WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

red- and white-checkered tablecloths; garish murals of roman ruins; empty wine

bottles used as candleholders; a thousand bunches of plastic grapes, for God’s

sake, hanging from lattice fixed to the ceiling and meant to convey the

atmosphere of an arbor. Because Californians tend to eat an early dinner, at

least by Eastern standards, they also eat an early lunch, and by ten past one,

the number of diners had already peaked and was declining. By two o’clock, it

was likely that the only customers remaining would be Pantangela, his two

bodyguards, and Vince, which was what made it such a good place for the hit.

The trattoria was too small to bother with a hostess at lunch, and a sign told

guests to seat themselves. Vince walked back through the room, past the

Pantangela party, to an empty booth behind them.

Vince had given a lot of thought to his clothes. He was wearing rope sandals,

red cotton shorts, and a white T-shirt on which were blue waves, a yellow sun,

and the words ANOTHER CALIFORNIA BODY. His aviator sunglasses were mirrored. He

carried an open-topped canvas beach bag that was boldly lettered MY STUFF. If

you glanced in the bag when he walked past, you’d see a tightly rolled towel,

bottles of tanning lotion, a small radio, and a hairbrush,

but you wouldn’t see the fully automatic, silencer-equipped Uzi pistol with a

forty-round magazine hidden in the bottom. With his deep tan to complement the

outfit, he achieved the look he wanted: a very fit but aging surfer; a

leisure-sotted, shiftless, and probably harebrained jerk who would be beaching

it every day, pretending to be young, and still self-intoxicated when he was

sixty.

He only glanced uninterestedly at Pantangela and the marshals, but he was aware

of them giving him the once-over, then dismissing him as harmless. Perfect.

The booths had high padded backs, so from where he sat he could not see

Pantangela. But he could hear the cockroach and the marshals talking now and

then, mostly about baseball and women.

After a week of surveillance, Vince knew that Pantangela never left the

trattoria sooner than two-thirty, usually three o’clock, evidently because he

insisted on an appetizer, a salad, a main course, and dessert, the whole works.

That gave Vince time for a salad and an order of linguini with clam sauce.

His waitress was about twenty, white-blond, pretty, and as deeply tanned as

Vince. She had the hip look and sound of a beach girl, and she started coming on

to him right away, while taking his order. He figured she was one of those sand

nymphs whose brain was as sun-fried as her body. She probably spent every summer

evening on the beach, doing dope of every description, spreading her legs for

any stud who vaguely interested her—and most of them would interest her—which

meant that, no matter how healthy she looked, she was disease-ridden. Just the

idea of humping her made him want to puke, but he had to play out the role he’d

chosen for himself, so he flirted with her and tried to look as if he could

barely keep from drooling at the thought of her naked, writhing body pinned

under him.

At five minutes past two, Vince had finished lunch, and the only other customers

in the place were Pantangela and the two marshals. One of the waitresses had

left for the day, and the other two were in the kitchen. It could not have been

better.

The beach bag was on the booth beside him. He reached into it and withdrew the

Uzi pistol.

Pantangela and the marshals were talking about the Dodgers’ chances of getting

in the World Series.

Vince got up, stepped around to their booth, and sprayed them with twenty to

thirty rounds from the Uzi. The stubby, high-tech silencer worked beautifully,

and the shots sounded like nothing more than a stuttering man having trouble

pronouncing a word that began with a sibilant. It went down so fast that the

marshals didn’t have a chance to reach for their own weapons. They didn’t even

have time to be surprised.

Ssssnap.

Ssssnap.

Ssssnap.

Pantangela and his guardians were dead in three seconds.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230

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