Walkers by Graham Masterton Page B

for just about everything is really uninteresting.’
    ‘So cynical, so young,’ smiled
Henry, but not patronisingly. He agreed with Gil almost one hundred per cent.
In his experience, the wildest phenomena always seemed to have the most mundane
solutions. Like Bridey Murphy, or the Mary
Celeste. He nodded back towards the restaurant door, and said, ‘All we have
to decide for ourselves is whether we are in any kind of personal danger here.’
    ‘I can’t see how we could be,’ said
Gil. ‘I mean, this girl from San Diego wasn’t
threatening in any way that you could possibly think of. Just the opposite.’
    ‘Well, you may be right,’ said
Henry. ‘My philosophy student wasn’t exactly your stereotypical hit-man.’
    Susan said, ‘I vote we go in and see
what happens. Nothing ventured, you know.’
    Henry thought about it, and then
shrugged. ‘Come on, then.’
    Inside Bully’s North, it was noisy
and dark and crowded. The television was tuned to the Padres, playing at home,
and people were smoking and laughing and drinking beer.
    The three of them walked the length
of the cocktail bar, and up to the young blow-dried maître d’, who was
answering the telephone and handing out menus at the same time.
    After a moment, the maître d’ hung
up the telephone and grinned, and said, ‘Good evening. Can I help you folks?
Table for three?’
    ‘Well, we’re not together, as a
matter of fact,’ said Henry. ‘Each of us is meeting somebody.’
    He turned to Susan, and said, ‘What
was the name of your Tribune reporter?’
    ‘Springer,’ Susan told the maître
d’. ‘Mr Paul Springer.’
    Henry looked at Gil and his
expression was shocked. ‘That was the name of my philosophy student,’ he said,
in bewilderment.
    ‘And the girl from San Diego, her name’s Paulette Springer,’ said Gil.
    The maître d’ stared at them as if
they were playing some kind of lunatic party game.
    ‘You’re not together, each of you is
meeting somebody, but each of those
    “somebodies” happens to have the
same name?’
    ‘It appears so,’ said Henry, in a
tight, constricted voice.
    The maître d’ skimmed down the list
of names on his clipboard. Halfway down, his pen came to a stop. ‘Here it is,
Springer. Table nine.’ The pen went down further, right to the bottom of the
page, and then the maître d’ shook his head. ‘Only one Springer. I’m sorry.’
    Susan glanced at Henry anxiously.
‘What you said outside. You don’t think that -?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Henry. ‘I think
we’d all better stay together, and see which Springer we’ve got here, mine, or
yours – or Gil’s.’
    The maître d’ whipped out three
menus. ‘You all want to go to the same table?’ he asked them.
    ‘If there’s only one table booked in
the name of Springer, I don’t think we have a lot of choice,’ said Henry.
    The maître d’ led them between the
crowded tables, where diners were laughing and drinking wine and tucking into
ribs and cracked crab. At the very back of the restaurant, beside a frondy
coconut-palm in a wicker basket, was table nine; and at table nine sat a single
figure in a black Homburg-style hat and a black three-piece suit. The brim of the
hat was lowered so that as they crossed the restaurant they were unable to see
the figure’s face. But Henry immediately noticed the hands, which were spread
flat on the salmon-coloured tablecloth. They were very white, the same hue as
blanched almonds, and very long fingered.
    ‘Here you go, then,’ said the maître
d’, and dragged out three of the four chairs. ‘Mr Springer? One of these people
is a guest of yours. Well, I don’t know – maybe they all are.’
    Henry and Susan and Gil stood around
the table apprehensively as the figure very slowly raised its face towards
them, in the way that a white-petalled flower raises its face to the sun.
‘Yes,’ said the figure, quietly but distinctly. ‘They all are.’
    Henry was transfixed. The