Koontz,Dean - The Face of Fear

The Face of fear

by Dean R.. Koontz

1977

part one

FRIDAY 12:01 A.M. 8:00 P.M.

Wary, not actually expecting trouble but prepared for it, he parked his

car across the street from the four-story brownstone apartment house.

When he switched off the engine, he heard a siren wail in the street

behind him.

They're coming for me, he thought. Somehow they've found out I'm the

one.

He smiled. He wouldn't let them put the handcuffs on him. He wouldn't

go easily. That wasn't his style.

Frank Bollinger was not easily frightened. In fact, he couldn't

remember ever having been frightened. He knew how to take care of

himself. He had reached six feet when he was thirteen years old, and he

hadn't quit growing until he was six-four. He had a thick neck, broad

shoulders and the biceps of a young weightlifter. At thirty-seven he

was in virtually the same good condition, at least outwardly, as he had

been when he was twenty-seven-or even seventeen.

Curiously enough, he never exercised. He had neither the time nor the

temperament for endless series of push-ups and sit-ups and running in

place. His size and his hard-packed muscles were nature's gifts, simply

a matter of genetics. Although he had a voracious appetite and never

dieted, he was not girdled with rings of extra weight in the hips and

stomach, as were most men his age. His doctor had explained to him

that, because he suffered constantly from extreme nervous tension and

because he refused to take the drugs that would bring his condition

under control, he would most likely die young of hypertension. Strain,

anxiety, nervous tension-these were what kept the weight off him, said

the doctor. Wound tight, roaring inside like a perpetually accelerating

engine, he burned away the fat, regardless of how much he ate.

But Bollinger found that he could agree with only half of that

diagnosis. Nervous: no. Tension: yes. He was never nervous; that word

had no meaning for him. However, he was always tense. He strove for

tension, worked at building it, for he thought of it as a survival

factor. He was always watchful. Always aware. Always tense. Always

ready. Ready for anything. That was why there was nothing that he

feared: nothing on earth could surprise him.

As the siren grew louder, he glanced at the rear-view mirror. A bit

more than a block away, a revolving red light pulsed in the night.

He took the .38 revolver out of his shoulder holster. He put one hand

on the door and waited for the right moment to throw it open.

The squad car bore down on him-then swept past. It turned the corner

two blocks away.

They weren't on his trail after all.

He felt slightly disappointed.

He put the gun away and studied the street. Six mercury vapor street

lamps-two at each end of the block and two in the middle-drenched the

pavement and the automobiles and the buildings in an eerie purple-white

light. The street was lined with three- and four-story townhouses, some

of them brownstones and some brick, most of them in good repair. There

didn't seem to be anyone at any of the lighted windows. That was good;

he did not want to be seen. A few trees struggled for life at the edges

of the sidewalks, the scrawny plane trees and maples and birches that

were all that New York City could boast beyond the boundaries of its

public parks, all of them stunted trees, skeletal, their branches like

charred bones reaching for the midnight sky. A gentle but chilly

January wind pushed scraps of paper along the gutters; and when the wind

gusted, the branches of the trees rattled like children's sticks on a

rail fence. The other parked cars looked like animals huddling against

the cold air; they were empty.

Both sidewalks were deserted for the length of the block.

He got out of the car, quickly crossed the street and went up the front

steps of the apartment house.

The foyer was clean and brightly lighted. The complex mosaic floor-a

garland of faded roses on a beige background-was highly polished, and

there were no pieces of tile missing from it. The inner foyer door was

locked and could only be opened by key or with a lock release button in

one of the apartments.

There were three apartments on the top floor, three on the second floor

and two on the ground level. Apartment 1A belonged to Mr. and Mrs.

Harold Nagly, the owners of the building, who were on their annual

pilgrimage to Miami Beach. The small apartment at the rear of the first

floor was occupied by Edna Mowry, and he supposed that right now Edna

would be having a midnight snack or a well-deserved martini to help her

relax after a long night's work.

He had come to see Edna. He knew she would be home. He had followed

her for six nights now, and he knew that she lived by strict routine,

much too strict for such a young and attractive woman. She always

arrived home from work at twelve, seldom more than five minutes later.

Pretty little Edna, he thought. You've got such long and lovely legs.

He smiled.

He pressed the call button for Mr. and Mrs. Yardley on the third

floor.

A man's voice echoed tinnily from the speaker at the top of the mailbox.

"Who is it?"

"Is this the Hutchinson apartment?" Bollinger asked, knowing full well

that it was not.

"You pressed the wrong button, mister. The Hutchinsons are on the

second floor. Their mailbox is next to ours."

"Sorry," Bollinger said as Yardley broke the connection.

He rang the Hutchinson apartment.

The Hutchinsons, apparently expecting visitors and less cautious than

the Yardleys, buzzed him through the inner door without asking who he

was.

The downstairs hall was pleasantly warm. The brown tile floor and tan

walls were spotless. Halfway along the corridor, a marble bench stood

on the left, and a large beveled mirror hung above it. Both apartment

doors, dark wood with brassy fixtures, were on the right.

He stopped in front of the second door and flexed his gloved fingers. He

pulled his wallet from an inside coat pocket and took a knife from an

overcoat pocket. When he touched the button on the burnished handle,

the springhinged blade popped into sight; it was seven inches long, thin

and nearly as sharp as a razor.

The gleaming blade transfixed Bollinger and caused bright images to

flicker behind his eyes.

He was an admirer of William Blake's poetry; indeed, he fancied himself

an intimate spiritual student of Blake's. It was not surprising, then,

that a passage from Blake's work should come to him at that moment,

flowing through his mind like blood running down the troughs in an

autopsy table.

Then the inhabitants of those cities Felt their nerves change into

marrow, And the hardening bones began In swift diseases and torments, in

shootings and throbbings and grindings through all the coasts, till,

weakened, The senses inward rushed, shrinking Beneath the dark net of

infection.

I'll change their bones to marrow, sure as hell, Bollinger thought. I'll

have the inhabitants of this city hiding behind their doors at night.

Except that I'm not the infection; I'm the cure. I'm the cure for all

that's wrong with this world.

He rang the bell. After a moment he heard her on the other side of the

door, and he rang the bell again.

"Who is it?" she asked. She had a pleasant, almost musical voice,

marked now with a thin note of apprehension.

"Miss Mowry?" he asked.

"Yes? "

" Police."

She didn't reply.

"Miss Mowry? Are you there?"

"What's it about?"

"Some trouble where you work."

"I never cause trouble."

"I didn't say that. The trouble doesn't involve you.

At least not directly. But you might have seen something important. You

might have been a witness."

"To what?"

"That will take a while to explain."

"I couldn't have been a witness. Not me. I wear blinders in that

place."

"Miss Mowry," he said sternly, "if I must get a warrant in order to

question you, I will."

"How do I know you're really the police?"

"New York," Bollinger said with mock exasperation.

"Isn't it just wonderful? Everyone suspects everyone else.

"They have to."

He sighed. "Perhaps. Look, Miss Mowry, do you have a security chain on

the door?"

"Of course."

"Of course. Well, leave the chain on and open up. I'll show you my

identification."

Hesitantly, she slid back a bolt lock. The chain lock allowed the door

to open an inch and no farther.

He held up his wallet. "Detective Bollinger, " he said. The knife was

in his left hand, pointed at the floor, pressed flat against his

overcoat.

She squinted through the narrow crack. She peered for a moment at the

badge that was pinned to the inside of his wallet, then carefully

studied the photo identification card in the plastic window below the

badge.

When she stopped squinting at the ID and looked up at him, he saw that

her eyes were not blue, as he had thought-having seen her no closer than

when she was on stage and he was in the shadowed audience but a deep

shade of green. They were truly the most attractive eyes he had ever

seen. "Satisfied?" he asked.

Her thick dark hair had fallen across one eye. She pushed it away from

her face. Her fingers were long and perfectly formed, the nails painted

blood red. When she was on stage, bathed in that intense spotlight, her

nails appeared to be black. She said, "What's this trouble you

mentioned?"

"I have quite a number of questions to ask you, Miss Mowry. Must we

discuss this through a crack in the door for the next twenty minutes?"

Frowning, she said, "I suppose not. Wait there just a minute while I

put on a robe."

"I can wait. Patience is the key to content."

She looked at him curiously.

Mohammed," he said.

"A cop who quotes Mohammed?"

"Why not?"

"Are you-of that religion?"

"No." He was amused at the way she phrased the question. "It's just

that I've acquired a considerable amount of knowledge for the sole

purpose of shocking those people who think all policemen are hopelessly

ignorant.

" She winced. "Sorry." Then she smiled. He had not seen her smile

before, not once in the entire week since he had first seen her.

She had stood in that spotlight, moving with the music, shedding her

clothes, bumping, grinding, caressing her own bare breasts, observing

her audience with the cold eyes and almost lipless expression of a

snake. Her smile was dazzling.

"Get your robe, Miss MoryS he closed the door.

Bollinger watched the foyer door at the end of the hall, hoping no one

would come in or go out while he was standing there, exposed.

He put away his wallet.

He kept the knife in his left hand.

in less than a minute she returned. She removed the security chain,

opened the door and said, "Come in."

He stepped past her, inside.

She closed the door and put the bolt lock in place and turned to him a

him and said, "Whatever trouble-" Moving quickly for such a large man he

slammed her against the door, brought up the knife, shifted it from his

left hand to his right hand, and lightly pricked her throat with the

point of the blade.

Her green eyes were very wide. She'd had the breath knocked out of her

and could not scream.

"No noise," Bollinger said fiercely. "if you try to call for help, I'll

push this pig sticker straight into your lovely throat.

I'll ram it right out the back of your neck. Do you understand?"

She stared at him.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes," she said thinly.

"Are you going to cooperate?"

She said nothing. Her gaze traveled down from his eyes, over his proud

nose and full lips and strong jaw-line, down to his fist and to the

handle of the knife.

"If you aren't going to cooperate," he said quietly, "I can skewer you

right here. I'll pin you to the damn door." He was breathing hard.

A tremor passed through her.

He grinned.

Still trembling, she said, "What do you want?"

"Not much. Not very much at all. just a little loving." She closed

her eyes. "Are you-him?"

Dew R Kovatz A slender, all but invisible thread of blood trickled from

beneath the needlelike point of the knife, slid along her throat to the

neck of her bright red robe. Watching the minuscule flow of blood as if

he were a an extremely rare scientist observing bacterium through a

microscope, pleased by it, nearly mesmerized by it, he said, "Him? Who

is 'him'? I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know," she said weakly.

"I'm afraid not."

"Are you him?" she bit her lip. "The one who-who's cut up all those

other women?"

Looking up from her throat, he said, "I see. I see how it is. Of

course. You mean the one they call the Butcher. You think I'm the

Butcher."

"Are you?"

"I've been reading a great deal about him in the Daily News. He slits

their throats, doesn't he? From one ear to the other. Isn't that

right?" He was teasing her and enjoying himself immensely.

"Sometimes he even disembowels them. Doesn't he? Correct me if I'm

wrong. But that's what he does sometimes, isn't it?"

She said nothing.

"I believe I read in the News that he sliced the ears off one of them.

When the police found her, her ears were on the nightstand beside her

bed."

She shuddered more violently than ever.

"Poor little Edna. You think I'm the Butcher. No wonder you're so

frightened." He patted her shoulder, smoothed her dark hair as if he

were quieting an animal. "I'd be scared too if I were in your shoes

right now.

But I'm not. I'm not in your shoes and I'm not this guy they call the

Butcher. You can relax."

She opened her eyes and searched his, trying to tell whether he spoke

the truth.

,What kind of man do you think I am, Edna?" he asked, pretending to

have been hurt by her suspicion. "I don't want to harm you. I will if

I must. I will cause you a great deal of harm if you don't cooperate

with me. But if you're docile, if you're good to me, I'll be good to

you. I'll make you very happy, and I'll leave you just like I found

you. Flawless. You are flawless, you know. Perfectly beautiful. And

your breath smells like strawberries. Isn't that nice?

That's such a nice touch, that scentful way for us to begin, smell of

strawberries on your breath. Were you eating when I knocked?"

"You're crazy," she said softly.

"Now, Edna, let's have cooperation. Were you eating strawberries?

" Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes.

He pressed a bit harder with the knife.

She whimpered.

"Well?" he said.

"Wine."

"What?"

"It was wine."

"Strawberry wine?"

"Yes."

"Is there any left?"

"Yes.

"I'd like to have some."

which Graham had suddenly found himself so uncomfortable.

"You're a most interesting guest, Mr. Harris."

"Thank you. You're interesting yourself. I don't see how you can keep

your wits about you. I mean, doing this much live television, five

nights a week-"

"But the fact that it's live is what makes it so exciting, " Prine said.

"Being on the air live, risking all, taking a chance of making a fool of

yourself-that keeps the juices flowing.

That's why I hesitate to accept one of these offers to syndicate the

show or to go network with it. They'd want it on tape, all neatly

edited down from two hours to ninety minutes. And that wouldn't be the

same."

The program director, a heavyset man in a white turtleneck sweater and

houndstooth-check slacks, said, "Twenty seconds, Tony."

"Relax," Prine told Harris. "You'll be off in fifteen more minutes."

Harris nodded. Prine seemed friendly-yet he could not shake the feeling

that the night was going to go sour for him, and soon.

Anthony Prine was the host of Manhattan at Midnight, an informal

two-hour-long interview program that originated from a local New York

City station. Manhattan at Midnight provided the same sort of

entertainment to be found on all other talk shows-actors and actresses

plugging their latest movies, authors plugging their latest books,

musicians plugging their latest records, politicians plugging their

latest campaigns (as yet unannounced campaigns and thus unfettered by

the equal-time provisions of the election laws)-except that it presented

a greater number of mind readers and psychics and UFO "experts" than did

most talk shows. Prine was a Believer. He was also damned good at his

job, so good there were rumors ABC wanted to pick him up for a

nationwide audience. He was not so witty as Johnny Carson or so homey

as Mike Douglas, but no one asked better or more probing questions than

he did.

most of the time he was serene, in lazy command of his show; and when

things were going well, he looked somewhat like a slimmed-down Santa

Claus: completely white hair, a round face and merry blue eyes.

He appeared to be incapable of rudeness. However, there were

occasions-no more often than once a night, sometimes only once a

week-when he would lash out at a guest, prove him a liar or in some

other way thoroughly embarrass and humiliate him with a series of

wickedly pointed questions. The attack never lasted more than three or

four minutes, but it was as brutal and as relentless as it was

surprising.

Manhattan at Midnight commanded a large and faithful audience primarily

because of this element Of surprise that magnified the ferocity of

Prine's interrogations. If he had subjected every guest to this abuse,

he would have been a bore; but his calculated style made him as

fascinating as a cobra. Those millions of people who spend most of

their leisure hours in front of a television set apparently enjoyed

secondhand violence more than they did any other form of entertainment.

They watched the police shows to see people beaten, robbed and murdered;

they watched Primarily for those unexpected moments when he bludgeoned a

guest with words that were nearly as devastating as clubs.

He had started twenty-five years earlier as a nightclub comic and

impressionist, doing old jokes and mimicking famous voices in cheap

lounges. He had come a long way.

The director signaled Prine. A red light shone on one camera.

Addressing his unseen audience, Prine said, "I'm talking with Mr. Graham

Hams, a resident of Manhattan who calls himself a 'clairvoyant," a seer

of visions. Is that the proper definition of the term, Mr. Hams?"

"It'll do," Graham said. "Although when you put it that way, it sounds

a bit religious. Which it isn't. I don't attribute my extrasensory

perception to God nor to any other supernatural force."

"As you said earlier, you're convinced-that the clairvoyance is a result

of a head injury you received in a rather serious accident.

Subsequent to that, you began to have these visions. If that's God's

work, His methods are even more roundabout than we might have thought."

Graham smiled. "Precisely."

Now, anyone who reads the newspapers knows that you've been asked to

assist the police in uncovering a clue to the identity of this man they

call the Butcher. But what about your last case, the murder of the

Havelock sisters in Boston? That was very interesting too. Tell us

about that."

Graham shifted uneasily in his chair. He still sensed trouble coming,

but he couldn't imagine what it might be or how he might avoid it.

"The Havelock sisters.. - " -two-year-old Nineteen-year-old Paula and

twenty-two year old paige Havelock had lived together in a cozy Boston

apartment near the university where Paula was an undergraduate student

and where Paige was working for her master's degree in sociology. On

the morning of last November second, Michael Shute had stopped by the

apartment to take Paige to lunch. The date had been made by telephone

the previous evening. Shute and the elder Havelock sister were lovers,

and he had a key to the apartment. When no one responded to the bell,

he decided to let himself in and wait for them.

Inside, however, he discovered that they were at home. Paula and Paige

had been awakened in the night by one or more intruders who had stripped

them naked; pajamas and robes were strewn on the floor. The women had

been tied with a heavy cord, sexually molested and finally shot to death

in their own living room Because the proper authorities were unable to

come up with a single major lead in the case, the parents of the dead

girls got in touch with Graham on the tenth of November and asked for

his assistance. He arrived in Boston two days later. Although the

police were skeptical of his talents-a number of them were downright

hostile toward him-they were anxious to placate the Havelocks, who had

some political influence in the city. He was taken to the sealed

apartment and permitted to examine the scene of the crime. But he got

absolutely nothing from that: no emanations, no psychic visionjust a

chill that slithered down his spine and coiled in his stomach. Later,

under the suspicious gaze of a police property officer, he was allowed

to handle the pillow that the killer had used to muffle the gunshots-and

then the pajamas and the robes that had been found next to the bodies.

As he caressed the blood-stiffened fabric, his paranormal talent

abruptly blossomed; his mind was inundated with clairvoyant images like

a series of choppy, frothing waves breaking on a beach.

Anthony Prine interrupted Graham. "Wait a minute. I think we need some

elaboration on this point. We need to make it much clearer.

Do you mean that the simple act of touching the bloodstained pajamas

caused your clairvoyant visions?"

"No. It didn't cause them. it freed them. The pajamas were like a key

that unlocked the clairvoyant part of my mind. That's a quality common

to nearly all murder weapons and to the last garments worn by the

victims."

"Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know," Graham said.

"You've never thought about it?"

"I've thought about it endlessly," Graham said. "But I've never reached

any conclusions."

Although Prine's voice held not even the slightest note of hostility,

Graham was almost certain that the man was searching for an opening to

launch one of his famous attacks.

For a moment he thought that might be the oncoming trouble which he had

known about, in a somewhat psychic fashion, for the past quarter of an

hour. Then he suddenly understood, through the powers of his sixth

sense, that the trouble would happen to someone else, beyond the walls

of this studio.

'When you touched the pajamas," Prine said, ,did you see the murders as

if they were actually taking place in front of you at that very moment?"

"Not exactly. I saw it all take place-well, behind my eyes."

'What do you mean by that? Are your visions sort of like daydreams?"

"In a way. But much more vivid than daydreams full of color and sound

and texture."

F "Did you see the Havelocks' killer in this vision?"

Koontz, Dean - The Face of Fear

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