WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

at the receiver in Travis’s hand.

Travis hung up and turned away, but Einstein stood there, gazing at the wall

phone.

“Probably a wrong number.”

Einstein glanced at him, then at the phone again.

“Or kids thinking they’re being clever.”

Einstein whined unhappily.

“What’s eating you?”

Einstein just stood there, riveted by the phone.

With a sigh, Travis said, “Well, I’ve had all the bewilderment I can handle for

one day. If you’re going to wax mysterious, you’ll have to do it without me.”

He wanted to watch the early news before preparing dinner for himself, so he got

a Diet Pepsi from the fridge and went into the living room, leaving the dog in

peculiar communion with the telephone. He switched on the TV, sat in the big

armchair, popped the tab on his Pepsi—and heard Einstein getting into some kind

of trouble in the kitchen.

“What’re you doing out there?”

A clank. A clatter. The sound of claws scrabbling against a hard surface. A

thump, and another.

“Whatever damage you do,” Travis warned, “you’re going to have to pay for. And

how’re you going to earn the bucks? Might have to go up to Alaska and work as a

sled dog.”

The kitchen got quiet. But only for a moment. Then there were a couple of

clunks, a rattle, a rustle, more scrabbling of claws.

Travis was intrigued in spite of himself. He used the remote-control unit to

mute the TV.

Something hit the kitchen floor with a bang.

Travis was about to go see what had happened, but before he rose from the chair,

Einstein appeared. The industrious dog was carrying the telephone directory in

his jaws. He must have leaped repeatedly at the kitchen counter where the book

lay, pawing it, until he pulled it onto the floor. He crossed the living room

and deposited the book in front of the armchair.

“What do you want?” Travis asked.

The dog nudged the directory with his nose, then gazed at Travis expectantly.

“You want me to call someone?”

“Woof.”

“Who?”

Einstein nosed the phone book again.

Travis said, “Now who would you want me to call? Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Old

Yeller?”

The retriever stared at him with those dark, undoglike eyes, which were more

expressive than ever but insufficient to communicate what the animal Wanted.

“Listen, maybe you can read my mind,” Travis said, “but I can’t read yours.”

Whining in frustration, the retriever padded out of the room, disappearing

around the corner into the short hallway that served the bath and two bedrooms.

Travis considered following, but he decided to wait and see what happened next.

In less than a minute, Einstein returned, carrying a gold-framed eight-by-ten

photograph in his mouth. He dropped it beside the phone directory. It was the

picture of Paula that Travis kept on the bedroom dresser. It had been taken on

their wedding day, ten months before she died. She looked beautiful—and

deceptively healthy.

“No good, boy. I can’t call the dead.”

Einstein huffed as if to say Travis was thickheaded. He went to a magazine rack

in the corner, knocked it over, spilling its contents, and came back with an

issue of Time, which he dropped beside the gold-framed photograph. With his

forepaws, he scraped at the magazine, pulling it open and leafing through its

pages, tearing a few in the process.

Moving to the edge of the armchair, leaning forward, Travis watched with

interest.

Einstein paused a couple of times to study the open pages of the magazine, then

continued to paw through it. Finally, he came to an automobile advertisement

that prominently featured a striking brunette model. He looked up at Travis,

down at the ad, up at Travis again, and woofed.

“I don’t get you.”

Pawing the pages again, Einstein found an ad in which a smiling blonde was

holding a cigarette. He snorted at Travis.

“Cars and cigarettes? You want me to buy you a car and a pack of Virginia

Slims?”

After another trip to the overturned magazine rack, Einstein returned with a

copy of a real-estate magazine that still showed up in the mail every month even

though Travis had been out of the racket for two years. The dog pawed through

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

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *