Free Whispers by Dean Koontz Page A

toward her, and she pressed her pretty knees against his. When she took the pictures from him, her fingers lingered for a moment on his. She was a great believer in eye contact. She seemed to be trying to stare right through his brain and out the back of his skull.
    “I’m Judy. What’s your name?”
    “Tony Clemenza.”
    “I knew you were Italian. I could tell by your dark soulful eyes.”
    “They give me away every time.”
    “And that thick black hair. So curly.”
    “And the spaghetti sauce stains on my shirt?”
    She looked at his shirt.
    “There aren’t really any stains,” he said.
    She frowned.
    “Just kidding. A little joke,” he said.
    “Oh.”
    “Do you recognize Bobby Valdez?”
    She finally looked at the mug shot. “Nope. I must not have been here the night he came in. But he’s not all that bad, is he? Kind of cute.”
    “Baby face.”
    “It would be like going to bed with my kid brother,” she said. “Kinky.” She grinned.
    He took the pictures from her.
    “That’s a very nice suit you’re wearing,” she said.
    “Thank you.”
    “It’s cut really nice.”
    “Thank you.”
    This was not just a liberated woman exercising her right to be the sexual aggressor. He liked liberated women. This one was something else. Something weird. The whips and chains type. Or worse. She made him feel like a tasty little morsel, a very edible canapé, the last tiny piece of toast and caviar on a silver tray.
    “You sure don’t see many suits in a place like this,” she said.
    “I guess not.”
    “Body shirts, jeans, leather jackets, the Hollywood look—that’s what you see in a place like this.”
    He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said uneasily, “I want to thank you for helping us as much as you could.”
    She said, “I like men who dress well.”
    Their eyes locked again, and he saw that flicker of ravenous hunger and animal greed. He had the feeling that if he let her lead him into her apartment, the door would close behind him like a set of jaws. She’d be all over him in an instant, pushing and pulling and whirling him around as if she were a wave of digestive juices, breaking him down and sucking the nutrients out of him, using him until he fragmented and dissolved and simply ceased to exist except as a part of her.
    “Got to go to work,” he said, sliding off the barstool. “See you around.”
    “I hope so.”
    For fifteen minutes, Tony and Frank showed the mug shots of Bobby Valdez to the customers in Paradise. As they moved from table to table, the band played Rolling Stones and Elton John and Bee Gees material at a volume that set up sympathetic vibrations in Tony’s teeth. It was a waste of time. No one in Paradise remembered the killer with the baby face.
    On the way out, Tony stopped at the long oak bar where Otto was mixing strawberry Margaritas. “Tell me something,” he shouted above the music.
    “Anything,” Otto yelled.
    “Don’t people come to these places to meet each other?”
    “Making connections. That’s what it’s all about.”
    “Then why the hell do so many singles’ bars have bands like that one?”
    “What’s wrong with the band?”
    “A lot of things. But mostly it’s too damned loud.”
    “So?”
    “So how can anyone possibly strike up an interesting conversation?”
    “Interesting conversation?” Otto said. “Hey man, they don’t come here for interesting conversation. They come to meet each other, check each other out, see who they want to go to bed with.”
    “But no conversation?”
    “Look at them. Just look around at them. What would they talk about? If we didn’t play music loud and fairly steady, they’d get nervous.”
    “All those maddeningly quiet spaces to fill.”
    “How right you are. They’d go somewhere else.”
    “Where the music was louder and they only needed body language.”
    Otto shrugged. “It’s a sign of the times.”
    “Maybe I should have lived in another time,” Tony said.
    Outside, the night