by Dean Koontz
Finally Colin lowered the binoculars.
“You want her?” Roy asked.
“Who wouldn’t?”
“We can have her.”
“You’re living in a dream.”
“Her husband’s at work all day.”
“So?”
“She’s pretty much alone over there.”
“What do you mean—‘pretty much’?”
“She has a five-year-old kid.”
“Then she’s not alone at all.”
“The kid won’t give us any trouble.”
Colin knew that Roy was playing the game again, but this time he decided to play along. “What’s your plan?”
“We just go over and knock on the door. She knows me. She’ll open up.”
“And then?”
“You and me can handle her. We’ll push inside, knock her down. I’ll put a knife at her throat.”
“She’ll scream.”
“Not with a knife at her throat.”
“She’ll think you’re bluffing.”
“If she does,” Roy said, “I’ll cut her a little to show we mean business.”
“What about the kid?”
“I’ll have Sarah under control, so you’ll be free to catch the brat and tie him up.”
“What’ll I tie him with?”
“We’ll take along some clothesline.”
“After I’ve gotten him out of the way, what happens?”
Roy grinned. “Then we’ll strip her, tie her to the bed, and use her.”
“And you think she’s not going to tell anybody what we’ve done?”
“Oh, of course, when we’re finished with her, we’ll have to kill her.”
“And the kid, too?” Colin asked.
“He’s a rotten little brat. I’d like to snuff him most of all.”
“It’s a bad idea. Forget it.”
“Yesterday, you dared me to kill someone,” Roy said. “And now the idea scares you.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“What do you mean?”
Colin sighed. “You’ve protected yourself by coming up with a plan that can’t possibly work. You figured I’d shoot it down, and then you could say, ‘Well, I wanted to prove I could kill someone, but Colin chickened out on me.’”
“What’s wrong with my plan?” Roy demanded.
“First of all, you live next door to her.”
“So what?”
“The cops would suspect you right off.”
“Me? I’m just a fourteen-year-old kid.”
“Old enough to be a suspect.”
“You really think so?”
“Sure.”
“Well ... you could give me an alibi. You could swear I was at your house when she was murdered.”
“Then they’d suspect both of us.”
For a long time Roy stared down at Sarah Callahan. Finally he turned away from the window and began to pace. “What we’d have to do is leave clues that pointed away from us. We’d have to mislead them.”
“You realize the kind of lab equipment they’ve got? They can trace you by a single hair, a thread, almost anything.”
“But if we could snuff her in such a way that they’d never in a million years think it was just kids that did it ...”
“How?”
Roy continued to pace. “We’d make it look like some raving lunatic killed her, some sex maniac. We’d stab her a hundred times. We’d cut off her ears. We’d slice up the brat pretty good, too, and we’d use blood to write a lot of crazy things on the walls.”
“You’re really gross.”
Roy stopped pacing and stared hard at him. “What’s the matter? Are you a sissy about blood?”
Colin felt queasy but tried not to show it. “Even if you could mislead the cops that way, there’s too many other things wrong with your plan.”
“Like what?”
“Someone will see us going into the Callahan place.”
“Who?”
“Maybe somebody taking out the garbage. Or somebody washing windows. Or just somebody going by in a car.”
“So we’ll use the Callahans’ back door.”
Colin glanced out the window. “Looks to me like that wall goes all around the property. We’d have to enter by the front walk and go around the house to get to the back door.”
“Nah. We could climb over the wall in a minute.”
“If anyone saw us, they’d be sure to remember. Besides, what about fingerprints when we get into the house?”
“We’ll wear gloves, of course.”
“You mean we’ll walk up to the door wearing gloves in ninety-degree heat, carrying a lot of rope and a knife—and she’ll let us in without a second thought?”
Roy was becoming impatient. “When she opens the door, we’ll move so fast she won’t have time to realize anything’s wrong.”
“What if she does? What if she’s faster than we are?”
“She won’t be.”
“We’ve at least got to consider the possibility,” Colin insisted.
“Okay. I’ve considered it, and I’ve decided it’s nothing to worry about.”
“Another thing. What if she opens the inner door but not the storm door?”
“Then we’ll open the storm door,” Roy said. “What’s the problem?”
“What if it’s locked?”
“Christ!”
“Well, we have to expect the worst.”
“Okay, okay. It’s a bad idea.”
“That’s what I said.”
“But I’m not giving up.”
“I don’t want you to give up,” Colin said. “I’m enjoying the game.”
“Sooner or later, I’ll find the right setup. I’ll find someone for us to kill. You better believe it.”
For a while they took turns watching Sarah Callahan through the binoculars.
Earlier, Colin had been eager to tell Roy about Heather. But now, for reasons he couldn’t quite define, he felt the time wasn’t right. For the moment Heather would be his little secret.
When Sarah Callahan finished sunning herself, Colin and Roy went down to the garage and passed Monday afternoon with the trains. Roy engineered elaborate wrecks and laughed excitedly each time the cars plunged off the tracks.
That night Colin telephoned Heather, and she accepted a movie date for Wednesday. They talked almost fifteen minutes. When Colin finally hung up, he felt that his happiness was a visible light, that it was radiating from him in a golden nimbus; he was glowing.
20
Colin and Roy spent part of Tuesday at the beach, getting tanned and watching the girls. Roy seemed to have lost interest in his macabre game; he didn’t say a single word about killing anyone.
At two-thirty Roy stood up and brushed sand from his bare legs and his cut-off jeans. He had decided it was time to go back into town. “I want to stop by your mother’s gallery.”
Colin blinked. “What for?”
“To look at the paintings, of course.”
“Why?”
“ ‘Cause I’m interested in paintings, dummy.”
“Since when?”
“Since always.”
“You never mentioned it before.”
“You never asked,” Roy said.
They rode their bicycles back to town and parked on the sidewalk in front of the gallery.
A few browsers were in the shop. They moved slowly from painting to painting.
Weezy’s business partner, Paula, was sitting at the big antique desk in the far right comer of the room, where sales were written. She was a wispy, freckled woman with lustrous auburn hair and large glasses.
Weezy was circulating among the browsers, offering to answer any questions they might have about the paintings. When she saw Colin and Roy, she headed straight for them, smiling stiffly. It was clear to Colin that she thought a pair of sandy, sweaty, bare-chested boys in cut-off jeans were definitely not conducive to business.
Before Weezy
could ask them what they wanted, Roy pointed to a large painting by Mark Thomberg and said, “Mrs. Jacobs, this artist is terrific. He really is. His work has a lot more depth than the two-dimensional stuff that most current painters are turning out. The detail is really something. Wow. I mean, it almost looks like he’s trying to adapt the style of the old Flemish masters to a more modem sort of viewpoint.”
Weezy was surprised by Roy’s observations.
Colin was surprised, too. More than surprised. Stunned. Depth? Two-dimensional? Flemish masters? He gaped at Roy, amazed.
“Are you interested in art?” Weezy asked.
“Oh yes,” Roy said. “I’m thinking of majoring in art when I go to college. But that’s still a few years away.”
“Do you paint?”
“A little. Mostly watercolors. I’m not really very good.”
“I’ll bet you’re being modest,” Weezy said. “After all, you apparently have quite an understanding of art—and a very good eye. You went right to the heart of what Mark Thornberg is trying to achieve.”
“I did?”
“Yes. That’s astounding. Especially for someone your age. Mark is attempting to take the meticulous detail and the three-dimensional techniques of the Flemish masters and combine those qualities with a modem sensibility and modem subject matter.”
Roy looked at other Thornberg canvases on the same wall as the first, and he said, “I think I detect a trace of ... Jacob DeWitt.”
“Exactly!” Weezy said, astonished. “Mark is a great admirer of DeWitt. You really do have a knowledge of art. You’re quite remarkable.”
Roy and Weezy moved from one Thomberg painting to another, spending a few minutes in front of each, discussing the artist’s merits. Colin tagged along behind them, left out, embarrassed by his ignorance—and baffled by Roy’s unexpected expertise and brilliant perception.
The very first time that Weezy had met Roy, she had been favorably impressed by him. She had told Colin as much, and she had suggested that a fine boy like Roy Borden was a much better influence than the few bookworms and social rejects with whom he had previously established tenuous relationships. She had seemed unaware that he, too, was a bookworm and a social reject and that her words stung him. Now she was intrigued by Roy’s interest in fine arts. Colin could see the delight in her eyes. Roy knew how to be charming without ever seeming phony, insincere. He could win the approval of virtually any adult—even those he secretly despised.
In a flash of jealousy, Colin thought: She approves of him more than she does of me. The way she’s looking at him! Has she ever looked at me like that? Hell, no. The bitch!
The intensity of his sudden anger surprised and disconcerted him. As Weezy and Roy looked at the last of the Thornberg paintings, Colin struggled to regain control of himself.
A few minutes later, outside the gallery, as he and Roy were climbing on their bicycles, Colin said, “Why didn’t you ever tell me you were interested in art?”
Roy grinned. “Because I’m not interested in art. It’s a bunch of crap. It’s too damned boring.”
“But all that stuff you said in there—”
“I knew your old lady was dating this Thornberg and handling his paintings at the gallery. I went to the library to see if I could find out anything about him. They subscribe to several art magazines at the library. California Artist ran an article about Thornberg almost a year ago. I just read it for background.”
“Why?” Colin asked, perplexed.
“To impress your mother.”
“Why?”
“ ‘Cause I want her to like me.”
“You went to all that trouble just to make my mother like you? It’s that important to you?”
“Sure,” Roy said. “We don’t want her getting the idea I’m a bad influence on you. She might forbid you to see me any more.”
“Why would she think you’re a bad influence?”
“Grown-ups can get funny ideas sometimes,” Roy said.
“Well, she’d never tell me not to hang around with you. She thinks you’re a good influence.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then, my little act was just more insurance.”
Roy pedaled away fast.
Colin hesitated, then followed him. He was certain there was more behind Roy’s “little act” than the boy was willing to talk about. But what? What had Roy really been up to?
21
Weezy couldn’t come home Tuesday evening; she had dinner with a business associate. She gave Colin money to eat at Charlie’s Cafe again, and Colin took Roy with him.
After cheeseburgers and milkshakes, Colin said, “Want to see a movie?”
“Where?”
“There’s a good one on television.”
“What is it?”
“The Shadow of Dracula.”
“Why do you want to see junk like that?”
“It’s not junk. It’s gotten good reviews.”
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Roy said.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“No maybes. Positively not. Vampires... that’s bunk.”
“But they make for scary movies.”
“Boring,” Roy said.
“Why don’t you give it a chance?”
Roy sighed and shook his head. “How can you be scared of something that doesn’t exist?”
“You just have to use your imagination a little.”
“Why should I imagine scary things when there are so many real things to be afraid of?”
Colin shrugged. “Okay. So you don’t want to see the movie.”
“Besides, I have something planned for later.”
“What?” Colin asked.
Roy gave him a sly look. “You’ll see.”
“Don’t be mysterious. Tell me.”
“In good time.”
“When?”
“Oh ... eight o‘clock,” Roy said.
“What’ll we do till then?”
They rode down Central Avenue to the small craft harbor, chained their bicycles in a parking lot, and explored the maze of waterfront shops and amusements. They strolled through swarms of buzzing tourists, looking for pretty girls in shorts or bikinis.
Over the bay, sea gulls soared and swooped. With piercing, melancholy cries, they darted up and down, back and forth, sewing together the sky, the earth, and the water.
Colin thought the harbor was beautiful. The westering sun streamed between scattered white clouds and appeared to lay in shimmering bronze puddles on the water. Seven small boats were sailing in formation, snaking across the sheltered water toward the open sea. The evening was drenched in that peculiar California light that is perfectly clear but that seems at the same time to have considerable substance, as if you were looking at the world through countless sheets of expensive, highly polished crystal.
At that moment the harbor seemed to be the safest and most welcoming place on earth, but Colin was cursed with the ability to see how it would change for the worse in just an hour or two. In his mind he could picture it at night—the crowds gone, the shops closed, and no light but that from a few wharf lamps. In the late hours the only sound would be the voice of the night: the continuous lapping of the sea at the dark pilings, the creaking of moored boats, the sinister rustling of wings as the gulls settled down to sleep, and that ever-present undercurrent of demonic whispers that most people could not hear. He knew that evil would creep in with the dying of the light. In the lonely shadows, something hideous would rise out of the water and snatch away the unwary passerby; something slimy and scaly; something with awful, insatiable hungers; something with razor teeth and powerful jaws that could tear a man apart.
Unable to shake that horror-movie image, Colin suddenly found that he could no longer enjoy the beauty around him. It was as if he were looking at a pretty girl and, against his will, seeing within her the rotting corpse that she would eventually become.
Sometimes he wondered
if he were crazy.
Sometimes he hated himself.
“It’s eight o‘clock,” Roy said.
“Where we going?”
“Just follow me.”
With Roy in the lead, they cycled all the way to the eastern end of Central Avenue, then continued east on Santa Leona Road. In the hills beyond town, they turned onto a narrow dirt lane, followed it down one flank of a shallow glen and up the other. On both sides of the dusty track, wildflowers shone like blue and red flames in the tall, dry grass.
Sunset was nearly upon them; and this close to the sea, the twilight hour was more like fifteen minutes. Night would swiftly lay claim to the land. Wherever they were going, they would have to come back in the dark. And Colin didn’t like that.
On high ground again, they rounded a curve that lay in shadows cast by several eucalyptus trees. The land ended fifty yards beyond the curve, in the middle of an automobile graveyard.
“Hermit Hobson’s place,” Roy said.
“Who’s he?”
“Used to live here.”
A one-story clapboard building, more shack than house, overlooked two hundred or more decaying automobiles that were strewn across a few acres of the grassy hilltop.
They parked their bicycles in front of the shack.
“Why’s he called ‘Hermit’?” Colin asked.
“Because that’s what he was. He lived all alone out here, and he didn’t like people.”
A four-inch, blue-green lizard slithered onto a sagging porch step and halfway across the breadth of it, then froze, rolling one milky eye at the boys.
“What’re all these cars for?” Colin asked.
“When he first moved in, that’s how he supported himself. He bought up cars that had been in real bad accidents and sold spare parts.”
“You can make a living that way?”
“Well, he didn’t want much.”
“I can see that.”
The lizard came off the step, onto a patch of hard, dry earth. It was still watchful.
“Later on,” Roy said, “old Hermit Hobson inherited some money.”
“He was rich?”
“No. He got just enough so he could keep on living here without the spare-parts business. After that he saw other people just once a month, when he came to town for supplies.”