Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

She expected a PI to seem at least a little bit dangerous, with a violent aspect to his eyes and perhaps a tight-lipped, cruel mouth.

Charlie appeared to be intelligent, efficient, capable-but not dangerous. He had an unremarkable, though generally handsome face framed by thick blond hair that was neatly combed.

His eyes were his best features, gray-green, clear, direct; they were warm, friendly eyes, but there was no violence in them, at least none that she could detect.

In spite of the fact that neither Charlie nor Rankin looked like Magnum or Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, Christine sensed she had come to the right place. Charlie Harrison was friendly, selfpossessed, plain-spoken. He walked, turned, and performed every task with an unusual economy of motion, and his gestures, too, were neat and precise.

He projected an aura of competence and trustworthiness. She suspected that he seldom, if ever, failed to do his job well. He made her feel secure.

Few people had that effect on her. Damned few. Especially men. In the past, when she had relied upon men, her faith had not always-or even usually-been well placed. However, instinct told her that Charlie Harrison was different from most other men and that she would not regret placing her trust in him.

Charlie looked up from the paper Rankin had given him." The True Word, huh? Anything on it in our files?"

"Nothing."

Charlie looked at Christine." You ever hear of them?"

"No."

"You ever have any brochures or stationery or anything printed for that gourmet shop of yours?"

" Sure. But that's not the printer we use."

"Okay," Charlie said, "we'll have to find out who owns the company, try to get a list of their employees, start checking everyone out."

"Can do," Henry Rankin said.

To Christine, Charlie said, "You might have to talk with your mother about this, Ms. Scavello."

"I'd rather not," she said." Not unless it becomes absolutely necessary"

"Well….. all right. But it probably will become necessary.

For now….. you might as well go on to work. It'll take us awhile to dig into this."

"What about Joey?"

"He can stay here with me this afternoon," Charlie said." I want to see what'll happen if you leave without the boy. Will the guy in the van follow you-or will he wait for Joey to come out? Which of you is he most interested in?"

He'll wait for Joey, Christine thought grimly. Because it" s Joey he wants to kill.

Sherry Ordway, the receptionist at Klemet-Harrison, wondered if she and Ted, her husband, had made a mistake. Six years ago, after three years of marriage, they had decided they didn't really want children, and Ted had had a vasectomy. With no children, they could afford a better house and better furniture and a nicer car, and they were free to travel, and the evenings were always peaceful and perfect for curling up with a book-or with each other. Most of their friends were tied down with families, and every time Sherry and Ted saw someone else's child being rude or downright malevolent, they congratulated themselves on the wisdom of avoiding parenthood. They relished their freedom, and Sherry never regretted remaining childless. Until now. As she answered the telephone and typed letters and did filing, she watched Joey Scavello, and she began to wish Oust a little) that he was hers.

He was such a good kid. He sat in one of the armchairs in the waiting area, dwarfed by it, his feet off the floor. He spoke when spoken to, but he didn't interrupt anyone or call attention to himself. He leafed through some of the magazines, looking at pictures, and he hummed softly to himself, and he was just about the cutest thing she'd ever seen.

She had just finished typing a letter and had been surreptitiously watching the boy as, with much frowning and tonguebiting, he checked the knots in the laces of his sneakers and retied one of them. She was about to ask him if he would like another of her butterscotch Life Savers when the telephone rang.

" Klemet-Harrison," Sherry said.

A woman said, "Is Joey Scavello there? He's just a little boy, six years old. You can't miss him if he's there; he's such a charmer."

Surprised that anyone would be calling the boy, Sherry hesitated.

"This is his grandmother," the woman said." Christine told me she was bringing Joey to your office."

"Oh. His grandmother. Why, yes, of course, they're here right now.

Mrs. Scavello is in Mr. Harrison's office at the moment.

She's not available, but I'm sure-"

"Well, it's Joey I really want to talk to. Is he in with Mr. Harrison, too?"

"No. He's right here with me."

"Do you think I could speak to him for a moment?" the woman said." If it's not too much trouble."

"Oh, it's no trouble-"

"I won't tie up your line for long."

"Sure. Just a minute," Sherry said. She held the phone away from her face and said, "Joey? It's for you. Your grandmother."

" Grandma?" he said, and seemed to be amazed.

He came to the desk. Sherry gave him the phone, and he said hello, but didn't say anything else. He went stiff, his small hand clenching the handset so tightly that his knuckles looked as if they would pierce the skin that sheathed them. He stood there, wide-eyed, listening. The blood drained out of his face. His eyes filled with tears. Suddenly, with a gasp and shudder, he slammed the phone down.

Sherry jumped in surprise." Joey? What's wrong?"

His mouth became soft and tremulous.

"Joey? “

"It was… h-her.

"Your grandmother."

"No. The w-witch."

"Witch?"

"She said… she's gonna… c-c-cut my heart out."

Charlie sent Joey into his office with Christine, closed the door after them, and remained in the lounge to question Sherry.

She looked distraught." I shouldn't have let her talk to him.

I didn't realize-"

"It wasn't your fault," Henry Rankin said.

"Of course it wasn't," Charlie told her.

"What sort of woman-"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Charlie said." I want you to think about the call and answer a few questions."

"There wasn't much said."

"She claimed to be his grandmother?"

"Yes."

"She said she was Mrs. Scavello?"

"Well. no. She didn't give her name. But she knew he was here with his mother, and I never suspected. I mean, well, she sounded like a grandmother."

"Exactly what did she sound like?" Henry asked.

"God, I don't know. a very pleasant voice," Sherry said.

"She speak with an accent?" Charlie asked.

"No."

"Doesn't have to've been a real obvious accent to be of help to us,"

Henry said." Almost everyone speaks with at least a mild accent of some kind."

" Well, if it was there, I didn't notice it," Sherry said.

"Did you hear anything in the background?" Charlie asked.

"Like what?"

"Any noise of any kind?"

"No."

"If she was calling from an outdoor pay phone, for instance, there would've been traffic noises, street noises of some kind."

"There wasn't anything like that."

"Any noises that might help us figure the kind of place she was calling from?"

"No. Just her voice," Sherry said." She sounded so nice."

After her vision, Mother Grace dismissed all her disciples except Kyle Barlowe and Edna Vanoff. Then, using the phone in the church basement, she placed a call to the detective agency where Joey Scavello and his mother had gone, and she spoke briefly with the boy. Kyle wasn't sure he saw the sense of it, but Mother Grace was pleased.

"Killing him isn't sufficient," she said." We must terrify and demoralize him, too. Through the boy, we'll bring fear and despair to Satan himself. We'll make the devil understand, at last, that the Good Lord will never permit him to rule the earth, and then he'll finally abandon his schemes and hopes of glory."