by Dean Koontz
He blinks back his tears and says, “What can I do for you, son?”
“I’ve been up awhile, need to stay awake awhile longer. I figure anyplace truckers stop must sell caffeine tablets.”
“I’ve got NoDoz in the gum-and-candy case. Or in the vendin’ machine, there’s high-octane stuff like Red Bull or Mountain Dew, or that new energy drink called Kick-Ass.”
“They really named it Kick-Ass?”
“Aren’t no standards anymore, anywhere, in anythin’. If they thought it would sell better, they’d call the stuff Good Shit. Excuse my language.”
“No problem, sir. I’ll take a package of NoDoz.”
Leading me through the garage to the station office, Donny says, “Our seven-year-old, he learned about sex from some Saturday-mornin’ cartoon show. Out of nowhere one day, Ricky he says he don’t want to be either straight or gay, it’s all disgustin’. We unplugged our satellite dish. No standards anymore. Now Ricky he watches all them old Disney and Warner Brothers toons on DVD. You never have to worry if maybe Bugs Bunny is goin’ to get it on with Daffy Duck.”
In addition to the NoDoz, I purchase two candy bars. “Does the vending machine accept dollars or do I need change?”
“It takes bills just fine,” Donny says. “Young as you look, you can’t have been drivin’ a rig long.”
“I’m not a trucker, sir. I’m an out-of-work fry cook.”
Donny follows me outside, where I get a can of Mountain Dew from the vending machine. “My Denise, she’s a fry cook over to the diner. You got yourself your own private language.”
“Who does?”
“You fry cooks.” The two sections of his scar become misaligned when he grins, as if his face is coming apart like a piece of dropped crockery. “Two cows, make ’em cry, give ’em blankets, and mate ’em with pigs.”
“Diner lingo. That’s a waitress calling out an order for two hamburgers with onions, cheese, and bacon.”
“That stuff tickles me,” he says, and indeed he looks tickled. “Where you been a fry cook—when you had work, I mean?”
“Well, sir, I’ve been bouncing around all over.”
“It must be nice seein’ new places. Haven’t seen no new place in a long time. Sure would like to take Denise somewhere fresh. Just the two of us.” His eyes fill with tears again. He must be the most sentimental auto mechanic on the West Coast. “Just the two of us,” he repeats, and under the tenderness in his voice, which any mention of his wife seems to evoke, I hear a note of desperation.
“I guess with children it’s hard to get away, just you two.”
“There’s never no gettin’ away. No way, no how.”
Maybe I’m imagining more in his eyes than is really there, but I suspect that these latest unshed tears are as bitter as they are salty.
When I wash down a pair of NoDoz with the soda, he says, “You jolt your system like this a lot?”
“Not a lot.”
“You do too much of this, son, you’ll give yourself a for-sure bleedin’ ulcer. Too much caffeine eats away the stomach linin’.”
I tilt my head back and drain the too-sweet soda in a few long swallows.
When I drop the empty can in a nearby trash barrel, Donny says, “What’s your name, boy?”
The voice is the same, but the tone is different. His affability is gone. When I meet his eyes, they’re still blue, but they have a steely quality that I have not seen before, a new directness.
Sometimes an unlikely story can seem too unlikely to be a lie, and therefore it allays suspicion. So I decide on: “Potter. Harry Potter.”
His stare is as sharp as the stylus on a polygraph. “That sounds as real as if you’d said ‘Bond. James Bond.’ ”
“Well, sir, it’s the name I’ve got. I always liked it until the books and movies. About the thousandth time someone asked me if I was really a wizard, I started wishing my name was just about anything else, like Lex Luthor or something.”
Donny’s friendliness and folksy manner have for a moment made Harmony Corner seem almost as benign as Pooh Corner. But now the air smells less of the salty sea than of decaying seaweed, the pump-island glare seems as harsh as the lights of an interrogation room in a police station, and when I look up at the sky, I cannot find Cassiopeia or any constellation that I know, as if Earth has turned away from all that is familiar and comforting.
“So if you’re not a wizard, Harry, what line of work do you claim to be in?”
Not only is his tone different, but also his diction. And he seems to have developed a problem with his short-term memory.
Perhaps he registers my surprise and correctly surmises the cause of it, because he says, “Yeah, I know what you said, but I suspect that’s not the half of it.”
“Sorry, but fry cook is the whole of it, sir. I’m not a guy of many talents.”
His eyes narrow with suspicion. “Eggs—wreck ’em and stretch ’em. Cardiac shingles.”
I translate as before. “Serving three eggs instead of two is stretching them. Wrecking them means scrambling. Cardiac shingles are toast with extra butter.”
With his eyes squinted to slits, Donny reminds me of Clint Eastwood, if Clint Eastwood were eight inches shorter, thirty pounds heavier, less good-looking, with male-pattern baldness, and badly scarred.
He makes a simple statement sound like a threat: “Harmony doesn’t need another short-order cook.”
“I’m not applying for a job, sir.”
“What are you doing here, Harry Potter?”
“Seeking the meaning of my life.”
“Maybe your life doesn’t have any meaning.”
“I’m pretty sure it does.”
“Life is meaningless. Every life.”
“Maybe that works for you. It doesn’t work for me.”
He clears his throat with a noise that makes me wonder if he indulges in unconventional personal grooming habits and has a nasty hairball stuck in his esophagus. When he spits, a disgusting wad of mucus splatters the pavement, two inches from my right shoe, which no doubt was his intended target.
“Life is meaningless except in your case. Is that it, Harry? You’re better than the rest of us, huh?”
His face tightens with inexplicable anger. Gentle, sentimental Donny has morphed into Donny the Hun, descendant of Attila, who seems capable of sudden mindless violence.
“Not better, sir. Probably worse than a lot of people. Anyway, it isn’t a matter of better or worse. I’m just different. Sort of like a porpoise, which looks like a fish and swims like a fish but isn’t a fish because it’s a mammal and because no one wants to eat it with a side of chips. Or maybe like a prairie dog, which everyone calls a dog but isn’t really a dog at all. It looks like maybe a chubby squirrel, but it isn’t a squirrel, either, because it lives in tunnels, not in trees, and it hibernates in the winter but it isn’t a bear. A prairie dog wouldn’t say it was better than real dogs or better than squirrels or bears, just different like a porpoise is different, but of course it’s nothing like a porpoise, either. So I think I’ll go back to my cottage and eat my candy bars and think about porpoises and prairie dogs until I can express this analogy more clearly.”
Sometimes, if I pretend to be an airhead and a bit screwy, I can convince a bad guy that I’m no threat to him and that I’m not worth the waste of time and energy he would have to expend to do bad things to me. On other occasions, my pretense infuriates them. Walking away, I half expect to be clubbed to the ground with a tire iron.
THREE
The door to Cottage 6 opens as I approach it, but no one appears on the threshold.
When I step inside, closing the door behind me, I find Annamaria on her knees, brushing the golden retriever’s teeth.
She says, “Blossom once had a dog. She put an extra toothbrush in the hamper for Raphael, and a tube of liver-flavored toothpaste.”
The golden sits with head lifted, remarkably patient, letting Annamaria lift his flews to expose his teeth,
refraining from licking the paste off the brush before it can be put to work. He rolls his eyes at me, as if to say This is annoying, but she means well.
“Ma’am, I wish you’d keep your door locked.”
“It’s locked when it’s closed.”
“It keeps drifting open.”
“Only for you.”
“Why does that happen?”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“I ought to have asked—how does that happen?”
“Yes, that would have been the better question.”
The liver-flavored toothpaste has precipitated significant doggy drool. Annamaria pauses in the brushing and uses a hand towel to rub dry the soaked fur on Raphael’s jaws and chin.
“Before I went snooping, I should have warned you not to watch television. That’s why I came back. To warn you.”
“I’m aware of what’s on TV, young man. I’d as soon set myself on fire as watch most of it.”
“Don’t even watch the good stuff. Don’t switch it on. I think television is a pathway.”
As she squeezes more toothpaste onto the brush, she says, “Pathway for what?”
“That’s an excellent question. When I have an answer, I’ll know why I’ve been drawn to Harmony Corner. So how does the door open just for me?”
“What door?”
“This door.”
“That door is closed.”
“Yes, I just closed it.”
“You lovely boy, pull your tongue in,” she instructs the dog, because he’s been letting it loll.
Raphael pulls in his tongue, and she sets to work on his front teeth as just the tip of his tail wags.
The caffeine has not yet begun to kick in, and I have no more energy to pursue the issue of the door. “Up at the service station, there’s this mechanic named Donny. He has two personalities, and the second one is likely to use a lug wrench in ways its manufacturer never intended. If he comes knocking at your door, don’t let him in.”
“I don’t intend to let anyone in but you.”
“That waitress you spoke to when you rented the cottages—”
“Holly Harmony.”
“Was she … normal?”
“She was lovely, friendly, and efficient.”
“She didn’t do anything strange?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Like … she didn’t pluck a fly out of the air and eat it or anything?”
“What a curious thing to ask.”
“Did she?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Did she keep almost breaking into tears?”
“Not at all. She had the sweetest smile.”
“Maybe she smiled too much?”
“It isn’t possible to smile too much, odd one.”
“Did you ever see the Joker in Batman?”
Finished with Raphael’s dental hygiene, Annamaria puts the toothbrush aside and uses the hand towel to mop his face once more. The retriever grins like the Joker.
As she picks up a grooming comb and begins to work on Raphael’s silky coat, she says, “The little finger on her right hand ended between the second and third knuckles.”
“Who? The waitress? Holly? You said she was normal.”
“There’s nothing abnormal about losing part of a finger in an accident. It’s not in the same category as eating a fly.”
“Did you ask her how it happened?”
“Of course not. That would have been rude. The little finger on her left hand ends between the first and second knuckles. It’s just a stump.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Two chopped little fingers is definitely abnormal.”
“Both injuries could have happened in the same accident.”
“Yeah, of course, you’re right. She could have been juggling a meat cleaver in each hand when she fell off the unicycle.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, young man.”
I don’t know why her mild disapproval stings, but it does.
As though he understands that I have been gently reprimanded, Raphael stops grinning. He favors me with a stern look, as though he suspects that if I’m capable of being sarcastic with Annamaria, I might be the kind of guy who sneaks biscuits from the dog-treat jar and eats them himself.
I say, “Donny the mechanic has a huge scar across his face.”
“Did you ask him how it happened?” Annamaria inquires.
“I would have, but then Sweet Donny became Angry Donny, and I thought if I asked, he might demonstrate on my face.”
“Well, I’m pleased that you’re making progress.”
“If this is the rate of progress I can expect, we better rent the cottages by the year.”
As she makes long, easy strokes with the comb, the teeth snare loose hairs from the dog’s glorious coat. “You haven’t already stopped snooping for the night, have you?”
“No, ma’am. I’ve just begun to snoop.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll get to the truth of things shortly.”
Raphael decides to forgive me. He grins at me once more, and in response to the tender grooming that he’s receiving, he lets out a sound of pure bliss—part sigh, part purr, part whimper of delight.
“You sure do have a way with dogs, ma’am.”
“If they know you love them, you’ll always have their trust and devotion.”
Her words remind me of Stormy, the way we were with each other, our love and trust and devotion. I say, “People are like that, too.”
“Some people. Generally speaking, however, people are more problematic than dogs.”
“The bad ones, of course.”
“The bad ones, the ones adrift between good and bad, and some of the good ones. Even being loved profoundly and forever doesn’t necessarily inspire devotion in them.”
“That’s something to think about.”
“I’m sure you’ve thought about it often, Oddie.”
“Well, I’m off to snoop some more,” I declare, turning toward the door, but then I don’t move.
After combing the long, lush fringe of fur on the dog’s left foreleg, which retriever aficionados call feathers, Annamaria says, “What is it?”
“The door is closed.”
“To keep out the mercurial mechanic, Donny, about whom you have so effectively warned me.”
“It only opens itself when I’m approaching it from outside.”
“Your point being—what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying.”
I look at Raphael. Raphael looks at Annamaria. Annamaria looks at me. I look at the door. It remains closed.
Finally, I take the knob in hand and open the door.
She says, “I knew you could do it.”
Gazing out at the night-shrouded motor court, where the trees discreetly shiver, I dread the bloodshed that I suspect I will be required to commit. “There’s no real harmony in Harmony Corner.”
She says, “But there’s a corner in it. Make sure you’re not trapped there, young man.”
FOUR
In case I am being watched, I don’t immediately continue my snooping, but return to my cottage and lock the door behind me.
Not many years ago, nearly 100 percent of people who thought they were being constantly watched were certifiable paranoids. But recently it was revealed that, in the name of public safety, Homeland Security and more than a hundred other local, state, and federal agencies are operating aerial surveillance drones of the kind previously used only on foreign battlefields—at low altitudes outside the authority of air-traffic control. Soon, the bigger worry will not be that, as you walk your dog, you are secretly being watched but that the rapidly proliferating drones will begin colliding with one another and with passenger aircraft, and that you’ll be killed by the plummeting drone that was monitoring you to be sure that you picked up Fido’s poop in a federally approved pet-waste bag.
Having returned to my cottage, I consider switching on the TV to a channel running classic mo
vies, to see if Katharine Hepburn or Cary Grant will suggest that I should sleep. But the caffeine will soon pin my eyelids open, and I suspect that I need to be at least on the brink of nodding off before the invader—whoever or whatever it might be—can access me through the television.
I switch off most of the lights, so that from outside it might appear that I’m finished exploring Harmony Corner and am leaving one lamp aglow as a night-light. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I eat a candy bar.
One of the benefits of living in almost constant jeopardy is that I don’t need to worry about things like cholesterol and tooth decay. I’m sure to be killed long before my arteries can be closed by plaque. As for dental cavities, I tend instead to lose my teeth in violent confrontations. Not yet twenty-two, I already have seven teeth that are man-made implants.
I eat the second candy bar. Soon, thanks to all the sugar and caffeine, I should be so wired that I’ll be able to receive the nearest tower-of-power radio broadcast through the titanium pins that lock those seven artificial teeth into my jawbone. I hope it won’t be a greatest-hits station specializing in seventies disco tunes.
I switch off the last lamp, which is on a nightstand.
Beyond the bed, in the back wall of the cottage, one crank-operated casement window offers a view of the night woods. The two panes open inward to provide fresh air, and a screen keeps out moths and other pests. The screen is spring-loaded from the top and easily removed. From outside, I reinstall it with little noise.
The final aspect of my sixth sense is what Stormy called psychic magnetism. If I need to find someone whose whereabouts I do not know, I keep his name at the forefront of my thoughts and his face in my mind’s eye. Then I walk or bicycle, or drive, with no route intended, going where whim takes me, although in fact I am being drawn toward the needed person by an uncanny intuition. Usually within half an hour, often faster, I locate the one I seek.
Psychic magnetism also works—although less well—when I’m searching for an inanimate object, and occasionally even when I’m searching for a place that I can name only by its function. For instance, in this case, wandering behind the arc of cottages and through the moonlit woods, I keep in mind the word lair.
