by Dean Koontz
Stepping behind his desk, sitting down, he said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you I’m interested in interior design. Maybe that’s really the wrong image for a private detective.”
“On the contrary,” she said, “what it tells me is that you’re observant, perceptive, probably quite sensitive, and you have an excellent eye for details. Those are the qualities I’d hope for in any man in your line of work.”
“Right! Exactly,” he said, beaming at her, delighted by her approval.
He was stricken by an almost irresistible urge to kiss her brow, her eyes, the bridge of her nose, the tip of her nose, her cheeks, her chin, and last of all her sculpted lips.
But all he did was say, “Well, Ms. Scavello, what can I do for you?”
She told him about the old woman.
He was shocked, intrigued, and sympathetic, but he was also uneasy because you never knew what to expect from flaky types like this old woman. Anything might happen, and it probably would. Furthermore, he knew how difficult it was to track down and deal with any perpetrator of this type of irrational harassment. He much preferred people with clear, understandable motivations. Understandable motivations were what made his line of work possible: greed, lust, envy, jealousy, revenge, love, hate—they were the raw material of his industry. Thank God for the weaknesses and imperfections of mankind, for otherwise he would have been without work. He was also uneasy because he was afraid he might fail Christine Scavello, and if he failed her, she would walk out of his life forever. And if she walked out of his life forever, he would have to be satisfied with only dreams of her, and he was just too damn old for dreams of that kind.
When Christine finished recounting the events of this morning—the murder of the dog, the call from the old woman—Charlie said, “Where’s your son now?”
“Out in your waiting room.”
“All right. He’s safe there.”
“I’m not sure he’s safe anywhere.”
“Relax. It’s not the end of the world. It’s really not.”
He smiled at her to show her that it wasn’t the end of the world. He wanted to make her smile back at him because he was certain that her smile would make her lovely face even lovelier, but she didn’t seem to have a smile in her.
He said, “All right, about this old woman . . . You’ve given me a pretty detailed description of her.” He had made notes as she talked. Now he glanced at them. “But is there anything else about her that might help us make an identification?”
“I’ve told you everything I remember.”
“What about scars? Did she have any scars?”
“No.”
“Did she wear glasses?”
“No.”
“You said she was in her late sixties or early seventies—”
“Yes.”
“—yet her face was hardly lined.”
“That’s right.”
“Unnaturally smooth, somewhat puffy, you said.”
“Her skin, yes. I had an aunt who took cortisone injections for arthritis. Her face was like this woman’s face.”
“So you think she’s being treated for some form of arthritis?”
Christine shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be.”
“Was she wearing a copper bracelet or any copper rings?”
“Copper?”
“It’s only a wives’ tale, of course, but a lot of people think copper jewelry helps arthritis. I had an aunt with arthritis, too, and she wore a copper necklace, two copper bracelets on each wrist, a couple of copper rings, and even a copper ankle bracelet. She was a thin little bird of a woman, weighed down with crummy-looking jewelry, and she swore by it, said it did her a world of good, but she never moved any easier and never had any relief from the pain.”
“This woman didn’t have any copper jewelry. Lots of other jewelry, like I said, but nothing copper.”
He stared at his notes. Then: “She didn’t tell you her name—”
“No.”
“—but was she wearing a monogram, like maybe on her blouse—”
“No.”
“—or were her initials spelled out on one of her rings?”
“I don’t think so. If they were, I didn’t notice.”
“And you didn’t see where she came from?”
“No.”
“If we knew what kind of car she got out of—”
“I’ve no idea. We were almost to our car, and she just stepped out from beside it.”
“What kind of car was parked next to yours?”
She frowned, trying to remember.
While she thought, Charlie studied her face, looking for imperfections. Nothing in this world was free of imperfections. Everything had at least one flaw. Even a bottle of Lafite Rothschild could have a bad cork or too much tannic acid. Not even a Rolls-Royce had an unblemished paint job. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were unquestionably delicious—but they made you fat. However, no matter how carefully he studied Christine Scavello’s face, he could find nothing whatsoever wrong with it. Oh, yes, well, the pinched nose, and the heavy cheekbones, and the too-high brow, but in her case those didn’t strike him as imperfections; they were merely . . . well, deviations from the ordinary definition of beauty, minor deviations that gave her character, a look of her own—
And what the hell is wrong with me? he wondered. I’ve got to stop mooning over her as if I were a lovesick schoolboy.
On one hand, he liked the way he felt; it was a fresh, exhilarating feeling. On the other hand, he didn’t like it because he didn’t understand it, and it was his nature to want to understand everything. That was why he’d become a detective—to find answers, to understand.
She blinked, looked up at him. “I remember. It wasn’t a car parked next to us. It was a van.”
“A paneled van? What kind?”
“White.”
“I mean, what make?”
She frowned again, trying to recall.
“Old or new?” he asked.
“New. Clean, sparkling.”
“Did you notice any dents, scrapes?”
“No. And it was a Ford.”
“Good. Very good. Do you know what year?”
“No.”
“A recreational vehicle, was it? With one of those round windows on the side or maybe a painted mural?”
“No. Very utilitarian. Like a van somebody would use for work.”
“Was there a company name on the side?”
“No.”
“Any message at all painted on it?”
“No. It was just plain white.”
“What about the license plate?”
“I didn’t see it.”
“You passed by the back of the van. You noticed it was a Ford. The license plate would’ve been right there.”
“I guess. But I didn’t look at it.”
“If it becomes necessary, we can probably get it out of you with hypnosis. At least now we have a little something to start with.”
“If she got out of the van.”
“For starters, we’ll assume she did.”
“And that’s probably a mistake.”
“And maybe it isn’t.”
“She could’ve come from anywhere in the parking lot.”
“But since we have to start somewhere, we might as well begin with the van,” he said patiently.
“She might’ve come from another row of cars altogether. We might just be wasting time. I don’t want to waste time. She isn’t wasting time. I have an awful feeling we don’t have much time.”
Her nervous, fidgety movements escalated into uncontrollable shivers that shook her entire body. Charlie realized that she had been maintaining her composure only with considerable effort.
“Easy,” he said. “Easy now. Everything’ll work out fine. We won’t let anything happen to Joey.”
She was pale. Her voice quavered when she spoke: “He’s so sweet. He’s such a sweet little boy. He’s the center of my life . . . the center of eve
rything. If anything happened to him . . .”
“Nothing’s going to happen to him. I guarantee you that.”
She began to cry. She didn’t sob or wail or get hysterical. She just took deep, shuddery breaths, and her eyes grew watery, and tears slipped down her cheeks.
Pushing his chair back from the desk, getting up, wanting to comfort her, feeling awkward and inadequate, Charlie said, “I think you need a drink.”
She shook her head.
“It’ll help,” he said.
“I don’t drink much,” she said shakily, and the tears poured from her even more copiously than before.
“Just one drink.”
“Too early,” she said.
“It’s past eleven-thirty. Almost lunchtime. Besides, this is medicinal.”
He went to the bar that stood in the corner by one of the two big windows. He opened the lower doors, took out a bottle of Chivas Regal and one glass, put them on the marble-topped counter, poured two ounces of Scotch.
As he was capping the bottle, he happened to look out the window beside him—and froze. A white Ford van, clean and sparkling, with no advertising on it, was parked across the street. Looking over the tops of the uppermost fronds of an enormous date palm that rose almost to his fifth-floor window, Charlie saw a man in dark clothing leaning against the side of the van.
Coincidence.
The man seemed to be eating. Just a workman stopped on a quiet side street to grab an early lunch. That’s all. Surely, it couldn’t be anything more than that.
Coincidence.
Or maybe not. The man down there also seemed to be watching the front of this building. He appeared to be having a bite of lunch and running a stakeout at the same time. Charlie had been involved in dozens of stakeouts over the years. He knew what a stakeout looked like, and this sure as hell looked like one, although it was a bit obvious and amateurish.
Behind him, Christine said, “Is something wrong?”
He was surprised by her perspicacity, by how sharply attuned to him she was, especially since she was still highly agitated, still crying.
He said, “I hope you like Scotch.”
He turned away from the window and took the drink to her.
She accepted it without further protestations. She held the glass in both hands but still couldn’t keep it from shaking. She sipped rather daintily at the whiskey.
Charlie said, “Drink it straight down. Two swallows. Get it inside you where it can do some good.”
She did as he said, and he could tell that she really didn’t drink much because she grimaced at the bitterness of the Scotch, even though Chivas was about the smoothest stuff ever to come out of a distillery.
He took the empty glass from her, carried it back to the bar, rinsed it out in the small sink, and set it on the drainboard.
He looked out the window again.
The white truck was still there.
So was the man in the dark pants and shirt, eating his lunch with studied casualness.
Returning to Christine, Charlie said, “Feel better?”
Some color had crept back into her face. She nodded. “I’m sorry for coming apart on you like that.”
He sat half on the edge of his desk, keeping one foot on the floor. He smiled at her. “You have nothing to apologize for. Most people, if they’d had the scare you’ve had, would’ve come through the door blubbering incoherently, and they’d still be blubbering incoherently. You’re holding up quite well.”
“I don’t feel as if I’m holding up.” She took a handkerchief from her purse and blew her nose. “But I guess you’re right. One crazy old lady isn’t the end of the world.”
“Exactly.”
“One crazy old lady can’t be that hard to deal with.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said.
But he thought: One crazy old lady? Then who’s the guy with the white truck?
8
Grace Spivey sat on a hard oak chair, her ice-gray eyes shining in the gloom.
Today was a red day in the spirit world, one of the reddest days she had ever known, and she was dressed entirely in red in order to be in harmony with it, just as she had dressed entirely in green yesterday, when the spirit world had been going through a green phase. Most people weren’t aware that the spirit world around them changed color from day to day; of course, most people couldn’t see the supernatural realm as clearly as Grace could see it when she really tried; in fact, most of them couldn’t see it at all, so there was no way they could possibly understand Grace’s manner of dress. But for Grace, who was a psychic and a medium, it was essential to be in harmony with the color of the spirit world, for then she could more easily receive clairvoyant visions of both the past and future. These visions were sent to her by benign spirits and were transmitted on brilliantly colored beams of energy, beams that, today, were all shades of red.
If she had tried to explain this to most people, they would have thought her insane. A few years ago her own daughter had committed Grace to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation; but Grace had slipped out of that trap, had disowned her daughter, and had been more cautious ever since.
Today she wore dark red shoes, a dark red skirt, and a lighter red, two-tone, striped blouse. All her jewelry was red: a double strand of crimson beads and matching bracelets on each wrist; a porcelain brooch as bright as fire; two ruby rings; one ring with four dazzling ovals of highly polished carnelian; four other rings with cheap red glass, vermilion enamel, and scarlet porcelain. Whether precious, semiprecious, or fake, all the stones in her rings glinted and sparkled in the flickering candlelight.
The quivering flames, adance upon the points of the wicks, caused strange shadows to writhe over the basement walls. The room was large, but it seemed small because the candles were grouped at one end of it, and three-quarters of the chamber lay beyond the reach of their inconstant amber light. There were eleven candles in all, each fat and white, each fitted in a brass holder with an ornate drip guard, and each brass candlestick was gripped firmly by one of Grace’s followers, all of whom were waiting eagerly for her to speak. Of the eleven, six were men and five were women. Some were young, some middle-aged, some old. They sat on the floor, forming a semicircle around the chair on which Grace sat, their faces gleaming and queerly distorted in the fluttering, shimmering, eldritch glow.
These eleven did not constitute the entire body of her followers. More than fifty others were in the room overhead, waiting anxiously to hear what transpired during this session. And more than a thousand others were elsewhere, in a hundred different places, engaged upon work that Grace had assigned to them.
However, these eleven at her feet were her most trusted, valued, and capable lieutenants. They were the ones she most cherished.
She even knew and remembered their names, although it wasn’t easy for her to remember names (or much of anything else) these days, not as easy as it had been before the Gift had been given to her. The Gift filled her, filled her mind, and crowded out so many things that she had once taken for granted—such as the ability to remember names and faces. And the ability to keep track of time. She never knew what time it was anymore; even when she looked at a clock, it frequently had no meaning for her. Seconds, minutes, hours, and days now seemed like ridiculously arbitrary measurements of time; perhaps they were still useful to ordinary men and women, but she was beyond the need of them. Sometimes, when she thought only a day had passed, she discovered that an entire week was missing. It was scary but also curiously exhilarating, for it made her constantly aware that she was special, that she was Chosen. The Gift had also crowded out sleep. Some nights she didn’t sleep at all. Most nights she slept one hour, never more than two, but she didn’t seem to need sleep anymore, so it didn’t matter how little she got. The Gift crowded out everything that might interfere with the great and sacred work she must accomplish.
Nevertheless, she remembered the names of these eleven people because they were the purest members of h
er flock. They were the best of the best, largely untainted souls who were the most worthy of carrying out the demanding tasks ahead of them.
One other man was in the basement. His name was Kyle Barlowe. He was thirty-two, but he looked older—older, somber, mean, and dangerous. He had lank brown hair, thick but without luster. His high forehead ended in a heavy shelf of bone under which his deeply set brown eyes were watchful and shrewd. He had a large nose, but it wasn’t regal or proud; it had been broken more than once and was lumpy. His cheekbones and jawbone were heavy, crudely formed, like the plate of bone from which his forehead had been carved. Although his features were for the most part oversized and graceless, his lips were thin, and they were so bloodless and pale that they seemed even thinner than they actually were; as a result, his mouth appeared to be nothing more than a slash in his face. He was an extraordinarily big man, six-eleven, with a bull’s neck, slab shoulders, well-muscled chest and arms. He looked as if he could break a man in half—and as if he frequently did exactly that, strictly for the fun of it.
In fact, for the past three years, since Kyle had become one of Grace’s followers and then a member of her inner circle and then her most trusted assistant, he hadn’t raised a hand against anyone. Before Grace had found and saved him, he had been a moody, violent, and brutal man. But those days were gone. Grace had been able to see beyond Kyle Barlowe’s forbidding exterior, had glimpsed the good soul that lay beneath. He had gone astray, yes, but he had been eager (even if he hadn’t realized it himself) to return to the good and righteous path. All he needed was someone to show him the way. Grace had shown him, and he had followed. Now, his huge, powerful arms and his marble-hard fists would harm no virtuous man or woman but would smite only those who were the enemies of God and, even then, only when Grace told him to smite them.
Grace knew the enemies of God when she saw them. The ability to recognize a hopelessly corrupt soul in the first instant upon encountering it—that was but one small part of the Gift that God had bestowed upon her. One split second of eye contact was usually all Grace needed in order to determine if a person was habitually sinful and beyond redemption. She had the Gift. No one else. Just her, the Chosen. She heard evil in the voices of the wicked; she saw evil in their eyes. There was no hiding from her.