He trudged off through the trackless, snow-covered road, squinting to see five feet in front of him. The decision to leave Shangri-la had been the right one, he knew. He could feel it. Just outside the gates the air seemed sweeter, somehow, more alive. Inside, with the guests at the mansion, it hadn't smelted good. There was something stale and putrid there.
Suddenly the image of Posie Ponselle's face came to him again. Something decayed, just below the surface. ... He felt ashamed for thinking about her that way. Posie was a good egg, the best of the lot. Still there was something about her that reminded Burdieh of the stink of a beggar.
Then, with swift, blinding clarity, Burdieh knew what it was in that house that he had feared so much that he was willing to walk all night in a raging blizzard to escape. It was death. He knew it as surely as he knew it was snowing. When those wild-eyed nobs in there were screaming about dying, they weren't just whistling Dixie. Death crouched in that house like a dog waiting for scraps.
He walked for what he guessed was a half-hour or more, although it could have been longer or no more than a few minutes. He couldn't tell. His brain had numbed along with his fingers and toes and the ice cube on his face that had once been his nose. Posie's face (just below the surface) kept occurring to him
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(death crouched in the corners, stinking like a beggar), but he tried to blot that out of his mind and concentrate on his steps, one foot in front of the other.
His eyelashes were frozen into sparkling spikes. They gave off brilliant flashes whenever he blinked, and that was a nice diversion. One foot in front of the other. His steps were growing shorter, since his legs had numbed with the cold. He had long since stopped rubbing his hands together to introduce some feeling into them. The last time he'd tried that, over the kerosene lamp, he'd burned off a patch of skin the size of a half-dollar on the backs of his hands, before the lamp had flickered and then gone out-and he hadn't even felt it.
(Death crouched.)
And his eyelashes! Jesus, they must weigh a ton. So hard to raise them more than a slot. ... A slit, a slot, a happy thought. . . . His brain was dancing. The Celebrity Scoop was on the presses, banging away to tell the world about Jackie O's new man and "LIZA'S NERVOUS BREAKDOWN," as the headline would read, only to clear itself in the text, by saying she wasn't suffering any such thing, but by then Liza's fans will have already bought the Scoop, so it didn't matter. The Celebrity Scoop was running, and the front pages were shuffling out into the stacker, and all the stars were on it, the Beautiful People, and his picture was there, too, big as life. SEYMOUR BURDICH, BEAUTIFUL AT LAST.
"Beautiful People," Burdich sang in a thin, shaky voice to the tune of "Beautiful Dreamer." "Wake unto me. . . ."
Had to stay awake. He was in the middle of nowhere and (something) sat crouched and waiting. But it
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wouldn't touch him. He was the Beautiful Dreamer. Weave a circle 'round him thrice, and touch his eyes . . .
His eyes were sealing shut. The icicle eyelashes, the swollen frostbite on his eyelids, the terrible, aching desire for sleep made him close them, and it didn't matter, he was still on his feet, he would just rest his eyes (touch his eyes with holy dread) for a moment and keep on walking, the important thing was to keep on walking, go ahead, you're not going to meet anybody along this road, Beautiful Dreamer.
"For he on honeydew has fed," Burdich shouted into the night, his voice a rasp that the wind caught and smashed almost before the words were out of his mouth. Keep walking. You're not going to meet anybody.
But he did.
With an effort, he opened his frozen eyes and saw that he had wandered into a cluster of trees on the edge of a deep pine forest. Where was the road? He was hip-deep in snow, leaning against the trunk of a sturdy blue spruce. And there he saw him, Him, in the same cluster of trees. Crouching. Waiting.
"You've been looking for me all along, haven't you?" Burdich said in a low whisper that hurt his lungs.
He sat down in the snow. It felt so good. Eyes so tired (touch his eyes with holy dread). And as Death wove its circle around him, Burdich smiled, his lips barely moving as he repeated the last lines of the poem. "For he on honeydew has fed ..." It was going to be all right now. Death wouldn't stay long here. St had another appointment, up the road, with a houseful of people who expected him.
"And drunk the milk of Paradise," he whispered.
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He didn't have the strength to close his eyes, so the snow swirled in and filled in the open slots and blanketed him in brilliant white. And then Death went on up the road.
Chapter Twelve
In Washington, D.C., some 280 miles due southeast of the cluster of pines where Seymour Burdich's corpse lay blanketed with snow, Secretary of the Army Clive R. Dobbins sat in the back seat of his dark blue Lincoln Mark V, surreptitiously peering at his wrist-watch as his wife prattled on with a thousand complaints.
"Really, Clive, I can't see why we had to leave so early. It was a simply fabulous party. Nancy even gave me her recipe for that scrumptious Charlotte Russe she makes. And Henry was in marvelous spirits."
"The snow," Dobbins said lamely. Washington hadn't been hit very hard by the snowstorm that was sweeping the country, but the weather made a better story than the truth.
"What?" Mrs. Dobbins registered a surprise greater than any she could have felt, but exaggeration was part of her personality, so Dobbins let her go on. "There aren't two inches of snow on the ground, dear. And Forsythe is an utterly splendid driver. Aren't you, Forsythe?"
"Yes, ma'am," the driver agreed from the front seat.
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"I've got to make a meeting," Dobbins muttered. Which was true. The meeting was with a twenty-four-year-old public relations girl with the State Department. Rhonda had the brains of a duck, but a rack on her that could halt an ICBM coming out of its silo.
Dobbins had told her he'd meet her at one A.M. on the nose, and he was twenty minutes late already. It would take another half-hour or so to get from Georgetown to Rhonda's section of Sixteenth Avenue. She was never much good if he dropped by while she was sleeping. The girl slept like a rock. Fooling around with Rhonda after waking her up was like diddling a mummy.
"Step on it, Forsythe," he said.
Out of the rear window he could see the headlights of the green Ford belonging to the Secret Service. They followed him everywhere like shadows. Dobbins had objected to their presence ever since the boys had first started to trail him around, but the order was from the president himself, and you didn't buck orders like that.
So he had put up with their bothersome lurking and checking, even though it made him feel like a pansy. He'd commanded men in three wars, damn it, and now a bunch of civies who looked like college frat men were fluttering around him like butterflies in order to "protect" him.
Protect! Hah! He'd like to see the son of a bitch who popped off Watson and Ives. He'd like to see the whites of that pud-puller's eyes as he tried to attack him, a retired four-star general of the United States Army, because if he did attack him, Dobbins's clenched fist going smack into that yellow-bellied turd-eater's nose would be the last sight the so-called assassin was ever going to see.
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The big car rambled into Georgetown, passing by the elegant houses with their covered pools and their steaming greenhouses. Behind it, the green Ford followed doggedly.
"Punks," Dobbins muttered.
"What, dear?" Mrs. Dobbins said, her false eyelashes batting so fast she looked about to lift off. "Now you know how I feel about your getting overexcited, Clive. You know, I've always held that you play much too much golf."
"I don't golf in the winter, Hilda."
"Don't you?" Again the look of unbridled amazement. "Well, work then. You spend altogether too much of your time working. All these meetings." She clucked disapprovingly.
"I'm the Secretary of the Army," Dobbins said mildiy.
"But it's past midnight. Surely the Russians wouldn't be so uncivilized as to attack us before breakfast."
Dobbins sighed and tuned out the rest of Hilda's monologue. At least Rhonda limited her talking to smut. He liked that in a woman. No wasted words. Hilda was still jabbering when the Lincoln pulled up in front of the three-story Tudor with "Dobbins" printed over the bell. She hardly seemed to notice when Dobbins led her out of the car and into the house; the verbal river that flowed from her lips never ceased. She was still talking when he closed the door behind her and headed back out to the car.
"Get out, Forsythe," he snapped.
"Sir?"
"Quick, before the Secret Service boys get here." They were undoubtedly nearby, cooling their well-bred heels inconspicuously somewhere near the en-
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