Dean Koontz: Lightning

Bob's mouth was suddenly dry. "Listen, take the money and go. You got what you want. Just go. Please."

Grinning, more confident now that he had the money, emboldened by Bob's fear but still visibly trembling, the gunman said, "Don't worry, I ain't gonna kill no one. I'm a lover not a killer. All I want's a piece of that little bitch, and then I'm out of here."

Bob cursed himself for not having a gun. Laura was clinging to him, trusting in him, but he could do nothing to save her. On the way to the storeroom, he'd lunge at the junkie, try to grab the revolver. He was overweight, out of shape. Unable to move fast enough, he would be shot in the gut and left to die on the floor, while the filthy bastard took Laura into the back room and raped her.

"Move," the junkie said impatiently. "Now!"

A gun fired, Laura screamed, and Bob pulled her tight against him, sheltering her, but it was the junkie who had been shot. The bullet struck his left temple, blowing out part of his skull, and he went down hard atop the Slim Jims and crackers and chewing gum that he had knocked off the counter, dead so instantaneously that he did not even reflexively pull the trigger of his own revolver.

Stunned, Bob looked to his right and saw a tall, blond man with a pistol. Evidently he had entered the building through the rear service door and had crept silently through the storage room. Upon entering the grocery he had shot the junkie without warning. As he stared at the dead body, he looked cool, dispassionate, as if he were an experienced executioner.

"Thank God," Bob said, "police."

"I'm not the police." The man wore gray slacks, a white shirt, and a dark gray jacket under which a shoulder holster was visible.

Bob was confused, wondering if their rescuer was another thief about to take over where the junkie had been violently interrupted.

The stranger looked up from the corpse. His eyes were pure blue, intense, and direct.

Bob was sure that he had seen the guy before, but he could not remember where or when.

The stranger looked at Laura. "You all right, sweetheart?"

"Yes," she said, but she clung to her father.

The pungent odor of urine rose from the dead man, for he had lost control of his bladder at the moment of death.

The stranger crossed the room, stepping around the corpse, and engaged the dead-bolt lock on the front door. He pulled down the shade. He looked worriedly at the big display windows over which flowed a continuous film of rain, distorting the stormy afternoon beyond. "No way to cover those, I guess. We'll just have to hope nobody comes along and looks in."

"What're you going to do to us?" Bob asked.

"Me? Nothing. I'm not like that creep. I don't want anything from you. I just locked the door so we could work out the story you're going to have to tell the police. We have to get it straight before anyone walks in here and sees the body."

"Why do I need a story?"

Stooping beside the corpse, the stranger took a set of car keys and the wad of money from the pockets of the bloodstained windbreaker. Rising again, he said, "Okay, what you have to tell them is that there were two gunmen. This one wanted Laura, but the other was sickened by the idea of raping a little girl, and he just wanted to get out. So they argued, it got nasty, the other one shot this bastard and skipped with the money. Can you make that sound right?"

Bob was reluctant to believe that he and Laura had been spared.

With one arm he held his daughter tightly against him. "I… I don't understand. You weren't really with him. You're not in trouble for killing him — after all, he was going to kill us. So why don't we just tell them the truth?"

Stepping to the end of the checkout counter, returning the money to Bob, the man said, "And what is the truth?"

"Well. you happened along and saw the robbery in progress—"

"I didn't just happen along, Bob. I've been watching over you and Laura." Slipping his pistol into his shoulder holster, the man looked down at Laura. She stared at him wide-eyed. He smiled and whispered, "Guardian angel."

Not believing in guardian angels, Bob said, "Watching over us? From where, how long, why?"

In a voice colored by urgency and by a vague, unplaceable accent that Bob heard for the first time, the stranger said, "Can't tell you that." He glanced at the rain-washed windows. "And I can't afford to be questioned by police. So you've got to get this story straight.''

Bob said, "Where do I know you from?"

"You don't know me."

"But I'm sure I've seen you before."

"You haven't. You don't need to know. Now for God's sake, hide that money and leave the register empty; it'll seem odd if the second man left without what he came for. I'll take his Buick, abandon it in a few blocks, so you can give the cops a description of it. Give them a description of me, too. It won't matter."

Thunder rumbled outside, but it was low and distant, not like the explosions with which the storm had begun.

The humid air thickened as the slower-spreading, coppery scent of blood mixed with the stench of urine.

Queasy, leaning on the counter but still holding Laura at his side, Bob said, "Why can't I just tell them how you interrupted the robbery, shot the guy, and didn't want publicity, so you left?"

Impatient, the stranger raised his voice. "An armed man just happens to stroll by while the robbery's in progress and decides to be a hero? The cops won't believe a cockeyed story like that."

"That's what happened—"

"But they won't buy it! Listen, they'll start thinking maybe you shot the junkie. Since you don't own a gun, at least not according to public record, they'll wonder if maybe it was an illegal weapon and if you disposed of it after you shot this guy, then cooked up a crazy story about some Lone Ranger type walking in and saving your ass."

"I'm a respectable businessman with a good reputation."

In the stranger's eyes a peculiar sadness arose, a haunted look. "Bob, you're a nice man. but you're a little naive sometimes."

"What're you—"

The stranger held up a hand to silence him. ' 'In a crunch a man's reputation never counts for as much as it ought to. Most people are good-hearted and willing to give a man the benefit of the doubt, but the poisonous few are eager to see others brought down, ruined." His voice had fallen to a whisper, and although he continued to look at Bob, he seemed to be seeing other places, other people. "Envy, Bob. Envy eats them alive. If you had money, they'd envy you that. But since you don't, they envy you for having such a good, bright, loving daughter. They envy you for just being a happy man. They envy you for not envying them. One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren't happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others."

The charge of naiveté was one that Bob could not refute, and he knew the stranger spoke the truth. He shivered.

After a moment of silence, the man's haunted expression gave way to a look of urgency again. "And when the cops decide you're lying about the Lone Ranger who saved you, then they'll begin to wonder if maybe the junkie wasn't here to rob you at all, if maybe you knew him, had a falling out with him over something, even planned his murder and tried to make it look like a robbery. That's how cops think, Bob. Even if they can't pin this on you, they'll try so hard that they'll make a mess of your life. Do you want to put Laura through that?''

"No."

"Then do it my way."

Bob nodded. "I will. Your way. But who the hell are you?"

"That doesn't matter. We don't have time for it anyway." He stepped behind the counter and stooped in front of Laura, face to face with her. "Did you understand what I told your father? If the police ask you what happened—"