The Astral, or, Till the Day I Die. V. J. Banis

own volition, her eyes dropped to his buns, nicely rounded, looking like they were carved out of granite.

      She snapped her eyes away from them. Buns were not a part of her business plan. She had bad guys to catch. Totally disgusted with herself, she slid into the car seat beside him.

      “Crapola,” she said aloud. She hated shit like this.

      * * * *

      Mommy, Mommy, help me!

      Becky....

      Catherine fought against the restraints that held her to the bed, the tubes that connected her to monitoring equipment.

      Even when the nurses came running, even when the sedative had relaxed her body and her struggles had ceased, the cries still rang in her mind:

      Mommy, Mommy....

      CHAPTER TWO

      “This will seem a little strange to you,” the woman doctor said. She was one Catherine hadn’t seen before, a pale blonde woman. The light from the window formed a golden halo about her head. After three weeks they had finally removed the last of Catherine’s bandages. With the wrappings gone her scalp felt oddly naked.

      The doctor raised a small penlight in front of Catherine’s face and flicked it on. Intense light filled Catherine’s vision. “Don’t blink.”

      It reminded her of that other light, blinding, pure. She had told no one about that, had resolutely refused even to think about it, but the light shining into her eyes, blinding her, brought it back. It began to seem to her that she could see something in this light—almost see something, if she just looked a little harder.

      She was only vaguely aware of what the doctor was saying: “You must travel. You must learn it. Try, now. Just a little way. I will help.”

      Suddenly, she was in the corridor outside. There was her nurse, Millie, coming along the hallway toward her, a clipboard in her hand. Millie looked up and saw her. She blinked, disbelieving, her eyes wide.

      As suddenly as she had left it, Catherine was back in her bed, pain threatening to make her head explode. She moaned aloud. She had forgotten the doctor tending her until she said, “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

      Catherine opened her eyes. That brought fresh lightning bolts of pain crashing into her skull. “Who?” she started to ask, when the door flew open. Over the doctor’s shoulder, Catherine saw Millie dash into the room and come to an abrupt stop. The doctor did not turn, did not even seem to notice the sudden entrance.

      “You’re here,” Millie said. “I thought....”

      The doctor smiled and waved a hand to indicate the tubes connecting Catherine to the various life support systems. “How could she go anywhere?” she asked.

      For a moment more, Millie gaped. With a mystified expression, she shook her head. “Of course. How silly of me, how could you go anywhere?” She backed out of the room, her puzzled eyes studying Catherine’s face.

      Catherine looked at the doctor. “Why did you say that?” she asked.

      “Say what?”

      “That, what you said, about traveling?”

      The woman chuckled and slipped her penlight into the pocket of her tunic. “My dear, I’m afraid it will be a while before you do any real traveling. You rest now.” She got up and strolled toward the door.

      “Wait,” Catherine said, “I—I’m confused.”

      At the door, the doctor paused for just a second to look back and smile. Up until this moment she had been utterly professional and sweetly bland, a face you could almost but not quite remember, the sort of someone you might know only slightly from church or perhaps one of your child’s teachers. There was nothing bland or sweet about the smile she flashed across the room at Catherine, however. It was fierce, almost demonic. And challenging.

      “Of course you are. It will get better, I promise. You’ll be fine. It just takes time.”

      * * * *

      It felt strange to be back in Los Angeles. Jack McKenzie took the freeway ramp for Hollywood Boulevard, swerving out of the way of a brainless driver determined to get around him to exit first. That, at least, hadn’t changed: the Los Angeles traffic and the nutty drivers. No, that wasn’t true. The volume of traffic had doubled, at least, in the dozen or so years since he had been here.

      One thing that blessedly hadn’t changed was Musso and Frank’s. The restaurant sat where it had sat for ages, defending its faded elegance against the growing seediness of Hollywood Boulevard. He left his car in the parking lot in the rear, slipping the attendant a ten to insure that he kept an eye on it, and entered by the back door and the little corridor that went past the kitchen. To the right was the newer dining room with its lunch counter and brighter lights.

      He went to the left, however, to the older of the two rooms, with its monumental mahogany bar, the faded and vaguely pastoral murals, the high-backed wooden booths where generations of stars, politicians, moguls had sipped their cocktails and eaten the unchanged list of daily specials. The waiters might have been the same ones who had served him in the past. None of them were young and all of them were pros. To a man, and here and there a woman, they eschewed the trendy we-are-all-buddies-together style of service. If you wanted a waiter-as-friend, you could get that all over this town. Here, what you got was the business of good food and good drinks, properly, efficiently served.

      Peter Weitman was already in one of the booths, and already sipping a martini. A second one waited in its little bowl of ice for Jack. In the years since they had last met, Weitman had added some extra pounds to his never-trim build and traded much of his hair for them, but the eyes in the round face looked up at Jack with undiminished shrewdness.

      “I hope your tastes haven’t changed,” he said, indicating the waiting martini as Jack slipped into the booth across from him.

      “Not that much.” They shook hands quickly. By that time, a waiter had appeared to pour Jack’s drink into the chilled stemmed glass. Jack nodded his thanks and took a sip. “Ah. Nobody does it better, I swear.”

      Peter lifted his glass. “Welcome back to La-La Land.” He had a sip of his own drink. “How does it feel?”

      “A little funny. You forget the essence of the place. They never seem to capture that in movies or books. For all its tackiness, it does have a charm of its own.”

      “Admittedly a wacky charm,” Peter agreed. “You have to live here to get that.” He hesitated and looked down at his martini. “Did you hear about Catherine?” he asked without looking up.

      Jack skipped the pretense of asking which Catherine. They both knew there was only one Peter would mention.

      “I heard that she married Walter. That was years ago. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me they’re divorced.” He said it lightly, but he couldn’t help the little surge of hope that rose up inside him.

      “Her daughter was killed. Kidnapped.”

      “Jesus!” Jack slammed his drink down so hard that the stem on the glass broke. In an instant, a waiter was there. “It’s okay,” Jack said, snatching a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and using it to stem the little rivulet of blood.

      “I’ll bring a new glass,” the waiter murmured, whisking up the broken one and deftly wiping the table. One quick, practiced glance had told him the problem was not one of overindulgence. Else, no further drinking would happen on his stint at this table. Musso’s wasn’t that kind of establishment and there wasn’t a name, or a tip, big enough to bend that rule.

      They sat in silence until the waiter brought a new glass, already filled with a fresh drink. He set it down and gave Peter and the menus a meaningful glance. Peter shook his head and the waiter disappeared again.

      “God, she must be crazy with grief,” Jack said finally.

      “She was