by Dean Koontz
“I’m pooped. Will you be a love and mix me a vodka martini the way I like?”
“Sure.”
“Twist of lemon.”
“I wouldn’t forget it.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.”
He got up and went into the family room, where there was a well-stocked wet bar. He couldn’t stand the taste of hard liquor, but he mixed her drink quickly, with professional skill; he had done it hundreds of times.
When he returned to the living room, she was sitting in a large chocolate-brown chair, her legs tucked under her, head laid back, eyes closed. She didn’t hear him coming, so he stopped just inside the doorway and studied her for a moment.
Her name was Louise, but everyone called her Weezy, which was sort of a kid’s name but which suited her because she looked like a college girl. She was wearing jeans and a short-sleeve blue sweater. Her bare arms were tan and slender. Her hair was long, dark, shiny; and it framed a face that Colin suddenly thought was pretty, really quite beautiful, although some people might say the mouth was too wide. As he looked at her, he began to realize that thirty-three was not really old, as he’d always thought.
For the first time in his life, Colin was consciously aware of her body: full breasts, narrow waist, round hips, long legs. Roy was right; she had a terrific figure.
Why didn’t I ever notice it before?
He answered himself at once: Because she’s my own mother, for God’s sake!
Heat blossomed in his face. He wondered if he was turning into some sort of pervert, and he forced himself to stop looking at her well-filled sweater.
He cleared his throat and went to her.
She opened her eyes, lifted her head, took the martini, and sipped it. “Mmmmm. Perfect. You’re a sweetheart.”
He sat on the sofa.
After a while she said, “When I got into this thing with Paula, I didn’t realize that the owner of a business has to work harder than the employees.”
“Was the gallery busy today?” Colin asked.
“We had more people in and out of there than you’d find in a bus station. This time of year you expect a lot of browsers, tourists who don’t really intend to buy anything. They figure that because they’re vacationing in Santa Leona they’re entitled to a few free hours of each shopkeeper’s time.”
“Sell many paintings?” Colin asked.
“Surprisingly, we sold quite a few. In fact, it’s the best day on record.”
“That’s great.”
“Of course, it’s just one day. Considering what Paula and I paid for the gallery, we have to have a lot more days like this if we’re going to keep our heads above water.”
Colin couldn’t think of anything more to say.
She sipped her martini. Her throat rippled slightly when she swallowed. She looked so dainty and graceful.
“Skipper, can you make your own supper this evening ?”
“Aren’t you eating at home?” he asked.
“The shop’s still very busy. I can’t leave Paula alone this evening. I just came home to freshen up. Much as I dread the thought of it, I’ll be going back to the grind in twenty minutes.”
“You’ve only been home for supper once in the past week,” he said.
“I know, Skipper, and I’m sorry about that. But I’m trying hard to build a future for us, for me and you. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“It’s a tough world, baby.”
“I’m not hungry anyway,” Colin said. “I can wait until you get home after the gallery closes.”
“Well, baby, I won’t be coming straight home. Mark Thornberg asked me to share a late dinner with him.”
“Who’s Mark Thomberg?”
“An artist,” she said. “We opened a show of his work yesterday. In fact, about a third of what we’re selling is his stuff. I want to persuade him to let us be his sole representatives.”
“Where’s he taking you to dinner?”
“We’re going to Little Italy, I think.”
“Boy, that’s a neat place!” Colin said, leaning forward on the sofa. “Can I come? I won’t be any bother. You wouldn’t even have to stop back here to pick me up. I can ride my bike and meet you there.”
She frowned and avoided his eyes. “Sorry, Skipper. This is strictly for grown-ups. We’ll be talking a lot of business.”
“I won’t mind.”
“Perhaps not, but we would. Listen, why don’t you go to Charlie’s Cafe and have one of those big cheeseburgers you like so much? And one of those extra-thick milkshakes that you have to eat with a spoon.”
He settled back against the sofa as if he were a balloon that had rapidly deflated.
“Don’t pout,” she said. “It doesn’t become you. Pouting’s for little babies.”
“I’m not pouting,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“Charlie’s Cafe?” she prompted.
“I guess so. Sure.”
She finished her martini and picked up her handbag. “I’ll give you some money.”
“I’ve got money.”
“So I’ll give you some more. I’m now a successful businesswoman. I can afford it.”
She brought him a five-dollar bill, and he said, “It’s too much.”
“Blow the rest of it on comic books.”
She bent down, kissed his forehead, and left to freshen up and change clothes.
For several minutes he sat in silence, staring at the five-dollar bill. At last he sighed and stood and took out his wallet and put the money away.
6
Mr. and Mrs. Borden gave Roy permission to have supper with Colin. The boys ate at the counter at Charlie’s Cafe, basking in the incomparably wonderful aroma of bubbling grease and onions. Colin paid the check.
From the diner they went to the Pinball Pit, an amusement arcade that was one of the chief gathering places for young people in Santa Leona. It was a Friday night, and the Pit was crowded with kids feeding coins to pinball machines and a wide variety of electronic games.
Half the customers knew Roy. They called to him, and he called back. “Ho, Roy!” “Ho, Pete!” “Hi there, Roy!” “What ya say, Walt?” “Roy!” “Roy!” “Here, Roy!” They wanted to challenge him to games or tell him jokes or just talk. He stopped here and there for a minute or two at a time, but he didn’t want to play with anyone but Colin.
They competed in a two-player pinball game that was decorated with paintings of big-breasted, long-legged girls in skimpy bikinis. Roy chose that machine rather than one with pirates, monsters, or spacemen; and Colin tried not to blush.
Colin usually disliked cheap thrill palaces like the Pit and avoided them. The few times he’d ever ventured into one, he’d found the din unbearable. The sounds of computer scorekeepers and robot adversaries —beep -beep -beep, pong-pong-pong, bomp-bompada - bomp, whoop - whoop - whooooooooop-mixed with laughter and girls’ happy screams and half-shouted conversations. Assaulted by continuous, thunderous noise, he became claustrophobic. He always felt like an alien, a being from a distant world, trapped on a primitive planet, caught in a mob of hostile, screeching, gibbering, barbaric, loathsome natives.
But he didn’t feel that way tonight. He was enjoying every minute and he knew why. Because of Roy, he was no longer a frightened visitor from space; he was now one of the natives.
With his thick yellow hair, blue eyes, muscles, and quiet self-confidence, Roy drew the girls. Three of them—Kathy, Laurie, and Janet—gathered around to watch the game. They were all better than average-looking: taut, tan, vital teen-age girls in halter tops and shorts, with shiny hair and California complexions and budding breasts and slender legs.
Roy clearly favored Laurie, while Kathy and Janet showed more than passing interest in Colin. He didn’t think they were attracted to him for himself. In fact, he was certain they were not. He had no illusions. Before girls like them swooned over boys like him, the sun would rise in the west, tiny babies would gro
w beards, and an honest man would be elected President. They were flirting with him because he was Roy’s friend, or because they were jealous of Laurie and wanted to make Roy jealous of them. Whatever their reasons, they were concentrating on Colin, asking questions, drawing him out, laughing at his jokes, cheering when he won a game. Until now, girls had never wasted time with him. He really didn’t care what their motives were; he just reveled in all the attention and prayed it would never end. He knew he was blushing brightly, but the arcade’s odd orange lighting provided him with cover.
Forty minutes after entering the Pit, they left to a chorus of good-byes: “So long, Roy; take it easy, Roy; see ya around, Roy.” Roy seemed to want to be rid of all of them, including Kathy, Laurie, and Janet. Colin went reluctantly.
Outside, the evening air was mild. A light breeze carried the faint scent of the sea.
Complete darkness had not yet descended. Santa Leona lay in a smoky yellow twilight similar to that which Roy had created earlier in the day for the miniature world in the Borden garage.
Their bicycles were chained to a rack in the parking lot behind the Pit.
As he bent and unlocked his bike, Roy said, “You like the Pit?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you would.”
“You spend much time there?” Colin asked.
“Nah. Not much.”
“I thought you were a regular.”
Roy stood and pulled his bike from between the pipes. “I hardly ever go.”
“Everybody knew you.”
“I know the kids who are regulars. But not me. I’m not a fan of games. At least not games as easy as the ones in the Pit.”
Colin finished unchaining his bicycle. “If you don’t like it, why’d we come?”
“I knew you’d enjoy it,” Roy said.
Colin frowned. “But I don’t want to do things that bore you.”
“I wasn’t bored,” Roy said. “I didn’t mind playing a game or three. And I sure didn’t mind having a chance to look at Laurie. She has a terrific little body, doesn’t she?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess!”
“Well, sure ... she has a nice body.”
“I’d like to settle down between her pretty legs for a few months.”
“You seemed anxious to get away from her.”
“After about fifteen minutes I get sick of talking to her,” Roy said.
“Then how could you stand her for a few months?”
“We wouldn’t talk,” Roy said, grinning wickedly.
“Oh.”
“Kathy, Janet, Laurie ... all those girls are just teasers.”
“What do you mean?”
“They never put out.”
“Put out what?”
“Ass, for Christ’s sake! They never put out any ass, not ever, not for anyone.”
“Oh.”
“Laurie shakes it at me, but if I actually put a hand on her tits, she’d scream so loud the roof would fall in.”
Colin was blushing and sweating. “Well, after all, she’s only fourteen, isn’t she?”
“Plenty old enough.”
Colin wasn’t pleased with the direction the conversation had taken. He tried to get back on course. “Anyway, what I wanted to say was, from now on let’s not do anything that bores you.”
Roy put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Listen, Colin, am I your friend or not?”
“Sure you are.”
“A good friend should be willing to keep you company even when you’re doing things that you enjoy but maybe he doesn’t care so much about. I mean, I can’t expect to always do exactly what I like, and I can’t expect that you and I will always want to do the same things.”
“We like the same things,” Colin said. “We have the same interests.” He was afraid Roy would suddenly realize how different they were and would walk away, never to be seen again.
“You love horror films,” Roy said. “I don’t have any interest in that stuff.”
“Well, aside from that one thing—”
“We’ve got other differences. But the point is, if you’re my buddy, you’ll do things with me that I want to do but that you don’t like at all. So it works both ways.”
“No, it doesn‘t,” Colin said, “because I happen to like doing everything you suggest.”
“So far,” Roy said. “But there’ll come a time when you won’t want to do something that’s important to me, but you will do it because we’re friends.”
“I can’t imagine what,” Colin said.
“Just wait,” Roy said. “You’ll see. Sooner or later, good buddy, the time will come.”
The scarlet light of the Pit’s neon sign was refracted in Roy’s eyes, giving them a strange and somewhat frightening aspect. Colin thought they resembled a movie vampire’s eyes: glassy, red, violent, two windows on a soul that had been corrupted by the repeated satisfaction of unnatural desires. (But then again, Colin thought the same thing every time he saw Mr. Arkin’s eyes, and Mr. Arkin was just the man who owned the comer grocery store; the closest thing Mr. Arkin had to an unnatural desire was a taste for liquor, and his red eyes were nothing more than the most obvious sign of a nearly continuous hangover.)
“Just the same,” Colin said to Roy, “I hate the idea that I’m boring you with—”
“I wasn’t bored! Will you relax? I don’t mind going to the Pit if that’s what you want. just remember what I said about those girls. They’ll hang on you a little bit. Now and then they’ll ‘accidentally’ rub their tight little asses against you or maybe ’accidentally’ brush their boobs against your arm. But you’ll never have any real fun with them. Their idea of a big, big night is to sneak out to the parking lot, hide in the shadows, and steal kisses.”
That was also Colin’s idea of a big, big night. In fact, it was his idea of heaven on earth, but he didn’t tell Roy.
They walked their bicycles across the lot to the alley.
Before Roy could climb on his bike and pedal away, Colin got up the nerve to say: “Why me?”
“Huh?”
“Why do you want to be friends with me?”
“Why shouldn’t I be friends with you?”
“I mean with a nobody like me.”
“Who said you’re a nobody?”
“I did.”
“What kind of a thing is that to say about yourself?”
“Anyway, I’ve been wondering for a month.”
“Wondering what? You aren’t making sense.”
“I’ve been wondering why you want to be friends with someone like me.”
“What do you mean? What makes you different? You got leprosy or something?”
Colin wished he had never brought up the subject, but now that he had done so, he stumbled ahead with it. “Well, you know, someone who’s not normally very popular and, you know, not good at sports, you know, not really good at much of anything and ... well, you know.”
“Stop saying, ‘you know,’ ” Roy said. “I hate that. One of the reasons I want to be friends with you is that you can talk. Most kids around here chatter away all day and never use more than twenty words. Two of which are ‘you know.’ But you actually have a decent vocabulary. It’s refreshing.”
Colin blinked. “You want to be friends because of my vocabulary?”
“I want to be friends because you’re as smart as I am. Most kids bore me.”
“But you could pal around with any guy in town, any guy your age, even some a year or two older than you. Most of those guys in the Pit—”
“They’re assholes.”
“Be serious. They’re some of the most popular guys in town.”
“Assholes, I tell you.”
“Not all of them.”
“Believe me, Colin, all of them. Half of them can’t figure any way to have a good time except to smoke dope or pop pills or get stinking drunk and vomit all over themselves. The rest of them want to be either John Travolta or Donny O
smond. Yech!”
“But they like you.”
“Everyone likes me,” Roy said. “I make sure of that.”
“I sure wish I knew how to make everyone like me.”
“It’s easy. You just have to know how to manipulate them.”
“Okay. How?”
“Stick around me long enough, and you’ll learn.”
Instead of riding away from the Pit, they walked down the alley, side by side, pushing their bikes. They both knew there was more to be said.
They passed an oleander hedge. The flowers looked slightly phosphorescent in the growing gloom, and Colin took a deep whiff of them.
Oleander berries contained one of the deadliest substances known to man. Colin had seen an old movie in which a lunatic had murdered a dozen people with a poison extracted from the plant. He couldn’t remember the title. It had been a really dumb film, even worse than Godzilla Versus King Kong, which meant it was one of the all-time most terrible works in cinematic history.
After they had gone nearly a block, Colin said, “You ever used dope?”
“Once,” Roy said.
“What was it?”
“Hash. Through a waterpipe.”
“You like it?”
“Once was enough. What about you?”
“No,” Colin said. “Drugs scare me.”
“You know why?”
“You can get killed.”
“Dying doesn’t scare you.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Not much.”
“Dying scares me a lot.”
“No,” Roy insisted. “You’re like me, exactly like me. Drugs scare you because if you used them you wouldn’t be in control. You can’t bear the idea of losing control of yourself.”
“Well, sure, that’s part of it.”
Roy lowered his voice, as if he were afraid someone would overhear, and he spoke rapidly, running the words together in his eagerness to get them out. “You’ve got to stay sharp, on your toes, alert. Always look over your shoulder. Always protect yourself. Don’t let your guard down for even a second. There are people who will take advantage of you the moment they see you’re not in complete control. The world’s filled with people like that. Nearly everyone you meet is like that. We’re animals in a jungle, and we’ve got to be prepared to fight if we want to survive.”