Quicksilver

by Dean Koontz

“Leave the talking to me,” Bridget said as she pressed the doorbell button. “Absolutely,” I agreed. The guy who answered the bell filled the open doorway from jamb to jamb and threshold to lintel. He must have been six feet five, at least two hundred sixty or seventy pounds, with the broad chest of a grizzly bear, the shoulders of an ox, and a neck thicker than the neck of any creature that Nature had otherwise ever produced. He was about fifty, with a shaved head, eyes as fiercely blue as a natural-gas explosion, and a thick salt-and-pepper mustache. His arms were so powerful that they would have made a young Arnold Schwarzenegger tremble with respect, his hands so big that he might have been able to strangle me with just a thumb and forefinger. He wore black engineer boots, blue jeans, and a black T-shirt emblazoned with a single word in white block letters—DON’T. Bridget said, “Mr. Butch Hammer, I presume?” His teeth were as white and even as piano keys when he smiled and said, “Yes, ma’am. And to whom might I be speaking on this fine May evening?” I expected her to invent new identities for us, but she said, “I’m Bridget Rainking. This is Quinn Quicksilver, an orphan who never knew the parents who saddled him with that name. Quinn is my fiancé, although there isn’t a ring yet. We’re interested in the Ford Explorer you want to sell, but we have an unconventional offer to make.” He regarded her, smiling and nodding. Then he looked at me and seemed to decide that, if it b...