Chase

by Dean Koontz

  He approached the bungalow through the narrow alley and crouched by the thorny hedge where it parted for the entrance to the rear flagstone walk. The kitchen windows were lighted, though Chase could not see anyone in the room beyond them. He waited ten minutes, not thinking about anything, geared down and idling as he had learned to do in Nam before a crucial encounter, then he moved quickly forward, running silently on the lawn beside the walk, rushing from shrub to shrub with only a slight pause at each. When he reached the back porch, he remained crouched so that he was shielded from the windows by the wooden railing, the edge of the steps and the elevated floor of the porch itself, further cloaked with darkness.

  Inside, a radio was playing instrumental versions of Broadway show tunes, between commercials delivered by a rather loud and unpleasant voice. It was the only sound.

  Chase turned away from the house for a brief moment and surveyed the black lawn spread out behind him. At several points, lumps of shadow grew, shrubs and small trees, a miniature wheelbarrow planter full of wilted petunias. Nothing moved or reflected light.

  When he was satisfied that he was alone, he looked back at the house and crept cautiously up the steps and onto the porch. There was a swing on the porch, a small cocktail table and two wicker chairs. A board squeaked under his foot and brought him to a standstill. He felt beads of sticky perspiration on his forehead and shivered uncontrollably as one of them trickled down his cheek, under his ear and down the side of his neck like a skittering cockroach. When he dared move again, the board squeaked as he stepped off it, but he was now convinced that Judge was not expecting him. He went to the wall of the house and pressed himself to it, between the window and the door.

  He wished he had a gun.

  What was he doing here without a gun?

  Just checking things out. Get a look at Judge, at Linski, then run for it, be sure he matched his description, tie up that loose end, then call the cops.

  He knew he was even lying to himself now.

  Stooping low, he brought his face up to the window and peered into the tiny, bright kitchen. He saw a pine table and three chairs, a straw basket full of apples in the centre of the table, a refrigerator, an oven, all the other paraphernalia he might have seen in anyone's kitchen - but no Judge. Turning, he stepped past the door and bent at the second window. Here he was rewarded with the sight of a kitchen work area, canisters for flour and sugar and coffee, an instrument rack full of scoops and spoons and cooking forks, storage cabinets, a blender plugged into a wall outlet -but no Judge. Unless Linski was standing directly behind the door, trying not to be seen - an unlikely possibility - he was somewhere else in the house.

  Chase pulled open the screen door, and winced as it made a high, sweet singing noise which seemed to cut through the quiet night air like a gunshot, a sure alarm.

  No one came to investigate.

  The music on the radio had covered him, more likely than not.

  He put his hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it as far as it would go, took a last deep breath to help quiet his nerves and pressed the door open. It was not locked. He stepped quickly into the house, looked around at the empty kitchen and closed the door after him. The hinges were well oiled; the door did not make a sound.

  For the first time since he had conceived of this foray, Chase was conscious of his nakedness, of the fact that he had come unarmed, and he felt his neck aching as it had after Judge had taken a bead on it with his pistol and then missed. He considered trying the drawers in the cupboard by the sink and securing a sharp knife, then dismissed the idea. For one thing, he would be certain to make considerable noise pulling open drawers full of silverware, more noise than the violins and trumpets could drown. Secondly, he would be wasting precious time in such a search, minutes during which Judge might step into the kitchen after a glass of water and come upon him, negating any advantage of surprise that he might otherwise possess. Finally, there would be far more satisfaction in taking Richard Linski with his own two hands instead of with an impersonal weapon.

  Of course, he would not actually attempt to apprehend Judge - unless he was seen and had no other choice - for that was the job of the police. Ideally, he would come upon Judge asleep in the bedroom, make a quick identification without waking him and beat it the hell out of there. Ideally, there would be no trouble.

  Another lie.

  He paused at the archway between the kitchen and the dining room, for there were no lights where he was going next, just what spilled from the kitchen and living room. In a few minutes he had assured himself that no one was hiding by the heavy pine hutch or the dining table, and he crossed swiftly to the open doorway that led to the main living room. Here the floor was carpeted in shag pile, softening the sound of footsteps.

  He stood at the threshold of the front room, letting his eyes adjust to the brighter light.

  Someone coughed. A man.

  In Nam, when a mission was especially tense, he had been able to devote his mind to its completion with a singleness of purpose that he had never achieved on anything else in his life, to become almost obsessed with the chore at hand. He wanted to be as brisk and clean and quick about this as he had been about those missions, but he was bothered by thoughts of Glenda sitting all alone in that strange motel room, waiting for him to return. . .

  He was evading the moment, he knew. He could not hesitate; he must get on with it.

  He flexed his hands and drew a slow breath, preparing himself for the fight, even though he was sure there would not be one.

  Another lie.

  The smart thing to do, the civilized thing to do, was to turn around right now, cross the darkened dining room as quietly as possible, cross the kitchen and leave by the back door and call the police.

  He stepped into the living room.

  A man sat in a large white recliner chair close to the television set, a newspaper on his lap. He wore tortoise-shell reading glasses pushed far down on his thin, straight nose, and he was humming a sprightly tune which Chase could not identify. He was reading the comics.

  For a moment Chase was certain that he had made a dangerous mistake, for he had never anticipated this: a psychotic killer engaged in a pastime so mundane, engrossed in the latest exploits of Snoopy and Charlie Brown, B.C. and Broom Hilda. Then the man looked up, taking on the cliché pose of total surprise: eyes wide, mouth slightly open, face gone hard and white. And Chase saw that the man fit Judge's description to a detail. Tall. Blond. Harsh about the face, with thin lips and a long, straight nose.

  ‘Richard Linski?’ Chase asked.

  The man in the chair seemed frozen into place, perhaps a mannequin propped there to distract Chase while the real Judge, the real Richard Linski, crept up on him from behind. The illusion was so complete that for a few seconds Chase almost turned around to see if the dining room was empty behind him or if his fears were correct.

  The man in the chair was gripping the pages of the newspaper so hard they might have been made of steel.

  ‘Judge?’ Chase asked.

  ‘You,’ the man whispered.

  He wadded the steel pages in his hands and came out of the easy chair as if he had sat upon a tack.

  ‘Yes,’ Chase said, suddenly calmed, ‘it's me.’

  Fifteen

  Although Chase had learned the value of concentrating exclusively on the mission at hand during his tour in Vietnam, he had never been one for psyching himself before an operation. Too often the unit never encountered the Cong they had been told were out there, and the mission ended without a shot fired. The men who had worked themselves up, put themselves on edge, on the theory they would perform better under pressure, were left frustrated and had no acceptable outlets for their nervous energy. These were the ones, most often, who worked off their tension on innocent civilians, hyped into a plastic paranoia, into a period of schizophrenia where the sound of gunfire and the odour of burning buildings was like a soporific to lead them back down the scale of frenzy to a point wh
ere they could regain control of themselves. Chase had let himself get carried away like that only one time, and the operation had been a disaster that haunted him ever afterward.

  Now, as he faced Judge at last, his ability to control himself and to keep calm proved to be valuable. The confrontation did not immediately progress to violence, as he had envisioned it might.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Judge asked.

  He had backed away from the white chair, toward the television set. His hands were out at his sides, the fingers working as if he were searching for something to use as a bludgeon.

  ‘What do you think?’ Chase asked. He started slowly toward Linski, gauging the man's retreat.

  ‘You don't belong here.’

  Chase said nothing.

  ‘This is my home,’ Judge said.

  When Judge came up against the television set, Chase stopped ten feet away from him, sizing him up, waiting for the proper moment. He wished it had not come to this, that he could have gotten a good look at Judge without being seen himself.

  Still lying.

  ‘Nobody else belongs here,’ Judge said. This is my home, and I want you out of it.’ He sounded properly irate, except for a quaver in his voice.

  ‘No,’ Chase said.

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Goddamn you!’ Judge said.

  He was standing with his hands out to his sides like wings, and he was beginning to weep. The tears slipped out of the corners of his eyes and hung on his cheeks from wet threads.

  Chase said, ‘I want you to walk slowly toward the telephone on that stand, and I want you to call the police.’ But even as he said it, he knew that was not going to be possible.

  ‘I won't do it,’ Judge said.

  ‘I think you will.’

  ‘You can't make me do it,’ Judge said. As he spoke, he began to turn, and on the last word he grabbed something from the top of the television set.

  Too late, Chase saw that it was the pistol. He did not see how he could have overlooked something like that. He must have gotten far more out of practice than he had thought. Or he had chosen to ignore it for some reason that escaped his conscious mind. He stepped forward as Judge brought the weapon up, the grey tube of the homemade silencer still attached, but he did not move quite fast enough. The bullet took him in the left shoulder and twisted him sideways, off balance and into the floor lamp.

  He fell over, taking the lamp with him. Both bulbs smashed when they struck the floor, plunging the room into near total darkness that was relieved only by the weak light from distant streetlamps that managed to filter through the heavy drapes.

  ‘Are you dead?’ Judge asked.

  His shoulder felt as if a nail had been driven into it, and his entire arm was numb. He could feel blood running down his side, but he did not want to reach over and explore the seriousness of the wound - first, because he did not want to know if it was a bad one, and second, because he preferred that Judge think he was either dead or dying.

  ‘Chase?’

  Chase waited.

  Judge stepped away from the television, bent forward as he tried to make out Chase's body in the jumble of shadows and furniture. Chase could not tell for certain, but he thought the man was holding the pistol straight out in front of him, like a teacher holding a pointer toward the blackboard. That was good. That made him more vulnerable

  ‘Chase?’

  Chase forced his wounded arm off the floor as if it were a dead weight of some size, bent it at the elbow and laid the palm flat against the carpet as he had already done with his other hand. He felt weak, shaking all over, his stomach like a knotted rag, perspiration pouring from his face and along the length of his spine. He knew that most of the problem was shock, and that when he made his move he would have the necessary strength to overcome that.

  ‘How's our hero now?’ Judge asked. Apparently he had stopped crying, for there was low, pleased laughter in his voice. ‘Are you planning on getting your name in the paper again?’ He laughed out loud now and took another step forward.

  Chase pushed himself up and launched forward at Judge's feet, ignoring the scream of pain in his shoulder. He came in under the barrel of the pistol that Judge still held out before him like an old woman searching for a burglar.

  The pistol fired, the whoosh of the silencer clearly audible in such close quarters; the bullet shattered something at the other end of the room but came nowhere near Chase.

  They went backward into the television set, which Judge caught with his hips and knocked from its stand. It struck the wall and then the floor with two solid thumps, though the screen did not break. Unable to complete the backward fall because of the obstacles, Judge was overbalanced the other way and crashed down on Chase. The pistol flew from his hand and rattled against the wooden feet of the easy chair. He tried to scramble after it, but Chase had a good hold on him and did not intend to let go.

  Chase rolled and carried Judge over with him, assumed the top position and quickly drove his knee into Judge's crotch. Linski cried out, though his scream settled abruptly into a strained gasp of pain. He attempted to heave up and throw Chase loose, but he could not manage more than a weak, fluttered protest. He was crying again.

  Chase's wounded shoulder throbbed from his having rolled on it, and it felt as if the bones must have rotted beneath the flesh. Despite the pain, he reached forward with both hands, found the correct pressure points on Judge's neck and bore down with his thumbs long enough to be certain that the killer was unconscious. When he stood up, swaying back and forth like a drunkard, Linski remained on the floor, his hands still spread at his sides, now like a bird that had fallen out of the sky and had broken its back on a thrust of rock.

  Chase wiped at his face, flicked the sweat from his fingers. His stomach, knotted only minutes ago, had loosened too quickly, like a greased rope curling on itself, and he felt as if he might be sick. He could not afford that luxury.

  Outside, a car full of shouting teenagers went by, screeched at the corner, sounded its horn and peeled off with a squeal of rubber.

  Chase stepped across Richard Linski's body and looked out the window. There was no one in sight. The lawn was dark. The sounds of the struggle had not carried any distance.

  He turned away from the glass and listened to Linski's breathing. It was shallow but steady.

  Chase crossed the room to the other floor lamp, tripped over an ottoman on the way, found the lamp and switched it on.

  He looked at his shoulder, probed the hole in the fleshy part of his biceps. As far as he could tell, the bullet had passed straight through. He could look at it in a moment, under stronger light, as soon as he secured Judge,

  He could also call the police. In a little while. After he had taken care of a couple of loose ends that yet remained.

  Sixteen

  In the bathroom, Chase stripped off his blood-soaked shirt and dropped it in the sink. He washed the wound and tested the flow of blood, sopping it up with a washcloth until it was not bleeding dangerously any more. He located the alcohol in the medicine chest and poured half a bottle over and into the hole, was nearly knocked down by the rush of stinging pain that exploded in the wake of the fluid. For a while he bent over the sink, staring into the mirror, watching the circles under his eyes grow darker, the whites of his eyes more bloodshot. When he felt he could move again, he found gauze pads and soaked one of them in Merthiolate. He slapped that over the wound, covered it with more clean pads, then wound wide-band adhesive tape over the entire mess. It wasn't professional, but it would keep him from leaking blood over everything.

  In the bedroom, he took one of Judge's shirts from the closet and struggled into it. If their fight had been now instead often minutes ago, he would surely have lost, for his shoulder and back were beginning to stiffen considerably.

  In the kitchen, he found a large plastic garbage sack and brought it to the bathroom. He dropped his bloody shirt, the bloody towel and washcl
oth into it. He used tissues and wads of toilet paper to wipe up the sink and the mirror, threw those in the bag when he was done with them. Standing in the doorway, he looked the bathroom over, decided there was no trace of what he had done there, turned off the light and closed the door.

  Judge's second shot had missed Chase, but it had thoroughly smashed a three-foot-square ornamental mirror that had hung on the wall above the bar at the far end of the living room. Bits of glass lay over everything within a six-foot radius. In five minutes he had picked up all the major shards, though hundreds of tiny slivers still sparkled in the nap of the carpet and in the upholstery of nearby chairs.

  He was considering this problem when Judge awoke. He went to the chair in the middle of the living room, where he had tied the killer with clothesline he had found in the kitchen. It was a straight-backed, unpadded, armless chair that provided a number of rungs and slats to snake the rope through. Judge twisted and tried to break free, but soon saw there was no hope of that.

  Chase said, ‘Where is your vacuum sweeper?’

  ‘What?’ Judge was still groggy.

  ‘Vacuum sweeper.’

  ‘What you want that for?’

  Chase slapped him hard with his good hand.

  ‘In the cellarway,’ Judge said.

  He brought the sweeper back, plugged it in and picked up every piece of shattered mirror that caught his eye. Fifteen minutes later, satisfied, he put the sweeper away again, just as he had found it.

  ‘What are you up to?’ Judge asked. He was still trying at his ropes, as though not convinced it was hopeless.

  Chase did not answer. He picked up the television and replaced it on its stand, plugged it in and tried it. It still worked. There was a situation comedy playing, one of those in which the father is always an idiot and the mother is little better. The kids are cute monsters.

  Next he picked up the floor lamp he had fallen over and examined the metal shade. It was dented, but there was no way to tell that the dent was new. He unscrewed the damaged light bulbs, and along with the larger scraps of the broken mirror, threw them in the plastic garbage bag on top of the bloody shirt and towel. He used the pages of a magazine to scoop up the smaller pieces, and threw those and the magazine into the garbage bag.