place with the regulator clip, because he was on the move again.
Frantically and as silently as possible, she retreated beneath the vehicle once more. She could hear gasoline sloshing into the fuel tank.
The killer walked forward along the starboard side, around the front, to the driver's door. But he didn't open the door. He paused. Very still. Then he walked to the butcher knife, stooped, and picked it up.
Chyna held her breath, though it seemed impossible that the killer could intuit the meaning of the knife. He'd never seen it before. He couldn't know that it had come from the Templeton house. Although it was indisputably odd to find a butcher knife lying on a service station approach lane, it might have fallen out of any vehicle that had passed through.
With the knife, he returned to the motor home and climbed inside, leaving the driver's door open behind him.
Over Chyna's head, the footsteps on the steel floor were as hollow as voodoo drums. As best she could tell, he stopped in the dining area.
Vess isn't prone to see omens and portents everywhere he looks. A single hawk flying across the face of the full moon, glimpsed at midnight, will not fill him with expectations of either disaster or good fortune. A black cat crossing his path, a mirror shattering while his reflection is captured in it, a news story about the birth of a two- headed calf-none of these things will rattle him. He is convinced that he makes his own fate and that spiritual transcendence-if such a thing can happen-ensues merely from one's acting boldly and living with intensity.
Nevertheless, the large butcher knife makes him wonder. It has a totemic quality, an almost magical aura. He carefully places it on the counter in the kitchen, where the light lays a wet sheen along the weapon's cutting edge.
When he picked it off the blacktop, the blade had been cold but the handle had been vaguely warm, as if with the anticipatory heat of his grip.
Eventually he will experiment with this strangely discarded blade to determine if anything special happens when he cuts someone with it. At the moment, however, it doesn't provide him with the advantage that he needs for the work at hand.
He has the Heckler & Koch P7 snug in the right-hand pocket of his raincoat, but he doesn't feel that even it is adequate to the situation.
The two lads behind the cashiers' counter are not in the war zone of a big-city 7-Eleven market, but they are smart enough to take precautions. Not even Beverly Hills and Bel Air, peopled by wealthy actors and retired football stars, are any longer safe at night either for or
He opens a cabinet to the left of the oven. A Mossberg short barreled, pistol-grip, pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun is mounted in a pair of spring clamps on the shelf. He pops it loose of the clamps and lays it on the countertop.
The magazine tube of the 12-gauge is already loaded. Although he doesn't belong to the American Automobile Association, Edgler Vess is otherwise always prepared for any eventuality when he travels.
In the cabinet is a box of shotgun shells, open for easy access. He takes a few and puts them on the counter next to the Mossberg, though he is not likely to need them.
He quickly unbuttons the raincoat but doesn't take it off. He transfers the pistol from his right-hand exterior pocket to an interior, right-hand breast pocket in the lining. This is also where he places the spare shells.
From a kitchen drawer, he withdraws a compact Polaroid camera. He tucks it into the pocket from which he just removed the Heckler & Koch P7. From his wallet, he removes a trimmed Polaroid snapshot of his special girl, Ariel, and he slips it into the same pocket that contains the camera.
With his seven-inch switchblade, which is tacky from all the work for which it was used at the Templeton house, he slashes the lining of the left coat pocket. Then he rips away these tattered fragments of fabric. Now, if he were to drop coins into this pocket, they would fall straight to the floor.
He puts the shotgun under his open coat and holds it with his left hand, through the ruined pocket. The concealment is effective. He does not believe that he looks at all suspicious.
He quickly paces back to the bedroom, then forward, practicing his walk. He is able to move freely without banging the shotgun against his legs.
After all, he can draw upon the nimbleness and the grace of the spider from the Templeton house.
Although he doesn't care what damage he does to the birthmarked cashier with the ashen eyes, he'll have to be careful not to destroy the face of the young Asian gentleman. He must have good photographs for Ariel.
Overhead, the killer seemed to be occupied in the dining area. The floor creaked under him as he shifted his weight.
Unless he had drawn open the curtains, he couldn't see outside from where he was. With luck, Chyna could make a break for freedom.
She considered remaining under the vehicle, letting him tank up, and drive away, and only then going inside to call the police.
But he had found the butcher knife; he would be thinking about it. Though she could see no way that he could grasp the significance of the knife, by now she had an almost superstitious dread of him and was irrationally convinced that he would find her if she remained where she was.
She crawled out from under the motor home, rose into a crouch, glanced at the open door, and then looked back and up at the windows along the side. The curtains were closed.
Emboldened, she got to her feet, crossed to the inner service island, and stepped between the pumps. She glanced back, but the killer remained inside the vehicle.
She went out of the night into bright fluorescent light and the twang of country music. Two employees were behind the counter on the right, and she intended to say
He was looking down. He hadn't seen her.
She moved away from the door.
The two men stared at her expectantly.
If she told them to call the police, they would want to know why, and there was no time for a discussion, not even enough time for the telephone call. Instead, she said, 'Please don't let him know I'm here,' and before they could reply, she walked away from them, along an aisle with goods shelved six feet high on both sides, to the far end of the store.
As she stepped out of the aisle to hide at the end of a row of display cases, Chyna heard the door open and the killer enter. A growl of wind came with him, and then the door swung shut.
The redheaded cashier and the young Asian gentleman with the liquid-night eyes are staring at him strangely, as if they know something they shouldn't, and he almost pulls the shotgun from under his coat the moment that he walks through the door, almost blows them away without preamble. But he tells himself that he is misreading them, that they are merely intrigued by him, because he is, after all, a striking figure. Often people sense his exceptional power and are aware that he lives a larger life than they do. He is a popular man at parties, and women are frequently attracted to him. These men are merely drawn to him as are so many others. Besides, if he whacks them immediately, without a word, he will be denying himself the pleasure of foreplay.
Alan Jackson is no longer singing on the radio, and cocking one ear appreciatively, Vess says, 'Man, I like that Emmylou Harris, don't you? Was there ever anyone could sing this stuff so it got to you that way?'
'She's good,' says the redhead. Previously he was outgoing. Now he seems reserved.
The Asian says nothing, inscrutable in this Zen temple of Twinkies, Hershey bars, beer nuts, snack crackers, and Doritos.
'I love a song about home fires and family,' Vess says.
'You on vacation?' asks the redhead.
'Hell, friend, I'm always on vacation.'
