Koontz, Dean R. - Mr. Murder

by Dean Koontz

  over his eyebrow and seeps between the fingers that he holds to the

  eyelid.

  If the bullet had been one inch to the left, it would have taken him in

  the temple and drilled into his brain, jamming splinters of bone in

  front of it.

  He fears head wounds. He is not confident that he can recover from

  brain damage either as entirely or as swiftly as from other injuries.

  Maybe he can't recover from it at all.

  Half blind, he drives cautiously. With only one eye he has lost depth

  perception. The rain-pooled streets are treacherous.

  The police now have a description of the Buick, perhaps even the license

  number. They will be looking for it, routinely if not actively, and the

  damage along the driver's side will make it easier to spot.

  He is in no condition to steal another car at this time. He's not only

  half blind but still shaky from the gunshot wounds that he suffered

  three hours ago. If he is caught in the act of stealing an unattended

  car, or if he encounters resistance when trying to kill another motorist

  such as the one whose raincoat he wears and who is temporarily entombed

  in the Buick's trunk, he is likely to be apprehended or more seriously

  wounded.

  Driving north and west from Mission Viejo, he quickly crosses the city

  line into El Toro. Though in a new community, he does not feel safe.

  If there is an APB out on the Buick, it will probably be county-wide.

  The greatest danger arises from staying on the move, increasing the risk

  of being seen by the cops. If he can find a secluded place to park the

  Buick, where it will be safe from discovery at least until tomorrow, he

  can curl up on the back seat and rest.

  He needs to sleep and give his body a chance to mend. He has gone two

  nights without rest since leaving Kansas City. Ordinarily he could

  remain alert and active for a third night, possibly a fourth, with no

  diminution of his faculties. But the toll of his injuries, combined

  with lost sleep and tremendous physical exertion, requires time out for

  convalescence.

  Tomorrow he will get his family back, reclaim his destiny. He has

  wandered alone and in darkness for so long. One more day will make

  little difference.

  He was so close to success. For a brief time his daughters be longed to

  him again. His Charlotte. His Emily.

  He recalls the joy he felt in the foyer of the Delorio house, holding

  the girls' small bodies against him. They were so sweet.

  Butterfly-soft kisses on his cheeks. Their musical voices--"Daddy,

  Daddy"--so full of love for him.

  Remembering how close he was to taking permanent possession of them, he

  is on the brink of tears. He must not cry. The convulsion of the

  muscles in his damaged eye will amplify his pain unbearably, and tears

  in his right eye will reduce him to virtual blindness.

  Instead, as he cruises residential neighborhoods from El Toro into

  Laguna Hills, where house lights glow warmly in the rain and taunt him

  with images of domestic bliss, he thinks about how those same children

  ultimately defied and abandoned him, for this subject leads him away

  from tears and toward anger. He does not understand why his sweet

  little girls would choose the charlatan over their real father, when

  minutes previously they had showered him with thrilling kisses and

  adoration. Their betrayal disturbs him. Gnaws at him.

  While Marty drove, Paige sat in the back seat with Charlotte and Emily,

  holding their hands. She was emotionally incapable of letting go of

  them just yet.

  Marty followed an indirect route across Mission Viejo, initially stayed

  off main streets as much as possible, and successfully avoided the

  police. Block after block, Paige continued to study the traffic around

  them, expecting the battered Buick to appear and try to force them off

  the pavement. Twice she turned to look out the rear window, certain

  that the Buick was following them, but her fears were - never realized.

  '- When Marty picked up the Marguerite Parkway and headed south, Paige

  finally asked, "Where are we going?"

  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. "I don't know. Just away

  from here. I'm still thinking about where."

  "Maybe they would've believed you this time."

  "Not a chance."

  "People back there must've seen the Buick."

  "Maybe. But they didn't see the man driving it. None of them can back

  up my story."

  "Vic and Kathy must've seen him."

  "And thought he was me."

  "But now they'll realize he wasn't."

  "They didn't see us together, Paige. That's what matters, damn it!

  Someone seeing us together, an independent witness."

  She said, "Charlotte and Emily. They saw him and you at the same time."

  Marty shook his head. "Doesn't count. I wish it did. But Lowbock

  won't put any stock in the testimony of little kids."

  "Not so little," Emily piped up from beside Paige, sounding even younger

  and tinier than she actually was.

  Charlotte remained uncharacteristically quiet. Both girls were still

  shivering, but Charlotte had a worse case of the shakes than did Emily.

  She was leaning against her mother for warmth, her head pulled

  turtlelike into the collar of her coat.

  Marty had the heater turned up as high as it would go. The interior of

  the BMW should have been suffocatingly hot. It wasn't.

  Even Paige was cold. She said, "Maybe we should go back and try to talk

  sense to them anyway."

  Marty was adamant. "Honey, no, we can't. Think about it.

  They'll sure as hell take the Beretta. I shot at the guy with it.

  From their point of view, one way or another, there's been a crime, and

  the gun was used in the commission of it. Either somebody really

  attempted to kidnap the girls, and I tried to kill him. Or it's still

  all a hoax to sell books, get me higher on the bestseller list. Maybe I

  hired a friend to drive the Buick, shot a bunch of blanks at him,

  induced my own kids to lie, now I'm filing another false police report."

  "After all this, Lowbock won't still be pushing that ridiculous theory."

  "Won't he? The hell he won't."

  "Marty, he can't."

  He sighed. "Okay, all right, maybe he won't, probably he won't."

  Paige said, "He'll realize that something a lot more serious is going

  on--"

  "But he won't believe my story either, which I've got to admit sounds

  nuttier than a giant-size can of Planters finest. And if you'd read the

  piece in People . . . Anyway, he'll take the Beretta. What if he

  discovers the shotgun in the trunk?"

  "There's no reason for him to take that."

  "He might find an excuse. Listen, Paige, Lowbock's not going to change

  his mind about me that easily, not just because the kids tell him it's

  all true. He'll still be a lot more suspicious of me than of any guy in

  a Buick he's never seen. If he takes both guns, we're defense less.

  Suppose the cops leave, then this bastard, this look-alike, he walks

  into the house two minutes later, when we don't have anything to protect

  ourselves."

  "If th
e police still don't believe it, if they won't give us protection,

  then we won't stay at the house."

  "No, Paige, I literally mean what if the bastard walks in two minutes

  after the cops leave, doesn't even give us a chance to clear out?"

  "He's not likely to risk--"

  "Oh, yes, he is! Yes, he is. He came back almost immediately after the

  cops left the first time--didn't he? just boldly walked up to the

  Delorios' front door and rang the damn bell.

  He seems to thrive on risk. I wouldn't put it past the bastard to break

  in on us while the cops were still there, shoot everyone in sight. He's

  crazy, this whole situation is crazy, and I don't want to bet my life or

  yours or the kids' lives on what the creep is going to do next."

  Paige knew he was right.

  However, it was difficult, even painful, to accept that their situation

  was so dire as to place them beyond the help of the law. If they

  couldn't receive official assistance and protection, then the government

  had failed them in its most basic duty, to provide civil order through

  the fair but strict enforcement of a criminal code. In spite of the

  complex machine in which they rode, in spite of the modern highway on

  which they traveled and the sprawl of suburban lights that covered most

  of the southern California hills and vales, this failure meant they were

  not living in a civilized world. The shopping malls, elaborate transit

  systems, glittering centers for the performing arts, sports arenas,

  imposing government buildings, multiplex movie theaters, office towers,

  sophisticated French restaurants, churches, museums, parks,

  universities, and nuclear power plants amounted to nothing but an

  elaborate facade of civilization, tissue-thin for all its apparent

  solidity, and in truth they were living in a high-tech anarchy,

  sustained by hope and self-delusion.

  The steady hum of the car tires gave birth in her to a mounting dread, a

  mood of impending calamity. It was such a common sound, hard rubber

  tread spinning at high speed over blacktop, merely a part of the

  quotidian music of daily life, but suddenly it was as ominous as the

  drone of approaching bombers.

  When Marty turned southwest on the Crown Valley Parkway, toward Laguna

  Niguel, Charlotte at last broke her silence. "Daddy?"

  Paige saw him glance at the rearview mirror and knew by his worried eyes

  that he, too, had been troubled by the girl's unusual spell of

  introversion.

  He said, "Yes, baby?"

  "What was that thing?" Charlotte asked.

  "What thing, honey?"

  "The thing that looked like you."

  "That's the million-dollar question. But whoever he is, he's just a

  man, not a thing. He's just a man who looks an awful lot like me."

  Paige thought about all the blood in the upstairs hall, about how

  quickly the look-alike had recovered from two chest wounds to make a

  quick escape and to return, a short time later, strong enough to renew

  the assault. He didn't seem human. And Marty's statements to the

  contrary were, she knew, nothing but the obligatory reassurances of a

  father who knew that children sometimes needed to believe in the

  omniscience and unshakable equanimity of adults.

  After further silence, Charlotte said, "No, it wasn't a man. It was a

  thing. Mean. Ugly inside. A cold thing." A shudder wracked her,

  causing her next words to issue tremolo, "I kissed it and said

  "I love

  you' to it, but it was just a thing."

  The upscale garden-apartment complex encompasses a score or more of

  large buildings housing ten or twelve apartments each. It sprawls over

  park-like grounds shaded by a small forest of trees.

  The streets within the complex are serpentine. Residents are provided

  with community carports, redwood structures with only a back wall and

  roof, eight or ten stalls in each. Bougainvillea climbs the columns

  that support each roof, lending a note of grace, although at night the

  vivid blossoms are bleached of most of their color by the detergent-blue

  light of mercury-vapor security lamps.

  Throughout the development are uncovered parking areas where the white

  curbs are stenciled with black letters, VISITOR PARKING ONLY.

  In a deep cul-de-sac, he finds a visitors' zone that provides him with a

  perfect place to spend the night. None of the six spaces is occupied,

  and the last is flanked on one side by a five-foot-high oleander hedge.

  When he backs the car into the slot, tight against the hedge, the

  oleander conceals the damage along the driver's side.

  An acacia tree has been allowed to encroach upon the nearest street

  lamp. Its leafy limbs block most of the light. The Buick stands

  largely in darkness.

  The police are not likely to cruise the complex more than once or twice

  between now and dawn. And when they do, they will not be checking

  license plates but scanning the grounds for indications of burglary or

  other crimes in progress.

  He switches off the headlights and the engine, gathers up what remains

  of his store of candy, and gets out of the car, shaking off the bits of

  gummy, tempered glass that cling to him.

  Rain is no longer falling.

  The air is cool and clean.

  The night keeps its own counsel, silent but for the tick and plop of

  still-dripping trees.

  He gets into the back seat and softly closes the door. It is not a

  comfortable bed. But he has known worse. He settles into the fetal

  position, curled around candy bars instead of an umbilicus, blanketed

  only by the roomy raincoat.

  As he waits for sleep to overtake him, he thinks again of his daughters

  and their betrayal.

  Inevitably, he wonders if they prefer their other father to him, the

  false to the real. This is a dreadful possibility to be forced to

  explore.

  If it is true, it means that those he loves the most are not victims, as

  he is, but are active participants in the Byzantine plot against him.

  Their false father is probably lenient with them. Allows them to eat

  what they want. Lets them go to bed as late as they please.

  All children are anarchists by nature. They need rules and standards of

  behavior, or they grow up to be wild and antisocial.

  When he kills the hateful false father and retakes control of his

  family, he will establish rules for everything and will strictly enforce

  them. Misbehavior will be instantly punished. Pain is one of life's

  greatest teachers, and he is an expert in the application of pain.

  Order will be restored within the Stillwater household, and his children

  will commit no act without first soberly reflecting upon the rules that

  govern them.

  Initially, of course, they will hate him for being so stern and

  uncompromising. They will not understand that he is acting in their

  best interests.

  However, each tear that his punishments wring from them will be sweet to

  him. Each cry of pain will be a gladdening music. He will be

  unrelenting with them because he knows that in time they will realize he

  imposes guidance upon them only because h
e cares so profoundly about

  them. They will love him for his stern fatherly concern. They will

  adore him for providing the discipline which theY need--and secretly

  desire but which it is their very nature to Paige also will need to be

  disciplined. He knows about women's needs. He remembers a film with

  Kim Basinger in which sex and a craving for discipline were shown to be

  inextricably entwined. He anticipates Paige's instructions with

  particular pleasure.

  Since the day that his career, family, and memories were stolen from

  him--which might be a year or ten years ago, for all he knows--he has

  lived primarily through the movies. The adventures he has experienced

  and the poignant lessons he has learned in count less darkened theaters

  seem as real to him as the car seat on which he now lies and the

  chocolate dissolving on his tongue. He remembers making love to Sharon

  Stone, to Glenn Close, from both of whom he learned the potential for

  sexual mania and treachery prevelant in all women. He remembers the

  exuberant fun of sex with Goldie Hawn, the rapture of Michelle Pfeiffer,

  the exciting sweaty urgency of Ellen Barkin when he incorrectly

  suspected her of being a murderess but pinned her to the wall of his

  apartment and penetrated her anyway. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood,