"From the pound?" Christine asked Charlie, cutting in on Val's game.
"Yeah," he said." I tried to get Joey to go for a hundredand-forty-pound mastiff named Killer, but he wouldn't listen to me."
Christine grinned.
"Come on and see him, Mom," Joey said." Please." He took her hand and pulled on it, urging her toward the door.
"Do you mind closing up by yourself, Val?" Christine asked.
"I'm not by myself. I've got Tammy," Val said." You go on home." She looked wistfully at Charlie, obviously wishing she had more time to work on him. Then, to Christine: "And if you don't want to come in tomorrow, don't worry about it."
"Oh," Christine said, "I'll be here. It'll help the day pass.
I'd have gone crazy if I hadn't been able to work this afternoon."
"Nice meeting you," Charlie said to Val.
"Hope to see you again," she said, giving him a hundredkilowatt smile.
Pete Lockburn and Frank Reuther left the shop first, surveying the promenade in front of the rows of stores, suspiciously studying the parking lot. Christine was self-conscious in their company. She didn't think of herself as important enough to need bodyguards. The presence of these two hired guns made her feel awkward and strangely pretentious, as if she were putting on airs.
Outside, the sky to the east was black. Overhead, it was deep blue. To the west, over the ocean, there was a gaudy orangeyellow-red-maroon sunset back-lighting an ominous bank of advancing storm clouds. Although the day had been warm for February, the air was already chilly. Later, it would be downright cold. In California, a warm winter day was not an infrequent gift of nature, but nature's generosity seldom extended to the winter nights.
A dark green Chevrolet, a Klemet-Harrison company car, was parked next to Christine's Firebird. There was a dog in the back seat, peering out the window at them, and when Christine saw it her breath caught in her throat.
It was Brandy. For a second or two, she stood in shock, unable to believe her eyes. Then she realized it wasn't Brandy, of course, but another golden retriever virtually the same size and age and coloration as Brandy.
Joey ran ahead and pulled open the door, and the dog leaped out, emitting one short, deep, happy-sounding bark. He sniffed at the boy's legs and then jumped up, putting paws on his shoulders, almost knocking him to the ground.
Joey laughed, ruffled the dog's fur." Isn't he neat, Mom? Isn't he something?"
She looked at Charlie, whose grin was almost as big as Joey's.
Still thirty feet away from the boy, out of his hearing, she spoke softly, with evident irritation: "Don't you think some other breed would've been a better choice?"
Charlie seemed baffled by her accusatory tone." You mean it's too big?
Joey told me it was the same size as the dog.
you lost."
"Not only the same size. It's the same dog."
"You mean Brandy was a golden retriever?"
"Didn't I tell you?"
"You never mentioned the breed."
"Oh. Well, didn't Joey mention it?"
"He never said a word."
"This dog's an exact double for Brandy," Christine said worriedly." I don't know if that's such a good idea-psychologically, I mean."
Turning to them, holding the retriever by its collar, Joey confinned her intuition when he said, "Mom, you know what I'm gonna call him? Brandy!
Brandy the Second!"
"I see what you mean," Charlie said to Christine.
"He's trying to deny that Brandy was ever killed," she said, "and that's not healthy."
As the parking lot's sodium-vapor lamps came on, casting yellowish light into the deepening twilight, she went to her son and stooped beside him.
The dog snuffled at her, checking her out, cocked its head, looked at her as if it was trying to figure how she fit in, and finally put one paw on her leg, as if seeking her assurance that she would love it as much as its new young master did.
Sensing that she was already too late to take the dog back and get another breed, unhappily aware that Joey was already attached to the animal, she decided at least to stop him from calling the dog Brandy."
Honey, I think itd be a good idea to come up with another name."
"I like Brandy," he said.
"But using that name again it's like an insult to the first Brandy."
"It is?"
"Like you're trying to forget our Brandy."
"No!" he said fiercely." I couldn't ever forget." Tears came to his eyes again.
"This dog should have his own name," she insisted gently.
"I really like the name Brandy."
"Come on. Think of another name."
"Well. "
"How about. Prince.
"Yuck. But maybe. Randy.
She frowned and shook her head." No, honey. Think of something else.
Something totally different. How about.
something from Star Wars? Wouldn't it be neat to have a dog named Chewbacca?"
His face brightened." Yeah! Chewbacca! Thatd be great."
As if it had understood every word, as if voicing approval, the dog barked once and licked Christine's hand.
Charlie said, "Okay, let's put Chewbacca in your Firebird. I want to get out of here. You and Joey and I will ride in the Chevy, and Frank will drive. Pete'll follow us in your car, with Chewbacca. And by the way, we still have company."
Christine looked in the direction that Charlie indicated. The white van was at the far end of the parking lot, half in the yellowish light from the tall lampposts, half in shadow. The driver wasn't visible beyond the black windshield, but she knew he was in there, watching.
Night had fallen.
The storm clouds were still rolling in from the west. They were blacker than the night itself. They rapidly blotted out the stars.
In the white Chrysler, O'Hara and Baumberg cruised slowly, studying the well-maintained, expensive houses on both sides of the street. O'Hara was driving, and his hands kept slipping on the steering wheel because he was plagued by a cold sweat. He knew he was an agent of God in this matter because Mother Grace had told him so. He knew that what he was doing was good and right and absolutely necessary, but he still couldn't picture himself as an assassin, holy or otherwise. He knew that Baumberg felt the same way because the ex-jeweler was breathing too fast for a man who hadn't yet exerted himself. The few times that Baumberg had spoken, his voice had been shaky and higher-pitched than usual.
They weren't having doubts about their mission or about Mother Grace.
Both of them had a deep and abiding faith in the old woman. Both of them would do what they were told. O'Hara knew the boy must die, and he knew why, and he believed in the reason. Murdering this particular child did not disturb him.
He knew Baumberg felt the same way. They were sweat-damp and nervous merely because they were scared.
Along the tree-shrouded street, several houses were dark, and one of those might serve their purpose. But it was early in the evening, and a lot of people were still on their way back from work. O'Hara and Baumberg didn't want to select a house, break in, and then be discovered and perhaps trapped by some guy coming home with a briefcase in one hand and Chinese take-out in the other.
O'Hara was prepared to kill the boy and the boy's mother and any bodyguards hired to protect the boy, for all of them were in the service of Lucifer. Grace had convinced him of that. But O'Hara wasn't prepared to kill just any innocent bystander who happened to get in his way. Therefore, they would have to choose the house carefully.
What they were looking for was a place where a few days' worth of newspapers were piled up on the porch, or where the mailbox was overflowing, or where there was some other sign that the occupants were away from home. It had to be in this block, and they probably wouldn't find what they were looking for. In that case they'd have to shift to another plan of attack.