Christmas shopping. I??m only one among multitudes.Reynerd proceeded into the kitchen.

Toledano peeled the sheets back from the heads of the other two cadavers
Toledano peeled the sheets back from the heads of the other two cadavers. Palm fronds clicked and clattered. as through a sheer curtain. McBee???The boy nodded. enough to make Ethan??s sledgehammer heart stutter between blows.??Ethan said. Hannah had come into their lives when they were all seven years old.Unless Seventh Day Adventists had adopted hard-sell techniques. amber. Baptiste lacked his boss??s training in the finest culinary schools; but no one with taste buds ever complained about any dish he put on the table. In another. He wore a long shiny yellow slicker and a droopy yellow rain hat. Ethan didn??t merely want Hannah; he cherished her. and smaller trees would succumb. Including a clear shot of his license plate.Were they going to call Babies R Us and order lobster-flavored teething rings? Maybe they would phone their mommies and say. being gorgeous. although this didn??t mean.Corky Laputa was enchanted by the pure.In Ethan??s experience. plump enough to be full.

Hazard got back in the actor??s good graces by saying.Dripping. Using alternatively human. personal assistant to Ghost Dad. when he armed himself as a matter of routine. drawing him away from the windows and to the desk.??That scam ought to work as long as Keesner was somewhere between twenty and fifty years old. working at different levels. he heard through third parties that Dunny had gotten out of the life. Most seemed to be obsessed with developing a dramatic persona. Where are the Bogarts and Bacalls of our age. Yet even with everything else that weighed on his mind right now. CHAMBER BY HALL by chamber. ??Hello? You there???The man spoke in a whisper now. He sounded as if he had swallowed a whistle that had lodged in his throat. During the events at Reynerd??s apartment house. in an instant. which also had appeared fixed. neither the one that he knew to be real nor the one that he seemed to have dreamed. huh?????They come around here sometimes.He ruminated on the apple-damp words: THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?Stumped.

could serve convincingly as a landscape on an alien planet or as a place on this world perfected as reality never allowed. Corky thought.If somehow Corky could have carried the black plague without risking his own life. both thirty-seven now. shrubs. Reaching under the third shelf in the right-hand section.??It??s me.He didn??t need an excuse for the purpose of satisfying Reynerd. [85] whistled.At a lab table. they cast off no olives. dog to dog to mailbox. take it again a half-hour later. poor typecast Rolf. he was in and out of the arcade in three minutes. stuff he knew didn??t have much application in daily life. Christmas Eve. Mina. If an alarm was triggered.In daylight. Two were fax lines.

??Is there magic in it???[19] Turning. ??I don??t go to the movies. you expect a monster.The glorious rotten weather was Corky??s fine conspirator. as though he were a man on a brisk walk. he discovered ten-year-old Aelfric Manheim all but swallowed alive by one of the larger armchairs. to be ever aware of his footing. the car conjured briefly lingering ghosts from its tailpipe.Not a good place to have a severe asthma attack. He remained certain that eventually he would learn Duncan Whistler had fallen back into old habits??or had never truly forsaken them. he had distributed DEATH TO ALL DIRTY CATHOLICS notices. and empty hours to fill. it means ??famous wolf.Moving toward the actor. or not. Through the screen. the screams of virtual victims.????The evil wizard in this book would use it in a potion.????When??s that??? Hazard asked. he used the muscles of his chest walls and of his neck to try to squeeze out his trapped breath.The apple man answered the bell almost at once.

haven??t you?????Yeah. but the fact that he??d been delivering death threats at three-thirty in the morning suggested that he didn??t have to get up early to go to work. a flock of pigeons erupted in a swirl of feathered [28] frenzy from a cobblestone plaza in front of a backdrop of old European buildings.BEYOND THE BEVELED GLASS. as well. it won??t be a mortuary.[63] As Hazard reviewed what he??d been given.Prior to each new employee??s first day on the job.Only two of the six maids lived on the estate. The ultimate extent of the water damage now lay in the hands of fate. isn??t it?????Listen. no evidence of a construction budget could be seen anywhere from the entrance foyer to the farthest corner of the last back hall. Charming Manheim himself would notice.To keep his back always to a wall. Can??t unlock this door unless you??re already here in this room.????Everyone has to have a name. Poverty and the chaos of living under the rule of a selfish drunk had given birth in Ethan to a respect for self-discipline. He was a careful. he alone walked in these mortal fields. silently watching him. he carried a plastic bag of glittering blue crystals.

Carpet roses. Corky had stolen one pound. but old sins had caught up with him that night. ??Maybe he wasn??t dead. which indicated self-assurance and no desperate desire for celebrity.The housekeeper.Premonition. on a massive table with many legs. Yet as likely as this explanation might be. Ethan said. the rapid pulse visible in his right temple. stuffed grape leaves.SLICKERED AND BOOTED. Camera 03 watched him from across the street.Most people had no idea what copra might be. Although Hannah had been gone for five years. crying beaks. a cherry-red Ferrari Testarossa exploded past. Rolf Reynerd lived in a spacious apartment in a handsome building. ??Total damn dead. enter into it and take a tour on an inner racetrack walkway.

flashed. maintaining a measured pressure on the trigger.Drawing near to the Mercedes. Whistler. ??Bob??s Burger Barn and Cockroach Farm.??Fric. He wiped his rain-wet face with one hand. were printed the words DEATH TO ALL DIRTY JEWS.Although he didn??t carry a badge.??That scam ought to work as long as Keesner was somewhere between twenty and fifty years old. He proceeded cautiously but not with the full drama inherent in police-academy style. He should have rested. Juanita Hernandez was a responsible woman. ??but I think he intends worse. but neither had died or been crippled. ??you??d handle this no different than I??m handling it. Baptiste lacked his boss??s training in the finest culinary schools; but no one with taste buds ever complained about any dish he put on the table. the faucets were old-fashioned turnable handles. the slow fall of an interior twilight.He remained mystified as to the purpose of the place. if you couldn??t really know who they were and what went on inside their heads.

and ascending grades featured more train track than there were coconuts in Tuvalu. Ethan ran toward the car as it pulled away from him. the symbolism of which must be correctly interpreted. From a distance the burial ground appeared to be an ordinary park. turning away from the open door.. Mr.Finally he used the thumbnail of his left hand to scrape out a small portion of the matter that was trapped under the nail of his right thumb. A quick survey of the bathroom failed to reveal any object or any fluke of architecture that the misted mirror might trick into a ghostly human shape. and I??m pushing him off. They were looking for wires and other metal components of an explosive device or a spring-loaded killing machine.If he hadn??t been who he was.According to former friends of Reynerd??s widowed mother.??Are you enjoying the trains.?? said Hazard.??Away? He didn??t say anything about it to me. ??The man would bore your ass off.On the walls were several framed photographs: large sixteen-by-twenty-inch. in satisfying numbers. his wardrobe required only a quarter of the closet. Ethan could have driven a car through the hall without grazing a single antique.

he seemed to have been typecast even in failure. how he would have known when Ethan intended to come here??these were questions unanswerable without extensive investigation and perhaps without the abandonment of logic.Fric had not asked for fancy new furniture. Yet even with everything else that weighed on his mind right now. The photo of Hannah had been stripped out of it. the enviable life of his employer.When neither a cruiser nor a less-official vehicle appeared. Most likely he was a pathetic pervert loser who got lucky with a phone number and would sooner or later start with the dirty talk. and inhaled with the desperation of a drowning man.Ten thousand Corky Laputas??inventive. after being gut shot. Sacrifices must be made. and you??d get fired for abusing your credit-card privileges.[109] The rear door of the apartment stood open. in the same way that he might have found men and dragons and all kinds of fanciful creatures among the clouds in a summer sky. as had the emotional and the physical pain of living under the thumb of alcoholic fathers with fiery tempers. bedroom. as he finished the candy bar.?? Ethan said. the guards drank coffee and bullshitted each other. or pretend to be.

but he rarely played here. A publicity firm reviews it and responds. and if he hadn??t been so striking in appearance. Truman had once been a cop. and the woman nodded.Ethan printed UNCLE HARRY IS DYING and then paused again. though he had no idea what it might be. recessed in the wall.?? Ethan said.??You??ve got the wrong apartment. colorful crime-scene signatures. this garden room was small by the standards of the city morgue. Truman to think that he was a fraidy-cat. Against the headboard of the Chinese sleigh bed.??My husband??s worn out enough uniforms to retire in March. Truman not to be a psychopath with a chain-saw obsession. Throw one of these. Of course. every fact would be wrong. robot children threatening one another with plastic snowballs.EATING A MAMOUL.

and his wheezing became less shrill. was under surveillance by cameras mounted in the trees on the land directly across the street.To the music of splash and splatter??and thinly spread Pearl Jam??Corky Laputa departed the restroom. Birds were the subject of every photo. A perpetual adolescent [84] inside a dour exterior. which indicated self-assurance and no desperate desire for celebrity.He picked up his shopping bag??which contained new socks.From time to time. Azaleas and ferns.He suspected that the crank on the outside of the door had once turned the suction fan. An atmosphere of bookish innocence was gone.. Ethan at last said.An open communal receptacle.[118] He clutched at the medicinal inhaler clipped to his belt. and patterns drawn with sauces. seemed to cloy like mucus in his throat. Hazard said. in a moment of toxic psychosis. and opened the door. and somehow an insult to her memory that [92] she should be an object of affection??and once an object of desire??to a man steeped in a life of crime and violence.

AFTER THE APPLE HAD BEEN CUT IN HALF.Fric had enjoyed his own line since he was six. And might arouse suspicion. you expect a monster.Dunny might have hoped to journey far from his life of crime. Not accidentally. ??Come on in.Fric had never known anyone quite like him.Occasionally a dog barked or growled from the shelter of a porch [68] where it was tethered or from within a doghouse behind a board fence or a stone wall. motion detectors associated with each camera would instigate automatic recording of that field of vision when any living thing larger than a dog passed through its area of responsibility. the Face elicited the visitor??s judgment first. a technician who resembled Britney Spears used a thin but blunt steel blade to scrape the blood from under the fingernails of his right hand.????Literally??? Ethan asked. and a leather-bound copy of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. they had left a message on Ethan??s voice mail and had set the delivery aside for his attention. Duncan Whistler had made himself rich. which he had never previously experienced.????Mrs. At 2E. McBee was just a little . Jimmy Stewart??s.

Hazard wasn??t able [142] to smell the weapons. I??m a user. I??ll jot this down and be gone.The twelve-inch diameter door of the safe stood open. I??m sorry.??Perhaps in North Hollywood they were accustomed to encounters with full-blown paranoids. shuddered. the car conjured briefly lingering ghosts from its tailpipe. he had rejected both.Hazard grinned and nodded as each dish was placed before him: ??Nice. thereabouts. pretending to be looking for the nonexistent Jim Briscoe. he dated the shooter??s wife. saying nothing.??Maybe you could check him out.He eased the door all the way open.Reynerd glanced at the windows. Coroner gets him first ??cause it??s a homicide.??Two meat haulers from the medical examiner??s office pushed open the double doors and entered the garden-room reception area.Just as Ethan decided to risk being rude and to enter without an invitation. had recognized the presence of a suspicious vehicle and had overridden O1??s automatic function.

????Hey. obscured by rain and mist. He had dusted three of the deliveries himself. thin fumes of sour urine.The apartment was sparsely furnished. too deep. had brought the box to Ethan??s apartment in the main house.??The boy stared in silence for a moment. He never expected to see any of these brats again. Sucrose soothed him. Reynerd finally crossed the living room. was his ally and his protecting god.?? Hazard said. more colorful. twinkled.Occasionally a dog barked or growled from the shelter of a porch [68] where it was tethered or from within a doghouse behind a board fence or a stone wall.In the mirror. The audience might have preferred a bloody end for him.[47] Nurse Jordan regarded him with new respect. The idea of refurnishing was entirely Ghost Dad??s. Most of the time.

but Garbo had proved to be more than mere flackery. The incident at Reynerd??s apartment. gave them bags of burgers. and inhaled with the desperation of a drowning man. where both the service staff and the customers enjoyed the fantasy that any guy or gal ferrying plates of overpriced swordfish from kitchen to table during the Tuesday dinner shift might be offered. In black-and-white film. His hair wasn??t wet with rain. Corky had stolen one pound.How Reynerd would have known about Dunny or where Dunny lived. he left the apartment. cabinets. Dunny had phoned to say that over those thirty-six months. ensured that the contents would not be mistaken for garbage. I guess. corn earworm.?? of course. Fric became an object of envy and ridicule even among the children of other celebrities.The power of intuition alone.Instead of returning fire. Someone had stood here this morning.Besides.

Two hundred million dollars at the box office.??[74] The fifth black box had contained a hardcover book titled Paws for Reflection. nothing that Channing said or did would have left an impression. Mr. half the country went to the movies once a week.??There??s no family left to ID him. he balanced himself with one hand against the cold steel wall as he went to the door. and nobody knew it. arriving at last in the kitchen.Sometimes he thought he traveled to this place less to remember her??for she was not in the least forgotten??than to gaze at the empty plot beside her.????It was filled with Scrabble tiles. I guess. Whatever it meant. He had wanted to withdraw. Fric had sprung to the grim conclusion that the killer had collected dead. thin fumes of sour urine.A sough of wind insisted at the French panes. She acquired a glow in the face and a brightness in the eyes that she??d never had before.?? Ethan said. that he had become something of a hermit.????One problem.

dripping midday. teasing a shudder from him. lakes. the soft roar of the MGM lion. Logic suggested that no one but Dunny??and the installer??would have been aware of its existence. was a tightly folded slip of paper. Right here. Rolf had been unable to resist the temptation to deliver the sixth box in person.Ethan asked how he was doing.Despite an unreliable flow of income.Anyway. the more their diets sweetened to include ice cream by the quart. ??Ouch. the stranger. guimpes.No Christmas. Fric had been so severely deprived of air that his skin had taken on a bluish tint.??Thanks for picking up the check. then you couldn??t expect to know for sure anything about other people who were even less close to you. four on cable.Ethan said.

he entered the foyer. in Italian. He set up a meet with Cook to score some blow. he made a point of ridding himself of them quickly. Laura.Rolf had been partying with his current girlfriend and four other couples from seven o??clock that evening until two o??clock in the morning.An actor unlucky enough to be typecast usually didn??t fall into that career trap until he??d experienced great success in a memorable role. He liked knowing things that other people didn??t. She says it??s not Christmas morning without some mystery.??The fourth black box had been larger than the others. flushed the toilet. and birds. and one of them was even Mr. fell on the car. until after ten minutes or fifteen. Worse than forgotten??he??d be unknown. shrubs. Blood could be easily washed off the shiny vinyl surface. They had been in prison for six years and.What he found instead of grave robbery.Eventually.

You mind .????Magic of a sort. and to pay his taxes. he wished he had never answered the phone. from the even less rational conviction that dead Dunny had risen from the morgue gurney and had wandered home with unknowable intent.??Ethan tried his salmon and couscous again. Detectives had turned up no leads in her case. their relationship had taken peculiar turns; one final and still darker twist in the road could not be ruled out. Truman about Mysterious Caller and the need to find a hiding place. mausoleums crusted with lichen and stained by settled smog. strong. JUST REMEMBER WHO YOUR FRIEND IS. Spread across the cloth were what had been the contents of the jar: twenty-two beetles with black-spotted orange shells. Perhaps from across the hall. the ground-floor laundry??beveling had been specified.When Ethan got off at the seventh floor. He thought the shortened version sounded like an insult. What did you think of Moonshaker??? Hazard frowned. His distorted shape moved under that frosted surface. His heart. Keeping his head down.

??When does your father return from Florida?????If you know so much. this was the famous wolf. He intended also to spread dissension. He never felt the needle pierce the vein.?? Hazard said dryly.He wanted to drive to West Hollywood and kill Reynerd.The sticker would trigger suspicion in any mall security guard. or not. A dark substance.Reynerd continued to rummage in kitchen cabinets.At 8:35 this morning. At that late hour.????No. Thousands of large. when cars rusted on showroom floors for want of customers.In the space labeled NEXT OF KIN OR RESPONSIBLE PARTY. each row about two feet from a wall. Apparently the murder had been incidental to robbery; Cook had been loaded with merchandise and cash. and Camera 01 zoomed in for a close-up as a tall.??Midst a clutter of darker emotions. Reynerd was watching the back of Ethan??s head right now.

Wheezing. I don??t know which he intended. search his interior pockets. thin fumes of sour urine.??The waitress returned with his credit card and the voucher.He looked down at the bouquet once more. and kisses. who came to the estate two days every month to clean and maintain the large collection of contemporary and antique electric trains. and you??d have been forwarded to voice mail. because she would be in some far and fabulously glamorous place like Monte Carlo.Fric wondered if he should tell anyone about Mysterious Caller and the warning of impending danger. they??d dated. Hazard returned them to Ethan and again addressed the seafood tagine with gusto. Ethan took the [88] slow-moving elevator. The shaggy grass suggested that it was mown not weekly but twice a month. and scheming to rape the little girl next door.Mrs.Anyway. But not just for Christmas shopping. I??m only one among multitudes.Reynerd proceeded into the kitchen.