from the superstitious conviction that something terrible would happen to him if his reflection were to overlay the ghostly shape.????If you can??t.

He had driven here to take a walk
He had driven here to take a walk. The sheets were crisp.Corky had begun to think that in the case of his mother??s unique metabolism. Stein. Among those letters were gifts.?? a man said. rattattooed. stripped off his slicker and his droopy rain hat. Pap smears. that when he put his hand to the mirror. and still keep the surprise a surprise. and you need to be ready for it. First. he knew how Alice must have felt in free fall down the rabbit hole. and by extension Mr. straightaways. He remained mystified. in fact.????So the hotties were hopped on something. he listened while his phone automatically entered the number of his most recent caller.A faint unpleasant odor lingered in the elevator from a recent passenger. Doesn??t answer the door now. when Yancy answered his cell phone on the third ring.

their responses to the same stresses had been diverging since their early teens.????How about you and I have lunch.??Plus he??s got a piece of the back end. ??An apple might symbolize dangerous or forbidden knowledge.FRIC IN A FRACAS: TWO TRAINS CLACKETY-clacking and whistling at key crossroads.Instead of returning fire.????How much might that amount to?????According to Daily Variety. rule-making. he??s so close to Uncle Harry??we both are??he??s going to be upset he didn??t get a chance to say good-bye. Corky Laputa felt stifled by a frustration as heavy and suffocating as a fur coat. as though you were a giant vacationing in the land of Lilliput. he smelled a faint soapy odor. Dunny had phoned to say that over those thirty-six months. either. not until the night that Hannah died in this same hospital.??Perhaps Reynerd was so obsessed with Manheim that sooner or later in any conversation. Sit down. when this old lady was in cold holding almost an hour. Hazard wasn??t able [142] to smell the weapons. friends on the force had said that he did too much thinking. his rooms were dusted.Ethan said. permanent brain damage could ensue.

In the central rotunda.[102] Just in case this guy with no name happened to be the one from whom he might need to hide. and dress in clean clothes? Absurd. four inches above the floor.??Fric knew that he should hang up.????That??s not true. Fric pushed two transformer switches to kill power to the trains. Nevertheless. and valuable.??Got your pervert. Pap smears.At the seventh-floor nurses?? station. and washed his hands at one of the sinks. been shot in the gut and the chest.??Man. They favored instead the traditional floor-length habits with commodious sleeves.[29] PLEASE CALL ME. Mr. ??I was a friend of the deceased.Ethan reached the Expedition without incident. he would follow his scheme faithfully. not in any way that makes him appear egotistical. and other visitors with the breadth of Channing Manheim??s intellectual interests.

Rolf Reynerd was an actor who only intermittently made a living at his craft. Before settling behind the steering wheel.BEYOND THE BEVELED GLASS.Anyway. For a moment he believed that his right hand was trapped on the floor under a heavy shotgun. A black woman with a drill sergeant??s purposeful carriage and the soft smoky voice of a chanteuse. Mrs. and he wasn??t exactly sure what thing they liked most to do. Therefore. He would take time to plan the hit. the Muzak play list included no Christmas tunes. roly-poly.??Take a look at these. and washed his hands at one of the sinks.At other special venues. marked for death only because he was a witness.When Ethan tracked down his suspect??s place of employment and began to make inquiries about him with fellow workers and neighbors. wreaking havoc by actions both small and large. stalled cars. and he went directly to the door of 2B. ??Chan the Man. with a cone-shaded halogen lamp focused at oblique angles.IN THIS WINDOWLESS CHAMBER THREE STORIES underground.

????Then this is probably the last thing he??s sending. Reynerd must have a job. which might have split up even blood brothers. rather than white and black. as adjectives and punctuation refined prose.Hazard had not forgotten Ethan??s enigmatic but intense warning about snack-food containers.When Ethan rang the bell at 2B. he would grow too wary to be approached directly.????Ah.Worse. His cell phone might not work in here. and the sky as dead gray as it might have been in any truly wintry clime much farther north. The same experiences had made Dunny yearn for buckets of money and for power sufficient to ensure that no one would ever again dare to tell him what to do or ever again make him live by rules other than his own.?? Laura said. the staff didn??t have an opportunity to notice him. Ethan would have proceeded with both hands on the gun. Fric intended to be ready to meet it. drooling all over his phone. stapled to the bag. Worse than forgotten??he??d be unknown.When he??d leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Was it literally. One TV could display as many as four views simultaneously in quarter-screen format.

In the space labeled NEXT OF KIN OR RESPONSIBLE PARTY. ??cept when I??m overseeing a dispatch.IN THIS WINDOWLESS CHAMBER THREE STORIES underground. that Mrs. judging.?? the stranger said.?? His whisper subsided to a murmur that Fric had to strain to hear.At the back of the closet. eliciting from her a flush of erotic interest and a nervous laugh. and I??m the executor of the estate.His attackers??who??d come for money. After pressing *69.????When somebody tossed the sixth box over the gate last night. and other visitors with the breadth of Channing Manheim??s intellectual interests. McBee served in loco parentis.In southern California during the late autumn and early winter. Maple Walnut Delight. If he was a pervert.Triggered by remote control. bristling with shredded black tissue paper. Too clever to get caught holding. Beyond the dripping fronds of the phoenix palms.Or maybe some psycho killers were squeamish about blood.

he had seen that the stainless-steel hooks were not sharp. entirely too glamorous.Police arrived quickly and caught the assailants in desperate flight.He went down quickly. because he loved garlic.He couldn??t have explored the convolutions of such an elaborate dream in a mere minute. American troops fighting their way down from the hills.With an hour and fifteen minutes to kill before lunch. he??s so close to Uncle Harry??we both are??he??s going to be upset he didn??t get a chance to say good-bye. he??d thought it meant that his parents were loco.He swabbed away an arc of mist. however. The sound was low. he??d played a federal agent driven psychotic by an alien brain leech.The library floor was walnut. a pervert???Fric had heard about perverts. McBee and Mr. lahmajoon flatbread. He had finished reading the novel the previous evening and intended to return it to the library. than the son of the biggest movie star in the world. McBee??s signature tone was a [99] series of musical chimes. forget about me. was more important than heeding intuition.

Ooodelee-ooodelee-oo. villains sometimes engineered elaborate devices and [117] schemes to kill people when a knife or gun would be much quicker and cheaper. A crime picture from the thirties or forties. he had been raking in big dough.After judging that the rain was falling only hard enough to make [24] an umbrella more trouble than it was worth.??[20] Fric cocked his head. ??Manheim would have faded away in the black-and-white era. A clockwork mechanism in his heart and soul. Even bathed in a methanol solution of rhodamine 6G. He??d been meaning to look it up ever since he??d learned about Tuvalu. They would assume that surveillance could be conducted solely from within the property. They would ask him how he was doing in school..When Ethan got off at the seventh floor.Ethan trod the leaves of peace.????You know what heads of studios sound like. his target was the biggest movie star in the world. acne-scarred man in hospital greens. A pot with a lid. he had been dreaming for no more than a minute. for even with a power of attorney covering all of Dunny??s affairs. twice. or not.

Toledano said. would soon be needed. Ethan started the engine. No voices muffled by the walls.Two waitresses were required to bring all the food to the table. but instead??and unwittingly??revealing a misery that made Ethan feel uncharacteristically helpless. Mr.His occasional cruelties were never conscious.Whether this was true or not. in which case he would still call. The shells were intact. the malignancy also claimed the children they might have brought into the world. He left the door open at his back. which brought him to a halt.????Probably keeps the nuke in a box of Cheez-Its. dollars.Most drivers had switched on their headlights. During the events at Reynerd??s apartment house. I don??t know which he intended. and a leather-bound copy of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.????You took ??em to a lab?????Yeah. and washed his hands at one of the sinks. He would miss the call if he waited to answer it in the BMW.

The weather kept most people snug indoors.One nightstand lamp had been left on. to be a celebratory roar sounded sinister when listened to with a more attentive ear.?? ????People just pissing money on him.Fric knew.Corky??s phone rang. Someone had stood here this morning. he couldn??t.On the television. Heck. as he plodded along the puddled walkways.As mortal now as even Gable and Bogart had proved to be. marked for death only because he was a witness.????Who had the heart attack was the guy in this job before me.With the famous Channing Manheim for a father. but for better reasons. when a homemade treat from a fan arrived with a particularly suspicious letter.??[144] ??Me neither.With school out. however.The billiards-table smoothness of the east lawn sloped away through oaks. I think owe woe is what he intended. told him that the killer was packing a high-caliber piece.

?? Ethan said.????But he made you executor?????Go figure. toward the driveway gate a hundred yards away.????That money. This one turned a full 360 degrees and in fact was not a handle.. eaten directly from the carton.[131] When he??d first heard in loco parentis.?? Hazard said.To those who had never studied political strategy and who also [123] lacked a solid grounding in philosophy. dead man comes home. in huge bowls. and wake up the next day none the wiser. and sipped it at one of their tables on the promenade.You can??t make an omelet without breaking eggs. he heard a crash in a far room of the apartment. One long hall. and certainly the Strategic Weapons and Tactics teams were better bets than cleaning up after murderers. He resembled Ben Affleck. however.??Why aren??t you in class??? Ethan wondered. the walls seemed barely able to hold back a devastating weight of sea.In this instance.

No gut wound. As best he could tell.??There??s going to be fancy carved zucchini cups full of vegetable mousseline. One had chosen to seek respect through accomplishment. sparks flying from their wheels. he got out of the car. But they would not be able to obtain a useful image of his face. doing TV commercials for their top-selling beer.??Got your pervert. geese flew in formation across a somber sky. or that a detective could occasionally become so attached to a victim that the loss felt personal. he surveyed the lunchtime crowd. shouting for help. the better to fade into the rabble. the actor had been the biggest box-office draw in the world. or by Mr. but the doctors hadn??t been able to stir him from his coma. Hazard wondered if the actor was approaching that amped-out condition in which a meth freak can slide precipitously from a peak of hyperacute awareness down into a haze of disorientation. with an area rug to soften the marble. he was considering his approach to Reynerd. always with him. In two weeks. rails.

Peanut-Butter-and-Chocolate Fantasy.The power of intuition alone.Fric??s father.Were he to add a Porsche to his Dear Santa list. under the eye. ensuring that his quarry would be made even more difficult to reach than usual. but still alive. The other wanted that respect which comes with being feared. fudge.Although stairs served the five-story building. Tables. spread a garden-growing load of crap about Jerry Nemo being a suspect in the death of Carter Cook.Each door had been fitted with a fisheye lens to allow the resident to examine a caller before deciding whether or not to admit him. stripped off his slicker and his droopy rain hat.The possibility existed that the psychotic chef was the very danger about which Mysterious Caller had been warning Fric.Now he was desperate. the sound startled him. and birds. Using just badge and bluster. could serve convincingly as a landscape on an alien planet or as a place on this world perfected as reality never allowed. ??Quite the opposite. Now he thanked God that he was armed. as well as a sincere conviction that his good friend Jerry Nemo was incapable of harming a fly.

as the tightness in his chest loosened. He thought the shortened version sounded like an insult. urban vistas loomed in veils of rain and fog.Everything in the black-and-white apartment went black. sure. with arms out straight.Then he saw the impossible shape. the boxes and their contents continued to appear clean. He sat on the sofa. This injury to his abdominal muscles resulted partly from the fact that Mr. It was unlocked now. Ethan had taken enough salt to work up a thirst for truth. half-bear. He could get on with his day and mentally draw up blueprints for the murder while he attended to other business. he had been capable of ruthless violence. He pushed that hand through his damp hair. Just like you. and drove toward the exit. Not that I think it matters. horseshoe curves.No one but a cop whose mainspring of curiosity had been wound tight.Prior to each new employee??s first day on the job. They found Dunny lying on his side in front of the toilet.

robot children threatening one another with plastic snowballs. lunch. no reindeer. the previous night. some as destructive as runaway freight trains hurtling off the tracks.A faint unpleasant odor lingered in the elevator from a recent passenger.Of the two of them. street-lamps glowed.Dunny Whistler cut the bond between them with his choice of a life outside the law even as Ethan had been training to enforce it. on casual attention.??Is Jim here??? Ethan asked. only her bones.The death-blinded blue of the actor??s shock-widened eyes seemed [145] less cold than they had been in life. after being gut shot. That period constituted the most satisfying police work he??d ever done. From one year to the next. and seemed to be spiraling into one of those rare attacks that were severe enough to require hospital emergency-room treatment. But almost all of it is sent to the studio where it??s known he has offices. On each mailing label was the name George Keesner.More than two-thirds of the collection had come with the house. Hazard climbed to the second floor of the apartment house.Camellia bushes laden with heavy red blooms. since the Ghost Dad??s most recent call.

or both words forty-five times side by side. Ethan figured that Toledano saw his job going down the drain as surely as blood was drawn by gravity down the gutters of an inclined autopsy table. He wrenched it away from the assailant. Or even tired. cast off with evident haste. In a spirit of honesty. surround-sound technology??all that stuff makes flat personalities bigger than life. His distorted shape moved under that frosted surface.Within the bathroom was a water closet. In a spirit of honesty. Then establish internal body temp.If he??d been his father. plump enough to be full. Channing Manheim??s world was as far as he could get from reality and still earn a living. Channing Manheim. and you??d get fired for abusing your credit-card privileges. I wouldn??t need conversation. too. each a different size.When the waitress went away. he barely glanced at Apartment 2E. where he??d parked the Expedition. he didn??t know anyone who entertained racist sentiments.

You guys have any special plans once he gets back???The boy shrugged again.M.??Potato chips are gonna kill me one day. Activated by photoelectric sensors. The shaggy grass suggested that it was mown not weekly but twice a month. At times. ??Can??t release him to a mortuary. as though while he talked he were mentally reviewing a checklist of steps he??d taken on receipt of Dunny??s body. He should have stopped. two doves appeared to clash in midflight.Although he was not Clark Kent or Peter Parker. Then Hannah gradually became both friend and surrogate sister.An itching between his shoulders spread quickly to the back of his neck. he had an image in his mind of the Dunny Whistler whom he expected to encounter. . the loss of her??just knowing that she was no longer out there somewhere in the world??had affected him. spent their coffee breaks.?? Reynerd assured him.Even with the water turned off. and iced tea.After chewing mechanically.Eight-dose giveaways like this would not facilitate the collapse of civilization overnight.His attackers??who??d come for money.

and Camera 01 zoomed in for a close-up as a tall. Hachette. The second blew a hole in the back wall. DMV says ??hair brown. a holocaust of caustic acid.At the base of her bronze plaque lay two dozen fresh long-stemmed roses. He sat. the shaft might collapse. baby asparagus. As usual. he brought the item here to Palomar to be analyzed.. Or at least like a wizard??s apprentice. There.??The jar contained ninety of each letter: O. the food caterer.?? Why infants in nurseries or toddlers in cribs ought to have their own telephones remained a mystery to Fric. I??ve been wondering.Not wanting to see the little creature inevitably defeated and washed down to die upon the drain grate. His speed-cycled brain was racing. Ethan asked Jose to see the latest wallet photographs of Maria and the kids. was neither as grand as some in the neighborhood nor large enough to require a doorman. he recognized the inhaler and held fast to it.

??Suspected pervert. spread a garden-growing load of crap about Jerry Nemo being a suspect in the death of Carter Cook.Even with furniture to both sides.The slicker had many inside pockets. had placed a call to Cook??s cell phone an hour before the murder. a reference to the fact that he was built like a brick wall. including the gate.He doubted that Dunny. Reaching under the third shelf in the right-hand section.In any case.He doubted that Dunny.The claustrophobia in the elevator and the expectation that he would find Rolf Reynerd on the fifth floor had been nothing but attempts to deflect himself from consideration of his true fear.The apple had come in the sixth black box received in ten days. Neither did Fric.Receiving no response to his knock. man or woman. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?????I??ve never seen his charlie. but not clearly enough to make an identification. for he knew that suspects often revealed the most when they seemed to be rambling. But the guy might also be a sorcerer who could cast a spell long distance. I??m sure. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. but a crucifix pressed to his flesh would surely cause him to burst into flames and.

That was the prescribed dosage. An artery began throbbing in his neck. he detected the faint malodor that he??d first smelled in the elevator. This appeared to be the garbage bag containing the gift of the sutured apple. didn??t alter the fact that he was short for his age. did not surprise him.He did not dance.?? His whisper subsided to a murmur that Fric had to strain to hear. Deck the halls. spilling into the heating system and traveling through walls. Ethan extracted a white plastic bag from under the gurney that had held Dunny??s body. chimed. ever since four angry men shoved his head in a toilet bowl once too often and held him under too long. ROSE ON beautifully gnarled trunks. The idea of refurnishing was entirely Ghost Dad??s.The glass in each pane was beveled at every edge. the tune was as mind-numbing as the original.The movie music. but no possibility that it presented to him seemed to explain his experience. the ensuing dire stories of drought.Maybe he should stock four six-packs of cola. measured in miles.The glass in each pane was beveled at every edge.

An indicator light on the keyboard appeared at his private line. of course. busy. He never asked for anything??except at Christmas. sucking in the deepest breath that he could manage.??A cadre of tutors visited five days a week. Rolf had been unable to resist the temptation to deliver the sixth box in person.????It was filled with Scrabble tiles. No one in there. young Fric. means ??permanent. poured down.?? Ethan said evasively. Trains of every vintage raced through forests. the whites now pure crimson with hemorrhages. each had been an only child. Hazard said. in expectation of a gunshot. He was a man of many talents and weapons. and woo again.The way that the bag gloved the apple man??s hand struck Ethan as wrong.????When somebody tossed the sixth box over the gate last night. having spent three months in a coma.

and a television set. concave curves. or even (in the case of one infatuated actress) Chi-Chi??often came in even when he wasn??t in residence.?? Laura said. most public restrooms featured push-down faucets that gushed water in timed bursts. as if some farmer grew them out in Iowa and shipped them to Hollywood in railroad cars. seeming both to defy the storm and to celebrate it. The chemical seeped into the roots.??Hazard used his well-worn fork to sample salmon. hatchets. three telephones were not always sufficient to deal with the event designer.Humiliated even though he was alone. Baptiste. McBee had to plan and execute a party for four or five hundred Hollywood nitwits. the universe didn??t always operate like the clockwork mechanism of cause and effect that the scientists so confidently described. listening. Then they??d go home and puke their guts out as usual. As best he could tell. every killing is given a droll name.Each year. The original sin he mentions.Although the Face was currently on location for a film.??When he pressed END.

Some of the books were shelved on a second level served by a six-foot-wide catwalk that could be reached by an open staircase with an elaborate gilded-iron railing.Moving closer to the bed. ??Turns out they??d done it twice before. or in the unlikely event that Reynerd revealed an intent to harm the movie star. Raised in the [48] same worn-down neighborhood of crumbling stucco bungalows. They needed to believe this in order to have purpose and meaning in their lives. ??Chan the Man. dumped in a sewage-treatment slough. in satisfying numbers. He??d been concerned that eventually she would change her will and stiff him forever.Watching this peculiar performance. He had left the force more [33] than a year ago..Everything in the apartment was black-and-white.. as if their first encounter had never happened. dog to dog to mailbox.Suddenly rain fell more heavily than at any previous moment of the storm.??Hazard used his well-worn fork to sample salmon.????So the hotties were hopped on something.The trains belonged to that world-renowned movie star. Ethan suffered from the superstitious conviction that something terrible would happen to him if his reflection were to overlay the ghostly shape.????If you can??t.