Dean Koontz - Whispers

The day was clear and cool. Tall trees cast stark shadows across the road, and the hearse passed through alternating hands of sunlight and shade.

At the cemetery, the casket was placed on a sling above the grave, and fifteen people gathered around for the brief service. Gary Olmstead took up a position beside the flower-concealed control box that operated the sling and would cause it to lower the deceased into the ground. Avril stood at the front of the grave and read from a thin book of nondenominational inspirational verses. Joshua Rhinehart was at the mortician's side. The other twelve people flanked the open grave. Some of them were grape growers and their wives. They had come because they had sold their harvests to Bruno Frye's winery, and they considered their attendance at his funeral to be a business obligation. The others were Shade Tree Vineyards executives and their wives, and their reasons for being present were no more personal than those of the growers. Nobody wept.

And nobody had the opportunity or the desire to look into the coffin.

Tannerton finished reading from his small black book. He glanced at Gary Olmstead and nodded.

Olmstead pushed a button on the control box. The powerful little electric motor hummed. The casket was lowered slowly and smoothly into the gaping earth.

***

Hilary could not remember another day that was as much fun as that first full day with Tony Clemenza.

For lunch, they went to the Yamashiro Skyroom, high in the Hollywood Hills. The food at Yamashiro was uninspiring, even ordinary, but the ambience and the stunning view made it a fine place for an occasional light lunch or dinner. The restaurant, an authentic Japanese palace, had once been a private estate. It was surrounded by ten acres of lovely ornamental gardens. From its mountaintop perch, Yamashiro offered a breathtaking view of the entire Los Angeles basin. The day was so clear that Hilary could see all the way to Long Beach and Palos Verdes.

After lunch, they went to Griffith Park. For an hour, they walked through part of the Los Angeles Zoo, where they fed the bears, and where Tony did hilarious imitations of the animals. From the zoo they went to a special afternoon performance of the dazzling Laserium hologram show in the Griffith Park Observatory.

Later, they passed an hour on Melrose Avenue, between Doheny Drive and La Cienega Boulevard, prowling through one fascinating antique shop after another, not buying, just browsing, chatting with the proprietors.

When the cocktail hour arrived, they drove to Malibu for Mai Tais at Tonga Lei. They watched the sun set into the ocean and relaxed to the rhythmic roar of breaking waves.

Although Hilary had been an Angeleno for quite some time, her world had been composed only of her work, her house, her rose garden, her work, the film studios, her work, and the few fancy restaurants in which the motion picture and television crowd gathered to do business. She had never been to the Yamashiro Skyroom, the zoo, the laser show, the Melrose antique shops, or Tonga Lei. It was all new to her. She felt like a wide-eyed tourist--or, more accurately, like a prisoner who had just finished serving a long, long sentence, most of it in solitary confinement.

But it was not just where they went that made the day special. None of it would have been half as interesting or as much fun if she'd been with someone other than Tony. He was so charming, so quick-witted, so full of fun and energy, that he made the bright day brighter.

After slowly sipping two Mai Tais each, they were starving. They drove back to Sepulveda and went north into the San Fernando Valley to have dinner at Mel's landing, another place with which she was not familiar. Mel's was unpretentious and moderately priced, and it offered some of the freshest and tastiest seafood she had ever eaten.

As she and Tony ate Mel's steamed clams and discussed other favorite places to eat, Hilary found that he knew ten times as many as she did. Her knowledge did not extend much beyond that handful of expensive dining spots that served the movers and shakers of the entertainment industry. The out-of-the-way eateries, the hole-in-the-wall cafés with surprising house specialties, the small mom-and-pop restaurants with plainly served but delicious food--all of that was one more aspect of the city about which she had never taken time to learn. She saw that she had become rich without ever discovering how to use and fully enjoy the freedom that her money could provide.

They ate too many of Mel's clams and then too much red snapper with too many Malaysian shrimp. They also drank too much white wine.

Considering how much they consumed, it was amazing, Hilary thought, that they had so much time between mouthfuls for conversation. But they never stopped talking. She was usually reticent on the first few dates with a new man, but not with Tony. She wanted to hear what he thought about everything, from Mork and Mindy to Shakespearean drama, from politics to art. People, dogs, religion, architecture, sports, Bach, fashions, food, women's liberation, Saturday morning cartoons--it seemed urgent and vital that she know what he thought about those and a million other subjects. She also wanted to tell him what she thought about all those things, and she wanted to know what he thought of what she thought, and pretty soon she was telling him what she thought of what he thought of what she thought. They chattered as if they had just learned that God was going to strike everyone in the world deaf and dumb at sunrise. Hilary was drunk, not on wine, but on the fluidity and intimacy of their conversation; she was intoxicated by communication, a potent brew for which she had built up little tolerance over the years.

By the time he took her home and agreed to come in for a nightcap, she was certain they would go to bed together. She wanted him very much; the thought of it made her warm and tingly. She knew he wanted her. She could see the desire in his eyes. They needed to let dinner settle a bit, and with that in mind, she poured white crème de menthe on the rocks for both of them.

They were just sitting down when the telephone rang.

"Oh, no," she said.

"Did he bother you after I left last night?"

"No."

"This morning?"

"No."

"Maybe that's not him."

They both went to the phone.

She hesitated, then picked it up. "Hello?"

Silence.

"Damn you!" she said, and she slammed the receiver down so hard that she wondered if she'd cracked it.

"Don't let him rattle you."

"I can't help it," she said.

"He's just a slimy little creep who doesn't know how to deal with women. I've seen others like him. If he ever got a chance to make it with a woman, if a woman offered herself to him on a silver platter, he'd run away screaming in terror."

"He still scares me."

"He's no threat. Come back to the couch. Sit down. Try to forget about him."

They returned to the sofa and sipped their crème de menthe in silence for a minute or two.

At last, she softly said, "Damn."

"You'll have an unlisted number by tomorrow afternoon. Then he won't be able to bother you any more."

"But he sure spoiled this evening. I was so mellow."

"I'm still enjoying myself."

"It's just that ... I'd figured on more than just drinks in front of the fireplace."

He stared at her. "Had you?"

"Hadn't you?"

His smile was special because it was not merely a configuration of the mouth; it involved his whole face and his expressive dark eyes; it was the most genuine and by far the most appealing smile that she had ever seen. He said, "I've got to admit I had hopes of tasting more than the crème de menthe."

"Damn the phone."

He leaned over and kissed her. She opened her mouth to him, and for a brief sweet moment their tongues met. He pulled back and looked at her, put his hand against her face as if he was touching delicate porcelain. "I think we're still in the mood."