After a hard day’s work Tim Carrier slakes his thirst at The Lamplighter Tavern, a friendly workingman’s bar. But how could Tim have imagined that the stranger who sits down next to him one evening is about to enmesh him in a web of murder and deceit?
The man has come there to meet someone and he thinks it’s Tim. Tim’s wayward sense of humour lets the misconception stand for the moment and that’s all it takes: the stranger hands Tim a fat manila envelope, saying, ‘Half of it’s there; the rest when she’s gone,’ and then he’s out the door.
In the envelope Tim finds a photograph of a woman, her name and address written on the back; and several thick packets of hundred-dollar bills.
When an intense-looking man sits down where the first stranger sat and glances at the manila envelope, Tim knows he’s one who was supposed to get it. Shaken, thinking fast, Tim says he’s had a change of heart. He removes the picture of the woman and then hands the envelope to the stranger. ‘Half what we agreed,’ he says. ‘For doing nothing. Call it a no-kill fee.’
Tim is left holding a photo of a pretty woman, but his sense of fun has led him into a very dangerous world from which there is no way back. The company of strangers has cost him his peace of mind, and possibly his life.
The Good Guy is a thriller novel by American author Dean Koontz.