Mr. Murder

by Dean Koontz

  “Yeah.”

  When he pays the bill, he realizes the three hundred bucks in his wallet—the amount of cash he always has with him on a job—will not take him far. He can no longer use the phony credit cards, of which he still has two, because someone will surely be able to track him through his purchases. He will need to pay cash from now on.

  He takes the three large bags of supplies to the Honda and returns to the store with the Heckler & Koch P7. He shoots the clerk once in the head and empties the register, but all he gets is his own money back plus fifty dollars. Better than nothing.

  At an Arco service station, he fills the tank of the Honda with gasoline and buys a map of the United States.

  Parked at the edge of the Arco lot, under a sodium-vapor light that colors everything sickly yellow, he eats Slim Jims. He’s ravenous.

  By the time he switches from sausages to doughnuts, he begins to study the map. He could continue westward on Interstate 70—or instead head southwest on the Kansas Turnpike to Wichita, keep going to Oklahoma City, and then turn directly west again on Interstate 40.

  He is not accustomed to having choices. He usually does what he is . . . programmed to do. Now, faced with alternatives, he finds decision-making unexpectedly difficult. He sits irresolute, increasingly nervous, in danger of being paralyzed by indecision.

  At last he gets out of the Honda and stands in the cool night air, seeking guidance.

  The wind vibrates the telephone wires overhead—a haunting sound, as thin and bleak as the frightened crying of dead children wandering in a dark Beyond.

  He turns westward as inexorably as a compass needle seeks magnetic north. The attraction feels psychic, as if a presence out there calls to him, but the connection is less sophisticated than that, more biological, reverberating in his blood and marrow.

  Behind the wheel of the car again, he finds the Kansas Turnpike and heads toward Wichita. He is still not sleepy. If he has to, he can go two or even three nights without sleep and lose none of his mental or physical edge, which is only one of his special strengths. He is so excited by the prospect of being someone that he might drive nonstop until he finds his destiny.

  13

  Paige knew that Marty half expected to be stricken by another blackout, this time in public, so she admired his ability to maintain a carefree facade. He seemed as lighthearted as the kids.

  From the girls’ point of view, Sunday was a perfect day.

  Late-morning, Paige and Marty took them to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dana Point for the Thanksgiving-weekend brunch. It was a place they went only on special occasions.

  As always, Emily and Charlotte were enchanted by the lushly landscaped grounds, beautiful public rooms, and impeccable staff in crisp uniforms. In their best dresses, with ribbons in their hair, the girls had great fun playing at being cultured young ladies—almost as much fun as raiding the dessert buffet twice each.

  In the afternoon, because it was unseasonably warm, they changed clothes and visited Irvine Park. They walked the picturesque trails, fed the ducks in the pond, and toured the small zoo.

  Charlotte loved the zoo because the animals were, like her menagerie at home, kept in enclosures where they were safe from harm. There were no exotic specimens—all the animals were indigenous to the region—but in her typical exuberance, Charlotte found each to be the most interesting and cutest creature she had ever seen.

  Emily got into a staring contest with a wolf. Large, amber-eyed, with a lustrous silver-gray coat, the predator met and intensely held the girl’s gaze from his side of a chain-link fence.

  “If you look away first,” Emily calmly and somberly informed them, “then a wolf will just eat you all up.”

  The confrontation went on so long that Paige became uneasy in spite of the sturdy fence. Then the wolf lowered his head, sniffed the ground, yawned elaborately to show he had not been intimidated but had merely lost interest, and sauntered away.

  “If he couldn’t get the three little pigs with all his huffing and puffing,” Emily said, “then I knew he couldn’t get me, ’cause I’m smarter than pigs.”

  She was referring to the Disney cartoon, the only version of the fairy tale with which she was familiar.

  Paige resolved never to let her read the Brothers Grimm version, which was about seven little goats instead of three pigs. The wolf swallowed six of them whole. They were saved from digestion at the last minute when their mother cut open the wolf’s belly to pull them from his steaming innards.

  Paige glanced back at the wolf as they walked away. It was watching Emily again.

  14

  Sunday is a full day for the killer.

  In Wichita, just before dawn, he gets off the turnpike. In another residential neighborhood rather like the one in Topeka, he swaps the license plates on the Honda for those on a Chevy, making his stolen vehicle more difficult to locate.

  Shortly after nine Sunday morning he arrives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where he stops long enough to fill the tank with gasoline.

  A shopping mall is across the road from the service station. In one corner of the huge deserted parking lot stands an unmanned Goodwill Industries collection box, as large as a garden shed. After tanking up, he leaves his suitcases and their contents with Goodwill. He keeps only the clothes he’s wearing and the pistol.

  During the night, on the highway, he had time to think about his peculiar existence—and to wonder if he might be carrying a compact transmitter that would help his superiors locate him. Perhaps they anticipated that one day he would go renegade on them.

  He knows that a moderately powerful transmitter, operating off a tiny battery, can be hidden in an extremely small space. Such as the walls of a suitcase.

  As he turns directly west on Interstate 40, a coal-dark sludge of clouds seeps across the sky. Forty minutes later, when the rain comes, it is molten silver, and it instantly washes all of the color out of the vast empty land that flanks the highway. The world is twenty, forty, a hundred shades of gray, without even lightning to relieve the oppressive dreariness.

  The monochromatic landscape provides no distraction, so he has time to worry further about the faceless hunters who might be close behind him. Is it paranoid to wonder if a transmitter could be woven into his clothing? He doubts it could be concealed in the material of his pants, shirt, sweater, underwear, or socks without being detectable by its very weight or upon casual inspection. Which leaves his shoes and leather jacket.

  He rules out the pistol. They wouldn’t build anything into the P7 that might interfere with its function. Besides, he was expected to discard it soon after the murders for which it was provided.

  Halfway between Oklahoma City and Amarillo, east of the Texas border, he pulls off the interstate into a rest area, where ten cars, two big trucks, and two motorhomes have taken refuge from the storm.

  In a surrounding grove of evergreens, the boughs of the trees droop as if sodden with rain, and they appear charcoal gray instead of green. The large pinecones are tumorous and strange.

  A squat block building houses restrooms. He hurries through the cold downpour to the men’s facilities.

  While the killer is at the first of three urinals, rain drumming loudly on the metal roof and the humid air heavy with the limy smell of damp concrete, a man in his early sixties enters. At a glance: thick white hair, deeply seamed face, bulbous nose patterned with broken capillaries. He goes to the third of the urinals.

  “Some storm, huh?” the stranger says.

  “A real rat drowner,” the killer answers, having heard that phrase in a movie.

  “Hope it blows over soon.”

  The killer notices that the older man is about his height and build. As he zips up his pants, he says, “Where you headed?”

  “Right now, Las Vegas, but then somewhere else and somewhere else after that. Me and the wife, we’re retired, we pretty much live in that motorhome. Always wanted to see the country, and we sure in blue blazes are seeing it now. No
thing like life on the road, new sights every day, pure freedom.”

  “Sounds great.”

  At the sink, washing his hands, the killer stalls, wondering if he dares take the jabbering old fool right now, jam the body in a toilet stall. But with all the people in the parking lot, somebody might walk in unexpectedly.

  Closing his fly, the stranger says, “Only problem is, Frannie—that’s my wife—she hates for me to drive in the rain. Anything more than the tiniest drizzle, she wants to pull over and wait it out.” He sighs. “This won’t be a day we make a lot of miles.”

  The killer dries his hands under a hot-air machine. “Well, Vegas isn’t going anywhere.”

  “True. Even when the good Lord comes on Judgment Day, there’ll be blackjack tables open.”

  “Hope you break the bank,” the killer says, and leaves as the older man goes to the sink.

  In the Honda again, wet and shivering, he starts the engine and turns on the heater. But he doesn’t put the car in gear.

  Three motorhomes are parked in the deep spaces along the curb.

  A minute later, Frannie’s husband comes out of the men’s room. Through the rippling rain on the windshield, the killer watches the white-haired man sprint to a large silver-and-blue Road King, which he enters through the driver’s door at the front. Painted on the door is the outline of a heart, and in the heart are two names in fancy script: Jack and Frannie.

  Luck is not with Jack, the Vegas-bound retiree. The Road King is only four spaces away from the Honda, and this proximity makes it easier for the killer to do what must be done.

  The sky is purging itself of an entire ocean. The water falls straight down through the windless day, continuously shattering the mirrorlike puddles on the blacktop, gushing along the gutters in seemingly endless torrents.

  Cars and trucks come in off the highway, park for a while, leave, and are replaced by new vehicles that pull in between the Honda and the Road King.

  He is patient. Patience is part of his training.

  The engine of the motorhome is idling. Crystallized exhaust plumes rise from the twin tail pipes. Warm amber light glows at the curtained windows along the side.

  He envies their comfortable home on wheels, which looks cozier than any home he can yet hope to have. He also envies their long marriage. What would it be like to have a wife? How would it feel to be a beloved husband?

  After forty minutes, the rain still isn’t easing off, but a flock of cars leaves. The Honda is the only vehicle parked on the driver’s side of the Road King.

  Taking the pistol, he gets out of the car and walks quickly to the motorhome, watching the side windows in case Frannie or Jack parts the curtains and peers out at this most inopportune moment.

  He glances toward the restrooms. No one in sight.

  Perfect.

  He grips the cold chrome door handle. The lock isn’t engaged. He scrambles inside, up the steps, and looks over the driver’s seat.

  The kitchen is immediately behind the open cab, a dining nook beyond the kitchen, then the living room. Frannie and Jack are in the nook, eating, the woman with her back toward the killer.

  Jack sees him first, starts simultaneously to rise and slide out of the narrow booth, and Frannie looks back over her shoulder, more curious than alarmed. The first two rounds take Jack in the chest and throat. He collapses over the table. Spattered with blood, Frannie opens her mouth to scream, but the third hollow-point round drastically reshapes her skull.

  The silencer is attached to the muzzle, but it isn’t effective any more. The baffles have been compressed. The sound accompanying each shot is only slightly quieter than regular gunfire.

  The killer pulls the driver’s door shut behind him. He looks out at the sidewalk, the rainswept picnic area, the restrooms. No one in sight.

  He climbs over the gear-shift console, into the passenger’s seat, and peers out the front window on that side. Only four other vehicles share the parking lot. The nearest is a Mack truck, and the driver must be in the men’s room because no one is in the cab.

  It’s unlikely that anyone could have heard the shots. The roar of the rain provides ideal cover.

  He swivels the command chair around, gets up, and walks back through the motorhome. He stops at the dead couple, touches Jack’s back . . . then Frannie’s left hand, which lies on the table in a puddle of blood beside her lunch plate.

  “Goodbye,” he says softly, wishing he could take more time to share this special moment with them.

  Having come this far, however, he is nearly frantic to exchange his clothes for those of Frannie’s husband and get on the road again. He has convinced himself that a transmitter is, indeed, concealed in the rubber heels of his Rockport shoes, and that its signal is even now leading dangerous people to him.

  Beyond the living room is a bathroom, a large closet crammed with Frannie’s clothes, and a bedroom with a smaller closet filled with Jack’s wardrobe. In less than three minutes he strips naked and dresses in new underwear, white athletic socks, jeans, a red-and-brown-checkered shirt, a pair of battered sneakers, and a brown leather jacket to replace his black one. The inseam of the pants is just right; the waist is two inches too big, but he cinches it in with a belt. The shoes are slightly loose though wearable, and the shirt and jacket fit perfectly.

  He carries the Rockport shoes into the kitchen. To confirm his suspicion, he takes a serrated bread knife from a drawer and saws off several thin layers of the rubber heel on one shoe until he discovers a shallow cavity packed tightly with electronics. A miniaturized transmitter is connected to a series of watch batteries that seems to extend all the way around the heel and perhaps the sole as well.

  Not paranoid after all.

  They’re coming.

  Abandoning the shoes in a litter of rubber shavings on the kitchen counter, he urgently searches Jack’s body and takes the money out of the old man’s wallet. Sixty-two bucks. He searches for Frannie’s purse, finds it in the bedroom. Forty-nine dollars.

  When he leaves the motorhome, the mottled gray-black sky is convex, bent low with the weight of the thunder-heads. Rain by the megaton batters the earth.

  Coils of fog serpentine among the trunks of the pine trees and seem to be reaching for him as he splashes to the Honda.

  On the interstate again, speeding through the perpetual twilight beneath the storm, he turns the car heater to its highest setting and soon crosses the state line into Texas, where the flat land becomes impossibly flatter. Having shed the last of the meager belongings from his old life, he feels liberated. Soaked by the cold rain, he shivers uncontrollably, but he is also trembling with anticipation and excitement.

  His destiny lies somewhere to the west.

  He peels the plastic wrapper off a Slim Jim and eats while he drives. A subtle flavor, threaded through the primary taste of the cured meat, reminds him of the metallic odor of blood in the house in Kansas City, where he left the nameless dead couple in their enormous Georgian bed.

  The killer pushes the Honda as fast as he dares on the rain-slick highway, prepared to kill any cop who pulls him over. Reaching Amarillo, Texas, just after dusk on Sunday evening, he discovers that the Honda is virtually running on empty. He pulls into a truckstop only long enough to tank up, use the bathroom, and buy more food to take with him.

  After Amarillo, rocketing westward into the night, he passes Wildorado, with the New Mexico border ahead, and suddenly he realizes that he is crossing the badlands, in the heart of the Old West, where so many wonderful movies have been set. John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in Red River, Walter Brennan stealing scenes left and right. Rio Bravo. And Shane was set back there in Kansas—wasn’t it?—Jack Palance blowing away Elisha Cook, Jr. decades before Dorothy took the tornado to Oz. Stagecoach, The Gunfighter, True Grit, Destry Rides Again, The Unforgiven, High Plains Drifter, Yellow Sky, so many great movies, not all of them set in Texas but at least in the spirit of Texas, with John Wayne and Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart and C
lint Eastwood, legends, mythical places now made real and waiting out there beyond the highway, obscured by rain and mist and darkness. It was almost possible to believe that those stories were being played out right now, in the frontier towns he was passing, and that he was Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid or some other gunman of an earlier century, a killer but not really a bad guy, misunderstood by society, forced to kill because of what had been done to him, a posse on his trail . . .

  Memories from theater screens and late-night movies on TV—which constitute by far the largest portion of the memories he possesses—flood his troubled mind, soothing him, and for a while he is lost so completely in those fantasies that he pays too little attention to his driving. Gradually he becomes aware that his speed has fallen to forty miles an hour. Trucks and cars explode past him, the wind of their passage buffeting the Honda, splashing dirty water across his windshield, their red taillights swiftly receding into the gloom.

  Assuring himself that his mysterious destiny will prove to be as great as any that John Wayne pursued in films, he accelerates.

  Empty and half-empty packages of food, crumpled and smeary and full of crumbs, are heaped on the passenger seat. They cascade onto the floor, under the dashboard, completely filling the leg space on that side of the car.

  From the litter, he extracts a new box of doughnuts. To wash them down he opens a warmish Pepsi.

  Westward. Steadily westward.

  An identity awaits him. He is going to be someone.

  15

  Later Sunday, at home, after huge bowls of popcorn and two videos, Paige tucked the girls into bed, kissed them goodnight, and retreated to the open doorway to watch Marty as he settled down for that moment of the day he most cherished. Story time.

  He continued with the poem about Santa’s evil twin, and the girls were instantly enraptured.