Free Whispers by Dean Koontz Page B

was mild, but he knew it would get colder. A thin mist was coming off the sea, not genuine fog yet, but a sort of damp greasy breath that hung in the air and made halos around all the lights.
    Frank was waiting behind the wheel of the unmarked police sedan. Tony climbed in on the passenger’s side and buckled his seatbelt.
    They had one more lead to check out before they quit for the day. Earlier, a couple of people at that Century City singles’ bar had said they’d also seen Bobby Valdez at a joint called The Big Quake on Sunset Boulevard, over in Hollywood.
    Traffic was moderate to heavy heading toward the heart of the city. Sometimes Frank got impatient and darted from lane to lane, weaving in and out with toots of the horn and little squeals of the brakes, trying to get ahead a few car lengths, but not tonight. Tonight, he was going with the flow.
    Tony wondered if Frank Howard had been discussing philosophy with Otto.
    After a while, Frank said, “You could have had her.”
    “Who?”
    “That blonde. That Judy.”
    “I was on duty, Frank.”
    “You could have set something up for later. She was panting for you.”
    “Not my type.”
    “She was gorgeous.”
    “She was a killer.”
    “She was what?”
    “She’d have eaten me up alive.”
    Frank considered that for about two seconds, then said, “Bullshit. I’d take a crack at her if I had the chance.”
    “You know where she’s at.”
    “Maybe I’ll mosey back there later, when we’re done.”
    “You do that,” Tony said. “Then I’ll come visit you in the rest home when she’s finished with you.”
    “Hell, what’s the matter with you? She wasn’t that special. That kind of stuff can be handled easy.”
    “Maybe that’s why I didn’t want it.”
    “Send that one by me again.”
    Tony Clemenza was tired. He wiped his face with his hands as if weariness was a mask that he could pull off and discard. “She was too well-handled, too well-used.”
    “Since when did you become a Puritan?”
    “I’m not,” Tony said, “Or . . . yeah . . . okay, maybe I am. Just a little. Just a thin streak of Puritanism in there somewhere. God knows, I’ve had more than a few of what they now call ‘meaningful relationships.’ I’m far from pure. But I just can’t see myself on the make in a place like Paradise, cruising, calling all the women ‘foxes,’ looking for fresh meat. For one thing, I couldn’t keep a straight face making the kind of chatter that fills in between the band’s numbers. Can you hear me making that scene? ‘Hi, I’m Tony. What’s your name? What’s your sign? Are you into numerology? Have you taken est training? Do you believe in the incredible totality of cosmic energy? Do you believe in destiny as an arm of some all-encompassing cosmic consciousness? Do you think we were destined to meet? Do you think we could get rid of all the bad karma we’ve generated individually by creating a good energy gestalt together? Want to fuck?’ ”
    “Except for the part about fucking,” Frank said, “I didn’t understand a thing you said.”
    “Neither did I. That’s what I mean. In a place like Paradise, it’s all plastic chatter, glossy surface jive talk formulated to slide everyone into bed with as little friction as possible. In Paradise, you don’t ask a woman anything really important. You don’t ask about her feelings, her emotions, her talents, her fears, hopes, wants, needs, dreams. So what happens is you end up going to bed with a stranger. Worse than that, you find yourself making love to a fox, to a paper cut-out from a men’s magazine, an image instead of a woman, a piece of meat instead of a person, which means you aren’t making love at all. The act becomes just the satisfying of a bodily urge, no different than scratching an itch or having a good bowel movement. If a man reduces sex to that, then he might as well stay home alone and use his hand.”
    Frank braked for a red light and said, “Your hand