Odd Thomas Series Books 1-5. Dean Koontz
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Название: Odd Thomas Series Books 1-5
Автор: Dean Koontz
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007518746
isbn:
With the hope of clarifying my recurring dream and understanding the meaning of it, I had researched bowling. I knew a thousand facts about the subject, none of them particularly interesting.
I also rented shoes and played eight or ten games. I am no good at the sport.
Watching me play, Stormy had once said that if I were to become a regular bowler, I would spend far more time in the gutter than would the average alcoholic hobo.
Over sixty million people in the United States go bowling at least once each year. Nine million of them are diehards who belong to bowling leagues and regularly compete in amateur tournaments.
When Stormy and I entered Green Moon Lanes that Tuesday night, a significant percentage of those millions were rolling balls down polished lanes toward more spares than splits, but more splits than strikes. They were laughing, cheering one another, eating nachos, eating chili-cheese fries, drinking beer, and having such a good time that it was difficult to imagine Death choosing this place to harvest a sudden crop of souls.
Difficult but not impossible.
I must have been pale, because Stormy said, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Okay. I’m good.”
The low thunder of rolling balls and the clatter of tenpins had never previously struck me as fearsome sounds; but this irregular series of rumbles and crashes strummed my nerves.
“What now?” Stormy asked.
“Good question. No answer.”
“You want to just wander around, scope the scene, see if you get any bad vibes?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Scope the scene. Bad vibes.”
We didn’t wander far before I saw something that made my mouth go dry. “Oh, my God.”
The guy behind the shoe-rental counter had not come to work in the usual black slacks and blue cotton shirt with white collar. He wore tan slacks and a green polo shirt, like the dead people in my bowling dream.
Stormy turned, surveying the long busy room, and pointed toward two additional employees. “They’ve all gotten new uniforms.”
Like every nightmare, this one of mine was vivid and yet not rich in detail, more surreal than real, not specific as to place or time or circumstances. The faces of the murder victims were twisted in agony, distorted by terror and shadow and strange light, and when I woke, I could never describe them well.
Except for one young woman. She would be shot in the chest and throat, but her face would remain remarkably untouched by violence. She would have shaggy blond hair, green eyes, and a small beauty mark on her upper lip, near the left corner of her mouth.
As Stormy and I proceeded farther into Green Moon Lanes, I saw the blonde from the dream. She stood behind the bar, drawing draft beer from one of the taps.
STORMY AND I SAT AT A TABLE IN THE BAR alcove, but we didn’t order drinks. I was already half drunk with fear.
I wanted to get her out of the bowling alley. She didn’t want to leave.
“We’ve got to deal with this situation,” she insisted.
The only way that I could deal with it was to phone Chief Wyatt Porter and tell him, with little explanation, that when Bob Robertson had his coming-out party to celebrate his status as a full-fledged murderous psychopath, the site of his debutante ball was likely to be Green Moon Lanes.
For a man tired from a day of hard work, bloated with barbecue and beer, and ready for bed, the chief responded with admirable quickness and clarity of mind. “How late are they open?”
Phone to my right ear, finger in my left ear to block the alley noise, I said, “I think until midnight, sir.”
“A little more than two hours. I’ll dispatch an officer right now, have him stand security, be on the lookout for Robertson. But, son, you said this might go down August fifteenth—tomorrow, not today.”
“That’s the date on the calendar page in his file. I’m not sure what it means. I won’t be certain it couldn’t happen today until today is over and he hasn’t shot anyone.”
“Any of these things you call bodachs there?”
“No, sir. But they could show up when he does.”
“He hasn’t returned home to Camp’s End yet,” the chief said, “so he’s out and about. How were the churros?”
“Delicious,” I told him.
“After the barbecue, we had a difficult choice between mud pie and homemade peach pie. I thought it through carefully and had some of both.”
“If ever I had a glimpse of Heaven, sir, it was a slice of Mrs. Porter’s peach pie.”
“I’d have married her for the peach pie alone, but fortunately she was smart and beautiful, too.”
We said good-bye. I clipped the cell phone to my belt and told Stormy we needed to get out of there.
She shook her head. “Wait. If the blond bartender isn’t here, the shooting won’t happen.” She kept her voice low, leaning close to be heard over the clash and clatter of bowlers bowling. “So somehow we get her to leave.”
“No. A premonition in a dream isn’t in every detail a picture of exactly what will happen. She could be home safe, and the shooter could show up here anyway.”
“But at least she will have been saved. One less victim.”
“Except that somebody else who wouldn’t have died might be shot in her place. Like the bartender who replaces her. Or me. Or you.”
“Might be.”
“Yes, might be, but how can I save one if there’s a likelihood that it means condemning another?”
Three or four bowling balls slammed into pin setups in quick succession. The racket sounded a little like automatic gunfire, and though I knew it wasn’t gunfire, I twitched anyway.
I said, “I’ve got no right to decide that someone else should die in her place.”
Prophetic dreams—and the complex moral choices they present—come to me only rarely. I’m grateful for that.
“Besides,” I said, “what’s her reaction going to be if I walk over to the bar and tell her she’s going to be shot to death if she doesn’t get out of here.”
“She’ll think you’re eccentric or dangerous, but she might go.”
“She won’t. She’ll stay there. She won’t want to jeopardize her job. She won’t want СКАЧАТЬ