Koontz, Dean R. - Mr. Murder Read online

  He dresses, and packs his clothes.

  Outside, the motor courtyard and walkways are deserted.

  Faced toward the rooms, cars wait for morning travel. In a nearby

  vending-machine alcove, a soft-drink dispenser clicks-clinks as if

  conducting repairs upon itself. The killer feels as if he is the only

  living creature in a world now run by--and for the benefit of-machines.

  Moments later, he is on Interstate 70, heading toward Topeka, the pistol

  on the seat beside him but covered with a motel towel.

  Something west of Kansas City calls him. He doesn't know what it is,

  but he feels inexorably drawn westward in the way that iron is pulled

  toward a magnet.

  Strange as it might be, none of this alarms him, and he accedes to this

  compulsion to drive west. After all, for as long as he can remember, he

  has gone places without knowing the purpose of his trip until he has

  reached his destination, and he has killed people with no clue as to why

  they have to die or for whom the killing is done.

  He is certain, however, that this sudden departure from Kansas City is

  not expected of him. He is supposed to stay at the motel until morning

  and catch an early flight out to . . . Seattle.

  Perhaps in Seattle he would have received instructions from the bosses

  he cannot recall. But he will never know what might have happened

  because Seattle is now stricken from his itinerary.

  He wonders how much time will pass before his superiors-whatever their

  names and identities--will realize that he has gone renegade. When will

  they start looking for him, and how will they ever find him if he is no

  longer operating within his program?

  At two o'clock in the morning, traffic is light on Interstate 70, mostly

  trucks, and he speeds across Kansas in advance of some of the big rigs

  and in the blustery wakes of others, remembering a movie about Dorothy

  and her dog Toto and a tornado that plucked them out of that flat

  farmland and dropped them in a far stranger place.

  With both Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, behind him,

  the killer realizes he's muttering to himself, "I need, I need." This

  time he feels close to a revelation that will identify the precise

  nature of his longing.

  "I need . . . to be . . . I need to be . . . I need to be . .."

  As the suburbs and finally the dark prairie flash past on both sides,

  excitement builds steadily in him. He trembles on the brink of an

  insight that, he senses, will change his life.

  "I need to be . . . to be . . . I need to be someone." At once, he

  understands the meaning of what he has said. By "to be someone," he

  does not mean what another man might intend to say with those same three

  words, he does not mean that he needs to be someone famous or rich or

  important. Just someone. Someone with a real name. Just an ordinary

  Joe, as they used to say in the movies of the forties.

  Someone who has more substance than a ghost.

  The pull of the unknown lodestar in the west grows stronger by the mile.

  He leans forward slightly, hunching over the steering wheel, peering

  intently into the night.

  Beyond the horizon, in a town he can't yet envision, a life awaits him,

  a place to call home. Family, friends. Somewhere there are shoes into

  which he can step, a past he can wear comfortably, purpose.

  And a future in which he can be like other people accepted.

  The car speeds westward, cleaving the night.

  Half past midnight, on his way to bed, Marty Stillwater stopped by the

  girls' room, eased open the door, and stepped silently across the

  threshold. In the butterscotch-yellow glow of the Mickey Mouse

  nightlight, he could see both of his daughters sleeping peacefully.

  Now and then he liked to watch them for a few minutes while they slept,

  just to convince himself that they were real. He'd had more than his

  share of happiness and prosperity and love, so it followed that some of

  his blessings might prove transitory or even illusory, fate might

  intervene to balance the scales.

  To the ancient Greeks, Fate was personified in the form of three

  sisters, Clotho, who spun the thread of life, Lachesis, who measured the

  length of the thread, and Atropos, smallest of the three but the most

  powerful, who snipped the thread at her whim.

  Sometimes, to Marty, that seemed a logical way to look at things.

  He could imagine the faces of those white-robed women in more detail

  than he could recall his own Mission Viejo neighbors. Clotho had a kind

  face with merry eyes, reminiscent of the actress Angela Lansbury, and

  Lachesis was as cute as Goldie Hawn but with a saintly aura.

  Ridiculous, but that's how he saw them. Atropos was a bitch, beautiful

  but cold--pinched mouth, anthracite-black eyes.

  The trick was to remain in the good graces of the first two sisters

  without drawing the attention of the third.

  Five years ago, in the guise of a blood disorder, Atropos had descended

  from her celestial home to take a whack at the thread of Charlotte's

  life and, thankfully, had failed to cut it all the way through.

  But this goddess answered to many names besides Atropos, cancer,

  cerebral hemorrhage, coronary thrombosis, fire, earthquake, poison,

  homicide, and countless others. Now perhaps she was paying them a

  return visit under one of her many pseudonyms, with Marty as her target

  instead of Charlotte.

  Frequently, the vivid imagination of a novelist was a curse.

  A whirring-clicking noise suddenly arose from the shadows on Charlotte's

  side of the room, startling Marty. As low and menacing as a

  rattlesnake's warning. Then he realized what it was, one half of the

  gerbil's big cage was occupied by an exercise wheel, and the restless

  rodent was running furiously in place.

  "Go to sleep, Wayne," he said softly.

  He took one more look at his girls, then stepped out of the room and

  pulled the door shut quietly behind him.

  He reaches Topeka at three o'clock in the morning.

  He is still drawn toward the western horizon as a migrating creature

  might be pulled relentlessly southward with the approach of winter,

  answering a call that is soundless, a beacon that can't be seen, as

  though it is the trace of iron in his very blood that responds to the

  unknown magnet.

  Exiting the freeway on the outskirts of the city, he scouts for another

  car.

  Somewhere there are people who know the name John Larrington, the

  identity under which he rented the Ford. When he does not show up in

  Seattle for whatever job awaits him, his strange and faceless superiors

  will no doubt come looking for him. He suspects they have substantial

  resources and influence, he must shed every connection with his past and

  leave the hunters with no means of tracking him.

  He parks the rental Ford in a residential neighborhood and walks three

  blocks, trying the doors of the cars at the curb. Only half are locked.

  He is prepared to hot-wire a car if it comes to that, but in a blue

  Honda he finds the keys tucked behind the sun visor.

  After driving back to
the Ford and transferring his suitcases and the

  pistol to the Honda, he cruises in ever-widening circles, searching for

  a twenty-four-hour-a-day convenience store.

  He has no map of Topeka in his head because no one expected him to go

  there. Unnerved to see street signs on which all of the names are

  unfamiliar, he has no knowledge of where any route will lead.

  He feels more of an outcast than ever.

  Within fifteen minutes he locates a convenience store and nearly empties

  the shelves of Slim Jims, cheese crackers, peanuts, miniature doughnuts,

  and other food that will be easy to eat while driving.

  He is already starved. If he is going to be on the road for as much as

  another two days--assuming he might be drawn all the way to the

  coast--he will need considerable supplies. He does not want to waste

  time in restaurants, yet his accelerated metabolism requires him to eat

  larger meals and more frequently than other people eat.

  After adding three six-packs of Pepsi to his purchase, he goes to the

  checkout counter, where the sole clerk says, "You must be having an

  all-night party or something."

  "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.

  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.

  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 extrem
ely 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.