Dean Koontz — The Good Guy

Harper Collins 2007 Paperback, 400pp. Timothy Carrier, 30, a mason, has a dry sense of humour. Tim's friend, Rooney, owns a workingman's bar, Lamplighter Tavern, where the eccentric customers inspire Tim's deadpan wit. On a Monday evening, the bar is nearly deserted. A nervous man, about Tim's own age, sits down one stool from Tim, orders a beer. He glances at Tim, then asks, 'Are you him?' His sense of fun engaged, Tim says, 'Who else would I be?' Tim's game is to sustain an oblique conversation until the stranger realizes his mistake. But the man slides a fat manila envelope along the bar. 'Half of it's there. The rest when she's gone.' Another stranger, an intense-looking man, again about Tim's age, enters the bar, looks around, comes towards Tim, and sits where the first stranger sat. He orders a beer. He says nothing. Tim says nothing. The guy glances at the manila envelope. He's the man who was supposed to get the envelope. He thinks Tim wants to hire him to kill the woman! Shaken, thinking fast, Tim says he's had a change of heart. He removes the picture of the woman from the envelope, puts it aside, closes the envelope, passes it to the stranger. 'Half what we agreed - for doing nothing. Call it a no-kill fee.'. (ISBN: 9780007252114). Good.