Dean Koontz - One Door Away From Heaven

"Wasn't it? Talent, huh? You think I should be turning tricks or something?"

"That's never been your type of trouble. I just meant I think you could kick something way bigger than a rat's ass."

"You're the PI, the detective?"

"Used to be. Like I said. Closed up shop."

She hadn't called ahead because she'd been afraid that he would obtain a quick financial report on her before she got here. Now, having seen the place, she figured most of his clients weren't the type that American Express pursued with offers of platinum cards.

"I'm Micky Bellsong. I'm not with Vector Control, but you've got a rat problem."

"Everybody does," he said, and somehow managed to convey that he wasn't talking about long-tailed rodents. He started to shut her out.

She planted one loot on the threshold. "I'm not leaving till you either hear me all the way through — or snap my neck and throw me down the stairs."

He seemed to consider the second option, studying her throat. "You ought to sell Jesus door-to-door. The whole world would be saved by Tuesday."

"You did good work for a woman I knew once. She was desperate, she couldn't pay much, but you did good work anyway."

"I take it you can't pay much, either."

"Part cash, part IOU. Might take me a while to pay you off, but if I don't, I'll break my own legs and save you the trouble."

"Wouldn't be any trouble. I might enjoy it. But the fact still is, I've gone out of business."

"The woman you helped was Wynette Jenkins. She was in prison at the time. That's where I met her."

"Sure. I remember."

Wynette had arranged for her six-year-old son, Danny, to live with his maternal grandparents while she did her time. She'd been in the can less than a week when her ex-husband, Vin, had taken the boy to live with him. The law refused to intervene because Vin was the child's legal father. He was also a mean drunk and a wife abuser who had frequently knocked Danny around, and Wynette knew that he would terrorize the boy on a daily basis and eventually scar him for life, if not kill him. She heard about Farrel through another prisoner and persuaded her parents to approach him. Within two months, Farrel had provided the police with evidence of Vin's criminal activities that got the man arrested, indicted, and separated from his son. They returned the boy to the custody of Wynette's parents. Her folks said they suspected Farrel had taken the case, even at a loss, because it involved a child in trouble, and that he had a soft spot for kids.

Still employing her right foot as a doorstop, Micky said, "A little girl's going to be killed if I don't help her. And I can't help her alone."

This dramatic claim had an effect opposite of the one that she expected. The detective's expression of weary indifference hardened into a glower, although his sudden anger seemed not to be directed at her. "Lady, I'm exactly who you don't need. You want real cops."

"They're not going to believe me. It's a strange case. And this girl. she's special."

"They're all special." Farrel's voice was flat, almost cold; and perhaps Micky should have heard a dismissive platitude in those three words, or even callousness. But in his eyes, she thought she saw pain instead of genuine anger, and suddenly his glower seemed to be a mask that concealed an anguish he'd long kept private. "Cops are who you want. I know. I used to be one."

"I'm an ex-con. The girl's sonofabitch stepfather is rich and well connected. And he's highly regarded, mainly by a bunch of fools, but they're fools whose opinion matters. Even if I could get the cops to take me seriously, I couldn't make them move fast enough to help this girl."

"There's nothing I can do for you," he insisted.

"You know the deal," Micky said stubbornly. "Either hear me out — or throw me down the stairs. And if you try throwin', for starters you'll need Bactine, Band-Aids, and a sitz bath for your balls."

He sighed. "Pushing me like this is a mile past desperation, lady."

"I never claimed I wasn't desperate. But I'm glad to hear you think I'm a lady."

"Can't figure why the hell I answered the door," he said sourly.

"In your heart, you were hoping for a flower delivery."

He moved backward. "Whatever your story is, just spit it out plain and simple. Don't bother strumming on the heartstrings."

"Can't strum what I can't find."

His living room also served as his office. To the left stood a desk, two client chairs, one file cabinet. To the right a single armchair was aimed at a television set; a small table and a floorlamp flanked the chair. Bare walls. Books piled in the corners.

The drab furniture had probably been purchased in the thrift shop on the corner. The carpet looked as cheap as any loom could weave it. Everything appeared to be scrubbed and polished, however, and the air smelled like lemon-scented furniture wax and pine-scented disinfectant. The place must have been the austere cell of a monk with a cleaning obsession.

A cramped kitchen lay visible beyond one of two interior doors. The other door, closed now, evidently led to a bedroom and bath.

As Farrel sat behind the desk, Micky settled in an unpadded, rail-backed chair provided for clients, which was uncomfortable enough to serve as dungeon furniture.

The detective had been working at his desk, on the computer, when Micky had rung the doorbell. The printer fan hummed softly. She couldn't see the screen.

At a few minutes past ten in the morning, Farrel had also been working on a can of Budweiser. Now he picked it up, took a swallow.

"Early lunch or late breakfast?" Micky wondered.

"Breakfast. If it makes me look any more like a responsible citizen, I also had a Pop-Tart."

"I'm familiar with that diet."

"If it's all the same to you, let's can the chitchat. Just tell me your sad story if you really have to, and then let me get back to my retirement."

Micky hesitated, wanting to start her story well, and remembered Aunt Gen's prophetic words from Monday evening, not yet four days past. She said, "Sometimes a person's life can change for the better in one moment of grace, like a miracle almost. Someone so special can come along, all unexpected, and pivot you in a new direction, change you forever. You ever had that experience, Mr. Farrel?"

He grimaced. "You are peddling Jesus door-to-door."

As succinctly as possible, Micky told him about Leilani Klonk, old Sinsemilla, and the pseudofather on the hunt for extraterrestrial healers. She told him about Lukipela gone to the stars.

She withheld Preston Maddoc's identity, however, afraid that Farrel shared P. Bronson's admiration for the killer. If he heard the name, he might never give her the opportunity to win his involvement.

More than once as Micky talked, Farrel gazed at the computer, as though her story wasn't sufficiently involving to keep him from being distracted by whatever was on the screen.

He asked no questions and gave no reliable signs of interest. At times he leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, so still and so lacking in expression that he might have been asleep. At other times, his features once again seemed as hard as mortared stone, and he made eye contact of such discomfiting intensity that Micky thought he had lost patience and would throw her down the stairs regardless of her threat to put up a fight.

Breaking off a nail-you-to-the-wall stare, he abruptly rose to his feet. "The more I hear, the more I know I'm not right for this. Never would have been right, even when I was in business. I don't even see what you could want from me."

"I'm getting there."

"And I suppose you insist on getting there. So to lubricate my way through this meeting, I'll need another beer. You want one?"

"No thanks."

"I thought you were familiar with this diet."