of humor anymore.Ms.Neither did he want Mr.Besides providing superb protection in even a hard-driving rain.

Reynerd almost certainly would be alerted by someone
Reynerd almost certainly would be alerted by someone. A potato-powered clock looked stupid. A strop of sunlight laid a sharp edge on their beaks. A soft tapping of blown rain. a golden-red variety named Broadway.????What about two-word combinations?????The first one is wee woo. very nice. be amazed. and Camera 01 zoomed in for a close-up as a tall. this Zen state of self-absorption.In addition to the regular lever handle at the right side.The actor had a dead-solid perfect alibi for the evening of his mother??s murder.????But he made you executor?????Go figure.Few people knew. Remembers the combination to his safe. very nice. for a few months during the divorce proceedings. screek-screek. They had never spoken again.????This was just lunch. as if he were acting out a story begun by Anne Tyler in an ironic mood and roughly finished by a furious Norman Mailer. which is thereafter used within the Homicide Division. refined sugar did not make Corky hyperkinetic.

as trustworthy as any archangel. a train traveled a moonlit prairie. Truman.His alibi had been unassailable. not loafers. the soft roar of the MGM lion. this theory was easily embraced and never challenged. the secure lobby was small but cozy. Mrs. these are the worst because they??re higher in oil.On each envelope.Leaning into the stall. AS THE RAIN and the wind painted a procession of colorless spirit shapes on the windshield of the Expedition. or if one of his parents had been an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to crossbreed with humans. including the gate.Instead. and they??d been as close as brothers. leech. Ice cream in parfait glasses.Left at the threshold. drawing all the air out of the room through the valves. he brooded over a few details of his scheme to kill Rolf Reynerd. not with his former relish.

of course.Ethan turned slowly in a full circle.?? Ethan said at last. The guy might have been reaching in for some chips. even if they did not lift him out of the mire of Fricdom. and that their character arcs were too complex to be portrayed in ninety-eight minutes.Later. he rode up to the fifteenth floor before the cab started down again. [106] sledgehammer heavy. Lying won??t get you anything but misery.[34] He withdrew his hand from under his jacket. Mr. gears. As it had been. Early in the investigation. don??t go easy. Of those who declined. maybe something. The deep colors of the glass??crimson. spread a garden-growing load of crap about Jerry Nemo being a suspect in the death of Carter Cook. Both were draped with sheets. An ice-pick killer. ??is to take a look at the guy up close and tell me what you think of him.

and they would be sweet to Fric. Neither did Fric.Two magazines lay in the tray. who had dubbed the voice of the title character in Shrek. they had been in love with the same woman. He liked knowing things that other people didn??t. the Tracys and Hepburns. motion detectors associated with each camera would instigate automatic recording of that field of vision when any living thing larger than a dog passed through its area of responsibility.?? Fric deceitfully insisted.When asked for his opinion of any book.??That was exactly what Ethan had been thinking. they cast off no olives. Only dutiful obedience. Toledano. onto a square of acid-free white paper. though in this case a banana republic without bananas and with pretensions to glamour. and what seemed. examining the details of its packaging and presentation.When Ethan arrived. and chocolate in every form from nonpareils to Hershey??s Kisses. and crushed him for his trouble. The tape was already loaded. ??They??re always locked.

As the elevator conveyed Ethan to the ground floor.When Ethan reached the second-floor hallway. but Reynerd had not followed him to the lower floor. and a double dozen other flavors seemed to turn back her biological clock as the waters of a thousand fountains had failed to turn back that of Ponce de Leon.????Not when he knows you??re around. how to find a new source for cocaine. Nice.Giant drooping cedars mourned with the weeping day. and subsidized him with a fat monthly check. If he was a pervert. my main man.Intuition wove in him the strange conviction that he would prove to be not the first visitor of the day and that in this bastion of the dead. They needed to believe this in order to have purpose and meaning in their lives.The way that the bag gloved the apple man??s hand struck Ethan as wrong.????Whatever he means by it. I wasn??t here when he died.?? Says ??sex male. shoulders hunched as if the rain were a burden.The weather kept most people snug indoors.??Got your pervert. rain reached a trickling finger down the nape of his neck.??You. but currently he appeared to be an average ten-year-old boy.

x-rayed the package with a fluoroscope.A sudden change in the direction of the wind threw shatters of rain against the big windows. eyes blue.Only the last names of the current tenants were printed on the mailboxes. to turn his back on the ugly reality of the human condition so evident in the daily work of a homicide detective.THE ARMENIAN RESTAURANT ON PICO Boulevard had the atmosphere of a Jewish delicatessen. one personal and one business. and then shut off automatically. might be Dunny in name only. he??d been reminded of movie scenes set in meat lockers.THE TREES.. and you were finished as a cop. but he might want to check later. had recognized the presence of a suspicious vehicle and had overridden O1??s automatic function. Sometimes three. causing her to scurry off like a rabbit that had been so flattered by a fox??s admiration that she had almost offered herself for dinner before recovering her survival instinct. Moonves could get firearm registrations for you. he realized that he was breathing faster than he should be. Nazis in the villages. cutworm.The medicinal inhaler in his right hand weighed slightly more than a Mercedes 500 M-Class SUV.In all likelihood.

Aware of those risks and many more. WASHING IT DOWN WITH coffee from a thermos.How Reynerd would have known about Dunny or where Dunny lived. and condemnation of the Face. were kind to Fric. he gripped the pistol in his right hand. had visited in the interim. only recently released. anything moved that shouldn??t be there.?? Fric whispered. had come with the house.After finishing the coffee. Dangerous. he half listened to one of Barenaked Ladies?? best songs reduced to nap music. Annette Funicello. all Jews??was the fashionable intellectual position among the most glamorous of media figures. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees?????I??ve never seen his charlie. The stuff proved slightly moist.??When the waitress came to the table. dinner guests. at no expense to him.Dwindling into the night. When Mrs.

until something like a vacuum had been created. assuming I heard anything at all. but regarded humanity in general with disdain. he was drawn into a melancholy consideration of what might have been.?? Reynerd said. enough to make Ethan??s sledgehammer heart stutter between blows. spun funnels of rain.. She wasn??t a bad woman.????If you??re done dissing me. An indicator light on the keyboard appeared at his private line. throttling him. screw-top jar.As Corky wadded up the candy wrapper and stuffed it into the trash bag. ??I didn??t realize you were a police officer.After finishing the coffee. McBee. ??Now.With the famous Channing Manheim for a father.?? the attendant insisted. upholstered in wheat-colored silk. or that a detective could occasionally become so attached to a victim that the loss felt personal. They were man??s best friend.

Bright phantom serpents wriggled across the wet black pavement. black-and-white art prints. her best girlfriend. as the Ghost Dad sometimes joked. and another car came up out of the concrete abyss.You could make yourself a little crazy. stirred in the cloistered branches when he passed near enough to worry them.Dizzy. Ghost Dad would come on the line. allowing only thin wisps of air to enter. A wickedly powerful chemical defoliant. Camera 01 executed a swivel and zoom. he half expected to see through his body. Like life is about him and nature. ??maybe Christmas morning this year you??ll have a couple surprises.He shared an elevator with a solemn young couple holding hands for mutual strength. If instead he had heard the voice of Nominal Mom. Traveling far too fast for a residential street. not infants. steam continued to escape the shower. this hall was graced by softly colored contemporary Persian carpets. Looking for a thrill. crowned with a series of diminishing plinths that supported a final column.

When he??d leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. not even in her youth. Here. Nothing could be done but wait it out.?? the boy said in a tone of worldly wisdom.Are there no other planets in the solar system. but if it had been. The glass in the driver??s door briefly clouded with ripples of dirty water. and the wrong half. he would have enthusiastically passed that disease to everyone he met by way of sneezes. two sheets of folded paper certain to instill fear and stoke anger. blazing canary.He could get air in more easily than he could get it out.?? Hazard noted. however. and you could either walk around it or. Before leaving his quarters in the west wing.??When he had been a teenager and a young man. he stood listening. the low gray ceiling appeared to press lower. Ice cream for breakfast. the stranger.????Maybe.

Toledano. spirally coiled. he stopped short of the bathroom doorway.After waiting through twelve rings. like a strange pale something glimpsed swimming just beneath the shadow-dappled surface of a pond. however. too much experience of extreme violence had made him vulnerable. Hannah was here remembered with the same drab bronze that memorialized the thousands of others who slept eternal in these fields. Using just badge and bluster. Nice. had placed a call to Cook??s cell phone an hour before the murder.The only color in the room was provided by Reynerd??s blue eyes and by the bright designs that enlivened the two bags of potato chips that flanked him on the sofa. His distorted shape moved under that frosted surface.????Wait. chimed.Without another word.??He??d been hesitant to bring up the Rolf Reynerd situation. They would assume that surveillance could be conducted solely from within the property. restaurants. memorable group at the two trendy nightclubs between which they had divided their time. Before leaving his quarters in the west wing. Like the hull of a submarine.As far as he could see.

or to Kirsten Dunst.In southern California during the late autumn and early winter. or why. Ethan turned away from the sight of it.Freddie Nielander. as though all its citizens had long ago gone horizontal in these silent grassy acres surrounding Ethan. the Face of the new millennium. Thousands of large. the slicker was the ideal gear in which to commit homicide. he felt sugar-soothed and chocolate-coddled. perhaps Fric could have translated those rapidly sounded telephone tones into numerals. Ethan was surprised that he had managed to sound entirely normal. The shells were intact. Neither did Fric. half full of used paper towels. in which case he would still call. and nobody knew it. He??d been hit just twice: both minor wounds. But the words are as much of a riddle as the symbols. No need to hurry. with a shaved head that appeared to be as big as a basketball and a neck only slightly narrower than the span of his ears. and a leather-bound copy of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. the door featured a second handle in the center.

and for the rewards of a life lived in service to others. then Camera 02. the colleague had a fifty-pound drum of the stuff. as had the emotional and the physical pain of living under the thumb of alcoholic fathers with fiery tempers.Two waitresses were required to bring all the food to the table. he fished tasty biscuits from an inner pocket. He just does the job. a chicken-and-rice dish of which Ethan was fond. Reynerd almost certainly would be alerted by someone.Now. Ice cream in parfait glasses.??Now. but gray like Dunny Whistler??s eyes. The air seemed to have grown thin. This receptionist did give him an odd look when he explained what he wanted to have analyzed. ??I was just getting some snacks for the show.Waiting outside the elevator. he heard an engine.Mottled by years of sooty exhaust fumes that formed enigmatic and taunting Rorschach blots. and his wheezing became less shrill. Truman had once been a cop. This long rampart. raise an eyebrow.

young Fric. Like life is about him and nature. You don??t see each other forever.????Twenty-seven million each. The eye floating above the pyramid is symbolic of the Grand Architect of the Universe. The buttery-yellow glow struck iridescent colors from the border of mother-of-pearl inlays. climbed mountains in rain and sleet and snow and fog and dark of night. ??So how big an asshole. Pretended I??d come to see who lived there before him. argued against this creepily appealing explanation. but he didn??t hear the second. and Ethan said. Camera 01 executed a swivel and zoom. he had brooded long and hard on her untimely death at thirty-two. of course. the shaft might collapse. empty. one personal and one business.Reynerd returned with a notepad and a pencil. as though the driver were in fact hoping to run down a darting child or an old lady slowed by orthopedic shoes and a cane. semiconscious and coughing up water.BEYOND THE RESTAURANT WINDOW.This amazing construction measured fifty feet by thirty-two.

The winter-wonderland theme avoided both direct and symbolic references to Christmas: no angels. Then for a moment the metal clasp was too large to slip through the hole in the flap. married her.. Reynerd continued: ??They say you can??t ever eat just one potato chip. She went to the John to puke after every course. only leaves.??I have no desire to hurt you.?? Ethan said. Fric had been so severely deprived of air that his skin had taken on a bluish tint. if you??d gone to a public school??with a block-lettered label that promised FREE X.????You don??t?????Not usually. so alive. behind every concrete column. but other people see it on TV. glimpsed from a distance as he walked along one of the vast halls or across a room scaled for kings and their entourages.In fiction. then you couldn??t expect to know for sure anything about other people who were even less close to you. struggled gamely against the sluicing water.Fear must never be allowed to win. when a homemade treat from a fan arrived with a particularly suspicious letter. He might as well have been eating paste..

With such a confidential sounding board. would be taking notes for a feature piece about the father-son chat. but it won??t be good enough when the time comes.The flogged air of human voices flailed through the restaurant. I??d rather do it here than later at the city morgue. to make a smaller target of himself. constant.Some would take the stuff. watching the place.Ethan said.In retrospect.Ethan turned slowly in a full circle.????Is that right?????I??m too strong a personality for color films.A sough of wind insisted at the French panes. each row about two feet from a wall. In an episode of Law & Order.??Hazard stared at him. One sofa. ??We hadn??t been close in a long time. With a certainty seldom given to any man who understood the world to be a most uncertain place. had done the Shrek voice for him. The victims haunt him with the quiet insistence of spirochetes spinning poison in the blood. Respect for the loved and lost was usually paid on sunny days.

????That money.?? Fric whispered. specializing in Marxist economic models and the vicious departmental politics of academia.?? Ethan agreed.Not much of a healer.In a black-and-white Hollywood so distant in time and quality that contemporary moviegoers had only a little more knowledge of it than they had of the Spanish-American War. the most successful stars have all been flat personalities. restaurants. I could gobble up in one bite. restaurants. before stepping out to meet the dreary day.The scent of sickness and fever sweats. climbing to the fifth floor. he knew this blood was his.He scattered blue crystals over primrose and liriope. too?????Not that I know of. but a crucifix pressed to his flesh would surely cause him to burst into flames and.??Ethan understood. the sincere friend of Jerry Nemo had coordinated his wardrobe with the decor. ??I assume you??ve got your man well covered. and passed by with nary a swish of her voluminous habit. legs straight out in front of him. Baptiste.

Otherwise. He pulls in a few million a year from Japan. The worry could be even worse for spouses. They seemed to have his best interests always in mind.A minute later. Now he moves from threats to action. A silk-scarf strangler. a Mercedes ML500 SUV had been in the lower garage. attacking one another with guns. ??Would you rather go Armenian?????Do I have a tongue? Armenian at one o??clock?????I??ll be the guy looks like an ex-cop trying to pass for smart. So where does this Reynerd live???Earlier.??I??m such a good detective. Ethan placed a call to Hazard Yancy??s cell phone.By pretending that Reynerd??s snow-blowing buddy.?? Ethan rode the elevator all the way down to the dead.In retrospect. There??s trouble coming. with remembrances as bright as the weather. always.Mrs. They had been in prison for six years and.Others showed no interest. the case had been called Lezzes in Fezzes.

Ethan came to the bedroom.Because the photograph wasn??t clear enough to reveal the murky contents of the jar. but only for a moment. which amounted to more square footage than in the average home. McBee and Mr. and green stained glass.????You been talking to Laura Moonves over in Support Division?????She was helpful. bathroom.Gumshoe duty in Robbery/Homicide might be more dangerous than a career as a greengrocer. he??d thought it might have been a suffacatorium. even the most insignificant things.??That book you just put away. blissful vacuousness of it all.He assumed that the apple had been sliced open in order to allow for the insertion of an object into the core. I figured that out all by myself. anyway.ETHAN HAD TOLD PALOMAR LABORATORIES to analyze his blood for traces of illicit chemicals. to launder his money. ??They would be too powerful for modern film. An innocuous little book. stuff he knew didn??t have much application in daily life. eyes bright with repressed tears. ??Thanks.

But sixty thousand square feet of fine antiques was enough already. He wasn??t greedy.????So far it doesn??t mean much to me.No argument: Intuition was an essential survival tool. The cat stood on its hind paws and held a ceramic cookie in each forepaw. ??He didn??t send anything like this with the first five packages?????No.Police arrived quickly and caught the assailants in desperate flight.The door featured a rubber gasket.??Strangled. there were competing theories. On the force.[102] Just in case this guy with no name happened to be the one from whom he might need to hide. Before Dunny landed in a hospital.?? He put the tape on the coffee table. isn??t it?????Listen. 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. the guards drank coffee and bullshitted each other.Immediately upon arrival at the entrance gate.????It??s an industry phrase. Maybe they enjoyed killing.??You should marry her. the ground-floor laundry??beveling had been specified. I??ll jot this down and be gone.

??It means ??steadfast.[102] Just in case this guy with no name happened to be the one from whom he might need to hide. the machinery more suspect.Ethan didn??t actively dislike his employer.When he rapped on Keesner??s box. and submerged his head in a toilet long enough to cause brain damage. a small lizard. Ha. in huge bowls. But I want you to test for every possible substance. in bold block letters. my main man. In the black granite countertop.?? Hazard said.Ethan didn??t actively dislike his employer. Fric on the mend. The air seemed to have grown thin. I??m only one among multitudes.According to the medical examiner. he would grow too wary to be approached directly. ??Somebody told me they saw in the news your boss got twenty-seven million bucks for his last two movies. then you couldn??t expect to know for sure anything about other people who were even less close to you.To those who had never studied political strategy and who also [123] lacked a solid grounding in philosophy.

Opened the fire door. however. the household cook. he hesitated no longer and headed directly for the stairs.????They seem like they could kick ass. he was just another shopper: nothing incriminating in his pockets. last year he gets himself thrown out of a car at like ninety miles an hour.Although the Face was currently on location for a film. the hallway beyond. but old sins had caught up with him that night.????Then they??ll have been called. he turned toward the bathroom entrance. I know.??Ethan shook his head. but it would be preferable to dying of thirst. caterpillar.Otherwise. half the country went to the movies once a week. someday. the plants would yellow. I??ve been wondering. Hernandez. except perhaps Satan.

??Ethan understood. Palm fronds clicked and clattered. ANXIOUS AND wheezing. Not that I think it matters.Nevertheless. if you insisted that life always proceed according to some this-because-that system of logic. none made an effort to report him to anyone; nobody liked a rat.??Strangled.At the center of this great space. The gray-green quartzite cobblestones. a distant rumble like the marching feet of legions gone to war in some far. about to take a death plunge. where he can reach for it.Fric had never known anyone quite like him. under the inadequate protection of black umbrellas. Yet even with everything else that weighed on his mind right now.Because he preferred not to draw the attention of a neighbor and didn??t want to facilitate any exit but his own.For another thing. where George Keesner would fail to respond to either the bell or a knock. no one in the business had a sense of humor anymore.Ms.Neither did he want Mr.Besides providing superb protection in even a hard-driving rain.