WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

worked for them. In the age of the microchip, Johnny said, the world was one

small town, and you could sit in San Clemente—or Oshkosh— and pick someone’s

pocket in New York City.

Johnny dropped into a high-backed black leather chair equipped with rubber

wheels, in which he could roll swiftly from one computer to the next. He said,

“So! What can the Silicon Sorcerer do for you, Vince?”

“Can you tap into police computers?”

“It’s a snap.”

“I need to know if, since last Tuesday, any police agency in the county has

opened a file on any particularly strange murders.”

“Who’re the victims?”

“I don’t know. I’m just looking for strange murders.”

“Strange in what way?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Maybe . . . somebody with his throat torn out. Somebody

ripped to pieces. Somebody all chewed up and gouged by an animal.”

Johnny gave him a peculiar look. “That’s strange, all right. Something like that

would be in the newspapers.”

“Maybe not,” Vince said, thinking of the army of government security agents that

would be working diligently to keep the press in the dark about the Francis

Project and to conceal the dangerous developments on Tuesday at the Banodyne

labs. “The murders might be in the news, but the police will probably be

suppressing the gory details, making them look like ordinary homicides. So from

what the papers print, I won’t be able to tell which victims are the ones I’m

interested in.”

“All right. Can do.”

“You’d also better prowl around at the County Animal Control Authority to see if

they’re getting any reports of unusual attacks by coyotes or cougars or other

predators. And not just attacks on people, but on livestock—cows, sheep. There

might even be some neighborhood, probably on the eastern

edge of the county, where a lot of family pets are disappearing or being chewed

up real bad by something wild. If you run across that, I want to know.”

Johnny grinned and said, “You tracking down a werewolf?”

It was a joke; he did not expect or want an answer. He had not asked why this

information was needed, and he would never ask, because people in their line of

work did not poke into each other’s business. Johnny might be curious, but Vince

knew that The Wire would never indulge his curiosity.

Vince was unnerved not by the question but by the grin. The green light from the

computer screens was reflected by Johnny’s eyes and by the saliva on his teeth

and, to a lesser extent, by his wiry copper-colored hair. As ugly as he was to

begin with, the eerie luminescence made him look like a revived corpse in a

Romero film.

Vince said, “Another thing. I need to know if any police agency in the county is

running a quiet search for a golden retriever.”

“A dog?”

“Yeah.”

“Cops don’t usually look for lost dogs.”

“I know,” Vince said.

“This dog got a name?”

“No name.”

“I’ll check it out. Anything else?”

“That’s it. When can you put it together?”

“I’ll call you in the morning. Early.”

Vince nodded. “And depending on what you turn up, I might need you to keep

tracking these things on a daily basis.”

“Child’s play,” Johnny said, spinning around once in his black leather chair,

then jumping to his feet with a grin. “Now, I’m gonna fuck Samantha. Hey! You

want to join in? Two studs like us, going at her at the same time, we could

reduce that bitch to a little pile of jelly, have her begging for mercy. How

about it?”

Vince was glad for the weird green lighting because it covered the fact that he

had gone ghost-pale. The idea of messing around with that infected slut, that

diseased whore, that rotting and festering round-heeled pump, was enough to make

him sick. He said, “Got an appointment I can’t break.”

“Too bad,” Johnny said.

Vince forced himself to say, “Would’ve been fun.”

“Maybe next time.”

The very idea of the three of them going at it . . . well, it made Vince feel

unclean. He was overcome by a desire for a steaming-hot shower.

6

Sunday night, pleasantly tired from a long day in Solvang, Travis thought he

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 *