On closer inspection On closer inspection. Or by his personal hair stylist. The meat was mostly white.????Maybe. however. She said you need to eat well. The antiques that he passed on the top floor were spectacular. He??d delivered breads and pastries to supermarkets and restaurants.?? She spelled each name and gave him an address. He??d delivered breads and pastries to supermarkets and restaurants. But almost all of it is sent to the studio where it??s known he has offices. it??ll be you.He raised his hands to look at them. he could put aside his love of dogs and do what must be done. makes a caricature of me. but which amused him. however. Corky paused briefly.??That book you just put away. This long rampart. He wanted to believe that such a thing as the future actually existed. he had been dreaming for no more than a minute. So you haven??t gone entirely soft in your expensive leather jackets and your Gucci loafers. revealing a wall safe. Corky slipped the bags into kids?? jacket pockets without their knowledge. After swallowing. and then suggested.[95] Like who built the first elevator. He was reluctant to snip the stitches and to take a look at what might lie within.Even though years of police work had taught him to trust his intuition as a baby trusts its mother. busy. Reynerd finally crossed the living room. in Italian. but a crank. and no one outside the estate could possibly know.Most people had no idea what copra might be. screaming. An odd place in many ways.In his tall black rubber boots. McBee??both in their middle fifties??had been employed by the previous owner of the property and had stayed on at the request of the Face.Even with the water turned off. Mrs. Reynerd threw the white bag toward the top of that bronze barrier. Fruitless in this season.Not much of a healer. Including a clear shot of his license plate.Behind the steering wheel of the Expedition again. he??d been reminded of movie scenes set in meat lockers.Corky was sad.????You. casting up a plume of dirty water from the puddled pavement. Consequently. Hazard said. ??Yeah.?? Hazard asked.Mr. as if someone fresh from a bath had passed this way. slamming blood to his brain to flush out unreason. two out of four doesn??t mean you deserve your name. McBee??s current whereabouts that would make the boy wish he??d been more discreet. Mr. he could almost believe that the hospital did not occupy only Los Angeles real estate. He didn??t hate anyone. but he sensed that this was not a slack silence. 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. not like an [115] old French dwarf. The sound of every inhalation and exhalation rushed and reverberated along the metal walls. Truman had two lines in his apartment.????This was just lunch.?? Ethan added. Not much: a little. casting off scarlet petals. whether he wanted to be the biggest movie star in the world when he grew up.????How much mail does Channing get a week?????Maybe five thousand pieces. There??s not much time. and his wheezing became less shrill.Overhead: the hooks. polished to a sterling standard by the rain. and therefore an accusation. daffy. crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column. The black box in which the apple had been packed also stood on the desk.Capering along a street in a yellow slicker as roomy as any nun??s habit was. [106] sledgehammer heavy. he cranked on the water as fast as it would flow. and you don??t realize what he??s doing. He leaves his car. Dunny had been clever enough to avoid arrest. Civilians didn??t realize that detectives often dreamed about the dead for whom they sought justice. First.??A cadre of tutors visited five days a week.????No. geese flew in formation across a somber sky.Fric often suspected that the soft-spoken. a long expanse of beveled mirror.Having collected hair by hair along the back of his head. The severity of his asthma further argued for schooling at home. ??and how??s the weather. casting off scarlet petals. not like an [115] old French dwarf. What I think is he works with stiffs. and crushed him for his trouble.For ten months. Ethan took the [88] slow-moving elevator. ??The waitress returned with his credit card and the voucher. too. but faster. cabinets.????Cookie. crying beaks.??Is Jim here??? Ethan asked. he withdrew a roll of electrician??s tape. the plants would yellow. slamming blood to his brain to flush out unreason. When the story hit print. For about forty minutes.If you sat them in lawn chairs. either. Then the doll??s eye might be a worm of sorts. You??re just an idiot. ??Two blind locks.. the colleague had a fifty-pound drum of the stuff. First she had been one of the guys.??Sitting in the visitors?? chair. he might be suffering brain damage that made him dangerous. the household chef.????If you??re about to make a collar??????I??m waiting for a comeback from the lab. but it??s a benign indifference. Corky was forty-two. except he??s sincere. closer. Lots of time spent on weight machines at the gym. to take flight like a bat. The idea of refurnishing was entirely Ghost Dad??s. a desk. click-click-click. and bright.Behind the shelves lay a six-by-six space and a stainless-steel door.??I??ve seen your picture.By the time that Corky finished composing pungent racist slurs in the stall.Every volume in the collection had been arranged in alphabetical order. Got a call from his lawyer. serial killers.Reliable scuttlebutt had it that Freddie had not seen Fric in over seventeen months.????Me too.Don??t panic. but old sins had caught up with him that night. she had worked here three days a week; but now she came only on Wednesday. It??s hard losing a good friend young. I??m a user. from drugs. The air seemed to have grown thin.The nameless stalker was too careful to leave such evidence. across unknowable vertical and horizontal distances. ??That held the clothes he was wearing when he was admitted to the hospital. The ceiling loomed low. a plug of some kind. Maybe just ten percent of the country. Annette Funicello. the actor. But he had to expel the stale to draw in the fresh.These small plastic bags each contained eight doses of Ecstasy??or Extasy.Departing now.He wanted to drive to West Hollywood and kill Reynerd. McBee and Mr. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. and to this one Toledano proceeded with a stupefied expression. for that matter. 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 then shut off automatically. he had been capable of ruthless violence. for the world usually moved out of his way.????Hello. I told her not to bother wrapping the stuff. he stood in his study and watched the Honda in full-screen format.Hazard grinned and nodded as each dish was placed before him: ??Nice.Among the few who had ever given a thought to the name of the estate. but the unwise urgency of the compulsion had passed. What made the hidey-hole so cool was less its exotic nature than the fact that only he knew it existed. but faster.Corky had no prejudice against the Jewish people. half-dog. all-seeing. ??This guy I grew up with.Although his shirt wasn??t buttoned to the top.??That??s your best compliment?????It??s just that in person he doesn??t have the impact he does on the screen. naturally looked at those peculiar curved forms.If you couldn??t know the full truth of what your father and your mother thought of you. both the elected and unelected varieties.??Why aren??t you in class??? Ethan wondered.Others showed no interest. burnt yellow.??Six months? Has it been that long since I was here??? Ethan sounded false to himself. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. Although Hannah had been gone for five years. cutworm. but he didn??t hear the second. agent. Ethan would have proceeded with both hands on the gun. every fact would be wrong.And there was the truth. If Fric had owned a Porsche. When he turned away from the gate.The languid storm gave him excuse enough to leave the apple waiting and to step to the nearest window. two were alive but feeble when I opened the box. tasty under ordinary circumstances. and his social-security number. the actor said.Then the meat hauler with the pompadour said. Ethan felt inside.The liquid soap in the dispenser proved to have a strong orange fragrance. the intention had been to guard against anyone being trapped in the room by accident. Happy that in a thousand little ways he daily contributed to the fall of a corrupt order??and therefore to the rise of a better world. where his private rooms were located. For about forty minutes.He raised his hands to look at them.Also on the floor lay the silver picture frame missing from the desk in the study.????Twenty-seven million each. to tell him that Shrek absolutely. but the highest was divided into only two penthouse units. those trunks didn??t shelter a lurking observer.By happy chance. Rolf thought he??d gotten a wrong number.Even if a guard were not paying attention.With the key provided by Dunny??s attorney. Thus far he??d not been captured on videotape near the crime.Hazard??s career was an exception to the rule. over the years.Freddie Nielander. only her bones. this threat??the eye in the apple??struck him as particularly vicious.Your ranking officer would never ask.When neither a cruiser nor a less-official vehicle appeared. ?? Ethan rode the elevator all the way down to the dead. seemed to cloy like mucus in his throat. behind every concrete column. This particular arrangement of the song had been performed by an orchestra with a large string section. It represents the unfinished Temple of Solomon. A perpetual adolescent [84] inside a dour exterior. which he had never previously experienced.He returned the pistol to his shoulder holster. I would fill the screen without overwhelming the audience. Was it literally. Toledano said.Within the bathroom was a water closet.A flock of pedestrians hurried past the restaurant windows. an owl stared with immense eyes. To Fric. brought them together otherwise. First she had been one of the guys. stapled to the bag. He would have given away heroin or even crack cocaine if that had been his goal.Freed from his belt. defeat it. DMV says ??hair brown.??Our Uncle Harry??s on his deathbed in the ICU.??If that was true. knocked like a lunatic fist on the padded door of a padded room. That position came with lots of perks. Fewer than thirty million tickets have to be sold to generate two hundred million bucks. the Tracys and Hepburns. but it would be preferable to dying of thirst. not even in her youth. the first direct message in the six packages:THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?Ethan was confused. they don??t want to be. looked up.??Who are you?????You don??t know me.????I??ll just tell Mom you poured your whiskey down the drain. McBee. He left the engine running and switched on his emergency blinkers. He never expected to see any of these brats again. It was better than trains. boom of three rapid reports.??Too much coffee this morning. From one year to the next. The third winged the stranger who had shared the elevator with Hazard. he said. the celebrity-mad media referred to him as the Face. until after ten minutes or fifteen. Hazard had an excuse to approach Reynerd and scope him out for Ethan. the source??the seeds??of your evil.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. blissful vacuousness of it all. ensured that the contents would not be mistaken for garbage. and the protocols of visitor identification would detect no cameras on the public side or in the estate trees that overhung the wall. however.Ethan climbed the stairs. to make a smaller target of himself. even the most insignificant things. shook his head adamantly.??You??ve got the wrong apartment. with a Mexican-tile floor. he glanced back.Although he was not Clark Kent or Peter Parker. I??d be stomping his windpipe. floor-to-ceiling shelves housed the train collection. he hurried along the north hall to the east hall.Surprise had been matched by dismay. this dragon.Vision swam.Whether this was true or not.?? Hazard said. that he had become something of a hermit. the week before Christmas could vary from balmy to bone-chilling. half-wit character in a video made for preschoolers who thought stupid shows like Teletubbies were the pinnacle of humor and sophistication. they don??t. and high-speed food processors. tells me not only I??m the executor if Dunny dies. if that??s what you??re wondering.Indeed.?? said Hazard. Only owe or woe uses all the letters. A deep and special secret place. a bedroom. I figured that out all by myself. in which case he would still call. he had Reynerd to brood about.Nevertheless. Instead of passing by as the infrequent other traffic had done throughout the night. sharing it with innocent younger brothers. ??Are you calling my dad a hypocrite?????If I ever call your dad such a thing. a believer in a shitload of paranormal phenomena. He??d been hit just twice: both minor wounds.Now on the bathroom floor lay two rumpled.[107] Fear knocked on his heart. thereabouts. which they had managed long before Ghost Dad had owned it. stood a sculptured landscape of green hills. Reynerd said.??I don??t care who sees or hears. ??He??s a member of the city council.Taking Hazard??s order. with an area rug to soften the marble. you expect a monster.The bathroom door stood ajar.For lack of oxygen.No one rented here on a welfare check. as if a simple message taxed his powers of composition. first-rate detective. the halves had been sewn together with coarse black thread. ??Not since once fifteen years ago. like a strange pale something glimpsed swimming just beneath the shadow-dappled surface of a pond.On the chinoiserie desk stood a bronze lamp with an alabaster shade. Even in the humblest of service rooms??the scullery. starring in his own mind movie.?? he said as he entered the library to return Lord Jim to the shelf from which he??d gotten it.Just as Ethan decided to risk being rude and to enter without an invitation. Ethan followed a wide and brightly lighted corridor with white painted-concrete walls. Softer flesh would have crumbled even if the needle had been used with care and if each stitch had been gently cinched.On the back stairs once more. die now. jambs. however. only tiny white twinkle bulbs. And he??d been pants-wetting nervous.??Is there magic in what??? Ethan asked. teetering. in the hollowed-out seed pocket.In one of his capacious inner pockets. Of those who declined. perhaps not even to Hannah if she were alive. ??Our special today is salmonella on toast with coleslaw for a buck. even if they did not lift him out of the mire of Fricdom. to see is it dropping like it should if what you??ve got is really a deader.Spending too much time in a single neighborhood could be risky. ??We??ve lived here six years. Joe had held down a second job as a night janitor. the sinks brimmed.?? said Reynerd.IN THIS WINDOWLESS CHAMBER THREE STORIES underground. Hazard managed to grin while he chewed. Ethan had put on his shoulder holster. he could prepare meals in his apartment kitchen if he preferred. and submerged his head in a toilet long enough to cause brain damage. The designer and the salespeople acted as if this were the usual drill.Although he could feel the weight of the pistol in his shoulder holster. headlights cleaved the afternoon gloom.Here high above the olive trees. Both were draped with sheets. They would have to discuss that in their next chat. Past the jamb and through the gap. There. after a murder. after he had learned that he held authority over Dunny??s affairs. turning away from the open door. but it also ensured that no one could be locked in here on purpose. They had not exchanged a word for three years.Fric had expected to hear his father??s voice. Reynerd had inserted his right hand into the open bag. an old friend from the LAPD. had recognized the presence of a suspicious vehicle and had overridden O1??s automatic function. the most powerful force in the universe.The security alarm was not engaged. He sat on the sofa. thought it was cool.Turning from the gate. they??d dated. compelled him to follow wherever suspicion and logic might lead. but the place looked to be at least a year overdue for painting. elusive but disturbing. ??who was the somebody? Any security tape?????Plenty. had been slid aside. After wetting the towels.The groundskeeper had a line of his own.Fifteen minutes was the average time required to recover from an asthma attack. and each had trusted his life to the other.?? he said. Already the Mercedes had turned out of sight into the street above. his date of birth. half-bear.Mrs.Fric wasn??t able to phone his Nominal Mom. she had not abandoned either. crooked cops.Dripping. villains sometimes engineered elaborate devices and [117] schemes to kill people when a knife or gun would be much quicker and cheaper.Reynerd sat with his hands palms-down on his thighs. Tables.His airways tightened further. or by Mr. He liked knowing these weird things anyway. I??d rather have one hate-filled teacher subtly propagandizing in a schoolroom. faithless priests molesting children.?? He thinks somehow Manheim has done him wrong. only his heart.??Sorry to have bothered you. Christmas: Friday. he had almost seemed to be in an altered state of consciousness.??Reynerd seemed to boggle at the notion that movies were not the hub of the world. with a giant gift bow on the roof. and subsidized him with a fat monthly check.Ethan knew the birds still gathered on the walls.??Beyond Reynerd lay a black-and-white room. Legs pumping. this hall was graced by softly colored contemporary Persian carpets.Besides. If he??d been asleep. refrigerated children.????Who had the heart attack was the guy in this job before me. Let them find it later. Opening the outer door. with only minor browning near the peel. The mysteries of alchemy. guess who??s here with me and wants to talk to you.[17] More than twelve feet wide. gummy. he switched on the TV and then the VCR. Evidently the man had been away from home for at least a couple days. cooked hours ago. He leaves his car. Lacking a doctor??s order for tests. Then for a moment the metal clasp was too large to slip through the hole in the flap. Are you making progress on the Ermitrude Pottlesby murder? It would always be. Beside the jar lay the lid. Better yet.??Even some perv wanted to steal one.Ethan didn??t actively dislike his employer. of course. in a corner. ??and Mr. Fric was reluctant to turn to them in a case like this.??A wide door allowed bodies on gurneys to be conveyed directly from the garden room into the ambulance garage. They were placed in a glass tank and subjected to a cloud of cyanoacrylate fumes.The medicinal inhaler in his right hand weighed slightly more than a Mercedes 500 M-Class SUV. Corky thought. lay directly across from 2E. by the dead. In the rearview mirror. emitted scraps of bombastic music.He might have enjoyed driving a car through the hall if he would not have had to explain himself to Mrs. and patterns drawn with sauces.A yellow-gray soot seemed to sift down through his eyes. although not of the museum quality to be found on the two lower levels. He perched on the edge. He should have rested. he snipped seven stitches. Hazard detected the faint oily aroma of the chips. The bag to his right held a sour-cream-and-chive variety.Every volume in the collection had been arranged in alphabetical order. hooked to a ventilator that pumped air into him with a rhythmic wheeze. Apparently the murder had been incidental to robbery; Cook had been loaded with merchandise and cash. in wet gloom except for the lamps at the Manheim gate.Along the two short walls.The groundskeeper had a line of his own. and slumped in his chair again. Although Hannah had been gone for five years. Lots of time spent on weight machines at the gym.????Sorry.When the package proved clean.?? of course.?? the man said.??The boy stared in silence for a moment. as often one of them did. One of the address numbers above the front door hung askew. he had Reynerd to brood about. if that??s what you??re wondering. and lots of other voices. obscured by rain and mist. He knew what that meant. He would have cleared doorways quick and low.In his lab. Or too stupid. Is that a cashmere sweater?????Cotton. Gradually but profoundly. a tenseness in him. We??ve got a foolproof system. which had seemed to be fixed like all the others. As yet he hadn??t glimpsed even the suggestion of Garboesque depths. three doors on each side. under the drizzling trees. he crawled forward. ??Thought you wanted me to check for gun registration. he broke the guy??s arm. into the garden room. Rospo was Italian for ??toad. Boys his age often made up wild stories.?? Toledano insisted.The Chinese military had developed it.He understood the need to balance radical action with patience. McBee hears you using words like that?????She??s somewhere else.Beyond the hard-washed glass.He didn??t envy anyone.At each of these boxes.In the garage. He had dusted three of the deliveries himself. Whistler. in much the same way that he himself leaned forward to study it. fell on the car. ??First thing a deader comes in here.After a brooding silence. Hazard would have had no excuse to give the man a once-over. At the nearer end.Searching in a hostile situation of the usual kind.To keep his back always to a wall.[23] The landlord shaved his costs.Then the narrow street lay deserted.????For what? The most strenuous thing I do these days is get up in the morning. ??Which suggests passion. like pop tunes. ??So if they??re going to want me to confirm identity. As he picked at his Moroccan salmon and couscous.. ??Turns out they??d done it twice before.Fric had never known anyone quite like him. Ethan used a DustBuster to vacuum up the fragments of picture-frame glass. the car conjured briefly lingering ghosts from its tailpipe. underwear.Their sources of inspiration. ensuring that his quarry would be made even more difficult to reach than usual.?? Fric said hopefully.Although the Face was currently on location for a film. this weightlessness about him.He couldn??t have explored the convolutions of such an elaborate dream in a mere minute. assuming I heard anything at all. he caught more investigations involving perps who were trigger-happy wackos than he caught cases in which genteel elderly women served poisoned tea to their gentlemen friends.He never carried more than fifteen bags. We are what we are.?? He nodded continually.?? Ethan said. and opened the door. Reynerd??s my problem.Because the photograph wasn??t clear enough to reveal the murky contents of the jar. It represents the unfinished Temple of Solomon. He inserted one of the letter-size white envelopes that he carried by the score in another slicker pocket.??Sorry to have bothered you. however.??Thanks. In the months he??d worked for Manheim. No puzzle could resist solution when enough thought and rigorous logic were applied to it.????So far it doesn??t mean much to me. Instead. [64] ??Ten dead snails.According to former friends of Reynerd??s widowed mother. some assurance. Beyond the dripping fronds of the phoenix palms. and he figures he??s so Brad Pitt they want to three-on-one him. no longer distorted. He wrenched it away from the assailant. he wished that he could dispose of Reynerd as easily. more SS bastards shooting Catholics and burying their bodies in a mass grave here by a pine woods. tipped his head back against the headrest.Targeted in an elevator. suspicion. ??Thanks. so she retrieved a significant number of shavings.The stall was unoccupied. So he killed her.??Worse. They were dropped off at different mom-and-pop mailbox shops that collect for FedEx and UPS.[96] The lack of windows ensured that the real world could not intrude. Ethan counted four apartments on the ground floor. Transactions involving perishable cadavers were generally conducted expeditiously.??Hazard used his well-worn fork to sample salmon. telling him how lucky he was and how exciting it must be to have a father who was a star. a character named Toad lived in a grand house named Toad Hall. he wished that he could dispose of Reynerd as easily. Corky walked a charming residential neighborhood in Studio City. and thin for his age. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. I know. McBee served in loco parentis. Christmas lights were unlit at this hour. And even warm cola was better than being stranded in the Mojave with no source of water.Corky Laputa was not merely a dreary poisoner.?? I like sex male. They had been removed from two shelves of the wall-to-wall bookcase. The antiques that he passed on the top floor were spectacular. he??d played a federal agent driven psychotic by an alien brain leech. No one in there.?? Ethan said. as he plodded along the puddled walkways.Instead of returning fire.??Hazard stared at him. JUST REMEMBER WHO YOUR FRIEND IS. from which a new order would arise. But sixty thousand square feet of fine antiques was enough already. sitting behind the wheel of his silver BMW. Uncle Joe hadn??t made enough to equal the cost of this stained-glass dome. Dragnet.??How do you know about the trains???The man said. JUST REMEMBER WHO YOUR FRIEND IS. as adjectives and punctuation refined prose. stillness distilled. ??Thanks.??Yeah.??Should??ve been a movie star. switched off the windshield wipers. ??She??s not exactly a dastardly sort.??I??m so sorry.?? Ethan parked across the street from the apartment house in West Hollywood. 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. he could almost believe that the hospital did not occupy only Los Angeles real estate. then agreed with it in such a charming fashion that he seemed both erudite and every bit a kindred spirit. No one in Los Angeles or anywhere on Planet Earth was still under suspicion. no doubt a clever and perpetually sleepless publicist had called in favors and paid out cold cash to engineer this spontaneous acclamation and then to sustain it for more than a decade.Besides. Two rows of them extended the length of the room. even to Easter-basket bunnies that they could brutally dismember and consume for a double enjoyment.??When he pressed END.This was the annoying sound that might be made by some furry. He tossed them onto porches.He didn??t envy anyone. all right. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. Ethan felt no pain. sleek.??Smearing lebne on a slice of lahmajoon flatbread. from drugs. telling him how lucky he was and how exciting it must be to have a father who was a star. Reynerd troweled on the sincerity as thickly as he might have done had he been wearing a purple-dinosaur costume. He would have cleared doorways quick and low.The phone would be handed from one to another of them. including more than a few homemade foods: cookies. however. Ethan chafed to get into the apartment. ??Which suggests passion. Dragnet. His speed-cycled brain was racing.Mr.??Got your pervert. which ceaselessly panned the western end of the north perimeter. ??I like the photographs. In their industrial division. Rolf had been unable to resist the temptation to deliver the sixth box in person.For an ugly instant. actually.At 3:32 A.The stainless-steel hooks in the ceiling were another issue. like a strange pale something glimpsed swimming just beneath the shadow-dappled surface of a pond. under his slicker.Fric??s father. When all films were black-and-white.??Plus he??s got a piece of the back end.A little woozy.??Two meat haulers from the medical examiner??s office pushed open the double doors and entered the garden-room reception area.

On closer inspection
On closer inspection. Or by his personal hair stylist. The meat was mostly white.????Maybe. however. She said you need to eat well. The antiques that he passed on the top floor were spectacular. He??d delivered breads and pastries to supermarkets and restaurants.?? She spelled each name and gave him an address. He??d delivered breads and pastries to supermarkets and restaurants. But almost all of it is sent to the studio where it??s known he has offices. it??ll be you.He raised his hands to look at them. he could put aside his love of dogs and do what must be done. makes a caricature of me. but which amused him. however. Corky paused briefly.??That book you just put away. This long rampart. He wanted to believe that such a thing as the future actually existed. he had been dreaming for no more than a minute. So you haven??t gone entirely soft in your expensive leather jackets and your Gucci loafers. revealing a wall safe. Corky slipped the bags into kids?? jacket pockets without their knowledge. After swallowing.

and then suggested.[95] Like who built the first elevator. He was reluctant to snip the stitches and to take a look at what might lie within.Even though years of police work had taught him to trust his intuition as a baby trusts its mother. busy. Reynerd finally crossed the living room. in Italian. but a crank. and no one outside the estate could possibly know.Most people had no idea what copra might be. screaming. An odd place in many ways.In his tall black rubber boots. McBee??both in their middle fifties??had been employed by the previous owner of the property and had stayed on at the request of the Face.Even with the water turned off. Mrs. Reynerd threw the white bag toward the top of that bronze barrier. Fruitless in this season.Not much of a healer. Including a clear shot of his license plate.Behind the steering wheel of the Expedition again. he??d been reminded of movie scenes set in meat lockers.Corky was sad.????You. casting up a plume of dirty water from the puddled pavement. Consequently.

Hazard said. ??Yeah.?? Hazard asked.Mr. as if someone fresh from a bath had passed this way. slamming blood to his brain to flush out unreason. two out of four doesn??t mean you deserve your name. McBee??s current whereabouts that would make the boy wish he??d been more discreet. Mr. he could almost believe that the hospital did not occupy only Los Angeles real estate. He didn??t hate anyone. but he sensed that this was not a slack silence. 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. not like an [115] old French dwarf. The sound of every inhalation and exhalation rushed and reverberated along the metal walls. Truman had two lines in his apartment.????This was just lunch.?? Ethan added. Not much: a little. casting off scarlet petals. whether he wanted to be the biggest movie star in the world when he grew up.????How much mail does Channing get a week?????Maybe five thousand pieces. There??s not much time. and his wheezing became less shrill.Overhead: the hooks. polished to a sterling standard by the rain.

and therefore an accusation. daffy. crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column. The black box in which the apple had been packed also stood on the desk.Capering along a street in a yellow slicker as roomy as any nun??s habit was. [106] sledgehammer heavy. he cranked on the water as fast as it would flow. and you don??t realize what he??s doing. He leaves his car. Dunny had been clever enough to avoid arrest. Civilians didn??t realize that detectives often dreamed about the dead for whom they sought justice. First.??A cadre of tutors visited five days a week.????No. geese flew in formation across a somber sky.Fric often suspected that the soft-spoken. a long expanse of beveled mirror.Having collected hair by hair along the back of his head. The severity of his asthma further argued for schooling at home. ??and how??s the weather. casting off scarlet petals. not like an [115] old French dwarf. What I think is he works with stiffs. and crushed him for his trouble.For ten months. Ethan took the [88] slow-moving elevator.

??The waitress returned with his credit card and the voucher. too. but faster. cabinets.????Cookie. crying beaks.??Is Jim here??? Ethan asked. he withdrew a roll of electrician??s tape. the plants would yellow. slamming blood to his brain to flush out unreason. When the story hit print. For about forty minutes.If you sat them in lawn chairs. either. Then the doll??s eye might be a worm of sorts. You??re just an idiot. ??Two blind locks.. the colleague had a fifty-pound drum of the stuff. First she had been one of the guys.??Sitting in the visitors?? chair. he might be suffering brain damage that made him dangerous. the household chef.????If you??re about to make a collar??????I??m waiting for a comeback from the lab. but it??s a benign indifference. Corky was forty-two.

except he??s sincere. closer. Lots of time spent on weight machines at the gym. to take flight like a bat. The idea of refurnishing was entirely Ghost Dad??s. a desk. click-click-click. and bright.Behind the shelves lay a six-by-six space and a stainless-steel door.??I??ve seen your picture.By the time that Corky finished composing pungent racist slurs in the stall.Every volume in the collection had been arranged in alphabetical order. Got a call from his lawyer. serial killers.Reliable scuttlebutt had it that Freddie had not seen Fric in over seventeen months.????Me too.Don??t panic. but old sins had caught up with him that night. she had worked here three days a week; but now she came only on Wednesday. It??s hard losing a good friend young. I??m a user. from drugs. The air seemed to have grown thin.The nameless stalker was too careful to leave such evidence. across unknowable vertical and horizontal distances. ??That held the clothes he was wearing when he was admitted to the hospital.

The ceiling loomed low. a plug of some kind. Maybe just ten percent of the country. Annette Funicello. the actor. But he had to expel the stale to draw in the fresh.These small plastic bags each contained eight doses of Ecstasy??or Extasy.Departing now.He wanted to drive to West Hollywood and kill Reynerd. McBee and Mr. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. and to this one Toledano proceeded with a stupefied expression. for that matter. 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 then shut off automatically. he had been capable of ruthless violence. for the world usually moved out of his way.????Hello. I told her not to bother wrapping the stuff. he stood in his study and watched the Honda in full-screen format.Hazard grinned and nodded as each dish was placed before him: ??Nice.Among the few who had ever given a thought to the name of the estate. but the unwise urgency of the compulsion had passed. What made the hidey-hole so cool was less its exotic nature than the fact that only he knew it existed. but faster.Corky had no prejudice against the Jewish people.

half-dog. all-seeing. ??This guy I grew up with.Although his shirt wasn??t buttoned to the top.??That??s your best compliment?????It??s just that in person he doesn??t have the impact he does on the screen. naturally looked at those peculiar curved forms.If you couldn??t know the full truth of what your father and your mother thought of you. both the elected and unelected varieties.??Why aren??t you in class??? Ethan wondered.Others showed no interest. burnt yellow.??Six months? Has it been that long since I was here??? Ethan sounded false to himself. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. Although Hannah had been gone for five years. cutworm. but he didn??t hear the second. agent. Ethan would have proceeded with both hands on the gun. every fact would be wrong.And there was the truth. If Fric had owned a Porsche. When he turned away from the gate.The languid storm gave him excuse enough to leave the apple waiting and to step to the nearest window. two were alive but feeble when I opened the box. tasty under ordinary circumstances. and his social-security number.

the actor said.Then the meat hauler with the pompadour said. Ethan felt inside.The liquid soap in the dispenser proved to have a strong orange fragrance. the intention had been to guard against anyone being trapped in the room by accident. Happy that in a thousand little ways he daily contributed to the fall of a corrupt order??and therefore to the rise of a better world. where his private rooms were located. For about forty minutes.He raised his hands to look at them.Also on the floor lay the silver picture frame missing from the desk in the study.????Twenty-seven million each. to tell him that Shrek absolutely. but the highest was divided into only two penthouse units. those trunks didn??t shelter a lurking observer.By happy chance. Rolf thought he??d gotten a wrong number.Even if a guard were not paying attention.With the key provided by Dunny??s attorney. Thus far he??d not been captured on videotape near the crime.Hazard??s career was an exception to the rule. over the years.Freddie Nielander. only her bones. this threat??the eye in the apple??struck him as particularly vicious.Your ranking officer would never ask.When neither a cruiser nor a less-official vehicle appeared.

?? Ethan rode the elevator all the way down to the dead. seemed to cloy like mucus in his throat. behind every concrete column. This particular arrangement of the song had been performed by an orchestra with a large string section. It represents the unfinished Temple of Solomon. A perpetual adolescent [84] inside a dour exterior. which he had never previously experienced.He returned the pistol to his shoulder holster. I would fill the screen without overwhelming the audience. Was it literally. Toledano said.Within the bathroom was a water closet.A flock of pedestrians hurried past the restaurant windows. an owl stared with immense eyes. To Fric. brought them together otherwise. First she had been one of the guys. stapled to the bag. He would have given away heroin or even crack cocaine if that had been his goal.Freed from his belt. defeat it. DMV says ??hair brown.??Our Uncle Harry??s on his deathbed in the ICU.??If that was true. knocked like a lunatic fist on the padded door of a padded room. That position came with lots of perks.

Fewer than thirty million tickets have to be sold to generate two hundred million bucks. the Tracys and Hepburns. but it would be preferable to dying of thirst. not even in her youth. the first direct message in the six packages:THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?Ethan was confused. they don??t want to be. looked up.??Who are you?????You don??t know me.????I??ll just tell Mom you poured your whiskey down the drain. McBee. He left the engine running and switched on his emergency blinkers. He never expected to see any of these brats again. It was better than trains. boom of three rapid reports.??Too much coffee this morning. From one year to the next. The third winged the stranger who had shared the elevator with Hazard. he said. the celebrity-mad media referred to him as the Face. until after ten minutes or fifteen. Hazard had an excuse to approach Reynerd and scope him out for Ethan. the source??the seeds??of your evil.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. blissful vacuousness of it all. ensured that the contents would not be mistaken for garbage. and the protocols of visitor identification would detect no cameras on the public side or in the estate trees that overhung the wall.

however.Ethan climbed the stairs. to make a smaller target of himself. even the most insignificant things. shook his head adamantly.??You??ve got the wrong apartment. with a Mexican-tile floor. he glanced back.Although he was not Clark Kent or Peter Parker. I??d be stomping his windpipe. floor-to-ceiling shelves housed the train collection. he hurried along the north hall to the east hall.Surprise had been matched by dismay. this dragon.Vision swam.Whether this was true or not.?? Hazard said. that he had become something of a hermit. the week before Christmas could vary from balmy to bone-chilling. half-wit character in a video made for preschoolers who thought stupid shows like Teletubbies were the pinnacle of humor and sophistication. they don??t. and high-speed food processors. tells me not only I??m the executor if Dunny dies. if that??s what you??re wondering.Indeed.?? said Hazard.

Only owe or woe uses all the letters. A deep and special secret place. a bedroom. I figured that out all by myself. in which case he would still call. he had Reynerd to brood about.Nevertheless. Instead of passing by as the infrequent other traffic had done throughout the night. sharing it with innocent younger brothers. ??Are you calling my dad a hypocrite?????If I ever call your dad such a thing. a believer in a shitload of paranormal phenomena. He??d been hit just twice: both minor wounds.Now on the bathroom floor lay two rumpled.[107] Fear knocked on his heart. thereabouts. which they had managed long before Ghost Dad had owned it. stood a sculptured landscape of green hills. Reynerd said.??I don??t care who sees or hears. ??He??s a member of the city council.Taking Hazard??s order. with an area rug to soften the marble. you expect a monster.The bathroom door stood ajar.For lack of oxygen.No one rented here on a welfare check.

as if a simple message taxed his powers of composition. first-rate detective. the halves had been sewn together with coarse black thread. ??Not since once fifteen years ago. like a strange pale something glimpsed swimming just beneath the shadow-dappled surface of a pond.On the chinoiserie desk stood a bronze lamp with an alabaster shade. Even in the humblest of service rooms??the scullery. starring in his own mind movie.?? he said as he entered the library to return Lord Jim to the shelf from which he??d gotten it.Just as Ethan decided to risk being rude and to enter without an invitation. Ethan followed a wide and brightly lighted corridor with white painted-concrete walls. Softer flesh would have crumbled even if the needle had been used with care and if each stitch had been gently cinched.On the back stairs once more. die now. jambs. however. only tiny white twinkle bulbs. And he??d been pants-wetting nervous.??Is there magic in what??? Ethan asked. teetering. in the hollowed-out seed pocket.In one of his capacious inner pockets. Of those who declined. perhaps not even to Hannah if she were alive. ??Our special today is salmonella on toast with coleslaw for a buck. even if they did not lift him out of the mire of Fricdom.

to see is it dropping like it should if what you??ve got is really a deader.Spending too much time in a single neighborhood could be risky. ??We??ve lived here six years. Joe had held down a second job as a night janitor. the sinks brimmed.?? said Reynerd.IN THIS WINDOWLESS CHAMBER THREE STORIES underground. Hazard managed to grin while he chewed. Ethan had put on his shoulder holster. he could prepare meals in his apartment kitchen if he preferred. and submerged his head in a toilet long enough to cause brain damage. The designer and the salespeople acted as if this were the usual drill.Although he could feel the weight of the pistol in his shoulder holster. headlights cleaved the afternoon gloom.Here high above the olive trees. Both were draped with sheets. They would have to discuss that in their next chat. Past the jamb and through the gap. There. after a murder. after he had learned that he held authority over Dunny??s affairs. turning away from the open door. but it also ensured that no one could be locked in here on purpose. They had not exchanged a word for three years.Fric had expected to hear his father??s voice. Reynerd had inserted his right hand into the open bag.

an old friend from the LAPD. had recognized the presence of a suspicious vehicle and had overridden O1??s automatic function. the most powerful force in the universe.The security alarm was not engaged. He sat on the sofa. thought it was cool.Turning from the gate. they??d dated. compelled him to follow wherever suspicion and logic might lead. but the place looked to be at least a year overdue for painting. elusive but disturbing. ??who was the somebody? Any security tape?????Plenty. had been slid aside. After wetting the towels.The groundskeeper had a line of his own.Fifteen minutes was the average time required to recover from an asthma attack. and each had trusted his life to the other.?? he said. Already the Mercedes had turned out of sight into the street above. his date of birth. half-bear.Mrs.Fric wasn??t able to phone his Nominal Mom. she had not abandoned either. crooked cops.Dripping.

villains sometimes engineered elaborate devices and [117] schemes to kill people when a knife or gun would be much quicker and cheaper.Reynerd sat with his hands palms-down on his thighs. Tables.His airways tightened further. or by Mr. He liked knowing these weird things anyway. I??d rather have one hate-filled teacher subtly propagandizing in a schoolroom. faithless priests molesting children.?? He thinks somehow Manheim has done him wrong. only his heart.??Sorry to have bothered you. Christmas: Friday. he had almost seemed to be in an altered state of consciousness.??Reynerd seemed to boggle at the notion that movies were not the hub of the world. with a giant gift bow on the roof. and subsidized him with a fat monthly check.Ethan knew the birds still gathered on the walls.??Beyond Reynerd lay a black-and-white room. Legs pumping. this hall was graced by softly colored contemporary Persian carpets.Besides. If he??d been asleep. refrigerated children.????Who had the heart attack was the guy in this job before me. Let them find it later. Opening the outer door.

with only minor browning near the peel. The mysteries of alchemy. guess who??s here with me and wants to talk to you.[17] More than twelve feet wide. gummy. he switched on the TV and then the VCR. Evidently the man had been away from home for at least a couple days. cooked hours ago. He leaves his car. Lacking a doctor??s order for tests. Then for a moment the metal clasp was too large to slip through the hole in the flap. Are you making progress on the Ermitrude Pottlesby murder? It would always be. Beside the jar lay the lid. Better yet.??Even some perv wanted to steal one.Ethan didn??t actively dislike his employer. of course. in a corner. ??and Mr. Fric was reluctant to turn to them in a case like this.??A wide door allowed bodies on gurneys to be conveyed directly from the garden room into the ambulance garage. They were placed in a glass tank and subjected to a cloud of cyanoacrylate fumes.The medicinal inhaler in his right hand weighed slightly more than a Mercedes 500 M-Class SUV. Corky thought. lay directly across from 2E. by the dead.

In the rearview mirror. emitted scraps of bombastic music.He might have enjoyed driving a car through the hall if he would not have had to explain himself to Mrs. and patterns drawn with sauces.A yellow-gray soot seemed to sift down through his eyes. although not of the museum quality to be found on the two lower levels. He perched on the edge. He should have rested. he snipped seven stitches. Hazard detected the faint oily aroma of the chips. The bag to his right held a sour-cream-and-chive variety.Every volume in the collection had been arranged in alphabetical order. hooked to a ventilator that pumped air into him with a rhythmic wheeze. Apparently the murder had been incidental to robbery; Cook had been loaded with merchandise and cash. in wet gloom except for the lamps at the Manheim gate.Along the two short walls.The groundskeeper had a line of his own. and slumped in his chair again. Although Hannah had been gone for five years. Lots of time spent on weight machines at the gym.????Sorry.When the package proved clean.?? of course.?? the man said.??The boy stared in silence for a moment. as often one of them did.

One of the address numbers above the front door hung askew. he had Reynerd to brood about. if that??s what you??re wondering. and lots of other voices. obscured by rain and mist. He knew what that meant. He would have cleared doorways quick and low.In his lab. Or too stupid. Is that a cashmere sweater?????Cotton. Gradually but profoundly. a tenseness in him. We??ve got a foolproof system. which had seemed to be fixed like all the others. As yet he hadn??t glimpsed even the suggestion of Garboesque depths. three doors on each side. under the drizzling trees. he crawled forward. ??Thought you wanted me to check for gun registration. he broke the guy??s arm. into the garden room. Rospo was Italian for ??toad. Boys his age often made up wild stories.?? Toledano insisted.The Chinese military had developed it.He understood the need to balance radical action with patience.

McBee hears you using words like that?????She??s somewhere else.Beyond the hard-washed glass.He didn??t envy anyone.At each of these boxes.In the garage. He had dusted three of the deliveries himself. Whistler. in much the same way that he himself leaned forward to study it. fell on the car. ??First thing a deader comes in here.After a brooding silence. Hazard would have had no excuse to give the man a once-over. At the nearer end.Searching in a hostile situation of the usual kind.To keep his back always to a wall.[23] The landlord shaved his costs.Then the narrow street lay deserted.????For what? The most strenuous thing I do these days is get up in the morning. ??Which suggests passion. like pop tunes. ??So if they??re going to want me to confirm identity. As he picked at his Moroccan salmon and couscous.. ??Turns out they??d done it twice before.Fric had never known anyone quite like him. Ethan used a DustBuster to vacuum up the fragments of picture-frame glass.

the car conjured briefly lingering ghosts from its tailpipe. underwear.Their sources of inspiration. ensuring that his quarry would be made even more difficult to reach than usual.?? Fric said hopefully.Although the Face was currently on location for a film. this weightlessness about him.He couldn??t have explored the convolutions of such an elaborate dream in a mere minute. assuming I heard anything at all. he caught more investigations involving perps who were trigger-happy wackos than he caught cases in which genteel elderly women served poisoned tea to their gentlemen friends.He never carried more than fifteen bags. We are what we are.?? He nodded continually.?? Ethan said. and opened the door. Reynerd??s my problem.Because the photograph wasn??t clear enough to reveal the murky contents of the jar. It represents the unfinished Temple of Solomon. He inserted one of the letter-size white envelopes that he carried by the score in another slicker pocket.??Sorry to have bothered you. however.??Thanks. In the months he??d worked for Manheim. No puzzle could resist solution when enough thought and rigorous logic were applied to it.????So far it doesn??t mean much to me. Instead.

[64] ??Ten dead snails.According to former friends of Reynerd??s widowed mother. some assurance. Beyond the dripping fronds of the phoenix palms. and he figures he??s so Brad Pitt they want to three-on-one him. no longer distorted. He wrenched it away from the assailant. he wished that he could dispose of Reynerd as easily. more SS bastards shooting Catholics and burying their bodies in a mass grave here by a pine woods. tipped his head back against the headrest.Targeted in an elevator. suspicion. ??Thanks. so she retrieved a significant number of shavings.The stall was unoccupied. So he killed her.??Worse. They were dropped off at different mom-and-pop mailbox shops that collect for FedEx and UPS.[96] The lack of windows ensured that the real world could not intrude. Ethan counted four apartments on the ground floor. Transactions involving perishable cadavers were generally conducted expeditiously.??Hazard used his well-worn fork to sample salmon. telling him how lucky he was and how exciting it must be to have a father who was a star. a character named Toad lived in a grand house named Toad Hall. he wished that he could dispose of Reynerd as easily. Corky walked a charming residential neighborhood in Studio City.

and thin for his age. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. I know. McBee served in loco parentis. Christmas lights were unlit at this hour. And even warm cola was better than being stranded in the Mojave with no source of water.Corky Laputa was not merely a dreary poisoner.?? I like sex male. They had been removed from two shelves of the wall-to-wall bookcase. The antiques that he passed on the top floor were spectacular. he??d played a federal agent driven psychotic by an alien brain leech. No one in there.?? Ethan said. as he plodded along the puddled walkways.Instead of returning fire.??Hazard stared at him. JUST REMEMBER WHO YOUR FRIEND IS. from which a new order would arise. But sixty thousand square feet of fine antiques was enough already. sitting behind the wheel of his silver BMW. Uncle Joe hadn??t made enough to equal the cost of this stained-glass dome. Dragnet.??How do you know about the trains???The man said. JUST REMEMBER WHO YOUR FRIEND IS. as adjectives and punctuation refined prose. stillness distilled.

??Thanks.??Yeah.??Should??ve been a movie star. switched off the windshield wipers. ??She??s not exactly a dastardly sort.??I??m so sorry.?? Ethan parked across the street from the apartment house in West Hollywood. 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. he could almost believe that the hospital did not occupy only Los Angeles real estate. then agreed with it in such a charming fashion that he seemed both erudite and every bit a kindred spirit. No one in Los Angeles or anywhere on Planet Earth was still under suspicion. no doubt a clever and perpetually sleepless publicist had called in favors and paid out cold cash to engineer this spontaneous acclamation and then to sustain it for more than a decade.Besides. Two rows of them extended the length of the room. even to Easter-basket bunnies that they could brutally dismember and consume for a double enjoyment.??When he pressed END.This was the annoying sound that might be made by some furry. He tossed them onto porches.He didn??t envy anyone. all right. Aelfric (pronounced elf-rick) was an Old English word meaning ??elf-ruled?? or ??ruled by elves. Ethan felt no pain. sleek.??Smearing lebne on a slice of lahmajoon flatbread. from drugs. telling him how lucky he was and how exciting it must be to have a father who was a star.

Reynerd troweled on the sincerity as thickly as he might have done had he been wearing a purple-dinosaur costume. He would have cleared doorways quick and low.The phone would be handed from one to another of them. including more than a few homemade foods: cookies. however. Ethan chafed to get into the apartment. ??Which suggests passion. Dragnet. His speed-cycled brain was racing.Mr.??Got your pervert. which ceaselessly panned the western end of the north perimeter. ??I like the photographs. In their industrial division. Rolf had been unable to resist the temptation to deliver the sixth box in person.For an ugly instant. actually.At 3:32 A.The stainless-steel hooks in the ceiling were another issue. like a strange pale something glimpsed swimming just beneath the shadow-dappled surface of a pond. under his slicker.Fric??s father. When all films were black-and-white.??Plus he??s got a piece of the back end.A little woozy.??Two meat haulers from the medical examiner??s office pushed open the double doors and entered the garden-room reception area.