Read Online Servants of Darkness by Mark Hall - Free Book Online

late seventies or early eighties. At least that was the impression. And although Sanchez did not recognize the make or model he had the distinct sense that the car was somehow not right, out of place, skewed slightly off center. The vehicle was glossy black, and the paint seemed distorted, mirage like, as if he was looking at a reflection. All of the windows—at least all the windows he could see—were filmed over, reminding him of the low-rider pimp wagons from that same era.
      “Let’s go,” the woman said, picking up her pace.
      “Who are they?”
      “They want me to go back there. Come on, hurry. We can talk at my place.” She started off again.
      “Wait a minute?” Sanchez said. “Go back where?”
      “That place,” she said as she went. “It’s a hotel called Strawberry Fields.”
      “In New York? I’ve lived here all my life and never heard of a hotel by that name.” This has got to be some sort of Joke . Sanchez turned and saw that the car was now about a hundred feet back and crawling slowly toward them, predatory. He upped his pace catching up with the woman. They emerged from the alley at W. 48 th Street and headed south toward 42 nd . The city was turning gray, washing out, like an old black & white photograph. As daylight receded to dusk an impenetrable blanket of cold and an inexplicable pall of dread settled over Manhattan. There were few pedestrians on the streets now; Sanchez imagined people huddled in their apartments waiting for . . . what? He could not shake the image of the fire from his mind; children; smoldering bodies on stretchers, shapes beneath sooty sheets. Firemen with haunted eyes, bent like broken toys, hacking black phlegm from their lungs.
      He kept glancing over his shoulder watching for the car to emerge from the alley. When that did not happen he sprinted back for a look. Despite the cold his face felt flushed and hot, like a low-grade fever. He wondered if he’d been sunburned by the fire’s intense heat.
      “Don’t be stupid,” Deb called after him. “Those guys are dangerous.”
    Sanchez peeked into the alley. Sure enough, the car was gone. Impossible, of course, there was no place to turn around, and backing up would have been a real bitch, sooty brick walls close on both sides. Yet that could be the only explanation. He turned and sprinted back to where the woman stood waiting for him. “What the hell’s going on?”
      “I told you, I don’t know.”
      Sanchez grabbed her arm spinning her. “Bull shit! You just said they were dangerous.”
      “They’ve been following me. The others are all dead and they were followed too. They made them go to that place. Please, listen to me, the only connection is John Lennon.”
      “How do you know that?”
      “Because I knew them all. We were sort of like a . . . club. We called ourselves The Wives of John Lennon. Women he had, sometimes separately, sometimes . . . together. We dressed the way he wanted us to, did the things that made him happy.” She gave a laugh that sounded more like a retch of agony, bitter, regretful, looked away, the glint of unshed tears in her eyes, one tear breaking free, crawling down a red-chapped cheek. “None of us was capable of a life after . . . you know.”
      Sanchez stared. “You’re telling me you were his whores and you were incapable of moving on?”
      Stiles glared at him. “We were his wives. He loved us all. Every day he would give us each a beautiful red rose. I still have one. I kept it in his memory. Only now it’s dried and wilted, like me. After John we all just seemed to drift, no direction, one failed relationship after another. Couldn’t get serious about anything, couldn’t settle down. Like we were all living in a dream, waiting for . . . something.”
      “Something?” Sanchez said.
      She shook her head. “I don’t know. After what happened at the Dakota building in 1980 . . . well . . .”
      “Well?”
      “We made a