After The Last Race by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz [Koontz, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Jessup

The display room on the west end of the fourth floor of the clubhouse building measured forty feet on a side. It had only one entrance, a set of double doors that were now propped open. The walls were hung with photographs of horses and paintings of horses. Currently, the center of attention was a seven-foot-high, four-foot-wide glass box which stood in the middle of the chamber. One million dollars in cash lay on a velvet-draped table inside that box. The sight of it was drawing people to the display room like the sea drew lemmings: most of them looked as if they thought smothering in money was the nicest of all possible deaths.

Maybe it is, Jessup thought as he walked slowly around the display case, studying the casually arranged packets of twenties, fifties, and hundreds.

Please don't touch the glass, sir.

Jessup turned to his right and looked at the guard. The man was tall, rangy, with a lopsided smile. On the right breast of his blue shirt was stenciled Melkins-Peterson, and on the left breast was the name Mike. Excuse me? Jessup said, slightly bewildered.

We'd prefer if you don't touch the glass, Mike said, leavening the admonition with another smile.

Following the direction of Mike's gaze, Jessup saw that he was indeed touching the glass. The fingertips of his right hand were pressed to the pane as if reaching for the money. He lowered his hand and said, Sure. Sorry.

The guard went back to his post.

Jessup continued around the display, but he was no longer primarily interested in the money. Instead, he counted the guards: one by the doors, one on the south side of the case, one on the north sideall armed. Furthermore, none of the Melkins-Peterson men were retired, fat-bellied cops. They were all slim, husky bastards who might get high on courage, the sort who might risk a bullet in the head for a two-hundred-dollar salary check every week.

Smiling sheepishly at Mike as he passed him, Jessup threaded his way through the crowd in the display room and joined Vince Greenfield, who was standing in front of a large oil painting of a race horse. How's it look to you? he asked Greenfield.

Three of them.

That's the way I read it too.

Greenfield kept his voice low but didn't attract attention with a whisper. Any others that aren't in uniform?

Maybe one.

Out on the concourse?

How would we know?

I suppose.

A middle-aged couple came over to look at the painting. She thought it was very nice. He thought it was the work of a five-year-old drawing with crayons.

And two of us, Greenfield said, when the couple left. Four of them, counting the plainclothes number, and two of us. He rounded as if he were taking careful notes in his mind.

And the roses, Jessup said. He nodded toward the long, red-ribboned florist's box that Greenfield held under his left arm. This morning Jessup had bought three dozen roses, emptied the roses from the box, and replaced them with the compact, lightweight, Belgian-made submachine gun which he had gotten from the cripple, Bill McGill.

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