Dean Koontz - One Door Away From Heaven

Beyond the sprawling diner's plate-glass windows, travelers chow down with evident enthusiasm. The sight of them reminds the boy how much time has passed since he ate a cold cheeseburger in the Explorer.

The dog whines with hunger.

Out of the warm night into the pleasantly cool restaurant, into eddying tides of appetizing aromas that instantly render him ravenous, the boy realizes he is grinning as widely as the dog.

The dog, not the grin, draws the attention of a uniformed woman standing at a lectern labeled HOSTESS. She's petite, pretty, speaks with A comic drawl, but is as formidable as a prison-camp guard when she assumes a blocking stance directly in his path. "Honeylamb, I'll admit this here's not a five-star establishment, but we still say no to barefoot bozos and all four-legged kind, regardless of how cute they are."

The boy is neither barefoot nor a clown, and so after a brief confusion, he realizes she's talking about the dog. By bursting into the restaurant with the animal at his side, he's drawn attention to himself when he can least afford to do so.

"Sorry, ma'am," he apologizes.

Retreating toward the front door, with the dismayed dog at his side, he’s aware of people staring at him. A smiling waitress. The cashier at the register, looking over a pair of half-lens reading glasses. A customer paying his check.

None of these people appears to be suspicious of him, and none seems likely to be one of the relentless trackers on his trail. Fortunately, this blunder will not be the death of him.

Outside once more, he tells the dog to sit. The pooch settles obediently beside the diner door. The boy hunkers in front of the mutt, pets him, scratches behind his ears, and says, "You wait right here. I'll be back. With food."

A man looms over them — tall, with a glossy black beard, wearing a green cap with the words DRIVING MACHINE in yellow letters above the bill — not the customer who was at the cash register, but another who's on his way into the restaurant. "That's sure a fine tailwagger you have there," the driving machine says, and the dog obligingly swishes his tail, sweeping the pavement on which he sits. "Got a name?”

"Curtis Hammond," he replies without hesitation, using the name of the boy whose clothes he wears, but at once wonders if this is a wise choice.

Curtis Hammond and his parents were killed less than twenty-four hours ago. If by now the Colorado authorities have realized that the fire at the farmhouse was arson, and if autopsies have revealed that the three victims were savagely assaulted, perhaps tortured, all dead before the fire was set, then the names of the murdered have surely been heard widely on news broadcasts.

With no apparent recognition of the name, the bearded trucker, who may be only what he appears to be, but who may also be Death with facial hair, says, "Curtis Hammond. That's a powerfully peculiar name for a dog."

"Oh. Yeah. My dog," the boy says, feeling stupid and dismally incompetent at this passing-for-nobody-special business. He hasn't given a thought to naming his four-legged companion, because he's known that eventually, when he bonds better with the animal, he'll arrive at not just any name, but at the exactly right one. With no time to wait for better bonding, scratching the dog under the chin, he takes inspiration from a movie: "The name's Old Yeller."

Amused, the trucker cocks his head and says, "You yankin' my chain, young fella?"

"No, sir. Why would I?"

"And what's the logic, callin' this beauty Old Yeller, when there's not one yellow hair from nose to tail tip?"

Abashed at his nervous bumbling in the face of this man's easy and nonthreatening conversation, the boy tries to recover from his foolish gaff. "Well, sir, color doesn't have anything to do with it. We like the name just because this here is the best old dog in the world, just exactly like Old Yeller in the movie."

"Not exactly like," the driving machine disagrees. "Old Yeller was a male. This lovely black-and-white lady here must get a mite confused from time to time, bein' called a male name and a color she isn't."

The boy hasn't previously given much thought to the gender of the dog. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He remembers his mother's counsel that in order to pass for someone you're not, you must have confidence, confidence above all else, because self-consciousness and self-doubt fade the disguise. He must not allow himself to be rattled by the trucker's latest observation.

"Oh, we don't think of it as just a male name or a female name," the boy explains, still nervous but pleased by his growing fluency, which improves when he keeps his attention on the pooch instead of looking up at the trucker. "Any dog could be a Yeller."

"Evidently so. I think I'll buy me a girl cat and call her Mr. Rover."

No meanness is evident in this tall, somewhat portly man, no suspicion or calculation in his twinkling blue eyes. He looks like Santa Claus with a dye job.

Nevertheless, standing erect, the boy wishes the trucker would go away, but he can't think of a thing to say to make him leave. "Where's your folks, son?" the man asks.

"I'm with my dad. He's inside getting takeout, so we can eat on the road. They won't let our dog in, you know."

Frowning, surveying the activity at the service islands and the contrasting quiet of the acres of parked vehicles, the trucker says,

"You shouldn't stray from right here, son. There's all kinds of people in the world, and some you don't want to meet at night in a lonely corner of a parkin' lot."

"Sure, I know about their kind."

The dog sits up straighter and pricks her ears, as if to say that she, too, is well informed about such fiends.

Smiling, reaching down to stroke the lovely lady's head, the trucker says, "I guess you'll be all right with Old Yeller here to take a chunk of meat out of anyone who might try to do you wrong."

"She's real protective," the boy assures him.

"Just don't you stray from here," the driving machine warns. He tugs on the bill of his green cap, the way a polite cowboy in the movies will sometimes tug on the brim of his Stetson, an abbreviated tipping of the hat, meant as a sign of respect to ladies and other upstanding citizens, and at last he goes inside.

The boy watches through the glass door and the windows as the hostess greets the trucker and escorts him to a table. Fortunately, he is seated with his back toward the entrance. With his cap still on, he appears to be at once enthralled by the offerings on the tall, two-fold menu.

To the faithful canine, the boy says, "Stay here, girl. I'll be back soon."

She chuffs softly, as though she understands.

Out in the vast parking area, where cones of dirty yellow light alternate with funnels of shadow, there's no sign of the two silent men who wouldn't stoop to pick up five dollars.

Sooner or later, they'll come back here, run a search through the diner, around the motel, and wherever else their suspicion draws them, even if they've searched those places before. And if not those same two men, then two others. Or four. Or ten. Or legions.

Better move.

GENEROUS SLICES of homemade apple pie. Simple white plates bought at Sears. Yellow plastic place mats from Wal-Mart. The homey glow of three unscented candles that had been acquired with twenty-one others in an economy pack at a discount hardware store.

This humble scene at Geneva's kitchen table was a fresh breeze of reality, clearing away the lingering mists of unreason that the chaotic encounter with Sinsemilla had left in Micky's head. Indeed, the contrast between Geneva polishing each already-clean dessert fork on a dishtowel before placing it on the table and Sinsemilla waltzing with the moon was less like a mere refreshing breeze than like sudden immersion in an arctic sea.