Free Key to Midnight by Dean Koontz Page A

vision, Alex got up, staggered to the doorway. In the drawing room, when he saw that he couldn’t reach the intruder in time to prevent him from getting to the hotel corridor, he plucked a vase from a decorative pedestal and threw it with anger and accuracy. The heavy ceramic exploded against the back of the dorobo’s skull, instantly dropping him to his knees, and Alex slipped past him to block the only exit.
    They were breathing like long-distance runners.
    Shaking his head, flicking shards of the vase from his broad shoulders, the dorobo got up. He glared at Alex and motioned for him to move away from the door. “Don’t be a hero,” he said in heavily accented English.
    “What’re you doing here?” Alex demanded.
    “Get out of my way.”
    “What are you doing here? A dorobo? No. You’re more than just a cheap burglar, aren’t you?”
    The stranger said nothing.
    “It’s the Chelgrin case, isn’t it?”
    “Move.”
    “Who’s your boss?” Alex asked.
    The intruder balled his chunky hands into formidable fists and advanced a single threatening step.
    Alex refused to stand aside.
    The dorobo withdrew a bone-handled switchblade from a jacket pocket. He touched a button on the handle, and faster than the eye could follow, a seven-inch blade popped into sight. “Move.”
    Alex licked his lips. His mouth was dry. While he considered his alternatives—none appealing—he divided his attention between the man’s hard black eyes and the point of the blade.
    Thinking he sensed fear and imminent surrender, the stranger waved the knife and smiled.
    “It’s not going to be that easy,” Alex said.
    “I can break you.”
    At first glance, the intruder seemed soft, out of shape. On closer inspection, however, Alex realized that the guy was iron hard beneath the masking layer of fat. A sumo wrestler had the same look in the early days of training, before attaining his gross physique.
    Brandishing the switchblade again, the intruder said, “Move.”
    “Are you familiar with the English expression ‘Fuck you’?”
    The stranger moved faster than any man Alex had ever seen, as fluid as a dancer in spite of his bulk. Alex clutched the thick wrist of the knife hand, but with the amazing dexterity of a magician, the dorobo tossed the weapon from one hand to the other—and struck. The cold blade sliced smoothly, lightly along the underside of Alex’s left arm, which still tingled from being kicked.
    The stocky intruder stepped back as abruptly as he had attacked. “Gave you just a scratch, Mr. Hunter.”
    The blade had skipped across the flesh: Two wounds glistened, thin and scarlet, the first about three inches long, the other marginally longer. Alex stared at the shallow cuts as if they had opened utterly without cause, miraculous stigmata. Blood oozed down his arm, trickled into his hand, dripped from his fingertips, but it didn’t spurt; no major artery or vein was violated, and the flow was stanchable.
    He was badly shaken by the lightning-swift attack. It had happened so fast that he still hadn’t begun to feel any pain.
    “Won’t require stitches,” the stranger said. “But if you make me cut again... no promises next time.”
    “There won’t be a next time,” Alex said. He found it difficult to admit defeat, but he wasn’t a fool. “You’re too good.”
    The intruder smiled like a malevolent Buddha. “Go across the room. Sit on the couch.”
    Alex did as instructed, cradling his bloodied arm and thinking furiously, hoping to come up with a wonderful trick that would turn defeat into triumph. But he wasn’t a sorcerer. There was nothing he could do.
    The burglar remained in the foyer until Alex was seated. Then he left, slamming the door behind him.
    The instant he was alone, Alex sprinted to the telephone on the desk. He punched the single number for hotel security. He changed his mind, however, and hung up before anyone answered.
    Hotel security would call in the police. He didn’t want the