Dean Koontz - The Darkest Evening Of The Year

Billy was not a pedophile, but he was grateful to them. Although some biddy might be videotaping him from a window, suspecting him of trolling for toddlers, there weren’t half a dozen high-energy kids clustered around him, full of curiosity, asking what was with his hat, was he a mountain climber, did he lose his real front teeth in a climbing accident-which is how it sometimes had been as little as eight or ten years ago.

A guy of about sixty answered the doorbell. He had a face that reminded Billy of certain birds of prey, and he looked as if he had just eaten a couple of live mice that were annoying him by writhing in his stomach instead of being dead.

“Mr. Shumpeter?”

“I don’t need any more insurance.”

“I’m Dwayne Hoover,” Billy Pilgrim said. “I called you earlier today about the Cadillac.”

“You looked like cold-call insurance.”

“No, sir. My business is organ brokering. One of my businesses.”

“You’re here about my ad for the car.”

“Yes, sir. I called you earlier today. Dwayne Hoover.”

“Come on in.”

Billy followed Shumpeter into a living room that dazzled with too many floral patterns and fringed pillows.

“You sell a used car to a dealer, they give you piss for it.”

“I’m offering cash, Mr. Shumpeter.”

“Then they turn around and sell it for a blood price.”

“Sometimes, you’ve got to cut out the middleman,” Billy agreed.

“Like I said on the phone, it was my wife’s car. She died. Been a widower four months.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Shumpeter.”

“The loss was my first wife. Pauline was my second. Nine years. Left me with all this damn frilly furniture.”

“I’m not in the market for furniture, I’m afraid.”

Shumpeter seemed to be alone, but Billy couldn’t be certain.

“She had to have a Cadillac. Wouldn’t let me rest till she got one, then she dies before it’s a year old.”

“That’s so sad,” Billy said.

“So I’m hit with big depreciation, and it’s hardly been used. Let’s be clear right up front-I’m not going to be bargained down.”

“I thought your advertised price was reasonable, Mr. Shumpeter.”

“Then come take a look at it.”

Happily, Shumpeter didn’t lead him outside to the driveway, but through the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen, giving Billy a better sense of whether anyone else might be on the premises.

The dining room bloomed with rose, peony, and wisteria patterns: upholstery, tablecloth, wallpaper.

“What’s the story with the hat?” Shumpeter asked.

“Tyrolean,” Billy said.

“I was a Shriner for years, but a Shriner doesn’t wear his fez except at club functions.”

“I’m on my way to a club meeting from here,” Billy said.

“Never heard of the Tyroleans.”

“We’re relatively new. We’re a social club, but we want to make a difference, too. We’re going to find a cure for prostate cancer.”

“Tofu,” said Shumpeter. “Eat tofu three times a week, you’ll never get prostate cancer.”

“The guys will be sorry to hear that. We’ll have to find another disease. Sir, I gotta say this is a lovely home. Fantastic kitchen.”

“I’m selling the place. It was too big for the two of us, but she just had to have it, now it’s damned sure too big for just me.”

“And it must be hard, alone with all the memories.”

“Not going to use a damn real-estate agent, either. They take six percent, and all you get for it is bullshit.”

Billy followed Shumpeter through a laundry room-where the widower snared a set of keys from a pegboard-and then into the garage. A new Mercedes stood beside the year-old Cadillac.

Registering Billy’s surprise, Shumpeter said, “There was life insurance. The damn IRS doesn’t get a cut of life insurance.”

Nodding his head at the Cadillac, Billy said, “It looks sweet.”

“Full disclosure. She died in it. Massive stroke, gone in two minutes.”

“That doesn’t spook me, Mr. Shumpeter.”

“She didn’t lose control of her bowels or bladder, nothing like that, so it’s not a reason to bargain.”

“I don’t want to bargain. Not me. This is just what I’m looking for.”

Shumpeter smiled, and his face didn’t crack. “Organ broker, you said, Mr. Hoover. Is that like pianos, organs?”

“No, sir. It’s like kidneys, livers, lungs.”

“Oh. You’re a doctor.”

“No, just a middleman. But in our aging population, it’s a fast-growing business. You yourself are going to need a heart.”

Shumpeter’s eyes widened. “On what evidence did you come up with that diagnosis?” He thumped his chest. “I’m sixty, but I’ve been a vegetarian for forty years, zero animal fat in the diet, rock-bottom cholesterol.”

“Well, being an organ broker, I can tell you with authority, statistics show that vegetarians commit suicide at a higher rate than meat eaters.”

Shumpeter glowered. “I read that, too, and they say we’re more often victims of homicide than meat eaters. That’s bullshit. It’s the meat industry buying phony research, nothing but propaganda.” He fisted his hands and puffed out his chest to proclaim his fitness. “When that Cadillac is ready for the junk pile, I’ll still be pleasing the ladies.”

“I don’t know about that,” Billy said, “but I’m sure this would have pleased your wife.” He drew the pistol with the sound suppressor and shot Shumpeter through the heart.

He dragged the corpse around to the front of the Mercedes, where it couldn’t be seen from the street, picked up the car keys that had fallen from the dead man’s hand to the floor, and opened the garage door.

After he backed the Cadillac down the driveway and parked it at the curb, he drove the Land Rover into the garage. He closed the big door in case a pedophile wandered by and saw what he was doing.

He opened the four doors of the Land Rover to vent the initial explosion.

The only thing that he took from the Rover was the white plastic trash bag. It contained everything Vernon Lesley had gathered at the woman’s bungalow earlier in the day, as well as the ID for Lesley, Onions, and Georgie Jobbs.

He left the house by the front door, walked out to the street, and got behind the wheel of the Cadillac. He put the bag on the floor, in front of the passenger seat.

At the end of the block, he turned right, then right again at the next intersection. On the street parallel to Shumpeter’s street, and behind his property, Billy parked at the curb in front of two houses where other American families were preoccupied with their own joys and problems.

He took off the Tyrolean hat and the horn-rimmed glasses. He pocketed the clip-on gold dental cap. Good-bye Dwayne Hoover.

He got out of the Cadillac, stood on the sidewalk, and withdrew a remote control from his jacket pocket.

Between these two handsome houses, he could see the roof of the Shumpeter residence on the next street to the west. He pointed the remote control, which had plenty of range for the job, pressed the button, and heard the soft whump of the initial detonation.

The two suitcases supplied to him by Georgie Jobbs, which he had stored on the floor behind the front seats of the Rover, contained a small initial explosive charge for the purpose of ignition, but held mostly bricks of a ferociously incendiary substance developed by the weaponry wizards of the former Soviet Union, who were currently the weaponry wizards of the new Russia.

Behind the wheel of the Cadillac again, Billy Pilgrim watched the dark roof of the Shumpeter house on the parallel street.

His intention was not to blow up the Land Rover and all of the evidence in it. Rather, he intended to burn everything to ashes and slag: the brains from the two detectives’ computers, their files and appointment calendars, and Georgie’s corpse.