The Key to Midnight

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

THE EYES OF DARKNESS

“Koontz puts his readers through the emotional wringer.”—The Associated Press

THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT

“An exceptional novelist... top-notch.”

—
Lincoln Journal-Star

 
MR. MURDER

“A truly harrowing tale ... superb work by a master at the top of his form.”

—
The Washington Post Book World

 
THE FUNHOUSE

“Koontz is a terrific what-if storyteller.”
People

“A razor-sharp, nonstop, suspenseful story ... a first-rate literary experience.”

—
The San Diego Union-Tribune

 
SHADOWFIRES

“His prose mesmerizes ... Koontz consistently hits the bull’s-eye.”—
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

HIDEAWAY

“Not just a thriller but a meditation on the nature of good and evil.”—
Lexington Herald-Leader

COLD FIRE

“An extraordinary piece of fiction ... It will be a classic.”—UPI

THE HOUSE OF THUNDER

“Koontz is brilliant.”—
Chicago
Sun-Times

 
THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT

“A fearsome tour of an adolescent’s psyche. Terrifying, knee-knocking suspense.”

—
Chicago Sun-Times

 
THE BAD PLACE

“A new experience in breathless terror.”—UPI

 
THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT

“A great storyteller.”—
New York Daily News

 
MIDNIGHT

“A triumph.”—
The New York Times

 
LIGHTNING

“Brilliant ... a spine-tingling tale ... both challenging and entertaining.”—The
Associated Press

 
THE MASK

“Koontz hones his fearful yarns to a gleaming edge.”—
People

 
WATCHERS

“A breakthrough for Koontz ... his best ever.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

 
 
TWILIGHT EYES

“A spine-chilling adventure...will keep you turning pages to the very end.”—
Rave Reviews

STRANGERS

“A unique spellbinder that captures the reader on the first page. Exciting, enjoyable, and an intensely satisfying read.”—Mary Higgins Clark

 
PHANTOMS

“First-rate suspense, scary, and stylish.”

—
Los Angeles Times

 
WHISPERS

“Pulls out all the stops... an incredible, terrifying tale.”
—Publishers Weekly

NIGHT CHILLS

“Will send chills down your back.”

—
The New York Times

 
 
DARKFALL

“A fast-paced tale... one of the scariest chase scenes ever.”—
The Houston Post

 
SHATTERED

“A chilling tale ... sleek as a bullet.”

—
Publishers Weekly

 
THE VISION

“Spine-tingling—it gives you an almost lethal shock.”—
San Francisco Chronicle

 
THE FACE OF FEAR

“Real suspense... tension upon tension.”

—
The New York Times

THE EYES OF DARKNESS 
THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT 
MR. MURDER 
THE FUNHOUSE 
DRAGON TEARS 
SHADOWFIRES 
HIDEAWAY 
COLD FIRE 
THE HOUSE OF THUNDER 
THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT 
THE BAD PLACE 
THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT 
MIDNIGHT 
LIGHTNING 
THE MASK 
WATCHERS 
TWILIGHT EYES 
STRANGERS 
DEMON SEED 
PHANTOMS 
WHISPERS 
NIGHT CHILLS 
DARKFALL 
SHATTERED 
THE VISION 
THE FACE OF FEAR

 
 
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 
Previously published under the psuedonym Leigh Nichols.

 
THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT

 
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with
Nkui, Inc.

 
PRINTING HISTORY 
Pocket Books edition / June 1979
Berkley edition / June 1995

 
All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1979 by Leigh Nichols. Copyright © 1995 by Nkui, Inc.

 
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
www.penguinputnam.com

eISBN : 978-0-425-14751-1

 
BERKLEY®
Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY and the “B” design are trademarks
belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

 

 
 
16

This better version is for Gerda. I can go back and improve the earlier pen-name books —but I’m afraid I don’t have enough energy to make all the desperately needed improvements in
myself!

A sound of something;
The scarecrow
Has fallen down of itself.

 
—BONCHO, 1670-1714

In the dark, Joanna Rand went to the window. Naked, trembling, she peered between the wooden slats of the blind.

Wind from the distant mountains pressed coldly against the glass and rattled a loose pane.

At four o’clock in the morning, the city of Kyoto was quiet, even in Gion, the entertainment quarter crowded with nightclubs and geisha houses. Kyoto, the spiritual heart of Japan, was a thousand years old yet as new as a fresh idea: a fascinating hodgepodge of neon signs and ancient temples, plastic gimcrackery and beautifully hand-carved stone, the worst of modern architecture thrusting up next to palaces and ornate shrines that were weathered by centuries of hot, damp summers and cold, damp winters. By a mysterious combination of tradition and popular culture, the metropolis renewed her sense of humanity’s permanence and purpose, refreshed her sometimes shaky belief in the importance of the individual.

The earth revolves
around
the sun; society continuously changes; the city grows;
new
generations come forth ...
and I’ll
go on just
as
they do.

That was always a comforting thought when she was in darkness, alone, unable to sleep, morbidly energized by the powerful yet indefinable fear that came to her every night.

Calmed somewhat but not anxious to go to bed, Joanna dressed in a red silk robe and slippers. Her slender hands were still shaking, but the tremors were not as severe as they had been.

She felt violated, used, and discarded—as though the hateful creature in her nightmare had assumed a real physical form and had repeatedly, brutally raped her while she’d slept.

The man with the steel fingers
reaches for
the hypodermic
syringe....

That single image was all that she retained from the nightmare. It had been so vivid that she could recall it at will, in unsettling detail: the smooth texture of those metal fingers, the clicking and whirring of gears working in them, the gleam of light off the robotic knuckles.

She switched on the bedside lamp and studied the familiar room. Nothing was out of place. The air contained only familiar scents. Yet she wondered if she truly had been alone all night.

She shivered.

Joanna stepped out of the narrow stairwell into her ground-floor office. She switched on the light and studied the room as she had inspected those upstairs, half expecting the fearsome phantom of her dream to be waiting somewhere in the real world. The soft glow from the porcelain lamp didn’t reach every corner. Purple shadows draped the bookshelves, the rosewood furniture, and the rice-paper scroll paintings. Potted palms cast complex, lacy shadows across one wall. Everything was in order.

Unfinished paperwork littered the desk, but she wasn’t in a bookkeeping frame of mind. She needed a drink.

The outer door of the office opened on the carpeted area that encircled the long cocktail bar at one end of the Moonglow Lounge. The club wasn’t completely dark: Two low-wattage security lights glowed above the smoky blue mirrors behind the bar and made the beveled edges of the glass gleam like the blades of well-stropped knives. An eerie green bulb marked each of the four exits. Beyond the bar stools, in the main room, two hundred chairs at sixty tables faced a small stage. The nightclub was silent, deserted.

Joanna went behind the bar, took a glass from the rack, and poured a double shot of Dry Sack over ice. She sipped the sherry, sighed—and became aware of movement near the open door to her office.

Mariko Inamura, the assistant manager, had come downstairs from the apartment that she occupied on the third floor, above Joanna’s quarters. As modest as always, Mariko wore a bulky green bathrobe that hung to the floor and was two sizes too large for her; lost in all that quilted fabric, she seemed less a woman than a waif. Her black hair, usually held up by ivory pins, now spilled to her shoulders. She went to the bar and sat on one of the stools.

“Like a drink?” Joanna asked.

Mariko smiled. “Water would be nice, thank you.”

“Have something stronger.”

“No, thank you. Just water, please.”

“Trying to make me feel like a lush?”

“You aren’t a lush.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Joanna said. “But I wonder. I seem to wind up here at the bar more nights than not, around this time.” She put a glass of ice water on the counter.

Mariko turned the glass slowly in her small hands, but she didn’t drink from it.

Joanna admired the woman’s natural grace, which transformed every ordinary act into a moment of theater. Mariko was thirty, two years younger than Joanna, with big, dark eyes and delicate features. She seemed to be unaware of her exceptional good looks, and her humility enhanced her beauty.

Mariko had come to work at the Moonglow Lounge one week after opening night. She’d wanted the job as much for the opportunity to practice her English with Joanna as for the salary. She’d made it clear that she intended to leave after a year or two, to obtain a position as an executive secretary with one of the larger American companies with a branch office in Tokyo. But six years later, she no longer found Tokyo appealing, at least not by comparison with the life she now enjoyed.