She walked toward the front of the property. Her threats to kill herself always earned my silence, my obedience, my grant of absolution from her parental obligations. From the service side of the counter, Bertie Orbic greeted the newcomer. When I doused the headlights and switched off the engine, Stormy said, "Will you ever leave this town?" Anyway, I'm getting ahead of my story Little Ozzie and Terrible Chester do not enter the picture until after the cow explodes. No teasing draft spiraled down my auditory canal, but no telltale stealthy sounds came to me, either. I know that I'm not responsible for every death I can't prevent. "You don't have to do that, Odd. "I'd still like to talk to you about it." "No. The third had been partially torn away by the bullet, but I was certain that it had been an L. FOL. She was only forty-six." "If it's unfinished business, he's had more than twenty-six years to take care of it," I noted. They are not shades to me now. The morning was pure Mojave, blazing and breathless. This didn't have the feel of a truck that anyone drove for a living or in which anyone spent a significant amount of his day. "Inherited. "That's just a theory," Stormy said. The paintings followed a circus theme: clowns with balloons, sad-eyed lions, a pretty high-wire walker with a pink parasol. FIFTY-THREE THE SHANK OF THE THORN PROTRUDED FROM MY THUMB. "I'll see you in service," I promised, which is what she calls the life that comes after boot camp. "Odd, pleasure seeing you. "What about you, Odd? As we passed him, Officer Varner waved at us. Page 103 We ate in silence for a minute, and then I said, "So this marriage - when do you think we should order the cake?" Alerted by the crack of the shot, he turned toward me and ejected the depleted magazine. In six hours and four minutes, August 14 and August 15 would meet at the midnight divide. The illusion of movement - which the insect's exaggerated, fluttering shadow had imparted to the bronze figure was at once dispelled. Nevertheless, I could see well enough to determine that no source existed for a sullen red light either in the center of this humble space or in any corner. Page 23 Although Rosalia had wanted children, God had given her none. Some say that he was found in a bathrobe as well, but some say not. We have matching birthmarks." On Eucalyptus Way, other bodachs had invaded the home of Morris and Rachel Melman. "They shot him in the head and blew his brains out." "Still colorful." "Did you recognize him?" I chewed two tablets of antacid. Here, none of the larger carrion eaters could get at the corpse. She stood behind and to the left of me, barefoot, naked but for a pair of skimpy, lace-trimmed panties, slender arms crossed over her breasts. That's almost enough to give me the nerve to travel." Nice boys. In my apartment, when I packed the bag, the towelettes had seemed to be a peculiar inclusion, the scissors even more peculiar. When I finished telling him about Robertson, the black room, and the file cabinets packed with thick case histories of homicidal maniacs, he said, "Odd, I wish you would get a gun." "Squeezed your hand?" The two of us plunged into the deep end of the pool. He possessed the will but not the power to keep that oath. Pent-up breath swelled in my lungs. Peaceful, the woods. A small wastebasket overflowed with used Kleenex and other trash. I remained near the window, but I was grateful that Terrible Chester stood between me and Robertson. I had not peered closely at the wound, had quickly glanced away, yet that image kept rising like a dark sun in my mind. He wasn't Simon Varner. Page 84 Terrible Chester had moved from the windowsill to my chair. Fenced with open chain-link on which grew no vines or other screening vegetation, the backyard offered Page 64 no privacy to a murderer with an inconvenient corpse on his hands. When I reached Marigold Lane, I was relieved that the street on which I lived appeared to be free of these beasts. I asked for a cup, poured it myself, and sat on a bar stool at the kitchen island. For too long, I hesitated in the doorway, uncertain what I should do. Miss Llewellyn. But what would I have gotten from the divorce then? He reached past my face and cupped his right hand against the back of my neck. she asked, meaning Rosalia Sanchez, my landlady. The current crisis hadn't quite reached us yet, but it loomed. "I was thinking of coming over for a visit, but maybe this isn't the best time." The racket sounded a little like automatic gunfire, and though I knew it wasn't gunfire, I twitched anyway. I'm in no hurry to find out. You want half my grapefruit and I'll get my knife?" Besides, from everything that I have seen of bodachs, they can experience this world with some if not all of the usual five senses, but they don't seem to have any effect on things here. She walked across the room, through the wall, into the August morning one story above the front yard or into another realm even brighter than a Pico Mundo summer. She wore red sneakers, white shorts, and a sleeveless white blouse. If I spill salt, I'll immediately throw a pinch over my shoulder. 'How swift are the feet of the days of the years of youth.' When I got out from behind the steering wheel, the foreman said, "Where's your driver? We are not, however, a species that can choose the baggage with which it must travel. He slid the card toward me, across the microphone island. Although not racing toward me, he approached with the grim implacability of a tank crossing a battlefield. We sailed the blacktop rivers for a while, not finding Fungus Man, but slowly finding our way back to each other. The chief's vital signs were stable but not robust. Repeatedly, the vivid memory of the ragged, wet bullet hole in his chest rose in my mind: the flabby and livid flesh around it, the dark custardy ooze that had drooled from it. At one of the front windows, I peered out at the blighted lawn and the sun-scorched street. When I disengaged the lock, the bolt made a thin sound reminiscent of a razor sharpening against a strop. That's sweet." "Swordfish tacos with extra salsa, fried corn fritters, and a large Coke, please," I told the sombrero-wearing donkey that holds the order microphone in its mouth. "I'm not sick," I assured him. Indeed, the contents of the Rubbermaid containers in Robertson's freezer had come from the collections of Eckles, Varner, and Gosset. Odysseus in chains, however, cannot lead the way back to Ithaca. I wondered whose face it would be wearing. She shook her head. Along the elevated loading dock - no one. Lucky you. I saw the bench on which Stormy and I had sat to eat cones of coconut cherry chocolate chunk. Judging by a sudden overwhelming pressure in my bladder, these predators would be getting marinated meat by the time they took a bite of me - but then the nasty customer to my left chewed up his growl and let out a submissive mewl. During my first visit to this casita, I had conducted a quick search, which concluded when I'd made enough disturbing discoveries to take my case against Robertson to the chief. He's incredibly lucky." Here I know my destiny and am content with it. The first to settle in the neighborhood when few could see its future, Little Ozzie purchased a one-acre parcel on which had stood a long-out-of-business restaurant. The mysterious power that had transformed and controlled this room - casting me minutes back, and then forward, in time - was no longer in evidence. I went to the counter in Burke &Bailey's and said, "I need something hot and sweet." "Yeah. "And?" "I've listened with my heart for so long I'veperiodically had to swab earwax out of my aortal valve." With much grunting and the invention of a few colorful obscenities, I hauled Robertson out of the bathtub and flopped him onto the sheet that I'd spread on the bathroom floor, Remarkably little blood had spilled in the tub. The town slept, but not its demons. I held her. Terrible experience, perhaps from the cradle to the sound of the shot that killed her, had left her in a poverty of imagination, unable to envision a world beyond this one, where love was a promise fulfilled. A giant larva or pupa inside, changing into something new. After a while, in a voice soft with emotion, she said, "I'm sorry, Oddie. He is a great man, the chief, even if he did break that Barney the dinosaur chair. "Even just for pennies is gambling." When I consulted my wristwatch, what I saw surprised me. If I had felt a fetid breath exhaled against my brow, I might have screamed, but I wouldn't have been surprised. My death might be delivered through the barrel of a terrorist's gun or by a falling stone cornice in an earthquake, and I would not suspect the danger until I heard the crack of the fatal shot or felt the earth leap violently beneath my feet. I glanced toward the back of the house. I'm an idiot." From 1:00 A.M. to 6:00, every day but Sunday, Shamus spins what he calls "the music that won the big war," and recounts tales of the night life of that long-ago age. Nor sing. I set my shopping bag inside. There are these shadows, some flashes of light, but none of it is anything." Here in the windowless garage, the climate was ten degrees more desperate. "And they're in my store with him?" My hand disappeared into the tarry gloom. Just used my driver's license." Currently, a quarter will get you just a newspaper, and you won't want to read anything in it unless you're a sadist, a masochist, or a suicidally lonely wretch desperate to find true love in the personal ads. When they passed through dark places, they were discernible only as a tumult of shadows, but streetlights and gatepost lamps revealed them for what they were. "But what does it say?" I'll bet you really know how to whisk," Page 180 Puzzled, I said, "Whisk? Beyond waited the sacristy, in which the priest readied himself before every Mass. "Where?" I've seen him move fast and decisively, but in action and in repose he seems to carry a great weight on his beefy, rounded shoulders. Crackers and wedges of cheese spilled across the catwalk. The windows of Burke & Bailey's dissolved, cascaded into the shop in a glittering deluge. And getting warmer. All the note lines were blank. "Usually they come without the bumps. He felt colder than I'd expected that he would. We were in a booth at the back of the Grille, waiting for a second-shift waitress, Viola Peabody, to bring our lunch. My mother was at work among the roses. Nicolina giggled. A floor of some kind? I'll come around in the morning. I was drawn to the delivery ramp. "There's no barrette. Nothing and everything. Can't just go to Camp's End and shoot him." "I'll probably stop in later, have a pile of home fries and a mess of eggs." It's an employment-related fork wound." In the dream, I can hear myself breathing. We had known that she would expect us to visit for a while, which is why Stormy hadn't waited at the bottom of the stairs. Over the years, I had only twice before interrupted his sleep. "It's not so much to some people, but it's a thrill to me." "I did, yes. Don't answer the bell unless you can see who rang it." Stormy made the inference." The head shot was the least destructive of the four." "They have fantastic churros. I could only assume that one of the Takudas - or all of them - were destined to die this very day, in whatever violent incident had drawn the bodachs to Pico Mundo in great numbers. "I'll do what I can." Often they slink like cats, though cats as big as men. I started with Heather Johnson. Ducking the stool, I said, "Ma'am, I'm sorry about the mess," and I went looking for Penny's killer. His vague smile, which seemed to be as permanent as a tattoo, widened briefly, and he nodded as though in cheerful agreement with something that he'd said to himself. I have been told that she wasn't always like this. Although I had no person - no name, no description - as a focus for my psychic magnetism, I drove at random through Pico Mundo, hoping to be brought to a place of enlightenment. In a way, Kelsey had kept his promise never to leave her. I didn't know what I was doing. Star by star, I identified the points of the constellation. "Nonsense. English Bantam Bulldogge "My well-padded vital organs are hard to reach with either blade or bullet. The terrible change occurred when she was sixteen. Always before, when she waited for me to arrive to tell her that she was visible, the lights had been on. On other occasions they remind me of a pride of slinking cats. His complexion was as milky gray as carbolic-acid solution. She is an object of fascination for some of the other employees, and she doesn't want to give them fuel for gossip. "You're not doing fingernails anymore?" Instead, I said, "If I did drugs, I'd love an amphetamine omelet with three pots of black coffee. Bad vibes." This wasn't the response I expected, but I pressed forward with my half-baked scheme to learn his schedule for the day and thereby perhaps pinpoint the place where Robertson's kill buddy would strike. "Now that is news." We spun, we looked, but saw no wreckage. She engaged in no fakery. You scared the salt off my crackers." "He's ordered takeout. As I dropped the drill and stripped off the goggles, someone shouted from a distance. I eased entirely into this lightless chamber and, turning away from the sight of the hall, became at once as blind as I was deaf. My fingers were damp with sweat. Page 27 Besides, I'm spooked by guns. No one said, Did you hear something, Maude? "You're saying I invite manipulation?" The previous night, in my bathroom, I hadn't been strong enough to examine Robertson's chest wound. According to legend, even in the elegant restaurants of Manhattan, Rockefeller had routinely tipped a dime. The three remained almost where they had been when I'd left them: two in front of the car, the third near the forward tire on the passenger's side. Into this copse of laurel, podocarpus, and California pepper, Robertson strode - and disappeared from view. "It worked for Agatha Christie in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," he said. I met his stare and didn't retreat from him. Having switched off my headlights when I turned in from the state highway, I drove through the shaggy moonshadows cast by dead palm trees. The urgent rhythm of a cruel need, the grunt of mad desire. Tense with determination, Viola said, "We'll stay home, have a little party, just ourselves." Karla hugged me and kissed me on the cheek, on the brow, and we tried not to cry, but we did. The wheeze and clatter of the idling car, which didn't faze the coyotes, worried me. PS3561.055033 2004 $13'.54 - dc22 2003057901 Manufactured in the United States of America Published simultaneously inCanada BVG 10 98765432 1 To the Old Girls: Mary Crowe, Gerda Koontz, Vicky Page, and Jana Prais. With his fingertips, he tapped the rhythm on the dashboard as I drove out of Camp's End. So enlightened now. But it's true, the last thing you need is some hysterical bitch always on your case." Tom's left arm had been severed in the crash. I searched anxiously for a moment. The streets of Pico Mundo were quiet. "You been missing me?" His grip was as real and warm as Penny Kallisto's. I hate violence. "This is the perfect time, dear Odd. Go to the stockroom. This 1968Pontiac Firebird 400 had been restored with loving care. Ozzie's success doesn't in the least surprise me. "Why? "I've got other shipments due," he said. On the first occasion, a thoroughly nasty man was aiming a spear gun at the chief's crotch from a distance of just two feet, and the second occasion was much more unnerving than that. Setting the bottle on a coaster beside his glass, striving hard to repress the palsy of fear that would have trembled my hands, I said, "No more bold than I was when I slipped into his house to poke through his drawers." In these dimensions, her perky smile had the warmth of a barracuda's grin. They're afraid to move on." We'll bring a bottle." Those six-fingered children fortunate enough to be robustly healthy will usually receive surgery if the superfluous digit can be removed without affecting the function of the hand. In this instance, I was troubled less by the scents and sights of earlystage corruption than by the physical peculiarities of the dead man, mostly that spongy fungoid quality that had marked him in life, but also by his extraordinary fascination - as revealed in his files - for torture, brutal murder, dismemberment, decapitation, and cannibalism. I objected. Page 126 They are of less substance than an ectoplasmic wraith drifting above the table at a seance. "We were having breakfast," I said. If Fungus Man was already following me, however, he must somehow suspect that earlier I had been in his house in Camp's End. Page 214 " - such a major freak, the way he comes in here on some shit or other, talking about weddings and 'employment-related fork wounds.' Outside, at the picket fence, facing the house, stood the Fungus Man, Bob Robertson. She met my eyes again. She is afraid to believe in it and the demands that come with it. When I pushed my chair back, intending to get up, Stormy seized my arm and held me at the table. The church grounds had been landscaped as a tropical paradise, with lush lawns, several varieties of palm trees, ferns, bamboo, and flowering vines. Her voice grew raw and more confrontational: "I curse the night I let your idiot father squirt you into me." Turning aimlessly from street to street, trusting intuition to guide me, [ found myself in Shady Ranch, one Page 210 of the newer residential developments on the Pico Mundo hills that a decade ago were home to nothing more dangerous than rattlesnakes. I had been afraid to pronounce her name. Maybe I had heard an intruder leaving. The Bantam Bulldogge was designed with many of those reasons in mind. I turned out the lights elsewhere in the apartment, stepped into the public hall, and locked her door with a key she'd given to me. Through the chinks in that ten-fingered armor, I could see his eyes twitching with bright terror. He appeared to be eating a doughnut. Alone in the hallway with Jenna, I said, "Have you swung both hammers, or are you holding one back?" "Like you said, dreams are just dreams." People will die if you don't." and said, "This blows, doesn't it, Oddie? "I hear you just fine." The dreary waiting room, just down the hall from the intensive-care unit, had pale-gray walls, a gray-and-black speckled vinyl-tile floor, gray and mud-brown chairs. Page 105 "Have you had a prophetic dream in which you were shot?" I almost pulled the door shut. Maybe he thought that in his absence I would try to make time with Lysette Rains. You don't encounter them because most of those babies are born with other and more terrible deformities that cause them to die in early infancy. active, healthy and outgoing. The founder of the church, Caesar Zedd Jr., preached that he received whispered messages, mostly in dreams but also sometimes when awake, from alien intelligences aboard a spacecraft traveling Page 161 toward Earth inside a comet. I took the meditation card out of the hospital, into the waning night, but not for a drive in the desert. Although eventually I might trade hash-slinging for tire sales, I'll never contemplate a career in law enforcement, it's stomach-corroding work, and thankless. If I waited inside until dawn, I might escape them, for these were night hunters, and possibly too hungry to outwait me. In fact, because he is Pico Mundo's most famous resident (living, anyway) and perhaps its most respected, and because he was building a home in the Flats when everyone else expected it to remain a blighted zone in perpetuity, only Little Ozzie could have argued successfully before the city building department to keep the cow, as sculpture. I just manipulated him a little." I had lost my appetite. It clicked in place. Lacking a name or face to put to Robertson's collaborator, my psychic magnetism would not lead me to my quarry. If his every meal was this elaborate, he must have the metabolism of a Tasmanian devil on methamphetamine. Although I wanted to wash my hands and then splash cold water in my face, I preferred not to touch Robertson's faucets. Pack those cones, mix those milkshakes, and be the best damn purveyor of ice cream that you can be. He paid for his safety and for a new chance at happiness (as he defines it). I stopped, turned, and peered back at the door. 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