Good Guy by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page A

the mirror, he liked what he saw, as before. Judging by his reflection, he possessed a blameless heart, and his thoughts were full of charity.
    Appearances were important. Appearances were all that really mattered. And his work.
    In her well-ordered bathroom vanity, he didn’t find anything of interest except a brand of lip balm that he had never used.
    Lately, humidity had been low, and his lips had been constantly chapped. The product that he usually relied upon had not helped much.
    He smelled the balm and detected no offensive perfume, licked it and tasted an acceptably bland orange-cream flavor. He greased his lips, which at once felt cooler, and pocketed the tube.
    In the living room, Krait pulled from the shelves some of the old hardcover books in the woman’s collection. They had quaint but colorful jackets, and were all fiction by popular novelists of the 1920s and ’30s: Earl Derr Biggers, Mary Roberts Rinehart, E. Phillips Oppenheim, J. B. Priestley, Frank Swinnerton…. With the exceptions of Somerset Maugham and P. G. Wodehouse, most were forgotten.
    Krait might have taken a book that looked interesting, except that these authors were all dead. When he read a book that expressed inappropriate views, Krait sometimes felt obliged to search out the author and correct him. He never read books by dead authors because the satisfaction of a face-to-face discussion with a living wordsmith could not be equaled by exhumation and desecration of an author’s corpse.
    In the kitchen, he found two dirty coffee mugs in the sink. He stood for a while, considering them.
    As neat as she was, Linda would not have left this mess unless she had an urgent reason to get out of the house. A companion had joined her for coffee. Perhaps the companion had convinced her that she dared not delay long enough to wash the mugs.
    In addition to what the mugs suggested, Krait was interested in the one with the parrot handle. He found it charming. He washed it, dried it, and wrapped it in a dishtowel to take it with him.
    A knife was missing from the rack of fine cutlery, and that was interesting, too.
    From the refrigerator, he withdrew the remaining half of a cinnamon-dusted homemade egg-custard pie. He cut a generous slice for himself and put it on a plate. He put the plate on the kitchen table, with a fork.
    He poured a cup of coffee from the pot that stood on the warming plate. The brew had not yet turned bitter. He laced it with milk.
    Sitting at the table, he studied the ’39 Ford while he ate the pie and drank the coffee. The egg custard was excellent. He would have to remember to compliment her on it.
    As he finished the coffee, his cell phone vibrated. When he checked, he had received a text message.
    Earlier, when Krait had returned to the Lamplighter Tavern, seeking the name of the big man on the end stool, the bartender had pleaded ignorance.
    Five minutes after Krait left the joint, however, Liam Rooney had phoned someone. In this text message were the number that had been called and the name of the person to whom that telephone was registered—T IMOTHY C ARRIER .
    On screen appeared an address for Carrier, too, although Krait doubted that it would be of immediate use to him. If Carrier was the barfly and if he had hurried to Laguna Beach to warn the woman, he would not be witless enough to return home.
    In addition to a name and address, Krait had wanted to know the occupation of this guy. Carrier was a licensed masonry contractor.
    Krait stored the data, and the phone vibrated again. A photo of the mason appeared with megapixel clarity, and he was without doubt the man in the tavern.
    In the wet of business, Krait worked alone, but he had awesome data and technical support.
    He pocketed the phone without saving the photo. He might need to know more about Carrier, but not yet.
    A final cup of coffee remained in the pot, and he sweetened the brew with a generous slug of milk. He drank it at the table.
    In spite of the boldness