Dean Koontz - The Good Guy

“You better do more than that, Tim. You better make a deal with me, and convince me you mean it. Because I’m still coming, you know.”

“Have fun combing through the haystack.”

“The haystack isn’t as large as you think, Tim. And you’re a lot bigger than a needle. I’ll find you soon. Sooner than you can imagine—and then no deal is possible.”

Kravet terminated the call.

At once, Tim pressed *69, but Kravet’s cell was shielded against a call-back.

Ahead, a car ran the stop sign, roared through the intersection. As it bounced through a drainage swale, its headlights swept up across the Explorer’s windshield, then down.

Tim shifted his foot from brake to accelerator, and swung away from the center line, expecting the oncoming vehicle to angle into his lane and attempt to block him.

The car shot past, taillights dwindling in the rearview mirror.

Having swerved into the parking lane, Tim braked hard to a halt just short of the intersection.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“I thought maybe it was him.”

“That car? How could it be him?”

“I don’t know. It couldn’t be, I guess.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Sure.” A sudden breeze shook the ficus tree that overhung the streetlamp, and leaf shadows swarmed like black butterflies across the windshield. “If they sell sangfroid at 7-Eleven, I should stop and buy a six-pack.”

Ten

The residence in Anaheim proved to be a single-story structure dating to the 1950s. Pierced and scalloped eave boards, rococo carved shutters, and patterned Alpine door surrounds failed to convince that this California ranch house belonged in Switzerland, or anywhere.

Penetrating the branches of two huge stone pines, moonlight painted scattered patches of faux ice on the age-silvered cedar-shingle roof, but not a single lamp brightened any window.

Flanking Kravet’s house were a Spanish casita and a New England cottage. Lights were on in the cottage, but the casita appeared to be uninhabited, the windows dark, the yard in need of mowing.

Tim twice drove past the Kravet house, then parked around the corner, on a side street.

He compared his wristwatch to the SUV’s clock. Both read 9:32.

“I’ll need maybe fifteen minutes,” he said.

“What if he’s in there?”

“Just sitting in the dark? No. If he’s anywhere, he’s staking out my place—or searching it.”

“He might come back. You shouldn’t go in without a gun.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

From her open purse, she withdrew a pistol. “I’ll go with you.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“From my nightstand drawer. It’s a Kahr K9 semi-auto.”

The thing was coming, all right, the thing that was always coming for him, that could never be escaped.

At the tavern, he had been in a place that had always been right for him, where he was just another guy on a bar stool, where from the perspective of the front door, he was the smallest man in the room. But this evening it had been the right place at the wrong time.

He had found a way of living that was like train wheels on a track, turning on a known path, toward a predictable future. The thing pursuing him, however, was not only his past but also his fate, and the rails that led away from it also led inexorably to it.

“I don’t want to kill him,” Tim said.

“Me neither. The gun is just insurance. We’ve got to find something in his place the cops can hang him with.”

Leaning closer to see the weapon, he said, “I’m not familiar with that gun.” She didn’t wear perfume, but she had a faint scent he liked. The scent of clean hair, well-scrubbed skin.

She said, “Eight-shot 9-millimeter. Smooth action.”

“You’ve used it.”

“On targets. A shooting range.”

“There’s nobody you fear, yet you keep a pistol by your bed.”

“I said nobody I know would want me dead,” she corrected. “But I don’t know everybody.”

“You have a concealed-carry permit?”

“No. Do you have a permit to break into his house?”

“I don’t think you should go in there with me.”

“I’m not sitting here alone, with or without the gun.”

He sighed. “You don’t exactly have attitude….”

“What do I have, exactly?”

“Something,” he said, and got out of the Explorer.

He opened the tailgate and retrieved a long-handled flashlight from the shallow well in which the car jack was stored.

Together they walked to Kravet’s house. The neighborhood was quiet. A dog barked, but in the distance.

As iridescent as a snake’s skin, thin ravels of silvery clouds peeled off the face of a molting moon.

A wall defined the property line between the dark casita and the Alpine house. A gate opened onto a passageway alongside the garage.

Suddenly soughing through the stone pines, the inconstant breeze shook dry needles down onto the concrete path.

At the side door to the garage, Tim switched on the flashlight just long enough to determine that there was no deadbolt.

Linda held the extinguished flashlight while he slipped a credit card between the door and frame. He quickly popped the simple latch.

In the two-car garage, with the door closed behind them, Linda switched on the flashlight again. No vehicles were present.

“Masonry’s not your only skill,” she whispered.

“Everybody knows how to do that door thing.”

“I don’t.”

Most likely the front and back entrances featured deadbolts, but the door between the garage and the house had only a cheap lockset. Many people think the appearance of having defenses is good enough.

“What kind of prison time do you get for burglary?” she asked.

“This is housebreaking, not burglary. Maybe ten years?”

The lock disengaged, and she said, “Let’s be quick.”

“First, let’s be sure there’s not a pit bull.”

Taking the flashlight from her, he eased the door open. He played the beam through the narrow gap, but saw no animal eyeshine.

The kitchen was not what he expected. The flashlight found chintz curtains. A canister set painted like teddy bears. The wall clock, in the form of a cat, featured a swinging tail for a pendulum.

In the dining room, the linen tablecloth was trimmed with lace. A bowl of ceramic fruit stood in the center of the table.

Colorful afghans protected the living-room sofa. A pair of well-used recliners faced a big-screen TV. The art was reproductions of paintings of big-eyed children popular about the year Tim was born.

Turning to follow the sweep and probe of the light, Linda said, “Would a hit man live at home with his mom and dad?”

The larger bedroom offered a rose-patterned comforter, silk flowers, and a vanity with mother-of-pearl combs and brushes. In the closet were men’s and women’s clothes.

The second bedroom served as a combination sewing room and home office. In a desk drawer, Tim found a checkbook and several bills—telephone, electrical, TV cable—awaiting payment.

Linda whispered, “Did you hear something?”

He switched off the light. They stood in darkness, listening.

The house wore silence like a coat of armor, with an occasional click or creak of gauntlet and gusset. None of the small noises seemed to be more than the settling pains of an aging structure.

When Tim had convinced himself that nothing in the silence was listening to him, he switched on the flashlight.

In the darkness, Linda had drawn the pistol from her purse.

Examining the checkbook, Tim found that the account was in the name of Doris and Leonard Halberstock. The bills awaiting payment were for the Halberstocks, as well.

“He doesn’t live here,” Tim said.