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Odd Hours

Odd Hours

Titel: Odd Hours Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Dean Koontz
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convenience store, outside of which stood a pay phone.
    Because I did not want these calls to be traced back to Birdie Hopkins’s cell, which would be big trouble for her, I went into the store, bought a bottle of aspirin and a Pepsi, and got change for the public phone.
    After taking two aspirin, I tasked the information operator with finding me the numbers of the nearest FBI and Homeland Security field offices.
    I called the FBI in Santa Cruz and told them about the nuclear weapons aboard the seagoing tugboat beached at the mouth of Hecate’s Canyon. I suggested that they immediately contact the Coast Guard to confirm that such a vessel had indeed run aground, and I warned them that Chief Hoss Shackett was among the people who had conspired to import those bombs.
    The agent with whom I spoke was initially patient in the way that he would have been when listening to an earnest citizen discuss the necessity of all Earthlings wearing aluminum-foil skullcaps to prevent extraterrestrials from reading our thoughts.
    As the telling details of my story accumulated, however, he became more involved. Then riveted. When the time arrived for me to hang up, he brought to bear all the tricks of psychology that a good agent knows, intent on keeping me on the line, teasing from me some detail that would lead to my identification, and convincing me that the bureau was prepared to reward me with a monument in Washington, my face on a postage stamp, and seventy-two virgins provided this side of Paradise.
    I hung up and, in the fashion that I had divined my way to a pay phone, I proceeded to the church served by Reverend Charles Moran, who would never know that I had prevented him from killing his wife and committing suicide this very night.
    The rectory was separated from the church by a courtyard in which gnarled and spiky abstract sculptures, apparently representing eternal truths, scared the crap out of me more than once as they loomed abruptly out of the fog.
    I went around to the back of the church, to the corner occupied by the sacristy. The door was locked.
    Assuming that the good reverend and his wife were enjoying the deep sleep of the sinless devout, I used the butt of Valonia’s pistol to break one pane in a sacristy window. I reached through, found the latch, and slipped inside.
    I switched on my flashlight and oriented myself. Then I went through an open door into the sanctuary.
    Turning on the church lights would unnecessarily risk drawing unwanted attention, which in this instance was any attention of any kind from anyone.
    Besides, in this small way, I was reducing my carbon footprint. Although, having prevented the detonation of four nuclear weapons, I suppose that I had earned enough carbon credits to live the rest of my life high on the hog if I wished.
    Above the altar, the abstract sculpture of Big Bird or the Lord, or whatever, did not look down at me accusingly, because it had no eyes.
    I descended the altar platform, went through the chancel gate, and proceeded to the third pew, where I had left my ID and that belonging to Sam Whittle.
    Although I had no use for Flashlight Guy’s wallet, my own would come in handy in the event that I was stopped by the highway patrol while behind the wheel of Hutch’s Mercedes and needed to produce a driver’s license. I found mine, shoved it in my hip pocket, and left Whittle’s wallet where it was.
    As I returned to the center aisle, the lights came on.
    In the sanctuary, just this side of the sacristy door, stood Chief Hoss Shackett.

 
    FORTY-FOUR
    CHIEF HOSS SHACKETT DID NOT LOOK WELL. IN the interrogation-room disturbance, he had suffered an abrasion on his forehead, one black eye, and a contusion that had darkened the left side of his face. His nose had once been as straight and proud as every sadistic fascist facilitator of terrorism would like his nose to be; now it resembled a mutant pink zucchini. His stiff brush-cut hair appeared to have wilted.
    Someone, I assumed, must have found my wallet in the hymnal holder and figured that I would return for it.
    Dispelling that notion, the chief said, “Lime. Harry Lime.” He did not seem to have discovered that my name was Odd Thomas.
    Tucking the flashlight under my belt, I said, “Good evening, Chief. You’re looking well.”
    “What are you doing here?” he asked, except that before the question mark he inserted an epithet that was disgusting but not inventive.
    “I was hoping,” I said, “that you had

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