Dean Koontz - Velocity

Behind the locked door, Valis waited.

“And emptiness,” Billy said. “The void. The abyss.”

He moved to another bronze: a robed scholar and a deer sitting side by side, the scholar bearded and smiling, his robe embroidered with gold inlay.

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“The choice,” Billy said, “is chaos or control. With power, we can create. With power and chaste intent, we create art. And art is the only answer to chaos and the void.”

After a silence, Valis said, “Only one thing holds you to the past. I can release you from it.”

“By one more murder?” Billy asked.

“No. She can live, and you can move on to a new life… when you know.”

“And what is it you know that I don’t?”

“Barbara,” Valis said, “lives in Dickens.”

Billy heard a sharp intake of breath, his own, an expression of surprise and recognition.

“While in your house, Billy, I reviewed the pocket notebooks you’ve filled with things she said in coma.”

“Have you?”

“Certain phrases, certain constructions resonated with me. On your livingroom shelves, the complete set of Dickens—that belonged to her.”

“Yes.”

“She had a passion for Dickens.”

“She’d read all the novels, several times each.”

“But not you.”

“Two or three,” Billy said. “Dickens never clicked with me.”

“Too full of life, I suspect,” Valis said. “Too full of faith and exuberance for you.”

“Perhaps.”

“She knows those stories so well, she’s living them in dreams. The words she speaks in coma come sequentially in certain chapters.”

“Mrs. Joe,” Billy said, recalling his most recent visit to Barbara. “I’ve read that one. Joe Gargery’s wife, Pip’s sister, the bullying shrew. Pip calls her

‘Mrs. Joe.’”

“Great Expectations,” Valis confirmed. “Barbara lives all the books, but more often the lighter adventures, seldom the horrors of A Tale of Two Cities.”

“I didn’t realize…”

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“She’s more likely to dream A Christmas Carol than the bloodiest moments of the French Revolution,” Valis assured him.

“I didn’t realize, but you did.”

“In any case, she knows no fear or pain because each adventure is a wellknown road, a pleasure and a comfort.”

Billy moved through the living room, to another bronze, then past it.

“She needs nothing you can give her,” Valis said, “and nothing more than what she has. She lives in Dickens, and she knows no fear.”

Intuiting what was wanted to bring the artist forth, Billy put down the revolver on an antique Shinto altar table to the left of the bedroom door. Then he retraced his steps to the middle of the living room and sat in an armchair.

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Chapter 71

Handsomer than the self-portrait in pencil that could be viewed on his Web site, Valis entered.

Smiling, he picked up the revolver from the altar table and examined it. Beside the armchair in which Billy sat, on a small table, stood another Japanese bronze from the Meiji period: a plump smiling dog held a turtle on a leash.

Valis approached with the handgun. Not unlike Ivy Elgin, he walked with a dancer’s grace and as if gravity were not quite able to force the soles of his shoes flat to the floor.

His thick, soot-black hair, dusted with ashes at the temples. His smile so engaging. His gray eyes luminous, pellucid, and direct.

He had the presence of a movie star. The self-assurance of a king. The serenity of a monk.

Standing in front of the armchair, he aimed the revolver at Billy’s face.

“This is the gun.”

“Yes,” Billy said.

“You shot your father with it.”

“Yes.”

“How did that feel?”

Staring into the muzzle, Billy said, “Terrifying.”

“And your mother, Billy?”

“Right.”

“It felt right to shoot her?”

“At the time, in the instant,” Billy said.

“And later?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

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“Wrong is right. Right is wrong. It’s all perspective, Billy.”

Billy said nothing. In order to arrive at what you are not, you must go through the way in which you are not.

Peering at him along the barrel of the gun, Valis said, “Who do you hate, Billy?”

“I don’t think anyone.”

“That’s good. That’s healthy. Hate and love exhaust the mind, inhibit clear thinking.”

“I like these bronzes very much,” Billy said.

“Aren’t they wonderful? You can enjoy the form, the texture, the immense skill of the artist, and yet not care a damn thing about the philosophy behind them.”

“Especially the fish,” Billy said.

“Why the fish in particular?”

“The illusion of movement. The appearance of speed. They look so free.”

“You’ve led a slow life, Billy. Maybe you’re ready for some movement. Are you ready for speed?”

“I don’t know.”

“I suspect you do.”

“I’m ready for something.”

“You came here intending violence,” Valis said.

Billy raised his hands from the arms of the chair and stared at the latex gloves. He stripped them off.

“Does this feel strange to you, Billy?”

“Totally.”

“Can you imagine what might happen next?”

“Not clearly.”

“Do you care, Billy?”

“Not as much as I thought I would.”

Valis squeezed off a shot. The bullet punched into the broad back of the armchair, two inches from Billy’s shoulder.

Unconsciously, he must have known the shot was coming. He saw in his mind’s eye the raven on the window, the still and silent and watchful raven.

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Then the bang came, and he did not fly or even flinch, but sat in a Zen indifference.

Valis lowered the gun. He settled into an armchair that faced Billy’s. Billy closed his eyes and leaned his head back.

“I could have killed you two ways without leaving the bedroom,” Valis said.

This was surely true. Billy didn’t ask how.

“You must be very tired,” Valis said.

“V.”

“How’s your hand?”

“Okay. Vicodin.”

“And your forehead?”

“Noble.”

Billy wondered if his eyes were moving under his lids, the way Barbara’s sometimes did in her dreams. They felt still.

“I had a third wound planned for you,” Valis said.

“Can it wait until next week?”

“You’re a funny guy, Billy.”

“I don’t feel that funny.”

“Do you feel relieved?”

“Mmmmmm.”

“Are you surprised by that?”

“Yeah.” Billy opened his eyes. “Are you surprised?”

“No,” the artist said. “I saw the potential in you.”

“When?”

“In your short stories. Before I ever met you.” Valis put the revolver on a table beside his chair. “Your potential so explicit on the page. As I researched your life, the potential became clearer.”

“Shooting my parents.”

“Not that so much. The loss of trust.”

“I see.”

“Without trust, there can be no tranquil resting of the mind.”

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“No rest,” Billy said. “No real peace.”

“Without trust, there can be no belief. No belief in kindness. Or integrity. In anything.”

“You have more insight into me than I do.”

“Well, I’m older,” Valis said. “And more experienced.”

“Way more experienced,” Billy said. “How long have you planned this performance? Not just since Monday in the bar.”

“Weeks and weeks,” said Valis. “Great art requires preparation.”

“Did you take the commission for the mural because I was here, or did the commission come first?”

“Together,” Valis said. “It was quite serendipitous. Things often are.”