Innocent Blood by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

little Danny. I don’t know how you can bear it.’
    â€˜Well,’ said Frank, ‘I don’t think I can.’
    â€˜Oh God,’ she said. ‘I hope he’s at peace.’
    â€˜I think so, Daphne. Thanks.’
    â€˜What are you going to do now?’ Mo asked him, after Daphne had left the room. ‘You’ll have to go home sooner or later.’
    â€˜I don’t know. I’m not sure that our marriage is going to be able to survive a thing like this.’
    â€˜Of course it will. Margot’s in shock, that’s all, just like you are. She needs somebody to blame for what happened and you’re that somebody. You wait till the cops nab these bastards, then she’ll see that it wasn’t your fault.’
    Frank sat staring at the balls of crumpled-up paper all over the floor. He had been thinking about Danny so much that he felt as if somebody had been repeatedly hitting him on the head with a heavy book. He needed to sleep but he knew that he couldn’t. He needed to talk to Margot, too, to try to atone for what he had done, but he knew he couldn’t do that, either.
    â€˜What about next week’s show?’ he asked Mo. ‘Do you think you and Lizzie can wrap it up on your own?’
    â€˜For Christ’s sake, don’t worry about the show, Frank. They’ll probably cancel it in any case.’
    â€˜They shouldn’t. They shouldn’t cancel it. We can’t let people like that destroy everything we’ve worked for. That’s just what they want.’
    â€˜Frank, it’s not just Pigs that’s going to be affected here. What about Philly 500 and The Fairchild Family and May To September and The Kings of Orange County ? What about Ollie Peller? He’s halfway through scoring that new John Badham picture. It’s going to be total fucking paralysis. Anybody who lost a kid is not going to be able to do any serious work, are they? And everybody else is going to be far too jumpy.’
    Frank slowly shook his head. ‘They sure know how to pick their targets, don’t they? American capitalism on September 11, American popular culture on September 22.’
    Mo said, ‘My advice to you is go home. You have to face up to this situation with Margot. You do and she does, both. I’m talking to you as a brother.’
    â€˜OK,’ said Frank. He looked around the conference room and gave something that was nearly a smile. ‘I can’t think of any good gags, anyhow.’

Three
    H e didn’t go home. He was too sick at heart and he knew that Margot wasn’t yet ready to talk to him. He called her from his cellphone but she didn’t pick up. Either she didn’t want to hear from him, or she was out seeing her friend Ruth in Coldwater Canyon.
    The smog had cleared and it was a warm, clear morning. He had the impression that there were more police cars around than usual, and he saw two police helicopters in the time it took him to drive from The Avenue of the Stars to the San Diego Freeway. He didn’t switch on his car radio, though. There was only one topic of conversation on every waveband.
    He reached the ocean. The water was glittering like smashed mirrors, and gulls were wheeling and screaming over the beach. He parked his car and walked along the promenade toward the municipal pier.
    An old man approached him. He was wearing a long-billed baseball cap and a saggy gray T-shirt and saggy orange shorts. The veins in his legs looked like a street map of Laurel Canyon, a mass of wriggly blue roads. One of his eyes was totally white.
    â€˜Lost?’ He grinned, showing four mahogany-colored teeth.
    Frank shook his head and carried on walking, but the old man limped along beside him. ‘I can always tell when someone’s lost. They have that look about them.’
    â€˜Really? What look is that?’
    â€˜That lost look.’
    â€˜Well, let me put your mind at rest. I’m not