Garden of Evil by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

man was extremely strong.
    â€˜Ask him,’ Jim insisted. His chest was heaving with rage and breathlessness. ‘Ask him why he was looking at me, go on!’
    â€˜I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Now, let’s go quietly, OK? I’m sure you don’t want me to call the cops.’
    Jim turned back to the man in white, but there was no man in white, only an empty barstool. He looked around the bar in bewilderment, and then toward the exit, to see if the man in white was walking away down the street. But the sidewalk was deserted, apart from a woman with an undulating bottom walking her over-clipped poodle.
    â€˜You didn’t see him?’ said Jim. ‘He was sitting right here, and you didn’t see him?’
    â€˜Let’s go, sir. Please.’
    Conversation and laughter in the restaurant had completely died, with curious customers craning their necks to see what was going on. There was only the music playing,
Werewolves of London
. Summer had obviously heard Jim shouting and now left her seat and came tripping up to him in her little silver boots. ‘Jimmy, what’s
wrong
? Jimmy?’
    â€˜This gentleman is just leaving, ma’am,’ said the smooth-looking man. His grip on Jim’s arm was unrelenting.
    â€˜I
told
him he looked bloopy,’ said Summer.
    The smooth-looking man escorted Jim outside. ‘Whatever you ordered, it’s on the house,’ he said. ‘Just one thing, though. Don’t ever come back. Either you or your girlfriend
or
your imaginary enemy.’
    Jim and Summer walked back to his car. Jim didn’t start the engine at first, but sat behind the wheel with his head bowed, trying to make some sense of what had just happened to him. Summer stroked and tugged his hair at the back of his neck.
    â€˜You’ll be OK, Jimmy. It’s stress, that’s all. Starting a new semester and everything. You’re a very sensitive man, that’s what I love about you. You can’t help it if you go nuts now and again.’
    â€˜Oh, thanks,’ said Jim. ‘So you didn’t see him, either? That man in white, sitting at the bar?’
    â€˜I saw you there, but nobody else. I wasn’t really looking, to tell you the truth. I dropped an olive down the front of my jacket and I was trying to hook it out.’
    Jim drove back to Briarcliff Road, and walked Summer back up to her apartment. Thunder was still banging away, over the mountains, but it was further east now.
    â€˜I’m sorry I spoiled your evening,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’re right, and I am going nuts.’
    â€˜I could always come up for a drink,’ Summer suggested.
    Jim kissed her cheek and said, ‘Not tonight, sweetheart. Tonight, I think I need Pepto-Bismol and Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”, in that order.’
    Summer put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. ‘One day,’ she whispered, in his ear.
    Jim trudged up the last flight of steps. He felt exhausted, as if he had been teaching a rowdy class all day. He didn’t turn around as he unlocked his front door, or else he would have seen the man in white standing on the opposite side of the road, his linen pants flapping in the evening breeze, smiling at him still.
    â€˜I’m very, very pleased with you, Mr Rook,’ he said, under his breath, although he may not have been talking entirely to himself. ‘You’re coming along famously.’

FIVE
    N ext morning he was woken up at 7.11 by Tibbles jumping up on to his chest.
    â€˜
Aaahhh
!’ he shouted, and sat bolt upright. Tibbles weighed over six pounds, and had badly winded him, but more than that, he had abruptly jolted him out of his dream.
    He had been wandering around the college parking lot in a dense yellow smog, trying to find his car. It was no longer in his usual parking space – or rather Royston Denman’s space – but he