitted. He couldn’t have been as long outside as it seemed. Unless the kid had been told to wait for him.
    Reuben walked along towards the door. “You don’t suppose that Armour guy’ll still be hanging around?” It was a wishful query.
    “No,” Steve said. Although he wasn’t sure of the soldier, he offered, “I’m getting a cab. You can ride along with me to Hollywood if it’ll do you any good.”
    Reuben was appreciative. “I’m heading that way.”
    And then they saw the big car, the rear door still wide, Haig Armour emerging from the tonneau. “No luck?” Armour’s voice implied that he’d known there wouldn’t be. “You two must have taken the place apart, nail by nail.” He’d changed the seating, he had Timothy by the driver and he himself took the jump seat. The girl slept on in her corner. She didn’t stir when Reuben shoved beside her, making room for Steve. But if you touched her she wouldn’t topple; she was breathing.
    “And now?” Armour asked.
    “We’ll get off in Beverly Hills.” Steve settled his valise under his heels.
    “Where are you going?” There was a hint of impatience in the big voice and Steve wanted to answer it straight: None of your God-damn business! But he said. “Hollywood. We’ll take a cab from Beverly Hills. I’m sure Miss Talle isn’t up to any more side trips.”
    “Yes.” Armour agreed too readily. “You can drop us and then Wilton will take you two wherever you want.” He blocked Steve’s protest. “It’s a hired car.”
    Steve shut his mouth. Rube was already accepting in his lackadaisical fashion, “Well, thanks, Mr. Armour. Someday I’ll give you a lift.”
    Fatigue silenced all of them. The fog ebbed and flowed about the car through Westwood and into Beverly Hills. They turned away from the city on a broad avenue sentineled with giant palms, slender and tall as Watusis. The fronds were lost in the dark white mists overhead.
    The driver held speed to a walk. The avenue was sparsely lit, the intersections lost in the fog. Again theirs seemed the only vehicle in motion, themselves the only living organisms in a vanished world. The Beverly Hills Hotel was a beacon, its yellow lights penetrating the gray. The car didn’t hesitate at the hotel. For a moment anger seized Steve. And then he realized from the growing darkness that they were moving into Benedict Canyon. The climb was tortoise slow, the driver pulling under far-spaced and dim street lights to decipher the street signs.
    The girl said, “I don’t know where we are.” It was the first thing she’d said since leaving the airport.
    Haig Armour didn’t sound too sure. “Wilton will find it. You know your aunt’s place?”
    “I can’t see a thing.” Her yellow-crocheted forefinger rubbed against the window as if she could make a hole in the density.
    One estate was like another on the Benedict Canyon road, shrubs and trees, the mass of big houses fading into the white shadows. Wilton was out of the car, turning a flashlight on the country-style white mailbox, lettered in black. And he was again in the car, heading further up the Canyon. It wasn’t more than a long city block before be repeated the routine, this time returning to open the rear