If a drunk driver barreled out of the night, of course, no precautions would be sufficient. And these days it seemed that sober motorists were outnumbered by those who were high on booze or drugs.
It was an age plagued by social irresponsibility—which was why Roy tried to be a good Samaritan whenever an opportunity arose. If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world it would be: He really believed in that.
The woman had released the trunk lock. The lid was ajar.
Roy Miro was happier than he had been all day. Battered by wind and rain, splashed by the passing traffic, he labored with a smile. The more hardship involved, the more rewarding the good deed. As he struggled with a tight lug nut, the wrench slipped and he skinned one knuckle; instead of cursing, he began to whistle while he worked.
When the job was done, the woman lowered the window two inches, so he didn't have to shout. "You're all set," he said.
Sheepishly, she began to apologize for having been so wary of him, but he interrupted to assure her that he understood.
She reminded Roy of his mother, which made him feel even better about helping her. She was attractive, in her early fifties, perhaps twenty years older than Roy, with auburn hair and blue eyes. His mother had been a brunette with hazel eyes, but this woman and his mother had in common an aura of gentleness and refinement.
"This is my husband's business card," she said, passing it through the gap in the window. "He's an accountant. If you need any advice along those lines, no charge."
"I haven't done all that much," Roy said, accepting the card.
"These days, running into someone like you, it's a miracle. I'd have called Sam instead of that damn service station, but he's working late at a client's. Seems we work around the clock these days."
"This recession," Roy sympathized.
"Isn't it ever going to end?" she wondered, rummaging in her purse for something more.
He cupped the business card in his hand to protect it from the rain, turning it so the red glow of the nearest flare illuminated the print. The husband had an office in Century City, where rents were high; no wonder the poor guy was working late to remain afloat.
"And here's my card," the woman said, extracting it from her purse and passing it to him.
Penelope Bettonfield. Interior Designer. 213-555-6868.
She said, "I work out of my home. Used to have an office, but this dreadful recession . . ." She sighed and smiled up at him through the partly open window. "Anyway, if I can ever be of help . . ."
He fished one of his own cards from his wallet and passed it in to her. She thanked him again, closed her window, and drove away.
Roy walked back along the highway, clearing the flares off the pavement so they would not continue to obstruct traffic.
In his car once more, heading for his hotel in Westwood, he was exhilarated to have lit his one little candle for the day. Sometimes he wondered if there was any hope for modern society, if it was going to spiral down into a hell of hatred and crime and greed—but then he encountered someone like Penelope Bettonfield, with her sweet smile and her aura of gentleness and refinement, and he found it possible to be hopeful again. She was a caring person who would repay his kindness to her by being kind to someone else.
In spite of Mrs. Bettonfield, Roy's fine mood didn't last. By the time he left the freeway for Wilshire Boulevard and drove into Westwood, a sadness had crept over him.
He saw signs of social devolution everywhere. Spray-painted graffiti defaced the retaining walls of the freeway exit ramp and obscured the directions on a couple of traffic signs, in an area of the city previously spared such dreary vandalism. A homeless man, pushing a shopping cart full of pathetic possessions, trudged through the rain, his face expressionless, as if he were a zombie shuffling along the aisles of a Kmart in Hell.
At a stoplight, in the lane beside Roy, a car full of fierce-looking young men—skinheads, each with one glittering earring—glared at him malevolently, perhaps trying to decide if he looked like a Jew. They mouthed obscenities with care, to be sure he could read their lips.
He passed a movie theater where the films were all swill of one kind or another. Extravaganzas of violence. Seamy tales of raw sex. Films from big studios, with famous stars, but swill nonetheless.
Gradually, his impression of his encounter with Mrs. Bettonfield changed. He remembered what she'd said about the recession, about the long hours that she and her husband were working, about the poor economy that had forced her to close her design office and run her faltering business from her home. She was such a nice lady. He was saddened to think that she had financial worries. Like all of them, she was a victim of the system, trapped in a society that was awash in drugs and guns but that was bereft of compassion and commitment to high ideals. She deserved better.
By the time he reached his hotel, the Westwood Marquis, Roy was in no mood to go to his room, order a late dinner from room service, and turn in for the night—which was what he'd been planning to do. He drove past the place, kept going to Sunset Boulevard, turned left, and just cruised in circles for a while.
Eventually he parked at the curb two blocks from UCLA, but he didn't switch off the engine. He clambered across the gearshift into the passenger seat, where the steering wheel would not interfere with his work.
His cellular phone was fully charged. He unplugged it from the cigarette lighter.
From the backseat, he retrieved an attache case. He opened it on his lap, revealing a compact computer with a built-in modem. He plugged it into the cigarette lighter and switched it on. The display screen lit. The basic menu appeared, from which he made a selection.
He married the cellular phone to the modem, and then called the direct-access number that would link his terminal with the dual Cray supercomputers in the home office. In seconds, the connection was made, and the familiar security litany began with three words that appeared on his screen: WHO GOES THERE?
He typed his name: ROY MIRO.
YOUR IDENTIFICATION NUMBER?
ROY PROVIDED IT.
YOUR PERSONAL CODE PHRASE?
POOH, he typed, which he had chosen as his code because it was the name of his favorite fictional character of all time, the honey-seeking and unfailingly good-natured bear.
RIGHT THUMBPRINT PLEASE.
A two-inch-square white box appeared in the upper-right quadrant of the blue screen. He pressed his thumb in the indicated space and waited while sensors in the monitor modeled the whorls in his skin by directing microbursts of intense light at them and then contrasting the comparative shadowiness of the troughs to the marginally more reflective ridges. After a minute, a soft beep indicated that the scanning was completed. When he lifted his thumb, a detailed black-line image of his print filled the center of the white box. After an additional thirty seconds, the print vanished from the screen; it had been digitized, transmitted by phone to the home-office computer, electronically compared to his print on file, and approved.
Roy had access to considerably more sophisticated technology than the average hacker with a few thousand dollars and the address of the nearest Computer City store. Neither the electronics in his attaché case nor the software that had been installed in the machine could be purchased by the general public.
A message appeared on the display: ACCESS TO MAMA IS GRANTED.
Mama was the name of the home-office computer. Three thousand miles away on the East Coast, all her programs were now available for Roy's use, through his cellular phone. A long menu appeared on the screen before him. He scrolled through, found a program titled LOCATE, and selected it.
He typed in a telephone number and requested the street address at which it was located.
While he waited for Mama to access phone company records and trace the listing, Roy studied the storm-lashed street. At that moment, no pedestrians or moving cars were in sight. Some houses were dark, and the lights of the others were dimmed by the seemingly eternal torrents of rain. He could a
lmost believe that a strange, silent apocalypse had transpired, eliminating all human life on earth while leaving the works of civilization untouched.
A real apocalypse was coming, he supposed. Sooner than later, a great war: nation against nation or race against race, religions clashing violently or ideology battling ideology. Humanity was drawn to turmoil and self-destruction as inevitably as the earth was drawn to complete its annual revolution of the sun.
His sadness deepened.
Under the telephone number on the video display, the correct name appeared. The address, however, was listed as unpublished by request of the customer.
Roy instructed the home-office computer to access and search the phone company's electronically stored installation and billing records to find the address. Such an invasion of private-sector data was illegal, of course, without a court order, but Mama was exceedingly discreet. Because all the computer systems in the national telephone network were already in Mama's directory of previously violated entities, she was able to enter any of them virtually instantaneously, explore at will, retrieve whatever was requested, and disengage without leaving the slightest trace that she had been there; Mama was a ghost in their machines.
In seconds, a Beverly Hills address appeared on the screen.
He cleared the screen and then asked Mama for a street map of Beverly Hills. She supplied it after a brief hesitation. Seen in its entirety, it was too compressed to be read.
Roy typed in the address that he'd been given. The computer filled the screen with the quadrant that was of interest to him, and then with a quarter of that quadrant. The house was only a couple of blocks south of Wilshire Boulevard, in the less prestigious "flats" of Beverly Hills, and easy to find.
He typed POOH OUT, which disengaged his portable terminal from Mama in her cool, dry bunker in Virginia.
* * *
The large brick house—which was painted white, with hunter-green shutters—stood behind a white picket fence. The front lawn featured two enormous bare-limbed sycamores.
Lights were on inside, but only at the back of the house and only on the first floor.
Standing at the front door, sheltered from the rain by a deep portico supported on tall white columns, Roy could hear music inside: a Beatles number, "When I'm Sixty-four." He was thirty-three; the Beatles were before his time, but he liked their music because much of it embodied an endearing compassion.
Softly humming along with the lads from Liverpool, Roy slipped a credit card between the door and the jamb. He worked it upward until it forced open the first—and least formidable—of the two locks. He wedged the card in place to hold the simple spring latch out of the niche hi the striker plate.
To open the heavy-duty deadbolt, he needed a more sophisticated tool than a credit card: a Lockaid lock-release gun, sold only to law-enforcement agencies. He slipped the thin pick of the gun into the key channel, under the pin tumblers, and pulled the trigger. The flat steel spring in the Lockaid caused the pick to jump upward and to lodge some of the pins at the shear line. He had to pull the trigger half a dozen times to fully disengage the lock.
The snapping of hammer against spring and the clicking of pick against pin tumblers were not thunderous sounds, by any measure, but he was grateful for the cover provided by the music. "When I'm Sixty-four" ended as he opened the door. Before his credit card could fall, he caught it, froze, and waited for the next song. To the opening bars of "Lovely Rita," he stepped across the threshold.
He put the lock-release gun on the floor, to the right of the entrance. Quietly, he closed the door behind him.
The foyer welcomed him with gloom. He stood with his back against the door, letting his eyes adjust to the shadows.
When he was confident that he would not blindly knock over any furniture, he proceeded from room to room, toward the light at the back of the house.
He regretted that his clothes were so saturated and his galoshes so dirty. He was probably making a mess of the carpet.
She was in the kitchen, at the sink, washing a head of lettuce, her back to the swinging door through which he entered. Judging by the vegetables on the cutting board, she was preparing a salad.
Easing the door shut behind him, hoping to avoid startling her, he debated whether or not to announce himself. He wanted her to know that it was a concerned friend who had come to comfort her, not a stranger with sick motives.
She turned off the running water and placed the lettuce in a plastic colander to drain. Wiping her hands on a dish towel, turning away from the sink, she finally discovered him as "Lovely Rita" drew to an end.
Mrs. Bettonfield looked surprised but not, in the first instant, afraid—which was, he knew, a tribute to his appealing, soft-featured face. He was slightly pudgy, with dimples, and had skin so beardless that it was almost as smooth as a boy's. With his twinkling blue eyes and warm smile, he would make a convincing Santa Claus in another thirty years. He believed that his kindheartedness and his genuine love of people were also apparent, because strangers usually warmed to him more quickly than a merry face alone could explain.
While Roy still was able to believe that her wide-eyed surprise would fade into a smile of welcome rather than a grimace of fear, he raised the Beretta 93-R and shot her twice in the chest. A silencer was screwed to the barrel; both rounds made only soft popping sounds.
Penelope Bettonfield dropped to the floor and lay motionless on her side, with her hands still entangled in the dish towel. Her eyes were open, staring across the floor at his wet, dirty galoshes.
The Beatles began "Good Morning, Good Morning." It must be the Sgt. Pepper album.
He crossed the kitchen, put the pistol on the counter, and crouched beside Mrs. Bettonfield. He pulled off one of his supple leather gloves and placed his fingertips to her throat, searching for a pulse in her carotid artery. She was dead.
One of the two rounds was so perfectly placed that it must have pierced her heart. Consequently, with circulation halted in an instant, she had not bled much.
Her death had been a graceful escape: quick and clean, painless and without fear.
He pulled on his right glove again, then rubbed gently at her neck where he had touched it. Gloved, he had no concern that his fingerprints might be lifted off the body by laser technology.
Precautions must be taken. Not every judge and juror would be able to grasp the purity of his motives.
He closed the lid over her left eye and held it in place for a minute or so, to be sure that it would stay shut.
"Sleep, dear lady," he said with a mixture of affection and regret, as he also closed the lid over her right eye. "No more worrying about finances, no more working late, no more stress and strife. You were too good for this world."
It was both a sad and a joyous moment. Sad, because her beauty and elegance no longer brightened the world; nevermore would her smile lift anyone's spirits; her courtesy and consideration would no longer counter the tides of barbarity washing over this troubled society. Joyous, because she would never again be afraid, spill tears, know grief, feel pain.
"Good Morning, Good Morning" gave way to the marvelously bouncy, syncopated reprise of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which was better than the first rendition of the song at the start of the album and which seemed a suitably upbeat celebration of Mrs. Bettonfield's passage to a better world.
Roy pulled out one of the chairs from the kitchen table, sat, and removed his galoshes. He rolled up the damp and muddy legs of his trousers as well, determined to cause no more mess.
The reprise of the album theme song was short, and by the time he got to his feet again, "A Day in the Life" had begun. That was a singularly melancholy piece, too somber to be in sync with the moment. He had to shut it off before it depressed him. He was a sensitive man, more vulnerable than most to the emotional effects of music, poetry, fine paintings, fiction, and the other arts.
He found the central music system in a long wall of beautifully crafted mahogany
cabinets in the study. He stopped the music and searched two drawers that were filled with compact discs. Still in the mood for the Beatles, he selected A Hard Day's Night because none of the songs on that album were downbeat.
Singing along to the title track, Roy returned to the kitchen, where he lifted Mrs. Bettonfield off the floor. She was more petite than she had seemed when he'd been talking with her through the car window. She weighed no more than a hundred and five pounds, with slender wrists, a swan neck, and delicate features. Roy was deeply touched by the woman's fragility, and he bore her in his arms with more than mere care and respect, almost with reverence.
Nudging light switches with his shoulder, he carried Penelope Bettonfield to the front of the house, upstairs, along the hallway, checking door by door until he found the master bedroom. There, he placed her gently on a chaise lounge.
He folded back the quilted bedspread and then the bedclothes, revealing the bottom sheet. He plumped the pillows, which were in Egyptian-cotton shams trimmed with cut-work lace as lovely as any he had ever seen.
He took off Mrs. Bettonfield's shoes and put them in her closet. Her feet were as small as those of a girl.
Leaving her fully dressed, he carried Penelope to the bed and put her down on her back, with her head elevated on two pillows. He left the spread folded at the bottom of the bed, but he drew the blanket cover, blanket, and top sheet over her breasts. Her arms remained free.
With a brush that he found in the master bathroom, he smoothed her hair. The Beatles were singing "If I Fell" when he began to groom her, but they were well into "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" by the time her lustrous auburn locks were perfectly arranged around her lovely face.
After switching on the bronze floor lamp that stood beside the chaise lounge, he turned off the harsher ceiling light. Soft shadows fell across the recumbent woman, like the enfolding wings of angels who had come to carry her away from this vale of tears and into a higher land of eternal peace.
He went to the Louis XVI vanity, removed its matching chair, and put it beside the bed. He sat next to Mrs. .Bettonfield, stripped off his gloves, and took one of her hands in both of his. Her flesh was cooling but still somewhat warm.
Koontz, Dean - Dark Rivers of the Heart Page 5