The Voice of the Night by Dean Koontz Page A

Arab-Israeli situation to the American ballet; and he stubbornly, vociferously defended his uninformed views without ever realizing that he was making a fool of himself. Worst of all, he lost his temper at the slightest provocation but regained his composure only with enormous effort. When he was very angry he behaved like a raging madman: shouting paranoid accusations, screaming, punching, breaking things. He had been in more than a few fist fights. And he was a wife beater.
    He also drove too fast and recklessly. During the forty-minute ride south to Ventura, Colin sat straight and stiff, hands fisted at his sides, afraid to look at the road but also afraid not to look. He was amazed when they made it to the marina alive.
    The boat was the Erica Lynn. She was large and white and well maintained, but there was an unpleasant odor about her that only Colin seemed to notice—a blend of gasoline fumes and the stench of dead fish.
    The charter group was composed of Colin, his father, and nine of his father’s friends. They were all tall, tan, rugged-looking men, just as Frank was, with names like Jack and Rex and Pete and Mike.
    As the Erica Lynn cast off, maneuvered out of the harbor, and motored toward the open sea, a breakfast of sorts was served on the deck aft of the pilot’s cabin. They had several thermos bottles filled with bloody marys, two kinds of smoked fish, chopped green onions, slices of melon, and soft rolls.
    Colin ate nothing because, as usual, mild seasickness took hold of him the moment the boat moved away from the dock. From experience he knew that he would be all right in an hour or so, but until he got his sea legs, he wasn’t taking any chances with food. He even regretted having eaten the two cookies and orange juice, although that had been an hour ago.
    At noon the men ate sausage and chugged beer. Colin nibbled at a roll, drank a Pepsi, and tried to stay out of everyone’s way.
    By then it was clear to all of them that Charlie and Irv had been wrong. The fish were not biting.
    They had begun the day in pursuit of shallow-water game only a couple of miles from shore, but the shoals had seemed deserted, as if every aquatic citizen in the neighborhood had gone away on vacation. At ten-thirty they had moved farther out, into deeper water, where they rigged for bigger game. But the fish were having none of it.
    The combination of high energy, boredom, frustration, and too much liquor created an explosive mood. Colin sensed trouble coming long before the men decided to play their dangerous, violent, and bloody games.
    After lunch they trolled in a zigzag pattern—northwest, south, northwest, south—starting ten miles off shore, moving steadily farther out. They cursed the fish that weren’t there and the heat that was. They stripped out of their shirts and trousers, put on swimsuits they’d brought along; the sun darkened their already brown bodies. They told dirty jokes and talked about women as if they were discussing the relative merits of sports cars. Gradually they began to spend more time drinking than watching their lines, chasing shots of whiskey with cold cans of Coors.
    The cobalt-blue ocean was unusually calm. The swells seemed to have been tamed with oil; they rolled smoothly, almost sluggishly, beneath the Erica Lynn.
    The boat’s engine produced a monotonous noise— chuga-chuga-chuga-chuga-chuga— that you could eventually feel as well as hear.
    The cloudless summer sky was as blue as a gas flame.
    Whiskey and beer. Whiskey and beer.
    Colin smiled a lot, spoke when spoken to, but mostly just tried to be invisible.
    At five o‘clock the sharks showed up, and the day got ugly after that.
    Ten minutes earlier, Irv had started chumming again, dumping bucketsful of stinking, chopped bait into their wake, trying to attract big fish. He had done the same thing half a dozen times before, always without effect; but even under the gimlet-eyed stares of his disillusioned clients, he continued