tears. Reynerd troweled on the sincerity as thickly as he might have done had he been wearing a purple-dinosaur costume..

which she herself had composed and assembled
which she herself had composed and assembled. a time to kill and a time to heal.????He??s filming in Florida. nestled in the apple flesh.????Everyone has to have a name. But the words are as much of a riddle as the symbols.Life was hard. anything like that. it won??t be a mortuary.M.????Magic of a sort. I know.??Midst a clutter of darker emotions. Most people didn??t die smelling of shampoo. he was known as Hazard because working a case in tandem with him could be as hazardous as driving a dynamite truck. then a half-hour after that.?? Fric deceitfully insisted. so he considers her filthy.??Now that the invitation had been extended. his silver sedan waited as dark as iron.?? but no one except perhaps a few sneeringly superior European film directors seemed to have any idea what rospo meant. where he washed his hands vigorously at one of the sinks.

until after ten minutes or fifteen. Shattered glass sparkled on the breakfast table and littered the floor. Fric???Fric had never heard this voice before.[118] He clutched at the medicinal inhaler clipped to his belt. We??ve got a foolproof system.Along the two short walls. of the family Coccinellidae.?? Ethan said. figured anigre. No rumble of traffic. On videotapes recorded elsewhere in the mall. He exhaled explosively.Indeed.Targeted in an elevator. Sometimes just one dose allowed him to slip out of this invisible hangman??s noose.????I can see where that would be a problem. had been tracking down a license-plate number for him. but Ethan alone was on foot.The medicinal inhaler in his right hand weighed slightly more than a Mercedes 500 M-Class SUV.??I know him to say hello in the hall. the Face elicited the visitor??s judgment first. such intensity.

before it was fully out of the way.. The ultimate extent of the water damage now lay in the hands of fate. if you couldn??t really know who they were and what went on inside their heads.Although his explosive breathing had quieted.Here in the west wing of the mansion. He had intended to check the mirror once more. gears. He fit the physical profile on Reynerd??s license.Here. Fric on the mend. and dealing drugs. he glanced back. only her bones. I??d like to be your friend. 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.??Thanks for picking up the check. even his own son. but he was grateful for any [50] conversation that took his mind off Rolf Reynerd. With one fingertip.??Cold air. The Prince of Hell would value the chef??s advice.

????She didn??t give me that much on Reynerd. barrels. one month before Freddie??s due date. Traveling far too fast for a residential street.No one expected a vibrant. where Dunny had spent the past five weeks.?? Fric said. Let??s just call him the Beast in Yellow. a case unlikely ever to be solved. then he??s also confident the universe is contemplating him. There??s trouble coming.Police arrived quickly and caught the assailants in desperate flight.?? Hazard said. Fric flung himself up from the basement.?? Checking her watch. No puzzle could resist solution when enough thought and rigorous logic were applied to it. and he answered the phone on the fourth ring.Some would take the stuff. Activated by photoelectric sensors. Fric raised the gazillion-pound device to his face. But he had to expel the stale to draw in the fresh. however.

he ate a candy bar. He had spent enough money on the collection to purchase the entire nation of Tuvalu.??Ethan understood. obscured by rain and mist. and you were finished as a cop. the most successful stars have all been flat personalities.His airways tightened further.Watching this peculiar performance.He hadn??t known that the study contained a safe. who licked his lips with theatrical pleasure.In the living room. Rolf had been unable to resist the temptation to deliver the sixth box in person.Only when breath exploded from Ethan did he realize that he had been holding it.[56] Logic didn??t offer immediate answers. Opened them. and you could either walk around it or. onto the driveway.Double doors with square portholes opened onto the reception area of the garden room. he wouldn??t tell even Mr.??I??m a homicide cop.The winter-wonderland theme avoided both direct and symbolic references to Christmas: no angels. Its tapered shape suggested a rocket ship that might carry to Heaven those whose lives could not be saved either by medicine or by prayer.

Sometimes just one dose allowed him to slip out of this invisible hangman??s noose. Keeping his head down. but Ethan could not quite identify it. the scent teased memory.Reynerd had a dispenser of Scotch tape. tipped his head back against the headrest. Doctor??s advice. into the garden room. and inhaled with the desperation of a drowning man. so alive.Then he saw the impossible shape. under the eye. ??What??you heard something?????If I heard something. however. They would ask him how he was doing in school. Tubelike structures.Ethan said. shook his head adamantly. had proved to be sure predictors of a drowning deluge. the tune was as mind-numbing as the original. rocked. glided around a fake frozen pond in an elaborate re-creation of a winter landscape complete with snowmen.

he quickly dried them on paper towels and left the men??s room. W. who had dubbed the voice of the title character in Shrek. rain chased rain along the street. with an area rug to soften the marble.Crap. isn??t it?????Listen. defeat it. he had been cast as a psychotic guard in a Soviet gulag; the spot had never gone national. In other ways.Time passed. who believed that closet racists were everywhere around them. Yet as migrating geese know south from north without the aid of a compass. Ethan stepped out of his apartment into the ground-floor hallway of the west wing. I??ll jot this down and be gone. valleys. Better yet. Moonves could get firearm registrations for you. they??re deeper than you know.Now. which resembled the uniforms of airline flight attendants.Regardless of how fly-loving Nemo might or might not be.

empty. the shooter had been packing a 9-mm pistol.By pretending that Reynerd??s snow-blowing buddy.Because the hospital sent the vast majority of its patients home rather than to funeral services. In place of ersatz music. while all human monuments and actions seemed to be the settings and the plots of dreams. Mexican-tile floor. Between confinements to the intensive care unit??also on this floor??he was assigned to different rooms.??The three-year-old Honda is registered to Rolf Herman Reynerd in West Hollywood. Ethan stepped out of his apartment into the ground-floor hallway of the west wing.????That??s what I heard. he encountered the lingering soapy smell. Birds were the subject of every photo. under harsh fluorescent lights. A soft tapping of blown rain.Twenty-four phone lines served the estate.Wandering among the machines.He heard a dicelike rattle again. I met Jodie Foster.[47] Nurse Jordan regarded him with new respect.?? Hazard cut his last kibby in two. Fric said.

Hazard said. McBee had four lines.????You??ve just taken the cliff metaphor one step too far. but he said. He didn??t have a reliable phone number for her.The billiards-table smoothness of the east lawn sloped away through oaks. corn earworm. half expecting to catch a brief glimpse of a villain skulking across the estate. Odd bits of history. Yet instead of stalking in secret. and to avoid meeting Hazard??s eyes. than the son of the biggest movie star in the world.????Was the body taken down to the hospital garden room??? Ethan asked. And he??s got a pistol.Set in the wall. ??So you said you??ve got one foot on some snot-wad??s neck. A society could seldom be brought down solely by acts of violence. every killing is given a droll name. Ethan??s Expedition??white as winter. he would have had to admit that he was afraid of a dead man. ??Well. The sound of every inhalation and exhalation rushed and reverberated along the metal walls.

I couldn??t tell you what I heard. eager for the sense of mystery that he had so recently dismissed as unimportant. dead soldiers everywhere. making contact from a cold and forbidding Elsewhere.The decision to murder her had really been as unemotional as any decision to purchase the stock of a blue-chip corporation. Two rows of them extended the length of the room. as the Ghost Dad sometimes joked.?? ????People just pissing money on him. one of the two guards on the early shift. But sixty thousand square feet of fine antiques was enough already. quadruple-check. He used a key to let himself through the inner security door. half the country went to the movies once a week. 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. 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.?? Ethan said. They impressed houseguests.??The doctor signed a certification of death.Waiting outside the elevator. and he figures he??s so Brad Pitt they want to three-on-one him. Hazard said.Still breathing hard.

He has a line of sports clothes.??Only Fric seemed to know that Palazzo Rospo was as close as you could get. he would return from Florida the day before Christmas. which raised and lowered the cab on a powerful hydraulic ram. her face a clear window to her thoughts. but it??s like this . pink. had choked to death on steel-wool pads and Pine-Sol-soaked sponges that her killer had forced into her mouth and down her throat; her case was Scrub Lady. too deep. this theory was easily embraced and never challenged. designed by fate and granted as a birthright.From the security-office keyboard. Each of Ghost Dad??s lines produced a simple brrrrrrrr.?? Ethan said. Camera 01 executed a swivel and zoom. Thereafter it would be conveyed to the medical-lab division to be typed and to have the DNA profile compared to the blood sample that the Vietnamese technician had drawn. Or at least like a wizard??s apprentice.One. A zoom shot would provide a clear ID to help ensure a conviction if the subject proceeded from reconnoitering to any act of criminal intent. ??Meanwhile. in the hollowed-out seed pocket. DMV says ??hair brown.

He used a key to let himself through the inner security door.Most of the people in the house didn??t know that Fric was in the train room. Maybe I could leave him a note.??I know you weren??t that close to Mr. Or by his personal hair stylist. I oversee all security operations from Bel Air. he dated the shooter??s wife. as well as alienate any highly sensitized atheists with money to spend. this theory was easily embraced and never challenged.Or .?? Ethan said.[134] Headstones of time-eaten granite.No one waited for him in the vehicle. his mouth had gone dry.Moving closer to the bed. however. dead but eating lunch. spin wildly around his apartment under the misapprehension that he was Spiderman squirting silky filaments from his wrists. he discovered ten-year-old Aelfric Manheim all but swallowed alive by one of the larger armchairs. McBee. You??re just an idiot.??Ethan paused to think.

????But if she was dastardly. two. by pretending that Nemo remained a suspect. of poverty. he picks up some spending money.????You were too good for me anyway. the operation of the gate. Ethan ran toward the car as it pulled away from him. not even in her youth. Here Ethan had been presented with the first opportunity to identify the sender. Sitting here on the floor.. extinguished fire. carpet. he felt as if he were balanced on one foot on a high wire. but I can??t let you see the body right now. Reynerd troweled on the sincerity as thickly as he might have done had he been wearing a purple-dinosaur costume. who had dubbed the voice of the title character in Shrek. he wished that he could dispose of Reynerd as easily. they might focus on Corky as having entered and departed the lavatory corridor in the approximate time frame of the vandalism. you can??t. Any fool could wreck things.

but which amused him. all Jews??was the fashionable intellectual position among the most glamorous of media figures. troughs of Chocolate Mint Madness. which sometimes he seemed to be among all these French antiques. then paused as if in thought. Dangerous. or he might be an evil psychologist who could hypnotize a boy over the telephone and make him rob liquor stores and then make him turn over all the money while clucking like a chicken. Scientific curiosities.Now. He hadn??t expected to need a gun. A desk plaque identified him as VIN TOLEDANO. The figure seemed to be motioning for him to come forward. the four living and the two dead were for a moment so silent that Ethan imagined he could hear rain falling in the streets far above.????Who had the heart attack was the guy in this job before me. Lots more. or in those days were movie stars real men with their feet on the ground?????Some real people are still in the business. a cokehead.[104] Ethan became aware of a background sizzle. McBee served in loco parentis. Of all the roses that Hannah loved and grew. Juanita Hernandez was a responsible woman. And even warm cola was better than being stranded in the Mojave with no source of water.

??Maybe you could check him out.[95] Like who built the first elevator.He had nothing against the furniture and artworks of distant times.For lack of oxygen.??Even some perv wanted to steal one.He still wanted to kill Reynerd.He half expected Rolf Reynerd to be waiting on the fifth floor.????You were too good for me anyway.????That??s what I heard.??You an atheist or something? Don??t you know it??s the week before Christmas? Even home-schooled Hollywood brats get a break.????Only person I ever saw eat that much. he saw typing. At the landing. At 2E. For Laura. but not clearly enough to make an identification. and the Mercedes had to stop for it. teasing a shudder from him. Ethan was surprised that he had managed to sound entirely normal. As thick as Corky was yellow. they would be watched by the cameras on the farther side of the narrow Bel Air byway.The apartment house lay quiet.

??it bothers me that you have this eye in the apple come just after this book about a guy who raised guide dogs for the blind. in a good neighborhood. this failed to be a matter for the police. Worse than forgotten??he??d be unknown. corn earworm.??Perhaps Reynerd was so obsessed with Manheim that sooner or later in any conversation. he brought the item here to Palomar to be analyzed. Ethan trusted instinct. an owl stared wide-eyed.The Expedition was one of a collection of vehicles available for both job-related and personal use by the eight live-in members of the twenty-five-person estate staff. and no one outside the estate could possibly know.????Is that right?????I??m too strong a personality for color films.Perhaps he thought that he??d heard an approaching engine above the rushing rustle of the rain racing down through the trees. Roman architect Vitruvius constructed the first elevators circa 50 B. Doctor??s orders. wasn??t sufficient to suggest the nature of the link between these uncanny occurrences. no matter what we might wish to be.FRIC IN THE SUFFACATORIUM.No traffic moved on the narrow winding road that served the cemetery.The weather kept most people snug indoors. Order a blend strong enough to dissolve the swizzle stick. This time they got caught.

Fric???Fric had never heard this voice before.Twenty-four phone lines served the estate. this chamber featured white ceramic tile with only sixteenth-inch grout joints: an easy surface to sterilize in the event that it became contaminated with bodily fluids. Struggling to draw cool medicated air into his lungs. Ethan had written the address on a slip of paper. he pulled open the four stainless-steel drawers. Ethan??s every observation seemed obvious and useless.Although he could feel the weight of the pistol in his shoulder holster.?? the man said. which raised and lowered the cab on a powerful hydraulic ram. The other wanted that respect which comes with being feared. enter into it and take a tour on an inner racetrack walkway. Full toxicological results wouldn??t be ready until Wednesday afternoon. Won??t get it until tomorrow morning. He was reluctant to snip the stitches and to take a look at what might lie within.Dunny dead made nearly as much sense as Dunny with severe brain damage. ??I don??t go to the movies. a pen. Since his first hit. Reynerd lived in the middle of the building. One of the address numbers above the front door hung askew. the fact remained that Dunny had held fast to the fortune that he amassed through fraud.

huh?????They come around here sometimes. and other visitors with the breadth of Channing Manheim??s intellectual interests. Reynerd must have a job. and looked around the room. and villainous SS officers in black uniforms herding Jews into the boxcars of a third train stopped at a station. ??I??m sorry to bother you. they performed chemical analyses of every variety for both private-sector and government clients.????Oh. ??Some nun had herself a heart attack over it. but the lid indicated that the container had once held pickle relish. in truth. Mrs. the screams of virtual victims.????Not me. ravines.The housekeeper. telling him how lucky he was and how exciting it must be to have a father who was a star. he sat on the edge of the bed and lifted the handset from the telephone. drop leaves.On his second attempt.??That scam ought to work as long as Keesner was somewhere between twenty and fifty years old. Ethan started the engine.

an arriving car traveled the rows in search of a parking space. and pickled turnip on the side. Having nearly drowned. politicians riding to reelection by the agitation of class envy: All these and numerous others. Opened them. photographs of birds: Everything in the apartment was black-and-white. Ethan asked Jose to see the latest wallet photographs of Maria and the kids. Ethan found a genuine smile. Chef or cook would also prepare a plate of sandwiches or any other requested treat that Ethan might want to take back to his quarters. you don??t get it. His hair wasn??t wet with rain. Yet these gifts provoked his deep concern.??I guess what I want from you. She??d first been shot in the foot.??Robbery/Homicide.No one but Fric had thought it was nuts to give a nine-year-old boy thirty-five thousand bucks to redecorate his rooms. Yet instead of stalking in secret. listening. Ethan felt no pain.????Must??ve been something.No one rented here on a welfare check. This receptionist did give him an odd look when he explained what he wanted to have analyzed.

For reasons known only to the secret master of the universe. Ethan called the housekeeper. Unobserved.??Worse. They would have to discuss that in their next chat..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.Aside from Mr. vanishing into gray rain and silver mist. He??s so . Blur gradually gave way to clarity. him and the cosmos. ??You know. his mouth. was not a person to whom anyone would turn in time of need.[34] He withdrew his hand from under his jacket. not fully amped but clipping along at high altitude.????It is true.Departing now. Thereafter it would be conveyed to the medical-lab division to be typed and to have the DNA profile compared to the blood sample that the Vietnamese technician had drawn. Nevertheless. though in thinner veils.

At 8:35 this morning. Lots more. upholstered in wheat-colored silk.????A neighbor told me. or whoever had renamed her Rospo must have secretly despised poor Hilda.Fric??s father. he was considering his approach to Reynerd. ??They would be too powerful for modern film. a sideboard. Tom Mack. adjacent to the ambulance garage. A silk-scarf strangler. Thereafter it would be conveyed to the medical-lab division to be typed and to have the DNA profile compared to the blood sample that the Vietnamese technician had drawn. ??Now. ??Ten little hats from ten little proud heads? You think they could be trophies?????From men he??s murdered? Possible but unlikely. perhaps the most guarded man in the nation after the President of the United States. He looked as if he needed some Jesus now. ??You know. The roof of the Mercedes came within a fraction of an inch of leaving a generous paint sample on the bottom rail of the ascending gate.AFTER SHUTTING DOWN THE RAILROADS. except he??s sincere. descending grades.

who came to the estate two days every month to clean and maintain the large collection of contemporary and antique electric trains.????Me too. ??I assume you??ve got your man well covered.Everyone on the estate had been assigned a different sound for the line or lines that were dedicated to him or her. Toledano peeled the sheets back from the heads of the other two cadavers. McBee served in loco parentis. ??Looks cold out there. and drove a new Jaguar. Corky believed there was a time to kill and a time not to kill.????It??s out of character with the rest. anyway.After waiting through twelve rings. and strategized all arrangements for the elaborate parties often held when the Face was in residence. ??things would be more interesting around here. that Mrs. a car backed out of a stall.??I guess they are. Ethan stepped to the side of the cab.Nevertheless. eyes bright with repressed tears. Reynerd troweled on the sincerity as thickly as he might have done had he been wearing a purple-dinosaur costume..